Welcome uh welcome to our meeting. I will begin by reading our public participation at town of Hatfield select board meetings. The Hatfield select board welcomes everyone to its meetings and all other public meetings of the town of Hatfield. All regular and special meetings to the boards and
committees of the town of Hatfield shall be open to the public and shall conform to the open meeting law. Executive sessions are closed to the public and will be held only by as prescribed the statutes of commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is important to recognize that the open meeting law will
affords the opportunity to listen to the proceedings but not necessarily participate during meetings of the select board and attempt will be made to find a balance between hearing from members of the community and conducting the required business of the HEO sweep
board. for the public's information. This meeting is being recorded. Uh presently, my colleague, Captain Luke Longreet, was called away to a fire, so he's not present. He hopefully will be
here at a later date. Uh tonight's meeting will involve uh meeting with the finance board as we continue to uh get our financial picture ready for town meeting which will be on Tuesday the
12th of May which is only a month away and and as you probably are aware the select board's responsibility is try to bring ensure a balanced budget to town meetings so That will be what we're
working on along with Warren. Those are my announcements. I don't know. My colleague >> I have none. >> Do you have any announcements? >> I feel like I did. >> Uh no, not at this time. >> Well, voting will be a week after the town meeting on the 19th. So, um hope
hopefully everybody gets out to vote under public forum. Do we have anybody here for public forum? Okay, come right up. As you may or may not be aware, under public forum, we can't answer any questions unless you're on the agenda.
So, if you choose after public forum to get on the agenda for any of your questions, you can see Andrew because unless it's posted, we can't discuss anything. Is that worth speaking into? Why my
voice is loud enough? I think >> so. So, so we hear you. Great. And then the mic is really for the folks watching from the comfort of their home. So, uh, so if John says we're good, we're good. John, >> we're good. We're good. >> Okay. Uh, my name is Wayne. Uh, my wife
Lesie and I are here tonight. We moved into town about 15 years ago. We live at 31 Main Street, the blue house on the other side of the library. Um, my wife says I tell too long a
stories, but I think a little background is necessary. Um, as most people in town are aware, um, in 1989, I think, uh, a couple moved into town, the Cardinals, and they had an issue
with the town bell. It was ringing throughout the night. Um, it went through the court system, uh, on May 21st, 1990. um in Hampshire Superior Court, a judge,
uh John Riley, I think, or Ryan, one of those Irish names, um said that uh the bell should be silenced at 9:00 in the evening and could resume at 700 a.m. in
the morning. Um when we moved into town, that wasn't exactly uh that situation. it was ringing a little bit later, ringing usually at 10:00. It was no big deal one way or the other. Um, over the
years there's there's been a creep. Uh, my theory is that it has to do with a resetting of the clock uh in the springtime. Uh, that somehow the the
mechanism isn't exactly precise. Uh 9:00 turned to 10:00, 10:00 turned to 11:00. Well, it was not enjoyable. Kind of wake us up a little bit every
night. Uh we had some kind of electrical some type of power outage about five months ago, maybe four months ago, and the clock got skewed and started ringing on the half hour. Um
when uh we went away for a couple weeks around um um daylight savings time change uh it was ringing at u about 11:30 every night. It was annoying. Uh
we came back two weeks ago after daylight savings time. It now rings at 12:30. Actually 12:34. Wakes us up every night. It's a shame you can't answer or say
anything, but this is this is an issue that I don't know maybe affects other people. Um, people have I don't know certain lethargy and reluctance to to come forth. I mean, uh,
it's bothered me for 15 years, but 10:00, what difference? 11:00. A little bit of a stretch. 11:35. Now it's starting to bother me. 12:30.
12:34. Exactly. It's not within the realm of possibility here. You know, I mean, you know, I'm 80 years old. I deserve a night's rest. I don't need to be woken up at 11:30 and 12:30 every
night. I know other people perhaps I get used to it. >> Mr. Chair, is it okay if I just respond because this is just this this isn't this doesn't require deliberation. This is a technical issue and this this can be solved. Wayne, so the right person is is here in this room. Uh Marlo Warner is
our director of public works. His department is charged with with doing this. So we'll make sure that that's fixed. We were unaware that this was still going off at that time of night. So, it's it's an ongoing battle to get that clock on the right time because it's an old system and it used to require taking an a very large ladder,
climbing to the top, changing it. Uh I don't think our workers comp insurance can handle that anymore. What we do now is we turn it off. We we cut the power essentially at the right time and then start it up again. And that's that's usually how we deal with it and that we'll get it back on track. So, we'll make sure that that's taken care of. Um
I'm sorry that that was still happening. um didn't realize that that was still happening at that time. So, we'll take care of that. It is a tricky clock to fix, but but uh it's something that the town does want to fix for you. So, we'll we'll make sure that that's taken care of. >> That that that that is wonderful. I actually had written your office I think
in November before right around the time that you had just were you know uploaded to the town. So maybe maybe you didn't you didn't deal with it. But if we could get back >> waiting for it to be finished too. >> That is true too. because it will shut off the whole thing. Yeah.
>> Well, thank you very much. >> Yeah. No, thanks for coming in and we'll make sure that's taken care of. And I'm so sorry for the inconvenience that shouldn't be happening. >> One one little technical thing. Um on on the website there is I forget it's the uh
the app you use Civic Plus or something something like something like that. Right. So, uh, I wrote I wrote the complaint, uh, a bit ago and, uh, I did not fill out, uh, my daytime phone number. >> Got it.
>> You know, my cell phone, that's the only one I use, right? So, um, my my complaint basically what I just said here, uh, came back and said, "Oh, you got to complete the form." >> It required a daytime phone number. All right. So, I can change that.
>> Well, the um the form the form does not require it, >> you know, because there's light and it's it's either uh darkened or there's a little red asterisk. You you know the form, right? >> You anybody who's never filled out a
form online knows what's necessary, what's not. >> So, I filed again. I filled everything out. >> Yeah. >> Everything. >> Left no line unwritten. I got the same message back. You have to complete the form before we accept it.
>> Yeah. >> So, that might be something. >> We have a new website template. It just launched uh uh two weeks ago. So, we're still working out >> things like that. I I did not realize that was happening. So, we'll get that fixed. Yeah, that sounds good. >> Okay. Well, thank you much. Have a good evening.
>> Thank you. >> Okay. Anybody else for public forum? If not, we will move to our posted business. I am going to go out of order with topic two. Uh Marlo >> has a new employee he'd like to introduce
>> and thank you, Mr. Chair. Um so I have with me tonight uh Mr. Ian Walcott. Um few of his qualifications are he holds a CDL class B. Uh holds a 2A um hoisting
license, which those are both required for the heavy equipment operator's job. He also has a 4G for roadside mowers uh under his belt. Um and as a side side note to that, he also uh has a 3M
wastewater license. So, um, Ian interviewed very well. He's got some municipal experience. He's got some private sector experience. Uh, I think he'll be a good fit for the highway department. >> Uh, welcome to the town of Hatfield. I
don't have any concerns. I I know you come recommended by Marlo. So, for me, that's good. I have questions. >> Same here. >> If that I'll entertain a motion. I'll make a motion to approve the hiring of Ian Wilcott for position of heavy equipment operator labor in the highway
division. A >> motion made. Motion and I'll second that. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I. >> Okay. Motion carries. Uh congratulations. Welcome to the town of Hatfield. I told you it would be painless and it was.
And I will make a motion to approve the weight salary rate adjustment request for Ryan Wut. I'll make a motion to approve the wage salary adjustment. >> Okay, I'll second that. Motion made, motion seconded. Any discussion? >> All in favor? I
>> I. Motion carries. Okay, you're all set. Thank you. Have a good evening. >> Welcome to Hatfield. Thanks for coming. >> Um I wanted to get them on their way so because I know they're busy. >> That's great. Uh, so I'll go right back to consent agenda for the minutes
of March 31st and April 7th. >> I'll make a motion to approve the March 31st, 2026 and April 7th, 2026 meeting minutes. >> I'll second that. Motion made. Motion seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I.
>> Motion carries. Minutes are accepted as presented. All right. I'm going to skip topic one. hopefully until uh Luke gets here because that's part of the discussion with him since so we will move to uh
topic three appointment of Elizabeth Clark as election worker. >> I'll make a motion to appoint Elizabeth Clark as an election worker. >> Uh you'll second that. Motion made. Motion seconded. Any discussion? All in favor? >> I.
>> Motion carries. Topic four um is to vote to submit a proposal for health insurance plan design changes under chapter 32B S21
to 23. And I know Andrew wants to have some input on this. >> Yeah. And I have good news that we don't actually need to vote tonight. Um this uh this whole process is governed by state law um through a few different mechanisms. We did begin this process uh
under section 21 through 23 uh when we entertained the GIC proposal a few months ago. Um so we've had a PEC a public employee committee that's been meeting. We also set up an insurance advisory committee that's been meeting. The insurance advisory committee uh was briefed on these these changes uh when
they met a couple uh weeks ago which is good. And then uh the PE actually met today uh to discuss this potential change. And it looks like uh we'll be able to sign off on an MOA that that would accept these changes. And I'll give you just a very brief overview of
what it means and what's going on here. Uh but we won't need a separate select board vote to move this forward. Essentially, the Hampshire County Group Insurance Trust uh as part of their uh rate change proposal included plan design changes as well for our employees, which means that our
employees weren't paying deductibles and had um certain co-pays uh as well. We will now be instituting deductibles of $250 for an individual and $500 for a family plan and then raising uh certain deductibles including for a specialist
visit from $35 to $60. There's a couple other things in there as well. Uh but when you make plan design changes under state law, you need to uh bargain this with your PEC or or with your um or or through the the the unions through side
agreements on their um on their union contracts. And you need to offer some kind of mitigation to employees. So we'll be saving about uh $34,000 a year by instituting these changes. 25% of those savings needs to go to
employees in some way. So what we'll be doing is offering a premium holiday of a small amount 25% of those savings. So for um it's kind of like an average of $26, but it will translate to about $18 for someone on the single HMO plan and
about $330 for somebody on the PO uh family plan. There's a a range in in what the mitigation will end up looking like. and uh that will come in their first paycheck uh of next year. We we'll send out actually a separate round of checks, but their their first round of paychecks
for FY27 in July. And um we're informing all employees about these changes. Uh we're required to let them know by May 1st. And uh the PE will also let their their employees know in the different unions just so they're aware of this will be happening. So, they'll see changes in
their plans of deductibles and co-pays, but they'll also get a small uh check as well to to compensate them for these changes and the inconvenience that they cause. So, I think we're going through the process well. We should be done shortly. We'll be ready to inform people by May 1st and ready to start open
enrollment for health uh insurance on May 1st as well. Now, as far as this proposal that's presented, the insurance uh committee that we had put together, this is uh they're in favor of this proposal.
>> You know, it's a great question. Um they they have reviewed it and they they are comfortable with it. Essentially, we looked at a lot of different options for health insurance. And this isn't these changes in benefits in the plan design isn't necessarily something that
would have been anybody's first choice. But I think uh it offers us lower rates and the way that the process works is that because it is being negotiated within what's called the benchmark plan of the state's GIC, meaning if it's
within the the deductibles and co-pay limits under state law uh under the state um plan, we're allowed to do it. So, while it's not anybody's first choice to have these co-pays and deductibles, I think it's something everybody can live with.
There's consensus and and we're comfortable moving forward with it. >> Okay. Any questions? >> No. I know this is a lot of work having been in a union. >> Yeah. >> And following the health insurance, thanks to everybody that's involved on our side and on the union side. >> Wow.
>> Well, then if that said, I will entertain a motion. >> Uh, and no motion is needed. >> Okay. No motion is needed. Okay. >> Actually, you know what? You can vote on it just so we have it in case this gets challenged in any way. So, you can can't
make the motion. >> All right. I'll make a motion to submit the proposal for health insurance plan design changes under chapter 32B section 21 through 23. >> I'll second that. Um, any discussion? >> None. >> Motion made. Motion seconded. No
discussion. All in favor? I. >> Motion carries. >> All right. Thank you. >> Okay. under appointments and resignations. I did receive from fire chief uh he has appointed Roy Chapman of of Northampton as a call firefighter
effective April 15, 2026. Do we we don't need a motion on this. So just letting people know aware and hopefully at some later date he can introduce them to the town. >> All right. All right. So moving right along. uh IT
information technology vendor selection uh recommendation. I know Andrew spent a considerable amount of time looking at different IT vendors that would best serve the town. As as people are
probably aware, it is a big deal today. We have to protect all our information, our employees name, social security numbers and town business and and as you probably read in the newspaper, there's
been incidents of of people getting hacked in town halls and cities and and it's it's just you need a good IT vendor. So, I'll let uh Andrew follow up on which selection that you present.
>> Yes. So, uh, we essentially reviewed three firms. Um, I, uh, was involved in a, um, interview process with the Piner Valley Planning Commission where they, uh, looked at two, uh, bids to be the regional services provider for, for
towns across PPPC's area and was introduced to to a very good firm out of Westfield um, called Entree Technologies. And I enjoyed meeting with them and and we had a proposal from them that I had submitted to you earlier. We've also had a very good relationship uh with our current vendor uh Souzer IT.
Um they've provided us strong service and and we've been happy overall with with their model. Um but I can't pass up this opportunity from Twin Lakes Technology. Um I'm very happy with the proposal they've put together. It's a little bit below our current budget level. It would offer us, I believe, the
same uh level of service at the least. Um I worked on them uh with them on another project recently uh in which they provided some some pretty good pro problem solving on uh on some some uh uh issues that we are working on. They are the current vendor for the schools. So
they are already on site at the schools around three days a week. Um so presumably and and we've talked about this if there should be an urgent issue or we need somebody here um they're already in town and would be able to assist. and then they put together a proposal in which they would be here uh
on site for about half a day a week to deal with any um any issues. So that's dedicated time for us, but if they needed to to come by if if someone's having an urgent issue, they're already pretty close uh three days a week. So that would cover us closer to three and a half days a week versus right now one
day a week. Um so it's a good budget. Uh the the teams that we've worked with have been very strong. Um and you know while we like our current vendor I I think it's it's a good move to to switch to to this uh to you know bring all our services for the schools and here under
one umbrella. It offers us some potential for uh future sharing of of other services um for our procurement or and other things. Uh just to be working with one vendor I think would work out well for us. >> So that makes that makes a lot of sense to me. I do like uh the choice that
you've made and I think it's a good choice. So, with that being said, do you have any uh >> No, I think that's great. >> Okay. >> I just want to make clear we have a lot of appreciation for our vendor Souzer who's who's worked very hard for us and especially Rowan on their staff who's worked on site here, has done a great
job. So, uh a lot of appreciation for them and I think the this this change is just feels like something that would work really well for um uh for working alongside the schools. >> No, I think this makes sense for us. I agree. So, I'll make a motion to approve entering contract discussions with Twin
Lakes. I'll second that. >> Motion made. Motion second. Any discussion? All in favor? I. >> Motion carries. I'm going to go out of order again because I know Marlo's here. So, before we go through town warrants, I'll let you jump in there. So, in case you got a I don't know if you have to
leave early or not. Okay. I'll have a full report on the 28th for you. My normal uh reporting, the second or third meeting of the month, but I just had a very quick couple of announcements. Uh things are quite busy with the DPW and myself. Um I just got a
new quote in to replace the letters on the front of the town hall. The company can get going on it almost immediately. Um they got to come remove the letters, the bracketing, the tracking. They're going to scrape and repaint that gable end because it's a little rough. Um, and
they're going to build new lettering in brackets, uh, maintenance-free. They're going to be a composite letter. Um, it's going to look the same, but it'll be maintenance-free. Um, and it sounds like we'll be able to hopefully get this all done before town meeting and election. So,
>> I'm just curious, the flag pole can is that on the possible future list, the paint the flag pole? Uh, I can take a look at it. Absolutely. >> Take a look at that because since we're going to have somebody here to lift up, it just makes sense. >> Yeah,
>> if they can do that at the same token. >> And I I thought all that work, they got to bring a lift in a lull to do all the work twice. Um, the the agreement that I have is uh 3280, $3,280. I thought it was pretty darn reasonable for the work
that has to go into it. cuz that would work out good. Memorial Day activities in front of town hall is on the 24th which will well at the park and then they'll have a volley in front of the uh memorial town hall. So
>> yeah, we'll get the flag that look good for Memorial Day and town meeting. Yep. >> Yeah, we'll we'll definitely get that done. Um, the other announcement I got, this is kind of like uh hot off the press, is a little,
let me say this right, little uponet road. Uh, the spur that comes off right next to our Elm Court property and next to the library. I mean, not the library, excuse me, the cemetery. You go down the hill, you get down the bottom, there's a culvert down
the bottom. When we flood in the spring, it passes water. in the flat land down there. Well, two days ago, everything was underwater. The road was washed out pretty good. Impassable. Um went back down there today. The culvert is exposed. It's an old steel cover 24 in.
It's going to have to be replaced. Um, and again, I'm just getting going on this uh with with conservation and our assistant plan uh planner, Bella, to try and decide which direction we can go in on replacing that cover, whether it can be an emergency replacement
all the way up to a full NOI. And I'm working through those pieces as we speak. So, I just wanted to give every >> How big is that, Covert? >> 24 in. >> Okay. It doesn't take any stream water, but it's definitely on the edge of the delineated wetlands and everything else.
So, um, and it's definitely a a major um it's a major um area for farmers to get into their fields just down outside of that, too. Otherwise, they got to come in all the way from the other end. Um, so I'm hoping we don't have to go
through a full NOI and and all that. Um, but I'll certainly have more information on the 28th. >> All right. >> Uh, a lot of stuff going on. I'll save all the other stuff for the 28th. That's all I really had for tonight. >> Okay,
>> perfect. Is there a chance you need to move sooner on the cover? Is there anything you'd need from this board? I feel like there wouldn't be. >> I got to talk to the the fire chief because there there has to be emergency response out there. God forbid if somebody got hurt. Yeah. um a fire, so
on and so forth. So, um if I go with a an emer if if I'm allowed to do an emergency replacement, I have 30 days to do it. All the materials that I need, we I had Dwayne look into it today. They have it right at EJP. >> Great. >> Um the Culver pipe itself is only about
$560 on other procurement through the Furcog. So, um and we do it inhouse. So, >> no, >> it's just a matter of getting through the permitting if I'm I'm not allowed to do an emergency. >> That grant that we got with all the ditches and stuff that's being presently done now or
>> that's moving along and this is the culvert. So, I I don't I don't know if it um lines up with that same catchment area. >> I don't know if they give the ditches and notify where culverts are or whether or not they notify if the coverts and
the ditches are deteriorating. I'm not sure how that report >> if this culvert is used solely for agricultural use that that maybe gives us something to work with, but I would think that it's a piece of of infrastructure, but I I don't know. >> It it basically it takes the like the
spring floods or whenever the river floods. >> Yeah. >> Uh it can be four to five feet deep there over the top of the road. Um and it's washed the road out numerous times. But again, the covert, even if we cleaned it out, it it's it's coming apart. I got pictures of it. It's a seal
cover that that's that's routing out. Um, so there's different things that play into the decision making how we're we're going to be able to replace that and how long. >> Yeah, I don't think it would be would qualify for strictly agricultural use. I don't think, but we'll we'll find out.
We'll do our research. >> We'll see. >> I it was hard for me to believe, but I rode that road last week and uh it's all considered town road, a big loop that goes out and around. So, um >> because uh we just replaced the covert
the other year, but that was a a large cover by the water treatment plant >> coverage. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> This is nothing like that project. It could just could take a while to get through the permitting. That's all. >> I'm very glad our guys can take care of it, too. Thanks.
>> That's a big deal. Most of our coverts are similar ages. So, as one goes, you assume the others are >> probably in the same state. >> Yeah, I'll have more information also on the cemetery project, the roadway projects. Um I have a um survey company
coming in next week or giving me a quote on Monday. They said they'll be able to get right on it. So, that's another project that the highway department has out there that's good size for our highway department. Um, but we're working on that for this summer, too.
>> Okay, >> sounds good. Thank you. >> You're welcome. Thank you. >> Move to topic eight, which is a town administrator report. Want to throw that in before?
>> Yeah, I don't see why not. So, this is the handout for you tonight. The first piece is health insurance, which I think we've we've basically spoken to already. Um the second one it's of particular interest to everybody here. So this is electronic time sheets which are live
now in the treasurer's office. So they're entering the uh 20th century. It's very exciting. >> Um so we have um met with all departments. Last department head meeting we talked this through. There's a couple options for how we do the electronic time sheets. I think we talked about this. Some folks uh will
want to uh clock in and out like on an app on their phone. Some will clock in and out. it's on a computer or at some other um uh central station. So, so you can have like an actual time clock. Um and then most folks will do it just on
their desktop computers and they'll have um their times already pre-populated because most people at least in town hall work pretty set schedules and then you'll have the opportunity to customize that as you need to when you take sick time, vacation time, anything else. So, we're rolling it out this week with town
administrator's office and our assessor. Uh, so we'll keep expanding that circle of who's on the electronic time sheets, roll it out further. Uh, I think the fire chief would actually like to get started pretty soon. So, um, we'll be rolling that out shortly because he's got a lot of folks who it's going to be
very useful for. So, um, DPW will have some decisions to make on on how to do the do the app, but but I think we're we're or or the time clock, but we're close on that. And um you know we we'd like to have everything rolled out by at least the end of this fiscal year. So
>> making making good progress. Um I have a question for you just to kind of work through. Um so for department heads, so like my time sheet, you have the option of either having this someone on this board um approve my time sheet. You will
still see, you know, the warrant printed out. you'll still see the payroll warrant and you'll have to approve it and that has everybody's information. So, it's not like you lose that authority there. But for the online time sheets, someone has to approve it. It can be either like for my time sheet,
Tammy could approve it, um or one of you could approve it. Um and since you'll be seeing it anyway, you might just decide you want to see it when it comes to you once it's all done. But that's up to you. Um, if we add one of you as a as a account owner, you just we just need to pay a monthly fee uh for that account,
but it's like $3.50. So, it's a it's a small fee uh if one of you wants to be um the approver of say my time sheet and the other department head's time sheets. >> Yeah. I I just know that when I first got on the board, I had hoped to see
this happen. I'm just happy. Yeah. Happy it finally is happening. >> Yeah. So, we can follow up on that piece. You can decide um who you want uh to approve department heads time sheets. I could certainly do it uh as your representative or for everybody but
myself and then the treasurer could approve of mine or we get an account for one of you and and you all >> I give everybody a meeting to think about it because either either it makes sense the chair does it or one of the representatives from the board does it
or Yep. or even Well, yeah, I just think about it. >> That sounds great. >> Okay, >> good. Uh, so as I mentioned in our uh public forum earlier, we do have our new website that launched on April 2nd. Um, I think it it looks really good and
we're figuring out the um functionality of it. There's some things that are a little harder to find now than they used to be. So, we'll look for ways to to move that where we want it. Um, but overall, I think um the the menu looks pretty clean. Um, and um, you know, the
the content has been synchronized with what we had before. Um, we're still working out some of the training of it, but I think overall it's working pretty well. So, I don't know if you've heard any comments on it. If there's more that come in, please direct them to me and I can keep working on on making uh, the website work for all our residents.
>> Yeah. Great. I I could see the new website. It looks impressive. I know it's always a work in progress because people come and people go from various committees and keeping it updated is always uh sometimes a challenge or getting information on there sometimes a
challenge from various committees depending whether they they send it or not. So yeah, I think it looks pretty good. It's a it seems to be uh runs fast. And my only question on the new on the the software is if the new our new
appointed uh temporary building commissioner uh has access now or is he he need access to uh his permit permitting and stuff? >> He has access to his permit site. That was the priority was getting him in there. Um we will make sure that he
anything he needs from the website he's got as well. because I know that Kyle had set up a they could do stuff on online to submit for their permits and and stuff like that and I just want to make sure he's familiar with it. That's all.
>> Yeah, he has access to that. We've been able to, you know, monitor and make sure that there there's not much of a backlog on that site. So, that's that's looking good. >> Because on that software, I don't know if there was any training uh that they paid for that the company provides or not. Yeah, I mean that's a
good question. Um, you know, Wall-E is, I think, learning it pretty quickly. He, uh, uses a very similar piece of software. He does use a different one in the town where he's in, but he says it's been similar enough that he's been able to to work it out. So, >> it's worked out so far. >> Sounds good. >> Yep.
>> Thank you, Andrew. >> Yeah, you bet. Uh so for projects, uh I do want folks to know that um we've mentioned that that um there was an independent report that we were doing on the Route 5 infrastructure project to see where we're at. Um that report has
been finished and we'll look for a way to make that available to the public. Uh we'd also like to try to host a public meeting in the in the coming weeks uh to update uh folks, especially West Street residents, on where we're at. Um, we should have more information in
the next couple weeks as we uh arrange a meeting with the contractor and other parties in play here and figure out what the mitigation is going to look like as the report that came back did indicate some of the same problems that were uh found in the CI's report. So, uh I know
it's frustrating for folks not to have more of an update. Uh there's a lot of work that's going on in the background by this board and by our DPW and by uh other folks we've brought on to the team. We are looking forward to moving this uh as fast as we can and and taking
advantage of this upcoming construction season to do whatever work can be done. >> Okay. I know that we're meeting with the finance board at 6:30. I know we have uh we have not taken up topic one cuz Luke's not here and I assume we don't
want to go into executive session and come back until Luke comes shows up if he shows up. >> So I >> well I I um I had two other things to hit on my update very quickly and then I I don't know if this board would be comfortable with starting to talk through the warrant since not all that
pertains to to finance. Um, I think that would be uh allowed as long as we talk about it at 6:30 as well. Um, I think it'd be all right to to start approaching that. >> We can talk. Yeah, we're going to go over warrants with the finance committee or >> go over it with the finance committee,
but I feel like some of the decisions on there are are up to this board. So, I I think if you wanted to start on some of it, you could. >> Okay. Well, >> or you can wait because you might want your third member here. >> All right. Well, usually one through uh four are usually housekeeping, right? >> That would be correct. Um there's a
number of house things on here. >> And then >> so number one is elections. Um that came directly from the town clerk. I'm I'm sure that's in good shape. >> Uh number two allows uh the town and the select board to apply for grants. I
don't think we'd want to change anything about that, but you can check the the language. Article three is on here every year. This allows compensating balance agreements if needed. >> Article four is the MOA to get chapter 90 funds.
>> Correct. >> Article five is probably where we start getting into actual decisions. 95 is not what I >> so so in ICE um as you all know when you put a warrant together you are not required to say the the dollar amount I
think it's good to provide information when we can but we also don't want to lock ourselves in if some of the numbers are still evolving which they certainly are on on this piece um at least our decision on it I think on snow and ice we're going to end up with about a $64,000 deficit which is you know well
below the 100 plus that we've had in the last couple years so there's a lot Credit goes to Marlo and his team on that. But uh right now we just say provide a sum of money to supplement fiscal year 2026. >> Yeah. I believe Marlo's done a lot better bookkeeping on the snow and ice. >> He's been um pretty fanatical about it.
Yeah. And since he's Yeah. Oh, he's listening. He's listening. Good. Good. Excellent. >> All right. Six is previous bills. >> Yep. We'll have one previous bill to pay of $2,000, but um or a little over $2,000 for a portaotty vendor that
didn't bill us for a couple years. So, this comes from like I think 2024 or something, but we'll get it done as long as the town is willing to pay for it. Uh article 7 we have talked about um getting some additional funds for the
route 5 infrastructure project for our legal fees for next year. You know one of the options available to us is just to raise our budgeted amount for uh legal fees and for professional services. But because this is really just for one project we want to make sure we're tracking our expenses on. I'm thinking it makes sense just to ask for
this sum either from free cash or what I'm thinking now is from retained earnings enterprise account because this is all related to a sewer project >> and plus this article we hope to recoup the the money from >> Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. We'd want to recoup it. >> The intent is to put the money up to do
the work we need to do and then get the money back for it. >> Yeah. And so we'll talk about So this is just the structure of it. We'll talk more about the exact numbers when we work through this with the finance committee. Article 8, um, this is for OPED, other post-employment benefits.
Our financial policy states that we try to put $10,000 into this a year. Last year, we did 20 to make up for a year we didn't put any money in. I would recommend we do 10,000 from free cash this year, and that's in the free cash plan that we'll go over more. >> Um, nine is on here as a placeholder in
case we want to put any money into the general stabilization account. Right now, we're leaning towards not doing so. Um because we are using free cash to balance our budget. We even talked about using stabilization to balance the budget. It's a year when we kind of need
to dip into savings and it would kind of look funny to also be putting money into savings. Um when we're kind of in that rainy day, it will be an accomplishment to not use stabilization. So, it's kind of okay not to put money into it, but I'm keeping it on here in case we have a
change of heart. Article 10. Uh this is something that our accountants have said that we need. Um we have a past journal entry where uh we stated we are moving money from free cash, but it was never done. We need to
move that money now uh because this keeps showing up in our audits that we are essentially $94,000 short from somewhere. Um so once we do that, it unfortunately uses up some free cash, but it does make the problem go away. So, our accountants will make sure they
have the exact right number for me. Um, but it's going to be around $94,000 and then it will make this past accounting issue >> and we don't know where it is. >> This is a past accounting issue from like years ago from years ago. >> And this will clear it up. >> Previously, we had a past issue account
of $50,000 that nobody it it was considered a ghost account. It somehow got put in a long reg and we had to do I think the same thing to to take care of it. Yes, >> this is the kind of thing where the money was approved but never actually moved. So, we're finally moving the money. It's already been spent. We're
just moving. >> Okay. >> Um, article 11, this would be to supplement the FY26 budget. So, this year for just the health insurance line because, as you know, our health insurance costs ended up being a lot higher than we expected this year because maybe your increase through
Hampshire County Group Insurance Trust. This would give us um the additional funds that we need from free cash. I'm recommending, but we could also try to see if we can supplement it through just an interfund transfer or something else. But um we once we get >> we can talk about this with the finance
committee of where the money comes from and how much it is. >> Okay. >> And then article 12 is a recommendation to make a transfer to the town's unemployment insurance trust. We have an unemployment insurance trust uh that every year we we put a budget in for
about $25,000. Any money that's not spent from that for an insurance for unemployment insurance that year, it goes into this trust. So, we've got a nice healthy amount of about $100,000 in this trust, we are anticipating we could have higher than usual unemployment expenses this year because of some cuts
happening at the schools. >> Okay. >> So, I'm saying from pre-cash, we might want to take some money for the unemployment insurance trust. Article 13, uh, this is kind of cool. This would allow us to create a reserve fund for special education. This has to
be approved of by um town meeting, but once they approve creating this account, they're the ones who put money into it. But then to take money out, it requires a vote of the select board and the school committee. So this is in case we have, you know, student come to us midyear who requires an out of district
placement or other costs that we're just not anticipating or allowed to create a reserve fund that would allow us to. If we didn't have it, we'd have to either find funds from somewhere else in our budget or call a special >> and this money can come from where?
>> It can come from anywhere we decide to put it in. Say if >> at the end of the year, we could we had a lot of free cash. We could take some of that and put it into that account. >> Yeah. Or if schools, for instance, get a grant they're not anticipating or if they have a surplus of some kind at the
end of a fiscal year, transfer into their work. >> I just I just want the town to know where this money would come from. >> Yep. >> And it would be only like if we had surplus money would go into the account. And the reason for it being is for those
situations that occur when which is not if somebody moves in the town and all of a sudden that child needs to be outsourced then the town has to >> come up with the money or whatever. Right. So >> if it's from free cash or somewhere else the town will still get to decide if we're going to transfer that money or
not. That's the same they would with any other appropriation. >> All right. >> Article 13. Oh man, I should probably I don't want the budget to be unlucky 13. We'll see if we can move that up in some way. But uh right now, article 13 is the
budget. Article 14 would be a simple um rescending of a bond authorization. Last year, as you remember, um we had two votes about bonding for uh the boilers and the roof. We had one if we could get a debt exclusion and we had one without
a debt exclusion. Debt exclusion passed. So, we didn't need the second one about bonding without a debt exclusion. So, that can be rescended. Um, and maybe I'll make that number 13 if we need to. >> But I mean, um, okay, you got 13 14 13 14.
>> I have 134 twice. Perfect. >> Oh, yeah, you do. >> 15 for the budget. These numbers are still a work in progress. >> Okay, that's fine. I just want to >> So, I'll fix all the rest of them. >> Yeah.
>> Great. All right. Well, let's go by the numbers that are currently still on the page. Revolving funds article 15. >> It's a annual thing. >> Annual thing. We have to set the limits of our um revolving funds. Last year we added a new one, the watershed
management timber sales account. It's going great. Um I'm not recommending any changes in spending limits for any of these accounts. They would all be the same right now. That just has to be done every year. So that would take us into capital
improvement planning. If we want, we can put a hold on this for now since we'll go through all these with finance. Um but >> okay. >> Yeah, I think the rest of them are that >> that whole page is all capital planning. >> Yep. >> And that puts us to 22 then
>> CPA. CPA again kind of capital but um so the first would be uh appropriations from estimated revenues we can put towards committee administrative expenses for for our admin staff who do considerable work on on these and then
you know any um meeting postings or um uh what's the other thing I'm thinking of um buying office supplies whatever that can come from we are we are capped we can't use more than 5% of the revenue for the
year for admin expenses, but that would be about $19,000. I'm recommending we only take 10,500, which I think would work great. And then the first thing you do is you take the the uh required amount uh by statute uh and put that into the
reserves. So, we are required to put 10% of our um revenue into historic resource reserve, 10% into community housing, and 10% into open space. the rest goes into the budgeted reserve. Then you start pulling from the reserves and the the
specific reserves and the budgeted reserves for the actual projects. So 22 would just kind of be the housekeeping. Then 23 would be for the first congregational church steeple. This was recommended by CPA. It's a small amount. Um it's like
$4,000. Article 24 would be for um the day pond. Uh we need just a little more money to finish that project. >> And let's say day pond is looks like it's almost completed. They were putting
all the grass seed down and that got completed and yep, >> it's looking good. >> Yep, we are almost done, which is great news. And then um you know the only reason we need extra funds for this is that our cost estimates are actually finished after last year's town meeting.
>> So cost estimates showed it actually a much larger deficit than we're actually going to have because the contractor >> was really good and came in with a a very aggressive low bid and has done great work for us. >> Um artic uh article 25. This is for the
Cutter Farm Museum looking for $50,000 um for the siding and the roof. And we have a grant application in for the state that if we're successful in that, then we'll have everything we need to get that project done hopefully this fall, which will be really exciting.
>> Um article 26, this is for uh the playground um school street playground right behind the fire station. Um, there's some upgrades there, some new equipment, uh, new mulch and CPA backis projects. This would be a lot of fun to
do. So, that's great. Um, this is for uh article 27. This was a a community uh community member uh put in this application for affordable housing at 7 Elm Street. They had originally
applied for for more funding to essentially, you know, service the the gap in in uh in what their intend uh expected revenue and expenses were, but now it's uh more of early funding that would be used to to get this project
underway. Um it would be $100,000 uh to build two affordable units out of an 8 unit building at 7 Elm Street. >> I don't know. Did they have an architect present the plan? Was any plans presented? I was just curious.
>> No, but but they have, you know, some kind of rough ideas of what things would look like and and cost estimates based on similar projects. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Article 28. >> Article 28 is uh to get consultant help for producing our housing production
plan. This is something we intended to do in house, but um we just don't really quite have the capacity uh and the time from our assistant planner and from myself. Uh so this would follow up really nicely in our 2040 comprehensive plan. And this is required to have to in
order to get to your um showing adequate progress uh on affordable housing each year. So even if we start creating some units, we're not going to get into what's the state's 40b threshold unless we have this plan. and it will also help give us some ideas of where we could build affordable housing in town which
is a priority for a lot of folks. Article 29 um this is for um uh we had the folks from Galanka Farm come in and talk about the agricultural preservation restriction uh from the state. They will
be moving forward with that process and just need a small match from the town. Uh we actually have a fund set up that can provide most of it, but we're a little short in that fund. This would take us the rest of the way there. Uh we would give a 5% match uh coupled with weight lease 5% match and that would
bring us to the 10% needed for the property. >> Okay. >> So that's CPA. Okay. The only uh questions I have is did we did we start last year at 6:30?
Did we start town meeting last year at 6:30? No. >> It's a wonderful question. >> 7 o'clock. >> In my head, it was seven. >> Okay. >> All right. >> We met before at like 5 6 or 65 before the town meeting actually started this finance
and select board. >> And we have we have uh 31 articles. So, Might be 33 cuz my numbers are wrong. >> Or 33.
>> 32 cuz I might cut one. >> Well, that's fine. I guess >> seven is fine. We did save the other articles for uh finance when we meet with you guys in like five minutes. Do
>> you want to talk about um >> municipal affordable housing trust fund >> uh article 30? Okay. Oh, missed one. There's two more on uh page nine in your packet. So, this one we've talked about. This
will be to create the municipal affordable housing trust fund by adopting a state statute. >> And we've talked about that already. Uh >> yes. >> And 31 is bylaw, >> the zoning bylaw for battery energy
storage systems. We've talked about the context of that. Bella gave a good presentation on that. I do need the language in here, but I'll get that into the warrant. >> We just have to make sure that once we approve the warrants and stuff, everything's online so people can access it so they have that information before
town meeting >> and on the uh battery thing if from planning board if that could be posted of um so that we just want to make sure the residents have enough of information as much information as possible for town
meeting. Something that was very uh successful I thought uh before special town meeting was we did a quick video about the different uh items. I think it might be of interest to do that for anything that's out of the ordinary on here. Um >> we could do it for some of the capital
things but especially for housing uh housing trust fund and for uh battery energy storage systems. We should have some kind of presentation that folks can access online. So you have somebody from the potting board for the battery stuff and >> and I know you're well versed on the
housing y >> stuff. >> I don't know if he wants if somebody from capital planning like Mr. K would like >> would be phenomenally. He'd be great. >> He would be great for that. >> I think he just volunteered. I think >> I think Mr. Hey, thank you Mr. K for
volunteering for that. We appreciate >> it. He'd be good. He'd be very good. >> Don't worry about it. You'll find out later. >> We're we're talking about a short video presentation and we'll talk to John about it. We can schedule him for for this, but um about some of the the
capital planning articles and other things so folks can watch ahead of time and know what's >> probably, don't you think? >> Last year >> we did a budget. We we filmed your your last meeting and that worked really nicely, I think. Right. Didn't we do No,
>> I mean we may have but we did a >> for special town meeting. We did a And then for town meeting, we did a budget presentation at your meeting, right? >> So, we'll we'll we'll do something. >> All right. >> We could even do a budget presentation at your next meeting of the 28th. Um,
>> it's just helpful people see it before. >> Hi, is this Luke? >> Yes. >> Hey. Um, are you on your way? >> Uh, we're on our way back from Greenfield. We're coming down Route Five in the Deerfield now. So, >> great. Okay. Um, I think it's fine to
just um we'll we'll include you once you're here. Um, if that sounds good, unless there's anything you want to be involved in in first if want I can keep you on the phone. >> No, I mean just so we're about to start meeting with Fincom, right? >> Yep. >> Yeah. So, um I mean as long as we're
still in the conversation when I get there. >> Yeah, we should be. But if you want I can keep you on the phone so you can just listen in as best I can. >> Yeah, that's fine. >> Great. I don't know if you can hear that at all. Him speaking on my mic. Yeah, good. All right, Luke, if you do want to weigh in at any point, you can because
we think they can still hear you at home through my mic. >> Okay, sounds great. Thank you. >> Perfect. >> So, when is he on his way or is he still at the scene? >> He's on his way. He's on route five in Deerfield. >> Okay, perfect. So, uh we'll hold off
again on topic one and we'll hold off on executive session until he's here. And >> Mr. Chair, could we go back out of order and go back to the town administrator's report? There's a sure couple of things. >> Okay. >> Couple things I miss here. >> Oh, I had two quick things at the end.
Uh just that u we're still on on track to start the elementary school roof project um the week of April vacation. So, April 20, 20th, 21st. Uh and we'll have a walkth through tomorrow with the contractor and our our project management team. Uh Marlo will be there.
uh our folks from our u project manager um PCA 360 will be there. So that should be good. Um and then Western Earthworks is is finishing the landscape restoration portion of day pond project and we're looking at trying to do some kind of ribbon cutting um to coincide
with the fishing derby. Uh if that sounds good to everybody, it would be nice to do some kind of celebration alongside the fishing derby of the Day Pond project. >> Yeah, that's a great >> sure. Okay. >> Thank you, Greg.
>> All right. 6:30. Finance board wants to come up. >> Thank you. >> I didn't get one of those papers. Okay. Really? I don't know where it is. Okay. Well, thank you. Well, we're back
with the finance committees. Here we have the chair. Loop is on his way. He was called to a fire, so he's coming back shortly. Uh I'm not sure which topic you guys want to start with whether we want to discuss the last
meeting we were short what 142,000 and everybody had a week to think about options or review options. So uh I'll give it to the chair of the finance to see uh what you guys have come up with.
And I'm also happy to start if you want me to kind of give the >> Yeah, we met last night and went over um some options um made some reductions, made some adjustments on other things. Um and we can start we want to project
it or we can just go over go over one by one if you like. Okay. >> Yeah, I I can give kind of a a sense of where we are right now because I I have mostly good news at the moment, which is good. >> Yeah, let's let's get the uh screen
going. Thank you. First row of lights need to go off, I guess. I don't know where that switch is. It's over there. >> That's pretty good, actually. >> Yeah. >> I mean, I don't know. I don't know what it looks like there, but from here it's
>> Yeah, it looks good to me. >> All right. So, I do want to say so we started uh so we had a a productive meeting last night with the finance committee. Um our folks from finance committee, you know, really dug into the budget and looked at opportunities for uh potential uh potential cuts,
potential changes in structure for some line items. Uh looking at if some line items could be funded from sources other than the general fund. So, I think that that was very productive. Um, today was a hard day in trying to explain to department heads some of
those cuts and and talk those through. So, obviously we're already on a tight budget and I think we all know that and I think our department heads do the absolute best that they can uh with the resources that that they have and they all really need more. So, telling some of them that we needed them to try to
work with less was difficult. Um, but my day got better because, um, we've made a lot of progress, I think, across the board in trying to bring down this deficit. As I said, it started at about $568,000. Um, one of the major things that I've
done since last last time we met was uh to calculate what it looks like the um indirect costs are from the water sewer accounts. So, those have been updated and are higher than they were last year, mostly because of health insurance costs and other things that are are basically
by formula. Um, but that put a dent in the deficit of around $40,000. Um, and then we found uh a line item that does make some sense to to be covering again from our ambulance uh revenue rather than from general fund.
Um, and then we also got great news that that I'm I'm happy to to share now. Um, that uh we've received a grant of uh $75,000 uh for Hatfield Public Schools thanks to the tireless work of of Senator Joe Kmerford. Uh, and that will be coming
through the fair share amendment uh that the Senate has passed. Uh, we're pretty sure that will be coming. We this budget does not rely on those funds, but it's a nice thing to know should be coming as the schools, you know, presented a pretty uh bare bones budget with no
increases. Um, and to have that extra breathing room could end up being very helpful. We could talk more about that later. Um, but if that does come through, uh, then that could be helpful for us. So, this budget doesn't rely on it, but it could be something helpful. Uh, and then I had a great meeting today
with our accounting staff. Um, it's been very productive to go through the two versions of our budget worksheets because we test each other's assumptions and make sure that we have the right numbers. So, I found another spreadsheet error here, um, another error on our
workbook that now has been fixed. So, when I worked through it before, this offset for enterprise indirect costs was essentially double counting um, expenses that we had on the general government and and other other lines. So for
instance, health insurance for our uh sewer employees is covered through its employee benefits line. It's already captured here. I also had it as an offset in here. So we are double counting that that cost. So I've removed that for now. I know that the actual is
211,939 for all of our indirect costs. Um but it doesn't need to show up here. So if you're skipping ahead to the general fund surplus/shortfall, it's the good color right now. It's showing an $84,000 surplus after all the
work that we've done. So that means uh this current spreadsheet captures cuts that finance committee went over last night. It and we can talk about what that looks like. It captures other cuts that we had talked about before and basically it captures everything in this
spreadsheet here um that I had presented last time to look at potential uh cuts and and changes that would get us to a balanced budget. So right now we have $84,000 in breathing room. Our accountants recommend that we not go
below say 30 35,000. So, we can probably return around $50,000 from one of these sources and we can talk about what we want that to be. I wouldn't jump to anything immediately. Um, but we can get to that eventually.
>> Yeah. And just generally about the cuts, I want to sort of put it in perspective. When you we say cuts, we're very rarely talking about below last year. We're talking about below what was requested.
So, you know, I mean, you can call that what you want. Uh it's a cut verse, but you know, but it's not a reduction over last fiscal year. >> It's more like going back to level. >> Uh it's sometimes it's going back to level,
sometimes it's slightly above. There's maybe some that are slightly below, but in anything in anything we did mo say any almost everything we looked at was based on what actual spending has occurred in the
prior fiscal year and what the pace of spending through February is. So we when we when we looked to make reductions in requests, we did it a lot in a lot of cases based on
money that was unspent in prior fiscal years and is likely to be unspent at some level in this fiscal year. Um so you know that that potentially has a negative impact on your free cash going forward. >> Well, that basically goes back to what
Daryl said at the last meeting. Where's the free cash money? And where where are we getting it from? And and are we putting too much in different accounts? >> We kind of know where we're getting it from. And and too much, I mean, I guess is in the eye of the beholder at some
level, but like, you know, in some areas, we have difficulty hiring people. We have difficulty getting people to fill shifts or to work. So whether we budget the money or not, it hasn't been spent. Um, and so we'll
have to see what happens. >> And just to speak, you on behalf of, uh, the department heads who some of them can't be here tonight because they're actively fighting fires. Um, there's two ways you could look at that. You could say we're we haven't been able to hire for this position, so it makes sense to cut it to reflect the reality that we
might not ever find someone for this position. or some of the requests that came in were for more funding for those positions to increase the salary, hire somebody, and get us to the level of service that we'd like to see for some of these departments. Um, you could go either way with this, and we're not going to solve the problem entirely this
year of being able to go up to the level of of uh funding for some of these positions that we might like to see. Um, so it might make more sense to go with the more realistic option, but I just want to say there there is a give and take here. some of it is gone. >> Can you uh can I jump in real quick?
>> Yep. >> Um so, you know, I feel cutting the funding for the PDM staff for the ambulance especially is really a double-edged sword, especially now that our our mutual aid provider is charging
us a service fee. So, if four shifts continue to go unfilled and then we then have to pay this $350 per visit service fee, assuming that it doesn't go up next year, could also mean that
have to fund that as well. That is also going to come out of ambulance revenue. It's going to a deficit much quicker. The other problem being is that if this go unfilled and transports are not being made, we are also then not billing for
it. So now you're going to have free negatives coming out of one account and account is not going to replenish nearly as fast. So, I really think it's a slippery slope to try to find that funding through an enterprise fund like the ambulance that is, you know,
completely dependent on us being able or the fire department being able to transport patients. >> Yeah. And I I I think we should make sure that we're explaining what the current proposal looks like from finance for that and uh put that first on our list once we, you know, finish this
overall overview. I don't know if you had anything else you want to say. >> And one and one quick thing, I know when people hear the word cuts. There's no people being cut. Uh there's no positions being cut. It's just maybe some slight adjustments in budget
requests. It's money. It's not bodies. So, nobody's going to lose their job because of this. That's that's another thing that we should be re other than the school department's decision to reduce some of their staff to meet their their uh their goal. There's nobody else
that we're looking at having anybody's job anybody losing their job with all this that's going on. So that's another really important piece I think. >> Are we just making numbers more realistic to what they are? So I I don't know if you can even call
>> what they have been. >> It's just right. It's it's I mean the the positions being lost are cuts, but this is not a cut. It's it's just adjustments. >> Yeah. It's I mean it could it could wind up impacting some things because we have
other increases in departments, you know, like so there's other costs are on the rise and you have to find it somewhere. Uh unless you're going to just increase budgets. I mean, that's just But we can go over it and see what it is. Let's let's go over it.
Where do you want to start? >> Stop right ambulance. Might as well get it out. >> Whatever. Let's go to the top and down. >> Yeah. >> I mean, there's not there's not 100 items here. There's
>> I'm not sure there's much. >> Get down to assessors. That's one. >> Yeah. So, for the assessor's salary, um the assessor, uh the assistant assessor works 30 hours a week for the assessing
department is currently paid at $40,000. There is a request from the assessors to move that salary to 54,600 to move in line with uh similar positions both in town hall and from other other uh assistant assessors in other places. Um, the finance committee
believes we should cap that at 46,900, but I think that's an active uh question about what should the salary be for next year. That would be a $6,000 increase. And the position also received a $6,000 increase from 25 to 26. >> They did a, you know, from my point of
view sitting through the presentation, they did, you know, a good job looking at comparable folks in various places and made a solid argument. um it just didn't feel like something that we could do in one year, >> right?
>> Especially given last year. So, >> yeah, >> that that was really the only >> I mean, it's still a pretty significant increase over >> Yeah. >> this year. It's about 15%. >> It would still be a goal down the road to to get that up to where >> where it should be, but it's it's a big
leap for one year, >> right? And it's a big leak considering that we went into this with a $500,000 deficit, got it down to 143,000 and we're we're we're still grasping. And so
that that that's the difficulty here because from this because we're going to have maybe even worse. And so we have to be very careful about how we how we slight you know
>> we're using a good bit of free cash we can do it again presumably next year if we have to but beyond that >> we have no idea and some of the expenses presumably
are one time at least to some degree I mean I would not think that we are going to see a 52% % increase in health insurance costs over the next two-year period. >> We better not. >> If we do, yeah, uh we're going to have to dramatically reassess how we do
business. I mean, there's just no way around it. >> It's extremely unlikely and because I think, you know, the biggest issue with our health insurance was just that our our rates were far below market standard and now they're pretty much caught up if you look at where we're at. So, >> instituting deductibles, other things
that'll pretty much bring us around where you'd expect to be. >> Yeah. So, you know, hopefully the rate increases going forward are more in the norm that you would expect, which are not good, but not catastrophic like the last year and a half has been.
>> So, all right. So, I don't I don't think we have to necessarily decide on everything at the moment, but I am keeping a list of of what these changes are and areas for, you know, looking at again if we need to. So, there's assessor salary, which currently stands at a at 46,900. Um, I'm skipping
treasure because that we've already talked about. Um, some of these are yellow, but we've really already talked about them. >> What that will do. >> Legal we talked about last time, right? >> We talked about that was already on my spreadsheet separately.
>> Yep. >> So, that's not a change. >> These are just some >> All right. We should talk police. >> Yes. >> Um, go ahead. Uh, Mr. Sure, if you want to talk, please. >> Uh, the expenses, I don't know what the
story is. We that was done prior. >> Expenses, don't worry about this is really just a making sure to match kind of how the police department was tracking their expenses and and it comes in at a number that they're comfortable with. Um, on the salary side, >> salary. Yeah. Uh basically basically
this budget includes a 2.7ish% cola for all employees which is in line with what the school is doing under their contract. Um and so uh we applied that to this basically we >> yeah there there is a a small added
expense that we already talked about which is for uh the the dog um the the handler for uh the the service dog that that we have. And then there's a contractual increase for the chief. >> They haven't hit their number of of the
uh budget they have. The most they spent. Well, we don't know where they're going to come in this year, but they're probably going to come in below the uh the budget by around $18,000. But that is really just because they had a retirement, an unexpected retirement that occurred. So, the police chief
would say that it will be a challenge to meet his weekend and part-time staffing. uh with this number which is about $75,000 below his request. He anticipates being able to hire uh somebody for the full-time position and would like to and
it would like to also hire folks for the part-times. Um and by filling those positions, he'll be able to to make sure that the department can staff uh the expected levels on on weekends and holidays. This cut here, he thinks he can make it work, but it will be a challenge and they might end up below.
So, if it's something we want to restore, it's something to think about. I have a suggestion as well for the end of this, right? About about that issue that might be >> perfect. >> All right. So, let's continue with just kind of presenting where we're at
>> and move to our next one. >> There's a lot going on in fire, so I'll let uh Sean talk about So we we've moved. So when we looked at the budget first time around, there is um there was
for fire chief wages 66 or $6,900 66. >> Yeah, $6,600. >> $6,600 was paid out of ambulance. >> You'll see that in the >> for the fire chief's wages. It it seemed highly unrealistic
that the fire chief was only spending $6,000 worth of his time on the ambulance uh service given that it's pretty got to be pretty close to half uh of what is going on if not more. So he
um uh Andrew talked with the chief and he estimated that it was more like 6040 that 40% of the time is on ambulance which seemed vastly more reasonable than
7% or whatever we were doing. Um so you know we made that adjustment to move some of it to ambulance. We did the same thing with um fire regular full-time salaries because
those people all work on ambulance as well. We did not uh do it with the part-time salaries because it just wasn't clear. It's not clear to us that any of those folks do
anything in the ambulance and if they do that it's not accounted for in the ambulance side already. So we just left that untouched uh rather than try to figure that out at this point. Just seemed like a lot for no real particular reason there.
>> So I think I think it's important to clarify two things that there are two things happening at the same time here. There is the question of is the budget level overall between uh fire and ambulance uh the amount that we want to meet. So are we going to meet the requested level
and then what's the split going to be. So for fire chief obviously that's contractual. There's no change in the requested amount. It's only about whether it comes from uh from fire or ambulance. And we changed the split from about a 9010 split to a 60/40 split
which more accurately uh represents the time. And for fire regular full-time salary there was a request to go from $75,000 to $83,000 on the fire side and from $30,000 to $37,000 on the ambulance
side. the I think the finance committee is basically recommending keeping the amounts level and changing the balance to be about 6040 from uh fire and ambulance >> level the 2.7 >> 2.7%
>> 2.7% so they they got the cola >> level plus the cola >> so it doesn't take on the the full request that came in and again the chief made the request for more funding because right now we again have a vacancy in one of those full-time positions We ideally would have two
full-time fire EMT positions. We have I've had three resations from that position since I've been here and we have one person in that position right now. We we're missing another. So, the chief has just walked in as well. So, um
that that's what was done on fire uh full-time right now from finance committee. And then for fire part-time, uh, no change was made in the balance between fire and ambulance, but a $10,000 um not cut, but the $10,000 below the
request, it's about a $1,000 cut from last year because the number was $116,000 in FY26. The recommendation would be 115 this year. That line item came in at 121 basically 122 in FY25
and is currently through twothirds of the year at $56,000. So I think that's what we need to say about the fire and ambulance staffing. >> Correct. Yeah. >> And I will just say um you know that we we kind of have two pressures at the same time. We need to make sure that,
you know, we're realistically showing what comes from fire and ambulance, but at the same time, if we put too much on ambulance, we could run out of actual revenue to support that line. Then we'd be dipping into the receipts reserved account or even this trust account that we have for ambulance. So, while they're
they're at a healthy level right now, you risk depleting those pretty quickly if you move too much of programmatic costs into ambulance. And we need to just be aware of those risks, especially with the $70,000 that we're being asked to pay for from that this year to South
County to cover uh those expenses. >> Yeah. >> And just to clarify, part part-time is shift work, >> right? And inter intermittent is call volunteer guys, >> correct? >> Okay.
>> Yep. That's an important distinction. >> So say that again, Chief. Part-time is shift work, >> correct? >> And then the call >> intermittent is for call members. >> It's call >> when you show up. >> When you show up. Yeah. >> Yeah. Thank you.
>> When they're called out to a fire or any call, >> right? They come directly from >> Right. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, so I think we didn't want to mess with the part-time diffiance between fire and ambulance because there's we don't have enough information
and just >> want to we don't want to put too much pressure on it right away. Just >> just the regular time would be regular part-time people would be partially ambulances. >> Yes, >> I imagine. >> And going in line with the uh full-time
people. Okay. >> Okay. So, we've gone through um assessor, police, fire. Let's see if there's anything else major. Oh, yes. Um >> DPW, didn't we do >> DPW? But I do need to bring your our attention to this one. So, we cut this
seasonal employees line. Um there was a request for $10,000 more for that line. Um and we brought it down to 38. I think we can keep it there. That would be stable from last year. But we realized that we added the the part-time admin to that line, which probably isn't the
right place for it. So the part-time admin um who also serves as the assistant assessor has been added back to the highway administrative wages here. >> Okay. Okay. >> So we believe that's Marlo can can uh confirm that's that's why we had increased that line >> uh was to capture that position.
>> Yeah, I put it in that line this year only sense as a part-time employee with DPW, but we can definitely move it back to the other line. Yeah, it's not it's not really seasonal, >> right? >> Oh, it's the wrong line for it. You're correct.
>> It's the wrong line. >> Absolutely. >> That was done. >> Yeah. >> By me badly, but um it's it's and I'll we'll double check the numbers and the other employees because we've carried it there in the past. But I'm pretty sure that's just uh labor and then the admin will now cover through this highway
administrative wages, which makes more sense. >> So that's that. Okay. >> So, that would pro I don't think there's room for a savings there, but um that's okay. And the other thing I say I'll say that
I will do is run the exact salary numbers that we'll need for each of these lines. I'll work with our treasurer's office staff and just make sure that we have the right lines because when you multiply the overall budget by 2.7 that doesn't necessarily capture >> multiplying uh taking their rate
multiply by 2.7 and add uh the actual number of paydays in the year. So that's going to be up and down on some I'll get that right. >> Yeah, we just roughed it at somewhere between 2.6 and 2.8. Yeah, >> you know on the salary line, but it is going to require
>> refinement. And that's not just for the ones you touch. It's for all of them in here. I'll make sure that we have the right numbers and that's just a activity that has to >> it's not going to be wildly different. >> It's not going to impact the overall budget too much. But I just want to make sure it's correct. I'll feel better. >> So is that it that we did yesterday?
>> What about school? Did we do something with school? >> Well, not here, right? >> The only thing with school was the 75,000. >> Actually 85,000 or is it 9,000? because the 75,000's got to be offset with the the grant.
>> Um I didn't do anything with with I mean with the uh the school grant. >> Yeah. So we're actually plus 84,000 >> right now. Yeah. Uh we're plus 84 right now. >> Without doing it. >> We we I haven't used that grant. >> Not use the school grant.
>> So and we're not we're just holding it out right now. We actually don't have it. I mean in hand. >> They told us we're going to get it. But yeah, >> they told us we're going to get it. Something could always happen with the governor not passing it. I don't believe it's been passed by the governor's office yet.
>> Um, so I I don't think we should be depending on it for anything. Um, but it's also nice to know it's there so that maybe we >> not anything we need, you know, I mean immediately. >> Yeah. >> Yep. I'd agree with that. >> Um, we So I agree, you know, with the
accountants obviously we want to have some room in that bottom number. >> Yep. Um, you know, and and I mean, we've gone down to $7,000 before. I don't know that you want to play that game. >> I don't think we want to be that >> unless your revenues, you know, you got
to be really secure on your revenues. >> I'd want to know there's slack somewhere. You know, we were kind of aggressive in the new growth number. We're there's some slack and I'd say the overlay number I think the overlay number is is higher than it needs to be. not not the uh not the amount we're using. The assessor's office uh has said that um they're comfortable putting in
$30,000 from overlay surplus. And then we've put the overlay um budget number, so the amount we put aside for potential abatements at 90,000, which is a little high, which is good. We should probably keep it there just to be safe. >> Um >> I guess the question that I have is that
we have this potential $75,000 grant for the school that's floating. We also have a budget that's built with 170 or $175,000 of potential federal federal aid that the school is counting on to be able to make their budget.
So, if we're not going to account for that $75,000 because it's just as much in the air of what we're actually going to get for federal funding, why are we not trying to build a school budget that accounts for that 170? And then if we get it or if we get part of it then then that's extra and ideally not having to
come back to the town for extra operating expenses twothirds of the way through the year. Then none of the other budgets for the rest of the town are built with grant funding anticipated. If we get it then it allows us to be able to do more projects and return
money at the end of the year back to free cash. be well those two grants are different in that the one of them were is not approved the other one is is appropriated
>> which one's appropriated >> the federal monies are appropriated >> is is there a serious concern we wouldn't receive it >> no I don't think I mean >> I mean only if chaos ensues and I mean I mean you have to remember that what
we're depending on there uh in some of those in some of those school grants other larger systems are depending on to make up sign would result in closing schools like immediately if they didn't get that federal money. So you know large cities
would just be without schools. >> So that it would really it would have to cascade a long way down to reach us. I guess the part that concerns me is that if let's say instead of 170, we only receive 95, right? And we're not going
to know that until after we close the budget and it's appropriate, it's approved. So, is that going to then leave us in a position like we were last year with a massive deficit? And unfortunately, it sounds like the school department to meet the demand last year
has largely chewed through the school of choice uh surplus that they had. So there's no buffer left. So >> I I >> I hate to be the bad guy, but I think that the budget needs to be built in a
way so that we're not completely dependent on what those that federal grant funding >> when they when they made the presentation. Luke, and maybe you remember, maybe you don't. Last year, I think they were way more worried about whether the federal funding was going to come through than we were than they are
this year from all the indications that they get from whoever their contact people are that let them know that. And they did express that at when they came for their budget presentation that they don't have any the fear this year like they would have that they had last year about whether that money would come through or not. And I don't think
there's any history of that money not coming through at all or even being cut. I don't think there's any history with that at all in the past 10, 20, 30 years. So why all of a sudden would we concern ourselves that that would happen right now
other than if you're worried about the leadership of of our federal government? >> I don't know. I'm just remembering the meeting differently from a couple weeks ago where they said they weren't entirely sure if all they were going to receive all. >> Yeah. >> No, I you know, >> which is what we would we had been told.
>> That's that's not my recollection. >> I mean, there's always some level of uncertainty, but we're building the budget on various levels of uncertainty always. I mean, you know, we're getting a federal grant for the surge treatment
plant. What if it doesn't happen? But if they turn around and say, "Oh, we're not doing that anymore." We pull it back, we'll be on the hook for it. I mean, that's how these things go, I guess. Um, it's kind of almost impossible to account for all that though. We would
have to shrink the budget by like a massive amount. Uh, and then if we get the money, I don't know what we do then. >> We we put it back, go higher. Well, I guess that lead Why are we not accounting for the 75
>> just because it's not in hand yet? I mean, >> because it h Well, because it's appropriated every year by the legislature and it just hasn't been signed by the governor yet. We do have an idea about what we'd like to do with
it once it's been approved, which may which probably won't happen. >> You wouldn't have it in time for town meeting. won't happen probably before town meeting. But do we know if we actually do need to appropriate it like that?
>> I would have to ask to to be sure. But >> I mean it it's it depends on how it comes. >> Yeah. >> So presumably well well it would have to be appropriated if we want to set the fund
with it. Well, you can set >> Can we set up the fund at town meeting and say free cash or grants blah blah blah? >> We could do that. >> Put that put the language in like that >> like we do with >> the way I read the statute it makes it sound like the appropriation has to come
from from town meeting. I don't a grant like this unanticipated funds. It's possible that could just be put into the reserve fund, but I don't know. But you also wouldn't need to put it into the reserve fund. You could just use it >> to solve the same issue. If we had a
significant amount of of a funding need come up, >> you can use it for whatever you want. That 75,000 it doesn't even have to touch that reserve. That's all >> you could use it to replace that. >> I'm just trying to figure out how to avoid special needing. >> Yeah, I don't think you can because I
think it needs to be appropriated. >> The 75. >> Yeah, >> the 75 for the grant I don't think needs to be appropriated. >> I think we need fun. But we you need to set up the fund. >> The money for the fund I think would need to be appropriated. >> Once you set up the fund >> at town meeting,
>> you can, but you can't put the money in it. >> You can't you can put free cash in if you want. >> But if you put free cash in, >> haven't we done grants done this before where it's free cash slash grants if we get it. >> Did it for a fire thing. What did we do?
We we appropriated free cash but then anticipated we were going to get a grant and then we used the grant and we didn't use the free cash. >> What was that? >> Do you remember Bob? we appropriated but then we were waiting for >> can't remember was it pagers or radios
or I doesn't matter >> but some >> there was an article for the radios but that was going to fund the entire radio project >> right but it didn't turn out to need to do that because there was >> correct >> a grant already >> right >> so you could do something >> still a one time expense so I
>> right >> I came in after I don't know what you guys are talking about a recurring then you start >> no it's not a recurring >> yeah it's But I I would think we could do that at something similar to that at town
meeting so we don't have to come back. >> I think you could. >> I I do want to draw our attention to one other item that we haven't discussed yet that we'll need to make a decision on. Uh and that's vehicle leases. So as um everyone here probably remembers, we put a significant amount into leases last
year. Um the the budget line right now sits at 139462. um because uh of the number of of vehicles that fell off the lease. Um and that that just captures the new
vehicles and actually doesn't capture all of them because two of them are paid for by water and sewer. So there was a request this year for two new vehicles. One of them would be a mini loader for the DPW that would be used for sidewalk clearing um among other things. So it's
great for the winter but also can get used during the rest of the year. The other would be to replace the fire chief's vehicle uh which is in need of repair. Sorry, need of replacement. Um so right now I am carrying both those
vehicles and I actually might even need to increase that number by just a little bit. Um and I think that that would bring that that should keep our um our amount at at um at the 84. But um
we're carrying that right now. those two vehicles. I'd recommend that half of the lease payment for the chief's vehicle come from the ambulance fund, but again, we've been using that a lot, so we might want to be careful of that. >> It's um yeah, I mean, we talked about this quite
a bit last night. I mean, you know, we are obviously we need a new vehicle. It's hard to know what it's actually going to cost because the last vehicle we did came in dramatically below what >> we thought it was going to.
>> The police will most of the vehicles we put on our lease program last year didn't come in dramatically below anything. >> It came in right we were expecting um >> so we we >> but he has to plan for the cost. I mean and then see what happens. But as it stands now, as you have it put in, it's
in this budget at the 139 or whatever. And >> 179 >> actually 139. I have I should probably change that to 179 for the request, but I have it at 179642. It might need a couple thousand more. >> But my point is with with that in there
like that, we're still at 84,000 to the to the good. If we use 10,000 for the um fire chief's vehicle from the ambulance trust for the last ambulance we did 20,000 a year from the ambulance trust this >> can we >> so we so so we could conceivably not use
ambulance trust and that we go from 84 to 74 >> 74 >> do we know approximately what we have earmarked to come out of fire reserves in the last what we've talked about the last couple days >> mean ambulance >> or ambulance I'm sorry Yeah.
>> Um, well, essentially we've increased from a $127,000 a year budget to a $237,000 budget. >> And most of that is the 30 something,000. >> The two big changes is 70,000 from
um >> offsets. >> Okay. 70,000 for South County. >> South County and then 30,000 for the chief salary >> and then a little more from uh for that other line that we just looked at. >> Yeah, >> we um we did one other thing though earlier that we haven't talked about
which is significant and I think we might want to look at which is finance reserve. >> I cut 10,000 from finance reserve. >> Yeah. So, I'm just wondering um sort of given that we have some money um I mean we really don't have a ton of money here
because we're using free cash here. >> We're using 200 200 and some odd thousand of free cash which is risky. There might be if we're concerned that somebody and we don't know who is going to or
which line it's going to fall in is going to hire be able to hire more folks suddenly >> than has happened in the past. >> We could deal with that through through finance reserve if we had money in there to do it, >> right?
>> Just given that it's so hard to predict now, who is that going to be? You just give yourself some breathing room. >> Is it going to be in? >> We did that a couple years ago. We we put more money in finance reserve because it was >> accounting.
That was the accounting fiasco money in there. Yeah. >> So, I mean that's one way to sort of say if we get half threequarters of the way through the year, halfway through the year and all of a sudden, oh, more of these shifts are being filled, we can fund it. >> But you're not funding any of the shifts
out of the money that you're taking. you you would make up for it on the back end with finance reserve. You just transfer that keeps that makes it difficult if you don't have it budgeted >> then you it makes it difficult to say change the salary or anything else. do you think would be helpful to to hire
those? >> Well, you can't do that, right? But if you hired >> at the level we're at right now, >> if you filled more shifts, so say in the in the part-time, if you filled more shifts and you got three quarters away and you said, "Oh, all of a sudden we're filling 90% of the shifts instead of
70%, you could make up for that." >> Yeah. Yeah, I guess my question would be if you're going to take 70,000 for to cover the south county, what is it roughly 30,000 to when you do the percentage split for the fire chief >> and then you're going to take more another$10,000,
>> it's $110,000 that the ambulance has been pretty steady in terms of what it its receipts are and bringing in and versus what its expenses are. So, what is your plan for the future if you're going to take an additional $110,000 out
of that account? And to me, and from being aware of what the budget lines are within two years, you're not going to have an ambulance. >> We have $397,000 in it. How is it generating that money? >> Well, the only way that account generates money is if there's transports made.
>> No, I understand. But >> so, there's money in this budget for transports. >> The question is, is it enough? and how much would you be dipping in each year into the the reserve account? >> So, >> I think it's a year-by-year thing.
>> I mean, >> you want my honest opinion? The next year, we as a town have to figure out what we're going to what we need to do in in all of emergency services. It's a it's it's a hard place that we're all in. And and I understand it. I'm not
throwing mud on anybody. Everybody's working hard. But it's it's the same problem that every small town >> in the Commonwealth is having, >> right? So why would we why wouldn't we take the 70,000 for at least South
County out of since it's right now a one-time expense out of a different account stabilization? >> I suggested last night that we take it out of free cash and I was told we can't do that. >> No, we could do that. >> We can do that. We could absolutely do
that if we wanted to. I I said um >> sorry >> when I look at Oh, it's fine. >> Before we started pulling, you know, more from ambulance receipts reserved in the ambulance trust, I looked at those as having pretty healthy balances and
thinking for a one-time approach to this issue, we could probably pull from there and feel confident that that we'd get through the year and then still have money to figure out what we want to do moving forward. So, that was my approach, but I think we do need to look holistically at at what we've done to
the ambulance account um and what we feel comfortable with. The >> I think the bottom line is either way you do it, when you get to the end of the year, you're going to have decisions to make and you know, you're not going to be able
there's no clear answer of how you're going to fix it next year either. you know, how you eventually you might have to you're gonna have to go into something. You know, it's not there's there's not a ton of evidence that it truly is going to be a one-time expense
unless you fundamentally change. And I'm not saying we that I'm not saying that means you shouldn't use free cash because we got to get through next year somehow. So, we got to do something. But either way, it's it's six of one half dozen of the other. What do you want to use? It's just a precedence that you're
setting and I think that's a powerful precedent to set. >> But next year if you're getting the same thing, you don't have any free cash, what are you going to do? >> Then you're going to dip into it, right? I mean, like you're going to do something. >> I mean, the other thing to look at, too, is that the ambulance trust and the ambulance reserves have continually been
taken into for to help offset the cost of a vehicle or paramedic equipment and stuff like that as well. So, it's an account that gets dipped into a lot and if we keep doing it, we're going to be in a position where we're not able to fund the staff that we have and the
having the staff is what generates the revenue for that account. >> Oh, no. I agree. >> I agree. And what if two years from now we decide that we can't afford to keep our own ambulance and we have to join South County and then you know what and come up with a plan like that because we
just can't afford to keep paying for our our ambulance out of whatever. I mean that's police, fire, ambulance are all three things public that we we're going to have to look at as a big picture.
Okay. Because you the the words you use, it's you were talking about the school budget. It's unsustainable. What we're doing right now with all those things probably in your words down the road will probably be unsustainable as well to to continue to fund the police, fire,
and ambulance at the levels that we want or even longer because and the town has said they don't want more services. So I think we all >> it's a big picture conversation that that's going to have to be had >> and and I would say that if you to answer the question of you know what do
we want to what would happen if if we do need to make a big change like that it would help to know that we have the right amount in reserves and in these accounts to position ourselves to make decisions there in case you know we needed money for for anything that would happen money for initial payment to to
buy new new equipment whatever else so we don't want to deplete anything So, I think, you know, we're getting to a pretty good place here in knowing we're going to balance the budget this year. We've got $84,000 to play around with at the moment. Um, and maybe it's only 54,000 because I'd like to keep a bit of
a buffer, but we can, you know, we've we've taken the the the flamethrower approach, the the the the chainsaw approach. We can come back with a scalpel now and put some things back where we think, you know, we set ourselves up for the best possible path. And and I think there's a number of things to look at. The chief had his
hand raised in case anybody wants to recognize him. >> Sure. Go ahead, >> Mr. Chair. Make sure the chair is all set. >> You have two votes, sir. You're good. >> Um, so I guess the the two things for
our side of it is going to be is that the town is has to decide or you guys have to decide if this is truthfully a one-year fix so we can continue to just balance this budget that we do every year and then kick the can for the following year. With that being said, when I left Andrew
this afternoon and with the changes that the finance committee made last night and what is in the reserve receipt account, if the 237,000 and change, I believe was a number that would come from ambulance reserved receipts. If that is the new number for FY27
based on the current projections, Hatfield Ambulance will not have enough money to fund FY28. at that level. >> Correct. >> If you had to if you had to rely on just receipts reserved alone, >> correct? >> You wouldn't have enough.
>> Now, so that doesn't include whatever any revenue that would come in >> and any change potentially for emergency services, but specifically the ambulance. From everything that I recall from 13 years ago, it is a two-year process to
go to another agency. So you you potentially have a gap year that you're going to not have anything which you can't actually do. You're going to have to have something because the residents have to have >> right but there would you wouldn't
continue to go at that level and there would be revenue too. >> The problem is that we're not making the revenue to keep those funds up. So we are at this point >> what we've typically had money left over at the end of the fiscal year that gets
dumped into the trust and then we fund the following fiscal year out of but out of the revenue. Right now the projection is the the 127922 that I originally submitted for FY27 we will not even make enough money in
FY26 to cover that. That's the predicament that we are in. So, we are going to be dipping into reserve receipts for the basic budget I submitted plus the 70,000 plus this additional 39,000. So, at that funding,
we really only have enough money in the reserve receipt account for about 1 year and 10 months total, >> right? because I did it today because I keep track on a day-to-day basis and there's 441,000.
So if we had to take out 237 and change I think was the number. >> Right. >> It doesn't get you two full fiscal years at the current trend. >> Right. >> So you but you know as we just discussed
you would be back to using some other source. That's what you would have to do. >> Yeah. But you'd have you would have or you'd have to you'd have to use some other source. >> Yeah. And that there there's significant risk in what the chief is describing. We
have to decide if that's something we feel comfortable taking on. I mean, it's ambulance is unique in some ways that there there aren't any other departments that have even that amount to get through another year if something were to happen. But at the same time, you don't want to make cuts that are going to put you in a terrible position moving
forward. So why would we not take this at least the 70 from a different funding source and not put ourselves in that? >> The only other funding source would be free cash. >> You'd be free cash is the only thing left >> and then you're >> unless you're cut unless we're cutting something else, >> right? And then you're just I mean
you're doing the exact same thing out of a different account. That's all you're doing, >> right? >> It's all going to happen either now or later anyhow. >> It's all going to happen one way or another. I mean, you just unless we make some kind of changes. So, figure something different out or whatever you
want to do. I mean, there there's a there's probably three or four different options. >> Revenues could go up. >> Yeah, >> you could I mean, there's lots of different things you could do, but we got to make some decisions about that. >> And I think the reality is you do have
enough money to get through two years somewhere. It's might not all be in that reserve account, but money could would could be produced to get through the two years if that's what you have to do. >> I think you do, but I think then you run into by the time the second year comes
around, you're you're kind of behind the eightball to come up with year three because if a lot of the discussion has been about what South County potentially would offer, well, that comes into the whole contract. All three towns have to
vote at their town meeting. Hatfield has to accept at their town meeting and then there's actually the assessment process that comes out and they have their whole formula. That study from a few years ago which is now four years old almost was at for not an ambulance just to be part
of their system was I believe $379,82. So assume that three and a half three and three/4 years later probably going to be a little bit higher. So, you're still gonna have to find a funding source, >> Y, >> but now you're potentially finding an
even larger pocket. Just >> Andrew, do you have the um free cash list? >> Yep. >> Yeah, we should go over that, too, because um we played around with that a little bit last night as well.
Here we go. Too many tabs. All right, so I'll go through this really quick just so we're all on the same page. So, uh, free cash was certified last year, $1,59,995. We talked already about needing to correct this past accounting issue. That would be $92,000. I will calculate the exact amount that we're at for health
insurance for FY26. And I'll also see if there's any inner fund transfers we can make. But if we continue to do that for free cash, that'll be $94,000 for this year. Snow and ice is a $68,000 deficit. Marlo uh before this Culver thing happened was feeling good about finding half of that from uh our current uh
budget as interf transfers and doing the rest from free cash. Um I'm currently covering that but we could bump that up if we need to. I'd like to do $10,000 the OPED reserve right now. We're not counting on anything for stabilization. We're counting on $200,000 from free
cash into the FY27 budget. We need to do $2,790 for prior year's bill. We can talk about what our capital plan is at the moment. Right now, this number represents the Let me put this at one for now. This
would be fire radios. It would be not the guardrail mower or debris loader because we can get those from the current um DPW budget. It would be $35,000 for the apparatus bay roof, $28,000 for town hall flooring. This would imagine that we do it this year
rather than waiting for the year after when we could get CPA funding. But that's up to you and uh on that. So that's the capital right now is 75,500. Route five expenses I'd like to take from the enterprise retained earnings instead. We haven't done anything else
with retained earnings and this is a sewer project. Um so as long as um we have buy in for that. I think it makes a lot of sense. this last night. It's I mean it's pretty small uh given that we're
taking on a $13 million project for >> and this this is for Yeah, this is for Route Five, not the system. >> The town is going to fully fund a $13 million renovation to the SE plant. >> Covering the the additional Route Five expenses out of sewer seems >> Yeah.
>> minimal compared to that. >> Pretty small. I'm recommending $35,000 go into our unemployment trust um to deal with the extra unemployment claims we're anticipating for next year. We've talked about $60,000 for Elm Court. We'll have to decide on that. We were talking about potentially $75,000 from
free cash into the school special ed reserve fund. U we can talk about if we'd like to do that this year. Uh we can make that number smaller, whatever. We could make it smaller for seed money. If we do all of that right now, it puts us at $380,000 left in free cash, which
is only $18,000 below the goal that I have of getting to about 3% of around what's our general fund um budget. >> Now, that $75,000 though is the grant that you were talking about also, correct?
>> The grant is for 75, but this would just be a free cash allocation, >> right? the the grant we >> but we could write it so it could be free cash or the grant. >> Yeah. I I guess what what I'm saying is
if we wanted to we could put free cash into the reser reserve account that we create this year. We could also put nothing into that reserve account knowing that the 75 is coming, doesn't have anywhere where it needs to go, and could help us pay for um any increases
in special ed costs without even hitting that reserve fund. It doesn't have to go into the reserve fund. We can just use it for whatever we want to during the year. So, the other the other thought would be um
taking the town hall flooring out of the capital and taking that 75,000 not not using the $75,000 for the reserve fund and then putting your South County number in there to get you to a
similar Well, we you you'd probably get to your number, your 399. >> Yep. You probably would. >> I mean, I I think that to me that makes a lot of sense. We have a a continually
aging population in town and you have the need for an ambulance and other emergency services. And currently, it's slated to take a very huge chunk away from that. And on the flip side, you have a school that
I'm you can look at the numbers and it's just slowly going down in terms of enrollment. And now we're currently working on a level budget, but now once you add an additional 75 into it, we're kind of
not. And it's just it's you kind of have this juxtaposition of things that are happening within the town. If the if we used the $75,000 for a school special ed reserve fund though, it wouldn't really be in the budget. It would only be in
there if it was needed to be used, >> right? Otherwise, it would just sit there just like stabilization does basically. Uh the problem is that in reducing the budget to get to level funding, which it is because, you know,
some expenses go up, of course, you're running out of room if something happens. Um and because special ed is a legal entitlement, you don't have a lot of room there. It's not like you can say no. All you can say
is we're going to take it from somebody else's education. That that's what you do. um because you don't really have a choice. Um so, you know, and normally when the budget has some extra money in it, you can kind of make up for those
things, but now you won't be able to. So, that's why we're thinking about creating a special ed reserve fund in case and also the timing of these things is not knowable, right? Somebody moves to town, needs
special ed services, you have to provide it. you don't it doesn't you can't say well you know we didn't budget for it so you won't get it till next year we'll budget for it then so that's why the that's why the state created this reserve fund in the first place um is
because these costs are unanticipated and because you do get some of it back through circuit breaker which is probably more complicated than we want to get into right here but you you could get some of it back in a future year part of it um because if you
extraordinary special ed costs. The state does pick up some of that. >> So, in an effort to try to get us to some decisions, I will say um I shouldn't say this as a father of a four-week old child at home, but it is okay to split the baby here on some things. Like, we could end up with
>> $25,000 for the ED reserve fund because we've got some breathing room now because of this grant. We could put in 50 $40,000 for the ambulance fees to take some of the pressure off that ambulance account. you know, we we could we don't have to do all or nothing with this if we want. Um, that's an option
available to us as we think about how the free cash is going to work. And that could if we put in, you know, a little bit on some of these, it starts to make us feel more comfortable the rest of the budget. It's just an option. >> I I would really like to see us take that town hall flooring project out of the capital and wait till next year to
try to get the CPA funds. I said I'd check with Marlo first before we decided on that, but are do you do you have concerns about not acting on the town hall floor this year or? >> No, it can go till next year, but I would highly recommend we do it then. >> Yeah.
>> I mean that I think I think we'll get support with a I'll say a more complete grant proposal next with from CPA next year. I think the only I think the only question on our mind about the whole thing was not that was just
>> you you seem to have a good price in hand right now and when you put it back out next time >> right >> what will happen that that was really the only question >> but it's it's it's also not general budget it's not it's it's CPA funds
which we have lots of >> that's true what's projected for them though so I can't spend them projected to go to CPA funding from the town this year. >> If everyone's comfortable with that, we can project that for now. >> Did you hear John's question? >> I didn't hear it.
>> Thank you. If we for now take the town hall flooring off of the free cash list. >> Oh, sorry. >> John's question. >> What does it generate? Like what goes from CPA generate this year? Like what new money goes in >> CPA? Yeah. Uh $380,000.
>> And what are we projected to spend out of for this year from CPA. >> Um, >> not even close to that probably, right? >> Well, above that, I think. Um, >> not for that. Hasn't always happened. It is.
>> I was talking CPA and they said that the town would have to remove the aesus that they would not include the best removal in their CPA funds. They would only include the flooring. No.
>> And their CPA funds. I mean, I'm just >> the chair the chair has got has gotten a a re a ruling from the person he talks to at the state that if it's all part of one project because it is the mastic that holds that asbestous flooring that it can all be done through CPA funds.
He's got he's got the ruling on that. >> Well, there seems to be >> I can show you the email if you want to see it. Well, that that's fine, but it it it appears that not all the members on CPA are aware of that email. >> Yeah, >> that's all. >> Uh right now about $400,000 planning to
spend this year from CPA. So, actually pretty close to that 380. >> Yeah, >> pretty it's a pretty washable. Yeah. >> So, so my suggestion on free cash, I'm not I'm not tied to the 399. I know you are, >> but I would put 50,000 to South County.
I would put 50,000 into um >> specialed reserve >> special ed reserve and I would keep the 28,000 because I don't want to wait for CPA. I want to get that project done. That's my personal that's my personal view. >> It doesn't matter. >> Everybody's looking. >> It doesn't really matter one way or
another. You were just talking about which reserve fund do you want to spend it out of. Right. Exactly. >> That's really all you're talking about. >> Right. In the end of the day, if you don't come up with any kind of solutions and nothing happens, you're going to be spending it out of the reserve funds until they're gone and then that's going to be
>> the one one thing to remember about that 1,59,9.95. 5 about 30 or 40,000 of that number was left over from last year. >> Yeah. Yep. >> Okay. So you really only generated you generated less than $500,000 in free
cash >> right >> this year >> this past year >> and we're on track to generate much less than that this year just because of how tight the budget is. >> Yep. >> Now it's possible you know revenues will be higher than we anticipated. >> So you could if we got it down to 300 and some odd thousand. You wouldn't
think that you'd m next year's free cash would be much more than 500,000 probably >> if it's that if it's that high. But that's why you're that's why you're holding back $355,000 because >> Yeah.
>> But that so so we didn't just to remember we didn't generate that million dollars in one year. >> Oh yeah. >> Oh no. If we were generating a million a year we >> Yeah. Yeah. >> So that could I mean that's fine with me. I don't know. How is everyone else
okay with that? Yeah. >> Doesn't >> I'm just looking for solutions and I threw a few a few solutions out. That's all. >> And I think we should keep this conversation just to be very clear. I mean it it is eventually this board's decision of what goes on to the warrant for for these free cash allocations and everything else. So for the free cash
side. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> So um but I mean >> we're getting somewhere I think. Oh, >> I I mean, and I it has nothing to do with free cash, but I I like Sean's idea of of taking a finance reserve and maybe
adding 10 or $20,000 to it to give us a little bit of buffer. Um, as Sean talked about, if something happens and all of a sudden fire or police need need some extra funds, it'll be easier to get it that way.
>> Yeah. Yeah. We have no problem transferring the money as long as we're not >> expanding this thing. You know what I mean? Like if if if what we're saying if what happens is, >> oh, we filled all the shifts to the level we expected and so we actually
wound up spending we're going to spend more money than what you gave us. We can fill that gap. >> Yeah. >> So you're saying Darl, put uh another line in here. >> No. No. to take free cash and put it or or from your 84,000
>> from the 84 or the 74 whatever >> whatever that number that number is that would be >> it's a lot easier for you to transfer the money than go to town meeting and get two3 >> I was just asking where the s the source of that money was >> that that the source is general fun
>> and also you know when you if you have money in there at the end of the year we've we've actually very rarely spent it um >> right >> prior prior to end of year transfers. That's really the only time we've spent it. I think we've gone the last couple of
years with a few thousand worth of requests in the >> We started increasing it last year, right? We >> well because we had cut it >> just just as a buffer just in case. And it's there's nothing wrong with that. I think it's a good thing. >> N I think we typically spend close to
$30,000 from that, >> right? But most of that occurs at end of year transfers with things we didn't end you know that come up right at the end of the year and we have to make up for it. That's where most of it comes from. >> Yeah. >> And really even even if you didn't have it there's always other money and end of year transfers that we you can pull that
>> historically there has been and and we'll see what it looks like this year in a tougher budget year and we'll see what it looks like in FY27 again in a tough year. >> Absolutely. It does serve a great function of um if something unexpected happens and you have money in there you didn't spend >> it. You don't have to go to special town
meeting to pay a $30,000 bill. You didn't, you know. >> Yep. >> And it costs to have a special town meeting. >> Yes. >> Well, and there's no and there's really no reason, you know, like if something if something a boiler town hall, you know, we have to fix the heat like,
>> right, >> it's not like we're not going to have heat, you know, you got we got to do something. So, >> yeah. Right. And a few years ago, we had all those extra elections and all that work. So, we had to help with the clerk's, you know, budget.
>> So, um, just to kind of summarize where we're at for the general fund budget, we now have this essentially surplus at the moment of $84,000 that we probably don't want to reduce much below 25 to $30,000. Sorry.
Go ahead, Daryl. Sorry. Would the 84 be affected? So in South County, we put 50,000. So we're still going to take 20,000 out of the ambulance revenue to to make it.
>> It doesn't touch anything with general fund. >> Won't touch it. That's my question. >> Yep. It won't make a difference. >> Okay. But yeah, >> but it removes some pressure from ambulance, which is nice. No. >> So, basically, you're going to about 53 or $4,000 out of ambulance
>> for next year >> reserve for the 33,000 and the 20,000. >> Yeah. You're still doing the the police the the fire chief's 40% of his salary and the full-time >> they're 40%.
>> And then 63,000 still instead of >> Okay. 60. Okay. >> Right. All right. >> Yep. That sounds right. >> Okay. Sorry, didn't mean to. >> No, no, that's fair. >> Okay. >> Reduce it by 50,000 basically. >> Yeah. So, so what I'm hearing is a
number of things that we could revisit in the the the changes that were made in the general fund budget. >> So, yep. >> I mean, one thing we could just keep in mind would be to use some amount of it to reduce the amount of free cash that
we're using to supplement this budget. >> Yes, that's another option. like like $25,000 or maybe >> Yeah, I mean you you can make a good argument that that's the most prudent thing to do because then you're you're digging less of a hole for yourself
while also >> you're also um you know making some changes in the budget that would probably allow you to be in a good path. But we'd need to make sure that we feel confident in the services that we can provide at the budget level that we have right now with some of the cuts that are
in there um or or amounts below the requested amount. So, just to review very quickly, um actually we haven't even talked about this one, but I'd had I'd made an earlier reduction of the tree warden's budget from 45 to 40,000 uh 40 to 35. I we'll have to check. Um
and that's something that you know Marlo requested for this year. leases are still in here. That's $40,000 um that we're planning to cover, but we can decide what we want that to be. Um we talked about the assessor salary. We talked about police salaries uh reduced
from $7,000 from the amount that they they came in requested at. And then we have the fire changes with the 30,000 from the chief salary shifted to ambulance and about I can't quite quantify what it was for um those part-time about 20,000. The chief might
know better. um but but uh but below the requested amount and some of it shifted to ambulance and then we have the finance reserve um that we could add 10,000 to and then we could change free cash. So we could do some of those things. We have to decide what's the
priority from that list for either restorations or cuts or whatever else. I mean, just >> I'm agreeing with all those. >> I agree. I I mean, I agree at most levels with the chief's assessment
uh of the overall picture in general in that, you know, you feel more comfortable if you had a plan to go out three years >> than two. you know, like that just >> feels like, >> you know, more manageable in terms of
can you make changes? Can you get things done? I mean, you're going to have to make decisions about what you want to do and then go forward with it and that's going to take time. >> What if the town decides they don't want to get rid of the ambulance, >> you know, >> then they have to find a way they have to figure out a way to find a way to fun it.
>> Override territory most likely, but we'll see. >> I mean, I I think that's a perfectly legitimate decision. Yeah. >> You just have to pay for it. >> Yeah. >> And and recognize that although it brings in revenue, which is great,
>> it can't be really expected to pay for itself. >> It's not how most things work. It's not how this works. And >> it's not really how anything else in town really works. >> No, we're not re revenue gen. >> Yeah. It's not a business really. I mean,
>> but no, >> my suggestion, Andrew, is we stay with what we put together. You know, we're we're going to meet again on finance committee on what, the 27th. >> The day before. Yeah. >> And then we can meet with you guys on the 28th and and and finalize
everything. >> That would be my suggestion. >> Sounds like a plan. >> So, how can I best organize this for folks? I mean, I'll send around all the materials. I'll update, you know, the free cash list. I'll update um kind of that balanced budget plan that I'd
passed around with everything that we have. Um and I'll kind of make a list like I just went through of the areas that are still kind of up for debate. Um certainly the free cash is still up for debate and um >> yeah, this is still somewhat up for
debate, but we're we're close, I think. And certainly we're operating from more of a position of strength now that we know we can make the >> I think we have answers. We just have to figure out what those answer which answers we want. >> Which options do you want? >> We have multi multiple choice and then you just have to figure out which ones you want to do.
>> What's our bottom line right now? >> We're still at basically an $84,000 surplus. >> Okay. So we went from 142 to 84 >> swung all the way around. Yeah. >> The other way >> to to the which is a good thing. I mean,
we've gone as low as seven, >> I think. So, >> I would I wouldn't be comfortable being any lower than 30, personally. 30 sounds good. But >> when you were going to seven or eight, though, you were also like turning off the street lights. >> Oh, yeah. You know, I mean, it wasn't.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And I'm comfortable at 30. If then we say restore more of that finance committee reserve, you know, if there's buffer in there that we feel good about, then then we're good. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I think if we're worried about f um making up any deficits at the end of
the year, the more you put in the finance reserve, the better you then you're more easily prepared to take care of something some of those things. >> I mean, I should just say for everybody who's listening, there are limits to that, right? Or do they take the limits
off >> of the finance committee reserve? >> Yeah. >> I I don't know what it is. >> There's a limit to how much filling you can do. Yeah. >> So, you know, basically you can't put your whole budget in finance reserve and then let the finance committee decide
how to spend it as the year goes along. There is a limit to the percentage I think of >> Yeah. >> of I don't know that we'll be in danger of >> hitting it, but there is a limit. >> Okay. I guess I just want to make sure um that this board feels like they've had enough
um time to ask any questions or or debate anything because we still have a decent amount of work to finish to get a a finished warrant. Um so >> well I I know there's never a problem with things to spend money on in this
town. >> Yeah, for sure. Yeah, >> there's always something. And so putting money in finance reserve even at the end there'll be something that's important that's needed anyway. So >> right. >> Yeah. We've always I mean and the
reality is that if you don't spend it, it goes to free cash next year and we're going to spend it. >> Spend it eventually. >> It's a win-win. >> Yeah. I guess the question that I am asked a
lot by residents that are watching um is and I touched on it earlier is this this continued enrollment slide of the schools >> but their their enrollment's up this year. >> You just finish your question, right? >> Yeah. is the slow enrollment slide. And
I mean a lot of people have written us articles and letters and stuff to the select board and made some very valid points that you know five years ago the schools had 397 kids in them and now there's 302 projected or on desi for this year. So it's you're seeing a
almost 25% loss in student population, but the budget continues other than this year to continues to climb and for the most part staffing levels really have not changed. And so there's a large percentage of the population of town
that has been bringing their voices forward to us and asking why are we continuing to fund this at the same level. It's a difficult slope to walk. I get that. However, it is a conversation that I think needs to be brought to the table because there's a lot of people
who who are saying the same thing. >> They're cutting 10% of their staff in this new budget. >> They're cutting five and a half people. >> Not according to some of the numbers that they had submitted to us. >> No, >> in the budget that was submitted to you
and to us is the same budget >> they are cutting five and a half positions to get to that number this year. got 10% of her staff. I think it was >> they're 53.5. So, it's actually more than 10%. Of their professional staff,
the number is 53.5 in their I'm assuming they're correct. I don't know if you've checked it or not. Okay. But at 53.5, cutting five and a half positions, that's more than 10% of their professional staff for next in that budget. How can you say that that's not
a significant cut? I the only reason I'm >> or any other residents say that's not a significant cut >> because some of the reports that they've given us don't correlate with what that says. >> I had we had asked as a board for a report of the staffing level. >> Christy said when she was here the other
day that she was going to update those numbers. Have you got those numbers from her yet? >> No. >> Okay. Well then maybe that you need to ask her again for that and maybe we'll have that that that will make things clearer. >> We first started asking for the numbers in October and it took till December to get them. So,
I'm going off of a report that they had provided to us and now we're going off of other numbers that don't correlate. So, the question then becomes is which numbers are we going off of? >> What was do you remember what the
December report said for FTEEs? I can pull it up right here. I mean >> FY26 full teachers licensed staff is 53.5. >> Mhm. >> Okay. This is what and they're in their
budget they're cutting five and a half positions full-time or five and a half full of of professional staff >> and in the report that we received in December we have a total count of full-time employees of 89.6 6
>> is that >> elementary has 50 FTEEs. Smith Academy of 34.6 and five for the district. >> So what was the FTEES? >> Uh Hatfield Elementary was 50. Smith Academy was 34.6. >> That's the FTE or in place. >> I'm just curious.
>> It's I'm reading it verbatim for what our report says. It says FTE directly FTE. Okay. >> That's from DESIE or is that's from the >> This is from the school staffing report that they gave us for the overview of their FY26 budget. All those numbers aren't in this. Okay.
>> But they're substantially different numbers and I think that's why it's important to address. >> Are they substantially different numbers? I >> I don't I don't I'm not >> They're saying professional staff, right? >> Teachers licensed staff would would from FY26 >> go from 53.5 to 48. >> Does teachers licensed staff count
everybody? >> That's for the district. That's not for >> Yeah, but stop splitting the two schools. >> No, but I don't know if that counts every single person who works. It doesn't count the secretaries. It doesn't count the Yeah, there's >> no because then there's then there's ESPs, custodians, administrative
assistants, administrators that they've listed on this, >> right? >> On this as well. Okay. We're just talking about the licensed staff, >> teachers. >> Teachers, >> direct service employees to students, >> right? >> Okay. 53 and a half to 48. That's five and a half positions.
>> Correct. But there's also a lot of other aids and things like that that are not counted as FTEEs, but they are staffing at the both schools. >> No, that's counted in here. >> Yeah. And then they're they're having the same number. They're they project the same number next year that they have now. Now remember those people are
significantly lower paid than a teacher is. >> Uh >> and also some of those people are there because they're required by special ed >> by special ed, right? So they're so they're preventing you actually from sending somebody to $130,000 a year out of district placement. >> Yeah.
>> So you're paying some >> those 22 ESPs are probably I would say 75 or 80% of them are probably dealing with kids who are who are required to have them on IEPs, >> right? >> Yeah. It just the numbers that are in this don't correlate. I don't know what
those I I can't I can't answer that that that >> to send that around after >> the school would have to to have to give you that number, >> right? >> But it's our voice or it's our job as you know a voice of the residents of the town to also bring this up
>> and so are we are we you know >> so where else does the board want to come from the school? >> I don't know if I don't necessarily have an answer for that. I think the question becomes is that a lot of residents are looking at overall enrollment and the trends in it and the overall spending
and they're going >> different than any other town. >> Is that any different than any other school district? >> If you do look at some comparable ones in the area, they're not quite as sharp. But >> I mean, enrollment's not across the board simply because there's not as many
kids as there used to be. I honestly >> and there's more charter schools. There's more other opportunities for them to >> do other things than >> I've done. I mean I it just depends on I guess on how you want to what your definition of comparable is
but there are almost no comparable districts in the area there. I mean there's very few if by my definition like when I did it and I I can get the spreadsheet out. I don't have it with me
but like I used I used population but of course I had to go like plus minus 25% because there's nobody else running a school district with this many people in the town first of all except for I mean even Hadley is much bigger really in terms of the population of the town.
North Brookfield. >> North Brookfield is one >> closest. >> There's some like that, but like you know, so I did that. I used median income. Uh I used uh EQV, equalized valuation of property, as a way to sort of come up
with comparables. And you have to go pretty far to find a lot of comparables. You have to go out to North Brookfield, you know, maybe like um there's there's almost no districts like ours. There's some um elementary only districts um
that are comparable, but the real question in my mind is what what given that you're statutoily mandated to educate these people who are here, these
students. What is option B and how much does option B cost? What what are the people you talk to about who are concerned about the this what do they have suggestions as for how to solve this or >> Yeah, actually one of the things that
continually keeps coming up is whether it's utilizing some of the grant money that the state has recently released um or setting up an article to be able to fund an account to have a third-party consult done of the of the district and
also find out what the number is too whether it's regionalized come up with a a a partnership agreement with Hadley. It's all it's been kicked around for decades. But what does that actually what does that actually look like for us? What does that look like for their district? Does it mean that
Smith Academy is a middle school, Hopkins is a high school, vice versa? What does that look like? >> It's been more than kicked around though. >> Yeah. >> Hadley did a study. They got a grant and and from the right and they didn't they didn't find a significant savings,
>> you know. I mean, could that have changed since that happened? Sure, it could have. We can look at that. >> And if and if they're also thinking about, well, should we tuition them to Frontier or tuition them to Northampton or things like that? I I can't imagine what the bill would be to do something
like that if they would even think about taking your kids, >> right? But it's also an answer that we don't actually know. >> And then you don't have a then you don't have a seat at the table either. >> But it also could be the end of the conversation, too. >> It's possible. Yeah. you know, if the number comes in astronomically higher and you also compare the difference of
education and the extra courses and the larger class sizes to be able to collaborate on stuff. >> Yeah. Well, that's a different I mean, I think if you're talking about the quality of the programming and how that could be different, I think there's definitely
conversations. >> Absolutely. But it's a conversation that if we had a number, right, that said it's going to cost us >> $2,000 less per student to regionalize. Or it might be it's going to cost you $10,000 more per student to regionalize.
At least we have an answer as a town's people that we as a town can make an educated decision. >> So where where do we find the money to put hire the consultant to do that study? I >> I think we have to look at grant opportunities. That's your >> Where did Hadley get? >> And the uh
>> Yes, he did grants a number of years ago and somebody actually probably some eager intern put together a summary of all the grants that they did uh and a study like a study of studies like a meta study or whatever >> of of all the grants. I shouldn't say
that. I don't know that it was intern. I'm just guessing like that kind of project. >> The best way to resolve it is if we know exactly what a cost would be. we have a warrant and then the town can determine if they want to pay for the >> Here's here's the thing I would consider though. I would just ask if if if
regionalization is a topic of conversation. I would take 10 minutes to look around the Commonwealth and see how many new regional districts have been created in the last pick your timeline since since you 30 years.
The answer is very very very few >> if any. Have you have you followed the Pioneer Turner Falls >> situation that they've been trying to put together of regionalizing that district? >> It's very very small. >> What do you mean?
>> I very I've done very little. >> Very little >> there. I don't think that any of the powers that be in either town have any interest in doing it because I don't think they they're finding out that >> the uh fair share um Senate version did
include I think around $10 million for regionalization studies for for small uh and rural communities. So if that passes that we can find out from Senator Kford if that's something that we might be able to take advantage of. Probably ask now if it's something that might work for us or if that's some somewhere else.
You know, more information is always good. >> It's definitely worth exploring because you're going to need you're going to need some some level of help to get the answers. >> Yeah. >> But just just know that the what has
happened historically and even recently is has not been increased regionalization. It's been tuition maybe. I don't I've never really looked at that, but I know that probably has happened in some cases. And in some cases, there's been
reverse uh regionalization. >> Nice. >> So like Worthington uh >> Oh, out of out of regionalization. Well, now we're making generalized assumptions based off of something we don't have a >> Well, and and and didn't we see figures
last year like if if if kids went to Frontier like the cost of educating kids in the Frontier, this was according to Desessie and Frontier District was was higher than what it actually costs us to educate our kids here in Hatfield. And
and if you want to go to a really high district, go to Ammerst, which gets really >> it gets really complicated. You have to really tease those >> 28,000. >> Yeah. But just because they're they have a certain per pupil cost doesn't mean that's what it would cost you to send a student there. They would probably
charge you much more than their per pupil cost. >> Well, we don't Yeah, you'd have to pull apart the numbers. It takes a lot of time because >> So clearly Luke is right. It's it's a conversation that we need to have. >> Nobody's conversation you have to have with with all our services in town. I agree that
I'll have the same conversation will have to happen with the >> with the ambulance and >> who knows in the future with the EPW it could be everybody senior center everybody no >> no question no question >> right >> because then you talk to the town's people and and and you can say this is
what it actually costs and >> you know you justify whether it's an override or whatever you do >> right so I guess I'll say this in knowing that there are larger conversations to have here and that we are we have a bit of a timeline now where we need to come up with better
answers than um one-year budget fixes like we've done this year. Do we want some kind of article? Do we want some kind of money from free cash or somewhere else to help staff those conversations for the next year? Um and I can find out how much that would be, but something to help us with working
through these questions about how to deal with our budget shortfall in the future. >> Yes, why not? >> And you should have a public forum before that. Oh, we're doing >> another month to go through with what we want to discuss in the next year. So,
that would be some of the topics we can >> we can pick for our future agendas. >> Yeah. >> Right. And but if you're you're talking about the school, you you you want to make sure you bring the school committee in and you've got to absolutely work in conjunction with them.
>> Well, if there's $10 million in grants that potentially are going to become available, we should definitely look at that. >> Yeah. I'll ask Senator Kifford just if there's already somewhere that where that's going or if it's something that really be open to folks like us. Otherwise, you know, we can put aside some some money from free cash or
elsewhere for facilitation of of this. I mean, I floated the idea to the select board to have some kind of budget committee or something that would be staffed by someone from finance, someone from uh schools, someone from select board, and then a couple other atlarge
positions. So then that's that's your working group to try to make the decisions for the next year, which the last thing needs another committee, but it could potentially work. So, who knows? >> Okay. >> Well, it's probably it probably needs some kind of money. >> Yeah. >> If you're going to do that, it needs
some kind of staff to do leg work because you're not going to, >> right? you're not gonna, you know, and in fact, you might need multiple. I feel like I feel like a committee like that is really good for if you had a
committee that was or a consultant, I'll just whatever the word you want to use is that looked into schools, looked into public safety options, looked into whatever options that there are out there, >> um, and then brought those to to the table. Like a committee like that would
be great to look at those and talk and make decisions. >> They can't do the leg work. >> But but it's hard for one group of people, one select board member, one fine, two outlarge people to look at every single thing in town all at once and be like and come up with options for this and options for that and options
for the other thing. It's just it's a really big uh thing. So, I mean, almost feels like you have to kind of divide that up somehow, but you might not have the people for it. I don't know. But
>> okay, so the good news tonight is we're plus 84, so that's a good thing. So, >> yeah. >> And we still have a little bit more work to do for our final meeting and then we can Okay. But I It sounds like we're almost there.
So, I want to thank you for all the effort and time you've put into this. >> I'll make a >> We might We might want to consider having another meeting before next Tuesday or before two weeks from now to get a little closer on the free cash list just because we need to sign a
warrant that night. >> Um but but we can talk about that. >> Any questions on the financial side for the finance meeting committee before they leave? I guess that makes >> Yeah, we need to we can go through it here Monday meeting too.
>> Yeah, >> we we still have to continue. We held >> I'll send you everything I got because you were >> Thank you. Appreciate that. >> We still have to go over all these. >> I take five, John. Yeah, we a little time. Ready,
John? We're all set. >> Okay, we're back. We had a quick break. Uh we're going back to topic one in our agenda. Uh and that's town hall garage use, fire
department, and COA bay use. I believe that from a previous discussion with the fire chief, he wants to close the North Hatfield station and I believe uh Captain Luke here had explained that
he's the only one that goes to that station and and there's really doesn't make sense to keep that station. So they want to bring the truck down here and use the COA bay, but I know the COA was very concerned because now their van
would have to come out and where do they put their van? So that was the issue. So we all decided to take some time to think about this. So I'll open it up for discussion with my colleagues of some of their thoughts and what what their
feelings are on this. So, we had a very productive conversation with the COA. Um, we had a joint meeting with both the police and fire chiefs, uh, Marlo, the DPW director, um, Jerry, myself, Andrew,
and Glenn, the main driver for the van. And we briefly reviewed um the needs for the reallocation of where trucks need to park. and we came to a fairly good
meeting ground. Um and so myself and Andrew yesterday sat in on the COA's um board meeting and it's to my understanding that they have agreed that they will keep one van here and if the
uh article passes for the garage to be finished on Elm Court, they're okay with keeping another vehicle up there. So, it satisfies really three different objectives. It would get all of the fire and police apparatus down here into one location.
Um, and then with some reshuffleling of where each individual apparatus is parked, the police will now have two bays that are actually conjoined so they can lock it a little bit better and keep their things more secure. and then the
fire apparatus, the tanker and the brush truck will move to the next two bays further down and then COA will now get the end one. Um, so we had some, like I said, we had some very good productive conversation ultimately at the end. We came to a a pretty good common ground here. That's
>> I appreciate you guys all getting down and talking because that that helps resolve things when people sit down and talk to one another. And I appreciate that. I I like the idea. Uh your comments on this? >> That sounds like a good plan. Um
yeah, it sounds like a good plan that you guys all came to it. I I'm just still up in the air on the Elm Court thing, but that's another discussion. >> Okay. All right. So, uh >> yes, it only works with Elm Court. So I So we would need to make sure that we
feel like there's two out of three of you who feel comfortable sending Elm Court to a ballot >> or not to a ballot to town meeting this year, >> right? >> So it sounds like everybody has an agreement with everybody and it sounds like it's it's all going to work >> ideally.
>> So do you have a date, Chief, on when you plan on shutting down that North Hatfield station? So, barring any other changes, it will have to close on July 1st because they could foreseeably give
us an invoice on July 1st and there is no money for the rent in the FY27 budget. >> Okay. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Which I'm actually I'm I'm carrying it right now. This is a,200 just in case
the um the um Elm court doesn't pass at a town meeting. just we might it's $1,200. We probably should just just carry it just in case, but I I don't want anyone to use that as justification for why we shouldn't build MC court. I think it's still a good move. So,
>> okay. So, >> if I may, there there may be a delay, right? On July 1st, could be a couple month delay to get the work done up there. We're right in the middle of getting uh quotes and everything. You're in the middle of construction season, so it all depend on the contractors. >> It's good weather. you know, if
shortterm if the van would have to be left out of course so we could still, you know, move our vehicle down if everything else falls in line. >> It realistically should still be in the good weather. >> Yeah. >> Well, once again, thanks for meeting and working this out. I think it's uh that
was very nice of you guys to do that. >> And it was it was a pleasure to work with everyone, too. Everyone was very understanding for the operational needs for really all three departments. So, um, >> I'd say Luke Luke facilitated a very good conversation and I think it got to
a lot of, you know, questions about what long-term goals are and what our short-term, you know, things we can take on. So, I really appreciate the way you feel facilitated that. I think it was a good >> Okay. So, we don't need a motion on this. It's a >> I don't have anything that says a motion, but
>> I don't know if it is one. >> We can make a motion. It's more just agrees about where they're going. I think that's good. >> Yeah, >> that sounds good. >> Okay. Motion made. Motion. >> No. No motion. Motion. No. I No. No motion. >> No motion. I don't think you need a motion. >> That's fine. We're good.
>> Okay. So, that should cover our topics. So, I'll make a motion to go into executive session. Well, before I do that, is there any unfinished business that needs to >> I would just ask if there's anything you're concerned um about on the warrant. Um if there's anything you want to make sure we cover. Luke is on the
phone. We went over most of that, but you know, we could always just review it. Feel free to come talk to me anytime during the next, you know, week, week and a half. If you feel like there's enough still up in the air that you want to have another meeting just to go through this, we certainly can do that. Finance is going to meet again on it and
they can vote, you know, to to um approve of these um what am I saying? To recommend these items. Um but if you think we need another meeting, we could set that up just because we want to make sure we get it. covered a lot tonight. I think I think
>> we should be good to go. >> What we want to do is we got resolved tonight. That's my opinion. I don't know. >> We'll see. I think we'd only have to because they were talking about the flooring and >> yeah, I don't think we had a decision on flooring. >> There wasn't a decision on the flooring and and the other thing is I'm I'm still
concerned a little bit about this Elm Court thing, but >> yeah. >> So, I'd like to still talk about that eventually. >> So, I'll update this based on our conversation. and I'll kind of have everything that we've talked about in here and then um if we need to cut anything at our final conversation, we
can do that. If you have questions to come up in the next two weeks, just come find me. I'm happy to talk about it. Um and we'll make our decisions at the 28th meeting. I'll just verify with the town clerk that we'll still have enough time. Um I can always print out the updated warrant that night. You'll sign it.
We'll be good to go. So, are we thinking that we need another meeting before then or can we >> It's sounding like folks think we don't need >> I don't think we Okay. >> Do you feel differently? >> No, I just want to >> let's plan on Let's plan on no meeting then. I guess if >> 28th is the next meeting, correct? Yes.
So, >> we should be able to finalize everything >> and then we can discuss Elm Court at that meeting as you as you have requested. And anything else for unfinished
Okay. If not, I'll make a motion to go into executive session with special counsel pursuant as general law C3A section 21A 3 to discuss strategy with respect to potential litigation arising
from the route 5 infrastructure project and pursuant to general laws C30A section 21 A7 T uh O comply with or act under authority of any general or
special law or federal grant in aid requirement. Specifically, the public records law general law C4S726 discuss privilege communication from special counsel and not return to regular session. I have a second.
>> Second motion made motion seconded. Jorski I >> canyon Ire. >> Thank you, John. and we will not be coming back into regular session. And thank you everybody. Have a good night.