##VIDEO ID:yNLnpiojSxg## I hereby call the session this regly scheduled meeting of the Sunland board and sundland finance committees the time is 6:33 p.m. all righty uh we are not going to be approving the minutes uh we will be approving those at our next meeting on 121 uh we're going to jump right into new business today so starting off with our police chief Eric uh we're going to be doing some budget requests and going over our FY 2500 whenever you're ready you color graph to show you something alls by don't worry about the side column it's just the bottom of the day of the time time of the day I mean just to give you a comparison this system that we have with the dispatch got updated in 2018 so this just showed don't worry about the the numbers on the side I couldn't get that to change but the time shows you that the red graph is 2024 so last year's in the green graph chure when the system was revamped in 2018 so you can see from 7 a.m. to 6: p.m. they're quite uh it's the bulk of our calls um but for the most part it then tapers off around uh one2 a.m. but that that is reflective of all types of calls from calls with service for police medical calls fire calls complaints about speeding or or investigations things of that nature so I guess I'll start off with um capital sensus I only put in one request this year uh and that was to upgrade the video system that we have at the public safety complex we purchased that eight years ago uh that system monitors all the cameras on the exterior and interior of the building which includes the jail celles the booking room the interview room things of that nature um when we came to the town ago to get that upgrade we were able to doce the existing most of the existing cameras so we save money with that a lot of those were analog some of the cameras have since gone and we've been able to replace them through other Capital expenses with IP based cameras um so that camera system allows us to record uh any booking for for prisoners to uh the like I said the exterior of the building uh we have an interview room for victims or suspects not at the same time uh that's how we would be able to record those and then turn them over to the DA's office so the last time they were in a company that hand the cameras they reminded us that the system was so the with the end of life of the cameras come that's why I'm bringing it forward with the uh the request uh the number I I put down here is a best guess it's an estimate that he gave me when he was last year I'm still waiting to get the quote from the company uh to determine uh how to we place that existing system but that's that's all we have I'm not coming to you asking for another Cruiser we did that last year uh so this year is just the the video system thankfully last year we were also able to update a lot of the maintenance of of the building some of the stuff that went on a bad we had a the Sally P was was plugged and wasn't draining um some of the other exterior door problems and cameras that we had to replace we're still in the middle of fixing that because that was approved last uh town meeting so we have until July to fix those uh this is completely separate this is for after July and this would be for the the dbr the video recorder itself the server um we're able to access that be able to pull the video get it to the DA's office for an victim Advocates or for the DA's office for uh M processing prisoners um and on the same time we're able to utilize that for any other claims that happen in or around the building so any accidents any slip and Falls things of that so that's that's in the capital expensive Police Department is request SH now you're saying that uh 14 145 is the estimate yes um how many cameras is that including you have a so we have um it's a it's a h project C so we have um I'm going to screw up the name of it I want want to call it a multiplexer but it's not a multiplexor there's u a box up in the ceil there's three boxes in the ceiling that have four camera ports going in or the ability to have four four camera ports and those are analog cameras that then go through that into the the system looking at replace because that is only allowed to have eight ports so out of those eight ports five are IP based and three go to that other box that's up in the ceiling that then disperses out analog cameras so right now I think we have 12 cameras M we're not looking to add anymore um this this current year where we're in now uh at town meeting last year we got our Capital expenses or Opa I can't remember which one but that paid for the upgrade of the radio camera because all those cameras were installed when The Bu was put in 20 years ago so we got life on a lot of these cameras um out of all the exterior cameras that we have I'd say with the replacement of this one we only have two more old ones all the other ones have been replaced every year uh as they were failing um the booking room camera had to be replaced uh the interview room had to be replaced uh the Sally board was part of the capital expense last year or this fiscal year so we have I think 12 or 13 cameras um right now and I think that's a pretty good fit with what we have we get almost 360 around the building and inside like I said it's uh jail sales interview room booking room um and the equipment room in the S board we don't have any on on the inside of the Fireside that what they were asked me for if they wanted cameras in the Sally board but they didn't want them so we didn't bother putting any in there um so the goal would be eventually to replace them with all IP based so the reason why that is potentially high is because you can either get an 8 16 or 32 chamical and we're looking at getting a 16 because eventually when we replace the other ones that are analog you have to have a port to plug them into right and so and that's why that gives a little bit of stainability yeah not much but just enough to get us by for the next hopefully 10 20 years gotta then you put down 10 years for the expected use that's okay well the camer should last for 10 20 years the DVR could last US 10 years eight years but when they came in this past year they were saying it's the end of life so if that fails yeah we have no yeah any questions from no anything from the finance sounds pretty important the day and living in that so what was the I didn't um the capital request is a you don't know the number yet you think it's about based on what he told me between 12 and 15 so on the 145 once I get the quote I'll be able to produce that to both ws and we're hoping it's going to be less but I'm not sure yet that request was made month and a half ago so I'm going have to follow back up and find out why we have got so just question on this that that was just to lead into eventually the budget that oh okay I was goingon to say because it just looks like your 6: a. time slot is increasing with call volume well yeah so I I chose I said to do the 2018 that's when the system was uh revamped and then last year so yeah the 6 a.m. a lot more traffic uh a lot more calls for service people either getting up earlier or the midnight midnight shift gets off at 7 so they're busier um but um the other days you can see s I'm sorry other times from 7:00 a.m. to 6: p.m. is a pretty robust amount of time amount of calls that we get compared to uh the other two shifts but yeah but yeah 6 a.m. has increased a lot the past six years yeah I just wasn't sure if you were looking to do something about you know coverage on that or not it's something that's still doable with your currents okay yeah no other questions for Capital no I think we're good on that one okay all right so uh I submitted a budget for the police department and I gave an explanation sheets regarding what we're looking at doing um we already covered the capital part of that in regard to the police budget I had two tabs one was listed as um no addition and the other one was listed as uh the full-time addition so a couple years ago the time was gracious enough to add to our full-time staff uh an addition that we had not seen in 20 years or almost 20 years um so the reason we got into this get into uh the addition whether it's something the town wants to do or not is as I explained in the uh in the explanation is Surly after uh post came into effect the nptc of the municipal police training committee put out a notice about having all police officers trained equally which is great on its face but if you look at any departments West for they rely heavily on part-time use so part-time officers go through a part-time Academy it's usually couple nights a week a matter of six or seven months depending on which Academy you go to um well that Academy is no longer they don't have a part-time acad so you know if you look at some of the part ERS across the Commonwealth when they when they got sponsored and came on some of them were hairdressers plumbers stay-at-home moms or dads or uh worked in finance or whatever but they they had a they had a drive where they wanted to become a police officer but they didn't want to give up their fulltime job so they do it on a part-time basis but with the parttime academy going away and there was literally no more partam Academy sorry there was one in Worcester uh and that's a about a year long and you go to that Academy and once from complete that Academy you become certified in the state to be a police officer do good and add to that is once you graduate from them some small towns like us and some big cities will see that say oh I get a fully certified officer for no cost thank you and then they take them we've already lost one officer to Greenfield uh one of our part- ERS went to Greenfield we have another one of our part- timers went to wlam another one went to Burston so we're slowly losing part-timers so now we're down to five part-timers um when iot this um back in December I think I said we had six and we're going to be going down well we just received a resignation of one of them so now we're down to five so there's really no more part-time Academy to pull from or send people to um I I've been Chief here eight years in my other town I was Chief there for 10 years and we were able to send people to a Pam Academy because once they came back you could then train them and have them be an officer for your department and there really wasn't a lot of stealing of other part- times but now with no more parttime Academy being around you don't have that luxury so that's why I put together a budget to show um the budget consisting of what we have through the contracts uh going forward and another budget Shing adding a full-timer into the r like I said the time was gracious enough to do that a couple years ago um and we be able to put that through uh but we have to make a determination in the near very near future about what we want to see policing in this do we want it to be full-time or do we want to try to make it work and have shortfalls have openings and have holes in the schedule because without parttime is you're either running the ships empty or you're paying overtime and as you know overtime is quite more than what a parttime officer makes I myself start part time in the 90s and I after a year and a half got promoted a full-time and I've been full-time ever since I went to a full-time Academy after that and a lot of these part-timers are doing that but since post and going through the Bridge Academy and being certified a lot of these departments are picking up officers that have successfully completed that training and then putting them on full-time and once you get to the 2400 hour rule that they've set in the state you can now be certified through the state as a full-time employee or a full-time officer therefore negating the need to go to a full-time Academy because you basic it off of your use of experience in the training that you proceed so we don't have that luxury in order to go back and or send people to a parttime Academy so we have to look at hoping that we can hire another part-timer um we've been looking since June we haven't been able to fill it um and the only other possibility would be either hiring another full-timer and then putting some added onto the ranks excuse me or like I said continuing with the the budget that we have and try to make do with the existing staff so in that in that tab you'll see that I put down um the cost of searching with both one with a new full-time and one without and the difference between the two is only 2.4% between having a full-time an additional full-time added on as opposed to exist the existing budget we have now and the way we're able to do that is to B from Peter to give the call we're taking from part-time pay so that way we're not feeling the burden with the hit of the full-time salary for that officer so we take away from the parttime budget because we're not anticipating um so right now the part time have scheduled two shifts per week so that's 9 hour shifts that's 18 shifts a week 18 * 52 gives you the amount of hours that times the dollar amount gives us what they have for regularly scheduled time on top of that they also we also have budgeted on holidays for part-timers to work a full-time can work even a fulltime works you know that's time and a half H May purum to their contract of the Town approved um so the addition of a full-time would reduce some of the parttime pay and took out uh 54.1 18% from the parttime wages uh which was about 32,200 and change to soften the hit of having a full-time officer added on to the ranks and that's what I detailed in both of them you can see that on it with the full-time officer the budget would be 685 in change and without it would be 670 in so it's a $1,289 uh difference between trying to hire a full-timer or adding a full-time to the ranks uh or trying to stay with the existing Staffing that we have uh and like I said before we've already reached a point where we're losing part- timers we don't have any ability to put any more part- timers on we're always looking but if we can't get there we're running the risk of um continuously running shifts over open or in relying heavily on state polias to cover or um overtime uh if you look at last year's budget the overtime was astronomical uh but that's because our parttime pay or the budget parttime budget wasn't used fully so we didn't go over budget for for payroll it was just we spent more in overtime we spent less in parttime so far so good just good that you confident that you hire FK they going to stay they come here and St we still to go someplace else hope competive fulltime pay which is that's always a worry I I had that worry in the 10 years I was Chief in my last town and in the last eight and a half years here you always worry about that our our full-time officers pay is good it's not as competitive as some of the the bigger cities um there are some cities that are offering sign on bonuses we can't do that don't have it budget um the the union just successfully negotiated a contract with the town so they asked and the town asked and they met in the middle and they found something that was agreeable um there are some towns the farther you get out west that are hurting far worse than we are and they're paying a lot more money for a full-time hoping that that would keep them here um another way of doing it is if if we end up having to say send someone to a full time Academy we would obviously interview potential candidates and once we selected somebody we would sit down with them and try to give a trft up a contract or something that says that you're going to give us time and if you give us say three years if you don't give us those three years then potentially we could have them agree to pay back to town for the services that be provided them so pay to go to the academy the tuition to go to the academy all of those things and that would be coed as the years they're here so if they here for a year they almost two years that type of thing you know so there's there's always different things that we can try to look at yeah uh when you've sent officers to the academy before do you hire them first and then pay them throughout their Academy stim so it depends on the town so when I came here the town had already agreed to send an existing part-timer to the full-time Academy so when I came here I had to see how they did that speak with the select board explain this is the process we're going to go forward with so he was already hired so he was being paid to go to the academy the daily wage to go to the academy um if you sponsor someone to the academy different types of sponsorship is you send it to the academy so patch uniform gun badge you go to the academy and you get paid every day to go the other form of sponsorship is what they call self self sponsor so you decide you want to be a police officer we sponsor you to go but you go on your own visition you pay for everything we just give you our name and our pass with no guarantee that you're an employee of ours until after The Graduate um honestly what's more appealing to candidates is if you pay them to go of course um of course um but this budget reflects a yearly salary for that seventh officer um that would be from July 1 if we don't hire anybody until October then there's months of pay that's just sitting there if we send them to the academy then the question now comes up is when is the next Academy so if they have no police experience we can't do an OJT we can't on the job train them because they have to be a graduate of an academy if they're a parttime officer from say shs that's the you say they a parttime officer from truth we don't have any left Christ would kill you um so say we hire a part-time officer from truberry we could potentially hire them as a part-time officer and still send them to the academy until they graduate and then they would have police powers and and then come here and learn the town and train here but it's a it's a decision that we have to make with either the budget or the candidate to go forward are we going to self sponsor going to try to hire someone who's already full-time send someone as a self sponsor or we going to send them to the academy so those are the three options someone who already has an academy graduate certificate someone who is a self sponsor or we're going to send them to the academy so those are the three options of our six part ERS five five sorry not five interested in me fulltime go Academy maybe one uh maybe two uh but I don't know because I I don't want to sit down with them and say hey we're going to be put this in because I don't want to give them any false hope plus you know I I don't want them to think that I'm trying to fit him into the position it's this is the position you know all we can do is if this is approved after July 1 we can post it inhouse prior to posting it out and allow that and we have week or two and put in it's about it do you think that if the shift happens an officer and reducing the need on the part-time officer pool do you think that the part-time officer pool in need is then stable or are you still concerned about not having enough with the remaining hours after that so when I I started here years ago uh shortly after I started my goal was to try to have two part-time for every fulltime so at one point we had 10 part Tim and five full-tim counting me and my goal for that was so we had two part Tim for every fulltime and if we had open shifts if we had um benefit time we taking personal vacation sick time then we' have enough people to choose from um getting down to three four or five part-time officers it's tough because a lot like I said they they all have full-time jobs um one Works in well they all work in the private sector full-time um but well I'm sorry all but one work in the private sector one is a full-time officer in another town that may eventually be the the very next person that ends up resigning because their time in that fulltime capacity is too much and they can to vote any time here so with that happening we losing another officer the other officers that we have are in the civilian world and that's it making pretty good money so they only want to be a parttime officer and they'll do what they can to fill in if we have an officer go away for an injury or an illness decimates us because there's no way with the existing staff that can be cover 40 hours a week we can be able to cover 16 17 to 19 hours a week so it's we're already stretched now and and by doing a a full-time addition who would alter the schedule in a way to give us as much coverage as we can especially during the peak times because you want to be able to have enough officers to handle a call volume the number of three times we want to make sure that that is covered and we can still provide that service to the town because when you go home at night you want to be able to go to bed and and sleep and not worry about what's happening out there and the officers being out there whether they're part of the community they reside in the community they're local they're all within short distance or in town um but the idea would be having full-time certified officers is an easier concept to manage than parttime officers when we hear once a month twice a month time and and I'm not discounting part time any way because like I said I started there so I I I understand what was out much young the man back then but I understand the drive and the ambition that they have that they want to provide that service to us or to any town they work for U but we just want to make sure that we're we're have that equal balance um I I constantly joke about if I could 3 te leads or I could for tell the future I'd be doing this from the beach in the Dominican and just calling up saying hey you're GNA have a bank robbery or hey you're GNA have this happen but it's really never any you try to go off of what's happened in the past and based on the numbers try to provide coverage and at the very least for the times in which that you have the both of the costs so now how in terms of scheduling um are you going does additional full-time officer work into your current shift schedule or you going to be redoing the shift schedule to have more overlap have more U more shifts during days my that have you thought up how you do do that so the the full-timers went to a 4 day 10 was scheduled a couple years back uh four years ago I think um so with that given the schedule we currently have we could potentially just plug them in somewhere but it makes better sense to reformat the schedule and offer it to the full-timers during the shiins so that way it takes effect to come July 1 whether we have the full-time we would do it if the town approved it but we wouldn't have the body to put into it so we would have to make some concessions with the unit saying okay Hey listen we've got the money we're going to be putting somebody on this is the schedule we're going to go to but until then we may have to stay with the schedule we have now until that gets changed or we change to the schedule we want to go to and know that in three to 5 months that person's going to be plugged in to that hole and then go from there so look yet and I think we've have put together like six schedules already trying to figure out what pieces well and again day shift and evening shift we're trying to do a lot of two person coverage uh across the board with the exception of maybe Sundays um but the bulk of the calls that are happening are during the week or early evenings so that's why we're trying to figure out what's going to work well for both the employee and for the town I'm wondering if um you know your looks like the over timetime for this year is running around closer to what was budgeted and obviously things could go wrong you know um are you thinking that if you had a full-time officer that you would have less pressure on that overtime budget line and be able to maybe spend under like you know is overtime happening because of schedule holes as well as so over time special yeah over time there's a few things that tie into that number so we we hold if you will certain amount of hours a month like say four hours a month for overtime just for court because sometimes when an officer has to go to court it's not the opposite of worksation sh and if it is the officite of works and day shift they're not getting overtime they're just going so it's for the officers that work the evening and the overnight so or if it's a their day off they have they have they have court that doesn't happen that frequently a lot of the things we're able to do with the on duty staff during so if it's a magistrate hearing it's a ticket appeal we're able to do those with the existing staff we have on the day when it gets into officer getting paid for overtime it's if it's outside of their 40 hours or if say an officer gets summons to go to um an AR not an arraignment an officer gets summons to go to a a trial so in December I got summons to go to a trial for a drunk driver that I had arrested at 7: a.m on a February morning last year um I don't get overtime one because I'm salary but I was on during the day so I just I just happened to go there so the overtime if it's not for that the other part of the overtime is when you have open shifts you offer it to full-timers if the part-timers weren't able to take it so you offer to parttime First your part-timers can't take it then you offering for over time and the other thing is if like we had the other day an officer was dealing with a disturbance um at about 3:00 in the afternoon eventually had to arrest a suspect and that officer didn't get out of here until two or three hours after their shift so that was also the over time so that's why you you blank it or you cover that anticipated you hope it's not going to happen but the anticipation of what potentially could happen so the open shift thing could there could be less pressure on open shifts if there was five full-time six full eight seven full-time officers six I'm getting all my another fulltime off no and for me the big big plus to having initial full-time officer is is The X Factor is you know that the person is showing up because that's their full-time job and bar illness and all the other things but part-time officer their day job to get busy they're offered extra hours at that day job and as you said a lot of these people are making more money the day job than they are doing this and so the incentive isn't to put you there and you don't have the guarantee that you're going to have the offic there so if you look at our you know our overtime wages our way up then you go down to parttime wages and we only are refusing 72% of those because that's that's the the play there but we end up paying out a lot more for 8 hours of overtime for an officer to be on for that shift than we do for a part-time officer both because a parttime officer wages are lower and also aren't at overtime rates um so for me it's sort of a consistency and control thing more than anything else is having those officers that you know are going to be showing off to those sters and also it's part of the Shi Bing system and so you know it's included as as a main thought rather than an a thought small ways and in last year's budget we were hit with like I said one of the full-time officers left so we were down that fulltime officer that officer went to shelburn and then we were able to eventually hire somebody but that wasn't until the first week of February so we had three months or so um when we had that one spot open so that's why a lot of the overtime happened instead of uh the part times because the part ERS were running around working not only there two shifts or the two schedule ships we had per week but the extra sh because we had that opening and when that couldn't happen we had to make some choices about okay how are we going to fill this can we have something hold over for four hours instead of covering the full 10 hour shift so at least during the peak of the hours we have more coverage and that's why a lot of that happened that's why you see that the pr time budget was barely used because at that point they were already maxed out the last two years have been difficult because with all the extra training that they have their mandated to get to all the extra certifications and then go forward with unknowns about scheduling and then that person leaving really took us out of the knes so well and really the numbers are what speak to me here so it makes sense if if we know that we're we can budget a million dollars for part-time but if we don't have the parttime bodies that's not going to get used and instead we we Shi that into the overtime line item which grows you know out of control um I'd rather have a more realistic budget that says no we don't have that many parttime hours available to us from the the employee pool out there um and budget accordingly so that we aren't spend all this overtime said we're spting fulltime budgeted hours yeah and and there's a lot of towns uh bigger than us that have uh policies where they force full-timers to stay over to come in so there is absolutely no holds there there's no gaps so and and the issue with that is you're running officers 12 14 16 18 hours a day to cover these gaps and their overtime budget is astronomical we've been able to even though last year we went well over the overtime budget we only did that because we didn't use the parttime budget or we only barely used the parttime budget so with that we have to also see that okay the Overtown budget could be far worse but we also the community we have sometimes we go with some of the shifts that are not covered so uh for instance we had a we have a a holiday where only one of the shfs got fil instead of all three of them so the other two shfs were held over or covered by the state police um the idea would be to have 247 coverage all the time but we just haven't been able to do that because of the STA yep um and then part of that budget you'll see that um I didn't increase their cler wages because that's through the personal committee so didn't touch that uh the fuel expense all we did was add $500 to it then 145 to 15,000 and the police department expenses themselves went up 3.5% and that's just with the increase in dues and cost to to run an agency that's why never but other than that the other increases if you look at say moment no full-time addition you'll see that the full-time officers like I said just negotiated a contract so these increases are reflective of that contract any other questions from the anything else from the finance committe thank you very much Chief we really appreciate all the hard work on us thank you very much next up we have our library friends here thank you so much for coming in thank you for having us absolutely and I just want to start off by saying we really appreciate that you were able to get everything together on your part no Gap that we had really means a lot to us to have you helping us out do not problem yeah happy to be here um so um we submitted two budget requests as suggested the first one um reflects level services for us um the level Services request um includes um a um no increase for the library building expenses um but it does include a um $2,521 in 61 Cent increase um in the library General expenses and so Library General expenses for us is essentially our membership in our Library Consortium CW Mars um and it is also our um Library materials and so the town budget pays for um approximately three4 of what um of the books other materials that we offer to our patrons the remaining one order is paid for by the Fran of Sunderland Public Library private donations or other grants um and so the um we are required by the state of Massachusetts in order to be a library um to spend a certain amount of money each year on our materials it's called the materials expenditure requirement or me um and so this increase is just to keep up with the me so that will keep us at about the same level whereas um where the town is paying for our CW Mark membership and three qus of the materials that we are required to provide and then the other quarter is going to come from the friends of Sunderland public library in their fundraising efforts um and so the reason and it's also worth noting um that this increase um it's G to purchase the same amount of books um or probably even less um just because of incredible price increases in terms of um both digital but also print materials that we are seeing this year um there's a lot happening in the publishing world and it's also making it extremely difficult for us to um to get books in a timely fashion we've had to recently switch to a new um book distributor um because our other book distributor was about four months behind and getting us new release and things like that where they used to get it to us a couple of weeks ahead of time so we could catalog them and have them ready um and so the after meeting with the vice president of libraries for that um you know they're they were just saying that it's um if they're not getting books from the Publishers in time because the Publishers are only printing what has already been purchased and they're not factoring in libraries and and other things so it's um something that a lot of libraries are dealing with um but it is worth noting that that um the small increase will make a big difference in allowing us to just keep level Services it's not we're not asking for to purchase more items it's going to keep us where we are um and then I did not put any requests in for the um for the support staff or Library um director wages because that is going to be determined by the Personnel committee um and then and for the increased Services um budget I um am proposing that the increased service I would like to offer is to open the library on Thursdays um we've always been closed on Thursdays and um it's a big request um through Patron surveys and also just in general um that we be open on Thursdays in particular and also that we be open more morning hours um currently the library is only open on Monday Friday and Saturdays in the mornings everything um else is afternoon hours um or evening hours um and we're finding with um with you know pmic a lot of people working from home now um there's just a lot more people with flexibility in their schedules and they're much more inclin to come out in the morning to the library and that just seems to be what is convenient to for folks um also we've seen a huge influx of um senior citizens using the library recently um with the moving and or the construction of Sanders in place um and then also just um in general it's really nice to see um but they tend to come in the mornings and then especially this time of year when it's so dark out it's difficult for them to um to come out at night um and so opening on Thursdays it would be 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. it would not increase the cost of our um our building expenses it would not increase the cost of our um materials budget the general expenses but the where you are seeing the increase is for additional Staffing um so the increase I'm requesting is seven staff hours um so that we can have two employees present in the building um we currently have myself and one other um staff member who have enough flexibility in our schedule to make up the other seven hours so I'm just asking um for seven hours even those it's a total of 14 um staff hours to to add that um to our schedule um and so the reason to another reason why I want to open on Thursdays is um because we um I'd really like to set those extra hours up at sensory friendly hours um it's very important to me to support um people on the autism spectrum with other um neurod divergences or sensory processing um issues um and to make them feel like a welcome part of our community um sensory friendly hours doesn't mean we're only open for people on the autism spectrum everyone is welcome it's just a more comfortable and welcoming environment for people on the autism spectrum um but also for others too so some people just like the buer library experience we get that a lot that we are a noisy Library um which is a good thing in a lot of ways but having a day where we don't have any special meetings where we keep the lights a little bit lower there's no excessive sounds um and we reserve the community room as a quiet space to retreat well the rest of the library and the children's room K can be a little more active um I think would be a really nice thing for the whole Community I feel like everyone would really enjoy that I remember you mentioning last year when you asked for the same thing um that being able to add a day on Thursdays means you don't have to try to reschedule existing events that might be louder and noisier in order to accommodate that it have a day that's sort a blank slate exactly yeah that's that's the um the reason why I want a totally new day we've never been open on Thursdays um we could we're open on Tuesdays we could open Tuesday Mornings for example but that um I don't think that would be a good idea for sensory friendly hours because it would be more limiting um or it would it would um make you know pre-existing meetings and stuff like that would have to cancel um and it also just people aren't used to it excuse me um so my concern would be that um folks wouldn't quite understand the difference between the sensory friendly hours and it may not be as sensory friendly as we are hoping I think if we're starting fresh with a clean slate this is a new day that we are open for these specific hours with this specific atmosphere that we're trying to create be very beneficial in terms of similar towns to hours um is not being open all all weekday a normal thing for town our size oh yeah absolutely so um the town of Sunderland we are before our size we're only required to be open I think it's 25 hours a week open 40 hours a week it's quite a lot honestly for a town our size um but those hours are used um we um and we get requests for more I January 2nd we on Thursday we had um someone ring the doorbell repeatedly banging on the door why aren't you open I need to get my book you know like very upset greenfields open all the time why aren't you guys ever open we're open 40 hours Greenfield's open 62 they also have 12 full staff members and we have one so it's a little bit different the situation but um yeah and people just really use our hours um this past year 2024 we circulated 71,000 items um that is just below like by 500 items our alltime record from 2019 so it's you know we're bounced back and continuing to expand even after the pandemic um it's really nice to see see people use our library people appreciate our library um and I think that if we're expanding our services we should do it in a way that is going to make it beneficial for what people want now the seven hours for week is that for adding on to that one existing full-time employee or is that going to be split between a full-time employee and some part-time employees or something like that so the seven additional hours um I'm going to add to a part-time employee schedule um so I budgeted for it um based on our substitute circulation assistant rate um and so that's the lowest pay that we have and so I feel that um rather than if we were to add to any of our regular staff members hours it would bump Folks up to where they need more benefits and it's a it's a large expense for the town um we do have substitutes who I'm sure would love the addition hours and I think having more flexibility too with having more part-time employees would make it easier for coverage when we have illnesses and other things great so I think you said there's one two full time right there's you and one other no you're the only fulltime really yes I have two um staff members who are parttime back I just assume Aaron is always there no is you run an amazing Library I know people not just from our town but all the towns Sur especially GE right now take advantage of everything we do I would assume those seven hours are also off of to plan some of the events that you do it's sometimes you know you run out of time trying to plan in your normal budget of ours my question would be though um uh those sorry my question the are there grants out there that if you focus those 7 hours on sensor or Autism maybe back you looked at some Grant possibilities that could be out there to help off additional cost just guess yeah no I I actually put in an application um in December to the American Library Association they have a grant for small libraries called Library transforming communities and you're supposed to select a a dis disability or disabled population um and so I applied for $220,000 um to open our Library um for sensory friendly hours um and then also to provide to construct a sensory friendly space in the children's room if we get the full 20,000 there's also a $110,000 tier as well and to make other sensory improvements to our building um of course that's a grant it's not necessarily a given that we would we would receive it um and also the grant ter um term is not on the fiscal year exactly um so we're the select board to approve the extra 7even hours some of the grant funds could be used for um could offset that um but if I'm going to be adding hours I want it to be a permanent change I don't want to have it for one year and then have to take it away um so if we do receive the grant um and the sensory friendly hours are not supported by the town I would have to re-evaluate if that's where we want to go and talk about the you know the future of it if it's possible for the next year so um certainly there is the chance if we receive that grant that I would not need to spend as much of the town's money on um on adding the sensory friendly hours but again none of that saying like we don't really depend on grants for occurring just ask that to really I think if we get the grant then the kind of support that we can offer for sensories um would be superior than if we have to just you know kind of make do with even even having the building open but not having expert ons to build this space or um get materials or or a two program if you have the gr you can support with the staff you have any question no I'm good how many how many parttime staff do you have I mean four regular and we have three substitutes right only two are yeah sorry we it's a um full-time equivalency of 3.5 now that's what we're up to than how do you think about um you me someone mentioned the deerf library project how do you think about the impacts that that's having now while they're under construction people may be looking for resources here and then when they're done and then where there may be some new overlaps or gaps between their programming and ours so do you think absolutely um so I don't see other libraries necessarily as a competition even though we do use the name um Patron pool um you know if you're kind of looking at us we used to be the shiny new library on the Block we're more than 20 years old now um and de field is under construction Amis is under construction um monteu um just received where that they were um approved for a construction Grant as well so that's going to happen um Hadley was done a couple of years ago brand new building so we are now the old library except for poor weight there have much older building class um but everyone surrounding us Greenfield to they all have these new libraries and a lot of our Capital request or one of our Capital requests is really to help us provide what our patrons want what we're seeing in newer life libraries um to make it so that we're providing services that Sunderland patrons need so they don't feel the need to go to these other new libraries um but really it's we have so many like Library Hoppers is what we call them families who they go to one Library one day another Library another day they're you know all over the place um we work really well together and I think there's enough patrons and enough need for all of us to provide important services come you know it's fabulous and I you know we circulated 71,000 items that's um that's really really good for for our area um it's more than hadly circulates are much larger town with a brand new library it's you know and that's just one one data Factor unrelated question do you how do you think about how the NR M gets set every year obviously 6% higher that led to the budget request this year like does that jump around is it pretty consistent it is consistent so it is um and I know you're not the one who sets that no no um it's the state of Massachusetts the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners so it is um it's based on the size of our size of our town um so it's 19.5% of the libraries of operating budget um must be um must be used towards material so that's what what creates the BME I see um and so when our budget increases with normal increases in inflation that increases the BM slightly every year as well so it's just nor you know keeping up with inflation it's a way for the state to make sure that towns continue to support their library and they're not falling behind state do two things it it wants to be sure that um your spendings um that you're not taking a budget and like just putting it into the buildings every year there's a consistent investment in material and then there's another standard the N which means that makes that ensures that the town that the LI is being funded proportionally to the rest of the town because they also upon for example the town was facing a bad budget here and the solution was let's just cut the library budget it would be to serve yeah we would no longer be a public library and S residents wouldn't be able to use other libraries either so it's sort of like two mechanisms that the state uses to make sure that libraries are continually funded so I have a question um that I should know the answer to but I don't the if we had our staff go up by $778,000 for this the other seven hours that were open that changes our Mr the next year yeah it's the following year so but it wouldn't affect it this one so it's so there's delay yes they give us a little grace to figure it out on the next trip until 8 o' is it that buy between seven and eight it is not um part of our certification requirements to in addition to the materials expenditure is we do need to be open a certain number of evening hours um and that is a state require um but it is just past um five um the reason why I'm hesitant to decrease hours in the evening um is it's really a main time for programming um and meetings we um pretty much every evening we have something going on in the community room whether it's a library program or not so it may be quiet in terms of patrons coming in to check out items and you know do other Library business but it is a busier time in terms of um providing a meeting space and I think is also important note to make not necessarily that people in this room don't know that but just that as a town we don't have a community center we don't have a lot of public spaces for people to go with anything this is our really our only one and U having only open certain days of the week certain hours limits the ability for people in town to need do um and so supporting that is not just supporting library and his normal book functions but also in terms of providing that space for people in town to be able to meet for Club meet for events and have you know um the wonderful bir man come and bring his hourl you know and that kind of thing so it's more than just the library functions it's also the that it's really a combination building between a community center and a library and we try to put both in one building in one budget we appreciate that um I mean from where I'm sitting um I love the idea of THS hours I think it's it's a very and not just because my kids get off the late bus on Thursdays and have nowhere to go um but that is really the case there's nowhere for else to go they go hang out the corner store wait come them up after the work because literally nowhere else in town to them to go you know H their path um but also you know centy from the hours is a v thing and it's something that that this far aware is not widely available elsewhere in this area and so again not just for S residence but for to people across the area I would love to see it Happ yeah I it's it's worth noting just um Northstar Center for self-directed Learning um they estimate 80% of their their teams who attend are on the a spectrum I mean it's a huge amount and they they're not just from sundland they come from all over um you know so I think having two organizations in town that really support neurodiversity people I think is a really really nice thing um and especially having one of them be a free public resource I think would be very meaningful for a lot of families hi I was wondering is it busier in the summer say 8 o' is different depending on what time of year it isely yeah right now if you you go to the library there might be a couple of folks there although there was a parent group meeting with you know so it might be a little busier tonight but you know it's um yeah the summer is a lot busier in the evenings and it it does shift we could do seasonal hours but again people have such a hard time remembering our standard hours that have been this way at least 20 years probably a lot longer um so I really want to keep things consistent the way they are at least for the time being hopefully just to add some some special hours folks well you know it may be slower in the winter but the winter is also the time when there's more of a need for there to be a public open place for once because you know talked about it a lot in sundland but uh there's are still people in town who need to have places to go to keep warm um having consistent hours for them we definitely see them yes wead all right um I don't have any more questions anything else from the board fin committee anything one side the school and Lun School know walks and hies to school to the library frequently would they be allowed to go there on a Thursday with censor they would um I would just need to talk with the teachers and make sure it's a group that understands those special needs I don't see it being a problem now um we currently have the fifth grade um been coming over once uh once a month um for the past few years now which is really nice um and it is really chaotic um when they first come in everyone comes in and they're browsing for books and they pick out you know what they want to read but then they have they do that for 15 minutes and then they do something called drop everything and read where they they go to the community room and they read for 45 minutes and he silent and it's really amazing that there well and the the vice versa part of that is also that if there are n origin kids in those element classes going to a already busy loud library for those events is an additional sensory input issu for them and so this would give them a day where if you had a class where you there one kid that is not going to be able to participate otherwise the teacher might potentially be going for f day because it's the day chances of having exct great anything else any other questions don't see anyone online wonderful well thank you very much for coming in we are very happy to have you in um we will do our darest to uh take your budget questions consideration and we'll see what thank you I appreciate it thank you everybody apprciate all you do for us thank you thank you right that we uh just confirm we do not have EMS tonight that that is very all righty so that is the end of our budget reviews um and our new business um anything from the finance committee before we go into our for normal FBO stuff want to make sure that the next time that the select board meeting is come the finest meeting is meeting with you all is on the 27th we from now yeah y y next week will be just us doing our business to try to keep you guys sit through that stuff we'll and we'll be doing um on the 27th we'll be doing um it'll be who are the Departments um you can follow like fire and fire's going to be actually the following week I mean two weeks after that you can tell us it's okay I just want it might be all the financial people they were in a block but I'm not I think that's the 27 but I'm not yeah do you guys need to adjourn I suppose we should adjourn um all right um Allan someone to the finance committee second all in favor post thank you all we will see you in two weeks all righty uh next up is our uh business so we have Sight board updates um nothing for me crystal sou EMS meeting was Thursday night um we left Thursday we still didn't have completed budget from them so our next meeting is February 6 and hopefully February 6 I'll be able to have a completed budget and be able to get them after on the schedule after that that all right we had a meeting could postpone because of some kind of Bud small change but that's coming this week so all right that's it for um I will be continuing to work on the revenue side of the budget and we'll have that the F direct of the budget um by the 27th beautiful thank you for all the work on that and for I know how much work it's been to get up and running and right in the middle of the budget season there was no not one way there so we really appreciate how hard that been all right um anything else not toight beautiful uh we don't have a correspondence today I don't see anyone on online or in person anymore for a public comment no executive session um finance committee has already adjourned so in that case at this time I would entertain a motion to adjourn I motion second all right a motion to and seconded to adjourn all those in favor hi I I reing at 7:37