find the finance committee agenda and there's a link for the Zoom as well as the uh call-in number and and ID for this. And with that, if we can stand to the flag of the United States of
America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, I do not have any announcements. Does anyone else have any announcements?
I got to watch this to admit people. All right. And do we have any public comment from the public? Okay. Do we have any public comment from the committee? All right. We're cruising.
Uh we have no finance manager nor finance director. So I do not suppose we will get a report. Um and for new business um you know we had the the first tri board meeting finance
committee school committee uh select select board on Tuesday night. Um it went for about two and a half hours. I listed in the agenda the topics we went over uh kind of ground rules discussion on consolidation efficiencies and
timeline uh departmental growth uh where they saw some growth maybe in town. Um they asked us for any specific uh requests from the tribe board and then a discussion on
financial management and best practices. Um after this meeting, you know, the next sessions will be pretty targeted. Um they're probably going to go a little bit longer. There'll be presentations from the staff. So, this one really just got us going and made sure that we had
an opportunity to um get what's on our mind out there. Um you know, if there was ideas for consolidation, was quite a discussion on that. Um or any other specific requests. So, uh, with that,
um, you know, I'll turn it over to the board if there's any additional comments that we want to make, you know, just as a board here. Um, it is on YouTube. Um, so it was uploaded, um, Wednesday morning. So, you can watch it
if you so inclined. And you get the option of going one and a half speed or two speed. So, you can watch it a little faster if you want. So, do you know what it's called? Um if if you go to Lunenburgg public access. Okay.
Um you'll it's pretty easy to find. If you can't find it, let me know, Mike, and I can help you. Um well, Chris, do you have any comments about the meeting? Yeah. So, just, you know, in general, I I thought I didn't know what to expect going into the meeting. It was kind of a
new idea. Um I I thought the meeting went really well to be honest with you. I think we got some topics out into the open. There was some disagreements on some issues that were kind of discussed. Um I think in the end those even those that maybe if
there were some uh discussions like on consolidation of facilities, I think some people think it's a good idea, others don't think it's a good idea. Um I think we'll continue to talk about those um at a future time. that was one that you know
was brought forward as uh something to to to pursue at least um I I thought it was a good good discussion good healthy discussion amongst all three boards. So, okay. So, yeah.
Thank you. You you asked people for their comments, but you didn't offer one. So, yeah. Yeah. No, that's fine. Yeah. I I don't I think it is summarized pretty well. Okay. Do we need like a booster seat about me? I mean, I'm interested to sus
out the relationship between the school committee and the town and what that looks like. Um, I think with all the new players in the game, I think it's going to improve. I see I see a good outcome with the people that were there, uh, maybe it's just the first meeting and
people are afraid to like really get down into the weeds, but um, everybody seemed open to be talking about things and as long as you know people don't take it personally if things don't go their way, not everything's going to go everybody's way. So, um, I think we're
going to be fine. I think we have a great town manager. I think we have some really good school board members and some really good town council members and the awesome finance team. So, I think it's going to go well. Great. Any other I know two of you worked
there, but Jeene, anything? No, I just, you know, go along with what Tanya said. I think in one way it's important to know
what the school and the school committee what their gripes are because once you know things like that it makes it easier to address them and be able to work them in to a
consolidation plan. So I think the more that they can share with us the better that's going to be. any? No, not at the moment. Okay. All right. The next the um topic um we had on here was budget
request forums and department briefing expectations. Um we talked a little bit about this um on Tuesday. Um but I do think you know and we need to give direction I think to the the school committee as
well as the other departments as to what additional expectations we have as it relates to their budget presentations going into um next year. So this was one of the items also mentioned as part of the tri board. I think Ezie and and Jen
are kind of coming up with what this should look like more consolidation. Uh they're going to start using um clear gov. Yeah. Um which I which will I think will help. Um one thing that Jen had told me offline was that
it may take a while to build up the history in there. So maybe in three to five years it will be very powerful but at least for now it should drive towards consistency of of data and um and that sort of thing. Um, for the most part, I think the
the budget presentations on the needs are are pretty good. I think the schools needs to get back to where they were um when um Michael Cassidy was here. Um but, you know, if we can go with a similar format for everything, I I think
that helps everyone. It's, you know, it's easier to follow. you make sure that you're doing everything. You know, is this the town manager's requested budget or your requested budget? You know, consistency is is good. Sometimes we we've had differences in even that kind of thing.
Um so, you know, a lot of times we talk about templates um as a way to make it clear. Um but in my mind and then I I can I can totally see how a template would be you know certain for certain data points to
be important but every department have their own unique set of data. Um so you know the police and the fire they usually have how many calls they have. the, you know, rack department would be how many people they served, how many
people came in into um town beach, you know, year-over-year. I I think a good way to help them it like if I were to be asking you know someone to present me I'll give them a
set of datas that I wanted to see and you know and whatever like until people come up with a template sure but my first priority would be these are the data points I want us to see and I think for the schools they you know they have
to realize they pretty much have every department every town department are replicated under the schools. So they need to come up with very unique set of datas for their own sub departments. Yeah. Um my recommendation would be to come up with a list of data points for each
department. Um and and I'm not really good with making templates and making things pretty, but um but that would be my recommendation on that sense. Okay. No, that's good. I I agree with Anna. Um, I think the
program that we're going to be using, I think we have an opportunity to put those to put those templates in and what we want. Correct. Like are we going to what the finance team is going to put in what we want? Yep. And then they're going to be able to upload it all the departments into this one program instead of having this as a
PowerPoint, this is a you know spreadsheet, this is it's going to be one across the board way to collect data. Um, but we are going to have a say in what we want to collect, right? So, we have to decide what we want to see, right? And I think that's where you come in.
That's one of your strong points. Yeah. Um, so one thing um Jay has something Jay has something to say. What do you um when you sound like you're trying to create um create a template?
No, not not per se. But uh so you know just the examples that I gave, right? like school and police um police and fire the biggest data point is really calls over the years and staff over the years how those two intersect. Yeah. rack
department, you know, what are they serving, how many people like um and we can go on like pack um they have how many meetings they have broadcasted, how many programs they have um created,
what's the viewership so I think every department it's not a template it's really just hey for your department these are the base basic data points that the finance committee would like to explore. um you know for sewer your
accounts receivables you know pretty pretty much like it just really making sure we have this data point that we have um the accounts receivables was one that we we saw was you know in the last year
and afterwards we got information that well you actually been at always at this level for the past couple years so that is what I'm talking about just data what data that they're presenting to us. It's not a template, it's a portal to submit their budget
um their their annual budget. So, they put their information, everybody puts information into a into a portal. Um and then we create what we want to see inside that portal and what we're going to require them. Who's creating this portal? I think the town it's a
I think that the town will Yeah, it's an already created portal that a lot of towns already use to submit budgets. Um so town manager will will open the portal and customize the portal and then we will decide what we want to see. Um and departments will put
that in. Okay. What do you think about that? Well then no it's fine if the town manager is going to create this and then distribute it so all the departments are getting it and understand you know what
it is and where to upload it. And I'm hoping there'll be a training associated with that. There probably will be a training for department heads on how to use the portal. No. Um. Yeah. So, is this like a software program, something we got to download? Yeah.
So, do we want to like for us start creating you know set of data that we'd like to see from all the departments? I think so. Yeah. Um, we have a document that we did a couple years in a row, a
few years on what our expectations are. Um, so we could we can find that and and start with that, make sure we have everything covered in there. There's also like some best practices that are out there if you look through the um the
um Mass Financial Association. I forget the exact name. um which we can all have access to. Um there's like things like um best budget presentation of the year award that's
given through the state and stuff like that. Um so we can we can do that but you know to me you want to have you know an overview of your organization. You want an org chart. You want staffing um
historical and projections. You want those relevant data that you talked about and then obviously you want the budget. I think also in there is is kind of like a what's my what's my five-year plan, right? Am I looking to stay steady with my with my organization? Am I
looking to grow my organization? Am I looking to add services, remove services? And at what time frame should we do that? So I think if you have that discussion year over year over year and it may change every year um at least we have an understanding of you know okay
this isn't a surprise to me that you're looking to to you know as we talked about make the rec director go from halftime to to full-time um to to um bring the fourth shift into the fire department. For a while the police
department was looking to add officers. I think now they're on a let's stay flat uh plan. Those are all good things to have. So, we should probably, you know, uh work with I Jen and and and put it on paper. I think she's already doing some
of it. Um I'll I'll have to talk with her, but that was one of the the things that she was hoping to nail down now because the uh departments are starting to pull together their right their budget for the year for next year.
So the action item on this is you're going to talk with Jen. I will talk to Jen and maybe by next meeting um start to jot down your ideas and if if she has something already I I'll circulate it. Okay. Can you recirculate the document that you said was created a couple years
ago? I did and I sent you guys an email today on that. Oh, okay. And and that's actually the next topic. So, the um town finance policies um it's actually a policy document that was put together under grant by the division of
local services. It's online. It's um in our our SharePoint. Um, I I asked Jen if I had the act actual latest. I I may not. Um, but it is
rather long. It's like 90 pages or something. 89 pages. Um, some of them may not relate to us. Um, but a lot of them will. Should those things that don't relate to us be stricken from the policy? I mean,
I think the only ones that might not is like the capital planning related ones, but we still may have inputs into it. Um, so again, I think I have the latest. It's good beach reading, like I said in my email. Um
Um, so print it out and go to the beach and read it and make some comments. What will happen is we will vote on it and then the select board will vote on it is kind of the way that financial policies have come into play. I think this took best practices
as well as existing policies and tried to kind of combine them into one. So like our debt borrowing limits are reflective of our existing policies in here. Um so that is one ask from Jen that we we start to look at this and and take a
position on it. It's also a goal for the um for the select board or the town manager for for this coming year. What's your plan for for us doing that? Well, so it's like 90 pages. I think if
we had it by the, you know, I don't know. What do you think? Like maybe Septemberish time frame having it voted on. Is that reasonable? Well, I mean, so when did you say September? We can um
we can take it into chunks and discuss a small chunk every meeting. So, we can set up a goal to, you know, see how many meetings between now and September. Um, you know, and say, let's discuss a third. I'm just saying if it was we had
three meetings which I think we have more we can do it that way so that way we state you know we have small conversations about specific topics one way to do it. It looks like there's 22
in the table of contents um kind of policy areas. So four meetings would put about five per. Right. My recollection of this when we we got it last year was I read I didn't go through with a fine tooth comb um but I
remember reading through it and it's it goes down into the nitty-gritty in some cases which I think is good. Um I was always since I don't know enough about how the day-to-day operations are run. I'm not sure if those are are right or
not. So I'd have questions for like the director of finance, you know, you know, how would this actually work or is this okay? Do you have do you have these people? Is this the way you do it now? Those are the kind of questions I I had. Um but it um
there wasn't anything that I remember reading going like that doesn't make any sense. Yeah. So, and even with that, like financial planning is probably where more where we're involved versus um financial operations.
Um, so what why don't we do this? Why why don't I recommend that for the next meeting everyone has read at least the financial planning aspects of it, which is about 40 pages, and have a general discussion on it. I may not be at the
next meeting, but you know, um, hopefully we have a quorum. um have a general discussion on it and then let's um take notes, any recommendations and try to have for the meeting after that the um a more you know targeted let's
try to approve that that portion of it discussion and then we can do the same thing for the final op financial operations. So read read and discuss on the next meeting up to page 39. Uh yeah. Well, through overlay,
whatever. Maybe it's up to 42. Yeah. Does that seem reasonable? Mhm. Okay. All right. Anything else on either forms or town finance policies?
All right, the next on the agenda, old business was any residual discussions on analysis of historical school budget data. I know we talked a bit about it last time. Yeah. So, since our last meeting, um, and I want to thank Tony Colombraini
Jr., I don't know if he's a junior, but I know his dad is a Tony Colombini, so I'm just gonna call him a junior for now. Um he I he had offered to put me in touch with uh the previous superintendent
um and he requested her to give me all the data that I had requested and he proposed the meeting. I attended the meeting. I had unfortunately we're in California. Is that New York? Okay. Um it was a daytime meeting and I went
to the meeting. We talked about that she would give us she would give me some data based on on the request that we had back in March like that request that we had in March has not been fulfilled and they created a shared folder. I
received their shared folder and nothing has really was ever added there outside what we already had. since then she has she's been the previous superintendent has left um and then this week I got received I
received an email from uh the new superintendent um and um and she wrote and I I want to give her kudos for that. So if it's okay I just want to read it's a very short uh one paragraph email. She said, "Hi,
Anna. I wanted to take a moment to let you know how much I appreciate your comments from last night. She was talking about the meeting on Tuesday. We shared the same goal of wanting transparency and restoring trust in the school department. I was wondering if you'd be open to um for a call or
meeting." So, we exchanged a couple emails. So, I appreciate her uh wanting to, you know, increase transparency and restore the trust in the school department processes. I again, I don't think there's money missing from the
schools. I think it's, you know, some of the issues I I talked about on Tuesday evening. So, I'm going to try to connect with her next Tuesday. Um and um and again I I we just we just need to
make sense of the flow of money within the school and the biggest problem. I honestly don't know if they know what's going on. Just the detail I would like I would know if it was my business. Yeah. Um and and I think part of the
problem is they present the budget in one way and the biggest part of the budget twothirds of their budget is staff. The way they maintain their staff and they manage that that that allocation is internal to them
and the way they report to the state is a third different way. So and they also and within that there are several revenues that is not clear and visible to us which is grants.
um they have a lot of recurring grants. They have reimbursement grants. Um and then they have their revolving accounts that is also not clear to us. That's not part of our you know so I think it it you know they and they ran into some
trouble this past fiscal year because of their lack of controls of some of these things. And by the way it's not unique to them. Um, I think when Carter first came in, he identified that the
revolving account that's used to pay for the TCP building repair and maintenances and that was a revolving account because there was revenue coming into it. That was $90,000 in the negative and Carter made a um
address that I think during the previous last fall. So I appreciate that and I think that's what we want and we just want to you know clarity we just wanted to understand and you know and and then we can dive on to the concerns that I I mean you guys remember that our last
budget season I said a big concern I have is when we don't have this visibility into these grants that we receive if they go away the town is expected like we are used to these services right
if they if the federal government or state government takes away those things now the children are going to be without lunch are going to be you know so much so it's important to bring these things up front so that we Well, and I think it just strengthens our community, our
information. And of course, we're going to want to, you know, kids to have lunch. And so I, you know, at the end, I my goal is to is to help everyone feel good about what we are doing and continue supporting the schools. So, I'm hoping I'll be able to connect with uh the superintendent. I have not given up
on that goal of having clarity on all the finances. Um, and hopefully we'll be able to create a good partnership. Okay. My concern is they don't have a finance manager, so I don't see this getting better. Is it possible for our town finance manager
to step in in that capacity until they hire somebody? Because how long is this going to take? Um I I don't think the superintendent is a is a finance person, right? She runs schools. So I I don't see us coming out from behind this without
somebody managing the finances on the school section. I um the previous at some point they had talked about Oh, I guess you're really not saying anything, Mike. Um they had talked before when the
mi Mr. Cassidy was here and he left and they didn't have anyone for a while. They did hire eventually a consultant. Okay. Um that they were here for a few months and then so you know that that is a really good point. They need to do that. Um, they definitely need to do that.
Um, I don't think we're going to get anywhere without somebody looking at the finances with you and with like all together. It's not even me. It's like it's not it's really it's the community and you know and as can be a great resource as well
and and I read the job description. I've read the requirements. I I know the salary and I don't know you're going to get what you got before for that which wasn't good. So, we have to figure out how to get ahead of it. May I a consultant might be
a very good idea until they do hire somebody because I don't think it's nobody's going to do it. Yep. Unless Ezy's going to do it and that's not fair either. Right. And that is a fear that they have. Ezie has blame him, right? But in the end, it it ultimately
is um well, yeah, we need to we need to deal with it. It's asking too much for of this superintendent. Yep. Or anybody else in the the school department to have to to run that. And
if you don't do it properly, garbage in, garbage out. And that's kind of what we might have seen. I don't know. We did have a couple two years ago when there was nobody physically there. It was uh
much messier than it than it needed to be because it was the superintendent putting together spreadsheets and it was just not done well and and and the town was um suffered for maybe and I don't know financially but it was a lot harder
to do than it should have been. So definitely I think we should be supporting the schools on getting a handle on on those things. Uh the other thing was um when we're talking about before the budget forms and all that, it should also it should be income and
expense. We you know we yeah we care about expense but where's the income coming from? So anything that's jettedified whether it's you know fee income that they're getting or it's grants and that should be in there so that we can see it and understand it and
then we can ask questions of you know is this a one-year thing or 10 year thing or we've got it for the last 50 years and we're probably going to get it for the next 50. Those are all important things that you know we would like to know. Okay. And we did talk about that a
little bit at the um Tuesday's meeting is that when we project the budget, we should be talking more than just what the raise and appropriate is. It we should have understanding of the grants and the you know reserve funds and other sources of revenue.
Is it within our jurisdiction to request that they hire an interim or a service to run the start the financial uh process for the school board? And secondly, when they do go into the
hiring um interview process, is it possible that one of us on the finance team can be involved in that process so we can ask questions that we know we want to answer? Yes. So I I think um the superintendent hires that role.
Okay. So you can always ask anything is what I say, right? Um, so potentially, yeah, we could ask. Um, I think they're well aware of their, you know, the issues that they're facing
staffing wise and turnover-wise. So, um, Tony's very approachable, too. If any of you want to reach out to Tony directly, I don't have a problem with that either. Yeah, I'm not sitting next to him next meeting. He's a chatter. He passes notes, too.
And he passes notes. I get into trouble with that. It's like not cool. We had a new customer. Does the school not have a financial consulting consultant? I I don't know if they have hired one because their their previous one just
left June 30th, I think because the contract ran out or I I don't know if she got another job, but she they used to have one, which was Dr. Gillson, right? One year she was here. She was here for one year. She's gone. with them.
Yeah. Okay. Any other anything else related to that? All right. Next on our agenda, we have minutes from 58 and 612. Have folks had a chance to review those? Yep. All right.
Any um issues or comments with them? All right. Um, I would entertain a motion to approve them. So moved. Second. All right. Um, all those in favor say I. I. I. Opposed. Abstain.
Oh, abstain. I didn't read them. Okay. Seven of us, right? 601 approved. All right. Any committee reports? We just had a uh municipal building design committee today 5:30 and u
um we are going to be meeting well I won't be there but uh on Tuesday with the select board there'll be a part of the select board meeting there'll be a joint meeting and ultimately what we're trying to do is to get the select board
to determine what is our next step since we didn't pass the rider town hall renovation didn't get passed. What do we want to do? Do we want to just bring it up again? Do we want to make adjustments? Do we want to do other things? We talked about that at the
meeting um which will probably be be you can see it probably tomorrow. Um uh some things uh we also asked that the superintendent because some of it is what about the school department? what do they think if
the superintendent could be at that also? So, we're going to see if we can invite the superintendent to that select board meeting so that we can have some input. But right now, we're not really sure. Uh my hope is that we can get some
guidance and some clarification and then move ahead whether it means that we go back to the drawing board or maybe make some alterations maybe uh to the Ritter in this building or maybe leave it the way it is and try
to go through it again. Um, the other part that we really want to do is to figure out if it's our job or it should be somebody else's job to have a long for a long-term view of the buildings and renovations. So, what about
um Turkey Hill? What about TCP? And um what about uh the timing of that? What about the primary school? It's going to happen in five to 10 years when we're going to need some uh uh resources uh major resources into
those buildings. We kind of know roughly what kind of things we'll probably need when we should be planning for those things. We're not really doing that that mitzvo buildings committee, but that would be nice if that was there and also being presented as a long-term plan
maybe like the master plan was something long-term. Doesn't mean we have hardened numbers, but this is kind of generally what we see. Yeah. Yeah. And I I agree with that and I know going into town meeting, you know, I put together that one spreadsheet, it really looked out almost
40 years, I think, or 50 years. And for I think buildings, you may need to have a 50-year kind of plan on that, right? Um because, you know, they're so expensive, you you you know, you take out 30 40 year loans against them. So
that that makes a lot of sense. And hundred million dollars for for a school building. Now it's uh just it's ridiculous. Yeah. Yeah. They're talking when's going to be the first billion dollar school and
that's a potential probably going to be Newton or Wayland or Yeah. Newton South Newton Newton accepted the challenge. Did they have I mean they built the high school a number of years ago and it was it was so
expensive people and it I mean it was probably cheap we go like oh it was you know 50 million or something but it was crazy expensive. Yeah. I think there's like one in I want to say Jamaica plane but I it may not be where it's it's approaching over half a
billion dollars. Right. That is I know that school building. So, and didn't the Lexon one just cost more than a half a million, too? I know Marshfield and Hinghams, their new schools over the last 10 years. I mean, they're beautiful schools, right? But they were well over they were almost
hundred million dollars. One of the things this the state has to has has to discuss is the um is the wages uh plans. You have to when
you're doing public money, you have to pay prevailing wage and I I've been involved in a number of buildings not not town but we got government money and it's more expensive to do it with government money but you get government
money but and uh I you know what's in the you know it's just costs the town and it costs the state and and the not for profofits all that just more money to uh to do these things and
is it worth it? And I know it's very difficult because it's unions and it's you know all that stuff. So, but it is a discussion that needs to be had. I don't know if that's on our list of things we can talk to our, you know, to our senators and congressmen about it at at
the state level. Yep. It's a it it's a very um I'm sure they don't want to talk about it. All right. Any other committee reports? All right. Actions and topics for future
meetings. So, we talked about town finance policies. Um, the first um half of it and that's on July 24th. I think I'm unavailable on the 24th. Um, any other topics that
folks want to talk about at that one? I think we should start thinking about our submission policy. Remember, we talked about this, you know, um, at the end of the year. Um, Chris, I think this is basically on you, like when towns are submitting things. We're not going to wait until the very last second and have
these 7-hour meetings. Um that we want to move those dates a little bit further up so the calendar more time the budget schedule. Yeah. Okay. So I don't know if I'll be ready for that for the 24th, but um I'd like to be
there for that one. I we'll um Yeah, you do all the work on it, so yeah, you should be there. Um, and I want to make sure Jen kind of has a I'll work with Jen a little bit on that. So, future Y future meeting. Yep. Yep. Yep. Okay. Um,
we will need a reorganization meeting. Um, which will also get into committee assignments and all that kind of stuff. Um, so I'll probably put that on for the the August meeting.
You guys had the quickest swearing in ever, I think. Right. That was great. Well, they already know us. Um would it be a good idea to talk about anything that the f I think we should align when we go to these I call them
try- wizard meetings but really it's not um align kind of on what we we want to talk about and hear from multiple members of this of this committee. Sure. Um so maybe use the meeting prior to one of those meetings coming up to talk about things that maybe we want to bring
up as a committee. Okay. And you know, it's it would be nice if all all voices could be heard. I know some of you don't like to speak, but there's some really good ideas that come out um you know, when everybody participates. So, I guess my initial thought will be
I'll put tri board on each of the agendas and the one that comes after the tri board meeting will be a retrospective and then the so a debrief and a and then a looking forward on the other ones. So, I'll just keep that probably under old business or something. Okay.
But I'll put I'll try to put the topics. Okay. Um Okay, that's good. Um important dates. Uh the next tribe board is August 26th, then September 30th, October 14th. Um
finance committee in two weeks. Uh we will have a quorum otherwise everyone else is available. All right. And Jean, you're good with setting up Zoom and all that kind of stuff. And the hardest part is monitoring the waiting room.
Um, all right. Is there any public comment from the public? A second. All right. Any public comment from the com committee? All right, with that at 8 7:42, I would
entertain a motion to adjurnn. A second. Second. All right. All those in favor say I. I opposed. No. Thank you all.