Um, welcome everybody to the board of assessors meeting uh October 1st, 2025 of the town of Lunberg. We are calling ourselves to order at 7:31. Not bad. In accordance with the requirements of the open meeting law,
please please be advised that this meeting is being recorded over the Lindberg public access channel on Facebook live on the public access Facebook page which is httpsw.fas.com/lindberg-public-access-cable facebook.com/lindberg-public-access-cable-157427 270
975305/ recording can be found on the Lunberg access YouTube channel after the meeting most likely tomorrow this meeting will be held in person at this location which is the river building downstairs members of the public are welcome to attend this in person meeting. Please note that while an option for remote
attendance and or participation is being provided as a courtesy of the public, the meeting will not be suspended and not terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual broadcast unless otherwise required by law. Members of the public with a particular interest in any specific item on this agenda should make
plans for inerson in-person versus virtual attendance accordingly. For remote participation from a computer, please use uh the following link to join the Zoom meeting. https/ us02b.zoom. [Music]
USJ slash 811520002194. The meeting ID again is 811-520194. From a telephone, you can dial the toll-free number which is 8884754499 and then that same webinar ID which I'll
give you one more time which is 811 52002194 pound sign. If you have not registered with Zoom, you'll be asked your name and email address. No participant ID is needed. Just press the pound sign when asked. Telephone users may dial in star
9 to request to speak after joining the meeting. Computer app users may use the raise hand feature to request to speak. Additionally, please be advised the town of Lunberg utilizes the Zoom platform as its host for hybrid and remote meetings.
that the Zoom platform utilizes AI technology known as AI companion to create audio transcriptions of the meetings to aid in the subsequent preparation of meeting minutes and that AI companion is activated immediately upon launching the Zoom application. You are hereby notified that this AI
technology may capture audio prior to the start of meeting andor following the conclusion of the meeting. The agenda lists all topics which may be discussed at the meeting and those reasonably anticipated by the chair. Votes may be taken as a result of these discussions. Not all items listed may in
fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by the public permitted by the open meeting law. Call us to order at 7:35. If we would intro introduce ourselves
for those people who are not here, Sarah, Linda Cha and Brian Lead. Thank you. Um, are there any opening comments from the board?
Not for me. Uh, is there anyone on? No. Public. Okay. Move on to the status report from the principal assessment. Some papers are being thrown my way while I was reading all that stuff. Sorry.
[Music] Okay. Um we had four abunders lists for the month of September. Those those are requests from requests for abunders. Uh we also um
received 43 motor vehicle excise tax abatements within the month of September. Uh they have all been processed in UNUNICE which is our financial system and uh they're awaiting payment processing by the tax collector.
So, we've done that uh portion. Um, we mailed out our fiscal 2026 real estate exemption applications the 1st of September. They've already already started receiving the applications.
Quite a few have come in. Uh the deadline I wanted to emphasize to people is April 1, but if they send them in by say mid November, we will process them and they will pay on the next actual tax bill.
The sooner they ask for money, the sooner they get it. Exact. Well, we sending them to people who had previously Yeah. filed. We did. We have been sending them. Uh I have had a few questions because we now have the 17 E and F.
Yes. With the colar. And uh we also have the 41D which replace C. So the new amounts for the 41D was a,000 with the 2.9% cost of living increase. It's,029 for
that exemption. And we also when we went to town meeting adjusted the income and asset limits on the 41D which included the asset amount on the 17
uh E uh which um there's no income with that. So we increase that with the color as well. My question is we have had a few applicants that have come in and with the increase in the social security
uh that they received and um last year we used what we had been honoring before we went to town meeting. So with that increase uh some of these people are like a couple hundred dollars away from uh the
income limit. So we used to in the past we would take the social security deduction. So I looked into that and on the IGR which is theformational guidelines
release it didn't mention the 41D. So today I made a call into the DLS, the lawyer of the day, and spoke with one of the attorneys, and we can utilize the social security deduction, which for a
single person is $5,980. and if uh for their spouse is 2,990. So a married couple would receive a social security deduction of 8,970 which would come off of their income and
that eligible and that's going to help them eligible which was great because we really want to assist people. So uh so we've um we've started uh looking at the applications. uh we will go over them in
executive session probably not this time but the the next meeting and uh so that was good news because um I checked with a couple of other assessors who indicated no because the 41D includes cola you cannot use that so at least I
was able to verify that we can so that's a good thing because I was going to say we we have added cola to kind of to try to avoid this very scenario yeah But well, yeah, I'm glad that Yeah, that other option also still available.
So, that was good news today. So, that clarification basically puts all those people back into the pool. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. Great. Good work. Yeah. Well, wasn't easy. I I I was trying to figure out why because Well, I
mean, this is the first year we've had the 41D with the cola. So, so it's good. So somebody that had 17 last year will now qualify for 41D in some cases. Good. Yeah. This one applicant. So So that's a
good thing. So that's the update on the exemptions. Uh we've also received chapter land applications uh that are starting to come in. The deadline to file for the fiscal year 2027 chapter land applications is
December 1st. So we've received quite a few. We have um required on both the real estate exemptions that we have all the required paperwork that hadn't been done in the past. So, we are enforcing that. Uh some
of the residents have been questioning it. I haven't had to do that in the past. Well, we need that. We need the support. So, we're requiring, you know, for the veterans, they have to have the letter from the VA and all the proper paperwork because we want our records
up to date. Uh, and also with the chapter land as well, uh, Robin had sent out with the applications, everything that was required. So, we're enforcing that. Any new chapter land properties, uh, will be required to have
a a lean. Uh, the application must be filled out. And I actually have a roll back tax invoice for 222 West Townsen Road. I should give you a copy of that. This one decided the first refusal on
that. So this tablet was showing that Um in addition to that uh we did send out the final notice for the functional and economic obsolescence discounts
uh that were appearing on the property record card and and I'll go through this again. So fun somebody received a functional obsolescence discount and these range back even beyond 2021.
uh if it had no explanation, we were ordered by the Department of Revenue to remove those. Uh we've notified these people that had those discounts. We notified them of that requested for them to call the office for inspection.
We've sent out two letters. If we haven't received our response, we took the discount off. Uh I did have an inspection the other day, so as people get them, we're still going out and and inspecting. So, um I have I know we're
going to talk about that later in the agenda. So, I do have the totals on that. Uh in most cases, we've been able to do the inspection and we found out items that the condition or the um there was a
discrepancy on something. So, the discount actually didn't make that much of an impact on the people that have caught us in some instances. So, We've notified them in the mail. We've sent the updated property record card so
that any questions, we've encouraged them to call the office and we will go out and inspect. Clean up. Great clean. Excellent. So, and and again, uh we've been ordered by the Department of Revenue to to address these if it's no explanation
taken off. I did want to mention that vision appraisal uh has a list and most of those are economic. So they would use those to adjust on their commercial. Uh and I did ask them they're still
working on an interim. So I did ask them if there are the due date was yesterday. Yeah. If there are any changes to notify us so we can notify the business owners. So, I haven't heard anything about that, but I know they're looking at that, which might be a reason for the delay. But I
did remind them today that the the contract said September 30th. So, do you know when you're going to give us information? Because I do want to submit to Do and we also want to do an old versus new list and go through and look
at what values have changed so we can look for Yeah. I don't want it just deposited on us the night of the meeting. Right. Yeah. Um which understandably that happened in the past, but
it's not understandable at this point. Right. So, we've already gone through an old versus new list, but they're not done making their changes yet. So, I'm going to run. That's mostly commercial or is that not true? Uh the residential is mostly done. The
commercial is okay. hasn't been from what I can see, but we still clearly don't know what those interim adjustments are. So, at this point, I won't know that until they get back to us. Mhm. So, I'm hoping they didn't give you an estimate date.
No, maybe it'll show up in your mailbox tomorrow. I I hope so, but Mike Turner does know that I I told him I board of assessors is asking for when we're going to receive that, and the contract was September 30th. So, So, we have no recourse if they don't
meet the contract, right? There's nothing in the contract that says they have to pay us if they're late. Yeah. Yeah. Not that not that I'm aware of. I can check. I'm pretty sure that's true. Yeah. Maybe we should think about future contracts. Yeah. But I was assured that it would be on
time, but I'm giving them the benefit of doubt that we have had a few things that we've discovered. And just saying, yeah, in the three years we've been here, we've never been on time. So, I'm hoping uh he said he will try for this week.
Oh, he did. Yeah. And then that's encouraging because that means it might be early next week for Well, but then I came back and said, "By the way, the deadline was the 30th. So, can you please give me a date?" My assessor, you need to start quoting Star Wars.
That do not. There is no try. Yeah. Yeah. So, but he will try for this week. Excuse me. I'm going to move this microphone from behind the computer. I bet you it's blocking us.
Probably blocking me now. Okay. I'll speak loudly. Can you hear us? Okay. Yeah, I can hear you. Thank you. Okay. Uh we did also submit the fiscal year 2026 40S smart growth cost report uh for the motor vehicle excise tax and the
additional property tax revenue uh mostly for the tri town drive. Uh so that was submitted in September to um DLS and the state I believe the town will receive growth for that.
Uh, I provided you with the letter for the roll back Texas for 222 West Townsen Road. So, and you said the select board has refused. Yeah. Good. First refusal
formally. Yes. Probably last night. Uh, Jen told me today that they Well, I'm not sure if it was last night or the the week before. I knew I knew it was going to be one of the two meetings, but but I did submit that to Jen so that she has that.
Can you make a request of Jen? Could she document that refusal? Yes. To us in a letter to us. Okay. That way we could put the file. Yeah. Many things are word of both. If you write it down, then you have a record of
it. Yeah. And that's pretty much it for the accomplishments. U again, waiting on vision at this point. Hopefully, uh we will get that information and then as soon as I received that, I don't want to
stop sending it out of the state. I did inform Becky Buché that in DOI, which is our rep that we're still working on that. As soon as I receive it, I'm going to start went through which is the first thing you just all the prep work is done on our end. Yeah. So there's not much we can do
until No, we're just waiting. Um we actually um I went through this last time but the growth which I did give you the handout on that. Uh I'm waiting on the growth from RRC which is our personal property vendor.
They said that they would most likely have that tomorrow. But just on the the the fiscal 2026 growth for the residential, commercial, industrial, and chapter land is 392,380. Uh that's tax dollars. Uh and with RRC,
uh we're definitely going to be over what we had estimated, which was 400,000 people. How much was that? 400 400,000 is what we Yes, we certainly. So we're we're almost at that. That's great. We will pass by that. I just don't know the exact figure. So, I should hopefully
have that finalized by tomorrow, if not Monday. But that's good news for me. And um as far as my goals, uh hopefully submitting LA3, 15, LA4, and LA 13 in
the next couple weeks. And the Are we We probably got to use the names. Yeah. So people sales not just the LA's I know it's like it's like the whole world's going to know what it's like Greek LA so first we submit our sales right uh and then it can we'll get the sales
comparison report and then I'm just suggesting for for next time we have we know what's what's what you're working on right now but in the future we probably ought to say you know LA4 is this LA 13 is that yeah um and then you we obviously want
to get our high values submitted and approved So that's the goal. Uh but I can actually once I have the levy amount I can start working on the classification hearing which will be mid November. So I do know we have a town meeting on November 18th.
Yeah. We can't have the classification hearing on that date. So what when in mid November we shooting for before or after? I thought I think so too. I thought I had that.
It has to be with the select boards. That means it's got to be Tuesday and it's going to be the 11th or the 25th. 25th is probably Thanksgiving. So, it's probably not that. The 11th is Veterans Day. Yeah. We'll be due. That's Monday. Monday's Veterans Day is not Monday. It's one of those Monday holidays, isn't
it? Isn't Veterans Day one of those Monday holiday? It's possibly I made an error. I don't think it's a Monday, though. I think it's a Tuesday. No, the actual date is this is the 11th. But I think that that I date is celebrate the
holiday. Otherwise, you have to be it's possible. Otherwise, you have to be done by the 4th. Yeah. Town meeting is 18th. Let me see if I have not I'll have to get back to you on the date
that we discussed for the the meeting. I know I mentioned it before for the classification hearing. For the classification hearing. Yes. So, um that is it. Uh from my report. That's it. That's it. Uh, quick question. We've got a note
from DLS asking us to accelerate our free cash reporting. When would we be doing that? I'll have to chat with Izzy on that. I'm not sure. Or Jen, we all got the note today from DLS. So,
we may not have seen it, but they're looking to accelerate it because otherwise we're not they're going to get backed up. I don't know when free cash will be done, but we need to get an estimate about or an idea when that could be done. Hopefully that's something Izzy's work
on cuz the blue is the day off for Veterans Day, which is Tuesday. Tuesday, November. It's blue. Yes, that means it's a day off.
Okay. It's not a Monday holiday. Sorry. I've been mistaken before. I apologize. I might be mistaken again. I'm just happy I put that in my calendar. Hey, that's last year's count.
Okay. Um, anything else we'll catch uh as we go, I think, as we go through. Yeah, I didn't go through everything because I know we're talking about some of the other items in our business.
Okay. Uh moving up to minutes, I guess. I've submitted minutes for amended minutes for So I motion to approve the minutes of
April 2nd as amended by you. Okay, I'll second that. Any further discussion? No. So on the mark approved and today is October 1st.
I suggest minor changes on the amendment or on the minutes of April 16th. You want to initial that too? Yep. It's on the second page. It's okay if you want to look. Not yet. Okay.
Now, Linda, we're going to give you this. This is the one that needs to be given to the town clerk. Okay. With our initials on. So, the need to be scanned in or something. Okay. Um,
so it's on 16. Yeah. I recommend changing up to Oh, probably. Jeez. The second page money just before current business. I'm going to mark on this one so it all together.
And then instead of a rough reimbursement and reimbursement of roughly or estimated at 103 minor work. You see what I'm saying?
Um, you want to write reimbursement of of roughly instead of rough reimbursement. I'm okay with that, too. of I think that number is right of3, uh, 237.
Yes, that's what we said in the meeting. Okay. So, that's it. Is that it? So, a motion to accept the minutes of April 16th as currently amended. Okay, I'll second that. I'll have to get another copy that has that corrected and
then I can issue it. I think if we just have one fine October one. Okay. Motion to accept the minutes of May 5th as presented. I'll second that. I
I approved that one again. So, at the at the meeting of the 16th of a of April, we approved the minutes of April
2nd for the executive session, but they're not posted on the website. So, if you can find them and get them posted onto the website, that'd be great. Okay? If you can't find them, let me know. We'll figure out how where they went. Okay?
At the meeting of May 5th, we reviewed minutes executive session of April 16th which which our former colleague Mr. Rabbit took a copy and wanted to make some changes and never got them back to us. So I will make a call to see if I can get those minutes back from Mr.
Rabbit. If we don't, we'll just go ahead with the minutes without any amendments from him. Okay. And that was three out of about eight or 10 that we have left to do. So I got more to catch up on. But it's time consuming.
Danielle does a great job of trying to follow what we're saying and sometimes you can't hear it or if you were there you went, "Oh, I I know the context on that. That's that's not what I meant." But so you have to go I have
to listen to the entire thing a couple times actually. So it takes a while. Thank you. It's okay. Actually, it reminds me of things like those executive session minutes that we didn't get back. So
So I'll do that. Um we have several more. They're they seem to be briefer so I think they won't be as hard to review. if they're brief. Did you want to look at the winds of September 3rd?
I didn't look that far. We can you look at them. Was there something? Oh, you had some changes. Yeah. Um it'll be something I'll look at. Okay. We will be Well, I can I can use that, please. Okay.
So, when I review them, I'll have already have your input. Great. Okay. So, thank you for Okay, that's it. Minutes for the moment. Minutes for the moment. Um, invoices, expense, bouch, billing
errors. Nothing. Oh my goodness. Okay. Uh, sales report. Oh, here's the updated one. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
You sent us a digital copy this evening. I did. I did not get a chance to look at it yet. And how have you modified it since we got it last? I took out all the These are all uh arms length valid sales. Nice. Thank you.
So, this just gives you an idea. So, again, um we want our sales to assessment ratio to be between 90 and So, I should go through it if if you see I'm sorry to be difficult, but is this
also separated by neighborhood? It's what? Is it separated by neighborhood? No. Okay. It's not. But later on, I want to talk to you about something that we can do to make our life so much easier. So, when
you ask me to do that, I can do it. I can plot it on a map. You did that. So, that's great. Yeah. Yeah. Is that within vision? We're waiting for you to be Yeah. Yeah. Actually, it is. We have So, that's great news. That's coming. But this is something I
have to call vision to to assess me with. Okay. Well, I'm I'm really excited just to see these. But I'm also like I want to figure out what they are neighborhood because index. Well, I
site index add it and I didn't ask for that before, but now that I see it here, I'm like, "Oh, I think that be cool." Yeah. I'm sorry. I didn't think to mention it. Do you want me to get another report and add beside indexes?
I think we next time before you request that report, we should see if there's anything else we want, but it looks I don't think there is. Okay. Oh, I just know that we need that. Yeah, we do. And speaking of that, there
were no bids for the neighborhood review. So, I did talk with Jen because we'd like to do it in house if we can. Uh, and she's just throwing around a couple
of ideas. I'm thinking if we can upgrade our our mapping and have some technology that's going to help us do more analysis, we could probably do it. Just that you can get some of that in vision makes me wonder what else can be done in vision.
Um I I mean I don't have the vision database in front of me so it's impossible for me to know. Well, the nice thing is um talk about it when we go through, but there is some technology that a map will update vision mapping is kind of integrated.
That's exactly what you need. It is. It's perfect. Uh so they did a demo. So that's kind of what we do. If there are some training things on vision, I could probably look into them and see what can be done. If if you
Yeah. run across those. I want to share those with me. I did forward you uh the sales rep that came in. I did forward you a couple videos. Okay. Tonight, but I got that from him. So, I did forward it to you just so you can see
because it it might be that you can do some of this other stuff there and that would help a lot. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yep. So, these are the sales of Anything in particular you'd like to point out? Do
we have a lot that fall outside the 90 to 110 like the first one? There's one that's 2.21. Yeah. Looks like it's on a field road. Yeah, that might be new construction. So, it's like stuff like that.
Oh, some that are super low too. Envision actually. uh looked at these and they use this data to make our interim adjustments. Perfect. So this is currently sorted based upon
rama p. I don't really care what a net rama p is. I'd really like to see this sorted based upon the percent of change. Oh yeah. Then you can look at the high ones and you can look at the low ones and you can say why are they outside what we expected. I can actually sort I will sort that
out. There's a 3.8 eight. Yes, there is. Which may not be the top one, but it's going to be a big one. It looks like it's so far giving. Oh, it's two. It's two units. Yeah. I'm not sure.
Sold a different thing. We can't Yeah. talk about Yep. yet any specific location. But on that one, what which one do you want? On the first page, right about the middle, there's one that's 3.8. And it says 623.
Yeah. So there were two on the same address. Yeah. Do you know anything about that or not? If you don't know, it's okay. Might be a separate landline on that. I have I'll have to look at that because if you look at the sale
Yeah. We have We now have a new thing with uh you can put accessories in unit. Yes. Oh, so we've got Yeah. So yeah, that happens again on the last
page with 5029 run. It's 281 Linster Shirley. Y I mean those stand out and I'm just skimming. So yeah, cool.
So this is just 144. Mhm. 154 cells. Yeah. qualified sales. Yep. Not bad. And again, Vision's looking they're actually looking at these right now. I
know they're doing the analysis and these sales were used to make our internal adjustments. Okay. So, I said to hold off on requesting new report, but what what else would we want to hold off on for? Sorry.
Oh, for them? Well, I'm going to actually get a a report to submit it to the Department of Revenue from them. I inquired about that earlier this week because I kind of thought, well, if you've done the sales portion of it, is
can I at least submit the L3, which is the sales Mhm. and they're waiting on the whole process to be complete before they submit that to us. Wow. So, when we get a new report from them, when?
No, when we do. I don't mean when do we, when we do, if you can have including neighborhoods or site indexes, um, I think we'll be all set. I can't think of anything else. And then we can resort it based upon whatever we do.
Are these all just residential? There were a few condos. Let's see. 101's single family. 102 is a 390V. Uh there's 149 summer is a commercial property.
So the four the 400s are the um industrial. Okay. So this is everything in town saleswise. Yeah. So we might see some different numbers when we get down to residential. How many did you say it was all
together? 154. There's 154. $12.99 are those condos that are not the industrial condos on. Yeah. But that interim report they give us should split these out. Oh yeah. Yeah. They'll indicate on the interim the
adjustments the land sales. They'll look at the land sales. He'll indicate the land adjustments. I've noticed in vision that he has made some adjustments already. We just haven't gotten the final the final thing the final number. So we're just checking. All right. So
thank you Anything else you wanted to point out on here for us or did you have any other questions? Uh, no. I think I think if if we make sure those residentials get out by neighborhood, I'm sorry, by site index
index because it covers everything instead of just the Yeah. Yep. Um, as long as we make sure they they show those and have that analysis by those site indexes, too. Sorry. So we
really understand and um I would like to see and and I I think they will do this. They they make an aggregate like of of how many um per like let's say we're looking at site three which
has like hundreds of homes which is a lot of he'll make uh when he did the adjustments before you know the fiveyear he had like oh there was 300 homes and this is what they sold for and here's how much they adjusted.
But what we also need is a list of of those of those houses. I don't know if they'll they didn't do it last year on the interim. I know they did it for the reval, but but we'll need we'll need that and we'll
need we'll need the print out of what the adjustments are for each house so we can look through those. Well, because that question is going to come up with this. That'll be the old versus new report that I'm going to run. Yeah, they'll we can we could probably get that from from that and Denise and I got
to do a a good check of that and go through the look at and everything. And so if we can preempt that report by saying we need to see it the residential, we need to see it by site index,
then we need to see it by in that site index within that site index by the percent change, right, from highest to lowest. So we can all skim and go, okay, this looks reasonable or that doesn't look reasonable. What's going on? It's just a sort. We can do a sort.
We can do it. Yeah. But we have we have to make sure that when we're looking at it, that's what we're y we see so that we can look at it efficiently. And he did give last year that whole
detailed report of each site index in the the neighborhoods on the well side on the waterfront the percentage increase and there wasn't really much last year. So he did break it down. I'm I'm assuming he's going to do the same. I'll ask for the same as
what we got last year because that land chart when we were doing the abatements, I actually referred to that as to the the cost. Yeah. Increases and what what the change was on the land. Perfect. Just thinking of that tax
classification hearing. We'll want to have that in your hands. In our hands. Why? The meeting ended. The meeting ended out after 90 minutes of being idle. That's odd. Why? Why? Why did it do that?
We didn't. It wasn't 90 minutes. 40 minutes of idleness cuz we didn't touch the thing. So, would you a meeting again? Crazy. Was it? But it should have been recording. sort
of is expecting us to jump up and down. I don't know why it's never done that to us before. Oh, it's waiting for the host. But okay, we're being recorded. Okay, that's
strange. Okay. You told Heidi that we were not starting until 7:30. Yeah, I copied everybody on the uh Okay. I just don't know why it stopped like that. It's never done that
before. Zoom is dead. Um I did check out the recording. Oh, actually, look it. It's back. Waiting for the host to start the meeting. But it is a sign in. It won't sign in because there's no meeting.
Okay, moving on. Okay, we will not let technology stop the meeting. No, we won't. As we said earlier, okay. Okay. So, that's that's done. Okay. So,
so hopefully I get all the information within next week. I'm really anxious to just So, are we Yeah, I don't want to wait till the last minute. I I don't like waiting till the
last minute. That would be done. We did um have Randy Marcier come in the office this week and um or actually, excuse me, last week. We did talk with
him yesterday on the possible IDs and the number of characters. So right now we can have 11 characters in our vision code and so condos are typically at the very end. So he's actually working with
my lean to make some of the adjustments on the 2025 bills so that any discrepancies we had last year is all set. So, moving forward, we have 11 digits for our parcel ID
and uh we actually did a a test on uh the uh the bridge. There's still an issue with the personal property bridge, so he put in a request to Munice. Uh but he is such an asset and just the day
that he spent with us was so helpful. we were able to get our exemptions. So, we're going to put our exemptions in vision and last year we had a duplicate. Remember, I spent I spent all the time doing it over in units, right? Yeah. So they're going to be in the
vision file and then when we export it over and go over the bridge from vision into munis which is our financial system the exemptions should automatically appear with the amounts the correct amounts and hopefully we don't have any
issues but he is just such an asset. So, I'm really hoping that he can come in to help us with the prelim billing every year. We can get it done one day for the prelim and one day for the actual and we
won't have any of these issues with Mun because Munis the support is just awful and he knows Mun, right? Okay. Um,
status of economic and functional obsolescence property record card disc. This got a notification of property. Yep. So, that's a long one. It is. I made you a copy just to show you what what these were. The D put that together.
Thank you. This is the functional and it kind of tells you what what the issue was um exactly what we did. So again we we did
make two attempts letters were sent to the homeowner. Uh the second letter after we had no response, we sent the property record card with the discount removed and told them if they had any
questions to call the office. So on the functional which is again there was some kind of a issue with the building if it had no notes. There's a note like there's one here that had unhab no plumbing. So, if we
didn't hear from if it's if we heard from the homeowner, we inspected it to verify that actually the the note that was on the card was a valid. So, after we inspected it, if we found it,
it really shouldn't be a discount. We removed it. So, uh the total um of those discounts uh was $8,231.15
tax assessed value was $573,200 and again these people were receiving these discounts from I don't know how God knows how long ago and the do is tell us we if there's
it's not valid. If if the note isn't warranted, you have to remove them. So, again, great job of cleanup. So, that's the functional and the um the ones that haven't called back, just remove their discounts.
Yep. Okay. And if they don't like it, they may let us know. They can let us know. Uh go do an inspection and Yep. We're we still have some time. If if they want to call the office, we will gladly go out and inspect it.
And while we're there, we're inspecting the entire property and checking the accuracy of the property record card. Am I only seeing four here that haven't called back? Nice. Yeah. So, we've made an effort to to
reach as many people as we can. Uh most people aren't even aware of these discounts. That's the sad part is some of them weren't even aware that they receive them and we wouldn't have had any knowledge if we didn't
started to investigate it. So that's on the functional and let me give you the economic uh this is the economic and these do not include what was submitted to vision uh because anything most of those were
commercial what was submitted to vision vision appraisal. So what we we submitted the list to them to go through. We took care of these oh on the residential end but the commercial adjustments for both
functional and economic we submitted to them because they they handle that. I know in the past they meaning vision they'll they'll make the changes. Yeah. I I asked him to look at those and advise us if any of those discounts if
he was going to remove them so that we could notify the the business owner. But so again, economic is anything outside the house, the the the site, uh whether it's the gas station next door, anything address
not to do with the the house itself. It appears there are six here that got no response. And on this one, the these discounts rep with taking them off and with inspections uh is $845,600
in assessed value, which is equivalent to $12,142 tax dollars. Yep. And in addition to this, I I started I know I mentioned this in the last meeting
that we had. started some standards with what we're going to do across the board, whether they're in railroad tracks, if they have access in to the basement from the exterior, like different things that would be standard because
again, our our goal in assessing is to be consistent. We have to be consistent and that's what wasn't done. So we're stopping that and repeatable. Yeah. Perfect.
Sounds like science. So that's just a Thank you. Yep. Um 41A warrant income limitation increase. I sent over a draft and I have a
different one. So I think I have the minor modifications that added an explanation too. You have the one with the explanation. Yes. Okay. You have did you print one? I I printed one. Did you see what did
you mention? No. No. Not yet. Okay. Um I didn't. You said Jack. I couldn't do that. Sorry. do it later.
Um, it was there anything on here that folks wanted to change? I thought that looked like it needed to be changed or would be would clarify the explanation. I'm happy to There's no prior authorship here. Let me just check that.
This made sense to me. I was wondering if we needed a sentence to review. We'll have to go through the end. Okay. And he may indeed make some changes for not. I'm just But what I did was I pulled last year's as it was written
as it was approved and then pulled out the stuff that was not applicable and then added the stuff that I thought made sense to add in around the income because we one of them had income and assets. Yeah. and I pulled that assets part out
and I put just the income and then I changed it a little bit so it reflected it for you. Made sense to me. So I I don't have any. And I'm happy to add more clarification on the explanation if anybody thinks that we need it. I don't think we do.
And by the way, we discovered that it was exactly two decades ago that we had $20,000. Tada. Nice work. So it was like ph 20 years ago. Yeah. And the income level requirement
hadn't changed that whole time. So it's any wonder that we had an application last year that was rejected because the income levels because those income levels were obscenely small. Right. We only have one right now that's active
in the town. I check my name. We all have one. We have just one. Really? Yeah. How old is it? Deferral. Uh I don't know how old it is, but it's the only one that's after not in my time that I've been here. We haven't had any. So,
didn't the verbiage say they have to apply every year? So, have we not seen the application every year? I have not seen seen any applications for the 41A. I just like to double check that. I think that it is required to apply every year because people could have already
died with no application. We wouldn't know that. Well, they have to keep showing the if they qualify. Y can we find out? I had asked that question before and I thought the answer was no. No.
So, if there is actually indeed one, we need to do some investigation on that one. Okay. We want to make sure that all documents are available. Yeah, cross etc. If they're eligible for it, great.
Great. Yes. But so, uh, I'm going to submit this as is to the town manager for the warrant. Or you have it. You can submit it for us. Yeah. Yeah. I, um,
does it need to go to the lawyer and then to the town manager or look on the town manager and let her figure out for Okay. I forwarded this to her. So I can just the final one with the explanation. I forwarded that and but I didn't say it was final because I knew we got to discuss. I the last one
forward that and say that what happened two. The board approved it. I don't know. Here's two. I know I have rev two on here but it's not on here. Okay. It's okay. Yes, you send this over to it. Actually probably has some uh red
text because I put text in red to show where the differences were. So, I'll send the number to you that cleaned up. Okay. and you can submit it to her or whatever review they want to go through.
The deadline is tomorrow. So, I know. So, you can do it tomorrow. Good. Good job. We'll get that done. I wanted to mention the other 41A or Yeah. 41A situation. You can talk about 41A.
So, I was formed this morning. J and I were discussing a warrant and uh So Jack about two weeks ago submitted a warrant to have the 41A adopted and also
to decrease the interest rate from the council on a from the COA. I didn't know he he did that. So, we were just talking about warrants and Jen brought that up and I said, "Oh, so, so after looking
at what was submitted, we don't have to accept 41A because it is a state Mhm. mandated that is not local option. We've already made adjustments to 41A 20
years ago. So the implication is if we needed to accept it, we must have accepted it because we're now modifying it. Yeah. So we don't need to do that. The modification was to drop the interest rate to 4%. Which is what the article that was
submitted by the council on aging said, which doesn't make any sense because we don't it's it's duplicative. It is already and it's it's it's not necessary. So that was my feedback to the town manager. She can do what she wants with the piece of paper they got from the
from the council agent. Okay. I don't know why the council would want to do that. We already have all of those things in place or both of those things in place.
So I I haven't watched the Council on Aging meetings. So And I I don't know how it came about. I don't either. Yeah, but I'm sure it was well intentioned. That'd be my guess. Misunderstanding of
something and well intentioned. So, let's make some changes. So, anyway, so that one's a Thank you for submitting that information to the town manager so the town manager can make a decision. So, we had a conversation today.
I was in the parking lot at grocery store. And only once that a motorcycle went by your thing. How can you repeat that? Um, master plan response. I tried to get to this tonight.
Well, honestly, I have been remiss because I said I was going to take a look at it. and it it slipped my mind and really didn't have time for it because I was trying to do minutes and stuff. Um, Linda has done a little bit of work on it. So, I've
asked her to send it back to me because it's ultimately my responsibility because I said I would do it and I will try to get something done for our next meeting at least and maybe sooner because I would wait for a response soon. That was the end of October. Yeah, I think it is but
I'm sure we can. So thank you in front of us. Even if we have to draft it in the meeting next week, our next meeting, we can do it. It it can get done. It it will be done. Yes.
So cool. Thank you. Thank you. That was it for I was hoping to get to it tonight and all the stuff going on. You know, pretty much every time something happens in the li in the town
hall, everybody's hair's on fire and we got to do something right now. So, so you keep getting those interruptions and I'm not saying they weren't important interruptions. I'm just saying that, you know, everything's critical. Yeah. So, we are
still looking for another member for the board of assessors. We are um it's become increasing increasingly difficult to to uh manage getting a quorum or scheduling meetings with only two members. We have lots of other
openings in town hall. So I understand why things are critical. So I'm working on it. When residents come in, would you like to be a board member? Look at how fun this is.
I haven't had any people that have wanted No takers. No takers yet. Watch our meetings for a couple weeks and then Okay, never mind. Because they're excited. Oh, she's asleep. No, just kidding. She's not. Um,
when did you want to cover this? Or have we? I submit that to Jen. That's the roll back taxes for that one that's refused. Yes. That they're going to with the interest. And then on the second page, they need to release that
lean because it's not going to be in chapter anymore. So, it's actually going to I believe there's going to be six lots that going to come from that chapter land. Oh, wow. So,
which will have 2.3 children per Okay. And we'll pay, you know, $6,000 here in taxes. Okay. No, they'll be over 10. Guaranteed. Okay. So, they don't have to cover that. That that was
I just gave that permission. I did submit that to Jan. So, fine. So, she has that. Yes. Looks good to me. Yeah, we great great program that actually calculates the interest was a little less than $5,000 in roll
back taxes and interest which is a small price to pay for having reduced taxes for a lot of time. I am going to try to do a spreadsheet of all the chapter land kind
of similar to the exemption because there's so much that's involved and each one is different requirements. There's a 61. Yeah. So, it just makes it easier. And then when people come in, of course, we do send
when we send out the application, we do send the form. I believe it's called a disclosure, which actually tells them what they have to provide to us. But it would be helpful to just have it on one page and then when someone comes in like with the exemptions now. Oh, here. And then that it it just makes
it easy even for us too just to put it on paper. And do we have everything? Yep. Okay. Yep. That's great idea. I do want to I do want to do that. So that's one thing that we're trying to get all that together. Making the office more efficient. Yes.
So she's cleaning now and making the office more efficient. That's one thing Jen did point out is like when when you step away from the office, think about everything that we've done. We have stuff filed now.
Uh we we now have applications and we have leans for our chapter properties. Uh all the exemptions we requiring the proper paperwork. Uh so
it needs to be done. any suite. You know those Yes. several pages of accomplishments that are being added to every day, every month.
What what I would like to do, we're in our vision already completed the fiscal 2026 cyclicals. So, we have one more year. Denise has kind of requested. We have one more year with the contract
with them. Okay. But that's only 500. We really need to start with the condos. We need to start inspecting those. Mhm. And then we we also have some other things that we will be following up on after the tax bills go out, more
inspections. So, I would love it if she could do more hours. I think it's needed in the office. So, we probably don't want to talk about that for November's town meeting, but I think we should be looking ahead
to May and thinking about making sure we have enough hours. Yeah. And I've been trying to get out and help her like especially with these functional and economic because it's just hard to have one person on 19 hours. Yeah.
You can only do so many inspections. Uh, but it's difficult because you know then Rob was the only person in the office and and it's funny because some days some days it's one or two people come in but then the other day I went out and
did inspection. Robin was out of the office at lunch and I had three people lined up and putting it on the door. So it's it's just you never know. So it's I could have been sitting there and then no one would come but the minute I leave three people there. So we we don't close the office that often, but it would just
be nice to have I think well as Nate Kramer had indicated before, we don't really have enough staff at the office and everything. And then if we're going to maybe our future plan is to try to do these circle calls in house.
So So we wouldn't have that contract hanging overhead. We would just be spending more money on Yeah. personnel. So, if I could put together a cost justification, does it ever make sense to say um are
our public open hours for for dropping in are such and such time. So you can say these are the times we're available for dropping in and you know stagger them so it's not all at the same time and say these two days we're
out doing field inspections or whatever like this I'm just wondering yeah because I'm I I'm not in the workflow I'm sure that I want to be in support of that because I think the office needs to
be open whenever the town hall's open. We do have an admin who can take a message. Take your take your forms. Um I mean she's quite capable. Okay. Um she's not out doing inspections. So she's so she's there. She could take
a note for those days that so I prefer the office. So what when we started one of my complaints was the office was hardly ever open. It was all, you know, and as we know, we had an interim lead assessor who was
keeping everything together with band-aids and scotch tape. So, I I was just wondering cuz I I mean, I don't get in during office hours typically. Um I I maybe can make the
late night ones. Um so, if we have an assistant, an admin assistant who's there all the time, maybe maybe have to say on some of those days where the admin assistant is there they are there alone and then you follow up
the next day in the office but I don't know how much that load is you know the next day it varies and like the other day she's at lunch and I have an inspection I put it out the door we don't do that that often that particular day there was
like three people waiting so it's it's like and most people it's not like I people club want to schedule an appointment, but most people don't do that. But I don't most people just walk in and
and it's not a problem at all. I mean, it's that just happened the other day. So, but when I got in, it was I had I was in by myself. I had three people that were waiting. Most of the time it's it's the exemption questions and then somebody came in with a motor vehicle
and then I got hung up at my inspection. So that's the problem is I don't really know like you know you can put 2:00 but I forget what time it was. It's just but again that doesn't happen very often and if Rob's on vacation and
our class but I do I do want the public to be able to access but I also want us to be able to get our job done. Yeah. Right. Um, so I will say if somebody does have
something complicated that's going to take a lot of time, if they would schedule an appointment, that would be helpful because that could tie me up run out, especially with some of these map issues. Oh, yeah. I got tied up one day for an hour and,
you know, I try to schedule inspections, too. So if something's really complicated, if they could call and schedule a time, that would be easier than just drop it in. And Mhm. I have to drop what I'm doing. But
well, I had to get a real ID and I had to wait in line. I like what? Yeah, there's there's just only so many things that one person can do at a time, right? Novel concept. Sorry. I mean, if you probably wouldn't have to wait in line today,
but I mean, I just I'm just saying if if people want on demand, they have to pay more in taxes to provide that on demand service. My point was you would be able to get it today. No. No. Nothing's closed. What you do? Yeah. And would you cater to people when they
come in? We do. We We don't make people wait for things. Okay. Any more on that? Um, you have GIS mapping software future upgrade. You want to talk about that now? Yeah. The other thing I do want that's not on
the agenda. We're probably talk about the means testing. Yes. I was going to mention that uh we have eight applications uh that we are we'll be we'll talking individually about them tonight. We're talking about the process and stuff.
Yeah. So, you want to do the GI mapping first? Let's do that. Yeah. So yesterday we had Ryan Fogerty uh who is actually from Data Scout but they worked directly with Vision
and they came out and he did a demo made some copies of some information that you provided. We as you know we don't really have a lot of technology in our office. Uh
we really very old school. Probably similar to some of the other assesses that have this. We we really do need it. It will be beneficial. One thing that I did find out yesterday with this
company is they will as we make updates to the canvas system which is vision it will automatically update the mapping at the same time which is great because if I go in and I change something like the lot size it'll reflect.
Yeah. They're getting the feed. So there's there's a link. Yeah. I'm guessing rather than a once in a while feed. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's already built. You You probably remember the issue we had when I first started where we had
the CAI card. We had the vision card. Mhm. They didn't match. And they didn't match. I remember. Right now, the vision link, which is a PDF of the card, is posted or updated once a year in January. And then on the
CI side, on the GIS side, it'll have an updated value because that updates once a week. So it will take whatever we have in vision and that will update on the GIS map. So we
still have an issue with the numbers being accurate. This So if you were look at your card or you look at the map, you're going to get different numbers potentially. Yeah. which causes confusion by the public. Um, and I have to tell confusion for me.
It does. So, I have to tell them that our vision card updates once a year. So, this would be a great solution. Uh, because the map and the camera are updated instantaneously.
We could probably eliminate the PDF of the vision card and uh tailor made their I'll call it their mapping card because it takes all the data from vision and we can customize it.
So we could have that property record card match the map and have it. We'd have to change our website. How to read your property record card as opposed to how to use your vision card. Oh, no.
Um, so I'm looking at this and it looks like it's great for that communication online between vision and the GIS, which is a solution that is definitely needed. Um, one of the things I'm wondering about is um the field capabilities like
can can you get this out in the field and do your your inputs on a device? Yeah. So, it is updated. And can you also use this to
highlight and notify where you're going to go? So, like that situation we had where we had a contractor and you had to hand them off the cards and then you had to call everybody. Um, one of the things I like about online is you could quickly
get the map. You could say, "Okay, I'm going to go on the street. Here are all the people. Here are the phone numbers. Here's who we can call or here's who we can email right away." Um, I don't know if it has that. Yeah, I don't know if it has that capability
and we don't have people swinging over them. So, well, at least you would have you could have the streets so you're not having to individually I don't know and just like pulling the cards then sending it and then sending a letter. Is there a way we can see a little bulky
get that information so that it's it's more efficient for you and more efficient for residents and so that notification is easy just down the road and that like I think this has got you can edit the parcels that's so sweet um
I'm I'm hoping I'm hoping that you know it also has the ability to import that parcel when you get it from um planning hopefully or can you get it from a database? Yeah, that was one of the other other
items. Uh and actually they did send us a a cost now. I called CA to find out about our contract because I don't know I haven't I don't sign everything every year. So, I'm not sure
how that works, whether it's there's an end date to that or how it's set up. So, I'm waiting for them to call back. But, there's a um 6,400 and this is uh 11 1
11,340 which is a 4,000. I have it written down for $1,940 difference, but to add this to add this um uh we would would not ci at that point. No,
we're adding 11,000 we'll be taking away 6,400. Yeah. So, it be 5,000 difference. Yeah. Annually, this would give us the two things, both one map and the data scout web. Uh the as far as the updates, uh I did
tell them that the map updates average like 15 15 to 20 parcels a year. My biggest challenge and I I've got four of them right now on my desk. Uh I haven't submitted the map updates just because these are a little complex.
Uh and there is an option to you know draw them in but honestly we have to go with degrees. I honestly feel that I think the professionals that do that, unknown engineer, uh they can actually
take any problem deeds we have, any problem plans, and we can send it to them and they can do that for us. Sure. Yeah. Which is a would be a great asset to us because we have some that we haven't been able to figure out and
Right. Is that a is that a conversation you had with them? Yeah. Okay. I I brought that and he just said that you know you could see an easy process we we doing like a split but stuff where we you have to draw on the degrees I mean we're just that's not our
profession you know I mean I I think that these are mapping professionals what you're telling we're not mapping we're not mapping professionals I mean we know how to read these and plans and I'm wondering if you can go back and ask them if they have anything that
can help you with field collection of data. Yeah. Yeah. Because that that is um the other part I think that is really missing right now. Yeah. Um so I'm I'm loving that it integrates
already with vision. That's like a huge bonus. And then what what part of this can I use to collect in the field? And you can say you have somebody who is very excited about field mapping potential for you for um your office so
that it can upload almost instantly to to a GIS. Can can you can you show me an application from one map that does that for like that allows that for me? And maybe it's maybe it's more money. I
don't know. But if it will upload Yeah. and you can see it and like you can see where Denise has been or Denise can see where you have been and you're both out in the field, you could meet up, you know, like that would be that would be great, right?
Um because when we're talking that 500 inspections that you need to do, it would be great if you didn't have to type them in later, right? Yeah. No, that would be good. I know that well that we would have to purchase
obviously the technology that wouldn't be included but I really liked the fact that this was the other neat thing was we can run reports with site indexes sales sale date. So we could run a
report have vision open have the map and all of a sudden have it populate map populate with all the sales. So you're looking at all the site indexes, all the sales would plot. Wow. So that um this does the same thing as
like the the other GIS would do too. It would do that for you. Yeah. Yeah. Uh the sewer if you we got requests for sewer information as long as it was in the on the layers. Uh if it's a layer, they they can add
different layers. Uh they um they have a great relationship with um MassGis. Uh so we spent about an hour and a half and he went through some stuff. He's willing to come in again. Mhm. Who was involved in the meeting?
Uh it was Robin and myself. Oh, okay. So there was nobody for planning, no from any We just wanted to see what it would do for us, but I'm sure other departments if they wanted to uh Yeah. And and I don't know how that
would work with the cost cuz whether I I don't think there's a separate charge for I don't think you need to if you don't pay by the user at least you do or don't pay I don't think you pay by the user the account. So
but there may be other modules that other functions within town could use and they probably cost. So it's all kind of using the same platform. Yeah. This is just a customization of the same platform and the thing I like about it is the
support. So if we have any issues with vision I call the support line I get a person instantaneously right my issues resolved not like mus put a ticket response back these people that
that won't fix this won't fix me this my my just out loud opinion here is that this would um we don't really have a GIS specialist in in town so this to provide that access to a GIS specialist within
uh that works already with vision. Um and so then that load is taken off um because it is a different kind of knowledge. So like that would be great if if this company is is going to be able to do that and
you can get them to talk to you about field apps. If you had a field app, this is because like I I do get concerned about like bringing GIS into the town because we just don't have we don't have people. That's true.
You know, and and that does require people to be on top of things. So, yeah. Um I let's see if they can they can provide something for the field because that's that's really the other part of assessing that is
That's key. Well, the other thing too is as far as like with the near map, there was the whole issue with the near map because there were so many different counts and we weren't really using it. But there's other I think you call it eagle view.
So, so there's other there are other towns that are using GIS. Like I um in my other life, I've worked with some towns that um they have a GIS account and they use one and they just
distribute that. Um they they basically have two. They have one that the engineer owns and and does most of the work and they have one that they send out to other people so they can add data and they can't do anything other than add data. they can't script the files,
right? Um, and then they just share that with everybody. So, I imagine this probably has something like that where you can control what each user is able to do. Yeah, you can. I did mention that. So, you wouldn't have to necessarily
worry about that kind of disaster. But the reason why our town has all of those little doodads is because there's no overage or organizational structure where somebody's actually thinking about how to integrate that. And I think I
mean my opinion is the thought of hiring a land use manager back in the day was to try to coordinate some of that. But, you know, we're um we we chronically in this town have
people we hire and then we ask them to do too many different roles. Yes. Well, there's my editorial. So, so the key point here is really this e easily edit parcels
could not be done from a tablet in the field. Yeah. If that's if the answer to that is yes, we probably ought to push forward and see what we can get done. If the answer to that is no, it's not sure as as it's as valuable as it could be. Yeah,
it is cloud-based. That's well and you know, I'm sure if we brought the AI in and they could show us some of the stuff that they we aren't doing today, but they could do, you know, maybe some of this stuff as well.
They could do that. Yeah. I mean I I I know their platform that could do that. Yeah. I mean we could still use them keep CI they had indicated it doesn't sounds almost redundant. It gets redundant. Yeah. And I I don't know that CIA CI can't
work with vision. I just don't know that it does if we've asked them. Well, we have asked about the updates and I think I mentioned before about this record card is I would have to somehow do the PDFs and then to it's a feed
it it's not automatic kind of link as far as I can tell. But if if you had an account and they let you use that account, you could do that in the GIS.
Yes. with the with the fins. But that's another level of training. I think it would be an extra cost, too, because if we wanted the vision card to update instantaneously, we would charge for the feed. They would. So So it's it's it's their business model.
It doesn't mean they can't do it, right? And this one is 11 $11,000. 114 I think it was. And you said without the software. So what does the software cost? Um no no that includes this includes training. Uh
this includes the internal map the conversion to to this. Um and um Oh, so you were saying you're saying additional costes to the town would be $4,940
because CI is charging us 6,400. This is 11,340. So a 49 roughly 5,000 about 5,000 right just getting right it's it's a great feature and the other thing is we're going to hopefully if we
can have the customize the property record card as it's pulling from the vision we can do away with that PDF we're not going to have two different values when somebody goes to look at their map and they click on the card that's going
to be updated domestics. If we made a change right now, we make a change, we have to send them the record card, right? Or we tell them it'll be updated in January when we Well, and that's just it's just not they they could actually update that, but they're not.
Well, we have to pay because it's a pay. We have to pay actually for that. So you you would get that in in a another company's way of implementing the same GIS that yes CI is using.
So I mean this is one option of implementing a GIS. CIA has another and there's probably some potential other companies that might give you what you what CI could do, what one map could do and that could potentially add that
field map stuff that I'm not sure one map is doing with data scout, but we can ask if they if they're going to do field apps. Yeah. So, it's it's really about how they're customizing that GIS application that everybody's using, right?
And packaging it in a way that's accessible. Um, CIA CI isn't making it that easy to update. No. No. Because that's their fee. That's how they make their money, right?
So I think let's see if they can do this field stuff and then we're closer to an answer. Yeah. Right. They are willing to come in and do another uh demonstration. So if there's a day or a time that works. You said day
night I'm sure I mean I can request if you want to see a a demo cuz he Let's get the answer to that question first before we decide. I'm not willing to do at that moment until I hear what Yeah. Yeah. Good.
Yeah. No, I I thought it was great. Just the fact that we could run reports and have it appear on the map. I mean, that's great. It's going to help us with analysis. I mean, just a time savings
alone. right now we don't have that capability to do that right now. Cool. Let us know what the answer is. Hello. Um the thing we need other thing we need to
talk about was the means means tested exemption call. I remember that the phrasing never works for me. So, we've taken at least eight
applications, people that we think will be qualified. Um, that's well less than the 1% of the the tax levy if we were to max out at
the um circuit right here. One of the questions that's been raised is how do we implement it? My understanding based upon the conversations we had with two of the proponents
was that we would determine how much the taxes would have been for these people, reduce their taxes by that amount, and then spread the rest of the tax burden across all the rest of the town. Yeah.
There's no methodology to do that in Munice today. Of course not. As far as I could tell. So there was some talk about well maybe we need to use the overlay. Said no we didn't play the overlay for that
although there is money in the Olay overall overlay account. And if you think about it the amount was $2730. Mhm. It's only eight applicants. Yeah, it's it's 22 $23,000
that could potentially be absorbed by the overlay, but it's not the intention was not the overlay is for. So, um the town manager has contacted two of the proponents, the former select board members,
uh to find out what they they thought the methodology was and how they would go about paying for this. We can approve them, but we don't know how to pay for them. Well, it is supposed to be distributed across. That was that was our understanding.
She can't because Mun can't do it, doesn't she? She can't find it in the in the verbiage of the article. I have the what was legislation right here, right? Do you have copies for each of us or just No, that's my original. Um,
but the issue so it there's no there's nothing in here that says how it's implemented. And if we enter these in as exemptions, we have to put it in through munis.
Now once we put it into munus as an exemption, it's going to take it from our overlay the way that because the overlay is just for exemptions and state payments. No exemption shall be granted under this act until the department of revenue certifies a tax rate or rates
for the applicable tax year where the total exemption amount is raised by a burden shift within the tax levy on all taxpayers. So our understanding was proper one the way this is written there's no nothing in here that says how it gets implemented as far as I can tell
and you can maybe you can find it but well I couldn't I tried to call unintended consequences. Yeah. Meaning like are Well, I was thinking about this as they
came in because you know how the exemption is entered and I know that if we put it in like we typically do it's going to go away and it's not supposed to be used 10. So the question was how did other towns
do this? I don't know if you had opportunity to get an answer. I left Willer a message in Westford and I mean it's after the election. Did you contact anybody in conquered? No, I don't have any I had his cell phone there so I tried to call him tonight. So what
this has been done by other communities. Mhm. They did say the first year was a mess. And that may be the word they used might have been stronger. Um,
but we need to figure out how it's been done elsewhere. Yeah. Uh, or I had I just thought of this. So, I mean, could we get a waiver to use the overlay at one time?
I don't know. I don't know. And who would who would provide that waiver? Someone from the power of government? Well, I think the issue too is even when we were I was working on this on that committee. No one does this the same. There's like
the the They're not done exactly the same though. No, the um the Massachusetts Assess Association is trying to come up with some kind of a standard, but Conquer does it differently. Even Even the whole application is different. I follow from
the west because it's easy but conquer did different all different towns. So I'm sure the way that they're well that's kind of how they how they distributed it among towns.
At least we can have a couple of their options and choose from those. Yeah. Column A, column B. Which one is going to be easiest? But we don't have a lot of time to think about it either because we the classific
class classification um in a month a little over a month. Um so we need to get some answers pretty quickly on what other people do cuz I don't think we can we definitely can't go to the overlay every year
for that. Well, no. If we were to go to the overlay every year, we'd have to increase the overlay significantly, right? Every year. Yeah. And they're already trying to get us to release over for this year, aren't they? I haven't heard that. We already did that. We already did.
No, for for for this year though, we released from last year. Free cash. Yeah, we were talking about free cash. Okay. Well, earlier in the meeting. We was talking about free cash. We were talking about you got an email regarding free cash. I said we have to
we have to define free cash. The LS is like would like us to do it soon, but I don't assume means if we wait till November, they're not going to get to it. Well, hopefully that's something that I
is looking at cuz before he leaves before he leaves. Okay. So, um Okay, there's not much more to be said about that other than it's it's coming down to the
implementation. We know how to do our part. Yeah. But from And then we're going to look at them tonight. I mean, we can approve them based on but we know how to we don't know how we can process them, but we can based on
we may have to approve them based with contingent upon. Yeah. Okay. Sounds right. Where we at? Um postpone topics. You want to mention something about clause 18? I know it's
postponed, but uh I do have a resident that uh may a visit may want to apply for this clause 18. You don't have any criteria? We don't have any the the thing that
maybe we can look at this next year is there is nothing for a 100% disabled person for an exemption. I know Westfit just adopted an exemption for that, but Was that local? That was local option though, right? Yeah. Yeah.
We um we only have the veterans, but we don't have anything for someone that is under the age like this. This person is under the age of 65. Uh fully disabled.
Fully disabled. Uh definitely has a hardship. Uh and uh unfortunately with the exemptions we have, they wouldn't qualify for any If I recall correctly, 18 is a one-year thing. I don't think you can do it multiple years.
I did bring some documentation. I'm pretty sure that's off the top. Yeah. Yeah. So, but so it might help for now, would it? We need to figure out going forward. if we need to come forward in May with something that says
here's a here's a uncserfaced uh portion of the population. So I just wanted to see if that's something that I would like to contact the resident and see if that's something
that we could suggest. But we have we don't have criteria yet. We don't. That's the problem. So I don't know you want to try to come up with some criteria. I'm not sure that I have time by our next meeting.
I'm not sure you do either, but yeah, I know you don't. Just being very clear here. Yeah, we have. We need another member. Well, we do look that way because this one's not. We need another. So just based on the
some of the as far as in the the laws it's kind of like a discretion of the but you have to have criteria. We do we have to make criteria. We have to have it is our discretion but we have to come
up with the criteria for because it has to be consistent and repeatable. Right. Thanks. So so that's the problem. Yeah. So we had looked at some other towns criteria for that, but they were
very low income, very low uh assets. Worse than the 41A we're trying to fix. Yeah. I talked with Mar and I think there's a
cap on the 18 for 3 years. It might be three years. I don't know. I don't know if it was one or three, but there was a cap on. It was pretty short. So maybe this individual after the 18 could do a volume deferral possibly. Yes. But let's not get ahead of
ourselves. What I suggested was maybe we want to come forward with a with a whole new exemption for for fully disabled folks or even partially disabled folks that isn't driven by the state. That is all
local option. We could do that. Um I think we could do that. So, but right now we we don't even have criteria for for clause 18. So, we need to do that to to see if we can help this individual
sooner rather than later. And then if we were able to put together a new exemption for one of the Springtown meetings, then then that would help for future. But that that 18 should address
more than just a couple of individual circumstances. Correct. It's going to be something we need to be able to apply broadly and consistently. Right. Right. Right. Unless we look at well there had sent me what Westford
just approved for disabled person criteria based on that. So was it 18 plus 18? Uh, no. So, you're thinking something that's more local rural? Yeah. In something tailored towards
the disabled people that So, that's love to get a copy of that, please. I have one. I'll I'll forward it to you electronically, right? So, that's that's something we could do as a local option that you're proposing. Maybe we still need to come up with criteria for 18. We do.
Yeah, we do. We do. So, it has to stay on the list. Yeah. So, so maybe we'll look at that. I I will forward you that. I just got that tonight and I hadn't had a chance to look at it, but he he's always so good
about sending attachments and information because I questioned that. I'm happy to build on other people's work. Well, it's just kind of nice to hear what other towns are doing and well that they recognize there's a need. Yeah, it's definitely
do something to help. Yeah, what a thought. What's actually what we've been doing at every town meeting for the past year and a half, two years, three years? Two and a half years. No, two years. It's been almost exact.
Yeah, exactly. Two. So, yeah. Cool. It's two cuz it was September or August. September. Yeah. Two. Um, cool. So, two things. If you have time to do
some criteria on 18, that'd be great, but not as pressing. But if you can find something out about the uh local, I'll call it local rule um exemption process for
uh people with disability and that would be fabulous. So, send it over. We can discuss it at our next meeting or whenever that is. It's currently scheduled for October 15th. Yes, it is. Is that going to work?
I don't know. Is that going to work? It works for me. I don't. You don't know yet? I don't know. I'll move next week. Might not work. Okay. Um, we have any alternate dates after that if we that might or might not. I
mean, they can try to schedule it for the um the following Wednesday or or it doesn't have to be Wednesday. We don't have if if not doing it on Wednesday makes it capable makes us able to have a meeting, then I'll do on some
other date, not Tuesday. I can check with Ellen if once you have a date, a couple dates. Well, we should probably go ahead and we have already have a room reserved for the 15th, right? We do. So, working here. Um, if that gets
changed, we'll offset cancel. Um, and then we have future dates. I'm not sure when when we can or when we can't, so just leave them out there. One says, oh, no, number more holidays, so we're okay.
Is what day is Thanksgiving this year? It's like the 2. It's the 27th. You sound good. Okay. You looking at your calendar, you cheater. Um, good. Cuz we have a meeting right now tentatively scheduled for the 19th.
I didn't want to do it on Thanksgiving. Not have charity. That would not be fun. No, but all the prep work's going on. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Uh, anything else we wanted to discuss? I left that binder on there because I do have the binder and we do need to add some stuff to it. We've got the binding. And if you want to bring anything to us that needs to be added to there, we're
happy to review it and if we get it ahead of time so we can actually review it, preview it. Pre-re it. It's the kind of thing I read it for. You can't sleep. I'm thinking it's going to happen after we get through this
hearing. Got other stuff that needs to get done. Yeah. And then we'll go right into abatements. So, I don't know what you think you're going to do. Yeah. In in between in in your spare time. Yeah. I will uh What's that like? I would like to
mention that outside of our office, we did put a copy of the data collection manual that Raina made up and we've got forms out there and we have flyers in our office of all the exemptions and so
we have we're providing more information and then once once we get all the information from vision we'll update that our website there'll be a draft link for you to look at once we're done with it is Robin's
working cara on that. So we're trying to get the website so it's more user friendly. I haven't been able to look at the the link I guess this link but for some
reason I can't get into it. I don't know if it's for some reason it's uh so there's a link that you can go look at it. It's not posted. You know what? Sometime when you're having a conversation with Cara,
it'd be really cool if the website you go to a meeting and it would take you to the recording of the meeting. Oh. As opposed to having to fish through 16 ways to Sunday to get there. And then
when I was looking for some of our old meetings, I had to scroll through about 16 pages or 18 pages to get back a couple of months. It's really bulky. And that is not the fault of the AV
people. It's just the way the thing is set up right now. Um, and I'm sure it's not high on the car's list, but it's just something that I think for a future we should if if we go to a page that says agenda minutes, you ought to be
able to go click and look at the video. So, just throw it by her. Let's see what she says. When she come and you rip her off the ceiling there afterwards, she No, she's great, though. I have to say she's she's doing a great She's
fabulous. Yeah. Well, she has too many things to get done. Yeah, she has to. Who doesn't? Yep. Well, that's why I didn't get the master plan done. And like I said, that was mine to do with the map updates. I I had that on my list of things to do
for the past month. And I said, "Okay, I'm going to get it done this week." And maybe it maybe this is like a blessing because these people came in and maybe I don't do the map updates if we happen to make a change. Yep. I don't know. I I have to wait to see. I
have a contract. Yep. The date on that. Okay, cool. Uh, anything else that you want to discuss before we get to closing comments? We have Zoom.
No time out. That's so odd. I' never done that before. Uh I have nothing further, I think. Um so I'll entertain a motion to adjurnn.
Motion to adjurnn. Do you want me to read all that or you excuse me? You want to read all that? You want me to read all that? Go ahead. Uh I move that we adjourn the open meeting and enter executive session not to return to open session after exiting the executive session.
Motion to enter executive session under purpose 7 to comply with or act under the authority of any general or special law or federal grant in aid requirements. Applications for executive session, sorry. AC applications for abatement or
exemption on this chapter shall exceeding proceedings before the county commissioners, the appelllet tax board or the court of the commonwealth be open only to the inspection of the assessors, the commissioner, deputies, clerks and assistants of either the assessors or the commissioner and such other
officials or designated private auditors of the commonwealth citing chapter 59 section 60 of master law. That's the motion. Second. All in favor?
I. Thank you very much. We're going to let you home early. Oh, early for us.