all right good evening welcome to the april 16th 2025 uh finance committee meeting um to get the garbage out of the way this meeting is being recorded the listing matters is those reasonably anticipated by the chair which may be discussed at the
meeting not all items listed may in fact be discussed and other items not listed may be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by law uh we'll call for the pledge of allegiance to the flag of the united states of america we have three weeks worth of
minutes three meetings worth of minutes here from the 11th the 13th and the 18th i'm just going to give another minute to peruse any start with any any questions over this way on the minutes on the minutes
i would have poured them over yeah i left my phone real good i tell you you just wanted to peace and quiet darn it quiet is it
is all right peter we just going to go in um down the sheet in order yeah i think so uh first first we'll go through the um revenue side of it um
okay then proposed what we asked for the expenses um where did we land one of the things that we had thrown out there a couple times was uh like a general a general
stipend reduction pretty much all the voluntary box has that ever landed as like a we're gonna pretty much get rid of all of this to save some cash or is that still kind of up in the air so that is in some of
the changes i saw that from the town administrator you had made some you had recommended 50% reduction at the selectance uh recommendation i reduce it by a third okay% reduction
so any any questions on the minutes 11th the 13th and the 18th i make a motion that we vote to accept the minutes as presented i second all in favor i i posted guys have it why don't you
just forward them to the sure well um we'll get into it the just from a revenue standpoint i know ralph you guys have been through the revenue side again and uh between
growth any other receipts the numbers look good pretty solid do we i mean the the estimates we have and again we just got the cherry sheets just they just came in so we'll double check yeah everything
else that we we looked at uh uh the numbers are are getting more and more solid so we're pretty comfortable what what's been presented what's being presented and do you mind just um mentioning to everybody else what the
sman had uh come come up with ideas for adjusting adjustments to the budget right yeah at the um at the end of the of the meeting um several several there were three recommendations that were made and it um
the first at first blush it was to put out almost multi multi-budgets but it really doesn't doesn't work out to be that the first um the first request was to put an article uh for chapter
5318b which is um which uh m general law allows municipalities um who who adopt that mesh general law that if they do um if they do like a debt exclusion or prop 2 and a half that the similar to the state that the um
that would explain what a yes vote is and what a no vote is on the ballot um that does have a that that does have a cost uh the cost is we have to do a mailing and we have to do the printing but the uh the larger cost for that
would be town council reviews uh would review the um the ballot question they would interview who's a proponent for it who's an opponent for it and and similar to the interpret the attorney general does and do a quick synopsis of the yes
and no so um there's a proposal we have it on as an article on the warrant uh two separate articles one to accept uh one to accept the um the uh mgl 5318b and the second and the second article is
to for an article to raise to raise funds so we have it if if it's available we estimated we still have to get uh the number back from the town council and we're thinking that numbers mailing and town council about
$7,500 the um the second suggestion was uh to have cash be an enterprise fund so um um and i know there's a little confusion over how an antivirus one
works um but um generally speaking we've been starting to do research on it um we can uh we can put on uh the town the town meant as an article to accept an enterprise fund with that you would have
to put the date where the enterprise fund begins dls suggests that the that uh the enterprise fund begins at the beginning of fiscal year if we if we move and if that gets accepted um
direction would be to start the and for trash the start the enterprise fund in fiscal year 27 um within enterprise fund you have to a lot of right there's a lot of parts you have to identify what all the expenses are uh you know what the
fees are um and you know how much you know how much do we charge the individual taxpayer will be a fee uh uh use a fee based uh service so um we started to do our homework our homework
on that um and then and then lastly the third option was um to have um a um personnel reduction to have you know to put out alternate budgets the budget and then and a budget with um a budget with
um with personnel reductions so that we're still um the selectmen are still uh haven't made a a determination on that a couple things um we would look for um the budget you know they uh they put
their recommendations in as you put your recommendations in tonight um so two options uh would be if if that's the course they choose to take there could be not an alternate budget but an amendment on the floor to to the to the
existing budget or or i have to again i have to go beat up uh with town council if you know we propose an alternate budget and the alternate budget was you know which which as you know which one's accepted and how do we move forward on
that so um we've been working through those questions again i think we have some you know a solid answer on one uh option number one uh we're closing in on option uh what to do with option
number two we're looking at we are probably going to put that um put that on as an article we have it we kind of listed on warren as an article now um hope is uh we have a special selections meeting prior to your joint meeting on
may 14th just sort of spelling out what are the elements of u of the enterprise fund and then i think we'll find out shortly you know if if they are going to proceed with option c which is uh personnel reductions for fiscal year 26
it all those options um that i have presented are are definitely options we we need to explore and we will explore and we will explore quickly as we uh as we enter fiscal year 26 for fiscal year 27 um you know um as as i had um laid
out um that's it's definitely going to be um a tougher you know a tougher year um we got kind of lucky this year um our debt obligation to to um aggie and and
to bristol plymouth weren't as uh weren't as large as we had anticipated they would be um but we do know that um the costs to um i'm sorry uh to both those obligations will go up about $100,000
for uh for fiscal year 27 um so we are so you know we are looking at the options you know um as we go through the summer you know do we want to look at force reduction do we want to look at um another potential option is um you know
we have to work with the unions um everybody nobody gets a raise um um that's another option we have to look at all these you know do we look at a debt exclusion do we look at a prop two and a half override do we um i mean or or do
we move forward the uh for the enterprise fund for for trash taking trash out of out of taxes and put it to more to a user fee so that's where we're at so to be clear the trash enterprise
fund so that it would be self-funded yes the short answer is that's the hope there are three obviously there are three options as i go we could self-fund it that's the preferable one um it could
they could run um uh go over or they could run uh a deficit and be subsidized by by taxes so there are three options so um usually uh towns just want two it's self-funded not too much not too
what out of curiosity moving to the fully self-funded model for trash how much would that make a fine like in in in an estimate of dollars amount on an annual basis what would the impact be to
the town budget so we would be taking approximately um moving $800,000 out so it's a large chunk yeah it is it is it is a large amount well it's the bp p debt now right no because
in three years it's we'll be at 9 years that is going to be about right $874 $900,000 you know is right now right exactly so it would be very close they're almost but it would make a large
it would make a large impact and is there an estimate of taxpayer cost per household for something like that yet or is it still too early i i i would rather say at this point it's it's still it's still early i
have a fine yeah i was just curious anybody with it's it's not bad for some people so we we are looking at um i'm using um the mike mullen the previous town administrator had done some work on
it um there were some options that he had presented so we're we're running through those scenarios again you know do we have um you know discounted rate for for 65 and older discounted rate for 70 and older yeah you know household you
know the household so so we have to take a you know we have to take a look at so that the trash well the enterprise article will be on the town meeting yes
and then is there also on the town meeting will be the article on uh spending money on allowing that's going to be on there as well both will be on oh for the for the abd yes adb uh
18b 18b 18 if forward with the enterprise fund and again as someone have to work out probably at the i know at the special we would have to do initial funding of of
the enterprise fund so um we would have to come up with that number and and that would probably happen um if you know if it gets accepted we would have to look at that at special town meeting so we could and there's a lot of things it's it's it's the funding it's finding out
how do how do we do the billing and just there's a lot of a lot of pieces involved which we which we really started looking at and you said the exclusion is not going to be on the town meeting warrant though right the taxion right not this year
next year i don't know i i have no idea when it's going to be on the selectment haven't made a determination we're just running through uh you know i presented them um with with like five options um you know going into going into fiscal
year 27 yeah okay is it conceivable that we get through town meeting there's there is no that the trash article gets voted down debt exclusion either way
that the they agree to 18b passes but then we don't get to to imple even moving forward with because eventually it's going to have to go to a vote again right so it's conceivable that we could get through we could be
sitting here in a year and not have any but if so if we're here when we're here next year and we don't have an enterprise fund and we don't have a debt exclusion or we don't
have a proper or any of those things we will be we will be faced with a uh with a um red personnel reduction and that's in all likelihood that will be the budget that's presented personnel reduction
for 27 for 27 yes which would be a lot of positions to come up with the amount of money necessary it is that needs to be heard it is a lot just rough numbers um it would be about
10% of our workforce and that is maybe per 27 per 27 yes and then what is it after another 10% the next year another 12% the next year no no we would have to i mean we would have that we would have
that reduction and we wouldn't have that spending and and that those those funds that would be normally go right for for salaries and benefits would go towards would go to um paying our um start paying our our debt obligation so it
wouldn't be it would it may be another number uh but we have to you know we have to work have to work through that yep so and we have to might we have to look at other options um internally the options do we change the uh you know the
the health code um i'm sorry the the health insurance ratio to save some money again do we you know and do we um do we look at you know a reduction in
hours look at a reduction in um in increases zero increases across the board but that again that would require um a negotiation you know with with the union
okay any questions on any of that all right we'll start going there department by department anyone have any questions on 113 if if there's some that i feel we can group i'll i'll
ask but definitely stop me if you have questions on one that 113 114 anybody have any questions on either of those no take um administrator and boss are a little
bit off different on the moderator uh kevin had stated that he was willing to take a zero so i don't but i think it looks like bos put something back in there right am i reading that correctly so so
this is rough's right that's what i'm looking at yeah this one's i need bigger paper i can't you did that right and that's why i asked the beginning like where like and you said hey i just did a 50% across the board for everything and then um bos did
a third this is what the select are proposing say that's yeah that's what worked on uh yes i mean i'm i mean our i would recommend there if kevin have you had feedback from um
the stipen committees on their failings toward that generally no there were one or two people that were upset but i think overall people kind of
are understanding of the situation we're in woody before we get into this you want to give your opinion oh yeah go ahead well um good evening everyone good evening um i don't believe everybody knows about the stipen just a small
handful of people the people that are in tune or what's going on um and i don't have a problem with the one-third reduction and phasing it out you know in a three-year uh period which is fine um but if you want to
remove trash curbside pickup you're looking for a war um i think people pay a lot of money for taxes it's one of the few services that you can actually see that you get for your tax money i'm telling you uh it's not going
to go over good it's not going to be pretty you're going to have a lot of upset people and the other thing is you're going to see dumpsters in front of everyone's yard when you drive around town it's going to start to look like real you know they have dumpsters all
over nobody closes the covers trash blows all over the streets so you know it's your town too and it's my town and if you want it to look like hell well you go right ahead and make that decision but i can assure you that the
people will not take kindly to it i understand that we're in a tough financial situation i think that most of the departments if not all the departments could cut more than they've cut and i think that there's a lot more
fat in the budget that we than we've looked at and i appreciate everything you've been doing the finance committee's always done a great job and i think that there could be more cuts made other than a a service that
most people expect and that's about all i have thank you very much thanks buddy thanks woody i would just like to say $800,000 is a lot of services to cut and find fat in the budget our budget is
not that heavy we use zerobased budgeting for a reason rough do you know the difference between the 50% and the 33% production oh totally
oh not no i'm sorry not the no because they made other changes right yeah okay um it's not can i can i say something else if you don't mind
um like the trash bag increases i i'd be willing to you know not me not me personally but the you know the people the residents of town you want to go up on trash bags some more you want to increase our taxes a little more maybe do a two and a half override
because that's where we're heading anyway but to take away curbside trash pickup is going to be bad it's going to be bad so we're not we're not taking it away woody right well you're you're going to charge us
one way or another so let's let's say it's a quarterly fee let's i'll just throw a number out there $100 a quarter per household right why should a household of two people pay the same amount as a household of five people
right ain't that the elderly what about the elderly do they catch a break or they don't catch a break well i i think that's why we originally were pushing about the uh increase on the bags because that you can actually track you know and and you could see who uses
the most i don't know how we're going to have to raise the i'll be honest i mean you wouldn't want to look inside my trash bags it's pretty nasty stuff in there and i'd be willing to pay maybe $10 a bank okay pay i don't want to pay a couple
hundred dollar a month you know and then the the kid across the street's got six kids you know and his mother-in-law and he pays the same amount yes i mean woody we we would we would have rather had the exclusion man you know i mean unfortunately it didn't pass well it's
going to have to pass next time around and i think you know you know i know this is a recorded meeting and i'll say it out loud because you know i'm not afraid to say it people are afraid of that debt exclusion because of the way the schools are being
pushed on us and if that debt exclusion passed then the elementary school would be coming at us and the fire department would be coming at us to to have another debt exclusion so and people are worried people are worried the economic times
have been tough on a lot of people not all the people but a lot of the people you know and i speak to a lot of people right so i think trash would be a disaster if you want to go up on trash bags i i would agree to that you want to go up on
my taxes a little bit i'd agree to that but you know that's about the only service you can see if you call the ambulance you'll see them too but they're going to send you a bill you know uh you know and we do get some other fine services you know we got
a great police department a great fire department great highway department and all our departments are uh good honest hardworking people but there is fat in all their budgets there is fat in all the
budgets and i think people could sharpen their pencils a little more and give up what they can thanks woody thank you have a good night and thank you guys very much woody gave us an opportunity to do a little
quick thank you mr woods it's a it's about an $11,000 difference okay okay do we want to do a do you guys want to have a conversation about
picking one of those approaches and just kind of yeah i think whenever we pick for one we should be across the board so you know my my guts to go with the town administrator suggestions but 11,000 that's 100% agree
yeah right i would agree with that i would say yeah okay uh so if that case and we're at 114 with the moderator you want to move for 250 then
so so basically for 113 and 114 we could recommend the town administrator's budget correct i'm on board with that cool i'm cool with that that's a form of a motion yeah
somebody's got a i'd like to make a motion that for departments 113 and 114 we uh accept the town administrators uh recommendations and um follow a second
do we have a second second all in favor i i i post i have it um i mean i would say similarly for 122 they did reduce the travel
number 5710 okay uh down in travel there's a difference between oh yeah border selectman said they would go down to 500 is that what you're saying there nobody does anyone have any questions on no nope so we could take the the town
administrator's personnel expenses and board's expenses for just for travel because that's the only difference so we could just oh okay i got could we could we is it legal to say like i make a motion to accept the
town administrator's recommendations budget for department 122 with the exception of 5710 in the form of $500 instead of the suggested 750 is that allowed um that i mean it
gets a little dicey i would prefer just doing the agree but the board is yeah and say 1861 172 is that yeah 186 so yeah 186172 yes any uh okay i'll make a motion to suggest um
for department one for department 122 uh total sum amount of 186172 and 8 cents u do we have a second second all in favor i i opposed you guys have it
straighter did we we got the um ada straightened out to the 3215 okay anybody have any questions on 124 no no i make a motion we vote to accept department 124 town administrator as
presented no second i'm sorry you can't say as presented second okay uh to a department total of 195027.09 second all in favor i post i make a motion we go vote to
accept the administrator's recommend 31 finance committee as pres uh in the amount of $1,850 second all in favor i i posted i have it so i'm
just do i mean do we save this for the end you want to hold off on that yeah i was very you find out what we've got i was worried about reducing the finance committee reserves because everyone's budget is so tight so we did um put that
back up to the 50 like i think it should be at least 50 okay okay i'd like to make a motion that we vote to authorize for department 132 we recommend the amount of $50,000
second all in favor i i opposed uh quick question the 371 is that based on ralph's number or b number 371 for what free cash
oh that's the same you didn't change that when the b did their x okay they didn't specify any change in the precache usage okay any questions on uh 135
nope actually i don't have a question but this goes back earlier to what i was talking to you about peter because it's all over mhm so when i went through this at home the biggest thing that jumped out
at me was the amount of overtime money in this budget without snow and ice because we can't control mother nature it's $642,000 in overtime wow that's public with a com no it's combined departments
right but the bulk of it is public safety and it's also contractual right is it contractual like the police they have amount of like their doesn't their contract say they have an amount of overtime hours no it's they define over time
and you know what it is and and what you know how long you get it but it's they you're not they're not contractually obligated to get like you know four over four hours overtime a week or anything or anything like that it's just budgeted that's all well it's
per shift that's what i was going to say is that what's in the contract we so somebody calls out right gotcha somebody goes in on overtime if they can't fill it with a reserve or a call or timer but what about other
departments so like you know one of the departments has an administrative assistant that's contracted to work 30 hours a week but then they give them 50 hours of overtime for the year at 2 or $3,000 over time is very fair on the
clerical side um it usually comes in mostly like payroll if there's a short week and we're you know we only have two days to do like three days of work or if they're trying to like input um payroll and there's an issue and then they have to stay late to figure it out but it's
um and then another thing is like the elections you know other things that are just outside of the control of the monday through thursday but it's not i mean i have the expenses through march particular departments let you know where they stand with expens with
overtime yeah so really this number there's really no way to um and being new to this know excuse me if if i seem um green um there's no way to
say listen um you can only have you have to cut your overtime budget by this much this year right or next year i i don't it's such a large number
restriction i would say is that if somebody did have to work overtime you can't force them to comp it they legally would have to pay them if they want to be paid right um so that would kind of fall on the department head to manage that within their department whether they stay and do the job and let that
person go home i'm also thinking back to the fall when chief mcgee uh we had that document member he didn't budget it properly and needed another $11,000 for overtime you
know do we run into situations like that yeah not not so much on the clerical side but definitely on a public safety side where i it's they go through so much time because of because of the need
to uh to to have to meet force levels uh that if we do a reduction in the overtime and somewhere along the line they're going to come back for reserve trans and not to harp on this but then if you talk about in 27 cutting personnel
then is this number going to get larger at that point because now we don't have enough people and we you know i don't want to i don't want to again trip over um a $100 bill to pick up or trip over a $100 bill to pick up a nickel here but it's it's just something that really
stood out you know right i didn't realize it was that go ahead peter any other questions on the 135 no but thank you for letting me ask about that oh yeah absolutely anytime yeah any questions that's fine
like i'm gonna ask one more question for that are we better off not budgering not putting out the full amount because then are more pe are they more um of putting out over are they are they
more critical with the money dollars they have you know more stingy or using it more uh judiciously than if we give them the amount they want you know i mean that's a good point sue so give them some but maybe not all they want right yeah
because then it is i mean you really have to need the overtime uh yeah i mean i've never really seen it being abused at all okay yeah and you know better than us it's but you are more than welcome to yeah it's a tough
poll and i think um where you would you know if you you see the news you know like over time there was like certain details that that uh a town a city a municipality would pay um or you have or you have officers making arrests and
certain times because they know how to work the system to to you know to show up to court on their day off oh we don't have that much going on a lot a lot of the overtime we have is to is to fill
force needs so and then correct me if i'm wrong but if there's remainder at the end of the year it just goes into free cash right i'll make a motion that we vote to
um recommend for department 135 the amount of 17 uh 174,778.77 matching the town administers recommendation along with the bos i second all in favor i i
opposed i s a note or a mark on uh professional and technical on the assessors and i don't know why something to do they were trying to get um bristol county to offer the classes
okay okay free class i'm going to assume that she didn't come back with anything on that not that i'm aware of so the difference here is just again the stipens i make a motion we vote to recommend the
um town administrator's recommendations of $221,9171 for department 141 board of assessors all in favor i i post it by 146 i had a note
that you said that we could eliminate 5240 instead of having the 200 in place where are you i'm sorry uh sorry under 1465240 yes i have a note that he had said since
the last two years he had had the $400 budgeted and never used a dollar that we could get rid of the 400 entirely but understand if we just want to go with the 50% like we are with stipeness take it
we got he said he doesn't want it we'll take it between 145 and 146 we've had 400 800 a year and we've used 6250 over the last three years
so leave 200 and 145 and call it a day agreed it's kind of kind of what i'm thinking okay so i'll make a motion uh for department 145 to recommend the town of uh town administrator's recommendation
of of uh 113,21.32 so because we're going to do adjustment reset 146 because we're going to adjust 146 exactly okay so you're not making any adjustment to 145 correct correct okay uh but it's the same thing
taking the 200 out of the 5420 line so leave it in two but only in the 145 okay oh so you're going to leave it okay all right so jake made a motion on the to 145 seconded administrative it's been
seconded any any other questions on that on that number all in favor i i opposed so then that adjustment in 146 would bring that number to 10693632 uh okay i can make a motion to recommend uh for department 146 the
total amount of $16,936.32 second all in favor i opposed guys have it council should be pretty easy one i think similar to the reserve but i don't think we want to go under 50 50 i agree
i make a motion we vote to accept uh vote to recommend $50,000 for department 151 town council second all in favor i post just a follow
on data processing so this is more software fees things like that as opposed to i i was thought data processing the was or the plan was for it to have really any type of computer related including the maintenance and
things like that but that still seems that's still spread out among different departments the computer maintenance yes okay can i just note one thing um is it 5303
um the radar invoice we are exploring adding another module so that number may increase and about how much is a module $5,000 so we're still exploring that situation um but that may be something
that will have to be revoted at the may 14th meeting and what is the var again it's our like accounting software so it help holds like the residential balances for the real estate and personal property and all that it's just billing or does it handle your side too my side
as well yes the assessor uses it i use it and the treasure collector's office uses it and the module added just for the size of the town or the information going in or something i think it's standard for um the module that we're
looking for okay is betaar is that tied in with building permit side of things too or no okay so just out of curiosity how does how do
their how does their information get to you link permit link so you suggesting that we go with the 7172355 for now and then it potentially needs to be revoted yes if that's the case and there are no other questions
um i will make a motion uh for department 155 to go with the town administrator's recommendation in the amount of $71,72355 second all in favor i post it serena do you know how much you've
got the through march for 158 um he has kind of halted with the change in the tax payroll laws so he's only spent $2,000 2,000 so far yes through march
i don't know if we should just cut it more i know he's not going to use it i mean and he seemed to think that uh like that that things were under control with the foreclosures and right because the law that he changed that
part of the and he was working with whatever right right so i think that's why he reduced it down to 7500 to give him some money once you know everybody figures out how to implement the new tax law that's cutting 50% right yeah and again
bring him down to 5,000 bring him down to 5,000 i think it depends on like how many he has on the books that he would need to move over right you know you can't move some and not all for the the year do you want to put it you want to put it
further down what's usually the the charges incurred with say one property i'm not sure okay i don't do any of that okay i know there's like a $100 for the registry street
um advertise in the newspaper as well send a letter in the mail to everybody so even up to now it uh up to the mar this march date he's only used like 2,000 yes so he really hasn't spent anything this in calendar 25 right
take the jump you think about dropping it to five grand instead of 7500 a little bit more is everybody okay with that yes i'll make a motion for department 158 to recommend the amount of $5,000
second all in favor i posted 161 um i have kind of a silly question um for this not only this department but others on the postage
um years ago when i had a pittney bose postage contract i'm going to assume that maybe that's what the town has you depending on how much postage you used you would get money back do you know if the town has something like that or no i
have not seen money come back from pney bose no because they used to have contracts like that where if you were going to use so much in postage they would give you so much back in postage to be able to use i don't know if it's something in the future that somebody
could look into but i know that's a problem yeah i know that it that was once something pit me to do so never know yeah doesn't hurt to ask thank you sabrina like they give you you agree up front to a bulk amount yeah like if they
they look at your account and go "well you know you you spend this much on postage this month every month and so based on that we'll go ahead and give you this much back on to use for like free postage type of thing." so yeah
it's again it was something that they used to do they may not do it anymore but um i recall having a contract like that at one point cool do we have an update on the revenue of the the dog licenses
do we know there was an email there was i know that there was one i think it was after our first meeting after our first meeting she sent out where they were today right but i know that they were looking for like a little bit of an inflection i think what was ra did the race
happen not yet so i think she said that that was that was a driver so there's probably not an update then i see that they brought in about 4,100 through the end of march how
much 4,100.00 well you know what's helping to drive that too especially this year and probably next year is the fact that ba is now doing has a vaccine clinic and
stuff there yes which oh they just did didn't they just run a clinic was it no no no not that kind of clinic they're they're actually doing like oh it's part of the school curriculum yes okay and i only know that because the director just put in his reg resignation
and i'm trying to hire him to work so i think you know doing services over there for the public as far as like rabies vaccines you know then people are having to get their town licenses as well so that that might be helping to
drive that number a little bit yeah so they send out reminders april 21 i'm looking at shar's email so she sends out reminders on april 21st that fees go up may on may 1st and
that typically is a driver oh yeah uh last year they had 607 licenses um and they already have 601 this year uh and you said they're at 41ish and she
and when she sent this on march 13th they were only at 3600 3676 so yeah i mean that's great yeah probably it'll probably were where they were last year okay just curious
any other questions on 161 no i make a motion we vote to uh recommend for department 161 the town clerk the amount of 156,74951 second all in favor i the the big discrepancy on this one
was professional and technical 5300 uh where the board of selectman recommended significantly less i didn't have any notes as to why they did that the um i don't know if you remember when general was here she
wanted to do the additional pole pads uh for that's right and then um at the uh then she sent the memo that she could it was a lot more than a need okay so so yours still has the pole pads in mine
still has selectman's recommendation does not okay and she's okay with that but then not okay and are you too um that's her her job she knows it and she if she's okay with it i'm okay with
it okay so in this case i guess i'll make a make a motion for department 162 uh to recommend the board of selectments recommendation in the amount of
$20,312 $12 second all in favor i post i have it three no notes i don't i have nothing any questions on that no i make a motion we vote to recommend the
amount of $8,600 for department 163 registration second all in favor i opposed you guys have it conservation i guess the biggest question here
was after after the budget they came asking for more hours but that's not the the select did not recommend that okay i make a motion we vote to recommend for department 171 the conservation
commission the amount of $63,454.30 second all in favor i i posted eyes have it 174 has no do we have to vote on it if there's no budget no we just passed 174 doesn't have anything we just passed
right because they submitted zero as well yep 75 stipens again right besides the stipens i don't have any comments any questions uh i'll make a motion um for department
175 to recommend the town administrator's recommendation in the amount of 53,399.30 second all in favor i i opposed i have it 176 roughly the same mhm uh if there's no questions i'll make a a
motion uh for department 176 uh to recommend the town administrator's recommendation in the amount of $33,78529 second all in favor i opposed a second 179 has a town administrator
recommendation but nothing for board of selectman is that because the request came in late oh the board of select reviewed it and they didn't see um they didn't they were unaware of anything that the agricultural was doing because
it really hasn't done anything in a while zero you know there's a lot of things that are short dollars that i think are like a really positive impact and the garden they donate all the food to
council on aging they don't like i think but the garden is in garden's in park and wreck now right okay yeah kevin's got that now okay so then is this they're just asking the budget was for communication oh sorry you're
right i read that wrong yeah i was thinking the briggs garden okay i don't yeah i don't remember why then i would like to go uh with the board of selectment everybody's on board yeah yeah that's fine i make a recom i would
like to uh suggest that we vote for department 179 we recommend the amount of zero uh along with the board of selectment all in favor i
i have it totally resent 189 they're definitely using their budget i'd like to re uh make a motion that vote to recommend for department 189 dayton economic development
committee the amount of $900 all in favor i post public buildings do we know where we are through march for energy about 100,000
and just 114,000 is that the 5210 16 and 17 mhm and 19 okay and is that because we pay the energy
bills after so that's really eight months not nine months right okay do we know when the term date is for the library modular uh he said september open he was pushing
hard for it um but i don't think they had set up for a date at this point in time i assume though the modular is going to be empty before the open house right because you're moving all the books over way before oh yeah
i'm just wondering obviously you know he put in 8600 here he did say he did a calculation based upon it was it was based upon the number of months in this upcoming fiscal that he anticipated needing the modular for i do remember
him saying that i don't remember i mean at our discussions the modular to meet um the cost to match the months they're going to need the money okay so then i'm going to assume this is probably prated to
july because we we don't meet until next month to discuss this so i don't know where he's at with it so okay yeah that looks like that would probably be octoberish 8600 yeah
okay which i don't the problem is i haven't talked to him so i don't know right because if the units are going to be empty right why are we what if right everything's moved out of there by the end of august at the latest if he's planning on a fall
opening oh but fall is like september yeah yeah yeah yeah i think he i think he budgeted appropriately for it if i all right i was just wondering because i haven't talked to him so okay is is there a do we know what the $800
grounds keeping difference is on between the discrepancy oh they they decided to uh decide to cut it just because they were wondering if it was you know trying to come up with a number you know for the groundskeeping
for grass and flowers and have to sort of trim it a little bit so i i i didn't control the area regarding the reduction adversely affect balance keeping so
okay let's mulch right have teaspoons diet so that's the only difference right yeah mhm yeah go board of selection recommendation you think in this case i would like to go that way yeah yeah
um okay great u i will make a motion to recommend for department 192 the board of selemens recommendation for $254,800 second all in favor i i post it um i do have a question with the town
reports are they all picked up at town meeting so are we printing less this year that's that's the exact right they said um so are we doing like how much less are you hoping to do
percentage wise print 25% less it's like 50% budget i know they didn't really come up with a booklet number amount just to raise by half well has anybody um do you know how many gotten a percentage of yeah how
many were we used and how many we're holding on to for fire no we could we could figure that out yeah well if we have any i think the intent was to have printed ones and if anybody else direct them to get an electronic version of it so that's perfect that's that was the
intent okay yeah which i think most people would be happy with okay i'd like to go with the uh board of selections number cool you want to make that i will make a motion that we vote to recommend for
department 195 the town reports the amount of $1,000 following the board of select and recommendation second all in favor i post okay so here's actually the question that i had on this now that we're digging into this whole
overtime thing because now we're coming into public safety right which is where the vast majority of the overtime dollars are spent um do we have um do we know where they are year to date for this year for
overtime expenditure i have it through the end of march perfect okay amazing um the end of march they spent $236,443 but they actually did go into the negative the first few payrolls in april
what is what do you mean by that i think they're like they over spent their budget um i want to say maybe two or 3,000 including the first two payrolls in april so as of like today they spent
probably 263,000 already over budget and we are only in still april april yeah but overall has money in other lines um so we are watching it very closely to
see exactly where he's going to fall at the end of the year just to piggyback on on your question before the public safety is 600 640 what's the negative 140 for under the
full-time officer what was that for that reduction there which one see just all right can you give me a number 1432809 no no the four digit on the way to the
left 51 5106 thank you sorry thank you yeah uh was that that was pulling the deputy chief out and then moving him up and giving him his own line item
there at the 105464 already yes y think so he now has an individual contract and i think i was talking to i i spoke to the chief today um we used to have another there wasn't an open line
for an open officer right 5106 he said that that basically that number's gone that that spot is not in his budget for 26 that could bother the legacy what that difference is between the 105 and the 140 okay so this is again this is
like one of those weird things right cuz i don't know if i'm putting my foot in my mouth but like overtime by definition is one and a half time or more right so hour per hour having that as a full-time
officer i would love to understand because i understand there's benefits costs for an additional full-time officer and things like that but like is having an additional officer less money than having the same amount of hours done in overtime you know what i'm saying because i i get there's more like
if you have again i know there's like benefits costs and workers comp you know all that other stuff yeah so the work the health insurance wouldn't change but your workers's comp would probably go up and the pension pension contribution would go up right so that's why i'm like you know he says he doesn't have a line
item but he's over over on overtime and he's so that's why i'm you know i'm like if it's all even then whatever so jake what you're saying is what would the total package be for one officer versus paying for the same for the shortage of
exactly 100% like if you take a 40 hour 40hour work week at one and a half times is really paying 60 hours right so but what is that cost and that's just in payroll for overtime because you already think they already got their benefits they already got the pension they already got all that stuff right so it's
a good question i mean that that's my my question is like i would love to understand is a dollar cheaper in another full-time office or is an hour you know another 40 40hour week officer cheaper than 40 hours of work wasn't his
problem that he couldn't find anybody to fill the position the reserves yeah not taking them so then it would be whoever you know and the salaries do vary a lot with between the officers you know depending on their degrees and all the
little extra things within their base wages i'm assuming that the way the contract is the ones that cost more are the first ones that have the opportunity to grab overtime more senior officers have an
opportunity to it's it's it's interesting sometimes the addition of of one officer may not may not change the u the overtime ratio because it's just i don't want to say it's just one officer who is subsequent right who can go to
court get hurt so it'll be you'll have the same amount of overtime but sometimes you know you get officers who dislike overtime and just don't want to do it and then you're forcing overtime on some officers so maybe the junior
officers you would be at a lesser overtime rate where you have more experience or you know they have right they have the educational benefits right yeah i guess that is that's a variance right because like hiring a
newer officer is obviously going to be cheaper than hiring somebody that's been on a force for 15 years right like depends the education right yeah interesting so having one more may not make that much of a
difference you have to do force calculations so so he came in at 273 for the overtime you recommended 270 knowing that now they they're over the 260 in april of this
year you still think 270 is a but there's money that's still in their budget in other places i understand that but yeah it was a discussion we had with he offered up the two the 270 so okay so
that's why that's why i put it in at that amount so yeah yeah okay i was thinking that maybe it should be a little higher no no i just i'm just trying to understand you know and that's why it wasn't because you know we put in a
number and they blow past it what's it matter put in a reasonable number right that's a discussion we had with each of the department heads you know i did make a request to make a cut but you have to give me give me reasonable you know reasonable cuts so because these numbers were january
february yeah right okay long as they don't look for another car this year again we ain't got it nope we don't got it he took that off um okay we cool with the town
administrator's recommendation then i can make a motion or any other questions yeah just one quick question why is the why is the what's the deal with the harbor
master how's that um why they're in here they used to have their own budget department yeah their own department with and it was basically the harbor master the assistant harvester
and uh maintenance okay supplies and um we got moved into public safety because i think basically at the end of the day the chief ended up being responsible for for them being on the water anyway okay yeah yeah they moved they moved
that last year right they moved that last year was it just last year i think it was just just happened yeah i remember the budget from last year had its own and then this is going to sound silly but does the police department have a contract with any of the local gas
stations in town for discounted rate do we know or did they just go wherever nope we have um a wax bill so it kind of acts like um like a credit for the station okay and then they go to like that one particular station to fill up
okay and then we pay that bill on a monthly basis okay but back to the hover master they're down um there's only one assistant this year so that's why it's $522 instead of two assistants
okay oh so it's just the two of them now the hover master and the assistant correct um okay um i'm going to make a motion uh for department 2110 uh to recommend the town administrator's recommendation the
total of 1,996,45166 second all in favor i i post um at the risk of repeating myself um less about the overtime in this one i'm curious having additional full-time operators
where right now we have part-time commun communications people is that a is that a purposeful choice or is it just kind of they don't need as many full-times since i've been here
they've run that department with four full-timers and then part- timerrs okay um from our first uh ledger report on march 5th there's been a
$22,640 jump yes that's the um the part-time salary when we initially sat down they do have some grant money so the town administrator um i had suggested to reduce it and then speaking with them and their plans for those grants um and it's not guaranteed every
year i felt that we did need to fund it a little bit more and to not rely on the grant just in case and you said the grant was 33 possible grant $33,000 yes so if we get the grant this year for
$33,000 so yeah i'll just make a point about that so in the past they had always applied when they applied for the grant they applied all for salary y and now um between the you know because it's communication so it's you know a little bit of joint fire and police so i think
for the next year's grant they're going to change what they actually are applying for so the full 33,000 will not be for salary they have other plans to use the grant money for and what is that when is that what do they want to use it for um i think some of it was equipment
within the office um something about a power supply and that's all okay so these are for fire and police yeah because the dispatchers they dispatch and they you know they dispatch for highway as well so they cut their budgets in other
places now we're playing it again here no more than likely we will have some budget money for some grant money for the part-time salary um but not as much as the original thought okay
and then why is there such um on uh 5870 the replacement equipment so in 24 it was high but you know year to date it's not much but then we're they want
4600 about that yeah they need to purchase a recorder oh okay is that correct is that correct that's what they submitted on the zerobased budget we haven't discussed it since then
they have the uh portable radio incremental upgrades okay and an office chair and an office shelf everybody set i make a motion that we vote to recommend for department 215 the
communications department the amount recommended by the town administrator $423,1864 second all in favor i post fire you guys are still working through the salary number um the uh 5870
uh replacement equipment they had asked for 10 uh both town administrator and bos said 19 which just don't yeah we increased the um what we're taking from the ambulance fund um originally it was
455 so um so we decided to take 475 the additional funding to go to both the um fire department also also on the ambulance they were cutting it pretty close so again you know
we have to be a little more realistic so you know um we had the available funding the fund to um to um help support u support that so is this additional nine coming from the ambulance fund yes oh
great okay can we can only transfer from the ambulance fund at annual so that'll be a that'll be a warn item then it'll be within the motions for the budget like when we get to the public safety it'll say no it'll say from the ambulance
right okay that's 475,000 is in the budget as a transfer from the ambulance fund on that one page document yes okay this this will end up being one of the lines
that maybe not at the may 14th but maybe right before the meeting town meeting we might have to revisit the fire it's still going through the salaries make sure okay i'd like to make a motion that we vote
to recommend for department 220 the fire department the amount recommended by the town administrator of $836,13.38 second all in favor i i closed then i had the same note and i assume it's the same answer
that have enough space for itself right close close it's not as detrimental as it could be so i've got a question the ambulance fund um basically covers its own services
right they there is ambulance charges should somebody use their services correct correct does it cover the total cost of this department no it does not bring in $872,000 a year okay and so that the funds then
collected by the ambulance fund are put into a special revenue fund okay for the most i mean the 475 doesn't include the transfer for the lease payment it does not so that would be you transfer that on top of
you have a special time meeting and we're going to see how the ambulance one looks at that point or use a different funding source usually we try to use the ambulance yes or the ambulance and then i believe he'll still have a truck right
yes third fourth year in that third or fourth year third or fourth i can't remember yeah so it should i think the ambulance is like 145,000 for that lease yeah so yeah mhm
i'd like to make a motion that we vote to recommend for department 231 the ambulance services the amount recommended by the town administrator of $872,395.7 second all in favor i opposed
i have it um i am gonna group some of these here even though we're going moving along pretty well 241 242 243 244 and 245 oh you couldn't make it long i know
i try i wanted to he's tricky no discrepancies uh any questions no no i'll make a motion for department 241 uh to recommend the town administrator's recommendation um in the amount of
181,433.51 second all in favor i i jake 24243 244 and 245 jake i was just about to say yeah we want to just lump them together uh i'll make a motion to recommend for departments 24243 244 and
245 the town administrator's recommendation um in the department total of $20,000 uh 20 is sorry uh and sorry in in uh the amount of 60 6750
7750 2,000 and 20,000 respectively second uh all in favor i i opposed i haven't 292 um
i only have one question on the animal control officer was the reduction in contractual disposal uh between her recommend her request of 1500 and and the town administrator's recommendation of a,000 just want to make sure that was allowed because it
was labeled as contractual disposal so i wasn't sure if that reduction was allowed sorry it is uh 5315 so it says sorry no no it says contractual as the name of the expense line but it's actually to the vendor
final gifts so it's when her freezer fills they've got to come pick it up but highway's been picking up more so that she doesn't have to stop hitting deer this line item will go down
so sumo wrestling outfits on the same animal on your street please take out the shovel goodie oh god um building repairs 292 was that yeah the power washing right she got it done it looks really good
yeah i don't know if she did it herself or no no huh we paid oh it looks really nice it's not green anymore it was very green it's not covered in lyan anymore that's great
okay everybody all set with that yes yes i make a motion that we vote to recommend for department 292 the animal control officer the town administrator's recommendation of $62,8122 second all in favor i
i have it 294 is is that is that a stipen yes it's paid out in june so then should that be haved instead of board selectment happened they they reduced it by a third by a
third i try to get all so if i had a small one that i i missed it i how dare you all right so what is someone someone do calculator what is half of the 275 27583
14140 414 14141 14140 it's.39 gotcha uh great um i'll make a motion for department 294 to recommend the
budget in the amount of $141.40 second all in favor i i opposed i just have it 99 uh the emergency preparedness the communications is that the one call code
red yeah we don't want that to be used something bad has happened that's different than the one call is is code red one call i have no idea when when you do the mass
crawling in town yeah i don't i don't believe it is um we could look into that i know that the code red thank you thank you so yeah i don't know what code red would be
i i thought it was that i thought code red was the alert you get on your phone when you sign up for your town it gives you a code red like if you sign up on the town's website and you sign up for code red um it does do that in addition
it also can call you it text you um i'm not sure exactly what the differences are between the two but i know that there are differences i make a motion we vote to uh recommend for department 299 emergency preparedness the amount of $4,000 is
recommended by town administrator second all in favor i thank you d oh god so uh i've got a question this especially for the dr um budget
uh the new amounts are coming out what what state funding is going to be that should come out before what's the latest they can send that out i think the latest they could send
out this june june yeah the final budget comes the state budget comes in after time meeting typically okay so um what do you think if anything changes yes they don't necessarily
change theirs assessment okay know when this town meeting is did they try to pass the exclusion too do you know i don't know uh i believe they tried and they did not pay right they're they're paying the
uh the debt obligation in tax our finance committee meeting tomorrow night we wanted to watch um i've got a question the 226 next to the 5690 dr assessment uh that's
because that's when it was voted last voted this assessment in in this version i believe that's what it was that's the date i received information that's the date you received and then this one's the updated
from the from the meeting after they came in thank you what's the other district obligation so we we've had a child
town for a couple of years that was going to non pa school not bristol aggie norfol norfol um and she was a foster child we had to pay for her to continue
to go to school while she was she graduated oh oh i thought she graduated yeah she graduates this this year cuz she had moved out she had moved out too evaluations okay so this could be for a special education program out
of district placement okay normally would go through right all right june 30 one day a week and uh just so everybody has an idea on these special
education costs within the district in the br budget last year uh or special education costs in general this year have gone up 26% for this year current year or they were
up 26% this year and they are they have been going up continually yeah because i actually attended uh last year's meeting at school and was blown out of my seat
pretty much right so is that we have to contact uh yeah it's placements it's the transportation um and really the school districts have no no say right um and the costs are
going up by double digits percentage wise year so yes we've got to contact our states people and let them know these are mandates given and yes we want to educate these children but there's going to be some uh limits to cost right or some
reimbursement to help us pay for it that's yeah that's what i was just thinking yeah um any further discussion on department 300 complain for a while if you want if you keep going but
strictly from a budgeting perspective i'm just wait till the audit hits what do you think um i will make a motion for department 300 00 uh to recommend the town admin town administrator's recommendation of
uh 15 million465,21110 second all in favor i opposed that mean where the dogs in the house that's on look the other way any questions on uh
422 uh real quick 5154 and 5157 um he was given money last year but it doesn't look like he's used it but he's asking for the same thing again those are paid out in june oh they're paid out
in june okay his contract is actually um expiring so they're negotiating so that's why like the salaries are the same as 25 okay thank you serena when we have no g when uh unions are negotiating
um are you giving them some direction on what percentage raise uh well what the town is capable of paying as far as these they're all threeyear contracts correct when the
unions negotiate um are we giving them something like we should be in the 2% to 2 and a half% range um i think i have the same question it's like who's representing us in the negotiation in the highway oh
you're in the myself so represent the town and kevin brady so um there are guidelines which follow i can't you know we are in we're in the middle of negotiations with numbers but very what
we're looking at is very similar similar contracts i missed my opportunity when we just did education i would like to say that i hope uh in the past i think we had a more um fluid conversation with our
school committee members i know you talk with the superintendent and you guys have a good relationship but the our elected school committee members represent us and our town we and i think their aim is to provide a good education
to our student body at a cost that the town can afford and i think um having a better conversation with these members would give them um a better idea of of what
our restrictions are on our spending and uh what would be feasible for them to support uh in their capacity i i i tell you i hear what you're saying and we kind of started um it was my
intent to start that uh when we had um some about a month six weeks ago or or probably more two months ago we had a few members of the uh of the school committee here along with the superintendent like just to start you
know obviously to start that start that relationship so so we wanted to have a friend a friendly conversation correct and that's and that's our intent and that's our that was our intent two months ago and to continue to to move forward i also reached out to one of the
members um someone i had worked with in the past and yes on the same idea let's just have a fluid conversation so we know where both sides are standing any other questions on portrait uh
no we'll make a motion for department 422 um to recommend the tr administrator's recommendation in the amount of $747,76983 second all in favor oh can i ask one more question yep so 5303 under 422
we're looking at um offduty police details so this is not overtime on the police station's docket it's strictly personal like a personal second out for them have a detail thank you
actually i have one other quick question sure what was the $36,000 reduction for uh number on 422 i'm sorry 5530 eliminate all your line painting so
they went so are they going to need that back texture yeah depends how the lines will go but in all likelihood again that's why we you know squeeze them for fiscal year 26 and there are a few things that are
happening again in fiscal year 27 line painting the assessors they have their bianual that they have to do this this year we we don't have an election there fiscal year 2017 election so
thank yeah any other questions i'd like to make a motion we vote to recommend for department 422 the highway construction and maintenance under highways the amount recommended by town administrator
74 uh7,400747,76983 second all in favor i opposed seven 423 50,000 everybody knows why 50,000 i make a motion we vote to recommend for
department 423 snow and ice control the amount of 50,000 is recommended by town administrator second all in favor i i have do we see any um other than utility payments on the bridge are we are there
any projects lined up for that that's why i have other than other than some basic stuff i did some basic repairs and maintenance lights um selected the budget by 800
they put it all under energy utilities yeah is the extra in energy needed um at the end of march energy expense is so 8 months $650 okay okay
so then 800's more realistic of a number i'd like to make a recommendation that department 429 the dyon berkeley bridge we go with the board of selectman's uh recommendation of $800 second all
nancy you might read that the town of berkeley reimbures the town of dyon so it doesn't make sense to cut this if that's what tom says he needs and quite frankly anything that happens for that bridge falls to dyon and berkeley gets build
including energy so if tom is budgeting that he asked for this amount of money i would suggest you go with it uh berkeley reimbures us what 50% based on what gets built the the energy so we split it is
that what you're saying berkeley don 50/50 but but tommy if anything happens like the light goes out of something and we had an electrician go because there was problem with wiring for a while yep so all i'm saying to you is you need to be aware
that even if you give him the whole,600 this money coming back from berkeley okay i didn't realize that when is um when is the last time the repair and maintenance has been
used i don't see any expenditures in 25 or 24 or 23 for that line item the last thing i'm aware of is the problem with the wiring there was a light that was out for a long time and i
think it finally got resolved because the town guidance electrician uh was hired and i think he had to troubleshoot it and it was difficulty finding the problem so that was probably the last time but again we got money
back on that we didn't put the whole bill so just to be clear we do get the money back but that goes into a revenue a general fund revenue line we don't deposit the money back into the expense line so on the expense side we do have the upfront the total costs okay but she
does make a great point about the repairs to the bridge so if we went with the realistic border selectman energy estimate of 800 what if we put another what if we put 500 in the repair and maintenance just to have it it doesn't sound like
it's very often used but it would at least have something there as opposed to nothing you say 1300 in so it would be total of 1300 that's my thought process want to amend uh well can we just can we
just make the recommendation of 1300 we didn't vote we did we vote no yeah no almost so yeah so i'll make a motion um for department 429 uh to recommend the total amount of $1,300 $800 for energy
and 500 for repair and maintenance second all in favor i i thank you nancy yes 432
any questions um i just have one question on the contractual disposal line item uh 5315 mhm we hadn't expended any this year it looks like is that just because we're
waiting for a bill i think that comes in the spring cleaning and yeah that kind of stuff so it's coming okay thank you and the gunk that comes out of there is consistent passive that's why you meant
to contract because if we did it we had to pay to have it disposed of it's very expensive disposing of hazardous waste mhm i'd like to make a motion that we vote to recommend for department 432 street
cleaning and storm water the amount of $2,4918520 is recommended by the town administrator and bos second all in favor i opposed privatized unfortunately um i have a question
um the comment came out $85,000 in bag receipts was that in addition was that a result of the new prices and in addition to what had been happening because the b bags would only been up like the last
what three four months it's an estimate for for for the total year for the total year yeah we took a and it's um we had a number that's 75% number that we had determined that it would be so okay take the full number just to be on the safe
side that's the estimate for this coming for the cost of bags cost 40 we get 85 is that the thought process for 5581 trash bag line so it would be the anticipated revenue uh with the for
the additional cost of the bags would be um $85,000 more than um what we over the old price okay oh okay okay so what is right what's the total so right
so that's why how many times how many times would he have we have to multiply that to get to our 800,000 basic what he said he was supposed i don't know well he paid for it he even said he'd pay more tax
right on top of the tax we're going to we're going to hold him to that okay put him out front he's our poster child i need what are you holding the sign out front okay that was so the 85 was an addition to what we normally get right
thank you um and on that with that increase do we have an estimated annualized revenue from the bags for next year not just the incremental 85 but the what it would totally be um yes i don't have if okay
yeah again yeah just to sue's point like where's the that in our on our revenue side for our we $215,000 okay really it's more of a six
chain yeah unless we could figure out how to do a bag for recycling yeah i know the recycling kills us at the same time it's like if you charge them for it nobody's going to recite you know what i mean it would
just not happen but like okay that was my only question um was this in contract negotiations how's that going yeah we're in the process of so so the sorry the number are very close are very very
close to the numbers that's going to that's going to wind up being and how long is the contract we sign for three years thank you questions on 333 i make a motion we vote to recommend for department 433
sanitation waste collection and disposal the amount of $846,000.90 as recommended by town administrator and border select second favor um i just noticed the discrepancy
between requested uh uh 5105 for the landfill attendant they had requested 19 32966 both town administrator and board selectman uh had put in 198199
i can speak to that um so that attendant is outside of the union um and the bls had voted to give everybody two and a half so we gave him two and a half oh cool okay yeah i wasn't sure if it was more hours or if it was something you know i just wasn't sure um i did also
thank you for the uh transfer station receipt information a couple last month i was it does look like there was an incremental increase in receipts which is good uh i didn't do the dollars and cents math to determine whether that was like a big win something to maximize
further or not but it was better than nothing i guess okay so not to you know here he's non-contractual i'm he's not full time correct do not not for him it's not for
highway it's for highway okay if he's not there then highway highway takes over okay covered the hours yeah thank you for reading my mind we all set any other questions on i make a motion we vote to recommend for
department 435 the transfer station the amount of 944,000 that includes oh that's disposal right saying gosh the amount of $98,6982 as recommended by the town administrator and border selectman
second all in favor i opposed you guys have it um have the have the mowing bids come in yeah um yes they did i believe i think it's for fiscal year 26
it's 20 it came in at the one we're going 28 696 i think so so the total for that apartment is actually $29,63.50 instead of the 32 yes so it's 29 603 53
so the bid on the mowing actually went down yes and can you give me that number again please 29,000 uh no the on the mowing 28696 thank
you wow don't say that every no we had five we had five biders we stayed with the same person yes okay that's great and it was the lowest response of responsible bidder okay
that's great i make a motion that we vote to recommend for department 491 other environmental cemetery the amount of $29,63.50 as recommended by the town administrator second just to clear clarify not as recommended by the town
administrator because the amounts are different on here okay okay second all in favor i i 510 yep um i'll make a motion for department 510
to recommend the town administrator's recommendation sum total of $127,341.96 second all in favor hi hi 5:41 i'll make a motion if there's no
discussion go ahead i'll make a motion for department uh 541 to recommend the town administrator's recommendation and the sum total of $176,865 second all in favor i i posted it
veteran services 543 i make a motion what's the um there's a difference between the board of selectman and the your office yeah the um the selectman what's included in the uh salary the
office manager part-time isn't is an overlap uh to train so the u so the selectman say to eliminate that overlap that's why that's where the approximate $3,000 difference
yes okay are they is that a is that office manager only in veteran services or they other it's split she's split between uh veteran services and building is that training in jim's budget as well
i think they realized okay it didn't come up jim's doing the training that's i make a motion that we vote to recommend for department 543 veterans services the amount
of $1116,19155 as recommended by the board of selectment second second all in favor i i opposed guys have it congratulations jeff so on the library department the
question had come up where how was the minimum calculated um so the state minimum they take the past three years of appropriations the average of the last three plus 2 and a.5% so that's how we came to the 315,602 okay so the bos just reduced it
to the state minimal okay and that just yeah taken $600 out of the professional tech and we're still in compliance yes i'll make a motion that we vote to
recommend for department 610 the library the amount of $315,62 is recommended by the board of selectmen second all in favor i opposed
i do have just one question and this goes back to the data processing so like website security and and website domain listed in the professional and technical that wouldn't be part of data
processing no because that's all software and right it's it's software oh we have a we have a we bought a data insurance policy is what we did
right not uh not necessarily that covers the whole town every department um i believe that does i have to look into it i'm okay it's all right i didn't know that
uh now now we got the garden any guard yeah yep 6:30 any questions on 6:30 my only comment is just again i think my earlier point still stands i
understand what dollar for dollar the good it does for the $500 i'd rather have a garden i agree um so who maintains the garden the community uh yeah it's like it's it's volunteers we did some of it last year
and he organizes it all and gets a little email chain going and you can kind of tell them when you're going to go people kind of when they got time they'll go over and weed or they'll prune now jake isn't okay isn't this year i know uh his daughter is part of the cub scout troop and i think he's
gonna actually have the cub scouts go over there and maintain it he's also very good at getting um donations um for like the plants specifically right um so you know again
the $500 he has a big like planting day where he invites the community to come help plant he has activities for the kids there you know it's kind of a he makes it yeah he really does yeah it's very cool yeah okay
thank you i'd like to make a motion that we vote to recommend for department 630 parks and recreation the amount of $16,200 as recommended by the town administrator second
all in favor i have it town historian make a motion for department 690 to recommend the amount of $250 second
just to confirm that is not a sniper it's moved get a motion a second all in favor i i oppos 911 thank you i think the only question i had was another supplies line item but
5580 but i do remember vaguely a conversation around there was a project that they were doing that they were going to utilize this money for right they wanted a reenactment i think that i think that one might be for
um naming titan as a as a historic district yes that's what it was that's what it was yep it says printing brochures for the and i don't have a little historical or
was that the calendar too no it was that little pamphlet that was the pamphlet with a little history um i remember there was a reason for it i just don't remember what the details i saw she's got $400 for printing historical
brochures and office supplies yeah it's under other supplies which is i remember walking tours it illustrates points of interest that's all i remember would it be against the historical commission if
you also said you can read this online right um okay uh well there's something to be said for that i mean like that people look at and discard i'm sorry to say that but
don't disagree where online you can refer to it again and again print it out if you want and print it out if you want and then they did reduce travel it looks like the board of selectment did down to
50 bucks which is the discrepancy yeah um i'll let titan north don travel for driving around that's to hand out the flyers oh yeah sorry i don't know what do you guys want to do
i'm going to download the brochure and print it myself i don't think i i the clarification isn't clear you have one thing over there and he's saying something different so it's like what are we printing let me see right i've got one pamphlet
from the historical site and i don't have it with me i brought it the last time thing that i have it says printing historical brochures and office supplies does it coincide with their celebration they're doing
they're doing the seller 250 is it for that particular purpose or is it just general that's why i'm saying i don't think there's enough clarification for it the best of my general
it's for the celebration it's for the sol no i don't think it is this is something different yeah the recommen so if we cut out the 400 for printing that brings us up to 590 by uh
600 yeah 600 do 600 i think you're 100 she's got 1100 in there right oh i'm going with 10,000 that's a reduction yeah that's that's yeah so let's go with your
number sue 600 i make a recommendation we vote to i i make a motion that we vote to recommend for department 691 the historical commission the amount of $600 second
all in favor i i opposed cable look at you not coughing this one's an easy one yeah whatever you need uh i'll make a motion to recommend uh department 698
um in the total amount of $58,520 second all in favor i opposed thank you case thank you 710 uh 710 and 751 i make a motion we vote to recommend for departments 710 and 751 the amounts
recommended by the board of selectment and and the amount there isn't much 241,668 for 710 and the amount of
$97,675 for department 751 second all in favor i i opposed oh can i just make a comment on the assessments i don't think i gave you guys this information um but i had asked the board of selectment to make their motion um like as deemed by
the state just because this fluctuates um multiple times so the motion is you know based on the final state budget then that will work for our members okay as deemed by the state
mosquito comes from the state and not the county yes okay i make a motion that we vote to recommend for department 820 state assessments and charges the amount deemed by the state uh
$87,346 second no sorry if you're going to say deemed by the state then there's no dollar amount because that's the number that's going to fluctuate oh okay thank you sorry scratch the number so then does it not but it will still go
in as a dollar amount it just won't be affected as it fluctuates there'll be no reason for it to be loaded or anything so the motion is uh 820 as by the state
second uh all in favor i i post county assessments fine as the same by the state please same okay i make a motion we vote to recommend um for department 830 the amounts deemed
by the state thank you second all in favor i post seven okay it's one question on uh the 911 yes
so we pay that in july you get a discount paying it in one lump sum on july 1 so is that really because if if we're and i'm thinking more possibly next year if we have a reduction in force we really are paying that after
the fact because we're getting a bill based on our 2025 payroll that um probably not that's a good point so even like that we wouldn't see a savings until 28 okay that just want to make sure n mr
chairman that assessment is not really based on the number of employees you currently have it's also paid benefits for the people that already retired and in addition they're still operating their op account they're still paying towards that so
that number is a combination of things so whether or not the number of employees changes changes um i i would be very surprised that this would go down conceivably even if if
there was a reduction by the time you're paying the oped and the retirees would be minimal the last statement i saw on all county all of the retirement systems in the state i got through the retirement association
because obviously i'm a retired public employee and right now they all have set schedules so bristol county has a set schedule to meet a future deadline to fully fund that account so depending upon what happens i
think they will focus on doing that so all of the communities in bristol county could be facing the same thing but i don't think they will reduce that amount okay they got a target their target's pretty it's relatively soon if i
remember well the good thing about bristol county is their percentage of paid up is high whereas others are not as good the ones that are really awful the state is taking over
one by one anyhow okay and forcing them to pay if their investments don't meet the required amount or the minimum required return uh then the the pension uh i think it's pr the state takes it
over and they invest the money in the same accounts they use because their accounts come in with better um insurance if i can find the report when i get the next one i'll i'll share it with you okay so you'll know
down the road what's happening thanks nancy all right so back to uh 11 i make a motion we vote to recommend for apartment department 911 retirement and pension contributions the amount of
1,160,890 second all in favor i post the eyes have it group health i make a motion that we recommend for department 914 group health insurance
the amount of 1,4664 80 no 1,466,48654 as recommended by the town administrator and board of selectment second all in favor i opposed seven you want to try to lump these 915 916
919 and 920 that's fine 916 just differs between the bos and the admin oh yeah good call why so that was one that paul had come to us afterwards and said that um you know if we were able to give any other
additional money that that's one place with the medicare contributions that he would really need it um that line had gone deficit a few years ago and it has to do with you know the more overtime kind of screw that into the negative few years
ago over time there we go so do we do do we have the money do we know does has he done a calculation
on based on budgeted payroll 100 yeah he was asking for 100,000 the difference between 100 okay we want we want to do that as border selectment recommend then so one question with you taking the
lower end on yours on your end um was there a specific reason that was the number that was originally recommended by okay by the treasurer okay i got you
um i'm going to take department 915 first i make a recommendation for that we uh i make a motion that we recommend for department 915 group life insurance the amount of $1,500 second
mr chairman yes my understanding is that july 1 this this current policy under 32b is $5,000 it's going to as of july 1st my understanding was legislation passed will go to $10,000 so i expect the
premiums are going to go up i should say the the town share of the premium the premiums are very low but you need to know that that this is probably coming and i i'm i don't i think it's a total amendment to 32b i don't think it's optional in other words some could
accept it and some not that was the other email thing that i got because right now we have a $5,000 yeah it's been 5,000 for i was going to say 100 years 500 one time okay but the
retirees groups lobbyed because you can't bury anybody for 5,000 dig unless you do it yourself yeah exactly so use your shovel same thing with the deer one stop seen any premium numbers on
those i have and um i didn't share any information that okay but for right now our policies for the coming year are at 5,000
uh did we finish the motion vote on we had a second we had a second for the 1500 yeah peter just hasn't asked everybody for their acceptance all in favor i i opposed yeah i have it
so i just run into the medicare um the wages last year were 6.476 million uh two and a half on top of that then there would be another two and a half on top of that
so fy24 wages was 6.477 2 and a half on top of that plus two and a half on top of that to get us into 26 and then the medicare rate 1.45% would get us to 987 so
pretty okay i make a motion that we vote to recommend for department 916 employer contributions the amount of $98,500 as recommended by the board of selectment second second all in favor i
opposed go ahead jake i was say i lump these uh i'll make a motion for department uh 919 and 920 uh to recommend the town administrator's recommendations in the sum of 10,000 and
6,000 accordingly second all in favor i opposed i have it i make a motion that we vote to recommend for department 945 liability insurance the amount of
$266,74 as recommended by the town administrator and board of selectman second all in favor i post we just we do need to recommend i make a motion we recommend for department 600 sewer enterprise fund the
amount of $411,21843 as recommended by the town administrator and board of selectman second all in favor i i opposed more my own so last year we we approved i
believe it was 214,2 this year 26 now we're spending roughly 370,000 yeah and obviously again i just want to we only have what
woody and somebody else on people outside of the finance committee and and nancy here any chance we get any want to say that it's not the budget current budget is not sustainable it is not
n changes need to be made and we alluded to it at the beginning of the meeting if we come here a year from now and nothing's changed then i don't know what jump ship yeah that's that's all that's all i've got yeah because i think not only to
reiterate that point there is no more like we were sitting here arguing over 100 bucks 50 bucks right i mean not arguing but having discussions about that this is not an inflated budget because we use zero b zerobased budgeting so there is really
that's the only place to go if if we want to maintain we need to get the exclusion passed that's the lit only way or you fully remove trash and then woody uh riots right woody
it's not me you know i've done i've done a little bit of a poll talked to a lot of people um i talked to some more people tonight including mna santos and she thinks it's suicide also um i don't know where the cuts need
to be made but and what needs to be done i i think that before town meeting we should have some more serious meetings with the board of selectmen with the finance committee and with some citizens um there's going to be some tough
decisions to make and you know and i told this to the selectman that we have now and other people who thought about becoming selectman if you're a selectman today in the town of dyon you you're going to have to make some real tough
decisions and and there's no other way around it it is what it is i i talked to a lot of people today about the budget um and everybody says the same thing you know there there's somebody's going to have to make these tough decisions or
whatever they are they are um and you can't keep banging the little guy you know and like public safety you know when they say public safety um nobody wants to walk that
line but you know look at the police department's budgets $1.9 million and and the the overtime lines so you know i know we need public safety and i i really can't comment on that
department and how it's run because i really don't know but somebody must know and i think that they should really look into some of these bigger departments look at the overtime you know the the fire department i noticed their budget was
way down because we have a lot of volunteer fire department members and with the police department we used to have a huge auxiliary police department in town and i don't know if anyone is aware but we do not have one police officer in the town of dyon now that
lives in the town of dyon the last one just retired so we have absolutely no police officers in this town that live in this town you know and and you know you got two people sitting right in front of you that make
a lot of money and they're doing a great job especially serena i think she's the best accountant i've seen in the last 25 years working for the town of dy and you know it's it's a shame that they have to be there at dalo because they
have a long ride home but my point is they don't have any skin in the game this ain't their town they don't know the town they don't know the people but they're doing a fine job in the providing a beautiful service but you know there's no skin in the
game and you know you know i'm married to an old swamp yankee and she won't say poop if she had a mouthful but she gives me an air full every day so you know it is what it is and i
think we all need to work together thank you woody agreed that's all i can say thank you very much i wouldn't know about that woody no i hey ron by the way uh you forgot your phone at home yeah i know i know
cuz i told your wife about the trash thanks okay yeah ron's got to leave early tomorrow because he's an over good night good night good night wood ny other than trash do we have anything else that's excuse me not collective
bargain a trash contract do we have any other contracts or bids out insurance we used to review that every year and every couple of years we would bid it out um to get better rates quite frankly um group health insurance we've been with
the same company group for quite a while um yeah we went in i think it was the second meeting we went through that um the the group health rates because the
town is in a captive program are significantly better than the vast majority of what people are dealing with right now the na the national average for group health insurance rates increases is 9.7% i
think the town was five eight.2 8.7 the other the other communities well into the double digits that we lucked out with southern massachusetts health group
so i know that that was that was a that was my first thing when i came in was like what because that's what i do for a living but um the other insuranceances i i don't know anything about if they're in specific programs like the the group health or anything
like that i know that peter had put out an announcement um i saw on facebook i think about getting feedback from people in the town about you know the trash and stuff do we know what kind of feedback he's received
back if any i mean he hasn't said i do not know i do i have a meeting tomorrow morning okay oh good yeah i'd be interested to know what what the town's people are feeling about that you know um what trash collection
i got to tell you peter will remember this historically speaking back in the um early 2000s when we were um being overassessed more than a million dollars a year by the town of rehom at the regional district and we were
struggling that was one thing they didn't want touched was the trash absolutely your alternative is everyone takes their stuff up there well you still got to dispose of it it's just you're not picking it up or everyone has one of those things in the front yard
you can't put them in the backyard because the trucks can't get to them you also got to keep in mind that if you're going private you're subject to the privatiz whatever company that you privatize with right so like they're not going to be nice to you like getting it
as a town ideally you would have more cost control than the other way but well the other thing too is i have said repeatedly communities make those haulers get permits from the town i've been saying that for years other towns
do it it's a source of value and it would help all of the people that are paying taxes and buying bags um it's a standard practice i mean this is this is very common um you want to come you want
to come in here and pump septics you got to be permitted but you can come into this town and haul trash to freefor-all if you ever noticed the trucks around there's all sorts of companies but it's standard practice very widespread that if if you
allow trash haulers to come into town uh they pay a permit fee it's just something they do getting back to the insurance um i think we're still with the same company we've been with for several
years uh maybe five or more but what we found was that um by soliciting proposals from just pick some um and they would review it and um we would end up with
better rates other company we were doing business with which happened in their pencils to keep the town as uh customer it's good practice every couple years to do it the last time it was done the company that had it for a number of
years was excluded from the bidding there were complaints about that but that's another issue you know the thing about group insurance and we talked about the group insurance commission and everyone oh their rates are too high and all that what people don't understand is the
group insurance commission has a menu and your employees pick from the menu everyone's not in the same plan correct and even the the the what i'll call the gic plans three levels of that with three different rates the top level one that
had all sorts of stuff was the highest one and then there was like a middle one and then there was one for people who are relatively healthy and say i don't need all that insurance and i want to save some money i'll take a higher deductible because i'm young and healthy
because every year you can change it mhm uh but they also offered um out of pilgrim uh we had uh um um um neighborhood health uh balon healthcare toughs um there's another one um but but
again um everyone's oh gic is too expensive because they don't understand you're dealing with something called gic but there are all these companies that are in there the gic negotiates the rates with them but as an employee i mean i
was at the university all right i don't know how many employees they had stayed by but there were people sprinkled everywhere oh yeah because they picked what they wanted the the the rate of reimbursement of the premiums was the same as far as the percentage not the
dollars right the percentage is based upon the total premium yeah um and i know in order to do that you have to do it far enough out because if you're going to make a change you've got to talk to the unions also about if you're
changing a uh potential provider but sometimes i've also gone with the uh uh the mma um i saw a listing of that i was surprised there were towns around here that have the um the mma insurance group
one one other question this goes back to everything we talked about tonight unemployment compensation indian even if there were no dogs i believe unemployment was moved under department 945 you should go so that's the other
thing yep as you said as said the five decisions get made um there's going to have to be sabrina what did you say yeah i don't see it under department 945
actually i think we took out of the budget years ago because we we after we got beyond that early 2000 period and the budget was finally being allocate excuse me the regional district budget was being allocated according to
state law which is statutory as opposed to uh what was being done u that's when the million dollars shifted um and that's when we started budgeting i think u
there might be a sep okay any other questions or anything uh may 14th yeah we don't have to meet tomorrow no no may 14th here good spot yes okay
i'll be in spain you be in spain if you don't want to join us yeah i don't think so zoom considering they're six hours ahead so what time does that be midnight yeah isn't that where they do most things in spain yeah that's true yeah i know my wife my wife and i were talking
about that my wife and i are talking about that cuz we eat dinner at like 5:30 and we're like "oh they don't eat." they're like "we're going to be starving we need to we're going to have to buy a bunch of snacks uh do i take a motion to adjurnn i make
a motion to adjurnn second all in favor thank you thank you thank you