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[Music] good evening I'm Bernard Green chair of the brookln select board and this is the regular meeting of the select board for February 25th 2025 and this will be a joint meeting of the select board the advisory committee
and our newly formed expenses and revenue study committee um the main purposes of this meeting is to receive a report on the financial plan presented by the Town Administrator Chaz kery and the deput Town Administrator Melissa
goth after the presentation of the financial plan we will take questions and comments from the select board the advisory committee and the expenditure and revenue study committee but before any of that we have some regular business to which uh we must
attend um starting off with uh any announcements or updates from the select board Paul yeah I get just a couple one I'm going to um make an announcement then I'll make a brief statement um so uh at this time of year we are we go
through a review of the budget um extensively we'll start with that tonight um but I do want the public to know that uh the advisory committee also holds public hearings on each of the departmental budgets and um I was on the
advisory committee for a couple of years and um sat through many of those uh budget hearings and it's they're not often well attended by uh residents um and and I think that could be because people don't know about it um these are listed on the town calendar U I think
both John and I sorry John um have included those in our weekly newsletters uh that we send out email- wise um a number of people do receive those um I highlighted a couple that are taking place uh this week um on Wednesday the
public Public Safety subcommittee is looking at the holding a public hearing on the police budget which is always um uh often is attended by folks um the Human Services uh subcommittee is also looking at the veterans uh Services budget which is
important um and they're also going to be on Thursday looking at the holding a public hearing on the library budget so these are just it's an important time uh to pay attention because um this is an opportunity for the public to be able to voice their ideas their concerns uh
support or otherwise for the specific departmental budgets and often um the advisory committee uh will take input and make adjustments and recommendations to town meeting um not major ones but they do make some impactful uh uh
changes so that's my first I encourage the public to uh attend those it is an important time of year and of course uh we'll have some discussions tonight about the budget uh which includes the school budget uh deficit and um being the only select board
member with children in the school system I have a first grader um at Lawrence and a fifth grader at Lawrence um I have uh received more calls than I can tell you I've had many conversations about the subject of of uh of the
deficit with the schools um it's deeply concerning to uh my wife and I as parents of of middle of K through children um and I have shared my concerns directly with uh school committee members about the level of
cuts and the type of cuts are taking place um I've made suggestions which I I won't announce here as to where I think uh there may be opportunities but I do want to encourage the community to let the process work um the the school committee um is going through their
process of identifying ways to adjust uh their budget uh to be more in line with um what is being all ated by the Town School partnership um I know that we have uh work already being done by um our staff to um help close the gap for
26 FY 26 through some adjust adjustments with um the CIP allocation um and I just want to encourage everybody to let that process work out um we go through this process unfortunately every year um there's
typically a gap between what the schools um kind of look after what they want holistically and then what the realities of our financial ability is and there's usually a meeting of the mind so um for that uh I'm supportive and appreciate
everything that the town is doing and also um the school committee and specifically the parents um and Educators who are coming and raising concerns advocating for um our great school system which is uh important for our community uh whether you have
children children in the school school system or not so that's my thoughts on the issue thank you uh Michael um thanks Bernard U different subject um although I do think u i Paul's comments about people
inviting people to attend uh advisory committee um especially advisory subcommittee hearings on the budget is a very good one I hope people will take us take us up on that take him up on that um we have a A Center Street parking lot
uh study Committee in the process being formed uh and we've received something on the order of 20 or 20 more more than 20 uh applications from people interested in serving on that uh and uh I was hoping that we would be able to
have a a slate available for the select board uh on on March 4th but um a number of the applications came from people who have not served previously in on uh on Town committee so um they're not not
familiar to uh to me or to to staff uh and yet they have some really impressive CVS uh and so we're doing a few interviews uh which will take us another week or so and so I think uh we probably appear on the select board agenda for the last week in March rather than um
then on the 4th but uh in the process I hope that we'll be able to bring in some people who haven't participated before and um we look very qualified great thank you John two announcements um and the first one
um is all about a presentation that's going to be made at what they what we like to refer to as the Brookline Village um Public Library um the the main um Public Library here um so this is at the Brooklyn Village Public
Library um and it is this coming Saturday March 1st it's at 2m and the quick story behind um the speaker who will be presented um is that in 2020 um
uh I made the decision for Better or For Worse to to uh run for this this select board and the first thing that happened when that became public um was I got a phone call from someone who said um you know I've been thinking about running
for select Ford and maybe we should sit down and have coffee and I I from that moment I sort of admired this guy and I continued to admire him he's a very interesting guy Eric hayatt um he's an author um he has done a lot of interesting volunteer work in his life
he's done a lot of interesting professional work in his life um and he has um offered to um entertain people on Saturday March 1st at 2m uh by talking about scenes from a Brooklyn childhood and it's part of the series speaking
from the heart so um Eric hayatt Saturday March 1st 2m at the Brooklyn Village Library um the other bit of news is that there was a Brooklyn officer involved in what turned out to be um thankfully um you
know not a really really really serious um uh incident uh he was um in in directing traffic on Newton Street on Monday morning and uh he was struck by a car fortunately um he will recover from
um the injuries that he received um and that is uh officer Michael mitchek and he um uh is recovering recovering at this point but um it was nice to see that his fellow officers um were very
quick to respond um and to both um re wish him a full recovery from his injuries but also to honor him for his work and to thank the Brookline fire department um the ambulance Beth is
medical for their responses so um Michael Mitch um we we're looking forward to seeing you back on the street very soon uh and um we're all very thankful that it was um uh not not a more serious incident um and we wish wish you
well thank you John and thank you for mentioning the that incident U many of our town employees police of course um probably the primary ones but many other Town employees put themselves in danger when doing the towns work uh we should
uh you know be aware of that and appreciate it when they um yeah and they recover and and are able to come back to work so any other comments from the select board chess yeah I'm sorry busy comments
period um two medium link things one is a positive thing um we're really happy to recognize announce that the recreation department has won two Statewide Awards from the Massachusetts Recreation and Parks Association conference um one of them is for an individual employee uh Melanie pimel
who's our certified therapeutic recreation specialist um won an award um because of her inclusive programming she oversees one of the largest Special Olympics chapters in Massachusetts she facilitates in-house programs social skill building outings she's a really incredible employee and I'm really glad
that she was recognized for her work um at the conference this year the department as a whole one agency of the year for commitment to outstanding programming through specifically through the equity initiative the equity initiative has provided 1,734 registrations across all areas of
the department including Child Care Aquatics summer camps Youth Sports um it demonstrates that W can serve as a real bridge for equity in the community and allows individuals of all backgrounds to participate so I want to thank the recreation department the Parks and
Recreation Commission um all the staff and all the members M of the community particularly the Warr article 26 uh committee from several years ago that pioneered this Equity inative um that made all this possible and got all these um Awards noticed so congratulations to
the rec team to Melanie um and to the community it's a really great honor and exciting to see where wck goes from here um the other thing I wanted to just bring up um I got a letter this week I got an anonymous letter um I love when I
get Anonymous letter um I'm just going to read it and then I want to comment on it dear Mr Cary as Brookline residents we are pleading with youthe toown to cool it with the ongoing establishing opening of Asian
restaurants oh my God we pay a lot of money to live in this town we want some variety we are totally confused by the influx of only this type of dining only in all caps please please allow for some other options for those of us who do not
and cannot live solely on Asian fusion we are growing so bored our visitors are growing bored this town is in desperate need of some variety we are actually baffled by this please consider taking steps to Aid Us in this request thank
you I want people to know about this because one I think there's sometimes an assumption that oh you know racism isn't a problem anymore and well it is um but two I want to link it more broadly to an issue that has been a great concern conern to the community which is the
federal government's Newfound hostility to what it calls Dei which is diversity equity and inclusion um the current Administration has steered away from offering a definition of what that means uh the closest it's come is in its instructions to schools where it says uh you can't take anyone's background into
account anymore for any reason no Affinity clubs no specialized housing no admissions so on and their stated reason for doing so is to achieve a quote unquote meritocracy now even if you leave aside that the United States has never successfully implemented a meritocracy when you look at what
they're actually doing I don't think you can argue their Staffing decisions are based on Merit instead I see a lot of people with what I'll call unorthodox backgrounds disproportionately white disproportionately men appointed at the behest of two billionaires who sell themselves as business Geniuses but in
fact use their father's money to develop an media narrative that they're smarter than they are people don't always know you know for example Elon Musk isn't actually the co-founder of Tesla he won that in a settlement with the actual co-founders um but let's Circle back to this letter the fact that it's Anonymous suggests
that the authors knew how it would be taken but I'm willing to bet that I'll get a follow-up letter from them excoriating me for putting them on blast and swearing that they don't have a racist bone in their bodies they'll probably claim as the current Administration does that they just want things based on Merit a merit that they
happen to Define as offering less of a certain type of Cuisine so let me engage with the premise briefly in the hopes that we might understand each other better Not only would it be incred incredibly illegal for me to deny a license to someone on the basis of the food that they serve it's unmar gratic
our licenses are available regardless of Cuisine and we're excited to have you be a part of this community if you choose to open a business here and as for the complaint that the town is in desperate need some variety I would like to invite the authors of this letter to take a walk through Brookline Village with me
the variety of restaurants that just serving just what I consider to be Asian food is remarkable we got three Sichuan places each with very different concepts two new Thai restaurants again with very different concepts a new Thai bar Japanese Pub and a vegetarian indo-chinese restaurant that also offers
Pizza just in case you're bored but if none of those entice you don't worry we have three other pizza places a family Italian restaurant A Classic Diner a Mexican Street Cuisine Place some coffee shops a very popular sandwich shop a Turkish restaurant an American Fair Pub and an ice cream place for dessert and
again those are just places that I could remember off the top of my head in Brooklyn Village you'll find similar diversity in Washington Square coolage Corner St Mary's and elsewhere if you're in desperate need of some variety maybe you just need to get out more I'll buy you lunch come on down I want to close by reiterating something because this
letter you know upset upset me intolerance even when dressed up in meritocracy or whatever the buzzwords the current Administration wants to use is not acceptable now not everything has to be a big social justice struggle session we're not always going to get everything right we're not going to jump
down the throats of people people who get things wrong but if we can just use our Common Sense values in being welcoming to our neighbors then maybe we'll be able to get through this difficult period so I hope that we can continue to be a welcoming Community regardless of people's backgrounds the
food they eat people they love what they look like Etc so sorry for the big long to but I don't like it when I get Anonymous letters like this so thank you I i' like to sort of connect that to what you read earlier about the uh Brook
line Recreation program I mean that's a example of how when we talk about Equity we're talking about incorporating into our life our Civic life people who in the absence of an equ an equity effort
would just not be allowed to uh participate and what the problem with that is that we lose their brain power we lose their creativity Rel lose everything that they can offer to the community um and and that that is not
meritocracy um if if if we're losing the people who really are capable of providing those um that that brainpower to the community that's not meritocracy and of course as as Chaz said the current Administration clearly is not interested in meritocracy if you look at
uh the selection of people in the cabinet and elsewhere but you know last year uh at the high school there was a graduate um and I forgot her name but she was a uh woman in a wheelchair who was severely severely
handicapped and I posted this on Facebook because it's really moving that despite her disabilities she was brilliant in math remember Stephen Hawkin so you know she you know did well
in math to the high school and and went on to UMass Boston and math that's an example of how uh by by using Equitable principles meaning giving an opportunity um breaking down barriers uh for people
uh that we get we can capture um as something that will be a huge benefit to all of us um you know she may be the next stepen Hawking uh and you know maybe she'll save our planet from the disaster is are
heading towards now but I I think those two things are are connected and people who complain about I that's a silly letter um but that type of complaint sort of misses the point of equity inclusion uh and diversity um so that's
those my two cents any other comments or questions okay public comment uh Tiffany let let us uh or tell us the rules and and let's open up public comment yes Mr chair before I do I just wanted to point
out that we have received a number of um folks who signed signed up in advance for public comment um if you are in the room and wish to make a public comment and did did not sign up in advance um please sign up at the sheet in front of the room um if you're online you'll
raise your hand using the Raisor hand feature and I'll go over that I also wanted to point out that we do have a public hearing on um the ground floor commercial incentives if you were speaking on that item ask that you reserve those comments to that public hearing thank you for joining us for
public comment this is an opportunity for us to hear your perspective on the issues in Brookline that matter to you each person speaking tonight is limited to 3 minutes you don't need to use the entire time but you may if you like once 15 minutes has been met there is an opportunity at the conclusion of the select board's business for additional
comments members of the public sometimes raise questions during public comment we may be able to provide a quick answer to a question but are more likely to work with staff to get a more thorough answer and respond over email we'll let you know when you have 30 seconds remaining and when your time is up please conclude
your remarks at that time if you have more to say you're welcome to send an email to board members expressing your thoughts in Greater detail any person wishing to speak must begin their comment by identifying themselves with their full name and either their Brookline precinct number or street address the first individual who signed
up to speak tonight is Richard Murphy evening uh my name is Richard Murphy I'm town meeting member in precin 16 and um before I say anything I want to thank Chaz um my spouse is Chinese so I
resignate with the uh so thank you um but I'm here to speak in favor of agenda item 3j which is funding for a comprehensive roadway study for safe bike lanes for South brookly to Brookline High School support our
students uh and basically provide safe bike bikeways for them to get from point A South Brookline to Brookline High School in back uh town meeting member Deb Abner and I uh who is Deb is a Lincoln School teacher and I have been
advocating for a safe roadway study uh with our comprehensive plan uh this plan has collaborated with the transportation department and Engineering staff uh State Rep Tommy vello and Bill McGregor uh fellow town meeting members
neighbors and countless meetings with different committees and groups Deb ab and I Deb abor and I would like to thank Amy Engles Transportation administrator and Sam Dows of the engineering uh to bringing this study
forward and with the requested funding um and bringing more awareness to this roadway which travels all the way like from hand cck Village to Brookline High School uh we created the baker bike bus and with this I'd like to thank those supporters those adults that have joined
the students to basically provide protection and safest guidance uh I'd like to be able to thank Amy Engles who joined us one time uh State Rep Tommy vello uh High School teacher Eric curn uh chair of the transportation
board Brian Kane also Transportation member Len hly uh fellow uh town meeting member and advisory member uh Joselyn Murphy and Perry Gman uh and also uh resident Gareth Lawson uh but most of
all I want to thank the students uh and Meer and Audrey uh who are two fantastic Juniors at brookin high school who really show great leadership and really inspire people uh inspired me to basically approach this subject and to
really kind of do something to to provide safe by llies from sou perline to perine high school so thank you for allowing me to speak having a good evening I'm looking for available action on this funding for the uh tool design
company thank you thank you the next speaker is Justin Brown good evening members of the select board uh I am Justin Brown I'm the president of the Brooklyn Educators Union representing over 1200 paraprofessionals teachers and
administrators in the public schools of brickline I rise in support of our members to say that we are tired frustrated and angry at once again as was earlier mentioned uh finding ourselves facing a budgetary
shortfall and the potential loss of positions programs and quality Educators any of the proposed budget uh cuts to the budget including an outrageous effort to generate revenue from a hike in the materials fee program and the efforts to further privatize the
jobs of our Union siblings Who deliver basic needs to our students nourishing food and Clean safe schools will have a disastrous impact on the public schools of Brookline you'll hear a little about that tonight and more in the days to come of what exactly these impacts will
be to be clear we are saying no to any Cuts I also rise to support the proposed budget of $ 49.9 million that the superintendent has presented and you urge you as members of the town's executive body to do the following move
funds from certified free cash and any new stabilization fund deposits instead to the school department to plug the $8.2 million gap our analysis provides reasons why this is possible first in Brookline over the past several years
there's been a steady decline in school spending as a proportion of overall spending and out of line with peer communities second the stabilization fund goal of 10% is out of line with State recommendations of 5 to 7% this
kind of prioritization comes on the backs of our Educators and students additionally Brookline is generating certified free cash that is twice the state recommendation of 3 to 5% the town's pattern of underestimating local receipts to generate a growing amount of
free cash means that there is more money that could be going to the schools that is not third Brook Lin's residential tax rate is the lowest is in the lowest quarter among all municipalities in the state the despite having the second
highest single family home values if Brookline levied its property at the state's rate uh our back of the napkin calculations show that tens of millions of dollars of extra Revenue uh would be generated we know what we're going to hear that onetime money should go to
onetime expenses and that Brooklyn's rainy day fund should not be touched but we're here to tell you that it's raining it's pouring we are continually asked to do more with less and hearing from all corners of our school community that any of the proposed Cuts will have a disastrous impact on our Educators our
students and the schools of Brooklyn let's do right by all of them your time and fund our schools so that all can Thrive thank you the next speaker is Alisa Connor Alisa Connor Spanish teacher Brooklyn high
school for 24 years uh graduate it class of 1990 parent of Brooklin High Jr and homeowner resident and taxpayer let's not forget odino which is a great Venezuelan restaurant in Brooklyn Village so amen and Nandita Raman was my
student so I also celebrate her and to my point the February to that point the February 13th budget cut presentation suggest that making Cuts quote without impacting the overall quality of student services I want to make clear this is impossible
you cannot make these Cuts without affecting the quality of what we do I'm only going to speak to class size we know class size is one of the single most important drivers of student achievement my classes are 25 and above typically uh these days and this year
this is significantly increased from 10 years 15 and 20 years ago that means I'm less able to provide one-on-one support less able to offer timely and actionable feedback less able to adapt curriculum in response to the needs of my students including Nandita who required a lot of
one-on-one adaptation raising my class sizes even more means setting me up for more failure and my students up for Less success these Cuts mean we are in danger of losing the brain power and creativity that we value with the diversity of our community Nandita required a one-on-one
Pera in order to thrive if we cut Paras we prevent the thriving of our current and future nandas failing to hire and maintain the staff our students actually need to support them equals failing our students we get what we pay for and we don't get what we don't pay for I'm so
glad that we attend to our bond rating and our rainy day funds and also funding our schools is an investment in the short and long-term thriving of our community keeps my property values High serves as a vital foundation for our thriving so we have Solutions as uh
Justin alluded to release certified free cash funds that we have to fully on the schools commit to regular overrides with vigorous support from town leaders so that we don't keep failing to invest and have this Gap year after year looking at how property taxes my property taxes
might more accurately reflect the actual resources of our town so we can all pay our fair share I know it's complicated but the average for of our property ta residential property taxes includes some uber wealthy properties and 30 seconds
overall uh we pay less than many other communities last Point let us reframe our this full funding not as some kind of costly sinkhole but as an or and regrettable but as an investment with a high rate of return I want more efficiency transparency and accountability these budget cuts don't
get us there if we choose not to fully invest in our school system we're choosing a decline in the quality of Education in Brookline for which families moved here and we're choosing to hurt our students thank you thank you the next speaker is
Kristen wheeler everybody my name is Kristen wheeler and I'm A literacy specialist at F frr this meeting is way more interesting than I thought it was going to be um and I love the idea of the bike path because I actually am a bike commuter and I live
in Rosendale and I would love to have um safe roots to school so I'm in support of that for sure so I'm following um Justin and Alisa with a similar request I'm I'm up here to request funding for the schools and I
think everybody probably saw the um the latest school committee bulletin I know that several of us were watching the meeting last week when they suggested a number of cuts which of course is heartbreaking to all of us I'm I'm really standing up here to talk about I could talk at length about so many of
them but I really want to talk about one um summer program kindergarten through fifth graders it's called project Discovery and this is one of the proposals to be cut and I've been involved with this program for many years I was the director of it and I
also have taught in it so um what I want to read one of the literacy Specialists from Baker submitted a letter to town Administration um really begging them to continue funding for it so I paraphrased
from the letter and and I hope you hear the words and um they have some meaning to you so last summer this program served around 2020 students it has been an effective if not lifechanging experience for many students and families in
Brooklyn project Discovery is a bridge that tethers students and families to the reading experience without pause it's a Lifeline that ensures that not not only do students not lose ground in reading and writing over the summer but that they have successful reading
experiences that give them confidence for the coming year it really provides a huge support system for families um it offers not just academic hope but also practical solutions to navigate the complexities of Summer schedules a lot
of kids that aren't in the summer program are going to be at home on screens not involved in the enriching activities that um is provided for them so even though it it's a summer program
it really is an integral part of our district reading program because it ensures um it prevents reading and writing loss over the summer 30 seconds okay last thing I'm going to say I have some words from Brooklyn teachers
about the program and what it's meant for them and for their students so Katie stole is a literacy specialist from Lincoln she said the rising first graders I work with at project discovery not only maintain skills but gain skills during the program giving them a
stronger start to their first grade year Janette Sergeant uh guidance counselor at Baker says this program helps a lot of underresourced families thank you that concludes your time who do not have the funds to pay for private academic tutoring Etc thank you for listening thank you the next speaker is John
Ferguson good evening members of the select board I'm John Ferguson uh I am an instrumental music teacher in Brookline um I work at all the elementary schools I am here to ask you to fully fund the $149.97 budget presented by the
superintendent the alternative as you've been hearing and as you know is to make cuts to our programs that will be disastrous for student learning and I am just here to give you a perspective on one of the proposed cuts which is the suggestion to completely eliminate our instrumental music program also known as
Conservatory this uh the instrumental music program has existed in its current current form since about 1990 um every fourth grader learns to play an instrument which is chosen from nine different um options in fifth grade
they can continue this instrument in an ensemble like band and Orchestra where they can join chorus when they get to Middle School there's several other choices including guitar um music production they have at a number of options including instrumental ensembles and coral ensembles I've been teaching in the
program for 18 years I'm teaching string instruments and Orchestra I've seen firsthand the powerful effect that learning to play an instrument has for these kids this includes the excitement of seeing a fourth grader hold an instrument for the
first time and learning how to take care of it learning how to hold it correctly it includes the discipline that it takes for students to learn to practice at home um the teamwork of playing in an ensemble and the social interaction that goes with that the creativity of
improvising or composing one's own music the historical context of learning to perform music from other eras and cultures and the pride of presenting a concert performance for one's friends families and teachers in public I can give you one very uh timely
and comprehensive example we have a concert coming up on March 12th this is a concert at Brooklyn High School all three of the high school orchestras whose members were all trained in Elementary School uh our elementary orchestras are sort of a feeder for the high school ensembles uh the three High
School orchestras are performing together with the elementary orchestras um that's about 200 students in total one of the pieces we're performing is an original composition that was uh written by a young man that first started composing music in my
class at Pierce um when he was in Middle School and now he's a composition major at Overland college and I think it'll be great for everyone to see all of this these people working together and um I invite you to come to the concert it's going to be great music is an important
part of society and therefore learning to play an instrument is a crucial part of any thoughtful well-rounded curriculum the benefits for students are irrefutable we cannot allow this opportunity to be taken from them under any circumstances thank
you thank you that concludes the time allotted for public comment at the beginning of the meeting there will be an opportunity for additional public comment at the end of the meeting can I just jump in real sure so um just in response we had a lot of Educators speak here I wanted to say a couple of things
first um thank you for the work that you do um this is a community that values its schools and the schools are only as good as the people who work in them um so thank you I know this has been a very tough half decade really for educators not just here but in Massachusetts more
broadly the pandemic the various fraying of social bonds Etc so I don't take your decision to come and speak here lightly I take it very seriously and I appreciate the work that you do and I know the select board and everyone in the community does as well in the board has said and I think we'll repeat here
tonight everyone's goal here on the school committee on staff is to work together and keep our schools strong and to that end I want to encourage everyone invested in this interested in this Union staff non-unionized staff parents
to work collaboratively to be a part of the solution I mean I'm glad to see that there's already some positive motion taking place last year when we were in a similar situation with smaller shortfalls the Statewide mta's Focus was on you know other priorities it was on abolishing mcast advocating for the right to strike this year you go on
their website their first Statewide legislative priority is funding for all schools that's a positive step and that's an area where we can be in Partnership um with you the MTA at the state level um to Advocate at the state level for changes that need to happen
but how we got here locally is likely a function of more than one thing I'm guessing that upcoming analysis that we're going to discuss is going to reveal both the Statewide issues that we're aware of and local issues that we're unaware of and once we have that in hand that's the road map that we're going to need to work collaboratively to
solve these problems in the long term with that said I don't want to argue this point uh I don't want to argue the nuts and B of Municipal Finance this year so I would really hope that we have a conversation that's on a different level than the one that took place at
town meeting last year town is hiding revenues town is saving too much money because of its Bond rating you're going to hear as part of the presentation that's coming up that our free cash num is well within the state's most recent guidelines in January the state updated them it's between five and 7% of last
year's net revenues of the prior Year's Revenue our free cash this year is 5.8% so we're exactly where the state wants us to be uh our reserves are more than just the liability fund and the catastrophe fund and we've been told by the people who could make our lives
miserable you know the bond rating agencies um that we need to be better at that we need to have reserves across all of our funds at a high enough level to withstand you know you know seismic shocks I understand where you're saying is that this is a seismic shock it's a
seismic shock that if we keep spending reserves for we're not going to be able to meet on a year in year out basis and then our r is going to go down and the cost of borrowing money is going to go up and the cuts that you're going to see as a result of that are going to be much much worse than anything that's on the
table right now and these for the record I think everyone is committed to trying to avoid the cuts that have been proposed that are on the table right now wherever possible so that's the work that we're committing to here uh and that's the work that I hope you'll work in partnership with us over and I heard this argument last year we spend less
than other communities on the schools and again my response last year is the same that's not accurate if you look at where the money comes from and how we spend our money we have this thing called The Town School split that I'm going to explain when we go through the the process it's complex but the long and
the short of it is there are a lot of shared expenses that don't get taken into consideration when you we report the per pupil spending to the state so it looks like oh yeah Brook line spends X and these other communities spend Y in reality there are things that are spent that we actually that are spent on the
town side of the budget for the school or are spent at the Shared level like healthare costs that don't always get factored in so I understand that when you look at it on paper you say ah that doesn't look right because it's not right um so I don't want us to go into this thinking there's a silver bullet
and the Silver Bullet is onetime funds I want us to work collaboratively together to advocate for Solutions here so my hope in these coming months because it's a process right these cuts the cuts that are proposed are not the cuts that are necessarily going to be made um my hope
is to get that number down to understand where it's coming from and why so that it doesn't happen again and to ensure that both on the town side and the school side there are fiscal controls in place that people can feel confident when they pay their taxes that the money is being well spent um so all of that is
to say this is the beginning of a process I appreciate very much the concerns that you're raising um I want us to work collaboratively and more helpfully to try and address them together so rather than having having the sort of talking past each other you got the money no you don't you got the
money no you don't let's just drop that and let's work together to get to the solution so that's my hope as we go through this I welcome any input from Union leadership um from anyone who is interested in having these conversations let's make this a better let's make this
a collaborative effort and a better process than as opposed to you know talking at each other so thank you okay thank you let's move on to our miscellaneous calendar and the first item is uh approval of minutes for this
uh for um February 5th and February 11th of this year any corrections to those minutes okay then I'm Mo approval of the minuts for February 5th 2025 and February 11th 2025 all in favor please
indicate by saying I John vanak I Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi David Perman hi and Sher votes I next I'd like to vote items 3B through 3 u in Omnibus fashion but we have some
items that board members uh would like to have additional uh discussion and information on uh so we will pull out items 3D and 3 p uh for additional discussion before the vote and are there any other items that uh board members
want to pull up okay seeing none uh my reason for pulling out um item 3C is that uh Deputy superintendent for operations Tiffany Oliva uh is seeking
authorization to hire a new licensing specialist but before anyone panics the great Tiffany Souza is leaving her position here in the select board's office but not leaving the town of Brooklyn uh Tiffany will be taking a
POS taking a position with the fire department I just want to say that we all appreciate the hard and effective work that Tiffany has done for years here in the uh select board's office and wish her all the best in a new position with the fire department and hope she
comes back to visit us every once a while I've already told her that but I want to let everyone know that that's uh that's my feeling any rate um with respect to item three I think it's Q Grant of location with respect to kill
um as you have information on that um sorry 3Q is the the agreements we the roads oh that's eversource and we do have a representative from eversource and also Dan Murphy on the line right so I just I wanted to say more broadly
right there are some significant there's some significant work that's being done on eversource both on Beacon Street and um near the golf course um that I just want people to be aware of that we have reviewed this work it is vital work but one of the things that I think the
community was concerned about particularly on Beacon Street was that that street has recently been done and repaved and once again we're in a situation where utilities are coming in and needing to do work uh and opening up the road again um we've received a commitment from ever source that the
repairs that will be done here are not a patch job that will actually be repairs of the road um we are also committed to making sure that the disruption to these areas is as minimal as possible and that the maximum notice is provided to Residents so that these don't come out of these these don't come out of nowhere
um and are uh moved along as quickly and efficiently as possible so if members of the board have questions or concerns but I do just want to add that note that as part of the discussion with eversource we made clear that what needs to happen here is the work the road needs to be put back in the same shape that it was
or better um and that in the future there needs to be stronger collaboration between DPW and eversource the responses that we got I think actually heartening the team at DPW and eversource both said that the that the collaboration between
the two in terms of the shared calendar is much stronger than it was before and these events should hopefully be a much more limited thing to the extent they occur at all so great thank you any further discussion uh David I actually you initially mentioned 3D uh but I do
have a question about 3D okay uh so that's for the librarian 2 position so I noticed that is for the putterham library but then the job description is about the coolage corner library now my assumption is that's because this is to
create a similar position and so the job description coolage corner is the most accurate uh fit for that is that why that's in there that's correct yeah okay sorry for the discrepancy there but yes that's right okay thank you that okay uh so I'd like to move
approval in omous fashion of items 3B through 3 U uh all in favor please indicate by saying I John Van skak I Michael Sandman I Paul Warren I David prman I chair votes I okay uh let's move on to our main
calendar and first item me see what it's called question of approving the town administrator's recommendation for the director of the Council on Aging uh I'd like to just start off by saying I assume the select board is wise enough to approve the town administrator's
recommendation of Emily Williams to be the director of the Council on Aging uh John is the select boards lays on to the Council on Aging and can better tell us about the role that the director plays but from my standpoint uh Emily Will Williams is an excellent person to take
the Reigns after the 40 years that Ruth and dobeck has been at the helm we were a little concerned a lot of people were a little concerned about our ability our ability to find someone who could possibly fill Ruth an's uh huge
shoes well maybe that's the wrong metaphor he use to take the place of Ruth and on OBC at the helm um she has been such a hardworking effective and beloved director of the Council on Aging
uh so it's it's G to it's going to be hard for anyone to to uh replace her but I think that Emily Williams can fill those shoes and become as effective as Ruth and dobeck Maybe not immediately but very quickly um over the next uh
period of time I'm particularly interested in the perspective she can bring to the position with her background in gerontology which studies and addresses the many and diverse Pro diverse problems not you know the obvious ones of aging and it's committed to improving
the lives of people as they age by addressing you know the biological the psychological the sociological the economic the political and other factors that can impede um people's uh lives or impede impede improvements in people's
lives so I'm pretty excited about you know what we have um uh we can look forward to in the future at the council and aging um and of course we all thank Ruth and Doc for the incredible job that she has done all these
years so any uh any other thoughts I'm sorry about you're a l on but you know no you mentioned my that and I appreciate that and but but you said it so well I I you know I I don't have all that much to add um the meeting where
Emily was approved um was was a very very satisfactory meeting because I I had the feeling that um it the that the sentiment was shared universally in in the room and and among the people participating remotely um we found the
right person and to be the right person to succeed uh Ruth and Doc is saying a lot um ruthan is an innovator she was an advocate but is I mean she's still helping us through this period um a and
she is an excellent manager team leader um Seeker out and cultivator of talent um and uh she she has served the town so ably for so many years um that it's just reassuring to know that there are people
like Emily who can come along and step up to the challenge of being ruthanne's successor but uh looking forward to working with Emily and looking forward to hearing from Ruth Anne um on her next adventure great well yeah I do want to
say one thing so um I agree with all the sentiments um and I'm I'm excited that we uh were filling the position um but just to speak to uh how much knowledge exists with Ruth Anne and the important
uh factor that we have a transition plan with her she's she's being retained I don't know how for how long I hope it's it's it's flexible because La I'll tell you a quick story so last night we held our first cdbg uh block Community Development
block grant uh committee meeting where we allocate the funds and we we listen to various presentations and ruthanne was there um representing the council on Aging the trips program and the trips program uh which provides transportation
for for aging adults and all kind it's it's a very complex program but it's very important and it's growing I think there's now 12,000 they're doing 12,000 rides a month or I forget how many there are but there's a lot but Ruth an's ability to Rattle off all the funding
sources um how it's cobbled together the timing of those sources when you need to ask how they overlap which ones are ending which ones have to be augmented um that comes from Decades of doing it um and um I just uh
I want to thank her for her her knowledge in this area and I do hope that as the transition continues that um that ruthanne if she is available to assist from time to time to transfer knowledge I think that's really an important an important aspect of uh of
uh our next director's success because there's a a lot of knowledge there and how uh funding is identified uh the relationships that exist that get funding um and how to put it all together it's not easily learned over a
long period of time thank you so um Emily is with us uh online um I want to one give her the opportunity to introduce herself um um you can see my memo in the packet so I don't want to you just repeat it but again to everyone's Point um we're very fortunate
um to have uh as the final as the finalist candidate her recommend her nomination was uh approved unanimously by all present members of the Council on Aging last week um she currently serves as the executive director of the town of Bridgewaters Department of Elder Affairs she has a 20-year career in this field
she holds a master of science and gerontology from UMass Boston Bachelor of Science and health administration from the University of North Florida um you could see her resumé um in the packet as well um really just grateful for um and excited to welcome her aboard
with your approval I do want to thank briefly in addition to ruthanne obviously as all the select board members have said um the hiring panel that um provided me with um advice and guidance as we reached as I reached this decision to submit a candidate to the select board um that panel was comprised
of uh dick Bena who's a member of the Brookline committee on Town organ organization and structure and a former member of the select board Susan granof who chair of the advisory committee subcommittee that hand Les the budget for uh the Council on Aging Berard green chair of the select board um Patricia
mayor uh who's a nurse practitioner and co-president of Brooklyn friends of Public Health Betsy Pollock who's a uh social worker and is president of the senior center board of directors as well as a member of the Senior Center Foundation Yolanda Rodriguez who's chair of the Council on Aging and Ruth sibin
who's the co-chair of Brooklyn can um it's a lot of work for those folks to go through many different résumés make recommendations um know knowing that the process is advisory knowing that it's a volun on a volunteer basis I'm really grateful for their work on this so thank
you and thank you to Emily I want to give her a chance to unmute sorry that we we continue to go go on here and just say hello to the board and introduce yourself if you're willing I have a slight delay um can you
hear me yes okay I'm apparently having audio problems I just have a new laptop and um it's not normal for me to have technology issues because it's something I'm very well first and I just wanted to to to thank Chaz and every single individual who interviewed me and and
gave me direction and ruthanne for providing guidance um over the past month plus um I've been a colleague of hers for for many many years and learned a lot and I hope to um be a fantastic successor to her and continue to bring
Brooklyn uh older adults caregivers and the the field of Social Work in particular um a great future in the town so thank you thank you so um unless you have anything else to say I Mo of approval of the Town
administrator's recommendation uh to appoint uh Emily Williams to be the new uh director of the Council on Aging all in favor please indicate by saying I John V kak I um Mike Sandman I Paul Warren I David Perman I and shair votes
I thank you and welcome aboard congratulations welcome aboard em thank you congrats okay next uh boards and commissions appointments uh and uh let's see we have two appointments one to the
transportation board and the other to uh what's the other one Cliff Brown to the okayish yeah um so I'd like to start off by saying um with respect to the transportation board
we have three candidates for one opening uh and I am going to go around the table and ask each select board member who they want to seel who they want to appoint and we'll see what the outcome is uh but first some thoughts I have about boards and commissions generally
and I propose that we communicate these ideas to all applicants before their interviews uh but I want to just make some points right now along those lines in voting you should consider the mission of the board or commission uh
that uh you know we are interviewing candidates for transportation board was established by state legislation and is responsible for the administration of all matters related to parking and transportation within the town this includes its special role in connection
with the Washington Street project that project illustrates the importance of Transportation boards board members having as among their most important qualifications the ability and willingness to work closely with other members of the of the transportation
board to address very complex problems they must also be committed to complying with select boards uh boards commissions procedures that we adopted in October of 2023 among other thing that procedure
requires that individual members of boards and commissions uh be careful not to reach out to staff in their individual capacity as a member of a board or commission but work with the chair on any issues that involve staff
interaction and of course we ask all people not just boards and commission members but everyone uh interacting with staff Administration or the or each other to act in accordance with uh the code of conduct for
employees and boards and commissions um you know I don't expect this to be an issue with with respect to the transportation board but I want to start the pro start the uh process of of making those points before we uh interview people for boards uh just so
we're absolutely clear what we're expecting uh of not just the boards but also the individual members at the same time members must be willing to listen to the many and Brooklyn we have many many special
interest groups trying to impose their positions on the decisions of a Bard or commission while not being pushed into making decisions based solely on the decibel level of the proponents in other words
listen but you know listen critically and carefully from the standpoint of the mission of of the board of commission that you're on so before we vote uh do any other members uh have have any comments or thoughts or criticisms of
what I said no yeah that was I I think that was all very appropriate I think would it's important to emphasize that um I think on virtually every boarding commission certainly on the transportation board we have um the
advantage of having some very good staff members uh and while while boards and commissions are free to listen to a recommendation and decide to go in a different direction um it's really important that they listen respectfully
and uh and have a a a a forthright discussion back and forth with staff members so that the staff members have a chance to make their point and can feel like they're um they heard and I think my experience as former chair of the transportation board
was that most of the time the vast majority time we followed staff recommendations um and when we didn't we you know we had a healthy discussion with the staff uh as to why we had we're going in a different direction so uh
working with staff is a really important part of any of these jobs in particularly this one okay uh so what we're going to do is just go around the board and uh take a poll of who you'd like to appoint to the um transportation
board anyone have a problem with that seems simple as as be sure okay um that means that John you're first uh my choice for for this position is Richard Murphy and um I say that uh
while also indicating um as strongly as I possibly can that um the three people who applied for this were extraordinarily qualified and uh I hope maybe um if not this time around um we'll see um we might see them again
Richard Murphy okay Mike uh Gareth Lawson um Paul Richard Murphy David Richard Murphy um not because I see which way the wind's blowing but I vote Richard Murphy also
okay so and I see that Richard's in the in the room here so congratulations um yes Paul I would like I um I should have taken the opportunity when you were talking about boards and commissions and just the general nature of the work and and to collaborate and I
I want to follow on Mike's comment about working with staff um I think it's it's so imperative that boards and commissions see themselves in partnership with staff um because much
of the work that they do depending on the board and commission they need the support of staff and the board in order to accomplish what they want to accomplish now sometimes there's decisions that are in the moment and you're making a very specific decision but sometimes you're looking at longer
term planning that could affect uh bylaws or it could affect the CIP it could affect funding um and these things are best done in consultation and collaboration with staff um I think it's the proper way to do it um in my uh my
work with a couple of different boards participating perfectly and directly I can see sometimes that um there's nothing wrong with a healthy um debate or or tension uh let's call it creative tension But ultimately we need
boards and commissions to collaborate with staff for good outcomes for the town so um I'm hoping that that will continue as we go forward okay um we voted right well I think we
informally voted we went around with a straw pole but I yeah if you want make it official uh so I'm Mo approval of Richard Murphy as a point the to the transportation Bo board all in favor please indicate by saying I John Van
Michael smon i u Paul Warren I David prman I be votes I okay we've already congratulated you so we don't have to do that you have a cliff yep nexton what about
our there was another name that came up so we we we didn't get that in time unfortunately on the agenda but we will have a on on the fifth there will be a final member of the Comm stud exped yeah no that's right we we can announce it right yeah you recommend your recommendation you can yeah you can't
votee on it um okay um okay next uh question of appointing Cliff Brown to the expenditures and revenue study committee as the advisory committee alternate member replacing the seat currently held by Dennis Dy who's the primary member of the so if
he's the alternate who's the primary for he's there y okay Mr doet thank you Mr do um so all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak hi Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren hi David Perman hi sh
votes I and I want to also announce that um as the charge indicates it's John vanak and I who will select or are selecting the members of the uh expenditure and revenue committee and uh we got three applications for that for
the final position at on the committee um and we decided to choose a Woman by the name of um sadf camsey uh who is quite an accomplished um uh resident uh who has
been involved in town Affairs at a very local level uh and is willing to step forward for you know this uh more townwide um uh responsibility uh she is a um engineer she is a lawyer she's an
she is an MBA and a lot of uh business experience which I won't go into great detail on because I don't remember all of it um but uh so you know we we've selected her uh and we'll officially appoint her uh at next at the next
meeting I did ask her to uh zoom in for this meeting and I don't know that she has but uh she may be um participating uh uh this evening so okay any questions on that OB this is
subject to the vote right which at your next meeting that will be on the agenda yeah okay next ground floor ground floor Comm excuse me ground floor I had that right commercial incentive this is a public hearing question of ratifying the
ground floor commercial incentive standards and guidelines for mixed use districts outside of Harvard Street so I see approaching the board is Sandy silk Sandy silk on behalf of the economic development Advisory Board um just here
to answer any questions you might have we don't really have a formal presentation tonight but I just wanted to make you aware that I was available and Maria marelli I believe might be online yeah we had a thorough discussion of this earlier um I'm sure people remember that discussion any questions
that uh board members have none here for me okay well it is a public hearing yeah I know you do I know it's your job just wanted to wait to see if anyone on the cboard uh this is a public hearing
let's open up the public hearing uh Tiffany um yes there was uh no one who signed up in advance of the meeting if there's anyone in the room who wishes to speak on this item please um make your presence known and if there's anyone
online please raise your hand using the raise the hand feature at this time there are eight participants in the room and 30 online and no one is indicating their desire to speak on this item okay we'll close the hearing and proceed to a vote uh I'm Mo approval of
the um uh ground floor commercial incentive standards and guidelines for mixed use districts outside of Harvard Street that we previously discussed all in favor please indicate by saying I John Van skak hi Michael Sandman hi Paul Warren
hi David prman hi sherff vot ey thank you okay now the main event right uh Mr chair this item is slated for 7 o'clock and we've noticed that for all three meetings let's take a break oh my God
can you believe we're ahead of schedule I that will not persist no is there anything that we can take up uh out of order yeah see the reappointments yeah yeah let's
let's do do those boards and commission reappointments um question of reappointing the following individuals to various boards and commissions Brook line commission for women Elizabeth Z Stillman as chair and um prashanta
Krishna panti Krishna uh as a member uh any questions or anything good all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak hi Michael samon hi Paul Warren hi David Perman hi there votes I next Community preservation act
committee Susan C Cohen uh representing or being appointed because of her position on the Brookline Housing Authority uh all in favor any questions or all in favor please indicate by saying I John vanak hi Michael samon hi
PA Warren hi David pran I and chair votes I okay so why don't we take a can we do nine right can we do the m w um l okay Lincoln is not online yet and I'm wondering if we can accomplish that in
10 to 15 minutes yeah there may be some discussion yeah okay let's take a break okay we'll break for 10 minutes be back a couple minutes before 7 and um up for
our hearing excellent e e e e [Music]
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2 1 [Music] advisor committee's primary F primary function is to review and make recommendations on the budget and present the annual appropriation warrant article with the proposed operating and
capital budgets for the coming fiscal year to town meeting our role as a select board under the bylaw 3.1.2 is to exercise General supervision over all matters affecting the general and financial interest and Welfare of the
town so we have a more General role than the advisory committee but still important so don't think otherwise thus the select board like the advisory committee will have will hold hearings on the financial plan to understand and to make sure that in our
case our goals and OB objectives are generally reflected uh in that plan the presentation of the financial plan is one moment in the process of developing the fiscal year 2026 budget that process began with the development of the select
board's goals and objectives at our June 18 Workshop those goals and objectives were further developed over the summer and at our fall workshop on September 17 and those go goals and objectives were then available to town departments
to use as they prepared their budget request to the Town Administrator at our December 10 Workshop we received a presentation by Deputy Town Administrator MSA goof and finance director Lincoln haniman on the financial uh
forecast based on the select board's goals and objectives the budget requests of town departments and the long range Financial forecast the town administer prepared the financial plan which some of you have in front of you this B document which I'm sure everyone has already
read um and the select board and the admin and the advisory committee um are beginning our reviews and this joint meeting is sort of the beginning of of that process uh we've asked members of our newly formed expenditure and revenue committee to attend to get a head start
start on their deliberations um let's see um Mr do as representing the advisory committee do you want to add anything or make any comment oh sorry we we have a we have a microphone here today this year so we will pass that around so folks can just
say thank you and good evening okay thank you okay so with that tell us what's in this book sorry um Mr Carrie before we begin for folks participating online you have been promoted but I ask that you please not
um touch any of the settings on the meeting um unless to unmute or share your video video when it's appropriate for questions um just for a seamless meeting here thank you all right um good evening everyone uh I'm Chaz KY I'm the Town
Administrator here in Brookline um thank you to the select board the chair and all its members thank you to the advisory committee it's leadership and all the members here and the newly formed expenditures and revenues study committee for the uh work we're all about to embark on together both on this
year's budget um and in the uh coming months to address some of the more structural questions that arise both out of this budget and issues surrounding it um so this is an opportunity for us to present to you but also to the community
more broadly what our initial snapshot of fiscal year 26 is going to look like fiscal year 26 begins on July 1st of 2025 and ends on June 30th of 2026 six um this plan encompasses um all of the
town's Revenue projected revenues and expenditures including those that come out of Enterprise funds which we will discuss in a little bit um but just by virtue of the fact that this is a town focused presentation and because the school committee is a separate entity we
do not get into much detail in this presentation about what the line items for the school committee are what the obligations there are under Massachusetts law the school committee is a separately elected body they appoint a superintendent to oversees day-to-day operations the only role that
town meeting who sets the fiscal budget has in the operations of the school department is to set the Topline number what is the total amount of Revenue that is appropriated to the school committee and we cannot Place conditions on that appropriation so discussion about what
the money how the money is spent on the school Side Of The Ledger is uh with certain exceptions that are shared expenses or expenses that the town Bears on the school's behalf um not the subject of this presentation we will however discuss those shared expenses uh
and the revenue split more generally how the town allocates the money that it brings in between the town between the schools and all other Town departments um before I delve into this I want give some thanks um to the team that you see on the slide here Melissa gof Deputy
Town Administrator um Charlie young our assist assistant T administrator for finance Tyler balile our budget analyst and Grant administrator and Nicole Lima our assistant Grant administrator all of whom worked many late nights getting this together um and continue to work now um as as this process begins this is
really the um the end of the beginning um for the budget process um and now we move into the middle phase which is the hearings the discussions the hashing out uh of the appropriation details before presenting it to town meeting in May um
so I want to thank all of them for the hard work there I also want to thank lincol heinan our finance director uh and the whole team at the finance department um this is this has been a really arduous time more generally in local government um and the whole Finance team has really moved Heaven and
Earth to make this town run smoothly so much of what you don't see um is because the finance department is doing a good job keeping the wheels spinning so I really want to thank them for keeping all the many plates in the air uh it is critical um and if they're doing their jobs well unfortunately the reward for
that is you don't see what they're doing so um I just want to thank the entire finance department for all their hard work on that so here's the budget overview we are now in year three of a proposed three-year override cycle you may recall that the
town passed an operating override of almost $12 million um in uh 2023 May of 2023 um that allocated roughly 6040 between the schools and the town to cover
certain operating expenses um since then um budgetary pressure remains our expenses continue to grow at a higher level than our revenues the drivers of that on the town side remain inflation it is decreasing but it is not reversing
our utility costs are also thankfully decreasing in some areas but increasing in others we are at the end of our Sanitation contracts life cycle the 5year sanitation contract that had to negotiate a new one that contract did move several services that had been
handled inhouse over to uh contracted Services um which is expensive it's we when we did the numbers it was roughly equivalent uh to do that versus maintain Services inous um but we ultimately recommended to the select board based on
some of the factors including Staffing concerns um that at the end of the day moving those uh Services over to the um uh over to the contracted side of operations was necessary uh and the select board approved that contract um
collective bargaining remains a pressure on the town side we currently have one major settled contract with the police department um that obviously is uh good to have a settled contract um it does create pressures on the budget uh that contract was large it was for a four-year cycle for fouryear plan puts
the police on cycle with everyone else uh all the other unions in town um and the benefit that the town received from it in being able to exit civil service was significant um We are continuing to recruit uh lateral members at a very high rate which is exciting and good
news um but it is expensive to fund that contract and it is also expensive to fund that contract when overtime continues to be an issue um across the public safety departments uh I think there are different reasons for that in police and fire but the hope of this contract was that in reaching near full
employment we would see overtime numbers go down we have not yet seen that happen and that is a pressure on the budget um so between collective bargaining that has not yet been settled uh and we will have retroactive or ongoing impact particularly in the cases of our
negotiations with asme who represent a number of different working groups uh labor groups in uh the town operations and the fire the firefighters Union um those remain potential uh budgetary pressures above and beyond uh our Revenue capacity to deal with the
allocation between the town and schools is set by something called The Town School partnership that has existed since the mid 90s um was really decided upon in the long aftermath of proposition two and a half which in Massachusetts capped the amount of
growth uh from property taxes that municipality could impose absent going to the voters for an override um in the mid 90s the town and schools um because of the fight over resources came to an agreement in which they would say we we will take certain expenses together we
will share certain expenses we will pay for certain expenses in a way manner that's called above the line that is to say when the revenue comes in we spend it on those joint expenses and then all remaining revenue is allocated according to a set formula initially that formula
was 50/50 nowadays it is just below 6040 um and with some of the override funding depending on the year it occasionally goes above 60 so we say it's approximately a 6040 split the schools received 60% of all remaining revenue and all the Departments receive 40% of
that remaining Revenue the FY 26 financial plan continues that split process including allocating the override funds that were designated to those various departments appropriately um with that said um the school department presented a budget uh an
initial budget picture a couple weeks back um that projected a shortfall of $8.2 million um I want to emphasize that that number is not a um level funded budget right that is a that
is a number that includes expansion requests items that were uh you know programming recommended for continuation or expansion uh priorities of the school board uh the school committee uh and so forth um so it is a fully loaded number
uh that is to say if everything that was asked for was agreed to that would be how much their increase would be and so I've seen some people ask where did the money go the money didn't necessarily go anywhere um it is a projection of costs
for next year that outstrips the amount of Revenue that is available for it so I expect that number will go down um because the school committee will need to make choices about what potential expansion requests or additional things that they might want to fund in deal
situation that they don't want to fund in this situation uh again the town wants to be collaborative and work with them provide guidance wherever they seek it um it is the decision of the school committee to determine how to bring their budget into alignment with the revenue uh that we have available on the
town side the shortfall is currently projected to be smaller it's $560,000 uh 565 yes $560,000 um that on the other hand is expected to increase um again we are looking at the
overtime numbers not coming down even though staffing has increased we are looking at the potential costs of any collective bargaining agreements that we enter into that are over and above what was budgeted for the cost of living adjustments for these years um and we also have to be mindful that at the end
of the day we must balance our budgets it's not just that the school department is projecting this $8.2 million shortfall from their fully loaded budget it's that they currently are experiencing ing projected short call fall in fy2 and if they are unable to close that we will need to find a way to
close it for them because the other alternative is well there is no other alternative we must balance our budget with certain exceptions that are really not relevant here municipalities Massachusetts cannot deficit spend so we
cannot miss in the wrong direction um when people talk about projecting revenues projecting revenues in a in a more aggressive manner the state actually says in its guidance you should project your revenues as conservatively as you possibly can because you cannot afford to be wrong um and if you are
wrong the state will not be there to save you the state will punish you um so we need to be cognizant of that when we build out our Revenue projections um they are based um on the uh wherever possible what it is that we think we can
reasonably say within a conservative framework but even within that conservative framework this year we have put push the envelope as best we can to bring revenues to the point where we can provide what relief we can on both the town and the school side so um to do
that some of the things that we've done on the town side are going to require you know longer term discussions longer term reckonings um for example the American Rescue plan act which provided the town with $44 million uh 10 of which a little over 10 of which came from the
county the rest was allocated directly to the town during during the pandemic um all of that was required to be obligated to specific goals and objectives by the end of last calendar year it has been um we were very grateful um to Tyler and Nicole again
who were our arpa leaders on this um over a 100 projects including many Community projects large and small were funded by arpa um you know uh our our our arpa model was viewed as exemplary by other communities and the fact that
it really did require and thrive on community participation um it funded temporary school shortfalls it also funded things like public art it funded things like a the welcome to Brookline program um at the office of diversity equity and Community uh inclusion and
community relations which is designed to make it easier for people of all backgrounds to move and get their footing under them in Brookline um so projects large and small were funded through arpa um and it was really a boon to the community but it was a one-time Boon and now are facing the potential of
a cliff um on the town side we have been very mindful of this Cliff we have not where with wherever possible put recurring expenses into arpa lines this year in order to Ridge the gap for some of these shortfalls we have funded items
that we otherwise would have funded this year through the operating budget through arpa those are discret cap recurring Capital expenditures and you'll see in the cuts list that what those are are is things like vehicles that have a regular replacement schedule so they're not a one-time expenditure
they're a recurring capital expenditure this year we are funding them with one-time funds the obvious concern there is that if that money is not there next year we're not going to be able to fund that um and we will not be able to maintain that schedule some of the moves
off of arpa were deferred uh there movement off of the Community Development block grant was deferred um and so all of these items May ultimately wind up being future Cuts if we are unavail if we are unable um to make the
uh budget balance as necessary in FY 27 but given the over the broader discussion that the expenditures and revenue study committee is going to have about the the structural deficit and what potentially may be on the ballot uh for FY 27 whether that's another
override or not um we wanted to be able to bridge that this year and have that disc as part of the expenditures and revenue study committee's efforts so um that is where we are um with that money um I will say there is a uncertainty
over Federal funding um that is serious uh for both town and schools I will say that on the town side it is less existential than on the school side we were very proactive in this regard we are one of the municipality one of the only municipalities I'm aware of to take
seriously the possibility that this Administration would would win the election in November um and we prepared for that eventuality we came up with lists of funding sources that might be impacted we analyzed those we figured out where the risks were what they would
be tied to what asks would be made of us uh and where we would be um asked to compromise the community's principles uh and what we could what we would then be able to say and saying we're not going to compromise the community's principles if you're holding this money over us
exposure on the federal fund side for the town is roughly $3 million um the large portion of that comes from the Community Development block grant that's also the primary source of funding for staff in the planning sorry for a staff line in the planning department that would potentially be impacted in the
event that all federal funding was cut off to us as of right now we have not been cut off from Community Development block grant funds and we have received no indication that we will be um however anything is possible um so we are taking that threat very seriously in all other
instances what we're looking at is what can we do without um so some of the things that this that this money funds we will simply try and do without or or uh manage accordingly um it's not going to be easy it is a lot of money um but our priority is preserving operations
and preserving staff um so fortunately not many of our Lin not many of our lines would be impacted by a federal funding cut but certainly our projects our goals our grants gr money or long-term objectives that are funded through Federal Partnerships are at risk um and I don't want to minimize that $3
million is not a small number um so the total budget balances 4 point four $456.00 revenues and expenses all in it represents a foreign 4.4% increase over the prior fiscal year again we talked about the Town School Revenue split
Municipal Department budgets continue to prioritize employee retention um where the cuts have been made in that $560,000 as we discussed is to certain discretionary budget items I will say and it's worth repeating that over 80% of our costs on both the town and the
school side are for um wages and benefits so when people talk about cutting discretionary spending you are already talking about less than 15% of the budget in most cases on both the town and the school side um so there we
have already undertaken Cuts last year in order to fund the Police contract we are cutting again this year um we have pulled what levers we can pull this year in order to ensure uh that we balance the budget um but we are coming up
against that line where it is possible that the next steps may be more drastic um those could include things like a hiring freeze itcl could include reduction in positions it could include reduction in Staffing um so I just want that to be clear um that although we are
able to balance where we are now those items that I talked about that are looming and likely to roost at some point during this fiscal year will have an impact on that number and potentially may require more drastic intervention um
our Capital budgets represent 10.3% of the prior Year's net revenue um and when you include debt excluded debt let me say for the folks following along excluded debt is money that the voters take on voluntarily um when you vote for a particular Capital project for example
the Pierce school or the fire the fire uh house renovations uh that is what's called excluded debt because that comes directly into people's tax bills so that doesn't because we're able to draw that from additional Revenue we don't carry
that um as part of the ordinary capital budget um but when you include excluded debt uh the total amount of money uh um as part of the total percentage of the budget that is capital related is 18.8% that's quite High um we have a lot of
capital projects going on right now we have the community has invested in capital projects and that's important um but the capacity for additional capital projects is limited um our Enterprise funds are up by 3.2% um and our reserves and long-term
liability funding are set to meet their goals this year our we talked about about this uh during the select board's um when the select board revised its fiscal policies one of the things that we were told by the credit rating agencies the bond rating agencies when we went out um to have these
conversations was that initially across all Reserve funds so not just the um the catastrophic fund the liability fund Etc um they like to see municipalities at around 10% of the last year's uh revenues this time around what they said
was we'd like it to be 20% and ideally it should be higher than that still um they pointed to us on a list of all the other AAA Bond rated communities in Massachusetts and we were toward the bottom um so the select board uh decided
uh to adopt a policy that targets us to get at the median of Massachusetts communities given our weaknesses potential weaknesses elsewhere uh in terms of this what keeps us in the AAA Bond rating uh world now is our solid fiscal
policies and our ability to follow them um in many other ways when they look at us on the Moody scorecard we're not a AAA rated community so it's very important that we have strong fiscal policies and that we follow them what happens if we lose our AAA Bond rating the cost of borrowing money goes up why
is that a problem because that's one of those above the line costs for unexclusive will be less money to go into the operating budgets for both the town and the schools and there will be more drastic cuts um it is you know in
recent memory I think Acton in 21 lost their AAA rating other communities have lost AAA ratings uh it is not impossible uh in fact it happens uh and we need to be very cautious about it because the consequences to the operating budgets for both the town and the schools if we
lose that rating is quite significant um we are targeting to have our pensions fully funded by 2030 um this is um a valuable and aggressive timeline um and right now we are on track to do so I'll talk a little bit more about where we
are where we are in terms of assumptions of investment growth um one of the things that uh members of the community have asked about how we can find U additional revenue is can we push that schedule out that schedule is the Providence of the Retirement Board so no we can't do it unilaterally I don't
think the Retirement Board would do it given how close we are the uncertainty of the picture uh going forward uh and the fact that it would the benefit to us should we get that to that point is so high um I doubt the retirement border would be inclined to move in that
direction nor necessarily would I recommend it um given where we are in this um and um uh I what I one caution here and I will say is that behind pension funding is our other post employment benefits
health care and so forth and whereas with our pension funding we are very close to the Finish Line with our other um post-employment benefits we are still hovering in the 30% range um we have a longer way to go to fulfill those obligations it costs us money to do so
while they're not fully funded so much of the funding that goes now to satisfying the pension obligations will shift there so I don't want people to think that this is a Sprint to 2030 and then there's money available that's not the case here are some
numbers um you can see um where our revenues uh are coming from you can see again the Lion Share of our revenues is property tax uh the increase there is 6.3% local receipts are up by 5.6% but you can see what a small portion of the overall budget local receipts are state
aid up by less than a million dollars free cash appropriated free cash has decreased to an approximate 20.8 million um other available funds has decreased significant ly for reasons we'll discuss and then the Enterprise revenues have increased somewhat but again Enterprises
are revolving they go in they come out they need to be net um so it's they they operate in their own world you look at expenditures um here the municipal departments um the school Department's uh Revenue allocation is $141 million an
increase in 3.6% um the non- departmental Appropriations is up 8% that is that above the line money that is the stuff like Healthcare um and other things uh that we often refer to as budget Busters
a reason why the revenues allocated to the municipal departments and School departments are not where those entities would want them to be is because that money is going into the non-departmental buckets first and the biggest driver of that is Health Care um we experienced an
8% increase in health care cost two years ago a 10% increase last year this year it's 12% um we are hoping that that number is wrong we're going to get a report on that in the first week of March but we don't think it's wrong um just based on what we're seeing from
other communities um it's unlikely that that number will decrease significantly if it does obviously it's good um and wherever possible we will use that to defay expenses um and uh but it's unlikely um
so I don't think we can look necessarily to healthc care savings projecting healthc care savings uh in order to uh get us uh to a better place on this so again property taxes make up 72.7% of our revenues um local receipts only
7.6% state aid 5.6 free cash 4.6 and the ENT net Enterprises 8.5 with other available funds bringing up the rear at 1% property taxes uh growth is restricted by prop two and a half as we discussed so that's 2.5% annually plus
the new growth formula uh that's calculated in the assessor's office uh any anything beyond that um is through a voter override or an exclusion so there's an increase here it's a a positive increase it's 6.3% 19.5 million
um but you can also see the growth in debt servicing costs uh is quite significant um it's $29 million right now of the property tax uh dollars uh the total um a significant amount of that goes to our debt servicing our
excluded Debt Service so that's money we don't have available able to us because it's going to specific projects and once those projects are complete that money comes out of the tax levy so it's not available for other purposes state aid is only up by less than half a million dollars um this is
from the governor's budget the governor's budget was released uh in February that is the um kickoff for us to begin uh publishing the financial plan um what ultimately happens at the Statewide level is that the budget goes through both houses of the legislature
goes through the house and the Senate uh and then ultimately it winds up on the governor's desk as part of the uh uh conference process uh and what typically happens during that process is this number goes up um but it doesn't go up very much um and again uh all of this
money goes through the town School split so unrestricted General government Aid and Chapter 70 funding unrestricted General government Aid intended for General coffers Chapter 70 for schools that is all split along the 6040 split so a raise in Chapter 70 doesn't necessarily mean a raise for schools
only in the same way that a raise in unrestricted General government Aid known by the endearing acronym uger uh does not go entirely to the town so you can see here uh what happened in the governor's budget um we're looking at um
we we are a what's called a minimum Aid Community um I made reference uh earlier tonight to the issues at the Statewide level with funding education um there are multiple indicators that the funding form that uh the state put in place as part
of the student Opportunity Act is insufficient to meet the growth costs and as a result even when the governor and the um the legislature boost this amount per pupil it's not enough um it doesn't cover um the increases in costs
that it's meant to cover um and while the legislature is convening a I believe a uh working group to discuss how to solve this problem excuse me I don't think we're going to get there um by the time town meeting has to pass a budget um I don't think we're going to even get
there by the Fall necessarily um it is a thorny problem um and there are as much as it impacts our community as a minimum Aid Community um there are smaller Regional School departments that are facing truly existential threats this year threats to their basic operations
um and so um I want to reemphasize what I've said during the course of this which is I do think some of the issues the school department facing ing are Statewide issues um and they're going to require Statewide Solutions local receipts are up um one $1 1.8 million projected local receipts
are up 5.6% again this is less than 10% of the overall budget um where we're seeing the biggest area for growth is in some of the local option taxes so lodging and meals we think will go up significantly the revenues from those will go up significantly however some of that
increases the Refuge fee um we increase the fee for trash collection to meet the needs of the contract um which means that we're not that money is already spoken for um that money is all going to fund the new sanitation contract in the meantime major sources of past surpluses
are declining um in particular building permit Revenue year-over-year that number is getting smaller um in the past building Revenue has been a real cash cow in local receipts but that's no longer true big projects are not starting or they're stopping um and so
we're not seeing the kind of Revenue that we used to see there um I encouraged Us in discussions with the building department to be as aggressive as possible here we have been but you know the danger in building the other danger with um building uh permit
revenue is that it's volatile um it depends in a community like this where there are not a lot of small projects that get done but then there are these big monster projects that then contribute um it it's it's lumpy it's volatile um so we can't lean too heavily
on that in the hopes that one big project will come through and push us over the line that is that's putting it on putting it on black in the casino uh and we don't want to do that um um the other Big Driver of uh what's been beating our expectations is
investment income um I'm sure you have all seen the irrational exuberance of the stock market we have two um we are not allowed to invest aggressively which is good we don't um there's very very hard limit in what we can and can't invest in but one the market has been good and two we've had more cash lying
around um we had that arpa money um and when we weren't spending it we put it in the bank um and that allowed us to generate significant investment returns we're spent some of that money and we will spend the rest of it in the next two years so we will have less money in
the bank to generate investment income and we don't know what the investment income picture is going to look like in the next couple years um I don't think it would be for us to where again wherever possible we've raised this number right um it's not like we've stood Pat on this we've done our best to
look at the past results try to think out where we are on this but we can't just assume that um everything is bright um we have to think realistically about the risks there in increasing uh the projected um uh interest
income so total free cash is estimated at $23.5 million um we don't appropriate all the free cash per best practices we have to set some of that aside as unappropriated money that forms the kernel of any potential free cash for next year um that's where we start with
our free cash for the following fiscal year again that is a best fiscal practice uh for all Massachusetts communities and it's one that we follow the new Massachusetts DLS Target for free cash as of January 2025 is between five and 7% of your prior Year's Revenue
I orally said I think 5 8 it's it's less than that it's 5.3 it's 5.3% of fy2 revenues so we are right where we need to be in terms of where free cashes um so again 20.8 million of that will be used in the FY 26 budget to meet the
town's Capital plan and various operating reserves and that remaining balance is left unappropriated so of that 20.8 million almost $15 million 1466 will be going to fund the capital Improvement program $3.5 million will go into the stabilization fund and then
from there you have operating reserves and the affordable housing trust I will say that in the event that we must balance the school budget on uh for this fiscal year um one or more of those items may be at risk um we may draw that money um into the school budget if we
need to balance the budget there but again it's my hope that we don't have to do that and that we can work collaboratively with the school department to identify alternative sources of meeting the shortfall for fy2 other available funds um these come
from various sources um you know reimbursements from Enterprise for general fund related costs um we have we used to have um host Community agreement funding uh we no longer have that um cannabis cannabis retailers no longer pay us um uh uh a host Community
agreement fee uh Community impact fee um and so uh that's no longer a source of you know realistic revenue for us we do receive money as part of the global opioid settlement um that is an important source of Revenue that money as you will we will discuss is going
this year to funding increased social our more robust Social Services model um given how strong a community priority that is um last year we had money coming out of the overlay Surplus um the overlay is money that's set aside in the event that we have to settle um tax
bills with folks um in the event that we overcharge them for something uh and they they successfully challenge it last year we had a major settle with a bunch of utilities uh the utilities agreed that we had taxed them in the right amount and so that the money that we had put aside in the event that we were wrong we were able to spend we don't
have that anymore it's not in the overlay so we have no money to release from the overlay this year uh and that's why other available funds has gone down so much this year let's talk about expenditures um again you can see that non- departmental number that's big it's bigger than the school department it's
much bigger than any missile departments that's the money off the top um so let's talk through where the all of these are are coming from um the school budget again up by 3.6% uh we continue to use the money for the override for the stated purpose um where um as part of
the select board's change in fiscal policies they increased the base amount of funding for the CIP from the operating budget from 6% to 6.6% this year in order to help the schools we put that policy on pause and
reduced that from 6.6% back down to where it used to be at 6 % uh in order to generate just over $2 million um which was went through the town School split um so the schools got 60% of that money and the town got 40% of it um uh
so again wherever possible we've been trying to assist the school department in the issues that they're facing uh and I would just note we're facing similar issues so the idea again that we can project our way into this space uh and solve this problem I would love to
project my way out of making cuts to my budget but I can't do that um the current shortfall of $8.2 million from the fully loaded budget is being discussed by the school committee um and those decisions are ultimately the school committees to
make there's a growth of 3.7% um that growth discrepancy is really a really a function of the override and how the override was phased in the initial benefits from the override remember the override was $12 million phased in over a three-year period the initial benefit of the override really fell primarily to
the schol schools because they had the need to fill the budget Gap that was left by the arpa funds that were used to float them for a year um so now you're seeing that balance out a little bit a little more of the override total remaining override money is going to the town so it's a slightly larger
increasing growth 3.7 versus 3.6 again this covers fixed costs and contractual increases it prioritizes a reserve for salary and wage increases I don't anticipate that Reserve being sufficient to meet the needs of any contracts that enter into um there's going to need to
be more money somewhere to cover that in the event that a contract is settled or in the case of the fire Union an arbitration agreement is reached and funded by town meeting um some of the year three override initiatives uh that we continue to fund include additional age-friendly Services the welcome to
Brookline program that I mentioned um the mid manager technical professional salary study um we are now almost complete with that work um it's really important to maintain competitive wages across all our positions Union and n Union um particularly continue to be proud of the fact that we have uh we're
continuing the building department reorganization we have finished the analysis for social workers who were underpaid we're very happy to be paying them at a higher level um other Investments are being made with other funds um we are continually grateful for the uh gracious donation uh that allowed
us to start up the sustainability division the sustainability division's continued operations will obviously be a subject of discussion for the expenditures and revenue study committee what that takes what it's doing um I really do want to thank the entire DPW team commissioner sh um and also the
director Alexander veio who came over from the parks department sustainability is doing really exciting things um and is making a Major Impact so um it's a it's a very worthwhile investment and I'm sure the town will see that as we discuss it we discuss this research Navigator position we really want to
continue along this uh the holistic model of Social Services we want to address the person and not the problems um we're starting to see that bear out in the housing stability office work that we're doing um it is exciting to really think about the possibility of
the Town being able to better connect people in need to the services that are available to them um even in a tight budgetary time really especially in a tight budgetary time it's critically important for us to think about how we take care of our residents and so that work um really being spearheaded by
Seagal ree uh Commissioner of Public Health um is really Excell excellent work so uh again to Seagal and her whole team she doing um excellent work as all departments are and this whole of government effort to think about how social services are provided in
Brookline um you can see here uh the override uh here we are at the end of the override plan um so um the total plan uh included some money that was not part of the levy increase but came from other sources talk about how we
ultimately funded it um so um in FY 26 um you know the remaining 1.5 million went to the schools 600,000 went to the CIP um and a little less than a little over 400,000 went to the town this is where the departmental
budgets are growing in the town um you can see which of those are override related increases and which um are just uh some of the realities of the situation um for example um there are um costs uh for you can see that we are
moving some of those arpa funded costs over the cyber security analyst that is a mission critical position as ransomware attacks and so forth increase the sophistication with AI uh of dangers to our operations uh really can't be
overstated uh or sorry can't be whatever it is underst uh can't you what whatever it is it Cann be over overated be overstated thank you John um you we really need um that level of uh effort
in order to prevent um serious disruption and really loss of money um so um you can see where all those items are coming in obviously the single biggest item there is trash collection um that's net of our reductions um in positions from uh moving some of those
Services over to the contract um it still is going to cost a significant amount of money um some of which we are funding through the increase in fees and some of which we are funding through the operating budget here are the reductions that we have made in order to meet our uh uh
meet where we need to be um you can see some of those things that are funded through arpa or continuing on cdbg um and you can see elsewhere uh that reductions are being made based on where we have materials available where we have money available to us um I don't subscribe to a policy of asking
departments to return unrealized money automatically I don't think that promotes sound fiscal policy I think that encourages departments to spend everything they have whether or not they need to um and so I want us to think more creatively about how to rightsize our budgets so I want to emphasize that
I don't penalize departments for underspending their budgets what we do is we we analyze where money has historically and continually uh come back to us and think through um why that is um before we uh ask departments about
making those reductions so um when people say well you know ex Department posted a surplus of this amount um there's a reason for that um and it is not uh because they didn't do a good job budgeting how much they needed um it's often because that number can be
variable from year to year um or it's just it's just the reality of um what's needed in the event uh of additional uh costs that are incurred as part of that work here are the non- departmental expenditures we talked about group health insurance the 12% increase we
talked about the pension funding and how close we are to that full funding date um we have paused our increase in opab liability that's the other post-employment benefits um the rate of investment return assumption is down um but again we are still contributing to
it we are just not increasing contribution and you can see there um there's still even though the total pot of money is smaller the uh that you know let say the total amount of money that we need to fun fully fund our pension is larger um we have further to go with
opims so we're putting less money into it than we're putting into the pension um so uh Debt Service special Appropriations the we talked about how the revenue financi capital budget is a 20.3 million of which 5.7 comes from
General operating and 14.7 million from free cash The Debt Service increases are 7.1 million 19% um total Capital expenditures we talked about are 10.3% which is above the uh select board's Target of 88.1% and that was
increased this year um non-appropriated and Enterprise expenses um the npta assessment went up um norfol County's assessment went up slightly the overlay for tax abatements went up slightly um again we are part of Northfork County Nori county is not
disestablished its County government um in practice that means we pay a lot of money to the county um for the services that they provide we were very grateful for the County's assistance during arpa um but we still uh there's still a fundamental question there as to why Nori County operates in that way when
suffk and middle sex do not um so um Enterprises uh again 3.2% growth modest there was an increase in the MW assessment uh and there's some golf Enterprise growth from the driving range policy issues and initiatives the select board this year set their policy
initiatives early um which was a great help to departments and we're grateful for the select board for their assistance there um they separated them into four categories for of which there were five bullets each briefly preserving our Financial Health uh we talked about how the policies have been revised we talked about the new reserves
Target we talked about the expenditures and revenue study committee um for the to try and have strategies to address structural deficits planning for the future we've talked about how the comprehensive plan and the comprehensive plan steering committee which is chaired by Paul Warren uh is targeted to finish
its work this calendar year um we continue to look at the Chesnut Hill West study group uh for the possibility of redeveloping that corner of Chestnut Hill West on the Newton border um we continue to integrate sustainability and natural resources and the housing stability office um I do think it's
important to note when we talk about the possibility of new growth and big projects um Chestnut Hill West is one of those big projects it obviously has to be done right um and it has to be done to the community satisfaction um but um
you know at the end of the day um 100% of nothing is still nothing um if there is no agreement reached on that then there will be no increase in re revenue from that land at all and so the community needs to evaluate as it goes through this iterative process um what's
good enough um where is the tradeoff where is the level of trade-off necessary in terms of the benefits provided by what's ultimately developed there I need are the drawbacks and what the potential for revenue is um no one factor is dispositive um but if nothing
if nothing happens um I think that would be unfortunate um we want to ensure better Greener income diverse housing um the hab the housing Advisory Board uh and the community preservation act committee both made contributions to um the Brookline Housing Authority for the
Walnut High Street Redevelopment that was part of the consensus plan that ultimately passed um to comply with the MBTA communities act that will create um significant amount of affordable housing close to public transit it's a great initiative and it's a great opportunity
for the community um we continue to implement the Harvard Street zoning overlay that was part of that uh part of that consensus plan um there were some tweaks to that at fall town meeting we will continue to evaluate um it's opportunity for growth in a way that the community wants to see growth and if
there need to be further tweaks those tweaks will be made we need to ensure compliance with the state's Adu law and regulations new draft regulations for adus are out our law our bylaw that we negotiated uh is we believe is mostly but not entirely in compliance with those so we're going to need to go back
and take another look at that um obviously again we want to be careful we need to create something that complies with the state's rules or the state will just ignore what we put in place and allow developers to build what they want so we just need to be on target with what the state is asking of us um in
trying to ensure that the community looks the way we want it to look um predictability of outcomes is the number one thing that we hear from people when we he ask them why don't you want to build in Brookline why don't you want to invest in Brookline and that is to say
there worried that if they spend the time and money to come here and do planning and do studies uh at some point someone somewhere is going to tell them no uh and they're not going to be able to understand why and they're not going to be able to fix it so there's a huge potential for sunk cost um they want
from us consistency of outcomes and again a consistency of outcome can be no it can be no we don't want this and we do want this but as long as those outcomes are consistent then people are willing to work within those parameters um but when there is uh maybe you can do
this maybe you can't this is gated behind something that has an inherently subjective component to it um or several things that have an inherently subjective component to it that causes confusion that adds to the cost of development and that leads people to say you know what maybe I should go somewhere where it's I don't have that
worry um so it is just an area where you know the community needs to be clear about what it wants and that's a big part of what the comprehensive plan is doing um is talking about that in Broad Strokes what does the community want to look like um finally improving the public way for all users um the Final
Phase in of $2.1 million and an override commitment for uh streets and Roads um we are also updating roadway and sidewalk policies again the DPW transportation engineering Transportation division has been doing great work on this uh I believe the transportation board voted to approve
those revised policies and we're going to see um those policies come before the select board uh in the spring um that will allow us to continue complete streets work while also being able to concurrently prioritize immediate repairs without necessarily undertaking a full complete excuse me a full
complete streets process we want to continue growing charging capacity for electric vehicles particularly fast charging and we want to right siize the amount of chargers we have out there now we have a robust level two charging Network we want to make sure that that's the right amount not too many not too little um and of course the $30 million
Washington Street Redevelopment the select board has um uh provided oversight there and ensured that there's increased Community input both in Brookline Village and in Washington Square along with a wayfinding project um so as that project continues um
there's more opportunity for Community input so both town and School departments need to make cuts to come into alignment with the revenue projections these gaps are not ones we can project our way out of using one-time funds to paper over these issues will not solve them in the long term and will lead to increased
borrowing costs I say could but I will be honest with you it will um and at the end of the day increased borrowing cost mean less money for operating revenues so I don't want us to cut off our nose to spite our face I don't want us to look for easy solutions only to have
worse problems confront employees you know students people who live here reductions in Services I want us to find lasting solutions to these problems I don't want us to patch them um the town will provide support to the school department to help identify the sources
who overrun there and help the school department Implement its own controls to prevent future issues I think this is really crucial one of the elements of the uh uh process that we're now going through with the recommended School deficit review is that at the end of it
um we've suggested that what's necessary is a binding agreement between the select board the school committee and the uh advisory committee committing to do certain things um that is not um a suggestion that the school committees uh Authority is going to be abreg in some
way it is a desire on all of our parts to commit to doing the right thing so it is not the select board saying hey school committee you have to do this it is all of us agreeing there needs to be more transparency there need to be better controls put in place uh and here
based on the results of that deficit uh analysis are what those things are we're going to commit to those things we're going to commit to regular meetings to ensure that they're actually happening we're going to commit to transparency in open books um so that we can verify that it's happening um and we're going to
provide support where necessary if we need to provide additional shared services on the town side to make this work that's what we're going to do um you know it's really my goal to to provide you know Synergy and and avoid duplicative work with the schools
wherever possible um and that's a direction we need to move in um so it's not this memorandum of agreement I've heard concerns from community members oh is this some sort of takeover it's not it really is just laying out all right we've identified the problem what are we going to do to fix it um and all of us
have a part to play in that the expenditures and revenue study committee will receive presentations from town and schools alike on the pressure points they face and will ultimately be charged with making a recommendation on how to address those pressures long term um we are uh my goal is to have the first
Standalone meeting of that committee uh in early March at that meeting uh we will uh hopefully set a timeline um for each of the meetings to come what are the goals and objectives what will we accomplish at each meeting and how will we get an ultimate report out to the
community in enough time for us to be able to have an impact on the FY 27 budget and to make a recommendation early on whether or not there needs to be an override on the ballot in May of 26 all right I've talked long enough thank you very much for your patience now I'd like to invite Melissa Goff up
uh to uh continue the presentation thank you Chaz um I also want to Echo thanks for the budget team um you know I think that Charlie has really um done some outstanding work with open gov um as we were preparing this document you know I think that we also kind of
realized that we're almost preparing two different budgets you you've got your paper book that everybody is used to having but you know we've really made a lot of strides in the online version as well um you know a lot of the things that used to be images are now tables that people with screen readers can
click through um you know it's really a lot of effort to make that happen um especially where open gov is constantly looking to improve their product as well and they say oh we've got these nextg reports and all these reports look great oh but you have to rebuild everything so it is a lot of effort I really
appreciate the work that Charlie has put into it and Tyler and Nicole have been really helpful getting a a lot done too and I'm also grateful to Lincoln um you know as we're kind of developing our projections and meeting on strategies for addressing budget deficits he's in the room to kind of help us with that
and provide a lot of perspective uh based on his experience in other communities as well so just really grateful for the team that we that we have um so a lot of these slides are um more for kind of revisiting after the presentation is done I don't expect that people I can't even read it from the
podium here um but the uh these are kind of overall summaries of the financial plan um some of these have already been discussed uh with Chad so I'll go a little bit quicker through the slides uh the rest of the presentation um so this is just an a snapshot of the financial plan summary with the general fund
Revenue uh the Enterprises how they factor in there as well and then the Appropriations for overall growth of 4.4% um this slide here is a a picture of uh what we try to project in terms of what the actual School allocation is um
we basically take take an exercise that we do at the end of the fiscal gear which is uh having Town departments report their um services on behalf of the schools we take that data and we put it into the fiscal 26 budget as a projection uh as a way to estimate what
the true cost of education is so we get that uh 57.9 is the current estimate for fif uh fiscal 26 this is a summary of the general fund so you can see that our revenue is growing by 4.5% then you have to uh deduct your uh
non-appropriated items which we don't have any control over and then uh once you do that you have uh $47 million available for appropriation and then you can see the how the Appropriations are spread across the town departments uh for the operating budget total and then you
factor in your Capital Improvement program in there as well and that's how you get to your 4.6% uh this is just another snapshot of local receipts uh this is a table that can also be found in open gov as well um some of these increases Chaz has already
talked about um you know local option taxes being one of the biggest um you we we have a new hotel that uh came online for half of the year last year so we're seeing kind of the full the full impact of that coming into fiscal 26 um seeing a little bit of increased activity
around parking and court fines you'll see that the parking uh The Refuge fee that $485,000 is directly related to the fees recently voted by the select board uh that that continues to be a pressure um on on the budget because of the other adjustments that we needed to make for
the contract as well uh another articulation of free cash we don't have free cash certified just yet we're hoping that we'll get that in the coming days um as we're filing the warrant article we may need to make some refinements to the final CIP in order to adjust for whatever the
the free cash number ends up being but this is a pretty solid estimate coming from Finance uh and then you can see how the waterfall that the the town's policy around the allocation of free cash is is met so the operating Reserve 75% of our
op uh Reserve fund is coming from the operating budget 25% is coming from free cash so that 853 that's how we're meeting that that goal unreserved um unreserved St stabilization fund so we're you know we're talking about the importance of our fund balances in terms
of preserving our AAA rating um we are uh appropriating $3.5 million to the stabilization fund 2.7 is unappropriated but supports the overall fund balance goal the liability fund has a target of 1% of Prior year net revenue uh we looked at that balance at the end end of
the year obviously the advisory committee most recently voted a settlement that will change that number that will likely factor into fiscal 27's recommendation on the allocation of free cash but just be mindful that that's still looming out there um our CIP we talked about that we were looking to get
to 88.1% of Prior year net revenue we do get there thanks to the healthy free cash certification um and it also lessens the impact of of um reducing the operating uh revenue from 6 6% to 6% uh for the
CIP uh once we satisfy the first four obligations we take 15% of whatever is left after that and we appropriate that to the affordable housing trust fund um Chaz already mentioned that that is something that um you know we're hoping that we can retain um with careful
control of the current projected deficits on both the town and the school side uh and then after that um what's available we can um appropriate for special use one time time items in the past we've used it to support OPB uh we've used it to support our our pension
system if there are other um trust funds that are have a low balance we have used that for to bolster those trust funds as well um and so for this year we are recommending that the full amount be devoted to the capital Improvement plan uh this is just a snapshot of our
fund balance position and um you know we had been probably you know three or four years ago we were at a point where we are actually below what was the previous Target of 10% of of Revenue um and we have been consciously adding money into
the stabilization Fund in order to meet the target we meet with Moody's every year as we get our bonds uh for the upcoming year and you know they last year uh talked about the revised policies that they have the way that they measure the town overall and so we
had needed to revise our our fiscal policies in order to um you know keep Pace with those changes and and keep our position um so that that's uh around the recommendation for the $3.5 million this just shows the expenditure growth throughout the town so you can
see that $7.1 million that is directly related to the additional um Debt Service that we're taking on specifically for both the peer school and the fire station projects uh and then coming in behind that is the school budget the town departments and then benefits uh behind
that this is a snapshot of our pension uh system and the the funding plan that we have for our pension schedule um I will say that this as we get closer and closer to 2030 and we need to kind of recalibrate our plan uh every two years the Retirement Board uh looks at the
schedule and and resets and so the the shorter of a um shorter of a timeline that we have for that if there are adjustments that need to be made to the system it kind of makes it a little bit more volatile to get to that 2030 funding date uh right now our annual uh
increase is 7.85% uh we have a rate of return Assumption of 6.8% that was recently lowered uh at the most recent Actuarial schedule uh we were at 6.9 the last schedule um and last year we did we were able to add
some free cash to also support um the pension schedule in fiscal 25 uh Ops so the OPB funding plan right now um is pretty static because we are not increasing it by $250,000 um we did pause that during
covid we resumed it in fiscal 25 um but we're looking to pause it again in fiscal 26 uh we're going to have Charlie come and uh talk about the Enterprise and revolving funds and then I'll step back in thank you Melissa and thank you to the board so as you all may know um well
first of all I'm uh Charlie young I'm the assistant Town Administrator for finance here um as you all may know we have a few uh funds that we budget separately from the general fund they're outside the uh the operating budget um you can hear more about these from the department heads but I'll just give you a quick bird's eye view um this is kind
of a blizzard of numbers but I'll go through the major categories um you know that are shown here and our increasing so first up we have water and sewer which is increasing by overall uh about 3% this is funded primarily by water and sewer rate payers uh and the charges um
there that with the 3% increase we're adding funds for a new permanent inspector position that will be helping with both DPW and capital projects we're increasing funds for contractual services and supplies there's a significant increase in capital for vehicle Replacements um our MW
assessment is going up by 2% in FY 26 and most significantly uh you'll see an increase in uh in fund transfers out which is associated with the 12% Group Health increase that we're seeing um that's Water and Sewer um next up we have the golf course Enterprise fund uh
which is increasing by uh about 11% this is funded primarily by green fees but but other things such as the pro shop and concessions um the increases here are for wages and steps um there's a significant increase in capital for Golf Course improvements and you'll see an increase in Debt Service as well that is
for previously approved um uh and authorized um borrowings for improvements to the golf course um and then you'll see a pretty significant once again increase in in fund transfers out which is again associated with the the high increase in group health costs
um and so finally um our our Recreation revolving fund which is funded directly uh by the the program fees that uh that the that the revolving fund charges um is increasing by 8% and that is adding funds for a new assistant director of early childhood education to provide some much needed support to those
programs um it increases uh funding in both personnel and services for um camp programs to expand those um and adds funds for a new registration software um which will hopefully uh as well benefit their programming um and finally uh
there's an increase in in fund transfers uh for group health so once again U these are our funds that are funded outside of the general fund if you want to hear more um you know the relevant department heads will be talking about them at their at their budget meetings thank you thank you Charlie um a component of
the financial plan is also the capital Improvement program a lot of this we've already talked about as well um you know despite you know the reduction from 6.6 to 6% we are still investing 220 2 million over the life of the plan which is approximately $32 million a year we
um you know had our budget workshop with the select board and we are continuing to focus on deferred maintenance which has been an area for the past couple of years that the board has really emphasized uh that we need to invest in our CIP we have a robust Street rehab program we are continuing our roof roof
and envelope programs um we have a lot of money going towards uh the elevator program that Charlie has um life safety as well a lot of really good things in the CIP uh this is just another snapshot that's also in the document uh that
shows the components of the CIP and how we get to the funding policy and when we add free cash to that policy and then the debt exclusions what the overall level of funding is for the capital plan these are some projects that are coming up through the uh through the
plan so we have our fire apparatus program in fiscal 26 and then uh in the out years as well uh we have uh the Washington Street program which I'm sure everyone is very familiar with a lot of public hearings a lot of discussion about the that program and the potential uh state aid that
would uh State grant that would be coming from that as well um the new Lincoln school grounds that is a new um item that was previously in future years and is being pulled into um fiscal 26 for design work um I spent some time this summer with the new Lincoln
principal and Helen charlupski um and Alexander veio kind of looking at the overall condition there and it's something that is definitely at a failure Point uh so we swapped that with the Boon Street playground um because that that playground needs to stay open
while um Pierce is currently at Old Lincoln so it kind of made sense to make that Swap and then uh SE athletic fields are in the out years of the plan uh at $6.5 million so our long range plan this is something that we talk about with the board every year where we are um you
know making projection for the out years we're talking about our collective bargaining assumptions we're talking about our assumptions for steps and steps and lanes and overall growth um you know there are a lot of assumptions that are outlined in the overall budget and then um we are looking at you know
the structural Gap that exists between our revenues and and expenditures um and you know every year the challenge is to close that Gap and you know it's definitely getting a lot more challenging um in more recent years as well especially around um with our group health numbers and and with our um
inflation costs as well this is just another blizzard that shows kind of the components of the long range uh forecast uh so you can see the assumptions around revenue and then you can see the assumptions around expenditures as well um I will say that
you know in 2030 the picture does look a little bit Rosier with the um revenue and expenditure numbers being pretty similar uh the only reason why it looks like that is because that is the when we start to see the runoff from the paying of the pension system so um one of the things that I'm hoping that the
expenditure and revenue committee would look at is to encourage the town to take the runoff from paying off the pension system and use it to address the long-term OPB liability um so that's just an explanation on um the 2030 outcome uh and this is just another uh
snapshot that just shows the uh the growth uh in Revenue in expenditures and the pressure that that provides as well so uh that is the end of the presentation um I'm going to pull the slides down Chaz and I and char and Lincoln are here um for questions and uh
we'll see how far we get okay any uh questions John so um thank you very much for the presentations and you know really a good starting point for all of this but I I I
thought for sure I saw a discrepancy between a really important number um in Melissa's presentation and in chaz's presentation and that's the free cash number which was 20 million um in chaz's
presentation but was 23 million in in your presentation yep so the 23 is the what we're anticipating to be the certified number but we never appropriate the full amount so the 20.8 is what we're appropriating that's that's the difference between those two numbers
it's that the best fiscal practices right is to leave a portion of that unappropriated and what that actually does is it forms the kernel of next year's free cash so we the policy is to leave a small amount of money unappropriated so that that we always have something so
but then that will show up in a larger number than is currently in your budget for non appropriated so we we basically it's not part of the budget equation it's it's essentially um a starting point for next year so it will basically
so in the current certification the 23 five I think or something like that um 2.7 of that we didn't appropriate last year so it kind of perpetuates itself s year over-year yeah okay but but on the books what is
it labeled so let me it's not it's it's it's not part of the revenue number it's not no okay so let me um if I just pull up one more the free cash slide I think that probably articulates it a little bit better while Melissa is doing that um if
advisory Comm committee members want to participate and also expenditure and revenue study committee members if you're online please raise your hand um in the room we have this floating mic that we can pass around or you can approach the podium either way and raise
your hand so I can see them done are you done done well I thinka was about to answer so the 23 is the um the Topline number there but you deduct 2.7 million from that that's where you get the
20.8 yeah yeah but I don't see the 2.7 million deducted in in what's in front of us here wait wait Cliff okay uh so let me ask a question um cash comes in it goes onto the balance sheet
of the Town y right so it's not running through revenue and then you take your apprpriate off the balance sheet $20 million to go into the revenue y leaving the other on the balance sheet correct that's why it's not
in the income statement yeah looking okay but it it is on the balance sheet it's on the balance sheet okay Mike um so uh um the I have a a general question
about trans or request really about trans transparency and for several years when I was in the advisory committee recall that I asked uh that um asked that the budget include the cost of Health Care allocated by department and honestly I've given up on that um since
I've been on the select board but uh I would like to see it uh even though I'm going off the select board uh I would very much like to see it allocated by town and school that is added directly to the town budget added
directly to the school budget because I think people are missing $25 million more or less worth of school costs so then when we look at that $141 million or whatever it is it's going to the schools this year or is recommended for the schools this year out of the budget
there's 25 million more or less missing from that and there are other uh items as you've said that you look at and you allocate between um the two when you report to the state uh it may be too much to ask uh to
allocate relatively small amounts of money in that way but uh the health care cost is so significant and it's what two-thirds or or so schools that it seems to me it would be much clearer not just for those of us reading
the budget from the perspective of okay where's our money going but also from the perspective of the public and from uh the perspective of people who are employed uh in both the the town and the the schools so I would urge you to take
a look at that at least for uh for next year and perhaps even possible to do it for this year so in section two we do have a table that does allocate all of the benefit costs associated um and and into each departmental budget so you you do see us attempt to estimate it um I
will say that the prior Town School formula used to allocate the benefits um based on the usage but now it's just taken off the top that that's something that the revenue and expenditure committee could look at um you know I think that you know as departments are you know requesting positions and saying
oh I you know I I want this position is only $50,000 and that doesn't seem like a big amount right well I I always say well a family plan in our most heavily subscribed program is about $29,000 so you know you're that already kind of blows you away um when you're
thinking about trying to fund just one position um so you know that's definitely something that um I think the um when Susan um was starting to kind of look at some of the numbers and asking for estimates on Group Health it was a little surprising especially um because
of our premium split you know 83% is a really high number um especially compared to other communities as well well I think to the extent that you can bring that forward to the top of the presentation uh that would be useful the 29 $229,000 is a really
stockling number even to me but but um uh but to the extent that you can we take the aggregate number that's going to the schools and the aggregate number that's going to town employees um I'm not quarreling with the allocation I'm not quarreling with the with the with
our support of of health care what I am saying is that I'd like to see the numbers much more prominently and much more as I say much more at the top yep Paul I want to Echo uh the many thank yous for the hard work I can only
imagine how much it takes to put this book together um so it's when we do this next year I'm hoping that the other half or the more than other half of the budget is actually present the school department um it's very hard to have
this discussion without more than 50% of the budget present um and one of the things that I just am unclear about and I would actually ask that we consider the select board sending this request to
the school department I'd like to see a maintenance level of service budget from them I don't know what it is it's not it's not 149 million um I don't know what it is but it would be really informative and helpful to understand if
they just met their contractual obligations from collective bargaining without adding and expanding Services what would be the budget request um it's probably more than 141 million I'm certain that it's less than
149 million um so I see one colleague from the school committee um and and yeah I just this would be Jesse hi Jesse um this is really important this is a really important uh uh request I think
and information that we need and I would hope that since we're talking and we put together the entire budget um that we would form ask them for a maintenance level budget uh number don't we have that we don't have we we you know we
don't we don't have that directly from them no we have their we have their fully loaded budget um you know I've had conversations with school department employees about that issue but it's not you know their their conversations with me are not my numbers to give right I would ask them for a formal you know
right I agree with you but but you know my the first thing you mentioned earlier and you went by it really quick we're bailing them out this year right they are they they are asking for us to bail they're asking us and and Chaz has proposed he didn't get specific but he
hinted in in the area the bucket um you know they're I think they're currently at two and a half million overspending their budget um overspending that's not projecting in the future next year it's this year they have overspent their budget by approximately $2 and a half
million dollars now they're trying to close that and it might come down but where does that money come from it needs to come from us or the reserve fund I'd like to know how much money is in the reserve fund maybe they need to go to ask for a reserve fund there's probably not enough there mean I will we're we're going to have to ask for a
reserve fund transfer too so I just want to be clear that there are issues on both sides of theard there you know on our in our end it's overtime it's Public Safety overtime right so we're not alone in that yeah I I I understand that but my my point is that I think it's it would be really helpful for for us to
understand if they just maintained the level of service that they have this year next year and stuck met their contractual obligations what would be the number um it would be very very helpful to know that okay David uh in your discussion about the C
uh CIP and how there was going to be an effort to dedicate 6.6% of Revenue and we decided to hold off on that at 6% and that essentially brought another 2 million for the schools what is the uh rate that's most
typically seen in other municipalities is it 6% is it 6.6 is it seven do we know it varies M do you have a sense yeah I think it it varies it these are our fiscal policies we've been operating at 6% for over a decade for probably 20
over 20 years um this most recent override uh brought another $2 million into and that's why the policy drifted back up to to 6.6 and now we're saying well we've been operating at 6% let's live with that for one more year in the out years of the plan I'm anticipating
that we are going back to 6.6 and that's something that if the expenditure and revenue committee looks at um kind of the what the implication of staying at that would be I think it's worth knowing what other comparable communities set for that and I'm not weighing in one way
or the other about whether that's an appropriate level but if 610 of a percent using our numbers is 2 million that's a significant amount and so just being able to know what the comps are yep excuse me can I just follow on onto that sure quickly and then har um yeah
so um but what we're saying is that we're taking $2 million out of the um override in effect uh and not spending it on what we expected to spend it when we got the voters to approve of it and putting it back into the into basically
an one of the elements of the operating budget the school budget in this case I mean at the end of the day money is fungible right like we have not we have we have met Our obligation for the roads for example that was a that was a key priority of the override because we were just not spending enough money like our roads were getting worse
every year because we just didn't have enough money in the CIP for them now at least we're trying to we're get at a point where they're hopefully not deteriorating um and that is a part of the override so we're still spending that money it's just that then other items in the CIP that we might have otherwise funded with that money are not
getting funded we're still hitting the Target right although as you say money is fungible is f and so you moved you in order to cover that where honoring what we said to the uh to the voters by cutting something else that we hadn't promised correct okay okay
Harry uh thank you Bernard and and thank you for the presentation my question is sort of like Paul Warren's um but coming at it from a different a different way um if we took last year 's actual school
budget and increased it by 3.6 or 3.8% what would happen to that $8 million deficit for FY 26 do we know how much that would go down I I'm I don't understand the I don't quite understand the question here
the question was the $8 million School deficit for FY 26 was because it was uh based upon a fully loaded budget right that had all kinds of things in it if you simply took last year's school budget and increased it by the same
amount that the town say is increasing which I think from an earlier slide was like 3.6 or 3.8% yeah what would happen to the eight million how much does it go down I mean it would go away right that's that's have to figure out a way of
cutting right yeah right it would be because you would hit if if it if it increased by that amount you're basically saying what would happen if the school budget came in at the re at the projected Revenue you know uh number here so yeah what would happen would be
that number would disappear because you the school would be submitting a budget that was commensurate with the amount of increase in revenues um you might have some discrepancy there desending depending on what the actual increase is there for example the town's increase I
think is 3.7 and the schools is 3.6 so um you know there' be some minor discrepancy but what you're what you're saying is if the schools presented a budget that increased by 3.7% from La the prior fiscal year then that's right that's that's where we'd be you know
okay because I guess what I'm trying to get at is on this fully loaded thing if you took out all the extra requests you know where does that leave them and just trying to make sense of what in this budget is a reason able
amount of growth and what is sort of what I would term to be New Growth which is programs that they're not doing now for instance but I I I think I I think I have my answer thank you so I think the biggest the biggest open question there stems from
actually their current deficit which is sure we could I I think you could make that request of them but I think they would not come back with a a level funded budget that met that Target I think even if they only met their
contractual obligations they would still be over and then layered on top of that is the deficit that they are experiencing in this fiscal year which is primarily driven by unexpected special education costs or unbudgeted special education costs so if you layer
if you make the assumption that you have to spend that money which is what they're that's the Assumption they're making um then you already have that on top of this so it's not as if 8.2 million fully loaded is all new um you
know nice to have initiatives and the school Department's position is some of those you know even if we were to cut all the way back to the Bone and say that's it a true level funded budget only contractual increases we wouldn't be where we need to be and we have to layer on top of that the fact that
special education is a necessity and we're already in the whole this fiscal year on special education so I don't think that alone will solve our problem unfortunately live I I I think Chaz just sort of said what I was going to say Harry I I don't think Harry's question and Paul's
question were the same I me Paul's question is the is Theo is is the one that's of Interest I I do think I'm surprised that it's not available you haven't seen it yet because I think the school department when they make a presentation to their finance committee
and the school committee itself I think that is a number that they do discuss in terms of of you know what it's going to cost to keep the steady state um there clearly are additions I don't have those numbers off the top of my head but I
think that that information should be easily forthcoming and I agree that you should have it well yeah I was just going to I just wanted to tweak a little bit um on what you're saying because they they are because they're overspending this year
um I guess what I what I'm looking for is not a you know the the maintenance of service budget would be what are you forecasting to be your actual spend this year and then add on top of that any contractual legal obligations that you
have um and that to me is what a maintenance level of service would be now as long as I know an audit's going to be done and as long as those that extra two and a half million is valid um and was needed to be legally done and of course but if it wasn't then it probably
would be backed out um but anyway that I think clarified it it would be helpful you yeah we're done with that particular topic I had a couple of questions related to Group Health there was one thing that Charlie had mentioned in his
presentation around uh the interfund transfers which I didn't understand when you were presenting it um and I wasn't sure whether those those transfers for Group Health were basically just accounting for
health cost that were associated with those funds or so Enterprise funds are required to pay for the benefits associated with the people in those funds so they send the general fund Revenue to pay for their benefits okay uh and then the other question is to leverage off of what you mentioned
earlier when you you said well you know that 83% number is a really high number so a would you care to elaborate on that and how can we start the dialogue to to change that yeah I think you know we
when we entered the GIC we were one of the first communities to do under section 19 which um the rules were different and they changed probably a couple years after we joined the GIC where the threshold to enter was not as High um so we are kind of bound by the
original agreement that um essentially uh in order to change it you need um a majority of the PEC to agree to it um I think it's a majority plus one other group um so it's it's real it's a real hurdle for us to to make any substantial
changes in that way I think we have you know we've been talking with our PEC about the desire to you know mitigate some of these costs and and bring them down um and I think that given the current climate there might be more appetite to continue those discussions
um Chaz I don't know if you want to add anything else about um kind of what what we're trying to do in terms of um you know keep the conversation going yeah I think it's really important important for all of our partners in this who are the you know the PC members are the um
the unions and the retirees um you know so we need to have a conversation with that group as we continue to go through this process both with the deficit analysis on the school side and as we continue with this budget process to then be able to go to them and say look
here's here's the here are the cuts that are coming um and here's what we can save off if we move away from 8317 um you know historically there hasn't been appetite for that and I understand why um but the reality is if
we want to avoid Cuts let alone settling contracts that number has to change um the alternative is layoffs that's just what it is okay Sarah I don't have a new um thing to bring up just to close out what we were talking about before is Paul I feel like your you're asking the right questions
and obviously and that was what I wanted to be prepared with tonight before I came and so I made sure to ask the chair do you consider this a level funded budget and he said that he wasn't able to answer that yet so we have other we have work to do and we will get back to you on that thank you Mr chair I wanted
to also point out that we had hand raises from Alisa Jones online and Anthony brono and Dick Bena and David da it's not popping up on my Mach on my uh computer but uh uh let's go to Janet
first think she had her hand up hi uh Janet Gart I'm a member of this brand new committee um I think it would be helpful in gathering information it's something we asked for many years ago to get the full the comps of the full cost
of employment because I think our salaries may be running a little bit low but our benefit contribution is really high so if we're doing comps this is something I know Cliff asked for 10 years ago when I first met you which is we need to see that fully
loaded thing I know some school districts and you know this is just off the top of my head a very small sample they're providing 50% support which I think is totally underfunded um but when we ask for this
in the past it was sort of up and down and we weren't getting full information but it was really really be helpful to see um salary ranges not just average salaries because averages aren't good but maybe median range if you were a
teacher in each of these places if you were a social worker in each of these places what would the full salary benefit amount be thank you hey um dick dick binka yes thank you thank you very much
uh two questions one following up on the GIC discussion um when we entered the GIC it was I think uh the most coste effective uh uh Health Care option that was available and I'm wondering whether
it still is um H are other communities um staying with the GIC um are there alternatives to the GIC that that uh We've looked at or is that not worth an inquiry unfortunately the
issues that we're that are facing in healthcare are pretty Global at this point um you know the the the barometer that I use is whether or not someone chases after me at the MMA conference to ask whether or not I want to switch out of the GIC and this year no one did um
you know the the um we've I've been in conversation with other Town managers and administrators in norfol county and for those folks who are out of the GIC the numbers they're seeing are higher um they're seeing 14 and 15% um so just by virtue of the fact that we're bundling
risk the number is lower but the only people who are really seeing anything lower are people who are truly self-insured people who are building their own plans and not participating in conjunction with a bigger or you know have more control over the what they
provide in terms of benefits and costs as opposed to buying into a plan that's then administered by um a larger group like blue or part of a larger um risk pool like Blue Cross does and and I would say that what we've been seeing over the past couple of years has been
kind of a a covid hangover uh people who were deferring their health care during the pandemic are now coming back and either their conditions are getting worse and I mean we're seeing it across across the state um another you know just another example another manager um in another Community uh the rate
increase that they were seeing is 16.9% so um you know I it being seen everywhere okay thank you the second uh second broad question uh goes to um the
one-time uh funding question um or the um limited year funding question of arpa um grants that we might receive and so forth I I looked in the financial plan and um on page 58 to 61 there's a BRI
discussion of arpa um uh you alluded to arpa in your presentation Chaz uh you also alluded to some grants there's an arpa tracking page on the town's website um what I'm wondering and I
couldn't find it anywhere and maybe it's there um and I missed it but is there um any any place that crosswalks arpa funding Grand funding
um essentially one-time non-recurring funding uh on the town side and the school side to positions and programs in the FY 26 budget um so that we can get
some idea of whether there are programs that are um that the funding sources are going to be disappearing for or aren't guaranteed the way that recurring property taxes are is there some
crosswalk somewhere that that we could put our hands on we have some of that individually um we certainly do that for arpa we check that on a regular basis Tyler and Nicole and the whole team bring it to us to talk through knowing that right there's once once December
3126 comes around that's it we're done um so anything that's funded on arpa needs to come off or be eliminated the other stuff is more discreet the other Grant funded things are more discreet and they again there are not that many rant funded positions out there um that
would be um which we try to really avoid putting lines on funds that are that are susceptible to um pressures like that the exceptions are obviously when we do things like piloting sustainability um which was something that we agreed to do
and we went into with open eyes um and then you know things that were longer term on the arpa side of things like the administration of the grants I don't know Melissa wants to yeah I would just say that throughout the financial plan in each of the individual departmental budgets there are um line items that are
indicated as offsets and we have the backup behind those offsets and what they tie to so I think we can make that a little bit clearer Charlie and I have been talking about kind of building out external funds a little bit more robustly you know going forward um I think if we didn't have so much rebuilding to do in open gov that we'd
likely would have been able to get there but want yeah yeah absolutely and really quick um just wanted to add that if you go to section two and you look at the FTE tables um we have added a little bit of a crosswalk that shows how many employees are being funded outside of
the general fund so it shows total FTE it shows those funded outside the general fund and gives you net FTE and it is broken out by say funded by Capital Appropriations versus funded by grants um and so you can get a sense of how many of our FTE not necessarily
programs I think that's a a fair request um are being funed by uh by by grants or outside sources and then as Melissa said those offset lines where you see a negative number in a department budget table is referring to something outside the operating budget that's funding um
that program or or those those those individual FTE okay thank you all it's just something that I think might become relevant uh just putting on my e and RSC hat here as we go forward um uh looking
into the future thank you great thanks yeah David did you have your hand up yes hold on um Tiffany who else on um I also had a hand from Alisa Jonas online Anthony Bono raised a
hand Mr John dogget raise his hand okay to get your flags or something okay Paul I mean David I'm curious at what other levers you've looked at in addition to the CIP that could be adjusted to potentially ize certain funds so we hear a lot of
discussion about free cash but of course as you mentioned Chaz by state guidelines we really need to be within five and 7% and we're only at 5.3 which is within the range but potentially perilous and so I don't think we would want to touch that but what are other
categories where we can adjust sort of the number we look at as a percentage of Revenue to potentially find certain shifts uh just the other things that flow through the waterfall so it's our Reserve fund contribution it is our liability fund contribution it is the
overall undesignated fund balance I mean these are all things that are kind of higher on the priority level than the CIP so that's why we adjusted the CIP okay okay uh Lisa Jonas hi thank you Bernard um I'm just
wondering if there's we have two questions uh one is if someone could provide any information on uh our open PEB liabilities compared to other communities in Greater Boston and also
how the um how the level of the amount of our liability affects um our ratings I'm I'm gonna ask I'm gonna ask Lincoln to add a little bit more to this I think that we can be very proud of where we are relative to OPB and
especially in uh varing communities um you know our OPB trust has over a hundred billion dollars in it um you know which is you know far and above and beyond kind of where other communities are I will say that um you know Moody's does recognize this but they you know
have given us kind of the that's great that that's there but you really need to focus on your fund balance and that's kind of why the free cash has gone from funding OPB to funding the overall fund balance um but I don't know if you want to talk about um other communities as well sir you're
welcome thank thanks Melissa uh yes so lincol Hinman the town's Director of Finance so as Melissa said um we have a total as of the last measurement date um which uh was this past June 30th the Actuarial measurement date we had a
total liability of $31.7 million of which $14.9 million is funded so that's uh 34 uh 75% so I I I would I would say
we're you know we're we're really sort of in the in the mid-range there um you know there's certainly many municipalities particularly uh smaller municipalities and other governmental units in Massachusetts that are far behind that you know who who haven't um
you know begun to fund their OPB liability in any significant way and there are a few massachusett municipalities that that have that have um exceeded that I I I'd say we're in the mid-range as Melissa said um I think
a key factor there is as she said in our last conversations with Moody's with our ratings agency the key metric that we had appreciable control over is the reserve fund and so you know I think there's a recognition on the part of the of of Moody that we've made progress
towards oped that it's important but they all but they also recognize that um you know there's a plan coalescing around uh meeting the opab obligation once the um outstanding pension obligation is uh is met hopefully in
2030 so good yeah thank you and I did have one more question just following up on Dick bov's um I'm wondering whether there were any grants federal grants to the town that have been fro Frozen at all any of the funding or have we not
been affected and also is it too early to start predicting where we might be losing funds and how we might deal with that it's too early we we know what the poent total potential exposure is right it's around 3 million we have not yet you know what we've heard from our
direct conversation with the federal government is silence um you know wherever possible where you know the things that we are drawing regularly we've been able to draw on um what we don't know is if any more money that is more irregular in nature will continue to be
forthcoming great thank you okay uh Tony a thank you and thank you for the presentation by the way next Brian burer on on on Bri Brian is not a member of any of these groups oh I'm sorry never mind thank you for the
presentation thank you for calling on me um I have a quick question so does the CIP count towards our overall fund balance that Moody is looking at because I thought it didn't count towards that but does it like like like the CIP balance fund or no no I mean that I
think I'm not sure sorry when so like when you're putting 9 million for special purpose into the CIP that money is getting allocated directly and it's not being recorded by Moody's as no they look they look at our overall uh allocation of funds so they're looking at our they look at our Capital plan
they look they look at our level of debt they look at what we are investing in our Capital plan so that is part of the overall equation okay so I guess my question is if we have like this 9 million left over that could be utilized in special use is there a reason why we've chosen to or you know so far
chosen to go 9 million into Capital Improvement and not beef up cash reserves if that is something that we're worried about in the future I think that we are trying to gradually boost our fund balance position without jeopardizing the funding requests in the CIP I think you know we do have a number
of requests um year-over year and knowing that we are pulling back on CIP this year and that we're also increasing our Revenue estimates for local receipts I think we're worried about the out years of the CIP so to try and bolster in 26 while we have the money in hand um
that was the strategy around the use of the $9 million great and I'm just going to ask I'm going to ask one more question um since the the Full Employment as as as Chaz was talking about the Full Employment uh reaching that has not helped the overtime issue in a meaningful way is there a longer
strategy on how to deal with that problem is there something being developed right now yeah we're working you know we're working and again it's different I want to say be clear the police are not at full employment right there are six positions in the police department that are held open they are at full modified employment um and that will shift somewhat um there and for
example there are folks who are on the books um who may be retiring in short order who may have injuries on duty that are preventing them from you know being a part of that so all of that is things are things that we're looking at when we're trying to evaluate how we can address those but at the end of the day
the biggest lever that we have there in both the police and the fire departments is Staffing um there needs to be serious conversations about how many people staff how many shifts um and that's really where we need to have conversations uh John well can I comment on Anthony's question yeah very quick um
I think it's really important to recognize that the CIP I mean capital capital expenses that come into the CIP are not really discretionary they may you may be able to postpone something for a year but ultimately if you do too much postponing
your um your Capital plant goes downhill in a big way and it goes down much faster the longer you wait uh so you have this gradual drop off sort of like streets as we've heard from the DPW commissioner of the streets gets a little bit worse and then if you don't
do anything about it it gets a lot worse in a hurry uh and I think that's true of parks it's true of a lot of capital uh capital investment that we have so that $9 million is not just you know oh yeah we could do something else with it if we
do something else with it there are consequences John hi um John do advisory committee I think CH you might have addressed some of this question but um with that Alyssa asked um concerning the
FED fund risk um or not fun in Risk um I just would like to you said $3 million for the schools you didn't have a figure but maybe you could lightness as to an estimate one the second is is the school more at risk more schools more at risk than the town or is the same and any
assessment of the size of that risk in other words is it is it something that we want to run Plan B budget or not at that level I would say so I don't want to I don't want to be un un uh I want to cause alarm uh um I don't have a handle
I don't have my hands around how much money on the school side it's a lot um and unlike on our end it funds programs and it funds positions so we're not in a situation where if Federal funding were cut off to the schools there would be that that would really be caused for a
scramble um and so we are working you know the superintendent and the team over there is part you know of this you know response team that we set up we have a response team that is a of government response that includes the superintendent we meet on at least a monthly basis and we've been meeting
since before the election to talk about what's going on here the school side of things is just a little harder to get my hands around because that level of threat is potentially existential so I don't want to I can't put a number on it but it's serious
um the list still we still working down the list or no that's we've got everyone on my list everyone John yeah thanks well I'm just jumping back to the discussion that was um earlier about the school situation um and the you know
eight8 million um Gap in the current budget um I did some back of the envelope math uh earlier today based on the FTE numbers that are in the various budget books um going back three years
and um essentially what that tells you is that this budget built around an $8 million gap um has roughly 90 more FTE in it than existed in the school budget
from three years ago um and if for example instead of 90 more FTE there were only 10 more FTE um you'd pretty much take care of that $8 million deficit and 10 more FTE
is more than they had you know it's more more people than they had three years ago um during a time when enrollment has increased very little so I don't think that's an unreasonable scenario to offer as an alternative to a budget that has
an $8 million gap in it and 90 additional employees over what the schools were functioning with very perfectly well um three years years ago so I I hope people will think about that I hope that the
school department will address that kind of reality but you know that's up to them uh I had a different question which is on a very particular subject and that's the Davis Avenue Footbridge uh which I see in the budget
um there is no money this year but $500,000 has been spent uh by the town so far by by my you know look at the books from previous years and um what it says in the budget for FY
26 is no money to be spent on that and it furthermore says that um this has not yet been programmed by tip iip which you know for those who aren't familiar with it is the transportation Improvement
program that funnels State funds um or state federal funds to local projects so a couple of questions um if if we don't ever get tip funds are we prepared to go the distance on a $13 million Footbridge
um project um and uh and and furthermore how how long do we expect to wait before we you know know for sure if we're ever going to get those tip funds because it's been quite a while that people have gone without that foot Bridge already so
the CIP is currently assuming that the town is fully paying for the Davis path foot bridge I I have that built into the debt plan I'm hoping that a grant will alleviate that and for money to do other projects but right now it's taking up capacity in the CIP is is there well I I don't know who
to ask this question of but it feels to me as though we might want to do a reckoning if we if we've been thinking about this as a project that would get tip funding and then it turns out it's not going to get tip funding it feels like we should should
revisit um do do we still think it's a project we can afford to go ahead with at $13 million nobody when we first conceived of this project thought it was going to be a $13 million project so I yeah I agree and I think that there are other projects looming in the out
years of the CIP that likely will try and compete for this capacity as well thank you anyone else um oh somebody better ask questions or I'm gonna or you
are um I I listened to the Mr Brown's comment about um that we that there was a dis a decline in school spending as a percentage of the total um and I would point out that there's been a more significant decline in enrollment and
there's a um there's actually been an increase in the spending per pupil um out of scale to um the overall increase in budget uh in in in sorry overall increase in the town's budget uh and so um you know
there's the old saying there's you can there are Li Stam Li and statistics um I think you have to be really careful about what sorts of comparisons you make and I think that per pupil expenditures are a far better exam a far better indicator of what we're spending on uh
on education than looking at percentages of the total in a situation where um enrollment fluctuates okay any any other questions uh comments well John but Paul Paul go ahead no well I was just I just wanted
to make sure that um it sounded like uh Sarah had said that she heard the request for a uh maintenance level of service budget um I don't know if we need to send a formal request to the school committee or to the superintendent but I
I I just want to emphasize that um this is so important to understand how much money does it take to just keep doing what we're doing frankly it might be too much and we still have to make Cuts but it would be helpful to know what that is before you have to start doing um you
know a lot more work to find efficiencies um and I will I will say I've dug into this quite a bit um and I don't want to cause anybody any grief but you know the the the k through eight Cuts there's been nothing really suggested at the high school and I know
there there's some conversations about that um that that may be happening but um you know from from this parents standpoint the last place we should be uh touching is student facing um and again this is probably more appropriate
for me to be speaking at a school committee meeting so I don't mean to take the time of the select board but anyway so I'm going to leave okay Sarah and then Jesse ha has his stand up so what I did mean to say earlier and I guess I didn't say say it clearly enough is yes I think that that's a really good way of looking at this is what would be
level funding and I thought that I was prepared to say that tonight and then what I meant to say was I spoke to our chair today and he was saying that he thinks that we need to do more work in order to really determine that so I wanted to say we will answer that and it
will be later okay thank you he Jesse thank you um yes Jesse hefter school committee just wanted to Echo uh Sarah's comment about the fact that and to respond again to Paul's comment that we are and have already asked for a level
funded budget it just hasn't appeared in front of us yet we hope that will be soon and that we are looking uh Paul to your point at um obviously the highest priority items we're looking at are ones that are not in any way student faing
um how far we'll be able to bring the gap down we'll know in the next week or two but I want to point out that the budget that we were given was obviously um pretty shockingly high in terms of its deficit and we're working sort of around the clock to try to understand
all the different elements of it and I'm really um going to predict right now for you that we're going to uh be able to make some significant changes there thank you John should I you insist if I insist I'm
I'm done okay um do you have a long list no no no I I just I felt a little awkward about coming back in so soon um so another thing that is very much on my mind and and very much an element of this budget is um our spending for
Street rehabilitations and we do have a line item um in the budget 5,130 th000 in town funds um but what I don't see in the budget is um uh within
that uh $ 5,130 th000 how much are we going to be spending on um actual U resurfacing of roadway and I I've seen budgets and you know in particular uh one in another a neighboring community
that got get down to the spefic specifics of for example in this budget the town will resurface blank Lane miles or blank square yards of material per year um they go into how that will be
done what method of repaving then they say the estimated cost per Lane mile for resurfacing is currently and fill in the blank or more per Lane Mile and they explain how they do that um and then they come to um finish saying Target
funding for Street resurfacing the actual Street resurfacing is and they have a dollar amount for actual Street resurfacing and then they go into the streets that will be resurfaced and I I if that exists in
the budget I apologize to everyone for this long question I don't think it does and so I'm just and I shouldn't be looking at Melissa um because you know it's more a DPW question um I I think we should have that in our budget and and I don't think it's impossible to get it
between now and when we actually bring this budget to town meeting yeah I I will say that those types of conversations typically happen at the advisory committee level um and you know I don't want to commit commissioner shoot to something that she's not ready for um but I think we can express to her that you know when
she put presents to the board that you're looking for um more detail on the level of investment in the roadway account yeah yeah Paul yeah and I think um related to this John you you and I talked maybe last week a little bit about a similar
subject so I think if I remember um one of the things that you had mentioned was you were wondering how much money was going towards design work for like the Washington Street Corridor or the bridal path versus how much money was actually going into pavement right
um and Chaz is the or Melissa does the design work come out of the CIP or is that coming out of the operating budget the town's contribution to the Washington Street project is a separate line item in the CIP so 800,000 in fiscal 26 it's in the CIP and what about the uh Bridal path design work so the
bridal path um I believe that we um we have a federal earmark that is a piece of that yeah two3 is federal and then there's we had previously committed arpa funds but given the time constraints around getting obligations in place we ended up needing to swap the arpa
commitment for the CIP so we took CIP money that we were planning on spending in the roadway account used arpa instead and that freed up a million dollars in the CIP to provide the bridal pathor okay so the the point is the design work is in the CIP and the number that John
quoted although a million I think we've right appropriated the first million but first million but it's out but in it's coming from the CIP as points the number that you're worried about the five million asking the detail that sounds like it's probably more pavement and concrete well You' like to know what the
maybe because you know I don't I don't see uh Lane miles specified as to how many Lane miles we're going to you know get for this money and and where will those Lane miles be and by the way the same thing applies to sidewalks um and then there's you know
like a separate category for uh speed bumps you know how much are we going to spend um on speed bumps how many speed bump installations will we get over the course of a year yeah and I think that you know given that the policy is evolving too I think that's a moving
Target as well so um I think we can try and get you the best information that we have but I think you know the measuring the impact of a change in policy is going to be a lot more complicated than just simply picking up pavement and putting it back down again yeah yeah J no I'm just gonna say that's
that's that's really what that you know when DPW gives its budget presentation we can obviously have that discussion um but it is going to be two different things it's going to be under the current policy and it's going to be under the revised policies that then break out you know re complete streets
reimagining versus repa yeah okay we exhausted everyone's uh questions and comments let's move on to the next item on our um Jesse he did raise his hand oh
Jesse again okay Jesse thank you just to Mike sandman's point about enrollment um the budget was for the school department list the fiscal year 25 enrollment at
7,089 and the fiscal year 26 at 7153 which would actually be an increase of around 60 students and so while it's true if the um if the uh cost goes up
significantly the cost per pupil will go if we could get more towards a level funded or less deficit oriented um budget then the price per pupil may not be increasing as uh significantly as was mentioned earlier thanks Bernard before on um yeah I'm
sorry so you outlined at the this is uh Dennis dowy chair of the advisory committee at the start of this section of the meeting you outlined the highlevel process and the responsibility of the select board the responsibility of the advisory committee will be over the next several weeks the sub advisory
committee subcommittees will be holding uh hearings on each of these departmental budgets they are public hearings they're open to the public you can come and ask make statements or and um and you should reach out uh to our uh
subcommittees through the contact information on our website if you have questions or comments that you'd like to to share as part of that process the entire schedule is uh available from The Advisory committee's website you can see when both the sub commes and the full
advisory committee will be hearing each of those budgets great thank you and those are hybrid meetings case someone doesn't know that okay I'm sorry Mike um sorry that just brings up a quick question um has
the state legislature extended no no so hybrid may go away hybrid may go so okay but again it's not about we we're talking about what that looks like in practice that's really more about you have to have a quorum in person right right right we could still broadcast in hybrid fashion we just need
to have plus one in the room right yeah and I think Dennis was really speaking to the sort of broad population of residents um yeah you who should be participating in this process
so okay so that uh concludes this discussion it's been very helpful in my opinion um and um the new expenditure and revenue committee um I hope you've absorbed uh the discussion so that when
we start meeting we'll be able to uh start at a fairly high level thank you Chaz and Melissa and Charlie thank you and thank you David Mark David Mark David Mark and David
Mark we have one more thing on our agenda we do yes Mo for MWR okay could you take your conversation outside because we have one more item on the agenda yeah where's my Mallet it's too late
now a little on table right okay so next I item is um Massachusetts Waters uh resources Authority loans question of approving an NW infiltration and and inflow and local
water system financial assistance and Loan agreement packages and authorizing the Town Administrator and Director of Finance to sign and execute the agreements on behalf of the Town Lincoln why don't you good evening again what this is all about so um I'm I'm here
tonight and I yes J her the director of water and sewers online to answer any specific questions um that I may not be able to answer um regarding the specifics of this project what we're here uh tonight uh is to seek the board's approval to actually borrow from
the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority um for two projects um these are two distinct borrowings but we thought in the interest of brevity we'd bring them together one is for sewer work um so that would be a total of
$1,699 th000 in financial assistance of which 75% would would be a grant um $42,000 a no interest loan and then the uh that's for inflow and infiltration work to um to reduce you know to reduce
that inflow and infiltration into the sore system so that uh we have less um uh effluent that needs to be treated and the other $2 million uh even um 0% uh interest loan from that would
support the water system is specifically for replacing lead service lines and evaluating um uh the lead the lead service line environment you know within the town's uh water system um again
that's the entirety of that is a noin loan so in both cases that is the same very generous terms um that uh the MW has offered in the past for water and sewer there's certainly terms that uh we could in no way achieve out on the
General market one final uh piece is um to ju just sort of be clear about the process both of these have both been approved by town meeting so the authorization to borrow has been approved by town meeting but as a reminder the select board is actually is
the entity the body you have the authority to actually approve the borrowing itself um so again happy to answer any questions and I know Jay is as well yeah one one question I have uh lead service lines those are owned by the property owner right or I'm GNA turn that to Jay to
answer yeah no thank you for the the question um lead service lines can be shared by both um the town and by the the private side in Brookline um the public side is from the Maine all the way to the curb stop or to sideline or
the limit of the RightWay and then from the RightWay way into the home is uh privately owned unless you live on a private way we borrowing we're borrowing for the town's piece of that correct okay and if we need to if we do discover
lead um a lot of the funding um requires that we replace it all the way into the house to make sure it's totally let free okay all yeah so I so two question I was all this was payback for me like what's how does it how do we recover the
cost so um if there is a lead line that needs to be replaced and you you're going to clearly I'd think you'd go all the way to the house yeah uh do we ask the the homeowner to Bear a piece of that or is that is the town paying for that the town would take care of that
cost um you know fortunately for Brookline most of the town was built with um iron pipe or cement line iron pipe so we've actually found um very little lead in the system although there is um lead Goose necks as they call it
and that was how they connected up the old straight pieces of pipe to the main so our goal is to actually get rid of you know all of those as we come across them but those Goose necks are on the public side not the private side okay and given the damage of of lead to
Children you know that's a helpful explanation know where it is yeah yeah and then the the second question is about um the infiltration um work I assume and I and I'm sorry if this is a dumb question but do we get charged for how much outflow we have do they measure
that they do they do y the answer okay so I assume there's a payback if we have less inflow you're G to have less outflow uh and we won't be charged as much correct that's absolutely correct and Brook line is actually probably the number one Community right now as far as
reducing the amount of inflow coming in and because we've done that our sewer assessments have come down over the years so we're actually saving money through this progr okay great I always like to save money John um let me just say this is one of
my favorite U items because I I I discover how truly you know confused I can get about things um it's kind of an annual ask isn't it that that we haven't we've done this before yes yeah yeah we had like I said we we were seeking to
combine it this time to sort of save some of your time we had done it in different pieces in the past I believe the last time um we borrowed from the MW was in November of 2023 so we took a little break there because we did have
sufficient funds to do the work that needed to be done at that time and then this is coming back because those funds are being exhausted yeah so here's where I really display you know my ignorance on this stuff um when you say we who who is borrowing the money is it the town or
is it the water sewer department the division whatever you want to call it yes so so they're General obligation bonds so the the the town as an entity is responsible for them um as as any bonds that that that we and who are they
borrowing the money from from the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority and and the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority is giving us a 0% interest rate on the borrowing uh for the water for the for the sewer at 0% and then what 75 % of it is a direct
grant that does not need to be repaid and and why do they do that I nobody nobody else loans Money at zero% interest why do they do that yeah I can I can explain that one that one is
U it actually benefits them too because it reduces if we reduce the amount of clear water entering our system it also reduces the amount of clear water they have to treat at the plant I mean why do they only charge zero% yeah it's subsidy from the state it's a
it's a it's a subsidy what we should be asking is can we borrow enough money to build a school yeah yeah I know I know yeah yeah yeah and we count I mean I think that's why MW was set up to and to subsidize these type of projects yeah I
think part of the answer is that the state's made a policy decision goal that these are two policies that that it wants to support why Ju Just just one other quick point just to just to for complete Clarity hopefully the they are General
obligation bonds that are backed fully by the town but the premiums the in you know the principle well there's no interest the principle that pay payments are coming back from the Enterprise fund right they're coming back from users but they are backed by the
town and so is this going to um end up being one of those things that where we in this cyware members have to sign the um indeed if you could all make sure that you sign it uh after you resumed uh approval tonight that would be great so we can get the documents off tomorrow that's the real reason I enjoy this item
is it's the only time in my life I get to borrow money at z% interest and put my name on it right okay thanks yeah well you finished talking you in a hurry never know around here um okay I
move uh approval of the um let's see how do we phrase this um will approval of the MW infiltration and inflow in local water system financial assistance and Loan packages and authorizing the Town
Administrator and Director of Finance to sign and execute the agreements on behalf of the better town that good second yes okay thank you all in favor please indicate by saying I John V skak hi Michael slman hi Paul Warren hi David Perman I sh votes I
thank you thank you okay and that is the end of the meeting we did have some folks who did not get to speak at the beginning of the meeting okay um so first is Alex Neri Alex I'm promoting you now if you can state your name and
Brookline precinct number or address for the record and begin your 3 minutes hi my name is Alex ner uh I'm in Precinct 5 and I'm here tonight to raise concerns on a different topic um how zoning conditions and Building Code
Compliance is enforced in Brookline uh it's not a topic that I bring up lightly uh son is bring through the pering construction process I have seen firsthand how the enforcement of these regulations isn't neutral it's not predictable and it's not
fair uh rather than serving as an impartial enforcer the rules to build a commissioner has been applying the code arbitrarily and often based on who's making the complaint rather than what the law actually requires uh when I rebuilt my Brook line home the Building
Commissioner did not just enforce the code he went beyond it forcing us to make changes that were not compliant with the actual building code simply because neighbors requested it when we presented clear counter evidence including from our architect that these
changes were improper we were ignored the commissioner would not engage would not discuss and made it clear that he was going to impose his own interpretation regardless of what the law actually said yeah when I raised a clear violation about a neighboring property recently where newly installed
gutters were positioned to Trin directly onto the public sidewalk in violation of both the building code and Zoning conditions their response from the building department was delay and deflection and silence the rules should be the same for everybody um my concerns were ignored
while neighboring complaints are treated as urgent matters and I know I'm not alone on this I've spoken with others in Brookline who've experienced the same pattern it's strict enforcement for some leniency for others and even requirements that contradict the building code all depending on who is
making the complaint rather than the merits of the case uh when a building official stops enforcing law and starts rewriting it to fit personal or political motives the Integrity of the entire permitting enforcement system collapses if our building regulations
are applied inconsistently and in ways that contradict the actual code then they aren't really regulations at all they're just tools R for those inow to impose their own agenda the the select board has a responsibility to ensure that all Brookline residents are treated fairly enforcement of our laws is
consist consistent and impartial uh I'd urged the board to look into how zoning and building codes are being applied and ask why some residents are held to a different standard than others and to take action ensure that the Building Commissioner is enforced seconds written not how he chooses to
interpret it it's not just about my case it's about Fair Ness transparency and accountability of Brooklyn's government I appreciate the select board's time and consideration and I hope this board takes these concerns seriously Alex um can you rovide your
address uh my address is 17 heart street I'm in PR Precinct 5 thank you and Al it' be useful if you were to send us a um U an email regarding your complaint
okay thank you thank you Alex the next speaker that signed up in advance was Ally kerb but I don't believe Ally is on Ally if you're on could you raise your hand using the raise the hand feature at this time are there any other individuals who
wish to speak during public comment okay there is one person in the room 14 online and no one else is indicating their desire to speak okay thank you actually two people we we also count Sam oh apologize
Sam um although he has a special role in this um in the meeting so uh that's that ends the meeting so um thank you