e e e e e we'll get started Mr Conley you ready ready to roll all right take it away thank you good morning everyone welcome to the FY 26 budget meeting uh this is
my sixth but the first where I have to do all the talking so thank you in advance um a quick thank you to an frus for helping to coordinate coffee lunch Etc and a million other things to go into today and into the budget process in general I'm also joined by Nick naen who's our assistant Finance director
assistant treasur collector we're all juggling multiple roles these days um Nick's Been instrumental in putting this budget together so we want to thank him as well and lastly throughout the day we'll have our All-Star lineup of department and division heads will come in to answer any questions about their respective
budgets a little bit about the budget process so it starts really the budget process starts when the first when the last budget's approved approved but we dig in deeper um in the fall we do our department budget reviews in November and December uh budget goals and objectives are adopted by the select
board on February 4th today is obviously the budget review from there we'll move on to Warrant review in early April and then uh both items the budget and the warrant process will move to fincom before town meeting in may this next slide we show every year just again close that door please um to
take a look at our single family tax bill in comparative to our peers in the area um we'll put our services up against any of those community services from Public Safety to education Public Works Etc um what you'll notice is it's the lowest besides the bottom three which are Salem Burlington and pey
Burlington as we've talked about um over the years has a much broader commercial base and Salem and PD get significant State funding that uh danas does not not as much so again in terms of affordability and service level uh we would put us against that anybody on that
list getting into the budget pressures for FY 26 um these are some of the usual ones but we will talk about them in detail as we go out throughout the day um our retirement contribution uh we are valued to be fully funded in 2035 which we'll
talk about a little bit later but that equates to roughly an 8% increase every year to hit that Target so in terms of the FY 26 budget that's roughly a $760,000 increase year-over-year um healthc care which will be a theme throughout the day which was a big driver this year we received a
10.91% renewal which we'll talk about in detail as well that translates to a $1.45 million increase year-over-year uh Danver Public Schools this year they are below uh their recent Trends over the three-year average it's 5% uh our total
increase in contribution is 1.98 million and then Essex Tech uh little over 4% this year their three-year average again slightly over 5% uh this year's impact is 177,000 down the bottom you'll see it mentions that for the upcoming FY 26
budget uh the full Levy capacity and our conservative projected New Growth add up to $3 million if you quickly scan uh the impact table on the right you'll notice that that adds up to more than $3 million uh so the result is trying to find other Revenue sources through state
aid local receipts Etc and then making cut Cuts in other areas of the budget in order to balance and that's what we've done again this year taking a look at the snapshot of key reserves as in past years uh building a maintaining key reserves remains a priority this slide gives an overview of
what we hope to achieve in the FY 26 budget um you'll see our certified free cash as well as our free cash after appropriation you also see our debt stabilization balance Trend our general stabilization balance Trend the opep trust fund and our unassigned fund
balance um those are all FY 25 is projected than other free other than free cash excuse me uh FY 26 will all be subject to appropriation and we'll get into details on some of those Reserve funds as we go through the warrant process I did want to dig in a little
bit deeper on free cash I know that's been a topic in recent weeks um free cash for those who don't know um every year as our books close is a point in time analysis of our available Surplus it can come from Surplus Revenue um
unspent expenditures and any other unreserved funds that have carried over from the prior year it can be reduced by a variety of factors um warrants payable grants and deficit also reduce that factor uh but the end result is what we call free cash and as the joke goes it's
neither free nor cash but it is free cash the target is 3 to 5% of net operating Revenue so for danver's Budget that's roughly 5 to 7 million is the target based on best practice and recommendation by the Department of Revenue um our local policy is also to maintain at least 1% of that remaining
after town meeting so even we go through the appropriation process for reserves and infrastructure improvements the goal is to leave at least 1% uh remaining for any unforeseen circumstances we historically use free cash and Damas for items that other communities may put in the operating budget or may not or may actually be
bonded which would lead to um interest payments as well um it's been our policy for many years to do it that way and it's been successful for many years as well so our free cash does things such as purchase police cruisers all our building and ground improvements uh additional Paving Bes besides chapter 90
as well as our technology warrant um the funding also strengthens and maintains reserves so our general stabilization our debt stabilization our opep trust fund and our special education stabilization are all funded through free cash um it's been brought up about the
estimate to actual Delta so again um some of our variances have been larger the last few years that was mostly driven by the pandemic and trying to be conservative um over the years you've seen that Delta shrink though um and you'll see that again both in fy2 when it closes and in the proposed FY 26
budget one key metric from just the past two years from the 24 budget to the 26 budget our estimate so the amount we're counting on to balance the budget has increased by over $4 million that's not $4 million in new Revenue that's $4 million that essentially is less free cash that we'll have in 26 versus what
we had in 24 so again that's long bit our policy to do it it's effective um it's helped us in uh key times most recently the pandemic but before that the Great Recession because we had such conservative Revenue estimates when those revenues created such as motels
meals tax it didn't lead to a dramatic reduction in services so again that policy has served us well uh most recently our free cash certified at 13.8 million again that seems like a very large number and it is indeed a large number two things to point out one of that is $3.8 million in landfill Revenue
which we'll talk about um later on or through the warrant process process and 2.6 million in what is historic investment returns we're getting right now as many of you are as well so again if you back those out which are really one time or very unique circumstances you're at about 7.4 million of free cash
which again if 3 to 5% is your target is pretty much on Target on February 4th the select board after Consulting with uh School Board Library wed trustees adopted there goals and objectives uh one is to maintain current stat and services and hold fees at
current levels while the town transitions to a new town manager the proposed budget adheres to those guidelines number two was to ensure Public Safety and Emergency Services have the appropriate funding in place to be fully staffed police is adequately funded to hire a full complement of
officers in FY 26 including one additional officer which will be the new first new additional officer since 2008 it also incre includes funding for a staffing study to determine the optimal Staffing and structural uh uh areas for the Department moving forward the fire
department funding is also increased so we had a safer Grant again a very successful grant for a million dollars that was awarded uh four years ago that ended this February uh in a commitment to providing uh great Public Safety the select board along with Town staff and the fire department work to maintain all
those positions so again those will come off the granted and now fully into the operating budget and our last goal is always provide damis public schools with resources to continue making progress particularly in the area of special education the has made it a priority in the 26 budget and in a few minutes uh
superintendent B will walk us through uh their plans for the coming year uh page seven of your packet and again the packets changed a little bit but the most recent ones online there's hard copies that are just slightly stale on the table and then this presentation I'm giving also is online as well if you
like to follow along in terms of expenditures uh as you'll see the schools 3.8% that was down from last year 6. 4% which as we talked about last year was a historic investment in special education which the superintendent and his team will talk about later uh General government
uh includes uh full Staffing of Public Safety and emergency Ser Services retirement we talked about again close to 8% which we will see annually until 2035 when we're fully funded uh benefits again we will talk about a little bit more in detail Debt Service uh declining
u based on our debt schedule the great rates we've been able to achieve over the years as well as our structure um Essex Tech like I mentioned is a little over 4% so the total expenditure side of the budget is going up 4.24% in terms of Revenue these figures represent where we're at at this point
in time with the best information available uh this change year-over-year is against the final budget numb submitted to set the tax rate in December so if you're looking book to book there might be some variation but again the uh the revenue estimates aren't finalized until we set the tax rate each December
property tax as usual is based on a very conservative $600,000 in New Growth but it also does include full use of our Levy including excess Levy capacity as we saw last year we ended up exceeding our new growth and were're able to leave $100,000 in Levy capacity on the table um again we'll see where we are this
coming December in terms of that state aid is based on the governor's budget um essentially a minimum increase this year on Chapter 70 which is the Big Driver of that number uh in terms of local receipts you do see some steady growth and again that's what I talked about and you see an 11.8% increase um that's not new
charges for services again that's getting closer to the actual which will impact future free cash motor vehicle X size is up 300,000 again based on Trend um pilot payment so our electric pilot payment we uh adjusted this past fall um it's the first time we adjusted in
several years and before that I think it was probably the '90s was the last time we changed it before then um electric is a division and located in the town so in addition to some support services they directly participate in like Health insur excuse me uh Human Resources accounting um manager Office they also
benefit from the public safety provided by fire and police they benefit from Public Works Paving the streets they benefit from an educated Workforce provided by dver public schools um so again as routine with most communities that have an electric division they contribute a pile of payment to help def
Fray costs for the taxpayer um investment income again we had hisor returns last year we're on Pace for historic returns this year that rate has already come down slightly but we felt that it was in the best interest to maintain services to increase this estimate by
$700,000 getting it to 1.5 million we're pretty confident that we'll hit that number this year in future years the terminal rate uh should it go down to somewhere in the threes which is projected by um some of our advisers would still hit that $1.5 Million number so again we're confident in that number
uh but again it's one where we probably will see some Surplus but the alternative is budgeting to the actual and creating a structural deficit which I don't think anyone wants to do um in terms of service delivery and then other other available funds mostly driven by our debt stabilization fund which helps offset debt related to projects such as
the Smith school with that Mr chairman I'll stop to answer any questions in particular obviously a lot of the expenses will dig in as the day goes on but there any questions thank you D any questions uh not at the moment thank you Morin nothing no good job Rodney Mike uh just
a quick question that 100,000 that was left over from uh the levy does e go into free cash no so that basically becomes unused Levy capacity so essentially it was 100,000 less that went into the tax bills last year this year we're again we're projected to
fully use that including that 100,000 but again as this December we'll see how the tax rate shakes out and our new growth beyond our conservative number okay thank you all set yes thank you all right thank you and with that I will turn it over to Danver Public Schools
[Applause] damn Dam good morning everyone well good morning and welcome you get the lead off today that's great D yeah absolutely pleasure to be here so thank you for having us um Gabe Lopes um current chair
of the Danver public school committee um it's my honor to introduce superintendent Dan Bower as he presents the fiscal year 26 Budget on behalf of Danver Public Schools given the uncertain economic environment and the challenges facing school districts Nationwide I couldn't be prouder of the
work Mr Bower his staff and this school committee have done this year at a time when many districts are cutting back facing labor tensions especially strikes which we you know fortunately avoided and navigate um danis has remained stable and forward focused last year we
asked for a significant investment from our town to flatten the curve on Rising special education out of District placements and trans Transportation costs allowing us to make critical improvements for all students in the district thanks to your support and the leadership of Mr Bower and his team we
have done just that this year's budget reflects our commitments to fiscal responsibility while ensuring we provide the highest level of education for our students despite inflationary pressures and funding challenges challenges we present a reasonable well-balanced
budget backed by a steady Administration we continue to maximize resources through careful planning grant funding and strategic cost-saving measures all without sacrificing our mission Mr bow has delivered on everything this committee has asked of him and we stand
firmly behind his leadership I fully confident that you will appreciate the level of thoughtfulness and diligence that has gone into this budget which prioritizes both Financial sustainability and the continued success of our schools thank you and with that it's my pleasure to bring forward Mr
Bower thank you Mr Lopes for that wonderful introduction um good morning select board thank you for having us good morning Rodney uh good morning to the audience and thank you to our school committee for their full support but I also have to say before I begin thank you to the select board in the town for
their continued support of our schools uh for our mission as we know uh schools are vital for the success of any town uh and I'm eternally grateful for the support that we have uh with me today is Mary wormers our assistant superintendent there she is that she's
available for when we get to the question phase uh there may be some fine questions that um she'll answer and behind me and shouldn't be behind me should be beside me is Pam crumb our outstanding business manager uh and as Mr Lopes alluded to um we're very proud of the fact that we were able to
negotiate all four contracts last year um and Pam deserves a lot of credit for the work she does behind the scenes in terms of not only providing information um but looking very thoughtfully looking for where the blind spots might be and all the other areas to make sure that we're fiscally
responsible so just want to say thank you Pam and she's available here for for questions as well I may need to phone a friend as we get to that portion and I'll do the best that I can I know there are a lot of slides so I'll move rather quickly uh but again available for questions at the end okay so I think
it's important to point out that our design is probably no different than any of the Departments that we begin in November we ask that all of our leadership go to their constituents within their buildings and the directors as such to look at the needs that we have also we are very clear to say that
the goals established by the select board was a level service budget as well as preserving positions but also how can we improve special education services so we go through multiple multiple cycles and where we are today looks much different than where we were in December
so a lot of hard work is um has been done not only by our directors and our Administration but ALS all the stakeholders um and I'm we're appreciative of that so as I mentioned the focus was a level service budget which as we know
means maintaining our our salaried and non-salary budget lines to provide services that are required and needed for our students for Success um and in many ways a level service is is much different than level funded because obviously you have Associated cost of
increases every year but we also are looking to continue improving our special ation programming which I'll talk about in a little bit but it's key to note that after last year's presentation and the generous allocation of funds to help us continue to build infrastructure for special education we
have a whole new Special Education team we have a new director two new assistant directors and a new out of District uh coordinator and that's huge to know because we also put in place audits to really dig deep into our special education programming a lot of this
happened after the present last year so I'll talk more about that but I think that's key because the number one thing we want to make sure that we do is as we build infrastructure we do it with an eye to be sustainable through ups and downs that we know that we'll always face financially um and also adhering to
looking how can we support and improve student achievement within our schools and continue to build the sense of belonging that I think makes our our district an outstanding District the budget pressures uh that we all face as districts the Chapter 70 funding which
is a huge complicated um formula that um I it would probably take all day to explain that but the bottom line is that we're at foundational level this year which most districts are um and it's key to note that enrollment does connect to this and it's key to note that we need
to provide and continue the level of services because if students leave that's less funding that comes in and it also counts against us so the more that we retain the more that we can keep our financial stability so that's key to note that as we weave through all of
this not only providing level level services but also with an eye to Improvement um special education out of District placements although we're stable and the Investments are paying off the tuitions and such they still will increase every year uh Transportation costs which we'll talk
about in a little bit they continue to rise and the contractual obligations which U I'm glad U Mr Lopes pointed out we successfully negotiated all4 contracts uh um and certainly if you look at the landscape around us it's no coincidence that we did and I think it's
all due part with the collaboration we had with everybody involved obviously our team the town Rodney and his team as well as our our teachers and the administrative assistants the cafeteria workers and our instructional assistance and behavior techs so there was an eye
to making sure that they're compensated fairly competitively so they stay and continue to provide great um services but but also keeping in mind that we have to there's a balance with affordability so overall if you note that our our ask will be 3.8% but the
increase of the salary is 4.05 over the course of the year so I think we did a good job balancing that because we want to make sure and we had an eye with the negotiations that we can afford this over time curricular needs they always change and then inflationary increases
okay W I got my water so I'm all good um and this slide there's no surprise is that the special education Transportation costs have gone up you know almost 75% over seven years it's just um and I'm only and I'm not laughing because it's it's it's one
where it's just we look for what we can do with the controllables and a lot of this is out of our hands but we have put in systems in place to look at the controllables of transportation to flatten the curve that's what we're trying to do is flatten the curve with these costs we have to transport but
there are certainly things that we're putting into place that and I'll talk about that in a little bit that will help flatten the curve on that piece and then the second component again is just the rising special education costs that all districts are facing um and certainly it's not necessarily
Associated to increased outo District placements because those that that's really not the discussion point it's just the Affiliated costs with those but also where were we with our programming prior to last year to keep as many students in house that we can in our
district which we want they want um so the improvements go towards flattening that curve as well but there's a lot of related cost including uh tuition transportation and Associated services so the next piece that we really have
worked hard is looking at our resources and how can we maximize them you know obviously we have retirements that do occur can we reallocate resources um and attrition you know as as people may leave the district and looking for ways that if we have a need in one area and
as things change we shift that so we're trying to look from as much as possible within before we ask out and we knew that was important this year but it's an exercise that we did last year as well um and we dug in very deep this year on that component the non-salaried pieces
as much as we can use grants to offset these one-time costs we will do that and Mary and her team did an outstanding job uh over 200,000 Plus in Grants we we brought in this year over last year and we'll continue that piece um because
that does help us a great deal where we think can divert cost so how can we flatten the transportation curve um we did employ a transportation director this year and already the savings basically is is negates his salary um
prior to his arrival so we have over 2.5 million plus in transportation needs um and this is not a knock on anybody trust me um prior to his arrival the gatekeeper for the transportation was administrative assistance and that was the system that was here I know there
was a director beforehand so we knew in order to increase and improve the operation and to be able to look forward bringing this position in was a critical position and it has already paid off um we're looking to add two bands into her
pool which we've already added one and this is collaboration with the DP W that's why it's so important that the town works together so the vans that are coming in service and we had two lines in our budget for van drivers we've already hired one van driver we have one
van ready to go the second van is about ready we're trying to hire a second driver but already over time just bringing one Van Into the fleet right now will save us at least 20,000 by the end of the year at least because that allows us then to take routes and
students off private contractors into our service and our service is less expensive uh per van we've already added two other vans last year for extracurriculars which that saved us at least 30,000 plus um that allows athletic teams the smaller ones to be
transported without Contracting out we have special education programming with uh Services through the day for uh work related opportunities that now we can utilize that van and it saves us a lot of money and out of District cost we continue to build our prog programming
our autism strand therapeutic and language-based um and I have some more information on that so um definitely grateful for the allocation last year because it's allowed us to continue to build the infrastructure um and it continues to go so the next slide I
won't go through every Grant but this is an example so we've brought in 684 th000 in Grants into our district just this past year and that's over 200,000 plus from last year and Mary and her team deserve an enormous amount of credit because we don't we don't have a
full-time grant writer in our district and and so this is through the hard work of her team and there's a variety of grants that are here that provide opportunities to improve programming ultimately to increase student achievement but also support our
students so they they feel the strong sense of belonging and that improves performance as well and also supporting our staff so I'm very proud of that and that's no Small Change okay the next slide is the emergency assistance program this is virtually the same slide as last year um
as we know the shelters will be closing down this year and they're going through that process now this funding for our services which provide um English language teachers we've also employed a number of support systems not only for our students that come through the
program but for all students um that money is not included in our budget and it wasn't last year either um and the idea of the 104 per day is fund it per student that was not under roles last year so we have a number of students we're receiving our last allocation this
spring the funding will end as the shelters close but it's critical funding because it has allowed us not only to add staff that's needed but also curricular related Communications related in fact the reach my teach communication platform is superior and we're actually looking to adapt that as
a districtwide and replace our Blackboard which means cleaner communication to families the bottom line is our enrollment is going to shift so we know that as that shifts that that need is going to change and obviously that will be a reduction in terms of those positions and we're currently in
the process of analyzing that um but there will be a continued need for English language Services because the number in town have increased outside of the shelter program um so we'll continue to receive transportation for the rest of the year and this fund though is
critical because it's not in our budget doesn't come out of the town but it allows us to move forward into the next year any remaining funds that can fund some of the support positions that we put into place okay thank you all right
strategic planning for the future this is the exciting part here where you know we're looking to build Pathways K12 for to help reduce a of District placements and we went through a lot of audits we have some more that are slated uh for
theraputic this spring but we've seen that there's essentially seven key areas uh through our audits that need to be addressed in order to bring our services up to where they should be for special education services that will have a direct correlation to improving out of District to reducing out of District
placements but more importantly um supporting our students and families in the best way possible the thing that has come out of this which we are not again we're keeping the ask where it needs to be this year but there's a lot of work that needs to be done in the future and
we know that we're going through some transition now but our team is working really hard to see again from within what can we do to improve the services but we know that we do need to look at Team chairs at the elementary in the middle in the high school that is something that we we have lacked over
years no fault but that's something that we're looking for the future um again Transportation the regionalization of the NorthShore education Consortium I think it's 21 different districts we went through an initiative last year is the pilot year this is the second year where there's
been an analysis of all of our out of District Transportation needs and every district has provided that information to a centralized area and they compute it down to how can we create routes and then as we look to put bids out for
transportation um that process has already begun so that is very encouraging the estimate of savings for all the districts participating is 10% per District so if you look at 2.5 million that's a significant savings just with that that's anticipated we
can't count on that it's not here yet yet but we're very encouraged by the progress that is being made because these pressures are felt by by all districts um again talking about attrition reallocation of Staffing to build programming we have the needs a lot of we put in last year but we still
have more needs and as you know that we're also putting a strategic plan into place we're coming to the final piece of that to build our vision for the future and really lean into the portrait of the learner as our students arrive in prek Tok when they walk out of Schools
they're prepared to be able to be as successful as possible in an everchanging global economy so I put this slide up here and this was in last year's as well but I want to highlight this because I know there's a narrative out there that says well are enrollments declined why is the
Staffing as such I will defend that the Staffing is critical because things have changed over time in terms of what we offer for students we have 23 Advanced places courses we offer at Danver High School I put that up you know I was in
Marblehead and D Beverly before that that's outstanding so that offers opportunities for high level students we've offered uh different career Pathways we're building we also need some specialized programming for special education to keep them in District um
and I will put this is a Shameless plug but we have a falcon showcase April 2nd that I'll invite the select board to to show all the great things that our high school offers I think that we don't advertise that enough because it's an outstanding school but I will say that
the students that last year's class we had 171 students um we had 212 graduated but 171 going on to two and foure colleges 68 different colleges universities locally including Harvard Amherst BC nor Eastern um we have somebody at the University of Dublin
which that'll probably be a fun opportunity but but what I'm getting at is that it's it's critical that we we keep the programming going because Danver high school it's not just an option it should be the place where our kids go outside of things um that we
offer the next piece is again thank you to the investment last year so um quite quite a bit of positions we pulled over from Esser but quite a bit of positions that we added for supporting our programs um and it's key to note that
very specialized programming with our bcbas that create the behavior plans on through the social workers that we've added um speech and language uh providers um Behavior technicians and everything that's needed on top of some of this the support positions at the
high school and middle school that have stabilized with everchanging needs of our students um and I think the biggest piece too is you hold this slide don't go yet so I know that you know there probably will be a question in terms of how do we know that the investment was
successful last year with special education right um so reminder we have a whole new student services team and that's not knocking it's just been transition they are doing outstanding work and I'm proud of the work they're doing I'm proud of the work of all of our Educators um and we we went through
some several audits that it exposes oursel to showing areas that we really need to improve but without that data it's hard to put together a systematic plan of improvement so that's critical but I will tell you right now with our autis autism programming again resources
provided we' been able to create two tiers an intensive and moderate strand of this programming which then that allows us to receive you know specialized services and 30% of our students that are out of District fall under the autism strand is the primary
disability but investing in these two tiers we're now creating cohorts of students which makes it easier for students to remain in District and that's huge um and also we're looking at a solid pathway K12 because as a parent if you have a child that has needs in
autism you want to be confident that the district can offer services all throughout their time in our district and we've saw some some weaknesses along the way and we're working on patching that up again thankful to the investment last year but we know we have more work to do therapeutic program we've created
now a program at Thorp and Holton Richmond that allows students under this Strand and there's 19% of our students out of District that have an emotional disability so this investment ments allowing again to improve that pathway and then our language based
program about 10% of our students out of District are under the Strand um we created a second classroom for elementary students and we're looking to add that now a pathway through our middle and our high school so students stay in District for language Services as opposed to going out so these
Investments that were provided last year are working you know we have more work to do and I don't want to paint the picture that we're done we have a lot more work to do um but this also allows us to shift extended evaluations that often will take place out of district
for students that are that may have needs we're looking to shift the evaluations in District to match our programming and that will allow typically a higher rate of those to stay in District again more work to do but um I think that we're showing good progress
here if you look at our specific numbers for tuitions and stuff we're below last year in terms of not I I can't say a ton of money but we are below and the numbers are staying relatively flat and that's what we're looking to do is flatten the curve things can change
without a district quickly though right you could face movein you could Chase face other factors increasing tuitions at collaboratives that are out of our range but by and large we're trying to control what we can control and that's the key to successful planning and
that's why we dug in deep this year and and last year as well and we know that we have more work to do okay so just looking at next year it's it looks rather modest but we're trying to utilize as much of our funding that go out to contracted services for
different things and bring them to positions in District bcba school psychologist special education teachers team chair we're really really digging deep to try to bring in actually two an elementary and a middle um that's to be seen but that's going to have to be from within our our
means all right so with that being said um I went a long time without water so I better get trying to conserve so we have some potential fundings and savings that we can't count on yet because it's still in progress
you know in terms of Chapter 70 I mentioned that our foundational level $75 per student um last year it was 104 you know so roughly that's about 96,000 and that money doesn't come directly to us but it goes to the town but we work together for this um there is there is
legisl that is trying to increase the foundational level back to 104 if that happens that's certainly money that would come back into our coffers which would be great uh circuit breaker is the tuition's fully funded at 75% Transportation this time is not so it's
not fully funded and we've been advocating with representative Karens uh state senator lovely to say and there there is in the supplemental budget push to increase that reimbursement to 75% that's a substantial number that could go back under circuit breaker coffers
which will help replenish that fund potential Transportation savings ideally if we can save 10% across the board that's substantial we can't count on that yet but we feel that our planning will lend itself to get there and then the pre- tuition um we went with the
thoughtful two-year increase because we are competitive and we provide outstanding Services um and that was an increased in over 15 years and we brought it up modestly but that number itself can help provide a support position so as we look at the cost reductions
with Transportation so if we put more Vans into the the system if we look at our routes and try to firm them up so we maximize the routes uh utilize prek Transportation with our drivers all right really analyze the vendor
contracts but more importantly the Northeast uh Northshore educational collaborative regionalization at that 10% savings across the board we're looking at it you know 10% and we want to be conservative again we can't that that's not here hard fast but if as this
develops it goes back to trying to control the controllables these are items that we can control now that we have a director of Transportation in place that can help guide us through here and we hope that again it's flattening the curve which I Dan can I ask you just to clarify yes you're
showing five areas to save 10% but overall let just say one 10 10% period okay thank you y absolutely okay so as we look to the um proposed increases to our budget the non-salary
requests that's a big line is out of dist out of district tuitions and transportations uh the non-salary requests um which are the the hard materials that that are utilized contracted services that go out to special education contractual
obligations which we have to pay a steps scale Cola cost of living you know that brings us up to 4.9 million the offset itself is is really simple circuit breaker funding we're going to dig deep this year and we have the funding to do that to dig in that's why that
additional replenishment is important that we get that um but the staff savings uh with retirements collapsing on field positions is almost half a million um so that offset is 2.9 Million which then itself as we total everything
out at a 53 million at a 3.8% increase but this is just to illustrate that most of our costs as a school district are fixed as are all and out of that fixed uh account of the budget 84.3% are salaries and and that's that's very typical for
that so our offsets and increases come to the 1.9 million increase and that represents a 3.8 increase uh over last year and I think it's important to understand how this is relative and if you look at a 13year average we're below
um the 3.87 and that does include the the big TK last year of 6.41 um but we know that we have to look within I think our team did an outstanding job outstanding guidance by the school committee great collaboration
with the town because it's really important that we are not only fiscally responsible but also looking to create sustainable programs because as uh Mr Lopes pointed out the landscape around us is is Rocky with a lot of districts um and we want to make sure that we
continue to build in a way where uh we can make it through lean times and then look to to continue our building um as things may change so I'm very proud of this budget um and I know there's a lot of areas that we certainly need and I again I didn't want to paint a picture
like that things are are done and I told you I wouldn't come back with the 6.41 so at least I lived up to my word on that piece but at the end of the day um again with strong schools and strong effort by our team they're digging in and doing their all and the continued
relation across all and and I honestly can say I'm very proud that we have the relationship across all and I know the library is here and unfortunately you're behind me I'm sorry but we've been collaborating even with the library looking for ways we can connect for more opportunities for our kiddos and we
we're reaching across as many the DPW is outstanding um so and we're looking to continue to develop even more relationships because sharing resources and looking for ways that we can improve um I think it's all of our responsibility so hopefully I didn't put
anybody to sleep so to early to early questions Mike oh right out of the gate okay hi Dan I think we're going to need some car washes and bake sales it's a big number there yep um I do have a bunch of questions and they're all over
the board if you can I can just shoot them off real quick y can you tell me um how do how do the kids stand up in dvas with say across the board across the state whatever uh nationally it says uh by the end of grade five 60% of students
will score at meeting and exceeding standards of uh mcast and then grade six grade eight 60% is is 60% a good number I think it's all relative uh we've been very flat with our M and that's mcast scoring off of that we've been flat over
I did a seven-year analysis um our elementaries have have done well usually above state aage aage over seven years our Middle School is a little bit below the state average in some areas our high school has bounced back it's been up and down over time um but I would say that
you know and certainly with the changing legislation that's taking mcass out of a graduation requirement um you know if you look at other data all right and again I know that we're K12 Continuum but when I break down advanced placement
scores in terms of AP scores we've gone up SAT scores are within the national average above national average and above state in some areas which I think is important um and I will say that the percentage of students moving on and having opportunities is important so we
can do better there's no question about it um and I think what we're trying to put into place is addressing some of those areas that we know we need to improve we've changed our literacy program it all starts the elementary is where it starts but we also know that we have some points at the middle making
that transition that connection that we're addressing for that alignment as well as to the high school so I I don't I hope I answered that for you so basically you have a plan to do better yes with that all right thank you yeah um uh quick question um there's a lot of
subscriptions and committees that uh are we're a part of here does is there anybody that checks to see when we don't need to be part of these because there's thousands of dollars in all that stuff and I'm not saying it's not necessary I just don't know does anybody say okay well we don't need this it's outdated or
whatever and take it off the board if I could ask clarification Mike you mean subscriptions like technology and applications or all that this yeah this it's Lac through all this different things you know I'm just wanting to is there some way to make sure when not paying for you know the Time Magazine to
show up that we're not reading anymore yeah yeah that is a good question uh that's a fair question the answer is yes so our technology in terms of the subscriptions cuz as obviously we've moved more in that direction um Jim Elan our technology director works with our
directors works with Mary to look at what do we need so a prime example of that is the reach my teach which we're not paying for now that's the communication that goes out to families and staff that allows things to be translated much more efficiently and our
current model of Blackboard which is old and clunky which if you get my update sometimes you see some pagination errors and things like that because it's not a great system we're replacing that next year we're not going to have the two there's no need to have two and as because that funding is going to go off
so we're going to replace that and there are some very fine U minute applications that teachers over time will say this is better than that so we we don't want to duplicate the efforts so another quick answer is yes thank
you um so the transportation seems like you're you're on with that you're going to get more Vans and and whatnot um the training for the drivers uh cuz we don't want to have any of the uh no kid left behind behind stories in in the media um there certifications and training that
happens with the drivers and they get up and look in the back of the bus and make sure there's nobody there there is yes exactly so for 7D Transportation which is to and from school that's a higher level of certification that all drivers have so um that that is in place yes all
right uh with the changes in the department of education do you have any insight as far as how uh funding might change whether it gets better or or Worse any any thoughts on that off um well you know my thoughts initially are that you know it's a wait and see uh but
the entitlements that we receive and you can look in the back in the appendix that breaks it down you know there are a number of entitlements we receive as a district to offset special education and offset other areas of our our most needy populations um I think 1.6 1.7 million
that we receive that helps offset that um and every year that goes to review this is not new what's happening now for these Appropriations in terms of under scrutiny they've been under scrutiny for the last several years and even last summer reviewing a report where you know
things may not go up it may be level funded as opposed to level service which means level funding really is usually less service because of the increase of costs so I think this is a wait and see approach on this um you think they might be more
money that the state will have for education if there's a savings on the federal side not sure okay not sure I didn't know if there was any talk well there's definitely talk within the supplemental budget that that I pointed out in terms of circuit breaker in Chapter 70 because those are really old
formulas and the needs have just risen across the board um you know we're fortunate that you know we don't receive as many of the federal entitlements just based on our population as more urban areas that rely more on that piece but um I totally a wait and see it this time
okay you know confident that we have good advocacy at least at the state level with with Joan and Sally we we communicate with them frequently to let them know our needs as well as the other you know when I meet with our superintendent group we all talk about ways that we can continue advocacy
because we know those funds are vital is is the cost per student in danvas uh roughly the same across uh the board yeah it's a little bit less than the state it's it's for some reason we're a little bit behind where the state is but um it's it's relatively
similar yes okay and my last question is there any um possibility or or talk about maybe bringing some kind of shop classes to the high school that might keep students in Damas versus them leaving well I I will say um that we have looked uh so
we've acquired another pathway an environmental science pathway uh we already have uh manufacturing and Engineering so we're looking for ways to expand that but in terms of the pure shop classes such as uh electrical or or Plumbing not at this time but we have
we've met with uh SX Tech uh we've met with Heidi a few times and trying to look for ways like you know there are programming there's programming there that allows students that could take courses at the high school during the day and in the afternoon uh after dark program it's called where they can do
some of those uh shop classes so that way students can get the best of both worlds we're looking at that piece and that may go off as a pilot next year we're still a few pie does that help us cost wise it does I mean there's a little bit of cost with that but that does keep students here and I will say
over I think one of the areas that we got to continue to work on improving is showing like all the things that we have yeah right because we do have tremendous options and obviously the tech provides for specific service for students in that case and we shouldn't directly
compete necessarily but I think what we should really do is show the areas that we have there are advantages for students um that are looking for what we can offer the higher level of courses but also the combination of like let's face it the world's changing and our students need to be prepared in terms of
electronics they need to be prepared in terms of uh engineering and things of that nature so those are the pathways we're trying to invest in the medical field as well we did launch we're launching an uh aeronautical course next year which I'm curious to see how that goes but we're trying to we're looking
at that but um again I'm providing longer answers than I probably need to but the answer is those specific programming no but yes to looking at ways we can offer more options for kids maybe light maybe light duty shop classes cuz what you just said you don't want to duplicate what they're already doing I get that did you so did you did
you come over to see the the W woodworking shop that we have not yet yeah come on over and see that cuz we do offer courses where they're able to do some of that oh cool all right y all right thank you thank you very much Mr Boward did show me those programs I'll be impressed take a take a walk through
with them okay Moren yeah thank you Dan and Pam and Mary and school committee for keeping that number good for us we anticipated a little bit more um I like hearing about the OU of district coordinator that new position I
think that will help you tremendously um we can't control the transportation cost and the special education cost but it looks like you are trying to get really ahead of the curve with that grants grants grants over 200,000 that's great and you know you touched upon you know
saving out of Serv 20,000 instead of private 30,000 all that adds up right so whatever we can do for the kids and for to support um the administration too um I think like we talked about Dan before
is keeping the kids in District as much as we can and i' I've seen it feels like I've seen an improvement already from last year to this year and I want to commend all of you for that I think that's great it's very important that we do do do that and um by with the
transportation if you need more Vans another van let us know I think that's that will help offset some of the cost um the team chair I think that's great uh with the leadership you know hopefully with a new town manager I
think that's going to be someone's priority to really you know get all the leaders in the same room and really do a lot of collaboration it's nice to hear that you work good with the Essex Tech um you know for that after do program I think that's wonderful whatever we can
do to help both schools right we're we're one Community you know we're all one I think that would be great um and then um the the programs you talked about
like my colleague Mike was saying I mean when we went to school there was like home act I mean I'm kind of dating myself and bookkeeping and things like that anything we can do even giving kids the opportunity uh financial literacy you know that's I
think that's a huge piece that um I don't know if we have that I know that we do the um uh the people come in and and we'll walk through um and do the credit credit for Life yes credit right so that's good I think kids really need to know that to be able believe or not
to balance a checkbook right I mean you know you're going to go out to this world you're not still living you know in your parents home you want to prepare them and if you could I think it would be Wonder f for everybody to hear that if you could touch base about how we had um that that opportunity to sit with um
administratives colleagues teachers for the building the future for the kids remember that that day could you talk about that and let everybody know how wonderful that was because you want to prepare these kids for the future right no I I appreciate that uh we're coming toward the end of finalizing our vision
for the next 5 to 10 years and the created portrait of The Graduate so what are the key competencies that students um should Master by the time they leave high school but it starts when they arrive the enter point the entry point um and how can we embed these strands
throughout everything that we do so right now we created we took feedback from the community we took feedback from the select board and town leaders thank you for participating in that our faculty staff we've had students involved where um and the superintend advisory Council involved where we're pulling out this like what's important
what do we want to see our schools where do we see them in the future to develop that vision and then we're looking at the core competencies such as you know collaboration communication critical thinking all the things that we know but but what does that so our job is going to be once we crystallize that is like how how does that demonstrate in the
classroom because those are very broad terms but how can we show that because that is real world but that doesn't take away from and I have to be very clear the foundational work that has to there's always the foundational work of academics so we we can't straight from that so it's it's those two worlds
together so um by the end of this year we should have the core of it mapped out to present to the community and then continue to build as it aligns with our strategic plan so right now we're trying to pull out the strands that we can build our yearly plans off of so we come back for budgets every year we can say
that's aligned to this this and this so that we have a clear pathway for the future so that was a lot of fun it was a lot of fun that day I mean know just uh put everybody putting their ideas you know with sticky keys and going over and writing them down but good job thank you
commend all of you thank you very much thank you D thank you Mr chair uh thank you Mr bow I did watch the school committee meetings where the budget discussions occur so I watch all of them
um I went to my package with the intent of looking at how do we either save money or how do we make money because that the bottom line without cutting the services it was hard so there's not
really much on this budget it just seems I was talking to my friend Paul poock earlier I'm like I mean I'm looking for places where I can cut and I just don't see it uh I do have a couple of clarifying questions to just to
understand of course uh if I look in my package on a page A6 um the one that was toop off uh line 181 the management CU I was looking more on
outliers a management Reserve that went down 91% what what's that and what does that mean so the management Reserve is created to float costs that are really Associated to salaries and such so it was a large number last year because we
went into contract negotiations and we knew we needed that money to help move through the contract planning and once that's been achieved and we've been established it's it's not atypical for that to be reduced it'll come back again when we get into the next contract
cycle okay that's that's monies that we utilize for that that offsets the salaries and and those expenditures such as that okay so it's not money that we just reallocated to other things we reallocated yes we we that was reallocated yes okay um how did I do Pam
I mean I'm sorry Pam is I mean I think when there was a slide earlier about the offsets that we were using against the increases and one of those was about half a million dollars in savings from attrition and
retirements so when someone retires and they've been serving the district for three decades the expectation is that their replacement will be a um a teacher perhaps with less experience at the
outset and so with will realize some salary savings with that replacement higher so that management Reserve is a place also where a lot of that offset is sort of housed and that is a little bit higher this year in addition to the fact
that we're not carrying money there for the contractual um increases that we expected through the negotiation process in addition to that we are experiencing um a few more retirements and other attrition kind of things going on um and
that savings that offset is living inside the management Reserve okay if that makes a little bit more sense thank you thank you very much um the the special education Transportation cost and I know last year you spoke of
regionalization or some attempt to do so you mentioned that earlier today as well where are we in that process really and sure and do we think we will have something in place by next year or yes so we're in the year two of that
pilot so last year um they asked us for all of our data so where are students going um all the routes we provided all the information they've broken that down and then brought it together with all the other
districts so where we're at right now is very encouraging um we they are putting out bids right now to Providers okay so they've Consolidated the routes um and that may mean that we we're one route might go through Danvers Beverly and
Gloucester um so they've put packets out to the providers and that's typically around this time so to me that's excellent news because once the contracts come back you know for the providers then we'll start to see where are we really saving so right now
they're anticipating 10% but we really aren't we not know that until the hard numbers come back to you know the routes and such like that that are accepted by whichever providers okay so really with the second year we're on track to answer your question um and then I think that's
going to be cleared up within the next two months um which is which is outstanding perfect thank you um I do see that we lost one curriculum director and now we have two correct
uh are they what is it one for the middle school and one for the high school so what we're looking to do is we did make a budgetary cut to help offset um but we're also looking to streamline our curriculum uh director to have one
that would would be a 612 we're looking to mirror the elementary So currently the elementary curriculum director is grades K through five and that person has a team of three individuals Unit A members that's all they do a math coach
um uh literacy uhal and Library so we're looking to mirror that at the secondary level um so although it's unfortunate with the budget cut but I'm looking at as an opportunity to do streamlining but also to rebuild and looking to create teams at the high school middle school
that can work with that 612 curriculum director and create I think that will increase um vertical alignment between the midle and the high school which is critical and also to help with that transition from grade five to six okay so so there'll be one for they
will still be one for the elementary school then that's no change there okay and the only the only change will be we'll have there won't be one dedicated to the middle school one to the high school there will be only one that will serve grades 6 through 12 but we're looking internally to create teams
similar to the elementary although budgetarily I couldn't devote specific positions quite yet so we're working through that process as we're bringing on board a new assistant director working with Mary as well as our new high school principal so there's a few moving pieces but that's
the direction we're headed okay perfect and in that same line of thought with reduction in Staffing I also saw uh there a mad teacher um uh one I think it's an FD mad teacher position that's eliminated so
are we losing Mt classy cuz um I mean my un son took apbc car as a junior and that very well uh I mean was able to
have AP courses for the college got bachelor in three years instead of four lot of I mean I are we losing and I know we have the cut budget we have to but I
I'm concerned if we're going to be losing high level classes for our students and to be very clear no we are not so with a high school schedule which which is very complex with multiple sections we're looking to streamline
we're not reducing or changing any of the classes okay and we're not losing we're not and I want to be very clear there are no Unit A members that are being cut none zero we're looking for ways to attrition and retirements to make this work that's how we're making a few of the shifts and that's the quiet way of attrition to bring down the
overall piece but we have multiple multiple sections so for example in a geometry you may have five or six College Prep um sections at the honors level you might have four or five so the ultimate trade-off I don't know if this is not the specific example but in
general so instead of having four you could probably look with the enrollment to make three for the college prep instead of having six you might be able to make it to be five so in no way any way will that reduce the quality and the classes and Personnel people so there
are no Unit A cuts which we're very we're very pleased with that okay perfect thank you I also saw that $23,000 um addon for denas Cas which is think Morin represents the board there now uh love the program I've been part
of it for many many years and uh have a really soft spot for for what they do does that go toward programming or stien for the uh mentors or both it goes mainly for the stien and the shift that
we made this year was We shifted the model to have three of our staff run danver's cares so we went from uh one outside into three inside so that divides up into stiens okay so they
we're sharing the work which is incredible they were able to have one and it's not that that was a lot now we have three doing the work uh and they're sharing and dividing that up so that's been a very very good thing yeah I think that's a good thing I mean I I do be I I
I think it's a great thing that the school has and it helps not only the school but the community and I'm all for it so thank you thank you Dan can we go to page B7 sure yes so help me understand the uh
program realignment um I understand Highland has no capacity for specialized programming but Riverside LC ends this year Smith therapeutic ends this year what does that mean so what that means is this
program this started last year we're looking to centralize those specific strands to maximize resources prior uh prior years you may have different sections yeah I fig which slide that is the bottom line is um so we're taking all the Learning
Centers we've moved them to Smith although we allowed Riverside to keep one cohort because it was important to us to allow those students to finish in their school so this year that cohort is aging out we're moving those resources to the Middle School to to build off of
that uh the therapeutic piece we allowed students at Smith the same concept um and it did Stretch our resources but it was the right thing to do to allow students to finish at Smith and then they'll move to the middle school but we also have created sections
cuz ultimately the Thorp will have all the therapeutic programming uh and the same with the language based we have it was at Smith that's all moving to Great Oak the prek all last summer again huge collaboration with with the DPW um all of our prek program
programming is now at Riverside what that has allowed us to do is those uh programs it increases the collaboration between them increases the collaboration between Services um and that that really has been a good thing so this this slide
really represents there are remnants that will fully be involved into the programming at those buildings next year does it mean that students will be taken out of their neighborhood school in order to get the services they need we've been go elsewhere we've been doing
that that's that's been the case so for example um in the past where you may have you had Learning Centers at uh Smith excuse me Thorp and Riverside and let's say you live in the Great Oak and you required specific specialized Services you go to either one of those schools and we provide the
transportation now we're just moving everything instead of two or three buildings Under One Roof and it's important that we spread out the programming throughout the district and Highlands just is one that there just no capacity uh just because of their High enrollment or not necessarily High
enrollment but just because the lack of space exactly yeah okay I hope that answers that question it does thank you e14 hey sounds like we're playing Battleship yes yes Student Activities okay Student
Activity accounts uh net current balance 225 back in 23 is much larger number I just I can't understand these numbers is basically
what it says I'm saying to you the there's no correlation from year to year this is where I will phone where's all the money um so the net current balance is something that is computed yearly these are essentially revolving accounts where
there's constantly money that is coming in and going out and the and the balances roll over from one year to the next I this report does not capture an ending balance at the end of every fiscal year but I thought it was important maybe more for the business
office to and the principles and the school committee and everybody to understand the volume of money that is coming in and out of these accounts on a yearly basis which is why um I kind of was capturing the total amount coming in and the total amount going out on an
annual basis over time those pluses and minuses add up to the net current balance that was reflected as of February right around February vacation is what that number is so I I if available I mean I can provide to you if
you're interested what the balance was at this time last year and the year before um but you're right that it you would need to go back to the um very beginning of when these accounts were established and look at plus this minus
that plus this minus that in order to arrive at that $225,000 current balance for all these accounts well so when I look at 23 expenses 400 31 y 24 expenses 390 so that's a Delta of
$41,000 it is difference and that's accurate it it is accurate um things so I one example would be that the DECA organization at the high school is a very large and successful organization where their money is managed through these accounts depending on where they
are traveling to for their and how many students are traveling to the international competition which sometimes is in California sometimes is in Orlando um then we have money for plane tickets and hotels and registration fees but that can rise and fall depending on how many students and
what the per student cost is to attend that stuff how many students went this year um I believe we are under last year's number um we haven't actually they go in April and I think there might be around 50 students that are going along with the associated um chapon yes
that's corre okay that's great something like that okay so this is more of a question perhaps for the man the revolving account will be in the warrant article for Student Activity accounts Student Activities are governed separately by the school department they
governed separately okay all right and that's always been the case yeah and yes okay and as part of Student Activities it's also audited independently each year so if someone wanted to get a deeper dive on the activity in the Student Activity account we have that information available good thank you very much okay I think we're all set
anybody in the audience yes Mr Bates good I oh I'm sorry hold on Bill but generally too not to um you know in terms of fees and such like that you know we've been fairly level with fees over time as well so I was looking at the fee structure and I'm glad I don't have any kids in school anymore I know I
I do [Laughter] danay Mr Bates yeah good morning Bill Bates town meeting member Precinct 4 um I just want to share most of you know that uh I'm a
new danvas crossing guard and one of the things that I wanted to say this morning was to the students the parents the teachers and the administrators how proud I am at the politeness of the students towards the danamas um traffic
control people their thank you have a good day have a nice Thanksgiving it's so encouraging and I'm talking at I've been at the middle school the high school and Elementary and it's just it's overwhelming they're so polite the other
thing I want to say is as a nine-year member of the school committee I worked with a lady named Mary wormers and she is retiring this year she is an educational and Municipal hero and I would like to give her a round of
applause now that's it for the good stuff um I would like to suggest and I will be doing this during the DPW portion also that the Damas Public Schools needs to be a better neighbor
around these schools the new Smith School which has been opened for a number of years has been lit up like a Christmas tree at one 2 3 in the morning for no reason the neighbors have called they've worked with the former DPW
director um I wanted it's the first time I'm bringing it to the superintendent and the school committee's attention but we we were able to work with our neighbors at St John's Prep to get our privacy back and turn those lights off when they're not needed please look at
the system Smith School can do better the other thing I wanted to say was we live next to Smith school and at 3:00 a.m. the week of school vacation we got clows out there plowing it and beep beep
beep beep let's be better neighbors please thank you anyone else I see two hands what probably way back there
okay please put your hands up higher folks thank you uh Kevin bar 34 popler Street I have two two children in Danver Public Schools a middle schooler and Elementary schooler so um I think I've noticed that we're we're very specific
all the time about what we want to add which is good right we ask for more money we need to say what it's for and why it's worth it I'm less sanguine about what we want to cut um because every time this budget the last year's budget there's always some areas where
uh we're going to find the savings to pay for this new thing uh and it's it's a little handwavy about that right so so this year this past school year uh sixth grade foreign language education was cut in half I don't think that was clear from
last year's Budget Theater drama Arts the extra the the curricular parts of that not the extracurricular but the curricular parts of that were cut at the middle school so I just want to ask explicitly what are we cutting this
year to pay for this year prior committee meeting on the budget I did I watched Mr Crane actually ask this very question okay uh and did not get an answer so I wanted to ask it uh again thank you why we don't have the answer
up here I Know Dan but I I have to direct my comments at you as you as you know right thanks Dan you want to respond to that absolutely um and I would welcome you know certainly the um budget slides the packets are all online which is great I
also welcome any individual calls or visits to my office to discuss these things in detail that sometimes a school committee meeting can be challenging you make public comment we present but I'm always available for followup so in terms of the uh World Language was not a a cut necessarily was a programming change that we made because they're
making some adjustments with scheduling and looking for areas for including a Wind Block which allows for more remediation of skills such as an mtss block that we have at the elementary um so there's there is a a continued piece of that but I appreciate that part in
terms of Performing Arts um we and Alex Grover who is our um he's really our 612 uh Performing Arts director and he's just outstanding so very clear that um you know there was a move a Personnel move last year but we still provided an
outstanding the musical at the middle school is outstanding we still have those opportunities for students the class itself was one that we are not running but we found um it was a it was a progamic um move for that particular class but the program itself for the extracurricular stuff is still going and
going strong and we're looking to continue to build that piece thanks does that help Kevin I'm asking what's the I know what the cut was last year what's the cut this year is there a cut this year or I think Mr Co Antonio specifically said we haven't identified what we're cutting at the middle school yet to pay for this but it'll be
something we don't know do we know now I have to ask him on the clarifications I'm not sure exactly what that's basic means but for overall cuts um you know in terms of the Middle School itself if there's any movements it's going to be internal that would not be something cut from my office piece because often times
in being a principal for seven but an a system for 10 there's often internal moves that are made that um because there are some areas of the programming you want to improve and some things that you you diminish based on overall needs of the students and
desires a lot of times that may happen with elective courses and things of that nature uh but in terms of the pure subjects and the core subjects that's usually uh much different there may be a variation of a course that you might run like it's not going to change from like the pre-algebra algebra and those
courses but in terms of an elective connect to the math that could change but there's a programming shift uh with the World Language last year with grade six to implement the Wind Block so and I'm happy to F more specifically um if you'd like thanks you're very welcome thank you anyone
else long hands up Bill are you trying to put your hand up uh at my age yes I am yes I'm sorry last there someone no go go ahead Bill Bill Brad street Town me have Precinct one I had several questions one
was in the past families used to uh move to Damas because of our school system do we know if that is still the case from I don't know comments or how you would find that out I mean we were no oted for our school
system which is why people wanted to live here whether they can afford it now or not I don't know but do they still want to move here because of our school system well professionally I would say to you many
young families have moved into town recently if you put a house on the market it doesn't stay on the market long right um if houses were coming on the market and sitting there for three four five months I would say you have a good question what's what's wrong with
this picture but that's not what I see in the marketplace with real estate people are moving to Damas given the opportunity thank you you're welcome uh schools too course they they look at everything
yeah they look at schools they look at I think people do move to Damas because of the schools absolutely uh grants was mentioned uh I always say it and I do believe it grants come with strings are the strings that come with
the grants that the school is able to get are they worth the effort do they really help or I know money is helpful for the school department as it is with any department but the counterbalance of
the strings is it does it end up being worth it we'll let the administration speak to that but when I was looking at the grants they look very specific to me for certain programs so that's what you apply for okay but I'll ask Mr bow to respond
absolutely well there's one grant that I know you might be interested in that we provide But to answer holistically um the whole Grant application process we know up front in terms of what is needed to make sure that the grant is successfully completed um so as Mary and
her team are applying they know all the parameters to bring it to to final conclusion I want to say we have a Civics uh implementation Grant of 30,000 which we need we're utilizing that I believe at the middle school right and high school K K12 um so we know there
are parameters that must be met in terms of developing implementing and getting into place which we meet those standards but um we wouldn't we wouldn't undertake a grant oh yeah great Civics Grant 32,000 so we know we have that in place
um and we know when we put in a grant we we review and like is this realistic I think that's a great question because ultimately we don't want to go forward with something that we can't meet and not take advantage of those funds the early college grant uh is substantial because we do have that partnership with
Northshore uh Community College where we send a cohort of students up to take Advanced courses there and that's been huge um the seal uh Grant of $100,000 is substantial because that has allow the work at the elementaries with the PBIS uh positive behavior intervention
strategies and and really creating stronger expectations for students so when Mary put in for that Grant she knew all right we're going to require we have an outside consultant working with us so that's fund it also the specific work and time and then being able to submit like what is the progress and how we
finished up and in terms of the federal grants the student Opportunity Act you know we have to put in you know we receive federal funding so we have to show all the benchmarks that we've made on that so to answer your question yes we want to make sure we don't get oursel in apply for a grant just to apply
specific reason but also knowing like how we apply that I hope I answered that okay thank you sir thank you Bill part of part of what he mentioned was Civics my question is because the way the world is these days
Civics to me is important it used to be when I was going to school it used to be taught I think it was a standalone subject I still think it should be a standalone subject for our young adults today and moving
forward uh the other thing is and I've talked about it before cursive writing is it or can it be studied or implemented so many documents from Days A of years ago were written in cursive writing some of it is
illegible I know some people print or they use a computer but I still think when you find an older document it's in cursive writing and I think it's it's important that the young people coming along can read the wisdom from someone
who preceded them uh mention a list of uh needs the changes needed in the uh schools is there a list of that you can go by and like other departments do I need a new
mailbox I need a new a pavement or I need this is there a list and are they putting in order of of needs obviously the least needs to be last the most important needs to be first uh that was
spoken about uh and I I know it's small my wife tells me I'm anal but please refer to the kids as young adults they're not kids anymore not in
today's uh busy life they are young adults are trying to deal with the adult problems at a very young age and it's only going to get worse thank you thank you Bill anyone else
Jim Jim Mor Tomy freeing three yeah I just want to talk about just about the the U um the uh oh un no not the one the grants but uh but basically I just want
a quick comment on top of that I understand that there's all sorts of crazy things happening up at the federal level department of education and uh the you know uh they're going to diminish that but we should be getting money out of that and then there's also a little
comments to the effect n nationalwide that if Dei is still being taught then we could lose our federal funding so I just want to make sure that uh denas has done its due diligence like I don't know if any of these unfunded I keep any of these grants are
Dei based or I mean have I I don't know if any of this stuff is built into our curriculum or even in other departments but um uh how do we stand on that as far as Dei protection against Federal and
inclusion I feel you have more questions right Jim I I do okay do you want to exhaust them or come back or my last question would be let's answer that one for a absolutely happy to so my duty as the superintendent is to ensure all programming meets the requirements to
ensure that we are fully certified in everything that we do so and the grants are the grants so they're listed there's no hidden punches there those are the grants um happy to provide even a deeper list of what they go with but um I'm I I can say that I'm more than confident
that we are in a good place with the programming that we provide uh to ensure that we have continued funding thank you yep Jim thank you and and and my last question is it does go back to the uh grants is that it's
$680 somewhat thousand of grant money that we're getting in and so how much is this going to cost us in other words once we Implement these grants they're going to pay for whatever it is where all these programs and things so but once the grants are over like you said
when they're complete but we have to carry them for a certain amount of time and actually pay add that to our budget so how much is this 4 684 th000 actually going to cost us in the budget and that's my final question you
sure Bud grants y so yeah for example you know theal Grant so once that goes nothing because the consultant we're utilizing to help formulate and improve
programming we won't have any further need for that because we've already developed the in-house methodology we already have curriculum that's it's we don't have like mathal social studies we don't have that but we have Baseline social emotional learning particularly at the elementary that's already there
it's just enhancing that piece so the answer to that one is there's nothing the math acceleration Grant we currently have Carnegie math is our curriculum so we have our curriculum that's allowing a consultant more research work to improve that curriculum so that's already there
so there's no more money the 18 every program is one time that seed money so that we can improve applied learning for experiential learning which is critical it's like the Hands-On stuff right so that is there that's gone early college grant is something we get every year
that provides that piece Civics Grant we have curriculum but that's allowing us to improve that curriculum so all of these grants aren't going to come in and serve as something that would then basically like how will we put this into the budget so these these do not the
capital skills technology and Equipment Grant is huge because that's from the state which allows us to buy equipment for that medical pathway for that engineering pathway so when you go into the shop a lot of that equipment's already been bought right um and with that piece the health services all all
these grants are um not going to come back into the budget nor will there be an allocation that will be required so I hope I answer that for you Jim yes you thank you anyone else okay s Francis G9 Wildwood Road um I just had a quick question regarding S6
Tech the collaboration that you wanted to do with them I know there was talks about uh possibly restricting how many students can apply at S6 Tech and I was wondering with this collaboration would that stop that restriction or can we wait till S6 Tech is here I wasn't sure because I know they that you were also
involved too I was going to ask them as well iose that and please address your comments to the board okay no I know I was just talking okay and then another thing also too I also agree with Bill I have young adults at home too and they're now applying for jobs and such and the first question they say is I
don't know how to sign my name so I think it is important for the kids to learn cursive as well thank you good point we'll get back to when I thank you so much I just want to make sure yep no problem anybody else thank you school committee Dan Pam Mary for coming and
presenting much appreciated and I want to take the agenda out of order and ask the library if they'll wait 10 minutes because I'm moving break time up to now Mr chairman Yes sounds good quick uh will we be voting line by line what do
you want to do probably easier line by line if that works for you yeah it does okay I have no Authority but I'll make a motion to move the education budget no no to do that second yeah second Mike you want to make that motion repeat what
Rodney says and the make a motion to accept the school budget as it proposed and who wants to second I will second it all right any further discussion all in favor I I okay very good it's
unanimous good job I think the break's good too my hand address are just canell again oh no well oh well the agenda was put together by some young people [Laughter]
like e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e my name is Noel Bach I am the library
director at the pub Institute library of Danvers welcome yes thank you very much thank you for having me as usual so here we go I have the click I usually don't have the clicker actually it's all new for me uh so this is our budget this
year as you can see it is uh just really a 2.27% increase which is pretty standard for us um since I've been here three and a half years now uh you know we have like somewhere about a 2 and a half% increase every year uh the state
actually requires we have about a 2 and a half% increase every year uh as well so we we pretty much Hold Steady there um the increases that we do have our really just salary uh for the most part and then our membership in the noble
Consortium fees have increased modestly they do a good really good job so you can see that where we're at is pretty much our average of where we're going to be uh usually I just like to do a little snapshot of our circulation since that's
like an easy metric for people to understand uh so I am actually except for January for some reason this this past year uh our circulation keeps increasing every year uh bit by bit that's usually something that really we we expected after the
pandemic of course there to be a big increase uh in circulation when we reopened up fully and there was a big a big jump then uh but we actually been increasing our circulation every year uh little bit by bit which is I give as uh definitely props to my staff who are
doing a great job of purchasing materials that people really want to have in our building and for them to you know be to uh check out and and use so uh that's really a compliment to my staff that they're able to provide what people really want and keep people
coming back to our library and using our materials so that's uh just great that's great for us and like and honestly I expected that we would not see increases anymore at this point that we'd really just be completely level but uh from what I was looking at we're having at least another 2% increase in circulation
this year um if not a little bit more and it continues to do that in the in the noble Consortium as a whole out of all communities I'll look and see like what other communities are doing and we circulate far more than a lot of other places cities like you know Everett Riv
we do far better uh than a lot of other places and our children's department has been doing a lot of Statistics lately they are comparing like pre-pandemic numbers to current numbers and one of the statistics they came out with recently is that they have seen the the
children's Department alone has seen a 63% increase in circulation like looking back back at like 2018 2019 um to what they're doing now in like similar years since post-pandemic so uh you know sometimes people say kids don't read anymore and children's room is like ah
nuh like they are they are reading and really really going through all of our our things so it's great uh so this is just a little snapshot of just a few things that we have that we do at the library uh so we have a seed library
that we started uh yeah fourth year so yeah and our little statistic as last year you know 1,800 seed packets uh went out to nearly 200 people in the area uh so that's people growing and being sustainable here that we support and that's a completely free program uh we
have a a uh deceased prior person that worked for the library her family donated money to like start the seed library and so they're continuing to do that and this year actually I rode away to Burpee Seeds um and they gave us some free seeds for it as well so that was great um we have databases that we
maintain that's part of what Noble our Consortium does is that they help us uh buy at a reasonable rate uh databases the state also provides some and so we have crucial vetted information like right now in a world where a lot of
internet data is not necessarily trust trustworthy uh the the all the data that you can get from the library databases is is vetted information um and it's on every topic so if you're looking for medical information you should use a library database if you're looking for
educational information uh anything business information we have all of that information come like from databases that you can use for free from the library um our community outreach is still going fantastically uh so we go to
several assisted living facilities uh we visit the senior center frequently we go directly to homes so we have Home Delivery Service uh we go to the community events so I was also at the pancake breakfast um this year but we have uh Light the Night purple we're
involved with oniontown Festival Pride party we help do planning with those as well so we try to look wherever we can um work with other groups and to uh highlight what Dan was saying with us we do try to work very much with the
schools so we have h a second grade library card drive that we do so we try to get to all of the second grades my children's staff does that and you know get and some of them come and visit the library um otherwise they'll try to work directly with the school and get library cards into the hands of all the second
graders um they also do school class visits come to the library our teen librarian has a monthly visit to the high school and then she's also had started working with the Middle School librarian as well to do some programming um and we've been working with the I've
been meeting with Dan and uh the Middle School uh principal among others to like talk about how we can provide and support programming for the middle school students after school uh we always support the summer reading program from uh for the schools so we buy multiple copies of all the books
that are on the summer reading lists uh so that the students can get those for no cost uh as well so make sure that we're supporting that um and uh we also will work with some of the clubs uh that are working as well and that so that's that's like just some of the ways that
we partner and we continue to partner uh we like to partner with the Arts in town as well so we have collaborative art shows with the Danver artist iation we have four a year uh one's just ending today actually and we have a new one going up next week with the D Danver photo group and we work with other
individual artists uh in the library to do shows throughout um we have dozens and dozens of author visits we've do book groups story times we're really on top of trying to make sure that we promote literacy in our community and language learning has been
a real Focus for us over the last couple of years so we have uh an English conversation group that we run weekly um we have like little little breaks in between we so we'll run it for like uh eight weeks at a time and then have a little break and then start up again so we've seen a real increase in people
coming to go to the English conversation circles uh to like improve their language skills um we recently purchased this past year a database that has children's books in multiple languages so it's all an online thing but I think want to say 65 languages that you can
look uh have children be able to read in their native language Ang as well uh we we have a free transparent languages is uh a lot of people will say oh there's dual lingo and things like that it is like that it's through the state that we get that for free and has everything that you can think of for a language on
there I use it actually to uh help learn sign language myself I've been working on sign language uh and we're expanding our world languages collections as well in the library so this is a real demand that we are seeing in the community that we are trying to uh make sure that we're doing it oh we're adding play groups in
Spanish too have Spanish play groups that we're adding as well so those are all things that we're trying to work with the community as they ask for and uh we're also expanding work with uh different differing abilities for people so we do we're working with Northeast Arc um we have a Northeast AR
developmental screenings that we started doing and we also have our uh Grant the current grant that we have for the deaf and heart of hearing so we had added some technology to the building uh this past year and then this year we're the second year of the grand we're focusing on bringing in um sign language
interpreters for some programming uh as well so like we can have do that and we do Outreach we do have a connection with the New England homes for the death so we uh connect with them and they're going to make regular visits to the library as well they're starting to do like a monthly visit uh there too and
just I was uh struck by Dan talking and Pam actually about the future um and that we are really focused at the library about the future as well and so some of the things that we uh find that people are always looking to find out
things about so for all ages really but like we're just talking about college track for example so we regularly have people come in and do like College Planning um Finance planning for for people about to send those kids to college like how do we pick a college
how do we fund that college uh education we have people doing that we also have um frequently have people come in to do programming for Medicare social security so for those seniors that are just starting and moving into that place Sally karn's actually helped um sponsor
one of those recently as well so we're really looking for people who want to do future planning whether they're kids in college whether they're you know seniors just starting to change their world uh and retire and stuff like that we have those kind of programming going on as
well to try to educate and really connect with our community and that they need so those are just a few things there's many many more uh things that we're doing too I was going to like also one of the other things we're going to work on with our library of things is U Memory Care kits those are something
that we put together that can circulate that help people who have dementia um and they're just kind of like simple activity kits basically that you can bring home and let people who are starting to experience that um have different activities that help with their engagement and to like help with
their memories so those are just a couple of things that we are doing at the library and as you know we have um poke fun at the schools but like their their increase is you our budget our entire budget is less than the increase we give to the schools so like what the
library does is such a bargain um you know we do we do everything and you know that's that's what we do at the library and so I just like had a quote the last quote was a library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life and
I know that there's a lot of concern and worries um around our federal Partnerships right now and like what kind of money are going to flow and like obviously the state does give the library state aid every year um and I've gone to a couple of there's a this is a
season what we call library legislative breakfast season uh where there are breakfasts in different parts of the state you attend and you get to meet with local legislators um about the state of things and so the couple I've gone to recently you know they don't know uh legislators don't know what's going to happen as far as the federal
partnership is concerned and how much state aid is going to flow to Massachusetts or not but um they do understand like the real importance of libraries and it's particularly when things are down in the world as far as
if costs are High um you know people are struggling if Jobs go down if we have a recession God forbid um libraries become even more important to fund because we provide you know free internet service you know lowcost printing you know accessibility to books and like
databases and materials we have a job Seeker network uh all sorts of things like that that become even more important when we do have things that are worse in the economy so that's just all I have to say so that's my presentation I do have today say my assistant director Jen uh McGeorge is
here and I have a couple of my trustees as well so have Julie Curtis and Corey Ryan right here as well so glad recognize them yes so um and yes I'm open for questions well I'm going to start tell me about this seed program do I come check out
seeds do yeah so uh on the first floor of the library there is a card catalog old card catalog so I've repurposed it and so what I do is I have a I we both purchased seeds from the family and then I've got donated seeds as well and so I
have a a program where people come and they help me sort the seeds from like the big packets into little packets um so there's enough for like four to eight plants kind of thing in in the in each packet and they get labeled and then they're all separated in the drawers by
what they are so there's flowers there's herbs and then there's vegetables and it's just all free so you just come there's little sheet on the side of the calog and you could just write you know Dan I took six packets um and we just kind of keep a very informal count but yeah there's just about 2100 seed
packets this year that were just put out recently um yeah you can just come in do you limit how many you can take nope take take what you want you said that in front of yeah yeah so usually it'll be the
things that things that won't go in the end will kind of be the the the early spring stuff so like you know radishes the turnup like that so if people miss that first window of taking those then those are the things that end up being left over the most because if they don't do a because you could do that PL some of those late in the summer too right
yeah you can but a lot of people don't do that right like they they think it so those those are the things that usually will be ending up left over but interesting yeah yeah yeah it's fantastic it's a great it's a great program I love it D any questions uh yes thank you uh no I have attended several
programs at the library and they were all fantastic so a quick question um on the budget what is uh I'm just curious sick leave incentive what what's that what was it again the sick Le incentive oh so that's
an old um we don't have that anymore right rney that's gone that is gone so that was so that used to be a program and it's actually was it even still here when I was here it was F it was kind of like phased out like shortly after I I
came um and that was sort of a way to do a bit of a buyback if if you weren't using sick leave kind of thing yeah it was basically excuse me through you Mr chair it was an incentive not to use your sick time um during several contract negotiations we phased that out because again it's just in today's day
and age encouraging people it's mon tell incentivizing someone to come work sick I don't think is in the best interest of anyone so so we phased that out uh some of the contracts include sort of a onetime uh $5,000 biod at the end of their time in danverse but we eliminated the annual bonus for coming to work
every day type thing so yeah but we don't do that anymore no no it's gone okay yeah yeah because I don't think that's a good heare and encouraging people to come with the all the rsvs and everything I don't think that's a good idea yes um
speaking of programming does the library do anything to help people file their taxes to for for filing taxes we do not um some libraries do so we we did look into that uh did we have that gend do you remember do we do that in previous
years the like having the like once yeah so the so it used to be very easy to get ARP representatives to come and do and usually for seniors or low income exactly is what it is um and we tried last year I believe to get somebody as
well to come in but we've been having no luck getting someone in so usually like the senior center um and some other area places will have that as an option for you to go to but I'll say like the old library used to work for we used to get that and it would we had two people who
would come and it would be booked up you know like I see that in a lot of communities and that could be that's something yeah we can we we can try again we can try again for it it's uh say like they they seem to have lost a lot of those volunteers that do it um so
it's just difficult to be one of the one of the places to to get it but I think shine at the senior center does tax yes folks yes they they do yeah yeah yeah yeah so usually just like a lot of libraries will also have like a get it
as well at the library so there usually might be two or three places in a town that might be able to be an option years ago before computers you'd go to the library to get all your tax forms we still have them we still we still have them we still have the tax forms at the library uh that that's something that I
mean we'll we'll do it as long as people come looking for them uh but you know that'll probably be something I'm sure the federal government will eventually be like no you can't do it you know on paper any more but they're not there yet so we still get tax forms in okay and Mr chairman is the one of the the senior
center free yes yes okay yeah okay perfect um and I don't know if this is the right forum for this but I've been thinking about this the the library is such a great building and a great historic building it's so stuck and
hidden like we can't really see the beauty of that building uh the trees that are in front there like uh right in front of the parking lot is that under the preview of the library or the town and is this
something we can consider in the near future to like shave it off and so people can actually see the building is that is a really good question I don't I mean it's it's the grounds Department takes care of the exterior around the
building um the grounds is everything so I don't know that that's a really good question like what if that's something I could request or not I'll I guess I'll have to find out um I don't know if Rodney have you had any idea about that or not I do not
but uh Stephen King and Rob de will be happy to talk about it later today I'm sure yeah if you if you want to bring that up when the DPW is here too just just to um and I'll ask them as well like I don't know and somebody else I think uh not not here but like during
the course of the Year somebody else was asking about the amount of trees that we have on the grounds um as well and you know how they I mean obviously those trees are planted very long time ago right that they've grown up yes and I understand I mean it's a Jew for the town and but it's I
mean nobody knows it's there and when you get there you can't see anything so yeah it is there there are a lot of trees it is it is true so I don't know what the what tree maintenance you know or what tree what the value is of having as many trees as we do or not if there's
a a way for planning I'm sure there is uh probably something around planning for trees and things like that I it's one of those I don't know I I don't know I'm not good at that I mean I can talk I can talk to to them in the grounds Department about
it for sure too and yeah if you can you can ask them I don't know if they have plans like that in place for how they maintain like like the park that's next door to like like exactly what trees are there and why they're there mhm not not in my purview so that would be more on
the purview of the tree Warden yeah and the tree warden's position is to keep trees as long as possible and not to cut down trees unless they're diseased triming back triming back is not a problem but removing trees you'll get a
big outcry about that um okay thank you almost it thanks Morin yeah but then again the it's worth definitely talk about it you know cuz you're right the library is a Hidden Gem it's beautiful lit literally hidden it really is and I do appreciate what he
says because it is over it seems like it's overgrown a little bit and you can't see it from that side I mean we have the you know the nice wand area you know the Pavilion that the rotary you know donated and built um you know the issue with the mil Pond we'll talk about
that you know some other time too but um I love all the programs that you do have I think um I know the family that did a lot of donation she was very active the family in in the library and uh they're a great family I know them I like the collaboration that
we talk about uh I love how you work with the um New England home for the deaf and also Northeast Ark too um you know I just been thinking my brain just goes there that engineering brain but um you know do we have services like I
think townwide too and this will be a question for the town manager maybe something to event work on um American Act of dis you know with the Disabilities Act with for the blind MH you know I'm doing we're in my professional career we're looking at a
website I work at a bank how if someone's blind how do they navigate that website you know something that Services maybe we could offer to the you know through the library um and maybe even through the townwide too cuz think about it if
someone's blind and they say oh refer to the web page or go go there how do they do that well actually I can tell you I can tell you a little bit about that tell us as well uh so I mean if you're not already if people are not already familiar with the Perkins School for the
for the blind um the Perkins offers an extensive uh amount of services for people who are uh blind in the common wealth and so so we have uh as part of our collection and Perkins office is so if you if you are low vision or legally
blind um at all so they offer you know basically free membership to you uh at the Perkins and so they will serve you directly so you can ask for a player we have a couple at the library you can look come look at it if you want to there's a particular player that will
play um any so you can request any book if they don't even already have it to be made as an audio book and so they will send you these cartridges that fit into this particular player and the player has you know buttons with um symbols on it that are raised and things like that
so you can easily use them um so that you can listen to anything so we get from the Perkins for free a selection every month of some of those books that people can take out from there they can ask the Perkins to luy and they just mail things directly to you um and we don't really check them out they're not
but we just have a selection that then when you're done with it you literally just stick it in the mail and it goes back to the Perkins um so we do work with that already and pretty much um if you are if you are blind or legally blind um or even have low vision the way
computers work now and so you there are already embedded there's you and you'll look if and I don't know if you're a bank website has it or not but it's very easy it's a little it's a widget that you can add to your website it's like like has it's a little thing in the corner a little time little person and it has accessibility options on there
for you and so there usually people who are blind um that go on the internet have already an accessibility option for it to read the page allowed to you so yep so that's that's very very common already and the um what's one of the things that's
very important and it's that you try to use for uh just people with who do have disabilities with reading especially is for every image you want to have an alternative a title for the image so on the back side of that image so then because when it's reading the page if it
gets to an image it kind of will skip it unless there's a text behind it says this is a picture of you know Moren at the desk and then you then they can know what the images are and so that's that's like one of the things that's on there so there they are already in place very just usually already on your computer if
you really go looking for it already accessibility options um on there and so there is stuff in place and so like our website has that accessibility little button that you can click on to be able to change different aspects of the page to make it more accessible um my staff
has been trained uh as well with um someone who did come from Northeast Ark to talk about disabilities and how to work better with with different people wonderful anything we can do to promote you know the library and get those messages out to the people yeah that's great no thank you for what you do thank
you you're welcome Dan Mike thank you um hi uh you had mentioned a memory cat kit yes what's that about so and I can't tell you enough about it yet because we're just in the process creating in my um community outreach uh librarian is the person who's working
on putting them together so they often they they include different things um but it'll be like usually a little box and it'll have things like certain like memory games in it um and often they'll be themed so sometimes if we're looking at the certain generation with memory
care like say they're a generation who will be remembering World War II or things from certain time periods you kind of do decades kits you can do them this way and put things that in those kits that are going to remind them of you know time in their younger years for
them to be able to talk with and connect with because often that's an easier thing for people who do have um you know some dementia to be able to connect with so it's a so there's different ways so kind of there can be different things in the kits um am i c keys in that
kit we can we can put a set of keys in there if it's going to make you feel good if you find them can you let me know that sounds really awesome actually yeah yeah they're they're really they're really a very nice thing to have and to be able to engage with somebody that you
care about who is you know going through some memory loss yeah and it's really real um on the language programs is that all in person or is there a link if somebody wanted to participate so we don't yeah we don't have the conversation circles as a virtual thing
um at this time um we do have a couple of on demand and ways to be able to communicate with somebody um if they call or if you have them um to be able to do translations but not like a conversation circle like right now those
are all in person could could somebody call the library and have something translated as far as like a whole document or something like that or just conversation a conversation yes really yes yeah yeah we do we do have the ability to do that yeah it does it doesn't we also have something um the
town had gotten a couple of things what they called pocket talk pocket want say they're called pocket talk but we had um one at the library that we were using as well and it's literally like a little device that you can a handheld device that you can use to help translate on the spot as well yeah all right thank
you very much oh you're welcome anyone in the audience questions what's the will of the board on the budget yeah Mr Mr Brad stre Mr Brad Street's got something I know hi chair please it's going to bring up the seeds
yeah country oh yeah uh Bill Brad street town meeting member Precinct one I know this is danvas we're a town we can't accommodate the Library of Congress is there some
space perhaps in an unused building or or some space someplace that the town couldn't provide more books I know we have the public library perhaps or a spot our a bought down that couldn't accommodate some books that we
don't have the space for over there that would be uh appreciated by some of the citizens of this community that's my question good question I meant to ask you but that's okay cuz I don't have the answer I'm looking at the money man and to see the
money man we're happy to look into it um again it's first time hearing that the library actually needs more space for books so I'm happy to engage with her on the topic thank you both you okay anyone else what's the will of the board on the
budget um I propose to move the budget for the library is there a second second all in favor I I oppose none thank you thank you all thank you so much all right Mr Town manager what's next through you Mr chairman next we
have Essex Tech uh presenting their budget joining us this morning we have Shannon Donley the assistant superintendent as well as Marie zaroski the Director of Business operations you should have hard copies that were just dropped off I think we have some extras maybe on the table for anyone else in the audience
that would like to look too anybody want an extra nope okay I got two get a lot of good morning okay good morning see you Dan hi Dan thank you good morning morning um I'm Shannon
Donnelly assistant superintendent at Essex Tech um it's okay oh sure thank you and I'm here with mariea morowski to talk about our budget um so as you know
S6 Tech is located in hathorne Mass on 166 acres of land currently we have 1,836 full-time day students and 35 after dark students from the communities
of swam Scott Beverly and Marblehead after dark students attend their Hometown high school and in the morning for their academic classes and then travel to Essex Tech um at midday and join our Career Tech programs for the
afternoon um we have 17 member communities whose students are able to access all of our Career Tech programs and 41 surrounding communities whose students can attend our eight agricultural programs um in addition we
have um Workforce training for adults um in the evenings and on the weekends so if you travel by SX Tech regularly it is always busy um it's always something going on um on the next slide we have the um current enrollment for Danvers um
so in this current year we have 236 students as of October 1 that reside in the town of Danvers um 58 for grade n 62 for grade 10 57 and 11 and 59 in grade
12 um of those 236 students 46 are students with disabilities four are multilingual Learners and 20 are students whose first language is not English and on the next line you can see just the increase in enrollment over
time or the change in enrollment over time since 2018 um with the highest year being 2022 at 245 students and then that number has dipped a little bit over the last two years point of order Mr chairman uh
excuse me is this presentation in the package or is different this is in the packet as well if you can just direct us as to what page we I can do that um flipping is on page 42
okay right at the top [Music] and at this time there are um 58 students that are in our grade um nine exploratory program and then at the bottom of this chart are all of the um enrollments of Danver students in each
of our Career Tech programs and again that's on page 50 42 of your packet um this is a Cooperative education student that um is from daners Katherine win she's a grade 12 student in our Auto Tech program and she's
currently um doing her Co-op at her Herb Chambers Cadillac in lynfield we have over 200 seniors that are currently working in our communities through our Co-op program and our Juniors became eligible for Co-Op at the end of or the end of January beginning of February and
they are starting to go out to work as well all right I'm going turn it over to Marie hi there so I'll just do kind of a brief overview of the budget and maybe hit on a couple of the um increases that you
see in the the budget summary so our overall budget is a 4 point uh 4.5% increase 1.78 million um the main factors for this are due to uh well in our um enrollment increases about 5% overall and um 5% for the 17 member
communities at well so it's pretty consistent there um the overall increas is due to salaries um we have the teachers contract that negotiated so that's a big portion of that um the increase is related to 6 67% of the
increas is related to salaries and wages um the second major piece is capital we have not been budgeting capital in our operational budget um and we started building that in last year as we are uh 10 years old or 11 going on our 11th
year um we need to maintain our buildings um our facilities director has a a program that you know um monitors what needs to be repaired within the building and we chip away at that each year and this will help support that as
well as support our South Campus which is the older buildings on campus that um continually need to be repaired as well so that's another big portion of our budget increase that's a 37% increase um then also we have our fixed costs with
our health benefits and our property insurance and things like that um and the other piece I just want to point out is we are committed to maintain and pay the S6 Aggie Retirement Board which is a
$421,000 payment we have to make each year and if we were able to eliminate that that would bring our budget increase down to about a 3.43% increase so that just wanted to point that out that is kind of a a big um big nugget to
have to pay every year but that's something we assumed when we merg with um the district or created the new District um so that's that piece just I I do want to point out a couple of things on the budget which it's not on
this um presentation but there is a summary report in there in the packet that we passed out today um some some some points that have a large increase one of the Align items is under the instructional Services which is the teaching Services which I
mentioned salaries are in increase so that is one of the um the increases that you'll see as a kind of a large percentage when you look at the summary budget and that is a direct relation to teachers salaries in their Collective bargain agreement um another piece you'll see
Athletics has a kind of a 10 a large increase of 10% um with our growing athletic programs we have added assist coaches to our Varsity programs um our Varsity Sports we didn't have those previously so um to help with safety and
to um with the number of kids we added that to our um Athletic program um also the transportation budget is a 5% increase and that includes both um some technology we currently have cameras on the buses so it's a matter of replacing
cameras as our Fleet grows and as we um have to replace buses so that's a piece of that and also they have a a new collective bargaining agreement as well so that's another piece there um and let's see another
area um we do have we are in negotiations for our asme general unit contract so that is kind of built into our budget as well so that's another piece and really the last big which I've already mentioned is the capital budget
is a is a $600,000 increase so that is a um like I said said one of the main drivers of the budget so that's just a quick overview of the summary and where the big pieces are coming from um and then maybe we can move to the
assessment oh sorry work clicker there we go um so now let's just focus directly with the the damers assessment um the overall assessment is an increase it's a 4.1% increase um your
P per pupil cost is 19,8 which is a 4.2 four five I'm sorry I can't speak 5.42 per pupil cost increase but there's a couple of things I do want to point out um your enrollment is down
which is you're down three so that should be stable moving forward we hope um to keep you at a kind of a stable um enrollment um the and I don't want to get too much into this but the state and
the foundation formula basically calculates what the communities um should be paying towards the budget and that is a 3% increase from last year so that's kind of a big piece of the increase um and let's see your average
the average pupil cost is a little bit more than what um danver's is as well as the um um actually no the average just the average cost I'm sorry um the average cost is 6.18% in yours is 5.42 um so
that's just kind of a general overview of the assessment as well and I don't I think that was the last slide right that is the last slide so we will be happy to take any questions that you may have okay um board members we don't vote on
this today this is a warrant article budget item um that will come later um Marie the 19018 um I think it's actually less than our per p cost in Damas this year which is some
20,000 and super that's okay but typically your pupil cost has been higher than ours is that correct over years it it has fluctuated a little bit but maybe Ry would know specifically there are a couple factors related to chap Chapter 70 so again it's not Apples to Apples we've done this I I know it's
not to Apples but the bottom line is low of this year then no it's not it's not no I believe you factor out Chapter 70 for the per pupil the per people this is based on your cost direct assessment cost yeah so for example we did the per pupil just on the tax side
and not in the Chapter 70 the damage be lower two okay thank you thank you if you do if you look at um let me find the page in here if you look at page 30 in the the new bound booklet it does show
that S6 North Shores um per people cost is 22986 overall as calculated by desie so and again it does show that we are the third lowest affordable um vocational
school so okay that is good to know that is that hasn't been updated that's still FY 2023 numbers um they generally release it right before this book gets printed and they have not released it for the FY 24 numbers so um but it's
um okay so you mentioned desie um desie recently I believe has approved discussion on a lottery system for vocational schools and is currently in the public hearing stage of that process
is that correct that's correct so from from my point of view trying to figure out if the lottery is advantageous to Damas or a disadvantage we've always been higher percentage of
students going to the tech and that's been problematic for some people if Dy decides to put a ceiling on the number of
students from the for a lottery would that be to our advantage well it's we don't have exact information yet about whether there'll be floors and ceilings for the for each town in the lottery um it's it it is
still in the public comment period um so if there's a ceiling then I I presume that that may be beneficial because it will limit there'll be a you know kind of a Max number um but we just don't don't have that information I know
that's why it's in the public hearing stage so I'm going to turn to my fellow board members and ask if we want to make comment at these public hearings via a letter from this board advocating for a
ceiling and a floor to be considered when the lottery system goes into effect if indeed it does I think it's great I think that's a good idea Dan absolutely Mike so you need an answer right now yeah because I'm going to ask the Rodney
to write a letter for me to sign cuz it's public only a couple of weeks that they'll have the public yeah all right yeah I be in favor I'm not quite sure what I'm not familiar with the so the be SX Tech and
Maria and the principal will correct me if I'm wrong has had a ad Mission policy that other schools or other people disagree with whether right or wrong is not what
I'm arguing they have metrics that they use they've taken an inor amount of our students which I have no problem with the kids that want to go there should be allowed to go there basically but the cost to us
has been problematic okay over the last number of years if there's a ceiling at least then it'll be more predictable what our cost will be Rodney you want to weigh in yeah through you Mr chairman again we'll get the information the draft language that the is considering if we could get that and then we'll
forward to the board to review but essentially we're talking about we've talked before about ceilings or caps this is more specific to there's a push to create a standard Lottery system for vocational schools and if it's just a straight 17 district-wide Lottery that would be very unstable for us because
it's just blind luck out of 17 communities how many seats we're going to get each year so I think the thought would be Mr chairman if we were supportive of the concept of a lottery at minimum we'd want some type of window of how many of those seats would be dver seips each year so it couldn't just be a luck of the draw now we have instead of
60 kids we have 150 kids or we have 10 kids we'd want some predictability on how many students from our community can go each year okay so Mike the answer your question we can review this Tuesday night okay okay under the manager's update sure and decide if we want to
send a letter it to for public comment okay okay yes I I would like to know to be to know more about what is no I understand I mean I forget how many years ago I was on the SX Tech Board of Trustees I was on the
merger committee I know that they had to absorb the retirement cost that was a big deal um but that's that's what it is so um but all right so we'll get an update under manager's update on Tuesday sorry
to get off track that's okay we anticipated that there might have been some questions about the lottery yeah it's it's been going on for a couple of years mhm all right uh questions Mike uh no at the moment thank you thank you Morin uh
Shannon uh congratulations on your promotion thank you yeah um couple of things when you talked about the budget the 4 and a half% increase um and the enrollment it was due to enrollment increase 5% overall and how much was
Dam's portion of that 5% versus if you can answer that or you can get back to us damers was actually down it was down yeah yeah you had um it's down by three students if you if you look at the assessment worksheet um the actually so
what I have a percentage in there of the the um overall enrollment and how danver's percentages is to all of it you actually went from 17 to 16% um of the participation of an enrollment so um dver actually is down
three students from from last year okay and the same thing with you have you face the same cost uh you know um as superintendent our said with Transportation you know that's a lot um I didn't know we don't have cameras in our buses do we do you Mr chairman I me
I don't think so have cameras it has supported us with a few incidents greatly it they have been very helpful they have good yeah and um thank you for clarifying that per
pupil cost you know that that was big um and I think the Capital Improvements yeah the building is about 11 years old now you said okay yeah you can see that and plans for a future
expansion um well we're eventually going to run out of space um we do have a long weight list um we're looking ahead to next year um to add 10 IND District seats and 15 out of District seats in
grade n and um those um are required by grants that we received to expand our animal science programs our veterinary science program is our most popular program um and we also received a grant to um add a biomanufacturing program um or add biom
manufacturing as part of our biotechnology program so those will add a little bit next year so our grade n class will be 525 next year share right now it's about 506 okay good and I like I think uh um I
think Damas is going to be talking with you about the after do program that's great I mentioned that which is good because I saw that there was only three communities right and that now so that would be good that's it that's all I have thank you yes thank you uh just uh clarifying questions on the process Mr
chairman um you say we are not voting today it's paid for v a warrant article okay uh do we uh do we have the opportunity to uh modify anything from this budget not last Shannon can we
modify anything I don't I don't think so so this is more informational sessions and clarifying sessions for the public it's not that we can say I don't like this cost can we cut it out there school committees already approved their budget
they're the ones that review it we have Mike Landers is our representative to the school committee and I understand this is one of the first years that he's voted in favor of this budget okay that correct yes correct okay perfect thank
you that's helpful um after that um they take their classes and then they take night classes at SX Tech well they really split their day so they're they're at their their home time house high school until about 11:00 and then we provide transportation for them to
come to asex Tech they arrive at 11 11:30 and then they do um their Career Tech program in the afternoon they do that every day where our day students do 90 days a year in academics 90 days a year in their Career Tech programs the
after dark do the morning in academics in the afternoon every day in their Career Tech program okay and if I take a town uh 22,000 per Pew if if someone from Denver did that what would be the cost uh that I would have to get back to
you I don't know that do you do you know for any Community that's doing it now how it's is it half and half yes so the the way it works and um so Danvers would report that student as a chapter 74
student on their October one numbers okay so Danvers would receive the funding for that and then S6 Northshore would Bill Danvers for the vocational portion of it um um and I'll I'll be honest I don't remember exactly
what that amount is I want to say um write that down so down right I want to say it's somewhere between $5,500 and $7,500 that we build the community for that particular student attending our career program okay and
they will be graduating from dver high it won't be like Duo graduation correct correct they would receive a vocational certificate from Essex Tech and then they would would receive their diploma from the I I love it I mean I I think that's
that's that would be great um if when I look in your package and and I think you said the calculation for the increase that was made amount for about 3% for this year it's the increase
from last year's budget is 4.5% increase what I had mentioned is the Essex Retirement Board payment that we have to make of4 $21,000 if we were that was kind of assumed by the district and something that we have to pay every year I was
just saying if that was something that was taken out of our budget our budget would be 3.43% increase it was just something that we like to point out okay I see and I'm just curious um from last so if I look on your package on
page 23 um the per pupil increase it says 5.42 but now there a community like Boxford which
is actually got less H how does so that the the Big Driver for that is the des's chapter 74 formula so they they use the districts the communities
demographics they um their property values and their wage income and the wage income to calculate that so that's not something that we calculate desie calculates that and says this is the local minimum contribution that this
community has to pay towards this District so it it's so that really kind of skews things sometimes um like if you look at like every Community pays a little bit different per pupil exactly um it's really based on that Desi for
formula so the you know the more fluent communities pay a little bit more per Comm per student as opposed to you know you know some of the Gateway communities um they pay a little bit less so that's really what fluctuates and makes it look like okay this isn't fair we pay more
than someone else so that's really what kind of drives that difference in the per pupil cost okay um and you might have it or not have it what's the admission rate from student from dvas I know it went down
three three three P what's the admissions rate what's what's the rate uh how many people apply do we have a low um do we have less application last year is that why it went down or the rate is fairly stable as far as the
admission rate I would have to check on the admissions numbers I don't know that they're in the book no there but I can find out and let you know like how many applied and if that number has fluctuated over time yeah okay and how many got in and when you go through the application process do you go blindly
and take every community and just rate students or do you say we're going to try to hit our 50 students from ders like how does that work it's it is it is blind so we don't look at aside from whether a student is an in District student or an outof District student
there's a difference there but for all of the in District students which include Danver students we look at um they receive a score for their application and then we take based on that we accept based on that score so we do not look at what town they are from
okay so there is no right now there is no limit on the number of students per town okay and do you have a breakdown how many of your students go to a two or four year college so um how many rough numbers it's it's about 75 to 77% of our
students go on to additional education whether that's two or foure colleges or for evening programs um like LIC additional licensure programs for some of the trades um with our vocational programs a lot of our traditional trade programs students can go right out into
the workforce Automotive carpentry some of our construction programs but a lot of the programs do um in order to advance in that career area do require additional Education Health assisting vet science biotechnology engineering
those programs really to to move Beyond sort of an entry-level position students would need to go on to um receive higher education okay okay um and to you Mr chair um and I think I mentioned it last time Good Neighbor
policy I live I live next door to SX Tech M um and there's still some residents who are concerns with um the students cutting off on Hazen m mhm
uh so and again this is probably not something new mhm uh and maybe this is not the forum for it but if you want to bring it back to the school and the superintendent absolutely uh ways to really have that Good Neighbor policy MH
uh it's dangerous there we have kids walking down the street to go catch the bus right um Maple Street is jam and they try to cut there in the neighborhood in high speed um and then this year we also had a few
residents um and I had passed this on to the town manager complaining about the the the snow on the sidewalk and I don't know if it's the town or the
state or or SX Tech but that's something that we really want to try to have that good neighbor uh policy going uh it's so important it's it's an asset to the town it's an asset to the community and I think having that will be helpful just
something to bring back in full disclosure I love the school uh I love the facility I used to be the immunizer I've probably given you your F shot in the building there uh I've taken some of
your students in externship um I think it's a great program we just want to make sure that we make it work not only for the students and families but for our situation so thank you for all you
thank thank you D anyone in the audience bill that's good again Bill Brad street town meeting Member preing One the courses that are offered to different trade
groups ask for courses so that they can be resupplied for educated workers I don't begrudge the young people from going to the Aggie uh the sorry has expect to learn a trade and then go on
to a college to or four year I don't beg grud them that but are the trades being uh helped by what is taught there so that they can have educated workers want to work in a
trade uh all I hear is I can't get good help why can't you get good help don't know if they're if they're taught a trade because they want to know a trade they want to go on to a high
another college or whatever where do they fall after that do they go back to the trade or now because they're further educated don't go for I'll say manual labor but maybe a super advisory position uh I think the trade schools uh
all the trade people need help we uh I hear it I'm sure other people do they don't I'd like to think they don't begrudge the young people from going for more education but the trades need
people thank you thank you Bill Shannon do you have a response sure um so there's definitely um assistance from local Tradesmen and women with our um with our programs we um every program has a program Advisory Board which is
made up of um uh employees in that industry um some former teachers some graduates um so that that those boards help to guide The Vocational programs and provide opportunities for students weigh in on
equipment and and opportunities that students might need in those particular programs um we also work closely with the workforce investment board to make sure that um our students are ready to go into the workforce and have all the training that they need um we work often
with unions unions will come in to talk to students in fact the the laborers union Local 22 helps support our construction craft laborers program and those students upon graduation are able to go directly into the Union at 18 um so um so I understand your point and
there definitely is education and preparation for students to go right into the workforce thank you anyone else question Sandy did you go ahead Sandy Francis 9 Wildwood Road I just had a question about the restrictions on enrollment um at the
tech through the town and now where they're trying to do the collaboration with the high school I was kind of hoping that maybe it wouldn't put a restriction how many students could enroll or not but um and then another thing too I actually had a daughter who went to the tech too and she advanced on to college so it would have been nicer
to have more AP classes as well she wasn't in engineering so just to make sure that the the the fields where they have the higher education if they can get more AP um classes and such that would be great thank you anyone else Shannon Marie thank you
for coming thank you okay thank you very much good see you at the warrant pin clom all right Mr the manager continue thank you Mr chairman um a couple points I didn't hit earlier um
one is we did talk about grants through the public schools but the Departments don't have a special slide for it for each department but they're fully prepared to discuss grants I know that's been a topic on the grants they apply for and Achieve so again um not every Department there's not a lot of treasur
collector grants out there but certainly Public Works Public Safety it are all prepared to talk about their success and achieving grants um secondly uh the budget doc the full budget document which is about 180 pages will be available by April 1st it'll go to every
town meeting member so again a lot of details and descriptions are in that document we produce every year so I'd encourage everyone to take a look at last year's but uh the full document will be available April 1st online and then mail to town meeting members uh now we're going to go into it
and I would note again with schools both schools and the library a lot of programming discussion in the interest of time and just you know uh just the nuts and bolts of it our department presentations would be a lot shorter but every department head or division head is prepared to answer any questions so
if there's operation questions feel free to fire away and they'll be ready to answer those as well and with that I will turn it over to Kobe cousins Our IT director who is the last one with a special slide so it with some uh conversations last year sort of about the overall it
footprint um so Kobe's going to walk through a little bit about uh some our efforts there on consolidation and again just uh envisioning it more as an infrastructure tool sort of like paved roads versus um you
know Ming gadgets welcome go so I'm kby um with it thank you very much for having me and good morning it is still morning right it is um where did you you want me to go over this first is there oh start with
your slide if you want Colby okay so yes there was some conversation last year about consolidation and centralization and I just wanted to run through a few of the things we've been working on so town and school infrastructure has been
a big one um we have a shared infrastructure and we reorganized it for efficiency and we were able to reduce the total cost of refreshing that infrastructure by about
500k and there was a corresponding operational reduction of 80k we reallocated that into a standard 5year refresh cycle where we refresh our
um infrastructure about 20% of our infrastructure each year in an operational cycle and all of that funding um resides in the town operating budget for both
town and schools Microsoft 365 is a an example of consolidating software that's our productivity Suite everybody uses it throughout the town it's a um an Enterprise software product that helps
create a significant amount of efficiency in our operations and allows to offset uh some on premise equipment that we would have had uh to refresh had we not moved our data into the Microsoft
cloud electronic permitting is another big one um you saw us moving that into the budget last year um this wasn't as much of a cost savings um because we were kind of
lacking in electronic permitting so we brought a lot of customer service improvements and a lot of consistency of experience between both the public and the staff with that product and the efficiencies we're finding are the
ability to automate a lot of the backend activities with that product so staff communicating with other departments um permits that need to be signed off by multiple departments that all um moves around electronically now with our e-
permitting solution we have some initiatives in progress you'll see a capital request this year to consolidate town and school phones um and there will be a resulting operational savings from that project
some Capital required we'll see a capital request but it's a Strategic investment to realize an ongoing operational savings with phones the financial system um is well in progress but there are more phases to that and
one of the things that we're looking forward to are some of the HR capabilities uh that come with that product um and modernizing our operations in HR a little bit there's still some records in town
that are not digital so we've been going through a digitization project the more of our records that we get digital the more we can digitize our business processes and that provides more opportunity for Automation and
efficiency and we're um still pursuing software standardization uh we like the idea of products like Microsoft 365 and electronic permitting that are enterprise-wide software
deployments um that we can integrate all departments into or many Department into and we realize efficiencies in um bulk purchasing licenses across the town and um
everybody being familiar with the same product so some standardization there when people move around in positions they're familiar with what we're using across the town um that brings us back to to the
operating budget a modest increase this year it's basically level Service uh for this year we had uh you may remember we had a notable increase last year and
um that covered us for significant needs so that now we don't have to push so hard this year any questions I would just through you Mr chair I would just add again so again this question came up last year um and as Kobe hinted over time we do plan to
consolidate some items out of operating straight into the IT budget but there's always going to be certain light items that exist in those budgets the example I always like to give is fire uses Cruise sense as their sort of payroll and tracking system it is able to assist but it's really fire working with the
vendor so to pull it out we just add another layer of process that really wouldn't benefit so but again that's not say the it does an advise on the product but that's one that would probably always live on fire because fire is using it directly with the vendor right good thank you Morin any questions for Colby no I I do remember you had a big
budget increase last year and it's good to see that it's taking care of itself this year no I'm all set I I do have a question um are you working with any other cities and towns again for the services providing services to them you want to talk about that again yeah sure
we're working with um well it's a we're we founded the NorthShore it collaborative which is eight communities in the NorthShore region working together um so a point of note to this operating budget is actually um about 115,000 comes back
from um inter Municipal agreement with the town of Middleton and um you'll see in our capital budget allocation uh returning revenue from our cyber security and data center hosting
services with those Partners as well good excellent thank you yes thank you uh thanks quick question um salary and wages went down did you get a pay cut thankfully
no uh no we had some turnover in the department and some of the new hires just came in uh a little lower that's good um software uh no what uh telephone system maintenance it's not big but
from 2024 to 2025 it went up significantly and then I mean it's say modest increase now what what is that what why was that we have some uh we have some telephone
systems in in town that are and kind of end of life nearing end of life um and some of their costs increased uh as that began to happen so what you'll see this year you'll see
a capital proposal for us to kind of take care of phones townwide once and for all um we have about seven independent phone systems in town they're all integrated and work together uh we've done that
work to make them operationally fairly smooth but we really need to to do an overhaul that will end up creating an operational cost savings for us long term so that will require a capital investment which
we'll request at the at the capital hearings or propose at the capital hearings okay and and explain further okay thank you allet Mike thank you Dan uh just a quick question I don't know that it's an easy question it's probably
laced through all the Departments but um any idea what we have to spend on security to keep the system from getting hacked we spend about 85,000 on cyber security that doesn't seem bad I thought
you were going to say 850,000 you know that seems like a deal through you Mr chairman I think part of the Highlight is that collaboration so by collaborating with those other towns not only do we see what the best option is and Kobe leads that project but also we benefit from bulk purchasing of the cyber security amongst the other
communities as well okay we have standing 25% reduction on our purchase just because of the volume that we we do by collaborating with the other communities yeah thank you thank you anyone in the audience bill you were
first now your hand one up first bill again Bill Brad street town meeting member Precinct one everyone talks about AI now I didn't hear that specifically mentioned are we interested in AI for
this for our community and if so why or if we're not why that's all I hear is AI mentioned and whether it's good that's kind of the future I mean we have intelligent people already working for us and he's one of them uh it was just
that it came to mind when talking about the systems that uh just thought i' bring it up what is the future with AI and municipal government yeah so um speaking of Grants
we just received uh we actually just received the funding in 150,000 from a community compact Grant to do AI Readiness um so there's a number of security prerequisites around data privacy that we need to work
through and make sure that our system is secure in order to use AI but you you heard me mention the automation that we've um been able to realize from some of uh the products we've put in
already and the opportunity for automation increases exponentially with uh integrated AI so that's something we're studying very closely to the to the point where we have 150,000 to study
it with um so we're actually kicking that project off probably next month um we'll be going through and U evaluating evaluating all of our sensitive data anything that there's that we're obligated to protect from a
compliance perspective and we'll make sure that that data is safe and secured from any AI we release into our environment okay thank you Kevin uh yeah just a couple of comments
and one uh question maybe so I I continue to think that this is one of the best most efficient departments uh in in town especially with this collaboration that we're doing with other towns where we're you know somehow contributing a nickel of uh funds and
getting a quarter in value back and I think it's uh it's great it's a model that we should look for more regionalization more Partnerships and in in other places I think where it where it's smart where it benefits us um so I just wanted to touch on
support to the schools from the IT department because it's one of a number of departments that does support the schools uh that number of average per pupil funding is hugely important to us right because we we're benchmarking ourselves against the state we had questions about what's our per people
funding versus what is uh per people funding for for Essex Tech so I just wanted to ask and maybe this is a better Town accountant question or or or Rodney question but when there's General Services being provided telephone it infrastructure backup cyber security are
we ensuring that we're capturing I understand that it may be in different parts of the budget but are we ensuring that we're capturing what we're spending on the schools in that calculation of what we're spending per pupil I can take that um so yeah so essentially every year we the Schools
file what's called an end of year report um and it captures all spending Beyond just their straight appropriation um in terms of it HR um accounting all that's uh included in an administrative per pupil cost so essenti some communities do it some go through
the process of dialing out every single penny spent which can be cumbersome but again some communities do it you know most communities our size tend to do just a straight part pupil so they'll say you have whatever it is 3,500 students the FY 26 Desi per pupil for
administrative cost is 145 per pupil so so again it's not an exact we are getting credit but we're not getting exact credit we're taking the standard deduction not the item exactly yes all right anybody else no Kobe thank
you thank you manager oh we got to vote the budget thank you what's the willle of the board to move the information technology budget forward to approve is there a second second all in favor I I oppose
none thank you I spending money Rodney I said I don't like spending money got got the wrong [Laughter] job all right so next we'll be going through the administration and finance
budgets starting first with accounting uh the accounting budget is going up a little over $22,000 or 4.5% um driven by contractual salary increases it's partially offset by an operating expense reduction related to
Consulting Services again a pretty standard basic budget but our town accountant Heather Russo is here and we're happy to answer any questions hello Heather any questions Mike uh no no I don't thank
okay D no questions thanks Moren no I'm fine oh she's getting off easy anyone in the audience my goodness okay I guess the accounting is okay we can spend some money there make a motion yep make a motion to approve
the accounting budget forward as proposed is there a second second all in favor hi thank you sorry to take up all your day thanks for driving down from New Hampshire Heather we appreciate it but take it as a symbol that you do good work
uh next we have assessing which is uh competing with the town clerk for uh the biggest budget decrease this year um assessing is realizing some savings so re re reorganize the department a little bit and one of our positions we've converted to do some field work to actually go out and do some of the
cyclical inspections what's that allowed us to do is again keep it in house where it's under the direct oversight of the chief assessor and it's also allowed us to eliminate some of our Consulting contract with Patriots so again it's a I think it's a win-win um and then other than that uh that's basically it again
another basic budget but again our chief assessor John lael's here to answer any questions you may have all right Mike I'm sorry no questions okay D yes a quick question the the software maintenance did that mve to it or what
what's going on or is it just that we got brand new equipment that don't need any maintenance uh no that it doesn't handle my that's my C software um so last year we were in our five-year um certification year with the state so
for that uh oh no actually um this is on the the the software itself yeah this was your upgrade I believe yeah yeah we did an upgrade um so the C software I upgraded to a cloud-based version uh we were using a version that was probably
10 15 years old uh which the vendor is going to stop supporting in the in the near future so we upgraded that to a new cloud-based version okay okay thank you Morin no questions looks good so what
the map revisions or what is IT consulting services went down so probably not that's where we took the cyclical inspections away from okay all right good conferences are up 40% where you going um I have new staff we've been
hiring some new staff um so the conferences really are all the class work that we need to take to maintain our licenses and a couple of them will have to get um the accreditation moving forward so we just up that a little bit those classes run from $500 to $700 each
so we just kind of well worth it yeah yeah educated employees very good okay thank you anybody else audience what's the will of the board we'll move the assessing budget forward as proposed there a second second all in favor I I
oppose none thank you thank you and next we have our treasur collector budget again uh salary wage is contractual and then there is as you'll see a double- digit increase on the operating expenses that's due to an increase cost for mailing by our vendor that's beyond the actual postage itself
but the cost to mail um our excise tax in uh personal property real estate tax bills so again we're going to look into this issue to see long term there's other options to do it but in the meantime still a great rate compared to other communities but it is an increase this year and we're happy to Jill suar
treasur collector's here we're happy to answer any questions I have a question for Jill welcome Jill hi so have you given any thought to mailing out the real estate bills twice a year send two quarters at a time cut your printing in half cut your postage in half I have
never thought of twice a year um but I've thought of the electronic billing cuz that that would cut asbery Sims their tax bills out twice a year every two quarters every cycle we've always been quarterly right I mean obviously twice the year is an option but we've
always been quarterly well most communities are I understand but but sending the bills out saves some money it would save some money yeah and electronic billing would also um how would you do electronic billing what about discount well it would be we get
charged per piece so our real estate bills are well they're going up to 32 cents for each bill so if you opt into paperless you just get an email from UniBank every so how will I get my
bill the email email and we if I don't have email we what happen if it's go to and that's true too but you don't need to opt into it you would actually have to go in and opt into it so I mean ideally we get a lot of people
obviously their taxes are paid through their mortgage right that's a a lot of bills that we are still mailing out ideally all of them go paperless they still get electronic copy if they want it um we do also have Bill presentment now on unipay so you can actually pull
up as if you're going to pay it and then print out a copy view and print your bill that way too not to pick on you but there's another entity in town what has automatic payment we are ALS o offer
autopay now I had a devil a Time signing up getting it done and then when I signed up one month didn't get paid okay so I got a double Bill the second month when I looked at it said how did that happen it wasn't wrong but
I lost my discount oh okay so you I don't I don't know if the automatic payment as a third party I think was this uh a town utility bill theti utility bills yeah we just started that
last July is there's about 40 people today that are signed up for it I haven't really had any negative feedback I mean we did have somebody call and say that their payment wasn't posted I referred them to UniBank because that's they it goes through them so so that's
so but really I haven't heard anything negative about it for the people that have signed up so okay was conversely if I no long I get a bill for whatever reason am I going to still get charged
because it's in the automatic payment how do you how do you shut it off well you can shut off the well I don't know how the electric water work but you can stop that okay just something to think about Rodney thanks
absolutely Mike any questions um I have a question for your question if they went out twice if the taxes went out twice a year would the town be waiting for their money longer no it's the same payment you'll get a
statement for um what's the February and uh well first quarter is August 1st November so you'd have almost like two coupons probably on that same bill I haven't seen what one would actually look like but it's probably something like that it's your your address information and then two bills two
separate slips that you tear off and make just you have to remember to pay that second well that's cuz we're not sending you another bill I think that's probably the challenge is we we would save a few grand probably in postage but the corresponding volume of calls we' get because people forgot that they had that second quarter so it's it's a yeah
so I just set it up in my bank to pay when it's due yeah simple but not everybody uses automatic payment like that but still I I would think it would save some money M absolutely okay thank you you're welcome Moren Jo you and your department do a great job I'm sure you can think about
ways to try to save us money thank you thanks no questions thank you anyone in the audience Kevin I would you know I I came here today with the budget uh loaded on my iPad already downloaded the PDF from the website uh I I think the more we can do
electronically the better right if you look across the postage expense for this department is what it is but if we look across all the Departments right there's there's a lot of postage expense there so uh optin is a great way to go but I haven't received a paper bill from Verizon or or T-Mobile or uh you know
any of the large commercial companies that also bill us every month in in years so anywhere we can do this well Verizon gives you a discount if it pay it automatically sure um certain if there's not a statutory bar to the town doing that we we might consider the the same thing it's the it's where we're
going in life is the automatic payment and yeah as the I have in a bank account now the be $2 cuz i' getting a piece of paper yeah as as my uh you know 18-year-old daughter would say we should stop printing out pieces of the internet thank you K anybody else yes
Bill Bates where's postage in this this budget there's no postage three Mr chairman postages taking care of the Town manager's budget in total I'm not at the mic how much would it cost how much is this department
costing us postage have that information I don't want to guess we can look into that and find that out for you yeah get that thank you good good good catch Bill anyone else what's the will of the board I say we move the treasure
collector's um budget forward and approve is there a second presented all in favor I I oppose none thank you thank you Joel what page is debt on debt service on page 31 uh slightly
larger than the treasur collector budget uh our FY 26 Debt Service you'll see a slight increase in principal of 4.44% uh decrease in interest uh by 15.89% the gross Debt Service is going
down just over 3% based on some of our declining debt um again as we've talked about in many years most recently with the Smith School um it's always our goal to declining debt uh the challenge with declining debt is it requires higher payments UPF front um for the Smith school for example uh the larger chunk
of it was financed as uh level debt which means we'll have the same similar payment for the next 25 years we were able to do a small portion of that on declining debt um so it'll the principle will be the amount the interest will drop off uh over the course of the lifetime of the debt um we also are
using our debt stabilization Fund in the same number as we did last year at uh just over .4 million that's consistent with our policy to slowly phase in uh some of the tax related debt uh particularly related to the Smith School um again during the warrant process
we'll talk a little bit about appropriating additional funding including all of our excess landfill Revenue into the debt stabilization for future capital and warrant needs um with that again there's a more detailed breakout um in the packet online in in your hands that talks about
the per projects that we've bonded over the years that we're still on the hook for but happy to answer any questions um and then the next slide I'll just briefly touch on it just because we usually like to show this is the blue bars are total existing debt um the red bar is projected so in our debt forecast
we project a million dollars a year in potential debt we don't normally utilize it but for example a couple years ago we had the highlands roof that was $3 million um so again these are some of those smaller projects that we know will come up here and there so we like to have that in our longrange forecast for
planning purposes this does not include this projection does not include anything related to a public works facility um in our projected debt at this time so with that I'm happy to take any questions on The Debt Service budget D yes quick question as we calculate um
the budget for the debt services do we take into account which one has the highest interest and the laws and then we try to pay those first or how does that work no so what happens is when we go out uh to borrow money so
for example we just did it most recently with our preservation restriction on the Rebecca nurse Homestead so we went out uh in a variety of other projects but take that project in particular it's uh $750,000 we're going to go out into the market we're going to get the best interest rate we can the best true
interest cost locked in once we sell the debt those are locked in payments so your payment I know my payment on that project now I know my payment on that project in 2043 so it's all mapped out so every year we have to make annual payments on each projects that we bonded for okay until their maturity so it's
not like year to year we can say no let's just wipe this up because we getting lower interest here that's not how it works no I mean there's opportunities occasionally for refinancing which we did a couple years ago but that's that's about it okay thank you Mory no I think Rodney does a
good job and like he just said when there's chances for refinancing we do it no that's it I'm all set Mike uh just a quick question um the uh revenues from the landfill uh that's going to be going away
correct yes I think we have another year year and a half on that project we can get an update from uh public works from theying later um but yes that's onetime revenue and we using that to pay down debt so what we did was the first chunk of change was used to pay off the cost of the project both the short-term
borrowing at 4.5 million plus the additional 1.75 million which when we realized we could actually take in more soil which again we had a pay the 1.75 but the revenue was well in excess of that so again it's beneficial to the town um at this point we've paid off all expenses so in this free cash
appropriation we just had certified this $3.8 million in additional Revenue the plan from the beginning was to put this into debt stabilization for future use that'll be our recommendation this spring we'll also likely an FY 25 have additional funding as well that'll close to free cash again we'll recommend the
same thing so when that goes away are we going to feel a big bump no because we all the costs are paid off so essentially we're just collecting Revenue right now so again it's great in the short term we just want to be careful because again to your point in a year or two that'll be the end of that because we'll have filled so all right
thank you anyone in the audience Bill I know Bill Brad street Town me appre one the revenue coming in from the landfill when that ends the filling of that this for
building the solar panels will those solar panels generate electricity for us that will offset any costs associated with the uh landfill project is that the right way
to ask it yeah it's a good first of all we have to decide if we're going to run it or have a third party run it okay and what the advantages and anything else you want to add no I think that's about again we're still going through exactly again we GNA purchase power agreement or are we going to own them outright and again what's the best financially in
long term but there'll be yeah we'll generate generate electricity we'll go back into our Electric Division which will save us money which can be allocated for something else exactly it's nice that money's coming in rather than disappearing thank you okay anyone
else what's will of the board um I say that we um move The Debt Service general fund as presented is there a second second all in favor I I oppose none thank you anything else Rodney we want to do the dver retirement
system oh yeah please we we're still ahead that schedule yes so we have the danas retirement system uh we have our Retirement Board administrator Cory Grace is in attendance as well as Heather Russo who is ex officio as Town accountant and myself who is also your
board representative so 33 uh we're all here to answer any questions you may have um as I talked about in the beginning part of our valuation is to fully fund by 2035 um every Massachusetts Community under parak is required to be funded by 2040 uh we're ahead of the cor curve
which is good um during our most recent valuation we were able to lower our assumed rate of return uh to 7% which essentially is how much we expect to make on our investment we don't want to overshoot that because then if you don't hit that Target then you can be in trouble towards the end of your
valuation period um so we've done a good job lowering that to more consistent uh reasonable achievable number we're 64.5% funded based on our January 2024 valuation um and as you can see the salaries and operating
expenses are pretty small the bulk of our funding is the actual contribution to the retirement system and uh fully funding our pension system um happy to answer any questions I would point out in terms of good news we ended calendar year 24 with $170
million in assets and achieved a 12.75% return on our investment the year the year before was 17% so that's backto back double double digit returns after switching to a new consultant so I think that has borne fruit over the past two years and how
optimistic are you for 25 TBD butb so um so what are we paying a year towards this and is it going to be stable or is it going to increase y so it'll in can it'll increase every
year until we're fully funded so our projection is 8% every year until 203 inre 8% every year of the current number yes okay yep all right thanks Mike uh no no questions thank you Moren no they do a
Cory does a good job thank you d uh no no questions thank you audience what so two two questions I guess so the how confident are we that the change in consultant related to a higher return
versus just we had two historic 25% years in the S&P and and that's the cause of the higher return I will say both I will say that we were every year and you can find this on the peric website there's a ranking of every retirement uh board and how they
performed in the year before uh over the past few years prior to the switch we were in the bottom tier we were where did we finish last year we finished 10th out of 104 systems okay so great so again not just to your point headwinds
are strong and we're we're all making money however secondarily compared to our peers we're doing better okay great um and then my other question and this is really a it's not a pointed question it's just a question because I want to I don't know the answer my understanding is that towns and cities kind of have an
option they can run their own contributory retirement system like we do or the state can do it for us we probably lose some control but they pick up some of the Actuarial costs and things like that I guess is there any more color to that just things I don't know about why we do it versus having
them do it um what are we what are we gaining what are we missing out on again I think we gain internal control and I think the numbers show that again and I would have to research this more fully but I think we outperform uh prit don't we historically
I believe we've outperformed prit so we've gotten a better return on our investment by managing it ourselves again we don't manage it our I don't know nearly enough nor does the board but we have an investment consultant that manages it well and again the results have been very positive all right what's the will of
the board I say we move the um damis Retirement Board as presented second second okay all in favor I I oppose none all right Rodney I believe we're scheduled for lunch it's very good I think we're early
good job 20 minutes e e e e e e e
e e e e e e e e e e
e e e e e e Mr manager thank you Mr chairman uh next up we have our uh next up we have our Public Safety uh
Department still be coming to speak uh fire followed by police um just cuz I anticipate this may be a question so uh there's been talk about some more information on the Dispatch Center um potential resolation opportunities uh Chief level is presenting Tuesday night as part of his
quarterly update and will'll include that as part of his uh overall presentation on Tuesday night so again being as it really isn't Germain to the specific the the FY 26 budget but is worth discussion that's when we have that slotted so and with that we have the fire budget
uh 4.54% increase um year-over-year uh some of that is operating driven by some of our contractual obligations as well as vehicle maintenance and then the salary number is driven by maintaining as we talked about earlier we were awarded a million doll safer grants that expired in the month of February of this
year uh we funded the remaining months of this year in the fy2 budget and FY 26 this figure represents their full absorption into the tax levy um based on this staff staff uh and as usual bar barring anything unforeseen we anticipate a reduction in
overtime that we saw last year somewhat seeing this year so we believe that the reduction in overtime will help offset some of the cost of bringing the three firefighters off the Grant and into the operating budget um our chief Brian Barry is home uh after some recent
surgery he's recovering well um I'm sure he is watching so hello Brian uh in his stead we have uh acting Chief Jamie Schaffner who will walk us through any questions the board may have on the fire budget welcome thank you happy to be
here uh where would you like to start have any questions specifically or Rodney gave a good overview anything you want to add to that overview uh no most of our increases like Rodney said are uh contractual and um the ending of the grant is reflected in that so some of those odd increases are because those uh
members are going on the payroll and their attached benefits going with them so that's that's the meat and potatoes of our budget this year right Mike um you guys are fully staffed correct we are now thanks to this grant that brought us back to fully staffed um
and we are currently fully staffed and how many members so we have uh 51 members on the line um and two members in fire prevention and then myself and the chief okay all right um no no no other questions thank you all right
Morin no you guys do a great job thank you for what you do um I think your budget looks good um do you see a need um for any more firefighters So currently uh because of this grant we're
able to come back to full Staffing which we're very grateful for um and happy to be back to where we used to be um so as of right now you know we are we do have an eye on the growth of the town and and seeing how things are developing so something like a staffing study might not be out of the question in the future but right now we're just happy to be
back to where we are fully staffed we haven't been for many years yeah and um do you see any more grants available that we can try to grab so actually yes we are well we are on top of Grants so like Rodney mentioned this we've got three firefighters uh fully pay benefits
everything through the federal government through a safer Grant um we are currently administering an afg we're in a $1 million Regional grant to get some some big officer Level Training that we could never afford as a department on our own we're in that with some other surrounding communities
um this year we've also we've got a couple other grants we've got an emergency management Grant and we've got some Department of fire service grants that helps us buy a lot of equipment some higher end equipment that would be tough for us to absorb on our own um we apply to these annually um anything that's available we're always looking um
we also just recently found out we're getting a second round of grant money that we're going to be able to purchase equipment that we had planned on buying years out so um we are on top of the grant world you know in looking back some of our our when we look to bigger purchases we're always looking at that this year we have uh we're looking at
buying a new engine we've applied for another Federal grant for that to try to get funding for that as well we're waiting to hear but things like our Radio Systems those were purchased with grants our seba kits um which is now like a $10,000 a set those have been purchased with grants um so we do a
pretty good job staying on the grants and we've been successful so far and plan to stay that way excellent and just um just a general question I know is it engine one that's the big big truck right uh Tower one Tower one Tower one um have we ever thought it was brought
up before about you know when you get that emergency call that that big truck has to go out is there something smaller that goes out or that we could maybe budget for in the future instead of bringing out tow one truck I don't I mean I just no that's a fair question um
so the way the fire Services we we're prepared for unpredictability correct and and what we're really we're there for all emergencies but we're really there for that no Department could do is put out a house fire when that comes in we don't know when that's going to come in and the way we operate at a fire is as a unit called a company so like a
tower one those guys stay together all the time the engine stay together all the time that is there those guys don't go anywhere without each other um so to split a crew to save on vehicle maintenance um and then when a fire comes in to have those Crews split there's a deficit that has to be paid
for that um where in the past we operated a little more like that where that that rescue truck we used to have um since moving away from that model um I can say confidently that operations at fires are uh significantly more effective um so the NFPA recommends you
know 35 people on a first alarm fire we're doing it with 10 and I'm proud to say we're doing it well and a lot of that is because the way we set ourselves up so that there's um everything's lined up to operate the way it should be everyone knows their roles and they're ready to go when that moment does happen okay great and do you see any need for
any more trucks um so we like I said we we do have a warrant for new engine um engine right yep we stay on top of our again the NFPA recommendations is a 15-year Frontline lifespan and we try to stay on that schedule and they stay in reserve for 25 years or so and the cost
oh sorry the cost yeah so it's a one it's going to be a warn article it's a 1.1 million uh fire pumper truck replacement um as so part of that is the way the manufacturers are pretty much across the board now you're looking at a a 36-month build time so that 1.1 has those um
projected increases in budget or increases in cost of production built in we are exploring through manufacturer ways to reduce that we found a program that could shorten that build time to 12 months which would obviously save the projected um increases on that so we're working hard to get in that program for
savings um we also have some Capital Investments that can save on that um on that build time as well or excuse me on that build cost um but that's where we are right now and waiting to hear on that grant that we applied for as well wonderful thank you that's it D yeah
thank you uh the 1.1 you're talking about is not in this uh no so that'll be a standalone warrant article coming up in April okay thank you thank you and thanks for all you do thank you appreciate it quick question uh the out of range what what is that that's a
great question so out of range is so we have ranks in the fire department we have when you see the engines out you have a um firefighters and you have a lieutenant that runs that truck and then a captain runs the shift um out of range is when there's an absence on of a rank and we bump somebody up so maybe a
firefighter will work as a lieutenant or a lieutenant will work as a captain and that out of range is the difference in what the firefighter with the example of firefighter and Lieutenant what they get paid as a firefighter versus the bottom step of the lieutenant they get paid that difference and that out of range comes out of there meaning they're
working out of their rank out of grade um so that difference in the pay gets paid out of that okay so they've performed duties of the person that was above them yep and that has increased because um like I said we changed our operations a
number of years ago where we um collaborated with the town to add a Lieutenant's position so there's a few more opportunities for that to happen um and we've had just incidentally some some injuries this year have been at a lieutenant level so more people have been covering that out of range so that explains the bump uh education in
educational incentive what what is included in that is it uh so educational sense of it's contractual benefit so depending on their degree they have uh there's a stien attached to that um so that has increased there's a
contractual increase this year and on the the plus side we're also having more members furthering their education and the EMT incentive same thing contractual benefit where um they get a stien for having their EMT which there was a contractual raise this
year TW reimbursement um do people get that is it a like a lottery or how do people so per the collected buy agreement all members are eligible for tuition reimbursement um they're reimbursed based on the grades they get
in their classes um and so there is an increase in that this year so how we forecast that is uh per the contract any member that has an intent to pursue their education that year at whatever level has to let us know prior to the time we set up our budget they need to let us know what classes they're
thinking of uh taking and the per credit cost and we budget based on that um of course you know everyone's intentions don't always play out in reality so sometimes those plans fall through so we expect that budget to be higher than the actual cost because some people may not
get be able to take those classes they plan on taking as well as uh you know recently the addition of free college tuition in Massachusetts um we encourage members to take care take advantage of that if they're eligible which should also see an effect on that line item
so it's available to all members but you just have to do it ahead of time so it can be built in the budget yes in order to take advantage of it you have to notify Us by the deadline so that we can budget appropriately okay and uh the the medical supplies um does that include
things like knock can uh yes so anything in our our what we call the first in bags when you see the guys going to um a medical caller carrying all those bags yes uh anything you would need for like a what it's called the BLS basic life support emergency I don't think Naran comes out of that though I was just going to jump it I believe we get Naran
uh provided to us from the state at no cost okay okay thank you and the last question I have is about your Fitness club membership I and again all these are awesome I I love to see them I love to
see that we welcome questions um I know that there's a lot of insurance insurances we uh and I even at my work I did not know that I had Fitness reimbursement
until many many years later I'm right there with you uh we have toughs for our insurance of blue cost bu Shield okay I have that I know Blue Blue Shield does uh Fitness reimbursement do we promote that or are
we aware of that uh speaking as an employee yeah yes HR does make that known okay so is this in addition to that or this is a different thing no this is different so this is a a benefit members have we have um a deal with gym
of uh the gym in town on Prince Street the name's evading me at the moment but we have a a fixed number Dollar number that we contribute depending on the amount of members that are interested um they they cover the rest of the costs and um share it to encourage members is obviously Being Fit is an important part
of our job but um no it's not related directly to the insurance yeah we may want to look into that because I think all these cost could be reimbursed to us uh by the insurance in which case it
will not be a line item for us and we'll just get it for free that I I had no idea yeah it's a good area to explore every member who has blue cuz Blue Shield is there's a limit I I I think it's $150 for you and $150 for either
spouse or the child depending on on what it is and if the if the membership for the club is more then the town only pays the difference but if you count $150 or $300 times I don't know how many
employees we have anyone will be entitled to go to the gym and just submit that for reimbursement through their health insurance I like that idea we'll look into that further for sure thank you and thanks for all you do thank you
if I may your tools and equipment maintenance while the same as last year it's about 25% higher than historically so what are you looking at so tools and equipment maintenance what that is is so we have a lot of things like the we're
we follow the NFPA recommendations so they we need certain equipment tested every year so things like our ground ladders our aerial ladders our the tanks we wear in our back have to be hydrostatically tested um that had to in order order to stay compliant with the NFPA we needed to stay on top of that
that's why it was raised in years past to make sure and those are done by testing agencies um and of course they like everything else in this world their costs increase over time um that was probably fixing that and like I said even with a level funded I'm sure their prices will go up again this year um
well my point is 24 it was only 88 8,800 would been 20,000 last year and 20,000 proposed for 26 so and that's before I was in the administration so I don't want to speak out of turn but I was willing to say that we probably weren't covering all of the testing required at
that price so they probably adjusted to make sure that all of the required equipment was being tested uh per the recommendations of NFPA okay do you have anything else in the capital budget to talk about other than what we already have yes do you want to please yes so in
the capital outlay for fire and uh the ACT Chief can give more detail but there's a second year of our three-year turnout gear turnover um as well as two uh fire prevention vehicles um that are being replaced um both are proposed to be
electric vehicles with an offset from Electric as well as the added benefit of instead of being able to purchase a generator to light up scenes the because their electric vehicle will be able to essentially light up the scene using the vehicle which is an added benefit as well interesting yeah okay so yes I can
start with the the turnout gear we are in year two of our turnout Gear replacement we're doing over a three-year process so the turnout gear is the uh the cool suits you see guys out there wearing uh those have a 10e lifespan per NFPA so we are staying on track those those the those sets of gear
refly it's seven or eight years so we're right on track of getting the full use out of them as long as as well as replacing them before uh they're past that 10-year Mark um so I said this is the second set um and then there'll be one more year but we'll get the third to get everyone through to get all of their turnout gear um any questions on that
before I no move on to the vehicle so we do have we have like Rodney said put in for two Electric vehicle um Ford Lightning pickup trucks uh that would be for our fire prevention division so there's two members in fire prevention um they would be replacing a 12 and 9-year-old explorers respectively so let
me preface this with saying like currently there are no pickup trucks in the fire department um so this was kind of a dual solution we looked at where for the needs of the um of the department and especially the fire prevention division so not only do you see them out buzzing
around doing a lot of Code Enforcement but they have other roles as well as well they are the uh the principal coordinators for the safe program which is what goes out to all the schools that teach to the kids the fire safety with that they're hauling that big um smoke trailer that the kids love every year um they're pulling that to every school um
lugging a whole lot of training equipment with it um they currently don't have a vehicle that can do that which has caused some logistical issues uh they also respond to our incidents they are um principal support primary support at an incident so with uh you
know a more uh capable vehicle like a pickup truck they could shuttle more equipment to and fro but especially post incident post fires where we have just piles of filthy stuff that's covered in carcinogens we could throw that into a pickup truck rather than having to put it into the um a Ford Explorer or the
bed of a or the cab of a truck with other people in it lug that back get it de uh decontaminated and cleaned uh they also are our investigators our fire investigators in town so once the fire is out and everything's cleaned up that's when they go to work digging around trying to find the source
um like Rodney mentioned um a big part of that is we'll get into the lighting in a minute but um they're using the hand tools same thing D they at the end of this they wind up with a lot of filthy equipment maybe some um charred evidence things like that we want to be able to transport that safely without
the cancer is becoming a major problem in the fire service anything to eliminate that putting things in a pickup bed not in a compartment with the body it was breathing um is a safer way to move um we decided to go towards the green Vehicles cuz as a department we've listened to the community over the past
few years especially in these forums where they urged us to explore that option we've seen the success of the police department uh especially electric light um they're very happy with those Ford Lightnings so we explored it further uh there was a reduced Fuel and maintenance cost it's pretty attractive to that and the unique thing is that
they are able to generate their own power so um I'll talk on that in a minute but as far as like cost to try to offset the cost we um we put a good effort into this so we've collaborated with electric light and a big thank than you to our friends there who have uh
generously contributed $45,000 towards these electric vehicles to offset some of that cost we've sold that 2011 F550 the old Ford rescue truck that due to our change in operations we don't use anymore um we sold that for $225,000 um as well as that um like
Rodney said which I think is a cool fact is when those guys are doing that investigation the fire's out the the the engine and the ladder companies are clearing and getting off the scene historically we've had to leave a diesel powered Engine with three guys sitting
there running so basically has a generator so they could light up the scene because once the house is on fire there's no more power in it if it's night you can't see anything so we really need to spend we we significantly light up these scenes to make sure they're doing a thorough investigation these vehicles will give us the option to we won't need to have that big diesel
truck running um and those guys will be able to light their own scene and and looking ahead where we're specking out trying to build this new engine with obviously has high costs we're able to eliminate a PTO driven generator which is a 20 to $330,000 savings that we won't have to put onto the truck um and
as far as those explorers we have now um we plan to repurpose uh one to us as a a backup vehicle as we do not have um a backup vehicle for our our command vehicle but on a financial end um we are about to hire start some new hires when
those um members go to a 10we Academy there's mileage costs associated with that and so we're paying like it cost about $3,000 to send people to a 10e Academy and we're we're on the cusp of a number of hirings so if we have a vehicle we can send them in we're saving that mileage cost every time um and
we're also going to repurpose um rod deor and DPW we're going to um send a Explorer his way he said he has a need for him that could save a lot of costs on his end um so any questions on that any questions members n all right
anything else that's it for Capital okay audience questions bill again Bill Brad street town meeting member when a new piece of equipment is purchased the re what is being replaced
is kept online for I think you said 25 years at the end of that is that piece of equipment sold traded or junked if you like uh short answer it depends um so it
depends on the condition and the market value right so of course we're always looking to get as much money back so if we can sell it we do um but in some cases our vehicles are ridden pretty hard and they work pretty hard so sometimes at the end of their lifespan
they're just barely hanging on um and there's not much but we are always exploring all those options trying to get the most out of um the most back as we can I hope that answers your question anyone else Bill bra Bill Bates excuse
me great Department always proud to to see danas fire out there they do such a great job I'm wondering you are up 9% in the total Department expenses so I'm wondering when I see a 60% increase in
tuition reimbursement there's also you got your up above you got your educational incentives your EMT incentives can't we make that number go down instead of going up 60% by saying to our members go
get your education and then we'll give you the incentive on your in your negotiations you'll get your incentive but let them pay for their education it's contractually obligated so it have to be something through the bargaining process all right I just put it out there for maybe future years that that's
an item that we maybe can save some money on on thanks thank you anyone else Kevin I agree with everything Bill said uh great Department proud to proud to have them uh so maybe a couple questions
so kind of piggybacking on uh member Bernard's question right about how we're responding to Medical emergencies we've heard this from our various Emergen Services you know I think I think we've heard from the police before that you know staffing issues they're going from
call to call to call like this this is a is a burden right uh we want to respond to everybody on their worst days I get it I'm not debating it I'm just wondering we're sending the Cavalry every time right for for a medical call or maybe I'm wrong maybe there are times where we say you know it's our third
call at at the nursing home today we get it it's it's just a transport thing we're not going to send the Cavalry but we're sending police fire EMTs every time is there is there any way we can do this a little more efficiently I don't want to degrade anyone's care anyone's chances of you know getting through
their emergency successfully but is there any way to be more efficient here happy to speak to that so we actually we do and we're constantly re-evaluating now to make it more efficient so um and um Chief level might be able to speak on this more when he
gets into dispatch but here in DAV we use the emergency medical dispatch or excuse me um yeah emergency medical dispatch so all calls are prioritized they're basically put into a card depending on what the people say and that assigns a number of resources to it and we're constantly re-evaluating those
so obviously your worst case gets everybody and the more minor things gets less resources but someone's always going um I speak for the fire department where recently damers has quite a bit of nursing homes um where they're they're um demands have increased they've
started using the 911 system more so we sat down with Chief level and Brian Pratt the dispatch supervisor and found a better way to do that where now if there's any sort of nurse or doctor unseen uh we we're now screening those calls much more heavily and not sending resources to them unless it is something that we're truly needed for so that is
it's a process um it's easier said than done you know there's there's going to be hits or misss on both sides but we're we're always reevaluating that and making sure it's quality over quantity right we're making sure everyone always has what they needs but that we're using our resources and finances
wisely all right anyone else what's the will of the board I say we uh move the fire budget as proposed is there a second second all in favor I I thank you thank you thanks for coming
today I'll note that uh acting Chief chaper wore a blue tie Chief LEL did not reciprocate and wear a red tie today so came close he fooled you he he fooled you uh taking a look at our police budget um
salary and wages is the Big Driver this year so the last couple of years due to the department having several vacancies we carried a vacancy factor which basically was our instruction for Jamie if Jam's able to fill all those positions we'll find the money but in
the meantime since they were turning back a surplus every year we lower that to help balance other parts of the budget we're happy to report that uh Chief level and his team are close to full staff closest they've been in some time so as as a result this budget reflects fully funding every potential position it also reflects um an
additional position which as I mentioned at the beginning of the day was the is the First new officer added plus one since 2008 um the budget also includes a staffing study to determine the longterm both the structure and the Staffing count uh needed to provide police
services for the town of Damas um and with that I'll turn it over to Chief level uh as Rodney said um we are doing very well Staffing wise U for the first time a long time uh we currently have one vacancy and one recruit the academy right now U so we're we're getting there
with our numbers so um we're getting excited excited so any questions you might have happy to answer G uh yes so the the increase
in salaries is because we got the staff now and then we have one in the pipeline correct so it's it's uh from the contractual obligations as well as replacing those two position that were not funded last year and then the addition of one
officer okay uh the Recruitment and selection the the Recruitment and selection uh are we hiring a firm to do that and what exactly uh would they be doing so
we would hire a firm um there's a firm that we reached out to for this for an idea and pricing um they've worked in numerous communities in the area including lynfield recently and what they do is they'll come in um meet with our Command Staff uh in the town and evaluate our organization look at our calls for service numbers um how we
respond to calls what our staffing levels are and at the end they'll give us a formal report the recommendations um the last time this was actually done I believe it was either in the 80s or early 90s um I'm still trying to find that study it's it's lost somewhere in the building I'm sure U but it's been
some some time since we had that type of study uh so we're that we can have someone come in outside eyes look at everything work with us to create a a plan to move forward okay and we think like by this time next year we'll have a kind of like a some recommendations on
that be the goal is to have the study done as soon as we can after July 1 when the money's appropriated get that process going over the summer time so hopefully for next year budget planning we have those numbers and we can look at how we can Implement some recommendations hopefully okay I I think that's I think that's crucial and that's
so important and I know uh c m being always sometime refer to we need to have more um bodies um but I think it's important to not just have bodies and feel good about it it's it's
important that before we have more bodies we understand what is it that we trying to achieve uh I'm one who always believe that um we are not going to and I said this before we are not going to police our way out of all our problems uh the police is not going to be
everybody's father and mother uh so by having this and having some expert recommendation uh that is geared toward our community specifically will be important and in this budget can I make
one comment on that regarding the last time we had raised 2008 we did we had 46 offices we added two offices in 20 2008 um they went to the academy they came out they started field training 2009 they were laid off um so so due to budget constraints those two off laid
off in 2009 um never returned since 200 2009 um other two offes we hired one went to agency and never came back um one did come back after an opening happened um so we really haven't moved much since IA hiide in 1998 um you know
we have 46 the 47th office we have right now is paid for by SX Tech um if the SX Tech was to withdraw that tomorrow we would probably lose that funding for that position too so we're still really hovering at that 46 Mark so no definitely I mean I I think
them there might be a need for more um I just think that it has to be a more comprehensive approach and as we develop the budget with that firm uh after the recommendations I also want to see things about uh um more than just number
of offices but go and responsibility and how do we improve community policing and and be more out there with the people and not just for enforcement but for really building trust in community I I I
think that's very valuable so thank you almost it thank you Mike oh I thank thank you for being here Chief um so we have three new officers correct I don't have their names but um that's awesome
um and then you're doing promotions as happening we're in the process right now um list has been called uh the test was taken assessment s was completed list has been called we're just waiting kind to see what happens with the Tommy Position decide if we're going to act now or wait a few weeks so we're in the
pipeline to do um possibly up to five sergeants and one Lieutenant wow that's a lot okay um uh how many line Vehicles do we have uh we're probably about 22 to 23 line vehicles and those are all
marked no um there's um 9 10 11 12 there probably uh 13 to 14 marked marked and the rest would be unmarked okay all right um ticket Revenue do you have any idea what that is I do not I could look into that and get back to you on that and then I think just to go along with
what D was saying um and this is just a statement you know obviously it takes a lot to get in play but I think to make better police officers we need always more training in all the different Fields so that you
have a better balance of people and the more they're trained the better response you'll get so that's just something I guess we have to work on um other than that no thank you thank you appreciate it you all set morning y
hi Jamie good job um so three new offices we have three disg graduate the academy um on February 28th uh they're in the second field training so you'll see out on the road is you see a two-man car driving around it's probably an A on field training good so that would be a total of so right now we would have um
44 one in the academy would be 45 and the one vacancy would be the 46 and then the Essex Tech position good so with the Essex Tech position do we get State funding for that resource officer at all no their town it's an agreement with Essex Tech well I guess in a roundabout
way we do but Essex Tech pays us directly for the salary of that police officer do okay good okay um and I I do agree that I think we need more police so I hope you continue looking and I hope we continue funding it too um I
have seen the police um officers more around town thank you and doing a lot some traffic stops you know along POA Street and things like that so it's good Jamie um I think like my colleagues have said awareness having people around
training is huge um I I know that officers have to do the shooting training and and is there more can you elaborate maybe on Mental Health mandatory 40 hours of
training per year okay um the mptc which is the mass Municipal police training Council dictates what that training is so what they do is every year they come out with a list of training agendas and we must require have fill those requirements um they usually legal update CPR first first aid usually some
type of Mental Health Training some type of um uh trending topics they pick up on um and then we do our Firearms as well as that so we're mandated by certain training and then we do additional training as much as we can internally that's good
yeah no um you guys do a great job thank you Chief can you talk to your Capital request uh we have in the the budget for four March cruises for uh FY 26 uh there would be four explorers fully marked actually one might be n Mark um
Frontline car so be four Frontline cruises that's it that's all we have all right questions from the audience bill again um fantastic department so proud to see what Damas police does for our community it's amazing um I did want
to talk about go back to the um tuition reimbursement on this budget is $33,000 less than the fire department so maybe that's just showing that there is a way that we can um reduce the fire
department's uh tuition allowance I'll just throw that out there um I did want to talk about the Cruisers um we're seeing more and more with tinted windows in my opinion tinted windows
reduce interaction and I would strongly suggest that the town look at eliminating the policy of tinted windows in our fire safety our school buses I think it's it's it's it's a bad idea
thank you Chief any comments on that uh the one Cruiser that has probably a heavy tint on it right now is our um unmarked patrol car it's a Frontline car and the idea is hopefully to be a little bit more hidden and the
windows are tint a little bit darker because that's meant to kind of blend in with traffic has meant to blend in parking lots so you know having a fully uniformed officer it helps kind of uh hide them a little bit better so they're not as conspicuous um so that's a
tactical decision we make on that um and that's probably the only one we really have like a dark tint on anyone else the other Bill the first bill again Bill Brad street town meeting member uh
considering how damis has grown over the years how many people live in town and uh got into a traffic count how many people pass through town going wherever can we possibly uh entertain a
traffic inforcement car to would take care of people not paring where they should or shouldn't be so that the officers are handling more important duties and not that tagging
people for Park uh parking in front of a fire plug or blocking something would there be a way that we could uh perhaps get a traffic car just to handle traffic incidents or not incidents but traffic reports
of somebody doing something they shouldn't I read the log and I see a uh car on 128 or 114 driving erratically by the time because they are busy they're able to show up the
offending vehicle is gone would there be a way that we could traffic it's really a two-part question I mean somebody that parks in front of a hydrant that you can find and do something but the erratic drivers no and I understand it that's why I mentioned
it not necessarily for them but for incidents that were could be Handle by just a traffic car if it was somebody blocking or driving too slow or we'll let the chief respond if he wants I think a traffic H would be
extremely helpful and I'm sure that would be a recommendation in the study that we do um so again I think it's going back to having that study done getting the recommendations and then actually we need to kind of coordinate and imp how to implement this project as well um you know we can't hire 10 offices in one
year U one we would have a difficult time even finding that many candidates and two financially it's not really reasonable or fiscally fiscally able to do so so we need to have a plan of you know how many off we need to do and like over 5year period Implement that process
to build up our forces and again I'm sure traffic will be one of the top things that will be listed thank you anyone else yes Kevin not going to say what you think I'm goingon to say I
promise uh so I I generally feel the same way as others that have suggested that we need more officers I'm glad to see we're getting uh one more I I think the studies worth worth doing I look forward to to to reading it um I guess in addition to the the issues we've
talked about right just wanting more police on a shift doing the work that we all want them and need them to do I I've heard anecdotally that involuntary holdovers have been kind of a historic issue right somebody's always sick somebody even even if you're fully staff
somebody's always sick somebody's on vacation uh Etc and and folks kind of get held over from shift to shift without uh you know having a a choice in the matter hard to balance all the other aspects of your life when that uh happens I guess just looking to get some
information on is this a problem that's getting better as we've come up to full Staffing and is this a problem that we could potentially address through Staffing it may not necessarily mean that there's an additional person on every shift but our officers are you know have better better morale we're better able to attract candidates that
don't like this particular issue thanks so probably the answer is a study will tell us those answers Chief um we're in a much better position we we were like three or four years ago um currently we do still have
uh three offices out on long-term sickness we have one who was recently injured who probably be out for probably four to 5 months and we still have one officer who's on long-term military deployment so that's five and then we have the three in field training who aren't able to work on their own yet one
in the academy and the one vacancy um so we're we're in a better spot uh we're hoping some of the S long-term SI will be back before the summertime um summer times we see our biggest crunch uh we have contractual obligations of time off rules that so many Patrol men
can be off in a certain day so many supervisors um and summmer is when we see our our hottest hit the hottest in that area um but we are in a much better place than we were 3 years ago anyone else what's the will of the
board I say we move the police budget as presented all in favor I I oppos None thank you chief for coming we'll see you next Tuesday Mr Town manager moving on as we as you may have noticed we've been joined by the land use and Community Services family and
they're 4 minutes early thank you they are yes so this is our land use and community services for those um of the members of the board who are new we appropriate the bulk of them as one uh line item that's inspectional Services health planning senior and social
services and veteran services the only one appropriated separately is Recreation we'll get to in a little bit so so non- Recreation wise the department total is going up 1.94% um and then we'll dig through the details division by division starting
first with inspectional services so you see uh sizable increase to salary and Wages that's related to what we have is in the experts will fill you in better than I can we have a backlog of periodic inspections going back several years um longterm we'll
need to find a solution on how we perform the periodic inspections as needed but in the short term the recommendation was to bring on some more temporary staffing to start shipping away at that backlog um other than that the expenses are relatively flat and I would defer to Mr Henry or Mr hudon to answer any
further questions Mike any questions for inspectional services um yeah can you tell me what uh any any anyone that wants to answer how much money does that department bring in because it's a department we actually make money in right
it dep obviously it depends I would say the biggest Revenue Source would be the building permits that can fluctuate I think we budget roughly around 600,000 per year um might have ticked up this year and we have a baseline sort of just a generic turnover and then obviously a
project like Maple Square another project that's going to greatly increase the building parent Revenue but I don't know if you say we'd have to dig um into the actual receipts to give you that number but yeah I would more than pay for itself we more than pay for ourselves since since you guys pay for
yourself what else can we do for you well Rodney box your ears I'll defer to that question thank you very much for it however don't go away he's not the only one here I know okay thank you
um you say temporary temporary employment right because it looks like you said I understand you want to so I think in in Tim may be able to give us a little more color on this really how this will work is that the Frontline staff will be doing the periodic inspections and will be using our
alternates to kind of do the typical inspections when uh our full-time staff is doing the periodic inspections so right now when you know uh Steve latulip takes a vacation we bring in an alternate so that the inspections continue that week so we would kind of
run similar to that uh so that permanent full-time staff can go do the periodic inspection good yeah because we want to keep things going right keep everybody happy so they want to continue building in our town that's the plan um let's
see I think that's pretty much it's all I mean that's all I have thank you thank you uh quick question and I asked this of the fire and I don't know if it's the same principle tuition reimbursement how is that allocated is
it uh someone expressed interest and everyone has the chance to get it or I apologize I didn't hear the first part of it I reimbursement oh tuition reimbursement that's something that we usually work with the town manager's
office and HR through um Mr hudon's Been pursuing a degree and that's some so we kind of Stack that in advance and then that gets folded into the budget I think if you look back I think two years ago that was a transfer essentially from the planning office as we had a staff member
working on her degree and then she completed that degree and then we've transferred that over to building as we had a employee that was pursuing a degree there okay so so anyone who wants to do it is able to get it uh there's no
not yeah so I think that's more of a question for Mr Conley so it's more so the tuition reimbursement in the fire is a contractually obligated benefit to all members um tuition in terms of uh the staff in for example in Aaron divisions it would be if we felt the degree was
beneficial to the town long term as well so again it's not just making them a a more Highly Educated employee but also seeing how that lines with you know is a masters in that position beneficial to the town residents as the service they provide or both in their current position and and future terms of
promotion down the line them having a masters benefit the town so again it's generally speaking it's a case-by case basis okay okay um and then uh software maintenance uh got kind of wiped out there did that move into it or is it
because we got new equipments no it's it's been all Consolidated under the it umbrella okay thank you no loss of service moring I did I you all I'm thank you I have no questions for page 24
anyone in the audience inspectional Services Kevin so Kevin bar 34 popper uh we made an investment over the past couple of years in in e- permitting uh that I think this is the right office for for that a right okay so I just wanted to
ask I mean quality of service is is a is a fine justification but I just wanted to ask just in terms of Roi on that investment have we realized any efficiencies in terms of the number of hours number of Staff um that it takes to process these from kind of cradle to
GR from when they come in to when the permit's finally closed out Aaron that's an excellent question I'd like to say the answer is yes um we've been working very hard the benefit of the we've had electronic permitting in
the past um but they were all individual modules for that particular office and the current uh tool that we are using is more of an Enterprise wide version so I'd like to tell you that we've seen if
efficiencies where um permit routing can happen uh one to many relationship as the old analog system would have been here's your piece of paper and when you're done with it please pass it to your left now we can do that all at once
um we don't have metrics to be able to say well in the old system a permit took X number of days and under the new one it it takes half that time but I think anecdotally what we're experiencing internally seems to be more a more efficient
process okay thank you anyone else it's the will of the board I say we move the inspect want to wait for all of them you want to wait through these divisions is it's one appropriation or do you want to go each one what do you want to do well are they separate line items no it's on line item oh it's one
okay then we'll we'll wait okay thank you you're welcome uh next up we have public health public wealth Health has a salary and wages increased driven by contractual o ation based on the recently settled cbas and operating expenses is a
reduction driven by the centralization of pest control cost so normally a portion was paid out of Health um actually all of it was paid out of Health um reviewing our pest control system it was better determined that to expand to cover a little bit more area for buildings and also to have it housed
under Public Works since they're the ones who technically manage the contract I believe there still is some Pest Control in the budget correct but that's for more oneoff board Health directed type of pest items yeah we would still have the
ability if there's an actual episode we have funds for that but the building management Pest Control will would move to DPW so it's net neutral overall but it on this budget it's a minus okay but let's see Public Health
Services big increase there's no Co anymore big increase over 24 24 is 18800 last year was budget 5,000 proposed 265,000
uh n yeah what's that it's level funded to 5,000 is there from last year but the year before was 1,800 yeah that was actual so 24 actual so uh Public Health Services is a line that traditionally
and these have been trimmed uh we've probably down 50% from where we were 2 or 3 years ago on um this line um those are for like unanticipated um we get a hoarding incident and we have some incidentals
that are associated with assisting the household with with the hoarding incident or um a dilapitated home that needs to be boarded up to prevent um the kids in the neighborhood from exploring the home uh so we have some
again $5,000 kind of set aside to kind of come up with those I think we've been working with Mr Conley um like as I said over the last few years we've trimmed that number Down based on the spending it doesn't justify it um in theory if we had a big one that outstripped these
we'd probably be looking for some sort of uh Reserve fund transfer if we had a real issue but we we've tried to preserve our ability to have a little bit in in the budget for those kind of I say typical but not anticipated um
expenditures that come along do you think you spent 5,000 in 25 no sir so you're just putting this number in the same as the previous year but you don't know what you'll spend this year correct correct and like I
said I think if you would compare uh this line item to a 22 or a 23 uh budgeted we've cut this in half it used to a 10 I think it was 10,23 I I can't remember the exact year
off top of my head that but well it it shows on the the budget book is zero for those two years or maybe was someplace else those are actuals those are spent not appropriated actual actual I get
it look look at Public Health Services yep 3 530001 22 actual Z 23 Z yeah in in 22 and 23 I believe we were budgeted $110,000 in that line
right so actually spent nothing that's correct and we've so we've been trying to trim that down but again we still feel like we we we do encounter things that happened during the year that we would traditionally 24 you had $1,800
yep so again I just how do you justify 5,000 things come up we board houses we don't know when those things come up we don't know when we have uh you know those sorts of Public Health needs and traditionally as long as I've
said I've always tried to support all the budget items and and budget as presented but this looks to me like we're just putting numbers in here for the sake of putting numbers in I you're not justifying the $5,000
expense based on history so I mean I can leave it to our friends at the fenom to beat you up on that but I'm suggesting that I don't think it's appropriate to put it in the budget
just to have funds in the budget the right you can't you can't anticipate I know right now we have two or three homes we have two or three homes out there right now that we're working on that we are you know we have expenses associated with those homes okay so you have some hisory
or I understand where you're at we've never spent 5,000 we've never spent that sort of money um okay anyone else questions uh yes Mr chairman and I mean if we speak of the
Public Health Service and I think it it involves more than uh boarding homes I mean there there's a lot of uh things in there more than just I mean I I'm happy to defer to Frank I think Mr would be able to get into more
detail but Frank the mic FR and stuff like that that line item um FR introduce yourself for the folks at home I'm sorry uh Frank jackalone I am the director of Public Health for the town of danas
thank you welcome um that line item uh it's hard to put a number on what to anticipate is going to happen for the upcoming year and as Aaron had said boarding up homes uh we have used some money as you see
went from zero to what was 1800 we had an instance that we did have to get a locksmith out and bought up a home that was condemned on Patricia AV um we also use that that this upcoming year we uh we're going to be testing the
the waters to see why the bacterial count is high um every summer so that's a line item that we would charge the testing to so things of that nature um if we had to go out and
actually um under the sanitary code if there is a nuisance out there it's up to the Board of Health that we can uh either tear down a building secure a building um and continue from that so by
eliminating that um line item um it's going to tie my hands that I can't if someone says well we have a problem out there I said well it's not in the budget um so it's again it's very hard to just
to uh determine a finite number for that but um I have to say that it was up to $10,000 and we have reduced it down to five and I think that's a manageable number for the what ifs what's going to
come up what do we need to do so that's um a line item that I strongly feel should be there and we can justify it just by saying we don't know what's going to come up and even we went through the pandemic um and I'm surprised that it's
not reflected here but uh this the state picked up a lot of the cost for that but if we had to go out and do something that's a line that we would take the funds from thank you Mike and sorry I wasn't done and full
disclosure I I'm a former member of the Board of Health so this is kind of a soft spot for me and uh public health is one of those I always think of it as three four piece protect prevent and
promote we never know what's going to happen before we take actions so it's like paying for insurance something that you pay for and you hope you never have to use that that's the example that I like to give so by by elimin this just
because we didn't use it the previous year could be detrimental in case we need it we anything in this at Le most thing except fix paying for the building the telephone we are hoping that we
never have to do anything but in reality we know that's never going to happen there's always going to be issues there's always going to be nuisance calls uh if next year summer the water is perfect then we don't need to test it or we only test test it once but if we
having issues we might have to test it every other week um so I I will hope that the board support uh that line item question about environmental services uh why did it decrease by
50% I'm I miss said the the Environmental Services budget decreased by 50% um so we have previously been budgeted 10,000 and we trimmed that this year to five um this is along the same
lines as we just spoke that Mr Bennett was Raising just knowing that things are getting a little tighter on the expense side and trying to look at actuals versus um our anticipated funds it became difficult to justify the 10
knowing that we all had to make some Cuts this year um on the expense side to balance the wages out and I would just second again as you mentioned D the goal is to not spend either one you know theoretically you don't have to spend any of that money and then we'd all be better off but again in trying to get to
a balanced budget and looking at past utilization we made a reduction there again um Public Health Services the same thing I mean based on the actuals of the past three years 5,000 may be seem too much if we spend 7500 next year then 5,000 seems reasonable to year before
again it's it's how much do we want to hedge against the potential need versus how much do we want how much we have yeah okay it's a balancing act across the divisions yeah and the training services why was that eliminated uh I don't even remember what
year that was zeroed out um that was several years ago I think that it you'll the last actual you see is in 20 uh2 $200 charge to me that feels like maybe something that we did that we coded to that expent but again because that line
item had been so infrequently used um that was zeroed out a number of years ago I'd have to I'd have to do a little bit of digging to get you the exact answer of when that was zeroed but AR in between conferences je and memberships Etc in terms of actual training of Staff we have we still have all the
professional development stuff um in the conferences and uh tools and equipment line okay I feel bad about that okay yeah thank you that's all thank you thank you Ming almost was that Mike all set um I just was going to say I I with
the health inspector and said it's it seems reasonable to have that there whether you spend it at least it's there I think out in the street when you need some money it can go pretty quick pretty fast so I'm okay that they have it there I'm happy that they can justify it I just questions are questions thank you
we appreciate it Bill Brad street Bill Brad Street time he remember Precinct one is this a budget where it's gone up and down is that something it might fall into an Enterprise fund is it so that if you put
a certain amount in year by year if you use it it just builds up to the point where at some something unusual happens it's there and you can continue with a smaller amount along the line or is that am I asking this at the wrong time no
it's always the right right time for a question all right the answer is R do you want to yeah I mean it really would Enterprise funds are really their user generated costs and revenue to offset it um in terms of putting away you know seed money for an emergency Public Health expense I mean it's something you
could do but I you know I just assume keep a small amount each year and if we did have that big balloony cost like you said obviously that we'd be looking at a transfer a fincom reserve transfer but I could see putting a small amount each year it's like buying Insurance hoping you don't use it but it's there because
it's slowly built itself up my opinion thank you thank you anyone else okay next Department next we have planning and economic development um operating expense reduction again as
Aon mentioned on one of the other line items trading Services was reduced based on historical actuals and a need to balance the overall budget happy to take any questions May any questions oh no questions thank you no everything
lines up looks good all right Mike no no questions thank you audience move on please next we have senior and Social Services um you'll see salary and wages reduction again like it U Matt Mitchell did not take a pay cut this year however
we did have some turnover Matt Mitchell will be one of them who came in lower than their previous counterpart um so that's why you see a reduction in the salary and wages um in terms of the operating the only increase is $2,500 for office supplies and that's related to printing cost of the very popular newsletter provided by the senior center
and they're happy to answer questions on that one as well um if I may back on page 23 land use Community Services there's a line item
senior for $349,000 and then on page 2 seven we have an additional senior and Social Services why the two what's the
difference are they both the same yep they are but let me just confirm it Ronney I think it's the breakdown between salary and wages and operating expenses by division yes so on page 23 what you see is a roll up of all the divisions and make up land use and Community Services the top half is their
salary and wages line the second half is their operating expenses so yes to answer your question page 23 is just a roll up summary of all these it mirrors okay it's not an additional one and the same okay um thank you that makes sense
uh questions on senior and Social Services Moren M okay Mike uh no thank you d uh no thank you audience next and finally for this group of land use community service we have
veteran services um pretty much it's a level funded operating budget contractually obligated salary increases um and Kelly is here to answer any questions so my question was the same as before but you already answered it it's in two
places Mike any questions veteran services um no no no questions uh awesome job on the ceremony I went to uh a couple of them a few times down at uh Glen Magner and whatnot but other than that thank
you Morin no M thank you uh comment uh and I spoke of this in an earlier section the fitness club membership um if that's something that I think we can look at here as well I think those are expenses that we can
have covered by uh our health insurance and it's they actually can even have you just sign up for some of those things online where don't have to even go to a gym you can sign up to like a club or something and the insurance
will reimburse for that and that will cover it and Kelly this is your third year as a full-time veterans person uh fourth fourth year goes fast doesn't it well thank you for the work you do for our veterans much appreciated questions
audience yes Bates town meeting member Precinct 4 just a comment land use and Community Services coming in at a 1.94% increase just fantastic for the amount of work they do um and hats off
to Mr Henry and his Department thank you one more I think if the board's ready to take a vote on these and thenation sep y okay thank you so we've got to vote on the last use Community Services I will
make the motion planning senior social services and Veterans yep so I'll make the motion to um move the budget along and approve for the land use and Community Services inspectional health planning senior and social veteran CER
offices is there a second second all in favor I I oppose none thank you thank you all thank you and next we have our Recreation budget thanks have a good day um again a pretty level budget uh operating
expenses decreasing slightly uh mostly based on our fuel estimates and we have Aaron Henry's available Dave mountain is here as well to answer any questions we may have on Recreation questions morine uh no everything looks great
thank you for keeping that number down Mike uh no no questions thank you um D um no no question I think the does a good job so thank
you uh question indicot Park maintenance how does that come under Recreation um and oh David if you want to endicot park uh runs as a division it's called The Natural Resources Division that's headed by Mr sandborn um
that's a division of recreation so their their expenses are folded into this budget so there's recreation activities at endart Park with students participating yeah I'm I'm not sure if
I'm fully understanding Mr Conley did you want to jump in well I'm not too sure I understand the line item the endicot park maintenance yeah I mean is it Recreation it's under Recreation it's the recreation yeah these are the so the recreation Department's
composed of the standard Recreation programming as well as endot Park in the harbor so this funding this is the operating budget for endot Park as well endot park is in a separate Department it's not so the Ard Park is
under Recreation correct including Mr sandborn and and others absolutely don't they do like the snake camp and little lizards and all that yes so some of that again to to the point that it's tied in a wreck so like like those camps that we talk about where kids are paying user fees to support the programs those do come out again out of Rec revolving
because natural resources is part of recreation okay so all of the Ard Park costs are in this department correct okay thank you
Mike um so on the same line indart par maintenance I mean it's seems like it would be a low number like is this taking care of all the everything to do with end car park I'm probably just not
understanding David Mountain Recreation director um through you Mr chair um it's actually much more than endicot Park uh our staff maintains indicot Park also maintains the rail trail in approximately 360 Acres of open space in
town and that is the operation cost for that yeah other item you'll see on there is maintenance of the barn that's a separate light item that that maintains the animals and and the children's barn but all of the expenses
since the division was created Go Back 40 50 years as ocar Park expenses has been under Recreation all right thank you there are some costs that are absorbed as part of record evolving too so to your point we can't maintain all of endot park with $25,000 some of that again is part of
the wolving process as well right so who maintains Parts in town like the on Center Street the old parage foundation with the revolution yeah that that that is on the public works if you
would like an examp example of the Open Spaces of those 365 we Proctor Farm College Pond Fern craft dips witch River canoe launch Town Forest rail trail CH Farm lael's Grove Rocky Hill
um Green Leaf Drive open space those those are really the active maintenance areas we maintain there there are much more other spaces that we uh don't maintain and then there are spaces the Public Works maintains okay good thank you can I just say something I love I love Endicott Park I mean it's do it's
our it's a gem I mean and can I just make a request can the cow have have another cow I mean they eat a lot of I know I just add a little number I know it's add in a cow but really Dave you do a good job with the park and I I do see the the
Rangers there and all the upkeep and I think a lot Dan I mean you know a lot of fundraising goes on there oh yeah goes on to that and well the friends raise a lot of money the friends of endicar Park have contributed over $400,000 to the park on operations and improvements the last several years so they're very
active yeah are people paying like the fees to come in like out of town residents do you think are they just I'm just curious this is uh the fees for IND call Park um weekend ends and holidays $2 for residents $4 for non-residents
you pay at the Iron Ranger at the gate uh there that's collected revenue is collected put into to the town's funds uh we also do rentals we had over 200,000 people attend the park this past year we collected approximately $60,000
in rentals that go back to the town that offset the cost to operate the park so that's kind of like the big picture if you want to look at the whole scope of how how the park works but parking fees weekends holidays and large group Community rentals you do a great job
continue doing what you're doing thank you thank you D um no no question thank you audience bill in the back Brad street town meeting member is it the recreation of Forestry on occasion my wife and I will
go down to Pope's Landing to watch the tide go in and out and have a cup of coffee during the season when the trees should have leaves on them some of them are covered with dead branches some not my question is who's responsible for
either trimming the dead branches removing the trees or seeing that a reasonably sized I don't mean a twig being planted where they are so that Park is welcoming not only to the residen down but those who might come in
because they've heard about how welcoming we are here and also at the same time I'd like to see a uh a pine tree or Evergreen down there that could be decorated seasonally with a solar panel and appropriate light so that can
be approv appreciated seasonally thank you thank you anybody want David yes Mr chairman Mr Brad street we've talked briefly about this before um when Mr Brad stre brought this to our attention we're aware of it last year um I've spoken to
the forestry and grounds division that they're actually maintaining those trees they planted new trees there uh they were the original trees that were there were diseased and we had to be replace the new trees that were planted um due to some o over tides and the salting the
trees did not take so they are aware of that and there is also a plan in the future to replace those trees but it takes time and it is a very volatile situation based on being close to the to the water and the past uh disease that we've had for two different trees that
we've planted there thank you anyone else what the will of the board okay so we will move off to approve the land use and community services for recreation as presented is there a second second discussion hearing none
all in favor I I thank you thank you David Aaron everybody thanks for coming today you thank you you don't have to sneak grab some food have a good day get the big
one the best take all you want moving right along have a good day doesn't matter my ha you're in trouble I'm just going to ask random crazy questions um Public Works I think we're going to go 20 all right Mr
manager all right so from one large group to another large group we have our Public Works family here in attendance now we have acting D director Rob deor Town engineer uh Stephen King Clint Allen our electric director his uh engineering operate sorry Jason small
uh and our business manager uh Angelica Medina all able to answer our questions um Stephen King is going to lead and uh fill the the Dave Lane role this year as the uh the showman and we're happy to answer the questions sorry good Dave this is yeah three pages
yes so the salary and wages increase primarily driven by contractual oblig oh no hold on contractual yeah well this contractual obligations um you'll see some notable increases the largest I think dollar one will be related to cleaning services that's our contract cleaning um the operating budget also
includes some new funding uh one for flashing beacons and the other as we talked about earlier Consolidated pest control so again there's a a lot of lines in there that have some ups and downs and we're happy to answer any questions you may have on the Public Works tax supported budget to start
Mike um Public Works I'm a little uh disorientated at the moment I don't know if D has anything right to want me to go skip you for a minute please please all right he's trying to catch up D yes so uh and I asked this question of the the
fire chief earlier and I just want to know if this is the same concept uh out of range correct yes what is that so the out of range is is typically when we have uh out of range grade Union employees um moving up because of a
certain refill position or someone's on vacation that they have to take over at a higher level um so we use that differential to pay for that that increase for that time okay so it's the same concept thank you that was so new to me the gas heating uh the the gas and
heating went down about 177% uh is it just out of uh do we know why yes um so yes you're seeing about a 17% reduction uh that's one of the items that we we typically do
a 5year average um looking back at our utility usage um multiply by the thms that we typically use on an average year um based on what we've seen for the previous pricing and also using uh US Energy information admin Administration website um that's how we calculate what
we're potentially going to see for um utility bills in the next fiscal year okay and at the because at the same time the Heating Repair went up so yeah so to talk about Heating Repair uh that's an item for specific
mechanical components that okay that's so that's that's not utility bills that's mechanical components that need to be uh replaced or repaired over the what is driving the increase in the um and the hazardous waste
removal uh that's that is a contractual obligation that we pay for hazard space removal um So based on the contract that we've signed based on our our public bid um that's the price that we see in the next fiscal year so that encompasses both our street Division and also our
our Fleet equipment so any hazards race removal from solvents to oils to land land waste we uh hire a separate consult or company to come in and remove those from um the DPW Yard or the transfer station so they just increasing their
prices yes wow that's a lot it is 41% and then the PES control that was my question but I think that was answer on the the previous one the last question I have is the the when we talk about Weather Services uh which also is seeing an
increase what are we referring to so those are the weather services that we use for helping us track uh winter storms so so we have our own um we hire well we hire out um a company that we can call in and say what are you seeing for a particular winter storm um based
on prediction versus just using our our typical Channel 5 or four news um we have a separate service that we call in and they help us track what the store may or may not may be by the time it arrives at the dver uh front door you think we need it I think because from my
phone I can use my cell phone and be like I can tell you what's going to happen between now and tomorrow so when I look at it I'm like how know the had it own weather person yeah if you you know when you you get right down to the
WEA uh the snowplow budget and you know two hours can make a huge impact on a snowstorm and the price we pay so with the advanced and the direct Weather Service that we get for the community it's based on being in daners they look
at it we can call we know it's going to change over we'll start the salting we can be done two hours early or we can predict when we call the people in and it actually one storm could pay for that
service wow so and from your experience do you think I mean it's not a big CA I'm just curious is it worth it and you've seen like it helps cuz we call they're around they're available 24/7 and we do call them throughout the storm
and when we see a lag in the snow we'll be like is this over you know would you see anything else sometimes with the ocean it swings back around it just stays circling and they can give us that information on the spot do we have any stipulation in the contract that if they
give us going information that I would uh I would gladly take some of that they do the best they can they're not always correct but they do again one storm make a difference could pay for uh their prediction on one storm could pay
for the whole uh weather service but and savings okay thank you no further questions thank you is the Weather Service you use um run by the federal government oh a serious question they do
use they all I me all the satellites and all and all those things those are factors the okay thank you you ready Mike uh sure we're at the public works right
want me to go we're in town hall right now right um so uh this year did we lowball our snow PL budget or we uh again that's a that's a one of the predictors that we have to use averages on um so again that's a 5year average
based on what we historically have seen over the past 5 years we haven't seen the same amount of snow that we saw this year um so that's typically been our standard um operating procedures to be able to predict what we're going to need for a snow and ice budget for the following fiscal year obviously when we
move forward in 26 and 27 this year we'll obious come into the freay and we'll obviously have to increase our snow and ice budget based on the averages increasing like can I follow up on your question yes why don't you take six years seven years throughout the low
and throughout the high we've also done that as well because when we had those very high predictable storms that was also severely increasing the budget so if we do see out layers um we will look at that and see is that one really a good indicator predictor of what we're going to see for the next year if it's
not if it's out of the norm we can safely take it out of the equation thank you I'm sorry Mike go ahead no it's okay and then I I know that over the years it's changed the way I mean you do pre-s salting and all that stuff now too right which we didn't do 20 years ago right so there's a lot more going on with that
budget by itself very good op operation um for snow and ice removal these this time year right um all right there was a still a little off here I think it was something in my lunch need a cookie I had I had a big brownie I didn't work
out um let's see contract cleaning did D just ask this question am I asking this again contract cleaning nope that's it's what are we cleaning what are we cleaning that's a lot of money uh that is contract cleaning for all of our town
and school buildings okay good that makes sense then all right and uh what's the one above it there it says um oh it's recycling that's just a recycling budget okay no just a lot of big numbers
um but big expenses too so okay thank you I think you guys have done a great job this year Stephen you did you know you and your group you did really good the numbers good um grants do we get um any grants have you seen or more grants
coming I mean State Aid's going to be a little tight this year but yeah so two in particular that I'm um heavily involved in are the we got a grant for Ada accessibility improvements um so we were just I think received the funds in the last month so we're going to we
predicted well actually we looked ahead we gave some areas where there's inaccessible routes um we said we'd like to improve these so we're actually going to use those funds that we just received to improve those routs along walking paths in environmental justice communities um we also just put in for
another Grant um for water treatment for posos removal um we're waiting to hear back from that I believe we should hear a response this week um that's a $400,000 Grant to help us potentially move a design forward on uh improving are enhancing our water treatment for
posos um at our wells and then we also received a a state aid State Road grant program for any state road that we have in town even though we own it um we get additional funds for um making pavement improvements so we also received the
grant for that which will be into the mix for FY 26 on the state calendar good yeah and thank you for you know filling a lot of those potholes too you know thank you now you guys done a great job um number looks good but I'm well set I think they did a great job thank
you Stephen fertilizing the fertilization programs up 25% can you speak to that sure you want the number yep no I have it uh so you're going to see an increase by 24% roughly $10,000 that's for liquid
and granular um applications of one time per field um and that's based on the cost per acre so if you look at our 31 fields that we ret treat and we maintain um contract with our program and the materials and the Labor uh that's the
increase in cost for the for that work the flashing beacons what line item is that specifically uh detx supplies that's why that's up to $23,000 for flashing beacons correct correct um cover how many beacons one
pair one pair Yep they're about 9,000 each okay thank you um question I asked of of Ard Park but they turned me over to you the on Center Street the foundation from the parish house who
maintains that uh believe DPW forestry and grounds will maintain the that area had a number of um complaints about lack of Maintenance over the last year or two on that site I did yes I did I did receive a call I did go and visit that
um that site and then saw that the grass was pretty high the at that point right around the fall time so um I did you know reach out to forestry and ground to see if they could mow that down a little bit again it's not every month no I understand but are we maintaining it on a certain type of regular basis Y and I
don't expect you to rebuild the foundation but so it's a walkable path inside correct good all right AB when needed when needed okay is other other areas in town like that that needs attention you don't know unless but we
okay thank you anyone in the audience Public Works Bill no bill number two you you're number two number two number one as far as my mom was concerned anyway uh Bill Bates toown meeting member Precinct 4 um I'm so
excited with the Decat uh detac supplies line going up um that that is for the beacons uh rapid flashing beacons um it's a safety tool that I think uh is really going to help the people uh at the Maple Street and Burly AV area uh
trying to get across Route 62 is just a nightmare I I would like to say that we need to and and perhaps we'll do this at fincom or whatever this is only one set um there's got to be other crosswalks in town that would benefit from this type
of safety device so I hope we can be thinking forward through you Mr chairman the goal that's why originally thought was should this be a warrant article and I think knowing that there might be several of these that we need long term was to put in the operating budget so we could again it may just be one a year but at least we could start to go down
the list and prioritize and put some in fantastic thank you so much and and I I'm embarrassed to to give you a hard time now but I brought up earlier um Smith School is it's we've got I'm a town meeting member up there and I got nebor is calling me and saying it's lit
up like a Christmas tree even at 2:00 in the morning can't we do better and then I got to be honest with you at 3:00 in the morning vacation week you guys are plowing the Smith school and it's beep
beep beep at 3:00 a.m. um Can again it was vacation week I got to understand you're going to say you got to get the school ready but it was vacation week is there any way that we we could turn off those beepers if we know that there's nobody around at 3:00 a.m. at Smith
School that you're going to back over not allow all right just please try to help us with that anyone else bill again Bill Brad street I know you talked about the pavement Improvement there's the town has a list
of all of the potholes it's time kind of hard going around them I try to go over them my tires don't reach in all different areas of town the streets have had a lot of work done them is there a specific time or someone who is going to
be paying for those local streets one example there are other streets in town that uh I can't be the only one is is concerned because of uh I don't want to pay for front end alignment or or a uh blown tire
might be the exception but there are areas in town that need work is that all going to wait until a certain season STS and who gets to pay for that please I've seen a number of areas that have been patched in the last few days yes so
probably it's as it warms up they'll be able to get to them but somebody want to speak to the process of the program going on yeah sure Mr chairman um I mean specifically for for potholes and local areas that there haven't been any contractors in um if we ride around or
get a work order in we at the time when the weather presents itself we'll go out there and make the repairs to the to the poth hole um we obviously had a lot of contractors working on a lot of um streets last year um some of their trenches you know have settled over the winter which naturally occurs if there
was an issue with one of those we'd expect uh that if we get that PL through complaint through town hall um and it's one and we go out and inspect it and we see it's one of the contractor's trenches we would then move that on to the contract dor to repair or make um make the insurance um correct for the uh
whoever the driver was that hit the path hole okay anyone else all set [Music] Bill what's the will of the board on public works or we doing all these all together we can do the Public Works tax
supported first thank you so I will move to um uh move as presented the Public Works U for approval do a second
second all favor I I thank you thank you moving into our Enterprise funds first we have the water Enterprise budget let me comment thank you for putting the font and something I can read the rest of the Departments don't
know how to do that you're welome so salary and wages again increase related contractual obligations we also have an increase need for overtime which Stephen can walk in walk us through operating increase driven by sludge removal and chemicals with both both seeing increases this year um and debt
increases driven by we sold about $3.7 million in debt that was already authorized that we issued last year so seeing that face into the debt service again Water and Sewer benefit from having aggressive declining debt services so while we see the spike in year one it'll be declining over the
next uh 15 years and capital outlay they have uh overall Capital outlay we probably should have touched on that too if we want to do Capital outlay but um or we can do it at the end um but one of the pieces is a a sweeper that's being split
between the general fund Water and Sewer so that's the bulk of the capital outlay for water you want to go through the old I take back my comments you still have small font it's the Electric Division know doing I apologies bigger printers they don't
want us to use lights that's why cap yeah do you want do you want to take a step back and we'll just do Capital real quick yeah for all Provisions yeah yeah you want just walk through DPW Capital way yeah no problem
uh so for DPW p is that P 47 thank you that's you uh for DP w we have two vehicles in the street division that we're replacing uh as Rodney just mentioned the sweeper which get is getting split between tax
Water and Sewer uh we also have a one ton dump with plow that's being replaced uh on the grounds in the grounds division we have three pieces of equipment we have a 3/4 ton pickup with a plow um leaf vacuum and snow removal
attachment for one of our one of our mowers so combo combo Mower and snow blower uh for the buildings we have a and with a aerial bucket lift as well uh presented for the capital on the tax supported side
then questions Mike um it says the on ton van with the aerial bucket is 50,000 yes that's that's correct that's a new vehicle that is we're looking at a potential um it's a great question so
we're looking at different options for actually replacing that um whether we're going to go utility body or a van um with the bucket um we're calling it a van for now based on what the potential use would be for this position that uses this vehicle also looking at options to
potentially get um a a pre-owned vehicle as well not a brand not a brand new one okay worst case Mike we may be coming back looking for the the bucket part next year yeah I was going to say the bucket must be 20 grand by itself right um okay
um we actually have a potential vehicle that we can we actually have a potential vehicle within the building's division it's a du truck that uh can hold a bucket on it and um this is comes down to our the
needs for our electrician and um the he there was also there's also a van part of that so if we can buy the body uh and the lift and put it on this dual truck we can actually save a lot of money than buying one straight up yeah
okay all right um are we just talking about Capital outlay right this second yeah no I'm I'm all set then thank you waren um no we talked about the police vehicles and the
recreation uh the loader we know about that what's turnout gear what is that that's the fire the fire unifor the turnout gear oh the gear that they wear okay and um I guess just a comment and maybe I don't know what I'm talking about
because I'm kind of I'm girl and about vehicles but when you buy attachments and things like that we're making sure we're not wasting money that you know they're fitting on our existing Vehicles right anything to do with oh correct yeah absolutely yeah cuz I know that you
know I've heard in the past that that wasn't being done I just I just want to make sure moving forward that the attachments and anything we buy is going to be Universal if you want to quote unquote you know for lack of a better word be on the vehicles or the the
equipment that we have instead of just having it sit there and not use it anymore right uh correct absolutely great thank you d uh quick question are these vehicles uh Net News or the the replacement
these are Replacements so we have we have existing vehicles and we're replacing them based on our vehicle replacement policy policy and are we selling the ones we have now and then that will offset some of these cost or
that has already taken into account um we that has not been taken into account but we do want because we don't want to we'd like to have know the no number so there's options so we can either um Salvage resell or um turn in turn in for
um cost change over depending on what they give us for a price on the vehicle we want to switch it with so there's a couple options we not know the exact number what we'll get depending but we'll take the best option that we have received and use that towards funds for the vehicle replacement okay so these
numbers are not taking into account what we have now correct and once this moves forwards then you have that operations where it could be we could spend less because we we got a good number for a trade in okay thank you that's all it
all set okay um through you Mr chairman if I can walk through that Capital slide so what we'd be looking for is a vote on the overall general fund Capital outlay which is the public works that Stephen just walked us through the police cruises we talked about fire turnout
gear and prevention vehicles and Recreation has a mini Track Loader so that would be the action before you this afternoon Water and Sewer have some items that are in their operating budget and schools their bus will be a warant article that we'll talk about in early April so right now we'd be looking for the 840,000
$843,000 general fund capital outlay budget to be approved $843,000 any questions from the audience yes Bill B Street to me m preing one when it comes to replacing or a vehicle some of
the vehicles that we want to replace aren't the older vehicles useful it could be used by one of the other divisions so they they they have another piece of equipment so they might have a spear or they could put two out on a job rather
than one in struggle anybody want to respond to that sorry yeah um I would say that has to be on a casee by case basis Mr chairman through you um obviously we have to make sure that we have enough drivers for the fleet um so we have a lot as you just
mentioned if we're having vehicles that are not being used um because we don't have drivers or we have too much Fleet that's just additional maintenance that we need to pay on those Vehicles so we try to keep it a one for one ratio okay thanks anybody else uh Mr chairman yeah the the mini
Track Loader uh what is that and what what are we using that for uh that's going to be uh for natural resources um over at OT park that's basically essentially like a bobcat okay okay
track so it doesn't not so it doesn't Okay okay so we're going to vote on $843,000 as presented is that correct correct Mr chairman may I have a motion please I have a motion to approve the $843,000
capital outlay as presented for approval there's there a second second all in favor thank you all right hold on what did I just do look Nick I finally put you to work moving back to water again I kind of walk through the highlights but again
salary wages Rel to contractual obligations and an uptick in overtime needs operating increases driven by a new sludge removal contract as well as chemical treatment and then debt as I mentioned uh a recent Bond sale for some water distribution
improvements we're happy to answer any questions or everything particular Stephen that you wanted to add but yes so I think um you mentioned earlier there was a uptick in overtime um on the water side and that's essentially because we have a retirement coming up and we're also going to have to do some additional training for whever the new
hire is um typically we don't see someone coming in with the uh the correct treatment licenses right away um and then we want to put those people on first shift so we need we have run two shifts at our water treatment plant so that that second shift needs to be
covered um by another um operator in the time being till we get someone trained to come in and fill in uh that second shift so that's why we're accounting for the slight uptick and overtime for next fiscal year okay questions
moring um I'm kind of just looking through it again can you do you have any yeah not a big uh expense but just an outlier here out of State travel uh that's on page 38 uh
1,21 25% increase even though it's not a big number do yes so out sayate travel is essentially uh travel for any of the conferences that our water streaming plant manager or lab technician go to um
we basically go ahead we find out where the next event or for the uh water annual conference is um we back calculate what the travel expenses are going to be and that's what it encompasses for the year based on the location okay so that and you don't have a
section for conferences and we do have another SE for conferences uh that's typically for uh instate and our most of our uh I would say dist distribution operators or treatment operators so not not necessarily our treatment plant manager
or lab technician or myself um um would use the out of state uh laborers and operators would use the the conferences they pretty much stay instate for a lot of those U technical seminars and conferences for their contining education credits okay thank you see all
right I have so I have a question um with regards to Stephen chemicals the treatments do we get any like grants for that like from EPA or anything or State uh to help with those offset those costs uh we do not and what we do uh chemicals
for the water treatement plant are are purchased through a Consortium okay so it's a community Bop um process where every water supplier um kind of builds in and we go out for one General bid or contract um so most of the suppliers know that they' be supplying their
materials or chemicals um to 10 to 15 different water suppliers within the within the County area so those are similarly the best prices we typically get is through that Consortium bid now we're also going to see some of those chemicals can come from out of State um or sorry out of the country or
internationally um so we have to account for any surplus charges um for for transportation Andor chemical costs that increase because the materials are coming from out of the country and what if you can just touch upon the health insurance opt out what is
that on page 38 sure so that would be we have an opt out program so if you're able to get um health insurance through if you're currently on our plan okay and you're willing to opt out go on your spouse's pan or whatever it may be then we offer the opportunity essentially we pay you to get off our health insurance
because it benefits us from a bottom line perspective okay and that's utilized a lot looks like yeah um and then sludge removal talk about that a little bit sure I know we have to remove it right but yeah so that's residuals handling um
from our water imp plant or our wells U when they're running uh we typically have we previously had a a a bid with some f favorable numbers in our in our favor because of the operations that the small business ran we went up the bid because they went out of business um
with the numbers that we got back and the and the volume that were taken to the South etic sewage district for residual handling um we're just seeing an increased cost so based on the contractual obligations for the bid um and what we what we're predicting for the volume that will go to South SE
District this is a number that we came up with okay and I saw like um contractor trucks cleaning out the the manholes in a neighborhood right that was corre was pretty good they did a good job I got to you know is that that's some a company
that we hire right to do that yeah we do it both for our strong water system and our sewer system two separate processes but similarly they they are similar yeah they're very very um courteous too very nice and accommodating to the residents so good job picking them thank you thank
you just a point of clarification Mr chairman the health insurance that's our total health insurance budget I'm not sure why it says opt out that's probably a coding issue okay we are not paying $500,000 for people to opt out insance that's okay thank you Mike uh yes please
um Support Services what what is that subcontractors nope that's in-house uh support services so for billing um at the business office um through Angelica staff when we have Support Services covering for entering POS or water utility bill or sewer Billings um we
cover that through um the two burrow staff so if someone from Electric someone may be split electric and sewer and water in the office that's covered through Support Services it also covers their contribution towards accounting HR management Etc as well so water sewer
and Electric pay Support Services because they utilize the same resources that the taxpayers do okay that's a really big number am I I I don't understand that is it just it's all staff so most so again if you look at sewer it's much lower um Waters Angel do
you know how much is for actual Staffing at the business office it covers two the dollar value so can you explain that again what he asked yep so for water it's twofold so part of it and Angelica is going to
get the number is for actual business office staff that help with the billing of the water and sewer bills support service also and this is a page in the back of the budget every year water sewer and electric because they take advantage of our HR Town
accounting treasury the town clerk's office they pay a portion of those budgets so that's additional Staffing no P into town hall yeah so the taxpayer doesn't have to pay for the treasure to manage water the idea is that the water department pays their share of the
treasures bu okay all right sorry I need that cookie now 228,000 anything else Mike uh one other question if you don't mind it's a little off but um is the we're still adding fluoride to water right is there
any discussion about that we do that we do less we do it we don't take it out at all it's it's part of our uh treb plant permit that we have through Master EP is to still use uh fluoride so until they tell us to not use it or we put in an
amendment to ask request to not use it um we have to supply that and put it in okay all right thank you thank you thank you uh another question D did you have a question no did you say you put a request to not use it um we'd have to talk to the m m partment of Department
of Environmental Protection um they're the ones who obviously we have to go under their guidelines and regulations for water treatment based on our surface our water surface quality um so and that's part of our treatment process you'd have to go through an amendment to your to your permit to to change that
then they would have to review it and obviously I understand what I'm saying is are we Act ly trying not to use it no Okay no Okay because we still need some yes need fluide it's important okay okay
Stephen under electricity down $15,000 yes so again that's um some of our that's both between a mix of damers and Middleton electric because we have some of our facilities in Middleton um based on the averages and what we seen
for kilowatt hours of what we paid um that's what we came up for our total number now we haven't had one of our wells running um so that's a reduction in cost for the electricity and then also we have another part of our ozone system at our water treatment plant that also is not running which is a high
energy user um so that's also a reduction cost yearly okay all right that makes sense printing forms I assume that's the water bill correct does DPW pay a share because
their trash fee is on that bill that's a great question do you no we do not pay a share no it's not shared it's not shared okay um down the page 39 what is mwp a you want the line yeah so that is a debt payment uh we one of our debt
projects and it very well predates me Steph I'm not sure if you remember what project specifically that references but uh essentially through the mass clean water trust sometimes a project may fit in a way that we can get actually get a tremendous interest rate I believe it's 2% if we run it through the mass clean
water trust so this was a project many years ago that we did fund it through that way versus a traditional borrowing where you'd be subject to whatever interest rate environment we're at at the time so so the decreas is a a factor of debt declining debt SCH okay all right thank you
anyone in the audience or water no water okay water take a separate vote on water please you want a motion to approve the
water yep budget as approved approval as presented as presented is there a second second all in favor I I thank you next moving on to sewer so this is the one budget that we do have a change
from the packet that we sent you back on the 1st um we received a new packet on Friday the corrected budget is on the website as well and so if you took a hard copy off there you'll notice that that number doesn't match the number you see on the screen uh the reason behind that is there's one potential line item
in all the budgets that could change late in the game after I've already finished the budget and it's luck would have it this year that number did change and that's the scsd proposed budget we're part of the Southeastern uh SE district Southern essic sewage district and as such we're assessed annually uh
for our involvement in the operations debt Capital Etc um normally we try to be conservative in that estimate but we have some debt coming on this year so we got the proposed final budget assessment uh last week and it looked like it was higher than we had anticipated so again
a slight increase of roughly $140,000 on what is $4.5 million assessment but we wanted to clean that up now uh while we can so other than that again that is literally the bulk of that operating budget is our contribution to
scsd um in terms of other items we again we see the benefits of declining debt as the debt budget uh is going down by 6% and operating again contractual obligations and otherwise pretty flat um
again happy to answer any questions but that is the one budget that you did see change from our original March 1st submission thank you questions Mike um no no I have no questions on that thank you Moren I mean it's nice to see these
numbers are good um no I don't have any questions either that's good okay d uh no questions thank you audience on sewer what's the will of the board make a motion to approve the Su Enterprise fund as proposed is there a second
second all in favor right thank you next up there will be no required vote on this there will be a warrant article vote authorizing we it's to authorize the Electric Division to exist is the vote um so that'll be in the warrant uh coming up but as part of the
budget review process we like to have elector come and present their budget for the select board so with that I will turn over to Clint Allen P what page is that 40 pages 40 through 46 yes the biggest budget in town or the best argu best
presented yes presented thanks thank you Mr chairman so this afternoon uh Clint Allen uh electric utility director for the Electric Division uh nice to see everybody so this afternoon we'll be running through the cat we are on the
calendar years uh most of you know versus the fiscal year from the town so we will be running through the calendar year 2025 uh electric budget as presented uh the big swing Wing this year is right at the top and that is our purchased power expenses you can see
those are actually projected to be about 7 million less than we' anticipated in 2024 uh which is a big you know 30% swing from what we've seen in 2023 and 2024 uh the primary driver for that is
over it's hard to imagine now that we actually just went through like a actual New England winter a little bit a lot of ice and a lot of snow and cold nights but 20 23 2024 we had for our forecasts and our budgets were based off of our 5year
historic data anticipating that we were going to actually have winter um and if you remember January February were incredibly mild uh so we anticipated to spend $3 million on energy uh and transmission and capacity expenses those costs came in
significantly lower so over the course of the last 2 years we've actually accumulated um a power supply surplus of about $4.5 million um we are required by the dpu uh to we cannot do anything with that money
except for pass it through to the customers so if we spend money to buy electricity we have to use it to supply to our customers and that's it so uh the budget this year reflects the anticipated return we've set the power
supply rates as such to return that 45 million over the course of 2025 that's good so so moving down other expenses uh up slightly um 2.6 million about 6
6.3% portion of that is we are the closest to being fully staffed uh that we have been in a number of years we have a couple of bucket trucks that we need to replace that have become incredibly expensive from just you know
a few years ago um and our also our uh the Northland substation project uh we are funding that so our depreciation the money we are taking from the rates to fund the construction of that um we're still maintaining that 5% uh increase that was approved at last
year's budget cycle um so you can see our total expenses are overall down to that $4.3 million figure as I mentioned uh driven by power supply uh total revenue uh thereby is also um reflected uh that we have set the rates as such in
January 1 of this year to maintain enough um cash to cover the total expenses so that just lines up um our anticipated profit for this year uh is 1.7 million that's up a little bit from
24 uh and our pilot has gone also slightly up to the tune about 1 and a half million at the end of the day uh we are anticipating um but you know covering pilot and covering all all expenses as required
okay questions D yes uh if you can elaborate a little more on that uh 4 the 4.5 million you mentioned sure as a a resident how does that translate to
my bill or to me so going back to when it began was uh January 23 so like I said we we budgeted we anticipated spending $3 million it was going to take $3 million to buy the electricity from the network bring it into town and get it to your house in reality it cost less
than 2 million for that just for that month so we had set the rate anticipating that we needed to cover that $3 million so the PPN FAA portion of your bill which is the line item on everybody's residential Bill uh reflect that value reflected what we anticipated
we need to recover um in reality we saved you know over a million dollars in that month alone February was very similar and we had a couple other months like that throughout uh 23 and 24 uh so at the end of this last calendar year we were looking at um that 4 and half million dollar essential Surplus where
we had anticipated we were going to spend X and we had spent less than that to get electricity um but again part of the dpu regulations were required uh cuz I mean Jason would love it if we could throw that at the new substation project I believe me but we need to return that
to the to the rate payers so our plan for this year was to maintain the rate from 24 um going into the year and the calculations and the way that we have per U performed our forecast uh it's showing that we will return that 4 and a half over the course of 12 months
through 25 okay so the rat set in January had taken that into account correct that's why it wasn't increased for example exactly okay um do we get any electricity from Canada I knew it
was going to come up luckily a call about this uh yesterday afternoon so we do we do and we'll go to the uh power supply uh uh portfolio chart uh there it is uh we do have a small um Hydro contract with Hydro
Quebec uh the anticipated so we ran through the analysis um it's only about about 3% of our total portfolio um and we have it it's an extremely affordable contract so if the 10% tariff goes into effect it'll be looking at less than a 1% difference on our wholesale power
costs um which over the course of the year is very marginal if it's the 25% we're looking at um close to a 2% um you know negative adverse impact uh but at this point yeah it's it's not a significant DET if it's 250% then we
might actually feel it yeah yeah then what we'll probably have another meeting in this room about that uh but in our seriousness um at those 3% is it something that we have more in like a reserves type thing or
are we actively maximizing the use of those 3% that we get from H to so the so we're continually looking for I we love Hydro contracts CU usually they come in at a very affordable rates and they're reliable and we know how
they're going to run and um so this was actually the first under you know my tenure that we've actually secured a can we have some Canadian transmission rights but this is the first actual energy contract that's being generated in Canada um coming down to us most of our Hydro contracts are in uh New York
Maine uh western Mass okay is that talk internally to I mean it's only 1% so you think at least in the foreseeable future it will not affect like you're not just going to
come back and say sorry ders we're going to charge you more we you think we have some safety net to certainly so part absorb the disruption if if that was to happen yes yeah so we do have what we
call um the that's the target so we'll have that buffer and at the very least that'll get us through um you know if there is like a hardship like that like one there was once when the SE Brook nuclear plant um took a took an unscheduled outage uh and that
leaves us as you can see that big blue chunk at the bottom when that thing goes offline we have a lot of Market exposure so in events like that we have that over under fund to kind of act as a shock absorber so we're not swinging the rates up and down you know chasing okay thank you I'm said Morin so
Clint thank you for what you do um so question so with that money that 4.5 million does that mean that the rates are going to come down for the for the residents so we hope if we took that 4 and a half million that's a great question yeah by the way um but if we
took that 4 and a half million out of play the the actual cost that the Electric Division would incur for calendar year 25 would have introduced a rate increase for the customers so our transmission costs have actually gone up our wholesale energy costs have actually gone up a little bit so we would have
actually seen an increase in January if we didn't have that 4 and a half million that we needed to kind of bleed down okay that makes sense well anything we can try to keep it even for them no increases right table level age um just a couple of questions um with regards to
the financials what is stores expense what is that it's um line item I think 163 yeah maybe FC oh yeah the storage expense uh Fork 163 that that's just our inventory
Warehouse so what's that mean so that's like the cost to operate our and run our stock room and then I think this reflects does this capture the new software yet hi I'm Angelica Medina business
manager are 163 the stores expense is our inventory it's unissued inventory so it's inventory that we purchase for jobs whether it's um a public job or it might be a private job for a line expansion um and then we issue it and refur it either
to an operating expense or a capital expense okay there inventory on hand before it's issued out on site before it's issued on site um is there a lot of equipment that's on site that you're not using like someone had mentioned something about Transformers um I mean we bought a lot
during covid or whatever I mean sorry about that Jason want to make sure we're we're using what we're buying right yeah Jason small engineer and operations manager for the Electric Division um after covid the lead times for Transformers spiked to about four years
from the time you placed the order to the time you received them so we looked at where we were in inventory looked at what we might be at at four years out if we continue to to try to supply electricity and upgrade our Transformers we needed or replace ones at fail and and we made a large order anticipating
that we'd have to backfill a lot of empty spots now the quoted price was 4 years um the manufacturer somehow freed up something or built another manufacturing facility and some of them came in 3 and a half years before they were anticipated so we had put our Transformer replacement asset
replacement program on hold after covid we because of the lack of the ability to get Transformers and we were even putting up trans trans backup that we took down that we probably would have scrapped in the past we stopped that practice but we have now started to increase our transform asset replacement again to get those back out in the field and replace some of those Transformers
that we probably should have replaced in past years but we didn't because of the uh instability of the Transformer Market okay good but they're not going to be outdated or anything and we're not going to hear that oh they're not going to fit code or whatever right okay nope all right good no that's good
um and then just a little bit with regards to customer accounts clerical expense data process ing processing and then office equipment you know kind of administrative and
general expense with customer accounts I mean those those numbers can you explain those is that the 90 901 are you talking about the 901 yeah 9 90 903 all right um so the 903 are billing
and collection expenses there's multiple sub accounts under that but that covers um um anything from the bill statement forms um salaries and wages within the business division we have a credit and collections person so when we have past duer delinquent accounts and we have to
shut them off um for non-payment those expenses roll out of there our um office supplies come out of there any office equipment okay and what do you need office equipment is what F what is
office equipment would be stuff such as we have a bill inserter machine we um print all of our bills in house and mail them out so we have a machine that actually um the town utilizes sometimes too for the annual census um we have a postage machine inh housee um not for
the bulk mailings we have a bulk mailing permit for that but for if we have to mail oneoff final bills stuff of that nature um some of the other office equipment could be our copy or leases excellent printers okay and just Clint it's nice to hear that you're up
to full staff can I just ask a general question why do I see contractor trucks you know not damis electric trucks but I see other trucks out there instead of damis electric you want hang that one Jason so if we're up to staff why are we hiring outside services to I would think
if you're a shorthand you might do it but now if we yeah uh our Capital plan which is in the budget book we're anticipating spend about $6 million this year uh that's hard to do with just in-house uh labor we have a lot of projects that we're trying to accomplish and complete and
before the we don't before that the equipment fails so we a lot of Rec conductor we have a lot of agent equipment that we're trying to replace so to supplement our staff to get to some of that stuff that our staff can't get to um and in this case where if you've seen them recently there a third party fiber company that's trying to attach to our poles to go from Middleton
to PTY it's a pretty long run down 62 down Route One and then down 114 um there's a substantial amount of work to make room for that fiber company and that's something they need to we need to turn around a quick time for so we brought in contractors to do that okay good well we want to keep our own employees busy too right so yeah thank
you Jason keeps them plenty busy I know I see them working on Saturdays and stuff that's good yep thank you's up yep Mike thank you um is there an average amount of trans formers that we have to replace each year and Jason's having a hot afternoon he brought it
up uh we do have a asset replacement strategy where we take an there's two different types of transforms primarily this pole mounted and this pad mounted which is the underground and we have a couple formulas that we run on all the Transformers that are in service to calculate uh what we think the rest of
the useful life might be and if they're close to that end of the useful life then we try to so it could be different every year so because we put on hold for a couple years um I think we're looking at trying to replace about 40 pole mounts and 20 pad mounts this year is uh general question is uh are we
trying to get electric Underground on everything that we're doing uh it's a town bylaw for any new uh division to go in that has to be underground um so that's we do we follow through with that as far as our existing stuff um it we can underground it when we can if we have a project here but
it's extremely expensive like probably six to 10 times the cost of overhead um it would be extremely pricey and underground comes with its own issues it may not right you may not lose power necessarily in a storm and a wind but when you do lose power in the around
it's a lengthy outage right and ledge and whatnot yeah water and so you it's very hard to find uh equipment failures or underground cable FES um in a timely and fix them in a timely manner so the outages would be a lot longer if it was underground with with all the electric
items coming on board and becoming more popular are you having to upssize all your equipment wiring and yeah we have fixures whatnot yes we have uh a decent amount of reconductoring projects where we're taking the smaller size wire out
of service and putting larger wire up you can see that over on cabat road Belgian North Belgian um we just completed a project at the end of last year along Holton Street and Pine Street um so we're we're constantly upgrading this stuff to larger size putting up
larger Transformers um we're building a new substation over at the mall the existing substation that's there is one station Transformer with two circuits the new substation is going to have two Transformers and six circuits so yes we are and we're also looking to add additional capacity at our main substation do we do we get Federal money
towards the the upgrades um there are some Grand opportunities out there um we can look into them um historically in the past I haven't really been for system Improvement type stuff but they're starting to come now all right thank you what that thank you yes audience
electric bill gville Brad street Tom prec one thank you for the lights at the senior center long time waiting but thank you never yes
yes are we working on or is the town working on a system for we're going to put a solar farm up to the landfill I had mentioned it many times in the past we have a lot of public buildings in town a lot of them with flat roofs not all of them but adding solar panels to
the town property to in smaller amounts if it's economical to do that uh perhaps C fuel fuel gets more expensive no matter where it comes from how it's produced I don't know we want a large
wind turret or Tower in the center of the square but anything that's once it's established paid for up front and continues to produce the energy that we seem to need uh is anybody working on
that or is that out of our reach Clint Thank You by way of Mr chairman uh yes so you may have heard uh Bill about the three schools that we recently installed solar on the Smith the high school and um the
Highland School uh we did a townwide roof assessment uh where we basically took a look at every town-owned building and roof and those were the three that made the most sense based on the size um so what SI system we could put up there that would make it economically feasible
and then also the to your point the condition of the rofes themselves and the orientation so we uh took the most uh economically viable project and we took care of that first that was the three schools and you had mentioned the
landfill solar uh so been working very closely with stepen King and his staff uh we are as most of you may know we are um approaching the completion of the fill project that was required uh in order to put solar panels at the
landfill I believe that'll be finished this year uh we'll go through the permitting process and the capping process and then we anticipate uh going out for bid to actually get those panels uh installed next year you're welcome so we are looking at
it thank you anyone else what's the will of the board the will the board is to approve we're working on it Mr so again that we won't have an actual budget to approve oh that's right I'm sorry okay oh can we can I go I have to do it every year I
it'll be quick I swear just go through this I just wanted this is a kind of a this is a I mean present for all you yeah this is this is my I think I said it in the years past this like my prize Pig here this like my baby but uh I wanted to
point out this year uh we have only one remaining uh long-term gas contract within our portfolio so we actually 80% carbon free generation but all contracts that were sourced in a competitive market and and bleed well in with our
power supply that doesn't impact cost so I just it just looks nice I got the colors all orientated this year but uh and the only guess we have a 10% Market exposure and then the Stony Brook contract but other than that we have a lot of new solar on we have new wind coming on and then over the next few years you see in the bottom right corner
we have uh you know another handful of hydro solar and wind projects coming on I have a question question for you before you leave what's your take on heat pumps uh they make a lot of sense if you live in Danvers live in Dan if you're pay yeah um heat pumps uh we incentivize
heat pumps uh pretty well we want people to buy them we encourage beneficial other cerification if you're especially if you're like like I have oil heat I spend a fortune but I'm a National Grid customer so I would spend even more arguably yeah we're parting um I work at a bank a 0% loan for heat pumps for
residents 10,000 to 40,000 but you have to live in the community yeah that's excellent we um we are looking we have been um Taunton I believe just did a similar program um so we are that is something that we would like to entertain in the future yeah why not right yeah give you some food for thought right all right yeah thank you
so you got coloring books for us so yeah actually so our materials manager uh Cory found these the other day oh okay great this was our this is our centennial celebration book pretty cool back in 1989 thing I really wanted to so
we have our we had a fuel mix yep 30% oil 30% gas are kind a few extra anybody no I'm trying to butter you up or anything so Clint can I get this pie
chat easily very pretty Clint yeah through through you Mr chairman so this presentation is online and also this page I think we generally include in the budget book as well okay we don't have it now you don't have it now I'll I'll drop coffe copies off on Tuesday night all right great thank you all right that
it for electric that is it all right thank you all for coming I one like the book thank you everyone thank you enjoy the rest of your day thank you bye thank you Mr chairman we have benefits and the management budgets we had a 10-minute break or we can just proceed can I ask
it we'll just take a quick five minute break okay please we're ahead of schedule but let's go let's go e e e e
e e e e e e e e began the morning talking about um as we as we as we discussed a 10.9% renewal
rate on our health insurance this year uh which severely impacted our budget this year um up until a couple weeks before we finalized the budget we still had roughly a $500,000 deficit that was reduced in collaboration with the
schools public works uh land use Public Safety everyone had to really dig in um and make some budget cuts to balance and one of the big drivers was this health insurance line like we talk about it's 2 and a half% is our proposition two and a half is the cap of our tax increase each
year so when we have something like this that's you know an 11% increase you know every dollar over 2 and half% has to to come from some other source um in terms of what's driving that again it's not unique to Damas at all there's several reasons which I touched on a little bit
in my transmittal letter to the board but we're looking at increased Health Care utilization since the pandemic we're seeing a dramatic rise in prescription costs and an increase in prescription utilization including the rise of glp1 drugs being used to treat diabetes and
obesity um we also have cost of delivering care Are Climbing uh healthc care providers are experiencing labor shortages which is in turn driving up Personnel costs so there's other factors as well but those three factors are driving not just the town Dan verus renewal number through Maya but also uh
the industry as a whole uh in terms of Maya which is our our trust fund that we're a part of it's uh our administrative wing and pool in which part we get our health insurance from Blue Cross and Blue Shield the range for all Mya communities was 99.9% to
19.9% um we were lucky enough I 10.91% seems like a very high increase in it is but in the grand scheme of things the town danver's actually had a pretty good renewal rate in the environment that we're in um I'm happy to take any questions specifically on the health insurance why
why are we so fortunate versus 19% I I think it's it comes down to mostly the loss ratio is that again we have a better loss ratio than probably some of the other communities the average I believe of all my communities the average was around 14% so we're we got a better than average renewal rate okay
thank you yep any other questions from the board members Mike um just can I ask what when you said the loss ratio we have less people making claims yeah so essentially you know every Community has their own it all gets pulled together and again I'm not
an expert so if I get something wrong I'm sure I'll get an email from Maya telling me that I got it wrong but you know essentially yeah it's the what is you know for the amount of premiums we're paying how much of that are we utilizing in payments that the insurance company has to make so danvas is healthier than its surrounding cities
maybe but that sounds better so we can go with that yeah all right thank you U we will be over the next few month again once we have a new town manager in place um we'll be kicking off some meetings with our insurance advisory committee which is represented by the various unions um in the town um as well as the
retirees to look at what we can do again like I said some of this is just driven not just locally but nationally but what can we do you know to try to stem the tide on future cost because again this 10.9% impacts the town of damis budget and the taxpayer it also will impact the
employees receiving their health insurance by a 10.91% so again I think anything we can do to come together and try to find Solutions again I don't know if we're going to get a solution that's going to drive it down dramatically but anything we can do we'll look into over the next few
months d uh yes on this uh benefit and insurance uh the sick Le incentive is there are we going back there or or that's an Overlook so that is what we talked about earlier that we you know we've
negotiated out of contracts the uh that sick leave incentive what we do have in turn is that if you meet a certain criteria if you leave a retire from the town after a certain period of service and you have sick time remaining on the books you can earn up to a $5,000 I
believe it's $5,000 payout from the town upon separation um so we keep a little bit in there again as you see we didn't use it in 24 we had one employee that was eligible in 23 and One EMP employee that was eligible in 22 so again that's the
sole sick leave incentive that we would have to pay out so we just instead of having a small amount in every budget we just put it in the actual full health and uh employee benefits and insurance budget okay yeah and and and maybe this is me getting in the weight here does US
does Si leave carry over year after year or at the end of the year it start over no sick Leaf carry over so sick leave carries over vacation carries over we cap the amount you can carry over um and personal days have to be used within the the year okay okay perfect um and then
the health insurance opt out I suppose this is where you were talking about the up out not the not the previous portion exactly the the veterans Aid what does that entail so veterans Aid and I wish
Kelly was still here cuz she could describe better better than I could but again we we get Reed funds that we provide for Veterans for services medical Etc um the reason why it's in the benefits and insurance it used to be in the veterans budget um after we saw um after the recent wars in the early
2000s we saw a dramatic spike in the budget for this and it was determined that it made sense to be in the benefits insurance which is part of a larger budget that way if it goes over $115,000 in a given year in the greater benefits Insurance budget you can absorb that and
the veterans budget which is you know that and $2,000 worth of mailings you can't absorb a $10,000 over budget so that's why historically it's now residing in the benefits and insurance budget okay and in 2024 we had it at 79,000 and we budgeted 145 last year and
re budgeting again 145 this year do we have any reason to believe that we will get there or what's the trend for this year if if you know I can try to see what I have for the trend for this year but the year before that it was 106,000 so again it does have some fluctuation
in it and again I I know Kelly and her team have been trying to promote it as well and make sure veterans are aware of every service and benefit we can provide them as well so again I do think we want to keep some in there just oh no I to that we go from 99 to 106 to 79 and then
to 145 that's quite a big jump and I didn't know if there was any Trend or any specific specific reason that makes her anticipate the bump 145 has been the number we've carried for a couple years now is the budget so where you see the
79 that was the acttion exactly okay thank youin I like that that's good Ronnie the veterans a sorry just sorry to inter we' spent 65,000 year to date on that as well oh 65 yeah that's good the veterans Aid that's excellent that's a good
question D because I was wondering about that too thank you um so you're telling us that the health insurance has gone up the 10.91 for all employees too is that what it is wow and
when you talk about is there a pool like you said that M what is it Mia yeah we're part of the what is it the Massachusetts interlocal Insurance Agency so is that a bunch is that like all city is it like yeah it's various communities in massachus we were actually um Dan after you remember this
but we were a founding member y yeah many many years ago we were one of the members what other is it I don't remember I just know that for no but is it communities around with us I mean are there different even you said the Mia is there a different is there a different group it's in Massachusetts it's all in Massachusetts okay because like even
with me I knew I know with our our insurance has went up to like 7.9 or something like that there's the group there's a GIC which covers a lot of mass communities as well again they're seeing significant increases and we've actually beaten their Trend the
past few few years um so again have they looked at it like where deductibles have gone up for people like you know is that whoever does this yeah so some of that's gu Guided by state law and we have a certain threshold we have to match but again as we go through
that'll be discussion you know again ultimately you have to pay one way or the other but we'll explore options last time around we introduced the high deductible which many employees have taken advantage of and really like we also have the Benchmark plan which is a more standard plan so you give them options yeah right like three tiers or
something yep so again we have HMO po again so again but as we go through the summer into the next year we'll be looking to see what we can do it's unfortunate and as everybody knows I mean your automobile's gone up your homeowners right I mean Town we're doing the best that we can do okay no I'm fine
thank you okay anything else okay audience n uh Mr chairman just a quick comment for health uh Insurance increase all the increases one thing that I also like to point is uh and maybe and I don't know how we're doing it as a town
with some of these increases also comes increases in services and we want to uh encourage our employees to actually take advantage uh mental health counseling like um things that you can do from uh
on the phone or like virtually tele medicine and things like that so so yes it's increasing but sometimes there's also a lot of services that people are missing out out so I don't know what we're doing to really bring that because
a healthy Workforce is a highly productive Workforce so the more we can bring those Services forward to the staff so they can actually use it because if we paying for it we might as well take advantage I would like to hear
more about how we doing that too thank you okay anyone in the AUD what's the will of the board uh that we would um move the proposal for the benefits and insurance budget as
proposed is there a second second all in favor I I thank you next next we have our human resources budget uh we're joined by Philip hibit to talk about the human resources budget um we have what page is that page 16 of
your packet okay we have a slight decrease in operating and an increase in salary and wages based on a salary adjustment of the assistant HR Director um again happy to answer any questions you want to sit up Philip has an injured foot so if we don't I'll you
can sit down if you want and then we'll see if you have to get up welcome phip D this yes uh question about uh there's a line item there that is Medical exams what is
that fite um HR Director so that line item is for um pre-employment medical screening so any new employee that comes in um their medical screening thank you comes out of that um line item thank you
as well as we pay um dot um exams out of it as well what is DM Department of Transportation so when we have um random drug testing um and testing for for our CDL
Drivers okay so those are not so we don't have a physician in house that's doing like physical exam of people okay okay thank you that's all I all right and Personnel Administration what's that so Personnel Administration
is a budget is a line we use for things like assessment center for police and fire um some reclassification and compan class studies that we do for for our Workforce
okay that's it all right Mike hi U thank you we um are we looking for another HR person right now are you guys short staffed we are short staffed so we welcome any help that we can get but we are doing our best to to maintain to to
assist the whole um town as much as we can right now we have a benefits coordinator vacancy that we're looking to fill and also again we've had uh some part-time office staff outside of the budget that we funded uh through available resources last year we're funding it through the vacancy we have
and the Dei position this year um long-term we'll have to figure that out because again to your point I mean the office needs the help we found ways to patch it for now but longterm need to look at that thank you that's it okay audience what's the will of the board
that we will um move as proposed the human resources budget second second all in favor I I I thank [Applause] you next I will be handling the town
clerk budget as she's someplace warm and sunny she gave me copious notes though so feel free to ask any questions you'd like uh again the town clerk's budget as we mentioned earlier is vying with the assessor budget is the one significantly decreasing the count town clerk's budget
as you're aware is mostly driven by the number of Elections uh so last year having the presidential um it and the other ones in the primary it drove it so this year a lot of those costs are down such as office equipment maintenance not needing the pole pads um some of the
temp Staffing overtime election workers Etc just driven by the number of Elections uh so again it's a level service budget uh funding is Down based on the number of Elections um you'll see one increase uh printing forms um that's just related
to the potential of Outsourcing the census mailing right now we do it in-house through electric I think longterm that machine uh needs a lot of work and to replace it would be a significant cost so electric I think has been charged with the task of seeing if it's more cost effective just Outsource
versus maintaining a the equipment and the staff time to do the processing so if electric were to get rid of that machine instead of replacing it and it was most cost effective the downside is that uh the clerk's budget would have to pick up the cost of Outsourcing their census as part of that
Mike uh no no questions thank you no it looks good looks good what are the positions that the town clerk appoint they in the third night item the appointed positions I believe those are
the three registers yep so they're not appointed by the town clerk but they live in the town clerk budget those are the election registrars oh we appoint them but their budget is it's it's in the town cler okay thank
you audience what Willow board I say we uh move the um as presented the town clerk's budget is there a second second all in favor I I thank you uh next we'll we go into the
management budgets uh the first one being the management the town manager budget uh again salary and wages again just contractual uh operating expenses you'll see a increase of close to 8% and
that's driven priv primarily by one line item and that's our postage so there's two factors in that again just the the cost of postage increasing but more importantly the equipment we need we there's a good chance we're going to need to replace our postage machine and
get a bigger one particularly with some of the mailing of the ballots that requires a big bigger piece of equipment uh the good news is there's a good potential that that cost may come back in the form of reimbursement uh as part of the state Secretary of State's reimbursement program so again in the short term we'll have to absorb that
cost but there is hope that they'll uh pay at least for some of the cost of that new machine warin I no questions d uh no questions thank you Mike no nothing thank you who travels out of state so that is for all that's not just for the
town manager that's for anyone uh from the senior management team that needs to go out of state for a conference so historically it was about 5,000 last year you budget 12 now you're down to 10 but you're still historically higher than what it's
been correct be because there's more conferences or more management why are we uh again I think we probably took a pass on a couple conferences I know there's you know last couple years you know normally we'd have a DPW director going to a conference they didn't go um I think the assistant
Town manager usually goes to the icma that they did not go last year okay so again I just wanted I think we didn't want to cut our future boss's budget too much not know what their plans are in terms of what conferences they'd like to attend as well thank you audience management what's the will of the board
I say we um move as presented the management budget is there a second second all in favor I I thank you the department heads budget page that's pack of page
12 this budget as it mentions includes funding for all existing uh management positions that are funding out of this the decrease is just relative to the change over in two of the positions so again based on what our projected salary ranges for the town manager and the
potential DPW director uh those came in under what we had previously had for actuals uh at this time so that's why the budget's going slightly down uh but you don't want a budget for anticipated increases over the next six
months so we have incre in terms of the other staff or those specific positions those specific I believe we have some room should one come in higher that we can make it work okay oh we do okay good okay thank you yep any other questions Mike no no thank you no no questions
okay audience will the board okay I I say we move the department head budget as presented for approval okay all in favor I I thank you legal council again mostly driven by
uh Our Town Council Murphy hessie Tumi leane as we mention every year we were one of the first if not the First Community to get legal services for Murphy hessy many many years ago as such we enjoy a very very favorable rate uh that would dramatically increase by
going outside um and we're happy with their services and this is the budget level funded from last year what what page is that Dan what page nine but I don't think it's nine it's not nine Rody what page is that is do you have your new packet sorry it was
left off the first packet it's in the new packet you can also find it in the table of appropriation what's time how much is it it's 99,9 same as last year right up there okay okay questions y d any questions uh no questions thank
you okay Morin no Mike and no question what's the will of the board I'm sorry audience okay go ahead I say we um move as presented for the legal council is there a second you second all in favor
hi I thank you two more budgets uh one is the town moderator the salary wage and the operating expense level funded questions audience what the will AB board move as presented for the town
moderator is there a second second second thank you all in favor I I and finally select board just a slight increase for our ma membership move as presented is there a second can we do
that yeah you just did house I know but all rightly should we should we ask for an increase oh is this where we do that question you think we all this time Bill Bry town meeting member
Precinct one in appreciation of the hard work that's done by the s board it be out of uh place to ask that they be given a raise slight or whatever
but a raise for the for what they do for the town all of them well we appreciate that um I don't how would handle a motion like that I just wanted it out there thank you you're working on
it okay thank turn to the the manager how much money you get left in the budget 100,000 did I hit you well since this is Bill's 15th time with the microphone I'm out of money but um all du respect though a couple years ago we did look at it we increase it a couple years back again we're happy
to re-evaluate and again make sure that you're in line with peers of similar siiz communities so I would say it would be appropriate to just review it see where we're at thank you so make a motion on this yeah to review it no thought you were tired I am very
tired make a motion approve the uh who make a motion to approve the than a second all in favor hi hi thank you and last but not least uh finance committee Reserve again this is funds that finance committee can appropriate as needed throughout the year should something
come up prior to a town meeting or after a town meeting so one doesn't need to be reconvened uh again we recommend level funding oh it didn't even update the years uh it's $125,000 is the recommendation as it has been for several years a couple of things this is funded in the
past is we had a fire overtime issue a few years ago we've had health insurance come in higher than we expected so again it's not it's not enough money to solve a major problem but some of those smaller things that would require us to have a special town meeting for a small thing it allows fincom to just
appropriate questions Mike I think I uh delved into this budget once when I Cruiser I was driving got wrecked but I don't know so I it was your money the money I would go along with this D you all any questions um so this
is appropriated and then if it needs to be trigger is done by finom yes so finance committee can move I think the last time we might have done it was for some of the it stuff related to the regional it program but yes fincom could meet appropriate the money if they do not it does not carry over year over
year it closes right to free cash any amount that's not spent at the end of the fiscal year okay thank you audience Bill audience and then bill again Bill Brad street uh this is
like buying to me it's like buying uh an insurance policy right we set so much money aside if we don't spend it we could keep that and maybe put a little less the next time but let it build up
cuz as we all know emergencies maybe large come up would it be Pro prudent to uh we statutorily cannot carry the fincom reserve over year-over year it has to close out if it's unspent that's Master General law unfortunately okay what's the will of
the board um I will make a motion to move as presented the finance committee Reserve all second second all in favor I I Mr Manel uh that concludes our budget hearing good night Dan thank you all for
coming and watching thank you