y all right good evening this is a town of D town of D's uh uh a joint meeting with the uh finance committee for for the uh budget reviews today is Tuesday 11:25 uh 11 March 11
2025 we Oldtown Hall 1111 Somerset Avenue Dion Mass 02715 can we please have a um roll call please Nicole mow present Mark Pico present and Peter Ken present you guys want to open your meeting finance committee
uh we have nobody on Zoom so we don't need to do a ro call you have every here right okay can anybody please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance IED Al to United States of America and to the repic for which
stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for who's first the finance committee we've got uh two trans two transfer requests everybody have a copy
the U first first one I actually talked to Tom about this back in January u s pins on the loader broke wasn't sure how he going to be able to fix it I asked him to talk Serena but that
be willing to talk about the transfer from the reserve for this because certainly is unen anybody have any questions on it I'll ask so this is a major piece of equipment our major repair every say a
big repair it's a major to a major piece of equipment to don't let people speak from the audience they can't he what is this machine used for it's a FR loader y that does all the
loading for the in the winter time and also in the summer that dump trucks for the construction sites perfect thank you questions for time no I one more question we fix the pin in this two yes two pin is upper and a
lower yes okay um life on the machine then is expected multiple years yes multiple Years thank you might you might be doing that same machine again five or six years is down the road okay y takes a lot of abuse it does
yes I make the motion we vote to um transfer the amount necessary $4,800 um to vehicular supplies account 010
d-422 d 000000 -70 d 5480 second all in favor I post nice have it we have a second request for
$1,000 to assist the Ada assistant to Ada I have question yeah about this Mr chairman I'm here do you want me to address that sure this is coordinator what this is from was an a mistake or an
oversight and it's this is to correct that as you all may know um I am totally blind and I'm saying it for those who don't know who may be new to the committee and therefore I have as the a coordinator I have a person who assist me with things that I cannot see visually a lot of that could be reading
documents reading things online that are not accessible transferred to accessible format things like that reviewing State Federal Regulations Etc normally that person is budgeted $15 $1,500 per year
to provide support uh which roughly the $1,500 is based on approximately $150 per month and this person is paid $16 per hour period that's it there's no overtime there's no other figures when I sat down with Serena and the prior time
administrator last year we discussed the $1,500 we all agreed that the $1,500 figure would carry forward again as it always has somehow in the line items last year and I didn't look at it again so I was remissed and I was remissed because I expected it to be part of the
of the Town administrators you know budget last year since that's what we agreed prior to last year the budget for what I did went through the Ada commission now it's running through the Town Administrator so because we agreed I did not take another look at apparently when the budget went through
and was approved for everything I think it was for $450 as opposed to the $1500 Serena and I recently talked about this she agrees it was supposed to have been $1,500 but there was no explanation as to how it ended up at
$450 unfortunately um or fortunately I can't do some of the work that I do without this person so this is the transfer this is to ask for the transfer for the money that we expected to be available so so that I can continue to do the work that I do on a monthly basis
uh and just for a point of clarification if you had had the $1,500 as appropriated there would be no need for additional funding because you had the four looks like it was 450 plus the th000 which would have been under the 1500 correct that that is correct yes thank
you any other question any question J this is still in the administrators budget so the way the budget is for fiscal year 25 Jonathan Gail's salary is in 124 and then his assistant Justina is in
Department 549 so this transfer would go into Department 5 49 for this current fiscal year and where's this your Finance Reserve there's no there's no line on for 25 budget voted
right there should be money just to be clear for the next year's fiscal budget there should be that $1,500 for the for the future year this is for the current year so it's I don't know what you're looking at specifically but next year is not a zero
next year is also 1500 yeah for 26 correct but I'm just saying it wasn't under 25 that's correct right only 450 oh this is for 26 I don't have okay who that 25 25 is the third
column it's just a missing any other questions actually Sera do you have the balance in the reserve uh before this transfer will be 20 88,200 28,200 so we'll be down to 27200 yes
with this uh yeah I'll make a motion to uh transfer the amount uh requesting $1,000 to the Forman Ada professional technical uh account um and transfer funds from rever uh from the
our funded second all in favor I I oppos have it do have one question before change my vote that's why I off it says present balance and
appropriation is zero we've expended the 450 already that was budgeted as of today not as of January 13th it was as of January as of January it was zero so but for at December 31st
there was still gr it was about 10 hours sometimes their bills when they submit it's two months together they're not it's not regularly monthly we we generally bill out for Justina and myself because the figures
are so low and it's time consuming every two months okay and then Peter I just have the originals for you to sign oh so you don't want these s that is uh that's all that we have for
C requests back okay thank you um then we're moving right on go with the overview yes thank you for allowing me to give an
overview of the budget for fiscal year uh 2026 uh I want you to know as you as you go through the budget um I made a request to the department heads to do the best they can to reduce their budgets I asked uh F uh highway police
and fire to reduce it 50,000 000 and to the rest uh 2.5% with that being said uh the budget is slightly higher than than than last year's budget who's going to come before you the uh Department budget is uh
approximately 8 8,974 197 which represents an increase of 1.4% uh over the previous year budgets uh from just to put that in perspective from fiscal year 24 to 25 the same
budget uh for uh for the Departments there was an increase of 2.46% um I went through and I made some uh additional Cuts as you would see in the Town Administrator uh budget um that budget came out to
8,938 55 which represents an increase of 8% over over the previous year's budget um again I want to thank thank my team it it's was a a very difficult budget season they've made
tough decisions and um and I respect them all for that um my recommendations to the budget I presented um it includes just so you know reductions to contributions to the stabilization in OPB we are making contributions but not
as much as we made in the past um we're using free cash to balance the budget we uh there's really for all intents and purposes no Capital Investments and um I do make a uh a recommendation in my budget to uh reduce
boards and committee stiens by 50% uh we instituted a um a one sheet and that's um what you could see um first just to make it a little easier for you to see with the Department budget um we have an excess Levy capacity it's very slim of
about $3,800 and with my proposed changes it's about $60,000 so just to again to put that in perspect uh put that in perspective as you all know the biggest strain on our budget is the debt we have to pay within
two and a half um this year we're projecting that to be $721,000 566 fiscal year 27 it's going to be approximately $870,000 and fiscal year 28 which I'm making the assumption that it will be um the bonds will be in place
right now uh BP is in bands uh the bonds will be in place will be $1.2 million um I don't have to tell you but um without it's that's going to be un unsustainable for us uh without making dramatic cuts to personnel and
service so I hope if you have any questions regarding I'm here to answer it but we could uh we could proceed as you wish the the years been on the finance Comm we've never started with the assumption
that we're going to be using free cash and we've actually only used it once mhm so mean my preference I certainly don't want to it's not I agree it's not the best practice but it's it's what we have um
if we don't we're um I'm using approximately uh $471,000 in free cash um I have I don't know where we're going to get $470,000 in Cuts without without any dramatic uh
reduction in service and Personnel yeah that was that was my question I know that I think the you guys had met after we the prop failed a bit did you guys have recommendations around uh you know this process to raise
the funds not necessarily raise the funds but really where we were going to get it from from cuz I know we have only a limited control over the educational side of the budget sure uh we've asked major cuts from the Departments we we have as Selectmen met with the Town
Administrator uh there were a lot of recommendations everything from taking away stens completely which I think kind of failed uh just because different reasons as you probably are aware but I think from the beginning it was under
the assumption that we were going to have to use fre cash there was just no Cuts possible that we could make uh without drastically redu it you cut one employee and you're going to save 50 $60,000 so can you imagine how many
employees we would have to cut and where would those cuts come from which employees which departments the uh biggest budgets that we have obviously is a school which were limited with a highway police and fire uh I think Ralph had asked them both to make major Cuts
but uh then they did it's just a question of where else would it come from and we have no ideas at this time there not we don't like using free cash as well this is going the same Trend that we had last year and I hate to
start off with the assumption that we're going to use it which is I think what you're talking about here it's it's difficult to swallow but we had no firm ideas this is where it was going to come from we asked the school to come in under bu
not under budget but under what they had originally proposed and I think we we're going with the assumption that they're going to come in at that lower Mark and if they do uh we will still have to use free cash but just not as much when I was looking through you had said that you had asked uh police fire
Highway 50k each was the goal yes yeah so that's 150 and then other departments at 250 my question is so the the goal was the um get it down by 200,000 but but again there
okay I'm sorry uh you know the reality is there are some fixed costs even in the Departments that that was my question was a lot of these are contracted with salaries and overtime and so that I just
was was n't sure if there was like an analysis done around what like you know you ask the police hey I cut 50k like can can they find you know something you know exactly we had to I had to give them a starting point I had to give everyone you know everyone a
starting point um you know and it's to be quite honest with you it's just based on the size of their budgets and I and I asked them again I asked them to do their best and and they did and and again as a result um it's a a it's a
very small increase over over last year but the Department's proposal is 1.4% and and what I'm coming in is at point is at 8% yeah um um you know um we had uh we have contractual obligations within those um I saw a lot of the
contracted was two 2.5% increases at a lot of places which yeah and they have uh services that they have to provide um you know most of the places where they where they're taking and which is always the first places people cut as capital in maintenance so we don't want to be
too too draon in in that um so um you know we tried to have them everyone present the realistic number as realistic as they could okay over the last couple years as you're well aware uh we had our zero based budgeting no one department is BU yeah uh I mean if
you looked at this and said can you cut dying from here uh you're stretching it so if you if you if you go to each said what can you give us such as the police and fire you know giving us $50,000 uh it's Manpower that's about
the only thing that they can cut yeah which from not from the phone calls I don't want to exaggerate anything but from what we hear anyway Scuttle butt on the street is people just don't want their services cut they don't want to pay higher taxes
but they don't want the services cut they need somebody to put their house fires out they want the roats plowed they want to maintain and they want to know a ambulance is going to show up when they need to call so were you going to cut you can't Now's
the Time to go to the savings account and say this is what it was here for and we need it what is the balance if we move forward with the 471 520 from the transfer from free cash to balance no would be about 100,000 it
would be $100,000 be 100,000 remaining in free cash yeah so kicking the can a little bit but we kicking it down the road yeah uh there's next year I don't I'm baffled at where it's going to come from without a uh the people have voted
they they turned down a uh a debt exclusion and I don't see the appetite for one changing one of the things that one of the selectman had said that let's go back and and do another vote maybe once they realize this is what's going to
happen if if it doesn't improve and that's a possibility we can't just keep going to we get the the vote that we want but uh giving them an opportunity to see look guys you you've lost a police patrolman uh you've lost a fireman yeah is is this
the way you want to go I think that's the only way we're going to have to like explain this out right because I think there you know calling it a dead exclusion and like it's a lot most people don't understand what a lot of these things are right we had we had that meeting
almost nobody showed up yeah you know what was it three dozen tops and uh and then we had to vote and it lost substantially Yeah by a substantial amount yeah last year was 214,000 this year we we're starting off with the process with
471 next year would be a million be two so but it was voted in it was not by but but we lost yeah right so then there's consequences no he say I mean I
think to to Peter's point it's like like this is yeah this is It's kind of Doom more than double and your $2 million is the entire police budget right the entire police budget we can cut expenses all we want but roughly
payroll and benefits are 75% of of the town's budget of the 8.9 million 75% so biggest jugut is the school yeah yeah and um that I don't know what the latest have you got a latest figure from
them yet or is it still the 4 point it's still the uh 4.26 or 4.36 okay um and that's a substantial decrease from what they the increase they took last year and I don't know if you remember last year we were all sitting
here and blindsided but with the amount that they came in as at least this year to coming in with a little bit more reasonable number but it's in my opinion it's still too high we can't afford an school budget to have an increase of over a million dollar every year we can't but it's unsustainable but it's
not for us or or for the finance committee to tell them look you have to cut so many teaches or you have to cut administrative it's for them to decide where they're going to cut it's only for us to say this is the number we like agreed and you can go to town town
meeting and and try to table it uh the school budget but that's not an easy answer mm- so I I know that this is um this this sheet is really it's just based on the town administrative recommendations and from a revenue standpoint we don't
necessarily keep a uh finance committee running tally um but at least in my mind like I've already I've got it written down already I've got that we're over um I'm back in the the 470 is out of
my realm of thinking based on just using the town administrator's recommendations uh I'm looking at a 41,000 deficit as we start I know there's nothing that you
need to update for that but that's that's where I see the process starting Nicole or mark would you like to add anything good point okay is that it Ralph you ready to move on okay that's
it yeah that's all it's all news isn't it wish I had something better um are we ready for brist I don't see them here so we can move on to Jonathan yes please let's do Jonathan how are you this
evening he's muted I'm sorry you sorry about that I we just asked how are you doing this evening I'm doing good that's okay okay uh you're up for the
budget for which the Ada budget uh Commission on disability okay so for the commission on disability at this point um conversations that I've had with the Town Administrator um we're to hold the budget at the at the same it's a minimal
budget for me of the I think you all have there the $3,000 um as we all know and I would say frankly the amount of work that's involved um is intense at times there are several committees that I need to be part of and work with at
times not to mention the new library building committee and other committees as well there are a lot of questions I get from other departments in town as to what they can or can do um there literally dozens of calls I get from residents each month just asking simple
questions of where they can get a resource or find something things like that if they want me to look at the sidewalk the street etc etc um you know can we can we put a sign here for handicapped child can we do there's so many things that I touch on um working
uh for example with the police department last week had a conversation with the chief about beginning to explore with DOT uh putting in some new sidewalks of ramps right uh across from where you are at the intersection here as well as sound and button-based
um uh lights so that people with not just visual impairment but others will have buttons to press and there'll be a sound and so forth that's going to take a lot of time and effort as an example in the next year so there's a lot that I do with that and then along with that of course is the $1,500 for my support
person for what she provides for things that I cannot see and leave and so forth um that's my budget that's it there's any any questions you have I'm happy to take uh just a one first a clarification so on the Zero base worksheet it says it
says 543 but that should be 549 correct and then so Jonathan we've got two two lines on on your on the 549 budget professional and Technical $450 for seminars and then um auxiliary AIDS
1500 Aid to Jonathan is is that what we just discussed for the transfer no what if you're looking at next year's budget yes you've got you've got the $1,500 for my assistant the
$450 are for things that I need to do as as to keep up my AA um you know criteria if you will I have to be certified by the national Disability Association and so forth those are things that are required to
have to do um so that's the 1500 and the 450 if you have the other line on there because I don't have it in front of me on the screen at this point um to listen to because then you all hear it um would be the other $3,000 so it's the 3,000
the 1500 and the 450 for the LIC 3,000 is under Town Administrator yes it's undertown administrator okay yeah but so the the the software was speaking to us before that is under the 5580 the auxiliary AIDS no that software is my
own software okay that's my own software so the auxiliary Aid is the is is a human being we yes that's just correct so that is what we just voted on right because that was what was missing that was what was missing from last year or
this year's budget correct I have a question so I'm looking at these two different um these shaped and one of them is saying a 2.5 nonunion increase and then this other one says an
8.51 increase am I not reading this correctly there is no increase wait this is from FY 25 there there has been no increase in my budget no I'm looking at fy2 never mind Jonathan
okay you have any questions or concerns no do you know why or does anyone know why the ad coordinator I know what happened last year I think was moved under Town Administrator um because we were separating him from the commission on disability because he was no longer he a me so originally he was the chair
he was the member so it made sense to have him under that okay um and now that he's not we we didn't know where it was best to move him and we moved him to the Town Administrator that makes sense thank you Nicole you are right that is saying it's an 8% 8.5% increase yeah I'm
I'm just confused because the numbers aren't lining up when I'm looking at the when 2025 budget voted um the number is not the same as and I knew it was going to go up because it's saying that the potential for a 2.5 increase but it's
more than a 2.5 increase yeah you're seeing the the 313 3650 moving to the 34284 your this one the yeah this is the the siphon is going from 3136 to
3428 8 oh okay okay okay yeah and then to uh Nicole's point on the justification zero based budget sheet it states again a 2 and 1/2% when in reality it looks like it's an 8 and
1/2 all right I can check that map again yeah yeah just so that everyone knows again I don't know there any figures in front of me but from whether it's for me or for um Justina the administrative assistant there has been virtually no increase in
the past couple of years and 3 years yeah we can uh yeah we could double check that cuz we weren't giving anybody more than 2 and a half% I didn't I thought uh it was reflected in that but is showing eight and a half so
thank not to not to change the subject but fin does now have a member on Zoom do we need to do anything change anything no we just noted in the uh in the minutes everybody wave to Doug hi Doug hey uh by the way what number are
we on uh 549 right now okay thank you yeah because we don't have BP ask question so the Ada cordinator uh s is getting a 2 and half% increase supposedly does the ass also get a
raise she's not actually an employee thank you and just to clarify also we're going to move these two lines under to the town administrator's budget because the um Commission on disability
submitted a zero base budget a zero for 26 so it was just I had already these were already printed and I was I didn't want to reprint okay but um in the end these two lines will go under Department 124 any questions on that what would you
guys like to do about spus I I mean I took guys out when we did our original budget okay but in general you want to cut them all I mean what what is that what is the impact of What's the total amount of stiens 5,000
75,000 so yeah in total is about 78,000 so when I cut it half the about almost 40 39,000 so but are we going to vote a 2 and half% increase here I didn't think anybody was making recommendations today
I thought just informal and then you guys meet separate to do get recommendations like last year so that 75,000 did it include like the increases to these uh coordinator sens no so this that was based on last
year's number that with no increase to the stiens so okay was the in the adjustments to stens was that one seems to be a little
different was that in was that zeroed as well are we referring to so any and all anything named a siphon right it was a yeah we have a list of boards boards and committees um you know we
viewed for this for this case because uh as a Ada coordinator he's outside uh outside outside of the stien so so he so this three grand is not in that total 78 right okay okay you guys have anything
else all right let's move on thank you so thank you Jonathan you're welcome have a good night oh no we'll see you in a little while okay can I ask you a quick question before you guys move on sure so um I
believe that for FY 25 the commission on disability itself had a $500 um budget that we've reduced to zero for FY 26 I just don't I don't know if that
was reflected on the same she or not it is 25 on the sheet is 450 oh now that you say that that makes sense I think we had requested 500 to got reduced to$ 450 so I think that's
what think there was some confusion there I think that $450 was the commission itself's budget for if we wanted to do trainings or um any type of community outreach we had that money um but for this year we were
going to reduce it to zero um CU um and our last me we had discussed this time of Link we didn't submit a zero based budget worksheet because we don't have anything in the works that we intend on spending any money on so we figured we'd zero it out for FY 26 and then revisit
for FY 27 if you know once we started planning one if we had things in the fight line so is that's not that's not moving over to the administrator's budget so the 450 and the 1500 are moving over
yes okay but yeah I think there's some reclassification of of again further isolation of what's needed for the Ada coordinator and then the commission on disability itself so I think um we need to Pro probably rename some of these
line on them so that they align properly with these conversations Commission on disability should be completely separate from Ada at this point right and it will be it sounds like right yes we
just that 450 that I was talking about earlier is specifically for what I need to do to continue the the training updates that I have to do that is completely separate from the 450 from the commission which as they said they had 450 this year and a zeroing that for
next year okay thank you Jonathan yeah thanks Kevin all right guys let's move on Mr F how are you good so next so this is Department 422 right
uh biggest question that I have is just uh obviously thanks for having a having a cheaper budget than last year so thanks for that um just want to verify the uh office manager
reduction uh and the public work supplies reduction uh is not going to hinder you beyond the you you know necessary asks at this point in time so the first question is a good question I was going to follow up with Serena outside the
meeting on that I do question that number I think that is a real number after she was settled after that weight study okay we just got to verify that and she's under the clerical Union anyways so that would get solidified and her salary is also split with storm water so it's just the way it's
proportioned out you see a reduction they're putting more to Goa okay all right great thank you for that but the the 6,000 less than last year is got my attention also okay and your second question uh the biggest hit we took with that 50,000 which I don't believe I
quite made cuz I asked for a gold star and I didn't get it um is painting the center lines of the road that that's about almost $40,000 right there so we're going to not do that this year and then the other hits are on the police detail lines
yeah yeah the biggest item was the public work supplies the 36 36 Grand but all the white light you know the crosswalk stop lines we we can do that in house we we got that machine last year to do that but the the double s lines throughout the whole town we'll
fgo that at this time okay and then the $10,000 increase for equipment repairs and maintenance is that for a specific thing uh historically like tonight you just did a transfer you did one last year almost the same amount um no no new vehicle last year and those doesn't look
like one this year uh the repairs are getting bigger okay I'm not sure that 10,000 is going to be enough was still maybe considering transfers okay I figured you'd have something in mind for that so think you know which machine's going first I believe I believe the
average age of our Fleet is still hovering around 2005 2006 okay thank you what would be the cost of a new piece of equipment uh the new dump truck um with the plow and the sander is
roughly around 215,000 now okay you knew that right he's in the classified ads just scrolling that was last year's number I'm sorry Tom
okay longterm I mean obviously we got to get through this budget season long long term as far as Vehicles we should consider at least um towards a vehicle but it doesn't have to be new yeah just capture a number and cuz you can't go after something used without the Press
you got to have it you you guys yeah it's up this year yes do you have any questions no questions
422 how's Main Street good almost ready to get ripped up nice yeah sweep roads fresh what's your next one next snow and ice snow and ice 423
that one's a fixed number which um you guys might want to make a note on how to handle that because if we're not going to have free cast uh you might need to consider a real number or a separate account to
support that I can't do it for 50,000 that's a startup money but yeah you you got to going to have to plan on how to to pay for the snow ice well you can't put a fixed amount because you don't know right and it affects affects the
taxes toig but doesn't mean a lot no I mean um as far is like reserve or savings oh okay yeah that's what I meant don't don't spend it a market not to touch because of that you know until we get out of the
the the the need for the debt exclusion until we get by that yeah come for me and tell me what the number is right now that we're done no I 90,000 90 okay oh for this year I
thought you I thought you meant a working number for planning no for this year 90 over yeah that's should be a pretty thousand uh solid number so we had budgeted 50 and we're n we're 90 over that yeah if you look on the one page document we discussed earlier I did
put in a contingency of $200,000 for snow and ice deficit oh I see it yep and then as we get into the end of April May I'll turn that into a real number you heard Tom said we're done so the only thing we might be
missing is a fuel one more fuel bill um Tracy do you understand the um so with with snow and ice if we set the if we if we were to double that 50 to 100 never go under
100 okay the next budget's 432 storm water street cleaning storm water thanks again yeah I need to draw your attention to a new line being created and we don't know where that's going to land yet cuz it's
still working uh new ms4 compliance line we're budgeting the 15,000 uh that's a good number to start with what is that that's to be in compliance with the ms4 regulations for D okay which is
we're in the latter part of our noi for the you know the discharge of our storm water into the rivers and stuff so there's an noi that goes along with that and along with that there's policies and stuff that we have to follow if f b uh we're more than halfway
through the study the work that Weston and Samson is doing under the OPA Grant which was around 45,000 to to look at our whole storm water program and bring us into ms4 compliance we've only got a couple of years left on the notice of intent that I filed uh eight years ago
so we got to make sure we're up to speed on everything one of the things we have never done is outfall testing uh kaching so in looking at a best guesstimate from the engineer who's working with us she said her best guess
and and when I met with the uh Town Administrator and the town accountant and uh Tom that total is around $90,000 and she's suggesting that this be stretched out over the next couple of years because of our budget situation
this year um we focused on two items which is the stor Water Management program the booklet it's not a booklet it's a big notebook and the idde elicit discharge detection and elimination system again another big
notebook so she said she estimated to bring those up to speed 15,000 so we figured we would put that in I have since given her the both books she gave us this estimate without looking at them I'm hoping that number is going to get
pair down excuse me I'm hoping the work she's talking about is going to get paired down because she's actually going to see what we've got which is I feel in pretty good shape but at this point we're not saying eliminate 50,000 because what we said at the meeting we
had uh if we don't spend it on this what's the next thing on this item that the list that she gave us that we need to look at um there has been outflow testing uh there has been mapping and things like that there's
some things to suggested that uh we don't really feel at this point in time uh we would pursue uh all of our Maps quite frankly I hand drawn by artist in residents and they would like to see GIS mapping and all that we're not ready to
spend money on that because of our situation and those Maps he drew a very detail so the 15 is a placeholder she's got the books I'm waiting to hear from her I'm hoping to say okay we don't need to do all that what's
the next item on the list that you as the engineer recommend we do but we can't exceed 15,000 because we're not even sure we're going to get 15,000 so that's where we are with that thank you the public work supplies reduction
again is that the no painting no that's uh that Line's used for other projects and for SE during budget times you know basins that collapse drain lines or solving water issues okay
that's what that Line's for so so that that that number should be VAR a variable from year to year I guess street sweeping is included in storm water yes that's contractual the contractual disposal
5315 and the contract went down uh yes yep that's goes through our Cage have anything no thanks I appreciate it anyone any questions on storm
water no okay that's the cemetery T yep 491 Cemetery so the contract payable mowing is that contract is up this year uh me and Mr vaco we thought it would be wise
for at least punch in a 10% increase anticipation but if you wanted to hold that number and wait for the actual number uh that's going off bid later this month uh the bid starts uh actually in two days and opening bid is April 10th
right so as far as planning at 10% is probably going to be spot on guarantee that any questions guys I remember when that was bit out three years ago he was the very low bidder so he wasn't even anywhere near the other
two so even at a 9% increase it's it was a very reasonable bid a reason number yes you were here so next one is um forestry forestry yes sir 294 what number is that
294 whole six bucks seven bucks I don't think there's going to be any questions T I don't think so TI and Berkeley Bridge 429 let's see I had one just a question about why
the bridge gets its own that's a very good question section and just under like under I can explain that cuz I forgotten I was reminded uh we share the bridge with Berkeley and we also share the expenses
with Berkeley so isolate the expenses and for tracking purposes that's the main reason okay I fig there was something like that I just yep uh transfer station 435 this is something I asked for last
year and I would love to know we had the increase from two years ago we had additional hours for the transfer station to be open more because it was generating Revenue did we see a positive movement towards that you know more
usage more Revenue with those increased hours i' have to pull revenue report I more hours change the days both both yeah we change the days and the hours right I knew the days but I didn't couldn't remember the hours it's just like a Common Thread like if we're
looking at things like departments that are a positive Revenue generator right anything if you know if we give that a dollar and we get a buck 25 back we changed we changed it a little bit too like we don't receive commercial debris and stuff like that like
remodeling whatnot so that's going to change a little bit but um yes pulling a report would be helpful I don't think the one-year report though would be good it'll take a few to see where it's going to land I can do three yeah just I'm mainly just curious
with the increased hours that we getting the retirement investment Tom we stopped construction debris was it six months ago yes for July roughly around July 1st yes all right so this this full year
yes and so through 6 months you spent 22 is it possible that we might be able to get under the 59 there it it's possible the B's Bill might be a month behind so that might
only be four months okay right and then as the weather that was in February deter the what comes in and then spring time is usually when everyone cleans up and you'll get more debris do that get affected by any of the hazardous waste days to no that's
not in this cont uh this budget many years four years since last hazard waste three or four years yes yeah and still the biggest product is latex paint pain that people are hanging on to that is not hazardous
right questions on transfer station um I'll ask one do you know what we're hoping to be anticipated increase uh from the increase in the trash bags what are we
hoping that is going to generate yeah um based on the numbers provided to us by the health department if it was a straight one for one increase uh uh bag purchase it would be $116,000 additional dollars but I did uh
if I um cautiously estimate uh 75% of that I'll go about $85,000 should be our increase it should be okay yeah so we had an increased bags in several years that we were long we doing
what we should have done is increased them every year so it wasn't such a big jump but we have to make up foras of yeah I mean we saw the numbers last year right that's crazy recycling we're not getting any yep money for that and that's what's drowning us so as as
we're wrapping up as tree Waring would it be wrong for me to ask why these leaves on a tree behind Mr White he's wearing short sleeves and he's looking nice and looks like the windows open too Bo
thanks I in Florida good for you thank you Tom Mr CH yes a question did you all get copies of the stor water calendar that came I've got extras in the I think there by the way these cost us less this
year than last year because we have a smaller calendar and the P Mr you're up Sir Department 145 thank you good evening everybody and Shameless plug I took the September picture in the storm water calendar
um so if there are any specific questions at the outset um of course I'd be happy to answer any questions that you have or if you'd like me to just kind of walk narratively through the budget on a line by line basis I'd be happy to do that too so I will jump in at Personnel
expenses um these were all just the agreements uh the modification to mine was based on the Board of selectman's um voted recommendation for the elected officials uh full-timers um and the adjustments for my staff are just based on the
collective bargaining agreement those are contractual obligations um were there any questions on the Personnel lines or would you like me to jump into Department expenses all right sounds good um so it begin with 5240 equipment repairs and
maintenance this one truth be told I can't justify based on path spend why we should keep this budget um that said since this is our repairs and maintenance line I did think that it was responsible to budget something um we are responsible for things like office printers shredders um you know we've got
some equipment that it would in the event that we need a technician to come out and look at it it would be a lot uh be a lot cheaper to have it maintained than it would be to to purchase new ones um but that one sake of full disclosure I can't justify based on past spend um
professional and Technical this one got modified a couple of times so I am not sure um if you have the most current zerob based budgeting sheet but you will notice that the lines that I had placed on mine don't all add up to the 17735
there was a change that was on the um on the breakdown so the change that's on the breakdown so I'll just I'll just run through it is the um I completely removed the contingency so if you see a $500 contingency on there and then you see a credit card annual fee of
$125 those those two things had changes to them bless you um so the contingency was completely removed and then the town credit card annual fee is at $99.99 so that was that was cleaned up to be just $100 so our our base payroll service is
$88,500 a year um the ACA reporting in the W2s are $650 uh we pay printing stuffing and postage of $350 for payroll we do have a couple of employees who live in Rhode Island so there's an additional fee for Rhode Island W2s and state filing
expenses which is $5 the um cafeteria FSA administration fee the treasurer has always historically paid this out of the um professional and Technical budget but this is really truly a benefits Administration expense this is just the
um the annual fee that we pay for our um offer FSA to our employees um the transfer station unipay so that is our credit card processor that we pay uh they bill us approximately $40 quarterly um since I was the one who worked with the bank to get that set up it just made sense that
that I would take over administering the um doing the payment for it um this is an estimate our opep Actuarial valuation so this is for our actuary to do our um our valuation on our OPB and every other
year we need to do a full valuation this was our full valuation year in fiscal 25 it cost us approximately $7,500 um next year is going to be our pass through valuation which is considerably less expensive it was I believe uh 3250 in fiscal 24 the last
time that we did the pass through so we don't know exactly what it's going to be and I assume that there'll be some inflation just because it seems the cost of everything has gone up over the last couple of years so I estimated that one at $4,000 uh that contingency of 500 did not make it into this 17735 figure our
town Post Office boxes are $300 per year uh my office maintains the Post Office boxes we've got two PO boxes down at the South titon Post office and our credit card annual fee I listed 125 on here I went back and corrected that to arrive at the 17735 that's actually $100 per
year and then we also um use UniBank fiscal advisory Service as our financial advisor to um be our leas on to the bond market and to file our continuing disclosure every year with um with the bond market and that uh that is an annual fee of
$2500 were there any questions on that line this this is one line that um I would say is in my opinion uncomfortably thin for my budget if we do end up in a budgetary position where we're able to consider addb backs this
is one that I I would dearly appreciate if there is any uh flexibility that we could move into because this really is a paper thin budget of of the absolute most Bare Bones expenses that that I could include uh certification of legal
fees these are for um recording instruments of taking at the registry of d this budget will be insufficient for fiscal 26 for everything that we have to do and I'm going to have to cafeteria style pick and choose what we record or what we don't I'll explain um so the tax
title foreclosure law in Massachusetts changed November 1st of of last year it changed dramatically and this was a result of a Supreme Court decision in which they determined that Mass General law was unconstitutional previously when a
municipality forecloses on a tax possession property for non-payment of taxes the property becomes the total sole prop own uh property of the Town we're able to sell it and we would retain all of the revenue from it um the Supreme Court has found that to be
unconstitutional and has decided that former owners who are foreclosed on are now um entitled to exess equity above and beyond whatever the uh outstanding taxes and Associated costs were at the time of foreclosure moreover the
legislature kind of did a a Victory lap because they wanted to codify the Supreme Court decision in law and so as a budget amendment they changed a whole host of things ranging from the interest rate to translation requirements to how
quickly a town has to um make a decision whe they're going to retain a property for municipal use or whether they're going to sell it at public auction they introduced a requirement that if a town does determine that they want to maintain it for municipal use they're actually required to obtain an appraisal
now at their o at their own expense to determine the best and highest value and then they're actually required to pay the additional owner what the fair market value of the property would have been above and beyond the outstanding tax debt um there were a whole host of other changes and unfortunately the
legislature still has not issued that clear of guidance on how to um how to administer the new law um the Massachusetts collector treasur organization that I'll be talking about a little later are in as we get to our travel budget has sent a legislative delegation to the legislature to ask
them for clarification on how this would actually impact municipalities they they couldn't answer because they they didn't know none of them had ever worked as a tax collector or a Treasurer before and um they changed a lot of things that will bring a lot of good it will bring a lot of social good um but we they we
just need to iron out exactly how it's going to work and um so for that reason we did not do tax takings this year we did tax takings last year we did not do them this year because nobody knew exactly how to do it and nobody wanted to accidentally be the first one to step
on the landmine so so to speak um so tax takings for fiscal 24 and 25 will need to be done in fiscal 26 when DLS and do publish an updated uh igr and how to comply with the new requirements uh there is an igr that has come out but there's going to be supplemental
training offered by the divisional local services at the um Mass collector treasur association annual School in August of this year so this budget is likely to be insufficient for all of the um takings that we'll have to do however the Silver
Lining is that Mass General law does permit up to three and a half fiscal years from the year in which the delinquency occurred to record the taking so we do have some time to figure things out and hopefully we um are in a better budgetary position you know we can't speculate whether there'll be a
debt exclusion or what they'll be but we do have time to go back but this is something that will have to be addressed at some point inorder order to perfect the leans on those outstanding property taxes as they start to advance towards that three and a half year fiscal year period um just a question how many
properties are we talking about right now um presently we have I believe approximately 60 yes we've got about 1.2 million in total outstanding delinquent taxes so
the way that the new the way that the new law is r WR is basically we can of for those 60 properties we can collect the 1.2 plus basically the fees that we would need to sell the
properties and then above and beyond that it's given back to the state or the the people that are delinquent yes exact it's give back to the the former owner the former owner y um I mean an additional 1.2 Revenue would be a wonderful thing to have uh
and unfor unfortunately a lot of these properties are landlock swamps no one would ever want or buy with astronomical balances because they are junk okay and um unfortunately a lot of those people have just it's cheaper to walk away and
um they're just they're not worth what they owe for some of these um okay so someday there might be a playground there but but other than that uh but but yes in theory yes we will be able to eventually um recoup some of that money so basically you're saying
with the with the 5500 you're going to try to figure out which ones are worth going through the process with so what this is is this is money to record the instrument of taking so what what that means is that when I do um when I do a taking that has to be recorded at the
registry and so there's a charge of $106 per parcel that you record and um then additionally um there is an advertisement charge you're required to take out a newspaper ad you need to advertise in The Gazette eventually if people pay it off you do get that money
back because what happens is let's just make it easy let's say that you uh have 10 properties and the um you know the the newspaper ad cost you $1,000 what happens is that ,000 breaks up and it would add $100 to the balance of each tax title account So eventually if
people pay it back you do get it back right um but if they don't then obviously the town is just spending that money um the postage meter 5326 um we were at 45%
spend with a $4,000 budget um so what happens this this balance does include our postage that we send as a department but it also does EB and flow based on the usages of other departments the reason for that is that we use a uh Pitney Bose machine that is fun off of a
line of credit and then what happens is I will advance uh funds onto the line of credit as the balance gets low and then periodically um I will give Serena a report that will show which departments used what and then she can adjust it on the back
um our office supplies I did cut to be honest this is one of those numbers that I cut just for the sake of hitting the minus 2 and a half um as you could see we were at approximately I believe 70% spend on this one so this one we we are using it um that said there are some
supplies that were really well provisioned on you know I I will probably not need to buy staples next year um but at the same time we we are heavily utilizing it um I have a very paper heavy office for record keeping we just had our audit last week and uh we
keep a lot of paper backups a lot of paper files and um we also are responsible for maintaining the Personnel files for um for all the town employees and um you know that ends up leading to folders binder clips things
like that uh we also um have toner and um know for the printers that we maintain as well yeah and were there any questions on any so far would you like me to keep continuing keep
going um so I'm feeling Clairvoyant and I'm willing to bet that you're curious why my travel budget increased dramatically and the reason for that is that I take an annual trip to UMass Amhurst I am an uh I'm an active member of the mass collector Treasurer Association and I'm also
looking forward to becoming an active member of the uh Bristol County collector treasure Association and what I mean by that is that the Bristol County collector treasur Association only allows you to volunteer on their executive committee once you've attained an accreditation as a certified Mass Municipal treasurer or collector um
fortunately I am eligible to test this year which is why I increased the budget for this so I take an annual trip to UMass Amherst which is a week long uh uh three full classroom days really um intensive schooling where I am I've completed the third year of the program
so it's a three-year educational program at which point you're eligible to take the test I was not eligible to take the test this past year for the reason being that they also require you to have been in office for three full consecutive years there's an experience component that you have to have been in office
serving for three consecutive years so since the test was in um is in August and my term be my first term began in April I wasn't eligible to test yet I had missed by a handful of months so I'll be eligible to test this year normally I come home on Thursday
afternoons after the final day of classes however the certification test is held on Friday mornings so I'll need to stay in the hotel the extra day um this also includes um we park at the um Amherst parking garage where there's uh parking fees and so forth so this includes both the
um the school cost the hotel but also the um the mileage and the um the parking fees this I believe also contains Serena does this contain the travel stien so the the treasure is also historically
for other necessary travel to Banks and so forth the treasurer's office is historically gotten a $600 a year travel budget which is broken between the travel line from the treasurer and the travel line from The Collector so that's in that's baked in there as well the uh
payroll line I mean the travel line yes um you drive to Whitman once once a week oh yes so that I do not yes I know you don't charge and thank you for that but my question is how many paychecks are you picking up um truthfully not many so can we make
it mandatory that everybody has direct deposit or is that not please okay you certainly can yeah yeah okay you certainly can to negotiate that I would think so in the contract correct uh so when you say not many two three five
it's it's approximately five okay yep and then the only times it changes the only time that I get a significant amount is um we do have some um you know detail officers sometimes they like a paper check they don't but um but yes there's not many and there are also so
the most mystifying one to me are the people who choose to get direct deposit but want a paper check stub that to me is uh one of the more bizarre ones but there are there are more of them than you would think there would be thank you no problem uh tws and subscriptions is
um just our annual membership for Mass collector treasury Association and then the annual fee for the school conference so it's just um there just a couple of Annual fees that we have to pay one is my ticket in and then the other one is our um our our membership organ uh membership
dues uh before I move on to 146 whether is there any questions on 145 congratulations on your pending certification oh thank you very much I really appreciate it thank you um the Personnel expenses for 146 are very much just a repeat of 145 they
were based on the 2.5% determined by the board of Selectmen as and the collective bargaining agreement adjustments and then once again the equipment maintenance and repairs I dropped a dropped this 50% because we haven't been using it um but I would rather be in a
have a not need than need and not have with um with our ability to maintain the equipment um if the if the board and the fincom are of the opinion that we could eliminate this um and just rely on the
$200 in the 145 budget um I feel better with a little bit of contingency but I obviously would understand that and be amenable to it um rentals and leases so this one is a little bit of a moving Target the reason I say that is that we uh my office pays for the Pitney bow machine we have a Pitney Bose machine
that is leased in my in in the copy room and our lease actually expires in January of 2026 because it's not IMI compliant the um the post office actually determined that the non- IMI compliant machines were supposed to have left service um about 6 months ago
however given the the number of machines that are currently under leases with different institutions they created an exception that allow anybody who has a currently leased machine to use that machine until the expiration of the lease um I worked with Pitney Bose to try to get some projections on what they
would cost they weren't able to provide me anything unless I wanted to sign a new lease immediately they said that they just they can't forecast what they expect the leases to be that far in the future um but approximately you know approximately n9ine months or so from now
um we will probably have some sort of cost associated with it I'm comfortable with only increasing it by $800 for the reason being that it will really just be the last five months of the year so even if it were $1,000 dollar more expensive which I don't think it would be because that would represent you about a 30%
increase over the previous lease I think that's probably probably higher than realistic but uh even if it were the fact that we really only have a handful of months left until the end of the fiscal year and then we can rightsize the budget based on whatever it needs to be for the machine um I felt comfortable
with the 4,000 U professional and Technical this one I cut down because we've for the most part utilized the um treasure collector professional and Technical line for our office um however with the changes to the tax
title law I didn't feel comfortable taking all of it out completely for the reason being that I believe there will be some ex collector exclusive um workshops that I might have to attend um
I believe that with the changing to the tax title law uh I'll give you an example on the way the tax title has changed is the um the outstanding the interest rate for outstanding property taxes is 14% the interest rate for outstanding
tax title is 16% they just reduced the tax title interest rate to 8% of course our accounting software is not set up to change that interest rate and so the mass collector Treasurer
Association asked the legislative delegation does that 8% apply to all tax title accounts currently existent or only to new ones created after the effective date of the new law the reply was we have no
idea so uh currently DLS has issued guidance saying that their guidance is that they interpret that is only applying to new tax titles that begin after the effective date and so any currently existing tax title accounts regardless if they have new balances
they're call that subsequent certifications to tax title which basically means you're in tax title you didn't pay your current taxes so they get scooped out of the current taxes bucket and they get put in the tax title bucket so those will retain the old interest rate still for reasons known
apparently to No One um so suffice to say I hope that there's going to be some educational opportunities to um to learn more about this because the penalties for non-compliance once they determine what actually constitutes non-compliance can be very severe um so I just want to make sure that we're ahead of the curve
and I thought having something in there to equip us with the ability to learn the things that we need to do I thought would be good that's that's $1,000 yes yep exactly um for tax bills so this one we had uh
$1,130 186 in spend through January 3rd uh we did receive a notice from our comp billing company PKS Associates in December stating that prices are expected to increase next year due to increases in Postage and labor costs so in my opinion this line represents one
of the most important ones in the entire town budget because it allows us to collect the taxes that we all need um after some informal conversations they expect that it will really be somewhere between 16,500 16,750 is what they
actually anticipate were likely to need um so I had made this figure prior to that but since we really don't know yet exactly what that is and moreover there's just been introduced with that new law there is now a uh translation notice requirement for demand bills not
for your property tax bill again for reasons known to no one but for the demand bill there's now a translation notice requirement that did not exist yet or at least was not known to exist to the best of my knowledge at the time that these notices of cost increases
went out so I do think that that 16,5 figure that they verbally quoted me um might might end up uh having some extra Printing and stuffing cost associated with it so I do think the 175 is a fairly reasonable number it wouldn't leave me um worried about my ability to
collect taxes but um but it I think it'll be just on the right side of thin is my opinion um the office supply budget we took to 750 uh which does um which does
represent a decrease but that was it's kind of intended honestly to buttress our spend on the treasurer side um we don't always just we don't do like a 50-50 split really I I I'd rather keep it to the side and not need it unless I
need it but where we we have been uh utilizing and I do expect that we will based on our spend probably utilize everything that is in that office supply Budget on the treasur line um I have every confidence that we will end up meeting that by the end of the fiscal
year just based on our our spend Trend uh travel I included an additional $150 over in this line just in case there was any travel that I needed to do that was specifically for The Collector side of the house um and then our dues and subscriptions
is uh I just put $100 in there for the Bristol County Tre collectors and treasures Association since uh if I'm fortunate enough to pass my certification exam I'll be eligible to serve on their executive board uh which would put me in contact with a lot of people that will um know be advantageous
to know exchange best practices um gives us a little bit of more influence frankly with our delegation as we try to advocate for um no changes streamline um and just helping to incorporate our feedback from the the ground floor into
the way that the legislature crafts the overall policy and the way they enforce said I just um I I felt it's $100 well spent nice job thank you very much um please I had a quick question your rental and leases um are you guys uh
sticking with thought going to another looking at somewh else there's others like oh yeah I I I'd be happy to explore all options yeah absolutely yeah excellent I will uh I I will be giving you a ring to talk about it thank
you I have a question oh please um and this doesn't specifically pertain to your departments but would it make sense if we used our uh postage our office
supplies um and our um repairs and um you know on on equipment as a town aggregated rather than by each department you guys are mostly in the town hall wouldn't it make sense if we
you know service all of the Departments off of one budget to meet their uh postage needs their supply needs their uh rentals and repairs needs uh maybe one department has a you know uh a piece
of equipment that they're not using that could be moved over just as a cost saing do you think that would increase the the cost of doing business um my my opinion as a as a full-time employee is that that there's there's a lot of um there's a lot of potential to that idea um what
I would point to as examples of of how that might play out would be the um the data processing budget right rather than have all the technology needs and have every individual Department in a silo determining what it infrastructure they need um the town created the 155
department for data processing um which is good because it it ensures that there'll be something that's adequately funded but also that the um bringing it under the control that I believe that's under the town administrators budget or the board of
selectman's uh oversight I think that that brings accountability it brings oversight and um it also will prevent duplication because I mean uh are there likely departments that uh have more paper clips you know paper clips will last at the end of time you
know yeah sure um so yeah so is there uh is there definitely potential to centralizing that yeah don't you you're thr the budgets postage for everybody and then they pay the yes exactly back to exactly I pay for it on the line of
credit and then we we do the adjustments back and forth and then my true spend after that is um you know our our things like we um we'll have some postage during um open enrollment we do a lot of correspondents reaching out to our retirees sending things to the state the
insurance companies and so forth but each department does budget their own post ex one machine yeah right yep exactly um the next one in my zero based sheet is8 is that where we're at now yep
all right so this one to be honest I I chopped down dramatically because um liabilities now associated with foreclosure the juice has become a lot less worth the squeeze so to speak um it
used to make a lot of sense to push some of your properties through um however now also the other reason that I have pulled this way back and I hope it ends up being for the right reasons is that the town fortunately uh passed the tax
title repayment agreement by law and um just just to recap it for the edification of anybody who watches this later the town of dayon now has a bylaw that is among the most lenient in the state in terms of tax title payoff uh the reason for this is that you know
we're Town we've got a lot of uh elderly folks we've got a lot of people who are having a difficult time and um also we do not want to be in the real estate business for for uh tax title foreclosures now since we're now
required to pay back the excess equity it has really taken away the business motivation to move forward with some of these which sounds it's a callous way to put it but it it does it objectively does um dramatically reduce the general fund revenues that we can get from from the sales so now the terms of our tax
title repayment agreement bylaw allow us to um in exchange for a 10% down payment on the principal balance you can enter into an agreement with me that one thing I like is that I don't consider myself an executive position I do not have any
real decision making Authority um so I am required by the bylaw to enter into an agreement with anybody who's qualified to redeem the tax title parcel and what the benefit is is in in exchange for a 10% down payment they are entitled to a waiver of all of their
interest as long as they abide by the terms of the agreement they get up to a um they get up to a 10year repayment period and uh during the term of the agreement as long as they remain Uh current with all their current taxes
and they make their payments on time I am prohibited by law from entering them into foreclosure um we have already redeemed two Parcels that were under these agreements um we've brought in um approximately $50,000 worth of back taxes from somebody who otherwise just
based on the interest was so hopelessly underwater that they they were fighting a fire with a squirt gun but the um having a way out did allow them to sell some property pay off the town make the town whole and then still have
enough of a nest egg left to start over um so it really ended up being being a win-win and otherwise um it in my opinion it prevented what otherwise would have been a really heartbreaking situation um so in on top of the fact
that we're in a tough fiscal position the other reason that I've cut this budget down dramatically is because I really believe that this new tax title by a lot is going to allow us to reduce our tax title balances in what I would consider the right way the compassionate way and the fiscally responsible way so
I feel good about cutting this one because I still think we're going to ultimately take in the same amount of money that we would have if we didn't where are we at uh year to date I see as of 12:31 you know it's about two grandish call it yes so I I I slammed
the brakes on all of our foreclosures um in October so I have reached out to Dave Capa of Capa and Capa and told him hold everything put all of our cases on pause don't do anything and the reason for that is that now we only have I believe it's 180 days
from the finalization of a foreclosure to determine whether we want to sell it or whether we want to retain it for municipal use if we do want to sell it then we have to have it appraised and then we have to buy it from the former owner um it used to be that there were two
legal ways to tax possession property which are a public auction or a sealed bid auction at the discretion of the board of Selectmen that was the way that the law is set up it's been changed now where we're required to hire a realtor have it appraised and list it with a realtor that to me is very murky it's
very uncertain I don't like it I believe that it is going to um create winners and losers in favoritism because how do you if you if you sell it with a realtor if you have one offer that's $10,000
less than the other but it's cash how do you how do you weigh a cash offer versus one with a with a contingency whereas a public auction really does just immediately determine the the best highest value because the people in the room who are willing to pay for it you know the it's creates a very obvious
winner which is the one who's willing to pay the most money for it um but I I apologize I got yeah so say so I was I was asking where you where are you from yes in Spen thank you very much and that that was the reason is because the law changed on uh November
1st and so really everything that we want to complete needed to be done before then and so that really represents spend really through that period okay and there will be a little bit of expense um as they come back with title searches and things because we had
a couple of things that we entered that we still have the title searches going on yeah um the title searches are pretty wild so do you think you're going to you think you're going to eat to that 75 by the end of this fiscal and that's why you're you you're thinking that your expenditure for this is going to be 7500
by the end of the fiscal that's what I think why you're asking for the 7500 y exactly because I do think that once we get clarification from the state on how to proceed with those uh we will begin on some of them because some of them are are landlocked swamps that we we do have
to foreclose on okay um the next one I have is we at 710 now uh 919 oh okay 909 sure um so that was done in conjunction with um with the town administrator's office and the town
accountants office just um this is really the I I would always love to fund OPB with at least $35,000 in the operating budget that's something that I'd like to do and then I'd like to always do another 90 at the special for $125,000 a year that's that's what I'd
like to see um but I'd also like to see a balanced budget and it appears that we're in a situation where we can't have both um so you know like like they say the um the best time to plant the tree was 20 years ago the second best time is right now so
I am a fan of continuing to do some investment in OPB but the $10,000 recommendation is really just it's uh based on based on me 914 Group Health yes 914 so this is based off of the town is a member of smhg which is the southeast master and
health group and um at our last meeting approximately I don't know 10 days maybe two weeks ago uh the board did vote to um to allow the Commonwealth educational collaborative to join the group which based on their experience lowered our
premium a little bit and then we also decided the smhg has a trust fund that had a balance of approximately 13 million in it which we we voted to put a million dollars of the trust fund at risk as well to buy down that premium we were initially looking at premium increases between 12.5 and
14.5% um there was a mass collector Treasurer Association list serve thread on this topic going around where we have I only encounter one other town with a sub 10% increase to their health insurance premiums Trend was 10.7% this
year nationally so 7.5 is great yes I was I I talked to one town that was a member of Maya that went up 18.5% yeah this year and um so by um accepting the CES into the collaborative and also by putting a million dollars at trust fund at risk we were able to buy
that increase down to 8.2% and so this budget represents just 88.2% over last year um I did bake in a little bit of contingency because you will have open and ments he'll have qualifying events under the Affordable Care Act things that allow PE folks to jump in and out people get divorced they lose other
coverage they get married they have a baby a single plan becomes a family plan um those sorts of things do happen and so we we included a contingency that based off last year I believe was roughly equal to like four and a half family plans just to allow some EB and
flow of new employees get hired somebody that didn't have health insurance leaves somebody else gets hired does pick it up you know that that sort of thing so there is some contingency in there ended up being about 4ish family plans worth
great have we ever gone out to bid for our uh health insurance uh to see if our experience is actually better in the group we have small group that has a you know a lousy exper
and we being helped by being in the collaborative or would we have better utilization on our own and if we ever got in court to see where we stand on we're in a captive yeah we're we're in that's that's that captive that he was
just ref referring to um you know municipalities from a health insurance perspective are kind of a nightmare um so you know candidly not even knowing the Census
Data getting a seven and a half is great um from where they're at right now and I can't imagine if they were individually looked at through even level funding or a poo or something interesting like that that it
would move the needle very much um because how many people are in the the captive how many municipalities are in there now um I believe now we're at either six or seven yeah so just the scale that that's going to have and the reserve fund that allows the buy down
you're not going to have that in an individual group plan so I just can't imagine I mean how many do you have enrolled like 30 or 40 or something like that right um we have approximately um I believe 60 odd yeah so I mean you're not
even yeah I I I thought the same thing Doug when I looked at it last year and then I dug into it a little bit and I don't think I don't think it's worth it and our our experience also was was comparable um our experience was a little bit lower but since we have such
a small Workforce and such a small pool of insured um it's it's morbid to think about it in this way but I guess that's the nature of insurance you know we we would be we would be two cancers in a car accident away from dramatically skewing our um you know from skewing our
our experience the other way as well there are instances where you can have reinsurance on a per person and you can have reinsurance on the aggregate um and those would come into play and what the premiums are on those and what the
premiums would be to match the benefits that we currently have um maybe it isn't anything that's going to save us money or maybe it is it just depends on getting an underwriting done and utilization also another consideration
as well is that the colle bargaining agreements do state that health insurance is a bargaining issue um so I would say that I'm while I as an official might be perfectly amendable to exploring any options I would say that that my involvement would have to be entirely at the board of selectman's prerogative um it's not my it's not my
my office's place to make decision about what type of health insurance you would have but if the board of Selectmen did determine that they wanted to explore other options I would um you know I would partner and provide as much information as I could so that the decision makers could make the right decision um and I think you are we on our third
year of this broker and we're going to a new one next year is that the the way that it's working um we have been with Blue Cross uh through smhg for at least as long as I've been here I'm not sure exactly when
uh the town joined smhg okay but I do know that Mary was was involved with it for for as long at least as far as I know multiple years before befor hand I don't know exactly when we join smhg but I know that the town has been participating in it for quite some
time and are we classified now as a PO or an HMO or um what is our what type of insurance does the town provide for the employ yes we offer one HMO plan or one po plan and they get to choose individ yes
what an opening moment yep exactly which will run May uh April 15th to May 15th so keep an eye on your mailboxes you give us a calendar I will flip it to September thank
you that's all I have at the moment thank you all right 710 long Deb yes so these are just our W Pat note which is our Mass clean water trust note um that is for our uh septic betterment
program which I will say is something that I would like to encourage the um for selectman and the fincom to look into at some point this might not be the proper venue for it but the town does um did participate in years past in the um septic betterment program where what
happened was we were Advanced a 0% interest loan through the Massachusetts clean water trust which has now been renamed to uh W Pat and um so what that what those funds did was they allowed us to finance failed septic tanks for
residents who otherwise didn't have a financing option and then we would assess them a betterment over a 20-year term where the payment for their betterment would be um would be broken up across their third and fourth um quarter tax payments on their real
estate Bill the we have since exhausted all of these funds so we no longer have the ability to offer that benefit program and we would either have to reapply with d who would meet approve it and then pass it to the trusties of the Clean Water trust um that is something
I'd like to encourage the board to explore um reinvigorating I'd be happy to help at any capacity that I can but that note uh the 6668 is that's to pay our annual uh payment for those initial funds that we borrowed and I believe it
was 2016 that we had uh borrowed then and then the police station Communications is that is just the principal portion of our police station note which will uh terminate in 2036 it's the same all the way to 2036 to 2 235 I happen to have the schedule
of payments right here princip interest is below yep exactly so the in the interest um gotcha yes so the interest will change but the uh the principal installments will all be the same at the 235,000 and then moving on to
916 916 yes uh Medicare contributions this is another one that if we do have the ability to um increase funding based on funds availability I would encourage us to look into that the reason for that is that this is our um this is our Medicare
tax the employer portion of the Medicare tax that we're required to pay it's I believe 1.45% of our of our uh gross Med of our gross Medicare wages um the reason that I say that that I'd like to you to consider increasing this is that
we were at 45% spend through 1231 however it seems that the trend is for overtime to increase towards the end of the fiscal year and so as we get as we get towards the end of the year I believe that we might see some more
overtime on the public safety side um we also had the benefit of a pretty mild winter but um you know there also could be extra wages for snow and ice and things like that so forth um and the reason that I would consider increasing
it is because we did add the uh we increased by 2.06% however with wages going up by an average of 2 and a half% there is a chance that that amount could end up getting cannibalized towards the end of the next fiscal year
um so it might be worth considering moving that up one or $2,000 if we do have the funds availability but um otherwise this is just something that we'll have to monitor very closely uh beginning in the winter of next year and then just communicate with the fincom if we do need to discuss a reserve fund
transfer for it but I just wanted to put that on everybody's radar uh 911 that really feels like it should be a public safety doesn't it um so this is our um retirement assessment to the Retirement Board this
number does include the discount that we get so we pay in one lump installment in July the I didn't bring the full assessment of what it would have been but off the top of my head I believe it was 1,1 186,000 and um so we do realize a
discount and so by paying it all in July that does bring it down to the 1.1 16890 yes I think that's it oh I did have one more I believe was a 915 which is our group life insurance and um this is a fairly small
one it's just a um it's just a requirement we're required to offer a basic life insurance policy to everybody uh we have shopped it around it is very inexpensive and there's not many people that use it and truth be told the coverage is not very high it's a $4,000 policy the it's a 50-50 split
the employees and the town both pay $22 per month for it um it's uncommon that people pick it up just generally because it's a fairly outdated dollar amount um but this um you we're at 43% spend I can
say that we've brought some new people on um so I actually have had two people pick this up in the last month or so but based on where we're at and then based on what it costs I I think I think this number is fine good job thank you very much all right thank you all very much I really
appreciate the opportunity to join you all tonight thank you PA and I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day do you want to do VP BP is on okay um well let's let's do um building inspective first and then we
can jump to BP what number is that hello hello everyone Hi Tracy Jim agar nice to meet you nice to meet you welcome so just a couple of comments I I won't be long-winded it's getting late
um Peter I've been here almost as long as you have I've been to a lot of finance committee meetings I can tell you that this budget cycle is none like I've seen so I understand your concern about free cash um these departments did everything we could under the direction
of the Town Administrator to meet our numbers uh I think we did very well to try to hold Services where they need to be to serve the public um it's going to be a difficult couple of Seasons so we may have to think a little bit outside the box to get through it
uh that said along with what chair uh chairman Karen indicated we've had zerob based budgeting now this is a third cycle so all of these budgets are thin to find the 2 and a half% that the administrator asked for was very difficult while trying to keep in my
department mandated services available to the uh people who pay for them um and uh with Public Safety interested hand try to make sure that we have money in the budget to deal with problems as they arise so um it was a very difficult
task I do have to commend you though because from what I've seen so far you were one of the few departments that actually cut back on your overtime oh thank you because that's one of the highest numbers that I see throughout this whole thing so I commend you to
thank you for noticing obviously your big reduction is the the demolition right that is correct and that I had to take a do an assessment of the housing stock and um I will in full disclosure I do have uh a full set of funds for this fiscal year
and I have an encumbrance from last year for buildings that were already declared unsafe um I am going to move forward with those demolitions so that should bring me in this department into a good place where I'm comfortable with the number I gave you that number would be I wouldn't be able to demolish any
buildings but what we would be able to do is uh secure them fence them off if we had to make them safe for the neighborhoods and then we'll have to revisit the discussion about taking them down based on the fiscal climate that we're in how many you taken down this year for
the rest of the season uh there'll be three three more yeah and how many you think next year that you already have on the books uh zero at this point zero at this point yes that's why I was comfortable giving you the number that I did tonight of course that can change with a
catastrophic event hopefully we won't see any correct so uh as you knew from last year the office manager has decided to retire she's postponing that and uh so that will carry forward into the next fiscal year she has confirmed with me that she will retire next fiscal year so
whatever we have in this budget for this year will revert to free cash um but I do have to carry that for next year's retirement do you have any questions okay 192 public buildings and properties so that's a board of budget I do um advise the board of selectman for
this line because it includes all public buildings so I work collectively with the uh Town administrator's office and the two staff in your department to come up with numbers that we think are realistic I will say that despite the
weatherization efforts that we we put forth energy costs have risen significantly so we didn't fully realize Savings in some of those lines where we thought we would have but that's no fault of our own that's just the world we live in how many more uh years I hate to say
on the library uh they'll be gone this year this year yes they will yes we're looking for Grand open in September no um we we are saying a fall opening date we are not giving anyone a month or a day but the
she just did hold her to it I'm the vice chair for the friends of the library so um we just met the other night and we're targeting September okay not an exact date but September I can't
promise you that but I'm try but Mark is hopeful so we're going to try our best ab leave here you better go no one wants it done more than I I can assure you with that so to your question directly fall of this year chairman those modular will be
reverted back to the uh their rightful owner we'll no longer be leasing them okay thank you where we putting them no no they we don't own them those are least they're going back to New Hampshire is the 15 so uh 5217 the energy for library is that
the expected energy spend for the new building then yes estimated we we are using heat uh heat pumps energy efficient heat pumps so there'll been oil or gas bills there cool but based on the square footage those are the estimates that we come up with and then
the reduction from the modular basically thinking six months is tops correct yeah cool yeah energy costs the energy 5210 I'm sorry 5210
yes is that because there had been any real heat related costs in there for December so the 5210 also cences the 526 and 17 and 19 so you have to kind of
look at those all of those lines together as far as the expenditures because it's broken out yes and I had to break it out to make it easier for the end of year reporting for the fire and the library but those National Grid bills
are usually a month behind as well I do have what spent through the end of February which is 60,000 2 521 just the
5210 So within January and February went from 16,700 to 60,000 so it's definitely a timing issue with the which next is it possible to get tmlp to cover the
um other buildings for the town even if they're not in G so the short answer uh Mr White is no the the geographically there are districts that they they have um that
they serve and the town buildings on this side of town are all in National Grids territory I think if that were the case we'd all go with them we totally would yes yeah yes that's
non-negotiable it's above my pay grade we charge him a transmission line tariff want to put a warrant article on let us go to tmlt Jesus hey Jim weights and measures 244 sure pre standard yep pretty standard uh that is there is an increase because
there is a uh facility manufacturing facility that uh may go online next uh fiscal year so there will be some scales that will uh will come on board so that'll increase our contract with the state I think you remember we contractor with the state for this but we do pass
through um these bills to the uh to the uh businesses so even though this is expenditure we typically uh see that money back one for one cool uh 242 243 and 245 electric gas and
pl y so these are all from my PDM inspectors uh you'll see that we've eliminated the uh permitting and education line um that is paid toward the end of the fiscal year that's why it's still being carried um I've decided to absorb that into their PDM rate I
think it's a better way to uh to to quantify it and then there's also a modest increase with them to keep up with the market rate for perdm inspectors right now I've assembled a great team and I don't want to lose any of them um but the reason you didn't see an increase in that line is we've had a
slight reduction in permits so that has a direct reflect on inspection counts so we're able to Flatline that I will tell you that uh last year's permits uh for new construction particularly were the lowest I've seen since I've been here I
was concerned but we have seen an uptick this year so my annual report this year will show an uptick and new construction we're not at the 40 or 50 that we were years ago but we're at a healthy 25 new constructions so that's pretty good for town this size I think that's manageable
so that is trending towards hopefully helping local receipts you know in the future but I think the days of us seeing a half million dollars local receipts just for my department are over um they breaking ground about are they trying to break ground the The Milk
Street Cil Oak area this year or they that's still in front of the planning board uh they we've still not seen a definitive plan so that would still be a year away at best you might see at the end of this fiscal year but right now the only substantive project is Hunter's Hill and
uh they're they're moving at a fast pace they want to completely build that project out in four years so that's uh that's quite a few homes so I'll be four Lots do we have left do you know that's probably 180 180 that's it mhm the um inspector increase is still
covered by your fees yes yes I may look at the fee schedule I afraid and reluctant especially when permit counts down to uh do too much with that line but I am going to make sure that we're in line with other communities I think we are but if there are any changes I'll
bring them before the select one okay any guys thank you thank you very much thank you thank you Crystal thank you for waiting hi everybody can you hear me yes does everybody have the budget
document that was sent last week by Tracy Costa for the fal 26 budget I can move just the highlights of the budget if You' like with the you can ask any questions that you may have okay
doesn't seem like anybody has it but go ahead okay so the school committee approved the fiscal 26 Budget on March 5th it was approved unanimously we have an increase um of
13.9% that's the overall budget which is seems quite high from the past budgets that we've had but that is to the fact that we are going to be paying the bonds for the first year this year um we had been doing bands previously and we went
out to bond 120 million for the project this year and the first payment will be do in fiscal 26 so um that is why the the increase is 13.9% if we didn't have that in the budget the budget would have only been 2.1%
increase and I can go over the the figures for D we have um um 98 Dion students this year that is a decrease of 12 students from last fiscal year they make up 7.13% of the students at Ral
prou the fiscal 26 assessment to dayon is 1,697 137 and that includes the first year bond payment also in the assessment figure is the minimum contribution for the 98
students um bed the Chapter 70 formula that is 1,11 15,24 and this the regional transportation assessment the capital assessment and also the debt and interest assessment we have been sending the debt
um schedules projections the past four years for the building project um I'm happy to say that everything's going really well with the the building project we're slated to open um next spring it should be finished and we
should be starting 26 27 school year with the new building and I can answer any questions anyone has on the budget or under the building or The Debt Service you said it was it you're you were at 98 students
and you said it was a decrease yes yeah decrease 12 students from lastol year have anything does the decrease have anything to do with there was a new member of town added was added
to so Freetown was added um have um limits on any of the cities and towns basically it's you know they they submit their applications and the applications are scored and they they choose students they interview the students and the
students are selected so there's no caps on any of the cities and towns so it could be you know an increase next year of 10 students it could be decrease um five students I have um the students
when we when titon joined the district in fisal 15 started with 18 students and each year it increased and it's kind of held steady since fiscal 22 is that 105 fiscal 23 was
103 come to 112 and fiscal 24 and then FIS 25 is 110 and then now it it's down to 98 so it kind of it fluctuates each year and we see that with a lot of the different member communities they kind of stay in the
same the same range thank you um one one question I had with the new structures is that going to allow you to increase student count that could potentially increase acceptances so we were approved to
increase to 1424 and right now we're at 1374 so we really there's not a lot of room there to to increase um when msba approved the project they only approved
it for a certain amount of students okay thank you 50 more people yeah I have one more question do you know does Freetown pay assess the um the cost for the msba project as well that
assessment yes they joined the district in July July 24 and they are paying thank you so much do they do they only have one class in or do they have a full they have been um the school
committee approved them to have students tuition in so they for the last three years they had 15 students per year they were allowed to tuition in so we have right now the fre Town students
we have 79 rown students I think I have one more question um I I know there's an article about the the cost for the msba project was significantly under budget U right I believe but I know I don't understand
gets bonded out so does that how does that affect the communities you know with that Bond and the coming on the budget so we originally we're going to have to go out um to bond 179 million and because msba was giving a member
communities particularly the Regional Technical Schools additional monies they gave us additional um 19 almost almost 20 million so now we only have to go one 161 million so from the projections that
I had given all the cities and towns um back starting in 22 if you look back to those projections compared to now you'll see that there there's quite a savings for the member communities which is great for everybody thank you
don't you have any questions uh just to put that Savings in relation uh to what we're looking at the current um uh our current obligation is approximately $511,000 but but the we were originally
projecting fiscal year 26 for 660 so it's a it's a it's substantial so but it's still it's still a substantial hit through our budget overall if anybody wants to come over and take a tour of the school um you're welcome to
you can set that up through the superintendent's office um we're doing tours and it's it's just amazing to see it's it's going to be a beautiful school I I just want to say uh BP they've been as soon as I call them up to give them numbers and projections
they've been spot on and they've been very you know very helpful what I wound up uh what they wound up voting on on March 5th was uh the numbers that uh very very close to what naen gave me a few months ago so it it it's made up uh
my projections a lot easier I appreciate that thank you I'm good I'm glad great I think we're done right all right well thank you very much thanks for waiting thanks everyone have a good night you too by
bye s budget I'll go to going to put you through the ringer just uh because he had to drop off about the stiping stuff Uh Kevin Smith texted me he said go ahead and completely remove his stien for for the
moderator position he care so if we need to do that yeah just just throwing it out there as a can you reply to Kevin and tell him to email me please yes I can thank you um just so you do I'm GNA um the numbers are a little out of order so I'm
going to do 122 124 together because it's yeah um it's it's pretty simple Board of selectman um as you saw um we going by the um going on the departmental departmental budget we we level funded the the uh salaries for the
chairman and the members uh what we did see is a um a kind what you will notice is a um uh the administrative assistant is 2 and a half% but for the um for the BOS
assistant uh you'll see this in both uh the selectman Town Administrator there was a big jump and that was over last year only because um um the um that assistant um was was offered a position in another town so we so we kind of
stepped up to to increase to increase the salary so that's why uh that that's why you see and and uh I'm very happy that we did so uh it's well worth everything well worth um you know we've made uh reductions um and everything
from uh the equipment professional technical uh Communications and travel um so any of those you need any further explanation I'll be happy to uh provide that for you um again when we look at the uh Town Administrator again
that's contractual hopefully I zero it out in interim Town Administrator hopefully you won't need one of those for a couple of years so um so uh there we have the um uh next up is the Ada uh coordinator uh which we had a brief
brief discussion we'll we'll uh going to double check that number why that's um a little higher than we had thought um um just to uh go back uh overtime uh we're we're we're keeping the overtime in the uh Board of Selectmen and we reduced it
at the Town Administrator the only people are getting overtime there would be the um uh um the uh administrative assistant and the B assistant so it's um so and and uh they had uh significant
overtime last year due due to the uh change in personnel with the uh with the town with the town administrators so we don't anticipate um that using being used very much um you know um again um as you know as
we looked at it um again the uh the benefits a contractual uh and professional Technical and we've we've um sort of kept that as as as close as we can to um to last year's to last
year's budget if I go to um if um any questions yes J yeah police fire that's that is just SEL that's just the board of Select see
the uh the police and fire PID there that one uh I'm going to go uh next uh 151 Town Council um you know we decrease that if
you see the um the number on that um as as you uh remember a few years ago we had some um some issues where we had to really um use use Town Council uh you know um we're we're trending downwards we don't anticipate any any big issues
uh so last year was 55,000 so we felt comfortable to dropping it to a to 50,000 we we anticipating more suits no feel like every time we meet it was oh we got another one this week like yeah for a little while there it was a bit
much yeah no we're not we're not anticipating hopefully hopefully not you know is the next one uh do we have 155 the data processing okay lot of um uh with um you know with with uh the
data processing uh we tried to um the networking equipment um um we did have to um in uh increase that um increase that slightly
um uh the assessor fee uh the assessor uh $133,000 we put that in because that's the Real Estate research uh and the Consultants that they use um uh again uh there's the Vadar which um that's our
you know subscription fee that we use for the for the treasurer's office um and everything has been um building permitting software um you know we have a um an increase in that because we're hoping to um it' be
beneficial to expand uh the the permitting software and then there's also an increased cost with that why do do we not we didn't have anything budgeted for 25 for that no so we went from 6 and 23 to 7 24 yeah I I I think
the reason for that was we we Tred to put in different departments and we we we focused it into the Town Administrator to okay yeah we've been slowly adding departments to it okay I think $1,000 a pop right or 5,000 what
was it a pop thousand yeah um then uh and again you see um you know we didn't have uh you know the prime time software which we you know which we didn't have in 25 but um but we're um we're taking it um we're taking it on so
that's pretty much data and uh data processing Town reports yeah we're um we we're looking to uh reproduce a lot of um we print a lot of town reports that just don't get used people don't take them so we're goingon to so we're going to we're going to to uh to uh you know
get a more right siiz that number so and then if anybody requests it you know we could give them a digital copy so so are we are we truly at a 0% spend for that it just hasn't come up yet it's more of an end of the year like May
tuition uh yeah tuition is a contractual obligation we had it for U um we had in the past the $99,000 was for for three uh three we covered three uh employees but we uh you know we reviewed it and we
anticipated only two um two so that's why we cut it down to 3,000 so from from 9 to six another end of year thing it's as they go for tuition like they have to pass the class
and then we reverse uh I don't think so so no not that now no 9:45 liability insurance uh 94 liability insurance and that's um uh you know we talk to our broker and it looks like that um they
anticipated 2 and a half% increase on on um on those insurances we have 945 is it I is it underwater is it underwater so it's we're like barely the propose it's sure
66 yeah um right it's under the 166 640 you're saying so we think that the 2.4% should be off the so we have another meeting with our uh with our insurance carrier in about
two three weeks we we'll just that 166 that might just be reclassed into the wrong line when we paid that invoice cuz right now they have 4,700 available in that one yeah anybody have any further questions
can just go back to the 113 and 114 was Miss 113 114 so um we level funded the uh um and that again that's a s in for the uh for the moderator so we you know um whatever
direction we get is what we'll get on that one Kevin saidil you okay perfect so we can get rid of that so he's going to reduce it to zero what correct for the moderator y okay thank you
in the uh town meeting we had a um you know we had a conversation with the Town Clerk and this is um what we had estimated the cost to be giving an annual town meeting special town meeting and uh eight employees per meeting and
uh one uh one off duty police officer per meeting silly question go ahead sir um the lease payments what lease payments we used to do
it um so I looked at the chart and we don't okay so for this annual because we're using 470,000 the remaining 100,000 doesn't pay the leases so I need free cash to be restar certified and then a special to reserve
the money for the leases that will be due the following year I can send you the lease schedule sheet that I have why why can't we just vote the Le we don't have the don't haveh yeah we don't have the money that she had to do
that can we do it virtually can we get on is looking into that well you say we have bird flu and we have to do it virtually right exactly
exactly Nicole do you have any other concerns situation well when you guys meet you'll discuss it and then we'll do the same when we meet come up with your recommendations question get
anything no now that it's dark looks like he's in a closet out for the alligators thank you I'm in the car hiding from my granddaughter done that motion to adjourn then make a motion to adjourn
second motion second any discussion all those in favor I second e