##VIDEO ID:sgK84lNniaM## e e e e e e e e e e [Music] [Music] [Music] hello everybody everybody and welcome to the January 30th 2025 meeting of the finance committee at the Town Hall Annex pursuant to Governor Healey's March 29 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 3A section 20 until March 31st 2025 this meeting of the Cham 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 call may do so by calling the phone number one area code 508 945 4410 conference ID 971 891 746 pound sign or join the meeting online via Microsoft teams through the link in the posted agenda while this is a live broadcast and Sim will cast on chatam TV which is 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 as soon as possible if any anyone is recording this meeting please notify the chairman I see none okay let's see who's here uh roll call Tommy Don here Rob Madison here John papalardo Joann spra here Andy young is here Kristen Andress here Tracy Shields here Eric Whitley here and Stephen Daniel who may end up joining us a little bit later okay great uh we can commence Carrie once again you have the floor thank you Mr chair um we're going to be going over the FY 2026 proposed budget for um the public works department and the water department um the public works and Facilities budget is presented at 7 million 77334 for FY 2026 and increase of 368,000 the snow and ice division is level funded for FY 2026 with a budget of $95,000 the street lighting division is level funded for FY 2026 with a budget of 22,500 the FY 2026 transfer station division um budget is at 1,912 n48 the Fuel Depot division is level funded for FY 2026 with a budget of $235,000 the FY 2026 facilities division budget is at 1,668 [Music] 770 the FY 2026 um project in operations admin division is at 313,50 290 the FY 2026 seary division budget is at $61,800 the FY 2026 parks and grounds division budget is at 696,000 um they have some Capital requests that under the uh 2026 Capital plan for the um amounts ranging between 10,000 and 250 Public Works requests are 60,000 for facility safety equipment upgrade 10,000 for water main and replacement the highway division requests are 20,000 for annual road maintenance 5,000 for bike trail maintenance 10,000 for emergenc mergency Road repairs 200,000 for Road resurfacing 100,000 for sidewalk construction um 95,000 for a i there's a typo it's it's supposed to be a 2015 onton truck plow and sander and replace a 2005 backhoe for 160,000 project operations in admin requests are 200,000 for property management Building Maintenance projects Municipal Building requests are 250,000 for Ada improvements for all buildings 32,50 for Basset house energy conservation measures 50,000 for DPW building upgrade study 150,000 for DPW Fuel Depot fire suppression upgrade and 50,000 for PD Annex boilers it's actually just the annex boilers um transfer station requests are 175,000 for transfer station trash truck and Cemetery Department requests are 10,000 for cleaning of headstones and 15,000 for fence repair and vegetation removal and then we have the water operating budget which is presented for FY 2026 for 5,447 1828 an increase of 7278 110 or 15.4 4 2% over the FY 2025 budget the largest portion of this budget is due to Debt Service which has risen by $622,500 for short-term interest and Rob failey the DPW director is here to go over more in detail of the line items for you thank you Carrie Rob you're welcome welcome thank you thank you Mr chair thank you committee members and carry um Rob Bailey director of Public Works I will run through the DPW budget so just to uh give a quick 10,000 foot overview do um the seven divisions of the public works department are listed here this um this excludes projects and operations Administration even though they're part of DPW they're part of the DPW budget but that's really uh Terry whan's going to be doing that as part of his presentation so for this purpose I'm excluding it from from my presentation although I do make some mention of uh some of his numbers just to keep it consistent throughout the presentation it's an overview of our existing staff um zero staff were added in 2025 uh with have two vacancies in administration one is um somebody who was promoted and another one is a new position that we're using some kind of combining a bunch of part-time or seasonal help to to make another like an engineering technician type position to help out some project management issues um and we also have a vacancy in highways you'll see at the bottom we've uh requested this year two additional staff for parks and grounds division that's to bring all of the Cemetery maintenance inhouse currently we mow the two largest cemeteries um with contracted staff Union and seaside cemeteries they're very large we just don't have that uh the Manpower in-house currently to maintain both of those cemeteries and it's really just mowing we still we still do all the other maintenance but it's the mowing um and so we're requesting two additional staff so we can bring all that activity in house that's just an overview of uh DPW equipment I won't go through in detail unless you want me to but um under the bottom the water department uh the lighter gray color those are violia owned equipment it's part of our contract with violia that they provide that equipment so it's necessarily it's not Town equipment but technically Town staff or contracted staff do use that equipment and please interrupt me at any time if if you have any questions I'm happy to PA Mr chair please gra I was just waiting for that uh thank you uh on highways do does the town uh contract out all of its plowing or do we do it in house now we do all of it in house uh how much does that cost us an hour well it it depends on it depends on the Storm you know if it's just something where we're not plowing we could handle it with a few trucks with Sanders and we can just put spread salt on the road yeah if it's plowing it's an all hands on deck event where we pull staff in from Parks and grounds the transfer station facilities highways everybody contributes to the greater cause for an hourly cost I I don't have a breakdown um but it's it's basically every DPW employee their salary for every hour oh I just wondered how that would contrast is if we had to bring in uh plowers from out to higher typically I found that it's more expensive even if it's less expensive initially by the time you um pay for upgrades and and you start phasing out some of your equipment um it winds up being more money in the long run okay uh thank you very and just one more question before you leave on the um the highways how much are we will we be getting from the state this year for our maintenance of our highways for chapter 90 funds yes I'm sorry I did put on the back of your packet there is on the last report I got from chapter 90 so there is a balance on there I'm I apologize didn't let you know so I think I don't know if it shows how much we're getting but it does show what our balance is are it's on the very back of your packet the whole entire thing I was just wondering like every year we get a different amount or the same amount because of our linear footage or mileage it's go BS by mileage and population there's a number there's a formula that they use and I know I was at a conference last week and Governor Healey spoke about um adding another 50% on top of what they've originally what they historically have distributed for chapter 90 fund so uh in FY 26 we should see a substantial bump in that oh okay that's good thank you you're welcome Tommy thank you Mr chairman uh Ron could you repeat what you were saying about the cemeteries please so Cemetery maintenance falls on our parks and grounds division right they mow all the cemeteries with the exception of Union and seaside right but they do all the other spring and fall cleanups they repair the fences they cut vegetation from the fence lines and and that kind of stuff but it's just the mowing of those two cemeteries that we had historically contracted out just those two cemeteries those two yep thank you but but in this instance Tom we're for FY 2026 we're talking about bringing on additional staff within parks and grounds taking over all of the Cemetery maintenance that's correct yeah okay thank you clear Barbara yeah actually thank you Mr chair that was my question too so the two people that were bringing on the only thing they're going to be doing is those two cemeteries no it's it's just to help out with the additional workload um we'll probably bring a full crew in maybe of four or five people to mow those cemeteries to get them done in a single day but then they're they're there for other duties as needed okay and I did just want to give you a shout out um um earlier this year there was um a pothole that I didn't see when I was walking in my morning walk and I went down and a friend of mine called you guys and within one day that pothole was filled so thank you you good glad to hear thank you go ahead Eric uh thanks Mr chair Rob on the two positions that you're talking about and I understand the adding the cemeteries is there a reason they need to be full-time yearr round if it's a if it's really um for the benefit of the the additional mowing that we're doing there which there's no water so the mowing in those cemeteries is probably really six weeks at the most so maybe it's more I don't I I shouldn't say it that way but um did you consider maybe part-time for that uh instead of full-time we have so so typically the I mean last wi last summer was a pretty wet summer historically so there wasn't really a Down Season we were always hoping for a little bit of a dry August but we were still mowing um starting in early May right through to fall Cleanup in the end of October so we were having um you know the nature of the job market right now we're having a tough time trying to bring in summer helpers um typically we would bring in like four um we've had one for the past two years um they just yeah I don't know if people don't want to work or they're higher paying jobs out there um there's a lot of good summer employment opportunities and there's a shortage of Works Workforce on the cape so it's been a it's been a struggle for us okay Rob please proceed okay thank you uh this is just a a pie chart to show uh kind of the the breakdown of uh the DPW budget uh the larger slices of the pie are municipal buildings or facilities in the blue um the Orange is highways green is the transfer station and in the purple is the sewer department the rest all falls in uh you know much smaller categories but that's that makes up the bulk of the DPW budget so the 7,770 334 budget represents an increase of $368,500 two% um again project Administration was part of the is part of the DPW budget but uh it was separated from municipal buildings last fiscal year um but we still track it in the DPW budget Personnel increases are 189,190 of that that's pretty much up to you know longevity increases collective bargaining agreements cost of living adjustments things of that nature and operational increases uh we'll get into those details here shortly so here are the Personnel increases um again you could see modest increases across the board and then we get to parks and grounds and that reflects the the two additional employees that we're requesting um for a 27.9% increase in their personnel costs um Terry's part the project Administration is a slight reduction because there was a long-term employee that retired and we hired somebody uh actually somebody who was uh one of my administrative people was promoted to uh to his assistant so um that worked out operational increases um these are just the line items that we've increased for municipal buildings um 55,000 for gas and heat as cost rise uh operational supplies $10,000 and 48300 for buildings grounds and maintenance all other categories have been level funded highways for 95210 we added another $4,000 for street signs um we are requesting um we get requested uh a lot to install additional stop signs and parking signs and that nature and we're just reflecting that in their budget just because there's a greater need around chadam all the other cies are Level fund Mr chair please go ahead um of our buildings how many aren't don't have gener don't have generators so the fire chief has kind of taking over the generator the emergency generator roll out I believe we only have one primary building that doesn't have generators which is that is it the community center I'm not sure no they have a generator say that again says maybe Terry knows Terry probably does know because I know he works Terry whing um yes so the U Community Center does have a generator um in place so I think as far as the primary buildings we have them all covered uh we do have some smaller buildings uh that currently do not have them okay thank you thank you Terry thank you thanks Terry sure um and Sewer Department um the only increase is of of the 1, 74929 is the increase in the contracted services and that's uh last July we uh signed a fiveyear agreement with violia and the and they've been on board with us so they have periodic increases every July Mr chair yes ma' uh are we going to get into uh how the the construction at the transfer station is going and where we stand on the budget there of the renovation I believe on February 18th I'll be back um I'll do an update on the transfer station as well as the uh next phase funding okay thank you as well as any sewer uh projects as well okay thank you thank you thanks so the transfer station increase um to 1 million $2,948 um Cass tipping increased to by 65,000 to an expected total of $650,000 I say expected because it really depends on the amount of trash that uh residents throw out thanks for checking exclamation point I thought it was paid it must be a processing issue on rise's end thanks excuse me Mr chair what was that yeah whatever it was I didn't get it oh oh okay okay so with Cass tipping um that's where all of our uh our Solid Waste goes um we just signed a new five-year contract with them with very modest increase and they increase their costs approximately three to four and a half% every year we're still anticipating raising some tipping floor rates not necessarily sticker rates for residents but for the commercial haulers both for um construction and demolition debris and for the the commercial haulers on the Tipping floor um just because we're seeing more rates uh higher higher costs for us to get rid of that equipment or material sorry Eric thank you Mr chair um just a question rob a lot of the Plastics I think I've been that we put into our plastic recycling even if they are from 1 to 7 cannot actually be recycled is it still cheaper for the town to us to just for us to just throw all of the recyclable supposedly Plastics in our own recycling rather than in the trash um it is it is cheaper it's not much cheaper but it is cheaper uh especially if we continue to separate it um the single stream Plastics are almost equivalent to Solid Waste to get rid of um there's not that much of a market and it's a it's a Perpetual machine you know if you try to recycle Plastics you have to add virgin Plastics so you're making creating more and more plastics every time you try to recycle it so you know they think the best practice to follow is to try to avoid Plastics at all costs you know we try but yeah the the Market's drying up for that so it's really it's really difficult and expensive to get rid of plastics we we we search for the best uh areas to locate um to get the most benefit um so like our our tin and aluminum we can get up to 18 cents a pound um depending where we take it uh cardboard and newspaper we can actually make money at also everything else it costs us to get rid of even glass just the the Market's not out there any idea if we're ever going to be able to recycle styrofoam yeah I don't know that's a that's a good one thanks Rob you're welcome you want to speak go so my question's almost in line and you may have answered it I was going to ask if the the the $350,000 for the recyclable material removal that you're budgeting for you know what the breakdown was at relative to the to the Tipping costs and so I think you've generally said that some some materials we would we would be better off if they were they were just in the in the Stream going to se Mass rather than recyclable yeah you know I I at least when it goes to seam Mass it's being burned and reused for energy um otherwise it may be going to a landfill so um so I I look at the sustainability piece of that you know maybe it's going towards a it's getting a second use may not be as a plastic but it's being used for energy so there's a there's a little bit of a benefit there so has there ever been any thought of of maybe retraining us all and the public about what's what should be going into which which stream and you know if you're talking about the the cardboard the the newspaper tin whatever else you said that there's either some value for or getting rid of it I mean should we be promoting you know sending the plastic that Barb's talking about and some of the other things you know in through a different pathway rather than paying more to get rid of it I think that's a going to be a big objective when we if we get funded for the recycling area um for next year you know we'll see how that goes but I think you know some more clearer signage um and maybe a you know a public campaign to really inform residents it's definitely on the table oh go ahead Tomy thank you indeed ju do you remember when the last tipping increase for Cass was for Cass every year they every year is it generally this amount every year increase the increase is it's between 3 and 4 and a half% typically thank you grant oh I was just gonna say I'm pretty well trained with Recycling and it's very uh little Annoying and disappointing to go to put my garbage in and have a big truck come in and dump everything not baged not anything but cardboard Plastics everything a whole pickup truck full of it so I don't know what we do about that but it's like you're swimming against the tide when you're trying to go down and separate cardboard plastic bottles and all of that and you you began to think what's the use that's a lot of trouble for some of us anyway it is the responsible thing to do and I think that kind of start drives the discussion of why we need to increase our tipping rates right it it may encourage more people to recycle okay chrisan thank you Mr chair just as a followup to the The Tipping rates um how far behind are we lagging on our commercial what we charge our commercial haulers to what we're paying to get rid of I assume there're still single stream um anyway thank you so we recently had a rate change and I think we're about $6 per ton to the negative we we're losing money every ton that's delivered to chadam transfer station we're losing money all right thank you go ahead please um next uh parks and grounds uh 696,000 removing $70,000 out of the cemetery department and that's because that's what the contracted mowers typically made in a year so um by converting that to salary um it's not going to be as big of a hit when we hire two additional employees will save that $70,000 it'll go towards that I think it was 143 for those two positions so that'll help snow and ice Street lighting Central fuel po um all no changes all level funded and I just carried Terry's number on here 33,2 28 and he'll present that uh when I'm finished I jumped ahead and put the water department slide in here um there's really not a whole lot of discussion um from my perspective um there is uh some slight increases when it comes to salary whether it's in-house staff um the water fund expenses is part of um I think that's veolia's is that carry is that carried is viol is carried under the water fund expenses or is that in a different line the violia contract is under the water fund expenses yes okay so that that covers part of their increase as well y um and the biggest driver of the increase is The Debt Service um so that's why it shows a 15.42% increase but I'll pause here if you want to ask any questions on the on the water budget I I will I think you know the next logical question is are we entertaining any sort of rate increase to help cover these increases yes um you knew it was coming so Rob and I are currently working with a company called water worth and um getting the rates worked on and um Rob will be presenting them to um the water and sewer committee and then we'll have to go to the select board but we they are in the works because there is a need to raise the rates to cover the budget okay it primarily to cover the debt service from all the water projects we just uh you know we just finished Wells 10 and 11 we're under construction with Wells 5 and eight and all of those bills are coming due so um I'm sure there'll be future water projects coming up too and the the I assume the large filter project on trainfield road is coming along it is um yeah that the the foundation is in they've started the uh the masonry block walls up out of the ground um they're looking to have the the GAC the granular activated carbon vessels installed in March and then they'll put the roof on and then construction will continue so it's moving along nicely all right terrific thank you welcome stepen Daniel Tommy go ahead oh when you expect that building to be in use I don't remember exactly what the schedule shows but it wouldn't be until the latter part of this year this year thank you Mr well after summer Jo yes when we look at the water department budget it looks in my opinion that should be at the top of our list for the town as far as uh budgeting and uh capital expenditure and debt if there is any that should be prioritized because uh again without pure water and without enough of it the rest uh of everything we have in town fails in significance and what part of the budget or what part of the department is concerned with new wells uh and uh how much water we require a day how much water will we require according to our average population expectations and what are we doing about that because it's not a shortterm look ahead it should be I I mean it should be we should be looking at it in the short term not the long term so what are we thinking and doing about that or what are you thinking as a Department chief so we did look at uh additional Wells I guess they were studied um a number of years ago there are are two other Well locations we could explore um based on the levels of iron and magines and the the how much production we can get out of those Wells that juice may not be worth the squeeze so to speak you know it we put a lot of money to invest to develop those two Wells and we may not get a lot of return uh back from those so I think we have to look at um looking at you know making sure the quality of the water coming out of our existing Wells is good looking for efficiencies in some of the piping uh maybe some pipe sizes can be increased potentially storage the problem is with the store if if we were to increase our storage there's a 1.25 million gallon tank and a 1.35 million gallon tank the usage is so great in the summertime when irrigation systems come online that it it depletes that so much so quickly that all of our wells come online and they're pumping all day to try to replenish that water that's lost so even if we had U maybe another storage tank it may take the curse off a little bit but it's not really a long-term solution and we're still pushing conservation we're still pushing for people to install private Wells if they are insisting on irrigating their la you know that's the best way if we can get more irrigation systems off of town water which you know we pump it we store it we treat it and then it gets watered onto somebody's lawn and runs down the gutter half the time so I think we have to really work on our education and really promote and I think raising the water weights water rates will help this promote people not irrigating their lawns with treated water yeah thank you and I just think it's important that we don't come to a point where we have to tell the town they're they're uh that we're in trouble immediately and I think we should put a a heavier emphasis on what the future brings how are we going to deal with water and population but thank you Tom just a quick question the now that we require separate metering for irrigation systems on the town water do we actually have a real count of how much much water is being used for irrigation um we don't because um we're still working on identifying those properties there are many properties that still irrigate and they only have a single meter so we're we are about nine months into it um we are waiting for this summer when we finally have a really good count if we see people that are spiking so before we used to have to drive around and right get the meter readings and everything it was a big laborous process now we can get like up to 4,000 meter readings in a single day so we can keep track we can we're identifying leaks a lot quicker people who may be away and they've got a a running toilet or something we can identify that hey they've got uh they're using a lot of water a lot more than they normally do and the house isn't even occupied so we could reach out to them and try and shut their water off and have a conversation with them so I think we're we're getting there we're not quite there yet I think this summer would be a really good tell of course last summer we were going to rely on our contracted operators to do this and we were in a transition between Weston and Samson and violia so just the timing didn't work out and I'm hopeful this summer we'll be able to really narrow down maybe those last 100 or 200 people that need irrigation meters that don't have one that that would be a really interesting data point particularly if we're talking about any changes in water rates and particularly those that are used for irrigation so regardless of a drought status I I've heard other Cape Cod communities you know and we we file a permit with d to pull water out of the aquifer um they're being told at the state level you can only irrigate maybe twice a week right so they're putting the state's putting restrictions on our ability to draw water out of the aquifer and I think we're going to be there probably within the next two years oh boy Tommy oh CHR please thank you um couple of things I would say um I just want to make a plug for Cape Cod Lawns I know that we a lot of people have come to just love having Lush Turf Lawns but here on Cape Cod where we've got Sandy soils there's absolutely nothing wrong with a Cape Cod lawn I'm not ashamed to say I've been here enough decades to remember uh and always know what a Cape Cod lawn is but folks that have moved here from elsewhere may not know that it's perfectly acceptable to have a non-irrigated lawn so just a plug for a cape cut long and concern water and then secondly just as an anecdotal thing I'm just curious has water pressure uh been reduced um I've just noticed at home it may be psychological but um knowing that we've had some water issues and that we've been in drought but it just seems like uh water pressure seems to be lower in my West chadam Abode we did not intentionally lower uh water pressure um I know we've had a couple of breaks recently uh especially with sewer construction um contractors broke open the the sewer main maybe that affected pressure to some degree it's it's really hard to say but you know we're in that time of year where water levels are their lowest and the ground's frozen so we're not seeing that recharge yet that we normally see so uh hope hopefully we'll get some milder weather and some nice spring rains to really replenish the aquafer Barbara well that's a scary thought do you have the ability to lower water pressure um we we probably can but I don't know if we can do it uh you know townwide at you know as a whole you know we could do it in in areas you know there there are AWA standards that we have to provide pressure at a certain level yeah they just crank the curb stop shot and you don't have any water pressure okay please rob go ahead thank you so that concludes the operational piece and I'll jump into Capital now you're okay with that yeah um so cleaning of headstones this is an Ann annual request uh it's part of our Perpetual care last year I know the cemetery Department got a CPC funding to clean a number of headstones they've requested it again this year um they've gotten initial approval for that so but regardless of whether we get CPC approval this is something that just goes towards our Perpetual care we were able to clean I wouldn't say close to 135 headstones last year clean repair straighten whatever this is one that had a couple of cracks in it that were put back together and it was cleaned um mostly in Seaside but some of it's spilled over at a Union Cemetery encourage you to take a walk through the cemetery is a really beautiful and these white gleaming headstones really stand out at you go Stephen um Rob having spent a fair bit of time in the graveyards in the last couple of years there's a lot of is there's the T of a policy on bushes that probably started about this big and are now the size of a single car garage um obscuring the the Tombstones that that are embedded in them so you people aren't supposed to plant anything in the cemeteries uh I know it's happened over the years um if they're maintained you know you can kind of look the other way but you know like you said a lot of them have just gone uh out of control right we've been spending a lot of time in Union Cemetery cutting some overgrowth um the dingo that uh you supported last year with the stump grinder we've been grinding the stumps out so and I've got a picture in here uh in a little bit that kind of shows that so okay terrific thank you okay uh um next is just another annual request $10,000 for water main service Replacements um you know every time we get in there and um somebody especially if somebody replaces their private service line we like to do the public side at the same time we recently submitted to D our lead service line inventory um so there are I think I forgot the last count was around 12 or 1300 service lines that we could not confirm what that material was um I don't think any of them are lead but they could be unlined steel or copper or something something that would leech into the water into drinking water for residences so um we are working with de once we hear back from them they'll give us a game plan typically it's like over a 10-year period we have to have a game plan to replace all of those so this number this year probably be the last year you see it this low it'll probably be a larger much larger Capital request going forward go bar Rob what are they lined with the pipes well they're they're unlined so they have it's just like a steel pipe that um or a lead pipe that you would be picking up contaminantes from from the water going through the pipe so so none of these things are Plastics and all the stuff that's been burning out in California right yeah know well we you know since in the last 40 5050 years we've been using plastic and you know that's a great material so um that's what we try to install nowadays of the of the more than a thousand that we can't determine what they are is it you've been unable to exam in the pipe or you're not getting a response from the homeowner or our records are they go back a 100 years um they're not always clear they it's not always documented what material was used um and and that's what D will give us uh some direction and a lot of it may be just we just dig a hole or get into the property owner's house and Mak an observation you know we sent out surveys survey response was overwhelmingly positive but we still have you know over a thousand that we we can't confirm yet thank you go ahead Tracy thank you just for the public and maybe aard member how do you suggest somebody determine that if their property is undetermined how do how does the property owner figure out what it is so we sent out um guidelines in the last couple of water bills and maybe if you haven't received a water bill recently you didn't get one but so it has uh you know how to identify what type of pipe you have coming into your house um and if you know if we give you a tool like you can use a magnet it to test it you can scratch it and if it's shiny you know then it's some other material so so there are ways but a lot of them you know the meter or there's insulation and it's so tight to the foundation you may not even be able to tell from inside your basement you may have to you know somebody would have to dig a hole in your yard to really be able to determine that so that's what our our next step is once we get a response from D we've been back and forth with d a little bit um they had some clarifications and some just admin ministrative things we needed to correct um but we are good with them we just have to we're in the waiting game now to have them respond I fig every community in Massachusetts had the same deadline to submit so I'm sure they're overwhelmed with it Tommy thank you and how did the survey go that you sent out to for people to identify there very well um I I don't know the numbers off hand but it was well over a thousand respondents um I think it was closer to 1500 um which is we you know if we have 7,000 customers that's that's not a bad return no thank you thanks Rob go ahead uh again another annual request $5,000 for bike path maintenance doesn't cover labor it just covers materials things like you know fence posts and railing and things like that that we need to replace um sometimes it comes into like line striping or um just repairs that come up so um this is just an annual annual request for $5,000 here is the uh $155,000 again another annual request um you can see in the bottom left picture there's a I don't know if you can really they don't come out very well there's a couple of blue flags there there were trees and bushes there not that long ago so we cut those down we ground the stumps grass hasn't come back yet it's a good time year because it it doesn't look like there's that much uh disturbance to the cemetery and in the spring you know we'll throw some grass seed down and get grass to reestablish um but it's you know those were that was an overgrown area just a few months ago and then again just U some of the fence repairs we do you see the the fence line is really clear of vegetation and there's a couple of shinier uh rails in there that we replaced recently but it really goes towards you know our parks and ground staff they can do all this work in house but occasionally we have to hire a tree company to come in for some Hazard branches that we're not capable of cutting or we have to buy fencing materials to to support the fence line emergency road repairs again another annual request something that's not in our normal budget but things do come up um on the left is a picture of Battlefield Landing we are trying to prevent some we put in a few french trains we were trying to prevent water from going down and washing out uh a resident steps who they are kind enough to let the public onto their property and feel like the least we could do to try to prevent those steps from washing out as frequently as they do um we still have more work to do out there but it's just some of these little things that come up that you don't really have uh room in your budget for and you just you have to buy some material to uh help appease you know some of the some of the issues we see going on uh on the right hand picture is just uh curb uh property owner was driveway was getting flooded out from water from our road so we put a a small burm at their driveway entrance and and tied that back into a catch Basin so again all these little material costs add up so it just it just helps offset some of our budget and this probably going forward could just be part of the budget I don't know why we always carry it as capital but um I guess that's that's the way we've always done it not that that's the right way but maybe we'll have to rethink uh things going forward this is a the the uh transfer stations trash truck $1 175,000 it's uh has over 100,000 miles on it it has frequent breakdowns um this truck goes all over town um picks up trash in 135 barrels several times a week in the summertime we have more barrels 155 barrels and it does a daily trip uh busy summer weekends or holiday days it sometimes does that trip twice a day in some of the main areas so it's very heavily used um it does break down frequently uh it seems like uh commercial mechanics are difficult to come by or there's a lot more uh competition for their services so when we the truck is down it's down for uh longer periods of time during those times our crew has to go out with a one tum dump truck and they have to make several trips and they have to lift the garbage up over the back of the bed of the truck possibly inflicting shoulder injuries and things of that nature so um we really would like to have a reliable compact air trash truck to to make those daily trips Andy yes Carrie will this be a standalone article sorry sorry um no it's going to be in the one-year capital okay yep cuz it's under 250,000 so it's in the there yep very good thank you you're welcome annual road maintenance again another $20,000 annual request um this is just to support our podole patching crack ceiling things in addition to chapter 90 chapter 90 we typically reserve for having Paving Contractors come out and do bigger projects this just carries some of uh some of those other maintenance burdens for for buying materials um we use a really good product um uh called aqua fall it comes in a bucket comes in like a a five gallon bucket and it's like $55 a bucket but you can use this material any time of year and it's curated by water so middle of winter you can go out and take your bucket and put it in the pothole and Tamp it down and pour a bottle of water over the top of it and a cures it's really um and it lasts a lot longer than say going to the asphalt plant and getting material in a a hot box and trying to keep it hot and patching potholes we don't like to use it for a lot of things only in kind of emergency situations but there are some really good products out there some some new and Innovative things so uh so this money helps support some of that stuff Eric um just going back to the garbage truck with the issues you had with with breakdowns and things like that what's your plan when you get the new one for this one is it something you'd keep on standby or do you is it has something value to on the trade end we would we would auction it off uh and then that money would go to the general fund whether whether there's a market for it or not I don't know you know that'll that'll come at in auction time Rob is is our Paving season being extended I mean I was astounded to see the paving work taking place in December I was astounded as well right are the asphalt plants are staying open and it's worthwhile to try to do it then it it all depends on the weather but yeah yeah typically you know some of them will start closing after Thanksgiving but there'll always be at least one that stays open till around Christmas time um that contractor um started in the first week of November it was really should have been a project that was done in a couple of weeks and it got it just got extended we were Paving in January still yeah right oh wow graad barar thanks Andy um Rob by general fund does that mean free cash or does that general fund stay in your department I believe it goes to the townwide fund not in my department but I rely on Carri for that answer typically there's an account that's set up for um uh asset dispositions so the funds would go in there which is general fund money so um it would be above what we would re our estimated receipts so then it yes it would close out at the end of the year if that's what you're asking yep you're welcome there there are times when we would try to keep that money within DPW and say trade it into another you know say if we had a Ford and we were going to buy another Ford and we would just trade it in and and take that money off the top but it seems like we get more money at auction from what I'm hearing from other dpws so that's the path I'd like to go even if that money doesn't come back into D dpw's pocket it still comes back to the town coffers so I think it's just a better better value okay uh another annual request sidewalk construction um $100,000 um this this project on croll road it it didn't uh include the sidewalk or the curb or the or the detectable warning surfaces so that was something we added out of the sidewalk budget um I know I mentioned that uh an engineering technician hopefully we're going to be hiring sometime this spring um that's one of the projects um I would like to get them working on is to do look at the comprehensive sidewalk study that was done and really put together a larger I think we've got some money in this account already carried over from previous years get a larger um maintenance project going where we have more detectable curbs for uh sidewalk Crossings and repair some of the uh some of the sidewalks that are falling into deterioration this is uh this is already a typo here it should have been the 2000 oh no this is the 2015 I I have another truck that I have the wrong year in so this was it said 2005 originally but it's a 2015 one ton pickup truck um so it is 10 years old it has 100,000 miles on it um we just like to have reliable equipment you know our equipment sees uh frequent breakdowns it's out in all kinds of weather it starts to corrode faster um this is just something we want to have available for the next snow and ice storm so it has a reliable plow and hopper in the back for for salting um just part of our Fleet upgrade 10 years is a long time for a for a truck to be in service aror you probably use that for something else other than just snow and ice right yeah yeah it's it's used year round absolutely these these one ton uh they're like dump trucks really but they're small um they're the mo our most versatile piece of equipment we use them every single day it's the dump trucks we don't necessarily use quite as often this is for a this was the error this is a no it's the next one I'm sorry 2005 John Deere backhoe 20-year-old backhoe uh we'd like to replace it again it's it is a versatile piece of equipment we use it to bury an on the beach it has a really long reach like close to 20t um we use it for drainage projects and a number of things it's pretty versatile piece of equipment so um um again it's just as as equipment gets older it's becomes more obsolete to get parts um and it just breaks down more frequently so uh I think this one it it looks like it's in good shape we've taken really good care of it and I think we would be able to get a pretty high dollar amount at auction for it this one that was not in uh anything that Carrie had mentioned uh previously and this was actually a 2007 Chevy c8500 that's the error I had on here um it's a fton dump truck again not as versatile a piece of equipment but critical for winter maintenance because it can carry more salt and it can it can travel greater distances and still treat the roads without having to have return trips back to the garage this truck is so old that um we can't raise the bed anymore because for fear of the the rails are so rusted out uh we are fearful that the the back will fall off if we raise the bed so um last couple of times it broke down we had to have our mechanic fabricate parts are the exhaust system and there was something else on the back that he had to fabricate the parts because we can't buy them anymore so something I was just wondering where what the cost is for the replacement so that's a great question so thank you for that I I think we will be able to absorb uh I'll explain a little bit this is a little uh tricky situation and I just want to try to make sure I I fully explain it so last year we had approval to buy a new rolloff truck for the transfer station I don't know if you all remember that it was $20,000 so with our new contract with violia at the sewer plant we have a rolloff truck at the sewer plant it's a town-owned rolloff truck it's about 11 years old but it has a low mileage on it what we how we typically treat our solid sludge waste you know after it comes it gets dewatered in the belt filter press and stored there we store it in a dumpster and then our rolloff truck comes picks up that dumpster drives it to Yarmouth dumps it in Yarmouth stores it there until we have several loads that are brought there then we hire a trucking company to go pick it up in Yarmouth drive it to Maine where it goes to a cassella landfill and so it's handled you know once once you flush you know you think it's never it's never seen again we're handling it like three and four times again and driving across straight lines it's just it's really inefficient and it does cost a lot of money so we have uh violia put us in touch with this new company um they're not new but they're new to us and we're working out some contract language where they would drop a dumpster there for us you know 30- yard container and we would just fill it and when it's filled they would take it they would take it at a much lower cost and they would blend it with other materials and sell it for you know to commercial far Farmers for mulch and fertilizers and things like that um it keeps all the solid waste out of landfills and it reuses uh all this material and the projected savings is about $40,000 a year so we'd be able to take that rolloff truck that's at the wastewater treatment plant reuse that at the transfer station and possibly purchase a new dump truck with the rolloff truck money so that's kind of the wheeling and dealing I've been doing behind the scenes and I just figured instead of trying to put a slide together it's just easier to try to explain it Rob I think You' commended for that um your your deal making skills well done um a number of years ago your predecessor U switched the town from a salting campaign to a solution pre-treatment regime are we still doing that you've made several reference to salts and you know salt Spinners and the like so we do have a tank of Mag chloride um not all of our tanks are outfitted with uh I mean sorry all of our trucks are outfitted with tanks for liquid storage y um but I have instructed uh you know our foremans that you know we need to really start using that material um it just it keeps uh salt on the road right it reduces bounce and Scatter so half the materials wind up in the ditch um it just there's there's more retainage it sits in the the cracks and crevices in the road so it reactivates the next time it it snows yep um there's so many great uh benefits to it I wouldn't say I would support like a brine program because that is more susceptible to freezing temperatures but the mad choroid that we have is a very Superior product and um yeah I'm trying to get them to use it more okay good thank you okay keep going another annual request um Road surfacing $200,000 again this just um supplements the chapter 90 fund typically for bigger projects we hire contractors to come in last couple of years we've gone to barnable county has Road bid uh projects where they handle all the advertising and all the the coordination with us we just tell them what roads we want to pave uh give them some terms and limits you know quantities and and things of that nature and barnable County handles the bidding process for us so it's been really good the last few years um this just helps supplement what we what we need but we don't get from act uh chapter 90 crazy this sort of a more general question but and you You' mentioned that it there's so many things where there are these annual requests um and then it sounded like some of them have existing balances you know from the years before that you know whatever the 10,000 for for the annual request for this is there a way that we could see what the existing balances are in some of these and every year we get requests for this 10,000 or this you know 100,000 um to know where we stand with what's already in those accounts yeah I can certainly get you those balances for those accounts that's fine they're Capital counts so what happens is the money gets put in like you said and then it doesn't close out because it's a capital item so it stays in the account that it's in so um and some of the requests are like they're only requesting a certain amount to build up to a certain amount so the request might be $500,000 that they request but they're only requesting it over a certain amount of time so they're you know so it might be like they only get a certain amount you know what I mean not the whole whole 500,000 so over the years they'll get like maybe $100,000 to go in there for the for the project that they need to do I don't know if I'm explaining that right but anyways that's why they carry over a balance just to hold it so they have the money that they need for the actual project amount right yeah right but if it it's but so there conceivably there might be some years where we don't need to do the 10,000 annual request correct there there were some requests that were put in and I didn't fund because we had enough money in there already so yeah if something like Paving for instance you know we don't really know what the cost is until we get all the bids I mean we we can project it and we estimate it but um we may say hey we're not going to we're going to do you know two miles of this road one year but we're going to hold back that money and we're going to do you know three or four miles the following year so so there is a little bit of a fluctuation sometimes so Carrie it's not unlike for example the Waterway user fund feing fund where we're being essentially banking money to over time to address certain projects of interest to the town um right so let's let's use the uh what is the catch basins for example so the catch basins every year get we get a request for like $60,000 and over the years we've only given like maybe 30,000 but when I noticed this year there was still a balance in there for like I think 60,000 I had asked Rob do you really need $30,000 this year and he said no we don't need that um it's just the line item so it can roll over and there there are times don't get me wrong there are times where we close out capital lines when we don't need the funds anymore and they they do close out to free cash so or you know they close out at the end of the year yep so okay that's yeah but it's not like the Waterway user phase where it's just held in there all the time so if we have like a like the transfer rolloff truck for example if we didn't use it for anything else we would potentially have to close that account out yeah okay understood thank you okay you're welcome can I just do a quick followup I apologize for being late Rob um I was just curious of the roughly 5% increase in your department line for the year how much of that is reflected in kind of contractually obligated steps versus otherwise I'm sorry if I missed that before so really all the Personnel increases the 189,000 is all it's really just uh step increases uh cost of living adjustments uh collective bargaining um roughly three three three I think there is uh 2% of the five I was looking for the uh increase in um parks and ground staff as well that that would be two new positions correct yep understood thank you okay thanks that's all I have we jumped to the last slide so I'm happy to stay for questions I have question great Chris thanks I have a question um not to sound critical I'm just questioning it because I wasn't aware of this I noticed um that the cemetery commission that there's a stipend for those folks and um I'm wondering if that's something by Statute or something that's lingered for years because I was just surprised I didn't know that and I know in the old days you know the commission folks would be the ones answering the phone at you know as soon as somebody was looking for a plot which might have been any time of the day or night but now we've got staff so anyway I was just curious where this stiped how that if you know the history of that why still there just one of those Legacy things that have stayed around for a while cuz we have a lot of volunteer boards that work very hard that don't get anything so I it's like $22,000 or you know it's not a ton of money but I was just curious about it we can look into that trra I guess Rob if you would maybe just explain a little bit more about the two new positions um I think sort of like what Eric was asking like I get that it it sounds like two people just to me seems like a lot of new people to cover what didn't seem like two whole people's worth like is it if if we paid a lot more an hour for the to have to try and find Summer Staff I understand it's hard to find the Summer Staff but if it's like a really good hourly pay would that still be cheaper than hiring another full-time employee well no I mean I think without benefits and you know summer help regardless you know you'd have a lot of room to to increase their salaries to make up the difference between somebody who's on a a permanent staff member you know by the time you had a health benefits and holiday pay and all that stuff um it's not like our parks and ground staff is sitting at the garage right now twiddling their thumbs either um there are incredible amount of demands placed on them and and it seems like it increases every year so like right now there's part of the crews are out working in the cemeteries part of the crews are pulling benches from all of our Parks refurbishing those benches they're pulling all the picnic tables off refurbishing those for summer they help the parks uh the beaches staff they put out all the mats and the Lifeguard chairs in the spring they assist with all like the holiday decorations I mean year round they are have constant demands placed on them plus they're plowing snow for us and and salting the roads in the wintertime I mean it's not there's no shortage of of need that's for sure that's that's great that was exactly what I wanted to hear that it wasn't really just to just to facilitate the cemeteries no I I mean that's that's the busiest time of year because all the grass in every Park and every town office grows uh and it needs to be cut at the same rate so that's that's where we're really short staffed Barbara thank you Mr chair um Rob the fire department and the police department have an intern program working with monoy and also with Cape Tech does the tech school have any sort of landscaping program that they're training kids to do stuff like that at that we might be able to um get some help from uh I don't know uh however uh we have to worry about um anybody under 18 years old using power equipment for the town they may not be covered under our insurance so we are working say that we're working with violia like with mass maritine and Cape Cod Tech to try to get people interested in water and sewer licensing um but you know we really have to have them at 18 years old or older we have Co a college kid the last couple of years that has come and worked for us and it's been a great addition oh good oh Tommy for Kristen don't be ashamed to ask that question that's what you're here for right Barbara go ahead just for Carrie or maybe for Rob the um like the snow and ice account and the um the other one the $95,000 account if we don't spend all of that does that go to the general fund or to free cash uh the snow and I is yeah that's part of um the general fund so if we don't use the money if we don't need it for anything else to be transferred around within the general government either then yeah it will close out to it will close out at the end of the year okay um that snow and ice is actually one of the only uh budgets that we're legally able to go into the deficit on though so I just wanted to mention that too so if we go above we can we can legally do that yeah and we can also lend you some money from our account too if we need to can [Laughter] but hey Rob please go ahead no that's that was it I was I was on my last slide and I just as the discussion was going towards some of these other things I was just bringing it up so everybody had the information in front of them right Carrie could you just refresh my memory on the second fund other than snow and ice that we can deficit spend through I think there's there's two aren't there say that again you've got snow and ice which you can defin deficit spend my recollection is there's a second um I don't know in the general fund I know it's snow and ice okay I'll go I know there's other other things that we can go in the deficit on but I the one that pops in my head is snow and ice I I would have to I'll have to look in and let you know there there's definitely other accounts but I think remember Alex always saying that there were two accounts that we could deficit spend from okay overlay Sur possibly um okay thank you all right thank you all right now we're bringing on Terry is that right there he is on the small screen than Rob your team are do okay can't hear you Terry I apologize for that so good afternoon um I'm going to um I'll run through a quick uh overview presentation and then uh and then I have some uh slides on the the capital requests uh and again obviously just like we did with Rob if you uh want to break in feel free to do so I'm going to uh share my screen here and um we'll run through the presentation real quickly okay so again my name is Terry whan and I'm going to do the uh projects and operations Administration overview and I'm the administrator of this division the projects and operations Administration budget for this year as Rob mentioned as well it's it's carried under the broader DPW budget the proposed um FY 26 division budget totals $313,200 um and Rob also mentioned that the salary line is uh lower this year and that was due to U the retirement of a longtime Town employee um so we've got to say savings there of um 9,652 um and then the only increase we have is um of $ 850 uh which includes $100 for continued education and 700 for other charges and expenses dues and fees and those types of things associated with uh Rising costs over the the past couple of years so what that you know again the division primary support areas include uh capital and special projects we're working on article grants and other projects assigned by the town manager uh the we support uh committees we provide Lon duties compliance and administrative uh functions we provide the Operational Support to facilities as needed and we also um uh house the geographic information system which is U the electronic mapping so some of the primary projects we've been working and continue to work on um over the course of this year include the center for active living so we're and if you've been following the uh the select board meetings uh we've completed a study for the renovation expansion of 193 Stony Hill and staff will be coming back on February 11th with um a final proposal to put before the select board uh for um again renovation expansion at 193 Stony Hill for a center for active living we're also been working on the American with Disabilities Act transition plan implementation I'll go over that a little bit more because that's a recurring request request for for um this for a third year of of funding uh we continue to work with green communities on all kinds of energy conservation measures projects grants where we're always looking to find any types of offsets incentives or opportunities to um upgrade equipment while still getting um funding offsets uh to to make it more economic um for um the town and we're also still working on Eldridge Public Library we've got two capital projects going on over there uh the site master plan project and the HVAC project and another project that we're working on that's um with our role supporting the airport commission is um citing the um Noah which is the national oceanographic oh no excuse me Noah yeah no National H Geographic Administration um uh basically the weather service is part of that so upper air inflation balloon UAB station at the former fisherman story um storage area at the airport so if you recollect some years ago the um that um facility was decommissioned at the um at uh monoy Reserve so we've been working with um National Weather Service and we're getting close to getting that in place um the Committees again we basically support three committees so we work very closely a lot of spent a lot of time working with the airport commission energy and climate action committee and the Railroad Museum working group and basically supporting everything that goes along with running a a public meeting under the open meeting law and any grants or Administration or other items that come along with uh management and operation of a a meeting ranging from public re excuse me public rec requests and correspondents and other uh processing of um information requests Terry Barbara has a question thanks Mr chair um Terry could you give us just a thumbnail sketch on update for The Elder Public Library it seems like we've been seeing that year after year I just wonder how it's coming along yeah so we we are and yes and you're right it has been taking us U um some time to get but we are moving along we're we're um getting in hopefully we'll be into the final design phase and I'm talking about the site master plan first which is the um upgrade for the um basically the access to the facility um across um the uh both the front the side and the rear parking lot um and as Rob mentioned Rob and I have been uh working on coordinating uh when we originally envisioned the project um we had uh different uh schedule for projects involving sidewalk work and also uh repaving of Library Lanes so the those need to happen as well as part of the project and we're we're working on coordinating that getting the design final and coordinating the um repavement of Library Lane and the sidewalk construction which was going to happen in other projects so so that's on that project and with the HVAC project we're we're awaiting final results for a thermal um thermal study that'll basically get us to the the equipment that we'll be specking to put out the bid for the electrification which is the conversion of uh from a gas fueled um natural gas fueled building to a uh an electric building thank you Wy the uh upper air inflation balloon project is that costing the town money no that's actually going to wind up uh so it's we the uh work that we're doing um will result in Revenue that will go into the airport revolving fund so it'll be Revenue generating in the sense that um you know it'll it the the any Development building of it will all be um uh that those costs will all be borne by the um um the the federal government thank you you're welcome Joan uh thank you Mr chair uh can you give us a a date or a time when you think this Library project will be complete you we're hoping to get the bid bid package out in the spring and then we can um if we hopefully we can Target a fall fall construction season is there a generator at the library there is not one and yeah to your question but that will be part of the proposal for the electrification of the building okay thank you thank you Mr chair right Barbara please Terry what what are the savings going to be in utilities when we go from gas to electric at the library I would have to look I don't have the report right in front of me but I could we can look at those from the um um the audit report so um I had provided that you know Amy and I had that information uh so it it was all uh Quantified and quite frankly even the new thermal study when that's completed we we'll have uh even more revised information based on um um some additional work really detailed work that that that has been completed since the uh the first kind of highlevel audit that's been completed so that HVAC system is probably going to take a little bit longer than the um than the site plan the site plan is part of your Ada goal too right as well yeah it serves m multiple purposes there you know so there's lots of uh different things going on there too and if you recollect part of that is also relocating the uh the Pioneer Memorial uh becomes relocated and there's also some additional request some additional uh grading of the um the site to enhance the libraries ability to um have certain types of activities outside um you know in in when the weather's good so so we' we've added a couple of other uh TW not twists but tweaks to the design um to to make uh even more functionality um within that the the full site for everything from just access to the site to to having um you know some outside activities so that'll check a lot of boxes for you when we get that done yes thanks Terry Joan please thank you uh do we expect for the project upon completion to to live within what we've uh projected the cost to be yes and so what yes so we've had and similar to some of the discussion before that Carrie mentioned and Rob with capital so um the with the phase two um some the shell project there is some additional funding there to to handle um the um you know any types of um uh contingencies or or slight escalation from the delay in the project and then we'll o include which it would have before um you know funding from that normally would come out of roads and and sidewalks thank you thank you Terry please proceed okay hopefully everybody can see my screen again y yep thank you okay uh yep and just uh yeah so we just stopped at the the mapping so again those the last bullet slides were the primary areas that we're working on but more specifically drilling down into the grants and agreements that we're working on that are you know occurring on a regular basis we're we're also working closely with um the green communities program from the state to also uh always looking for any kind of Grant anytime we're doing anything related to sustainable energy working with cap light compact as well on coming up for our next round so coming up in um there's a great round coming up in April we're looking at developing a a a program um and um approach to further Implement electrification of of multiple buildings quite frankly all the buildings uh as we move along so we worked on prioritizing three right now that have the most uh the highest return um from the perspective of savings and then also uh Grant offsets so more to come on that and hopefully we'll we'll get that uh Grant approved in um um April April May and with the cape and Vineyard electric collaborative so um slightly different than Cape light compact but the on the power generation side or sustainable energy so uh again we continue to participate with uh cape and vineard electric collaborative to install um Power generating locations such as the former transfer station the PDX uh the uh fire station we've got uh community centers close to coming online and other projects and opportunities as they come up and obviously with working closely with fed FAA and mass. Aeronautics on the airport always looking to optimize our um obtaining grants as those tend to be uh very um very positive as the feds um and the state pick up 95% and the the local share coming from the airport revolving fund is is 5% so that really helps in getting the larger projects completed the ones that are identified in the airport master plan so these I I'll probably need to you know if you want to stop on each one let me know but this is just the overview I'm going to go through these um six six projects here the first one being a recurring um Capital article which is the property maintenance and um Building Maintenance which is a $200,000 this again is an annual request for funding the larger cost repair and replacement of equipment so these are uh things to help us maintain obviously the buildings and facilities and then uh this really is intended for unplanned repairs improvements um need much greater order nitude than typical Building Maintenance so these might also be things that that come up over the course of year that are that are unanticipated so much larger types of um um outside the normal operating budget line items in in 192 Terry with that um also include any proposed um maintenance work at the elementary school building no we we don't have any that none of none of the work uh none of that funding is for it's all for I I guess I'll say every town home building or facility with the exception of the schools just to me I I thought part of our deal was that we took over the expense of the elementary school from the regional district is that not correct yeah so I just you know if my conclusion is correct then we need to start thinking about what's required over there for capital projects yes no if that is the case and again I'm not aware that that's the case but yeah that would definitely be um most likely would need to be increased as again that's not carried in there um for the past years that we haven't uh we've had that pretty level I think for the past four years um three or four years at at 200,000 but again that that has not included um schools in that time frame okay well I I will admit my ignorance I'm not sure whether or not we need to think of that but um by assuming the expense of the elementary school I would guess we have to do some work on it night would seem to follow day hm night would seem to follow day it would seem that yeah right Barbara we at least would have to cover part of it I mean our percentage of it the very least yes right but that would be through the regional district contract if it still covers it okay well anyway yeah do you want us we can we can check into that and I get back to on that with okay right well I'm foundering in my ignorance so maybe we should just move beyond that and say try to answer the question um go ahead Terry okay so back to um so this is a a let's call it a program really so uh again back in 2022 the select board um endorsed implementing um action items that were identified in the Ada transition plan which was conducted for all Town buildings and facilities and um the we're into the this this year's request is the third year request actually here you just see the here's the tit the the uh cover page for the report and a sample of of hundreds of action items that have been identified um which serve as the basis for our uh programming of upcoming projects so this is was in anticipated to be uh um you know over five years for at $250,000 a year um this the third year and we are uh really distance supporting the the select boards overall objective of accessibility and adequacy of all Town fac uh Town physical facilities for all and this is also important for the town to maintain compliance with ADA requirements uh enhance the access for uh use of all M all Mobility levels to town facilities um and a big part of that and you might have seen in the paper or the main sheet uh we've got our first major project uh underway under this um U project for rebuilding the town uh restrooms on the back public restrooms on the on the back of town hall uh so the the the projects are basically broken into two areas of those that are readily achievable so a lot of them are management real lowcost items uh things that uh Rob and his crew of facilities have been uh chipping away with and then also more significant projects uh and then we'll also be achieving other projects through uh like we mentioned before um over at the both the library and the center for active living if if that gets funded Terry Barb there's another Terry bar question so out of the hundreds of buildings that we have to bring into ADA compliance how many do you think this 250,000 will cover so we we're our goal is over over the course of the The Five-Year program is that we'll get every action item that was identified in the report so we're we're we're basically implementing the action plan to to its fullest extent so we would achieve at the end of the uh 5year period we'd have all the uh accessibility items identified uh would be complete in that time frame so we don't know how many for this year as far as the I could get you the you know we have as you talking about specific action items or because we're we're we're chipping away um the the the charts so we're attacking action items by their complexity and not necessarily building by building so some of them were grouping together we're not doing it building by building if that if that helps it just seems to me that I read somewhere there was like 390 things that we needed to address so I just wondered how many of those we were going to get to mark off this year with our $250,000 sure well a quick an easy example without have the numbers right in front me would be so uh there's a lot of signage action items in there so there are 102 signage action items those are um close to being once we get the signs up and installed that would you know be a pretty significant Chunk on the um uh gross action item number so but some of them are much more complex than others so um the the the projects requiring design are much more complicated they do require um you know architect and um bidding for construction and and um those types of things so um I can get those stats we have those of uh and we're going to be generating of quarterly report but I I just don't have those numbers right in front of me for um but I can send along the the the spreadsheets if you like okay I mean I don't want to belabor the point but I just do think it's a good idea especially when you have that many things to do if you have certain specific goals set out that you were planning to complete in a period of time all right okay Terry proceed uh so this this project here is for for the uh the Basset house so um this is um kind of serves dual dual purposes so not only energy conservation but also uh dealing with um you know basically the the the power plant or the climate control in the building is you know been in there for quite quite some time uh and in need of upgrade to just improve the um conditions over at the the Basset house so we worked again with with cap light Compact and rise to come up with a um you know an approach to uh um basically do this again electrification of the U the building by switching over to heat pump systems for both climate control and hot water and also deal with uh weatherization so this 32650 uh is is um the contribution um for about a $68,000 total project so again you know working with the incentives um it's um it it saves the town money um doing it on its own and obviously there's the improved efficiencies of both um uh electric electric saving excuse me um operational savings and also um again the savings here on on the hard equipment by using the incentive programs okay yeah here's more specifically this request um also then includes using some funding from the uh U the bassed house revolving fund as well uh to to make this work uh this this is a a new item that we've been talking about uh for those of you familiar with uh the the DPW facility um came online around 200 s substantial completion um you know and as we've been growing and changing um we we're really looking at uh a request here to um fund a study to review different options for restoring a first floor conference room uh increasing administrative storage and building out uh unfinished space for some flexible programming and compliant archive storage so what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you a couple of pictures and this ultimately would um provide a background for uh potential future um comprehensive or or phase Capital requests so I don't know how many people have been up in the and I'll start with the second floor here uh with the Second Story on the administration portion on 221 craw Road um it's this was um not finished in the 2007 um project U but we did build this out um during the temporary relocation during the panics project so the um there were uh four offices were added in a in a small conference room uh since that time as we've been adding staff um you know so that that original outfitting or buildout of the upstairs was funded by the annex project so it was a residual value from that effort and as staff has grown o over uh people that are assigned to uh DPW we we're basically at capacity with those offices and we also have um a sign machine located up on the second floor in the area so this study would really look at also reclaiming um or better formalizing existing space uh that is between the admin building and if you're familiar again with the big green um um metal building kind of connected to it there is this area of space on a second level that we're we really need to um create formalized storage if you look over on the left here um and and building that out and over to the right on this building also there's some additional ability to uh potentially build some other um programming space with the as we were talking about Cemetary commission before as well um that um expansion of that office um has resulted in a a need to um decommission the first floor level conference room so we're looking to restore a first floor level conference room and again you can see that um we're this if you were ever in a a public meeting there some time ago um you know we basically have petitioned the room uh for needed file storage and for the uh administration of the the cemetery so I don't know if you want need to stop there or if that one in any questions not or or I think I think at this point probably if we have any questions we should dive into that we we do have a handout that includes the photographs of the uh fire suppression up grade yeah you all those other things so depending on what we feel compelled to ask Mr acting chairman ston um I'd like to take a moment and revisit if we could please I see that our town manager is on the screen I'm not sure if she's actually present but I see she's on the screen um to understand a little bit better about your the point you raised which I think is quite thoughtful one around the um Property Management maintenance projects and our I understand it now undertake an obligation to maintain the elementary school obligation to maintain the elementary school creepy I'm here you're looking hi hi we're having a strange Echo sorry Echo sorry um let me try turning down my volume might work how's that let me try better all right we got it thank you so I guess the first question is do we under the new undertaking of what two years ago have responsibility for the maintenance of that structure either directly or indirectly through the through the district so I I believe it's indirectly that our team would not be going on site to do any of the maintenance or doing any of the bidding for the maintenance it's still under the control of the Regional School District we however are paying our share for the students that attend CES as well as adding the capital projects to our plan for CES and and our share being 100% sorry I didn't hear you I'm sorry our share being 100% notionally it is I have to look back at the regional agreement because we we share our Capital costs with the district for the middle school as you know right and actually we've been in discussion Terry Terry Carrie Carri might be able to attest to it we're we're still looking working through the nuances but at this time Carrie does have Capital requests for CES and it's just a question if we're going to fund it through our Capital plan which I'm not sure we are or have it as part of the chadam assessment under that separate article for both the operating and capital budget okay that that I understand that the is there any s carry or Jill uh of the persective Quantum of the pending repairs that the building committee working group is trying to assess or is it too early for that for the middle school they do have a building committee and I know that the building committee um has been meeting and they have another meeting scheduled for February 11th at that same time the school district will be coming to the select board to present the operating and capital budgets okay so I'm sorry I think I was I was conflating the elementary school with the middle school so okay that's helpful thank you Joe okay um other questions all right um I do have a have I concluded correctly that we're going to get in deeply into the uh Sewer Department capital projects in a couple of weeks February 18th yes that's correct Rob has an opportunity to study up on the 18 questions we asked all right I'm not sure CH Terry was done with his list of projects were you I thought Terry was no I don't think so okay I'm sorry you know I just have I think there's just one or two more so yeah I apologize I didn't know if people want to talk about the proposed study or not so that's I I stopped I apologize for that everybody just finish the last slides please go ahead jry thank you ER I miss that yeah so we also have a request in uh this year as well for um the um DPW fuel um Depot to replace the fire suppression system so that that's in need of um quite frankly upgrade SL replacement uh so we're we have a request in for $150,000 for that and uh this is really you know the the the items are at the end of their life cycle and uh you know you really need to you need to maintain a functioning fire suppression system uh for Public Safety and compliance with fire insurance and safety standards and then the last item here is another project that um we had funded in a previous year to um basically replace um boilers um that were part of the original um PD anex project with um a different slightly different type of system that adds redundancy to the building so the on the left is what we've installed over at the the fire station excuse me at the um well we do have similar equipment at the fire station but at at the the PD and we're looking to do that at the annex as well as the the photo on the on the right um is doesn't you know if that goes out uh we don't have redundancy and also that equipment uh is um becoming harder and harder to get uh replacement parts for so this is kind of the the the second phase of of that project that we had done some years ago over at the the PD okay Terry I think Eric has some questions sure so um th those boilers so doesn't feel like these buildings are that old is it is it we the original spec on those wasn't wasn't great is that what I'm taking from this yeah the the equipment I I think a fair characterization of the the the original um um the the equipment not so much the specifications I don't think but the actual equipment the the you know when I think well you might remember as we were on the committee at the time working with that um you know the the company was really going to be um making great inroads in in the states and they they really didn't um they never really did um and we do have problems especially with some of the electronics and when certain uh components um go so you know that that's been the the challenge uh with that and um you know going to the the double boiler system with um equipment that's more um let's quite frankly say americanmade and and and sourced we we have better better luck on getting than the from the EUR European company that um was used in the uh the original U outfitting of the building all right do you something further on that nothing positive so but that's [Laughter] great okay do you have something you said Chris okay all right okay stepen Terry I think I saw a um presentation to the select board in December around uh The Salted and I was wondering if the for the benefit of the committee and and our viewership if we could just get an update on that project which was on the radar think a little more fervently two or three years ago um please and I'm Sor you looking for me or for Rob to comment that Rob's let's call it a jump ball okay I might defer to Rob if he's still in the still I'm still here so uh yeah we we decided that um you know we could we could let that salt shed um sit for a couple more years it's not you know it's not in danger of falling down there are some roofing issues that we need to address we could likely do those inhouse um but yeah we can string it along a little bit longer okay very good thank you good other question questions for either Rob or Terry no okay all right sounds pretty good Carrie you got anything you want to wind up with or uh no I did put um an updated um tentative schedule I updated a few of the dates for you and added a couple of capitals for like two um February 18th will be reviewing um CPA and the sewer and the transfer station articles and then on the 20th will be the center for active living um just a few updates on the schedule um the other item I did put in the back the chapter 90 balances that were asked at the last meet one of the last meetings um I don't really have anything else unless you guys have any other questions Sten so I would like to thank Andy for um grabbing the helm while I've been in the barrel um and make an exhortation for topics for our report I this is my habit sort of jot things down that may or may not necessarily rise to the importance of a conveyance to the select board but just for my for this sake of what I've got so far is um I remember last year we had a conversation with the town manager about receipt of I think ultimately quarterly project uh updates um so I'd like to think we should follow up on that um I know water SL irrigation pricing uh to the extent that we have two well sites that may not necessarily be provide ample gallonage um you know and the U the trend lines for consumption in this town seem to be pretty up up and to the right um I think it's something that that as we've repeatedly said over the past years needs to be really focused on and whether that ultimately comes down to some Draconian pricing increases we're clearly not pricing water to the extent drive around this town in the summertime and as as Rob noted the stuff's just pouring down the streets from every other every other parcel it's it's almost obscene um I've got um just the overall notion of the increased Staffing the five uh new uh members know head count I think you know we've heard Arguments for them for several of them um and then I think Andy's po about the project Administration budget um being static for some number of years while certainly costs have increased over that time uh and whether the envelope for our responsibility has uh has increased is something that we should think about perhaps talk about as well so that's kind of what again I'm just throwing these things down as as as I hear them uh and again the extent that anybody has something that's risen to their attention I'd welcome getting it it's I've got to go through this for another two weeks and the time is going to be short between when I get out of the woods and when we need to deliver this report so I'm really going to need some support please and the reports to on February 18th February 18th yeah yeah so and we will have just barely finished this looking at the sewer Capital item transfer station CPA articles uh yeah and and it's you know look a fair a fair comment is this all looks great but I'd like to think we will have something to say about some things so I I was thinking the other day that it would be interesting to look at the operational budgets and then overlay on them uh deflator right for whatever Last 5 Years and see what kind of increases we're having real increases yeah I mean just the the on the face of it a 5 point something percent increase seems like a fair amount right and you know is it in line with what our economy has been experiencing for price increases I mean some of that's driven by collective bargaining agreements and I understand that sure but there's another chunk of it that is not subject to that um but it again as I'll paraphrase Tom that you know the ju the juice may not be worth the squeeze right to try to figure that out but it's just something we can think about yeah my curiosity about how are we going too far right too fast um but that was it for for me so far Kristen do you did you have something you want to say I just had a question about when we would be hearing the chamber it seems to be a reoccurring topic for us so if it needs to be included in the discuss our report to the select board it's a good point thank you um let me take a look I know they are scheduled and I think it's next week on the 6th I believe right next Thursday a week from today yeah yeah so Carrie just historic and for context um I think you and I talked about this last year the the chamber was notoriously non-transparent with their finances um she has a bunch of stuff that she shared so yeah I understand Angela's now at the helm and I think it's terrific I understand we didn't get it last year but I understand she was very forthcoming with the select board on financial matters so I just want to kind of iterate or reiterate um this committee's interest in that kind of kind of full disclosure I think we were on the cusp of of not voting them or voting against their budget uh emphatically because of the lack of transparency um so if there's you know if there's kind of a new course of of um action I think that would be applauded by this committee goad um I'm just going to ask you Mr Vice chair or temporary chair um you made a statement that was interesting we've gone too far too fast what do you mean well I I mean maybe mine's just a an intellectual exercise but you know if the economy has been experiencing generalized inflation of certain rates over the last say five years how much of that is being reflected in our operating budgets yes aside I think that's important too aside from Collective bargain agreements right yes now there may also be some specific projects that we've truly chosen to say yeah we want that all right even if it does blow the budget somewhat but we need to have something done whether it's the you know the the pfast filter on training Field Road right or exploring new wells or a new bell filter press um some of those things are highly important to the infrastructure highly important to the infrastructure of the town right yeah I I agree with you and I understand what you said now and I agree with the the importance of taking a look at that yeah I just but also it's you know how do we how do we disaggregate the pieces in the budget that's being presented that are say operational as opposed to U capital or collective bargaining agreements and then impose a five-year deflation factor that try to figure out a constant dollar budget basically yes are we paying attention to the the real inflation Factor versus what we think we need to have but thank you Mr chair yeah okay one of those yeah that's the problem with me um just a quick question for Rob um looking at the photographs when the selects package last week about the new iron and magines facility obviously um progresses significant progress is being made I would be interested in when you think it might be appropriate for site conditions for this committee to go have a site visit take a little field trip so when if that's the spring the fall the summer I would say once the uh once the vessels get installed in the building which should be March the roof will be going on shortly thereafter I think it's probably a time um maybe in maybe April or even early May that would be appropriate okay I'll reach out to you sometime in May and see if we can sort something out sure that works we were also going to visit the new Bel filer press at one point weren't we we can do that we can do that so the belt filter press has been awarded to Robert bow um it's a long lead item it's it's custom fabricated so uh so we've already had a kickoff meeting but likely won't really see on-site construction until the fall ah okay mark your calendar Andy that's that Barbara I was wondering I meant to ask ter and I forgot to um about the craw Road intersection problem that it looks like they're moving towards having yet another review on it I mean are we certain that we're going forward with that even despite the fact that the finance committee has year after year said we're 100% against it and do we have to spend any money doing that anybody yes I if you want me to to answer that so I I try maybe Rob can fill in if I I missed something but the the project is is still in the uh the mass. um design CU and moving towards the 25% design hearing so with um changes in directives and and different things uh going on at massot um they are requiring uh some additional information that um is is part of what's already en encumbered for the our design um cost that we have right right now so um but if you know if the project goes forward they then all the design costs uh excuse me the the construction costs are are borne by uh mot have we how much have we spent so far in design um in designing this and what a we've spent we spent a considerable amount of money so far haven't we we have uh I'd have to check the last um because we're in about phase two of the of the contract I I could I could get you that information I don't have it uh handy where where we are on that that contract but to keep the the project in the queue the town had to commit through Design Services up to the 100% U design package so does that mean possible that they could pick it up in the interim but right now that's what uh they require to have your uh project in consideration uh to keep it on the tip and we've decided 100% that we want to keep it well the the next uh public Milestone will be the 25% design hearing so that's what that's what we're we're getting close to having that hearing with mot continuing so if you've been reading the reports that I have uh for projects operations Administration um it it seems like every month we've had a a slightly different U additional analysis thrown at us but once that those are completed uh satisfactorily it then goes to a 25% design hearing so that that's the next public milestone on the on the how the project will proceed okay so when you get us the number that we've already spent could you then get us what we're expected to spend if this goes through I mean if this if we get to that point to 25% correct thank you and I give you the money then it leverages Sten you had your not to uh be cynical but my recollection is when this vote was taken to advance it to the 25% design phase by the select board almost I think a majority of members of the select board were against the project but nevertheless voted to advance it which is disappointing to me personally as a resident of the town of chadam um Terry has there been any advance given that a big part of this issue apparently down there is the traffic is the is the sequencing of lights for the fire department is any advancement rate has anybody done anything with mot about a traffic um not exemption the you know the traffic like management system that all our fire trucks are equipped with but the only the uh the only thing is that the light are equipped with a controller have we looked into that at all if that's a core problem here well it's it's one of the key benefits but you know basically the entire signal system there needs to be replaced in order to accommodate that system wouldn't that be better than tearing up the gateway to the town a chatam well again if if they do construction um they they do need to do all the upgrades right well that's my point right that's my point do we want to be chopping down trees on the church do we want to be chopping down trees on the other side do we want bike Lanes do we want turning Lanes do we want it to look like Main Street or Lanes Mr chair that's a rhetorical question I assume please go ahead I would yes I just want to know that Terry provides as well as the other departments provides their updates on the capital projects in the monthly reports and that if bcom wants to have a a detailed discussion of the Cor intersection Project A lot has changed since the 10 years ago when it was first proposed uh I would suggest that you would schedule this as an agenda item but right now we're waiting for mot to get back to us okay so that they can have the required 25% hearing at which point any member of the public can speak for or against it based on the presentation of the new design so fair point and I'm certainly happy to go in that direction thank you thank you Jo Joan Mr chair when we get to the 25% design we're you're usually going to have a project and I'm upset I don't know for how many people that it's it no matter how we've objected to this apparently we haven't made our objections strong enough or to to put any breaks on this project at all we don't want it a lot of people in chadam don't want it but we get caught in these situations where we get to a certain point like the 25% design and we're gone it's out of our hands and mass mass transportation is going to do exactly what they want to do with it and the trees or whatever else it's very little we can do to go beyond what their design is to meet our desires and that's worrying to me all of a sudden we're at 25% design I think you're wor Mr chair I could if I could add one more thing to that might alleviate some of the concern this the select board will have to vote after the 25% hearing whether they want to proceed or not so um definitely there there is a hard stop to the project should the community voice its concerns and the select board decides to vote against it so um again uh that will be hopefully coming to us within maybe the next 6 months or so we were hoping to get mot to do the hearing almost two years ago but the their design um guidelines have changed and there's just been a lot of back and forth especially with uh some of the newer positions there so we definitely hear fincom as well as other members of the public so there will be ample opportunity for you to comment and for the select board to make the decision whether to proceed or not thank you Jill I appreciate it all right thank you everybody asked all their up Rob please yeah sorry I just wanted to add that that uh the Krill Road Project does have the support of the joint Transportation committee and the no and it is on the tip for 2029 currently what's the what's the no please rob uh the Metropolitan planning organization sounds like an appropriate venue for our community's little project it's a it's a c Cod I think that's exactly Our concern all right thank you thanks all right thank you I think looks like we're pretty much done I'll entertain a motion to adjourn so moved Tommy thank you a second second all right good roll call Tommy oh let get him before he goes Eric yes good Tommy Don yes barbar Madison yes John papardo is not here John sprey yes Andy young I'm here Kristen yes Tracy Shields yes okay and Steven Daniel yes thank you now standing adjourn thank you how about that [Music]