good evening i'd like to call to order this Thursday March 27th 2025 meeting of the finance committee to order uh tonight we'll be following the published and posted agenda we will be available through Zoom we'll also be live broadcast on Chancellor uh TV uh and
YouTube and we recorded for future viewing purposes uh first item on the agenda this evening is approval of minutes uh from their March 20th 2025 meeting has everyone had an opportunity to review those yes yes have a motion i make a motion to approve to approve the
March 20th 2025 meeting minutes of the finance committee i second it any discussion nope hearing none all those in favor i six in favor moving right along uh we have a continued review and discussion of
warrant article 26 the utility lines suppression and I believe with us this evening we have town council to answer any questions regarding that particular issue john Soua who's on the and John Sou who's on the on the committee summary of what happened
yesterday evening certainly oh good that way it's not on the committee good evening Mr chairman finance committee members so the community preservation committee met uh last yesterday evening 5:00 and had a brief
meeting and um town council was available at that time to um answer some questions um the meeting when during the meeting I presented the alternative financing plan where we would borrow 1 million and use 1 million as CPC funds and the committee that was well received
by the committee um the committee members asked a number of questions of town council and the basically the to summarize uh the the next step really is um there were some questions on whether it would be a um you know whether you
consider it um you know you're trying to res preserve a historic asset or you know there were questions along those lines and what town council said the best course of action going forward is for the historic uh commission to to take a have a meeting and decide to take
a vote and whether to declare that area that where the project would go as historic and deem it historic and they also went through some he also went through some of the um different verbs you can use when you're going through the little table and community preservation because you you know
usually when you're talking about historical things you're trying to preserve he also used the term restore so basically uh I don't want to you know take take um town council's uh words away but he if they're on if they're on Zoom um I think he could probably
explain it better than myself but basically the way to look at it is that you're restoring a physical asset or you're restoring the center to what it looked like before you had um you know before electric utility poles were erected and so you'd be going back
probably before the turn of the 20th century around that era you know it's hard to date it exactly and then the committee um voted uh there was one abstension and my recollection is the rest of the committee members voted to approve it so it's kind of a quick summary excellent thank you thank you
John and with us this evening we also have as mentioned town council uh good evening Attorney Holland how are you hi good evening everybody anything any questions for for town council on the uh
CPC project so I guess you know other than you know John summarized it so you do feel that we should um proceed forward um at least try it at this point is there any
um negative like if they don't approve it then we can is there anything negative that we like maybe should consider that would impact it not to go forward or is it do you feel like we can just try it if they if the attorney general says no you can't use it then no
no harm good question so let let me sort of try and summarize what I had said uh to the Community Preservation Committee and maybe I'll start with just quickly quoting from from the statute
um itself so as as you all know uh CPA funds can be used for among other things uh the acquisition preservation rehabilitation and restoration of a historic resource historic resources
specifically defined in the statute to mean among other things um an area that has been determined by the local historic preservation commission to be significant in the history archaeology architecture or culture of a
city or town so my understanding is the intent of the project is to submerge the above ground utility infrastructure essentially to place the Chelmsford Center uh or that portion of it that qualifies as a historic resource uh to
the condition that existed prior to the installation of the utility poles uh and so um the assumption is that this work will occur uh within the area that qualifies as a historic
uh resource and so what I said and what I say now I think it is a reasonable position to take uh that restoring the center to the condition that existed before that utility infrastructure had been uh installed uh could be said to be
the restoration of a historic resource okay perfect perfect perfect that works for me all right perfect any other questions so that was a legal maybe let's see if it goes that was That was a reasonable You know it's I think it was a reasonable degree
of certainty pardon me it's It's you know it's it's certainly not um uh something that's clear i think it's a matter upon which reasonable people could disagree uh and so there's you know
there's um uh there's always a possibility that it could be subject to tap challenge or uh you know that the department of revenue may disagree but I I certainly think that there is a reasonable argument to assert that this is a proper use of CPA funds on the
grounds that I mentioned okay okay any other questions all right Attorney Holland thank you very much thank you very much thank you appreciate it thank you all have a great night you too thanks all
right moving right along we have a review and discussion of warrant article 27 uh which is the Happy Tales Pet Cemetery and with us this evening is Mary Donovan uh and uh right right in the audience mary if you want to come up and speak on it good evening Mary but I'm a little deaf
good evening Mary how are you uh a nervous wreck but I'm sure I'll survive anyway I have my speech for you okay and I wish to thank the finance
committee for the invitation to speak on the need for a pet cemetery in town a pet cemetery run like the chumpset human cemeteries would be a safe
legal resting place for one's pets forever pets are family our children and I and should be treated as the same as
humans in their time of death a pet cemetery would not cost the town or the taxpayer pet owners would be
responsible for the cost of the burials sorry okay such as burial lots opening of the lot caskets markers and maintenance
fees forever the maintenance fee goes into an endowment account for maintaining the cemetery forever a pet cemetery is a place where you can always visit to share memories with
family friends with safety security for an eternity if you have any questions regarding why I'm pushing for this I'm ready for them
if you want to know prices I can also give you that okay are there any questions prices of what she speak up yeah oh sorry prices of what the the cost of burying pets in a
cemetery i'm Mary Dunovan's daughter Mary Ellen Sorenson so I'm going to kind of step in here because the hearing's a little bit so what we're trying to do is a pet cemetery because I had some pets up in Tingsboro and I come to find out because I got no knowledge of my maintenance fee being paid the gentleman
wanted to subdivide the three parcels and has now built two houses on parking lot as well as but he hasn't maintained he's supposed to that cemetery my question is I don't have children i have animals and I when I come to put into my
animals I put a lot of money into them so it's almost even more than a a person but what I was telling her was that if we have a maintenance fee with Tom and we're able to do it calculating $25 per monthly say a thousand animals you're looking at about 25,000 per month about
yearly would be about 300k so that's not even including the actual burial opening the graves that would again would be cost to the actual party now I have animals which I just had are more human
now with actually diseases that are out there i had a Doberman he ended up with heart failure didn't know that was even such a thing he had his own cardiologist i just dropped $15,000 at Mass Vet to try and save him he didn't last six months but again people put out the
money and never mind what it's going to cost for the animal sorry it's still raw um and I mean again when you're having a pet I have seven pets at home i had to cremate because I had two plots I can't use because the guy's threatening you up
there i want to go to a place where I can drop my animals in a nice safe secure area put a marker and be able to go there those dogs I've had since nine months old so 15 years on some of them so they're you're family and there is
money to be made in the pet scenario and when it comes to actually putting putting your pet in a cremation and burial it cost me $1,000 to put my dog down cost me a decision I had to make whether I was going to cremate or bury
it in someplace um the actual cremation I had to make a decision whether it's going into a big crematorium with multi-an animals for a set price or do I privately have him cremated so I have those ashes and even a lot more people
nowadays are doing the jewelry you know pictures collages so there is money in town to be made and I think that we're transitioning into a more modern town or at least that seems what we are trying to do and I'd like to stay in town but I'd like to have things that are more
convenient for me my family and my future so there is money to be made i just think it has to be defined what you want for fees so here's a list of the caskets
and any of the things that can be put on it where's the bill and actually we're working with the state rep um Yeah to putting in is going up before the house for pet cemeteries for approval and I think that's a big thing like I said now a lot
of people are taking acknowledgement of it human diseases are now I have an animal with a collapse trachea i have another one who had Addison's disease Cushings disease you know cardiology like I said when you had a dog previously it was like you know it is
what it is but it is changing okay thank you thank you so you're looking for the town to allocate land or Well we'd like to allocate land we're not asking it to be financed by the town but it's more of a
gift which again a gifting could be taken out on income tax purposes um again like I said there's a lot more to this whole endeavor and I think it's a way of the future and I think there's money to
be made and again for what a fair market price is for burying your animal or a casket or cremation those are things that have to be addressed but it's more of a private industry but I think as far as just $300,000 a year just to be
collected from a party for their animals to be placed would be going to the town or maintenance i mean I'm not defining what what do you have a maintenance person you know what happens when someone like you know I'm in my 50s I bury my pet and you charge me a monthly
maintenance fee and then I hit my 80s and I no longer exist myself where do you get You don't How do you You don't collect that money right like no but I'm assuming maybe it's a family thing that they might be
endeavoring on it but also I do as far as estate planning and corporate work for a law firm and a lot now is pets trusts are coming out where they're actually putting money into the trust being funded for the future of the animals whether it's still they're alive
they take care of the house they take care of a caretaker so there's a little bit more like I said they could actually put in it to take care of that animal or maintenance for how long period of time so I just want to show I think part of it is where my six dogs are buried right
now and this is what the cemetery looks like it's a disgrace so but anyways like I said I just figured I'd step in and kind of say there is money there is a future way of people with their animals they're not just take them out back and shoot
them anymore um it's they live for a long time and they're like my fit her for a kid so that's the way I look at I'd like to have a place to go so so is there is there uh is there any um towns or or other
communities that have pet cemeteries and if so um what's the probability what's the likelihood that that people will want to pay say for example whatever fee $25 a month or whatever like well I mean just for say for for Tingsboro I mean it was a working
cemetery for pets until this gentleman came in Michael Ferris who has a pro property management company stepped in bought the property and is now basically um took it over and he wants to build on top of it and I mean you have two
parcels subdivided into three which is supposed to be deed restrictions based on having the property and unfortunately the town isn't really kind of letting it go because he's kind of a but anyways that that relates to the the legislation that's being put in to protect that are
in place i I understand what you're saying with that yeah um so the the article is really asking for the town to identify property or Yes or allocate money to buy a town piece of property
but again I don't know as far as you want to use it as a gifting for tax purposes um again that would be something down the road you have to speak to your CPA or accountant but how much land would go into that endowment for the actual fees that are paid how much land are you looking for do you
have an estimate i think Well I think at this point for what's up there now was over an acre was that what's Yeah just an acre just an acre and and how many pets can you get in an acre well again you know it depends on how many i mean you could put four animals in one plot
so those are things that the dynamics you'd have to look at i mean if they're cremated they're only going to go into a small area you buy each plot that's a separate cost is buying the plot because I actually put out money for two plots for my German shepherds and I can't use
them and I put out almost $200 $100 for each reserved that was only a reservation fee mhm so is there any environmental impact has anybody Well I think again that's where you're actually you know putting it you have to worry about you know the area um up there you
have to be figure what you are are you commercially zoned are you residential or are you a combo so that's what you have to look at but I don't think what you mean as far as environmental of like any any you know any any chemicals in in the casket or any No I mean everything
is now biodegradable and I think as far as um you know you'd have to look into different things but I think it would be more uh you know friendly as far as for um environmental okay i had a question also i could have
brought you the plot plan for the one in Tinksboro i'm the only one that has it even the town doesn't have the platform of the thousand pets buried there with the names of each pet that's there and the human ashes of the couple that
originally owned the land and it's a disgrace and it's a mess she has a question go ahead sorry about that and this is probably um to Paul um now we the town has purchased some conservation land if this passes at town meaning can
we allocate instead of buying new land can we allocate some of that is that an option at all or if it's conservation yeah that's fine yeah yeah i was going to say that's something I don't know as far as being uh conservation can be used yeah um we
we've we've looked at this earlier um when this verse arose several months ago the opinion of town council is you c you cannot use community preservation acquired land okay or conservation land for cemetery purposes okay um so so that
would rule would rule those parcels out um and really the only parcel of town significance of unencumbered land is the Richardson Road dog park area that's you know that's why there's a dog park there in a DPW yard what I think this article
really if we were active by town meeting would almost be almost in the form of a resolution which would direct the town meaning select board manager to then proceed and fulfill the desires and then come back at at a later town meeting with the specific parcel of land and if
and as noted if there were funds attached to request a specific appropriation but I think at this point what's requested here as you can see in the wording of the art petitioned article it's it's really I think more of a form of resolution by the town saying town meeting would say yes we support this concept please you know do the work
and then come back with with the particular site whether it's one already owned by the town or one that would be acquired by the town for this purpose we also learned that we could not use the existing cemetery you know that that's not allowed either yeah that's prohibited yeah um actually
the thing is if it's unbuildable it's probably undigable as well again you're looking at two different items apples and oranges you have to find out if it is actually unbuildable or it's un usually usually things are undebidable because they're wet or they're sl uh uh
right again that would be something that would have to be done by legal counsel and I mean I could bring that up to one of my attorneys at the office though mhm because I I was pricing um I look at the what the plots of land go for in Chelmsford oh yeah 200 plus i can tell
you right 200 plus easy well I'm just I'm just saying for something that is you know for 350 for an acre that is relatively flat which I would think uh right now there's two pieces of acre lot land and one of it's
a person's house on North Road who's h selling half his yard and it's like that scenic again that you have to look at so I mean I did real estate for 23 plus years so I've seen the market unfortunately it's crashed and people in
the market right now is crazy i mean you're paying 8% for a $600,000 house that needs to be a lot of work on it you know you're lucky if you take it down to the studs again those are things you have to look at see if it's feasible with the property what you want to pay you got to look at any
encroachments you got to make sure your butt is agree um and different stuff like that and again what she's saying is digable or buildable on it's two different concepts so but anyways we appreciate it anything questions uh I
have I have one more question please um have you thought about who's going to maintain it and and and how the funds are going to be collected and reconciled and and and and maintenance people are going to be paid and and landscapers are going to be paid like how is that looking like we've Definitely you will
need somebody who does maintenance you'll also need some form of accounting to be done um we'd also work with the town because like I said the revenues would be going to you folks for what we are so you have to make sure everything's balanced you know your spreadsheets done correctly um I think we've gotten a little bit down the road
that we haven't got that we're just actually want to have the actual plot and move forward from there but I think like I said if you're collecting 300K I mean you give somebody you know 50K you know just for maintaining that as a second job I don't think that's you know
so thank you thank you thank you appreciate it sorry to interrupt no no thank you thanks sorry bad timing to get old yes thank you never a good time what's this old stuff never a good time to get old seems to be a theme this evening right
all right we've already we've already discovered the other night that I'm a senior citizen so yay there you go congratulations moving right along you are now eligible what for the senior citizen yes I'm eligible senior citizen so we review of the fiscal year 26 budget public school
district and just a brief discussion we'd ask for the warrant article 21 regarding the transportation um with us this evening is Dr jay Lang uh superintendent of the schools we also have with us uh Joanna M johnson Collins our business manager um good evening good evening uh finance committee
members thank you very much for having us as mentioned uh Joanna is here to um support and answer any questions that come up as well as I mentioned I put a copy of the um approved budget which the school committee had um endorsed at their second meeting in February and then kind of went low tech tonight with
the presentation so I just printed out the slides for you and I'll just kind of walk you through that just to give you a general overview um at some point over the last month I don't remember the exact date but we did have an opportunity to meet with finance subcommittee members um to review the budget and answer um questions that um
had been posed um and had a very good discussion so we always appreciate meeting with that group each year um just as a quick uh little update for you the current budget year that we're in fiscal 25 um in very good shape in the school department um we're under contract with all of our employee groups
uh for the current year all of our contracts do end um June 30th with the exception of we have one standalone contract with our small custodial group they're off cycle but all of our big contracts are up for this year so we've actually started negotiations with our teachers and nurses our professional support personnel which are our
pareducators our secretaries clerks things along those lines and our administrators union as well uh we have one smaller group also food services which will begin negotiation soon um their contract also is up June 30th it's a relatively smaller group uh we just haven't begun that process yet overall
all of our um employee salary accounts non-s salary accounts in very good shape for the current year i have no concerns um with our uh funding and as we started to formulate uh the budget for next year uh this is information that was shared with you at the December um tribard meeting uh it didn't change um again I'm
happy to go into detail if you'd like but just overarching we were looking at about a $ three and a half million dollar um uh request for next year with regard to uh level service budget in the schools some of the cost drivers are very similar to what you're seeing on the municipal side um uh we do have
contained in our budget a set aside for our collective bargaining um we always include a line because we are going to be entering negotiations unlike the um the town side that would come forward to town meeting uh the school committee could actually settle a contract and then not have to come back to town meeting so we do have a reserve within
the budget uh for that um we have step increases already built into the budget each year based on prior contracts we have individuals each year that let us know that they're um taking advanced course work or they're seeking an additional degree which would move them along the salary scale so that has been
included and then uh we still have uh some of our employees that were hired prior to a certain date are still eligible for a retirement incentive when they leave so they tell us in the fall that they're going to be retiring at the end of the school year we're able to uh bake in that number into the budget request because we know we'll have to
pay that out in 26 so the salary related items are about $2.6 million in round figures um when it comes to non-wage increases this has been pretty standard for us um our regular education transportation costs our big yellow buses uh go up by about a quarter million dollars next year our special
education transportation vehicles so these are some of our smaller buses as well as 70D vans things along those lines about $171,000 uh both of those contracts are in place for the current year as well as next year um we do have about a quarter million worth of out of district special
education um tuition increases most of that is driven by current placements um just the actual cost accelerators that um the state sets it's actually the OSD for the state is the one that sets the tuition rates at the out of district schools um so that's really just formula
driven uh by the state we did have to um uh increase utility costs uh because of our new contracts and just increasing costs kind of across the board we had some smaller contract increases just like every department's kind of seeing in the run-of-the-mill uh contract administration um so all in all we were
looking at about a $ three.5 million um request to get up to that u level service um one of the things that we did in our uh budget we had very few um kind of staffing uh FTE uh type situations for this year u we did incorporate again
all the steps and lanes in our calculations uh again we do know that we don't have contracts set but we have that set aside but we did assume obviously everyone was going up a step and if there was a column change we accounted for that um three years ago uh this is the second bullet on the third
page three years ago we actually brought um an in district special education languagebased program to our middle schools it's a program that's been very successful we've actually grown it each year grade by grade so it started out in grade five we had to add in grade six a teacher and some staff in grade seven so
next year is actually the last year that we'll be adding that for the middle schools um and we've gotten very good uh good results from that so we did need to add an extra languagebased teacher at McCarthy Middle School in 8th grade we actually had a reading teacher who was retiring this year regular ed general ed reading teacher so we actually it's not
an ad but it's basically a position switch uh but we did want to note that just because we actually have put a significant amount of effort into this particular uh program so we wanted to make sure we called that out within the schools and also with our budget tracking uh because now we will have a full complement of programming right up through the uh through the middle
schools um there was one other smaller change at McCarthy Middle School uh they had again under the reconfiguration been looking for a little bit more um student supervision and support and had requested an additional uh supervisor of students position uh they were able to partially fund that by um shifting funds
from a uh lunch and recess aid position as well as a copy clerk position within the uh budget to be able to accomplish that addition um so that also was included in the budget that's pretty much the extent of our uh personnel adjustments next year and the way we
were able to bridge the $3.5 million um kind of gap or what we're looking at if you actually work on the last slide from the bottom up um the town manager when we talked in December in my continuing conversations with um town manager Cohen ultimately uh agreed to just about a
million.8 in additional uh funds coming to the school department um we were able to confirm that we're going to receive approximately $300,000 again from Valley Collaborative um which we're going to use as a revenue offset uh in our budget that's included on the special ed transportation page um we were fortunate
to receive um additional circuit breaker money so this is money that we receive for special ed tuitions and transportations um as a reimbursement um again this is going to be very complicated but as a district we end up having to pay about $50,000 out of out of pocket um right up front for any uh
special ed tuitions and transportation costs anything over that um foundation amount u ends up being received on the tuition side reimbured at 75% this year and then if there's extra funds they then start to reimburse um transportation up to 75% this year they
were able to trans u to reimburse up to 44% on the transportation side so it ended up being an extra million dollars or so in circuit breaker funding that came to us so we're able to allocate that as a again as a revenue offset to try to get to that three and a half million we re I'm sorry oh did you Oh
okay um we re uh reallocated a uh the director of food services which was a position which was funded within the local budget we're now going to offset that just directly charge it to the school nutrition uh fund it is allowable the fund has sufficient funding to be able to do that um and ultimately to close the gap we were still about a
quarter million short so we do have to reduce uh a number of tutoring positions in the schools um that approximately um 18 of the tutoring positions now these um positions weren't all filled i do want to say that it's not going to be
actual people um who aren't going to be filled we've had a very difficult time since co of hiring some individuals for these positions we've obviously funded them and we try to recruit and hire them um but we have not been able to um to do that um I'm sorry we didn't cut 18 we have 18 in the budget we had to cut 12
so we're going to retain six so six are still going to be allocated to some of the higher need schools particularly the schools that don't necessarily receive some of the title one uh federal funding to support our intervention teachers um but in a nutshell that's how we were able to kind of address that $ three and a half million dollars that we were
looking to um fund for the budget which um elementary schools are the the title ones fine and Harington yeah the title ones for elementary school is Parker
bay and Harrington are elementary and Parker is the middle school that qualifies for title one it's based on a formula each year it can actually change a little bit but for the current fiscal 25 those would be the schools that would be able to receive those title one funds so it's not where the kids are from but where the school is at no it's based on
the demographic of the students who are attending the schools i'm not sure no um I had a I one of my one of my imported children was a title one student and I was confused as heck that it was based
on income of the of the average income of the kids at the district rather than the need it was always something that bugged me well yes i mean it it takes into consideration like the demographic and the need of individual students but looking at it as the students as a whole
who are assigned in enrolled in a particular school so we have schools that qualify for schoolwide services right within the school we do um uh kind of target specific groups of kids that might need services but that's what you're saying is that if they're in the title one school they're covered that way but you have to spend money
otherwise if they're not in Well we still have needs in other schools if they're not at school that's qualifying so we use the local budget to supplement some of those services for a school that's not qualifying for title one just found that so bizarre that if if a kid has a title
one need they should have a title one money i just found that super strange when I was had a kid who needed it he just happened to go to the buy so it worked out for him yeah it's it's a um it's a formula driven uh thing with the um and that's
again that's a federal fund so locally um that's what we're kind of looking at um budget-wise again I appreciated the um the subcommittee members coming out and meeting to look at the budget we've maintained the same format in the budget again we've gotten very good reviews on that i think it's a very transparent budget um I always
provide a little bit of a narrative to just give an overarching sense of like chapter 70 which is a big driver for us um local operating funds that help to supplement and support our budget um we have our district-wide accounts which again the school committee goes page by page through and asks questions and ultimately approves we have all the
backup accounts and then ultimately the staff salary book feeds up to the main account um to the main districtwide account so that everything really is a nice crosswalk um but I'm happy to answer any of your questions i appreciate um you know your support over the years and certainly this year as well what's vacation
buyback um vacation buyback for a anybody because it there is I'm going through through it and I see several places where it's vacation buyback so there'd be certain um contracts an individual contract may call for if an individual has vacation time available
at the end of the year that has been unused an individual may be able to um purchase or be receive compensation for not using that vacation time okay on the director of um school nutrition that's now going into the revolving fund
um will you have enough money to maintain like will this revolving fund be able to fund this position permanently through that i think that would be obviously at this point the hope because to have to move it back to the local budget would obviously be be problematic um the entirety of the rest
of the staff in the school nutrition program are charged to the revolving fund this is a position that just had been charged to the local budget as kind of an overarching um kind of program administrator type role if the school nutrition fund has available funds it's certainly an eligible and allowable cost
um we the fund has actually been growing over the last number of years in particular because of some of the federal and state extra subsidies we've been getting for reimbursements so we're at a very healthy balance at this point for at least the next number of years i don't see it being a challenge at all if
um the state ever uh changed their mind and start fully reimbursing student breakfast and lunches um we may have you might see the funds start to be depleted a little bit because we are getting extra high reimbursements right now it could be something we have to revisit in the years to come but I think for the
next few years at least um I'm pretty confident that we'll be able to keep a charge to the revolving fund and how much of the school's budget is um reliant on federal funds is there a um so this this budget here doesn't have any federal funds necessarily included
um we receive approximately $2 million in federal funds um you know title one 23 um idea for special education reimbursement the two big funds are title one and the idea grant but approximately $2 million um this year
okay obviously we're concerned you know we're kind of looking to see if those are going to sustain or not in addition to that um $2 million in direct funds we do federally receive about another million dollars worth of reimbursements for the school nutrition program okay um so again we don't as of right now we're
receiving that so 2 million in grants an extra million again ballpark in uh school nutrition so about three million are coming federally um some are you obviously passed through DOE we're still waiting to kind of see if things are going to change on that part um we haven't heard yet obviously if things
ever did change that would have a pretty significant impact us on us because it does fund um services particularly the um the title one grants to some of our most um in need schools and students okay but right now there's been no no indication that it would be shifted or
going away another question um percentage of English language learners as part as a overall population It's actually grown in the last um number of years so on page two at the bottom there's a little chart that just
has some of the demographic information specifically for Chelford this year but you can see that our L population um is 6% so uh um so page two uh the chart at the bottom
of page two okay it's also I'm still scrolling back okay so these are our um what we call desi comparables so the department of ed identifies your 10 most comparable districts based on demographic and size and things like that and this is a a little chart we look at each year just
to take a look at enrollment if you read across for uh Chelmsford you'll see 18.4% of the kids are classified as economically disadvantaged that used to be when we did the um like free and reduced lunch applications those would have been the kids that qualify um again
that number in particular as well as uh the L number um have grown pretty drastically over the last 10 years I want to say the L number um this is my 10th year in Chelford uh was somewhere around 1.8 eight or 2% um just 10 um 10 years ago and how many um roughly how
many languages are they coming in with i want to say as a district um again don't hold me exactly to this but we were somewhere around 65 or 70 um different languages of families uh enrolled in the Chelsea public schools i was an English
language learner i didn't speak English when I went to school yeah it's the demographic has changed quite a bit in the last number of years j going back to the final page where we have the adjustments we have the use of circuit breaker uh revenue off valley
collaborative um the reduction in the in the amount of positions for the for the tutor program and then the um shifting of the director of school nutrition into that um that nutrition revolving fund uh I know we're looking forward and it's
it's a lot of prognostication but are there concerns about next year and how we address because in the environment they're currently in um it doesn't look like it's going to change rapidly right uh and with the contracts being settled
in the next few months hopefully right um do you see the same type of sources being tapped or are they gonna have to be more creative I guess in in in the next budget yeah no this is kind of trying times so um I really do
hope that we're able to negotiate the contracts i'd love to be able to start the school year with contracts in place it just allows you to have a much different kind of feeling going back um I do think we have a sufficient set aside in the contract to be able to to um manage and be able to settle those contracts so I think that is good um you
know when we did our projection and we work with um John and Paul obviously we've been projecting about $3.5 million is just the annual recurring uh cost it'll go to 3.6 3.7 as some of these contracts are implemented so that is going to be the cost to um level service
the um school department budget year-over-year um you know the local budget increase I know that was obviously strained this year we would hope that in the future um there could be potentially more money there valley's a little bit of a wild card to be quite honest with you because um it's a
balancing act among the collaborative districts where we try to keep the tuitions actually as low and reasonable as possible for our member districts but we do take in approximately 40% of the enrollment at Valley Collaborative is non-member districts so we don't want to
have the tuitions be so low where we're actually not receiving some type of a benefit for taking in the non-member districts so it's a little bit of a balance we either kind of pay it now we pay it later but I think the 300,000 is a pretty um good estimate for next year just based on um what Valley has been
sharing with us at the uh the board meetings we had a board meeting I think just right before the holidays in December and um they were looking at that point of potentially a million to to um a million and a half dollars of excess revenue at the end of this year which would have to go back to districts
and for us our aortionment of that is about the 300,000 so that's why I was comfortable with that um circuit breaker is honestly a wild card so that is something that concerns a lot of people at the at the state there's been a lot of discussion around just the
legislation itself where it actually talks about fully funding circuit breaker is technically at the 75% reimbursement level for over that foundation amount so we're always paying the 50 I think it's actually $52,000 right now and then you hope to get paid
reimbured 75% of your costs over that um there's discussion around that really needing to be you know 80 or 85 or 90% just because some of those um super expensive um students uh just you know really really kind of have an impact on your local budget um we also lobbied
hard when the student opportunity act went into effect because that was not an act that was going to really help suburban communities it was really targeted more towards the urban uh communities one of the uh the ways to get some of the suburban communities on board was to include um reimbursement
for transportation services um so at least we have seen some reimbursement on that but again the legislation targets um a 75% reimbursement on the out of district transportation we as a superintendent organization um have been lobbying to say again 75 is kind of an
arbitrary threshold you're still having to pay that 50 out of the gate your average per pupil you're getting for someone in the state could be 156 17,000 so it's just a huge um a huge increase um the legislature also doesn't seem to be fully funding that even at the 75% it
just seems to be they're looking to fully fund tuitions um even though we're providing data with them throughout the course of the year about how our tuitions are running um they should be able to better predict exactly what the the cost for special ed transportation is going to be they just haven't so it's almost like a whatever's left we'll put
it there um so I am at least pretty confident that we'll be receiving the 75% in the tuition side but it's the transportation that's just a um it's a wild card for us um and I I do I understand at the state level too if you put more money into that you have to take it from somewhere else so it's it's
one of these kind of games as far as where is the money going to go but um there is a significant amount of lobbying that's being done um on that front just because of some of the extremely high costs of educating um you know really a smaller number of students not only in Chelmsford but in most uh
most districts so I'm very you know um cautiously approaching these next couple of years because I I do feel like this budget puts us in solid footing for next year i'm very confident with that we're going to be able to maintain the um services and and programs we offer our students
um we're going to be able to still attract a robust um staff we're actually in the process right now of hiring for next fall because the school committee did approve the budget if like there are a lot of communities around us that are really struggling even more than we are um you know we actually have already advertised we only have six or seven
openings for next year because of retirements which is a really relatively small number um but we're already on the street and starting to interview for next year so there's a very good chance we'll actually um be pretty fully hired before we leave for April break which is phenomenal um so we're out there we're um you know hitting the job fees we're
really trying to get some of the new talent um to the district i'm very happy on that front it's a desirable place to work it's a very good school system it's a very good and supportive town um but we want to make sure that we maintain that so sure um we're in good shape for next year just kind of looking at you
know 207 and 28 as also being kind of tough years to navigate that's fair um speaking of looking to the future uh do you have a do you have a silver tsunami of retirements coming are you kind of like my retirement
no um we our our staff are actually pretty well aortioned um age- wise we don't know exactly the hard part for us is we obviously have employee age and we know if someone is a tier one or a tier two employee to know like what age they might max out at potentially based on
age retirement wise the hard part for us is we don't always have the history of where individuals came from into the district like captured anywhere to figure out if um you know so so you don't know if somebody came from Tuksbury and had six years there so you might say "Oh they're only 25 years here
but oh they already hit the 30." Well that yes and they may have been at a different retirement system that might be actually transferring into MTRS and for MTRS now if you're going to retire as a tier one employee you actually have to get 30 years of service in a teacher retirement system not just a municipal
system or it puts you in a different retirement category um so what we always typically look at is um like 55 to about 65 like we're looking in that bracket um and we have a pretty good spread of individuals again like this year to only
have you know under 10 individuals out of 477 um retiring is you know pretty remarkable i'm not seeing that there's going to be any mass exodus in the next uh you know five years um I think it's actually going to be pretty uh pretty steady so you have a age range of new
experienced super experienced well I can tell you because we look at this like say in our our bargaining um you know we have a 12step um salary scale top step is obviously people who have been with us for 12 or more years um 51% of our staff are on the top step
um we have 50% of the staff who are obviously steps one to 11 so we've got a pretty good uh distribution of staff um you know veteran to newer coming into the field um there's obviously turnover too you know that that happens but we've been able to pretty well manage and
maintain u the staff that we have in the district so I'm not anticipating any massive like shifts it wouldn't be a year where we have 30 retirements um we have been pretty traditionally in the you know 10 to 15 range 10 to 15 people per year retiring okay te teaching wise
all right any other questions all right thank you very much thank you did you want me to do that second piece yeah just briefly if you could uh touch upon that this is a very quick one um so this actually is just something that Joanna brought to um to our attention um it's in my opinion it's worth going for whether we end up getting funding or not
there's really no harm in doing this but um the state through the federal government has a reimbursement mechanism for uh districts to be able to recoup some of the costs that they have to pay to transport students who are in foster care um to or from the school system to
be able to access the funding um you actually have to pay it out like a special ed claim so what we do is we actually track how much money we spend this year um to provide transportation services to a student that like the department of children and families maybe has removed from home and is placed in a uh in a foster home those
students still have to either go back to their sending district or the current district based on where they are the district who's responsible for working either individually or with a partner district to pay for those costs they all get um reported at the end of the year and there's a little bit of a funding mechanism right now where districts can
apply for up to a 20% reimbursement for the uh actual expenditures that they make for transporting foster care students but you have to have an MOA in place between uh the state the district and the town basically saying you know if you do this the funding is going to
come in as a reimbursement so um this is a federal it's a federal MOA memorandum of agreement oh okay so and that was attached I think to the memo that we had sent but um basically you have to have the agreement in place to even be able to qualify to apply um this is right now
a federal uh reimbursement so again we don't know what's going to happen in the long run this in my opinion there's certainly no harm in having the MOA be approved if there's a year where there's funds available and we have expenses and we can apply to get 20% back it's not going to be a huge sum of money but you know 20 or $30,000 is better than
nothing um there's no harm in not passing it so briefly that was kind of that excellent excellent any questions all right thank you very much i appreciate it have a good night you too moving along this evening
we have a review of the fiscal year 26 budget for the police department with us this evening we have Police Chief Colin Spence good evening it's an honor to be before all of you tonight i would like to thank finance committee members Ela McDonald and
chairperson Jim Clancy for meeting with me several weeks ago to go over the FY26 budget it's also an honor and privilege for me to represent such an outstanding group of police officers that we have at the police department you will not find
a more professional and committed group of individuals tasked with safeguarding our community as you will see from tonight's presentation we continue to make changes at the police department to better serve our community our website
as we discussed last meet last time we met is fully operational now our community engagement continues to thrive with our youth police academy CPAL programs flag football movie night learn to skate our police department played
the Bruins alumni we help with cops with kids with cancer school resource officer program toys for tots touch a truck drug takeback various training seminars that we've had throughout the town behavioral health program which I'm going to talk
about a little bit comfort dog program community readin station tours and this year we're also going to be adding a open house at the police department all of these programs would not be possible without the support of
our community and our excellent group of officers i'm happy to report that since we last met we've held we've hired 12 police officers four of which are currently in the police academy we've also safely welcomed back three of our officers from
military deployment officer Philip Fande Detramont and Reedan and we honor them today at the veterans breakfast for their service to the country and now for the 2026
budget now as you can see one of the things that we've started to prioritize even more than ever is employee wellness training recruitment and that's with all of the hiring that we've done and retention of our employees it's a very difficult time in
policing especially to get employees to stay with the department i put in the civil service hybrid program we're one of the first departments to implement this what that allows us to do is we can now hire officers from outside civil
service half of them 50% outside 50% off the civil service list so it's basically the best of both worlds because we can hire trained officers that want to come to Chumsford we've hired sever uh three transfers in the past year which are
great because usually with four four or five weeks of training they can start working a new officer about a year from the time we hire them to the time they start on the department we're going to continue to build upon our community engagement wellness unit through community events
officer interactions and our clinician outreach program for those that don't know we have a full-time clinician on staff uh that is funded through a grant currently we're hoping that the grant gets renewed in July um we're partnering with our diverse community in order to
deliver exceptional services to all members of our community increasing the police presence in the community utilizing community policing strategies enhancing community partnerships and 21st century policing practices and provide opportunities for
employee professional development career growth what we found in policing is employees if they're not growing professionally they're not staying they're g they want to they want different opportunities so we're trying to provide as much training and as you'll see in my budget I increase my
training budget by $10,000 some of the training is free and we try to hold it in house but when we have to send them somewhere that's when it becomes costly we're going to continue to prioritize department outreach diversity initiatives as I already mentioned the
athletic league community resource dog for those who've not met Aussie one of our best employees no complaints why didn't you bring especially at the end of the night i think we could all use it then he's in the schools all day it's past his bedtime
uh we've also uh have a very robust police department internship program that we started with Middle Sex Community College and also Chumpset High School because that's where we're going to begin to culminate people that we can hire for the police department
enhancing traffic related programs to minimize motor vehicle violations reduce accidents facilitate traffic flow as everybody that drives throughout this town uh sees enhance pedestrian bicycle safety we have several grants that we've
applied for and received uh for our traffic programs build and maintain collaborative relationships with federal state local agencies increase utilizing our website our website is one of the
best assets that we have there's something that you can sign up for that you automatically get emails from us any major events that happen in town uh involving the police department and also social media obviously uh Facebook for those that are friends with us on Facebook we're very
active on that it's a very important tool for us twitter and we have something called tips 411 where somebody can bring any crime tips to the police department anonymously or they can give their name and it goes through this tips 411 platform as far as our
staffing if we can go forward one more slide yeah yeah it's uh thinking oh there we go uh 70 total employees that's what we had last year we were allocated four we're a little bit short because we had a significant amount of retirements
a lot of individuals that were hired back in 93 and 94 are coming to retirement age that was under the Bill Clinton COPS grant so now as they reach retirement they're retiring uh at large numbers so chief one deputy chief six
lieutenants 10 sergeants 36 patrol officers nine dispatches three clerical staff the one licensed clinician who is grant funded currently facility maintenance fleet mechanic and also animal control falls under us we're
allocated for FY26 for 54 sworn officers and there is the breakdown of where everybody is assigned and then our organizational chart which changed last year yes um I forgot to ask during our lays on meeting and thank you
to taking the time um when someone's becoming an officer do they have a two-year degree a four-year degree because you mentioned Middle Sex Community College are you looking for psychology majors you're looking for social looking for criminal justice what are you looking for in a new officer to have background besides the training in
the academy so currently the only requirement is a high school diploma or GED that's the only requirement for now now there are certain incentives in in the contracts for our patrol offices that they get 10% if they have an associates 20% for a bachelor's so most
of our officers have a bachelor's and higher currently but what we're trying to do is go into the colleges if they're already on the path what we find is they will stay in school even when they come to the police department now we do we have been attending several academy graduations because some of the students
that are going through that have already gone through the 26- week academy we can actually meet with them and hire them so it's actually a very important tool for us because now they already have the 26 weeks behind them we're doing the 12 weeks of field training and then they can work for us so there's incentives
for them to get an associates to get a bachelor's is there any like if I was trying to get higher education from my employer I would have to prove job really I couldn't go for an art an art thing um so is there is it related to
are do you only pay for related or is it for anything as long as it's got the it's somewhat related so we've expanded it to like psychology sociology things along those lines because what we've learned is we need we need that in policing okay it's no longer that the
criminal justice degree is the best degree to have to be a police officer there are so many different facets to what we're dealing with especially the mental health issues that we're dealing with substance abuse issues so we've we've relaxed that somewhat um now it really depends on what the the degree is
in though okay thank you so as far as our organizational chart as I said last year uh we changed a little bit we now have a community engagement and wellness unit and I'll talk a little bit at the end of the presentation about that unit
um turning now as far as the different trainings that we have crisis intervention training implicit bias training interaction with special populations which I talked about last year at this meeting use of force training
deescalation training duty to intervene a lot of these as you as I go down the line are related to use of force because that is one of our biggest liabilities with the police department is the use of force we want to teach our officers and in our training unit we have Sergeant
Nick Zaminsky who is known in the state for his training abilities he's on the SWAT team he really knows the the newest techniques as far as how we're going to deal with different things the Taser 10 we're one of the first departments in the area to get that much more advanced
as far as what the capabilities of that uh item are um tactical training less than lethal safety systems that's like bean bags you see them on TV um trauma-informed policing freedom of speech autism training communication
with the deaf heart of hearing uh for those that haven't seen on our Facebook we started a program about eight months ago where if if somebody has some sort of disability deaf heart of hearing we have these plaqueards that they can put right with their registration when the officer stops the individual they hand
the registration and the plaque card to the individ to the officer so then the officer can be like "Okay I have to handle this in a different way as far as communicating with that person." um human trafficking hate crime dealing with emotionally disturbed persons
substance use disorder training and also wellness training now as far as our increase in personnel costs uh we're currently in uh negotiations for new contracts the increase currently is at 96%
um and that's based on cost of living adjustments and union contract adjustments as far as if they're going up a step uh I had a significant amount of retirements this year as I mentioned uh so that's why it's at uh below 1% for the total increase in personnel
requesting an increase in $50,000 uh for department overtime uh now more than ever especially with the training that we send these offices to in the events they cover every event in town um years ago that was not the case but now we need public safety at most of
these events um so what triggers overtime is it o over 40 hours like a corporate job or what so basically our officers are on a four and two schedule they work four on two off most of our offices some of them are on a five and two but if they're called in on a day
off or a shift that they normally wouldn't work they get overtime for that entire shift for that entire shift that they're there they have to be there for the for the whole shift now one of the things that we do have though if they go to training so say they're working 4 to midnight and they have training during
the day a lot of times we will move them from that shift just swap to their day shifts that then they don't get the overtime oh I see okay thank you now in that increase that doesn't include any current negotiation any well it can't it can't un unlike the school system as Jay
just explained where they can budget for and reserve funds on the municipal side you cannot budget for anything that's not currently contracted so that may change if there's any agreements that it will change if there are agreements that come through okay yeah
sorry to step on your Oh no thank you okay and the next Come on there we go there we go so this just shows the overtime increase FLSA uh increase uh what we've been finding is that individuals are using that more and then
at the bottom physical training incentive uh there's an increase in that because we have a much younger police department as far as our probably half of our employees are under 30 35 years old so that is
uh why that number has changed can you remind me why the dispatch um jumped up last fiscal year why the dispatch so 380 to 503 I believe what that was there was grant uh 911 grant okay that when it goes on
there comes off usually we receive between 130 to 170,000 in grant grant money so that would come off off of that so meaning uh we apply for it and then if we get it then it goes against the Exactly okay exactly and that's one of
the things with our behavioral health um having a clinician on staff we applied not only do we get a grant for the clinician's cost but then the state gives us 911 money because we provide behavioral health services nice uh to the town so do you get reimbursement for
details or anything yes so most of the traffic details that you see throughout town are hired by a contractor so the contractor pays the town uh for that officer service so we're not paying that okay yeah that's that's normally it's not coming from the
police department uh that would just be if Comcast is doing work or whoever is doing the work and then they reimburse us for what the officers paid and where do we see that revenue that well there's a 10% search charge
that goes directly I believe it's to the um town account on top of every detail the officer's work so the officer would get paid so say it's $400 and then another $40 would go to the town and
it's the costs are not in your budget correct they're but for details for details for details no they wouldn't be so those are they would not be that's not something that the town so but we'd see the revenue the 40% that goes to the town where would we see that we see 10
10% so for 10 see it where it goes into the local receipts and local receipts one of the local receipts numbers that's reported every year yeah all right yep um and and and depending on what who's doing the work and who's hired hired the detail if
it's National Grid we're paying through our our bills that's Oh thank you you're welcome i'm not I'm not surprised and as far as our expenses and I'll go into those uh that's going up about 6
and a half% okay and come on one of the big drivers electricity obviously I think everybody uh knows just from their own bills electricity going up about 10,000 uh gas heat about 5,000 vehicle maintenance um
projecting $5,000 additional uh gasoline if you look at that one that's going down about 16,000 just based on the gas prices um contracted services we've been running higher than 50,000 so I'm asking
for 60 and then the other thing is uniform allowance is going up $10,000 one of the big drivers of that I'm hiring so many new offices to equip an officer with new uniforms about $2,200 so somebody comes in we have to
provide them with all the equipment everything and that's why that uh is going up uh staff education as I mentioned earlier for employee retention uh they want a professional development and that's why that's going up by 10,000
uh new equipment our equipment is much more expensive uh one of the things that we just found out this year is Ford changed the interior of their explorers so we had to buy all new mounts a lot of the things that we had normally we would transfer them over they made a slight
change in the of course they you in the front seat so we have to you know account for that in our vehicle costs uh we're estimating are going to go up about $18,000 can't shift stuff from the old to the new anymore
it's like I'm going to change the charges on your phone mhm so that just details the main expense issues and if we look at the total budget it's going up about 1.6% or 143,804
any questions as far as the police side of things before I go into animal control nope no no okay animal control is fairly straightforward it's just based on um the pay package for our animal
control officer uh 62,183 for the salary and then overtime about 5,000 6323 for PTO comes out to 73506 this is offset by the town of
Tingsboro the town of Tingsboro actually contributes uh to that number and then the total expense for everything 79906 animal control any questions on any of
that and just a quick uh report from calendar year 2024 calls for service were down about 2% our arrests are up 21% uh traffic enforcement was down about 5% by next year I'm hoping that that will
be up with all the new hires uh we have a lot of we were down so many employees uh medical calls that's another one that's up 16% uh as we have an aging population in town uh we normally go to almost every
medical um if we look at beanies into commercial buildings 29% up 29% robberies up 50% but that's not I mean we we're still
relatively low for that um as far as uh motor vehicle thefts down 13% breaks are down 20% opioid overdoses are down 12% which is nice to see uh unfortunately we had one
fatal uh fraud crimes are down 16% shoplifting is up again 28% uh we've been having a significant issue with shoplifting uh foot patrols and property checks are down 8% that should be going up with the
additional personnel and the clinician followup um we had 515 from last calendar year that's when the actual CL clinician reaches out to somebody or responds to the call uh so that's up 19% it just
shows how important that program is to us um and our community engagement events uh we had 342 last year that's up 40% from the year before from 2023 to 2024 and if you don't follow us please follow
us um question about the uh commercial breakins are they sophisticated or are they like smash and grab window it's usually a smash and grab the window okay yeah nor normally that's what we're seeing uh we did have about a year ago
we had a lot of ATMs the standalone ATMs that organized groups were hooking up to and dragging out but Oh good lord that's uh that's subsided know what you're gonna call tonight when you say robberies is that like the
classics give me your money yes exactly yeah there was one and a half more this last pair what's that there was one and a half more this past year yeah so it's very It's three now on the fraud crimes because we hear a lot about you know all these scams that
are happening how successful are you in catching these people it's extremely difficult um because normally most frauds now are either done by phone or computer yeah um the person's not usually here even the couriers we've caughten some of the couriers that go to
pick up the items yeah but they're not the people that are they're like "Well I get a paid you know I get paid this is how I get paid." Yeah catching the person is extremely difficult the one thing I would say though we sent I believe we have two more going to uh computer crimes schools which is
extremely important um so but it is very difficult no matter how big the agency is too it's not like something that is there anything citizens should be doing or like I don't know any like is there anything you need the citizens to be
doing or to be aware of well I I would think as far I would say as far as computer crimes go changing your passwords all the time and strong passwords people use very simple passwords a lot of the times password you know one two three
four or their street name you know and it's one of those things that you know changing the passwords uh elderly parents as far as giving out information on the phone oh good lord um I think or
that have been in jail please give us $25,000 give it freely yep and it's unfortunate but obviously they're being successful if they keep doing it and that's Yeah that's one of the problems that we do have so thank you just just have a question around how
do you know you have the right number of officers well I there's different formulas that can be used uh obviously we we would want more officers uh 54 we can cover all our shifts we have some specialties uh we could use more like any any
department could um the more officers we have the more events we can do um and my hope is this year with these new hires um will definitely get us where we should be as far as doing more events more and more events and I have a great group of officers a lot of these events that you see them at they're
volunteering their time you know they're not getting paid you know if you see we have learned to skate and all these different things that they're going and they're passionate about it but it's very important to us because that child that we're dealing with could be 12 years old when they turn 15 and they're
getting into that age that they might go one path or the other and then they remember Officer Sullivan or you know and have an interaction with the police officer then they might become a police officer and that's what we're trying to trying to encourage do you benchmark or do you look at
number of average calls per officer per day like No so basically there's different formulas so certain areas 2.3 per thousand residents 1.8 per thousand it's usually between those two numbers
got it um and where are we now we we fluctuate we're we're probably like one 17 per um I would have to actually do the number um but it does change too because if somebody gets hurt they're out injured so we lose that person um
but normally if we have a long-term injury uh I would talk to the town manager and he normally approves that I can hire um an extra person and the other thing we have is it takes a year for that person to be able to work so last year we were really we had a very
low amount um because we had hired a bunch of people but by the time they go through the background uh and you also had three people on military deployment that's why I mentioned that that was extremely important i mean we lost three people for over a year so are they all
reservist yes okay yeah so they were over in Syria and Iraq the garden spots but and we had a great for those that didn't see it today at the uh veterans breakfast that they have
every month we had a great ceremony welcome them home it was an awesome event absolutely awesome so any other questions no all right thank you Chief thank you very much for your time
all right now the fun begins we've appeared public comment i'm not seeing anybody in the Zoom room um there's no public for public comment i do have two letters I've been asked to
read into the record uh regarding one of the articles i can hold those off for the articles or I can read them now in public comment whichever you prefer with the committee i'll probably wait till the article comes up and I can wait for the Sure okay all right they're both uh
concerning the lighting article oh okay and I think you've all received a copy of them yes yes thank you all right is it the is the article about how much would it cost the town to There there are two there are two letters one from the DPW and one from the conservation commission that I've been asked to read
into the record oh okay i I saw one yeah okay all right um so we have a review discussion vote on recommendations for fiscal year 2026 budget and springtown meeting warrant articles
let me bring up the warrant articles article one is a vote he reports uh we take no action on article one article two is in a vote to amend the fiscal year 2025 operating budget
adopted under articles 3 four five the warrant for the spring town meeting held on April 29th 2024 um do we have particular numbers for that Paul nothing to adjust still work oh but there Oh but there will be Oh there'll be adjustments oh yeah there will be adjustments
okay um Well I guess I should say it now it's it's likely that we'll have also um in article six is it six yeah yeah uh contract agreements that are not currently executed but will be
potentially prior to town meeting so we're not done yet so whatever we say yes yay or nay to we're going to hold off we're going to hold off on article uh two until we have numbers to vote on article two okay and then depending on whether or not that
vote comes before we finalize the book they'll either the book will either say uh they'll there'll be information available at town meeting we'll have a vote prior to town meeting uh not either the week and a half before I prefer to have it before the night of town meeting especially for the uh contracts um so
we're not going to do it like I'll have to be here at 5:30 for the before the meeting we'll see i'm not going to say yes or no right now that's hopes that's the hope and dream yes okay yes um would you are you going to entertain having a vote the night of town meeting
i would prefer not to so wouldn't I yes no I'll just say it's not going to happen the select board's meeting schedule in April is the 7th and the 14th okay so by the 14th we should have and I'm hoping to have it for the seventh okay if we have for the seventh we can we could
do a calendar here if we go a regular meeting night that would be April 10th right oh I'm in court in Worcester probably going to be the 17th probably going to be 17 i'm guessing it's going to be the
17 oh that's also bad uh okay 17th we'll talk later um article three is to see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate um uh and that would be the first one moba okay do we have a motion
i make a motion to recommend approval of article 3 to see if the town will vote um to raise and appropriate or transfer from funds available a sum of money to fund the town's fiscal 2026 assessment to Nishoba Valley Technical School
District or act in relation there too i second it okay okay got to go home i got to go to sleep i got to go home to sleep with husband no you're going to have the job you said it so fast I almost didn't catch what you said and just for clarification purpose the amount of
money is 4 million 35,630 4,ion35,630 okay discussion did anyone hear back on the OPED funding what's this did anyone hear back on the OPED funding so that was a question I asked um just to see where we're at in terms of um
relative funding okay what is OPEC again oh OPEC is other post-employment benefits which usually deal with healthcare and life insurance i thought the I thought she said in the meeting that they're in a special little consortium and they actually pay less
than most which was weird that was health insurance that was health insurance okay yeah their budget is $100,000 for OP in this operating budget and they're about 25% funded right okay you serve on the
trust yeah yeah got it okay thank you okay any other discussion hearing none all those in favor i any nays or abstensions hearing none seven in favor article four to see uh do we have
a motion i make a motion to recommend approval of article 4 as written and the amount of money is exactly how much 76 75,650,000 thank you 75,650,000 do I have a second i second
discussion given the financial constrictions and and the in the in the uh hardships we're facing we're in a lot better position than a lot of other towns are oh yes it has a lot to do with our with with the management of our town so uh I think
that uh we should be happy with what even with the the issues we had to face what we're what we're looking at as far as a funding and uh available budget for next year i agree i agree any other
discussion hearing none all those in favor i any naysay or abstensions none seven in favor article five i make a motion to recommend approval of article 5 to see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate or transfer from available
funds such sums of money as may be required to defay charges of the town's general uh council operations for the fiscal year period July 1st 2025 through June 30th 2026 or act in relation thereto second
and the amount amount of money Paul I gota read this one Okay it will be raise and appropriate 80,697,49 transfer 10,000 from the wetlands protection act revolving fund transfer $1,291,832 from the sewer capital
improvement fund transfer $500,000 from the sewer betterment fund transfer $500,000 from sewer construction stabilization fund transfer $861,414 from the sewer user revenue transfer $44,784 from storm water management user
revenue transfer $107,80 from cable television license revenue transfer $10,478 from excluded debt bond premium reserve and transfer $331,263 from the childcare revolving fund
thank you i'm glad you didn't have to say all that i'm really glad I didn't have to say all that we'll get that in typed form for you [Laughter] basically the budget has presented that
John submitted to correct okay do I have a second it's in the second okay i think I need to had it first doesn't matter sorry oh that's fine discussion again
we've been very lucky the last few years very echo the comments you made on the school department budget yep oh and and and and tfold uh we're not facing right requests for overrides we're not facing uh uh
dips into our stabilization fund massive layoffs things like that yeah i mean and there Yes there were a couple adjustments that that have had to be made but um they've all And this includes library reduction in hours right yep it does yeah see that's the
one that's a sticking point for me so as I was going around I've got a co-orker who lives in Chelford and I I mentioned this and he just sort of shook his head he's like "That's Chelmsford." But I actually don't think it is right it's $40,000 right no whenever when it's basically we're doing good library's
open no we're not just good library's closed on Sunday remember she said the library will be open I missed that part on Sunday yes what say again yes oh I missed that one too go to the
mic you know but some of us have hearing issues when the library director was here she I believe she stated and I know from conversation with her that in discussion with the library trustees they receive direct monies from the state in terms of
grant monies what we call library offsets um and they are going to use that money a portion of that money the $40,000 to keep the library hours on Sunday open as is the current practice october to April yes yes all right i'm glad I didn't send out my So that's
better this year because I would have said the wrong yeah tell your friend that's chos we we rearrange the decks of the chip the well we we we find ways to make budget adjustments and find other sources of revenue in order to cover the offset but but that wasn't during the
summer no the summer we always that was simp we had that discussed eight months yeah eight months between the summer and the yeah and that that boils down to the a they don't do a b staffing things like that yeah right everyone's a lot of people traveling in the summer stuff
like All right uh any further discussion hearing none all those in favor i any nays or abstensions none seven in favor uh article six we're going to defer to a later date uh article seven i make a motion to
recommend approval of article 7 to see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate or transfer from available fund available funds such sums of money to be used as a reserve fund at the discretion of the finance committee for fiscal year 2026 as provided in general
law chapter 40 section 6 or act in relation there too and the amount remains at $400,000 last year there there was we it wasn't used it was transferred into free cash um but we have used it in the past and the benefit of of it being available is
if there's an issue that needs to be addressed that can be addressed without having to call a special town meeting the expense there too uh we can be approached to address that um I can name on one hand a number of times we've done it in the past five or six years but it it has proved beneficial when it's
needed has it always been under 400,000 in those times it has always been 400,000 or less okay it's never been more than 4 400,000 and it it presents something like a a tenth of a percent of
the overall budget at this point um so it's but it's also noted every year in the audit as as one of the things that that one of the reserve funds that that we have that we have available that is uh beneficial when bonding comes around
and there are statutory restrictions around uh how it can be used and allocated correct it has to be through through it have to be approached it has to be through a vote of the of the vote and approval of the finance committee um it can also uh be used in the last in
the first 15 days of the ne next fiscal year to address any other issues at the time I've been here that's never happened u but it is available statutoily i didn't know that yep first 15 first 15 days of the next fiscal year all right
good any further discussion all right hearing none all those in favor i any nays or abstensions none seven in favor article eight i make a motion to recommend approval of article 8 as written i'm not reading it in the amount
of in the amount of in the amount of five,69,385 second discussion i wish we had more to to to to apply to other projects quite frankly um because every year there's a number of projects that don't that are very worthy that
don't get selected because we can't No my objections were misguided i was somewhat concerned that we were investing in or putting a lot of money into the McKay the second library
but that's not the case mhm i'm wrong okay and so whatever noise I might have make I apologize fair enough so the one reservation I have about this is again is a point that I raised before
so we know that the budget is going to get tighter we know things are going to get harder right and so all the things that we have here are necessary in ways i just did a quick math and so please correct me if I'm wrong but the math I did is we're we're spending uh about
$1.1 million on electricity right and so if you think about reinvesting that million in other things that to me makes a lot of sense but I could be missing something right and so the the thought is why do why spend a million bucks
every year on electricity when instead you could invest in solar think about a systematic approach across the town forget about all these individual budgets right systematically across the town i I guess I'm not following Stephen it it's there there are a lot of solar
arrays across town on a lot of our municipal buildings uh we are receiving credits for those this is the capital budget though so this is this is for this is for not expense this is for capital projects which and and so the amount here is the overall amount of
what's going to be um isn't solar capex right you have an asset it's useful for 30 years yeah but I I I'm not following your your comment so you're saying we should buy more solar and put it where I'm just trying I'm trying I'm trying to
just follow So here's the logic budgets are getting tighter we have capex and opex budgets if you want more money in capex or opex you can raise revenue or you can reduce costs the way you reduce costs is by offsetting the expenses in some way reducing the expenses we spend
a million dollars in electricity every year how do you reduce that cost you put in solar right so how much do we have to I guess my question to you is how much do we have to put in for solar to gain that and what's my payback so do I have to invest $10 million and it's a payback
of 20 years like that's like it's easy to say like so I guess I would say to like what are the numbers like I don't disagree with you but I like to see those numbers Paul if we have them like
because that's a I don't think it's onetoone no it's not there certainly is probably 10ear payback or so right 100% of the town's electricity consumption is solar based uh you many of you may recall I think was on the board in 2008
we entered into a 20 20year solar agreement with the Bolton solar farm and that basically put us in under solar consumption prices so we're not doing the national grid other stuff in addition to that we put solar arrays on every municipal building and school building that can that can support solar
i mean you know the high school and other schools and if there's any surplus it gets sold back out to the grid but we don't have any further solar opportunities on facilities we The reason you don't see it on the forum is the forum construction in 1965 doesn't
support the solar load and the wind load and the snow load that will go on that building but we have we've we've maximized the use of solar uh consumption and production um to the fullest extent possible um and even something now where we're doing the roof
on the on the school roof we're looking to see you know would it be possible to upgrade the the solar capability in terms of whether to put the existing panels back on when we do the south row school roof so I'm just not aware of any solar opportunities beyond what we have uh currently in the community are
rooftops the only place that you can put solar well the only other option would be to go with a uh we have we have a solar ground array at the Harrington School um the problem is is they're not generally allowed under on conservation land yeah um and as I said earlier the
only piece of town own land of any significant size that's not conservation or uh encumbered is the DPW Richardson Road facility that has a dog park and the DPW operations there um so
that's really the extent to my knowledge of what we could do that you could say to the high school you could put in a you know parking you know those parking things where you'd have the solar arrays on top i just have not seen any analysis that had that being feasible but so what analysis have you seen like who's run
the numbers right because people are putting it up and the reason why I'm pushing on this is that again I like put aside the whole environmental side of it this is the finance committee we're thinking about finance we have real budgetary pressures here and so I'm just trying to think outside the box of how can we address some of these budget
budgetary issues and make not as many hard decisions a year two three years from now that's really what I'm after i think and also getting one second uh Paul uh not today not tomorrow but
there's bids coming out to the school building group whatever that as an alphabet soup so it's be a school building authority thank you so for example when we if the new Parker Middle School goes forward it will be 100 you know it'll be a lead community it'll be
an energyefficient maximum community they'll look at geothermal and they'll look at solar and all that and and of course it's required by the state so that will happen with the Parker School Middle School project uh which will be designed over the next two years so that's so there's there's future
opportunities just nothing there's nothing literally open right now that I'm aware of i mean we as they as they do the roof roof replacements that are in this capital budget they're looking at those solar arrays and seeing what the cost effectiveness of is of replacing the current ones that are there and upgrading or uh they're
looking at the reflective on on uh whether or not they're the availability based upon cost and installation uh to have uh some of these solar arrays have the reflective both top and bottom and so they are looking at those as they as they do these projects built into the roof replacement projects but it's as
you go because there's only so much real estate available and and our buildings are very old i mean we are putting in two new fire stations so hopefully they will be more efficient so well they will have to be because they'll they'll be under obviously but my point is like even so you know the current solar that
we're getting those will be more efficient but there's only you know so many new projects new building projects we can do i mean our schools are really old and that they I totally get that i guess you there's so many parking lots out there right and so there are installations all around around parking
lots and so I think there's just a lot of opportunity that we might not be looking at i know but like you know even like the high school part we just paved that that took 40 years to get just to get the paving in remember that that was like a couple years to Yes that took 40 years and I I don't know i would have a
hard time like removing pavement and parking area that's needed that's needed to put solar so why would you because we're looking for real estate we're looking for real estate well it's it's up but you they're canopies it would have to be something that Oh my god this parking lot's in
terrible condition oh while we're there how much would a canopy be adding but that's not an opportunity right now right and you can just drill a hole in a in a parking lot right it's not it's not like you have to wait for the whole thing to get repaved it took 40 years for us to repave is this something is
this something that the sustainability and energy committee would be continuously reviewing yes all right thank you so we have that it's just like I don't disagree about investing in stuff that we can especially in our current climate and where where we get
electricity from but I do think there's a cost to it and and it's a significant cost and and the ROI is is not immediate and you know I think it would it would it would dilute the dollar today versus the dollar tomorrow i think we would we
would not see it when we need it is what I'm trying to say we're looking at But Steve I'm going to task you with reaching out to the the energy and conserv what the um the uh which which the energy and sustainability committee and and they've been operational now for some time and uh knowing the folks on
that committee I can assure you that they're paying very close attention to this you know should we like I know like the plan has leaison that may no we can't do that not really we have leaison for the budget purposes we don't typically do leons to other other
committees Right but you can be a member you But you could be a member or you could attend and that would be the place to to spearhead if you want if they want to present a capital project to the capital budget committee um if they've done the research that would be the place to do the research to see you know
what is the ROI what is the cost what is the installation how long is this going to take is there going to be availability they would be the the the committee to do that and then they could present that to both the capital planning committee and then eventually to us so I think that's that's the right
answer yeah thank you y Okay all right so we're still discussing the capital the uh capital uh project uh that are that are proposed for this capital budget for
2026 any further discussion yeah the only thing I' I'd pass on to everybody and it's just if you look out next year there's like 10 million dollars in potential projects there is every year um well it
may be every year but um the cost of everything is going up at a very high price i think we will be very challenged on just maintaining current structure mhm um I know I know and I know Chief Ryan's one
of his main concerns is the c the increased cost of of the vehicles and the lead time for these vehicles unbelievable the fire truck is another perfect example of how much it's going to cost how long it takes to get it and the problem with pushing it off is the
fact that again these lead times are so much greater because there are less people producing them with and with the ladder truck is I think it's one that he highlighted specifically during his presentation single source fender I think yeah yeah and that's that that that is a concern so it's it's it's not only the big capital project statements
but like you said but it's it's those big capital projects that you really can't push off much for longer and I'll tell you this this particular year um there was very little choices we had to make because there wasn't there
wasn't a lot that we had to defer in order to come up with this particular budget okay i don't know how it'll be presented next year okay um we'll just have to wait and see well we have the we you have the forecast of what's coming
up there's always changes and yeah there's a lot there's a lot out there and I don't know how it'll get prioritized okay because that's basically what happens okay but I do prepare you that it might be more difficult
next time around um and I think there probably uh be a good time for somebody else to uh be on that committee are you announcing your retirement from from the capital committee i I'm announcing that I that I might not be as well educated
on structure as I should be so maybe there's somebody more talented than I am in this area well we don't need to make that decision just quite yet but uh good good to know all right any further discussion on this capital uh
budget hearing none all those in favor i any nays or abstensions hearing none seven in favor article nine i make a motion to recommend approval of article 9 to see if the town will vote to raise an appropriate transfer from available
funds and or borrow a certain sum of money for fiscal year 2026 budget to operate the sewer enterprise or act in relation there too and the amount amount of money is this sorry Paul paul just have a seat you
might as well you might as well sit yeah bring a microphone might as well sit at the Personnel Expense services is 1,211,95 expenses are 4,391,10 and the total is 5,62,25 so 5602205
thank you have a second second discussion enterprise fund it's pretty simple pretty self-explanatory yeah all right hearing no further discussion all those in favor i abstensions hearing none seven in favor article 10 i make a motion to
recommend approval of article 10 to see if the town will vote to raise and appropriate transfer from funds available and or borrow a certain sum of money for fiscal year 2026 budget to operate the storm water management enterprise or act in relation there too and the amount of money is
personnel services 96,568 expenses 765,391 for a total of 1,671 $1,959 so it's 1,671-959 do you have a second second discussion another one that's pretty straightforward
hearing no further discussion all those in favor i any abstensions none seven in favor article 11 i make a motion to recommend approval of article 11 to see if the town will vote to raise an appropriate transfer from funds available and or borrow a certain sum of money for the purchase and equipping of
a 10-wheel dump truck for the Department of Public Works storm water division or act in relation there too second it and how much is the vehicle do we 290 thank you 290,000 and to be borrowed okay okay do I have a
second second discussion we already had a second oh I'm sorry we did a second i apologize second i miss I missed your second discussion hearing none all those in favor i any or abstensions hearing none seven in favor article 12 i make a motion and recommend
approval of article 12 to see if the town will vote to raise an appropriate transfer from funds available and or borrow a certain sum of money for fiscal year 2026 budget to operate the forum Ice Rink Enterprise or act in relation there too 65,000 okay thanks Paul amount of 65,000
for the record second discussion no hearing none all those in favor I Any or abstensions hearing none seven in favor article 13 i make a motion and recommend approval of article 13 to see if the town will vote to raise an appropriate transfer from funds
available and or borrow a certain sum sum of money for fiscal year 2026 budget to operate the cable television public educational and governmental uh access enterprise or act in relation there too and the borrowing sum is the personnel services is
457,730 expenses is 120,244 total of $577,974 577974 thank you second discussion after this motion can I uh request a bio break
certainly i'll enter that as discussion any further discussion the one thing that if I remember right you asked that question like well what happens as people continue to cut the cord and there's no plan for that there is no plan for that i I that is I'm
wondering if there's that the state house would let us leverage people's internetness because that is still like I'm considering cutting the cord but I'm still going to have internet right so that's more of a state level sort of
thing because that's an interesting idea yeah it's become the new must have utility yes exactly any further discussion hearing none all those in favor i I
abstensions hearing none so in favor uh we will take a brief recess thank you you're welcome we need to officially call it back have to call back to session yeah all right ending the recess we're going
to call the uh finance committee back to session and proceeding right along we have article 14 excuse me i make a motion to recommend approval of article 14 i move that that the town appropriate $30,000 in expenses to operate the golf
course enterprise for fiscal year 2026 and that $30,000 be raised from the golf course enterprise revenues do we have a second a second discussion hearing none all those in favor I abstensions hearing none seven
in favor article 15 i make a motion to recommend approval of article 15 as written uh in the total amount of do we not appropriate authorization authorization to revolving fund right
okay second discussion eventually we're going to get action on this at at the state level so we don't have to keep doing this no probably not okay I think that was more rhetorical question all All right hearing no further discussion all
those in favor i or abstensions none uh seven in favor article 16 i make a motion to recommend approval of article 16 cemetery improvement and development fund i move that the town transfer uh $50,000 from the sale of graves and lots
to cemetery improvement and development fund second discussion i didn't get a copy of that that this this presentation would have been Did you send it today no this is from February 13th but I will re recirculate yeah I had to go back i thought it was I thought that was in draft okay that's
why I don't have it all right um article 17 i make a motion to go ahead sorry go ahead i said we should do some of these together but no no we can't do that discussion none none none hearing none
all those in favor I nays or extensions hearing none uh seven in favor article 17 okay i make a motion to recommend approval of article 17 property valuation services uh for the town to transfer $100,000 from overlay surplus to fund property valuation services
pertaining to the town of chumps fiscal year 2026 5-year property valuation certification by the state by the by Massachusetts Department of Revenue second discussion it's 160,000 it's 160,000 160 right so this is the problem with using a February 13th yeah so uh
the with the amended amount of 160,000 okay any further discussion all those in favor i Any or abstensions abstain six in favor one abstension i make a motion to recommend approval of article 18 veterans exemptions uh as
written second discussion i'm reading it hearing none all those in favor i I any or abstensions hearing none seven in favor article eight uh 19 i make a motion to recommend
approval of article 19 senior exemptions as written second discussion hearing none all those in favor i nays or abstensions hearing none seven in favor article 20 i make a motion to recommend approval of article 20 study
to fund and improve municipal operations in uh for the town to raise and appropriate $50,000 uh remainder as written second discussion hearing none all in favor i nays or
abstensions hearing none in favor article 21 i make a motion to recommend approval of article 21 foster care reimbursement as written second discussion
good idea yeah great idea absolutely great idea mhm hearing no further discussion all those in favor i any or abstensions none seven in favor article 20 oh hold on 22 yep i want to make sure
this this an old presentation so there's going to be one article in here that's not the correct article make sure we got the right one this is the budget process we move it up a week right yes this is this is still in article 22 okay i make a motion to recommend approval of article 22 general
bylaw amendment submission of the town manager's budget as written second definitely as written discussion i think it's a good idea yeah absolutely makes sense to me good operations
it'll make the town manager's life a little easier too yeah absolutely long overdue mhm all right hearing no further discussion all those in favor i I or abstensions hearing none seven in favor article 23 i
make a motion to recommend approval of article 23 dog license fees as written second discussion how long had it been since these have been updated at least a decade it's it's got to be 15 years when you get the squid though
right long time like peg these to like inflation every year and just kind of let it then you got you got you got rolling fees for inflation and yeah I think it's a little easier just to have a set amount round number fees yeah people don't like to write a check for $23
$2363 but it's not like people carry around like the 63 cents anymore right like it's all the amount of complaints you'd receive all right anita all right any further discussion what is
a domestic charitable corporation kennel because it's free that's a great question i don't think we have any in town this is one of the ones that that that is provided for but you could have a u a domestic charitable corporation kennel
i'm wondering if that'd be something like um Humane Society or Yeah yeah that we don't have any main society in in town something like that it's a good question any further discussion that's it okay hearing no further discussion all those
in favor any days or abstensions hearing none seven in favor article 24 i make a motion to recommend approval of article 24 sealer of weights and measure fees as written second discussion this also ties into the
adjustment that we have at seal and wage yeah okay perfect um any further discussion no all right all in favor i abstensions hearing none seven in
favor article 25 i make a motion to recommend approval of article 25 community preservation fund fiscal year 26 depth service admin expenses and reserves as written i don't know what the appropriate amounts are where's the
amount the amounts are Paul this one I know it's not I know it's not X's bless you um it is um it's $150,000 from the open space reserve 150,000 from the community housing
reserve 135,000 from the housing reserve $752,965 from the community preservation general reserve for the debt service okay and then the $50,000 is the administrative expenses under paragraph C and then on the reserve amounts under
paragraph D they're 150,000 for the open space historic resources and community housing and then 250,000 from the budgeted reserve okay thank you did we have a second on that one second
just in case I didn't discussion hearing none all those in favor i I abstensions hearing none seven in favor article 26 i make a motion to recommend approval of article 26 community preservation fund
town center underground utility project for the town to transfer a million dollars from the community preservation fund general reserve and borrow $1 million pursuant to chapter 44B section 11 or any other enabling authority to fund the suppression of the overhead
utility lines and the removal of utility poles in the town center i enthusiastically second this i'm really excited about this one i'm gonna count it as a second discussion did I hear it was second i did hear the
second i did i did hear the second it's in there somewhere it was buried in there but it was there i came in the middle of the much like the lines will be i came in the middle of what when town council was speaking so when John was speaking yeah so Mr sus is like "Okay middle of the movie what the
hell?" So what was said so they took a vote there was a there was a vote yesterday evening of the CPC they voted to recommend approval of this particular thing uh particular um article to push forward with this plan there was one abstension and I believe the rest were
in favor um they had a presentation by town council who was also here this evening as you saw through Zoom to answer any any additional questions that might might have surfaced and and the general consensus is that we believe this will apply that there may be um reasonable person that could say that it
might not the DO might say that but it's past the point that that that the actual borrowing of the funds and transfer of funds will be past the point uh uh the approval will will will occur prior the approval or disapproval I guess will occur prior to any funds being expended
so the the voting through of this is not going to be not going to affect any thing so so to to summarize it that it's no big if I say yes it's no big loss if the governing body says no because no
money will be spent until they say something there will be Yeah there will be no negative effect except we won't get buried lines or we'll have to look for another source of revenue in order to and and remember that this is in conjunction with any funds that there may be with Verizon and the funds that National Grid is currently holding so
it's not the full price of the of the actual project the full price of the project's much greater than that u but but this will help uh cover the the gap that was created when people started using wireless rather than wired phones um and so this will this will push
forward a project that has been talked about for a very long time and how does this play out like does the fees stop do we go to another phase after this but 25 years from now like any idea i I'm not entirely sure
they're still collecting the fee on the national I don't think that they are okay so it's it it's it they've collected the funds they've held it in in in account uh and it's just kind of sitting there got it earning earning interest which is great cover increased
costs yeah but um yeah that'll be that'll be nice the the center will look that much better and and there'll be less concerns about any storm events so it not only is is it historic aesthetic but it also will be beneficial
and we get access to our money that too yeah that you never know what happens it's nice when fees are actually used for what they're supposed to be right imagine that all right any further discussion nope hearing none all those
in favor i I Any or abstensions hearing none seven in favor article 27 i make a motion to recommend approval of article 27 Happy Trails Pet Cemetery as written
second it discussion i don't think it's a good idea i don't think anything has changed since last time i what what I will say is I was happy to hear some discussion of of the financial aspects of it we did which we
did not have the previous time this was presented so there was some thought put into it they did look at numbers of of of what uh burial funeral costs might be what the perpetual fees might be so there definitely homework was done and I was happy to see that um I just there's
no set parcel of land currently identified and that that was my main concern last time we uh this came through um and I I I find it hard to con conceive of a land that would not
um thousand years ago I got a real estate license never really used it but one of the in the classroom it's like land was supposed to be used for its highest use and given that housing is a a big issue in in the in our state in
our city or town whatever is that something and so that that part's like if a land is if a land is digable then it's has some level of buildable to it um also the when you asked I think it was you who asked that like or no you asked
about I pay for my pet fee and I pay 10 years 10 years at a time and I have shuffled off the motoral coil and they didn't really have an answer for that because that's like it's a long maintenancey kind of problem because
people have pets have a very finite life let's say 10 15 years people get pets and then they might go uh go see their pets at the cemetery but they shuffle off the mortal coil and what happens then so they did they did talk about
establishing that that perpetual fund establishing like like there is with with cemetery where where funds are placed into a interest bearing account and those those help offset those issues where there's no longer someone paying but the problem as you mentioned is you have a shorter you're starting off brand
new and you have a shorter period of time where people where pets are are passing away and things like that so it does the math doesn't always math that's what I'm saying the math does not math and and and if it's one thing if someone says kind of like the McKay library this
is my house i want it to be a library if somebody wants to say this is my house I want it to be a pet cemetery and the town receives an acreish plus land that as a donation as a donation then coming in front and saying "Hey," because then
a big upfront fee part thing is the actual acquisition cost of the of the property and then becomes an exercise as to who maintains how it maintains who runs who and things like that that's typically why they've been private not not public like you would with a cemetery uh for humans um they've been
privately run the problem is the private ones aren't currently protected which I think I and I applaud this legislation that they're putting this is step one yep i think this is definitely step one and I applaud the work that that Mary's done in working with um Representative
Elliott and trying to get this push through to protect those those pieces of land that that that act in that capacity i I'd love to see this in place before we even considered Yeah uh having a piece of land uh first law then donation then more research about
structure and what you do when fees aren't paid and things like that in in theory I'm not opposed to this but in practical application I don't I don't think we're there yet i I still don't think we're there yet so but this article is just for us
[Music] to look for it right like it's more of a directive though so so if it if it's a directive it's you're actively going out and searching for a piece of parcel of land to secure and then you're putting
together a proposal to secure that piece of land and then to establish this cemetery i was just thinking you know we just recently had the um acquired the I'm drawing a blank but the recent conservation coolest farm yeah but that
was through through CPC funds through conservation you cannot use that land for this so I was just thinking like if something like came up yeah so you're left with less less acquisition uh sources I guess because you can't use
CPC um so CPC has typically been where the town has been acquiring pieces of open space or historical uh it's been through the CPC funds to do that that's why that's why that fund was established one of the reasons why that fund was established to to have those funds available to do things like that as it
becomes available there's no separate fund that would apply to something like this and so this would be either a straight purchase or a donation through someone of a piece of land that could be used or as Paul mentioned the only real
open large parcel land is over at Richardson Road which is current being used it's right near the wershed is next to the dog park and um I don't think that is a current target if you will well
maybe people at the dog park can give a little piece of land for the cemetery do do you really want the town to maintain a a dog park if if I No we have we have we have a dog park but cemetery
yes i mean you're absolutely right but no because that's a different discussion like I'm in theory fine with this if it could create a fun if it had if we then created it so it was a fund that's self-funded right like it had to have fees it had to some sort of self-unding
i wouldn't be supportive of the town the way I read this is we'll the town will get reimbured but the town has maintenance services provided by the town so we're the town is now maintaining a
pet cemetery i I with with overhead for the for the employee you've got you know and then if we have to hire somebody else and as a as a finance committee because this article has a definite financial impact which is at present undefined and unknown we cannot
responsibly vote to support this article amen what he said it's what I said the last time i know no no and and again I I wouldn't support it if we were funding it like I'm open to
the idea of it could be self-funded like that was the only that was and I was just like if it just to be clear I was just looking at the article is do we just like to keep it open if something fell on our laps that was all I was if it operated like an enterprise fund
where it was self-contained but the problem is getting it off the ground and getting it to that point after you've identified the land after you've required and I don't think that's where like a like it shouldn't be a priority like we should be actively like if something came and someone donated or
whatever if it could operate like I don't like then then you consider you know how do we how do we run this what the costs associated the article can always be raised at any time in the future yeah yeah so right and then it would need you know certain amount of equipment you need you're going to need
a a backhoe perhaps you know um I don't know be dedicated but lawnmowers and there's all kinds of um you know other costs that that are involved here right no there are yeah you Yeah okay okay any further
discussion so the motion was to recommend yes but we typically when we've done that we've uh in we've voted in the alternative uh instead of bringing a new I understand but no so all those in favor of
recommending all those opposed and I'm abstaining so that's six opposed one abstension article 28 i make a motion to recommend approval of
article 28 zoning bylaw amendment fa uh fast casual restaurants in route 29 excuse me in route 129 overlay as written I love the way you're not going to read all the changes I'm not going to read all that cross I second it
discussion um my kid wants to know what's going to go there and I'm like I don't know he want to eat there or does he want a job what's No he wants to eat there he wants to eat there I God bless him i think this is this is more of what was
envisioned uh when when when these were initially voted through um that parcel would love to see that parcel go live again i know that businesses in the area i've spoken with a couple of people that work in the business area that would love to see additional uh options there
although they do love pressed um and they do frequent it quite regularly um it would be nice to have this additional option even if it so this is a lot and to to be clear this is
allowing for that to occur it's not a approval of anything that's going in there but it's allowing for this to occur yeah and for and for those folks that are concerned about the potential appearance of the building you know you have to remember that the planning board can condition that and uh get it get a
very acceptable and aesthetically pleasing design exactly similar to what they did to CVS was Exactly yeah you didn't want to see that in its original form right all right any further discussion
hearing none all those in favor i any nays or abstensions i want to abstain okay six in favor one abstension i'm not there yet i know i'm not there yet you don't have to it's an extension you don't have to explain it you don't have to explain it that's the beauty of an extension if you're not
there doing pretty well here you spoke too soon oh I shouldn't have article 29 i make a motion to recommend approval of article 29 general bylaw amendment outdoor lighting that the town adopt a general bylaw pertaining to
outdoor lighting further description as written you got to read your stuff do I have a second second discussion as we entered in discussion I have two uh letters I've been asked to read into the
record pull those up the first is from our conservation commission which met on uh Tuesday evening tuesday evening tuesday evening all right march 25th 2025 to the Chancellor
Select Board Finance Committee and Toming Reps subject letter of support for spring meeting warrant articles 29 and 30 lighting bylaw dear town officials the Chancellor Conservation Commission is voicing our support of the two outdoor lighting articles coming
before town meeting on April 28th 2025 reducing the impact of outdoor lighting helps three of our obligations under Chancellor's wetland bylaw and we see significant benefit of the proposed lighting bylaw in support of our charter from the town the Chford wetlands bylaw
directs the conservation commission to quote control activities end quote likely to have an impact on the natural resources open quote values end quote the Chford wetlands bylaw specifically mentions 13 specific values including three values directly impacted by
outdoor lighting i.e wildlife habitat rare species habitat and aesthetics we know that artificial outdoor lighting negatively impacts wildlife by disrupting their natural behaviors attracting predators and causing disorientation or collisions ultimately
leading to the habitat loss and decline in populations examples of the negative impacts of outdoor lighting on habitat values include diverting turtle hatchlings from their pathway back to our streams and ponds blinding owls as they focus on prey causing impacts and
build in with buildings and trees as managers of most of the town conservation properties we also support minimizing light pollution for aesthetic reasons helping residents seeking the recreational and relaxation from viewing the so-called quote dark sky end quote
the commission fully supports the initiative to bring our lighting bylaw in line with the current understanding of the adverse impacts and in line with other progressive communities we are not taking a position on the specific requirements and language in the proposed changes and defer to the detailed work others have done to craft appropriate language in the warrant
article we look forward to continued support of the natural resources natural resource values in our town bylaws and see great value in the proposed warrant articles 29 and 30 sincerely Carl Bishoff chairman of the Chancellor Conservation
Commission the second letter This is to um Paul Coer from uh Christine Clancy DPW director subject DPW review of lighting policy zoom in chart here
dpw has reviewed the proposed lighting policy warrant article for the spring 2025 meeting to understand the financial impacts and begin to outline a preliminary plan that would be required to bring the existing municipal lighting infrastructure to the standards outlined in the proposed lighting policy the town has approximately 2,200
street lights that were installed 10 years ago as part of the LED upgrade project dbw also maintains the building and site lighting at the 28 municipal building locations and other parking lot spaces recreational spaces and flagpole
locations throughout the town these locations were upgraded to LED light fixtures within the past 10 years upon reviewing the proposed lighting policy DPW is unable to provide a preliminary cost estimate for necessary lighting improvements required under the lighting policy however DPW outlines the
following understandings should the lighting policy be adopted at spring 2025 town meeting street lights the existing town owned street lights are 4,000K LED uh 4,000 Kelvin LED lights and cannot be altered to a lower
correlated color temperature without replacing the entire street light heads in recent years DPW has replaced some lights that have failed and those replace street light heads are adjustable but only down to a limit of 3,000 Kelvin and it is unknown if they
meet the bug rating uh requirements in the proposed lighting policy since the LED upgrades were completed approximately 10 years ago the town has repaired approximately 100 to 200 lights many of the repairs are done to wiring or other connection faults approximately
25 to 50 lights of the 2,200 lights have required replacement given this low percentage of light replacement DPW believes that we have approximately 5 to 15 years left of useful life in the existing street light infrastructure as outages begin to increase DPW will deploy a four or five-year replacement
plan since it is a large capital expense this timeline could begin with the next few years or could be as far out as 10 years to begin the process the current estimate for a townwide street light replacement of the existing system and based on the existing standards and bylaws is approximately 2 to4 million
the proposed lighting policy requires that all street lights be upgraded within the next 10 years to phase that process over a plan over a planned four or five-year plan DBW would have to begin replacing lights in 5 years which could potentially accelerate the replacement of and disposing of street lights that have not reached their end
of useful life all 2,200 street light fixtures would have to be replaced with new shielded fixtures as outlined in the proposed lighting policy dpw would review available street light options that conform with the proposed lighting policy with the lighting consultant additionally an on-site
demonstration of the of three various lighting fixtures and approval of the of the Give me one second here an approval with the select board would have to take place as part of this process to select the appropriate CCT or lighting temperature it is possible that
additional street lights might be required since the new lights would likely have different CCT lumens and be shielded it is unknown at this time if the proposed lighting policy triggers additional costs above the estimated 2 to4 million project municipal building
and other site lighting infrastructure many of the town-owned building exterior site lighting is 5,000 Kelvin and is outward facing the proposed lighting policy requires the building and site fixtures be downward facing and shielded additionally the lights over 2,000 Kelvin require the lights be dimable and
have a motion sensor in reviewing these new requirements with the town electrician fixture replacement additional wiring and switches will be required to conform with the proposed lighting policy this can be programmed over a 10-year plan but it'll come with additional costs that are not currently planned within the 10 next 10 years
since many of these LED lights were installed within the last 10 years the proposed lighting policy notes that any project that replaces 10 or more lights at once for commercial or municipal properties will require select board approval and a demonstration with three different difference light fixtures for
the select board to review and approve dpw currently has a project planned this summer 2025 to replace 16 light fixtures in within the police parking lot with this new policy DPW would have to provide three different light fixtures at demonstration and assuming during the night hours have the select board review
for approval and selection of a CCT or color temperature of the lights the efforts to install three separate light fixtures for demonstration purposes for review would add additional project costs previously not planned we've estimated the replacement as an inind replacement but would have to review the new standards to confirm if there are
any additional material related costs or the need for any additional fixtures coordination with a lighting consultant may be required other site lighting infrastructure flag pole locations would have to be adjusted which could be with done with our town electrician but again these replacements under the current
bylaws are not planned within the next 10 years the DBW supports improving the town's municipal lighting to conform with new sustainable and environmentally friendly standards but also recognizes that it would be potential will potentially require additional funding needs and additional coordination with the lighting consultant that previously was not planned
that is the end of the two letters I've been asked to read in i want sidewalks before I want lighting fixtures i think it's something to aspire to over a much longer time period than the article says you know it is one thing oh
you're going to build a new building you're going to do the thing all right you have to have this you're building a new house or somebody's I' I've like noticed in my neighborhood there have been a lot of um the house is the house is to the studs and they're they're rebuilding it and that's the time sure
do it but it's like it's not a 10 it's not a 5year or 10 year it's more like a 1520 to get everything turned over in time as things break as they happen and in the meantime a lot more education of this is
good and this is bad Because I mean I got that that the gentleman who came he almost gave too much information and but it was all black and white i mean I would need to see like I I suggested to him use you know chunks of tele media so that there would be like this is a light
that makes it this is a light that isn't make it and this is why because he made us he had a lot of presentation information but it was almost too much and it really doesn't you know didn't make a not sense that's not right right but I don't know what I would have to do to my own house
it's it's too much pressure like I I'm I'm under too much stress I don't not stress when I go pick out a lighting fixture i think you said it you want to just buy something you like that's it in my own house and I you know when this was presented at the planning board I said like I'm fine with this if we do this for commercial Yeah properties
because I can give it to an engineer that's their job they know okay these are the specs fine they work in there and they like it i don't think it appropriate for the town i think you know you start dimming the lights in the town you're going to have
people calling the town manager non-stop right um I already had a few people start calling me up they saw our finance committee and they're like "What are you guys doing with these lights?" Again it it's we're not knowledgeable about what
is required and that that fiveyear period is way too short to ask people to turn it over it's 10 years 10 years but it's still When you say we you mean you mean the residential we not I don't I don't think the I don't think the presenter contemplated the potential
impact of adding in the municipal infrastructure into this okay he said he did because he said well I he said he spoke to someone but I don't I I'm not I'm not sure because if you if you read what the DPW director said uh I think we
have a lot more uh issues raised than were discussed at the and I don't think you discussed it at planning board either i don't think that came up did it no no no financial cons no nothing came up for No no let's let's be careful about the 10 years too because there are
a number of it times when it triggers an automatic replacement rather than just a 10-year filter in these are the these are the four that are here uh the lighting officer says that the luminire installation constitutes a hazard to public safety constitutes a nuisance um
uh 25% of the ghost area dwelling units on a number of parking spaces above a two family um uh needs to be replaced the replacement of more than 25% of existing luminires intended to in the specific area um property with existing luminers
changes ownership for any reason um so there are things that trigger the transfer um prior to that 10-year period um I had a lot of I know I had a lot of questions when when it was presented um some were answered some were not i I am
concerned about holiday lighting i'm concerned about the the the string light definition um I'm concerned we're going to get a lot of phone calls when you know Christmas rolls around or Halloween rolls around of people complaining saying "I got they got string lights and
they're on or people just having lights on past midnight i know I I've heard from from quite a few people that said "So wait I can't have my lights on at night that that I feel like that's a safety issue." And the the proponent argument was well you're showing people
what you have but you're also showing people that they can be seen right um so I I know one of the issues we had um in our neighborhood was uh and it hasn't happened recently but it has happened in other neighborhoods are the not breakins but the going to cars and opening up
cars that have been unlocked and going through the cars and rifling through them um the lights if the lights are off that's perfect for them they go down the street they go to each one they empty them and they keep going lights are on they skip those houses um they see the cameras they skip those houses um
so in addition to the other costs associated with this it it concerns me the anticipated costs um Paul have you uh had any discussions with the building inspector about what this might look like as far as enforcement and training yeah he doesn't
have the training or or does he have the staff resources right who's going to enforce i got a I got a concern also on the safety with our municip municipal buildings the schools young kids you know I mean this is a lot dimmer these lights this is like this is specifically
to lower the amount of lights shining and I'm sorry but our children at the high school at these games you know they are going to whatever let's talk about games and the timing for the games that was one of my other concerns yeah but but I fundamentally like as a parent and
I I want these places well lit i don't want them under 2,000 lumens i'm sorry like and I'm sorry that you can't sky gaze and look at the stars because you know we live in Chelmssworth it's populated and you have that we live next
to a city so it's not going to change much anyway so and it's not overly lit i you know I drive through town at a lot at night i mean you know there there's lighting but it's you know it's not Las Vegas right i mean this I'm not I'm not a Chelsea is not Las
Vegas i mean I just don't see those who issue is really and then we want to have people like you know in the center of town going to restaurants stuff like that if you dim it and like it only come like it kind of defeats the purpose of trying to bring in people to come and you know go to our again I think this is
over i would be if it was commercial but not town or residential i'm not opposed to there being a review and update of the of the lighting by law i think it does warrant some updating yes it does and I know a lot of effort was put into this particular article and I recognize
that and I appreciate that but I I do think it's overreaching and I I am concerned about the unintended consequences and unintended costs and the and the and this and the timeline is just so like I don't I have the presentation i don't know if I I'm
in compliance or not myself and I don't want to know i don't have time for this i don't I don't mind knowing but I don't I don't you know but no but I like again right like you've got you know a lot of people out there who have both you know you mother and father both are working
have kids in the schools are trying to juggle everything and now you're going to give them something else i think that's quite frankly I think that's selfish like so I I have a different opinion on on some of these things like I totally agree the 10-year like horizon that's that's not enough and there's so many other things that are wrong with
this as it's constructed right so the no grandfathering um you know that is one particularly that bothers me yes overly prescriptive nature of this I like you know the pendulum was swung too far I think in the other direction went too too vague to way too specific and it's going to be really hard to comply and
and like just going to create more confusion than it's intended to um I personally you know you know there's a lot of people in town I think that probably have some sort of light sensitivity and they you know in the area that I live is like light as day i think we probably could cut 10% of our
street lights and save 10 you know 10 grand and we could save a bunch of other stuff we don't need that much light we really don't because there is science behind it and um if you've ever walked in a house at night and your eyes adjust to it it really is true and so whenever um there's a particular light that
shines through a window and it blinds me right can't see it right at night right and so I think if you are lucky and you live in an area where you're not affected by this probably don't care as much right your young eyes might but you know the cataract older people might not but
that's the point is like when you have a blinding light in your face that makes you even less likely to see that's the point i No I agree with you and I think you you hit the nail on the head it's it's it's overly prescriptive it's over it's too much it's too much which is why I like I would be in favor of this for
commercial because I think that's where we get like I in live in East Johnson which right on lol and right on the highway so I have a lot of light yeah um but and and that was kind of one of the things that like I when I spoke to him specifically I'm like listen I would
support something like this on a commercial because I think there's our opportunity to lower it and he was not willing to change it why are you um commercial why do you why are you not against it commercial because I think for because I think commercially I do
think like a lot of there isn't a lot of structure around how much light where to put it um how it should be facing a lot of our commercial like even on the stores I think Sam you had a problem with it was like kind of shining right in your backyard instead of shining down so putting these types being very
specific this is how we want it helps them be more it makes it easier for the developers i think that more guidance is for that particular issue i think even for the commercial there's too much right now but I I do think that that
guidance is a is as long as they have the guidance and it makes sense and they can implement it during the design phase i think that's Yeah I think I agree right um I I think there's a little bit too much still even on the commercial side but I I agree with what you're saying and that was like a compromise right like I was like if you want to
let's try it like that's where I was kind of leaning the only issue I have in the commercial end is I there are security issues sure that clearly in my mind I don't want them so restricted and that we we're sacrificing you know yeah
when I was asking about motion detector because I what I would prefer is not lights that are on all the time but someone lights on and do I if I care the scared the coyote I don't really care so there is there is the ability for I think you're talking about the motion
activated limit luminire it cause a nuisance but otherwise complies the bylaw permit as long as it output remains on for no more than 10 minutes it's not flicker and minally is not triggered by right of way traffic in any form oh my god um but right away traffic might be someone that's walking
yeah walking walking their dog you know i mean it also felt like there's a weaponization potential in the way it was like if you had disagreement with your neighbor you could come and lay fines like that just doesn't feel like it's well constructed and in the art and I believe the proponent proponents
argument in in in in well not argument but counterposition to that was that you could do that under the current article but it's not as clear-cut and it's definitely not as defined as it is uh here in this new proposed article but
yeah again I go back to the holiday light issue uh where they aren't defined in here um and there are string lights to find and there blinking lights to find and rotating lights to find and I got to say I decorate for Halloween and Christmas i got rotating I got blinking I got lights and I have them on on a
solar timer so they do shut off um Um timer a sol after uh six hours of being on or eight hours being on wherever you set it to they all shut off okay uh but the problem I see with this is that
I think string lights fall under this definition and I I I think uh the blinking rotating things like that falling underneath this underneath the current definition in this new proposed voting law and I think that's where you might see what some weaponization and a lot of work that has to be done to say "Oh no i don't think that really applies because it's holiday lighting because
it's not specifically fine in here." But wait it is it's string lights why can't we have it why are they on why are they doing this that's where I see like with that some weaponization some issues arising and you know the light wars become light wars any further discussion so do we going to
So the the motion on the table uh is is in favor of this article as written as written i am not favor i am not in favor of as written all right any further discussion hearing none all those in favor all those opposed
i I Any or abstensions abstain abstain okay so six six against one abstension I believe is a goal to be worked towards but not achievable by how was written oh jeez I got to go I stopped I started
from the beginning uh oh oh no article 30 um slide 8081 80 thank you 8081 yeah i gota I gotta get back to it play from not start here we go current slide i make a motion to recommend approval of
article 30 sorry 30 hold on 81 that's not It's not article 30 zoning bylaw amendment outdoor lighting uh that the town amend the town code chapter 195 zoning pertaining to outdoor lighting it
deletes the current section of the zoning by its entire refer to the general Yeah it's a companion article yep and the reason it was done is so it would apply to uh other other state facilities and things like that like national grid and things like that
I'll second it discussion hearing none all those in favor all those opposed i Any abstensions abstain six opposed one abstension i make a motion to recommend approval of
article 31 zoning bylaw amendment MBTA zoning techni technical corrections as written i second it discussion we changing the title just as a reminder the the title is being changed yes it just says uh
zoning by amendment technical corrections yeah as as the vice chair of the plan board explained when he was here um it was brought up during that process of submitting the MBTA zoning but that's that's I think that's why it was put
there initially wise move any discussion any further discussion hearing none all those in favor i Any or extensions hearing none seven in favor article 32 i make a motion to recommend approval of article 32 zoning bylaw
amendment flood plane district that the town amend the town code chapter 195 zoning bylaws article 15 floodplane district as follows as written
second it is written in the bylaw it discussion pretty straightforward yeah straightforward y any further discussion And it's written in written and written hearing none and written all those in
favor i any or abstensions hearing none uh seven in favor article [Music] 33 are we doing this i don't think we're doing this one oh it is on there easements ements for
electric oh yes that is there excuse me this is the easements of Okay i make a motion to recommend approval of article 33 easements for electric field vehicle charging stations the town grant easements for the installation of electric vehicle charging stations at
the town offices Adams Library Senior Center Roberts Field Westfire Station and Vinyl Square second discussion these are these are these grant stations yeah so okay but because we're putting national grid equipment on there we have
the grant the easement for it yeah the easement right okay will they charge um Tesla uh are these fast i'm going to skip over that one are are there are these fast charging locations
yes okay that's good that's really good and especially now that the town's fleet is including more electric vehicles and especially during the winter they need fast charging yes they do they do faster and more often yep so this is um we get a grant they just come and do it that's
it amazing yep okay any further discussion no so they're just give you're basically giving up parking spaces there now are the parking my one question would be about the charging stations do they now not be regular parking spaces
you have to be an electric car to as park there there is no prohibition under the law that requires you to not unless it's a private property and they're preventing you from doing it that prevents you from parking at a charging station however it's common courtesy that people typically don't park in those uh if there's a charging station available so there's nothing preventing
you from doing it currently like a handicap space would be um but generally people that don't have those don't park in those particular spots unless there are spots available i was at the library and the library was I was trying to
trying to avoid parking there and somebody was very cranky and like laid on the horn because I didn't make a decision and like was trying to find a regular parking spot so I didn't know whether it was a prohibition or it's just like they were just cranky huh they were just cranky yeah that person was just being Yeah
okay any further discussion hearing none all in favor i abstensions hearing none seven in favor article 34 i make a motion to recommend approval of article 34 street acceptance Woodbine Terrace as
written second discussion let's add to our chapter 90 mhm whenever we can absolutely sounds good okay hearing no further discussion all those in favor i
I abstensions hearing none seven in favor no needs or abstensions that brings us to the end of the warrant articles for our Springtown meeting except for the two we didn't vote on
which one didn't we vote on so let's discuss uh the re review of the reporting schedule so as as discussed previously um article two for the amendments to the budget which Darlene's currently working on the figures for that we should have uh soon um and then
the contracts under article six uh do you know how many how many contracts you anticipate there being uhus for at that point Paul no more than four could be as few as one or zero fair
enough yeah no more than four no more than four okay excellent Um so we'll keep our ears and eyes open on our on our email uh for that i think we anticipate probably the 17th of April that Thursday um and if the book is done
before that which I'd kind of like it to be done before that um let's check the date here so the 17th would become to talk about the two things we didn't vote on and the book would say here's our here's our book of of agreements and disagreements except for these two
things which we'll we either do that or we wait to the 17th and we make we we we quickly insert those two those two last articles and then the book goes to publish on the 18th uh the requirement for reporting to town meeting is different for a special town meeting as
an annual town meeting for special timing remember we had to have two weeks under the under the uh town chart we we we only need one week um and typically now it gets posted on the website uh so it goes posted right away and is available and then it also gets produced
uh by at the printer um Pam do you know if they got it the 18th what the turnaround time might look like for them what What day is the 18th it's a Friday friday yeah so we have we'd have a meeting on the 17th and then would hope
to I' I'd hope to if at that point just put in the two ways we voted because we'll pretty much be ready to go at that point and and is the Wednesday after that is when you have your Yeah I think they can do that okay then we'll probably we'll probably hold off on
publishing the book the book until Friday morning the 18th uh but we'll have everything ready to go except for those two articles um prior to that um we didn't have any opposing opinions i think we only had a few abstensions um
so I won't ask for any opposing opinions to be placed into the into the uh chair letter um so what I'll do is we'll get going on on on the letter itself um and then send it around for people to review and and if they want to add anything let me know uh the way we've done in the
past typically do it is is is circulate or if someone wants specifically to state something they can certainly send it ahead of time and I the reason why I don't I don't just place it in as written is because it changes the voice and sounds kind of funky when you do it that way so I'll put it in and I'll keep as close to what you're trying to say as
possible but it still flows within the within the letter itself um but uh so we'll aim for definitely prior 17th having the book almost ready to go except for those two uh articles article two and article six which would be pretty easy to add back in yeah so
you'll circulate the prior to that prior to that yeah exactly exactly um we have some we do have a little bit of time in there um that is the reporting schedule uh discuss plans for up upcoming meetings i
think we just did that i think the target is the 17th for article 2 and article 6 uh after that uh we typically unless there's an emergency that pops up or you know the last first 15 days of the fiscal year we don't typically have another meeting until end of August beginning of September um so this will
kind of except for town meeting of course um so uh that kind of ends ends our budget season that on the 17th um having said that uh any public
comment from our two town officers no all right i'll entertain a motion to adjurnn so moved second all those in favor I have a good night not bad