[Music] Good evening everyone and welcome to the October 9th, 2025 meeting of the Lakeville Conservation Commission. Um we are be being recorded by Lake Cam this evening and I'd like to ask if anybody
else is recording. Seeing no one, um we'll go around and introduce ourselves. Mark Knox, John Lelanc, Michelle Bashard, Nancy Yates, William Mardos, Matthew Ferrero. All right. Tonight we only have one
thing on the agenda which is a Warren article for town meeting which everybody has in front of them. Um we also have here um tonight our town accountant who can explain the process to us and we also have our town administrator.
But um if Mike would come up that would be wonderful and explain how this works. They can both come. Yes, it's the dynamic duo. Um so Mike Ellis, finance director. Um and can kind of go over the accounting
mechanisms for the 53 and a half revolving fund. So right now we take these receipts into the general fund. They just kind of park in a revenue account all fiscal year and then when the books are closed they close as part of our annual free cash certification by establishing the 53E and a half
revolving fund. You would segregate those conservation fees and site plan fees to a separate fund outside of the general fund operating budget where they would be posted as revenue and you can expend from them as allowable under the under the guidelines. Um, this obviously
wouldn't take effect till July 1st. So, anything this fiscal year would remain in the general fund and closes free cash. But if the vote passes tonight starting next fiscal year, we can establish that fund. Um, each year at annual town meeting, you have to vote a spending limit, like essentially a
budget for the special revenue fund. I believe you had done some research. It was between 10 and 15,000 would be a spending cap for it. So basically the revenue goes in, you have free reign as long as it's allowable cost to spend from that fund. As long as you don't exceed the voted budgeted amount.
What if you don't spend it? Stays in the revolving fund. It's cumulative. It rolls over from June 30th to July 1. Yeah. It actually never goes back to the general fund unless we take another vote to rescend the 53 and a half revolving fund.
If we needed to change our max spending limit, does that have to go back to town meeting? Yes. How would that go? Like say we set it too low now it's 10,000. Yeah. Um so can we ask for money mid year? I've had others do it. So
you're exactly right. So it if we have 153 and a half revolving fund or you have 100 every year there's going to be an omnibus now that you've established this policy and it's going to have the spending uh limits voted every year. So, it would just be as simple as kind of going back, looking at what you spent the prior year, what you took in for
revenue, making sure it's a realistic spending cap so we don't deficit spend, and then you would just revote it at that annual town meeting. That's correct. Yep. And we're putting 15. I just noticed on what I reprinted didn't have the 15 on there, but for the actual Warren article, we're putting 15.
But we are limited to the amount of money we bring in in whatever this revenue source is, right? the revenue sources. The town doesn't have to kick in for this. No. No. It comes off of our administrative fees that I showed you before. So, if we don't raise $10,000 in a year,
right? We can't spend We can only spend up to what we have in that account. Right. Up to 10,000. Yeah. If we only take in 5,000, we can't spend over what we take in. Exactly. And if you end up in a deficit at June 30th, it would uh the special
revenue funds actually are a deduction on our free cash. So, it's something that I monitor as town accountant and make sure that we're not uh deficit spending um because we don't want any deductions from the town's free cash. So, so if we if the board were to approve, you know, an approved expense here,
could we make a phone call to even make sure the money's there before we Yeah. And I I actually give us I email monthly reports. It has everything in them, the special revenue funds, it has the general fund operating budget. So, uh every month every department head sees what they have as a balance.
Okay. Beautiful. And I would probably have to bring that to the meeting. If we were going to vote to spend some money, I would bring to the meeting. This is what Mike says we have. Well, we should probably I mean, if you guys if the if the conservation commission gets a financial report every month. Yes.
Why can't we get a copy of it? Sure, you can. Okay. Absolutely. was this uh run by so up basically a very basic one um but the
state within the town meeting warrant unless the conservation commission recommends it formally with a vote right but I guess I'm wondering if they anyone was asked because at town meeting typically FinCom will give their recommendation so FinCom hasn't weighed in on this um
select board only really high on a high level discussed it at a prior meeting. Well, ultimately it's a town vote, so doesn't matter what we say here. If we put it up there and it doesn't get voted, it's a it's a rude point. We have warrant review in a couple weeks
or finance would put their kind of say on it, but to date, they haven't said anything. Okay. Does the finance committee put say anything about it at warrant review? I can't remember. They take a vote to whether they recommend it or not. I think at warrant review. Yeah. What I've done, at least in the last town meeting I've done, is I put on
the warrant that I passed out at town meeting who recommended it or not. Yeah, that's what I I guess my point is. I don't feel that we should be bringing it to town meeting if FINCOM and the select board
don't support it. Okay. But we don't have that information yet. I know. And we have to if we're going to do it, we have to do it. disapproved. Yeah, there's steps. So, I understand that there's steps, but they probably should have started 3
months ago and maybe we could have asked those questions so we don't have to go to town meetings within when Fincom says we do not recommend this and then that typically governs Yeah.
why even take it if you didn't ask them. Well, I would think after warrant review if they weren't going to recommend it. I I don't know. Then we would have to see if we could pull it, I guess. But so if we if we approve this tonight to go to the warrant. Yes.
And the the board of the selectman and the finance committee don't like it. Do we have the option to pull it off the warrant before the town meeting or not? No. Once so that the next meeting on October 14th, we're taking a vote to also accept articles but also post the warrant. Okay.
And this would be frozen in time, I guess. We would have to make a motion at town meeting basically to to withdraw it to withdraw it and then they'd have to vote. They'd have to vote on that. How does this Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
Sort of two questions. I can Yeah, go one after the other. Um, how does this compare to the revolving funds for the other boards that do have those already set up? I don't. Yeah. So you can kind of have
revolving is kind of like an umbrella term, right? It's money in money out. Um when you vote this to be a specific 53E and a half, that's when all the stipulations come that you have to annually vote the spending uh limit, the spending caps, it has to be allowable, you know, under Massal law, all the
costs that are charged there. Um so the term revolving fund is kind of like an umbrella term, if you will. So um you know, there's agency funds that are similar to revolving funds as well. So, this one really just revolves around the vote of annual town meeting the spending
limit. Um, you know, a little more guidance involved than a regular revolving fund. So, it'll be the town's first. Yeah, it'll be the town's first. No other boards have this? No. No, excuse me. Uh, the Middleboro Lakeville Hering Commission has revolving fund
controlled by Middleboro. Yeah. Um if it's controlled by MBA in their books, um I'm not privy to it, but um I believe they they did it at a town meeting when I was in Yeah, in my previous town, I think we had over 30 of of 53 and a half, right? It's not unusual for a town to
have this. It's just came to pass that ours didn't. Yeah, we I mean, we had two pages of spending caps we voted at town meetings. So, uh yeah, I was surprised to see that we haven't had one voted through yet. Yeah. So, have we had one proposed? I'm just curious if would you guys know that?
Not in my year here. Have that I've seen. I don't know if you've seen one. I don't know either. I don't remember. I don't remember one being proposed, but I haven't been at every town meeting you. And it's it's not I mean, you don't have to h have them. I mean, the money just goes into the general fund and closes as part of the operation.
Well, it does pull money out of the uh the rainy day fund, right? It it pulls money out of out of our budget. Yeah. So we for example use an estimated that's kind of why I don't think it's going to be well received. We use an estimated receipt of $10,000 for these. So to your point, yeah, we
we'll lose that revenue source in the general fund operating budget. Yeah. But this would be letting the people decide actually, especially in the times that we're in now with a lot of um housing and stuff being like crammed down the town's throat. I would think
that this would give us some tools and specifically we've talked about this before about somebody about writing a wetland bylaw and that would have in it the ability to find because we've had a lot of violations in town and we're
continually frustrated that we can't do anything about it when people absolutely violate and destroy the environment. I mean, we can go to D, but no offense to D, but they're not always a lot of help. Um, so and it's a little bit of money.
And I did talk to I can't poll the finance committee, but I did talk to one member of the finance committee who didn't seem to have a problem with it cuz it's not going to break the town budget that we probably won't even get close to the $15,000 spending limit seeing as the year we took in 8,000. Uh,
the most money we take in is overrads. It's a dollar a foot and when they did Rocky Woods it was like $1,500 we took in just off of that one um our agency fees it's a dollar a foot. So we've had a couple of ANRADs that were large
areas. So on a regularly year like in 2024 I think it was 6,000 and something. So, we really don't take that much that wouldn't and you can see what the allowable expenses are that would help us be able to
spend money on a few things that we can't use the state fees for. We just can't use those state fees for some of these things. It also eliminates an extra step. If you need to have some funds for one of these things here, then you have to go to a town meeting and apply for it and you
see if you get it. Whereas if we have it access it shortens amount of time we can respond to whatever we need. Right. And I don't think that that little amount of money is gonna kill the town budget at this point. And I think it's something that I don't see why we
can't let the people decide. And I think we have a good case for it for it to pass. There's a lot of things that haven't passed in the past and uh are starting to now because we're so threatened by outside
the state especially making us do a lot of things that we don't necessarily have control over. How does this uh what happens to money that we have that was donated or put in, you know, a memorial trust that was earmarked specific for conservation? We
have some pots of money. Does this impact that at all? Does that stay? No. Yeah, it's a totally different fund. It's in a gift and donation account held separately outside of the revolving fund and the general fund operating budget. So, that's kind of a third. Yeah, we have one for books from Joe's
wife that passed away and one from Bob. Mhm. I just wanted to make sure that this wouldn't change any other money that we already had earmarked that if we moved to this model that we would somehow be losing access to something. Any conservation gifts and donation
would stay exactly the same. Anybody else? So, can somebody can I have a motion that um would recommend to the board of selectmen that we would like to put this forth in the warrant article for town meeting?
So moved. So a second. Right. Let's take a roll call vote. Mark Knox I. John Leblanc I. Michelle Bashard I. Nancy Yates. I wro.
Motion passes. Thank you very much, John. Motion to adjurnn. Second. All in favor? I I I Thank you both very much. Thank you.