okay good evening and welcome to the April 2nd 2025 meeting of the financial oversight committee and Town Council I'll call the meeting to order um at this time our first order of business for the financial oversight committee
is well co-chairs um I know in the past Don had served as the chair of the committee but sered at least is just the soul chair so is there anyone on of the committee that's interested just a a question who who is technically
the financial oversight committee this year Conor great I should clarify that for I know I mentioned it at the council meeting but I should mention it at this one too so it's yourself Jim brck Don Starks Rich fero Kathy Hill and Anna Jones Okay Don Starks Don Starks yeah
and and Don is also yes she'll be here shortly maybe and I know normally the chair usually is not a town counselor or or be can I think yeah it can be
whomever's interested well if I may be so bold in the past I've worked with Jim bradrick and he was a very effective chair I don't know how Jim feels about [Laughter] hearing no he was he was extremely was
very bold of you to elect someone else I know I'll second down or if anyone wants to co-chair too that's fine does anybody feels like they want to do that didn't um go say that she
might wouldn't mind co-chairing it she said no no co-chair oh I don't know about Co she she didn't want to be the chair but she was open to co-chairing I think I I don't want to so maybe push her into it but work with
Jim I suggest it would be a vice chair versus a co-chair only because then it it just makes it simpler in terms of sure soone W to nominate Jim as
the co-chair vice chair sorry make motion to nominate Mr Jim baric as chair and Don stocks as Vice chairs made in second in any other discussion staying none all those in
favor please say hi hi we have our chair thank you Jim for sure being so gracious open Council so I think it'd
probably be best to open the council um as a separate so the finance oversight and then open the council sure just for clarification more than anything yeah rather than muddy them so then now that we have the financial oversight committee meeting that I'll call the town council meeting to order as well
with the members present being Ralph Marilyn Jim myself as president and then of course the same members on the financial oversight committee Anna and Kathy there's no official separate Council business it's just solely a council posted concurrently with
financial oversight committee so that other counselors could attend and discuss and ask questions along the way so just Logistics uh ter of number one meetings uh I I did listen in on on
our on the Town Council meetings and just uh noting that uh and I I don't don't disagree Connor that you would like to be able to get the recommendations clear so that if there
are some things you want to think about or you know you have some time to do it before you have to vote on it so that kind of backs the recommendations up a little bit um so I just uh seems to me we we have to agree on a meeting time
like day and time and then and the meetings over the course now and it would look to me like we would need to be able to finish our business by
um and and provide Town Council with recommendations by May 7th or May 6th if that was the whatever the meeting is that just kind of figuring out when do
we have to give you our recommendations and then we can kind of like backtrack ourselves yeah I think the target was if we start as the council our budget public hearing on May 13th if we had a recommendation the 7th or so that would
give enough time to all right or would a week be the six would you prefer to have a full week and if you can but if you need the seventh okay I think that's fine as long as we just don't get it Friday afternoon and have to figure it out before Tuesday I like to send all my
stuff for Friday afternoon yeah exactly one day all right that's the other Friday that's the other Friday and in terms of uh the day day of the week and
time um is five o'clock a good time for people or it is okay we I think we should confirm maybe we should do that once Don gets here just in case there's any all right so we'll defer that uh well then we'll
we'll defer in terms of how many meetings and and what week so let's come back back to that then I'll I'll sit back through the finance committee um Don sent me a text that said Mondays and Tuesdays uh between 3:30 and 5:30 are
off the table for her but she's flexible otherwise so I don't know if the end of the week is better for everyone Wednesday Thursday Friday um or different times on Monday and Tuesday or Wednesdays good Thursdays
good yeah those are generally typically wouldn't work for me but specifically this year until at least the end of April early May they'll work so just happens to workc I'm okay with Wednesday should we
t e here on Wednesdays at 6 every other Wednesday conservation so there may be instances where we're GNA need to go more than an hour uh particularly since we're we've got only a limited time frame sa more
likely to not yes we would 4:30 work on a Wednesday that way we're out of the way for conservation well I'm not even sure whether that will always leave enough time okay um we can find we should leave ourselves at Le two hours just in case
uh just just going back in time Jim with you it's sometimes we did invite Department shares I'm is that going to be a problem having them come after the work hours if we need to invite different downtown departments I think with enough notice
we can get everybody here okay again I I I'm sort of confident that we can probably get all these conversations done without bringing anybody in right and last year we did what Kim and uh Tom are talking about now we relied heavily
on their input because they had the meeting already okay so when when did we meet uh last year was it uh I'm afraid to mention but it was Friday at 3 or 2:30 yeah something like that something like 1:30 to on
Friday we can also look for alternate sites on so concom is second and fourth Wednesday so I'm sure there's another meeting room we could find Al sit out there yeah yeah I mean we yeah this is and would we plan that it be this would
be um taped by elcat our meetings only have one Zoom INE time oh on those Wednesdays yeah right okay so we're looking at Wednesdays right now is that what we're saying well that was the only one that we threw out at the
moment um would Thursdays work for people no yeah THS so Thursdays if we did Thursdays at 4 would that uh potentially work and can we do can we do Wednesdays at 4
are youing okay with the hard stop in those two Wednesdays at 6 right 5 yeah 545 yeah okay okay that that would work if if we find for some reason we get tapped out and we didn't finish the business that we need to there if for
some reason we have to we'll we'll add a meeting okay we're looking at Wednesday stting what time wday is at 4 beautiful and that would probably mean we'd be April 9th April 16th April 23rd and
April 30th with uh final wrap up and uh finishing of our recommendations uh May 7th to provide to the Town Council May 7th um Jim point of order we have
Gardens on that evening on the 7th we have what since you're the president on we have what Brownstone Gardens I have written down on the sth of May seventh oh because uh shouldn't that be a Thursday well maybe it's my mistake
but I thought it might have been a okay special I'll double check that all right okay let's uh let's at least book ourselves for April the April ones and uh I'll double check with that yeah Marin Marilyn and I
share duties with Brownstone one too oh that's right with Dawn too y so that's four o'clock in this room uh well let's I'm not sure I haven't I haven't looked at the availability of the rooms yet so
we may have to double check that okay uh let's book our time but I mean their their regular day ends here at that point yeah so we should be okay okay um let's pencil it in but we'll confirm we'll confirm the location so 419 46 423
4 9 16 23 and 30 gotta got it and the seventh I thought also is that just that's that's that deadlines a 7 May 7th May 7th would be we're going to meet one time in May to make sure we have the the recommendations ready okay may have to
Town Council but we'll have to figure out that that time we may have a conflict for the 7th or we may want to meet a day or two early before the 7th so that we have them by then and there may be after we have the first public hearing on the 13th if there's anything
that comes out of it there could be another meeting sure a followup meeting different time any of that stuff and and in terms of the agenda for what we want to cover for each meeting uh we may not may not have time to really talk about
that here maybe I throw some suggestions out and send them out and see what you think and any kind of edits or recommendations you have you know we can do that and you know determine how to how to approach that or nine meeting
that does that make sense okay and I think we're pretty much through at least what I would think of as the organizational piece of um I'm taking notes for as secretary today just to get it you know beyond
record um but typically we rotated the secretary right minutes for the week but I'm happy to do it now and well thank you Kathy uh and I think not next week that's still a good idea it it keeps all of us remembering how to do it
and no one has to sit there because it takes a little time out of your ability to think and to participate right yes uh so it it it's uh takes the onus off of someone have to do that every single every single meeting so we'll just
rotate um and uh we'll go that way thank you for reminding me of that the other thing that we did and I think we had done it in the past is as we do things at least in our minds if we're
pretty looks decent to us kind of say so and so that there's no big surprise I know we went one cycle where we kept all our our determinations till like one of our last meetings and so we went and and
uh then we had some disagreements about the budget between what was what was proposed by departments and what we thought was reasonable and that that created some conflict so I know then we went back to if we went through it and
we thought it looked reasonable kind of voted through that and said yeah that that looked reasonable to us so that you know uh the budgeters uh realized that we kind of agreed with them or they knew that we didn't agree them and there was a chance for them to follow up with us
and I I would propose that we kind of do that same methodology again and that that's all I I can think of at the moment unless anyone else has any suggestions or suggestions for us Jim oh
I'm sorry I'll get you um I think Jackie's been posting the the meetings yes yes I'll put you in touch with her so that yeah she's been in the past yeah um and and I I just want to qualify the remark from before about us sort of
speaking on behalf of the department heads I think if you want to dive into the school budget that we schedule time with Gordon Andor uh a member or two of the school committee uh just I I can't speak intelligently about the curriculum and the impacts that's typically the one
that we wind up uh meeting with I think Tom I think we found the last couple of cycles that you've had most of the answers asking the department heads about and with the footnotes there's a lot of uh answers that you've already
you know our questions are answered so that that's gone a long way towards streamlining that but with the school department I think uh it it to hear it right from them yeah yeah good point s
no that's good I think I think that was important Point yes no I think all of that's good from an overall like organization perspective I think the only other thing that we could do this evening is just have Tom and Kim give us the top level overview if they want to
or call out any about formats or things we focus on or consider yeah Andor uh just answer questions after first FL not you Ralph uh yeah um the best stapler sure we'll
just do sort of uh broad Strokes here the this is the FY 26 draft budget obviously um lovely picture of town hall on the front interrupt you for one we talked about it before members of the public
too if you want to find it if you go on the town's website and go to the government tab at the top and then click on town manager and then you'll see a link there for FY 26 draft budget April 1st 2025 yeah excellent
point um so uh relatively speaking it was sort of a um difficult budget uh prep uh we sort
of were um you know we went through our normal process of a uh what we call level one which is submitt from all the Departments of uh level service budget which to us means
um you know providing the same amount of service as we have been uh with any contractual increases but no new uh sort of initiatives no new um employees things like that um and I
think this we had a little bit of a caveat of a level fund for expenses we we sort of typically uh almost every department has contractual obligations in their salary uh portion of the budget uh the non-salary or expense side of the
budget we sort of left that a a level fund uh Slash level service because there are plenty of departments that also have contractual services and their expense line items as well so um it was sort of understood that um we kind of wanted to just push
forward what we've been doing all we've been doing and and only increasing the budget what we were contractually obligated to do um as the as as as those budgets came in
uh and we started getting our um estimates of increases for some of our bigger uh uh budget items health insurance uh liability yeah property and liability insurance uh
and retirement uh we we we as we stated in the The Joint meeting with the the school committee we really were only left under prop two and a half about a million dollars uh to to go around
across across the entire operating budget uh of an increase rather so uh typically after level one we meet with everybody uh and and sort of dissect the budget line by line uh answer any
questions we have uh of the department heads um and then sort of morph into a level two conversation which is the manager's recommended budget uh and if there are any um needs outside of the
submitt meaning I could I could use some more help or we could we could use this piece of equipment or things like that uh unfortunately based on the afor mentioned we didn't really get into those conversations this year um budgets
were sort of stuck at level service unfortunately uh there was really nowhere else to go um so we had less conversations about uh the future of certain departments uh and and more about uh getting the number down to a
point that was more manageable under our under our um Levy so uh we we we ended up um we ended up into the excess Levy a
little bit to to to recommend this portion of the budget uh the town departments with an increase of 2.26% uh and the school at 2 and a half% um that we had to grab about
300,000 or so from the levy uh which still left 1 3 uh 330,000 somewhere in there um the uh is there anything else about that part of it that I left out not
really so nice um I don't I I uh I don't know where else we want to talk about I know we have a lot of uh information to get through but um
the the the budget itself uh is very conservative for more than a few reasons uh one uh that that excess Levy uh provides a lot of comfort for the community
especially in such a volatile time trying to plan budgets right now uh it has been extremely difficult uh projecting where we're going to be even six months from now uh um so it was important for us to hold on to uh a
majority of that excess Levy and not tax all the way um I don't know if there's any questions at that point if if go ahead Jim are you looking to hold on to as much cushion
versus the levy as you can with with the idea with the current Administration there may be less federal aid less Aid in general grants Etc well that then so you may have to make that up can I yeah um part
of the reason that if you look at the history of the town they typically have never taxed up to the levy we were looking at 2.7 million in excess Levy over the past um few years it's come down since covid because our budgets
have gone up and we've started taking from that Levy the concern with um the concern with having a budget that you're pulling 500,000 600,000 a million dollars from your Levy is next year you're still going to have to have that
budget plus an additional two 2% 3% whatever it is and technically when you're pulling it from the levy that's onetime money so I think if you're going to start taxing higher because budgets are going up and because insurance and retirement and everything is going up
you don't want to pull large amounts from that Levy every year um you kind of want to move forward at a a slower kind of increase plus you have this excess Levy in case like you said if we're if we're losing funding or something like that we can fall back on it talking to
someone that was on the Appropriations Committee when position 2 and a half came in so we used to build our budgets to the maximum of the levy and and then that was what we had and then we had to like make our expense budgets fit within
it but it it was typically all right what is our what's the maximum we can tax and then and then what what can we fit our budgets into so it's it's a it's a lovely situation to have to not have to tax to the max I have to say so and I
and I did do a little um I I just went out three years to kind of see if we do tax up to the levy what it's going to look like and you know next year we be negative 700,000 the year after that will be negative 1 .2 million at least if we do this a little bit slower we
have a few years to look at revenues we have some time to look at expenses we have time to kind of before we end up in a situation like most of the towns that you talk to everybody spend it all at once and then they yeah yeah y oh I I
congratulate you on your straint well I you know again there's a lot of questions that we couldn't even hope to have the answers to and we may not ever get them and so as conservative as we can be to be as comfortable as we can
be um we we really want to keep this financial position that we're in strong we still have to borrow a bunch more money to finish a huge project that's going on right now um and so we're we're we're trying to to be as comfortable as
we can in all these different ways um still providing all our services which is um um unfortunately we did have to take some money away from that level one um I don't think it's going to hurt our
services except for um I I guess I'll let the school Pine on what where they're going to end up but um you know I think we did enough smart cutting where and still provide um what we provided last year and and have that
Comfort to still have that excess Levy um yeah so any any other big questions um just quick question to Kim refresh my memory where are we with
bonding for the school with respect to our current you know the proposed tax rate um so in this budget with what we borrowed I think we borrowed about 83% um of the funds that we'll borrow for
the school I have to look at it it was $187 85 87 85 877 about a187 um of the tax rate is um for the excluded debt okay all right but is that
it no no no I didn't think so no and and it'll be I mean because the project needs to be complete then they need to do the msba audit like and then we have to make sure we get all of our reimbursements in so we won't do that final borrowing like you may see this a
little bit more next year and maybe a little bit more in the following year okay it'll be over a period of time this is another reason why not to go tax to the max at this point because would be no I mean well no because the excluded is separate from um that's
right too tax rate separate from but taxpayers are going to the taxpayers are still paying for it that's the problem yeah I mean the good thing is too when we did borrow we got a a really good rate in borrowing and the amount that we're actually seeing in the tax rate is
lower than what we anticipated but still I mean we don't want to see our tax rate absolutely thank you to just a point if we took the debt exclusion away both last year and this year um last year the tax rates have
been $182 it was 36 cents um included uh for debt exclusion and this year is a187 so so if you did away with that our tax rate's actually dropping it'll drop to
1798 and then you have to add the $187 in just going to say estimated 1798 that is correct yes yes I'll never uh I'll never be more amazed than watching Tim change one number on one
tab of one sheet and watch it spread across the entire TV uh I'll just never get that I'll just never get it thing to look at is I believe over the last four years um if I saw correctly our assessed values are up
almost 35% yeah if you look over the last 4 five years so that's a huge increase in assessed values so the tax rate looks great oh look look it's coming down your tax bills still going up right um but again at least it gives
us room to a $25 limit exactly which is which is what we need I mean um things aren't getting any cheaper as we go along well right and we we we made a concerted effort to to stop the sort of expense curve that
we were on last year uh you know trying to come down from you know the eight and seven perents and we were down at five and a half last year and now we're down to three and a half this year I think um the there the the balance of which is at
some point we have to figure out how we're going to get some more revenue and continue sort of flattening that that expense curve that has sort of got out of control after Co um you
know so it's a continuous effort like you said you you the math has to work out with the budget's this so whatever the tax rate is whatever the valuation is it is what it is um the the money is still the same and the expenses are
increasing so the bill as you put it is very hard to come down especially when you construct a 00 million building yeah obviously just a a question Ralph you said over the the last four years the
assess values have gone up a combined 35% yeah I believe it's roughly 35% I don't know if it was four years or five years I'll check that but I just want to get the actually in she's got a chart of it lovely chart so yes I did read every
page find any mistakes don't go to those yet good um so anyway the the again all the the budgets the general fund budget is at 79 m392
34 um there's a couple of uh we didn't um we just have our regular Capital plan at two how 1.5 inside our our limit uh obviously we we we did a lot more last
year we had some arpa we had some free cash again uh would have liked to have done some more projects but uh as we found out last year um you know we want to keep our Reserve position intact so that we can keep our
bond rating and continue to get these uh these numbers that well I don't want to expect them but if we can if we can keep our financial position this strong when we F when we do do go out to buy Bond the rest of the money for the high
school we're had a better chance to get these rates that we got the first time so um we're being very conservative on the capital plan too um we we uh elected uh not to
um raise an appropriate money for the new capital stabilization fund uh because of our position this year with the budget and because we've never had in the budget before we not creating a hole um so again that's the other part
of the question of well if we don't have money or we need money here why don't we take it from here and put it there well again like Kim said before that budget is still now carried over and now you've got a hole in this other budget that you didn't fund that now you have to fund
the next year so trying to move the budget forward A Year Without creating any holes uh is also very important when it come when we're this close to the the two and a half and we have to watch our
increases uh as as as difficult as it is um again I guess we give this caveat every year we're working off the the first rendition of the state budget so uh numbers could fluctuate uh a little bit I suppose I don't I don't know that
we've ever seen a year where they've been it's been too crazy but um my my thought is that plus or minus a few percentage uh points uh in the state aid I don't know that that's actually going to change too too much right I
mean we have sometimes like 60 70,000 you can see kind of a swing there and then that's the next one and then it comes down to 45 and then back up to 55 and the you know the whole process of the state budget so we have to just kind of keep an eye on that as it goes
um nice pie graph of the uh general fund Revenue sources um obviously most of it from 73% from Real Estate and personal property taxes um this is sort of what we were talking about about what we were up
against with the with the taxes and the excess Levy about um our prior year Levy limit adding 2 and a half% uh the estimated new growth growth that uh 500,000 which is um historically right
around where we've been plus or minus um and where that limit is in the debt exclusion and and um trying to keep that that excess Levy capacity uh for for you know conservatively
um so like uh Ralph already alluded to the tax rate is estimated at $19.85 uh a187 uh a187 of which is uh well primarily related to the new high school I
think the last one is a modular project and that's last payment is there's a come off the books in 27 com off in 27 yeah so um but that is very small in comparison to the high
school bill um so um he um I didn't quite understand in FY 24 the town relied heavily on excess Levy to maintain the level Services yep uh when you say excess lovey are you what are
you what are you actually talking about are I mean excess Levy is what you didn't use right right so so how do you how do you rely on something that you didn't use because it stays in that line item from the recap the Kim was talking
about before that that like in 2022 we had excess Levy capacity of 2,713 646 so it's the amount you could have taxed right and it just it stays in the bank for you right so how do you how is
it that you're able to use it to spend because we can roll into the like this year we used 300,000 of the 1.6 to get to this budget so we used almost a almost a million doll or a million dollars from 23 to 24 just for that
operating budget so you I guess I I'll have to think through how you're terminology the way you're you're approaching it potentially we used free cash in the form of EXs Levy to fund the operating budget which is what Kim was
saying before about not trying not to use these one time right I mean yeah I mean you have a bank account of Levy go ahead you can explain it better I don't know so why am I just like Kim talk no so in 22 we were at 2.7 in excess Levy so we
could have taxed an additional 2.7 million we didn't same thing in 23 when you don't tax it it's gone you never get a chance to tax that again well no because the next year as long as you everything s that opportunity to charge
that 2.7 the has gone for that year is gone and then as long as everything stays pretty much the same which it did yeah 23 excuse me we still had 2.7 going into 24 we were coming out of the pandemic when all of the budgets kind of stayed pretty
low and there were things that needed to be increased utilities needed to be increased quite a bit um Insurance retirement things like that and we Aid into that excess Levy so now that's definitely gone right because then we kept our budgets the same we added 2% 3%
5% depending on you know whether it was school or town so over the past couple years we've done our best to really look at budgets insurance was definitely over budgeted so we were able to bring down health insurance other departments had
to go up but now we're at a point where we can't take these big big cuts in these departments and now our excess Levy is coming down a little bit just for us to stay where we are so because those budgets went up so much from 23 to
24 now we're kind of fighting you know not being being able to go up more than 2 and a half% so is there a level of excess Levy below which you do not want to go um 1.3 million yeah for this year I'm
just wondering what what how how is that how are you using that as a guideline or or or or measurement or I mean I don't know if there was a specific reason why we only went 300,000 um I was trying to when I was
looking at the budgets and I was estimating I was trying to keep the excess Levy the same I didn't want it to change at all but when the school's budgets came in when the town's budgets came in I think we were like negative 1.6 million so it was some work to get
us down to this positive 1.3 right and no it's just a new it's a new ruler for me in terms of uh you know approaching things so I was just curious how yeah and and I guess furthermore so that
would be the maximum the budget could be this year right that what if we if we added million so that's like right back to yeah that's like X by law right but if we keep the
1.3 and and it carries over to next year we have some some room to right in the event expenses went crazy correct thank you that is where the um increase in values were that Ralph was talking about
so if you included projected increase 2026 over the 5e span of 2022 through 2026 ends up being 35.8% oh you oh yeah they've been there was a couple years there where we had we had a couple
tens in a row right yes hey we're a desirable Community um cherry sheet estimates again we're still on the first that uh estimated local receipts we we took a man when you
move through could you just give us the page on oh I'm sorry now yeah I went through page eight which is the sorry preliminary Cherry sheets that's just the governor's uh first proposal right y be three more
there'll be three more iterations of the sheet so before we jump off of that page you've got um in the like the second paragraph down under General government yep um you got veterans benefits and then the next line is
VBS I thought VBS would be veterans benefits services or is that something else and then I just saw veterans benefits above it so that it's just how the state like this isn't something I create this comes
right off of the State website it's how they break down those benefits okay you want to CL ification on what those are well I'm assuming the VBS and the elderly has something to do with what is it 22j the heroes act another
one and the the senior citizen one yeah the veterans benefits is that the the reimbursement of our 5% that right [Music] right yeah we can get we get a
clarification yeah we can so uh this uh page nine is our estimated which we've um tried to um increase our Revenue smartly uh that we're budgeting for
um the biggest of which if you're looking at the actual numbers would be the investment income um like this year we budgeted 250,000 and we're at one almost 1.35 million uh obviously due to all our
borrowing and smart uh investing um but it's not something we can rely on moving forward meaning if we if we bump that expected Revenue up too high and don't get it well now we've run
into a real problem so uh we we bumped it up a little bit um somewhere where we're comfortable um but this would be one to to keep an eye on at some point uh I think we'll see that sort of spike
in the curve come back down to to a normal level even though uh it'll probably find a new level because there the the um the state allowed different uh that was last year yeah we we um the
state allows for different um investment opportunities now for for municipalities so um Don's been doing great with that um were there special circumstances in FY 24 that shows a million 75 in that
category and through 313 of 25 a million 339 in that category yeah so it's specifically due to the borrowing for the school in an auditorium so all the bond uh all the money we didn't have to pay for we just had it we have it
because we need it for cash flow in between borrowings but we're investing it so all of that money goes into the general fund and we won't have any of that in FY 26 so it's not that we won't we we probably will have that money in 26 but we can't use it as a a revenue
source for a general fund budget because if we now raise up all of our expenses to meet that Revenue well when we pay those bonds I mean when we pay that money to for the construction we're no longer getting this Revenue now we've created a revenue deficit for us going
forward so I that 300,000 didn't come out of nowhere I looked at how much we've earned on just our reserves that are in the general fund versus what we've earned on the bond money and that 300,000 is where we kind of landed all
right so we may get some of that but you can't really rely on the right we'll get it it will R roll the free cash and at that point a decision can be made where best to put that money whether it's stabilization funds oped Capital stabilization um you know different
things okay and eventually we won't get that money correct eventually yes we'd be back down to to the three closer to the three right so instead of like you said a def creating a hole on the other side of the budget that that we now have to fill with something else
right did see did we saw a little bit of an increase also in building yeah building permits the we we sort of updated our uh the building fees last year brought them into the 21st
century I think uh so we saw a little bit more Revenue there again um hard to rely on I think the number this year we had a couple outliers as well a couple of larger projects that um that sort of skewed the the revenue
number so again it looks like we should oh how come we can't budget for more Revenue here or there um there's a reason for that and and there were a couple of big projects in town that cost a lot of money to permit and we can't really uh until we get our you know New
Growth number flying uh with a little bit more regularity we can't really rely on the permits that go with those projects so I think there was a solar field y that that was a big one yeah roughly $100,000 in permitting um all around and
that's what skewed the number way up once you took that off it drops right back to yeah so that wasting yeah American saw there's a lot of Permitting in the um knows maybe we'll get a warehouse or something uh page 10 is the uh another lovely P
graph of great graph job this year excellent uh general fund uses uh by function um this sort of just is kind of a breakdown of uh how we spend our money
um uh education no surprise uh is is the big part of the pie um Fall by and Insurance um and then Public Works Public Safety um example of total other
uses the other uses um on that levels projection tab the one that's got all the um like green and blue kind of writing on it if you go to the end of that it lists Capital we raised 1.5 million in the capital and then it's all the
transfers that go out to the stabilization oped compensated absences and it's also got the um diff in there that we have with Long Meadow that $20,000 Fe and then what we raised for the overlay um for the overlay for abatements for
the assessor's office thank you want me to jump ahead just looking at that pie chart and the package page 26 the educ side that does not include Chapter 70 correct 36
million this is general fund just a general yeah this is just general fund uses kind of eye opening to me when you jump to page 26 just looking at the actual did me to ahead I did mean
26 I had to go back and look at the pie chart when I looked at this oh the N that's why I that's the trajectory the next page that is that was as of 24 so that comes right off of des's website and there's no new information yet for
25 but that's where we are that's where we were in 25 it's only a fiscal right accurate depiction of yeah that trajectory okay and so the net School spending also includes like on the pie chart on page 10 you got public
works well a portion of the Public Works to maintain the school buildings um I it Department a portion of that goes to the schools so once you figure the net School spending that's how much the schools are actually costing and I think the other big thing
is all of their insurance and retirement is in our budget right so that all goes into the calculation for nille toing so the retirement and insurance is in the the insurance place
of bu for the schools as well yes yes but in in but showing in the in so it's not in the 45% no no no and it's not in public works is s slice either and uh or Public Safety or
it's its own animal yeah the education portion is just their budget that gets approved by the um basically just the budget motion so it's just yeah it's all the same so just out of curiosity their
budget that they approve the 36 million 95 bits here that includ grants and all that they've received no that's just their general fund budget okay so Pages 11 and
12 same thing numbers to go with a pie chart hi down um sort of that same breakout total gener government total Public Safety um it's just the actual the actual
numbers there this breaks everything down between salaries and non-s salaries which is the way that we actually V it the way we vote so this is just how the budget motion looks and then I update it um through the
levels through the finan chair um we're getting an overview right now am I assuming starting at the next meeting we're going to be going through item by item or do you want to do that now
like such as on page 11 list everything um it shows let's say um the town manager non salary is negative we had questions on that is now yeah I I wasn't exactly sure what to expect tonight um I
mean I had kind of gone through it and I had marked down ones where you know I didn't really have a question and others that I did have some questions about or you know to discuss more about um and I would not have a problem if some had one
and because it's only two sheets it's not an overwhelming thing so I think the next one Jim too is is the one that we had the in the question to a lot when we got down into the detail I didn't I stopped
here um that that it's basically the same information but with the notes for increases or decreases or um and again uh I I wasn't sure how how this right now either and um if you wanted to get
down into the weeds or or we can skip over this and I we flip back to it almost every time every time we went to to a department we started here and then found the corresponding backup in the next thing so however you want to go through it I was kind of just flipping
through the general overview and um but I we can do can do it however we want yeah and and I wasn't sure I I I was kind of thinking it was uh five to six was the FOC six to whatever was the don't I just wasn't so oh I just I'm
jumping in here I'm Dawn starts by the way sorry for being late you're our VI that'll teach [Laughter] you um so I I have still some old notes
from previous years just as a look back I don't know I I see we've kind of set up the schedule um so we've usually jumped in had the layout everyone usually assign homework at the end of a
side what's just and we go through orders and we usually try to get through the um departments that don't have a lot of questions that are just like everyone's
you can usually see everyone usually has the similar things marked off um so we can go through that to get the light lifting done you know so we feel good about getting because sometimes we get stuck in ruts not ruts I don't mean that
negatively I mean we get into some deep conversations which also lead oftentimes to better processes and the big picture because it's easy to get lost in the weeds rather than the big picture um so
I guess Jim and I we could work out yeah because I think it would be more useful to for us to actually do our homework looking at at this with the with the notes uh versus us trying to do it with
this uh and so I think uh using Don's strategy there our homework should probably be for 49 or at least some of our homework would be to go through this section and and just go through all of
the Town departments and where the footnote doesn't answer our question let's make it note of it and we'll we'll convene and the ones that we still have questions with we'll make notes of all
those and those are the ones that will ask questions of Tom and Kim and if they can't answer it satisfactory we'll put it on the agenda for for followup um so that would be the start of our
for y and usually and then we traditionally also take the big departments um police fire schools usually has at least one of their own meetings uh if not more we tend to put
that at the back end um depending on how much uh information get the more information we get up front easier it is honestly because information is key and we've been getting in the past I'd say past two
years at least really good information that helps a lot we almost always correct me if I'm wrong Kathy end up getting um at the end it gets some heavy lifting and backed up a
little because uh Capital um plans always involve a lot of thinking we also Jim I remember last year we kind of skipped over sources and uses but that's an excellent thing again big picture
thinking where are we getting our money where is it going where's it coming from where is it going to so these are all pieces that we chunk out and we used to for homework we would carve out so it wouldn't be overwhelming
because it can be we'll look at we'll split it in half to these departments and look so we could really do a drill down again it's up to everyone but road map is good yes and and uh don you weren't here but what what I suggested
was um I we would put together kind of a suggested agenda for the five or six meetings that we have in in well four meetings that we have in April and what I'd like to do maybe is you and I kind of sit down and and chitchat over that
and then put it together get together and then we'll send it out to the rest of the committee for their input and if they have any changes to suggest uh because I think one of those meetings has to be at least a big chunk of it with the school and uh and then we'll we'll go
from there but yeah yeah I think uh we'll do it together and then we'll send it out prior to April 9th get some input and go from there yeah good points and school vacation 20 oh when is it 21st
yeah okay anybody gone hit by that I will be gone but I will I can easily zoom in I won't be absent from any meetings okay fine with me I have Thursday and Friday
off thing I'm just kidding I don't really ever have the day off U so yeah I mean there's the capital plan as well which is usually not necessarily the whole meeting but uh it
can be a good hour to go through it um assum it yes go ahead councelor page had a good point there's a there was a whole lot of work done by the capital advisory committee uh with some backup information yes and I think last year that I'll slide that to might see some
of that which would have been helpful uh last time so okay is that part of what we have no it's not in this um but yes all the other backup you can supply that it would be helpful because
it it would be it's nice knowing another group has has already done that vetting process yeah it wasn't as fun a year this year right Rich it was very hard um but yeah they they they rate every project yes right I everything out pass
so I I I know the so yep I I'll I'll have those backup sheets for for that uh before your next meeting for sure all right thank you that'll be very helpful yeah I mean the rest of the the submitt is kind of just informational
and anyway aside from the capital plan the debt schedules and um the graph for uh net School spending has already been brought up and uh some of our Reserve activity and what we
expect it to be after we vote be this budget um more graphs showing uh showing our reserves in in very very good shape and all uh in line Andor exceeding
policy targets uh which is great um the revolving funds and then and then the um proposed rates and budgets for the Enterprise funds as well and the ambulance fund so Tom I was looking at page 26 of
43 uh says Foundation budget chapter 78 required net School spending actual net School spending y just want to make sure I'm understanding it right uh so required net School sent spending is basically the same as Foundation
budget is that correct uh ESS essentially I would caution anyone from looking too far into chapter few minor few minor differences yeah it's a brain Scrambler but yes for for the most part
the foundation budget is your budget and the net School spending that's what we're we're actually spending that that's actual the town is actually spending correct based on the state's formula so not the general fund
obligation they take into account all those other pieces so there's a whole report that's done uh like uh it DP uh Building Maintenance uh Insurance uh Administration HR uh
there's a lot of stuff that goes into that uh what ever this year was right around 45 million was the was the actual net School spend so if anything it looks like the spread or the difference between the net School spending requirement and the actual school net
School spending that we're spending is actually getting bigger yeah we're at about 135% yeah and that number has stayed in the 130s 130ish per for for quite some
time and I we could stop anytime no you want I figure we got them here might as well yeah keep going I didn't I didn't mean to Breeze through the rest of it but I I know the the most of the information is
in that those sheets that that will start getting into next this is all good information at the back here which is our you know financial position so go yeah I always kind of like the idea of the free cash and where we are with our reserves sort of thing I'm looking at
page 28 uh that kind of details the cash with the with 2026 impact so that's that's great had 10 million n in free
cash and we've done a number of things and so the remaining free cash as of five as of when as of the end of this like the projected right now as talking
about the 5.6 million yeah yeah it's as of right now correct well when I sent it to you I don't think we've voted anything else all right is anything are you have you any projections that of stuff that's going to come out of free cash before
the end of the school year yeah not not that not that nothing that you have there's no budgets that are uh you know in need of anything or uh any so EXT extraneous spending that that's on the
horizon snow and I will come out of it well right but that this year we actually uh um had quite a few different storms that needed a lot of salt and stuff so if I was to guess you're probably looking at half a million coming out of it um that's what I'm
guessing because we only allocated 127,000 yeah I don't that's gone like that high though maybe it might not be I think it's at like 330 or 3 I don't know the well we can talk about that too so the other thing is too it's not necessarily guaranteed that free cash
would need to be used for that because if there is money remaining health insurance departments when we do transfers we can um do a transfer for that so I think the only way we would use free cash if we didn't have enough in another budget line
item is oh sorry go ahead Kim sure this can you refresh what the um State recommended uh percentage is I know there's a spread that they like us to have for preash stabilization I think that's pretty much
it so we have a policy which mirrors DLS um DL dls's requirements and it's between five and eight% so we have it at I am and is that on another sheet Kim uh Ed as a
percent um it should be right next to the dollar amount so the 8% that's right next to the 5.7 oh okay all right and then everything else has the percentages that they're at the those are not the targets um 8%
of our estimated budget or of our previous year's budget all right and that's what you were trying to protect for the purposes of bond ratings Etc all the all the reserve the
Reser and I mean do we I don't know did I ever give them the financial reserves policy because I can give you the policy so that you can actually see the percentages and the targets are all listed on the the graphs in the coming Pages oh that's true is that is that the only is that
the only thing free cash that's that's that the state includes is that 5 to 8% Does it include any other thing like the stabilization fund or any so in the policies we have um we have targets for everything
stabilization have compensated out up each of the retained earnings for the Enterprise funds so yeah there is a policy that covers pretty much everything on here so would we being actually right now in excess of the
58% uh Target of the state I think we're right at it well the free cash is 8% and we're at 8% right right but if you include no no they're separate they're separate they want you to have them both yeah oh okay so then
it would yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah we will send the policy what was the other thing we were oh Capital backup on the capital capital backup thank you Kathy you're doing a great job tonight by the way I forget what I've written Capital
backup and Reserve policy so uh chair and vice chair our homework is to commend reviewing paperwork here and things that we want to discuss for our next meeting we're going to page 11 and 12
being our headed sheets with followed by the that correct well we're we're going to they're going to develop an agenda of in addition to that I think we don't want to run off of those pages we want to run
off of yeah I would say with the explanations I would say with with the idea that you 13 through 17 do have a question I would take a look at the at the detail and make sure it answers that
for you um so it you know make sure that it it covers the the question because this has a lot of detail of each one of those line items um the other thing is I don't think we'll probably
get we may get the backup with the capital planning these uh overview and recommendations before April 9th I I wouldn't I wouldn't recommend messing around with the capital plan without that because it just be a waste of time
I think it would be much more helpful to have that when we're revie it if we get it in time I I think it would be well worth it because that would be a good chunk to look at so I think we'll we'll just have to see what we can do at that point um
terms of the school budget is is that somewhere for us to see it all or to look at in advance is it all here it's all in here y uh we'll have to look we'll have to schedule a time and that means we'll
have to figure out a time for us to to look at it in advance of our and then we can chunk it out so ahead of time can have targets so that people can be it's nice when everyone's prepared rather than just going willy-nilly so we can
map out I probably have the files oh I have files we don't have to do it that way but just to see how to map it out' be great has it out we've got a post
by by the seventh so we've got window which I I think a lot of the departmental budgets will go quicker than previous years based on our first do um yeah I
mean we're we're running at Bare Bones right so all right really all I on the capital planning P page 18 doesn't work for Jim you want more I'd like to get a little bit more uh understanding of the
why which usually comes from the from yeah so that you guys you have your whole rating system right and then you mark them a through right right A B C D and then one through eight and that's how they really kind of get and um and I
and I can audible obviously I did unfortunately um so uh I'll just give them those sheets of your rankings and we can you can have the whole sort of capital plan too I mean if if you need to see the projects themselves after you
see the rating because I'll get that to you right away um and what they again um how they ranked everything and what their conversation was to get to their conclusion and then I'll fill you in on
why I made Chang I made that's fine and knowing that we have a Committee Member on yeah that's great that's even better even better yeah so Jim were you actually looking for their rankings I mean already
submitted there change that were you looking for like when the department re arrested let's say a police cruiser for this or that what it was what type of vehicle it was and why they were asking for have a form that they usually fill
out for that I hate that was my question to you is I know we have those if you could send that to me they want it or not it's yeah well it'll open up to Rich already has seen it you have any interest
or I and yeah I was there as well I was part of I think the project sheet would be help no I was part of the uh Capital oh okay sometimes I do like to see the reasoning why um but as we have two
people here who know it um I'm sure you could I'm fine with verbal think last year none of us were on it uh that were on the financial oversight committee so we really didn't have any um oh yeah
right good point ask yeah okay all right we have all the information so if it's not a big deal I mean we can I got to send it to no I I'll take I'll go with the with the ratings and then we can ask we can ask about okay so that's all I have uh I think the
rest we can cover and Don and I will get together and we'll throw throw together some uh thoughts on for April 9th and also for the following meetings and uh get your feedback we'll get it posted and so it open up to any other items
that we should think about or bring up before at least the financial oversight Committee of the meeting adjourns just one thing regarding posting um because it ends up being a very fast you know we get on this track
and it's usually boom boom boom yeah you like the next day um so as far as input be on the lookout for something from us um respond and if you miss it you miss it we can always catch up the following and I always put that that little bottom
statement or jacket as I have to um that says that if we venture into something um you know we're we're well covered but uh and we try to write them fairly broadly like the topics so that we can
have some maneuverability that's like budget review one agenda budget review definitely be FY 2026 though that's true I'll entertain a motion to adjourn the financial
oversight committee meeting I'll move uh second uh any discussion hearing none all in favor please say I I I any opposed none heing is that meeting is adjourned