go ahead and call the select board meeting to order for Tuesday March 4th 2025 uh this meeting of the hon select board is being held both in person and remotely using the video conference platform Zoom all members of the meeting
will be present this evening uh that are here and attending so uh the public has the option of attending here in person here at town hall or via zoom using the link posted in this meeting's agenda this meeting is being recorded we'll begin with the pled of Allegiance
please I pledge Al to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for stand one nation under God indivisible Li justice justice for all
okay uh first up public forum residents are invited to share ideas opinions or ask questions regarding their town government anyone like to join us Mr Weiss mail please Ken Weissman 145 Ash Street
continuing the series on Water and Sewer I'd like to ask the select board and the water and sewer uh customers that are listening how many gallons is 100 cubic feet of
water I know you can't answer me during this public comment but I would be surprised if anyone on the selectboard can actually answer that question I believe we could Google it and I think very few your customers would know this
question why is it important you as water and sewer commissioner sell water and Sewer services in units that nobody understands when the water department advocates for conservation Citizens need to understand what you're trying to get them to
conserve for example a toilet can waste 250 gallons a day a leaky toilet with a medium leak 250 gallons a day how many hundreds of cubic feet is that most importantly in order to get
water resources commission regulatory approval for the interbase and transfer associated with a connection with the MW customer bills must be in galance that is a going to be a requirement of
it so if you're thinking this sounds like Water Resources Commission micromanagement of water department operations you're likely right it is however if you want to Jo do get an interbasin transfer this is one of the
prices that you're going to have to pay this is also the easiest of a whole long list that the Water Resources Commission is going to require you to uh Implement and it's the least intrusive of all the changes that will be mandated
by the Water Resources Commission so please make the change to gallons in the next rate setting cycle save time and your consultant money during the approval process because otherwise we at the regulatory board will discuss
it for a long long time and you're going to be paying a bill for something you're going to end up doing anyway and then your customers will understand kind of what they're buying and by the way the orig answer to my original question was
100 cubic feet of water is 74851 948 gallons don't be too bad I had to Google it myself didn't feel too bad thank you anybody else that is a hard act to follow please
yeah uh Rob Scott 28 Fruit Street um I'm here on behalf of the water and sewer Advisory board so kind of piggybacking off of what Ken just said um we're here to kind of let you guys know that we've been meeting regularly uh we've been meeting with Mr Weiss bantle and um
Lance going over everything and um we're really looking to uh to forward the funding for the design on this thing for the MW setup I know Carri had told us they're already approved they got 30% down they're pushed or 30%
approved already they're looking to push it further to 50% but based on the discussions and the stuff that we've been going over it's um uh it's pretty pertinent to get it moving sooner rather than later
so we're kind of seeing a little bit more of a dire need uh based off of not so much the past and stuff like that but mainly uh volume and what we're taxing our wells with now is uh a really big concern and we uh just wanted to show up
tonight to advocate for whatever we can do to help move uh the design funding along great that's it anything else that's all I got great thank you robk do we put that on a future agenda I
think next next yeah we're going to have a joint thing right yeah okay we'll come to that okay great um anybody else hi Sabine how are you well how are you good it's been a
while all right Sabine St Pierre one Woody Island um I'm the president of the lake mpano preservation Association and also a lake resident so I'm here speaking in favor of the request that parks and W is going to be putting in
one of the requests to um finalize the project at Sandy Beach for the beach parking lot and the boat ramp so back in 2015 um lmpa partnered with parks and wre to do a big celebration and grand reopening of the beach after we spent a lot of money as a town to fix it up and
it's beautiful down there hopefully you've all been down there but the parking lot and the boat ramp never but that part of that project didn't get completed so it's been 10 years parks and wreck and DPW have worked hard to do a lot of Patchwork over the last 10
years but hopefully this will get funded and they will be able to finally put a complete on this project so thank you thank you thank you anybody else seeing none we'll move on uh item number three on the agenda is a fiscal
year 2024 audit report I believe the audit report is in front of everyone correct and uh we have five minutes on the agenda for this report right here so we'll see how that goes sir please introduce yourself or Lane do you want
to introduce the topic first then we'll go from there sure uh Toreno Vol pacelli is here uh our auditor to describe the report that you've all received okay great Cindy Johnston Town accountant is with them great thank you chairperson here um
members of the select board Town manager Lazareth ladies and gentlemen my name is terenzio vachelli I'm a certified public accountant and a representative of the firm roselli Clark and Associates with offices in wubber and Hopedale and we were engaged to perform a financial
statement audit for the town's financial statements for the year end of June 30th of 2023 um 24 this was the second year of a three-year engagement which was dated May 5th of 202 three oh single
Deo um you should have received a couple reports from me one is a four-page document what we refer to as our required Communications letter and then the 60 page boohemoth which is your
financial statements themselves um I'm not going to spend a lot of time reading the required Communications letter but I do want to touch upon a couple things first thing this was the audit of the financial statements which is just that an audit of financial statements this was not a forensic audit
the purpose of a forensic audit and a financial statement audit are not the same um some of the highlights in this required communication letter include that management which includes the folks in this room are responsible for the selection and employment of appropriate
accounting policies accounting estimates and their related disclosures are an integral part to the financial statements the most sensitive accounting estimates and disclosures affecting a finan cial statements surround your uh pension OPB
and your allowances for delil accounts I'm happy to say that we did not encounter any significant difficulties in completing the 2024 financial statement audit and did not have any disagreements with Management on any accounting reporting or any other auditing
matter um there is a new accounting pronouncement that will affect the town next year and it is uh briefly summarized in this required community ation letter surrounding compensated absences so there will be likely a uh
prior period adjustment to conform 24 balances to 2025 the town's 2024 audited financial statements were issued on January 13th of 2025 with an unmodified or clean audit opinion I'm happy to say that
there are no internal control matters or deficiencies observed during the audit that would require formal communication to you folks the audited financial statements consist of several key elements the audit opinion itself which again is a clean or unmodified audit opinion
Management's discussion analysis which is required supplementary information the government-wide financial statements and these three pages in your document report the town's operations and financial position as if it were a
publicly held company like an EMC um you have the fund Financial statements which are on a modified acral basis those most closely resemble your internal accounting records there are proprietary fund financial statements for your sewer
water and solid waste those two are also on full acral as if you were a public company you have the fiduciary financial statements which uh report your opep trust and some private purpose trusts that you have which are primarily for scholarships the notes to the financial
statements then finally it's the end of the document there are some required supplementary information schedule surrounding your pension OPB and budget the actual performance in terms of budgetary flexibility a common measure used by rating agencies including S&P which is
your rating agency is to evaluate a community's unassigned and assigned fund balances in its general fund as a ratio to its normal operating expenses and transfers out that's referred to as a reserve ratio the town's 2024 Reserve ratio was
over 31% which is quite strong in the S&P uh Matrix which again makes sense because you are a AAA Community the town has entered fiscal year 2025 for which we're almost 3/4 of the way through with some significant
reserves is about $5.4 million in general and specialized stabilization funds and the town expects to have certified free cash for approximately $10 million in in terms of budget to actual performance on a statutory basis the town's fiscal year 24 revenues and other
financing sources exceeded its expenditures by nearly $9 million and the town carried over $359,000 in articles incumbrances into fiscal year 2025 actual statutory based revenues exceeded budget by nearly 3.6 million
while expenditures and carry R articles were nearly $10 million $10.3 million lower than budget in 2024 the town did not complete any general obligation Bond issuances um it does however have $17 million of temporary borrowings in the form of a
bond anticipation note which currently has a stated interest rate of 4.5% and scheduled to mature in June of 2025 uh the audited financial statements include on pages 41 and 42 um 5year payout
schedules uh so you can see exactly how your longterm term debt is scheduled to mature over the next um 20 plus years in addition to the long-term debt of town like many of its other Massachusetts peers faces significant
future obligations with respects to pension and OPB with respects to pension you're a member of the uh middle sex County Retirement System so a lot of the decisions on the pension are really out of your hands save potentially establishing a pension Reserve
stabilization fund um at December 31st of 2023 which is the same reporting period that's used for your June 30th of 24 financial statements the pension system was approximately 59% funded that's up slightly from the prior year
the next valuation which is in process as we speak will likely have a a better funding ratio because the S&P 500 did a 23% return in calendar year 24 so we would expect that the pension system would have participated in that significant return um
so I would expect that the funding ratio would go up with respects to OPB the town's OPB plan is approximately 15% funded at June 30th of 2024 the town has accumulated nearly $6.3 million in OPB funds and your independent actuary estimates that
that total liability is about $42 million the town uh last year we talked about arpa the town has actually expended all of its arpa funds through June 30th of 2024 so there's no risk of actually turning back any of those funds and then finally um we continue to
remind the town of of of some of the risks that are uh faces particularly with respects to fishing scams network security we've had some conversations with the folks in treasury because that's the department that that's most likely to get affected particularly with the fishing scams um and I'm I would
hope that uh that they they keep up their diligence and finally I like to say this was the second year working with Cindy and uh uh her team produced quality reports for us which facilitated our completion of this audit in a very timely
manner that concludes the formal part of my presentation great thank you a little bit more than five minutes no findings we we had no we had no internal control uh weaknesses or significant deficiencies that's great well done and I believe the single audit was filed
today also that's not easy so well done you saw me look at you on that 7 million that's was that a [Music] school okay all that was part of got shamman her if you go to page 39 there's
a detail of page 39 I missed that page top top of page 39 you can see exactly what what comprises that $17 million got it yep that makes sense thank you thank you uh Mrs Rush any questions comments
um I think I have any questions I'm happy to hear that our Reserve ratio is strong still um and I I guess the question would be are we doing the fake fishing training um simulated fishing and other cyber security measures we do cyber security training okay all right I think that's all I
have Mr Clark no questions first time going through it on the board and looking through the financial statements so everything was pretty straightforward and clear from my understanding so thank you thank you I'm going to ask you for an opinion
uh you've gone through all this how do you feel that the town is doing in general well I think my opinion um really relates to the the financial statements themselves these these figures that are contained here in as of
June 30th of 2024 ACC reflect the town's financial position and result of operations for that year um uh I am happy I O over over the years that Reserve ratio has come up come up quite significantly I think in our first engagement and about five or six years
ago that that number was below 15% um so it has it has um done very well of course there's also been mean yeah on the I'm sorry did you say on OPB or no I no the reserve ratio um your opep has done has done
pretty well also but um but that that over the last several years has been a significant influx of federal monies particularly in form of arpa and Esser and other funds which has allowed a lot of communities to bolster their reserves uh you folks have definitely bolstered
your reserves as a result and and judging by what you have coming ahead of you with uh future Debt Service you're going to need those reserves could you repeat that please over the last several years you have been able to bolster a lot of your reserves through um the
influx of federal monies in the form of particularly Esser and arpa that has resulted in your reserves uh coming up significantly again that Reserve ratio is roughly 31% we first started with you folks about 5 years ago was about
15% um you have a lot of uh capital projects coming into the future so having those reserves are going to be pretty important rolling into the future okay great thank you thank no M la
anything well we appreciate you coming in we appreciate you sharing your report with us uh is this a statutory requirement will this then go to the do anyone or how does it get circulated um I can I can file I I can handle that
question we have provided this report to you several weeks ago so this will go to your bond advisor for inclusion your continuing disclosures um your single audit which is what's filed with the federal government actually just got done several hours ago so you are actually
current on all that and and the Department of Revenue does get a copy of this report great and I know it was in our pack but it will also be separately on the finance part of the website I presume yes I should put it today okay great thank you great well thank you
very much we appreciate good news and we'll try to keep at it thank you thank you we don't need to vote anything elink correct right okay uh next up item number four on the agenda uh as an employee introduction police chief
Bennett will introduce Leon albino the Hopkinson Police Department's jails diversion clinician to the select board and the community chief benett through the chair good evening welcome um tonight I'm here to introduce a new
team member um and just cover a little bit about the program and uh the value ad that Leon brings so years ago there was a pivotal shift in how we perform
and deal with specifically people in crisis um out of that was born a response model where um Master's level clinicians respond to scenes where someone's in crisis and they have some
primary goals to allow us to avoid arrest or transportation to the even transportation to the hospital and uh I'm going to hand it over to Lieutenant O'Neal um this program at the executive level is funded through State funding
and there's no cost to the community I also want want to thank um Sherburn and Holliston their Town managers and Mr Calo did played a large part in this and um she is actually a Holliston employee and they're managing
the Grant and all of the her benefits payroll and all that are being paid out of the grant which we have no question will continue to be funded it's a very high priority within the state and it's always been uh uh openly said to be a
priority this program was born here and it's being delivered throughout the country uh another uh thing that started here and went West so um I want to take a moment to thank you lieutenant uh Lieutenant O'Neal has been a champion of
uh Substance Abuse and Mental Health Works closely Works Clos closely with uh with uh don Alcott and her team director alart and her team and uh he took this program over from Tom Griffin who
uh really got it was at in the beginning helped get it going so uh that's the executive level and then I'll hand it off to Lieutenant O'Neal thank you um I was fortunate to take over the position of the jail
diversion um liaison at the time we worked with Advocates and prior to that there was really not a lot of mental health as long as the law enforcement inside it was either we go to a situation where someone clearly needed help but it was either an arrest or not
arrest situation and then hopefully down the road they would get the help they need with the clinician program that we have now we're actually bringing the the help to them so we can prevent people from avoiding um jail time and get the
people um the help they need at right on the scene um through referrals or from uh getting them the hospitalization that they need um having a clinician on board has been a great asset uh they have not
only helped the people but they've also educated us as a police officers to see what other programs are out there and see how to um help with people in Mental Health crisis um so we are fortunate to have Leon with us I'm excited um to move
forward with this program and it's going to be a great asset to the department as well as the town Le you mind introducing yourself sure uh lean albino I I am the new clinician I'm a state licensed mental health counselor um I've been here for
about 3 months though I've been working in a role like this for over seven years I worked for Boston police and Boston Medical Center previously so I've been doing this for a long time and I'm really excited to be out here now and helping them build up this program now that they've been without uh the clinician for a few years now we're starting over from the ground up really
reaching out to uh collaborators in the town and the other resources that are around here to build those relationships up once again great thank you very much thank you for coming this evening M leerer questions comments well I'm I'm thrilled with this
position um it's been much needed for for a while I believe and uh and I love to see the coordination between the towns that we can actually work together and have a substantial result from it
and uh we welcome you to hopkington thank you uh no questions I think you know anything that can help with mental illness and how we support it and treat it is tremendously important so glad to have you on board welcome yeah thanks for coming tonight
we're really glad to have this program back like if anytime we can prevent someone from going to jail and help them get the help they need I think that's our responsibility as a community and it doesn't clog up the the police department with the with things that it could be handled otherwise so
welcome not to put you on the spot but like what would be like some of the top one or two things maybe three things what are the things you need from the community so that you can be successful in what you do like what would you want from us us representing all 20,000 of us
here um that's a good question uh so right now as Leon stated before we're essentially building the program from the ground up so establishing relationships uh with uh hospitals uh mental health professionals um
and uh the support has been great um like I said we're going to I don't want to say it's Tri and error because before we had advoc was kind of plug and play so um I think I mean as us I can speak as the police department and uh I think
we are good at what we have right now it's just going to take a a little time but we are out there in the community um treating and helping people um at the moment yeah I would think making sure we all know that this is available to us as a community uh and
having Leon around and you know able to engage uh so you know we spread the word I would think from all sides would make sense through the chair I couldn't agree more and we just thought it was appropriate to introduce Leon to you and then we're going to launch a a more
robust Community Education Program and uh but we felt we should start here yeah okay that makes sense that's great thank you we're happy to help any way we can so uh please let us know and if you need to come talk to us you know Feel Free at any time so it's great work that you do
thank you thank you thank you very much thank you good evening okay and no vote required there obviously uh item number five always fun the parade permit application for the Boston Marathon is to be held on April
21st 2025 the select board will approve considering a parade permit for the 129th Boston Marathon to be held on Monday April 21st 2025 and we have some invited guests to join us thank
you in years past when I did this I would be nervous when I would do this I thought like crap I got to do this thing again I got to go run it but I'm quite calm now welcome Elaine do you want to introduce the topic as well and S share Public Safety thoughts and things like
that yes sure it's the uh annual request for a parade permit for the Boston Marathon 129 this year um so it's very exciting um the application was submitted some time ago so all the Departments have had a chance to review everything and have offered their recommendations and um and comments and
those meetings are continuing to be held up until um I think the evening before perhaps but the discussion is ongoing about all the public safety and other matters that that are involved everything's headed in the right direction from your Vantage Point yes so
this is your first Boston Marathon as the town manager true right this will be Lance's first Boston Marathon period so very excited we tried to convince him to run he said sorry we tried to convince Lance to run excellent ways
from that okay well thank you for that Elaine uh Jack you want to start off sure thank you very much thanks for the opportunity to be here and through the uh select board chair we truly are appreciative of
the of the time to be able to talk just a little bit about the um main event that we put on and answer any questions that you or anybody else may have I'm joined tonight by I'm Jack Fleming um uh president and CEO I'm joined tonight by
Lauren prochan and Dan satchwell from the baa team um we also I would we REM uh also in the uh room is dy ferer from the hopkington marathon committee who we work very very closely with
would you like to join please join thank you Jack do you want to come up ja Jack's all good thank you for thank you for joining Jack as well we recently had a meeting with the Hopkinton uh marathon committee uh down
the street it was very productive so uh whether it be with the hopkington Police Department hopkington fire department uh Recreation and Parks Department of Public Works Hopkinton Public Schools uh hopkington marathon
committee of course um who am I missing uh it this is an example that it really does take a village to put on an event of of this magnitude and we know that it doesn't occur without your permission um we are
a nonprofit organization that only is able to uh continue to exist because of the generosity of uh towns and they're opening themselves up to us not only hopkington but the other seven cities
and towns that um go along the way but hopkington truly does lead the way um figuratively and literally we've had some wonderful uh tabletop exercises to go into the public safety um aspect of
it that Lauren May touch on um but the enthusiasm and the representation from Hopkinton was was uh clear um this is the 129th Boston Marathon it is on Monday uh April 21st
it's the 101st starting from hopkington the 250th anniversary of Patriots Day the 50th Ann AR of Bob Hall's pioneering
effort in a wheelchair he'll be here with us as Will Bill Rogers who will also be here celebrating his 50th anniversary of his first victory in 1975 be exciting to um feature that
where again on internationally ESPN and WCVB to provide that live worldwide cover Bridge um the town looks amazing if if I do say
so myself uh we we look forward to welcoming you all uh down the street at our renovated property it's in progress right now at w ash street at the start line hope you will be able to join
us uh and I would like to say thanks to the cooperation to the hopkington historic district Commission for its help over the years to get that property ready for us uh they helped select the color it it
was great um we have 30,000 starting very similar uh field size same field size uh similar starting times Lauren will uh talk about that um we do wish there there are many dozens and
dozens of hopkington residents who are running in this year's race and uh truly wish them the very best of luck uh you see them training around we we we we we we watch them from our um picture window at at the office
training around the common um and we wish them the best of luck over the next 50 days um I would ask Lauren if you could to talk about some of the logistics and operations of of this year's race but thank you great thanks Jack but before I I do I would like to
also call out John from the hopkington parks department who we've been working with such a wonderful partnership over the last two years to really develop the hopkington festival um to see it come in such a long way in two years has been a pleasure and he's just been wonderful to
work with um Jack did take a lot of our points so sorry we'll we'll Breeze through them quite quickly um but as Jack mentioned hopkington High School will play host to those 30,000 athletes before they make their way to the starting line and Dan and I are going to tag team point here this
evening so the uh the buildout of our Pro AET um village which is exactly on on the common um will be uh taking place on or will start on Tuesday April 15th um we are working with the parks department just to make sure that it's
ready for the weekend activities um within um you know just to make sure that we have they have the space and also the equipment um you know available for them um including into you know the activities that we have the children's games and food trucks and also I mean
the use of our tents can be um for you know inclement weather um if the if the weather is bad or for any activity that is uh suitable um you know to do it inside also the painting of the start line um will be on April uh 16th and
unless there is an issue with the weather we will move that uh that date um and also the our aborus letter um the letter that we normally send to the hopkington residents will be uh will be sent two weeks before um on April 7th
and just to just communicating um anything related to road closures and as the marathon falls on Easter weekend this year as it does from time to time we've worked quite closely with hopkington high and the school districts to make sure that we're being mindful of Good Friday and then also working quite
closely with the Korean church to make sure that we've completely removed our activities and infrastructure from their property to not interfere with any of their services um as Jack mentioned we're also planning to celebrate America's 250th birthday so working closely with the hopkington marathon
committee on the programming of the start to make sure that we're highlighting um historic programming such as um a special startline graphic that's got a nod to our patriotism working on our traditional flyover as we have in the past Daddy's working with us
to include hopkington school children of ious ages to line Marathon way to um escort our pro athletes out to the start line so that's something that we used to do back in the day that we're bringing back on the occasion of the birthday and then also working with the hopkington
marathon committee to create what we're calling a row of Honor so as um a part in our seating structure for our veterans to be highlighted um from different branches of the military to make sure that they are really front and center as part of our our seating area
at the start line um well as many of you know um our field also includes charity charity Runners right so um this year we have 176
non-for-profits um in the 2025 Bank of America Boston Marathon official charity program last year uh this program Rise um raised one four 45 45.7 million um
and this year we're trying to match that number or increase it and so from a public safety standpoint as Jack mentioned working closely with HPD and HFA to look at our Public Safety plans and we do this annually um taking into account world events um we audit these
areas of weakness and seek to continue make continued um uh improvements that are both visible which you will see improvements to our infrastructure and our um our perimeter plans but there's also a lot of improvements that we make that are not visible to the public and
as certainly if there's any questions on Public Safety I would invite the chief who's kindly stayed back um to speak to any public safety improvements that he is willing to uh talk to at this time he's the expert we just were the event planning experts um and I'd also like to call out more broadly that H hopkington
PD and fire has um supported us in making uh what to do and how to prevent crowd Crush video that we are going to be showing to all of our volunteers all along the course course crowd crush is when um uh participants or Spectators
feel as if they're boxed in and they they tend to move in a One Direction so how to prevent that from happening so it's really looking at the science of how people move in a confined area and how to alleviate that so again a special thanks to HPD and hfd for helping us with that um and then finally of course
uh looking at the areas of improvement so what we heard from 2024 and how we can be better and better neighbors to hopkington um so looking at our seating structure and how we can improve how people's bu uh our our special guest of hopkington how can we improve our start
seating area and their structure so working with our hopkington marathon committee and how we can make improvements there also working with our partners at DPW and our cleaning um of our entire area so that's our trash our equipment making sure that we are leaving it as we have found it and then
always we are looking at our accessibility across the entirety of the event but making sure that our athletes are Spectators and our anyone who's attending our event has the same experience regardless of how they um what their physical abilities are um so
that is the Boston Marathon in a nutshell and and hopkington as we are um we're of course always happy to to take questions as well anything for you no on behalf of the marathon committee I just want to thank the baa the town
departments um residents the select board and every everybody coming together and making this race I mean it is the Ba's race but there's a lot of effort that goes on in the town and I just it just totally amazes me every
year that uh it goes seamlessly um and I really appreciate that the baa has taken into consideration the interest and the comments um that the marathon committee and other residents have made and really elevated some of the areas uh and the
concerns so I couldn't you know be happier and I I just want to thank them um Dean Lauren and jack for all they've done so great well thank you all very much
for the presentation and the input uh it's such a great event you know it's I could talk forever that's just awesome uh you know what I was thinking about as we're sitting here chat you guys were talking you guys have an amazing brand and the fact that our brand is tied to
your brand in many ways and the brands get stronger and stronger and stronger every year is a really a great opportunity for for the town of hopkington for sure we appreciate the opportunity to be part of this race and to be part of the brand that's just
world renowned and known for so much good 45.7 Million last year I'll bet you it's 50 this year um you know that's an amazing thing in itself and that's just one piece of this big big uh puzzle here
so congratulations and uh it's a it's an awesome event and we're excited to to host it you know here at the start line once again M the friend here I just want to say thanks Jack and me um and last
year was a wonderful year the common was great and everything we did and I just wanted Dy to tell us about the children's race because it was so popular on Saturday I mean the parents ly the route and the kids all had it was
just incredible they had so much fun and now they're going to use the children too on Marathon day to line the to line the route uh but I just want everybody to know that we are making that available again this year that's and and
we have vendors on the common for Saturday great great that's that's beautiful Dash was a major success it was we were over Med with the kids we were going to take the first
100 recognizing the 100 starts and Hopkin 10 we ordered 150 and we filled it so this year we decided to up the an we're going to have 200 able to run we heard from parents um we just got an email from a little Arabella from town
and she her mother wrote on behalf of her because she said it was the best thing she did all year so that's kudos to everybody but I think um just adding that element and having the baa support
um has just been great for the town and and then just utilizing the middle school students uh for this effort of pro athletes and everything is going to be very impressive so uh looking forward to
that and anything we can do to bring the kids in because one day they'll be running this race and maybe running I was going to say they AB they absolutely was so enthusiastic and so with the parents the parents lots of parents lining the road and it was just it was
exciting it was really a lot of fun for us too thank you Mr Clark um first off thank you everyone great to have you guys here always look forward to the marathon day um my only question is any kind of changes to the schedule of the day on
Marathon day from last year wheelchairs will be adjusted by two minutes respectively two minutes perfect I'm good thank you no I want to say thank you I think you answered all my questions in your presentation so I don't think I really
have much left for questions and you guys do a good job on your website communicating all the logistics because I know at the last minute we always get questions from people about well if I don't live near the start line how do I get there and you know but you have all that information on your website so we really appreciate that and I'm really glad you're continuing the or the parks
department is continuing the Festival in the common and then you're doing the fun run that looks like those are really good and I'm I'm glad you finally got the building painted blue I remember we we approved that two or three years ago and you were going to wait till the downtown project was almost done the details were fantastic coming from uh
the uh commission whether it be the way it was paved or the uh uh bulbs to be used or they just right down to the hardware uh that could be seen from the street so it was very helpful to us the process yeah and it
was a little bit of a bold move changing the color but we thought it was historically appropriate and I haven't heard any complaints yet hopefully have you no okay so that's good all around it is exactly not spot
on so anyway wish you good luck and hope everything goes smoothly I'll set elain anything else thought no I think it's just very exciting um the sense of excitement that builds in the community over the months leading up to it is is really wonderful and it's don't just
don't see that anywhere else so I think that's wonderful let's just for a sec talk about the downtown Corridor project and the improvements that are going on um we're gonna we're going to start we never really stopped this winter and
years past well a couple years we didn't do anything for a while because we didn't get the Transformers and blah blah blah um but this year we kept going they were out there today they took the last of the tops off down here if anybody saw that at the the intersection now the eversource high voltage wires uh
through the center of town are gone so they're completely done with overhead and now they're fully underground and there's no remaining wires left the poles come down after a couple other things happen but we're going to keep going so we're going to keep going I think till about two to 3 weeks maybe
didn't we pick a date that we would stop and suspend everything so that there would be no problems with you folks um but if you're coming out between now and then and there's a lot of trucks around doing a lot of work don't worry we'll get them out of your way uh we want to keep going because we got to get this thing done it's been dragging on for
lots of different reasons that's thank you for that and we've noticed on the weekends the uh eversource trucks staging I think in our back lot yeah down the street and we we understand what's going on yeah so that that will continue right up until I
think it might be a week I think it was two weeks that was in the plan uh but don't worry about it if there is a problem just let us know um but that will continue on and then and next year there won't be any trucks here there'll be trees everywhere out here the gr the
the the pavement will be smooth and no one will sprain an ankle or anything like that yes you better knock on wood it'll be all buffed out so um just hang in there with us but we'll have it looking as good as we can come mid April before and after we look forward to the
time lapse videos that show the change yeah it's going to be really nice when it's done okay with that the chair will entertain a motion to approve a parade permit for the 129th Boston Marathon to be held on April 21st 2025 as
submitted I move to approve the parade permit for the 129th Boston Marathon to be held on April 21st 2025 as submitted second any further
discussion all those in favor please say I I any opposed it's unanimous and so carries we're looking forward to it folks thank you always a lot of fun thanone thank you and I don't have to train okay uh next up on the
agenda uh Capital Improvements committee the Capital Improvements committee has requested the select board consider its guides for the FYI 26 budget and capital process pertaining to the use of certified free cash and borrowing for free enterprise for Enterprise fund
projects sorry item number six Mr K Matt Kisner is here with us this evening he is the chair of the Capital Improvements committee here in hopkington Matt welcome thank you would you like to introduce the topic as well uh so the in the packet is a um a memo statement from
Matt describing um the process that the cic has gone through and some questions and discussion points that he has with the board this evening regarding the the budget process okay Matt welcome hi thank you so much I apologize from the uplifting wonderful work that the
marathon does to the cold realities of our capital budget but that was your agenda so yes I do have a bit of a lengthier statement here in the interest of time and surprising some I'm not going to try and read through all of it my hope here chairman her and to the rest of the board is to just have a
little bit of a dialogue with you on behalf of the board so my intent here is to just kind of go through how we approached prioritizing and our decisions this cycle kind of get to the question around priorities and philosophy and then hopefully just have a dialogue with you here so at the
beginning of the financial budgetary planning period the select board met with cic Appropriations the school committee CFO and the town manager respectively when we had an open conversation about the complexity of the budget situation and the High Cost of Living especially in correlation to the increase in upcoming property taxes that
12,000 to 18,000 I'm always talking about was acknowledged and I thought the message especially from you chairman her was rather clear a bottomup budget and a tightened belt with level Services would be necessary for all I think I caught all of the buzzwords so we chose to
interpret this very specifically so cic chose to interpret this guidance from the select board in an aggressive and specific manner committing to develop a taxpayer neutral framework for the capital plan so typically when items have come before cic in the past we've kind of evaluated them on what I would
describe as reasonable Merit does the police chief need a cruiser is the cruiser at the end of the life cycle is he asking me for a reasonable replacement as long as he doesn't try to convince us it's a Porsche we historically have supported those requests and we haven't really dug into them and how they've adhered to town
philosophy and vision but because of the budgetary challenges in the message this year we really did take a different approach and so we dug into those things a little bit differently so we asked a little bit more than was it just a Porsche was it on the plan did you
really need it other questions of that nature ultimately the committee only approves 60% of the items that came before us in my entire time on the committee I'm not entirely sure that we have ever declin to support anything so this is pretty unusual for us I'm
joining you today and hoping to have a conversation because there's a lot of uncertainty now around intended allocations of free cash so both in committee as well as just in passing we've had conversations about free cash items being used for Capital expenses
not endorsed by the Comm we've had conversations about use of free cash to support the water and Enterprise fund because it's not currently solvent or liquid pun somewhat intended and we're also having conversations about other challenges and
constraints so at the time our cost benefit was really based on it seemed to us there was about 8 to 10 million here's how we prioritized I'm coming back to you now looking for a little bit of guidance and to have a dialogue about did we hear you correctly do you really want us going
that far down the rabbit hole or are we just supposed to do a Porsche check I don't have a particular opinion about that and I'm really proud of the work that the committee's done we want to make sure we're in line with your vision and if we are I'd like to ask some other questions about how you'd like to see us
approach prioritizing and potentially if you're intending us to save some of the additional free cash that may be available or if the hope is that we're doing an allocation for all of the items presented to us this year so with that I guess I'll conclude my opening and pause here a little bit and thank you again
for listening great thank you Matt for coming in thank you for the intro um yeah I think it's a really good conversation to have to make sure we're all on the same page uh and make sure that you know our CFO and the rest of the team Financial team understands sort
of what the community is looking for Mrs R Bush thoughts comments on Matt's presentation um General well I had a question about the water free cash for water projects we would not normally do that right we would water projects would come from the water fund correct
that's the purpose of the Enterprise fund is it's sustained by the users right so we're not asking for water funds from for cash are we um not at this time no okay you technically have projects which do not currently have a source of funding from the water
Enterprise I would assume that when you hear from Miss Reed later she will request support to fund those I think one of the things being considered as borrowing okay but the borrowing would be paid through the enterers yeah y still Enterprise fund is
set up for a reason to be an Enterprise unto itself correct so I think that's what am up your suggesting right I don't want the 30% of the people on who are not on Town water I wouldn't want them to have to pay for the water projects just the right just the people that use the water yeah no but they would be impacted by the overall addition to the
town debt ratio so while they would not pay they do bear the burden of being part of the community that is sure okay and then um see what were the other question the questions for us I'm really trying to understand in a world where there is potentially free cash
left over so the committee had a primary recommendation of 4.9 million and then a secondary and a tertiary that brought us to around 6.6 in a world where there is let's say money left over Kyla opens the drawer and we find some money in the cushions
would you want us to just go back and approve the items that we didn't approve based on a cost benefit analysis and an expectation that we wouldn't have the money available should we be holding that money for a rainy day is it the role of the committee to be assessing the validity and benefit of these things
to the town or am I simply looking at the Porsche check I don't think we've ever really established what the intent and criteria of the committee is it just has a role which is non-budgetary expenses of more than 25,000 come before us and I'm not challenging that but I want to ensure that I'm aligned with how you'd like to see us executing that
given the urgency seeing criticality of the capital budget and the topic and how it's impacting the town anything else so for myself I guess I would say it's good to to be flexible and fluid during this budget season because we when we get our free cash number and like when things
change we maybe we could fund more so I think it would be great if you could retake a look at it and that's just when you know as as a financial piction picture is clearer so that that's my my two sense okay good um so so I think the way you described like interpreting his and the
board's budget message was accurate right you're looking deeper you know as you said you haven't gone this far before but the town hasn't been in this financial situation before right so I think it was warranted and and I agree with the approach I think what we heard earlier from our Auditors was you know
we're we're in good shape today right we have reserves reserves are healthy over the last couple of years but we're going to need those in future years due to like The Debt Service level so um I guess kind of similar to what Amy said said you know I think you know we continue on in the process I think
everything you've done in my opinion has seemed like the right approach to that and then we evaluate things as we go as we get closer towards the end of this process and town meetings that we know exactly where we stand and we make decisions based based off what the reserves are going to look like and how can that help us in future Years thank
you okay good I'm good we'll come back we're just going to chat for a b anything well uh this budget is is a difficult one and it's uh there's a a lot of things out
there you have loc 60% so that actually isn't too bad but um I don't think we really know where where where our money is right now I mean we have no idea what uh the
government's going to do at the moment we we do have free cash and we do have uh certain things but I I think I agree with Amy that we have to continue to be flexible and and come up with ideas for
money uh I actually was talking to people and thinking about the a playground issue and people said to me why don't we just fundraise it it's $1 million let's go back to the old times and put the thermometer on the common
and have you know everything we can have um uh and different groups can do different things and we should be able to raise that money from the town but uh you know I don't know how Capital Improvements would think about that or
anybody else but uh we have to think in New Directions too so I I agree with Amy we have to be flexible right now don't let this face fool you I make a mean cupcake and I appreciate that you were thinking creatively about how to enable
Community I priority ities without additional allocations of taxpayer funds that's where we are and I like that you chose that example something I personally support as a citizen something that the committee didn't recommend for the reasons that we've sort of outlined here so I hear you
about the flexibility as well and my intent here as much of anything was to Prime the board that the capital situation is a little more fluid than it has been in the past we take pride that we're usually done before Christmas and we're not a problem child for this process it isn't going to go that way this year for reasons that I think are
really good and reflective of a more robust process but you deserve to know that and depending on where that free cash figure comes in obviously this board is elected to make their strategic decisions for that allocation but I would love the opportunity to come back and discuss what some of the long range
fiscal planning looks like for Capital expenses in the coming years I'd like to strongly suggest that there might be a better opportunity to spend that in future years and not necessarily this year but that's a conversation I hope we get to have because we find the money
M Lazarus any thoughts about the discussion um set through U most of the the cic meetings and I'm very impressed with the work that they've done and the way that they've they've beted the various projects um with regard to use of free cash I think it's as Matt said
it's and others have said it's really important that we do save some for the future uh that we don't just spend it all yeah I think just based on what everyone was saying talking about remaining flexible to sort this out over the next few years I would add one word we want to be flexible and we want to be
frugal we don't need the Porsche and I don't think we need to go back and look for something to spend money on this year if it's not an absolute need save the money because we really haven't even got into the meat of the tax increases yet right so the worst is yet to come
unfortunately in the next several fiscal years so we're going to have to hang on to everything we can because you know at that what will become free cash going into reserves you know uh that could be our lifeline and then we look back and say we didn't need
whatever is we buy this year like I'm not in the buying stuff right now I appreciate the clear ey leadership and the longer age view here having this discussion aligning that that's the priority and supporting that that's the direction we're taking that's how we get there and we land the plane we recognize
it's challenging times but being honest about the conversation and where we are just like any other issue at the dinner table it's how we find a solution yeah no I think it's very help conversation to have and an important one and we heard it and I I assume you knew what I was doing I said to the auditor do you
mind repeating what you just said I heard what he said but I wanted everyone else to hear it again he said you guys have some serious debt coming at you and your reports in the next few years are going to be really interesting to balance out that's basically what he said um and I wanted you know all of us
to hear that again and we can't hear it enough times because we forget as a community we build a school or we build this we build that we we take the vote and we forget before we even build a thing and then the tax bills start coming we're like what's this well we all voted for that you know but um we
can't forget this one because this is a Monumental level of debt that we're going to go through here over the next five or seven years okay through the chair if I could one more thing so um you mentioned that you approved about 60% of the asks that you received and if the public wanted to see exactly what was approved and not is that in your
meeting packets or how would they find that sure so I believe we have that information available online it's certainly in my minutes and in the recordings that we have posted as well and I do have a copy of the amended table currently submitted in the town report in the town report yeah I'm just
trying to think I was look I just looked at your website and I couldn't find it easily but I'll keep looking no I'll I'll take the feedback uh I was fortunate to have a meeting with Kyla last Friday where we were talking about what we could put together to try and make the budget a little more accessible we were hoping to wait until we got what the final figures look like so we could
do one slice and one dice that's okay well people could look in your meeting materials for now that would be fine okay everybody good y everyone's good good Matt thank you for coming this evening we appreciate your help very much okay uh item number seven on the
agenda is the FY 26 budget back to it uh and capital meetings uh the select board will conduct FY 26 budget and capital meetings with Town departments uh we have this evening the town clerk's office land use Finance Human Resources Town manager's office Health Department
Department Parks and Recreation engineering facilities and Department of Public Works so um do you have a particular order or Lane that you were thinking or do you want us to just go through them sort of as listed or should we check to see if anybody's got a personal challenge out there that they
need to get to could check for personal challenges I think that the the zoom host is ready to queue up whichever presentation okay so we don't have it in any particular order so this could be dangerous is there anybody that has anything they have to get to or they're
pressing for time I see a couple hands up there I know one is a very young child so we'll consider that John they had his hand up for something um why don't we if if that's okay with everybody else we'll just take it in that order uh we are 20 minutes behind
schedule so if we take how many is this 9 - 2 is 18 * 2 is 18 everybody gets 8 minutes now instead of 10 minutes or whatever it was uh to go through these uh Sean's convincing me that he's going to do it in 5 I'm going to run the
clock on that one um but why don't we go ahead and start with the town clerk's office so he can get home to that child um and then we'll go from there Mr Degan welcome thank you very
much for having me um I think that the presentation is going to come up I I only have one slide I'm going to try to make this nice and short for you let me let me just be so I want to be fair and Equitable at how we set this up okay we have zero interest in how many pens and pencils you're going to buy this year right that's your
job right our job is just to make sure it's all going to come together and there's nothing glaring missing in what you need so please spare us some of that I am not going to give you any of the weeds unless you want to talk to me offline about it your colleagues from across the town government in the last few weeks have done an excellent job in
these presentations and I know all of you will with Mr Degan starting here this evening so go right ahead so no pressure Conor don't SC no pressure at all so as you folks know I manag two departments that we'll be presenting tonight one being the town clerk's
office which we in working with Elaine and Kyla brought that to exactly the 1.3% increase that was in the message for the select board uh and that was primarily just from salaries and such we
really kept everything related to expenses right around what was inflationary costs and decreased whatever we could um for elections and registration just as I promise every year that we talk about it and years that we don't have elections I make sure to return that money back to the town so
that we can use that for other high priorities uh as we go into another election year that number is going to go back up but a presidential election year has a lot more to do than a than a typical year so that's that's why you'll see that that went down by uh minus
54% and so that's just to reflect the fact the Staffing hours aren't the same when we don't have the the need for the number of Elections and so across both of them minus uh 12.1% uh again hopefully we can use some
of the savings that we realize here to support some of the Departments that that do need it right now because obviously there's always some Growing Pains across uh all of these departments so thank you I I gladly entertain any questions as I said it's very uh kind of
straightforward we don't really have much in the way of change and tried to keep as much in the budget message as we could both of these budgets work for you and you don't feel there's any undue stress or strain on your ability to deliver there there will certainly be
strain on the clerk side the election side that is pure and simple that we were able to remove the things that we didn't need um there will be probably a little bit of strain on the clerk's side but we will find ways to manage it throughout the year uh we'll find
efficiencies as we can and that's always the Hope every single year we go in hoping that we're going to be able to get that number lower and that we can you know maybe give some free cash back to use to support the community in other ways okay great M frer questions no I
just wanted to to ask if if we start redacting things that have to come out you know we get the the machine and and St doing is that going to increase your workload and your budget um so in redacting of public records you mean M
yes I mean it probably I don't know about how much it's going to impact the budget yet because it's likely just going to be me doing some extra work and my assistant doing some extra work and we're not necessarily going to get paid any extra for it um if we were to get some sort of software which would be
ideal because it would allow us to better manage the entire workflow that would be a perfect world scenario um but again that's really something where you know we'd love to have it it'd make things a lot easier on not just us but other departments but we
don't know how easy it is to justify it right now okay any other question thank you no I'll that yep I'll see you Thursday um first thanks for getting in line with the budget message you know recognizing The Strain that it puts on you know yourself especially with a young family um just with the redaction
software we've talked about this for a couple months now have we gotten to the point where we've reviewed options I forget I thought we were going to try and start to plan for it but it wasn't this budget cycle I don't remember where we left that conversation we have reviewed options with a few different
vendors um and had you know a couple quotes that had come in it's just a case then of if we wanted to pull the trigger I mean we have we have vendors lined up that we could do it with and we could work out how we're going to handle you know starting to be build partway
through a fiscal year and pay less at the beginning of it um with some flexibility on it as well but that's something we'd have to decide on if that's enough of a priority to go for it okay set yeah I'm good for now thank
you Connor very welcome Mr R Bush y I was going to add for the reduction software I assume that's an annual fee too so it's not a capital expense that we just purchase something we'd be paying it you because we want it to be secure obviously and we need to get that okay yeah most of them aren't the annual fees aren't too bad for the amount of
records that you're managing with them but yeah there's going to be an annual cost and it's a new start and part of the message was really to try to avoid new starts if we could help it okay all right and I appreciate the explanation for the public about how some election years are more expensive than others I
think you I know if you had three or four different elections in a presidential year so that's a lot of work and you have a new this isant town clerk so hopefully the workload won't be too bad this year but thank you thank you very much I know you are but just for the public record Elaine you're in
favor of these budgets as submitted yes yes okay all right great awesome thank you very much for your time we appreciate your very much job well done John please join us next up we have what's the name
official name on the deck here land use planning and permitting land planning and permitting John please all right so uh I'm going to be one of the outliers here we actually have an increase in our budget and that's due to the assistant Town manager becoming the town manager and leaving a
vacancy at the head of the department so we are establishing a land use director position which accounts for um most of the increase aside from the cola and other uh increases in salaries um so the total budget uh proposed is 6
49,52 and7 which is a 15% increase I will say that we do have 216,000 in change coming from the building revolving fund that's two full salaries and half of the building inspector The Building Commissioner salary um with this introduction of the
new position we're also reducing the salary of the principal planner position we have two new hires the uh director Municipal inspections The Building Commissioner and the um conservation administrator and those two new hires are reduction in the salary from FY 25
so those are savings um and we can go to the expense the next slide so I will say that is an erroneous for it should say 37,5 192 the previous FY 25 was 55827 so it's a reduction our expenses
of 32% um and that really is accounted for the shso which is a recurring cost uh and $7,000 for uh planning board and affordable housing planning
Reserve okay and no Capital requests no Capital requests okay so with a position change of sorts let's go to a lane first a lane can you describe all that as well for us please so a number of years ago there was a director of land use
planning and permitting and that was me um and then when I moved to T manager's office that came with me so I was I became assistant manager and still retained the the director of the department um now um handing that back um that work and so John is now serving
as the interim director of land use planning and permitting um and for the next fiscal year will'll reestablish that director position that used to exist uh for the department and then um the principal planner will become more of an entry-level position in that respect so that both uh
planning related uh positions will work together um and the director will will resume control of the department okay all right thank you m frer questions comments uh what
about do you guys do a lot of meetings and things do you go places and do things or uh do you have a budget for expenses like that what type of meetings night meetings or just no I'm talking professional travel Improvement within
so uh the the professional development training conferences budget uh is the land you share is about 5,000 and then HR is taking over about 1,300 okay anything else no I'm fine with it
good y Mr Clark I'm good thanks everything was very straightforward going through it so appreciate the work put in am don't think I particularly have any questions I so I have something to ask you unrelated though that I kep meaning to email you um on our agenda later we're talking about an economic
development um Committee in town and we were thinking of having a a member of the planning board be assigned to that so I wondered if you might take that back to them if that would be if of interest of them to have a representative on that committee yeah I would imagine they would be interested in that okay yeah otherwise I appreciate the
explanations uh you might expect want to dig in this new position piece a little bit further um so we had we had a land use director that position moved to the town manager's office so it moved to another budget correct years ago the
salary did the salary did yeah and so then that position wasn't filled in the planning department right that's great and we had a principal planner basically running the show right well working with the planning board but not being the director of the department so I was still the director of the department you
were still the director of the department even though you had plan was in with the planning board doing those meetings right so I was director until last week till last week got okay um so so the salary went to the town manager budget and we've been approving
the town manager budget with that salary in there for several years right so there won't be some blip over here in the town manager's budget for say if we do this correct that's correct because that's been a steady state thing for a while but back here we're going to add this
position in even though we have two new positions in that group where the salaries are down because it's new people and they don't have the tenure and so forth um but we're still having going to have an increase which is what we're seeing here is netting out at 15% at that 15% is netting all that out is
that correct yes so those are not two new positions they're just two new hires in existing positions two new hires in existing positions correct yeah yeah but they're lower salar because they're new so they're for there's a savings there so the 15% represents what number then
uh what's that 15% 60 Grand or something I want to say it was 35 what's the budget for what's the overall budget number I'll have to do that yes what's your total budget number John 600 4900
Grand so is that 15% uh 10 is 60 is it $90,000 it wasn't that high yeah it was trying to get to oh that was on the salaries line 70 yeah okay so we're going to basically we're going to get another position Elane for not the full
amount that that position would typically cost a new an existing budget because we have the savings and we have the new employees is that a fair statement yeah and it's not really a new position means we're reestablishing the positions that exist right but we're not reestablishing it at the full salary
that we bring somebody in because we already have some savings elsewhere that's going to offset that full salary coming in that's what I'm trying to get to here yeah and we do have the building revolving fund which also supports some of the salaries in the department as well and expenses yeah okay all right so
I don't see it as a I'm thinking I'm thinking I'm not worried about head count number I'm worried about the dollars but I don't think it's full dollars is what I'm saying to get the position filled is that correct correct I believe that's the case yeah so if you had principal planner at the same salary that it was budgeted for FY 25 and then
you added this position it would be significantly higher than what this number is now so since you're reducing that salary you've reduced the two salaries of the other new hires um you've now got the new position for essentially half the cost of yeah that's
basically what I was trying to get through my head here and do you agree with that Kyla yeah okay all right I'm good okay any other questions comments for land use and planning I think we're all set thank you very much next up this those were the
two that raised their hand um is anybody else chomping at the bit to get out as soon as possible I'm happy to go last sorry I'll go last I think you might be here through the evening so you might want to you could go last so then why don't we
go to um oh I see L why don't we go to fin well no finan is you right so we'll is that okay you can you're here throughout anyway um Human Resources Jessica please welcome as always thank
you so I just wanted to remind um remind the board and um the residents the human resources budget supports the recruitment retention development and well-being of the town of hoofington
employees with regard to salaries and wages for um Human Resources the total budgeted amount is $268,100 7 which is a decrease of 5.3% from last year's budget the
decrease comes from uh a shift in um employees I am not earning what my predecessor earned and our new benefits administrator is not earning what I had earned so there's a decrease there in
salary for operating expenses um for HRS total of 100 $2 4,612 no change from the prior fiscal year um we are able to um continue to
provide the level of service and support to the employees of the town with the same level of budget that we had last year we are going to shift with our training um budget this year and rather
than have as much of a proactive approach with bringing in trained um Consultants to provide trainings with the town we thought this would be a good year to use our training budget to absorb some of the training
budgets for the different departments so that they could focus their budgets on services and not have to um reduce any of their services so we have absorbed um most all of the other departments
training costs with the exception of police and fire we have a lotted 10,000 each for for both of those departments um and then the compensation contingency
fund um is a fund that exists to basically cover overflow of um salaries so we have exceeded this year's budget
in terms of the contingency fund it was budgeted for 129 706 we've exceeded that um we had Merit increases in addition to a cola um which was
approved um so it it wouldn't make sense to keep that uh level funded and in addition to that we are negotiating all four of the contracts Union contracts going into fiscal year 26 we don't know
what that's going to bring us we need to um retain the staff that we have now for non-union so we will need to really look at the percentage increases that we assign to Merit increases
um so we need to have uh a significantly larger fund fund to be able to do that okay great thank you I love how you have the word recognition in there and I hope we can do as much of that as we
possibly can because recognizing great work um helps everybody and certainly helps the town you know we want everyone to be happy in their jobs and being recognized when they when they do when they do their work well M friend okay what what is um the bottom
line increase for your department so um if you if you count the um contingency fund um it's $100,000
okay I guess I'm all set thank you all set yep Mr um thank you I think it the way you set it up shows how HR interacts and supports a lot of the different departments in town and I think that's important for people to see um I I guess
my only question was and kind of to everyone that 500,000 like like we said it's a big contract year with these Union negotiations I think we've already gotten some estimates of where they're starting right or they're making their initial ask do we feel like that puts us in good shape with the current ask uh
we're still trying to firm up what the town can offer but we'll stay within that number okay right thank you yep Mrs R Bush yeah I had just a question for the operating expenses there's no change from last year but I thought you said you were absorbing more training this
year so I was wondering how did you do that without increasing because I shifted the focus so rather than say reaching out to an outside consultant to do training in the 10 say that cost $5,000
we're focusing our efforts on paying for the other Department's training staying within the same amount and then still having some left over for us to still organize some trainings um but not going over the amount that we had budgeted for
last year okay so you're doing some trainings internally which is that what you're saying so it's little so we do do some trainings internally but what will happen is those departments will still um sign up for the trainings that they normally would based on their budgets
it'll just go through HR instead of their own department so we took out training from all the other departments yep within their operating expenses and HR has agreed to absorb that because they have
$85,000 targeted for training so we're just consolidating the ask okay okay and I understand it's a high inflation Year too so I understand why the contingencies might need to be you know High higher than usual all good Lane you're all in on
this budget proposal correct correct okay and you're all in on this budget proposal yes okay it's it's an interesting one with sort of the Dynamics of the negotiations and everything how it all plays out um but uh I think we're in good hands
there okay I think we're in good shape thank you very much thank you appreciate your help um next up we do the health department please hi hello clock starts right wait right
now so good evening I appreciate the opportunity to to present to you tonight um our initial budget request was for $589,500 total budget down to 570 151 this reflects uh reflects a salary
budget of 44,000 um $91 in change in an operating budget of $86,000 and 60 um this is a this
represents a 14% increase over 2025 and reflects an approval to high at least one perdm nurse to assist um Simone Carter with her regulatory duties um our regulatory duties over the last
year have increased significantly and a new nurse will allow um the and actually the bullet points that we see on this um Slide the resumption of vaccination and healthcare
service um implementation of foundational Public Health Services mandate that um um just came down from the Department of Public Health increased Community Education programming and uh so that work which is also it's the mdph is
pushing us to do that and it's part of our strategic plan um it should red uh result in a reduction in community disease rates um it'll allow us one of the reasons why we haven't spent um our
opioid funding um is both Youth and families and health um are it's just outside of our bandwidth right now um it'll uh allow us to uh all the
increased Revenue um some of this will go into our revolving fund um we'll be able to maintain our VX care contract and why that is important for the community is um when we're using vax
care the town doesn't have any upfront obligations to purchase the vaccine VX care provides it they take a cut of our reimbursement um it's a much better deal for the
community it just it's a little it's extra work it's actually a significant amount of extra work on our end and that's where having um the prum nurses will um help us um and it um it'll allow
us to maintain our um hoarding contract with the um uh the well the mctc okay great thank you Sean very much a good coach I I think I heard you say so
your fiscal 26 salary line is 484091 57 versus 25410 37 4 and at 86k is due to um no was that yeah to to
a new position to the pums P got it and we wanted pums yes we need pums yes got it we believe pums are the most coste effective um in this situation um and we believe to level fund right they we
believe they exist we believe um that um as before when we had this um two two prum nurses during covid that um they were uh yeah they were the most cost
effective solution um at the time and it's the 484 number I I think I heard that's yeah I got confused there okay Miss leeny well uh I just wanted you guys and uh it says I'm supposed to share this with the board I'm not going
to read it all because there's an awful lot in here but it it's in support of the Board of Health uh the Board of Health manages many vital uh functions uh you're aware that the
department uh excellent response to covid and eii outbreaks you must know that the day-to-day Duties are very demanding and their response is timely and efficient and this is a request for
funds to be voted on and released to that department uh and it goes on to expound on how wonderful you guys are and it's a a note it says to share with the rest of the board and it's from an CL former
town clerk so I have done that uh yeah it just came when I got here tonight so uh I I don't I I looked at some of your budget has
gone down a little a lot of it has has gone up but uh I don't see anything unreasonable actually so I'm fine with it one thing to note is this budget you know it's like Youth and
families we're in a situation where um 14 so the Department of Public Health which I can pass pass some funding off to um they you know they're supported by
14 different federal agencies and were you know there were a lot of concerns that these opportunities that um partly exist now and that were um to be available in the future are going to uh disappear so um you know we're always
looking to identify savings um and um we're going to continue to do so and um um you know any savings that we have obviously will be uh returned back um I just want to say having Simone
at the senior center monitoring the health of of our seniors and and helping out uh with that issue has been a great uh part of your job I think it it's really done good for the seniors to have
their you know blood pressures and everything it's make them feel better about themselves so having you there means a lot thank you and you know what that goes both ways because it's the best part of my week great I'm sure it should be set y
I'm all set always nice to hear from Mrs click thank you Mrs click Mr CL um thank you guys for coming I think we talked about we had you both in back in like late summer early fall and we talked about the need and um does this per DM increase reflect kind of what you guys
were asking for at the time yes does okay just want to make sure thank you Mrs RB yeah no thank you I appreciate and um and I support the increased per DM uh nurses in that's been a need this year and then um let's see and it says it helps us remain in compliant with M
mdph and MD too so that's great I I had never noticed this before the the hoarding contract is that a new thing that we've done so it helps if you have somebody in town who's has a mental health issue of hoarding they can help I mean I I come from a risk back risk management background um
this having this contract in place allows us to keep our seniors in place um we um the or the the people that are engaging with the mcdc um Venter into
contracts to um make their homes safe um we we work to make them um accessible to Fire and Police um we work to eliminate um you know potential fire hazards
Etc and it it allows them to stay where they are we work with them we have check-ins with them we as a part of the deal we provide space at the library if they want to hold trainings and um if we
didn't have this and I went you know I was called to go in to get them a house then we we have some potential risk where we have to they have to the put the resident up pay for their lodging um transportation Etc
it's mental health no I appreciate it I happen to have a relative out of state who has this problem and it's it's a lot of work for us other relatives to help him stay keep his house safe we have a fair that's great in town so it's yeah they it does that it pays off all set
Alaine obviously all in yes Kyla yes okay I know we're going through some budgets and we're adding a little here we're adding a little there but we're also taking stuff away too so I see how this is all going to sort of settle out I don't know the exact dollar is but for those wondering you know well they're
adding some prum and they added the land use director you there's other things that are coming out so we're it's going to all sort of sort out I think in a fairly neutral manner um anything else you guys need to share No Okay I want to exceed thank you
very much thank you good evening you next up Parks and Recreation please welcome thank you good evening uh John ludis director of Parks and Recreation um wait for the slides
here awesome uh so we'll go over a few few line items first I appreciated the approach we were uh instructed to do here with the bottom up uh I started in September of 23 and I think most of my time in the beginning was really uh taking a look at our facilities our
services and also our budget uh so this is an approach that I really appreciated and um it allowed me to come up with these figures that I'll go over now so the first one is our Personnel uh which is an increase and the Personnel includes our three three full-time staff members in the Parks and Recreation
Office and also our Sandy Beach staff our lifeguards our gate guards um and our beach supervisor so that uh accounts for the increase of the $9,000 in change the miscellaneous and contracted Services I'm going to hold off on that
because that is the second slide of my presentation uh the public concerts and movies those are the ones that we hold at the Town common the movie nights and the Sunday concerts and our training and conferences uh Jessica sort of touch base on the decrease there of why that
has gone down to the $3,000 uh so we can go to the next slide this is sort of the uh exact breakdown of the increase and why we are increasing uh again in my bottomup level
service approach also speaking with uh DPW and uh engineering we looked at basically all the services in town and have identified some needs um specifically for parks that we don't charge services or minimal charge for
services uh such as the Fruit Street dog park the town common and uh sandy beach so instead of me explaining what the increases are in the dollar amounts uh I've laid them out pretty crystal clear here and um I can go through them line
by line but this is sort of why I have the increase up to the 39,00 , 42 of our miscellaneous contracted services our colleagues on Parks and wreck I'm sure have worked with you on that so we're good there okay awesome um
the last slide uh Parks and Recreation does have one Capital request and that is for the Sandy Beach parking lot pavement project uh if you've been there recently or in the past couple years the parking lot continues to deteriorate um
back in 2014 when it was built the parking lot uh to my understanding there was not enough money in the budget to continue that project and it's sort of just been left there um with if if we are to get these funds
to take care of this project it'll help all the patrons who use use the park uh it'll help our staff uh with safety right now there's very wide open entrance and exit and no safe spot for
gate guards to sand so we're looking for uh a shack to be included in in this project and then also speaking with other Town departments in town police fire safety Services Emergency Services uh they have a lot of trouble getting in
and out of the parking lot with the way the patrons are parked uh the police and fire have a hard time backing in a boat trailer so if there's an emergency the way it's currently situated it's it's very dangerous so if we are to get funding for this project it'll really
help uh in multiple facets and that's it thank you funding source for the parking lot free cash free cash and that's in the plan as we have it today all right um elain any questions
comments on that particular budget no um but I did want to highlight I John mentioned it was on the the slide but the the holiday lights righted in the just going to say that yep thank you Elane yeah on the second slide you'll see on the right side um the past 3
years the holiday lights were $9,500 uh in our conversations this year we chose to prioritize safety of our Parks um so that money was not included and in addition the vendor that we've used said essentially if we're looking to do this
again the minimum would be $155,000 if not more to do the holiday lights again next fiscal year uh so we chose not to include that in the budget uh for FY 26 but we could plug into the new light fixtures and wrap little lights down the
poles right and just I could do it on a Saturday didn't I Poss okay you you volunteering pick up the trash all right um M I have to say I ever since I've been on this board we have been talking
about the parking lot at the beach each because originally there was money set aside for it and where it went nobody seemed to know I went through this with Norman I went through this with previous accountants and I keep asking you know
what happened for that article it was a good number of years ago and nobody seems to know and it's been driving me nuts and I bring it up every year uh and I really want to see this project completed the the neighbors have been
talking to me the people on the lake and I mean ever ever since I got on the board they've been saying what happened to it Why didn't it get done where did the money go I've asked everybody and I can't get an answer at least not a
satisfactory answer from anybody and um but the money was there at one time and I really want to see it completed when I started here first two things that were brought to my attention were the Boston Common for the marath excuse me the town
for the marathon and Sandy Beach so I hear you absolutely I don't know what Scandal you're referring to or 400 Grand disappeared we should make sure we have an answer for that cuz someone's going to send us an email about that I don't think I don't think that it was that
much but it was in the article to uh research redo the beach and and everything and it mentioned the parking lot and the parking lot never got done I was a part of it that never never got completed my understanding is that it was part of
the initial funding uh and the project itself cost more money so they sort of left the parking lot last and then the budget ran out so there was an appropriation at town meeting for x amount of dollars x amount of dollars were spent on the project to fix up Sandy Beach and then that just it's like
when you build a school you run out of money while you don't finish a couple things so that's my I'm hoping that's the scenario I'm not defending the great Scandal but no I'm not and I wasn't trying to make a great Scandal I just I just I've been bringing it up year after
year after year and and now I've only got 3 months left and I really would like to see this project complete I'm all for getting this done by the way I I know you are no I'm I'm good thank you Mrs rsh yeah so for the
Sandy Beach parking lot was that approved by the Capital Improvements committee for free cash okay good because I've been I've driven down there and it's really in rough shape um and the holiday lights on the and perhaps we could get a donation or something for that that's my or tone down not quite as many lights which St District would
probably appreciate W you out WRA those polls exactly okay um yeah so I I think we should be ready for an answer on did we just spend up to the Warren article and that was it um for the so the lot question get
resolve but I think it's absolutely time to do it it is safe a safety issue over there now so we've got that schedule and I think we're in good shape everybody good thank you very much John thank you thank you John uh next up engineering and
Facilities David I don't know if you were here when um Jack Fleming and the folks from the baa were here um you may have you may have missed it but I told them the project would be done by the time the marathon came around this year
you have any comments that silent no comments you're a smart man okay Dave welcome thank you I'm just trying to log in here and it's not I believe this is the first engineer presenting a budget to us this year so
this could be interesting yes that was more uh more numbers than words with my slides um and there was a rumor I I needed to keep it till like five minutes so a firm rumor um so we and thank you everyone um in facilities engineering
department um we support other departments uh we support capital projects mainly from from other projects uh and we're responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of of the buildings um this year um in coordination with um DPW
and in parks and wreck um we're taking on more responsibilities and less at the same time the town uh DP W director went out to bid for townwide landscaping services I had some Landscaping budget um since I've started
here um we try to consolidate all those funds and some of that got transferred to DPW on a Parx and Rec side we've been coordinating with Jonathan since he started to be able to um take some of the responsibilities of maintaining buildings and Facilities from a park and
Rex director and getting over to facilities um Jonathan's done a great job of identifying um stuff that might not have been done um so it's it's more of a an increase in that area so there's a lot of plus and minuses in in the budget this year um
and I've been working with with Kyler and on a lot of those so um getting straight to the numbers there's about there's an about 8% increase um in the budget this year um excuse me fiscal year 23 and 24 as
you can see from the spreadsheet you know um if you look at budgeted fiscal year 23 fiscal year 24 and actual fiscal year 2324 where we're kind of right on the edge 23 we went over actually there was
a few extra expenses and repairs and we had anticipated for and we had to do end-year transfers basically year 24 we were kind of right on the budget um 25 again working with Jonathan we've identified lots of you know uh repairs
and and invoices that um facilities kind of took responsibility for this year is is Jonathan you can find some budgets form so um this year we're tracking again pretty close to um the the actual
approved budget numbers um from fiscal year 25 to 26 um there are no new Personnel being added but again this year for probably the second or third year in a row where transferring funds
from existing positions that have been covered by both facilities and DPW um just into DPW the other way around just into facilities um as facilities takes full responsibility for um and
supervision for those positions a couple years ago it was um our second shift custodian was also covering the um the recycling center so part of the salary was coming from DPW um that position turned into a Monday
through Friday for facilities so that money was transferred to facilities from DPW this year um we're doing that with the the engineering position I oversee the construction manager half of the funding was coming from
DPW um last year next year it'll be 100% under facilities the other addition it's not additional position but this additional hours for our weekend position with the library staying open on Sundays we had
to add some hours for for that position it's been a very hard position to fill for the last five years but um we finally had a couple uh people fill it and we have somebody else starting I think next week in that position in that position as well we'll be able to do
additional um work in the buildings when there's nobody around we're looking to implementing some sort of um painting program and carpet cleaning program that this this position will be able to do when the buildings are empty um and that going to save um as opposed to having vendors do the
work and it's also going to with the painting not disrupt operations of all the other departments um I can get into the breakdown of expenses um utilities other expenses um personnel and expenses
percentages or if you just have any questions you want to okay ask you fire thank you David um so the 8% overall increase what is the primary driving factor for that I'd say most of that is is um transfer
of funds from DPW for personnel um from them to you right and as an in covering the additional um responsibilities from Parks and Recs that we we've been coordinating with Jonathan that he's been identifying over
the last couple of years um we we've added U you also have a new custodian contract well a carpet cleaner that we're purchasing yeah the custodial um contract we we went out to bid um and we
ended up having more uh more cost to absorb than than the previous one um okay but so Lane the 8% increase you're on board with that and you see where there's some money moving from on budget to another yes you agree with that yes right and agree with that too okay all
right thanks David M the front here actually I I think the engineering department has been doing a very good job in a lot of Human Service this year and I don't really have any questions the 8% thank you seems okay to me Mr
Clark um I think my only question was the capital request for 200k have to go over that sorry yeah do you want do you want to just go over it I will very quickly all right um I have one Capital project that I'm coordinating with the police department on it's a a first step of upgrade of
their HVAC system in that building um this Capital request is going to be for um a building assessment final design and a construction estimate um it's a $200,000 request um what we're going to
really do is do some retro Commission with my um engineering line item um and they came up with some different options um for different systems for that building um there's some Oddities with the building there's one there's one
condensing unit for both floors um back 15 16 years ago when it was built second floor didn't get used a whole lot um so I'm not sure if it was built into you know maybe in 15 years the full second floor would be used um and you'd need to
upgrade the HB system to catch up with that so um that's kind of what the capital project is for is to really um make improvements we had some we've had lots of difficulties over the last couple years keeping that building um comfortable for for the
police department okay anything else um will that be an art is that an article in town meeting yes free cash yes approv approved by C it looks like with a free cash funding source yes okay awesome
thanks da sure sorry about that Mr Bush I think I think I'm all set thanks Elaine and Kyle everybody's good and the free cash is for that 200k okay makes sense all right great we're good thank you thank you
dude uh next up Department of Public Works welcome [Music] Carrie hello everyone how are you good there we go all right so um hi Carrie reart director of Public Works we got a
lot to cover so I I'll try to be brief I can't promise five minutes for significant amount of work um as directed as as you heard of everybody we took a bottomup approach um to provide level service from the previous year so this first slide is an overview and
there's other more detailed sides um and I just want to note so for the DPW for the general proposed we're actually proposing a 1% decrease um and I always emphasize that the only reason we're able to do what we can do with the resources and the budget that we have is because the excellent people that we
have in our staff so we are not proposing any new staff this is existing fully staffed you already heard about some of the changes um we're fully staffed right now with the exception of one mechanic so if anybody knows a mechanic that's looking for position um we are definitely in
need and um yeah few Chang on that so the 8% increase that you see up there for the DPW Administration has to do with moving funding for an existing position that's already filled from a different department different funding source within town so it all levels out
just looks bad right there um the decrease in the highway budget is also is attributed to um a few different things that bottom up approach so one um we're not proposing to do a herbicide treatment at Le mpano and in fiscal year
26 due to the successful treatment in fy2 so we like to thank the work of the lake M weed management citizen Advisory Group on that so this reflects a reduction of budget there um there's also reduction in budget for the storm waterer Management program to bare
minimum compliance because we're assuming that the new ms4 permit will not be effective until um fiscal year 27 so we're able to do a little bit more inhouse um and we also did a analysis of the diesel and gas estimates and what we
have been budgeting had been over the estimates that we've or the actual usage of the last three years so we reduce that but I did want to note that DPW provides the fuel Island pace for all the fuel for all the town departments so that includes the school Vehicles the police the fire and the inspectors um
but we based it off of an analysis of the actual cost that we spent so that is a risk that we're taking at DPW to reduce that budget in the request here um another thing big thing with the highway budget is reducing there was two
authorized unfilled positions and so we did an analysis about you know do we really need those positions anymore they were uh for Tree positions and you will see this movement from the highway budget down to the tree Wen budget um so the tree Warden budget is showing an
increase but it's actually a more efficent management so we're instead of having these two salar positions we're looking at subcontracts and sub Services um we are consolidating some of the Town Services across different departments
for grounds Parks um another property maintenance so it was all kind of spread out like nobody was man um it doesn't even matter um just got moved around so now the intent is that the tree Warden budget would not just be removed moving
dying and hazardous trees we're trying to build it to a vision that can manage like all green things in town um but I do want to point out that that green stuff does not include the Main Street project which is not done yet or turned over yet so there's a lot of new green
spaces that are going to have to be managed like new trees Street trees new green bump outs that's not included as part of this budget um then you have the trash and recycling budget that's increased 1%
this is based on contractual obligations um and I want to take this point to recognize the efforts of the Hopkin and sustainable green committee and there zero waste initiatives I think a lot of the reasons why that budget can be what it is is because of the work that they've done um at the same time I'm
also going to use this time to kind of give you all a heads up that the contracts that we have so waste and recycling is all subcontracted the contracts that we have with elel Harvey and Wheeler are going to expire in FY 28 so I expect at that point when we
renegotiate those contracts that we could see a potential large increase and then along with the other General funds um snow and ice traffic control and other storm controls we've level funded so at this point I would welcome
any questions about um the operating General funded work you have Capital items as well well we do yeah why don't we do this first then we'll go to Capital does that make sense correct there's the friend here well I I don't have any problem
with this budget actually and I can attest to the some of the tree work that's been done and I know one of the signs entering town you couldn't even see anymore it was so covered and I understand that was an extensive job to get that all cleared out in that area
and it's been great ever since and so um I I just want to compliment you on the on the tree working down it's been good thank you that's all I'm good with the operating budget thanks just wanted to clarify about the
waste budget so that's good it's good that we're still within our same contract um for at Waste and Recycling and we're still going to get the same services for now in this contract we'll get um the recycle center on Saturdays plus the recycling every two weeks and the trash every week right when no
change in service for this year okay that's good CU you know people ask about the trash on recycling on social media constantly so we want to have to those answers Elaine Bots good good charte good good so I commend you Carrie great job putting this together it's obvious
that you did a bottom up budget like everybody and you got a lot more there obviously than some uh so well done thank you um on the project itself should we put some money side or does mot own maintenance of this thing for a year or two once it gets turned over to
us we'll have to look at that have to discuss that you know in the construction world I don't know about road construction but in my world we build something we own it for a year or two and we have to take care of stuff and C you know just do all the fine tuning but we got to maintain it too um
typically the trees are planted now with those those bags around them that need to be filled occasionally yeah so we should look into that and if we have to adjust something before town meeting we don't want to put this thing in if if they walk out October 15th whenever their drop dead date is now which is
somewhere around then uh and we don't prep it for winter and you know it falls apart that's that's not going to be because we don't have the money that wouldn't make sense right so I think we should check that um that's my only comment thank you very
much for that good job thanks St all right um actually can you go back to the second slide because we didn't talk about sewer and water Enterprise operating budget so it be there you go so the backup information
is in your your packets if you had any more detailed questions about s so the next slide is an overall summary of The Water and Sewer operating budget so these are both Enterprise funded from the Enterprises um the water operating budget reflects a 2% increase uh we
adjusted to comply with a lot of new state and federal rules and regulations FY 25 and that's why you're the increase was more of a sticker shock last year than it is this year for the water um so stuff like pasas and the lead and copper rules went into effect this past year
and so now it's just maintaining what we've done um and then also the water reflects some of the development trends that we're seeing so we don't expect a large uh increase in new services like we've seen uh over the past couple of
years so it's kind of plateaued up development so that also is keeping that budget a little bit more level and then uh the sewer is where you're seeing a larger increase um it looks like a 13% increase these mostly reflects contractual cost that we have
for the operations of Maintenance of the Fruit Street wastewater treatment facility which is owned by the town of um hopkington and the Westboro wastewater treatment um plant which is owned by Westboro but we had an IMA so we have contractual obligations for operating maintenance cost for certain
capital and debt um expenses that they incur each year and as you know like both of them are aging and they requiring more investment and then we're also expecting some evolving regulations that are going to require even more upgrades next year and you know as we go
forward so that's intip that also what we noticed with the sewer over the last year and the the growing trend is um more and more emergency response and we're seeing higher higher flows especially during these extreme WEA events and so we have to do a lot more emergency response and um adjustments
because our system can't handle these torrential downpours and then we have infiltration inflow issues and it just kind of compounds again then we have more sewage in our system more discharge Louis treatment plans higher costs okay questions comments on these two
Enterprise funds no going to get it but to have what we need so this is the spend side this isn't the rate side right so we do the rate side of the different time right so you good yep Jo I'm good that's
set that's set you're good you're good yeah I just want to make sure that those figures do not include the repayment of principal and interest on debt associated with the Enterprise it's pure operating costs okay where do those numbers show up so the total budget for
sewer is 2.5 million which also includes indirect costs and on the water side is 2.6 million in terms of Debt Service debt service including operating so Debt Service and operating go okay all right
and so we'll be setting the rate based on those the combination of those two we get to it okay everybody good so were those Incorporated in when we set the rates back in like the Su there was an big increase this year and that incorporated
those things into that yeah we have to send him a debt projection plan for the next 10 years and that's how he starts to do his projections of what we need to how we need to build up retained earnings okay all right thank
you so yes yeah that when we set that rate we'll be taking into all this all this into account yep just want to make sure okay all right next up next up will be the capital requests through all those detailed all
right we'll go the next one so the first are the capital request under the general fund um and as discussed before anything that's being presented was uh or is planned to be funded through free cash that correct so we have um vehicle
Replacements um a dump truck a trackless tractor good alliteration um and then the uh s24 dump truck as you'll notice that's significantly less than the other dump truck because we've heard the feedback of just replace what you need um very
aggressive preventive maintenance program we have one mechanic but we're still looking for one again if anybody knows any mechanics um doing a great job so they've been doing um in the highway department a lot of great work of keeping the trucks that we have in good condition so um the one that we're
asking for FL replace is older and really needs to be replac the other one they're just replacing or recommending replacing the body of the truck and then um the tractor trailers are what we use to maintain the sidewalks and as you notice we have some newer sidewalks downtown that are going to need to be maintained as they go in
the future um we did apply for a shared streets Grant from Mass Duty we haven't heard about that yet um to purchase a trackless tractor um but we won't know about that we're requesting an add time meeting and if we get the grant funding will change
our request so three units all general f all uh free cash okay questions it's a lot of money um do you want me to go through all the general fund capital projects or you want to go through them one by one yeah let's just
we'll do these three here okay and then we'll go from there now I I see one of them is no longer functional so I understand that uh is like the dump truck at all usable that could it be
sold I'm recommending that we trade them in when we purchase the new ones what we've been recognizing is that the auctioning and the trying to do that is not okay saving us any money and it's costing us time um and labor so there might be some value in trading but I I
don't suspect there'll be too much okay okay good no no um all three of these cic recommended we didn't align okay thank
you Amy um I don't have any questions about the trucks but I just noticed as I was scrolling through to get to the truck section um The signalized Pedestrian Crossings that's uh is that adding any new signalized pedestrian Crossings under traffic control or just maintaining what we have just
maintaining what we have so that's the operating budget that you're talking about traffic controls yes so we maintain the traffic lights at the intersections The Pedestrian crossing the school blinking signs um so that's just maintaining what we have but as you can see when you walk out the door there's going to be quite a
few new ones that will inherit so um we didn't incorporate in that budget because we don't know when they'll be turned over and as you mentioned there's a warranty period so hopefully that'll cover most of that but yeah I would anticipate we'd have to increase the budget thing we get complaints about a lot about The Pedestrian Crossings not
being Sav everywhere okay thanks people want a lot of pedestrian Crossings yes set yep L you're good in these Kyle you good on these yes okay um this doesn't replace the process town meeting by the way like we're building
the budget and we take it to town meeting and we will talk about dump trucks at town meeting I'm sure so uh all that will happen there as well okay next up please all right so the next project skip that one
it was not recommended by cic that one we're going to do town meeting in may not tonight um those are supposed to be hidden slides that's okay um so the next project is a drainage Improvement project on CL place if you're not where CL place is located um
if you can see in that photo across from hkin Hopkinson Lumber and um near the trail head for the center Trail so um if you can see in that picture there's a little catch Bas in there that's on Town property although a lot of that parking area is not Town property so Town
property is somewhere in that dirt area a little bit um last year when there was a significant amount of rain there was um some flooding in that area where we discovered that the drainage needs to be improved um so this project would help
do that I would also point out that I believe there was at least an insurance claim and maybe some payments um so there is some liability and cost to the if we don't do this work okay questions questions um I just thought some of this property is owned by the respit center too but part of it is ours
and then it's it's damaging the road as well is that right the the it's interesting yes it's all that so we've got to make sure we put the drainage in the what we own and we don't impact private property okay
great that's good yes okay um and I think those are the only recommended projects that're going ahead for free cash the next slide is probably a CPC one if that didn't get hidden either the cemetery right let's see what
the slide let's see what the slide brings up so Mount arburn Cemetery CPC funding CPC funding is outside of our kind of budget discussion so we don't need to go through that tonight that will be a town meeting
discussion correct so we skip that one so those are the general funded um capital projects that we're recommending all the funding is proposed from free cash um as you saw there were a few projects that we recommended that didn't make it this far yet um and then the
next project will be the I believe the sewer Enterprise funds okay so the first project is at the Fruit Street wastewater treatment facility you heard me mention it earlier that it's older and there are some things that need to be replaced this is specifically the screen system which is
at the beginning lovely photo there for you all to see since most people haven't you know uh toward a wastewater treatment facility like us Engineers have done um but essentially it's the first thing it takes out all the the initial stuff um and it's falling apart so we need to replace
it all right let's keep going through all the Enterprise ones together and the next one from the sewer Enterprise is um beginning designed for a sewer main replacement project that was recommended as part of our asset management plan um
it's a there's a cross country sewer M um that we have a lot of influent infiltration issues with because it basically goes through like a wetlands area and in and around um Wood Street so that's the area that we're going to focus on to again try to remove that influent infiltration so that the sewage
that's actually going to the water treatment plants that we're paying for to be treated is just you know we're not paying to treat nice clean um storm water again this project is only for design once the design is complete we'd have a cost estimate for Capital cost
for construction okay so those are the two sewer Enterprise funds that are two sore Enterprise funded capital projects that we are proposing okay and those are going to be paid for through the Enterprise fund
through the rates retained earnings retained earnings got questions on that no I'm good good you're good you're good okay nobody's got exciting questions about a sewer treatment PL this is disappointing um all right so the next
ones are for the water enterpris this is where it gets a little um trickier I guess so we are requesting to replace Vehicles W3 and W1 um you might be having Deja Vu because we requested them last year and they approved at town meeting they were on the ballot they got approved
um all that wonderful stuff and um we need to redo that cuz we were told that they were not valid U votes so those ones are our priority um they're both identified as emergency replace uh emergency response vehicles
in the town vehicle response plan and W1 died on us I mean failed inspection Rel estate it died last month like it's not recoverable so let's just hold right there so we need them right we got it why were they not valid votes sufficient retained earnings yeah
there were four projects that were presented at Town committee or a town meeting and we did not have enough retained earnings to do all four projects so when we met with the do the do said we can't pick and choose which
of the four to use up retained earnings all of them became null and void so we have to resend them making sure we have enough that's news to me i' never heard that before yeah so you will see an article at town meeting
that officially resends what we did in 24 and we will issue new articles in 25 okay that is too bad if there were four projects and we we could have maybe gone forward with some of them but they said we couldn't we could have gone two
of the four but they said everything is no one voided okay well live and learn something new every day interesting yeah that is interesting any other questions comments on this particular Capital project or purchase they seem necessary everybody
good good Lane and Kyler we good now okay all right anything else Carrie y so this was another project that was um proposed and approved at 10 meeting last year same scenario same scenario okay anybody good y you want to
keep going with this okay so these to the trucks and the flushing were're proposing out of retained earnings right because what we have retained earnings is enough so the next two projects would not because we do not
have enough retained earnings correct and then how would we fund those that's what the discussion is all about so because now we're getting into the rate payers paying for not paying for this town but they're paying for the water
but they're not people around town are not necessarily paying for the water but they're paying for this well that's what we have to decide right so you're saying this last year was no go past gr Street I think we're on the next one
right we talking about Grove Street or the next one talking about the gr Street water tank yep the next two projects so this is the first okay so so last year they were voted in to be paid through retained earnings void because of you know lack of retained earnings and so now the recommendation or the
conversation tonight is to use free cash is that no like or it's a borrowing whether Bor borrow from free cash or borrow from um issuing debt that's what we need to
discuss okay but keep in mind Kerrie and the water Enterprise we weren't able to do anything last year so we're behind times now so we have to prioritize do you guys have a recommendation as to how should be
paid I hate the word borrow but knowing that we're behind um I think we need to do something to move water Enterprise forward especially given all of the feedback around water in this town so
whether it's depend if we have free cash left over and we actually use that as a loan which we have done in the past yep um I think that's a consideration that we need to look at going into the
flexibility comment um but I don't think we can afford to wait but the rate payers will pay for that loan how later yeah payers and not somebody that's not on the Water System right okay but it's all determines on free cash
okay is that a decision for tonight or is that a town meeting decision I think it's a decision that we have once we understand our free cash balance because if we have money that we can lend to the Enterprise I think we have to make that
recommendation the town of Hoppington has loan money to the Enterprise in the years past on a couple of different occasions so it's not unusual and why not borrow from ourselves if we have it instead of going to the bank and spend more do we have to charge ourselves a rate or can we just do a straight up
cash deal I don't know I'll have to look at that okay I think we can leave it here for now and you can go with that guidance everybody seem reasonable that and we'll see about the free cash you okay with that so let's leave it there for now and keep going through the chair
we also looked at authorize unspent projects that are still in the books that we um so we've identified some of those so I think a combination of all that would be presented at annual town meeting yeah so we'd want an answer a clear answer for town meeting but in
general it seems like that's you know what this board anyway is suggesting all right and it since it is super confusing the clearest you know most extinct slide we can have about it at town meeting I think be helpful yeah this money from reappropriated funds
this money from free cash yeah Carrie and Kyler are going to do a great job at town meeting at the microphone explaining that okay once we get done talking about dumb trucks um so the next project um please
myself oh that's right um so I guess you guys still have Forum so and Mary Joe's in charge now so lovely um so the last project that we're recommending is um for engineering and permanent support
for the mwa connection so as we mentioned earlier we have enough funding that can get us up to 60% that was approved I believe at 2022 annual town meeting um but to move along with this will if we move along at the pace that we're hoping to move along with that
money will be spent um hopefully end of FY well probably beginning of FY 26 we'll need additional funding to keep the project moving along and instead of waiting again um another full year we're requesting it at this point
and what would the funding source be the borrowing borrowing from the ideally we I think initially planned you know the previous appropriation to fund all the support services we need and then when we got to construction any additional construction support engineering support
we could build into the construction or the overall budget because we're going to have to come back um because this only gets us to a certain point it doesn't actually build the infrastructure which is the Big Ticket item um so this would be borrowing from preash
or borrowing from pre okay set all set I'm all set I'm no I'm good okay sorry about that kind of regular occurrence I think um okay anything else Carrie that's
enough yeah a lot that's everything well organized very thorough thank you very much thank you that's there can I ask about the ones that were not recommended by CPC are those those be on the warrant though C sorry no they weren't recommended by CAC and they weren't
recommended through the town manager's office oh okay so they won't they won't be on their Mar this year no um okay but that continues to show a backlog of work I mean it's not like the projects go away the roads aren't getting in better condition So eventually we will need to do that okay
all right you good everybody good Carrie thank you very much uh next up we'll do Finance then we'll do the town managers but before we do that just real quick and I forgot to ask earlier my fault um when the town clerk was here and he presented
his budget and I if I remember then I would ask him then his salary is voted on at town meeting and his generally an annual increase correct it's a reasonable number and Connor does a great job because it's not that at all just but that's accounted for to some
fashion or some extent in that budget that he presented it's part of the contingency number or the contingency on the other side with HR got it thank you very much okay uh Finance you have three minutes I have one slide
well I'll start um so responsibilities of the finance department include the Assessor treasur Collector and we have payroll so a staff of eight people we have um salaries in FY 26 being requested of 696,000
versus uh 681 th000 the pure difference is the cola Merit increases we are fully staffed this is the first time this department has been fully staffed in a while we have had literally 70% turnover in the past year so this past year has
been focused on training education um cross trining um just really trying to build up the experience within the team our expenses have actually gone down so we're requesting 270,000 250 which is a
decrease of about $5,000 from fy2 when I looked at what was done in the budget in the past there were three different departments within the finance Department I Consolidated it into one we all operate in the same department so we
didn't need three separate line items for offit office supplies Etc so I consolidate down to one um so the total operating budget between fy2 FY 26 is only a 1% increase um which is pretty
basic for a staff of five PE eight people the two areas of focus as we move into FY 26 you heard in the technology budget that they have included a line item for a new payroll system so that's really important for accuracy and transparency
across the town it does not support the school but we do need it for the town the other thing that I have done is I requested a grant a Community Access a community compact grant for new budgeting software this is so Antiquated
to have to input one number five different times and then for the town accountant to then have to put it again if we get the grant it will cover us for FY 26 um and it will automate the process accurate um provide accurate
reporting as as well as allow transparency to the residents so we'll see what happens with that that's it okay thank you questions comments Mr Le I just hope you get the grant that's all nothing else I'm good no questions
so if you got the grant that would cover it for the first year or so and then we would have the operating expense but do we currently pay something for a different budgeting software we don't it's all on Excel spreadsheets oh okay all right so we will have to account for that then next year okay
thanks uh you presented your good with this budget as presented okay all right great uh thank you next up is Town manager Department uh for a town manager there's a number of different line items that um
tell me I have slides for here the first is the office manager's office select Board office um slight increase in um in Personnel expenses and a decrease in um in expenses uh some of the changes
include you know eliminating our support for Restaurant Week Holiday Stroll and we have an economic development tool embedded in the website it's the local Intel subscription uh reduced our conference line item a bit um we have increased costs for a town meetings um
with post captioning um and and printing and some of the our employee training as you heard is covered by human resources okay uh the next slide uh is Animal Control uh this supports two part-time people the Animal control officer and
the animal inspector um slight increase there uh with the the Merit and cola increases that were were given this year and you know to review of the expenses we reduced it a little bit and looking at what uh what the actual needs are and then there's a line item for
select board that nothing has been spent from for several years um it's been carrying $22,000 each year and I thought this might be the year to reduce that down to zero since we haven't used it most the expenses of the board to attend events and so forth has been covered by
the town manager's office okay uh next slide we have General other General government and so this is where we're we're budgeting for the electronic voting uh we're increasing that this year we under budgeted last year and we
had you know a special town meeting where we used it so uh we're raising that to 15,000 uh to cover that uh we have a public relations firm um it's a nice to have I did reduce that in an effort to to reduce costs um I think we can manage
uh with a lesser amount there uh Town reports is the printing of the annual Town report uh the cost has gone down um the audit as you see every year we pay for the audit was here this evening and then our transfer from the townside to the water Enterprise for um related
to fire protection and water use there and then a town hall line item uh we usually budget about $8,000 for some contracted need that comes up during the year for this building um some things happen U that we need an emergency spend
for that's not covered anywhere else and then for the veteran services so the town is a member of the Metro West uh veteran services District which includes Ashland Holliston hington and Medway and this is this town's uh portion of those costs actually since uh I wrote this
slide um last week we had a a veterans District meeting on Monday and so the actual cost for this will go down uh to just about what it was for fy2 so it'll be a little bit of a little bit of an increase but not as much which is 1% which is shown here so this is the
town's portion of the cost for the salaries and benefits that go to hopkington Veterans and then for the celebrations there's a celebrations line item in the budget um there's a small amount of money available for Memorial Day uh Flags or other expenses and then um we
have been budgeting for $30,000 for a family day since family day was uh was began a few years ago um and that's covers any expenses that the um the private nonprofit um doesn't get through fundraising so it maybe the cost of the
fireworks or other details or something like that if they can't cover all their costs okay and then finally we have employee benefits and insurance and this is this covers all town and School Employees it covers all Town property and buildings uh for unemployment
insurance Medicare tax our life insurance premium for employees health insurance premium middle sex County Retirement System contribution um and the blanket insurance premium so overall an 11.3% increase uh including the 12.9%
for the health insurance next year which is within so for other communities I've seen anywhere from you know 11% to a 25% increase for for communities this year that's it okay questions comments for the town
manager submissions M the FR here no I don't have any questions it all looks fine to me okay Joe so on that last one you were saying those Insurance like premiums and
everything you said kind of what you were seeing from from your peer group is 11 to 25 and we're right at 11 right we're at uh 12.9 for health insurance so that was for health insurance big in pces this year
okay all right thank you Amy um I don't think I have any questions on this one it's very well explained I think I understand it all there was a time when we spent a lot of uh time and energy talking about the health insurance line
item um and you know it was I think running in five six 7 million at that time and the increases were a million2 a million4 30% and we would get ourselves all tied up in knots over that line item
and now it's at $15 million or whatever it was up there and I that's the least of our problems right now in terms of balancing budgets and things like that so um are we still working that number though is that is that are we finalized for FY 26 on that plan or so we have
asked uh for another product to add to the products that we offer and that would be a high deductible HSA plan that hopefully uh people would select and that would reduce our cost for premiums so it may come down a little yeah this was always one of those line items too that we would work right up
until you know May 1st or something like that to figure it out so yeah I'd be interested in continuing that effort right yes we are continuing all right great okay uh with that I think we could call an evening for item number s of the
agenda do you agree good yep everybody else good yep any last thoughts or comments all right great thanks everyone for going through that that's a lot of numbers coming out just one more comment at the next meeting you'll vote you'll vote the budget at the next meeting we'll have the final numbers for
everything so where are we with our colleagues in Appropriations and their review of all this too they're ready to go as soon as you vote we vote to send to them they do their thing vote to send it back to us then we vote to send it to town meeting if I remember correctly
something like that yeah they start there meetings March 12th and it will go every Wednesday for the next four Wednesday okay all right uh let's move on to item number eight then in the agenda which is the consent agenda the board will consider the following
consent agenda there's an appointment of a constable Jason Vaz as a constable in the town of hopkington there's two parade permits the triathlon at Hopkinson State Park and the wicked 5K there's a board and committee appointments uh to the Hopkinson dist District of Linda Connell as a nominee
from the Historical Society with the term expiring June 30th and Gina Harper as a nominee from the historical commission with a term entering June ending June 30th 2026 anybody want to break anything out in the consent agenda I don't need to break it out I just had a question
though sorry I don't need to break it out but I had a question if that's sure go ahead um for the Aina haror for the nomination for the historical commission did they vote I'm thinking they were meeting tonight they voted earlier this evening and I've been informed that they did recommend they did great thank thank
you set anybody want to break anything out no okay the chair entertain a motion to approve the consent agenda as submitted I move to approve the consent agenda second any further discussion on the
motion all those in favor please say I I I anyone opposed it's unanimous and so carries item number nine May 5th 2025 annual town meeting the select board will consider reviewing the draft annual town meeting warrant discussing language of its articles and reviewing draft
Economic Development Advisory Board charge an alternative to the town as an alternative to an annual town meeting article Miss Lazarus so it is getting late you do have the warrant in front of you it's up to you whether you want to how much time you want to spend on that this evening shadu is not here to discuss the the
economic development um board so that could wait also our articles we've discussed two or three times now ones that are ours that we're sponsoring well we right but this one is right well this one needs more discussion but Sho is not here right the economic one yeah but I'm
saying the other articles that we put forward I'm not looking at the exact words of it but we'll get to that at some point so is everybody good with just tabling that for now for sh doel there were three that he there were three yeah that we didn't really close out on if you had any questions or
wanted people to come and appear uh to talk about any of the Articles something for the board to consider as you read through the warrant okay all right anybody have any thoughts comments on anything they want to put on the table now about this I just wanted to mention about the draft of Economic
Development Advisory Board and we can I know we're not going to vote it tonight but um some thoughts I had about it well I wanted to make sure the planning board was willing to have a leas on before we voted that and then I I was hoping that we might maybe add a little bit more language about like the focus of why we
need economic an economic development bored because I'm hearing a lot of confusion in the compu community that people um maybe are not understanding but I was thinking that it was um kind of similar to we had that financial plan working group a long time ago that the idea is to try to help use Economic
Development to help solve these um what do you call the structural deficit that we have being primarily residential town and then also to improve quality of life which is one of the slbo goals from a couple of years ago like people are missing certain businesses that we used to have downtown like kala's um and
economic development downtown could um improve things for residents too so I want to make sure residents are understanding you know how it could benefit them just my comments anybody else all right so we'll table that for this evening ele and come back to it as
we get a little bit closer to town meeting um it's going to come down to the Motions now too right yes all right let's go to item number 10 which is the town manager report please regarding the Main Street corter project um as we heard earlier urce has
completed nearly all of its overhead and underground work and the overhead lines have been and are being removed Comcast is starting to install lines in their underground infrastructure um and then they'll start pulling their lines to the buildings and then more more wires will come off the
overhead uh Verizon will also start uh once Comcast is done and existing utility poles located between the police station and a street will be removed by Verizon um and they may remove the poll as the work progresses and remove them once all their work is
completed on that schedule okay okay uh just an update on the municipal aggregation uh plan the dpu uh approved hopton's plan and the next step would be to go out to bid for an energy supplier so that's going to be um starting this month uh have some
meetings scheduled um to move that project forward so should stay tuned and then uh there's a couple couple of town Department uh position vacancies that we're looking to post uh the first is kind of a a sad thing that Eric cardi or
water and sewer manager is looking to retire in the fall unfortunately after over 40 years of service to the town which isn't been amazing amazing time for the town and for for Eric uh so for this critical position the goal is to have uh the new manager in place for up
to 3 months before Eric retires so that can have a transfer of knowledge um and get everything you know a smooth transition so asking that we can uh post that position in addition uh DPW is looking
to hire a summer uh inter intermittent laborer um and that's the request also okay um so keeping with our approach to double checking these things before we post the chair
entertain a motion to approve posting for a water and sewer manager position within the town of hopkington I move to approve the posting of a water sewer manager and DPW summer inter intermittent labor positions second we
have a motion and a second for both positions okay can I just ask a question um so um for the three-month overlap we have funding in the current budget to we have paying two salaries at once right yeah I think one of the things we've talked about if if there isn't
enough um using the perhaps the salary and the water Enterprise fund for that okay all right everybody good so there's a motion on the table and a second all those in favor please say I I any oppose it's unanimous and so carries um number
11 item number 11 uh now we'll move on from the Tom Andrew's report and the agenda is to Liaison reports anybody have any the aison reports M yeah I do the MW e is having a written uh ribbon cutting for
the Next Generation vehicles that they bought on Monday March 10th at 1100 a.m. Refreshments will be served and uh come and see the new vehicles so I have the invitation
here okay Mr Clark anything nope I'm good May um for the MPC their winter meeting is tomorrow and I wanted to check with Tom manager are you able to attend on Zoom or CU they need PE people
for Quorum I guess I'll be at uh Metro West partnership meeting okay I'll try to just dial in um it's just an inconvenient time of day for me okay um I'll see if I can dial in then or maybe they won't really need me for
quum and then um I noticed it's the season of Ramadan and I think we've been invited to two different ifar um events so it would be nice if some of us were able to go to some of those there's one tomorrow and the other one I think is um not a week from Friday okay anything
else all right um future board agenda items let's not review what's out there this evening uh we're still chipping away at um and I think when we get ready for town meeting we'll take a couple more of these off does anyone have anything new they want to add to a
future board agenda tomorrow's at the high school nothing new stud Joe anything new sorry I miss that anything new for future board agenda items nope nothing new for me okay a uh no putting on there all right I think I'm good
there uh and then uh item number 13 is an executive session do we need to enter into that executive session yes okay so uh if somebody would be kind to make the motion for the executive session which is on the back of the page I move to
convene an executive session uh a pursuant to Master Law chapter 30A section 21A purpose 6 to consider the purchase exchange lease or value of real estate land at assessor map R1 12-10 d0 r24
26b u26 d70 and u26 d8a because of an open meeting may have detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the board um the approval of executive session minutes uh to allow aane Lazarus and lale priority to participate in an
executive session session and not to conven an open session after the conclusion of the executive session second we have a motion to Second a discussion on the motion uh roll call vote M the frer the frer yes Joe Clark yes Bush yes Brian
her yes thank you folks have a good evening