uh this meeting is being recorded by the local team this is by pack television anyone intending to make an audio or video recording of this meeting should notify the chair move to open the meeting Tuesday March 11th at 5:30 all in favor all all right good
evening Kingston all right notification uh by the way just as a prelim now I know that there some folks join this call tonight which we often do not have we're just going to follow it in order in the event that some folks try to time jumping on to this meeting uh so they wouldn't meet it so just to let you know
we will get to the veteran question okay okay morning notification annual election dates and positions yeah I just wanted to let um both of you know that at the dates for the annual election you can pick up your papers um now and the
last day to take out papers is March 26 and the last day to submit papers to the um is March 28 so there will be an open seat so if you're looking to run and uh
help the town out the board of assessors will have a new member it will be one of you or your friends hopefully very good that is to say Mike isn't taking Pap out that is correct which would be
sad okay okay bills for payment all right the first is Staples M who but I know it's not you're not gonna have the saying it's not it's not a meeting without WB getting us cut of Kingston tax do here you go and this second is my
mileage for inspection C bement applications they not going to pay over2 miles the whole fedal thing is tracking you kidding really they actually tracked you actually have
little stalker no with th there just one here yes what all the properties the loneliest number you live thank you um and the next item on theend is
the um data collector contract this gentleman company Pat Patrick Haring um he has worked with us over the last year and he's done a great job on um going out being timely measuring the housings and so we are hiring him again
to do the 2025 building permits this is the contract is it the the same price per unit it was essentially last year it was it is and um we had had Vision other years and
vision would give you different people and you you'd have one kid one day different and at least this yeah this keeps it consistent he's also um sessor in h Brook so he has a size you sure that's good I mean that means he measures slab ranches they only
have one unit of management the he worked at a lot of he works a lot of other towns I'm just joking I've lived in they got a lot of campelli ranches in the yeah yeah yeah it's my I lived in a campelli ranch but I I'm a whole very grades too yeah I lived there when I
went to good houses those C we built for R turning vents really yeah that was the predicate and if you go to any town in the Eastern seawood they a camp ear development will have all the same names they're all relatives
of his that be plugged in there but they're good bones they hold up good easy to maintain no basement right slab Ranch yeah but thought of you know for the towns with high water tables I mean it's either I'd rather have a slab in a crawl
on high water table I know prob my basement that if you put radiant heat in it you can't beat them they had radiant pting them and after about 40 years their radiant systems failed then they all converted to baseboard after that at least most of
but good houses still like them all right uh that is it for the data collection correct that is it yes okay the main event meeting with veteran agent to discuss the hero act and and Mike I didn't write it on your um agendas but in the back you have some paperwork there yeah just to review
thank you thank you and I brought some cheat sheets um for everybody too you Take the Lead your floor okay so as you guys probably know that folks hi Sarah Lancing uh veterans agent
um no problem uh uh the state recently passed the hero act this past August it went into effect and it gave towns uh the opportunity to expand the property tax abatements that are currently available for uh 10% to 100 % disabled
veterans specifically Clauses oh wait for it 22 uh 22 22A 22b 22 C 22e and 22f uh and they gave two options to do
it you could TOS could vote um to double the property tax uh exemption which is currently $400 for uh veterans who are 10% through 90% disabled or um um $1,000
for veterans who are um 100% disabled um so it gave the option to double that so that would be 800 or 2,000 or gave the option to uh double that or also to increase it by the cola uh each year um so my little cheat
sheets that I handed out um have the age ranges of the current um residents that are collecting the property tax abatements through the towns um uh these are the unknown number at the top that 20 is because those uh residents didn't
turn in the town census this year so I um so I don't know their age um but you can see about um uh 53% of the people currently collecting the property tax abatement are 65 years or older um so those are
our most vulnerable residents in the town uh seniors who are disabled um and uh I really think that increasing the property tax uh as the state allows uh would be uh definitely a benefit for our
most vulnerable um residents in town um to talk a little bit about how vactions receive a disability rating it's not just automatic when you uh get out of the military you have to have been hurt in service um the VA takes it
pretty seriously and put it's a long kind of extensive process where you have to prove prove the injury happened in the service and that you're still suffering from it um the VA can also call people back in to get re-evaluated for uh their disabilities which is why
sometimes those 100 percenters will drop back down to a lower percentage um say they have a cancer or something that's related to their service and go into remission they would drop down um uh so I think that the um negatives
of this for the town is that it's clearly a large Financial impact uh right now if we just doubled it uh we're currently um the residents that are receiving it it's $94,400 if we doubled that that just doubling the tax
abatements it would be $188,800 a year that um the residents would receive and the state did not increase any of the percentages that they pay back to the towns um the other things that I included in my packet are just um it's
the um Department of local Services uh they put out a bulletin on the legislation back in August so I just provided that to you guys uh as an overview and then I put the taxpayers guide with all the veterans um uh exemptions that are currently offered
and do they have um are there other if I'm not mistaken it doesn't have to just be double two it can be appoint in between yeah so it pretty much just it opens it up so you can go up to double of what the property tax um abatements are currently okay I
just want to throw some of my thoughts out and then love to hear yours can can I ask a couple questions before you just because it may affect your questions uh first of all you the total column that's that wouldn't really be the increase the increase would be
that's would be 94 if that's doubl oh that yes so that would be the total that would be the total so the increase is only half that M and let me just I just um Sarah has what's going on not like right now for the veterans I had 99
of the veterans so my increase was a little more it was 99,100 but it's still in the same La I just gave no matter whichever number oh it's it's fine I just if you saw conflicting um and one other thing
before you discuss it um Sarah talked about the 22j which is the doubling we also have 22i which is the cost of living um exemption that we could accept as well and this will take the if someone's
receiving $1,000 say this year and we accepted this it would be adjusted by the cola every year this year the cola is um 2.5 which is pretty low but $1,000 exemption would be $1,025 and every year that would change
the cost of living and can you can you incorporate the 22i along with whatever proposal increase you put in there so if you if we did both right if we did 22i and just for example at this year for $1,000 and 22j and decided to double it
the exemption would be $2,50 because you double after you take the cost of living and for reference I put the cola the cost of livings by Year from since 2020 on the bottom of this is a very low year 23 was
.7 which was incredibly High comparatively normal this may be a question for you should should the numbers on here number of participants agree with this MDM no not necessarily because Sarah like I'm going by 24
Sarah's doing it as is right now okay so this would be 25 veterans have a couple more days to to get their application well till April 1st so either way it's right around so this may go up then as there may be more people coming in okay
especially when they hear about this there shouldn't be like a giant wave though that's what I meant when I said we're in the zip code no matter yeah right absolutely questions those are my questions okay I just got some preliminary thoughts originally in the
abstract I'm always in favor of anything for the veterans now having said that I'm also Torn Between the potential shortfalls to is facing on something and it's almost and additionally once I heard because originally I thought we were going to have a school department override which was going to be
significant like multi-million and then the police are also having another override none of that has anything to do with us but when you accumulate these things I didn't want to be the person that would sit there at at a time like this and do that but now it looks like they're not going to do the general override although there still is a police override so what my thoughts are
Ken I don't know what yours are would be on this one and I'll put something out there um I'd like to almost do the 22i uh which gives the Coler and split the baby and not double it right now which would still increase it would increase there as not to the full level and
remind the public it's my understanding that if they come to town meeting that they could make a motion on the floor to override our recommendation and get it up to that number which would let the town uh the voting public rather than a few of us on something like that at a at
a time of economic need make the final bump confident that most of the people in the town would do so I just don't want to and it's not about me I'm not even going to be here you know what I mean so and I've never made a living wondering about wondering or worrying about what anyone thinks about me but I I'm wrestled
between my love of our service people and not wanting to leave something out there but I want to acknowledge it and give them something but still let them know that there's a mechanism to get it up to the full amount from the people at the town and not just to have a few voices make that whole
decision it would be easy for the people would go to town to probably do so those are my thoughts k your thoughts I I can get behind the cola I have no no quals about that fact that probably should have been done in the beginning you know they
have done that with other things I think the two and a half% may be bu to the same as Social Security yeah we get we get it from the Social Security um or other exemptions for our 17d that cost of living has been in
effect and the other one this is a brand new law so I like I I'm always reluctant to be the first one to do anything well that like to be kind of see how how it works with everybody else that said I
mean in most of the other acceptances you can go on the divisional local service and find out what the acceptant rate is who's accepted it what the terms were Etc but you can't do that now because nobody had to meetings to accept
it so um I would be inclined to be cautious as well the other thing aside from the prop two and a half override is that I think there are going to be things trickling down from what's
going on at the federal level I'm already I've heard already School departments that are complaining about losing lunch money um School departments are complaining about money Ken well yes if any of you were out there
you complain all the time and what that uh they I mean it's on the radio I didn't I didn't make it up I'm not giving you brief about this I'm just ack well you know that they expanded the lunch big time during during Co okay and
and it's been continued and and so it's they're they wanting to cut it back and in the process of looking at that they're seeing other things and I think that any school department that wants to continue that is going to have to look to the taxpayers um because they're not going
to get from the federal government so that's another thing added on the backs of the taxpayer also we have this sewer vment that we're looking at for what are the 1600 rate payers yeah that are going to get lacked with uh additional sewer
betterments so it may be a tough tough year so for those reasons I don't think I and you can you can revisit this if you read the law it says that percentage may be changed in subsequent years and if I'm
not mistaken by similar motion and if I'm not mistaken the the veterans agent would have the ability to advance this bill on her own and bring it to the town as well yeah so it would be nice to all be in agreement having said all of that
I kind of think that uh that mic's BS is not not a half bad idea can I just go to town meeting and somebody wants to amend it so but my just your proposal is to accept the um 22i and what about 22j
nothing at all or or well there's only two of us here right now uh so I I I'm not terribly opposed to splitting the baby and 50,000 is is a lot of money to 50% yeah and that all I just wanted to make that clear and if if the town is
flush with with money um up next come back back next year or the year after I mean unless they take the law off the books it's not going away so how long has the I did have one other
question how long have these amounts been set when were they or 20 years with no change so people got a real benefit 20 years and it just kind of sat it hasn't gone up with the question it's it's not the the am it's not the
amount of exemption per person it's I'm looking at the back end I'm more concerned about the back end which is horrible right now because I my lack of confidence in our fiscal restraint in other places will probably get steamrolled by any Goodwill but I just I just don't want to be the person it's
there is a lot of legislation that goes back 20 years 30 years 40 years you know try to get somebody to recycle you know today 40 over 40 years ago it's still a
nickel nobody cares about they're they're they're not going to Min the penny anymore so and all the exemptions also the the elderly the blind the surviving spells none of them have one of them did have the cost of living
that's gone up which is H yeah I I mean no matter what no matter what anyone want I I God the cost of liit then has to be there yes yes I mean I don't care where we are we can't just diminish people every single year value their dollar shrinking so I
guess just to be on the same page we all agree that the cost of living article will go on in the board's if you want to get a you know official reading to do this year yep
I mean you have a sense of which way it's going to go it's not going to be a no for sure and I'm reminding anyone out there listening that from the floor of town hall you'd have the ability to amend whatever is decided and vote on it and if the everyone flips out because we're
in a tight economics thing so be it but if everyone sits there and say this is something we all want that's great too it's it's not us ducking this it's just trying to by the same token you know an override could pass that town meeting and then fail at The Ballot Box
so yes I believe tonight for the and I don't know if they make a decision um for the police department override which I think is 550,000 um I'm not sure if the select men are deciding tonight whether to to put it on
the town meeting orange so we might have a little more information on that after their meeting again even with that one does go be by yeah but I mean even if they don't put it on the warrant some them can move to amend their budget and it would
automatically become an override correct and go on correct go to ballot they can you seem to have done this once or twice or counted once or twice um so I guess the other thing is would it seems like we have a
preliminary um idea of what we would like and I'm sure Sarah would like it at 100% like what we what are we like but what we think um is the best cause of action but would the board of assessors want to sponsor this
article or should it be the veterans agent Sarah how does it matter how would you like to do that doesn't matter I mean but I I think it has more pull with with the uh veterans agent we just put it on um in duxberry and we um in the
assessors I'm not opposed to it being either okay um I'm I'm perfectly happy to put I mean I'm not running from that I'm not opposed to it at all I'm just wherever you think you'd get more sway from right I mean I would say that as a veterans agent who uh Roots strictly for veterans
I would like to see both be fully um put on there even though I'm a resident of the town and I know that the financial impact that it would have on the taxpayers um most of the veterans that received this abatement are elderly and they're on limited incomes and I'd
like to quadruple it right I really would but I mean know we're hearing short here short here short there and and they're getting short and then the Vets are getting shed without the cost of living and they've been frozen so it's kind of like so
that's how I see it at least I me we can yeah um so maybe if it was a um a different uh format that um the 100% uh the doubling and the cost of living analysis maybe the should take
it on is what I'm just speaking for me at this point I can get behind the the eye component no matter what at this point but if I think if we're if we are as a board if we want to recommend 50% I could get that then we would do it not
because Sarah would want to do the 100 yes so we want to and there would be no complaint for me if you move to amend on the floor to make it 100 because then the town gets to choose and I have I'd rather whenever there's an override especially when we're tightening our belts I'd rather have the town talk 100%
the town should talk it shouldn't come strictly from me or strictly from um a small group of people so um but yes I I mean having anything on the on the um on the warrant is wonderful for veterans just to get this a little bit more up to
standard the cost of living it's it's an expensive world out there as we all know [Music] so would we like to would you like to make a motion on that you want to wait till are you in agreement with that or do you want to wait you want to make a
vote I don't I don't think stea we heard his opinion on generally I think he would support but if if you're in agreement that the 50% and let the town he wouldn't yeah would it' be two to one so in that case I would yes ABS
absolutely please I'm sorry sorry yeah we're more in we're not used to I mean you're right there and forgive me we never have people so um I respect what you're coming from in
terms of the um Town's budget and all what this same thing um has pointed out most we're not talking about vets in general we're talking about vets who leg they have
disabilities and you more than anybody know how our real estate taxes have really increased and there is a potential for a two and a half override they're going to be discussing it a little later tonight
whether to um put it on the Tom meeting floor um the same vein the disable veterans have not had the increases and this would be most
helpful and I would take the opposite side of your point and if you feel that as you said you'd like to see the veterans quad triple the Ben quad triple the benefits I urge you to recommend full funding of the benefit and if the
town's people feel um that that's too much then they can't amend it to bring it down number one number two you're not talking about a ton of money um with the budget's around 60 M
$60 million and what's 100 grand. 16% of that. 16% um the benefits that are afforded to
you know Town employees and uh non-resident non citizens borrow way the benefits towards disabled veterans um and I would I would urge you to have
the article sponsored by the Veterans office as opposed to your office and um if you can amend it on the floor well if she wants to spensor if the would I would vote in favor of it
but I'm just I I tend to be a fiscal conservative and I agree with everything you said and if I'm on the floor and somebody moves to amend it to the full point I would be a a vote there are um you can be conservative but
what you're almost talking about right or wrong nobody's or I can't imagine anybody who would be against disabled vetrans uh receiving in receiving the increased benefit at
the expense of $50,000 $100,000 for the full boat um and so I would
urge it to be the the full advantage and who and who cares what other TS do which right it's right I do I'm sorry I do and I and I also look at you know is it the Town's responsibility or
those most of the benefits come from the federal government so maybe the federal government should be the one to feeling some pressure not not not not a not town by town over the thousands and thousands of towns that there are in the United
States but this is a state benefit I understand but if I'm what I'm saying is if the the benefits that are paid out to veterans are inadequate um who should fix that I'm not sure it's should be fixed town by
town but that's the options that exists today and um whether that's right or wrong it's a separate discussion yeah my opinion and it's a good opinion and I'm not play I just I beliefs and quite
frankly before the fact that there wasn't the other override I was a hard know just on straight money that override doesn't exist well there's still another override and at the end of the day when people come possibly I will not tonight well the problem is is we've had
so many pet projects which I think are terrible that when we get to one that I actually care about the end of the day I look at the strengths and and I agree with you also not that my opinion this matters the money spent on folks that aren't even
from here is a slap in the face certainly is but I don't have a vote on that either the um and the override you know the schools not you know they came up
with monies so there's no override needed there um and what the police originally wanted has um decreased um terrifically and there's a ginormous thing coming down the pipe on on Water
and Sewer on people well yeah we can't say just in yeah because it's not it it's it's a real thing it's serious it's a serious amount of money for some people who when they bought their homes
you know they had they had a betterment right they didn't expect it to change now all of a sudden out of the blue you know you're going to get hit with another betterment and you have 20 years to pay it off which is not a betterment by definition but yes they're gonna get
hit with another bill I'm one $20,000 El has not just a she has not said she's definit that definitely doing that the Sewer Commission but I believe if it's not if it's not an a betterment it's going to
be it's GNA be a rate right it's gonna be on in either case that's where I'm at they're short that's the bottom line is they're short but I don't disagree with the thing that you said but as you said let the time decide
if they want to decrease it no people will never stand up and say that they're voting to decrease veterans benefits people will stand up to say that they will increase it the door is open and I told people ever listening how they do the door is
open they can do it we we just going to recommend I I I move to approve the uh the cost of living increased at 22 I we going to do them separately yeah all in favor I I um move
to increase uh not to double but to do it by 50% um obviously subject to T approval review all in favor all I that's about it then okay who sponsoring the we are the assessors are going to
sponsor it so we'll see you at town meeting it's gonna be it's G to be three [Music] numbers it's going to be 5 to one z z um
um so you spoke about Federal taking responsibility for this but the state really Massachusetts really does have great uh benefits that on the state level and they brag about it all the time how it's a a a state that people want to live in and the VA does take
quite good care of the veterans that take advantage of those Services too thank you sah thank you thank you guys it was very nice meeting all of you you for thank you for thisis you such a great job and getting all the
numbers the the number will decrease the age range of the veterans that are on it's mostly Vietnam and older and um you know unfortunately they're not going to be around forever so I think they look great although they all look good well thank you sir thank
you guys have a great day thank you thank you thank you for your service thank you thank you yeah so um that's all we have S Open session so EX at 602 I move 10er executive session not to return to
open session in order to comply with Mass General Law chapter 59 section 60 to discuss exemption abatement applications the content of which are not public record second all in favor all right