Please. Uh the time is now 6:00. I am calling the Halifax board of selectment meeting to order. It is Tuesday, March 31st, 2026. We are here in the great hall. Uh just a quick announcement. Oh, that's going to that's going to bug me. We got an echo. Uh, this meeting has
been posted in accordance with the provisions of Mass General Law, Chapter 38, Section 20B. And pursuant to chapter 38, section 20F, notice is being made that this meeting is being recorded and will be posted on Area 58, Community Access Channel. The board chair, which
is myself, reasonably anticipates the following matters will be discussed and or voted on at this meeting. Uh, and I do not anticipate taking anything out of order at this time. Before we get the meeting going, I'd like to start for those that can stand to do the pledge of allegiance, please.
>> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you very much.
So tonight, as you can see, we have our budget meeting this evening with our finance committee. Uh Jim, before you open up your meeting, we just have a couple of quick bills to pay off the top. So if you guys will bear with us, u we're going to uh have Mr. Smith take over. Actually, before we get started,
for those that might not know, quick uh introductions here. Pam McSherry is our admin assistant. myself, Jonathan Celig, Selectman Tom Pratt, Selectman Bill Smith, town administrator Steven Sbo. Uh, and we're just going to pay some warrants and commitments. So, Bill, if
you don't mind taking it away. I move to approve the following warrants and commitments. Vendor warrant number 91 for $583.33. Vendor warrant number 91 for 22 281,43862. Ambulance commitments 31626 to 3226
for 13,24480. >> Second. >> All those in favor? I >> opposed. Passes unanimous. >> All right. I will now hand it over to uh Mr. Jim Walters, our chair of our finance committee, who will open officially his meeting for the finance committee. >> Thank you, sir. So, we'll call to order
the meeting of the Halifax Finance Committee. Uh it is 3:31 of 2026. It is a joint meeting with the board of selectmen. All members of the finance committee are present. Cheryl Burke, Mike Bennett, Frank Johnston, EJ
Bryan, Mike Regetta, Rod Hemingway, and myself, Jim Walters. Thanks, Jim. So, what we're going to do tonight, folks, in a way, is to help uh get word out and help educate the public. We will be going over the the fiscal year 2027 budget. um finance committee, just for
those that don't know the process, they work, I think they're on month four or five now of pouring over our budget, meeting with town department heads, um coming up with ways to try to be creative with funding, with money savings. Uh and they work with the
departments. They're usually assigned different departments in town to come up with a budget. Uh they work closely with Steven and uh they bring that budget and present it to us at town meetings. So tonight, uh, in the essence of getting the word out, getting people as educated as possible, we have our presentation.
Stephen, you ready to take it away? >> I am. >> All right. So, Stephen has put together our budget presentation. I do plan on um allowing questions. If anybody has any questions about the budget, raise your hand. I'll acknowledge you. Um, and again, please come up to the podium
because if you yell it from the back, people can't hear you. This is being recorded. Um, so people might not hear your question of the great point that you have to make. So again, question, raise your hand. I'll acknowledge you to come up. Name and address and let it fly. Okay. Um, Stephen, anything did I
forget? >> Nope, I don't think so. >> All right, you're on you're on the show. Let's go. >> All right. First of all, thanks to the members of the Fincom, thanks to the members of the board of Selecmen. Thank you to the residents and department heads that showed up tonight. Um this presentation is mainly um to give you an idea of where the town stands
financially and the cuts that we have proposed in order to make us operate on a level funded budget compared to last year. Um we will go through department by department and this will show the ult ultimate changes. Um and then also this
is the same uh if anyone watched the fin meeting last night, this is the same presentation that was presented to them last night. So if you happen to watch that last night, you're just going to get a repeat of what that was for the most part. So I'll go ahead and get started here. Um the agenda basically throughout this is quickly to go over
financial overview. I'll first speak about the unaffected departments uh in proposed cuts. Then I'll move on to impacted departments, suggested override restorations and allocations, staffing notes on general government and pod potential additional impacts which hopefully will be dep uh provided by the
department heads that are in the room. they'll be able to give you a good idea of exactly what these mean these mean from an operational standpoint. So, first of all, if we look at this first item, um this shows you the expenditures for the town as proposed in
2027. And that bottom number is 31,543,000 and change. Um, and that's basically the total of the expenditures that the town has scheduled for next year when they were proposed.
Now, this is a line by line as we see it and work on daily here in town meeting. I mean town meeting in town hall. Um, this talks about the departments that are I got to move this screen down here. Hold on one second. So, um this shows the line by line
breakdown. Uh departments with no impacts, uh the town administrator and board of selectman, which is currently at minimum staffing level, it's myself and Pam, um that staff that entire department, which is also HR and legal as far as town council, as far as referencing town council and
communicating back and forth. The town clerk is currently also at minimum staffing levels. The conservation agent is staffed by an interm municipal agreement with the town of Bridgewater through June 30th, 2027. The board of health is currently under a minimum staffing level and also operates under a number of grants that would be
significantly impact with any cuts to their department. Uh the highway has been at minimum staffing levels and continues to have the same amount of staffing for the last decade or so. And the water with the water issues in town and a minimal staff of five employees total, that staff is also at minimum
levels. projected cuts across the board just in this building and in general government is $23,000. So now we're going to break down into further department level uh funding. If you look at the accountant's office, our town accountant is here tonight. Um she
has an assistant town accountant which is listed under the clerical position that has been cut back to halfime or part-time. Um, we are hoping that the implementation of Harper's payroll, which is going to happen in the next week, we will be kicking that off, will take off some of the operational
pressure in both the accountants's office and the treasures collector's office. So, we're we're banking on that software to help us with operational efficiency and I believe that will be able to make us navigate this potential change uh more readily and more easily.
I have experience with Harper's payroll from my experience in middle and on boarding it. So, it immensely helped down there. I expect the same results here in in Halifax. Um, moving on, uh, Lockbox is another option as far as another software that's also, uh, free.
And what this does is it takes the place of scanning bills and it makes it an easier process for the Treasury Collector's Office to process paper to process digital bills versus paper bills, which speeds up the process. Um, again, a lot of this is done through paper right now, which is about as slow
as you can do it. it takes an immense amount of time and that's where the efficiencies are being lost. So by um automating some of these services it will save time and efficiencies in those office and therefore allow staff to focus on other responsibilities. Moving on to information technology. Um
the wage line will remain unimpacted and then the expense line which was originally uh proposed at $218,324 will go to um $178,000 as proposed in this in this uh
iteration. So the savings there is about $40,324. Um the other thing that will happen with the IT department is we will do a comprehensive review of all software and hardware that is in the town right now. We are lacking that item as it stands
today. We need a full catalog of the licenses and um other softwares that are attached to all computer devices in the town so that we can appropriately figure out how much those cost and how much we're allocating towards those things. As we bring on new staff, those licenses are needed. So we need to know the
appropriate numbers of all those those pieces of equipment and licenses. Um moving on the assessor's office. So this will be the first uh time we see an actual loss of a position. So right now in the assessor's office there is a part-time
clerical role. Uh that position will be cut and we will be remaining with a principal assessor and an administrative assessor. Uh both operating a full-time. the clerical. I don't know the exact time, but maybe you guys can clue me in on when that was added to that
department. I know it was pretty recent. Um, but I don't have the exact date on that, but I know that was recent. So, again, it's a it was added operationally. We see some opportunity to efficient make that process more efficient. But again, the one cost here
would become window time. There would be a loss of window time to the general public. So if you have assessments to be done or abatements to be done, they'll be more scheduled and probably less readily available because that's just one of the natures of having one less clerical staff to assist with those
window operations specifically. Um moving on to zoning, building and planning. Currently right now in the building department, there are slated for two clerical positions. Right now one of those clerical positions is filled. That's the planning clerical
position. um that staff member will take over the responsibilities of the building administrative assistant and then basically be the the front line for that entire office across building zoning and planning. So it will require a little bit more work from the person
that is in that position now, but we've spoken it over internally and we believe that staff as it's in place now is capable of the change and the new building commissioner is contributing on all three of those items, building, zoning, and planning. So, cohesively
they're going to be able to make it work. It might be again going down to some appointment uh by appointment only situations and not available at all times. Um that's going to be the main loss you see at town hall is you're going to have to schedule more things by appointment only. We will have window hours and we will broadcast and for and
put them out there very um very vocally and very loudly once we figure out what those operational differences will be in the month of July if the override does not pass. But we have to wait and see on that because efficiencies will need to be addressed because there's legal compliance issues that need to be
addressed uh in every office in this in this building. >> Excuse me, Steve. Um as you're going, would you please um call out the approximate savings per department as we go, please? >> Yep. So, uh going back to the assessors,
uh the approximate savings is $38,455 with the loss of that position. um that individual has been in that position for I believe the amount of time needed to qualify for unemployment. So there will be a little bit of cost there associated with a layoff in that role. Um
in the building zoning and planning department we're looking at a approximate savings of $26,724. Um I left in a little bit of wiggle room because this is a union position. So, we will have to negotiate an MOU or MOA with the uh staff that remains in that
position because she will be taking on more responsibility. Moving on to the treasur collector's office. This is where you may see the most impact from uh availability. So, when you come to pay your bills, we're going to obviously rely uh hope that folks rely on the dropbox outside. It's
going to be less interaction at the windows um because this is office is responsible for uh a significant amount of compliance when it comes to finance. Um so they are in charge of uh payroll, billing, collection of taxes and money
handling. And the the plan here is to combine the assistant treasurer and assistant collectors into one role. Um the administrative assistant currently uh in this department would become a floater for uh potentially other seats that are available and also to assist
with windows being open more often when the opportunity arises. We could have a person that could float between treasur collector's office and other financial offices to make it more open to the public in that situation but is also capable of doing the behind-the-scenes accounting and finance work. uh we have
an individual that we've approached about that and they are capable and qualified to do that. Again, this is a union protected position. So, we will have to negotiate anou on that. Um and the approximate savings here before theou is $43,000.
Excuse me. Uh moving on to town buildings. So, this is town buildings in the terms of uh maintenance and facilities. uh the building department. Uh this was one of the departments, one of the few departments that actually lost staff last year. They cut a full-time role
into a part-time role. We are now actively not going to backfill that that part-time position. So, that's going to end up being a savings of $25,000. That position is currently unfilled. So, there'll be no other ramifications of eliminating that. What it will mean is
that town staff around this building, we will just have to take care of ourselves a little bit more, clean up after ourselves a little bit more. Um, we kind of already do that already. We live our trash out on Thursdays. That's part of the deal. We get it. So, we're just going to have to pick up the slack on our end.
Moving on to the police department. Um, so this this slide, it shows a multitude of things. It shows um the change in the amount of funding. So, the proposed ask for fiscal year 2027 was 1.9 or1,960,454
and that has been lowered. Uh, I asked Chief Benner, uh, Deputy Chief Benner and Chief Chavs to please do their best to eliminate $150,000 from their department and the list below is what they came up with. Uh, we do have some supplemental materials that are also on
the website that show the detailed cuts. I know Chief CHS and Deputy Chief Benner are here. Um, we may want to start taking questions because this is when the impacts really start feeling real. Um, there's going to be a significant impact to the police department as far as staffing, as far as um, their ability
to, you know, respond to things. Um, there's a lot of changes. So, if anyone has questions, Chief Chavs and Deputy Chief Benner are over here to answer those questions. Uh, I don't know if the board wants to open it up now or wait till the end. Why don't why don't somebody illuminate
what the chain cuts are and then maybe let >> Okay. >> I'll go through them really quickly. Um so as they're shown on this slide, uh the first item is uh police uh clerical OT wages. The request was
5,000. they're going to cut that $5,000. The recommendation was made um this was actually utilized for the number of public records requests that come into the department and that's what the administrative assistant uh is al one of the roles they're responsible for is responding to these requests. These
requests are often large in nature. They require a ton of our time um getting all the materials together and it requires a lot of man-hour to put these requests together for people. Um, so that we do highlight money for that specific
request and that those specific needs because that is outside the typical 40-hour work week or standard work week for an admin assistant in those departments. Um, we would also see a $25,000 reduction in the animal control officer contract, which would obviously
as it as it shows would be a significant uh difference in how animal control is done in the town of Halifax. uh full-time police uh police officer wages. Uh this is the school resource officer position. Um the request was
75,000 and that amount to be cut is 75,000. Uh that officer is responsible for the Halifax Elementary School. It's not only important to the school community, but the entire community in general, especially with the increased numbers of
the incidents we've had at schools. Um, this is a multi-purpose position that serves both the schools and the community at large. Um, moving on to wages. So, we had uh part-time wages, uh, FY27 request to 5,000. They're cutting that. Overtime wages, $250,000.
The amount to be cut is $4,000. Wages and unused sick buyback request was uh 20,521. That's the amount to be cut. Matron wages. Uh, so that's if we ever get a believe it's a female um
in custody and we need a female to in fact watch that person and be at the the police department, that's uh $1,500. That's to be cut. Uh some of these other line items are more geared towards expense, training, and maintenance. Uh
cruiser maintenance down $5,000 from the original request of 20,000. Police training down 2,000 from the original request of 12,000. and the expense line down $7,000 from the original request of $77,000.
And that brings you to the total number here of 1,810,433. Um, so that explains those. I know the chiefs can give you uh more detail if anyone has further questions on that. >> So Stephen, that total was 15021.
>> Yes. Okay. Any other follow-up questions, guys, for the Chiefs at all? Yeah. Come on down to the to the podium, please. You guys okay with that? >> Hi. Uh, Van Donley, 2011 Cranberry Drive. Any question I had on the the
police one is 250k in overtime. Are we better hiring another police officer for that than paying the 250 in overtime? Um, wouldn't that be more cost effective? I don't know what the cost of an individual officer is, but just
chief sh police department. So, uh it probably would be more prudent to hire somebody, but obviously uh we're not in that climate right now to be uh taking on staff when we're we're being asked to cut staff. >> Okay, I understand that. But I guess the
question I have is if the 200, if we could add a head, what would the cost of the head be to take over that overtime role that's in there now? If it's 250, could we take that 250 down to, I don't know, 50k in overtime and hire another police officer or less? >> Police officer probably 75,000.
>> 75,000 more less. >> Yeah. So you 100 versus 250. Just some idea that and I don't know how they do the overtime and cover that but just the idea that if we could hire another officer >> then maybe we help out there at the same time it would just reduce all the overtime put 50k in if you got to cover
a shift or something like that right >> and again don't have all the particulars but uh >> I'd rather see us more staff than to get rid of the overtime just idea okay >> thank you >> uh Steve where we getting this 250 number from >> that's what you said >> no no we understand that
>> it's from your supplemental materials that were provided. >> So, there's a $250,000 overtime line that's not in the budget sheet that we looked at last year. >> No, it's in police wages. >> So, yeah, it's a police wages and uh so
the last few years we have probably averaged uh between 260 and 280 on overtime. >> And you've cut back to 250 on the budget, >> right? >> In your line item of Yes. Overall wages, correct, chief?
>> 246 because >> 246. >> Right. >> Okay. >> Since you're up there, Chief, why don't we talk about what we did last night and explain what is involved with coverage in the town like we discussed last evening.
>> All right. So, I'll start off with with the the the whole thing with the the clerical wages, the overtime. Um, in addition to the uh records uh request, we're also being flooded with the body one camera footage. Um, so that's adding another uh layer to this whole records
request. So our kind of our recommendation or or put a pl a plan into place would be to probably uh minimize window time. So, um maybe uh on one of the days, like a Thursday, um
shut down the the lobby and um have her just work on on records requests uh in order for her to catch up. Um the acco uh Steve mentioned, uh we would be limited uh to our response. Um, one of
the solutions that uh we're uh throwing around is uh a regional um or utilizing Plimpmpton um for animal control uh responsibilities. They have an officer that's animal control certified. Uh we'd have to get into anou and that's why the
uh the number that was requested and the number that was cut is uh uh little less. So, we got about $600 to play with, which was what we figured we would be uh paying a stipen to the Plimpmpton officer when he when he has to respond
to Halifax. And obviously, their response would be just for major um incidents where we have a dog bite. Um we have a uh public safety um concern. It wouldn't be for uh you know, loose dogs uh running down uh uh city streets.
Those would have to, you know, just kind of resolve themselves on their own. Um, and then when when we can, obviously, uh, we'd be able to respond as well. But again, uh, we might be looking at having just two officers on on on staff, which leads me to the, uh, the, um, SRO
position. So, basically, the SRO would go back into the uh, uniform division. Um the recommendation would be since we have a retiring uh off sergeant uh in
September instead of laying off one of the officers is not uh fill that position. Um so we we would take the SRO put him in in uniform. Obviously we his presence wouldn't be at uh at the elementary school and he also doubles as
the court prosecutor. So it put another burden on us to be able to um go to court, sign complaints, prosecute cases, and also provide uh uh security at the school. Um
and uh with losing that position, there would I think I believe two out of four nights where um we would be working with just two officers on a midnight shift. Obviously, Chief Whidom is going to talk about his cuts. You could see a
potential of of the officers responding to a medical, having two officers there at the scene, the ambulance being out of town, and then the officers having to wait 10 15 minutes for another ambulance for uh to to respond. And then while they're, you know, working their medical, have another call for domestic
come in. Then obviously we'd have to go into uh mutual aid. I'm sure everybody's uh seeing the the news. Every department, every town in the area is in the same boat as we are. So, um, it wouldn't really be fair to kind of, uh, put that burden on on these communities
and they probably wouldn't have the staff in it as well to respond for mutual aid. So, um, you know, our department works best when we have three officers on duty, uh, a sergeant or an OIC and and two officers. That leaves, you know, um, two officers, two officers
to respond, one officer, um, you know, to, uh, keep patroll patrolling the town. If we have to do a booking and we have to um do fingerprints, two officers need need to do that. In addition to another burden that's being placed upon
uh the Plymouth County communities is that the sheriff's office um has uh been instructed to uh cut his budget and mass and he's done some layoffs to the uh Bureau of Criminal Investigation which uh handles uh photography, evidence
collection um things that uh our officers are not trained to do. So we rely heavily on the sheriff's office and obviously their response time uh would be very long uh because and then again they would only respond to major major things like uh crimes major crimes I I
should say not motor vehicle accidents take pictures and stuff like that. So again more burden would be on our officers. We'd have to get them trained up on evidence preservation. Um you know because if you screw up that evidence preservation the case goes to court case gets dropped. U we've all seen that in
the news recently. Um and then the other stuff uh the buyback the uh matron wages um cruiser maintenance maintenance uh just you know I'll have to you know do the best we can with what we have. Just
uh as a note my uh expense account of $70,000 has been the same since fiscal 2010. has been the police uh police department's expense account since 2010 has been $70,000. So,
um any questions? >> Chief, >> yes. I have a question. Uh can you speak to the about the court prosecutor uh position with the SRO? Uh if that's cut, then an officer who's on duty, they have to rotate out to go do that. Does that
leave would that leave one less officer available to patrol the town during those duties that are executed by the officer in that role? >> Correct. So, uh we have some a couple of other officers that that are trained in in the as court prosecutors and uh if if there's a a case that has got to go to
court or complaints that have to be signed, that officer has to travel to Plymouth. Um, and that leaves the town, you know, just with one officer or two officers, whoever that might be on patrol. >> Chief, um, I don't expect you to know off the cuff, but, um, the overtime
wages, walk me through what a typical overtime request looks like. Is that somebody calling out sick, covering a vacation? Is it, um, on the job, 8 hour shift, they stay late because the there's a happening on the shift, is it a combination of all of it? >> No, the majority of overtime is backfill. Okay. Okay. >> So, basically the officers are either e
either off on training um calling out sick vacation um um it's very very uh limited amount of like uh staying over for to for a case. Majority of it is is uh >> so it's not like it's not like an hour and 90 minutes here and there. It's a shift at a time.
>> It's a shift at a time. Yes. >> And each officer has to do 40 hours a year training. You have to pay them to go to training. Then you have to backfill the shift that they're on. >> All with $10,000. >> Yeah. That's >> they're mandated by training because they don't they don't have the train
they'll lose the certification work. >> Anything else for the chief? Let him sit down. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, chief. Oh, hold on. Yeah, your name's Jean Galant. >> Needs no introduction.
>> Yeah. um your jingle on cranberry drive your expense budget that you talked about that has stayed the same since 2000 just 2010. >> So what is your expense? Is that licensing or is that it's office supplies and then what else? >> It makes records for the license
licensing uh it stuff that the any of the paper goods for for uh you know for um >> because all that stuff goes up. >> Yeah. Right. Yeah. So, um, office supplies, um, uniforms because we're
mandated by the contractor to supply the officers with their first uniform. That's right off the bat like six grand when they first come on the job. Um, so any of the other general expenses, that's not including in uh, cruiser maintenance or uh, police uh, station
maintenance. >> Thank you, Chief. >> Appreciate it. All right, moving on. >> Are we taking comments from people online? >> Do we have an um >> I do have an I have an online comment here.
>> Got to be consistent. >> Yeah, I So So I will I'm going to I'm going to allow online comments. So if if somebody has a question, you have a question there, Stephen? Yes. Is >> there a name attached to it? >> Y.
>> No, it's just iPhone 5. >> Yeah, it's >> it's hard. I don't know if we can get into that because we could have folks from anywhere >> asking comments and we don't know if they're Halifax residents. We don't know if it's a bot from China. We don't know what we're dealing with. So, um, unless
it's it's a verified Halifax resident, I'd feel really hesitant about >> Say a name with an address. >> Sure. Yeah. For folks that are um live here, if you do want to get a comment uh or question, please include your name and address um so we know that it's
somebody from here in town. >> Go ahead. >> No, I just asked him. >> Oh. >> Um All right. So, the fire department, um Chief Wam is here to field questions, but uh basically the same uh situation
as the police department. Um right now we have slated they the proposed request for 2027 was u and mainly the impacted line here is the wage line and the chief will explain why that is uh 1,322,682 and I'm proposing a wage line of 1,182
thou82682 um which totals $1,700,254 the department uh the potential impacts uh with an override failure would be uh a delay in interior firefighting operations. Um, fire suppression efforts may be limited. No non-emergency
services. Property damage potential increases which can in fact impact your home insurance rates. Firefighter safety risk increases significantly. Increased overtime demands, no house lockout assistance, no vehicle lockout
assistance, no outside burning permits. And again, that last point of the potential increases in your resident insurance rates because when you don't have as safe as you should fire and police staff, your home insurance rates go up. So, this override probably hinges
on a little bit more than just the the town's finances. So, Chief, can you comment on not only how the ISO rating sort of impacts communities, but all those comments? >> Absolutely. Um, good evening everyone. Chief Mike with them. So to talk about
the ISO ratings, um you know, the ISO ratings will affect um just about everybody's homeowners insurance. Obviously, there's a set standard that you have to meet for an ISO rating. Um there's a list of things that you have to basically qualify for. uh the amount
of members that are on uh scene in a certain amount of time, pumping water for a certain amount of time, the amount of engines on scene. There's a there's a big list of things that you have to meet and obviously to qualify for different ratings on an ISO rating. I think currently right now we're at a five uh from 0 to 10 is what our rating is. If
it does drop because we won't have the manpower, um we won't be able to sustain pushing so much water in a certain period of time. Yes, the ISO rating could change. that will be significant uh impact towards the town because everyone's insurance uh residential and
business will will be affected by that. So from the cuts that I've had um I was asked to cut $140,000 from my budget. Uh that was my second cut. My first cut I think was about $8,000 or something like that. Um so in
doing so it came out of my part-time wages. Um, contractually the union has it in there that, you know, I can't lay anybody off from the union and have to obviously lay off my part-time members to pick apart $140,000 out of individual areas on my contract. It's just nearly
impossible. We're at basically minimum budgets now. Um, so my only option was to go with uh, you know, the overtime I mean the uh budgets for my part-time members. Currently, we run a threeman shift. Uh, it's a captain, another
firefighter. um who is a paramedic and then um a part-time member. So these cuts would impact us in the in the sense that I would be running two members. It would be a captain as a paramedic and then my next person would be um a paramedic and or an EMT. The captain may
be the only medic working, so he's going to be out of town anyways. Uh I would be able to staff one vehicle and that is it. So it's either going to be an ambulance or an engine where we run into problems, motor vehicle crashes, things like that. Yes, we have injuries, but the car could be on fire as well. What
do we do? Which one do we take? Um, it's it's going to affect a lot of things. I know Steve mentioned a lot of things as far as uh interior firefighting operations. Uh, NFPA standards basically states that we have two in two out. Uh, which means two firefighters in the building. I need two firefighters
outside that can go in and rescue them. Um, there'll be no search and rescue obviously until I have the staffing there. We'll be standing outside, you know, waiting for manpower to arrive before we can do interior operations, which means the fire extends and extends. Uh, obviously more fire damage
to someone's house, more property damage, more everything else they're going to lose. Um, you know, the fire suppression efforts themselves, you know, are going to be delayed just because of that. Uh, I would have no non-emergent services. You know, right now we we respond to everything. You
know, somebody calls we go. Um, it's kind of funny because we're the catch all. you know, when no one else knows what to do. Call a fire department. No matter what it is, the guys need to be trained in just about everything. Uh, from a cat in the tree to a, you know, person underwater, whatever the case may be, we go. Uh, no house lockouts, no car
lockouts. We don't know the staffing. Uh, there'll be no outside burning. Uh, be no school education. Uh, with two members, it's nearly impossible to cover the stuff we do now. Uh, you know, right now, when an ambulance goes out, it could be gone for 2 hours, it could be
gone for 3 hours. uh during that time while they're gone, we will have zero people here covering the town. You know, a lot of people have said, "Well, rely on mutual aid. Um the last time I made a presentation publicly, I got calls from five different chiefs and surrounding communities asking, "What are you doing? What's going on? Why are we down to two
members? It's going to affect all of us." And I said, "It is most definitely is." Our mutual lead agreements are reciprocal. We respond to them, they respond to us. So, in times of need, um, you know, we could have nothing going on in our community and you call for an ambulance, we are not available because
we're running mutual aid to assist them as well. Uh, I think that's going to be huge in the sense that everybody's going to be affected. All these surrounding towns are going to be the same way. They're going to be short staffed. Um, you know, they'll be taking things out of service. You know, they're going to be cutting their services as well. So when it comes down to it and we're
calling mutual aid, understand that if we make if we're calling Plimpmpton in and Plimpmpton's busy on something, we go to the next town. We may be calling Pemrook in. Penrook's busy. We're calling the next town in. What are the times? I couldn't tell you. Could be anywhere from 15 minutes to a half an
hour plus. I don't know. Um it's all going to depend on what's going on in the community. Now, keep in mind, you get a big fire in a community, keep everyone's going, right? So if there's a fire in Halifax, Pemro comes in, Hansen comes in, Plinton comes in, East Bridgewater comes in, all the surrounding communities come in to give us a hand because we need multiple
people on that scene. What happens to the rest of the communities? They have a fire outside and we're responding over there to give them a hand. There's nobody around. So where's your mutual aid coming from? Those are the those are the things you really need to think about. When we're tied up on a call and we're out of town or or uh whatever the
case may be, you know, we're relying on the police department. police department for any medicals. They respond and give us a hand at all times. We're running short-handed as it is with three. Um, so on every medical, not only do we respond, they respond. So they give us a hand. We work hand in hand at accident
scenes. There's times that we're directing traffic because they're busy and other things that are going on. We have a great relationship with the police department. We also depend and rely on them for a lot of things. So we're out of town for 2 hours plus or 3 hours or whatever the case may be. they're the ones responding to medicals
to stand by until that mutual aid ambulance comes there. So keep that in mind. Uh when we're dropping to two, we also have an ALS ambulance service that we provide for the community. You know, we may not have that ability. We may be down to two EMTs because that's all we
can fill. You have um situations where obviously injuries um you know, vacation time, comp time, sick time, everything like that. So, I try to maintain a minimum of one medic uh at all times and that may not be possible. So, there's a
lot that comes into play. You know, someone asked the question about overtime and everything else and I think Chief Gods didn't mention it, but what hurts us a lot is obviously injuries. Um, we can't predict injuries. So, the overtime budget try to fill for an injury can be extensive. Someone's out
for three or four months. I just had two people out, one was out for four months, one was out for 3 months. whole time. I'm paying them and I'm also paying to cover the shift. So, it's time and a half. It's not like we can't fill the shift. We're already short staffed. I have to fill it. Um, the other thing that comes into play is FMLA. So, if
somebody's out on FMLA, it could be gone for 12 weeks. That is not predictable and it's not in my budget. And at one time I had four people out on FMLA. So, that's 12 that's 12 uh weeks for each person that I'm paying for. That's not accounted for in our budgets. So you
talk about overtime, those are one of the concerns, you know, with overtime as well. So, um, I don't know what else I can say, but there's significant cuts that are going to be here and we'll be sure that just a couple things. I mean, I could I could certainly speak to the ISO rating impacting insurance premiums.
We see that a lot in my line of work. Not counting the new construction in town, um, which is obviously going to place an increased burden with more residential units, you know, that you serve. Any idea how often or how frequent you respond to the new, uh, urgent care?
>> Uh, I don't have the exact numbers. Um, probably we've been there probably 30 to 40 times already. Uh, that can go up depending on obviously they're a new business in town. Originally for the first couple of weeks that nobody even knew they were open. um now that they're getting used to having that you know facility there you know we're gaining
more and more um business >> and that's an example of two or three hours outside of the office if it's a transport correct for multiple people >> so each transport like I said is you know um can be anywhere from two to three hours depending on what's going on there are times hospital and other hospitals not just social but all the
hospitals to Brocken hospital uh vi Plymouth you walk in there and it's completely jammed uh we're standing on the wall holding up the wall for 2 hours and it happens more frequently uh then then you know about um but you know the whole time our ambulance is sitting up there and we have no coverage back here. You know every time the ambulance goes
out I do a recall try to get people back to cover the station. So it's kind of a double-edged sword. Yes, it's great when I have people back. Um and now I have coverage. I can send the am second ambulance out. But on the other side of it is the more times we call back the more money I'm paying out in overtime,
you know. So, >> and obviously there's no there's no way to predict anything and I wouldn't imagine you would want to guess at it, but like I said, with an with an increasingly aging population, more residential units, the the urgent care becoming more familiar with the community and surrounding areas, that's not going to slow down. >> It's not going to slow down, >> right? Okay.
>> I I came from a community before this that had three or four um walk-in clinics and we were there every day. I can tell you we were there every day. We were there multiple times a day. Um just because, you know, after a period of time, people get used to going there. It's easier to go to a walk-in clinic than it is to go to a hospital. It's
faster. It's more convenient. So, you know, the more people get familiar with this operation that's down here, the busier it's going to be. >> Thank you, >> Chief. What What percentage of ambulance calls are life-threatening?
>> Um, off the top of my head, I mean, obviously every everyone can be life-threatening depending on what it is. um you know the broken ankle this that and the other thing could turn into whatever. Um but I I would say the majority of the calls are basically ALS
calls. We do have BLS calls as well meaning advanced life support versus basic life support but the majority of the calls that are going out right now are pretty much ALS calls. They're advanced life advanced life support calls. And I would say you know out of our runs I would say 90% of our calls
are our ambulance service at some point. So the point I was trying to make is when people call the ambulance, they want the ambulance. >> Yes. Absolutely. >> They they don't want to wait and wait and wait and wait and they see their family member that's could be dying and no one's coming.
>> It's people got to realize this is serious. This is not a joke. I mean it's going to happen. >> So last year alone uh I think I had 500 and I said the numbers the other night. It was 530 or 540 multiple incidents at the same time. meaning um you know we
had one call, I had a second call, I had a third call, I had a fourth call, whatever it may be. There was 500 and something incidents where we had multiple calls going on at the same time. So there were times that we were tied up and PD would respond to the second medical and standby, you know, while we had more members coming in or
we had a mutual aid ambulance coming in or whatever the case may be. I think that's going to be more and more because we lack lacking staffing because right now I can split my my workforce basically if we have three members working two guys on the ambulance can stay at that medical if it's stable if
the patient's stable the scene is stable everything else the captain can jump in the car come back at the other ambulance and go to another call we won't have that ability anymore >> any other questions yeah come on down Mary Graan East 98 Clydeo Bosworth Road. Do we have any call or volunteer
firefighters that we that are not on staff that we only call for urgent things? I know we have several firefighters and EMTs in our town. So, I didn't know if we have that program in place where they're not employees, but they're call firefighters. >> So, basically, we have call members are
parttime members. So, we have a union uh we have 10 full-time union members and we have part-time members. So, the part-time members fill the shifts for me, but just specifically people coming back um as a call volunteer. No, we don't have anything like a volunteer.
>> Don't a lot of towns have that? >> Um to save money. It's not an overtime because it's just a flat amount. >> Yeah. The problem is they have to be certified. So, I see where you're going with that. The uh the difficulty we have even hiring here is a >> they have to be EMT certified
>> because we have the ambulance obviously so and b they have to be firefighter one2 certified so you know this >> well I have several in my neighborhood that's why I was just wondering like I know >> to be 5412 certified we have to sponsor somebody to go to the academy it's $240 we have zero funding to send you uh very
difficult to put somebody through an academy class get on their own dime >> right but if they're certified in another town, if they're a full-time firefighter in another town and they want to be on a list where they can if there's an emergency, they can get called out and just get paid of whatever the flat rate is or whatever. Do we have
that program in town? >> We do. They're part time. So, I have members that work other communities right now. Uh they work part time for us. So, they do work shifts. They work part-time for us. If there's an emergency and we do a a call back, meaning everyone's out, we do a a recall to call members in. Those are the
members that can call. >> But they have to work a shift in town. They can't just be they have to work. Should we explore the opportunity of maybe just having calls instead of having people that are part-time because no one can probably work a part-time and a full-time and then be on call. >> The problem with that is we're not committing to working shifts and
everything else. Uh to outfit them alone at $6,000 for a year. Uh buy them a radio, which is about 6,000 bucks for a radio. Um you know what I mean? So the benefit is to have them in place. And I do have members that don't work chips that just recall and that's all they do,
but they've been here a while. They're extremely well trained because they're in other communities. Uh but I'm not hiring anything new to do that because the benefit, like I said, so much of a loss between buying gear and uniforms. Um I'm probably 13 to $14,000 into one
person before I get an account. And if they're only doing call back and I see them once a month or every three months, financially I can't do it. Okay. >> Uh yeah. Uh Deb Winnowitz. Um Chief, if God
forbid Halifax has a structure fire, uh about how long are you tied up for that? >> Depends the extent of the fire, the size of the building. Uh but on a minimum, I would say minimum minimum you're going to be is four hours. You know what I
mean? Most of the time it's a lot longer than that, but depending on what it is, if it's a one room fire, you can knock down pretty quick. Um, it also has to do with investigations, whether I can do the investigation to the office investigator or I need to say police to come in and do the investigation. Um, things like
that. So, it does vary on each situation, but to answer your question, a minimum would be there for probably four hours. >> For four hours and a lot of times for that, mutual aid would come in as you said. >> Yes, absolutely. Um but they also would
come in to cover station correct >> for a second call, third call and that would probably go away because they're in the same >> it can discussions I I have a chief meeting tomorrow. There's been discussions with a lot of chiefs that a
they're not getting the call back that they used to because people you know obviously getting different jobs um rely relying on call back. It's just not what it used to be. Um we we're offering more assistance to other communities as well. I mean
collaboratively the chiefs are saying okay if we have anything automatically stop because with such you know everybody's so sureanded now. So that is already in place. Um do I think it's going to get worse? I do. >> Yeah to answer your question. >> Thank you. Um, and just real quick to
the police chief, uh, the majority of calls that officers respond to today for not only their safety, but the safety of where they're going require both of them to respond. >> Yes. So this is a a best practice right
now uh study that was authored by the uh FBI uh that they recommend two officers uh for most most calls that that and that's one of the reasons why when we started this whole process I told Fincom that if you know cuts would have had to
be made even deeper than they are right now. I was seriously thinking about shutting down the station at midnight because I'm not going to have one officer by himself on a midnight shift. God forbid uh you know when you have Clinton with two officers, Hansen with two officers, East Bridgewwater maybe
with three officers. Um and obviously they're you know some of some of them are busier than ours. So that's the one of the other things I was looking at if we had to. >> And just one more quick thing um for the police chief same time type of question. You have a very serious motor vehicle
accident fatality type of thing. How long are you tied up on that? Well, if it's fatality, probably the entire shift because we have we have to bring in the uh action recon team from the state police. Um evidence preservation. Um so you're looking at 6 to 8 hours uh you
know probably holding off holding the uh next shift over um to answer calls and stuff like that. >> Thank you. >> Thanks. Uh thanks Van Donley 2011 Cranberry Drive. It's more of an educational purpose a little bit for me here too. But um we talked about maybe you know
there could be a chance for running sometimes where we had four accidents and they don't we don't know whether that's going to happen or not but they're tied up about 12 weeks uh I mean uh 12 weeks 48 weeks total almost a full year at overtime rates. So I guess what I'm saying again on this are we pinching
ourselves by not putting on extra fire and a cop in these situations we talked about right and bringing down all that overtime and having that extra flexibility in the departments if they needed it. It seems like we're I mean we're all trying to you know hold off on them to save money but costing us more
on other stuff that we're looking at here and if we can move down all the overtime rates you could probably get these two on board. you cover anybody with an action to floater, but you have a a floater in the department or whatever that could cover what they got to cover, then you wouldn't have to you wouldn't have to worry about that.
>> You wouldn't be able to do that on union jobs. >> You don't do what? You hire a union guy. >> You can't have a Florida like that. >> You can't hire a union guy. >> You have to the union. >> No, that's what I'm just said. You can hire union, >> right? But they wouldn't be able to be a flo like that. >> Why not? >> Because they bid their shifts. >> They bid their shifts
>> according to contract. Yep. >> So, okay. And I think it's something we need to look at. If we want to hire an extra union firefighter or whatever to come on, why couldn't we use them, you know, in the station or whatever it is and and fill in when somebody's out. I think you need to look at something like that cuz that kind of don't make any
sense. You want to hire more union firefighters to cover when the other fires are hurt. So, is it just we're looking at overtime here or do we need to have the position here that's available to the town for other stuff and bring down the overtime rates at the same time? I think if you look at the
police and the fire this way and you look at the re look at these costs, you're going to find out it's going to be cheaper. You what you're trying to do to make up for this and talk to the unions, right? So, you want to hire another union firefighter, but um we need some flexibility from the union in order to allow us to hire the other
person to do that. Other than that, it doesn't make any sense from a from a a resident's perspective. I want to hire more union firefighters or union cop, whatever it is. you need to have some flexibility with us to make that happen is all we're asking. Otherwise, it looks like all we want is the overtime and we
don't want to protect the town and hire the other firefighter. So, I I would say from my perspective, we look at something like this because we're going to get more coverage in both places, right? And we're going to take care of hiring more people on a union rate or whatever and give the chief the ability
to fill out a shift if he needed it in the department. So, that was one question I had for that. Right. >> Can I just Can I just address that, Ben? >> Sure. more people you hire. I was in public safety for 38 years. You're never going to bring that overtime cost down because it involves training, more training, filling shifts when they're
out. It just snowballs. It you can hire five people, but that's still going to increase. >> Yeah. And I was just going to double up on that. Thanks a good point. I just I wonder I think the chiefs and the staffs would agree that more, you know, hiring more people would be great, >> but does the percentage of overtime is that offset by the wages? >> That's what I'm saying.
>> Yeah. But I I have a hard time believing that it would be offset. I mean, you hired three officers at 75,000. Is does that bring down percentage-wise or is the overtime just extrapolated by that extra employee? >> Well, if you're covering like 48 weeks, it's almost 52 in a year and you're paying overtime for the 48 weeks, right, for those shifts.
>> Yeah, but there's but there's more training involved for the new employee. There's there's onboarding. >> I'm not sure. I'm not sure it's offense when you bring them on. Now, having been a police officer for 10 years and ran, right? I got a little history. I went on as a special police officer way back went to academy training some of that
stuff, right? but was available. They call me in when you call up, you got a shift, you took it, right? >> So, I mean, I I understand how that works a little bit. Okay. But, um I think on on uh and again, I don't have the breakdown of all those numbers to, you know, to tell you what it's right or wrong. All I'm saying to me is if you're
looking at it straight out and if you want to give the chief more flexibility, we should look at those numbers and talk to the union and say, "We want to hire another union firefighter, but we'd like to use them in this capacity and uh and see what they say." To me, it's doesn't take much math to figure if you lost 48
weeks at time and a half, you probably covered a firefighter. Uh, and you can use them for other stuff that's in there. And I don't have the overtime rates, but I'm just And that's just for that one instance. And then you got them in there if you need them for something else if something else happens, right? So, that's just one thing I'm throwing
out. And uh, another issue was we talked about like 30 40 times going down to the the urgent care center, right? And everybody needs a one thing everybody wants, right? Let me question. Do we get paid the town at all for responding to those requests from the insurance company? Do they pay the town?
>> We do, but it's it's uh depending on what the call is. It's ALS, BLS is different uh rates and Medicare, Medicaid. >> Okay. Just trying to So maybe that isn't I don't know if that's a it's a win for the town or a loss. I don't know. >> Isn't Medicare is about a 30% 33% rate?
Correct. >> It's a significant cut when you start talking about Medicare Medicaid. Um, our run is roughly about $2,600 an insurance paid. Um, but Media, we may collect
400 bucks. >> Does it cover our cost? I guess >> it covers our cost. >> It's, believe me, it's not a uh >> I'm not saying you're making the money, but it covers the cost. >> Yeah. >> A lot of write off. Uh, I hate to say that word. You know, we I've looked at different ways to
change things since I've been here. I've changed the rates. off the reach every year. Um, you know, we are starting to send things to collections where we never before. >> Um, so I think there's a a different way we're looking at trying to collect every possible dime. Yeah. >> That's never been done in the past. Um,
so if >> I was just wondering if when we put them on with the planning board of the town whether we looked at what the impact would be and do we charge them for this or we make enough to cover that cost. I didn't have any. But it sounds like they're pulling you from the station. >> No. Yeah. >> Which is which is really the problem, right? not the cost.
>> Well, to add to add to what you're saying to add to what you're saying is, you know, um you're absolutely right. We do we do get funding that comes in, but you know, it can be very minimal depending on what, you know, what we have going on, whether it's an ALS or BLS call,
whether it's Medicare, Medicaid, they're all different rates. The billing company takes care of that and it's a set rate no matter what the call is. to add to that is when we don't have the staffing like y'all saying y >> every time someone comes in mutual aid they collect the money. So we had about a hundred runs last year where we called
in mutual aid which that's about $240 something thousand potentially that we could build that's billable now that's not what we collect but I'm just saying throwing numbers out there. So yeah there's pros and cons both ways. >> Yeah. All I'm saying is maybe an analyst we look at to say whether okay is it a break even scenario for the town which
is fine right it's just not adding to us or is this something we got to do to to look at that but I still think if you look at all of this and you leave the chap's teeth I I really think you got an opportunity to look at if you hired another union firefighter >> and try to work something out to do that
and I don't know what that does to you know better than me >> if I may answer that um >> but for the town and for the union you think it would be a better deal >> yeah if I may answer that. Um I I fully agree what you're saying and I believe me I support as many members I can get.
Uh but I think there's a lot of hidden costs there that we're not looking at. Obviously >> there's a lot of one time cost you hit. Right. >> So up front like I said it's about $6,500. Now it's uniforms. So that's another $12 $1,500 just in uniforms right off the bat before they do anything. U the
insurance cost. So there's a lot of other costs that are hidden there. I mean, my overtime wages alone, like they said, it's not really going to reduce it. My overtime wages, last year, town approved $179,000. 200 FY25, I spent $216,000.
FY24, I spent $27,000. FY23, I spent $188,000. >> Yeah. >> I'm already upside down before my budget even starts. >> Yeah. So without breaking that down and again I can't do it here but without breaking that those numbers down my only question to that was is that u just a
quick thing was 12 four people out you know 12 weeks each 48 weeks pretty much no-brainer when you look at homes for four years because you're paying somebody over time to take those shifts right that's got the cover cop looking I mean the fire look at anything else I'm just saying something you should look at
because it would give you extra protection in the town for anything that happens at the same time you know He's getting additional resources and yes, there's not as much overtime, but uh it might be a worthy endeavor to do that. That's all. >> Thank you.
>> Anybody else or you chiefs, I guess? >> Yeah. Mike, come on up. >> Good evening, Michael Schad. >> Um I had a question for the chief. these these are proposed uh adjustments. Is it going to affect
you hard or is it minor or how how bad is it going to affect you by these proposals as far as public safety for the residents? >> I mean I mean you cut and you cut I mean what point do you get where it's
>> obviously any we get is significant because we offer the town services. So we offer ALS uh services with our ambulance. We offer fire service. Um, you know, when I can only staff one vehicle at a time and I can't do anything beyond that, you know, that's a
significant because we're talking about somebody that may not be breathing a car crash that we're going to or people that are injured. Um, I'm not going to say people are going to die because of this. They can they might, but I'm not going to I can't bring that up and say that's definitely going to happen because I have no idea. I don't know when I can't
predict a fire. I can't predict a car accident. I can't predict you know medical things like that. Um what I can say for the fire department I can speak clearly and say yes it's going to be sign significant when people call and we're not available and we can't respond and you can't be there for 15 to 20 minutes. Do you think that's
significant? I would, you know what I mean? Especially if it's you're the one that's having the medical, whether it be a heart attack or what I would say at the level you're at now, the new level that proposed between 2020, is it
like how significant is it like 80? So it's increasing the risk that you're not going to be able to get there. >> Provide services that you can provide. Um, you know, obviously our first ambulance is going to go up with normal. Uh, we respond as quick as we can, get to the, uh, the incident and figure out
what we need to do. And if we need help, we call that help until later KPD. But that second, third call, uh, that large fire, that motor vehicle crash. Um, >> a small fire, honestly. >> Yeah. The boat rescues, the water
rescues, the everything else that we respond to. um think about trying to take care of these two people in the same town. Are they in the same boat? They're all in the same boat.
>> So So that's even going to get harder to get people. >> Yes. Usually just the same as they call us. So thank I one more question. I said the fire. So you put revenue from the fire.
It doesn't. So you're saying that's going to be fireing. You're saying because right now, you know, I'm more than happy to get you to notice. Um, you know, this
just confirm I know people, you know, obviously enjoy the stuff with the whether they're doing it illegally or illegally, but um yes, if we don't have the manpower and I'm going to make things unsafe in my community or this
community, then no. Um has it generally been unsafe for peritted fires? Obviously, you're going to have fire. >> Um is it the permitting a problem or is it what do you mean?
So, it's a permanent generally follow What's the most regulate burning? Um, state regulate burning. So, they tell you when when we can burn, when we can't burn, whe the winds are too high or the conditions are too dry. You know, I think this year we're going to face a lot a lot of
drought. We're going to get an email saying that there's going to be a significant year like end of last year. We just wanted to, you know, respond to obviously graders. Uh, I think we're going to end up with the same situation. Um, you know, at one point we even called out five because
it's too too dry. Um, so I think we're going to run into that situation again. And yes, I just want not too if you take out the builder earlier, I got a highway guy down there once a month doing chipping or they drive around chipping. You're
going to multiply that chipping. There's a lot of yards with a lot of trees in this town and the best way to get rid of it is own backyard. You know, there's not really a lot of cost for anybody getting permit. If you could take that away, the $25 out of the revenue, it
kind of seems nonsensical. Um, if you would I don't know if this is in stone. Is this all these budgets and what we're seeing here is this in stone? >> It's the right pass. >> It's to be presented. Yeah. >> Beyond voting for it. You guys are kind
of like this is what we're doing. We're telling you why we're doing it and it's going to stay right here unless >> So this is the planned presentation, Mike. Um but but our budget and that's a good point. Our budget doesn't become final until the residents vote on the
budget at town meeting floor. So >> so right now it's in stone until we get to town meeting whatever proposing >> whatever whatever the residents of Halifax vote at town meeting is what the budget will be. >> I'm just I think it's going to add on a
little problem by not having permits. We're getting rid of the stuff. We have storms. You have a nice re you're going to have highway. There they slow staff too. I don't I think burning is a good way. I don't try to put my any sticks out on highway. I try to get rid of my property. Well, my name is
and I supposed to do I think I >> um chiefs you had mentioned the reason part of the rash chief. Yeah. Thank you. part of the reason and the rationale for the the cut of the open no open burn
permits is because you wouldn't be staffing us in case a fire got out of control. >> I fully see his point. The other side of it is we're not going to have the ambulance staff either where we're giving $2,600 for $25. Um if we don't have the members to respond to something
then not going to make a dangerous situation out of something that we shouldn't be. um you know two members you know at the station I'd rather have them there for medical than have to respond for an you know shouldn't be responding to
what would help that to keep the $45 or the fee understand I can say is that as my budget >> I'm doing so >> and in doing so I have to cut It's sort of like going grocery shopping. You have
$200 a week to go grocery shopping. Now you have 100 and only staff like you know unfortunately if the burning premise is one of those things that must go. >> Yeah. >> Appreciate it Mike. And then Ted you did
you have anything else? Yeah. So, just with the um response time, so back in 2014, right around there, the fire department didn't have as many members. We're pretty much running with um two. So,
you asked also about significant calls. So, went back and just looked through a few of the uh calls. Person not breathing. Um no firefighters in town. Please respond for 15 minutes before any mutual aid shows up. So that's CBI
province. >> Um time >> so again to to go back to that Ted. So you're saying because when we had two >> they were being used. You guys were there for 15 minutes >> before we were able to get >> mutually ambulance in
>> from another ambulance from another community. >> No, it does not. >> No, but one time is scary enough. >> Yeah, one time is enough. >> Yeah. Um, another call with fire. They had a uh juvenile that was um having some serious
issues. Uh, they weren't able to get a driver back for the fire department. So, police officers had to drive. The ambulance was out of town for 2 hours and 6 minutes. And the officer was also
out of town, leaving just one officer. Does this happen all the time? No, it does not. Does it happen? Yes, it does. >> Um then the last one for the fire department. Um they asked
for another medic. Um everyone was in the same boat. So Hansen at the time did not have another medic available. They were trying to meet up with one. They left um Halifax. Penro did not have another medic available. So they were finally able to
catch up with a medic in out of Whitman fire. So from when they requested that extra medic to when they actually got a medic on board the ambulance was 20 minutes. That's just some uh real time data with the staff that we'd be looking
at. >> Thank you. That that paints the picture, Ted. Thank you. So, so would you consider that >> harsh or I mean you've been for years >> what I mean can you
>> there is no you can't what if public safety at all you could get through it completely unscathed or we could slam >> absolutely get slammed >> thank you >> ju Mike just to >> just to keep things going. You're
bringing up a lot of good questions. >> Just one minute. >> Yeah. >> Oh, I was just going to say >> okay, do we still get BSI in here or now you have to have a state police command? So, >> BCI BCI >> has
supposedly going to keep two units on. So, we don't know what the response is going to be from uh be from them. But I spoken with the um state police. They can't send anyone out. They were looking at it. It may be so if you had a B&E and
you needed the fingerprints dusted, DCI will respond out for that. If they're not available, the state police said that they would probably put a monetary money amount on it. So if under $5,000, they're not going to come out. >> So they're the ones that come out and
crime scenes on a motorcycle crashes. They do all the measure all that state police and they're us same with the uh environmental police. Did they get a help and does that affect
you know like the lakes around here or any of that policing? >> I don't know about >> I know that and Ted real quick. >> Yeah. >> Explain how many communities two units of BCI would be covering. uh call from
the county. >> Excuse me. >> Well, yeah, but how many communities is that? Like 26 >> 27 communities. >> 27 communities for two units. And if they're on two calls already, we're not getting it. >> Right. This is what people need to understand. the impacts that we're
asking you, the police department, and the fire department to make at the expense of budget cuts and the impact it's going to have on the residential, commercial, and industrial members of this community is significant.
>> Are there a lot of instances or types of calls where you have to stay on scene until So we have to stay on any call that they call >> so that would also hinder people from
being used. So every arrest we make um every arrest that uh we we have in Halifax, BCI gets called. They do the processing, they fingerprinting, photography. Um major
accidents, even sometimes minor accidents, we'll bring BCI in just to have the the the photos. Um the um like if we have we're doing an investigation with the cell phones are being used, they have they have a uh
it's called the heat lab. So they basically process the phone. Uh if if they're not available, they meet state police. We we'll get the phone back maybe in a year or two. Um so it just seems just is constantly uh utilizing the services. >> All right. I do want to I do want to
move on guys to >> All right. One one last one, Mike, just because we got a lot of people here to ask questions. >> Yeah. >> We're not just our own. We see all the files in the surrounding town. population around us.
We might not be there. >> Good point. >> Yep. >> Uh, anything else before we move on? >> There's someone online. >> Do we have a we have an online question? >> No, it was still the same iPhone 5. So, >> okay.
>> Until we get clarification on. >> Yeah, we'll need a we'll need an ID. >> You said it was an iPhone 5. >> Yeah, that's what the name >> that's what the name was. >> Okay. Hey, hey, we don't phone shame here. We don't phone shame. I'm not going to stand for phone shaming there,
Frank. >> That's exact. >> That's right. >> All right. >> So, can we uh we'll reel it back in now. So, that was police, that was fire. Uh Stephen, I want you to go on to the next department. >> Yeah. I just wanted um to bring
everyone's attention to the bottom there. So the total cuts for public safety is $290,21. >> All right. So now moving on to the school department. Um so this slide shows the overall costs of the entire school line. Um as we see it in the sheet that we develop as part
of our budget. Um the outstanding number here is the net school spending number. As you can see, we've budgeted I've budgeted $6,931,771. And this has been after a careful review with Lindsay and the town's assistant, uh, not assistant, but accounting
consultant. Um, we could, we spoke with him, I believe it was about a week and a half ago now, maybe two weeks. Um and we did find a uh formula sheet that helped us associate the cost that the town provides to the schools on top of
everything else um in order to meet the number that is net school spending. So the DESIE sets a number that is set at the beginning of the year. Now, the numbers we're actually breaking down right now are fiscal 25 actuals or yeah,
yeah, fiscal 25 actuals that are impacting our fiscal 27 or no 2025 calendars that are impacting 2027's net school spending number. So, that's how it's all determined. Um the spreadsheet
alluded to us that we have about $250 to $300,000 buffer between that number of 6,931,771 and the net the absolute minimum net school spending that we could contribute from the town side. >> Steve, for the public, in case not
everyone knows what net school spending means, can you give a quick elevator pitch for what that is? >> I can talk about as far as what my understanding of it is. Um, so net school spending is a number that is determined by Desi. Uh, it's done at the beginning of the school year. I believe
the number for Halifax was 8,96,000 and change. Um so that means that's the that's the net minimum number that the the DESIE wants you you have to spend otherwise you end up in a situation
where DESIE will come down with DOR and then there's a a phase where they will set your tax rate for you if you do not meet that spending. Now that being said we will not know what the net school spending actual number is until this time next year for this year. So that's
it adds a different layer. So overall, I mean, the formula and the way the state administers this formula is very difficult and complex. Um, that being said, it's a net school spending number. So the town is expected to spend that amount total. Now, there are
contributions that the town makes. There's a list of A through M that qualify for net school spending. I don't have that exact list, but the way the breakdown goes, it considers things um like staff positions here in town hall that contribute a certain percentage of
whether it's their um their salary counts towards this net school spending. So, what I'm saying is you take the 8,96,000 number and each number that we can take from the town government, we can take off of that 8 million 96 and lower it and that's the actual contribution that
the town has to make in order to meet that minimum number. See what I'm saying? Everybody understand that? >> Um, so when me and Lindsay did that work and then referenced that work with our town cons our consultant, uh, he said that we should have plenty of room to
navigate. And again, we are not 100% firm on where this number is because this form came to us, this spreadsheet which has been in existence with the town for a number of years once net school spending was developed. We are not 100% familiar with it, but we ran it the same way that last year's town
administrator did. And we came up with a number that is is what we proposed this number off of to at least give ourselves some buffer in the event that we are short because we do not want to find ourselves in a situation where we're having to take free cash or other
funding this time next year to apply to a gap that we misappropriated or miscalculated. So, we're trying to leave them that conservative number. So, that number is $6,931,771 in addition to the other line items there as you see the vocational
education, uh, special needs tuition, special needs transportation, the Silver Lake assessment number, and then the debt exclusion, which is, uh, ongoing debt for building maintenance or I believe it's HVAC, but it's a debt exclusion, so it should fall off, um,
eventually here in the next year or two. And the approximate savings here is again $800,000. So any questions here? >> Sure. >> Again, Van Donley, 2011 Cranberry Drive.
Just some quick questions on the school budget. The total number the state's given us, I guess, that we got to meet in spending for the school. Is that per pupil? Is that assessed or is it just a lump sum they tell you you got to meet? What's the guideline for that? >> The way I calculated this budget was
with the lump sums, the assessment numbers they told us to meet. >> They told you meet. You don't know how we got that right. I mean, I'm assuming it's got to be some kind of pupil spending assessment or something. >> Yeah, it's a state formula. >> There's a formula formula formula. >> Okay. That that comes up with that. All right. So they're telling us what we got
to meet. The question is has the and if you look all over the states, we're all having this problem, right? >> You know, the governor spending our money on her toys and basically telling the towns, you got to pick up the tax at the bottom. So, and this is happening all over the state right now. And uh and we got no audit. So, all this stuff's
going on at the top level and uh we have to deal with it here. Uh which to me is unbelievable. But um at the same time, you know, you got to take care of the kids and the students, and I get that. Um but, uh again, uh just to get in the
number, it'd be nice to know what that formula actually translated into the gun. Maybe it's someplace on the website or something I can find it. I don't know. >> We've tried. I mean, that's what we've been sitting with. It's the spreadsheet that was created. >> Um and we know that even the spreadsheet we've been utilizing isn't 100% correct.
So I'm not I'm not really comfortable. I'm pretty comfortable giving this number. >> Yeah. >> But again, I don't know the 100% background >> transparency wise, not so good here. >> Yeah. Number we got a hit >> based on some formula they came up with.
Okay. So uh to me >> uh Jesus everything in Beacon Hill just drives me bonkers. But um you know it's uh it transparency I think to the town is a good thing because are we having to spend up to that to meet it and we're having to put other salaries on it to meet that. If that's the case it doesn't
make sense is it you know uh so they so the way it's broken down is this sheet kind of shows the spreadsheet in general. >> Yeah. >> And it's got you know a component of my salary that goes towards the schools and then there's a component of maintenance. there's a component of the treasures um
and then all teachers uh health insurance cost is also taken off that number. So there's there's so many things that um legally qualify for A through M. I mean there's that many letters that qualify for that. So >> I feel like I'm comfortable with the
number but again I don't know I don't want to make any comments because I'm not a financial expert on this. >> We'd be worse off if you had to take away from being able to cover some of the town to still meet that number. Right. >> Yes. So, uh, I get that. Um, it just I I guess for transparency purpose, it would
nice to know how they come calculate their numbers. I'm thinking it's got to be some kind of pupil ratio or something. But, um, anyway, that's just what I wanted to know on that piece. So, I appreciate you guys time. Thanks. >> You're welcome. Thank you. >> Any other questions? Yeah, Mel, come on
down. >> Mel Conroy on Road. Uh, has the school committee voted this number yet? >> Uh, they voted their number yet. >> Is it in conjunction with this number? >> No. No, >> it is not. >> Um, speaking to clarity, can you present
the number that they voted? >> Do you have that number, Stephen? >> Lindsay, what was that? That was uh 8 million >> 8,100,000. 8,157 >> 387
>> 8,157,387. >> Yes. Can you speak to that? Do you mind like explaining where you guys got that number? I mean honestly I think we about 56,000 over the net school spending and it allows us to keep the school as as an addict and we've cut the school budget
the four years that I've been here. We don't really have any room for cutting without them losing issues. We really don't have to cut our so far away.
>> Hold on Jonathan. >> Yeah. You know what it is, guys? People aren't gonna hear this. >> So, Jess, if you don't mind. >> Yeah, if you mind, Jess coming up so people can hear. >> The net school spending is not >> 6.9. >> So, I think there was I think
>> the the net spending was 56,000 under what we voted in. It's not like we went like hundreds of thousands over. We I we voted to put in this number because it gives us a little bit of room to do that. If we didn't vote in that number, then we can't do anything else with it. We have to we have to vote in the higher
number to allow room to move with it. If we voted in the lower number, we can't go any higher. >> I think one of the cruxes that we were dealing with, I think, and I'm not putting words in anybody's mouth, but I think the school's net school spending minimum number was different than the
one that Stephen and the town came up with. >> So, we So, they had their meeting a couple weeks ago. Yeah. and an administration um Silver Lake administration presented a different net school spending number which was the
higher number which was the uh 8,100 change something like that >> um but >> not even not even a full-time teacher position >> correct and I think um Stephen um in his department dug a little deeper in the net school spending number so as Stephen
explained it the state gives you a number that the town has to spend on education All right. And then there's deductions A through M. It's like tax, you're doing your taxes. I can deduct this, I can deduct that. Um I believe, and again, I believe that the
administration might have done the first three deductions, but I think Stephen and his crew dug a little bit deeper. Um you know, like the health insurance for teachers that the town pays can knock down your your NSS number. So there are
other deductions I think that um the town looked into to try to to see if that number could be lower. >> Right. So we were asked where we are before we even had numbers. >> We couldn't I can't be like oh they're going to sign money millions of dollars
at this point and say let's vote in that lower number. We can't we can't do that. So the number that people are thinking we should have voted in wouldn't have met our net school spending and then we would have lost funding for the school. Correct. >> I don't I don't know the exact answer to that. I will say that we are speculating that >> you can't go below net school spending
and keep us >> right and we believe that with this number we will meet net school spending >> the 6,900 >> 31,771 >> and we have deductions A through M to back up that hypothesis.
>> We have a loose and we have the um we have a loose belief of that based on spreadsheets and how it was historically done. And we also have a meeting from when we met with our town's accounting consultant to go over this sheet and confirm last year we actually were over
by 25% I believe the number was Lindsay >> FY24 yeah FY24 we overfunded the schools by 25% more than the net school spending minimum number >> right >> the school give it back to the town right >> we couldn't ask for it back and then the following year we were asked to cut
again we ended up cutting a ton fulltime art teacher full time leverage the things that we all had as kids we don't have for our kids now and we're asked again to cut more we can't keep cutting what the kids aren't going to have we're going to take away all class next that's going to create a lot more is for our schools
>> and and and I will say to Jess's point net school spending is the minimum required and I think most towns want to go above most towns don't shoot to all right we'd have the minimum amount we can spend on our school that's what we're going to do you know that's um
that's not the goal I think of any community. >> We're also not done trying to cut here. We're, you know, like the principal, all the administration, we look into everything, but we're asked to vote this number before we really have time to look into everything. We're given this number that has now changed two weeks
later. So, can that number be modified with your voting? Because now it looks like the 1.5 is going on the warrant in the ballot. We all we vote if they do the override, you guys get your money, you can do what you want with it. Town gets the money, they can do the town has at least laid out what will be cut and
if they get the money, what will go back in. The school is insane. And no offense to you, just a scare tax of 40 kids in a row. There's not going to be 40 kids in a room because if you get the money, you don't necessarily have to cut the 12 teachers. You're saying that would be have to be cut. You guys can do whatever
you want with the money, which is insane to me that you have line item deposit. It's it's ridiculous. It should be that you guys should come to the table. >> We actually don't even have fully. The school doesn't really have fully any >> Well, the administration shouldn't have that ability at all. If we're paying for it, we should be able to see what's
being cut. Do you guys Is there an ability to go in and change the number, the net school spending number, so you guys can go back in and you just saw the number of cuts the town buildings, the town hall, police, fire are making. I hate to say it. You have to make cuts. You have to. I know you, but we we
literally can't base off that we already had to vote it in. We weren't giving all the numbers. I mean, I don't want to see the school resource officer. I mean, everybody on Halifax local saw what happened earlier this year. Like, that's not what we want to see. We need We need our resource officer. We need the fire. Like, I had a house fire. You had a house fire. We need We need the fire
department. The town needs to I mean, the 1.5 what are we going to go down to 1.4? It's not going to change it that much, unfortunately. >> Yep. and and just if you can I don't want to get into a debate guys ask us and we'll try and come through you know >> what is it the school is looking they
don't want to make cuts but it's not that we don't want >> so I I think Mary what it and I don't want to speak for you Jess I think what it boiled down to was the school's net school spending number was different for for whatever reason was different and higher than the number that the town has
come up with so in the school's uh opinion it is dangerous to go under that net school spending number. No town wants to go under a net school spending number. It opens a Pandora's box for your town and your school. So, I think our school committee was going on the
number that was presented to them. Um and and the number here that the town providing is different than that number. >> Should we be concerned that we're getting a number from wherever we're getting it from that's not even I mean a million and a half almost 2 million. That's a big difference.
>> Like the fact that that is what whether it's the superintendent where we're getting that number that we're getting that for them to work with which is off so far. >> So which number which number right? >> So that's so that so so that's where
>> so that's my question and I give Jody and Jess credit for being here tonight. It would be helpful if somebody from the district either the financial director and or the superintendent could be here at either of the last two meetings to speak to that formula. how we got there, what the discrepancies might be. At two
meetings now in the last 30 days, we've had school committee members here speaking for the district, which is nice as a representation, but it'd be nice to have somebody else here as well. >> My other question is our suggestion is I know I brought it up and I know Tom's brought it up. How what can we proceed,
no offense to the schools or whatever, can we proceed with a split override, town safety, whatever, and the schools on the other side? I I think we're going to have a problem because it's either going to be all or nothing >> and I have a feeling it's more going to be nothing. the number of people in town
that don't have the money to pay additional taxes on an average home it's five something six something with this is going to be another 250 whatever three of I I don't know that there I mean we already have 650 >> Hold on hold on hold on the the the total is would be on the average
household just to clarify on the total 1.5 million is an average impact of about $450 annually >> but what about the regular increase in >> the regular increase is the typical 2 and 12% % that you get, right? That's what I'm saying. Two and a half plus the
additional $400 that comes to Some of us don't have average like some people do. It's going to be between $500 and $1,000 a year. We already have $650,000 in property taxes that we have not collected because people haven't paid them. I mean, we have people that can't
afford their bills. I'm just saying if it comes between safety and schools, I feel like it's time that school might need to cut back. Our student population has not increased all that much. I don't think it's I just don't I don't think having 22 kids in a class, 23 kids in a class is a bad thing. That's just my
opinion. My kids had 24 25. They lived. They're okay. >> Again, Mary, so so to speak to that, we the town's job here is to present what we, the finance committee through the board of selectmen recommend the town's
budget to be. If again we get to town meeting and there's different thoughts, difference opinions, and we want to change numbers, you residents have the right to amend anything being presented at town, >> but I don't think you guys voted yet on splitting the override. And I know it
was brought up over and over again. And I don't think there was a vote. >> We haven't. >> And I think that >> we have not. >> I think it needs to be decided >> because I think there are people are going to be one side or the other. So we're either going to end up with nothing >> or we're going to end up with half. I don't know. or everything.
>> That's a stretch. >> Good luck. >> I think any any other Tom, you got something. >> Yeah, >> and again, I do want to echo what Tom said. Jody and Jess, thank you very much for being here this evening. You know, as members of the community, um these
these are volunteer positions, guys. So, um I really appreciate the efforts that they put in. >> Good. Thank you again, Van Donley, 2011 Cranberry Drive. Um, learning a lot here. Um, I appreciated the feedback that I got from you on the last one because and I think other people should
appreciate the fact that you found a way to meet that number without all going technically to schools budget. It's coming from what you're allowed to push it to. >> It's a standard practice that >> which gets you to the uh the number you need to hit. The question is did we do that in the past or no? >> Yes, we did.
>> We did. Okay. So, we use the same number over time to get to that. So the question too is I guess the school budget was uh in 2025 was 6,931 something I believe is that right >> the >> in fiscal year 252 >> 2025 is up on the screen.
>> I can't see that but >> 6,600,934 603. >> So that was 2025. Now did you supplement that with any free cash or was that >> um >> I'd have to look back on records. I've only been in this role for >> I thought last year we talked about
taking something from free cash. >> That was that was the year prior. >> This last year things supplemented with >> free cash was last year FY26. >> Okay. So yeah. So right. So this year though uh you know we're not supplementing that. So that's back on the the tab that we we didn't do before.
So that's an increase. What happened there was just um because we had it last year the cost just we supplemented the different way. Right. And how much total you think that was? I don't know, half a million or something. >> 750 something,000. >> 780 >> 780. So 7 780 was added to the school
budget before. >> Okay. Uh it's just we took it out of a different way to cover it for a year till we got to an override basically. Right. >> That was effectively an override last year. >> That was a trade-off, man. Trade. >> That was a trade-off. We didn't we did we need an ambulance. >> Yeah. >> We didn't order one last year. >> Correct.
>> Right. We needed two police cruisers. We cut that in half in order. The budget didn't go. It's it's all tradeoffs. Right. Right. >> So, we we've put together the best possible budget for the town based on the anticipated revenues >> as of today.
>> So, the the school I guess the new number I guess it was 8 million 157 something I believe >> that's correct. >> Okay. So, I guess if I'm looking at the difference between that what do you got like uh million2ish or something like that million 250 and if you take the 750 we covered out of the million2 that's
the difference in really what we're trying to put back into the schools. Correct. roughly >> effectively >> effectively. >> Okay. So, just so people understand that, I mean, at the budget, we're not, you know, >> we uh the school had to spend x x before and so the only difference we're really
putting into the schools this year is the difference between those uh the the uh the money we used some other areas to cover it last year. It didn't it didn't cost and go up that last year to the 81. It was always there. We just tried to do some other things. Correct. >> Correct. >> Correct.
>> Okay. That's kind of what you need to know. Thank you. You're welcome. >> To I feel like I got to say this to the point though, I don't think anyone here thinks our schools are drunk with money. Maybe that's just my take. And and a
school is a driving force in a community. >> A school is what brings young families into communities that hopefully stay for a long time and selfishly pay a lot of taxes. So look at it as a business business venture. Our schools are a
vital part of our community. Do I am I excited about the possibility of a significant cut to our schools this year? Absolutely not. I think everyone that's had school k children go through the schools here, we have a fantastic school system here. So, so I just wanted
to say that I it just seems like we're we're painting a picture um that that the schools are trying to actively suck all our funding as a town. I think they're putting forth a budget that they think will give them the best
opportunity to have a really good school for our kids. And I just wanted to say that on record. um and and these are tough times and everybody's got to lean in. But I I just wanted to make sure that I put that out there that um I do feel like there's an aspect of our
administration and our school committee that are trying to give us a school to be proud of. I just wanted to say that. >> And and to supplement that, schools are also not an optional thing. They're they're regulated by the state. So some of these are regulated by the state. And I can appreciate the the committee and the administration being hamstrung by
timelines and figures to be determined later and they don't necessarily match up with with the town's timeline to set the budget. And those are all difficult scenarios. From what I hear, the frustrating part is that and I heard Jim say it last night right about now. The job of the people here before you is to
turn over every stone and then when you see another stone, turn that one over, too. So from some perspectives, it feels like some committees, boards have turned over every stone and gotten creative. Two weeks ago, when the school committee voted for a level service budget to
those who had to cut, that might have felt a little on deaf ears because some are being creative with their cuts and some seem to be holding the company line. the company line is not wrong if it's being compliant with the state. But if it's simply digging your heels in and
hoping to get everything out of it, that's a different scenario. So the difficulty from my perspective comes in in marrying the two. The obligation of the school committee is to satisfy the obligation by the children of the town through the state regulation. That may or may not coincide with the town's
budget. getting creative on how to get there to the b to the middle ground which I believe other departments have done is how we can dig ourselves out. That's the that's the difficult scenario and I like I said I applaud the two members of the school committee tonight for being here. This is not on their
shoulders alone just like the operational budget is not on our shoulders alone. It's a group effort and it didn't happen overnight but the answers that we can get there involve getting creative. We and we knew that last year when we punted the override for free cash. We knew this was not going to be easy or seamless. And that's
why the level funded budget that the school committee offered fell short for some people because it felt like others were cutting every corner possible. And that's where I feel like some of the bent up and pent up frustration comes out because it feels like not everyone's
on the same playing field. I think we are. They're just bound by certain rules under state law. That's where I come on it. I'd also like to say there's three open school committee or now only one
being filled this year. So I just want to put that out there. >> Yep. >> And just one thing for >> sure. Come on up. >> It's not an exaggeration as far as the numbers of kids in the classroom. My son's in fifth grade. There's almost 30
kids in those classrooms already. They lost the teacher last year. So to say that it could get up to 40, that's not an exaggeration of that. >> Exactly. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. No, there are no easy answers here >> at all.
>> And there's Y. >> We have a breakdown of how much is a dollar amount that's cut in administration and how much is cut with teachers and actual education. No, because they vote
>> they voted to level service their >> they vote a number. >> So there's no cuts. >> The number is voted and the school they just they have autonomy on how to on how to cut and what to cut. There's no breakdown of what they proposed to cut when they come into a number. And just
to back up, they didn't vote a cut, but had they voted a cut, they don't have to tell you where it's coming from. >> Not cutting administration. when we hear from our fire chief and our police chief den >> from what we previously been told >> from what we had previously been told when cuts are on the table it's not
doesn't come from the administrative side >> because I will say Deb a lot of those administrative uh positions are contract positions so they are contracted and the the administration is bound by the contract >> schools also have a lot of what ifs that they have to vote in like what if kids
go to vocational schools right now we have there's a lot of what ifs and we don't find out those numbers until after. So we can't vote okay well there's only going to be one going out. We don't find out until after our budget has to be put in that only one's going
to go where they still have we budgeted for three. So there's a lot of what in the schools because kids can decide at the last minute basically because the state allows them to do so to go different things and do different things and fun different things. So it's not it's not all in the school community like school committee is not trying to rule the town.
>> No, I get it. Right. And that's what I was trying to say is the April 1st deadline for application, April 15th deadline for acceptance. And and those numbers don't come in until long after we need to be done. >> Like every kid in school. >> Yeah.
>> I appreciate that. I didn't mean to say I don't think it's like I've seen all the things on Facebook. The school's not doing this, the school's not doing that. The school's hands are literally tied back into the wall. Literally nothing. And I and I hope I hope through this process,
guys, and I think we're we're actually doing a really nice job tonight, you can learn a lot about folks when the you know what hits the fan, right? And the you know what's hitting the fan all across Massachusetts. And unfortunately, you see in a lot of communities, the claws start to come out and they start
to say, "Well, no, we need to keep the thing that I really care about and cut it from them or I need this. They are cut it from them." Right? We do have to remember that we are all in this together. And I know that sounds Disney and hokey and all that great stuff,
right? But but I hope through this process, we're all trying to put our heads together to come up with a plan that residents will feel the least, right? The residents will feel the least. That's our goal is to come up with a plan that that hopefully if it
doesn't pass, it doesn't have dramatic and drastic effects on our services for our kids, our community, our elderly, our seniors at the COA, all of all of the parts of the town. So, as you're making your points, guys, just remember that if it's something that's really
really important to you, doesn't mean that there's another department where it's equally as important to somebody else in town. That's all I'm going to say. >> We're asking about whatifs and talking about whatifs. I understand that those are in the school budgets, but we know
what the whatifs are. We don't know what goes on in the administrative side of Silver Lake when they come in with a $59,000 increase and no cuts associated with that. They just want the flat $59,000
increase is what the assessment is asking for. Where's the whatifs? than that. They don't explain that. They don't talk about it. They don't show it to us. They say, "Here it is. We voted it. >> We want the money." >> And and maybe I could ask our school
committee members because we're we're putting you on the grill here tonight to go back to administration and say, "Listen, I sat at our town meeting. We saw the the drastic cuts that are being considered. Can we get can we get a little firmer numbers on exactly what
what we're looking at?" because it is true we do we are instantly given the um class size number you know that seems to be the first thing that is presented but maybe if you guys felt comfortable digging a little deeper with administration um at your at your follow-up meetings to try to get a solid
list >> Jonathan could I just say something >> EJ um so it's it it's hard to make a decision or form an opinion on something without having all of the facts on >> Amen And in particular with as it
relates to the school budget this year, it was exceptionally hard to make a decision on that. And what it came down to is we didn't feel or at least I didn't feel like I had enough of the facts as to what truly are the impacts.
We all hear 10 teachers, we all hear 12 teachers, but outside of that, what is it? What are the other alternatives? And when you're not sitting at a table having dialogue about what options you have and you're only hearing that your option is to cut teachers, that can't be
truthful. That can't be the fact. Because when you when you peel back the onion and you really start to claw into things and search for a way out, you're going to find at least something that's helpful. And it was really hard to sit
at the table last night and and have to make a decision about the schools because I feel like it's it's you don't want the kids to be punished because of actions or decisions of adults and our inability to communicate and be transparent with each other. And that's
what I feel like happening right now is whether it's administration, whether it's committees, whether whoever it is, and I'm not questioning any committee work whatsoever, but if we're not being transparent with each other, how can we trust each other? >> There was the issue of going through
like paying for kindergarten and and I saw a lot of that on social media. They're not even trying to pay for kindergarten. They're not even trying to when you actually come down to what you can actually get for that. So, like I was talking about IEPs earlier, the
people that would qualify full day kindergarten, half of those kids are going to be IEPs, let's be real, maybe even more than half because the kids coming from preschool into kindergarten, a lot of them are on IEPs for speech and things of that nature now because early intervention is very easy to get into. So, all of those kids are going to
qualify for full day free kindergarten. So, let's say that there's 85 kids going into kindergarten. 40 of those kids get full-time, 20 of those kids have to pay. It literally doesn't make sense. So, it's not even like an equity thing. I mean, yeah, I I believe that equity is a
big thing, but at the same time, okay, you're just going to charge 20 kids who are fulltime kindergartens, but then the other kids that won the the whole time didn't get it cuz the lottery that didn't get it cuz the lottery. It's just doesn't make any sense. And busing that doesn't make any sense either. it was only charged within
they're within a certain phase of the school. It was a lot went into it. The articles kind of just like cliffnoted it. This has been an ongoing conversation with the school committee since I got on four years ago paying for kindergarten and busing. It's not as
easy as will other towns do it. Our town is tiny. So our radius is tiny. It's paying for like people who would have to pay and the number of kids like I know my friends go to handover. and overpays for kindergarten. They have three elementary schools. They have way more
than 85 kids going into kindergarten. So, it's actually significant for us. If you're only getting I mean just random little numbers out there, but let's say half of them and then half of those are paying for it. Is it really it's not going to change anything? I was going to say
>> one of the things I think that we're trying to to hopefully share is the whole stone on turn thing looking under what's available. Now you gave an example of let's say roughly 20 kids in kindergarten next year pay the full
whatever the tuition that was proposed and set forth. Let's say it's $2,000. You have 20 kids paying and their families paying 20 $2,000. That's a $40,000 uh benefit to the to the school to the town, >> right? Half of that you have to pay for
the busing again to rebuff those. >> Sure. So, >> you're right. There could be expenses related. So, we but the idea would be let's explore what avenues we have to increase revenue for the town. Whatever that revenue is, we have to look at it. We have to consider it. The the town,
the residents need that opportunity to see what are the potentials there for. It could be 40 kids. We don't know what the number is related to the IP number, whatever that is. But it's it's looking under the stone. See what's there. Let's do it.
>> Right. And I I don't disagree, but I mean the past four years since I've been on the the budget meeting, we had to take up the entire all last year to go over all those stone stones. There was there the stones. We're turning on them. Like I promised
>> I don't I don't want higher taxes. My grocery bills 500 bucks a week. I got three sons. Like I don't want higher taxes, but like it's just like >> Jody, you have your >> bigger, man. Like just keep eating. >> Jody, you have your hand up. >> Do you mind? Do you mind just coming to the problem here, guys? And I know we
can all hear it, but the folks at home aren't going to get any of this. It's okay. So, just come right up to the mic. >> I just think it's important to mention, too, that we are discussing other options and we've decided the last meeting that we're going to continue to discussing them in future meetings and vote on them. So, they're not off the table. We haven't made any decisions on
them because those people wasn't there. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. Ladies and gentlemen, Jean Galant. >> You got to pull that microphone. Jean, pull the microphone down. Jean. >> Okay. >> Um, so my question is on the warrant at
town meeting. Is this number going to be presented or the number that the school committee voted the other night? Stephen, you want to explain? >> This will be the this will be the number that will be presented at that meeting. >> So, this budget that's being presented this evening, guys, is the actual, you
know, you get the warrant and then you get to turn it sideways and you get that list of all the different line items and all the budgeting. The number in that line item budget, it will be the budget that is being presented this evening. Um and then any sort of things on the
override will be so our budget is uh article 3A 3B will be the items that will be up for uh the override >> and you'll have like the school is this >> correct? It'll all be broken down. >> Yep. >> Stephen, is that upcoming
>> everybody? >> I think that's all upcoming. >> Yeah. >> What's that? >> We'll get there. We'll get there. >> Yeah, I think Yeah, >> it's literally I know. I hope you guys have have good babysitters cuz we got a ways to go. >> All right, so moving on from the
schools. >> Um, >> wait, there's more. >> Yeah. Um, this this slide will probably give us some more conversation. Um, so when we started going to the next level of cuts, and I call this the next
level because we have to start considering what's mandated for legal compliance, what's legal that we have to have. there's only a set number of positions in town that are actually legally compliant. Um, you start looking at services that are offered to certain demographics and what the utilization of
those services are. And we ended up on the Council on Aging. And we've um made the decision to cut the Council on Aging to 3 days a week from its current operating schedule or at least cutting the number of hours that it would only
cover a 3-day week. We have not really decided on how the building will operate. If you know if an override does not is not successful, does it mean the building will be closed during the week? Not necessarily. Will it have shorter hours? Possibly. We're going to have to look at the operations to figure out
what staff's left over and what funding's left over because as you see here, we are proposing to keep the director on in a 24-hour capacity and then cutting off support staff. Uh there are gatro funds that are available to subsidize some of the positions at the
council on aging including drivers because that's the number one service that most um council on aging users utilize is the concierge driver service for their doctor's appointments and other things. And we are also talking about meals on wheels and other factors.
Um so needless to say the savings here is $161,351. Um, you know, with moving forward, we also want to look at the the construction of the department because we've had some turnover in the department recently,
even since I started, and we got to figure out what's going on there and move forward with a council on aging that operates and serves the residents of Halifax correctly. Um, unfortunately cuts need to be made and this is the
probably the deepest one because it it it considerably impacts the Council on Aging. So, I will open it up for questions. I know the COA director is present um for any questions um that folks may have on that front.
>> Yeah, Fred, come on up. Fred Corgan, Seven Rosewood Drive. I'm involved with the cuts on aging pretty heavy. And now it's a one lady show. There's two
employees that have left, never been replaced. So now we're down to the director. And as many nights when you drive by there, her office lights are on. We're demanding more out of this
particular person than we should because we're not filling the positions. The seniors in this town, including myself, have paid taxes, supported the town,
and now we reach a stage of limited income. And it is limited, >> but we still support everything that needs to be done. And we're good, solid citizens,
taxpayers, homeowners, you name it, in the town. for 30, 40, 50 years, whatever. And yet we can let the council of aging,
the COA come down to just one person working how many hours a week is not even paid for to keep the thing going. Seniors in this town are on the short
end of the stick and they have been for a long time. I appreciate everything it has done for the students. Our young people need our help. Well, so don't the seniors.
And I think we better pay a little bit more attention to the Council on Aging because it is a big benefit to a great many of our citizens. >> Thank you. >> Well said, Fred.
>> Anybody? Oh, Darlene. Yeah, come on up. This is Darlene Regan, our uh COA director. >> Good evening, everyone. Um, as the COA director, I have to say that um, between the ages of
70 and 80, there's approximately 25 to 30% of the population that we serve. There's 22 members that are registered with us. There's actually in the year this past year there was like 558
and we served maj majority of them um medical rides and transportation and the majority of those rides um if you average them there was 38 people that use the rides all the time and it turn translated over a year of 320
unduplicated uh interactions. So, we do a number of different things. SNAP, fuel assistance, health and human services, all of Health and Human Services the best of our ability. And I I know when to stop. I send it over to the state
when it's necessary because that's what they do. I know where to go. And I don't let any wrong door or send anybody in anyone wrong uh wrong place. So, with that said, we are formulary. We do have a state formulary grant and it's $16 per
person and it depends on the census of the town or the city and say for instance this thing is so tall I'm sorry um for instance as an example we have a gentleman retired auto auto mechanic having health
issues financial challenges trying to make ends meet John has no immediate family and no other support network co exacerbates ated his isolation. John had a heart attack and afterwards got connected with the COA and senior center
for resources and supports. John um John now drives with he he drives there three times a week or drives to our center three times a week and he takes some uh fitness classes and he
also is meets with uh me the outreach worker to find uh programs through SNAP through fuel assistance through health and human services Medicare and also the Medicaid programs out there that are available to him to help him get through
all the the uh expenses that he's experiencing, medications, co-pays, these are all things we're familiar with, participates, he participates in a men's group, he becomes socially engaged, he's feeling better. So that's
what we do. Okay? I mean, we have schools, we want to stay in the community, people end up staying in the community, so we're trying to serve them. And with that, my my salary was cut 50%. I don't know anybody that can survive on
$50,000. Just saying. And I don't put just 40 hours in. That's all I want to say. >> Thank you, darling. Deb, you also write grants for the COA to correct?
>> Yes, I do. >> Which is very timecon. Yes, I do. I try to access as many grants as possible um ask special councils on grants uh through entertainment. All that is grant funed. Um how we end it. So basically
I'm looking at just overview $212,000 is what my budget is. Okay. $33,000 of that is my my young formula grant. You subtract that I have $179,000.
And then I look at the now I do all the paperwork for the time consuming. I showed you about it. It's very time consuming, but they do it because they help bring money to the town. So that brings in 12 so far $120,000
in reimbursement. It's a reimbursement, not a grant. So with that said, where does that bring me down to? I'm running homes. But I do it because I love the people here. The people are warm. Came back from here for a week and they came
back for a reason. And I told it was a cotton page too. I want to let everybody know that. And and they provided extra vacation time and everything else. And they loved their seniors. They slept and everything. They they supported them. I came back here for a reason. The people
here are amazing. They are wonderful people. They're innocent people. And let's support these people. This is wrong. This is wrong to cut seniors. Not just seniors, but everybody. I understand it's hidden everywhere,
but it's it's just we need to the other grants that I access. I did shel state in reference to a grant that would not I can write this grant for 500,000. I have no one to manage it.
So I get the grants. What do I do? I need somebody there to support that. Do all the paperwork. I guess I'd stay up. I don't know if that if I meant people said that was a good thing, I would just stay all night and do it just because I
care the price of caring. >> And I think it's the only we've talked about that's really cut 50%. 50%. Even salary 50%.
But darling, over and above what you do in your office, you're often called to do a health and welfare check for someone who needs services and spend a lot of times with families.
>> Not just a senior, but someone taking care of somebody. >> Super above beyond that, I the state does offer us um training uh case management. I got my master's degree. I paid for it myself. I didn't do my homework at home company time. I did it
on my own. Um, so with that said, I go back to school. I take all my courses that I need to take for case management. You can always tell a person when they go to the doctor's office, hey, you're out the door. Go take this medicine. They go home. They may be going home for
a a sick environment. So, case manager, we get the calls. housing housing issues, evictions, but I make sure I connect them to the attorneys that are out there that that's getting funded by the state to do this. So, I mean, I know how to direct people. I make sure that
they don't fall through the cracks the best of my ability and I know people in the industry that I'm not I've been around for a while. So, I know people and what they can do and what they can do for the seniors here. And I've I've actually done that. I've gotten letters
of of you know support and thankful you know people are thanking me because of the fact I was able to get them to ask you know various places but any but that's that's all I want to say but there if there's savings I will make sure that there's savings if I know that
you want to cut the budget and a position I know how to do that you don't have to have somebody always have the phone yes it' be nice have a volunteer okay but for going forward in terms of outreach. There's a lot to outreach and
I'm doing it and it's okay, but there's other things. I got budgets to, you know, to do. I got money to make. I'll bring in actually for us. So, >> darling, hold on one second, please. Uh, thank you. Um,
cutting the full-time staff, the two two positions that you have below you and filling those with uh volunteers. talk about how that will or will not work and how that lays out what their what what what positions would they be filling what would their duties be?
>> So, two of the positions are full-time positions 40 hours left as it stands. One is an administrative associates position answering the phone transportation. Um I have the logged call. >> When you say transportation, is that driving the bus? >> Not at all.
>> But coordinating the transportation, >> correct? And there's a lot. So entering the the uh information in being patient with this with the person on the other end too which takes a lot of time. Sometimes they can't express what they need they need. We just know that consumer over time putting that
information in the computer system. Enter it. Make sure that it's accurate. Make sure the funds or the actual fee is correct in the system. Make sure the mileage is correct. Make sure that that gets reported to Gatra correctly too. And then all has to be recorded on a
day-to-day basis. >> Currently, you're doing that, >> correct? >> And a is that something a volunteer could do? >> Well, if they know the system well enough, yes, they would have to be trained. And then I take those figures and then I have to apply them to to a um
a reimbursement sheet. Plus, then I, you know, have to have the backup to that. But I have the reimbursement sheets that are documented the VA uh van driver salaries my how much time did I put in how many hours did I put in to do that report I get reimbured we get reimbured
for the gas we get reimbursed for uh for the three veh >> so all the expenses you're getting reimbured for if you fill out the paperwork and submit it >> correct and last this month here we're waiting for$10,000 some odd dollars right now for the month of uh January
and we just got reimbursed 8800 $100. >> Okay, let's talk about the second position. >> And the second position is outreach slashprograms. So, running all the programs, making sure we're coordinated. I have social security coming in. I have people lunch and learns. I'm
coordinating so that we do have activities over the holidays. Um, and making sure that we have um entertainment that's free. Um, so I write the grants, make sure that's available. That's all grant funded. All that we >> Is that stuff the second person would
do? Yes. And I'm doing that. So that's the coordination of all these different services. I reach out to the library, try to network with all the different departments to make sure that we're all kind of connected and working together. First and foremost, I got to find a place to have these things. So that's a tough
>> I understand all that. So >> So that position >> is a volunteer is that something that would work or not? >> Volunteer can help in certain institutions. Would it work or not? >> Not not in the case of outreach. It's
private information in that system. >> That's what I was getting at. Absolutely. Yes. Because when you said social security, I will not allow that. >> So that person has to be certified, trained. How does that work? >> Yep. For um so for instance, we offer an activity. We offer an event. Okay. A
staff member. If you go to all COAs, their activities and events are right there. There's always a staff member present. But what I'm getting at is trying to understand that a volunteer can't do that position. >> Correct. They have to be CPR certified,
>> right? So that position can't be backfilled with a volunteer. >> Correct. But there are positions that again I have >> well talking about the two that were that not to >> to replace. >> That's that's tough to do. And then there's the newsletter,
coordination of the newsletter, making sure that gets out there. So, I do know how to I offset that with the cost of having sponsors and that the printing's done for us because I used to stay there forever and it would break down and everything else just so that we can get the newspaper out in printing. So,
>> so what do you need to run your department? In terms of funding, >> no, in terms of >> personnel, >> I'll tell you, I can go with myself plus then one solid full-time outreach person that's knowledgeable and very un
understands the systems, been there, done that. >> So, you need you plus one and a volunteer. >> Yeah. And I have plenty of volunteers. It's just that they're not consistency. There's no consistency. And sometimes you can't have them every time. They burn out, too. So, I would actually use them for the newsletter, putting the
newsletter together, uh doing the walks, you know, like uh senior creating a senior walk. Um there's a lot of uh uh meals on wheels even. Um even delivering I I pick up I also pick up the uh social community action bags before I come in
to work. I pick those things up. Um there's like 25 to 32 bags. If there's more food, I stuff those in my car. I actually I create the outreach part of it and bring it to the housing authority so people there with can live with respect and I try to make sure that the
food gets there to their home or actually to their center there so that they can just shop at their leisure. >> So you plus one >> that's right >> and then a volunteer to do the phones the bus coordination things of that nature. >> Right. I mean someone can just take a message. Yes. But then is those piled
up? I I just want to I just want to make sure we're not conflating things. >> Meals on Wheels is a separate organization. It is not it is not run by or these meals are not manufactured by the COA. >> We do not manufacture. >> There's a coordinator that
>> that it works for Meals on Wheels that that sits in the COA. Is that correct? >> We supply the we supply the volunteers to go out to deliver the meals. >> Right. But the but meals on wheels is not a COA based organization. >> It is Old Colony Elder Services and
under the >> executive order which is not a COA of Halifax organization. >> It's not it's a separate entity. It's an >> I just want to make sure we're clear with that. >> Okay. But let me make this very clear too. the entities that are under the umbrella of the executive office of
aging and independence, ASAPs, aging service access point, Old Colony Elder Services, Independent Living Center, Independent Associates, COAs are the front line to the community and it goes up the ladder or down the ladder, wherever you want to go. But the fact of the matter is we all work together. They
come in, they provide the services or the food or the nutrition. In fact, I have a grant now. They want me to write a grant for nutrition for $200,000. I I don't know what am I gonna do with that grant. I guess what? I don't have a
kitchen to to do anything with it. So, I mean, I could hire a cook or something and have meals. We do have congregate meal sites. People that don't have the extra funding, they can come and have a meal there on a Monday and a Wednesday. So, then we also deliver them. But we
are we work with Old Colony to provide uh we have to be surf safe. We also have to provide um the uh volunteer base >> and and they vet the volunteers. Some of them that come through the RSP program and some of them we actually recruit for
them. So you know >> how many people does the center service on an annual basis? >> On an annual basis for >> how many people come through the door? >> It was 568 when I counted. So we have 568 residents of Halifax
that utilize the COA on an annualized basis. >> Yeah, it was actually the services actually. Sorry. >> Well, yeah, but but they're coming through the door. >> Yes, that's correct. >> So we we we >> So if you add >> COA manages 568
>> the heaviest Yeah. And the heaviest volume is between Tuesday and Thursday. That's the heaviest volume. And with the community, do you expect that number to increase over? >> No, because that's going to be we're
going to have a younger population that we also serve people that may have a disability or that have or need services for certain things. Um, disabilities of course, but um, but that particular
there it's a different breed coming up. I think there's more of a more sedentary group we deal with now. But I think over time it's going to change and that group is going to be the more outdoorsy, you know, go hiking, that kind. Um, health conditions, it can happen to anyone.
Okay, John, when I was reading that, actually, I brought my phone. My whole point in telling you that if he, this particular person had 272 interactions with the COA, if I'm getting $16
for each individual or for each senior, I broke that 272 interactions at the COA down to five cents >> for each interaction. 272 divided by 16 call.
>> That's pretty damn good, huh? I think that's pretty good money for the services that we offer. SNAP, he got reimbursements for SNAP. He got reimbursements for fuel assistance. He got SMPP, the Senior Medicare Patrol, 20290 per month. So that's a significant
savings for 5 cents. >> And you said that through using a volunteer uh to do some of these roles work, but that you also said that volunteers can be inconsistent because They're voluntary. They're not paid. They don't
>> Well, in a nice way. We They just like the Shine program, Medicare. We don't have a Shine person. It is volunteer. Um we look for people people get sick, people retire, people come and they only can do it when they can do it. Now we
have the the navig um the ACA in in addition that some people now transition from 65 to 60 um from 64 to 65 and what to do next. So sometimes they're on a ACA plan. What do you do with those people when they don't want to leave
that planet because it's so rich and now they got to go to Medicare which is a lot of gaps in it. When you talk about shine, so people >> serving health and information of everyone, >> is that a statemandated position that needs that the town? >> They that is one of that's one of the
services they asked us to provide under the executive office of aging and independence. Y >> thank you. >> Any other questions, guys, for Darlene yet? Fred, come on up. While I was sitting there listening to Darling,
this town has something else that's pretty unique. We have the Halifax mobile home estates and that's 55 and older >> with another one being built now.
So in relationship to the population, we are a senior citizen town which puts more pressure on the council of aging. Therefore, we really need to pay
attention to the services they're able to give. >> Thank you. >> Just one more thing on that. >> Sure. So in retrospect what you're saying in terms of Halifax mobile estates versus this new project
>> the new project they pay HOA fees right >> okay so their HOA fee is going to cover maintenance and hopefully all that stuff forever I don't know >> so to me it's going to be a little bit different than the mobile estates you
know it's aged yes it's uh this the buildings have aged um so there's No, I mean they have a fee that they pay for the land but for the actual project and you know like the mowing those services. >> Yeah, the maintenance. There's no HO
right Deb. There's no HOA. >> There's no HOA fees at mobile home at the park. >> It's not called HOA. It's a lot. >> A lot. But does that doesn't cover your grass cutting and your snow and any of that stuff? >> In the olden days it did, right? Okay. In the days gone by, which I heard, I
don't know if it did, but I heard that people call me and say that used to be covered, but now it's not. So now they're looking for somebody to do it. >> No, they never >> Well, they told me I did. But the thing was it used to have they pay that fee
$6.90, but of course, where you going to go today? If you buy your mobile unit outright. >> Sure. >> Okay. You have $690 fee that you got to pay. It's not too bad today in the world. Sure. >> But for some people it is if their
income hadn't stayed, you know, hadn't kept the cost of living. >> So just look at a person at,027 a month, right? >> And they're paying $690 in a in in a >> half their half their money. >> That's, you know, so we try to find the services. So, I reached out to a concier
service through um it's actually through Norwell to see if we can get somebody out there to offer some type of a service like shopping for seniors and shopping for just people with a disability. And there are services out there, but if you don't qualify or
you're just over that line of income requirements and you don't qualify for a Medicaid program, then there are the per services that we got to search for. So, I do all that searching just for instance, looking for rebates for seniors and all people within the community. Uh, with regard to National
Grid, I'm having the representatives come down. They're coming down on May 14th from uh 9:30 till I think it's 3:30 um to do um applications for people that um are finding that it's expensive to what what are avail what's available out
there for rebates. So, I'm trying to reach out to all these different entities to support people as they age, but also to the community, too, because they could come to the COA. We do have a lot of seniors, uh, their sons and daughters. I call them the sandwich
generation. Um, that sandwich generation trying to have to, you know, monitor their children, trying to take care of their mother and father or a a loved one actually. And so, you know, they come to us for asking about services and we provide them as much as I can for
resources and healthy resources. >> Sure. >> At least I think >> I I don't think anyone here doubts that a a thriving COA is is a must for a community, right? And it's and it we're talking about a population of folks that
unfortunately often times get overlooked >> because they're not visited by as many people. Uh, one of the the big things about a successful and healthy and happy later life is that social interaction, is the ability to connect. So, I don't
think anybody here, Darlene, denies the fact that the services that you guys provide is a lifeline to a good population of people in this town. Um, and I don't think anybody here is excited about what we're looking at here, but I'm I'm hoping, I know you're good at your job, that we can get,
again, creative. that word's been thrown around a lot to maybe look at uh volunteers to look at and so that folks can hear this is part of of what's on the table you know so >> but again like the services that I'm looking for it's giving people money
back in their pocket sure okay so it's not something on a fixed income but it is if I had to calculate my time to research it which I've done okay it then it comes down to what and and I guess it comes to a balance of humanity if you are a humanitarian Ian and you say you
are then be one okay and then provide the services I'll research those services for the people and it's and but you also are a manager too I get it but and I that's what I try to aim to do to watch the pocketbook of the town as well so I don't utilize the services to the
ability that that's my point in saying with all the funding I don't want to utilize the town's money to a max that's why I go out and do as much resource as I can to find the services that are available out there. If anything, it breaks it down to my salary if you want
to do it. But now it makes it down even more so, I guess, you know. So, >> well, your your your efforts don't go unnoticed, darling. >> Anybody else? Yes. >> Tina Alger, 340 Plymouth Street. You people don't know what you have with
Darlene. She has helped me so much and I appreciate her friendship. I appreciate what I have seen at the COA and
we have the park which has over 400 people. We have a hundred people out here in the rest of our town. And we also have the new condos which nobody
really wanted. The town's people didn't want it. The the powers to be in the town wanted it. And this is the job that we're cutting. This is the the COA that we're going to cut down.
I think you better think this thing over. M >> we're going to have a lot more people here and they're going to be all seniors. They're over 55 at the condos. We've seen them in the paper. They've all been a lot of them have been sold
and we got to think this thing over. What are you doing? These people are going to be the majority of the town of Halifax. I never thought I was old enough to go, but
But in the last couple of years, I needed help. >> Yeah. >> And that's where I went. >> Yeah. >> And I think it's great. >> Yeah. >> And I think everybody should think this thing over.
>> Yeah. Tina, it's puts us in a tough spot because as you heard, we're we're looking at fire cuts, police cuts, teacher cuts. I know. you. As I said, we're trying to paper cut this thing as best as we can >> as with as many different buckets as we can. So,
>> I don't dis I don't discount your notion that um the the senior population in this town is going to increase, >> right? And we need >> and they're going to need more services >> just like the school. >> I agree. >> We need increased services. The school gets what they want. Most of it what
they want and I think the seniors should come in. We've been at the bottom of the list for years >> and now I think it's time we get something out of all our money that we have spent. I have lived in town for 60
years >> or I have lived my married life here uh for 60 years and seniors never got nothing >> and now it's time and you people are the
only ones that can do it. >> Well, I will say it can go to the town meeting and the residents can decide. Yeah. >> One quick thing and then I'm done. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Go ahead. >> But just something to think about. Sure. >> One quick question. Is there any other
director department head anywhere in town that salary has been cut by 50%. Are close to 50%. >> Except the COA. >> No. And the other thing to think about,
imagine this. I know a lot of you still are working and you go into neither. Thank goodness. A lot of people are are even people here and you go into your job tomorrow and you get told by your
boss, "We need to save money and we're going to have you do twice the work for almost 50% less of your pay. Would you stay or will you be out that door? We're going to lose her."
>> That's a concern. >> Tara, did you have something you wanted to say? May I? >> Absolutely. Come on up. Just identify your name and street, please. >> This is like overall, not specific to Council of Aging. Is that okay? >> Go right ahead. Let it fly.
>> Okay. Tara Tanello, 425 Elm Street, Halifax, Mass, obviously. Um, I'm speaking on behalf of resident here. I was on Zoom, hello Zoom world, um, for a little while and I just want to reiterate how devastating this is for the town. Um, we're in a tough position.
um where you know revenue is outpacing expenses. That's the simplest way that I can think of it. Um no fault of anybody in this room. Everybody in this room is doing their absolute best to um fix a very very tough situation. Um I heard
from a lot of departments. Um Darlene, I think you said the sandwich generation. I am I am that sand sandwich generation. I am affected by every single one of these departments that um are facing devastating cuts. Um police, I know you
guys have gone without for quite some time. I'm a I abide by the laws of the rules of the road, so I'm a good citizen, but um you keep my kids safe. Um >> they're still going to give you a ticket if you're speeding. >> I know. It's okay. Give me a ticket. Give me a ticket. It's fine. Um fire. Um
I've said this before. Um, my mom is disabled and you have come to my house for lift assists and transports and and your team and your department is incredible. Um, the town services and government services oftentimes you have
a thankless job and you keep the town running. That is incredibly important. Um, school. I have two kids. One in second grade. I always think she's in third. She's not. She's in second and a fifth grader. I know the school has made cuts and they have went without multiple
years. They cut two teacher on this recorded line. It might not be accurate, so don't come after me. They cut two teachers last year. They cut a lot of their specialists. They cut buses. My fifth grader is just as tall as me and she is in a bus with three other
children. There has been bus situations this year because it is so overcrowded. So, I know that the school has made significant cuts. Council of Aging, again, my mom is disabled. We have used um wheelchairs on loan. It is an
incredibly valuable service. So, I think it's unfortunate to say this department is getting, you know, worse than this. This one we're getting be we're getting asked to cut more. Every single department is facing devastating cuts.
So, um, it is one town, one community. I'm hoping other people like myself, uh, have an understanding that it we are, I think Jonathan, you said it, the Disney hokey, we are in this together.
>> Um, it is a tough year and it's a tough year and I know every single department has made very, very hard cuts. So, that's it. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Thanks, Tara. >> All right. Anybody? >> I I I have something, but I'll wait. >> All right, Tom's gonna wait.
>> I don't usually have self-control, but I'll wait. >> All right. Out of boy, you're getting better. >> Moving on. Um, one small cut to culture and recreation. Um, again, representing cuts across the board. Uh, there was a line
item in the youth and wreck wages, which will be taken from $19,186 to $10,000 even. The town just had a set of pickle ball courts conveyed to it. So, we're going to have to figure out maintenance cost and upkeep cost on that along with the continued operations of
the department. Figure out how to maintain things like tennis courts. We're just going to have to do an operational review to figure out uh what's going on there. Potentially charge more money for youth and rec programing programming in order to up that fund so that we can take care of some of these things that are already in
town. There any questions there? Um, >> are we sorry, are we in a position to be able to delay accepting those? So, I know they're from the development, right? >> Mhm. >> Uh, moving on. This one's a little bit
of a hidden that was a question. >> Are we delay accepting those or >> can you can we delay the conveyance of the pickle ball courts? >> I believe I asked that last. >> Yeah, >> I mean, we had the walkthrough yesterday. >> So, yeah. So we so we had a contractual
agreement with the developer to do January 1st. Part of accepting the pickle ball courts is we have to do a walkound to make sure that the town is willing to accept them in the condition they're in. January 1st we had 2 ft of snow. So could have been
a pickle ball court there. Maybe not. I had no idea. >> Understood. >> So So we the town and and the developers came to an agreement to move it back to April 1st. We did, as Stephen said, our walkth through this week. I will say,
and I know this, you know, this isn't unicorn and rainbows given the meeting we're having right now. They are terrific courts. It's a beautiful facility. It's a plus for the town. Uh, but the new contract now, they convey to the town on April 1st, and that's always
been >> five or six. >> It's always been that the town will accept them as part of our agreement. So, I I would feel like it's our duty to follow through on what we agreed to with with that developer. >> So, >> I will say I did notice that a material
they're using that lays down on top of the quartz for the for surface itself is something I haven't seen. Um, and it's like something that rolls up. So, they conceptually seem like they're going to be easier to maintain. I'll leave it at that. Um, so this this goes as often. Um, this
is a hidden cut that you most folks would probably not see. So, this applies to the other postemployment benefits. There's a trust fund that's been established in order to meet the town's obligation over a number of years so that they can pay out the benefits to employees after they retire. Uh, this
includes coverage for things like health insurance, the pension, any other benefits that are included with their retirement. Um we were able to do this by speaking to our trust fund um consultants essentially and asked their actual aerial actuarial accountant to explain
to us exactly what the impacts of this would be. We have a the ability to keep it at this funding level from 46 down to five for 3 to 5 years. It may extend on the other end and extend it out at the
end of the term. We are unsure on that, but it shouldn't be too impactful. And again, this is something that with a successful override would immediately go back into funding because these are one of those liabilities that you don't want to fall behind on and you forget about it and then suddenly it becomes a huge
liability five or six years down the road. U but we have about 5 years to closely monitor that and keep track of it. Any questions there? >> What's the savings, Stephen, on this? >> Uh 41,000,000 41,000 annually. >> Yes. For the next three to five years.
>> And talk about the payback on that. >> It will be extended years out at the end. >> So an additional five years to pay out >> potentially. Not exact on exactly what the term will extend. >> So every year after five,000 you got to pay back. >> Sure. At current cost, right?
>> Yeah. >> Not not at current cost. >> Not at current. No. At at at future cost. >> Not at future cost. No. You just >> the exact same amount. >> Exact same amount. The actuarial. Yes. >> You're extending the end. Yes. You're not adding cost and having to replace it.
>> So this is uh this slide shows the summary of all the cuts um that we proposed here tonight. And so if you go down, this also has the corresponding line number in the budget that folks will get. These are the the budget sheet is available on the town
website. So you can you will be able to see this entire presentation is available. The entire expenditure uh sheet is available. So you can take these line item numbers and compare to what is listed.
Um so now we're going to move on to the funding allocation with a successful override. At least this is my proposal. Uh this is something that obviously can change drastically on town meeting floor. This is the aspect that will change drastically up to this point. That's that's the fincom's budget that
they voted as of last night. That could still change. Um but this would be with a successful override being able to figure out where allocations go back into the budget. Um again, this is the summary to show you exactly what those
successful alligation amounts would be. Um I don't have them listed out side by side, so I will go back through them. Can everyone see that? >> Not even a little bit. I'm going to move it closer. >> Yeah, there you go.
>> Coming out right back. Don't touch it. >> I know. >> This is already on the website as well, right? >> It's on the website. If someone wants to walk up and take a picture of it, >> this entire presentation Just read it out. >> Yeah, read it out. >> Just read it, Steve.
>> You're being too accommodating, Steve. >> I want people to be able to see. >> That's worse. >> Just read all. >> All right. Well, you have list right here. >> Yeah. >> So, on line 13, uh, that was the, um, full-time to part-time assistant town
accountant. That line would be restored in full. Um, line 15A, which was taken from 218 down to 178, will be restored with $7,000, bringing it back up to 185, not to the
full 218. Um, the 22 is referring to the combination of the um assistant town collector and assistant treasurer. We would immediately restore the
assistant collector position. That's $43,000. Uh lines 45 through 50 address the police department. It would be a full restoration of their $150,21, bring them back to their proposed 27 request,
>> which again includes the school resource officer, >> which again includes the school resource officer. Uh so that would be fully funded. Animal control, everything would go back to as proposed before any of this bad dream started. We'll start. We'll
say that um fire department is next. Line 53, there'd be a $140,000 restoration of the cut they were asked to make. The schools costs line uh 71 would be
$800,000 um to restore the budget, the cut of $800,000 as proposed. Line 116, we would fully restore the Council on Aging Director salary. And then line six, 116A, we would all
lot $50,000 to fill the two uh currently open full-time positions with two part-time staff members and then work on looking at the department for efficiencies and figure out where to go from there. Um, this would also call for on line 128,
youth and wreck wages, restoration of 9,186. Again, to focus on maintenance costs and looking at um how we're going to raise more money with you, youth and wreck programs. I believe that the current fee schedule's a little bit outdated and behind and there's probably some room we
can make up there revenue-wise. And then lastly, line 155, which is J, $41,000 to instantly refund that um OPE liability trust line back to the $46,000 which was proposed as a budget item. And
I would hopefully be able to continue to fill that at its full aotment because that is one item that is within fixed costs in our budget. So, um, and then you may ask yourself, well, that's only $1.3 million and 800 well 1,300,841.
Where is the other 199159 $199,159 going? Um, this would go towards establishing a reserve fund. And the main reason here is because of collective bargaining. Right now, we are about to enter into bargaining with five
out of six of the town's labor unions. So, they're all due contracts come June 30th of this year that will start on July 1st of 2026. So, we've me and Lindsay have begun uh figuring out what those potential
increases are, getting ready for negotiations, um you know, strategy, all that stuff. Um, but needless to say, this also includes contracts for both Deputy Chief Benner and uh, Chief Witham, who also are on expiring
contracts as of June 30th, 2026. And we'll need new contracts to continue on on July 1st, 2026. With all that being said, we will also be doing a department by department operational efficiency analysis. I know that the town just went through a class
and comp study to look at all these positions. Unfortunately, you went through a classic and comp study when financial the financial situation was drastically different than it is today. Um, so we're going to take a look at that classic and comp study as we take a look at departments and figure out what
can be paired back because obviously again the window in which that picture was taken is different than the window we're looking at today. >> Uh, that will be need to be done and again for instance like with the council on aging, we need to do an analysis to figure out what is actually needed over there moving forward.
Um, do we believe it's too full-time? Not necessarily. Do we believe it's too part-time? Not necessarily. Is it somewhere in between? Maybe. But we have to figure that out with the COA director and really analyze that. So, uh, next steps and future strategy.
Again, just outlining that reserve fund. that's really going to be to make sure that we can retain as much staff as we can with the override with a successful override because we need to lock people up for the next three years in key administrative positions.
Um I put this last slide on here because on town meeting floor typically there's a question about what is given to wage and personnel employees that are also outside the union contract. So we have a section of town staff that their their
raises their cola increases are dictated on town meeting floor every year and that is a very small minority of the majority of the workforce in the town because police, fire, uh mixed unit and
uh highway and then we have an admins union. So that leaves a number of department heads that are subject to town meeting and they have their cola increases decided by town meeting vote. >> It's about 10 employees. >> Yeah. Um 1% increase on cola would be
about $16,645 and a 2% increase would be 30,157 across that wage and personnel. And that's just for your your information. We're not that's not in the budget right now, but that if it comes up during town meeting,
it's so that you folks have the numbers to know exactly what they are because that question has been asked in the past. Um, and this is the number I'm estimating heading into next year for associated costs with um probably most likely the second year of contracts. I
mean, when you bargain with unions, you bargain with unions and you have to come to a consensus and a middle ground. So, um, this QR code will land you on a page on
the town website if you scan it that will bring you to, um, basically all these financial documents that are being compiled in one place so people can have access to them. Um, so you can take a picture of that. It'll get you into a folder. You'll have the presentation
there. You'll have the expenditure sheet so you can take a look at it in detail on your own time. Um, my office is always open for questions. Whatever you guys need answered, we're going to be here for. I'm also going to during the month of April, um, be speaking whenever
I can to as many folks as I possibly can and doing the same presentation if necessary. I want as many folks in the town to to hear this. Um, I'm going to be speaking hopefully at Heinrich Hall towards the end of the month. I'm going to ask the chiefs. I haven't asked them yet, but they're interested in having us
come down to talk about police and fire impacts and what that may mean to the Halifax mobile estates and the residents down there. Um, so again, this information we want out there and to be readily available to folks to consume and and you know, help you make your
help you have the data you need to make this decision for yourself. >> Just 45 seconds from me. Last comment. I'd like to thank Stephen Lindsay, um, department heads and chiefs, um, the finance committee for all the work that you put in. Um, you know, last year we knew this was going to happen. This
should not come as a surprise to anybody. You know, we basically punted the override last year in favor of free cash. This is not a surprise. If you're surprised, then I'm not sure where we've been. Um, you know, our job up here is to put the town in the best position possible. We believe we've done that
with suggesting this override. you know, there's some mechanics of it that I think some internal struggle we still disagree on a bit. Um, you know, between the schools rallying, the parents, the senior citizens, the COA, the mobile homes rallying their troops. Hopefully, there's enough momentum. You know,
there's got to be a there's got to be a cost analysis here. It stinks. These are all deep cuts. No one wants to make them. They're not popular. Everybody's got different priorities. There are pros and cons to everything, but if we've all been doing our job since we talked about this last year, uh we should have some decent support behind it. Whether you're
a senior citizen or a school committee or a young parent or a first responder or somebody who relies on any of those groups, this is not a surprise. Um so I just like to thank the people who put the time in and the effort in. Um the numbers are real. Um, and again there's
some mechanisms I think for discussion on how we got to one override versus two and the buckets and so forth and we kind of dwelled on that for a bit but um, you know, this is somebody said it before it's all for one or one for all or whatever you said, but if everybody rallies their group then it shouldn't be
a problem in passing it. Um, that being said, we should still continue to communicate as much as possible. >> Sure. >> That's all I have to say. >> Yeah, I would like to echo what he I know it's getting to the witching hour here, so we want to get out of here. But, um, thank you to our fincom. Again, guys, these these aren't folks that just
show up in the 11th hour. They've put the time in, you know, and they're volunteers. Our school committee folks are volunteers. We essentially we're we're not taking a salary this year. We are essentially volunteers. So, we're all trying to put our heads together to come up with the best answer. Uh, and I
think our goal here is to try to educate people as much as we can. That's my personal goal. An override vote is very personal. It's what your vision is for your town. But our responsibility is to make sure folks know what both choices
will really look like. And that's what we're going to hit hard over the next month. Not to sway you to go one way or the other, but just to say, "Hey, if you vote this way, this is what it looks like. And if you vote this way, this is what it looks like." So, um, if you see
folks talking about it around town or just make sure that they're educated, make sure that they're informed, suggest the stuff that Stevens put together. Um, because I want people, the worst thing you can do is get into a ballot situation if it makes it there and not have any clue on what you're voting on.
So, um, let's educate Halifax as much as we can. Um, and that's all I have. Thank you guys for everything. Jim, anything for you guys before we close our meeting? Um just a brief statement at least for me. So um just to echo what you guys have said, I I want to thank
the committee itself for the time they put in starting back in late November, early December when we met with department heads. All the we all had our liaison assignments. We met with all the department heads. We knew what we were up against and we this was a highly
debated and there's still some conversations that need to happen after this uh by the finance committee on the numbers that we presented. Again, as I said earlier, it's there's no true solution. It's all tradeoffs. We have to not do one thing to do something else.
The budget we've created is based on the available dollars as of today for next year. the override will will supplement that to give us a level give us a level service which means we would just be servicing or funding what we have today.
So this isn't new spending. It's not additional items anywhere inside of the town government or even at the school. It's just what we have today. That's what we would be funding. On average it's about $44 a month the override.
So, you know, I want to thank the team that we have here. I think we function really well. We have for a while. Um, and uh, you know, this was not this was not this was not an easy decision for anybody on this committee.
>> Thanks, Chip. Anything else, guys? >> I I've got something, Jonathan. Um, let's touch a little bit on the override as far as how that works when it gets to the floor at town meeting and approved
or disapproved on the floor and where it goes from there. >> Sure. >> For the uh ballot. >> Sure. So, you're >> so everybody understands the mechanics of that. So, an override is a two-part process essentially where at town meeting the the residents will vote
whether or not we want to put the override on the ballot. So, if you're voting yes for the override at town meeting, you are not voting to ratify the override. You are simply voting to
allow the question of the override to go to the ballot that following Saturday. The ballot is what will decide whether or not the override survives and it needs a simple majority at the ballot. So that's the two-step process that an
override is. >> That make sense, Frank? >> Yes. Makes sense to me. Just as long as everybody understands. >> Sure. >> If it's approved at town meeting, it gives the opportunity for the entire town on Saturday to vote yay or nay.
>> Correct. at the ballot box >> in our >> gets voted down on the floor never makes it there and all the cuts we're discussing here all the headaches >> you're going to see it you're going to feel it >> and >> that's a good point cuz there's no going
back either so like like what Frank said that's yeah that's a good point Frank >> right that's it and that's what you're going to live with for the next 365 days >> sure >> effective July 1st first limited service with >> and I will say and I will say to speak
to that Frank you're seeing in communities there are communities around us where they initially shot down their overrides and then within a year later ratified that override because I think the towns that I'm talking about got a
taste of what it really felt like and came back the next year and said you know what we didn't like how that's going to we're going to pass this override. So, um, to your point, what the vote is is what the vote is for 365 days.
>> And Jonathan and Frank, to your point as well, the mechanics of it are they vote in the they vote or not vote for the finance committee's recommended budget. >> Correct. >> Then they go to the override vote. >> Correct. And then if it may if it passes
that initial okay on the ballot if it is defeated at the ballot box the voted on budget at the at the town >> town meeting becomes the budget. Correct. >> Correct. >> Yep. >> And that's the budget we discussed tonight. >> Correct. >> Correct.
>> With all of the cutting and bloodletting and whatever you want to call it. >> Sure. So you're so you're you're hearing it's already starting you know on folks are telling me on the social media sites and everything. My my ask of everybody is to just try and get your information from
informed people. Get real information. Don't rely on um you know a town uh talk page or something about oh I've heard this is there or they're they're they're living fat off their budget. We're looking at the numbers. There's there's barely any fat on this thing at all, if
at any. So, please, my my plea to the town, educate yourself on what we're deciding to do. Don't just go on what you're seeing on on the channels, you know. So, it's my last ple
I two quick things. Just the difference between as far as the vote goes, if this is amended on town meeting floor to an amount like say a million dollars, right? say it gets through the question and the overrides approved. It gets amended down to a million dollars on town meeting floor. It still goes to the
ballot box asking for the 1.5 million. The difference is the 1 million is what's allocated for fiscal year 27 to be allocated the next year. So fiscal year 28, we'd be looking at a situation where that levy limit capacity is able
to be collected by the town without going to town meeting and asking for it. Just so you're aware. In plain language, it means that the million dollars would be taxed immediately and the 500,000 would be delayed until the next fiscal year. Correct. Just want to make sure that's what that means. >> Yes.
>> And then last point on the screen right now, you're looking at a calculator that I will have on the website. You enter your assessed value in that first column. It shows you what your annual impact will be down to the dollars and
cents. I have a bianual version because I know that's how people pay their taxes here in town is is two payments. I have that breakdown and then it shows you what the daily impact is. Now, keep in mind this is just the override amount. It does not factor in the typical annual
2.5% increase. So, this is an amount over and above what is the standard 2 and a half. >> And if I could throw one last thing and I swear this is it for me. >> That's all the last thing here and we're done. I'm not going to use this thing. >> Take take two minutes and call your insurance agent or your insurance
company and ask them what the classification change in different protection class will cost you and weigh that out against the override amount. The protection class difference you experience in a change with a like chief talked about in an ISO rating is severely impacted by that and could be
mitigated by that offset amount. >> So to translate what Tom said, you could be giving extra money to your insurance company instead of giving it to your town to keep your services the same. There you go. >> Yeah. >> All right, everybody. Good. >> Good.
>> All right. Uh, with no more discussion, I will entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> So moved. >> Second. >> All those in favor? I >> I. Our meeting is adjourned at 8:54. Jim, you have the floor. >> Committee. Motion to adjurnn. >> Is there a second? >> Second. >> All in favor?
>> Any opposed? Hearing none, we are adjourned. >> Thank you guys. Thank you.