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[Music] good afternoon everyone welcome to the February 4th 2025 meeting of the chadam finance committee my name is Andy young I'm Vice chair and I will be conducting the meeting today pursuant to Governor Healey's March 29th 2023 signing of the acts of 2023 extending certain covid-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency suspending certain provisions of the
open meeting law general laws chapter 30A section 20 and until March 31st 2025 this meeting of the chadam finance committee is being conducted in person and via remote participation every effort will be made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings as provided for in the order a reminder that persons who would like to listen to this meeting while in progress may do so by calling the phone number one area code 508
945 441 conference ID 11 [Music] 95433 pound sign or join the meeting online via Microsoft teams through the link in the posted agenda while this is a live broadcast and simal cast on chadam TV Xfinity channel 1072 despite our best efforts we may not be able to provide realtime access we
will post a record of this meeting on the town's website at as soon as possible this meeting is being recorded and will be available shortly Hereafter if anyone is recording this meeting please notify the chairman seeing none all right we'll do with roll call Tommy Don here okay remote Barber Madison here John papalardo present Jo spray here
Andy young is here Kristen Andress here try Shields here Eric Whitley here and Steven Daniel is here remotely as well great thank you we have a quorum we can proceed Carrie do you want to step up thank you Mr chair um there's going to be a little bit of change we're going to start off with um the departmental budget of Community Development before
um we start with natural resources just so you're aware of that little change um so the Department of Community Development for FY 2026 is reflecting a budget of 1,137 615 reflecting 11.59% increase from the prior year this includes 1, 15,000 $115 for salaries and wages um
which account for contractual wage step and Longevity increases as well as temporary wages and overtime the increase in salaries also funds a new full-time local inspector position recommended by the town manager to address the short annual short-term rental inspections required under the new mass building code effective October 11th 2024 their operating expenses amount to 122,500 with a net decrease of
$3,000 and we have have um the department head for the Community Development Katie dunan online to present her budget for us thank you Carrie Katie good to see you I'm not hearing you sorry um good afternoon everybody thank you for having me I apologize that I'm not there in person um I have a
brief presentation are for the for the Community Development budget if you'll just give me a moment to share my screen okay can everybody see my screen okay yes yes okay so just a brief overview of the Department of Community Development um our Personnel uh we have myself the community development
director we have Jay Briggs who's our Building Commissioner in zoning enforcement officer Sarah Clark who is our Central Permitting coordinator our housing and sustainability director Gloria mcferson our new town planner Christino Brady um our local building inspector Richard Flores our department coordinator Christina Basset and we have Community Development Department assistance Chantel Kilkenny and Annie Hayes um we also have um contracted uh
per on a per inspection basis our electrical inspector Pete win and Eric Oka who is our plumbing and gas inspector just a few statistics from 2024 of the um work that the department um undertook so we issued 1,86 building permits uh 9911 electrical permits and 1,152 plumbing and gas permits and with
those uh we conducted 1, 65 inspections relating to building permits 1,316 inspections related to electrical inspections and 1,657 inspections relating to plumbing and gas uh we took in revenue of $581,500 related to those permits Alone um also we had 370 applications
that were reviewed from our regulatory boards which include UD the planning board the zoning board of appeals the historical commission and the historical business district commission um and we took in four
$409524 Nissan Leaf and a 2020 4 Ford F-150 Lightning um we do not have any Capital requests this year from the Department of Community Development this is a slide just relating to the operating budget uh Carrie had already gone over um all of this information um but as she mentioned our operating expenses um we have a decrease um due to savings and
operational supplies uh community development actually does all the operational supplies for the entire building um at the annex so including all paper supplies um any type of office supply for natural resources um the sticker office as well as Community Development um but we did see we have been seeing a savings um over the past few years so we did reduce that line item um we also reduced Publications and subscriptions and we that was because
last year we had an increase because we needed to by new um code books based on the new building code that was just adopted um and then as was mentioned we um have an increase in $1,000 each in continuing education and meetings dues and travel um with additional staff an additional staff member added a couple of years back uh we realized that um we wanted to be able to provide for additional training for all of our
department um Department staff and so that increase um is necessary in order to be able to cover the costs of those um meetings and trainings and such and then just a little bit to talk about the new position um so with the adoption of the new State Building Code um one of the changes was the inclusion of periodic inspections for new uh for short-term rentals so they are now required an
annual inspection by a local building inspector or by somebody um that operates under the building division whether it be the building commissioner or a local inspector um and those are for owner OCC non-owner occupied single or two family dwellings um and again those are on an annual basis when we looked at the number of rent short-term rentals that we had registered um it would we looked at being able to do 30
inspections per week and with that it would take uh 1 person about 37 weeks to perform all of the inspections based on the number of registrations that we had um we know that we can absorb those inspections with our current Staffing levels and so we had requested um this position which the town manager has supported uh we looked at a potential funding source um as potentially raising the annual short-term rental fee which is currently $50 um raising it potentially to $100 or
$150 and the proposed salary um for this position starting salary would be $75,500 and that is all I have to present and I'm happy to answer any questions M thank you Kati Mr chair um yes Katie thank you uh 11.59% is quite an increase in economy
where the the rate of inflation is not nearly that high can you go over again the the major causes of that and I understand one of them is a a new position and just explain that one more time sure so um so they it's for the contractual wage and step and Longevity um as well as the uh the new position so
um anything that's related to the salary because again we have a decrease um in our operational expenses um but the increase is really related to the salaries which um are related to contractural wage um Step increases longevity increases as well as um temporary wages in an overtime and can you give me again the justification and of the new position and the description of what this new
position does for the town please sure sure sure so this position will primarily be doing conducting inspections of short-term rentals as required by the new um adoption of the State Building Code um these inspections were previously not required under the building code and now that they are um again we don't have um the ability to absorb these inspections with our current Staffing levels and what we
would like to do is have a new local inspection um who would primarily perform these inspections but we would also pross train to be able to conduct um other other inspections required by the building code as well as train our current staff to be able to do short-term inspection uh short-term rental inspections when needed um if the other if the new position um the person hired in the new position wasn't available so that would be uh for
this new position $75,000 uh Plus benefits of between 15 and 20,000 that's correct I think um if Carrie could confirm um on the wages on the benefits I think that it's and what are the benefits again did I get that quite right the benefits run how much the benefits sorry I just want to interrupt just one second the benefits run we estimate around 30,000 30,000
okay behind on that yep so Al together that's uh around 105,000 for this new position yes that's correct okay thank you you're welcome thank you Tran Eric go ahead uh thank you um again staying on the new position um so can you give us a little more detail on what what this means is it will they be doing inspections you know year round or
during the season when most of these are populated and how does that part of it work and what are they actually inspecting so they'll be inspect inspecting for Life Safety um you know egests um making sure that there's smoke detectors carbon monoxide detectors and such um they will our hope is that they won't all end up being um early on in the year my my assumption is that people will want to
have them done most of the time in the offseason season so I'm assuming sometime between September um and may before the heist season um because I would assume that they would not want inspections done during the time when they were renting um but again we would have somebody available all year long um to be able to do them as requested um but what we would do likely is that we would send um you know with their with their annual
registration uh we would send uh um the information for them to call and set up uh an inspection with our local inspector right um so is there a revenue portion to this to to to the side of the of these new inspections as far as a fee for for being part of it and and how many are currently registered how many homes are we actually talking about here so when we had first uh requested the
position we had checked with um on the rent registrations and that that at that time there were about 900 uh short-term rentals that were registered with the town um again with a our thought was that if we were to Able if we were able to increase the registration fee which is annually currently $50 um if we were able to increase that by $100 and to have a $150 fee that that would be a potential
funding source for this position um so that's something that we're exploring um as an option as a possibility I have other questions okay Barbara go ahead thank you Mr chair um Katie I'm guessing that if we have to do this other towns have to too was any thought given possibly to sharing a position with another town instead of taking on the whole um full-time position for
us so um we we hadn't thought of that because we were thinking that most other communities are probably or at least locally are probably in the same boat that we are um with you know with a number of inspections it's something that we haven't explored but I'm certainly happy to do so is this something that I mean you have to be licensed to be an inspector I'm guessing you do um that's something that we looked at as well but because it has it's under the State Building Code you have to be certified as a local
inspector in order to be able to perform inspections under the State Building so how long would you guess each each inspection takes so our um information provided by our Building Commissioner he thought that they would probably be about you know maybe 30 minutes to an hour um at the most and so potentially performing you know 30 inspections a week maybe six inspections a day okay thanks Katie go ahead
Eric sorry I keep cutting in front um so so the plumbing and gas inspectors are are um hired outs they're not fulltime Town employees is there any consideration to having this kind of a position in in that manner sure um you know we we did think about that um I don't think that it's something that we're necessarily opposed to but this position was requested by um
you know by the building division by The Building Commissioner um and thoughts that we would have somebody be able to be there again and fill in um at times um on the um I apologize just if it were necessary
Katie you were frozen you're still frozen oh sorry that's okay sorry um I'm sorry did any of my answer come through no I don't think so okay I apologize um so basically we were the The Building Commissioner um requested the full-time position based on the fact that um not knowing you know at 900 um inspections or 900 fully registered
um as of the time of the request um the thought is that we probably have about double that for the number of short-term rentals so if we get additional registrations it would actually take someone um more you know like more on a fulltime basis to be able to do these inspections currently our plumbing inspector um Works uh two days a week doing the Performing the inspections that they
perform and our electrical inspector Works um basically mornings um so it's they're not full-time positions but um again it's something that we can explore if needed uh but like I said the Building Commissioner had requested a full-time position Tracy thank you Mr chair hi Katie um to me it would seem most appropriate for the cost of this to be absorbed by the
registration of the shortterm homeowner um you know $50 seems kind of like nothing for registering your short-term rentals income source so if you thought bumping it up to 150 could cover the cost that sounds like a a no-brainer others okay goad oh Kristen sorry thank you um hi Katie when is the last time that our building permits um
the fees were raised and how do we compare to other towns so the last time the fees were raised was in 2008 and we had um planned to actually bring forth um increases in um the fall um to the select board for approval and we had recently heard that other communities had recently raised their fees so we're doing another survey we expect that we're going to bring forth the request to um for the select
board to approve an increase to the fees um sometime this spring hopefully to be um in effect for July 1 okay please join in yes thank you Katie um we have supposedly around 900 shortterm rentals that we know of and what is our Revenue per year those are
taxed right our they yes they they're um they are through the state I think I'm not sure if Carrie would have that information available I don't have that information available but I can get it for you yeah I would like to have it and uh to know what what our uh revenue is from the shortterm rentals I think that's important to know and and determining whether or not
uh the revenue we take in is worth hiring a new position uh to uh to to enforce the rules John yeah thank you uh Katie um what happens if the inspector finds a deficiency or a safety issue on a rental do they issue a stop renting or stop leasing order how is all that handled
um so this again these are you know this is a a fairly new requirement so we I don't know that those um questions we lost you lost you Katie we lost you so they um I think that we would need to come up with a process and look at what's
required not only under the State Building Code but what's required under the sanitary code I Envision that this position will work closely with the um the short-term rental um person that is within the um Department of Natural Resources Health Division and that they would work closely together um on inspections and have you know some sort of a checklist that would have to go through um I would Envision that there would be um a report that would be done
and that any deficiencies would need to be um would need to be taken care of I but again I know that the building Commissioners um have been having conversations with the state building inspectors to try to figure out what their parameters are yeah thank you I I I appreciate that it's new I mean it's new to all of us really um the regulations around it I just wonder if the town has any liabilities if it issues a a stop renting order or doesn't
doesn't allow someone to rent their property they're investment property or their second home whatever um and we've end up end up with a liability there and um also want to say that I I support exploring the Avenue that Eric brought up about um maybe a fee per inspection rather than not just absorbing a salary but uh the opep considerations down the line as well so um I'd like to see that
explored Tran please thank you Mr chair I think before I could really uh consider this request I would really want to know all the the um the terms of whether we what Revenue the state and we receive from the and the I I want to know all the details of that that's uh a big part of whether it supports uh we can support a new
position thank you Joan Stephen is your hand up and I believe sorry I believe Tommy also had a question too my hand up but I will refer to Mr D Beauty before age thank you Stephen uh Katie what constitut the shortterm rental any um property that is rented for less than I think it's 31 days is the state definition less than a period of 31 days
thank you thank you Tommy Stephen uh hi Katie um so I'm sympathetic to the position request if I pencil out uh 4600 roughly 4600 inspections by the department last year across 260 business days that comes out to 17 inspections a day which amongst the three inspectors is six
inspections um the citation in the budget book is that we have as you noted approximately 900 short-term rentals under the state public registry of lodging operations or lodging operators they list 1624 in chadow now that includes hotels and motel and bnbs and everything but notably and most importantly it includes short-term rentals so I think your 900 once we continue kind of the enforcement and
fiing out who's not yet signed up uh it's going to turn over a considerable number several hundred I would think as I don't think we have a couple hundred motels in town uh more short-term rentals that are going to require this annual inspection so I'm sympathetic to the position I also think kind of in concert with some of the other comments that the the team has inquired I guess what's what's involved in determining or making uh an increase in the inspection
fee the annual inspection fee from 50 to something else is that something that you you just declared do it have to go to the select board I think it I I believe it needs to go to the board of health because they the registration is through the Board of Health so I think they would have to approve the the increase to the registration fee I'm not 100% sure when I can get back to you on this whether or not the select board would also have to approve that well that's that's fine thank you I think in any case like Tracy I would be wholly
supportive of embedding this incremental cost into that inspection fee whether it's 50 or 75 or $100 um and obviously if it were what $100 flat um that would generate much of the incremental cost so that's helpful thank you very much than Stephen others Eric I have a couple questions but they're not related to the new position so you have a question on the new position oh more just a comment that businesses
when we get our permits through the health department pay substantially more than $50 and to me a short-term rental is a business um I'm skeptical that the town receives any tax income from the short-term rentals I believe that all goes to the state but I may be wrong no we do receive money uh we receive long-term and well it's traditional I call it traditional um rental and then
short-term rental Revenue I just have to get the numbers of what we took in in 2024 but we do receive money so it's a tax on top of that we receive all right can we can we go ahead Barbara you have something on this I was just wondering is there any way that we can find out from the health department whether or not they'll approve the increase before we have to vote on this position I can certainly bring that request um to our health agent and ask
to have a conversation um with the Board of Health um have an agenda item thanks Katie Greg you have something yeah with your permission I'm Greg Burman director of Natural Resources uh the Board of Health actually met on this last night and our health agent Judy and myself had a conversation with the board um they're not coming down one way or the other about whether they would do the you know
increase in fee they are waiting to see what happens and it's not uh they they don't say that they're not doing it they don't say that they are doing it but they want to see what's coming forward um that said I mean this I think they understand we had a long conversation about that this is an unfunded State mandate so we are required to do an annual inspection of every property
every year so these annual inspections can't be assumed by current staff what we're kind of working towards right now is you know having these inspections on a this this kind of basis but we have a $50 fee right now there was even conversations last night which I thought was an interesting idea of you know we still have our $50 fee or we break it down such that you know this
$100 is the the state search charge you know this is what your money is going towards this new mandate um but they they were not opposed to it but it hasn't been brought in front of them yet to have a vote thank thank you Greg I I'm looking around the committee I would guess we would probably be unanimous in saying we think that the fee needs to be increased and the Board of Health should participate in that get that going because that's
craziness to leave it the way it is Stephen you have your hand up I do have my hand up and I guess I would like to ask the chair to consider that we propose a verbal resolution in support of an increase in the annual fee to something at $100 or north and see if there's sentiment on the committee as you suspect there may be in support of that and I think if if in fact have have that vote and we can
relay the endorsement of the finance committee to the appropriate group that that Greg and Katie were talking to last night and maybe that'll be a little nudge Stephen do you have an upset limit 150 okay all right you're proposing a resolution yeah I would propose a resolution that we encourage the appropriate authorities to increase this fee in light of this unfunded State mandate to between $1 $150 short-term
rental inspection all right all right is there a second okay I hear a second all those in favor say I raise your hand I looks to me like it's unanimous that's good and excuse me they like no stus yeah well you know we'll just have to send a message back to um the proper authorities let them do that um I think
uh before we depart from Community Development uh there price some other questions that don't have to do with short-term rental Eric um two two questions one's just my um newness to the committee um the revenue side of the building permits Plumbing permits electrical permits that come in doesn't show up here so where does that go it's to the general fund um and then there's a line item for
um uh $60,000 for purch purchase of services um and it's it's the same as as what was budgeted for last year so what is that for and then how much of that was used from last year so the purchase of services line item is used for um annually for specifically for uh we contract with the Town of Barnstable to do our weights and
measures um they have a large um sealer Division and they do all of the weights and measures for the town we have an annual contract with them and that increases each year um I believe this year it's about $133,000 the other funds that we have in the purchase of services um are available for us to be able to utilize if we need to hire um someone um hire a
consultant to do some work for us uh recently um we've hired or we've utilize the funds for um environmental site assessments for some of the properties that we've or for the two of the properties that we've purchased for housing um we've used the funds to contract with um historical Consultants to work with us on some his some um Endeavors with the historical commission
most recent recently um looking at the um Nickerson Family Foundation the Nickerson dig archaeological um study um and that was to potentially make that a n National register site um and so we utilize funds from that so they're they're used for various um projects and we we often don't use the $660,000 but we have it available um as projects come
up throughout the year to be able to um contra with Consultants to do various work that's supported by the department and then the unused goes back to free cash car is that it does yes that's correct so last year um $116,000 was expended in the year before was 20,000 so yeah um Katie I I was curious about um
adus how many of we permitted in town three only three only three so we were not swamped with applications we were not at all um but I will say that the the state has come out with a new um with new laws and so we will be revising our Adu by law to comply with the state requirements um and we'll likely have that before annual town meeting in May okay all right
that's encouraging um one other question along those lines um I think I think that the yeah at some point will we be addressing the proliferation of short-term rental as conducting business and residential zoning districts uh yes we've had conversations um and I think that that's something that with our new town Planner on board that we would like to explore um we'll work with Town Council on what's
appropriate um but that's what other communities have been have been looking at um most recently and that's something that we will um look at as well um and um like I said short um Town Council may have some recommendations for us just based on recent case La okay all right thank you Barbara you had a question thank you Mr chair Katie um this was my mistake for not asking at the time but facilities had said that they made safety improvements and
upgrades to Affordable housing buildings to prepare them for occupancy I was wondering do you have any idea how many that would have been um so I'm sorry so I think it was just one property I think it was a property that was purchased by the affordable housing trust at 558 r Road um and they're working on some upgrades to that property before it would then be sold uh to an affordable qualified buyer ah okay thanks Katie Joan please those those were paid
through the trust I should sorry I just want to say that those funds were um improvements will be paid through the trust quite all right please join um Katie back to the adus what makes me think that they're now uh a right that you don't have to go through a process so they they are allowed by right that there there are certain times when they may be required uh a special permit may be required we're working um
through that with t Council based on the new state laws but they are as of right in every community in this Commonwealth that should make it a lot more convenient to establish an Adu I would think okay thank you defitely should wel John please Katie just a quick question um in the permit data permit issuance database that you have are you able to tease out how many folks are taking
advantage of the heat pump switching over to heat pumps as they upgrade their HVAC systems I think we I'll I'll check and I think we should be able to um get that data U specifically um that's something that you'd like I can we can work on preparing a report through our permitting software at some point be I'd be curious to see if folks are taking advantage of all the incentives that are out there for it um if there's a wider adoption of that technology and then I
guess in a similar vein curious about the number of residential solar installations in the town okay can certainly get that information for you John other questions for Katie or should we turn or loose all right it looks like we're all set unless I don't see anybody online raising a hand okay good all right Katie I think you're free all right thank you you all very much and I apologize for not being there in person all right k
thank you Katie she's gone um okay so next up is um the natural resources budget and we have Greg Burman here but I will just go through a summary of the budget for you so natural resources operating budget is presented at
2,387 , 675 for FY 2026 an increase of $63,000 over the current fiscal year budget the health division budget for FY 2026 is
615,000 $2,957 the Pleasant Bay management assessment is $3,854 point4 per from 2025 the Harbor Master division operating budget for 2026 is $74,400 $160,100
is $248,990 um the South Coast Har Harbor plan committee and shellfish advisory committee and the waterways advisory committee are all level funded for FY 2026 and all the Committees have a $1,000 budget for 2026 um the natural resources department also has some Capital requests for 2026 these are for the items between 10
and 250,000 natural resources request are 50,000 for storm water management Health requests are 15,000 for supplement for an EV vehicle the conservation requests are $10,000 for uh lands management Harbor Master requests are navigation aids for $20,000 and Mitchell River Bridge maintenance for 45 the coastal resources requested are $100,000 for tide gate and roadway
Improv Improvement feasibility assessment to mitigate coastal flooding and $10,000 for town landing infrastructure improvements and then we have the shellfish requests of 15,000 for a new shellfish outboard in fiberglass work and 50,000 for design of a shellfish division workshop and there's also a um the dredging request which is at $400,000 you've seen this before it's an
annual request it's usually a separate article um so we have um Greg Burman here to go over natural resources for us thank you Greg very good thank you car welcome Greg thank you um hello again Greg Burman your director of Financial Resources uh just wanted to walk through our departmental budget with you and just for kind of logistics I'm planning to start off in PowerPoint going through our operating costs through Staffing and then I'll probably switch over to our
digital budget book and then we can go line by line through any of the operating costs and capital budgets so at any point obviously feel free to stop me as we go along but that's kind of the uh schedule as I've been planning it so our department has five different divisions in it our Coastal resources conservation Harbormaster health and shellfish and I did list them alphabetically there are no favorites in our department as Carrie mentioned we also
have a pleasant Bay management that's kind of housed within our department and several support for uh the Committees which will all be are all proposed to be level funded this year natural resources is about 3% of the overall budget of the town and I don't think I'll take the time to kind of go through all the accomplishments of our department but I like to stress that they they are substantial they are available they're in the monthly reports
they're in the budget book and they're at the end of this presentation that's in the packet if any of you would like to ask about any of them I am more than willing to go through them at length so here are uh our staffing costs in our department uh just kind of broken down in pie chart form overall we have 16 full-time one part-time a couple intermittent a couple stiens and um up to or less than6 n
seasonal and I'll go down to each one of the divisions to kind of give you a feel for what each one is as we go along so here we are in coastal resources Ted Keon our Coastal resource director is the full-time employee we also have the Herring Warden which is just a stien position uh under that Division and up to three town landing officers so relatively minor changes in salary here due to and and I'll let I
believe it was kind of covered in Community Development you know Staffing costs go up over time based on colas and steps conservation uh this position is uh LED this division is led by our conservation agent Paul Whitman we also have a Wetlands permitting coordinator and an assistant conservation agent um within this division we also have up to 13 uh seasonal part-time employees
a lot of these have to do with our noset Beach uh hcp certificate of inclusion for our habitat conservation plan uh the idea is if the birds are you know nesting late and kind of going into season we might need to bring more people in we did not have to do one last year so that went back to free cash but it kind of needs to be there in case it gets enacted um there did used to be a
administrative assist assistent in this position um that was actually shuffled over to the uh General government or uh finance department in order to handle the sticker office so that would be a a fulltime with the sticker office also help with budgeting um the seasonal position just you know it we really needed a full-time position and the only way to make that a whole position was kind of combining the budget and the sticker so I think uh Carrie May cover
the that position in the future but that's why this division has actually gone down this particular year our Harbor Master um uh Jason Holm under him has a department coordinator a moing manager a deputy Harbor Master who hopefully will be starting in a couple of months um and then we have our waringer and assistant War fingers and our assistant Harbor Masters so this is the division that's actually requesting
a new position this year you may have heard about it in the past and that's kind of what I wanted to get into so this is showing about $73,000 of increase in the division not all of that is just for the new position uh some of that is increases in steps and colas for the other employees so this position would be a boat operator marine mechanic and the idea is uh while the overall cost is
around $69 ,000 not counting benefits and I'll let Carrie mention benefits again if you have questions about that uh but this particular step and grade um if we bring in a full-time employee we expect to see reductions in the overall division operating costs so while there is an increase in the overall division budget for this when we start taking to account the expenses and a couple of the capital lines I feel like the net cost
is around 11,000 $616 part of that is under our temporary wages if we have a full-time employee that would take the place of that particular part-time employee contracted Services vehicle maintenance and Equipment uh this person would be doing a lot or primarily the engine repair for our trucks our trailers our boats the Mitchell River drawbridge has an operating line we hope this will go down
as we'll be able to do preventative maintenance inhouse we would still need to you know sub out for the larger work and some of the electrical work but we also expect a reduction of about $30,000 in the capital request well it is a capital request it's an annual Capital request so that used to be 75,000 every year we expect that to go down and then our boat maintenance uh we drop that out of the capital outlay because hopefully we're not going to have to go outside of the division for these kinds of repairs
so while there is Mitchell River Bridge maintenance that's not all it is I mean this is primarily marine mechanic and why do we need a marine mechanic we actually have 19 trucks and trailers just within the Harbor Master division we have 15 boats that are serviced U mostly in Harbor Master several shellfish one fire and 21 engines so if you've ever had Marine work done on a
boat or an engine you can imagine how difficult and expensive and scheduling involved this would keep somebody inhouse and available to do the work so I just want to make sure I cover a few of the kind of higher topics about why this position is needed one is uh there is Staffing and coverage challenges right now so we have three full-time staff there's been an increase in administrative support which
which mean there's been a decrease in overall uh folks who are on the boat and available for emergency situations so this would bring that back up to a more robust number to the delay in Marine repair and costs local mechanics don't really come out to you anymore you're expected to bring it in which means we have staff time moving that equipment uh in addition to that there can be lag times of 1 to 3 weeks before they even start
to look at the equipment coming in that can be a long time when we have you know a an asset that needs to be on the water in the season another thing that came up was during the holidays a lot of these local shops just shut down entirely so there could be a period where we need an engine and we cannot get it fixed so this would hopefully forall any of those things with somebody in-house and able to do it obviously Marine mechanics are quite
expensive in an hourly rate uh 135 to 190 an hour the wait times are substantial um let's see what else I think that's mostly it but we have had a seasonal employee who's been able to do some of this marine mechanic type work which was one of the rationals for require requesting a full-time position we've been able to save a lot in our previous budgets just with having somebody with marine mechanic skills
but you know this person's available a day or two a week part of the year we can get a lot more done and a lot more savings and a lot more continuity if we're able to have a full-time position so that's pretty much it on the position I'm happy to talk more about that or move on to the rest of the presentation hey Joanne um thank you what did you say the uh labor cost per hour for the mechanic as a
rule well of a guideline but uh from our Harbor Master he gave me rates of between 130 to 190 per hour is not unheard of in this area for a marine mechanic I have not spent that myself in chatam but I've seen the bills come in thank you um I'm I'm very supportive of this position I think it's a I think it's a good idea I think you know what you're what you're presenting makes sense I guess my concern would be whether $69,000 is going to get you
somebody that that has the capabilities that you need to do all these kind of things and if you had any thoughts on on that number and where that came from yeah so we have actually done a little due diligence on that we've gone out to a couple marine mechanic shops while the hourly rates are high that's not necessarily what Marine mechanics are getting and we are hoping that this salary will be able to bring somebody in especially with the idea of you know um the benefits that come with working for a town that just aren't available in the
the private sector anybody else going to hand anybody online have a hand up doesn't look like it all right Barbara thank you Mr chair um I also am supportive of this position I just wanted to get the number straight um if I add up in the budget books the savings on the categories um contracted Services equipment small Capital Mitchell River droppage and temporary wages it's only about 20,000
so I'm missing the other 40 is that in like is that a capital request that you yeah that so that's probably the Mitchell River Capital line um so that while it is a capital request it it comes up every year right so that's why we included it in a if it was a one time only we wouldn't have thought to thrown it in as part of defraying the cost but since it is an annual expense we added it in there so if we get this person then we can get rid of that not get rid
of but it's been reduced from 75,000 a year to 45,000 a year okay so it's it's our expectation that we'd be able to keep it at 45,000 um yeah that that's really the the basics of it and I'll I'm happy to go I'm planning on going through the digital budget book which has the Harbor Master division line by line so I can show you there's really no increases in any other line item there's only decreases related to this um boat operator position nice yeah actually I
did see that thank you Greg other John please I'm also uh supportive of the position and uh about a week or two ago the Harbor Master gave us a heads up this was coming and um I appreciate that somebody maybe you or someone put together the net cost uh table it's really helpful to see where the offsets are and the the savings and I think bringing uh this capability inhouse into
the town makes a lot of sense thank you great yeah Jason and I worked on this table in a variety of things for a while we appreciate it it looks like may we can go on to the next division Craig very good next up is our health division uh led by our health agent Judy and in that uh division we have a department coordinator we have our health inspector our housing inspector and we also have a
stien for an animal control animal inspector working with our mut mitts and that kind of thing uh bleeding over into our health division so we have five full-time and myself uh two intermittents and one stien uh the intermittents are within um environmental technicians working with our water quality partially uh with the um uh water Watcher volunteers coordinating that uh sampling process and then taking those samples to get uh
analyzed for nitrogen unification Etc um if you have any questions about that I would invite you and anyone listening to our new water quality lab Pages which we just have online uh we have fancy new GIS maps where you can pull up individual graphs of do and ocation um also within this uh relatively new so that's an increase this year we have an additional money for uh water quality programs um
specifically right now we are still uh funding Dr uh Bob duncanson he's working on our nrcs projects so these are projects that do have a you know end of life within the next year or so uh but until then he's kind of still leading the charge during the past year he was able to acquire an extra $300,000 for these projects through a grant so we feel like it's money well spent to keep him aboard and managing these um but for
now uh for this current year this is uh our ask for the increase folks have any questions on health Barbara just a really quick one Greg um there three buildings I think it was your what's been accomplished in the prior three buildings have Naran um in them I figure Community Center and the Middle School what's the third building uh this is actually one oh okay I think
it's right as we walk into this room um it it should be uh right here there's also another one over at the fish beer oh okay thanks sure glad thank you Mr chair uh what did you say Dr Duncan was in charge of please uh the nrcs project so these are that's the nrcs yes nrcs what does that stand for um I knew somebody's going to ask me that the National Conservation oh boy resour ources
Services it's under USDA which is United States um U Department of Agriculture the I overall projects are Wetland restoration uh storm water flood prevention um there's four different projects at aitz at Sears Road uh there's another one at the Herring run so a lot of it is covert work so whether the coverts are collapsing or need to be
widened right now we're at the phase where we're putting out uh requests for quotes and rfps to be able to engineer the design and permitting um to find out how much it's going to cost right now we're at the phase where nrcs is providing 100% of the money for um the design permit phase and then once we get to construction they fund up to 75% I don't have the exact article in front of me but we do have uh I believe about
800,000 in a capital line for the town share of that 25% of the overall project costs and how long does this uh contract run with Dr duncanson so a lot of this is a Slowdown uh related to how fast surveys can be performed how overloaded Engineers are in the area there there was potential things could have been finished up in the next few months but it's looking
like it's going to be at least another year okay thank you sure Greg I I apologize I want to go back a little bit to a comment on the conservation division um there was something in there about higher Beach raking costs oh yes under the purchase of services line what's why is that in conservation and why does it cost more so I'm happy to cover that now but that'll also be under the digital budget book so um all
right I'm we we could we could wait till then but I'll definitely REM it in my notes okay because I know that at one point or another the irregularity or the absence of beach raking and Harding speech was a cause CB for some yes and I'm just curious to know s what the constraints are so a teaser or the short story is um our department this division runs the contract with mass aabon that does the monitoring for the beaking so this isn't
actually the beach raking itself but allows the beach raking to happen okay all right so who actually does the beach raking that's under uh Parks uh wrecks and beaches and wreck wreck and beaches okay Amy how is is managing that one I appreciate it thank you sorry proceed sure thing hey Andy can I just jump in with a quick question good St sorry thank you um Greg uh just pursuant to your reference about elat is the work that's
going down uh at the bottom there in that bulkhead is that a town project uh I'm sorry what location again you just you just made you just made a reference to a project at the bottom of alphabets and I'm wondering if the bulkhead replacement that's currently underway is a town project okay I I can let you know that it's not one of the nrcs projects and the private repair of this policy wall okay so U thank you that was take key on our coost to Resource director and that
one is a private project it's it's not related to town work that's ongoing right now all right I thought it probably was thank you okay sure sure then all right Craig please proceed sure next is our and last is our shellfish division uh we have Renee as our shellfish Constable we have several uh Deputy shellfish constables and Ben our assistant shellfish Constable propagation specialist uh we also have a significant number of seasonals in this as well for in addition to propagation
monitoring the shell fishing out on the flats uh enforcement that sort of thing uh so this does have a slightly higher increase than some of the other ones that's due to the you know High number of seasonals and it kind of adds up over time but there isn't you know any new employees or anything based in this division questions Barbara um thank you Mr chair I may have zoned out if you've already talked about
this but I was just wondering what is the status of the route 28 Herring run project sure so I believe that's tomorrow um the the current status and we do monthly reports on this through the town manager reports uh but tomorrow is actually going to be a site visit uh we put out requests for quotes to I believe it was either five or seven um firms that do the design permitting this is one that did get slowed down because
nrcs had a certain amount of money set aside for the design permitting our quotes came back it it might have been an order of magnitude higher than what they thought so there was a lot of refining of the uh uh scope of services and right now we're waiting to you know go through this process for quotes once we get that the design permitting can start and then once that happens we can put it out to bid for the actual construction but I mean it it's still feels relatively early for these
projects but you know this is our once we get going we'll be moving as fast as we can especially the Herring run is very important to us I mean every time I look at it or drive by I worry that you know it's restricted already we don't want to restrict it so much it actually impedes the Herring run thanks great all right good thanks great sure uh next as Carrie mentioned we have a few other kind of n on division
budgets uh we have our Pleasant Bay management which has a small increase and then all of our committee support which has no change and with this I'll probably shift over to the digital budget book let's see there we go my smiling face sorry just there we go
um Mark yeah I'm uh I don't know why I can't click on yeah you see natural resources I need to be able to expand that hold on when I go off there it goes away before I can get to it oh that's so weird
oh oh you how'd you do it I have no idea which one Health uh Health yeah thank you welome all right I just kind of right clicked on it right click at first all right I'll give it a try thank you all right let see if I can find the mouse again there we go um okay so we did Cover Staffing already uh the all of our accomplishments are available but I just kind of want to scroll down here to the um operat budget
worksheet so here we have our operating budget and I am more than happy to chat about any individual line item on here I'll probably call out as we go past anything that's changed significantly just for your attention uh first one is under temporary wages there's an increase and that's what I was talking about just recently with the nrcs work uh so there's a a bump in temp wages for that then we remain relative ly level funded
uh down through expenditures of purchase and services which is actually a decrease a fairly significant decrease the reason that this went down this year and we can't expect it every year is that we have arpa funds uh from the feds and County that are going to be paying for a significant portion of our household hazardous waste collections this is something that has increased significantly in cost year after year uh
certainly within the last two or three years luckily we're getting it taken care of this year next year we have to see what the budget's going to be uh from a financial perspective it's a very difficult process because we don't know what they're going to charge us until after the collection occurs um but we've had enough money until these projects started uh uh skyrocketing and it's not you know new vendors coming in it's just increased cost from everything thing
after co uh but it is a decrease this year due to the arpa funds Greg typically that takes place at the harest transfer station right correct and and how do we split the cost between all the participating towns it's actually um based on the weight coming in or the the actual um they keep track of who comes in and what town they're from yes they keep track of who and what
Town they're from but I don't recall being weighed I'm sorry not not necessarily weight it's the the number of each uh from the towns coming in I believe it's even the material coming in not necessarily weigh but for some of the bigger ones like Mercury that gets checked because it's a little bit pricier but other than that it's typically a percentage of the the use by town thank you okay after that it stays fairly level down to advertising advertising
does have an increase because we expect uh regulatory changes in 2026 uh possibly short-term rental regulatory changes scrolling down a little further we go down to I believe assessments is the next one um this is our Cape Cod green head fly control assessment so I did get in touch with them and they said their rates were increasing too close to
$3,000 this year so trying to account for that but this is the state green head uh fly control and this is our cost share for it John is there a way we could bump that budget up and get rid of green heads I don't think so I'm assuming the state's doing all they can I'll check for you though go ahead Barbara thanks Andy what do they do with the green heads I mean
are they being poisoned no so this is uh I mean this is separate from mosquito control um predominantly it's those boxes you'll see out in the marsh like the dark blue boxes that they fly in and it traps them and then you know they they fly in they don't fly out um I don't believe any poison is used and things like that yeah um let's see our next one is an increase
under monitoring costs and this is an increase rate specifically from Barnstable County that does our beach testing so this is um our weekly testing for our public bathing beaches and also the cyan cyanobacteria testing for our freshwater ponds so talking to our vendors who do this the rates have gone up again
okay I think that's all I have for the health operational and I'll move on to conservation unless folks have questions about health I just had a question about the um freshwater testing for cob bacteria is that is the contractor U is that apcc I know they do a lot of it is yes posting on the status of different ponds and they're expanding that um I think that would be if they can increase their capacity and continue to Monitor and increase the
number of freshwater bodies they monitor I think that would be a benefit to the community yeah so we actually did quite well with our testing we didn't have any exceedances last year um apcc is working with the capod commission for the I believe it's called the freshwater initiative uh ponds and lakes you can you know look it up on the commission's website they have an interactive viewer where you can look at all uh uh some of the coastal water bodies too but the
fresh freshwater ponds are specifically on there that you can monitor you know how it's changed over time and you know which ponds in chadam are being monitored and reported on all right now if I can work this out I'll see if I can get over to conservation okay there we go I think I got your trick
okay to conservation scrolling down okay so we had already talked about the Staffing changes um as you mentioned Andy under purchase and services uh instead of 15,000 we moved it up to 25,000 this is actually going to double our uh monitoring for Beach raking on our Southside beaches you know we we
can't have them there every day we can't hire or bring in Mass Autobon can't support that many staff but we can at least have it more than the the once a week that we were getting over last season so we're hoping for at least every Beach twice a week this year um as needed with a lot of caveats with Staffing and everything else but this is us working with mass anaban to try to um ensure you know safe and healthy and attractive beaches
and I think that is the only change in conservation unless there's any questions I'll move on to Coast resources here we go
and actually this one has no changes whatsoever to it um let's see we I mean we have our typical operating supplies our advertising um we have our town landing maintenance uh which is $10,000 um I I believe everyone here and probably online knows what that's for let's see and
here's a shelfish division sorry if my scrolling is making you dizzy it's making me dizzy too um okay so things are consistent until we get down to printing uh there's an increase in printing and that's due to a potential rule change that would require new booklets uh that's also part of the increase in operational supplies
there is also a requested increase under uniforms um I believe that overall increase in prices for hats and t-shirts with that many seasonal staff it's difficult to have everyone showing up wearing a town of chadam gear out on the flats while they're doing enforcement and then a uh relatively modest increase for meetings dues and travel a lot of this is personally owned vehicle and the mileage rates have gone up we wanted to uh account for
that and that's it for shellfish hey Andy can I just ask Carrie a quick question please go ahead St uh Carrie in my budget book at least uh Pages 259 to 61 are essentially a series of zeros other than FY 26 budgeted is there a reason why we have no historic data from 23 24 shows of $200,000 over budget 25 is blank is this
just sort of printing errors or what's going on here is that the shellfish division yeah I think that's a separation we printed the books and then we realized um there was an error on those pages um so then since then we corrected them but there are multiple pages I think that only have go up to 23 actuals and don't show 24 actuals which 24 actuals are on the digital budget book but they're just
you're going to have to go online and look at that information this is just something that we noticed after the books were already printed okay sorry all right thank you thanks okay this means that the digital bid budget book is up to date yes okay yeah okay now let's see if I can get there the next will be
next is Harbor Master Okay uh we already discussed the boat operator marine mechanic but that's why there's an increase in regular wages and a slight decrease in temporary wages uh the next change is down to contracted Services contracted Services um and really it's uh this one is
reduced due to that position taking on some of those services and then as we scroll further down the vehicle and maintenance also is reduced for that same reason and then the Mitchell River drawbridge has also been reduced and um everything else is at zero but I did want to call out
Capital outlay so this is reduced because we've removed boat maintenance from it but we did actually add a wave sensor that the county will be able to install and maintain for us but it would be out uh offshore by the bars to be able to provide real-time data not just for our Harbor Master staff who are going out but also for the general public and fishing public who could make use of How High the waves are at a given point before they decide to go out or not
John curious about that sensor is it part of a bigger network of sensors on the cape that's what we hope is going to happen so the county has the interest and the knowledge they did not have the funding yet um so we're going to work our plan is to work with the county The Cooperative Extension uh one of my former agencies to um bring this wave centor to chadam the idea is the more towns that do it the more valuable it'll be that we actually have this network of sensors at bare minimum we can use it
for you know the fishing fleet and the Harbor Master and the general public hopefully you know it will actually show how waves come in at certain angles and certain storms um so that's the kind of long-term Pie in the Sky hope for the project but even uh the relatively low cost it's certainly worth it to get you know real-time data for our folks Eric that's cool what's the public interface for that you said the public would have access to it as a app or a website or it
website yeah it's certainly not live yet we'd have to acquire it install it everything else but the plan is for it to be publicly available on a website on the town of Cham website we'll have to see if our particular format works for it if nothing else there'd be a link to where you could get to so you can get to it from town of chattam I'm not sure if you get you know real time scrolling data on our particular um you know website requirements do you have a certain date expected for that or well
after July we can put the order in we'll have to see what the uh time frame is for actual delivery um but you know hopefully by fall winter of uh the coming season right John you said it's a program through the County Extension it's more of a hope of the County Extension I'm not sure how many other towns have gotten on board yet but they are kind of making the round seeing who else is going to be interested um so
yeah we're we're getting on board because we have multiple reasons to do it uh we're hoping others do too hopeful this this works out um something I've been hoping we we were able to do and um was hoping we could have something like that um many years ago but I think it'll prove out well and um look forward to hopefully it being implemented yeah yeah it's great I mean right now we're budgeting for one we want to kind of run it as a pilot see
how it works and there there might be room for expansion but you know the more wider range as you mentioned other towns doing it is going to be more valuable for the whole region so we'll see how it goes I mean I have I have some fears about just how stable it's going to be the wave energies out there can be incredible and move I mean they're moving Harbor Master buoys they're moving Kar buoys that's
instrument looks like but yeah it's definitely not going to be a bottom mounted system it will be covered in a minute all right cool I think that step has a question Stephen are you asking a question I am ask I'm about to ask a question with your permission please um Greg this may predate your tenure but did not the town experiment or do you recall if the town experimented with the service contract
in the Mitchell River Bridge short handful of years ago so that would have predated me I know I've seen references to an extremely high quote for a service contract for Mitchell River I believe an excess of $100,000 I don't have that number on me right now though to confirm it um that was you know that had been mentioned in the past of you know part of the disposition being able to defray that I think we don't even have to bring
that in I mean for the really big projects we may need to bring in an outside contractor but we're not going to necessarily need a a multi-year service contract for preventative maintenance this is what that would avoid okay terrific thank you the other well I've got you um I can't find the reference in the budget book right now but I do recall seeing the reference to the tide gate I think for $100,000 is that the Morris Island tide gate and is that for engineering or is that for a replacement or what's the
exact reference there uh short story is engineering longer story is um I I will still cover all the capital lines and that's under the capital budget okay I will wait if the committee has patience I know but keep going so that was the last of the division's operating budgets and I'll move on to the capital which uh should be my last planned part of the president presentation oh there we
go to okay so I'm just going to kind of scroll let me know if I missed something uh the first one is for storm water management this is our ms4 um this is uh EPA uh Federal requirement to be able to um do this type of storm water management we recently uh got a Contractor on board to get us up to compliance with some stor
water regulations uh the regulations are housed in DPW uh but our department working with health and some of the other folks uh handle the reporting for our ms4 requirements there's annual reporting required um it's not just reporting there's regulations uh there's taking a look at how um our our uh any of our outfalls might be dis charging into water bodies
but you know that I guess to try to sum it up more quickly this is uh to manage our ms4 program and it has been used and we see a lot of immediate use for it coming up conservation this is a request for $10,000 for conservation lands management uh this is the same as was put in land last year this previous year
it's been used for everything from Osprey poles to some larger uh equipment purchases and SC scoping out um we do have a lot of plans to do more work to conservation areas both our agent and assistant conservation agent have looked into how to expand the kiosk get QR codes for Trails have more extensive trail maps for all our areas um they did Min for a mass Trails Grant this is an
excellent use of matching funds that's required for those sorts of things so uh fingers crossed we'll get that hopefully we'll be able to use this for match and um even if we don't we still have a lot of projects that kind of will go through the process but as match this gets us moving a lot faster under Harbor Master requests there's the Mitchell River Bridge maintenance which as we mentioned went
from 75 down to $45,000 and then a standard navigational aids for 20,000 that's unchanged from previous years Greg I'll I'll ask where where do we stand with regard to the surf capable boat to the aror master so um I'd like Jason to be able to weigh in on that specifically I know we have some matching funds I
believe we were going to put in for a grant but I I don't have all the answers for that right now just fair enough I just wanted to make sure we raised that subject yeah it's it's certainly on our radar I can't speak to the exact and when Jason gets back next week we can you know follow up with uh information for you okay thank you I think we're getting near the end
Coastal resources so we have 10,000 for T town landing improvements so this is the same as previous years the new request for tie gate and roadway Improvement feasibility this is not for the actual construction this is for the engineering analysis um maybe even some partial design we applied for a CCM Coastal resilient
Grant and did not receive the funds so we had some funds from a previous year that we were going to use for match and ask for $100,000 we did not receive that so now we're going to um request it through this budget to be able to get this process going because this still isn't the construction phase we'd like to move things along you know the tie gate is certainly not working as a tie gate right now um the assessment would hopefully show whether it should be a tie gate whether it should be a bridge a
wider Culvert what it's going to do for uh the migration of the marsh in the area whether it's restoring it impeding it how it might be used to be able to prevent and certainly not make worse flooding in the area um so it's really the continuation of that process that kind of got stalled due to lack of a grant funding Little Mill Pond Pier um we have it in here it's 500,000 this is one that
uh is I believe it was voted on by CPC to be included uh so the full 500,000 would be part of the CPC article and not uh a separate request here and then our $400,000 is a annual request from the dredging program and you know while Ted is here I am more than happy to have him come up and explain any part of the dredging program I just I noticed from the most recent
aerial photography that looks like the stage Harbor entrance channel is not doing too badly so we may not have to roll the dice on the core of engineers um is there any likelihood that they would entertain an application to maintain the federal channel in and out on the east side the an ant lyia Cove um the ant lyia Cove spefic Pacific area is actually in pretty good shape
yeah for the last number of years the problem is getting to that channel and that's out in the chadam harbor you know proper area um okay the permits that we have issued or have um submitted and have been approved at both local and state level is still in process at the federal level the bottleneck as is anticipated was is with the core um we actually have two projects slated to
go almost within weeks if I can get permits and in order to get those permits I had to H actually had to reapply different permits for a different process for those two projects so um and that's for mil Creek and Stage Harbor you're right that stage Harbor in general is looking pretty good there is another quote bump that I'd like to get rid of before it gets too big uh whether or not I'm going to be able to get to that one or not I don't know it's
dependent on the permits and the time of year when we can't dredge because of the winter flounder HHO crabs Etc so I don't know if that answered your question certainly looks like we're still suffering from you know prevailing tide moving from the East side to the west side through there and around Morse Island um the currents are still coming in as they have been what's interesting is the the Shing just to the south of
Morris island is getting severe yeah so again it's not really part of the dredging uh program right now um whether we would want to dredge there is a whole another question because that may just exasperate exacerbate situation but I think navigation next year around Morris island is going to be a challenge we think still thinking about the tide Vin project it's still in the permitting phase um interestingly the shows are just
referencing are almost acting in that function um I'm very reluctant to not continue permitting in case things change the goal has been to get the permits hopefully never have to implement but if we do the permits are in place that's still the direction we're heading oh Ted I would be sorry to seeon retire a lot of lot of balls still in the air Roger that and there still will
be for years to come yeah thank you I think we might just have one more at the bottom oh NOP almost forgot about shellfish so this is uh a request for a new shelfish outboard and uh fiberglass work for one of the existing boats you know it's you know not just about saving money to do this fiberglass work an existing boat apparently this is the
exact hle type and size that's perfect for what they use for propagation so they want to keep it going as long as possible that involves some fairly major fiberglass work on the transom to get it back into working order um the shellfish division Workshop is something that we've talked about for years the shellfish team can't do work in the winter on their boats their engines their equipment Etc there just isn't space in town this is uh
potentially to expand the um Animal Control building kind of across the way what direction am I uh down over next to the airport uh an addition on the side so it would be you know separated from everything over there but it would have access to heat to allow you know paint and fiber glass to actually dry and uh uh water to be able to wash uh safety equipment those sort of things so this
is something that's been on the docket for quite some time and then the absolute last one um we have a town bylaw requiring uh staff take a look at EVS electric vehicles first um we've had a lot of success with their you know current hybrid Mitsubishi the range is very low the Community Development does have a pickup truck that's fully electric we
put in a request for one from the same dealership one of the issues with that is electric vehicles are a bit more expensive than some of the standard Vehicles the way to defer that is through the federal and state rebates which equal $115,000 so in order to get this new vehicle we wanted to make sure we had money in the bank to pay for everything
so it would be an additional 15,000 excuse me $115,000 that we would then get back after the rebates we'll have to see for the next one um the state rebate is very likely in place uh Federal is going to be another question we we really don't know how that's going to pan out it was our intention that we would ask for this money and then we go back to the general fund free cash something like that but it might actually need to be spent if uh
the rebates change significantly and that is the last topic on the department budget other questions for Greg anybody here no uh online anybody have questions for Greg doesn't look like it all right cool thank you very much y pleasure thank you Greg okay our agenda uh includes
um item number four scheduling and report to the select board um I hope you all are working on the points that you want to make to uh our chairperson who is working on the report for the select board um amongst other things uh we could also talk about uh water rates uh we could talk about the police
department Recruitment stien and the crawl road project that seems to never want to die um why don't we take out water rates first CU that's such fun go ahead Trace thanks I was going to throw in on the with talking about water rates I was struck when we were talking about the transfer station that the transfer station wasn't charging enough
to make it worthwhile to pay for what it what it disposes of so those seem to be rates that should be reviewed okay do we want to say anything about that individually collectively Stephen you got any questions about that are you there I know you're still online I'm here just flicking buttons
okay um well it's an interesting topic and I think much like the water rates um consideration of whether or not we want to refer that to the select board for suggesting or requiring or implementing a review by the appropriate party or division would benefit from kind of an in initial data scrape um much like I did on the water rates last weekend um so would be happy to kind of
explore um disposal rates around the cape I'm not sure it's going to pop up as readily as water rates might or water rates did as a matter of fact but I'd certainly be happy to uh to look into that I would agree with the principle that um you know people should be generally be paying essentially Market rates for the services they're receiving um so depending on what the committee thinks I'd be I'd be willing to tuck into that a little bit so what what do folks think go ahead kisten I would
encourage you to include that um I think that one of the Alternatives that we talked about last year or at least that I raised was some communities don't accept commercial haulers dumping that's how they deal with reducing their cost so you know I think we've got two Alternatives um we either subsidize our commercial haulers as we've been doing which I think is getting a little bit uncomfortable um from the budget and um or we increase tipping fees or consider
the alternative of just not accepting commercial haulers the views Barbara are the only commercial haulers that we accept to tip chatam ones is there any way that we could discourage possibly by pricing outof Town haulers I have no idea it's a good question yeah my guess is that this would this conversation would probably
benefit uh from Rob's presence um so if this is a path we want to go down I you know we can work with Carrie to see if we can schedule Rob to come back uh and get it posted on the agenda I'm just not sure we have enough information or data to reach any conclusions right now I recall at one point there and this is now probably many years ago um one of the issues with CMS was we had to get guarantee them a certain
amount uh of um product to go into their plant um and I'm not quite sure if that's still the case or whether we need to meet some sort of minimum anyone else why don't we see if we can get Robin to edify us a little bit or whoever the appropriate party is okay car is that something we can talk about afterwards yep please yep no problem okay the water rates p um should we have some discussion about
that I mean I found the data the question I I kind of posited uh given the data that was compiled uh is this something we wanted to refer to the select board uh for consideration or for you know mandating a review I mean they're all the sewer sewer and water commit Commissioners so we want to encourage them to think about these rates and adjust them for market so um May I um
we're currently Rob and I are currently working with a company called waterw worth and um reviewing setting up new rates for for increases to balance our budget currently um we need to have enough Revenue coming in for the water department to pay for the operating expenses and The Debt Service that we currently have in the water department so therefore we're last year I noticed a
decline in the revenue compared to our budget so this is basically you know prompt us to review our rates and everything so um I actually had a meeting today with the company and hopefully in the next few weeks we should have something that Rob should be able to present to um the Water and Sewer Commission and then be able to present it to select board to approve I'm assuming that's how
the steps would go but um I just wanted to let you guys know that yeah that's helpful I would I would still be inclined to inquire of the committee whether we wanted to forward a recommendation uh to the select board for that for that consideration y i not withing what you just discussed Carri I'm I'm I'm seeing an awful lot of nodding absolutely I think yeah the commit as a
whole okay so that's good so we get started on that um how about the and Andy mentioned it was a stien I would think I'd rather characterize it as a um recruitment bonus recruitment increase yeah uh I think again hopefully my note was fairly clear Chief Anderson uh has had some real challenges in forcing his men and women into shifts uh 2 29 and that was only through the
end of November last year and that was up from about 160 I think the year before uh so it's definitely taking a toll on morale it's taking a toll on planning um and when asked if another $2,500 might help again differentiate chadam from the pack he was pretty enthusiastic about that Prospect um I don't see the utility of unfilled positions in the police department so kind of over to everybody for what do
we think about that I've I've heard from a couple of you thank you but is there a general consensus or not on whether this is something we want to recommend for the select board's consideration and managers Jill I see your hand up uh thank you Mr chair so um the recruitment bonuses have been implemented at the administrative level through um myself and human resources and I I think it's I
appreciate the um interest of the finance committee but I also need to think about parity as well with all of the other employees so that we don't value Public Safety employees higher than a DPW laborer and so um while I appreciate your interest in making a recommendation I think we need a little more time with HR to actually flush it out what would work best we certainly
have listened to the employees through our food for thought engagement program and as you have seen in our collective bargaining agreements have worked to um have the employees pay less for health insurance and the town and contributes more to the premiums in order to keep our employees here so I I think just hearing from the police chief is is one important um aspect of it but I I think there's some um more work that needs to be done and considered at the administrative
level Mr chair thank you Jo thank you Joe I appreciate that just to be to be clear and for the avoidance of doubt it was I who raised the the the question um you know I didn't hear from the commissioner other than the chief other than in response to questions I was having with him Joan um Mr thank you Joan we have not voted yet on uh looking at all the Departments and their many requests for either new positions or increase in budgets and I think it would
be premature for us to take up a request for an increase from the police department until we've had a chance to review every department so I I would uh be in favor of looking at it throughout the town but I would not be in favor of making a recommendation at this point that uh the town increase that recruitment bonus so let me just jump in I I want to very CLE be very clear about this this
is not a request from the police chief this is an idea that I had following a conversation with the police chief so to characterize it as res request from the police department is is erroneous and I just I really feel a need to correct that fact I understand timing perspective from a timing perspective we have to give a report on the budget to the select board in 10 days right so we are not going to be voting on anybody's budget in the next 10 10 days so with kind of those or what 14 days two two
weeks kind of with those effects on the ground I I'm curious what everybody thinks I understand Joan where you are and I appreciate that but there's a little bit of a timing issue if this is something in understanding Jill's position as well I just want to beir it out what the committee thinks and if it's let's not do anything I'm fine with that I'm just trying to kind of clear the ground and I understand what you're saying Mr chair thank you J Jill is it your experience that that you know there other departments that are having trouble filling positions right
now I yes Mr chair in some cases there is but again this is a an overall recruitment strategy that we first initiated with Public Safety both police and fire and I think that while I appreciate the the well intentioned I think we just need to talk about it a little more globally within the administration to figure out what truly is going to be the most effective
incentive and by the way we were the first town to do it on Cape to offer uh a signing bonus as well as a signing referral too so again um I I understand the police chief did not put this forward I I just would like to pause for a second just so I can review with HR what what she thinks the best um the best bank for a buck is to incentivize people to come to chadam as well as retain our employees Tracy thank you Mr chair I think perhaps there
could still whoa be some um reference in our concern about ongoing vacant positions that you know that these two positions have remained vacant and that it's putting stress on the department and that you know just inviting further um effort to address that as opposed to the specific um incentive
okay we willing to leave it there sounds like it what do others think about that idea yep I like Tracy's okay I like it Jill does that work for you okay we also have ort but I understand your perspective on this matter as well we have the project that never dies uh crawl Road intersection I understand that Carrie took the bit
between her teeth and actually went through that intersection since our last meeting yes I did you just need to do it on a rainy day in July with a full experience um I I gather Stephen the idea would be to try to emphasize that U gee how come this project hasn't died yet well I'm not so sure I mean it hasn't died because the select board
voted to pursue the 25% design phase um I think what and and given that and again given that I think there's new developments that Jo all referenced in our discussion last week that we would benefit from um a new briefing I I guess the way I'm thinking about this perspectively now for the committee's consideration is to just express our ongoing concern about the
impact this may have on the nature of our community kind of the urbanization of that intersection um I'm not sure at this point what more we could say because there's nothing really to respond to nothing's changed since what was it ja two years ago or so that they voted to go to 25 so that's I guess how I'm think it's 2019 it's it's been quite a while it's been under review by stop so I guess that's how I'm thinking
about it presently Andy Mr chair please go ahead I I really think we should let it be known that we have reservations about uh a 25% design and reservations about the reconfiguration uh I think it's worthwhile to let that be known that this committee has those kind of re reservations about what the state and federal government have planned to do because this is on the Metro
Metropolitan Transportation list it's the state and the federal government go through they have certain amounts of money and they want to figure out what next Improvement they can make so this is their idea it's on their list and to fight that we have to start with um letting them know that we have concerns and number two I think uh The Next Step would be to bring in our state representative and our state senators
because believe me they can make a difference in maybe uh uh all you know doing a little something to to the design but we need all the help we can get if this is a design that we're not completely happy with all right I don't see anybody objecting to that point of view at least for now um so probably St let's make it Andy let's make it more affirmative than that are are there any objections to including a
reference and you know language to be determined but including a reference to the craw Road Project in our report to the select board for the 18th no no I don't see anybody objecting to it so far no everybody's had a fair chance so it sounds pretty good although if there's new information new information or a new briefing that we need to get let's hope we get it yeah can talk about that with Carrie and Jill offline all right so as I see
it in the process of kind of beginning to pull this thing together we've agreed to kind of refer to the water and sewer Commissioners um encouraging a review of our prevailing water rates we will Express concerns over unfilled vacancies um in report and we will make some mention of the craw road project
and in that case as well as the transfer station we will do some further due diligence at a time to be determined regarding um both of those craw Road and transfer station rates does that sound Square to where we are I think so yeah sounds good Barbara you have something thank you Mr chair um I also think we should put something in there about the prioritization of the council and aging building I mean we've been dancing around with this for years now and I
think the town should get behind the project and get it done what do others think about that I agree I support that completely others want to weigh in so far no one else cares but I feel very strong no we need to we need to make progress
on it okay do we think it's should limit let me ask the the negative space question do we think it's a bad idea to put some language in um you know encouraging resolution of this project or would we rather not go there I just need some guidance from the committee John I would support I would I would support language in the letter to that effect
anybody same here I'm not feeling a lot of energy in Kristen says same here too I agree with what John just said uh it just that we haven't again received the we haven't discussed it and gone over the cor the complete cost but the U the idea of it I think most of us agree that something needs to be done but we just haven't had a chance to look at the the the cost and what it what it's going to cost the town completely that's the
only hesitation on my part well we do have cost estimates that are preliminary but which we can certainly share um but i' take your point you in I think you know again if we were to frame this it probably you know kind of given how I'm reading the room it would be in the context of kind of encouraging pursuit of a resolution not necessarily endorsing specific plan a b or c is kind of how I'm feeling the right now sure I can live with that that
make any sense right we want yes yes we want a resolution supporting a resolution that we think can pass like to me it's like about actually finally getting something done not just another proposal that might not pass but something that everyone seems to think we can actually get get through I suspect now that it's coming out of free cash we probably will be able to get it through Chon thank you that I was thank you CH go ahead thank
you Andy um Barbara that's exactly what I was just going to ask as a point of order um I remember seeing $5 million being paid out of free cash to make this happen it doesn't seem like it's going to be coming to us as a separate article so I mean what is the process for that well has to go J car is that something we can throw your way please sure so it still requires a town meaning article for which the select
board will have to place yeah it's the quantum vote that's different for borrowing versus free cash free cash is a simple majority um just like you would use for a tax rate to purchase the ambulance borrowing authorization requires a 2third majority vote at town meeting and a ballot question so free cash town meeting only no valid question thank any other questions on that no okay do we have anything else we need to
resolve today doesn't sound like it good I'll entertain a motion to adjourn that's great helpful thank you sobody want to move to adjourn so moved oh good second somebody all right all right those in favor Tommy Don yes Barbara Madison yes John papalardo yes Joan spray yes Andy young says yes Kristen Andress yes Tracy Shields yep
Eric Whitley yes Steven Daniel we are unanimous all right thank you so much we'll see you all Thursday thank you guys thank you [Music] [Music]