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Okay, it's uh 6:00. Uh we will call to order the uh finance committee meeting for the town of Halifax on April 21st, 2026. Um, this meeting uh has been posted in accordance with provisions of MGL30A section 20B and is

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being recorded and will be posted to the area 58 community access channel. The finance committee and its chair reasonably anticipate the following matters to be discussed and/or voted on at this meeting. Agenda items may be taken out of order for time management considerations.

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Committee members in attendance, Cheryl Burke, Mike Bennett, Frank Johnston, EJ Bryan, Mike Reignetta, Rod Hemingway, and myself, Jim Walters. Um, so we will go ahead and dive into our agenda. So, the first part of the agenda uh will be

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an approval of meeting minutes. Now, the corrected minutes, I think, only came out about an hour ago. Um, I haven't really had an opportunity to read through and make sure everything all the corrections were made appropriately. So, we'll just carry that approval over to the next uh meeting for the 17th. I

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believe it's the 17th of February is those minutes. Um and uh any other minutes that come along at that point in time. Any objections to that? >> No. >> No objections. >> No objections.

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>> Thank you. Uh we will move then into our second item which would be the town administer administrator update. So, um, Steve, I put a couple of just kind of bullets on here. I'm sure there's probably some other items you may want to go through in this section. Uh, and we certainly look forward to hearing about I know you had the one public

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forum. >> Um, you know, I watched the recording of that. I'm sure you know, whoever wasn't there also probably watched the recording to that. So, uh, and, um, you know, just, uh, I know there was some questions around special town meeting, who calls that, how's that occur, and

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what can happen at that point in time. So, I'm going to turn it over to you uh for any for warrant status updates at this point. >> Sure. Um so, thank you, Jim, for that. Um yeah, so we had the first two sessions actually of the um of the

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forums. We had one on Thursday and then we followed up with another one on Saturday. Uh we've had a pretty good draw so far. About I'd say seven, eight folks. There was 10 probably the first night. Um lot of good questions. Um, I've already kind of edited a couple

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things as a result, um, to get more information out there. Um, played with the calculator a bit that has been changed on the website. So, you can see the new calculator, which actually, um, the one thing I was hearing was people didn't uh, know what their tax rate would have been without the override

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next year. So, I built it so that you'll see what your tax rate would be with just the 2 and 12% then the 2 and 12% plus the seven. So you'll get the full idea of what your tax bill will be next year um with the override being successful. So be it will show the full nine and a half percent. Um which is a

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good bonus. I think people want really that number as opposed to just what their increase will be. >> That's wonderful. >> So that's a a short little update on that. Um we do have three more sessions coming up uh just to close out that item. But we have one that will be held at Heinrich Hall which will have the

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police chief and fire chief um to help with um the folks down there at Halifax Mobile Estates uh give them a little bit of an understanding about what the impacts will be. We have another one scheduled for the library on May 2nd. Uh right now tenatively at 11:00 a.m. to try to draw some of the folks coming off

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the soccer fields, the parents. So hopefully we get some of them to stop in. Uh and then lastly, I have another one scheduled for during the triad meeting on May 5th where that will be at Great Hall and we'll be giving the same presentation that uh pretty much everybody's seen. So all said and done,

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there will be five of these sessions uh pretty much just rinse and repeat. The questions have been a little bit different. We expect the questions to maybe intensify as more information gets out there. So, but it's been a good start and I think um the better part is we've had even more folks even today

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we've had probably three or four folks come in and ask even more follow-up questions um which has been good. So, um and just clarifying questions and everybody's just been pretty grateful that they have someone there to provide, you know, the facts and that's all we're really giving them is just the

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information they need to know so that they can make the best decision for themselves. Um so, moving on to the warrant status. the warrant. You guys have the most um upto-date version of the warrant. That was the warrant that was sent to the press. So, that is the

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warrant that will be shown during town meeting. I'm pretty sure that's the one I sent to you guys. That was right after Pam uh and I had reviewed it and that was the one that went sent sent to the printer. Um so, if you have any updates or any questions about language, anything we need to address before town

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meeting, that will be the version people will see. So, keep that in mind as you're going through. And if you have any changes that we need to make or address, we'll make those edits as needed. We know that there we can't catch everything, but right, >> we'll see. >> Well, we we we uh it was brought up on

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one piece that needs to be probably amended when at town meeting >> under wage and personnel where it says the finance committee shares responsibility for non-un wage and personnel matters. >> That's not true. >> Okay. >> So, that falls all to the board of selectmen. I think we changed that last

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year. year. >> Was that last year we changed that? Okay. >> Yeah, we changed that last year. We were having, you know, wage and personnel meetings which was a joint meeting with the selectman and the finance committee to discuss that. >> But uh I think uh we we had that moved over to the selectman solely as their

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responsibility. >> Okay. And please let me know if you find any more of those. Um >> we will clean those up. Have we seen I know Lindsay was on her way. >> She's here. Oh, she's on there. >> Just wanted to make sure >> um just so I have another person hearing

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all this so that we can address it tomorrow. >> Sure. >> Um all right, next item. Um so that's all on the warrant unless I have any more additional questions. I'm sure you guys can send me in the edits as needed um on that information.

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um special town meeting discussion. So yeah, so there's a couple reasons we'll have to have a special town meeting. Um one being the capital planning committee and the capital items that need to be prioritized by that committee and put in place and and then voted on at special

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town meeting. And the other one is the snow and ice deficit, which you have a full fiscal year in order to raise and appropriate those monies uh to cover that deficit. So, not saying that we're in trouble by not putting it on special time meeting, but we'll have a better idea of exactly where the funds can come

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from to cover snow and ice and it will give us a little bit of an opportunity to to plan accordingly. Um, those are the two major items I see for special town meeting just being the capital plan. Um, and then also the snow and ice deficit. Uh, there may be other things

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that arise in that time. Obviously, uh, the target window for special town meeting is typically the fall months. Um, so we'd be looking at probably September, October, uh, which would give us pretty much the summer to plan everything. Um, but there's definitely a

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need and it's 100% necessity. Um, obviously depending on what happens at town meeting, we can ultimately add more things to that warrant if we see fit or if you see fit. Mhm. >> So, it's going to leave some opportunities, but the necessity is

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there um to have it regardless for those two items at the very least. >> Right. And that's called by the board of selectmen. Correct. >> Correct. >> Uh Steve, what's going on with the deficit on the snow and ice? Where's the number at?

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>> I'd have to verify with Lindsay, but at last check, I believe it was still at the about 160 number. >> 160,000 over. >> Yep. And I have a running spreadsheet of possible places to take that from.

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>> Okay. >> Can we get a look at that, Jim? That uh running spreadsheet maybe. >> Can you share that with us, Lindsay, when you get a chance? >> Yeah, I can send it to you tomorrow. >> Okay.

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Thank you. Mhm. >> I will say we had something come up at the water department. So, one of the lines might not be available to take from >> um because it will have to go to building maintenance for what um I think

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it was a septic issue. Um so that I will have >> sewer pipe burst um that had to be repaired. So emergency, it's your prototype uh reserve fund project. It's one of those ones you can't protect project. Um it just happened and you

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know typically they come out of things like the reserve fund but uh we can also turn over some other rocks to see where money might be available. >> Yeah cuz one of the lines was um the building maintenance the uh 19.5 that we never filled

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had that overage for wages. So Scott also talked about that. That was one of the lines for the snow ice deficit that I included as well. So, it would just have to be looked at tomorrow and talked about the plan, but aside from that, I can send you the spreadsheet.

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>> Thank you. Are are there funds available in the reserve fund, Steve? >> Yeah, it's about $100,000 at last check. >> Okay. And that's But that's the the sewer issue is that's the purpose of the reserve fund, right? >> Yep. >> Yeah. >> What's the value on that uh sewer

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project? I'd have to get the quote from Scott, but I believe it was it was in the $20,000 territory, Lindsay. I don't want it on that. >> I think he said it was like 16 or 17,000, but yeah, around 20 for sure, I think would be >> We can verify that with Scott. They just

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literally finished it up late last week. So, >> where was that? Over at the water building. >> Yes. Yes. >> Yep. They had to dig a trench and um repair the pipe because it was the actual pipe broke.

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>> Right. Right. >> Yeah. So, that's um it's one of those things that happens. Um but Scott did a great job addressing it. Uh we probably got it done for I would say probably a cost that's a little bit lower than going out and vending for it for sure. Taking getting

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a vendor on it. So, um Scott does a great job as usual. So, uh all right, moving on. Uh unless anyone has any other questions about special town meeting. Uh so we will be having one. We just don't know what's going to be on it yet.

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We know a couple things. >> Um now moving on to the school budget. Um so there's been a lot of discussion recently between myself um and the school department trying to get around and not get around but trying

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to understand from both sides the net school spending number. Um, and I think I figured out a way to explain it very effectively, um, so that folks can understand it. Um, so there's been a lot of back and forth about the spreadsheet that we use,

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um, agreements between the town and the school that sort of outlines the amount of shared cost that goes between both entities. So, are you guys all familiar with net school spending and how it's formulated? So net school spending is a number that

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the department of e uh elementary and secondary education sets before each school year. This year for the town of Halifax, I'm just going to look at my notes real quick. We had a net school spend minimum of 8,96,715.

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And then when you look at that number, that's the minimum amount of money that the town of Halifax needs to spend in order to meet net school spending. Now, that seems like a pretty big number when we take it and we look at it and compare it to like the the Silver Lake Regional

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School District assessment, which is in the neighborhood of 10 million. It's about $9.9 million. Um, however, with the local HES school budget, what the town of Halifax is able to do is we are able to subtract costs that the town

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provides for the schools and it's done through the through the department of uh education or DESIE and through chapter 70 compliance. And what that number does is that formula does is it allows you to subtract items that the town pays for on

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behalf of the schools which then will lower your net school spending number. So, if we take a look at that $8,96,000 in 78 8,96715 and you start subtracting things like um fixed costs such as insurance, Medicare,

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Medicaid, retirement, um mass teachers account, um the school's responsible for 100% of their employees cost under those plans. That number comes out to 81% of the total number that's determined by this spreadsheet, which is a number of

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1.6 million 1.649,158. That also includes the debt that is paid for by the town on behalf of HS. So that total again is 1,649,158, right? And if you subtract, that's 81% of the total that comes out of this

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spreadsheet of $2,35,998. Now, people may say, where's that other 19%. That other 19% adds up to $386,839. And that covers the following things. 26.1% on average of the following lines and

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expenses. The TA's salary, town reports, audits, fin clerical, fincom expense, account sal, accountant salary, assistant

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accountant salary, accountant expense line, data processing, uh, treasurer collector salary, treasurer collector clerical, and it's actually 55% of that line. building and

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building committee. So those lines, if you take 26% of the line of the line item, adds up to $386,839 plus the $1,649,158 to come up with a total of $2,35,98.

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You subtract that from the net school spending number provided by Desi which was 8,96,715. That leaves you with an amount of 6,60,717. So, if the spreadsheet is 100% accurate, now this is a spreadsheet that's been

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used for years by the town of Halifax to um to basically equate this number of net school spending as far as town share goes. You are talking about again a number of $6,60,717. Now, if I go back to my budget that I

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developed and has all the cuts in it, I want to give you guys the number that effectively is being budgeted for the school right now. When you keep in mind 6,60,000 is the net school spending minimum if you include the share.

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I just want to pull up my numbers here for reference. >> Yeah. Didn't you have like 6.9? >> Yes. So, I just want to put some kind of misinformation to bed on this.

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Um because the schools are continuing to tell us that our information and our numbers are wrong and that >> so how are we how so Steve? Yeah, I I can certainly understand their ask versus what we're saying we owe them and

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their belief or under or um impression that we are operating under the wrong formula I guess for lack of a better term. How are we able is the number that we're looking at here the 6.9 is that something that we can that is um I don't

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know I don't want to use the word certified but is it it's backed by like the the the department of elementary and secondary education you know how are we able to get this back to them to say this is this is where we are meeting the

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chapter 70 requirement of our local contribution plus any state aid to give you your budget. We won't know until this time next year. >> Okay, >> Steve, what what are they actually questioning? Are they questioning the

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the number or are they are your number or are they questioning the process that you use to get to your number? >> Both. >> But it's the process we've been using for years. >> Right. So they're so but they're also saying that the numbers on that

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spreadsheet are are incorrect. >> That's a question. >> Yes. And they've been they've been provided with they've been provided with the spreadsheet. >> Okay. >> How they going to back up their assumption, >> right? So needless to say, even if you were to just include the fixed costs

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here, which we all understand, that's 100% on the schools as far as their insurance contributions, Medicare, Medicaid, retirement, everything else. That adds up to 1 one, 649,158.

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So if you add 300,000 that even puts them at 6 million let's say 65 just to be even if we were to give them the 19% operation side that puts them at 65

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and then the other thing when you look at the budget right so it was 69 it was $6,931,771 there's three lines below that that total approximately $400,000 as well one being vocational education, which again, we're supposed to have a number on that

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by now because that that deadline was uh April 15th, >> right? That's come and gone. >> So, April 15th, we've and I did email them asking for a result as far as how many students are enrolled in vocational education and have not heard back yet.

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um special needs tuitions and transportation amount to $250,000 rough give or take and those are not included in the 6.9 million. So that 6.9 is more like

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7.3 versus their ask of se well their original ask again original ask uh in December of 7,722,975 and again they voted a number of 8 million

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uh 8,100 >> right >> because they went they went above and beyond the 8 million 8 million $157,387 is what >> that's correct. Yes, 100%. >> And I believe personally I believe that

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there's enough buffer there um at the 69 to be I'm not going to again Jim I understand your concern. I think worst case scenario is it comes out of the assessment next year, right? >> That's probably the worst case scenario

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if it's close enough. talking about anything over 6.9. Is that correct? >> Yeah. Anything we would have to do as far as not meeting net school spending would come out of the assessment that's granted to the town. >> And again, like one of the sticking points here as well is we are still

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waiting on proceeds from chapter 70 dating back to uh the end of 2025. Uh and right now we're getting towards the end of April. That amount of money is one approximately $1.25 million. And so we're waiting on those dollars to

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be and again we submitted information to them I want to say the information that they quote unquote needed to provide that submitt to Desi about a week ago now. So, um, and again, we had we we've been in contact with them since I came

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aboard trying to get that money particularly inhouse because that helps pay the teachers, helps pay the staff at the schools and we haven't seen it any of it since the 2025. So, we've been wondering where it is. They said they

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requested it back in February. We looked at the emails. We didn't see the exact request they're talking about. So, there's been some miscommunication there. But again, this is the other reason why I'm trying to get more regular meetings with the school department so that this

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doesn't happen next year. You know, I want to be able to start with them so that we're not in a place where there's, you know, any sense of animosity or frustration with either side. I want to be able to work through this year by year,

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>> right? >> Yeah. I mean, I think it's important that we're all working with the same set of numbers. We should be able to understand what the numbers are and have a conversation about what the actual numbers are rather than have two sets of numbers and then debate which one's more accurate. I mean that can only come with

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a professional dialogue and we need them to see what are their numbers, where are they getting it, how are they arriving at it so we can best budget for the town, for the school. >> I agree, Rod. And I think the the one last sticking point here is that

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traditionally in a lot of these situations, some sort of agreement exists and that agreement basically outlines the percentages of the share that is basically from the town to the school. Um, and we've been looking for

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that historical document. We haven't had success finding it. Um, we don't it may it may not have never existed. But then again, we do look at past practice because we say that we know that the form we're using has been in in use for

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years, for a number of years, has been through the auditing process and gotten through no problem. Um, and has been seen by accountants and previous town accountants, the current town accountant. like we know it's pretty

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good when we get into the conversation of having an agreement. I'm willing to entertain an agreement. It just has to be fair for the town. I mean, I don't think there's any way you can really argue the fixed costs on this. Those are the what we pay for the teachers and

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other staff at the school. That's that's a no that's a non-starter for me. That we physically pay that. As a matter of fact, I looking down at the positions that they pay 26% of, I think those are honestly fair, too. I mean, payroll is a

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huge component of the town function, town hall function. And if you look at the positions that are compensated or shared, quote unquote shared by any agreement or the spreadsheet being in place, it's got a lot to do with the payroll function. And what's the headcount over there? Is it at least 26%

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of the town's employees? So it's at least 20% of 26% of the work I bet for those offices. >> Okay, >> that's where we stand on that. I'm trying to uh facilitate a meeting with um Dr. Jill PL, Stephanie Hatton, uh

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Brian Prrena, uh Lauren Laws, and even potentially Gordon Laws. Um, I know Jim has had interest in in joining that meeting. So, I'd like to have a representative from the fincom there and um, obviously the board of selectman as well. So, I want all the stakeholders at

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this table so that when we get to talking about agreements that it's fair for everybody, you know, that all the stakeholders that have a say in this are at the table. >> Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, that's that's the elementary school. So, Silver Lake, has

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there been any clarity on the $500,000 increase over last year for the for Silver Lake High School, middle school? Nope. >> Because when I got questions, I'll tell you, getting back to the forms, right? The occasional question about the

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schools. Well, what are the schools going to do? Well, we told the schools to cut the budget, and I understand that based on the way their financing works, they couldn't cut the budget. you ask them what they're going to cut. Well, their plan is to cut nothing. That's their plan. Um,

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so if I don't I have a lot of questions about, you know, the Silver Lake Regional School District. I can say that we're inactive conversations about regionalization. Um

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>> well right but regionalization only impacts the elementary school right >> no no it would it would probably make everything cheaper in the long run >> okay some >> degree >> upfront I don't know I think the cost

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would be particularly higher >> you may gain efficiencies you may gain efficiencies from an administrative perspective but I don't think you're going to save a ton of cost savings unless you're just speaking solely about um transportation Yeah, I think with the efficiencies you'd gain in administration, you'd be

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able to eliminate a lot of redundancy >> at least that I mean because I think the thought there is that the regional district would be would be shrunk to fewer school committees which is just um it's a lot to align basically 20

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people. So if you had just one board doing that, it might be a little bit easier and then you could probably cut cost elsewhere. But again, that's a conversation for a completely different day, >> right? >> Because I would, you know, just to go back to my original question, I I would

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like an explanation from whoever at Silverlake, Dr. Jill or Stephanie or anyone else who is willing to explain to us why why we had a half a million dollar increase in one year

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>> because that's a lot of money and I don't think our headcount at the school changed so dramatically to indicate that type of a an increase. I don't believe they've hired more teachers. I don't believe that they have different types

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of or created new curriculums. I mean, I don't know because they're not telling us. >> So, you know, that's, you know, right now I'm just I'm just throwing just ideas out there. And, you know, I don't want to have the wrong idea. If there's something that they can point to or come

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to and explain that makes sense. Um, that's that's that's what I would like to see. So, I I' I'd like for them to take the opportunity to explain it to us. the town of Halifax and the finance committee of why the rate went up so much. Uh because right now there's just

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nothing behind it other than a new number. >> Yeah, I tend to agree. I haven't I haven't seen any information besides trying to glean what I can from from their budget documents and that's it's an extensive document as you guys have

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all seen too. Um, and it's even the document itself is kind of confusing because you're switching back between regional and uh, elementary school and um, so it's a lot to get through. I mean, I think all of us noticed some increases in certain items like textbooks and stuff and then it was

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explained to be software as opposed to textbooks. So, uh, yeah, I think there's still a lot of questions there that you guys want answered and I think that's fair. >> Did they did they send you uh, the Silver Lake spreadsheet? No.

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>> Okay. Well, I'm going to So, that said, I'm going to send an email to Stephanie and I'm going to copy you and the finance committee on have her send us the Silver Lake regional budget so we can have a look at it from a line item um perspective because that's the only

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way we're going to be able to figure it out is by drilling into it. And right now, it's just, you know, it's just fluff. Yeah. >> Okay. You can ask for $550,000. You should have the backup available and ready to justify that number to get to

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that number and provide that to the finance committee in the town of Halifax. That's just unacceptable that we do not have access to that information. >> Yep. >> But if you think back to last year, that's how they played the game. >> That's right. And then at town meeting,

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we got this little scrap of paper >> paper >> that had their budget laid out on it. >> Right. Chicken scratches, >> right? Essentially. Yes. So, I mean, I'm sure we're going to get that again. >> Don't waste a paper if that's what you're going to give us, >> right?

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>> Yeah. All right. Anything else for Steve on the schools or the um um or the high school or or the warrant? So, other than the correction on the uh wage and personnel, anybody else catch

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anything in the warrant? >> No. No. Look good. >> I haven't finished reading all through it yet, Jim. I'll do I'll do that tomorrow and if I have any questions, I'll shoot them out. >> Can I just add one thing, Jim? >> Yeah. Um, I wanted to put out to you guys as well, I'm going to obviously be

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doing, speaking of supplemental documents for town meeting, I'm obviously going to do one for the override stuff so that people can sort of be able to have a sheet to look at and have it simplified form in front of them. There anything else as just if there is anything else in the town meeting warrant you want to see as a

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supplemental, let me know and we'll throw something together so that folks if there's something there that needs to be understood by residents a little bit better, please feel free to let me know. Okay. >> Well, just just to add to that, Steve, since since we're talking about that, so

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watching the watching the video the other day, >> there were there was there was a question or there seem to be repeated questions or thoughts around, you know, the delinquent tax situation that that has, right? >> Yeah. So, you know, and I can certainly

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appreciate it because I'm sure it's a quantity of dollars that that are, you know, that are pretty sub sizable that would help the town. Um, I think what would help answer that and to kind of put that to bed is an explanation of,

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you know, it's not it's not like, you know, the day after a a tax bill is delinquent that the town is out there getting their money. um you know it is a legal process that you have to go through uh you know so and that's going to take about probably two years if the

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property owner never objects to anything you do in court um right but at any point in time the property owner could come in and say well I want to I want to you know I want an opportunity to speak then they reschedule it and it could go as long as six years for all you know and then the town has has to get an

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auction where they have to hire hire an auctioneer um you know to to auction off the house and then it only gets a portion of the taxes and has to return the balance to the property owner. Um, you know, and in order to facilitate

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that in a town of this size, we would need to hire somebody to to manage that process itself. And that's so that's that salary along with the lawyers fees that we would have to pay. um you know, so you're you're chasing, I don't know,

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$600,000 over the next two to six years. Uh by the time it's all said and done, your expense may be even half that just to just to chase that stuff down. So, I think it's I think it's kind of like some a misunderstanding of how that works. Um which is leading individuals

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to think that we can just go get this this there's this bucket of money out there for us to go get. Yeah, thanks for bringing that up, Jim, because I actually did dig into it a little bit more because I was like, you know, like you explained all for all those reasons, that amount of money just can't we can't

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walk out there like the old cartoons as a tax collector and just go knock on people's door and have them expect to hand us cash, >> right? >> Uh and I do understand $600,000 is a lot of money, especially when you're going for an override of $1.5 million. >> Yep. >> So that was the amount that the person brought up was $600,000. There is in

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fact $600,000 in taxle lean um property in town. But as Jim described, a lot of these are expensive processes to carry out to potentially get money out of, you know, a situation that's already delinquent. So there's we already know

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that the money is likely limited. Um, some of the other reasons, you know, as Jim was describing, the auction process, the town is actively going through an auction process right now, and we're going to be lucky to net 10 to 12 grand on it. And it's the 10. That's fine.

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That's great. 10 to 12 grand. But at the same time, the amount of work that has gone had to go in administratively has been taxing as well because the focus that the treasur collector's office has had to put on that has taken away from other things to recoup essentially 10 to

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12 grand. And that's if the sale goes well. The sale could go the other way and we could end up losing a couple grand. Um, and then it's like, well, why'd we do that? And then we lost all the other, you know, operational bandwidth. you know, some taxes are

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virtually uncollectible anyways, whether they're locked up in a trust or, you know, some situation like that. They're impossible to even get through legal means. >> Um, you know, foreclosure is always our last resort as a town government. We, right, >> you know, from for a variety of reasons,

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you know, mainly being it's very politically sensitive. We don't want to be closing on residents properties if we don't have to uh and end up in a foreclosure situation as it is. You know, as I said, we already talked about the administrative and resource constraints. I think that's been sort of a prevailing message in this is that as

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the town staff shrinks, these are the types of things that we get, you know, they take up so much of our time to carry out and it's just it becomes counterproductive because what is your take, what are you taking home on it? What is your net? You're effectively

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costing yourself in other areas to chase minor amounts of money. Um, you know, as Jim laid out, some of these the timing on some of these things can last anywhere between three, four, five years before you even see anything. Uh, interest and fees don't always make us

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whole, as I described with the auction process. When everything's all said and done, we may not make money on this. We may, in fact, lose a slight amount of money on this. So, again, to say that we could go I wish we could go out there and knock on everyone's door that owed us taxes and simply have them cut us a

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check. It's just not the way it works from a from just a a standpoint of there's way too many case by case basises here to have it all tie together into one neat package, >> right? >> So, yeah, there

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I'm willing to answer the questions. I know we have some other folks on the call. I mean, if you have want more information about that, we can have you talk to the treasure collector and explain exactly how tedious some of these processes are. So, Jim, you do have a question.

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>> No, that's uh that is my wife. >> She has her hand raised. >> Yeah, have your hand raised. Ruth, >> can you hear me? >> Yes, you can now. >> Sorry. Thank you. Um, I think what what Jim and I Jim was trying to get at is

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that the the woman who raised that question about, you know, the $600,000 was focused on, you know, 600 is, you know, more than a is a substantial amount towards the 1.5 million. And she's right. and but in order to to

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answer that question succinctly and move on to something else without offending her um because she said you know we're offering suggestions and you're not considering them. So I I think if you could just say this process takes at

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least two years and possibly as much as six and may cost the salary of an additional accountant maybe at $75,000 plus bringing in a lawyer for whatever

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amount that would cost and in order to chase down each one of those properties on a case-byase basis. Correct. Yeah. And I think that's >> I just think that I think, you know, she she I understand why, but I think she

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couldn't let it go because she kept thinking, "But it's 600 grand." >> I hear you can just kind of quantify quickly, but we'd have to hire someone because our current accountant can't do it um without neglecting her other

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responsibilities. So we'd have to hire somebody for 75 grand, bring in a lawyer for, you know, for for maybe another $75,000. So that's $150,000 you're spending to try to get 600,000. And it's going to take at least two to six years. So it does not solve the problem today.

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And then encourage anyone who wants to continue to beat that point to death to come talk to you separately. >> Yeah, thank you for that. And I will definitely just make it. Would you want to spend 700,000 to get 600 back?

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>> That's a good way to do it, too. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> And Stephen, I don't know if there's also historically what the bad debt or the bad tax delinquent tax numbers are for

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the town and also possibly in comparison to other towns as well. I mean, is this just sort of sort of how municipalities function? because there's always going to be some outstanding tax debt that we don't collect. Uh just as a matter of course, we live amongst people who have

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various reasons why they aren't able to pay their taxes. >> Um and whether or not that's just part of of town government, it's not always we can't always collect 100%. Despite our certain desires to do so, so I don't know if there's any data on that, too. Yeah, Rod, we could certainly um I'm

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sure I'm sure Linda has information on as far as >> I mean I'm sure we're probably required now. Don't quote me on this, but I'm sure we're required to keep our amounts of delinquent taxes pretty like consistent. we probably need to know

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what that amount is um you know somewhere and we probably do track it in order to know kind of what the outlay would be from a legal perspective and from a administration perspective of trying to capture that money. I mean we can sort of run the numbers on some of

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it. Um but I can of I can get with Linda and get sort of a running track record of the last few years. Maybe we could show a snapshot. Um but then other towns I'm sure other towns deal with it. Um, some towns have great tax collection, you know, some towns struggle with it

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more even even more so. And I again, I can't even quantify if $600,000 in the terms of Halifax is struggling with tax collection. Uh, because I don't know the other data that kind of surrounds it off the top of my head. I can look it up to see how well we do in tax collection as

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far as a percentage goes. Uh, that's sort of your barometer, I guess. Um, and then what does 600,000 equate as far as the full levy and you know what percentage is? But as Jim was mentioning, it rolls over from year to year. So that that total sort of just constantly rolls.

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>> Yeah. >> So um, but there's certainly some data that can be had there that can make it clearer for residents to understand how expensive it really is to recoup those monies. >> Yeah, I think it was great. It's a great question to to ignite a discussion about

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it to better understand we have this potential income essentially for the town. Why isn't it being collected and then having understanding well here's what happens this uh in order to collect this debt. This is the cost is incurred by the town to collect it and how why it is so

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difficult to do so. I think it was a good conversation starter and it would be helpful for all residents to have a better understanding of why that is not an easy task simply going up to the door and knocking on it and give us your own money. >> I wish it was that easy because I'd go

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out there with and collect the taxes. >> Okay, good question, Rod. Thanks. Uh Chris Winnowitz, you have a question? No. Okay. Any further discussion on um on this

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part of our meeting? Okay. So we will move we will close out the discussion and around uh for the town administrator's update on the warrant status special town meeting discussion and school budget uh we will move into now the next

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line item which is correspondence and as may arise. So, I received an email yesterday uh from a resident um Mary Graanise uh who asked about the uh had a couple

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of override questions. So, I'm just going to read the I sent it out to the finance committee today. Um so, I'm just going to read it out for our review. So, the first part was so the email reads, "Good morning. just

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became the designated spokesperson to answer this question or ask this question. Can someone, any towns person on town meeting floor reduce the library budget enough to cover the fire department cuts of $140,000?

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If so, how do we do this? Apparently, the library is only required to be open 36 hour and is currently open 41. They have an assistant library director that makes 59 230 and 7950

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79 950 grade 7. Your current library is working in a modified hybrid schedule at home which I'm not sure I agree with it. So if we cut the amount of money to fund fire, how do we word it so it is legal

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and can pass on town meeting floor? That's question one. Question two or item two is school budget. Can we change the dollar amount of the total school budget to be voted on on town floor? If so, how? Also still

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annoyed that we didn't split the override into two. This is a pain. Thank you very much. Have a wonderful Patriots Day. Merry gravities. So um for the committee to you know to to have a look at anybody thoughts.

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>> Uh do you want me to give commentary? >> Sure Dylan go ahead. >> Okay. Hi. I just got to so I you may not agree. I understand the this is the only reason for the hybrid situation currently. Um he woke up. My wife works

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and we cannot afford a daycare. I try and do the minimum amount of time possible. Uh the trustees all lot me with five hours. Um I'm usually trying to get it down to three or two just because this is very difficult.

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Um but that's just comment on the hybrid situation. It's also set to end in June. Uh my trustees review it every month or two. Uh as for cutting the library, I do have the links to the MBLC. Don't kick that.

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Okay, kid. I have the links to why the library isn't receiving a cut and why we don't want it to get cut, which obviously first descertification. If the library is descertified, uh the citizens of Halifax can't use any

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Yeah, it's okay. Don't kind of terrifying, isn't it? There we go. Yeah. Good. Um, if the library is descertified, citizens of Halifax can't use any library in the state of Massachusetts, which is not great. Um,

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currently we've been going up and up 10 to 20% growth every month. So, currently I'm seeing more usage of the library than we've had in past year and years. We're officially above our 2020 numbers. And outside of that, the main thing that

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determines certification first is your municipal appropriated revenue, uh, which is determined by your previous three fiscal years. You add that all up, divide it by three, multiply it by 1.025. >> Yeah, I got to put you down.

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Sorry for that. He's not going to go crazy. But um basically once we get that number, that's how much the state wants us to have. If we do not get that amount of municipal funding, which we cannot subsidize through any other means, we

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can't use grants. We can't use friends money. It has to be municipal money that is coming from the town. That's the first part. If we don't make it, we can apply for the waiver process. If we apply for the waiver process, the state gives us 5 years before we eventually

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have to recover the amount of money that was not given that year. So assuming if we continue to just level the library, that amount is going to keep growing and then eventually we're going to have an override for the library. So it's

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building a future override. Uh also I do want to they bring up an interesting point about our current open time. Let me just double check because actually we're required anywhere from 25

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to 39. Um the main reason why the library is open later is because we have a growth of program quantity and program attendance where last month we had an 85

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attendance program on a Saturday which was amazing. And um if we pull our libraries hours to be open more, we are allowed to spend a little bit less money on materials which allows us to have the staff to ensure that we can be open the

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41 hours. That way we can host. Last month I believe we had 42 programs where the average town library of our size is doing anywhere around 20. So around half. So basically, we're trying to balance

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between it's what the the community is checking out more items and the community is attending more programs. It's just very, you know, difficult because I can't cut either one. If I cut programs and attendance goes down, we'll probably also see checkouts. And the state makes

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it impossible to cut materials because the definition of a library is, you know, a place that has items that the community can use. and we are locked into that 16% so long as we stay above 40 hours. And at the end of the day, if we took a cut, it would cause me to have

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to let go of even more staff. If we cut $40,000 from the staff's from the library budget, the reason why it would come out of staffing is because then we would have to put an additional 3% of our entire budget into materials and

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that would all come out of payroll. Um, our office supply line is like 2,000. It's $150 for a roll of book cover, like plastic guard. Um, so our office supplies is already stretched thin. Uh,

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we're about to finish our electrical uh budget for the entire fiscal year. So, the only place the money can come out of would be staffing. And at that point, we would have to cut two staff. Um, and the library would be closed significantly.

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Like we'd probably have to go down to around 30, hopefully a 35-hour operation in which we would lose at least 6 to 10 programs because each of our staff members hosts at least two unique programs of their own valition. So, not

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only would we lose the staffing required to make sure that we could call someone in to do a program for us, thankfully, if our friends were to cover that expense, but we'd also lose the personnel that are hosting the free events. Um,

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besides that, I don't really have >> Dylan, could I could I ask you a question real quick? Could you just could you just expand on what it would actually mean if we were to get descertified? like what is what are the impacts that would be felt to the community if that were to happen?

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>> The first thing that happens is so let's say we're descertified. You'd usually get that news around December and at that point the library can remain in function. But uh the citizens of Halifax would be no longer entitled to use any

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library within the state. So they couldn't use Boston, you couldn't go to Penrook, you couldn't go to Blimp. You couldn't go to Kingston. none of your neighboring communities would service you. Um there is a rule that you could try, but that is up to the trustees of the other library and then they can set

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their own personal cost because since you none of your tax money is going to making a certified library. They make you pay for a library card at that institution. They set the price and the minimum is $100. The card would then

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expire within one year. Um, besides that, we would also still have to remain in the sales network. Uh, simply because if we're descertified and we lose leave the sales network, we would lose access to all the software that catalogs and runs the library. So,

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and that is more expensive than the sales membership itself. So, we would most likely stay in sales. Uh, also because if we stay in sales, we may have access to some of the e catalog, which we are. We still have a massive amount of checkouts online. So, our patrons

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would still be able to access their our ebooks. But the problem is every other sales library, even if we were descertified, they would be checking out your books and they could check out the books from our library as well if we remained in the sales network. So, you wouldn't be able to go to any other town

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and every other town could come to you. Great. Thank you. >> Welcome. >> Dylan, just a quick question. How many how many library how many active library members or library cards does the homes public library have? >> Oh, I checked this one recently. Um,

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it's an interesting number that I can see simply because the report that I get from sales does a breakdown of people in Halifax with Halifax cards and then there are multiple residents that let's say their first library was a Pemroke.

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We have exactly 2,234 living in Halifax now and they have a Halifax card and we have there's a total of clo like 2,964 I want to say but those patrons um they

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just went to a neighboring library to get their card. um all that that does slightly impact us simply because you want Halifax residents to have Halifax as card for statistical reasons, but um in the grand scheme of things, it boils

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down to the same amount of like they still know that you're from Halifax because they have your license. They know where you're so about 3,000 residents of Halifax out of the 7,700 currently have an active library card.

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And um we've seen a major increase in adult and senior usage. I don't know. Um juvenile usage has actually gone down. I think that's possibly because the um Halifax Elementary had the largest kindergarten class in multiple years. I

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bet last year they were coming to the library. But um we've been seeing a lot an average of 5 to 10 people per week signing up and they're all moving into town. I'm not sure if they're going to condos or if other people are selling and moving out, but we've been having a

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continued growth of library card signups and usage. >> Yeah. Thank you. >> You're welcome. And um I have two positive notes if anyone wants to hear which is first, we got the certified complete

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certification. So, we're going to be getting $22,000 in total. We already had 11,000 given to the town from the state for certifying for last fiscal year, and they're going to be sending the other half of that amount to make the 22,000. And just last week, I heard from there's

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a group called the ARSL. They're for rural and small libraries across America. and I applied for a grant to the New England branch and they have awarded us $15,000 to help with weatherization of the library which I

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confirmed with Scott can be used to help reduce some of the cost of the library window work that was done and can hopefully help make sure that our building can stand God please no Blizzard 27 but hopefully we'll do a better job uh at the next one because

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we're going to be making some upgrades. Okay, >> thanks for that, Dylan. That's great stuff. >> Yeah, that's great. >> Always trying. >> Yep. Um Okay. Um, and so just to be clear, yes, if the library gets

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descertified, the residents will not be able to borrow from other libraries, but they'll still be able to go to another library and utilize the resources on site because it is a public library. >> Yes, they can physically go in um they can use the facilities, but they cannot

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leave with any items and they will not be issued a library card. >> Yeah, correct. They can't do any borrowing. >> Correct. Um I just want to clarify Dylan that means uh at the Halifax library they couldn't borrow books or uh any other library in the state.

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>> Halifax residents could come to our town and access the library still. It was just without certification they couldn't use any other facility in the state. And my understanding from what I heard you say that some other towns library trustees could choose to offer library

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card to Halifax residents, but the minimum cost would be $100 per year. Yes, they could set the price. The minimum that the MBLC calls for is about $100. Um, currently our own trustees do not allow descertified towns to use the

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library and that is reciprocated across state. But um currently there are potentially a hundred libraries looking at a waiver process this year. And um this as bad as it sounds could be a time for towns that don't have a financial

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crunch to uh bolster turn the library into a revenue source. >> Right. I'd also like to add that um in terms of budgeting and this in the library being untouched um when Dylan approached during budget meeting process he was one

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of the department heads who was willing to do or willing to achieve level funding and level services in the same um the same conversation. So I do want to commend him on that because not many other departments were able to do so.

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So, and Dylan is always he's the one person in town that seems to somehow keep landing these grants when everyone else has obviously been significantly impacted by MBTA. >> Yeah, I found there's a lot of grants offered either from private or federal

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funds towards libraries. So, and also MBLC itself refuses to go with the like grant situation. They're like, "No, you're just getting your grant money. don't worry about it. I was like, cool. So, so far that seems to be the main

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avenue of uh grant funding. Um besides that, the only other news I have when it comes to grants is next year is our strategic plan. If we remain certified, that would leave us open to I would have to redo our strategic plan for five years, which would open up an avenue to

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even more grants from the state, which the main one that a lot of towns, especially small towns, are going for is either a library construction or renovation grant. If you look at um Freetown, Freetown's the big one this year. They got $13 million

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and they're doing what all the small towns do. you get a bu construction project and you don't make it just the library. It's the library and the COA. So that way they can get 50% off the cost of the COA because it's for the entire structure. I know Avon when I

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left it, they were looking at trying to angle for a construction grant while also making one municipal building with all town offices, the library, and the COA all together. And if they got the grant, that'd be 50% off. Um, so we

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could start the process of also trying to look at something like that. That could be a huge savings. Um, I mean, we already do a whole bunch of joint programming with the COA and I know they got some kind of construction money. Um, maybe the grant could help make that

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reach the finish line. I don't know. >> Okay. So, um, >> can I ask a question? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So, I'm a retired book editor and ghost writer and library volunteer. So, the

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libraries are very um and and a patron of your library, Dylan. And I I think the question is coming up because people in the town are looking at, you know, dramatic cuts to possibly the police department staffing and the fire department staffing and they're seeing

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that, you know, the library, you know, really when it comes down to it, do we need a fire department or do we need a library? And I think that most people think that if you close this library or descertify this library that we can just as easily go to Hansen or Pemroke or

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Bridgewater or anywhere else. Certainly that's what I thought. So I think if this topic comes up at town meeting that is the point you need to make clear that if the library descertifies the people of Halifax can only as Jim

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pointed out go sit in the Pemroke Library and read the book they want to read but can't take anything out. >> Yeah. Exactly. >> I think that's a situation that the residents of Halifax would not want. >> Exactly. And I'm not, the library

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doesn't make a revenue. The only thing I can make is value that is determined by the usage of the patrons, the citizens of Halifax and neighboring communities. In last fiscal year, the library's budget was 367. And the total amount of >> check,000.

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>> Yeah. Three, that was the total budget for the library last fiscal year, FY25. And if you take the price of the items that were checked out and the number of times they were checked out, add that all together, it comes out to 870,000. >> So this department is almost tripling

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the efficiency of what's given to it. Okay, kid. I get it. >> Right. But that's not what people are going to look at, Dylan. People are going to look at I would rather have a fire department than a library. Unless you tell them that if this library descertifies, you will not be able to access any other library in

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Massachusetts. >> Okay, that'll be my main swing. >> That's I don't think anybody realizes that. >> Very good. Thank you, >> Dylan. It's Mike Ragnetta. Thank you for that great information. I'm glad you were able to make some time um with your

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baby and everything. So, I appreciate that. The other part about the descertification that we talked about when we went over your budget in the review process was the if that did was to happen is the reertification process. Uh if we were to get descertified, which I think would be terrible for everybody

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in town, can you just real quickly uh in a nutshell talk about that reertification, how we if we how long it would take to get back there, what it would take? Yeah. So most libraries I know for example of existing libraries Bridgewwater descertified in 2008 and I

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think they reertified around it was early 2010s. I want to say 2014 but that's don't quote me on that. And the other one was they also descertified and they recently reertified and they had been descertified longer than I've worked as a librarian. Um the main problem is

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you're digging a hole. The state keeps track of how much was required for municipal funding and then they keep track that amount plus 2.5% each year and eventually you know they say okay it's time where the town's ready to put money aside to reertify the library. Oh

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the amount is now 100 $200,000 more likely for a library of our size $100,000 more. Then you end up having to push for an override to get the money to certify the library again and you end up in another override situation because

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you know most people don't enjoy overrides. No. >> So, and if that doesn't pass and the library doesn't get its funding, you don't reertify and you just keep waiting every year trying to get the proper amount of funding, get back to the amount of hours because um finding

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librarians to work in a descertified library can be very difficult. So, making sure that we'd have the staffing to get people back to working in the library, that would be our main walkway. I would say it would take most likely

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years, but again, if patrons held a special town meeting and just didn't override for the money, it could fix it. But I can't I don't know. It's never happened. It's usually taken minimum 5 to 10 years to reertify.

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>> Thank you. >> Welcome. >> Yeah. Go ahead, Steve. There's one that um helped Dylan out with a couple different points. Um one being back to the original question asking about um you know sort of

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applying the libraries monies towards the cuts at the fire and police department. Um understanding that the cuts at the police and fire department equate to $290,000 and the budget for the entire library is about 376. So you would have to shut

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down the library. It wouldn't be borrowing. it wouldn't be taking from the library to help out the police or fire department. It would be shutting down the library in order to help the police or fire department in almost any regard. Um and then secondly, um when we

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talking about the cuts to the police and fire department, when we're talking about actual employee numbers, I I think folks are getting a little confused here about how deep those cuts go. So, in the terms of the police department, you're losing one retiring sergeant and you're

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also losing the school resource officer. He's being drawn back to basically the department. He will still be on staff, but he will be doing other duties associated with his role. at the fire department, you're talking about the loss of um a lot of the wages associated

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with the on call or call fire department, which if you do the FTE explanation as far or FTE full-time employee um comparison, it is two. So that's three staff across those two

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departments. But it goes to show you how thinly staffed the police and fire departments are in this town. And it doesn't matter where the cuts come at any point in any department in this town. One or two cuts means essentially, you know, is very damaging for any department in this town. I think that's

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the end of the the whole the whole message here. The the other So, I wanted to add something if I could, Jim. Um, so my understanding of the uh with obviously this is part of an override discussion, but if if the library were to be

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descertified due to the cuts associated with uh the the proposal that the the citizen had submitted, then that would be a $100 minimum. If a if a citizen want to go to another town that agreed to let us be able to use our library, that'd be $100. the cost associated with

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fire reductions to the point where our um ISO rating would go up that would be several hundred dollars. So if we add all the just those two components together you're already looking at a citizens uh increase in fees for associated uh services uh would be

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somewhere I know a good chunk of what their the override would be for our town to keep those services in house. Now the other piece is structurally the citizen asked h are they allowed to amend these numbers on town floor during town

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meeting and if so how do they do it? Uh is there a structure by which they can submit a proposal um to reduce these numbers and if so how how do they how do they get that how do they move forward with that if that's something they choose to

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do. >> Yeah. So, Rod, so the general the general rule of thumb here is they do it right on town meeting floor. They ask for an amendment to the budget and they want they have to get um they ask for an amendment. They ask for a second discussion on that. They want to they

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have to have the specific dollar amount um on town meeting floor of what of what they would lower it to. Then they have to second it and if they get it to a vote then obviously the moderator would bring it to the floor for an official vote. Um, so that's the general process that you see during town meeting to sort

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of alter any line that is in town meeting warrant to amend it to say something else. But Steve, just to clarify that point, if there's any numbers that are amended on town meeting floor, that does not change the override number that's being

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proposed, right? That that is locked in regardless of what happens on town meeting floor. >> You are correct, EJ. Yep. And just a little bit further explanation on that. So say the amendment the amendments come down to they bring the total override amount down to 1.1 million uh and town

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meeting floor votes that through is they they are agreeable to 1.1 mil mill million the 1.5 will be what's voted on at the ballot box that Saturday May 16th now the difference being that only 1.1 of that override will be able to be

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collected next year and then the following year you would the town would have the ability to capture that other $400,000 uh in tax collection. So, it'd almost be like a two-phed override in a in a sense. >> Thanks.

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>> Yep. >> All right. I think the second one was, can we change the dollar amount of the total school budget to be voted on on the town floor? So, you know, in general, um, dependent upon how the warrant is

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set up, if there is an article that is being changed or an article or something that's being introduced that is not on the warrant, that is ruled as an outof order motion and not considered by town meeting because the purpose of the warrant and the warrant getting

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published and out to the residents is so that they are aware of what we're going to be talking about and what we're voting on. So, if the if we're if we're going to have a floor of motions that aren't in the warrant, that may be, you know, there's the the

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the moderator or whoever could rule that motion as out of order because it's not in the warrant and it was not expected to be voted on by the residents because it wasn't part of the publication. And that's covered by Massachusetts

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General Law, Chapter 39. So, I think it's all depends on how broad the budget is looked at. Um, you know, or and if we're voting on the fire and the police as separate items inside the warrant, um, it may not be possible to do that.

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So, sometimes, but you know, sometimes not. Steve, please make sure I'm straight on that. >> That sounds correct to me. Sorry about that. >> No worries. >> So, I think you can vote a line item up

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or down like we want to take $50,000 down from the school budget because that's one line and one item, >> right? Yeah. That's the make an amendment to the line essentially. Yeah, >> correct. >> Yeah. You can't make an amendment to like multiple lines as a package.

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>> Yep. >> You have to um amend lines separately, one at a time, >> right? >> Okay. Okay. Any any anything else do we think we need to cover on this? So, I guess the answer is it's possible for someone

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for part one, it's possible for someone to say they want to make a change to a specific line. Um, but you know, I don't think, you know, I don't think it's it's it's not the norm because it's something that hasn't been published in the

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warrant. So it's like when when we've been discussing the override itself and you know doing two overrides or three overrides or four overrides for every override that's done there has to be two budgets created. One that has doesn't

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have the over that doesn't have an approval and one that does have an approval. So now you have eight budgets if you have four buckets of money. >> So that's you know that's that's kind of how that works. and you have to set up the ballot accordingly, >> right?

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>> And that's where it gets real tricky. But it can be done. I think the I think the main reason why that was sort of not against it, but there just wasn't much time to set that up this go around. Um coming on coming on board at the end of

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January, it was just a very short runway. So, um, in the future, yes, I would think that we could easily pull that off. Uh, and we may have to even pull it off later this year. We don't know. >> Potentially. >> Y. >> All right. Any other conversation around

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the budget warrant? >> Um, wanted to add one more thing just about the the school budget. if the school budget were to be reduced a certain amount and maybe this is something Steve you talk about in the um uh in the override discussions but

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understanding that if the budget if the town the net school spending is not met by a town that could risk the the state taking over the the town's the school district and then resetting our tax rate for us without us having any input. Is that

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>> am I understanding that correctly? >> Yeah. So, if you don't if you aren't able to meet the net school spending number, there's a pretty long drawn out process um that comes into play with do coming down and and that's a little bit further down

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the road as far as resetting the tax rate. They give you opportunities to al raise and allocate those monies to to cover your um your deficit and your net school spending. So there's there's a lot of leeway between that and the T and

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the state coming in and setting the tax rate, but it would impact it has the potential to impact um next year's assessment numbers coming in lower based on the fact that you owe essentially cash to the state for not meeting school spending or assessing free cash towards it at a later point in the year.

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Understanding we we know we're not there. One of the bigger penalties is uh if you don't meet it, it puts the school on what's called a one 12th budget, which means they have to take their previous fiscal year, divide it in 12, and they're only allowed to spend that amount of money uh per month. So, um it

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does impact their operations quite a bit. Um so there's a multitude of things that happen, but yes, it's nothing you really want to deal with. So there they residents should be forewarned that there is a there is sort of a a floor on

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that on that school budget number that you don't want to cross because then you put the town in potential um liable situations with the state and desi. So it's a good point, Ron. >> Thanks for thanks for clarifying. Appreciate it.

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Okay. So, with that, if there's no further conversation on the um email that was received, uh we can close out correspondence and as may arise. Um moving into our next agenda item, which will be public participation. So, we

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have a number of people on the call tonight. So, I want to thank everybody for coming. Certainly do appreciate it. Um anybody have any questions for the finance committee or the town administrator? Okay, hearing none, we will close out that agenda item over public participation and move into next meeting

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planning. So, what I've got right now is the 4th of May, uh, which will be probably our last meeting before town meeting, so we can kind of square out, you know, tie up any loose ends or anything that we have at that point in time. That'll be in person at town hall.

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um 6:00, right? Fifth May. That's right. >> It's a quick question, Jim. >> Sure. >> Something I meant to bring up earlier. >> Um did you guys want to set a date for capital planning or do you want to wait till after town meeting and reassess

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then? Um, well, since we're probably going to have since we're going to have the selectman have a special town meeting for capital planning, why don't we wait till after town meeting >> so that we would kind of know where we are with all the uh >> with all the fund funds and finances at that point.

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>> Perfect. >> Okay, >> Jim, May 4th, uh, town hall 6 pm. Correct. >> That is correct, sir. All right. If there is nothing further, uh, do I hear a motion to adjurnn?

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>> So moved. >> Second. >> Very good. Roll call vote. Cheryl, >> yes. Mike Bennett, >> yes. >> Frank Johnston, >> yes to adjourn. >> EJ, >> yes. >> Mike Retta, >> yes. Sorry. Yes. Y

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>> uh Rod. >> Yes. >> And I'm a yes as well. We are adjourned. Thank you everybody for attending. >> Have a great evening. >> Good night. Thank you.