603 open the select board meeting as well Okay very good Um let me know when it goes when it's good to go Green light We're good Okay Um has everyone had a chance to look at the minutes from the
last meeting Motion to accept the meeting Do we have a second second Second Uh let's take a roll call on that Dan Yes I accept Yes Yes Paul Yes Cherry Yes Jud Yes Yes
Okay All right That's in Okay So now um let let's start with the agenda and uh we'll have Rick Rick Are you ready okay So um let's have Rick Martin here He's the superintendent of um
Technical School I just have to try to see if I can share my screen I'm sitting next to the experts that can help me out with this share And here we go I think
I'm sorry What thanks Yeah No that's great Hello everyone I'm Rick Martin I'm the school superintendent of Franklin County Technical School Um I'm here to present uh the assessments and the budget for the town of Bradley and give you a quick
overview Probably be about a 12m minute type of presentation Would that be okay that'd be fun All right Um your the budget book that you have in front of you and the one that's here um it would probably be easier um if you were sent
to it via electronically because everything in it is linked to everything else So it's just easier to navigate So when we look at the um the table of contents here um everything should be clickable I just go to the sources of
funding and I'll click there Uh that takes some explanation We're right here Here we go Um so basically this is a major part of the whole budget is this one screen It's a 50page budget but this will kind of guide us through where
we're currently at as it pertains to weight When I look at the town um per pupil expenditures and I scroll down to the highlighted version here for Wley you'll see at the far right hand column is your
$18,448 per pupil Now that is a state guided formula and they kind of go through the town of Wheatley and they look at your your real estate your property tax your relative income and they come up with a formula
of what they believe you can afford This is what's wrong with the forming because what they're telling us at Frank County Tech School is the town of Wheatley can afford the same amount per pupil as Welsley Whan Western Dover Shervin Lexing Conquered and the wealthiest
towns in the northeast part of America That's what they're telling us So there's something wrong with a formula that does something like that to talk to small rural towns in which we live So I have a little issue as you can tell with
the state which they assess towns at Um having said that you can see under the yellow you'll see the various years we had 13 in um October 21 from Weightley then it went up to 22 then to 18 this
year we are assessing at 14 So that will correlate You'll wonder why the assessment for the towns are going down It's all based on enrollment All right So next year I like to always project what it's going to be like Right now we have five seniors that will be
graduating from RA and we have four applications So we might be down one for next year or close to the same if we get a late applicant But pretty safe to say we'll be right in that range I don't see it going up really too much at all for next year
If anything it might even go down depending on how that all works out So that's how that gives you an idea of the average per pupil cost for all 19 member towns is the bottom number there the 12,484 And what's kind of telling about
that number is when I started at Franklin County Tech 17 years ago our prayer people expenditure was 13,100 on average So what happened what happened is you know we went through our es and flows of growth but we've been
growing and the um enrollment declined in some of the other areas So what they recalculate the formula and they're kind of taking our growth and spreading it out So it's keeping the cost down
overall for the town of um Franklin County Tech Uh I mean for all the towns that are members of Franklin County Tech So when you're navigating this I think I'm on page 48 What page i'm on page 48 of this Rick just a quick question We
don't have that No we only go up to 38 Yeah 39 We did not print the whole packets for you guys They were large packets Um so sorry Okay So we'll just have to go My question is
did you say that when you started it was $13,100 per pupil on average on average correct and right now we're at 12,000 12,489 And that was accomplished by spreading costs over a wider group Well that's
what the state tells us because we're trying to still find all of these answers They don't really tell you what that real formula is and how they assess each of our towns They don't want us to battle with the eastern part of the state which runs downtown Boston Okay So it's um but we're trying to you know
figure it out We haven't been in hold harmless so that except for a few years here and there and um that helps as well Um so the sources of funding this is page 48 So I'm going to just kind of
scroll to our overall enrollment so you get an idea where we are from an enrollment perspective Here we are in 2000 October 1 2024 591 We are projecting 603 based on the
number of graduates and the number of students coming in Our graduating class we've been averaging about 180 coming through Our graduating classes next year will probably be around 150ish and we're gonna probably bring in like 175 180ish
Um and that would raise the um enrollment to about 603 by next year projection I always do that year out so I can get an idea where we're at You can see the trend over the last number of years and we had a low back in
2016 of 437 and um and now with that why is that accounted for well there's a lot of things that we heard from the towns especially towns bordering Smith vocational school like Waveley having I
remember a number of years ago you were sending a student over $50,000 a year to Smith Oakland animal science program and you're saying why don't we do something So what we did in this time frame is we started an animal science program and we have a veterary clinic that we built
without having to go out to the towns for that So we um our kids can work That does help Um so we built a 4,800 foot veterary um science center in a clinic We started an animal science program So now we're seeing less of those expensive
outliers that are going out to our member towns Um which is helpful because right now I think the out of district tuition for some of those other towns is in the 30s and then you got to pay on the 30s for transportation So it gets real expensive as opposed to the 18,800
that you currently pay So yes What do you think your cap is for the old before you have to start adding a lot of staff and square footage and all that stuff are you cap we I think by next year we'll be right about there which is what
our probably be right around 645 650 That's about the limit That's about the limit All right So we'll be you know we'll be bucking up against that limit which then we have a building that requires significant repairs So
what happened we almost shut down for months on end last year because we have old Federal Pacific switch gear which if one of those 11 or 12 go out they have to rebuild a new one because they don't make those anymore And that's a couple
of months out and we would be without power So we would have to shut down those switch gears been tripping and scaring us So we went out and had one refurbished at a cost about hundred something,000 Wouldn't you know it it
got delivered two weeks later The the things switched out and we were without power but it only lasted 24 hours because we had a backup right there So what did that cause us to do right go out and buy other backups because I got 11 more that could go in any time now
Um so that's when we get to that you know that capital stabilization fund and what have you Um we we were in a situation where we have the same things the plumbing and whatever So the beautiful outside of the building but the internal part of it is costing us
and the taxpayers a lot of money to just keep it going Um with that said we did qualify for the MSBA building fund what that's going to look like will be revealed probably next year or two Um I would hope to come here next year and tell you what they got
narrowed down to It would either be a refurbished of the current facility or refurbished with an addition or a brand new core building Again the design we're in the design phase right now Um so we're not fully going to realize that for you know the rest of this year and
into next year Okay And so that's where we are coming down the road So when you navigate this book there are two tops of the each page table of contents or sources of funding But if you want to go right to the sources of funding that's probably a better place to
go That takes you right back to here Um the debt service is that that windows doors paving and boot project we did about nine years ago And we're going to that's explained So each of these clicks will take you to a paragraph that
explains what it is So I think that's important as well Um and then I go down here to the chart individual breakdown when I put down the weight So weightly is annually assessed at 6,323 based on the equalized valuation
method which is reassessed every two years It just got recently reassessed That fluctuates on any given year a few hundred months So it doesn't go up dramatically or downatically It just kind of fluctuates based on that equalized valuation formula
And so that would be the assessment on the capital end of things and that would be on page 39 So I don't know if you got to 36 right that just Sorry guys No problem Okay Question for you Yeah When does the debt service
settle out it settled down in six years Um so we're in year nine So depending how things go with a building project it might settle up by the time we're ready to renovate or do whatever we need to do at a Franklin County Tech
Um going back to the sources of funding chapter 70 you probably heard a little bit about this throughout the school presentations It's it's been very difficult the last several years As you can see our trend from 2022 we are at 4 point almost
4.8 million Then it jumped almost 600,000 Then it jumped almost 500,000 Then it jumped a few dollars and then a few more dollars next few years Why is that our enrollment continue to go up We had
um between this year and this year there were I believe 11 more students and between this year and this year there were 19 more students So we were yet we're not in old harmless What they did is put
us into holds even with enrollment group That's the first time our our business manager Russ Cobas who's been with the district for 29 years ever saw something like that Um Russ is retiring at the end of this year Our new business manager is
right in the back Liz Bushad And um and so she'll be joining us as we move through the future Um so we really were struggling with this Department of Education Chevy How they reconfigured
the formula because you were now getting handicapped if you're enrollment group It was almost like no way out If your what I'm sorry if your enrollment increased the previous year we got nailed on that
Um and now I go to the Chevy sheet If you're not familiar with it this is a great tool to use You can use this budget book to figure out your own schools and all that stuff because it's a great tool to use when you can't sleep at night you know because um believe me it puts me the department
of educ But if you wanted to just have a quick lesson 20 second lesson how to get to your towns you go down here to this you click on the link it bring you to an external link and that external link is with the department of revenue Then you
click to all regional schools You can scroll down to Frontier or wherever else you want to go Do you want to go to Franklin County Tech i'm going to submit And so the numbers I just showed you for the last two years are showing up right here Chapter 7 It's nice and refreshing to know that where we're putting our
numbers You can go to any one of our numbers and find an external link for it for where we are And so that gives you an idea Regional transportation Here's another hit that we get right here This was a fee this year It ticked up a
little bit but we got more kids more buses So we really took a hit on that And that's they're asking the towns to pick up And one of the talking points you're going to hear is that they're reimbursed from regional transportation 95% Let me make this perfectly clear
they are not That's a talking point We did the calculations they have reimbursed us 82% Because if we look at our total budget we're at 1 point just about $1.3 million for vehicle transportation Well they given us $883,000 You can do the math It's not
close to 95% So that's another thing Plus they made a determination in their you know way back when um rural aid you know for example Frontier High
School gets hundred something,000 for a We have kids from all 19 member towns who receive rural aid Those kids we have a brother that goes to a regional school district Their sister comes to our school One kid's counted as rural aid
and the other isn't because vocational tech schools they're not allowing the rural tech school yet We've been fighting this with the legislative but the rural tech schools to receive rural aid That significantly impacts what we're doing here today have to pick up the difference So we're
we're kind of hoping that that will change down the road Um so that's our cherry sheet Okay And now I look at the transportation we just went over non-member towns Uh we utilizing 35
students That's we able to utilize about 765,000 of that They they paid a significant high tuition rate you know they're you know probably averaging over $25,000 per pupil um because they're not
a member That makes a big difference Our tuition from our pre-employment program our self-contained program we had a few more students so we used 50,000 there Other revenues you know we can continually swap out old equipment with new That's surplus equipment kind of
goes into that line item and the excess and deficiency which is your town's free cap um from the previous year we are we are certified at 657,206 but that stuff just pulled out of the hat so I click on the excess and deficiencies it explains what it is in
the budget book when you scroll down to the bottom you click it on you get the department of revenue sheet here you go down to Franklin County technical schools You click that and you click 2025 You do preview So that 657 should
show Here it is right down in this column here So the 657206 that's how we get our access and deficiency number fun So um that's helping offset next year's assessment So that's a good thing for
the topics in that sense Question Yeah The sources of funding don't tie out to the uses of funding Is that just a We're getting to That's the next B So the uses of funding is how we spend our money I know but they don't not as
it's 140,000 higher than the sources of funding Um the budget book 25 figure that out Yeah the the budget book I have in front of me is 16.168 million193 I'm sorry I was asked about 25
Um 25 might just be a mean last probably something Yeah Yeah Probably Yeah Um well could pick up and then no one's picked up on that in the last 15 times So good job rocks Yeah Yeah Because everything else
seems to be balancing that one You're right Right Um that might go down to how we spend the money and then that kind of concludes the presentation District leadership administration right here went up contractually probably about 30 about
$20,000 instructional services more students more teachers So that's where we are here You see the previous year we didn't really grow much there but this year we needed to add we were getting overcrowded in key areas so we added an
electrical instructor a carpentry instructor welding instructor those kind of things and it um most we're an HR industry so most of our um budget's going to be tied up with instructional services Quick question
Yeah Uh regarding your instructional services um have you decided on a um salary point in the negotiations for instructors at school yes we we renegotiated I mean we did the
negotiations last year so we got a three-year contract at about 3% Three Per year Well for the 3% approved um and the instructional salary went up because we started a new aviation program It's an aviation maintenance
technician program to give kids the hands-on skills they need to fix big jet liners and small airplanes and all that stuff down the road which is great employment opportunity for them We just um we got that without going out to our towns for any money because we write
competitive grants and we were able to pull in you know $4.5 million in that vicinity to be able to build a 12,000 square foot hanger We have about six aircraft We have a couple million dollars worth of training tools as well So that's a good program When you build
the programs tends to kind of keep kids interested Then we have uh student services pupil personnel I mean here's that number I was telling you about about the read on transportation That's how much we're paying out 1.279 but
we're getting reimbured 82,000 Plant operation and maintenance has gone up We need to hire another person We have two new out buildings we didn't have a year ago We have the aviation building We have the veterary science building So two new facilities
that need um that need considerable work Uh retirement contributions Here's a big hit to the salary You've all heard this right um the New Hampshire um trust here insurance trust went up
200,000 We don't have 18 to 20% Yeah So you probably heard that line And um that was an expense we couldn't have budgeted for we just it just kind of hit us and that affect other insuranceances along the way They have all gone up The last
thing I want to point you to that's kind of major was the last several years um we we had the extinction of our seaman's project which had 13 roof drop units and new boiler systems for $5 million way
back and that expired a couple years back So we rolled that money over for the capital stabilization so we wouldn't have to go out to bond earn $ 1.5 to$2 million to our towns for a feasibility study guided by the MSBA So we were able
to pay that off through that So now we don't need that kind of money but that 238,000 the more we talk about the switch and the plumbing and some of those issues that's going to go right away So that's probably going to go pretty quickly with some of the issues that we have internally Sure
Um and that's pretty much you know the Just another quick question for you Leave this school of choice tuition $18,000 right across the board Um is that saying that you take students from
outside Franklin County um and does that represent those students and they pay you $5,000 like they pay frontier No So here's how that works Uh we vote no to school choice Um what that
money is is students on the fringe of our member towns such as Orange or New Salem that are going to a vocational program that we don't offer at Bonny Tech Okay Right It's going So it goes
out to Bonny Tech So we pay the we have one student going out So that's a 6,54 the other years we probably had three or four or what have you Right Okay Um and that's how that works Very good So we have a um that's how we use Now there's
a lot of information in this budget It explains everything Um there's a few hundred probably you know hundreds of um all our grants how we spent it all How we spent all our rest of grants Everything that we spent it on is in this budget how we spend our um
entitlement grants Uh title one title two title three title four is in the budget There's our ESSA money and our competitive grants Since 2014 you'll see here this is money that a lot of the schools don't have access to but since
2014 our competitive grants came up at 9.1 million that I just want to we're coming to a point here from a time perspective and I just want to say that you guys have a
terrific program and um obviously we support them Uh but to sort of you know bring it into focus a little bitly we have about 14 students Yeah Um those students are costing
somewhere in the range of $18,000 per student Yeah And um it's in the budget I'm sure it'll move forward Um and um I want to thank
you for a very comprehensive and I know that you could offer more to us Uh but is there one thing that you'd like to say before um before you wrap in regards to the school and the town sure Um the
last thing I would close with is is if you look at this chart in front of you it's points to Franklin County Tech compared to all the other vocational schools in the entire state And it says that our kids are out to work in their chosen field at a higher rate than every other vocational school So we're holding
true to our mission We're not Frontier does an unbelievable job at preparing their kids for the college ranks and what have you We like kids to stay and go to Frontier but if they have hands-on experience then we're just an offshoot of what they are but Frontier might be
the best in the county when it comes to college prep and um their academics are outstanding So we're not that This is what we do and you do it well So thank you very are there any
questions uh for Rick regarding the program i I just want to point out I have one additional students as apprentice right now Good job Oh good Fantastic Very good Thank you Thank you Great Thanks Thank you I got to close up
Take out the parking lots How about I get out of here now i got to get out my sweet [Music] Library Hello I heard the library Cindy Hello Hi Jess
Are you ready for me almost Okay Let me know when you're ready One second You know Bob's here right yes So um talk about the capital issues Um
we have your um line item budget in front of us Um why don't you give us an overview as to where you see the ups and um where where you see the increases and why um and then we'll open it up to
questions from the group and go ahead Did did you get my notes that I sent over earlier yes we did Okay So mostly where I'm asking for increases are rates increases
involving our utilities such as Eversource I'm sure most of you have noticed on your home bills that the delivery fee um charges have increased and our last three utility bills with Eversource have been over $1,000 a month
So I asked for a $1,000 increase to our electricity so that we have enough to cover our light bill for the entire fiscal year Um our building is now 74 years old and we don't know what could
potentially happen So I did ask for an additional $500 to help cover maintenance costs that might arrive during the fiscal year Um I received an email from CW Mars There are online circulation system that we use and our
assessment has gone up fromundred $1,712 to $1,960 So I've asked for $180 increase there every year even though we're a municipal building with a
business account with Comcast they still increase our rate So I did ask for an additional $1,199 to cover the Comcast rate increase So that brings that up to
$3,400 We have every two years we have the lift inspection in the library And because we have an actual smoke detector inside the lift um shell or whatever you shaft we have to have an actual technician from the
fire equipment incorporated company come with his special plunger to push on the fire alarm to make sure it works in front of the lift inspector So that costs an ext that we're basically charged for service call So that's an
extra $1,000 added to our lift inspection budget to cover having the technician present at the time of our inspection And then in order to be a certified public library in Massachusetts we need
to spend 20% of our total municipal budget on collection development which is buying items for the library books DVDs audiobooks periodicals So that has increased from $14,969 to
$15,758 which reflects the 20% required to spend Can you explain what webberry is oh Weber That's an online um subscription service that we use that our patrons subscribe to And what it is
is you get a weekly email sent to your inbox letting you know what new items have been added to our collection for that week And from that you can go right into click on which if there's a particular item you're interested in you can click on that item and go it will
take you right to your CW Mars account and you can place a hold on that item directly that way instead of having to call us or email us or sign into your CW Mars account Um a different way to put a
hold on an item Go back to Comcast please I'm sorry what looking at the uh the Comcast increase could you talk about that just a little bit more why it's gone up so substantially it every January it seems to go up about $30 And
I'm not understanding why because I call them and they insist it's the lowest rate possible that we can have given the fact that we're a business account and a for a municipal building right this is $100 a month
Oh that might have been my math error then I'm sorry Yes I can get the correct numbers to you tomorrow So it be more like $800 Yes
$800 savings Yes I'm very sorry about that I'll fix my math and get the correct figures to you tomorrow Very good Any other questions on the um line items she has them here Yes You got to
go over programming Uh oh So yeah So we have had several programs over the past year We have coordinated with Amy Batisti from the CFCE um family union 38 network and every Monday morning unless
it's a holiday we have Janet Ryan come and she does a morning music and movement program for preschoolers and their family that's quite successful On average we have between 20 to 30 families and it's great to have um that
that energy in the library we were able to secure a grant with the um through the Wheatley Cultural Council So we were able to have Julie Staponic come and do a ukulele day where she taught all ages how to play the ukulele And we also had
Ed the Wizard come to do his pirate program We have we had Tim Guy history teacher at Frontier come and do two programs for us One about Martin Luther King Jr and one about the history of what is
Junth Um Bad News Jazz and Blues Orchestra got their own cultural council grant but they had their concert at the library We sponsored a concert with Ray Mason and TJ and the peepers Meg Thatcher who's an astronomy teacher from Smith College came and
talked about the autumn sky Cat now came to do a breath body and sound workshop which is part of our summer reading which was read renew repeat Um we also had Peter the box turtle come from the National Ottabon
Society which is really exciting and local authors Jim Armenti and Dave Mataloon came and did a reading of their book Sun on the Muddy And then we had mass caporia come which was a Brazilian
uh African jiujitsu type of um they taught us how to do African jiu-jitsu martial arts And we had a to Oh sorry Go ahead No no go ahead finish out and then Oh we had a total of
3,623 patrons visit our library during the year and we circulated 9,737 items Through the interl loading program we learned out more items 2,281 items as opposed to receiving
1,550 items through inter library loan which means that our patrons were able to find the library items they were looking for in their home library of lately And we were able to help other patrons from other libraries find the items they were looking for Our current
total um collection is 10,520 items We have 493 uh registered patrons And just this past May we completed a new 5-year strategic plan which was approved by the Mouse
Board of Library Commissioners in Boston So it's on file in Boston It's on our website and it's on file in the office at the library Very good Um just um very quickly when you look at your
visits when you look at all the data points that you have in there would you say it's up flat head and down what would No it it's trending up Okay great That's great Then a um just the programming loan who who gets on the
phone and makes all of that happen that would be me Sometimes it's emails too All right that's good Uh and just a a quick question Uh Mr Jim Amenti the author is that the same Jim Amenti from
the Lonesome Brothers with Dave Ray Mason yes it is Apples All right Good All right I am Yep I was looking at the uh the
town town building operations and we spent $2,000 for the lift inspection and that's the same It's comparable Still hung up on the water The water I know it's the right hand pay left hand Yeah But at the right here we're paying $750
for water and the library pay 100 bucks That's beyond my pay grade to go Yeah they do No I'm saying that they're charging us a minimum of $750 for this building but the library makes
100 heck of a lot more here Here Well I don't know They flush the toilet six times a day There's no showers there's no laundry there's no um irrigation Well one will be
We don't have um the enterprise fund on the schedule April 1st April 1st Okay So save that for the next meeting Yeah And then we'll we'll be able to I know it's the right hand left but now we got
to find your order We pay Don't forget the library is only open What the library is not open They said they said it was a flat fee the building Oh
why we're paying JD did you say the lift inspection is redundant no I'm saying that it's the same price Yeah On GG12 we pay 2,000 library,000 So it's comparable Okay Is I have
question on your programming and all that looks great Is there any opportunity during school vacations and during the summer to increase uh activities for the weight kids yes
we're I'm working with Erica on coming up with an Earth Day program in April which would be during April vacation And then our summer reading theme this year is level up at your library So it's STEM um background related So there's a lot
of fun activities and programming that I'm going I have that I'm planning around that Is that throughout the summer yes Is there any coordination with Mrs King at the elementary school library about
continuation well I I tried to reach out to her but very rarely do I ever get a response We really have Okay Mrs K Mrs That doesn't sound right I keep I'll
keep trying Yep Okay Um possibly um you should try to contact her through email and then you should CC everybody on Earth when you do that and
and and possibly you might get a reaction Um okay That would be my advice All right I'll keep that in mind for next time I reach out to her What about superintendent of
school principal Yeah Right Well that's what that's what I mean Yeah You kind of run it up the ladder so to speak and put the principal on there and put the superintendent of schools on there and then Exactly And then when you don't hear it once you say then when you get
back to you know request number two request number 24 and then you know something usually happens Okay Good All right Any other are there questions
anybody else no No All right Thank you very much Thank you very much Great job Thank you All right Are we talking about the capital issues of library bob Bob is here for capital
Um while we're on the library when we stay on the library and go to the capitals um requests on the library and thinking downstairs sheet
right this sheet you should have 14K Okay All right Bob do you want to originally originally as I spoke to you before we on apply for two capital improvements on
grants or whatever you wish to call them We're withdrawing the first one Um we voted unanimously to do so Which is the first the first one is the one for the testing 7,000 What the survey Oh sorry The survey Yeah
of the of the bird as far as that one's being with 6900 Can I ask you a question given what happened at the elementary school with uh air quality issues being pushed off year after year Can you tell me tell us why well I think
that we were frightened off by the um capital improvements committee because uh what we were trying to do is do a comprehensive study of all of those things and then the question was asked to us well what happens if they find asbestos and what happens if they find x
y and z immediately Then we would have to act to do that rather than do it that way Each time we do a project we wanted to do it on a sort of cafeteria menu basis that if we're going to paint the
downstairs we'll do all the testing for the downstairs when we're going to paint the downstairs Um if we're going to paint in the the rotunda ceiling we'll do the testing for when we are going to do the rotunda ceiling Currently we have
no air quality issues at this time We do have we did have water in person in the basement in the due to community room three summers ago when it rained like every day forever Y um and what happened was the the wall underneath one of the
windows has has bubbled out and begun to crack and therefore what's beneath it has been exposed and when we decided to paint the room we obviously knew that we were going to have to do something about flattening that or whatever So the question has always been in the back of
our minds with a 74 year old building was lead paint originally used etc So we tried to find certified painters who are certified in lead analysis and we found only one and he came and did an analysis and his
on-site analysis was that there wasn't lead but um we told him to to wait on sending his those samples to a bigger analysis firm until we could figure out what we were going
to do about the whether we're going to do a whole building analysis or do a menu step-by-step thing And then ultimately he came back with that and made the assumption that there's lead So the high-end cost would be what you see in front of you the $14,000 because we
would have to encapsulate that room and follow all the procedures for lead because his explanation was that they're going to have to dig down into that wall until they hit material that is solid again and then build it back out and then put the plaster over it again and
then paint the room It's a fairly large spot and it's begun to crack So so we we presented you with his um analysis and there are very few certified lead people out there We did look around
Bob Bob did Bob Clinger did a a tremendous job trying to find others and um there were even some that were you know would just come in and do it and paint it and we're like no no no no wait we can't do that So so that's
why that seems like a a very high number for painting the downstairs But I think then we will know that downstairs because they will analyze at that point They'll analyze the bookshelves and everything else that's downstairs We'll know what we have downstairs and that
room will be taken care of So that'll be one floor that's done And then we know that we don't have a situation wherever the lift is because that's just been done We had an asbestous thing when we were doing it that was remediated and so at least that part of the building So we
would have the children's room the adult stacks and the rotunda left to analyze We don't have mold on books We don't have mold on uh shelves or anything like that So we're assuming that we're okay there We also have um no reports from
the staff of any health issues in terms of respiratory illness or anything like that So um and that includes the the uh custodian and the three people that work there all the time And we have no um u
reports from patrons either So that's that's our concern And we think that maybe doing it with this what seems to be a peacemail approach is a smarter way to approach it than finding out we have all of these things at and we have to
How much would the painting go down if he doesn't have to do any what would be the price of paint well I don't that's the point that we have to continue our discussions with him to find out if indeed after he does the tests and sends it to his lab So you still want the
14,000 to Well that's the high end and that painting and check it for lead Correct That's the abatement too That say he's not going to check for lead just the painting What's the high end we're not going to be able to paint the room without
checking for lead because the fact is something checking the whole building for lead You will I'm not sure exactly what you're asking If if you want a survey analysis of the library building for We're not doing that
They're not going to do that at all No Okay Does this include the abatement of that too they're saying if they find if they're going to test it if they didn't fix it 100% And the enclosure of that room had to be we had to allow for
access to the kitchen and access to the bathrooms and access to the lift so that people could come around So that has to be built to encapsulate the room without blocking off this the other services otherwise we have to close the library for an indefinite amount of time So it's
actually pretty reasonable Good when they when they deal with a lead painting of that room are they going to encapsulate all the surface areas of the room with lead paint i guess we're going to have to find out what they what they find his as I said his initial you know they have a testing and if it doesn't
turn if it stays yellow and doesn't turn red right and all of them remained yellow but he always wanted the backup of having the lab tested But at that point we were like what are we going to do let's take a breather here and figure out the path we're going to take at
least do the floor get one floor set Yeah And then move on up During a residential setting um it's okay to like button paint a wall It's a surface that a child can like eat or ingest or chips and stuff like that And then it depends on primarily
the windows which and I don't know what the setting is for the children's area but if you know you have lead paint in the basement might at least work on the kids area No like I mean like in terms building all new windows much higher than you know Paul's house
Correct Yeah There's all new windows Right Want to own kits to get your feet on the ground and find out if we possibly have the um the state doesn't I understand that part but let's try it just yourself so you know what you're
stepping into and asking for We have to I went through lead training You have to assume that any building over 1978 has correct You have to assume that this is the law And this is 194950 So you have to assume that has it Yeah Unless proven
otherwise You're you're proving that it doesn't have it Correct Otherwise you have to assume you have to protect it as if it doesn't have it Yeah Right Where you have to be careful in the walls is if you sand anything completely airable True Right The other exposure would be as speestous if that
becomes fryable Yeah Can't really see the fires But if it's fryable in a public building you don't want to be in that plaster Could be in a plaster And again if you don't disturb it you're see I think that the current board of trustees we find ourselves with a 74
year old building and we know that it needs work How do we do this a piece at a time so that we can have some sort of reasonable control of cost right and and maintain safety for the public and for the people who work there And this was
the solution that we agreed that we would ask for to begin with I commend you on this You were a lot of time and we know you know you you took a look at the cost for the electricity A lot of that has to do with the fact that we rely more on the um mini splits than on the boiler because we know that the
boiler is a 1982 model Y and it's approaching the end of its life And as we look at all the piping around the boiler it is all encapsulated piping which one thing Yeah And that is when you go to rip it out it's going to be an aspect situation because you're going to
um break through the Is any of it disturbed at this point or is it No it's pretty tight It's it's Yes That's good Yes we but we just looking at it because I used I worked in the old building at Frontier and I remember all the pipes were encapsulated and we knew what that
meant and then we paid $180 something,000 to have it before we could knock the building down We had to have all Bob um you'll be at the annual town meeting won't you unfortunately I have a track meet that day Honest to God Honest
to God And I Bob Clinger will be there All right And um and Bob's on top of all of this because he and I work very closely together on this All righty Any other further questions Bob and the uh library I I do have one Okay Got it
Been sitting on it Um so you said the wall the wall was bowing a little bit Is that structural no it's not structural It's not structural It's the It's the water got behind in the paint Yeah Behind the paint and it's bubbled out so that it looks
but it's it's not it's not structural I want I've been down there and look at it quite a bit with Bob Klinger and Bob Smith and u it's tough ground there Just a high water table and it's just the moisture in the ground just like it's forced in there and it's it's basically
there like a finger and to keep the water out That's what it is It just so much has just been slowly over the years working its way in But Keith has been great once we once we got it uh Keith agreed to get on like a a semi six month every six months go up there and clean out those
gutters because that's what originally caused it I mean there was there was compost in the gutter and it it well it had been there for so long and those gutters are are very well they're unusual to me because they're they're an architectural gutter which is like well
Yeah Not a simple better if I can suggest when Keith retires and the new whoever the new superintendent is you have a nice chat We have we we've already talked about that and we were wondering if if Keith was retiring retiring
retiring or just retired highway superintendent No because there's so much uh um knowledge that he has about the buildings themselves that his it's really hard to transfer that knowledge Yeah As far as tasks that he does Oh yeah Right And that's what that's what
we run into Institutional memory is one thing but if the board of trustees changes again and again and again that institutional memory at some point like none of us can tell you when the last time the downstairs was painted Yeah Because
that's several iterations of the board to go So we're trying to do the best we can because it's a beautiful building We want to keep it that way We don't want another old building that's falling apart Good job Thank you Thank you Okay Thank you very much
Good luck with the track meeting Thanks All righty Are we doing town hall no Cemetery Cemetery I didn't realize you involved a health person Right Yeah I think you
haven't seen Neil in the cemetery No No I only see him around the town hall I don't see him there Okay Let's um well let's get to Fran Forino He brought to help I know he's been chopping at the
bit there Um Fran are you there fran can you hear us i can hear you I'm eating dinner since you guys switched us around Um can you get somebody else in the meantime yeah we can Uh let's go to the cemetery because
He's live Okay Seven Give me that number again 73 There we go T3 Yep Yep Yep Yep Yep Yep So that should have escaped
You got it All righty Um so the challenges with presenting you a budget for the cemetery are twofold One is that the categories for town
budgets don't have anything to do with how we spend money for the cemetery which is mainly um equipment repairs and then mowing and trimming expense The
um there are separate accounts for selling plots Um that then approves to various reserve funds Um and when we have a grave open for a casket burial um we pass the
charges to a family Um the town for a while was having that done by a cemetery commissioner who had a back home and so the town set the fee for reimbursing a grave opening Um but since we're using
Richard to do that and he escalates his price year to year trying he says trying to get the weight cost matched with that field cost and other towns for which he does open
things um to have the town meeting vote a fee and then have Richie Bills another number didn't make sense So that's no longer in the schedule of fees um for the town So the family just pays
directly or they pay the town Well they pay the town that Richie tells us what the fee will be They pay the town The town pays Richie when he sends the building Um for the um burn burials the cemetery commissioners
u open the holes which are only 2 ft deep and they and they closed them up In 20 this is something since my sub submission our submission but I should say in 2015 the cemetery commissioners which I
was not one thought they had to raise the fee from $75 to $100 And you'll see on the cemetery website that that says the fee will be $100 It is not because Lynn sibly
informed the commissioners then that they couldn't raise the fee because it was on the schedule of town fees So whenever the annual suggestion of fees came through nobody told finance committee or anybody else to raise the
fees and the cemetery commissioners were not allowed to raise it on their own So if you will there is now a nearly 10-year-old request from the cemetery commissioners to raise the fee for earned burials Um yeah And the earned burial
fee no longer appears in what the finance committee presents to the town meeting So it's not quite clear is that we have to ask the select board to put forward a separate article to allow the
raising of the fee for earned burials Um we don't quite know what this next step is but the town record having voted a fee of $75 So are the earns backing up because No we're doing the work
regardless We'll have to look and see if it's a town meeting approval necessary or if the select board can do it Okay If you if you could let us know We we do fees on other things without town meeting So can likely do that You take a note to
look at that and see Um make a note of that please And that that is um that the family has build that amount They write a check to um the town the
commissioner or commissioners who handle the opening and closing of that earn bar fee and any additional work is build at the commissioner's sex hourly rate So we are
both commissioners who govern the cemetery policies and management and we are cemetery sensing and trimming and filling holes of sunken graves and so forth Mhm Um we
also do the light trimming around the cemeteries Um but when we have very threatening trees or don't pick them out soon enough and the trees fall um then we or Keith bring in heavy labor to
Yep remove those trees We had major work done in West Cemetery So there were charges for half dozen trees removed in the West Cemetery to get them away from where the burial headstones are and then to
rebuild part of what was then a destroyed road by the the heavy crews that came in just destroyed one of our roads and so Keith rebuild it sort of for the price of the of the gravel that was needed to to repave it So there
things like that come up we have to have to bring in a an arous to take care of something or do we have to bring in um someone to do road maintenance and it's hard to predict so it's all sits there in pot
and we think it's now about the right number I'll observe that though we sign out gas when we check out gas for the string trimmer and for the the mower in the last year's budget the
secretary commissioners were not built for the gas range Gas is generally built across the town not by department that there's a So use what you need right use what they need and
they'll keep track of it but they're not going to bill us That's nice Okay Yeah So the only thing we're really buying is is the oil for the gas oil mix in in the string turn and and
then stream string trimmer dies and we have to replace it or the when the mower dies we'll have to do something about that For a while Darcy we have our own trailer town has a cemetery trailer for the
mower but Darcy no longer has a truck with a trailer hitch So we have to get the highway department to the mower to the other two sites when needed and then pick it up when we're finished We have pickup trucks I know that So you
got to help them Got say this water department pickup truck has some inspection issues that nobody talks about We don't quite feel Well let's not talk about it We asked them to move while we're in the
trailer for um I just have a couple general comments I think you should charge more for earnsing them More than 100 My best friend is a a granddad and he gets three times what
you guys charge for burial He gives $300 for an earn burial for barrel That's ridiculous It's a private contractor It's a lot It's almost a community service graves because all of a sudden you get a call from the funeral director You have to
drop everything and be there the next morning to open the grave When's your schedule you have to open it back and back fill it It's It's a lot It's a lot Yeah In our in our soil we get those open in less than an hour Yeah Then we
wait around for the ceremony and then we close it up in half hour or less Yeah So it's not a lot of time um as a private contractor Private contractors would be paid more per hour than they're not at
our $178 an hour rate No but something still has to be on call to do it That's right Yeah And we're currently down with commissioner Mhm We we don't have to have the commissioners as the only sex
but we have not been able to recruit other people looking for hourly wage at 17 or so dollars an hour to do either mowing or manually sorts of things
that on a side point that I made in the memo Um this is not the place for it but you should just know that just about every other elected commission is um paid a sip
The cemetery commissioners are paid hourly for stoning work but nothing for commissioner work So when we do M map work or sales time we invest in those things is
uncompensated and we're not particularly asking but it is an anomaly in the town that compensation structure that this is one of the few elected groups as opposed to appointed that has no So
um right now the cemetery commissioners are paid based on what service on their hourly work for mowing trimming um pothole
filling and minor tree and trout trimming Okay So more of a labor it's a labor end of thing What we call the sex duties the sex piece Okay And your issue is that u as an elected
official they're not being paid um accordingly to that seems to be the practice for just about every other elective board panel Okay Is it and if it helps we could try to figure out what
our hourly investment is Yeah Yeah In those duties which is intermittent but adds up Did you take that to the personnel committee when the um when the review was done of all
employees we submitted a job description Mhm For the commissioners separate from the job description for the sections Okay Didn't hear back and you have a new level The reason is is the personnel
committee is reviewing the the survey study uh at the meeting this week Jerry Jerry's part of that where we received the draft but we had the consultant update that uh for additional info
Okay So it appears you're in the queue at this at this point So we will That's see what comes Have you looked at other towns other towns do it with similarly or not Town to town whose
paid varies so much it's hard to say I think for the section work equivalent What we don't have and we're not proposing at this stage is that we don't have a digital mapping system for
the subjects Oh it's all manual on very old maps where we write in names as we sell plots and we write in names as we use plots No maybe you put in a capital request for next year when we're ready with the
technical expertise to do GIS type of mapping But it is a problem of a different sort that over the history of the towns lots have been sold in large lots to
families and the families don't always use all of their spaces but they have the deed to them Yeah So they own them and we don't have a policy for reclaiming unused plots that families are not willing to state a continuing
interest in So if the family line dies out Yeah Then we've got spaces scattered around our cemeteries which are fairly crowded We have 5 to 8% expansion space in the
three cemeteries But there's at least that much more unused space that's been sold to somebody for which as far as we can tell there's no interest in using that we don't we'll think about that try
to bring you bring the town a proposal for what we do to reclaim fairly from people who bought plots decades ago right but reclaim that land for use for those who are looking for some has to be state law on that
subject of what how extensive that search has to be right to find descendants and so forth but we have checked and there is no way to expand
our boundaries of the cemeteries without having a new location or Right We can't expand the current locations Yeah There's a little bit wood lot on the
north end of the West Cemetery Right We could take down the trees and extend pull out all the stumps and Yeah gain some space there But in the other two they're absolutely landlocked by a
cliffside church Well it's like every everybody wants to be downtown you know but even you got agricultural preservation restrictions Yeah in the farm around the east and won't let
us take even 10 ft to expand to two sides of that unless the property owner who has the the conservation restriction puts an equivalent amount of
land under restriction and he doesn't have any that he can restrict Wow And it would take an act of the legislature to release the restriction on a little bit of that land and end our proposal Well Dan looks like you got your work
cut out for you And if you can find another volunteer to run for election we could use as a third Um anything regarding future expenses that we should
know other than um so we have two major items of equip small piece of equipment and a large mower right that could fail other than that we're we're in good shape and
that's why we have a reserve fund Okay Any other questions Neil regarding the cemetery uh thank you very much Much appreciated Thank you All right Cemetery Commission
done Okay Want to back to the board of health Granite have you finished eating yeah it was delicious Okay Okay We are moving to um
Health APH1 something that I didn't get you do Okay All right Okay Fran Um why don't you give us the uh the cliff notes of where the increases are and why and um let us know
how each going Okay Uh thanks Well we're PHE PH1 is a board of health basically stipend level funded You guys
can decide what that's you know um any questions Who's the stipen for uh board of health All right All right Yep And
PH2 is the Foothills Health District budget level funded request Um and we're still um sharing that individual
Yeah Several Yes Several Okay So that's just share Okay Yeah Um three right now Is that fully staffed pardon is it fully staffed we have the health agent we had assistant we had
secretary Do we still have that no it's not fully staffed In fact we're looking for um a health agent right now We'll be shortly looking to replace our public health nurse Is Mark leaving
mark is leaving Yeah And um Mike Archbald our public health nurse will be leaving also but has agreed to stay on until we get a new uh public health
nurse So you want want to go in order or can we jump to four which is pretty easy yes It's um basically this the request went up
because we had more participation from Weightley residents in the hazardous waste collection So with a a boost of it cost this year uh
$1,600 So I I put that in as our request people finally cleaning out some of their hazardous waste Yep Okay There's a revenue offset for that Uh no that that's a that's a very costly item This is this is done through the
Franklin County Solid Waste Management District This and it's open to residents They pay the the fees depending on what they bring And then it gets totaled up and we get this the bill for it
Okay Good Good Okay And speaking of Franklin County Solid Waste Management District that's PH5 here Got it This is uh I I guess there part of its cost of living and part of it
um a an increase in cost for um I think hauling and stuff like that So our portion is um an increase of $456
Yep Good Good Any questions on Okay No we're good friend Good Okay let me find uh the the big item Well the big transfer statement Yeah it's tough
because um I didn't get any figures till yesterday that I could put into this budget So basically we up the personnel a little bit I think we're
close to being at what we're going to be what was appropriated last year but I wanted a little cushion in there Um couple thousand more How many employees are now at the transfer station we have
bunch of part- timerrs What's a bunch of part- timerrs uh let me see Four Yeah And Okay And we we recently hired um a a
local resident a woman who will fill in for what we wanted to do is get enough people so we could allow Roger Huward our longest serving attendance to go on vacation So okay that's that Uh where's
the rest of it oh above So you can see uh let's see Oh I did Oh okay So I can't let me make this smaller so I can see it all
So the the the real costs well the the costs that aren't with personnel are obviously the hall costs and the tip fees mostly And
uh let's see where you can see I lost the headline here Okay there it is So we're requesting mostly level funding on most of the items that rev
that are hall or tip fees right the only one that has gone up is well not the only one but one that went up $75 is the trash holocaust And we're we
keep our fingers crossed that we meet this This is a new contract We haven't gotten it yet from Wickles We just barely got it got numbers to me yesterday So um that's probably going to be the
number for that Um everything else stayed pretty level funded The other increase there is 595 for recycling hauling Yeah the
same same situation All costs went up Um then there's a $15 increase for the item landfill inspections That's just what he's what we're being
charged And the biggest jump the $1,800 increase for maintenance site maintenance and rodent control It was as you can see only $600 we had put aside
for maintenance But we have rats We had so we um on the pretty strict um recommendation after a transfer station inspection from Jan I mean said
better get that taken care of So um we hired this um rodent control company for this year only and this is you know this some of this some of money is spent out of this fiscal year
because we started them in um February I think So might not be all this amount of money for next fiscal year but it'll be something like uh that 1,200 Mhm And
that is basically it Okay Um when you get fuel search charges is is that from Ah I I put that in didn't I yes
Yeah That is uh since I don't know three or four years probably the epid since the epidemic I don't know has anything to do with it but there was a spike
in diesel costs and that gets factored in This is just in general a calculation of what it came out to be last year And so I'm just putting it in It could be
more could be Yes probably more But I'm hopeful it's going to be around $1,300 Again that's it's it's in the contract Typically if diesel prices go above $3 and
something they add a percent on fuel search charge every all haulers Okay Do we have any questions for 2K on a swap shed
what's that there's 2K in here for the swap shed and composting And what determines that what is that the amount of money Yes Uh comp well most of it's compost Hauling Okay Hauling So yeah I
should put compost haul and smoke shed Yeah So we pay uh what do we pay 1,500 Not quite 2,000 um compost all So it's we're cutting it
close Yeah It's It's pretty close And we have this we're using the same uh compost hauler that elementary school is We got them back doing food waste composting which is good Just wanted to put that in there
They only they're charging us a little more than they're charging the school So I'm going to have a talk with them Yeah B what does the revenue side look like in terms of sales of stickers um
our I was getting some numbers from DAR last week and she projected it through the first six months and it's about 14 or 15,000 I 16 14 or 15 14 for the for six months
So with I'm just if you double it more or less we should be coming out near $30,000 Plus we get grants the U RDP
grant which is 6,000 something 500 And yes we're going to use that actually to offset some of the cost here I I should mention it We're gonna buy a uh recycling
container that Weightley will own going forward hopefully get rid of that the line item right there recycling container which is 900 a year but over
time it will be offset and the return on uh investment probably will be good at nine or 10 years So what's the uh what's the capital cost on that it's
about 7,800 to 8,400 depending on what tariff is happens to be in place on steel Have a maintenance contract on it
no but we we could do that We we don't have one either on that one or the container the trash uh the um yeah the other compactor that we own which is the the
paper compactor This is the paper container This line item here So that'll be a So that has a motor in it right yeah That'll this will go away This $900 in next fiscal year I just put it in I
don't know when the the container is going to be coming in but that's going to be taken out of RDP money that we have Um we have to spend it down We've heard from uh D
So that's that's on the horizon That time started at the capital Capital capital Yeah Have you submitted it this here yes No because it's not coming out of uh
capital expense the town capital expense It's coming out of a our RDP revolving fund What I was getting at before when I was asking about the revenue side obviously we the The revenue generated from people using it doesn't cover the cost but
percentage-wise no Our expenses versus revenues coming in is it growing like do we have to raise what we charge or are we keeping it the same i just What's the trend over a couple of years what's up to um I'd say we're leveling off it's been
down the last year and it's unclear and you know some of it's I mean we we've always been in a 30 to $40,000 income range so the last
year so but the trend has been down somewhat There are more barrel service options for some people who don't want to God knows why go down to the lovely town transfer station and meet their fellow residents but there are people
like that And um so I mean we're competing with private haulers obviously that provide barrel service to the town And so I don't know it fluctuates I think we have
the best pricing by far By far How much 8 to10 a week for barrel service Barrel service per second Yeah
Any um any thoughts about stickers stickers Ah the stickers residents We could do it Somebody has to administer it which will cost I mean what
somebody in the town offices will have to paying people here in the town offices so they that way there it might offset some of these costs because I can tell you I've been there and I have seen cars with hot
plates on them Now they may own somewhere They may own a place up in Vermont and also live here I can't tell you but I have seen Vermont plates and uh more than once So I you know who's
dumping in um you know we'd like to think that the attendants know everybody in town but they don't Um so they don't But we do have a residence book which we give to them and say okay anybody I mean now we have people that have grown up in
weight lived in weight and for the most part know the residents although can't know every resident people change So um if there's a question um we ask I don't know you know the the
at some point we you know we couldn't consider that the stickers I mean we have stickers for bags now I don't want to confuse them it would be some kind of you know just access sticker but you don't want to make it too ownorous because then you
have you're still competing Right if people say "Well now I have to drive down there and pay the sticker price just to be able to to go there." It's a balance Okay You know very
good Thank you very much But we keep it in mind obviously as Yeah Yeah Okay All righty That's a lot Any other questions got the capital request Yeah Oh
we have a capital expense Is this the uh old land oh okay Mhm What 16 Yeah Um I think Pete's going to handle this cuz we
you know the the problem is at the old landfill is obviously some leakage and though Fran Fran they're speaking to the compactor What your capital request for the compactor Oh that's what it is Yep Yep
That's what we're talking about Yep That's off the table I thought we did this Uh we did speak about it um during the conversation and I think we fledged it out Um right but now it's under priority
C So um that um obviously makes it lower on the uh on the import on the importance list than A or B And
um so that's 16,000 and you're saying it cost us 900 um a year for a rental unit correct and no those are two different things No no
One is the actual compactor unit the power unit The other is just the box that it pushes stuff into So that the 16,000 plus plus probably for a new one we were think you
know that's has a similar long relatively long uh return on investment and we thought maybe we could coax Wickls into selling us his the current compactor unit trash compactor unit for
uh you know cheap cuz it's been there for a while and he didn't want to do that So um we we said this is probably not worth it at this point We're paying a rental on
it 250 a month which does add up over time and I don't know when the time would be We should probably put it on the capital list but it's not an urgent thing You'd have a maintenance contract
cost on top of that if you buy the you make that capital Yeah of course If we owned it then we'd own the maintenance The rental unit now there's no maintenance costs covers that right
a lot closer to break here Yeah Okay So that request is withdrawn or well it's a C now So we just let it go and it'll expire Well maybe it'll return in the future
Okay But right now it's off the table right now I think you consider it withdrawn Okay Priority C we still consider but withdrawn we don't Yeah Because part of it is the consideration of is the transfer station going to be moved changed all that other stuff So
you know if there's things pending like that you don't put too much capital investment into something that may you know I don't know it'll just be moved Yeah that was a consideration
Yeah that landfill thing is requirement It's mandatory Yeah Discussion Yeah Yeah Okay Okay That's That's Is it Are you taking it up now or is No I think that's all set That's
That's all set Good Mhm Yeah we're good with that Um I think we're good uh with everything under your budget Um we have an explanation Uh we have questions that haven't been answered Are there any
further questions no Okay Fran thank you very much Sorry to interrupt your dinner but just let me know when you change your schedule I'll schedule dinner around it Okay All right Thanks Sorry Thank you No
problem All right Have a good night You too Bye Okay Um so we're moving now to um I see South County EMS on there That's Yeah Joshua Sparks Um okay So
Josh Yeah What's He's He's been on there for a while Okay Okay So um South County MSPS2 um nine Okay So we have um very
abbreviated South County EMS um line items Um actually long as it's down It's all right Down Okay Joshua how you doing i'm well thank
you Good evening everybody Wonderful Um this year we're requesting $134,389 It's a 6.6% decrease from last year's fiscal budget Uh this is in spite of a fairly substantive number of line
item changes uh that have gone in both directions I'm happy to discuss any individual line item that you have questions about The major changes that we've seen this year are expected ones uh salary and payrolls with cola and
step raises Uh we've seen a fairly dramatic increase in our health insurance contributions that we have to give uh which has really pushed that up We've also seen some changes with
retirement uh increases but other things like workers comp fees have gone down uh we've been able to lower operating expenses uh by some several thousand dollar Uh once again pouring through
each individual line item um there's movement in both directions but the overall operating expense number is a decrease Um the takeaways for earnings and
uh medical service fees are uh we have some uncertainty uh in the year to come with medical service fees Uh if you've watched the news uh
lately Medicaid and Medicare are pretty uh hot topics of discussion I think Medicaid being uh the more likely um scenario uh that accounts for just under 10% of
our ambulance service fee revenues Uh so these are the fees that we collect from insurers be them public or private um and in some cases through uh balance
bills or uninsured uh bills Um so these are exclusive of the assessments to the towns or other revenue streams So there is the potential for some decrease in federal funds reimbursed um to our
ambulance receipts and with that um we've increased the retained earnings to help offset um so that's up to $250,000 and uh I've decreased the expected revenue from 800,000 down to
750,000 um in this fiscal year We're currently on track to meet our $800,000 target from last year We're in a good place with that but uh we wanted to give some leverage in the budget
depending on what happens politically St Josh Yeah Yeah Do you have I don't have somebody else a line to this group Oh okay You're you're discussing line items that we don't have
in front of us So if we're staring blankly that's why Gotcha Well that's unacceptable Um Pete if I email this to you quickly can you share it or
Sure Jess maybe she can print it Pete's um host right now so he will be Yeah I can I can do it I accidentally uh chose co-host not host So all right I'm gonna fire this off right now Can you put it on paper i won't be able to
put that there Yeah Okay Maybe I can share it Oh I can't share Okay it's sent I saw it at a board oversight meeting but I don't have a copy I mean it's it's worth your perusal
There's some interesting changes uh to be sure So um just kind of continuing on and then once you have that in front of you we can go over specific questions Uh what this all allows us to do at the at the end of the day is uh set aside some
money for the future when we do need to replace an ambulance You'll recall that um all three towns have contributed monies towards the purchase of a new ambulance that we've yet to take delivery on The anticipated delivery of
that is spring of 2026 So it's typical in today's ambulance industry to see roughly 36 uh month turnaround time So we want to
get ahead of that So this leaves us with roughly $130,000 to put towards that That being said we're not requesting any uh capital purchases for fiscal year 26
So if you can see uh where it says um in the um operational no I'm looking for it um if you scroll down a little bit So we have revenue from service and retained earnings Um so this last year
we set our uh expectation at 800,000 Um that's great Um we're going down to 750 The reality is we may exceed that number but because there is that federal
funding uncertainty uh we wanted to bring it down And then we see that the um the assessments to each towns are below that Looking at the numbers uh
that each town does uh these numbers are still largely very accurate uh as far as the percent contributions by all three towns So that's good news And the weight
number is the uh third one there at 134 389 Josh I think last year we talked about um uncollectible debt and stuff written off and so forth Are we collecting four of them fast or is it publishing percentage
twice well actually uh I would say it's as it was if not greater Um and I do worry about that being an
issue in the future especially if uh federal reimbursements decrease Um that's going to be another discussion to have But most of the debt that um we are not able to collect on is from people who
have either deceased um it has gone past a statute of limitations Um in some cases our vendor that we use ComstStar is unable to bill
uh based on where um the the payer lives um they're only authorized to collect in certain states um which includes the greater New England area New York and such um and in some cases uh there's
bankruptcy involvement Uh some of it is write offs um hardship cases that we selectively uh review on a case-bycase basis I had one just this morning Um and then uh some of these are uh you
know those things But all of those added up uh what we do is we get a uh a very large spreadsheet from uh the billing agency every month And these are all accounts that have been sent into
collections um those are effectively what we write off The minute it goes to collections just so that we can square away the books we may still receive
uh revenue even after we've written it off That doesn't mean that they're not going to try and collect on it but it means that on our end we're not expecting to see it And honestly the return on any of those that do go into
collections is very low So once again there there's a lot of uncertainty People have a hard time paying bills and medical debt is one of those things that doesn't go to credit reporting that nobody's going to take their house or
their assets Uh so it tends to get paid last What What is the percentage of build versus collected is it in the 90s no we're No we're sitting on the mid 80s right now Has that been the trend
that's a nation I think that we're actually in a better place um than a lot of agencies nationwide Okay It's a fickle business There's nothing you can do about it
Uh well there is Uh we can always be jerks Um but we choose not to be Is your staffing level the same yeah we have 10 full-time employees right now
and um I have 12 PDM employees and then myself makes 23 the car is for that while they're taking care of I also adjust through the use of prediums rather than having the full time work
overtime you know one pop is sometimes inevitable but so far that's been uh Fred thank you for mentioning that uh so far I mean we're only a month into it uh but already we're seeing some difference Um we'll trend that over
um over the next year and we'll see how that has impacted um compensation Uh I'm hopeful that that can decrease overtime costs Time will tell
Say Joshua Um what uh what's your cola well the COLA is three and a half% and then on top of that we have step raises
um where employees go up a step every year until they max out at a certain point Uh nobody's beyond the midway point Um right now so did you increase the steps the steps also increase according to Yes
the steps increase according to the cola precisely So each step went up three three and a half% So each step uh went up three and a half% which means each employee going up a step is getting a roughly 5 and a half% raise Um myself
excluded The reason for that um is that we're starting to lag behind other employers in the area Uh which we don't want to be in that position if we want to retain our talent and if we need to
recruit more people What is the average hourly wage for a paramedic do they make an hour a full-time paramedic average is making $33 an hour A PDM basic EMT
um is making $23 an hour You can see salaries and wages right up there Okay We get a hard copy of this next meeting Yeah I believe Pete was sent it So I sure tomorrow that I'll remind them All
right Thank you All right I see steps All right Um very good So we're still protected right that's the idea right um at uh new and improved lower cost uh which is always good news Uh the plan is
to try and keep this sustainable This was the big issue I talked about last year So hopefully this is the trajectory we're on and uh we'll see how it goes So far so good Okay Thank you John Thank you
very much Thanks Josh Thank you everyone I appreciate your time Okay Um do we have a council of aging i believe Pete is going to be presenting that Yep Pete is that you that is me Yep Okay
It's actually CRS6 not three Um so CRS6 CRS6 good All right this should be a quick one There are only two general expense lines that are used uh by the
Council on Aging Community outreach event three of those and supplies for brochures postcards They are requesting level funding on both of those items Any questions no Aging okay well we're good Thank you very much
Um hey Pete I got a question Um yes Is it possible did you send out or is it possible to send out um revolving accounts
i didn't send it out but I can We What exactly are you asking for I guess well I would specifically like to see the uh the recreation commission's um um revolving account and to get a sense
of where their expenses were and um see what's going on So beyond just to clarify um so we get more specifics as to what you're looking for Is that beyond the information that Dara sent out that uh you get in your
budget to actual um that was that has been provided i just want to make sure I'm getting the right info Well or are you looking for a detailed accounting of the revolving account yeah I'm looking for a detailed accounting of
of that account Just the recreation revolving Yep Okay Any other questions for Pete thank you No thank you Okay good job Um any anyone have any other issues um
that they'd like to touch on South County Senior Center at all um that's been moved to next meeting right they need to Okay Thank you Come in to do that Yes Okay All right So next meeting is
all set Fe Yes April 1st will be uh the updated schedule Let's see I believe there's only four but let me just double check that police
highway water water and South County That's a gold Okay Yep Good Move to the select board meeting
Second in favor Move to adjourn the finance committee Make a motion rejourn Second All those in favor okay Done Thank you Good night everybody