look at in a different manner. We like to look at salaries and fringe and other expenses. Um your salary and fringe make up 71% of your budget um for your general fund. And so this is just showing you what is your budget, what have we spent thus far. You'll see your fringe is a higher number and that's because of that Barniple County retirement assessment um that's um that we pay on an annual basis. Um the other funding uses that you see here, that $650,000, that's
a transfer out for PAS operations and maintenance, that didn't happen until October. It only happened at the very beginning of October. So you'll see that in the second quarter the expenditure and this is just a busy a busy um uh slide here but this is just showing you what was your original appropriation by department and what was expended. Um and and just to reiterate one more time that miscellaneous uh and contingency expense um line item here
where you see that it's expended 73.7% you you would want to question that and that again goes back to the Bible County Retirement Association annual assessment. Moving forward, just as a summary, I mean your your revenues collected the revenues collected are consistent with what we anticipated for the first quarter. Your lab revenues, as I
had pointed out earlier, were strong. Um the um your expenditures are what we what we anticipated um and they're on pace. Um and then registry of deeds up 13% over the prior year as of October 31st. So we'll be well poised when the bubble bursts. Yeah, it will be poised. Yeah, we'll be poised. Yeah. On the laboratory revenues, can you go back to that? Um I'm glad to hear that.
I'm assuming it's with with all the adjustments and everything that we approved. Yes. Right. And their ability to do more. Yes. Are we still looking to sort of try to break even? No, we're not going to break even. Well, not by not by virtue of we have we haven't set a policy to break even. Okay. How much of the revenues then are going to cover expenses at all? Do we have an idea? I don't think that the rates were set in that manner. I do believe that we are looking to undertake a study which is why Mark Gabriel said well um to undertake a study of departments and
um what department should be charging um for rates. So, we're taking another We're going to take another pass at this. Take another look at this. But not just the lab, huh? Not just the laboratory. Okay. On all That's what we're hoping. No, I think that's good. I I thought we were I thought we were a little bit further along than than than we are, but that that's certainly important to keep that kind of commitment. Um, you know, there's only so many hours in the day. I I think the previous health department head was very optimistic about our ability to
cover expenses. You know, my that's my recall. You're always on that class half full. Um okay, so we um I'm providing you the information with regard to Cape Cod Commission as well. this is their revenue broken out by their line items in their revenue. Um, and you know, I wouldn't be too alarmed with regard to, you know, the the small amount of revenue that's
been collected thus far this in the first quarter. Um, again the assessment which is the last line item environmental protection is listed here is it was not due in the first quarter. um and and as such that makes up you know significant portion of their revenue. So that's 91 and their expenses broken down here say the same as I've provided for the general fund. Um salaries fridge and
other expenses um and then their expenditures to date which is tracking um as anticipated and then providing the same information for dredge. Dredge season just the the dredging season just began. Um and so you know there there have been no bills that really have gone out. This was a receivable that was booked for the year end uh 25 and that was where collected um in 26 and
then here is the expenses that um dredge in the same manner salaries fringe and other expenses. you'll see the other expenses which is what I was referring to before where they've had um some significant repairs that have they've had to um undertake for some their equipment. So, I always like to talk about undesated or unreserved fund balance. Um, general funds just
under $11 million. Um, and we we watch we watch cash balances as they equate to unreserve fund balance. And I'll I'll get to, you know, some reasons why we track them, but we look to have um sufficient reserves in place so that we have adequate cash flows to meet our um vendor and payroll responsibilities, to meet our debt responsibilities. Um we like to make sure that
um we have sufficient funds to um weather the storm, if you will. Um and then in addition to that, you know, as I had mentioned before, we had significant outflows with um Barnesville County Retirement Association as of July 1st. There was $4.2 million and that was just for our general fund, Cape Cod Commission, and Drudge. That didn't include sheriff. Sheriff's portion we get reimbured. We haven't been reimbursed yet. That was over
$2 million that we had to expend. So, we have to make sure we have sufficient cash flows in place and and you know and here's a list and I don't want to read it all to you but you know we want to make sure that we go out to the bond market and we borrow funds for capital projects that we're undertaking the you know standard of pores is looking to us and making ensuring that we're able to meet our obligations. Um, so this is just an example of what we track. This is our cash,
general fund cash, and it dates back by month to 2017. And if we look at 2025, we see a significant dip and we were watching that very closely last September and October. This is when the transfer, we transferred the $14 million out to the revenue stabilization fund that we have with MMD and we came very close to being not sleeping at night, right? Um so,
so this is what we're tracking on a regular basis. We're looking at our cash balances every fund um on a monthly basis and um transferring funds um from what we would consider our money market or or savings accounts into our um active accounts where we're funding payroll and vendor payments. We're also tracking um well this would be Cape Cod Commission. So So as far as Cape Cod commission,
this is restricted fund balance. We're c we're tracking their cash equivalents versus their um restricted fund balance. And they should mirror each other and they do here. Um, we're also tracking items like this for dredge. And these pretty much mirror each other, right? Right. We're looking at the blue line, which is their retained earnings,
and we're seeing how that dropped, right? And then we're seeing how their cash balances dropped, and we're seeing where their cash balances are today, right? and and on a positive trend. It was on a it was on a positive trend and we we can see that it that way that we've expended some funds to support capital and we just started our dredging, right? So, but we're watching this on a monthly basis. I think we have to that I think this is the reason one of the main reasons why we're going to
have to look at the dread rates again and make some projections in terms of how we can keep the uh how we can keep this operation afloat. This is this this is the one sort of money pit department that we have in county government. And that's not to say anything bad about the department or the work or the team or the group. It's just the nature of the business. the dredge business is so um difficult, challenging. It has so many variables you have to depend on that you can't control. So, we're gonna we're gonna So, we're gonna have to figure out um you know,
we have this pending report that's hanging out there, you know, uh on recommendations from Leslie McGee and her firm and her team in terms of things that we need to be thinking about looking ahead that can provide some greater uh assurance on the revenue stream. So on the dredge department, I think looking ahead, this this sort of underscores I from my point of view the urgency of addressing rates again. We may need to retain her to do a rate report and update with a set of recommendations. Mhm. So, I think that's on our list of things to uh talk about at a future
meeting as well as making recommendations on uh her report uh about going forward because um every time we have a dredge summit and we go over the permitting issues um we never can really break away with a great deal of confidence that projects are going to be easily permitted. we can try to streamline, but there's only so much that's within our control. But we but we have to exercise more control on the permitting side. So, um I think and unless we do that, um the rates are
just going to have to keep going up and accept a fairly robust clip in the years ahead. So, um this is in talking about the budget and looking ahead, this is an area that we're going to spend a lot of time on uh to address. So, I'm I'm glad that you stopped on this slide for a few minutes because um you know, I'm really worried about the dredge department going forward. Um and and my only my last comment I guess is is if you had a question of why we're calling I'm calling this a cash equivalent, it's because we manage cash in a different way or I mean not any different than
any other governmental entity. We we pull cash. It's what we call it. We it's a poolled cash environment. Um and so so we're uh we're managing cash as we uh if you will we we centralize the banks. Otherwise we'd have 181 cash account which is just not manageable. That's the old the old way old way very old way of of um of managing multiple funds. Um, and so that that this just
just provides you with an explanation of how the treasurer manages cash here in Barnesville County and every other governmental entity as well. So, um, if you have particular questions or if you'd like to discuss any of the slides I provided, be happy to do so. very thorough any I think a lot of my questions are going to that come from this are going to be in the the next item on the agenda the budget discussion because I think this is a great it's great to start with this um because I
think it all relates to how we look at the budget for the coming coming fiscal year so I'm happy to hold my points until we get to the next section the next one and you're here to answer anything so Yes, just like to compliment Carol and her staff. I mean, in presenting this budget and also in the past and providing internet access and how we manage funds. I mean, it's probably as transparent
I've ever experienced anywhere. I mean, you know, numbers are not my thing. So, I appreciate putting them in a form which I I can get my hand. You do a great job. for the the presentation. It's our job to make the numbers work. It's your job to tell us what they're doing. Thank you. Thank you. We all concur suggestion that I made last. Okay. Thank you, Carol. All right. Moving.
Moving on along. You're sticking around for the next. Yes. Yeah. Um we're on to item B of general business under six. And we are now going to have our administrator, Michael Dutton, go over the fiscal year 2027 budget process. Well, thank you. And uh Commissioner Bergstrom's point about numbers not being everybody's thing uh is is uh certainly appreciated. Well t Yeah, appreciated and well taken. Um because they're not everybody's thing. anybody that is an observer of
county government um in particular uh our our budget uh isn't necessarily reflective of of town budgets that that people may be more used to. So uh so we try to be extremely transparent um as as mo as transparent as we can possibly be. um we don't want to give people information that's not uh accurate by any means, but as soon as we have information, we want to share it and and that's our our practice. In any case, um the budget process or the budget season starts with
identifying the the correct process and the memo I have uh put in front of you is my suggestion uh between the county commissioners and the assembly of delegates um who will also see this uh memorandum uh after you review it. Uh it my basically the memo is my suggestion on how we move forward with this year's budget. There are some minor changes. I'll tell you what the the uh really the the the minor changes are. Instead of having every department come in to your meeting,
um let us have those sessions get into the nitty-gritty uh of of the numbers. Um and let uh let present a consolidated budget to you. uh at which time any department head you actually do want to talk to because there's some weird things in the budget or or uh we haven't done a good enough job explaining uh we can certainly invite them in and and you can you know quiz them about what their spending plans are for for fiscal 27. Um so that's really
from the commissioner standpoint that's the biggest change. Um we will continue to present the capital budget prior to the operating budget which is good practice. um the capital budget, we need to know what our capital expenditures are going to be before we can properly um budget uh those um for the following fiscal year. But just as a little bit of a preview, um the capital budget, I don't anticipate uh a lot of spending, number one. Um and I don't anticipate uh a lot of spending or a lot of new spending. Uh a lot of uh new spending. Yeah, we have some
projects that are underway and we're in the middle of, but uh and those will will continue. But um given the fact that we've got, you know, a report that's telling us we've got 70 some odd million dollars of deferred capital spending, um we're not and that's still going through its motions. We're not going to be loading up uh capital spending this year by any means. Um, in any case, that's sort of the commissioner side of the thing of the budget process. The other side is the
um assembly of delegates. Uh, with the assembly of delegates, I've I've had a chance to meet with the new speaker um who is very supportive of of at least the theory of of what I'm proposing and that is I will go yeah streamlining. I will go up to the assembly of delegates instead of every single department head going up there. I will present the total budget. I'll answer any questions and then the assembly uh takes the departmental budgets and send those sends those off to the appropriate committees. Um the committees will do their work. I'll go to the committee meetings. The department
head will go to the committee meetings, get all the questions answered. Um the budget will then come back to the full assembly. If the full assembly has more questions, um I'll be there to answer those. But I'm just trying to create a essentially what I'm trying to do is to create a consistent face you know in front of you and then in front of the assembly so that we can articulate the budget in very consistent terms. Um and and I think uh that will help uh the process along quite a bit doesn't foreclose the the opportunity for the department head to come in if the department
head wants to come in. Absolutely. Um but it's it's designed mostly to provide a streamlined process and let the department heads you know do what we employ them to do and and that is run their departments. Exactly. So that's a lot of a lot of time taken from departments uh in the previous the way this has been done. Yeah. Yeah. It's duplicate the process and it's I I like this. I I do I will say though that I am very conscious of um you know being perceived as as becoming
sort of a barrier between you know the elected officials and the department heads and I don't want it to seem that way. Uh so so that's why I I constantly say any department head you want to see absolutely absolutely so I think it would also be helpful um is you know once a schedule's been developed with the assembly and the various committees that are going to be looking at uh various departments. I I think it would be helpful just if we could get that information as well. Mhm. Um, you know, in in one of my prior town administrator experiences, we would do we
would do joint meetings where the the select board manager I mean the manager obviously is developing the budget with the department heads, but when we had meetings with the departments, we did them together. Um, I think Haritch did that. Um, and your finance committee that Yeah. So I'd have I'd have the the the budget oversight committee, the finance committee come in, meet with the selectman together. We would have one big round table uh or big you. Oh, we offered we tried that. But I think we tried that once before. Um I think what's helpful is is that everybody see the thing that I
like about that is that everybody hears the same information. Exactly. All right. Uh and the same question and there's no redundancy whatsoever. It's very streamlined. It's very efficient. Um and uh when I was in Brewster as the administrator, uh we did it on one day. We took a Saturday. We would take Saturday. We'd find a right Saturday. We'd have um coffee, pastries in the morning. We'd uh bring in lunch. It would be a working lunch, working day. Uh people could come in casual,
come as they are. And uh it people loved it and I think they're still doing it. Uh so I think the other thing that it did was it brought the bodies to work together. All right. Something that we haven't been known for uh quite frankly over the years. So that doing joint meetings and getting everybody in the same room and having it it becomes one place where you're actually having a
conversation about the county. So um to the extent that that can be facilitated I think quite frankly um it could provide a lot of very positive benefits in a variety of areas. Like I I I felt that the friction in Brewster I felt that at the time that I was there the friction between the select board and the finance committee was pretty intense. Uh and the bodies were going in completely different directions. Right. Where have we heard that before? Right. And uh
by getting everybody in the same room and having the deliberations and the discussions together, it broke down some barriers and it got people really uh to understand each other, where they're coming from, what they're doing, and what they're accomplishing, trying to accomplish. And uh in the long run, it it made life easier for the departments because they felt that they weren't in the middle of uh dueling dueling committees, dueling priorities. So something to think about. We we have um in our finance and I'll see you in a second, Ron. But we also have a a strong finance
department now. I mean, people who actually understand, they've been on there long enough and we have a new guy who actually understands budgets. And we have also done a lot of joint um hearings, you know, reviewing the budget. How are we going to go into town meeting? How does this recon this all adding up the way it should? And it's been really helpful. So I know that there's been resistance to that here, but they have to understand that the end product is not about us, you know, really it's about having a solid county going forward and
uh because we all change and it's we got to think about the the future. So Ron, yeah. Um just let's get into the practical matter of the the march march of of the budget through the process. Um my understanding normally when I was in the speak speakerhip and I think even before that commissioners would present the budget to the to the assembly. The assembly would then aortion it to the various committees and they would look at it. But at that point they would have the
the appropriate department head in front of them in the initial I'm talking about the committees would have at this time this new process it seems like they are going to get the budget they are going to look at you know whatever committee human services committee or the public services committee going to get their share of the budget they are then going to look at it they're going to submit questions to you but he's going to be at those meetings you'll be at those meetings So, I'll be at those meetings and I that's that's that's those are the meetings where I would expect the department heads to come and and answer questions or or do a the initial committee
meeting. Right. Okay. The committee meetings. Yeah. Not the assembly meetings per se, but the the the initial committee meeting. I don't want to I don't want to drag the the department heads more than once in front of you. Exactly. So, if they have questions, it's that's the time to ask and get the answers. Okay. Yeah. And inevitably having said that and and uh that's the way the process should work. Inevitably somebody on the assembly will ask a question one of the delegates will ask a question in front of the full body and you know that's fine to the extent that I can answer those
questions great. If I can't answer those questions then I'll you know come back. There's a difference between reviewing the budget and asking questions so that they understand the budget and debating the actual budget. I mean the department heads are I mean they in a sense are defending their budget but basically it's commissioner's budget course they're not going to say you know they're looking and say well why are you doing this you know they're they're saying well there it is in front of you you know if they have they have questions on it it's their right to to question it and and to change it if they have to but I don't want you know I've been to a lot of assembly meetings
and a lot of commissioners meetings and they can deteriorate into a debate you really don't want a debate during a review process you don't Right. And I I that's a point really well taken. And I think um in terms of understanding what's what those numbers are and what's behind those numbers um that's an education that I can I can you know bring the the assembly through and um I think the the department heads can articulate very well what particular line items are for. And you'll take all the flax so we don't have to. That's my job. Yeah. Um, and also if they have follow-up questions,
they go through you ideally. Yeah. They don't go right to the department. No. And they that's and that's really they were that was being done and it starts to put the department head in the middle and having conflicting like oh well well you never you and I you know I I explained to the assembly last year you know there's some I I understand there's some level of communication that's always going to happen you know people are friends you know so you know it's a small place so there's
going to be some level of communication and all I asked was that you know if if you can channel your questions through me, copy me on your question so at least I know you know what the question is. Uh because very often um sometimes nuance the nuance of the question gets lost. Um and so the question that that a delegate might be asking is not the question that that the department head is answering. Um, so, so we're trying to eliminate some of that kind of miscommunication. Is that's
language that's specified in the chart, right? All right. This is not an area where there should be a lot of discretion. And I think you're the way you're approaching it is it's more than general. Yeah. And I think it's important that the the the chairs of the various committees consolidate the questions so that you're not having five people asking the same question. Especially in the past, unfortunately, liable is done by phone or email. You know, next thing you know, you're answering to 12 people where I see that obviously it's in our interest to to have everything done quickly
and as easily as possible. You know, that's the objective. you know, and obviously I recognize that, you know, you've got two sort of approval processes here. Um, and so, you know, that build, you know, and the provisions of the provisions of the charter kind of dictate some of the timeline, but I'm just within that within those rules and restrictions. I'm trying to, you know, compress it and make it as easy as possible for everybody, quite honestly. So, so um, any other
questions? Yeah. I mean, I'm very comfortable with what you've what you've laid out here. Um, and you know, again, this is just for this year. Correct. Let's see how it works. See if it works. Um, if it doesn't this doesn't work, we'll try something else or go back to the old ways of doing things. Um, so I'm I'm fine with that. I would like to comment just a little bit in terms of on the priorities and uh the strategic side because I honestly believe you know after last Carol's last
presentation sort of laying out the big picture um you know I I do think that we need to be um extra cautious and very concerned about the financial landscape here. I I do think we have to start making tough decisions in this particular budget. The more we defer, the more difficult we're going to be making it later on. So bless you. So I think it's important to be aggressive
with this budget cycle and preparing this budget, aggressive and identifying efficiencies. I think we need to be aggressive in finding uh areas where we can recoup overhead. All right, we have departments that get a lot of overhead support. Uh we need to be figuring out ways uh to get adequate return on that. Um you know, because in the past that's that's always been a challenge. Uh, but I think as Ron had said, we've got a very capable finance director and
a very capable team. I think there should be no problem in us being able to re recoup that. And so when I look at some of the other departments and what they're doing and where they're going, um, I believe in this budget cycle, we should be able to recoup more in overhead. So that's something that I'm going to be looking for when the budget's prepared and we we get our first crack at it. I'm going to want to see more in terms of recovery on the overhead. Right? So, let me just get that out there. In the areas of efficiencies, one of the one of my biggest
pet peeves uh with respect to how we manage is all of the multiple areas of duplication. All right. One area is communication. All right. We have so many different communication directors, specialists, people interacting with the media on their own which makes it almost impossible for our communications department to do a good job and sometimes we're stepping on each other's story.
So we've got to put an end to that. All right. So, I'm going to leave it up to you on how to do it, but I'm going to be looking for something in this budget process that simplifies and ends the redundancy there. All right. If I were to eliminate all those positions, I could probably save a lot of money. I'm not proposing that we do that, right? But that is something that we need to really consider in the budget review process with the department. So,
I'm going to lay that out there and I'm going to be looking for some some real reforms there, Madam Chair. Um, other areas obviously that we need to look at. They're all well known. The dredge we need we need to as a board and eventually as the as working with the assembly need to look at more reforms, more changes, more improvements there both in terms of the structure and what we do, the permitting solving that problem and acting on the recommendations uh of Leslie. But we also need to begin the process of putting in place yet a new fee structure going forward. We can't let
that wait. So I'm going to be looking for as we move ahead looking for where we can uh schedule and how we can put that in. Um I do want to see a structurally balanced budget. I don't want to see us spending free cash. All right. No more. No, we're done with that. All right. We're done with that. All right. So, we got to tighten the belt. So, this is the year we get serious about dealing with the financial cliff that's out there. Not that we haven't been serious before. We have,
but we've been we we haven't there's been very little pain. It's been very little sacrifice. We have to start doing it now. And so, I think we can talk take a hard look. For example, the assembly, there's that extra position. I'm I'm not in favor of continuing that anymore. areas where we can make changes and find efficiencies, we need to do it. And if that means that we need to provide more support for them or find some other ways to give them help, whether it's on the communication side, because I know that's an area that may need help in and
our communications director has always offered to help them. So again, if we work together, we can find ways to save money. So it's and I want to say it's it's we're one county. We're not 12 counties. We're not 10 counties. We're one county. And when we message particularly, we need to be speaking as one county. Now, I understand the Cape Cod Commission needs to have their own communications people because there their regulations and their there's specific regulatory requirements that need to be met with notices and stuff like that. I get all that. But we we need to
do a much better job in terms of how we at least coordinate with those. Right. All right. and how we find ways not to step on each other's news because the reality is is that we're getting in spite of all of these collective efforts, we're getting less coverage than we were before. All right. So, we're going in the results are getting worse and um there seems to be more activity being generated that in some cases conflicts with um you know a much more centralized and coordinated
approach. So, that's an area that I want to see some efficiency in. Um, I've got some other items, but I can save them for later for the time being. I think these are some priorities that we really need to sort of target and and and really bake into this whole budget process. Right. Yeah. Um, a few things. First of all, I agree with with Mark on the communications um, issue. We've said this before. But I think that all communication should originate from the commissioners honestly because we represent Barsville County and we we're the ones that the voters go to if something's good
but and if something's bad, you know, if there's bad news out there, we should we should announce it. So I think I mean it certainly give credit to the the appropriate people in the county, but I think that when an announcement is made about some initiative or something, it should come from the commissioner's office. Um, as far as the budget goes, you know, it going back to we've all done town finance usually starts off with a budget message and list of priorities, you know, saying for inance Mark mentioned the structurally balanced budget. Now, I'm going to have a little
bit of a disagreement there because since our revenues in the towns determine the revenue after they pass the budget, but we have to go with what the revenue is and since it fluctuates back and forth, it would be very impractical to say, well, you know, this year we're not going to do too well. We're going to lay a guy off and then next year we do a little better and say, hey, come back. You know, you have to have some consistency in I think that structurally balanced I think about consistency in the in the services that we provide and using the revenue contingency
fund to to manage that consistency as much as is possible. It could come to the day when when obviously it isn't going to be enough. But um you know it's it's it's a tough job and I agree with all you know you can save money by looking into the details of the budget identifying items big and small that you can you can carve off but as far as the dredge goes it's an enterprise fund. It should pay for itself. I'd like to see the lab pay for itself. But if you start getting into fees,
you know, then you have to the towns can ask what what is our assessment paying for? If every if every service we provide is gets its own individual expense, the town assessments don't pay for enough, right? Yeah. It doesn't pay for enough. But they have to ask what does it what does it pay for? So I'm just saying is we we have to justify our existence by services we provide. I think that's an excellent point. I think what we what I would like to see us accomplish in the budget is information on how much grants each department generate, right? Because I think that's
information I know the assembly is interested in. We're interested in it as well, I think, because I think we want to be able to argue to the to the larger community is how much money launchable the investments in county government leverage significant additional dollars in state and federal money. And I think it'd be helpful to articulate that. We also need to identify how much of our county budget is indeed in place to service the municipalities. That's information that's relevant for this larger conversation about how we survive long term because we're not we need
to be in a survival mode. We need to be in a mode where we're thinking about how do we help county government survive these financial challenges that we find ourselves in the middle of. I don't think when you were in Chadam, I would bet you your finance your your your town administrator, Bill Henchie, did not present to you a budget that was not structurally balanced. Well, he did. It had to be it is by definition structurally balanced because once you decide what your expenses are, you you set the rate accordingly. So you set the levy at at what the town meeting votes for. By
definition and in commonwealth of Massachusetts, I'm sure this is true of every town, you can't have enough deficit, but it is in our financial policy, right? The county isn't we? Yeah. When if you look at our county financial policy, we've pledged to present structurally, you know, financially financial. Isn't that contradiction to having a revenue contingency fund? If you're if you're not going to use a revenue contingency fund to balance budget, why do you have you can budget directly from that contingency fund. If you have a contingency that you need to take account of, we
can do that, right? That's what I'm looking. Yeah. It's not like we No, but I think we have we have to have a message to all of our departments that the commissioners want to see a very conservative approach to budgeting and looking for efficiencies in a variety of areas, recovery and overhead and yeah, structurally balanced. I think you should insist on that and we're here to really um help the towns uh be able to do what they can't do. So, they're pulling their money with us. It's sort of like how it works on the federal level. We give our taxes hoping that it goes to things we need.
Hasn't been happening that way. But, um but that's the that's the the the the bargain. That's that's what's understood. We pay these taxes and we're going to put these in to try to alleviate those bigger costs that you'd be paying. um down the road. So, and we want the towns to be healthy as well as we're healthy. So, we're conscious of well that that you know what's happened is now you you guys have been here now for quite a few years and so have I and you've seen many budget presentation
previous administrator also and they've all said the same thing. We have done you know basically a barebones budget. You say, you see, I mean, they've heard it. This is bare bones. We told every department to make all the all the economies they can. And now, here we are another year. Are we saying we got to do the same thing again? And no, actually, I'm asking that we do it. We we we we really take a little bit more meat on. Okay. But what what you're saying is, and I agree with you, is that it's it's one thing to say, okay, you got to look at, you know,
you got to look at your expenses and try to limit them. Beyond that, we have to make a decisions on what the county's going to do because I think that you can only get so much economy at cutting a little here and cutting a little there. Ultimately, are we going to continue to fund children? Are we going to continue to have are we going to raise dredge rates? We're going to have to make the big decisions that go beyond just simple, you know, line item here and there. And you know, we've been putting I think putting them off because fortunately recently we had the
revenue to cover us. We're not going to have the revenue to cover us. And I I know you're going in the same direction, Mark. We're going to have to make some decisions, right? You know, right? Okay. I think we've uh debated this and put out everybody's feelings and so we're for a motion. I'd like to move that we adopt the budget process outline and timeline proposed by the administrator. Second. All in favor? I I perfect. Okay. So, now we're going to go on to a draft resolution. Uh this is being proposed by the Assembly of Delegates. Michaela Columbo
uh got in touch with me saying that she felt very strongly that we uh make this state, you know, come out in a unified statement about the SNAP program. Yeah. In support of the SNAP program. Um they sent us their draft to add or subtract and Vera has made a suggestion on this um to add it to a whereas um and you could read out loud. I have we all have it in our email right now but um I'm not I'm not sure we have to read the whole thing. No, we don't have to read the whole but it
is a very strong endorsement of the SNAP program and its benefits to the many many people here in Boston County that depend on it. So I would like to move that we approve the draft resolution proposed by the assembly in support of the supplemental nutrition program SNAP for Bunchable County following submission of a final draft uh to the board chair and uh and the administration and that in the resolution that we adopt today. include uh the slight edit that were referenced
in an email to the board by the um system county administrator and and if if I may so what we're doing is we're going to be approving this draft as amended and that amendment so we should we have to vote on the amendment that yeah so I would like my motion well the amendment we didn't state what the amendment was and it really is just basically whereas there are 22,000 people and it's good to actually acknowledge that here on Cape Cod that are beneficiaries of the SNAP and that's
as of now not as what's going to be if things are continuing to go in this kind of downward spiral. Um, so we would like to add that into so that's your second warehouse I would say you know the supplemental provides second and I would just put it in there to say this is and these are the people these are these 22,000 people which are the school children the federal furled workers um seniors and why it's it's important to have good nutrition because it helps us function and have
a quality of life and um you know there's already povert poverty and disability here and it's going to impact those people. So I think it's a very um thorough you have any other comments on Yes, I do. First of all, first of all, I mean people listening to this discussion may not have a total idea exactly what we're talking about. basically um Michelle Michela Wyman Colombo and I actually had this discussion and she was concerned about the ongoing problem with the SNAP benefits and she
wanted to submit this which she did and basically what it says and I'll read one line out of it. says, "Bartsville County Commissioners and Assembly of Delegates fully support the ongoing work of the Barnesville County Extension programs to support nutrition, education, and food safety through programs for adult, used, and preschoolers offered in partnership with schools and community agencies during this time of federal interruption. And I'd also like to say that this afternoon I had conversation with um the delegate, I called the extension service and
I made also the administrator aware of it. And of course, they were right on top of it already. And I know you got the communications from them saying that they were aware of the of the issue and and they were doing everything within our power to work with uh various groups, p family pantries, and so on to to deal with it. So, I'll second this. And so, we're going to um our first vote is to uh vote that we agree to the amendment of $22,000. So, all in favor? I I. So, now we're just
going to um you can say that again if you want to. Uh Mark, we're going to uh move to approve the draft resolution as amended by the Assembly of De amended draft resolution proposed by the Assembly of Delegates. That's the motion I made. Okay, I second that. All in favor? I I Good. Thank you. Okay. Uh, now we're going to um discuss a letter that we uh feel is important about the
refundable Title 5 septic tax credit. U Michael, you can maybe open this up. I know Brian Bomb was uh brought this to our attention and I was happy to do so now that we're dealing with this a lot um you know not just here my town but Truro which is pretty rural has a lot of septic very costly everybody is whipped up whipped up so uh so thank you for that uh intro and it is uh it is timely um there is a bill has been filed in the house by uh one of our Cape legislators uh repier
Uh it's uh H40 uh H482482 and it seeks to uh add a refundable tax credit to the residential property owners who undertake uh a loan for for mandated title 5 upgrades. So um so currently um as you know our aqua fund program uh lends fund money to to people to uh low interest no interest uh to for folks to to upgrade their septics uh where when they have to. Um so it's a nice it's a
nice program. It's a great program. Uh this would uh potentially make those um loans refundable or essentially uh uh pay essentially paid from state funds um and so that uh the homeowner would not be incurring as much of a liability um as they they currently are. Some of the septic systems uh can run upwards of $60,000. Um, so it's it's something that's um would be incredibly helpful to
to folks on the Cape, especially those folks who um who are year round. Um, and so that's that's essentially the letter of support that uh that uh Brian's looking for. Yeah. to to just um you know go into it a little bit more. We um the town voted the town of Wealthly's people voted to put so much money into a fund to help people who had to do this say they were under one of these triggers and
um but when we were so it goes up to $12,000. We voted to put it to 25 because the bills that we were receiving from people were 8090 thou,000 to upgrade the septic and basically it's because there's not a lot of competition in very few people do this very few and they are gouging people. they're taking advantage of this and uh and I know Brian's team is working very hard to certify people and to get more more people into that that system. So, it will hopefully bring
it down to a reasonable realistic cost because it really it's just digging all the it's just an added thing. It's a very simple thing, but it does an amazing work. So, um, and towns in there's parts of every town that are just too far away, too remote, still rural, believe it or not, even though we're doing everything we can to kill that, but um, and you just can't reach it with the sewer. It's just not going to happen. And these people, are they paying for the sewer and now this extra cost? So, that all has to be worked out in towns. It's much more complicated. But,
I totally support this. And now that I've said enough, does anybody else have anything else to say? Yeah, just I totally support it, too. I think it's a great idea. But just to bring up I mean, when you when you refer a tax break to somebody for doing something, there must be somebody in an office up at the state house to determine what the cost is to to the state for that. Well, there is. And that's why these things don't go anywhere. That's why they don't go any right. Yeah. But let's hopefully this one has That's right. This really does. And you know, and the state is pretty
committed to this whole process of trying to clean up clean up the mess we've made. So, um All right. So, did you make a motion? No. No. I move to uh what? I move to approve and authorize the submission of the draft House Bill 4082 support letter. I'll second that. All in favor? I I Okay, moving on to the holidays. Happy holidays, everyone. So, Madam Chair, I'd like to
move that we approve the 2026 Barnstable County legal holiday schedule. I have a second. I'll second that. I've reviewed it. It looks good. I don't think there's a need for much discussion on it unless others do, but I think it's great. Um, similar to what we've done in the past, right? So, the day before Thanksgiving will be a hot day for everyone. Um, Thanksgiving is off as it's a legal holiday. Um, Friday is being treated as a skeleton day, which I think makes sense.
Those who I think you're on the um Are you on the I'm on your 2020. Yeah. Yeah, we're So, this I think this is the 2026 legal holidays, all of them. Not Not how we're going to treat this year. Yeah. There's another item afterwards which is the uh work schedule, right? Right. Which we haven't we're not on yet. We're on Yeah, you're on calendar 26. The calendar. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right. So, did we say all in favor? Yeah. I All in favor just to make sure that we're approving the
holiday schedule. Yep. I I thank you. Um now we're going on to the Oh, we're going to review Mr. No, no, no, not yet. Doing the work schedule. We got Oh, I'm sorry. The work schedule, right? So, that we're dealing with the end of calendar year 25 now. Yes. Um, and the by virtue of the the uh calendar, we've got uh some days that are a little quirky. Um, so if you would like, I'll run through that. Okay. Uh so what we are proposing uh obviously uh what we have normally done uh the
Wednesday before Thanksgiving is a normal work day but uh we dismiss um employees at noon. Uh Thursday is Thanksgiving day obviously that's a day off. Uh the Friday uh after Thanksgiving is treated as a quote unquote skeleton day. Um and then uh fast forward to um sorry uh f so it just for mostly my benefit because I get confused about what a skeleton day is. Um essentially employees
that work that day it's a it's a county is open that day. Uh but employees that work that day are elig eligible to take another day off uh prior to January uh the following January 31st. So Oh, so that's for the 26th, the day after Christmas, right? Uh 28th day after Thanksgiving. Oh, excuse me. Yeah, that's the skeleton day. Um and for this year, uh well, again, uh Wednesday, Christmas Eve, uh proposing a noon, uh a noon closure, which I think is consistent with prior years. the um 25th,
we're going to let everybody have a day off on the 25th. Yeah, we're not going to be um screwed. And then Friday, uh since December 25th, Christmas Day, uh falls on a Thursday, the following Friday, uh we are uh proposing to treat as a floating holiday, um which I think is similar to um a skeleton day. Again, I get the lingo mixed up. But uh and in any case, an employee who does not work that day, I'm sorry, who does work that day the Friday after Christmas uh is eligible to take a
floating holiday uh before January 31st following January 31st. And then um just confirming that Thursday, January 1st is uh New Year's Day, a legal holiday and we're going to have to meet on the next day. So and you will be meeting the next day. Friday, the first day after the assembly. Yeah. Well, that and I will just point out it's not on your um it's not on your um memo copy
of uh on your copy of the memo, but the uh you are tenatively uh scheduled if uh memory serves uh to meet uh you have a normal meeting day on December 31st and I think I would propose that we uh not hold that meeting uh because uh you will be meeting two days later on January second. I
agree. And if there's anything you need to sign or anything to do that and anyway this so that's the that's the uh the draft uh for your approval on the end of this calendar year. Hey, can I make a motion? Yes, please. I'd like to move that we approve the Barnstable County proposed 25 26 holiday work schedule as presented. Second. All in favor? I I moving on to review Mr.
Dutton's performance. We've been here a year year and a little bit more. I know we're a little late on this and we have to hopefully are we, you know, We're okay. All right. All right. All right. Okay. We've been late on other things, but ourselves. If he was doing a bad job, I think we would have this. Get rid of him quicker. It looks like he's going to stay to kick this. Everybody else is leaving. Happy to make a motion. Well, you know, we have Justina here. Do you have
anything you want to review or No. No. Okay. Go ahead. Go for it. So, what I'd like to do, uh, Madam Chair, is at least to get on the table, uh, uh, uh, a a motion to accept the, uh, 2025 county administrator annual job performance review. Put that on the table and then I'm happy on that. I will initiate the discussion. Go for it. Um I think I think the process in doing the review um
was thorough and uh I think it was comprehensive. Um and I would say just for the folks that might be watching or paying attention to this um we evaluated the administrator's performance on 10 general management categories and these are not unusual. They're not. These are very common for your top government managers. All right. So the first uh category is personal characteristics.
Um the second category is professional skills and status. The third category is relations with the county commissioners. Four is the county administrator's uh talent and and expertise and uh performance and evaluating the county's finances. Uh item five that we look at deals with personnel management. Item six is organizational leadership. Seven is public relations. Eight is
community leadership. Nine is county operations and infrastructure. And item 10 is progress in meeting our collective goals that we establish every year and we work towards. And so in each of these 10 categories there are a number of very specific sort of granular items and uh there are roughly five in each of the 10 areas. And so our job as commissioners is to make a decision ranking
performance on each of the subcategories on a scale of one to five where one is poor and five is outstanding. And uh I think this is about as comprehensive a review as can be done. It's very similar to some of the top municipal managers uh here on Cape Cod and around the Commonwealth. So, I think we followed a very good process, one that's got a great track record. Um, kicking it off is a uh self-performance by the administrator and I have to commend Michael. I
thought he did an outstanding job and sort of his own review of of his his effort here. Um, and then the perform the form itself provides areas where we can make comments as individual commissioners. And so we've prepared this and put this in a form that's easily reviewable by the public. I mean, part of this process is not only for us to do the review, but to make information available to the public. So we're on record being able to basically assess how the administrators performing. And
uh it's a very open, very transparent process. and it's ultimately designed to give the public a general sense of how we think the county management is um is going. So, um and I just like to comment if I could on some of the uh uh the comments that were made by some of you know by by individual members of the board. I think this kind of sums sums it up that Mr. Dutton has done an outstanding job unifying the diverse components of Barnstable County
government into a more efficient organization. His diplomatic skills are impressive and he's earned the respect of county employees and that of his peers and thanks to his professionalism, it has been a successful transition to a new administration. I think that of all the comments kind of sums up I think essentially what this particular performance evaluation leads to. And so when we look at the score um in conclusion the score shows a very positive and very strong.
So out of the one to five the composite number is a 4.41 out of a possible 5.0 which I think uh is is borderline between very good to outstanding. Right. So I think this has been a great year for the county. I think this has been a great year for Michael Dutton and the board of commissioners and um I'm glad we've reached this milestone and we've had a chance to uh do this review and uh I I fully support it. Okay. Well, we could go on, Michael, and talk about how great you are,
but time is of the essence. But you get the gist. We do appreciate you being here. we appreciate your work and uh you really have gotten out there in the community and people know who you are and what we're doing and yeah just to say and you know you're right this is a small world we live many I mean I know the people involved I know not as well as I should all the employees but I certainly know the members of the assembly a lot of other people who interact with county on a regular basis and I've got nothing but good things to say about Michael if there were bad things believe me I
would hear it right because if people love to say that we do, but I have not heard any. So, we can assume that that's going to continue. So, okay. So, we have a motion on the floor. It's been seconded. All in favor? I I All right. You're on. You can't leave us. Yeah. No, I appreciate the next step is for us to work with him on the next set of goals. Yeah. You still have like a, you know, 5%. Well, you're giving me You're giving me great uh room to grow. So, I appreciate that. Yes, that's right. Uh anyway. Okay. So, we're moving on to uh new business. Any new business
from anyone? All right. Uh no. Uh commissioner's agenda, consent agenda. Is there any uh I haven't seen anything that I want to pull out. Do we have a motion for that? Uh, Madam Chair, I move to authorize the commissioner's consent agenda items 8A through 8F as listed on the November 5th, 2025 agenda. Second. All in favor? I commissioners reports. Anybody? Yes. Um, one item I'd like to
report on is the next uh Cape Islands Municipal Leaders Association meeting is going to be held on uh the 14th of November, Friday, 7:30 at Mass Maritime Academy in their conference center there on Tower Road. And uh the main topic of discussion is with mass development and officials for master development to update us on the master planning update process out at Joint Base Cape Cod. We've
made this a priority of ours. We have finally come to uh an agreement on a master planning process. I'm thrilled that they've been able to work out an agreement which we approved at our last meeting with the Cape Cut Commission. transport. So the commission staff will be involved in providing support to master development um and and I credit the commission for playing an instrumental role the last time we went through a master planning process and building public confidence and acceptance on the report and they obviously provided tremendous uh technical support and
information but overall having their involvement was critical in building public support within the community. So if you want to know more about what's happening with this process, um come to our breakfast meeting on on Friday, November 14th. 14th. Excellent. Yes. Brian. Yes. I uh attended I think it was last Thursday a meeting on housing a housing conference well attended by the by perhaps several hundred people wide ranging. The uh commission was also represented
there and uh it was a wide ranging discussion on the housing options open to Cape Cod. Um, Senator Rosier presented some legislation which he has um proposed at the state house to streamline the process and um basically it was a positive look toward the toward what we can do to increase affordable housing. Um I had some reservations about some of them which I'm not going to bring
up right now. Right. But um we know we know basically they have presented their uh presented their agenda and uh it's well-intentioned and we'll have to see how far we can go. I mean it's a it's a big issue. Everyone everyone admitted that the challenge is almost insurmountable as far as expenses of houses on the Cape the ability of people with moderate and even middle income to afford it. So, I mean, we're all on the same page as trying to go forward and make letting people
who need housing get housing, but uh the devil is in the details and we'll see how it goes. That's right. There's a lot of feelings about that out there. Um, anything else. That's it. Okay. Um you know just just to follow up on that I was um I attended a discussion on impacts of climate change and uh the assistant secretary or representative um ha Melissa Ha climate change the climate change
zar came to listen to people like have you had impacts flooding what has happened out here And it was really a great discussion about the changes that have occurred and what people have seen. And that that is the challenge on the housing area because we live in a very dynamic changing coastline and not everything that's sort of evident today is not not necessarily
evident tomorrow. So, uh, and all it does is take a good storm with about 165 mph winds to change everything. So, um, uh, it was really a very good discussion and, um, kind of, uh, a lot of food for thought of the future, especially on the outer cape where it's it's really out there. So, um, that's that's what I have to report. And now we're on to upcoming business. We have our
calendar here and um anything that we I'd like to talk about suggest Madam Chair. I I have I have a something to put on Thank you. for the future, but I'd rather have uh first we hear the administrator on what he anticipates coming up for our next next couple of meetings. Do we have uh on Wednesday, November 19th, an update from GCA and Paul Rala on the uh permeable reactive wall? Right. I guess
everything's going well on that. Um, it looks like we're going to get an update on wildfire funding and um the the success that the cooperative extension service had in getting uh a big grant to help move uh uh an update uh on the uh regional uh wildfire management plan, which is terrific. Kudos to them. Yes. And then we have a couple of ordinances to take a look at from finance. So that's on for Wednesday, November 19th. That looks good. And I see we have some other
interesting things coming up coming up. Right. Um what I'd like to do, if you don't mind, is um I'd like to make some proposals uh for for a for for a discussion. Uh perhaps at our next meeting, um I'd like to hand this out. Um I'd like to propose um uh an adjustment. Could you pass that to Ron? one for you. Sorry. Yeah, we discussed it. I think this is a Can you There's another one. Yeah. What
I what I'm proposing is that um starting next year we change our meeting schedules a bit that we uh have our f we have two meetings every month. Uh I'm suggesting that our first meeting we have here county offices but the second meeting the one that's on the third Wednesday of every month that that we have that out in the field and that we meet literally we rotate each region. So we start off on the upper cave and work our way to the lower cave. So for for
example and this is again just the proposal but it would be our first meeting would be uh our first field meeting that would be the third Wednesday of the month that we go to fountain and then the following month February we go to Barnstville and that we go to a venue where there are people uh whether it's Town Hall or the senior center. Right. Right. Right. uh we work with our staff to make sure that the site is suitable in terms of accessibility and it's a
hybrid capability and that in each of the towns that we're in when we go through the schedule um we actually talk about things that are relevant to them in their town as well or that region right and that we have some discussion through our administrator with the manager in the town to facilitate them maybe even coming to the meeting either with their select board or with town staff to talk about things that they really care about so that we can begin developing a much stronger dialogue uh with each of our towns. Now, we obviously like having people come to see us,
but I think since I've been here, um I think it's it's going to be far more productive for us to go to our communities. And so that's what I'm proposing. So, um I wanted to put this in front of the board for today. Um, I think I'd like to put it on the agenda for more discussion on Wednesday, November, our next meeting if we could. And my hope is is that we can have a chance to sort of vet it with staff to talk over the mechanics of it, how it might work, what the problems might be,
and we can have a more robust discussion about this at our next meeting. Yes. Well, I think it's I think it's a very good idea, and I wish we'd probably done it earlier. the the way I think it's worded in the charter is that the chair determines the time and location of the meeting. So the chair can say we can meet tomorrow and and so but so that's really where the authority comes from but certainly it's a great idea whoever is chair to to schedule these meetings as Mark Mark described. Now there's going to be some time when during budget season they're really up against it.
So, we're going to have to make longer meetings if we're going to discuss normal order business and plus the the specific things we do for the individual towns. They used to do this, you know, I remember Bill Dy and they would do especially close to election time when all the wonderful things that they did. Right. So, well, I'll make sure we on a regular basis. Yes, that's right. We're going to get to chat him. But um but it also is a very good dialogue for people to understand
how we interact with the towns, what our role is and to hear from the towns. These are things that we could you know and we might get generate a lot of good uh synergy there and it also Mark is uh thinking ahead uh I can see because we're going to have renovations here so it's just as well to be out of the building and uh this is the year to do it and hopefully it will be a ongoing practice. So, um, we'll put this on. So far, you get the sense of the room of how we're going to go with this. We'll put this on for the next discussion. One little fly in the ointment is that we don't
know when these towns have their regular selection meet, right? They do those at night, right? But the thinking behind this day is that we do this in the daytime and people and and if we can at least agree to a tentative schedule ahead of time, people can plan around it. All right? So they'll have a month, two months, 10 months to know that this is the date we're coming out and and by then I think as we get closer to those dates, the towns will be in a much better position
to engage with us as or and and our staff over the kinds of things they'd like to talk to us about or would like us to showcase. I know, for example, the topic of resiliency. Um there's some communities where this is this is an this is a very hot topic and I think uh you know um I think it'd be great for us to hear firsthand some of the impressing issues that the towns are wrestling with and where they think we could be of some right. Okay. Uh moving on, we are now up to county
administrator and our staff reports. Thank you, Madam Chair. Um just one other thing to add to your November 19th meeting. uh we will have two um draft um budget message and capital budget message for you to review and approve and obviously uh we'll be working on that uh have been working on that and we'll push that out to you u as soon as we have a draft in place. Um just to let you know uh Sonia let me know that uh she's finalizing the annual report uh for last fiscal year and and so
that will be uh coming to you fairly fairly soon probably your first uh December meeting uh perhaps your second December meeting. Um and uh just to let you know that we are continuing to work on uh composting the composting initiative uh joint base Cape Cod uh with uh I've been meeting um this week with members of uh some members of the Barnstable Advisory Committee and and then uh last night Falmouth's advisory committee which was was a great meeting. A lot of uh very
supportive comments and and uh a lot of interest in in getting this done which is good good news. Um, and I will say all the administrators in the towns, managers in the towns are fully on board. So, so we'll continue that work. Uh, our dredge is currently both our dredges are currently working in Pompaness Bay um in Mashby uh doing uh one of the largest jobs I think they've they've ever uh had. Um I think somebody mentioned it earlier, the challenges to the dredge. October saw 16
days when they could not get out on the water due to the weather. Um, and so that's a lot more than last last year I think it was eight days. So it's about double that. Um and I think just to touch on on the rates um and the the structure departmental structure that is something that that we've been diving into the dredge um Ken has put together um a subcommittee of the dredge advisory board to really dig into Leslieanne and anchor QA's report on management revisions that will help us
uh sort of accelerate the or at least keep tabs careful tabs on the permitting process. Um and so we we are looking at that and we'll be coming to you for um some revisions to to how that department looks. Um I'll be hosting uh the Capees municipal managers next week. Um, so I'll have an opportunity to do a deep dive into our preliminary budget numbers um and what we're looking at uh on revenues and and uh pursuant to what what you talked about a little bit uh just identifying what county services uh really offset the town's burden and how we leverage our our budgets
um to to really get a lot of grant funding uh that supports all the towns. Um why why you're on that Yeah. Um could I think it would be helpful if you could this proposal to go out to the town. Absolutely. Could you raise that with and get report at our next meeting? Yep. Absolutely. Absolutely. Um as you know we have a new uh speaker of the assembly um who I met with last week and and I think we're going to have a very good uh relationship there. Um I fingers crossed.
I think they did a good choice. Um and uh even though you haven't approved a message of any sort, uh obviously our capital planning and our budget planning is well underway. So uh the work is going on in the background um on that and that is what I have. Excellent. All right, that brings us to item 12. Madam Chair, I move to I'll second that motion. All right. And right now it is we are going to at 11:41. And we were a little late due to technical uh difficulty. I didn't
say that in the beginning of the meeting and we apologize for that. But uh here we are. All right. So 11:41. All in favor. I thank you everyone. Thank you for being patient. You're welcome.