our projects they worth this meeting is being recorded all right I'd like to call the lunenberg finance committee meeting to order in accordance with the requirements of the open meeting law please be advised that this meeting is being recorded and broadcast over
lunenberg Public Access channel on Facebook live and um is also on Zoom uh please also be advised that there is a revised agenda um on the lunenberg ma.gov website so if you had already
downloaded the agenda and were looking to get into Zoom or to call in there is a re revised agenda with um a new Zoom link that we had to had to add um with that let's stand for the Pledge of
[Music] Allegiance I pledge alleg 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 all right all right um I don't know that I have any announcements um other than I do have my voice back so anyone who had to listen to me two weeks ago will probably welcome that um I would also like to um
extend CU I wasn't here last week um a welcome to Anna Lockwood and Mike rup um I've known Anna for probably 20 years almost our kids grew up together in town uh she served on boards with my wife um
a lot of my long distance trips have uh included discussions with Anna and other people about town politics and especially the the Parks Commission where they were both on uh she's got a lot of experience in town so really welcome that experience to the board um
also like to welcome Mike rup who had the unfortunate um event of meeting me in the in the uh Hanford uh Deli area and I convinced him to uh maybe put his name in for this or pushed him a little
bit over the edge I've actually known Mike for almost 30 years um imagine that Mike we've uh we actually went to um went to college together so with that um you cannot ask Mike any questions about me in that
period of my life and the same goes uh you cannot ask me anything about Mike um it's all good stories but uh we were a lot younger at that point so uh welcome to both of you um we are in budget season we kind of kicked it off before
Anna and Mike joined and then last week um you know I wasn't here um I just kind of wanted to give uh maybe a little speech on that um especially for the newer members um the the way that budget season typically works is we have a a
kickoff um with the you know the preliminary budget with the Trans ition of things we will do that at the next meeting um in the meantime what we tend to hear is is is the department briefings the school department and all the municipal departments um and this
this serves two purposes really this this is one an opportunity for them to highlight their services that they bring to the town um and get out what their their plans are to increase services or keep them the same uh where they're struggling uh and where they're doing
well to serve our town I think we're we're blessed with a lot of good departments and a lot of services in town um for our part It's an opportunity to ask questions about the services about the budget imp uh implications of that um in order to keep things moving
um you know one thing direct questions are okay and I I you know I hope all the department heads understand that that we may just ask it directly you know CU that we are uh you know in a a shortened time frame we don't want to be here till after midnight although we did do that
one time last year year I think um you know look for Budget related opportunities and risks we're board we bring a fresh perspective to things that maybe they're dealing with day in and day out um we know that we're under some tight budget constraints so if there's maybe we can bring ideas to to um help
them maybe they can bring ideas to us um also to to help um ask questions that the public might want asked um you know we we're here to represent the public um ultimately we vote on articles uh for
recommendations and write a report for for town meeting uh we are the only legislative body committee um so we represent town meeting basically we are the legislative all the other boards and commissions are on the executive side of
it um so we we get to kind of uh it kind of said oversee but really we get to um hear budgets from both the school and Municipal so we're a little unique in that um side of things the schools is governed by the superintendent and the
school board Municipal side is through the select board and um and the town manager um and we welcome public participation so if there's questions um after the the department um uh hearings or at any point when there's Town
manager uh presentations we all welcome the public whether it's via Zoom or um in the audience to to ask the questions in people part of it um so I I I did just kind of want to get that out as we kind of kicked this off and we have a couple uh new members um with that is
there any public comment from the public and I will under Zoom here I don't see any on Zoom is there any public comment from the uh committee all right uh next on the agenda would be Town manager and finance director reports I don't know if you have anything to
no okay nothing there all right so we'll get into scheduled meetings so tonight we have Police Department fire department and land use Department um the land use Department was part of the revised agenda um we also had them under
old business so I I don't think we run risk of any open meeting law violations but we did we did add them onto the onto the agenda um so if we can start um with uh Chief Tibido on the on the police
budget and I will I will pull that up good evening thank you committee uh acting Chief Jeffrey Tibido for the lunenberg police department have our slide up Chris sorry
yeah me um we did have some Zoom issues earlier um the booth was not able to connect so that was why we were delayed so we collectively apologize there it
is yeah we're oh you have it on your side too okay yeah see see okay let me stop sharing then all right go ahead all right next slide our organizational chart uh the department
runs 24 hours a day 7 days a week uh nights holidays our current Staffing is 18 full-time officers three civilians uh three reserved police officers one animal control officer and eight civilian traffic officers uh currently
there's two unfunded vacancies in the department uh due to retirements we run uh a chief Lieutenant three Sergeants 10 Patrol uh one detective and two school resource officers we have a police
executive assistant a front desk Public Safety desk clerk and a part-time uh admin assistant some of our performance measures uh throughout the years next slide you want me to say next slide every time or uh yeah for probably
for the booth oh okay yeah all right um here's some performance numbers uh throughout the year years 2024 we responded uh we had calls for service of 22880 which is uh been declining since
2021 we made uh 315 arrests 92 of those were in custody uh 22 222 were summonses and one was uh protective custody you can see 2021 was uh a busier
year next slide our motor vehicle accidents uh actually went up last year from 2023 if you um to 289 72 of those had injury 190 of them without injury 27 of them were uh hit
and runs the officer has made 3,31 motor vehicle stops 53 of those were civil citation fines uh 1,836 were warnings 120 of them resulted in criminal offenses with uh 28 arrests and 16 UI
arrests operating Under the Influence sorry if there's anything I any acronym I'll clear it up for you sorry uh next slide good news from 2023 2024 domestic violence related incidents uh almost
went down by half which is uh that's great we were we were running um pretty high in 20 23 only had 65 uh 12 of those resulted in arrests 59 of them uh resulted in restraining orders Animal
Control calls have been um slowly trending uh upward 286 last year for animal control with uh 10 dog bites 20 kennel inspections and 41 Barn
inspections next slide our mental health calls have been again trending upward to uh 88 in 2024 where they were you know in the' 60s and lower before um 20 of them
resulted in uh evaluations and also our steady incline in Firearms licensing has uh been slowly going up too firearm license in 306 in 2024 uh two 260 license the carries
eight of them uh fids 36 of them over the age of 70 FID or LTC and no license to sell ammunition or gunsmiths and two machine gun license that's a that's mainly the part
of our desk clerk that's uh one of the big responsibilities of our uh desk clerk and our police executive assistant where they're almost doing two Monday through Friday to a day so it's it's quite a bit uh next
slide just an update on our Capital plan uh that was implemented and some up Department updates um our Capital plan we approved last year for K9 Cruiser and traffic Cruiser both of those currently are being uh outfitted and I received the response from them to that it should
be ready in the middle of March so that's that's a good sign our body War cameras we had uh body War cameras that were um 4 years old with any technology we started to experience uh a lot of malfunctions and costly repairs uh to
the outdated technology we were able to secure Opa funds of 44722 for 30 cameras and uh we got those currently in service got them up and running last week and they they're uh actually working great there's a nice
breath of fresh air from all the malfunctions we were having with the old ones our Milo train system um which some people might have heard was a state earmark funds that we got we got U $33,900 that's a virtual uh simulation
Based training for use of force and we got that in service also last week and possibly looking towards the future where we could save live ammunition in training costs where we could replace a training with the Milo um for live
ammunition next SL Chief do you think the body cameras um are about every four years you'll need to replace those it's kind of like a cell phone that's that's the way it was explained to me when I had the uh the person from Customs which he was from Kansas City so he was out
here setting up our systems and um basically I was like hey do we have any turning cost here you know can we get any rebates Y and he's like the dead weight so 4 years and we've been fortunate where our first body cameras we obtained with a state Grant and then
with this one was ARA FS yep um they're they're costly but they're they're a needed needed tool in the field do you see those going into a four-year Capital cycle or do you think you can kind of start to stagger them so that they get done through the operating budget yeah
it's so the grants are going to start running out I believe where basically the grants for were for police departments that did not have them at all that's how we got them originally four years ago and then the next round of grants that came up again for police departments that didn't have them so there was no updating there
was no grants for updating your body cameras so we pretty fortunate to get arpa but that is probably going to be something in the future where we might have to either put that into capital a plan because if you think about the system
um if they if they get updated it's not like I can have this old body camera and you can have this new body camera they kind of all work ins Sy okay so it's it's going to be an upfront cost for like total replacement not a staggered uh a staggered
approach all right thank you next slide I have in here uh our goals goal number one is our staffing level uh to fill the two vacancies that we have right now and keep our accreditation
standards maintain accreditation standards which are being updated to the sixth edition which um they're going to for the entire State the accreditation standards are 340 standards that we have to adhere to to
keep our accreditation uh basically equipment policy training hiring it's uh 560 pages of uh of requirements that we have that we keep up with uh attaining that was um uh a pretty pretty big
Endeavor by by the department and by Chief caml and um since we've already gotten over that endeavor we we hope to keep it so that's constantly being updated by our accreditation manner manager um Sergeant
Morelli goal two is uh mptc training uh next slide sorry mptc training this is uh basically a state mandate from uh post uh for the state and Massachusetts training Council 40 each officer has to go through 40
hours of inservice training every year 16 hours of firearms training 16 hours of taser less lethal and handcuffing and 16 hours of uh other classes in professional development so each officer at the minimum has to do 88 hours of
training every year just to keep up with uh the state standard next goal three our community policing uh ber Police Department is ingrained in uh the the community and community policing um if you've seen us at any of
our events you know Trunk or Treat Boys and Girls Club um Rad Rad kids at the high school all the high school events you know we continue to you know support that with our officers and our officers embrace it it's uh pretty much a culture at the Lunenburg Police Department when
you come in that that community policing is is is basically ingrained and uh you know some of the shoveling out the seniors the road races the school events um Salvation Army ringing the bell the cold Plunge at the Boys and
Girls Club you know just to name a few but uh we like to get our officers all involved in the in in the community and and I I hope that the community appreciates that who teaches the rad now uh Kennedy Jackson okay and sorry uh
well acting lieutenants R okay yeah we did have Amanda and Amanda left left us but she was also a part of that oh I'm sorry officer Jenna Morris completed the class last year also our newest officer okay so she'll also be
involved in that program great y next slide goal four uh development employee evaluations this is something that Chief Gamel U wanted to start we were going through the creditation process and it was uh the accreditation process was
just so lengthy and took a year to get going but this is something going forward that um employee evaluations basically recognition of the employees focus on the area of training where they might be deficient or or actually uh interested in and want to do more
training on you know also determines which officers are ready for promotion and advancement so that that'll be something that we'll be looking for uh pretty soon next slide recap of uh where we are today 2025 with our current budget at about
63% um some of uh like I was talking about we were trending high with uh body camera repairs uh office supplies um I think everybody's uh felt the the basically the inflation prices well we're no
different when we order from WB Mason our price goes up just like uh everybody else so that's some of the stuff some of the stuff where uh also lock up we're trending a little high which has to do with uh prisoners um female prisoners can't be housed at uh Wester Wester
County Sheriff's Department which has their own uh lockup they call it safekeep which if um if you've seen our budgets in the past uh going back five six years when they didn't have this safe keep our lock up budget was was uh
enormous and so you know the sheriff's department has really helped out local cities and towns with that and we've been able to Trend that Trend that budget downward to where it was six figures to where now we're we're at 20,000 for supplies and and lock
up next slide uh 2023 2024 expended you can see that our budget in 2023 we expended 97% uh 2024 we expended 95% um if you go to the next slide it shows you that some of the surpluses
that we had in the 2024 was a patrol officer had left to uh join the state police so that salary was was uh left over our police executive assistant uh Manda Moore left and we hired uh Kennedy
Jackson at a lower rate um for some time our Desk position uh Evelyn was vacant we were able to fill that with her and our lock up the availability of again Thea County Sheriff's safkeep along with uh we had
minimal equipment issues the the cars weren't breaking next slide brings us in the FY 26 uh the budget you can see 80% is Personnel 2% we have for vehicle maintenance 8% is
our regional Dispatch Center which is uh nooba Valley um 4% is Radio watch which is our front desk um it's label radio watch from um way before but when you see radio watch it's our front test that's uh that's keeping the door open
People able to walk in the front lobby 1% is our lock up 2% is Animal Control 1% is our other expenses 1% supplies and 1% of purchase of uh Services uh next slide next slide's uh explaining our
Personnel budget um salaries makes up 50% of our Personnel budget incentives uh which is uh uh 9% overtime is 10 and training is 3% when is the uh when was or is the the
um Union negotiations contract this year so the the contract is up uh this year this year yeah okay so uh negotiations are about to start so we don't have any of those figures right now okay
y next slide is a salary breakdown um as you can see as Chris pointed out we're in a contract year so we don't have set rates for um 2025 uh July 1st so you're going to see all zeros um the only one with
would be the uh step increase um which is by the CBA and then uh the sap increase for our part-time uh admin assistant you can see the public safety coordinator went down with the the
hiring of a new person and from a senior person is Chief a contracted position or a yes it is okay so okay all of those all still in limbo y yeah uh next
slide that's your breakdown of your uh police Personnel incentives uh by the CBA basically 9% you have your stiens longevity uniform allowance education incentive uh SRO stien traffic stien uh
K9 stien the K9 stien is an increase that is the uh increase that I'm asking for next year for the comfort dog uh Comfort dog Hank if you go to the next slide I have the whole slide explaining everything um so uh by the fair labor
standards act and CBA guidelines one hour of overtime is paid per day for care training and maintaining the K9 um right now K9 Cody which is our Patrol K9 um gets that gets that incentive for the past six years uh officer mcnamer Brad
mamera has volunteered Hank to the town and to the schools he has not uh re receiv received any comfort um I'm sorry K9 care for those 6 years and I I believe it's only fair that uh that officer mcnamer starts receiving that
same K9 care that that is afforded to the to the patrol dogs um also you know for the future of the Comfort dog program which I think is so engraved ingrained in in lunenberg and in lunenberg schools um I feel that it's
only fair that that that Comfort dog uh Handler receives the the same same K9 care that that the other uh K9 officers receive as you can see there's K9 Cody and comfort dog Hank overtime overtime makes up that 10%
um is a breakdown of the overtime um went down by 1.2% basically uh newer officers make uh less than senior officers so with the newer officers your holiday pay your over time Are all uh
decreasing because their rates are lower um than the senior officers coure time a level funded and investigative Field Services uh level funded next slide training uh training budget is 3%
um or basically all all level level there for f 26 and same as fy2 next slide purchase of services uh again uh
same as FY um 25 all level funded except for you'll see the motor motorcycle lease um the motorcycle that we have the lease in previous leas was $5,000 and uh Harley-Davidson this year increas at least to 6500 now for the
increase it now covers uh your oil changes your maintenance and uh all your basically scheduled warranty M uh maintenance for the motorcycle so what was happening is that police departments with their motorcycles were turning in
these motorcycles to Harley-Davidson after the at leas was up and they were getting a bill they were basically getting a bills Harley was saying well you missed the 3,000 mile oil change you missed the 5,000 mile oil change oh well my town mechanic did it no that don't count you're supposed to bring it to
Harley so they were seeing that basically police departments around the state were getting a little mad that all of a sudden they're ending up with a $2,000 bill when they turning the motorcycle in so instead Harley did it this way so that basically there's no if ends or butts about it it's all covered
in your initial cost next slide Police Supplies um dues and memberships the only thing that went up by $315 everything else is level funded from FY
25 next slide office expenses um one K9 expense is for the K9 insurance for K9 Cody it's $987 a year for insurance on that on the animal which we experienced in the past
with the uh previous Patrol uh K9 Jerry that vet bills get expensive and it's pretty it's more cost efficient to just get insurance pay the up outfront cost of insurance instead of you know incidentally getting that vet bill for
$2,000 $3,000 or whatever it may be next slide Animal Control uh animal control is 2% of the budget um that's level funded since uh from 2025 all those numbers haven't changed we're going to keep them the
same next slide is our lockup which is 1% again level funded it from FY 25 um at 20,600 um if you look prison and watch salaries that's for somebody would transport uh the person to to the
Sheriff's office or if we do have a female prisoner that's to watch The Prisoner purchase of services is there meal s um supplies is uh your blankets your pillows um dry cleaning for for
those supplies uh disinfectant uh gloves everything to to run the lock up next slide is uh nishoba nishoba Valley Regional Dispatch Center their assessment for the town for our 911 is
uh to right now $216,000 uh I believe that could be going down in the near future with some some allocations of other towns that could happen but that that's across the board all towns are getting are are feeling that increase that's not just lunenberg
so every town that's in our 911 system which is our police Fire EMS uh Dispatch Center at right now that's the number which it could change next Slide the vehicle maintenance um makes up 2% and level
funded that from fy2 the the positive thing there if you'll see is our our fuel budget our fuel budget is going to stay the same because we have these hybrid Cruisers and we're not seeing the the consumption of fuel that we were seeing with the
toose tahos so that's that's positive next slide this just a general overview of uh 2026 targeted budget you can see that um the increase without nisher for the
police budget is $115,000 if you include noober that brings you up to 30,000 and uh pretty much a 1.2 increase um but those numbers for nishoba actually could be changing so next
slide some Department highlights um that we have here you you know you had uh chief retired uh I took over as acting Chief in October I put uh acting Chief uh Sean Zer in the acting Lieutenant's
role we we hired Evelyn Ro to for our front desk some of the community events that we've been involved in and ringing the bell at the Salvation Army me and CH Chief Sullivan uh I think we were freezing by the end that was a cold day but it was a fun day and and we
were we were told that uh that was uh like the biggest take for a Salvation Army they I'm going to stick with that yeah they couldn't believe how full we got the money I don't know if they were just scared that they had to give us the money or what but we had a we had a great
turnout and next slide and then just uh any questions uh right now uh one question before I turn to um Staffing plan where where are we on the the your overall plan for Staffing are
we are you talking about the old 10year year hiring plan yeah which we've put off for the last two years um we've just been basically having vacancies um officers leaving for the State Police leaving for other departments and we we're just in this constant cycle right
now we have two vacancies um we just hired an officer from came here from hubberston hubberston PD worked there for 10 years moved to the town of lunenberg luckily moved to the town of lunberg so he wanted to work in the town of lunberg now that that's an officer
with years experience uh has a master's degree and it took us 3 months to get him finally on the road Monday he still has to do his 3 weeks of FD training so which puts you at four months you know it's just that that constant cycle of
hiring where we try and keep trying to catch up okay it's almost it's almost you almost have to do a multiple hiring of numerous numbers like three all at once in order to to get to the catching up but that 10-year hiring plan yeah
that was that was at 25 officers right we're at 18 right now I hope we can keep 20 I hope I can hire to 20 okay we're also seeing no applicants you know we're not seeing the 30 40 applicants that we used
to see we're getting six we're getting seven you know it's just uh overall and and that's the industry across the board that's public service that's police Fire EMS dispatch we're just we're just not getting the applications that we used to
so what you have is you have a lot of cities and towns poaching from the other cities and towns yeah and then the state police right so we've lost three three officers to the state police you know you get them trained you have them for a couple years and then you know so it's
just that that that constant cycle of hiring it's frustrating it's frustrating for any any Department you know is that going to the state police is that unique or is that a lot of towns see that um a lot of towns right now are seeing that state police are low numbers
everybody's at low numbers and there's not a lot of applicants out there so there's stealing from the towns exactly yeah they do pay a little bit more right but you know and maybe you think for a patrolman wants to go to the State
Police that's a yeah more prestigious if it is I don't know right right I mean you could you could have some officers do that and then you have some officers that that still just want to work in cities and towns right you know but some officers do want to work around the entire State sure and
then just um back on your slide 29 your police salaries is at. 34 but you did mention going into um um negotiations this year correct um is there a there's you don't have any kind
of salary Reserve in here no I don't that would have to be so that would if there was a CBA agreement um with the officers that would have to be in taken out of the salary Reserve um is salary Reserve held at the Town
level yes okay yes okay I don't know what that numbers is okay okay all right um any other questions down the line maybe anyone yeah just um
job on the body camera why do we need 30 cuz we have uh the reserve officers and then you have to carry spares so if one breaks or you have to send it out you have to send it to the company you have to put that
spare into use if you have uh basically say it goes down and the officer doesn't think it works you have to grab that spare so what we have now is we have 23 of them out there so we have seven spare
where we did order originally 30 um from the original time so if they go down we're we're never at a a lapse and originally our 10-year plan was we we we were going to be at 25 officers with uh fire
reserves so you assigning a body camera to each officer they don't use them per shift no each officer gets their own body camera so they're only being used per shift eight hours a day yep or 16 if
they working a double is there a reason they can't share them uh each body camera is licked to your own personal file so when you download a video every video video you have to log on to the computer and categorize what happened at that call um whether it was a motor
vehicle stop whether it was an arrest and you have to assign your incident number to all that so each one is unique okay you must have to charge them too how often do they have to get charged uh we're seeing right now that
they're they're holding like an 8 Hour charge where our old ones weren't actually okay yeah and we have charging stations we have three in the station and we also have uh four in the cruises um the the vacancies that you
have are those funded vacancies or yes they those two vacancies are funded did you have those vacancies in the past uh so this is you have two vacancies now do you know if last year we had similar
vacancies uh last year we had a vacancy when Devon O'Brien went to the state police but this year's vacancies are two new ones that are retirements from um this year okay um how many uh total ft full-time
employees you have FTE do you know full-time employees yeah if you were you have uh 20 20 uh 18 officers you have your executive assistant uh the clerk and the
parttime till 21 so total of 21 and then the ACO is part-time the ACO is part-time yeah um okay the so two people are those positions
uh have how long have they been vacant uh Chief gaml retired in October and right now I'm just acting so that can't be filled until we find a permanent Chief whether or not it goes outside or stays with me um cuz if it goes outside
then it's basically filled by that by that position the other one was a sergeant that retired and that one was was vacant as of January 31st okay all right um this is I'm just this
is more of curiosity the license to carry are those something you renew every year no it's every five years every five years so it could go in your fluctuation in the numbers basically is depending on when the person has a renewal time okay so looking at your
slide um which it has four years um I think three or four years okay I was mostly I was uh curious about that the training cost that you have in the budget is that representative for all of the 18 officers the 88 and the
other the three reserves Al also have to be trained so that's 21 officers all right the regional dispatch um how how is that managed and I'm fairly comfortable with Town
operations um how is that managed I know it's independent but who is the decision to hire to give raises if you could give me an Insight on that those operations they they also operate on a u a CBA with their employees they're their
independent um basically of the town of lunenberg they're their own Dispatch Center um they have their own executive that manages that place and their their employees I guess who hires that executive
who hires right uh the town administrators I believe was so when that position is emptied the town administrators and and the regional dispatch that executive then reports to the town administrators in terms of yeah they they report to uh three three
boards the executive board uh the operational board finance and the finance board and each City in town has a has their their department heads on it okay so the all these boards that you mentioned are current Town employees
they're part of that board meaning thank you so um the can you can you do the microphone yes absolutely thank you so the executive board um is made up of town administrators and town Managers from the member communities of
the district uh the operations board is made up of uh police and Fire Chiefs from the district and the finance board has Finance officials from the communities so um the way that the structure is with the agreement is we
have equal voting rights um amongst the towns uh that's not always the way it is with regional dispatch um but we are we select the executive director and then it is the executive director's um task to hire the Personnel okay how many
towns are in it well we have one that may be joining so Hudson um may be joining that's the newest town uh we have it is I'm going to go up Berlin uh Harvard uh Lancaster
Lunenburg uh Bolton boxboro and box Berlin and box Lancaster they weren't they leaving the only one that left was town and oh okay okay that's okay and there is talk of potential future growth but
right now it's at least just Hudson okay all right it is if I could just remark uh Regional dispatch centers tend to save an incredible amount of money we could not operate at the same cost that we are putting in um to run our own
dispatch 247 and uh the state actively incentivizes communities to join Regional dispatch through their grant program while you're up one question for you maybe um when is the plan to have the ch Chief role go in to hire the the
full-time Chief so uh actually tomorrow the screening committee is meeting for the first time um so candidates uh will be notified of their internal um first screening interview will be in the next
two weeks okay uh and then we plan to have it filled in April so Public Announcement in April okay thank you we probably should get you a mic microphone too so um
do can you elaborate to and and this is all about operations just because you know like I mean I usually watch these meetings when I'm not here and I never knew how the dis patch is managed um but can you elaborate for the community how
is overtime usually triggered and managed uh the overtime with the police department is when somebody takes the day off what their vacation uh personal sick or holiday time is used it will be backfilled with uh with another officer
um we currently we will not go under two officers per shift and we currently like to run three officers per shift um three officers is a good number for us that we've seen in the past um with either arrests or any incidents that happen if
there's any major incidents uh going on snowstorms or certain events like that we'll will post uh more officers on shift okay so the overtime is really triggered by mostly back filling or some situation that requires more okay um now
looking at the trends and I'm a little bit Tiding up with uh that old Staffing plan that we have had um looking at the statistics that you given us from the past 3 4
years you know you mentioned we were supposed to be at 25 officers with five Reserve based on that Staffing plan and looking that calls have been steady or slowing down is would you say that that
Staffing plan is something that the town needs or is that something that you know at the time made sense because our numbers might have been going up right um and that plan probably was close to 10 years ago a time to maybe re-evaluate and come up with a you know now Staffing
plan based on our current needs yeah what absolutely that's that's uh one of the reason why is I I just put in there to fill out vacancies and and not not pursue that 10-year plan okay the 10year plan has been I think it was uh two years ago well pretty much right right around cob I I think is what happened
but um you know so we would have been we would have been at the 22 23 officer Mark right now if we followed that 10-year plan and um I basically didn't see a need to put that in there right now we are trending down since Co we
have been we have been trended downward um before those numbers if I put those numbers in before covid they would uh the arrest would be in the 6700 range where now we we're teetering in the 4 to 300 range right so that was the 10year
plan was in place when when we had uh you know 600 to 700 or rest of the year our lockout budget uh with the uh Sheriff safekeep wasn't wasn't in place yet and our lockout budget was around $100,000 right um so yeah we constantly
evaluate every year and you know where we can make Cuts we make Cuts yeah and I'm not necessarily thinking of cuts I'm just thinking you know to have a plan that we don't think is the most ideal optimal plan going forward I don't think
we should you know if that's the position that I think and I think that should be you know to come from the police along from you guys along with the town manager to say we need to set that plan aside because it no longer applies the reality to when we design
that plan no longer applies we're seeing our numbers going down so that you know because otherwise it looks like you know we are being deficient to what we are offering to the to your department when in fact what you're telling us today is we're not being deficient is we are you
know there's always good would have been great to have the other two officers um so that's the conversation that I think would be good to have it oh yeah I I completely agree I mean we have a a new town manager and uh you know we trended
down since Co which means technically crime's going down in lunenberg which is a good thing it's a great thing so yeah uh the assessment by either myself or whoever the new police chief is with the new town manager can assess that uh Staffing level and it's it's definitely
something that that that will be looked at okay um my last question is the contra track negotiations will happen now in the spring and they the the goal is to go into effect for July 1st or 20126 okay that's always the goal with
Union negotiations but uh anybody who's been involved in Union negotiations uh knows that sometimes they can they can extend longer or they can be quick or they can go years you know well just got to make sure that salary Reserve is well funded I don't know what that number
is thank you very much thank you any other questions for any I just had a quick one uh you me you mentioned an accreditation you know for the the this budget encompasses everything that would maintain that status I I assume yes okay that's
it how is that program for the I think it's the mental health co-responder is that what it's called yep we lost that we lost that funding uh that was pulled back by the state oh it was yeah it wasn't filled every city in town that didn't have uh a mental
health clinician hired by uh um it was right around October September October uh the governor pulled the funds back so we lost that the grant funding any grant that was not used at the time uh the governor um or the state not so much the
governor but the state took the money back okay um we were we were advertising at a lower rate through Open Sky a lower rate I mean a mental health clinici has to go through a ton of schooling and it was across the board where you know they're getting
paid $65,000 when you know they have student loans that probably exceed that for for for the degrees that they had to obtain to to get to that level and it just wasn't uh just wasn't up to up to basically the standards of of that feed
so yeah across the board we uh a lot of cities and towns lost that grant for those that did fill that position and are using that have they found that to be valuable um yeah I mean it's very valuable myself and officer mcnamer went
to a training down at uh Framingham police Framingham police were one of the first police departments to to basically put put that mental health clinician uh in the field with the officers and and even they they had two openings you know it was basically what we encountered
there with that training and every every Department that was there was we can't find mental health clinicians um not for the price that we're offering which not sure if we'd even be able to go higher based on what our our money was for the
grant and and the the other thing is it's a calling uh mental health clinician that works in a police department is basically a calling a public Public Service um you police Fire EMS military it's all a calling you're you're not there to get rich you're
doing it for for public service and you needed the mental health clinician that basically would take a salary of $65,000 instead of $120,000 you know so it was a tough sell yep yeah any other
questions any questions from the public that they want to Ronda lisso 181 Reservoir Road my questions and comments are regarding the the dogs the canines
um now Hank is due to retire soon and he's a comfort dog and the can9 Cody is a drug sniffing dog and we used to have Jerry who was
more like I looked at Jerry as like a almost like an additional officer capable of like taking down a suspect in keeping an officer out of danger so I'm wondering why we switched
to a drug sniffing dog and also wanted I read a story about a dog who's trained as a drug sniffing dog and a comfort dog and so I'm kind of wondering why we went
in this direction where now if we're going to just have a drug sniffing dog and a comfort dog we could actually use one dog for that and only have to outfit like one
vehicle so if if we could just get some background on that cuz I would I hate to lose the Comfort dog and I think I mean I don't know if it's possible to once a dog is trained
as a drug sniffing dog to then get him the training to also be a comfort dog I don't believe so officer MN will be able to talk more on that K9 Cody is a a tracking uh K9 and narcotics he's dually train so he is available for uh tracking
for lost people missing persons the only thing that K9 Cody doesn't do is like you said bite people or take them down uh at the end of the track he he's not there to to basically use force on the individual um the use of force for Kines in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts was
changed and uh the use of a dog now is at level uh level five Threat Level which at level five Threat Level is basically deadly force uh at level five an officer is Justified in using their firearm or uh deadly force at that point
so basically we saw uh no need for the K9 to be at a level five where before it was at lower levels where you could have a k9 apprehend somebody now if a k9 apprehends somebody it's it's actually a life-threatening situation so you know
we didn't see the need for that where you have an officer you'll have two officers there if they have to apprehend a subject um the Comfort dog training and the K9 Patrol training totally different uh totally different uh trainings that they have to go to uh K9
Cody has to constantly TR weekly and have so many hours to say certified and the Comfort dog I'm not familiar with the trinum but offic mcnamer again trains well what I'm saying is I read a an article about a dog who is trained as
both a comfort dog and like the sniffing kind of dog so it's not like an impossible thing I suppose if you have the right Handler in the right training for
both the Handler and the K9 so it was just my thought is you know having a multi-purpose dog rather than multiple dogs and outfitting multiple
Vehicles just a thought thank you thank you all right if there's nothing else I want to thank you uh Chief uh for your presentation did excellent job for your first time so uh I appreciate that and you didn't even need an
assistant with you you creating this SL I figured she could have the night off okay so all right um uh next up Chief Sullivan all right good evening I'll let
you get the slides pulled up there and while I get started uh some of you have heard my initial presentation before newer folks fire department is an all hazards response agency basically if it doesn't involve you know it's an emergency and it doesn't involve law
enforcement we're probably involved uh in some way shape or form uh you can go to the next Slide the the department is made up of 10 career people myself three career fire uh fire officers six career
firefighter paramedics my full-time administrative assistant and the call force is made up of five call officers and 27 approximately call Firefighters at EMTs and paramedics
seven of those are uh called par firefighter paramedics next slide uh we we're staffed 247 the career firefighters work three shifts of three Monday through Saturday
uh Sunday is covered by three uh of our call people or prium people uh again all firefighter EMTs uh any of those shifts always have at least one firefighter paramedic on duty at all times uh in addition the call force uh supplements
them again there's only three people a lot of calls are going to require far more people in that so the call force and the career staff coming in on recall will support them with additional apparatus Manpower whatever is needed it depends on the call some call uh some
calls just the on duty shift handles some calls we may call back some call firefighter some we're looking for everybody to come in depends on the Acuity of the call and the Manpower needs next slide we operate uh three engines or Pumpers one of which doubles is our
heavy Rescue Unit uh One ladder truck two forestry or brush fire trucks two ambulances that are equipped to the paramedic level uh one water rescue unit and three uh support units Chief vehicle
duty officer vehicle uh pickup truck next slide as I've said uh we if it's not basically law enforcement we're involved in it we handle fire suppression uh EMS which is a big part of our job now uh
technical rescue and hazardous materials response at least initially uh heavily involved in public education uh public service and support training is obviously a big part of our job we'll talk about that in a little bit and then obviously the
administration and support end of it uh next slide for call volume in 2024 we had a total of 283 calls of that 1,670 or
669 were emergency calls or calls for service from the public um again fires and hazardous conditions can be fires they can be fuel spills oil spills gas leaks carbon monoxide incidents electrical fires things like that alarms
maybe smoke detectors fire alarms uh carbon monoxide alarms something that was ended up not being an actual incident or an actual fire or emergency but we get the call service and good intent maybe we're coming out
uh we may come out pump somebody's Sellar uh checking a problem with something questionable like a hazardous condition something like that good intent calls means somebody called us they thought there was a fire it ended up being somebody saw somebody's
campfire and thought the house was on fire or they they thought they saw smoke but it was steam it was something that somebody called us they thought there was an emergency and it ended up not being again EMS and rescue that's the main part of our work uh 1193 runs in
that uh for medical care about 72% of those resulted in a transport to the hospital a lot of the other ones may be coming to help pick somebody up because they fell responding to a Lifeline alarm uh or doing a wellness check on somebody we respond a often with the police
department if somebody can't get a hold of someone that they they're not sure if they they need medical attention or not so we respond out on that uh inspections we have two inspectors uh certified through the state they conduct uh smoke detectors oil burner inspections fuel
tank inspections LP gas uh every year in conjunction with the building inspector we have to conduct uh inspections for life safety of any buildings that have liquor licenses uh those get done every year plus additional inservice inspections things
like that uh call volume is basically the same as 2023 we didn't really see a significant change either in EMS or in the total number of runs uh what we did see was somewhat of an uptick in fire incidents compared to the year before
and we've seen an uptick in mutual Aid uh some of that being the closer of noova Hospital uh next slide just give you a 10-year idea of where our call volume has gone uh that's B basically the 10-year Trend uh again we
dropped around 2020 with covid because no one wanted to come out uh no one was calling an ambulance that's picked up since and we've stayed at about the level that we're at uh for the last couple of years next slide I always include this
slide every year uh in years past people have always asked me what's the impact of the building in town the big apartment buildings uh housing developments this chart just shows uh the call volume out of the big apartment complexes the larger housing
developments the condo complexes the blue line is EMS medical calls and again as you see that's trended overall trended up significantly and it's stayed that way we see a lot of
activity out of those units uh next slide so just an update on the FY 25 budget currently uh salaries are generally On Target uh in calendar 2024 uh we spent an additional 23,000 on
covering open prum shifts that I'll talk about further down the line that is split between two fiscal years uh but it has had an impact expense is generally On Target uh for this time of year other than our EMS expense that is continuing
to run over uh since SE uh April of last year we have been running 247 paramedic we always have a paramedic on duty the prior year we were paramedic part of the time is we got people up to speed working so we're taking on more expense
we haven't exactly had a long track record of years to base what our expenses going to be the original numbers were based from several years ago uh before prices went insane on a lot of things so we're still trying to
work on that figuring out exactly where we need and trying to get some controls on what we need what we don't need so we're still working on that other than that most everything else is where we would expect it to be at this point so proposed budget next
Slide the 26 proposed budget is generally a level service budget uh with a couple of notable uh requests uh contains contractual increases uh out of the collective bargaining agreement I do have a proposal with the town manager
that we'll I'll discuss a little bit here to hire three more firefighters and that and add a fourth shift to cover s days a week talk about that in a little bit uh we still maintain 100% paramedic coverage uh which were required to by
state law as well uh I did have some again budgeting was a little different than in past years when the town manager used to provide a Target budget and an above Target so I still kind of use the language of beyond what our numbers were last year I've put in for some again a
request for an increase in EMS supplies to cover that uh some uh our It software needs and radio maintenance which I'll talk about a little further on too next slide just a quick run down on uh our
salaries on where they were over the last few years salaries and uh career overtime and the call firefighter salary uh again the 26 proposed for the Korea firefighter salary shows a contractual increase the
overtime shows a as the contractual increase is 2 and a half% uh I've submitted in for a 2 and a half% increase in the overtime line uh call firefighter salary is pretty static right now traditionally last couple years we've
run over on overtime which is made up out of the call of firefighter salary which usually runs under call firefighter salary can fluctuate significantly depending on what we have for a call volume as an example FY 24 we
were busy we did not have a lot of major incidents it required a lot of people for a lot of hours uh so that did not get used up as much as it has in years past this year after the most everybody probably saw the news and the brush season we had in the fall and we've been
in a busy Fire season both in town and out of town I don't think you're going to see that this year we're probably more on what's traditionally an active year on the fires side and the brush season was definitely
unique now next slide again like I said the salary increase is contractual I had also put in increases for the overtime and holiday P paid match the contractual increases in the base rates uh again I know the question was asked earlier on
the police overtime our over time is earn time off uh sick time and call back so within within reason most of that's targetable the variables for us uh sick time really
isn't a big deal we probably use less than on an average less than one day per person in the department uh they do get comp time for stuff which really is a wash because if we're covering it we could be covering it with overtime we could be covering it with a predium which is a
less rate when we do overtime it goes for the career staff it goes to the career Staff first if none of them want to work it it can go to the prum people and they can fill it which is a little bit less of a rate opposite end on the pum shift goes to the pums
first if none of them want to work it it's off to the career people and if we need to maintain a minimum Staffing career people get forced in at overtime which I will talk about later on too uh next slide just an update on The Paramedic program that we've been
working on for the last several years as of April 1st last year uh we have a paramedic on duty 247 uh we have six career firefighter paramedics uh and seven call prum firefighter paramedics the primary
ambulance is staff 24/7 at the paramedic level the backup ambulance is staffed uh depending on what we get for call back we have three people on duty so the first ambulance has to be staffed by law with two uh leaves one person back
depending on what we get for call back we can staff it but it may be at a basic level an advanced level or paramedic level uh we did increase our ambulance rates back in September uh to offset some of our costs we had not gone up in rates in several
years on that the downside to that is lunenberg is an older community about 64 to 65% of our calls fall under Medicare Medicaid Mass health which means we have to accept what they pay regardless of
what we Bild so the increase in the ambulance rates is really offset by that we don't see a Hu we're not we're not raking in a ton of money and again operating as a municipal service we're trying try to offset our costs we're not trying to make a profit we're not a private
ambulance and that trying to trying to turn a profit on this uh next slide so as I mentioned one of the things I I've brought up this has been a discussion with the Union uh I've had this discussion and I believe in it as
well is adding a fourth shift to the department as I said we have three shifts of three covering six days a week and with the call and PDM covering Sundays what we're been running into over the last few years is it's getting increasingly difficult to get people to
cover the Sunday shifts what's really difficult is the on call paramedics we only have seven they all work somewhere else uh some people sometimes it's a challenge on weekends sometimes they're working uh in their other departments
and to be honest they can work for us for $30 an hour or work overtime in their own departments for 4050 $60 an hour and that so we have that challenge there and that and it's been noticeable since we went to requiring a paramedic all the
time and that and that's been we've been seeing it it's been trending up a little bit we've added pums we have chased down trying to attract more uh call fir Fetter paramedics we've lost one we've gained one we will lose one again in the
fall when he turns 65 uh and a lot of them that we reach out to and that some people may be interested when you tell them it's mostly Sundays they go oh and I never hear from them again and that that's it's not just us
there are there other places that are running into the same challenge but again if we don't have a paramedic on Sundays we have to force an a full-time in one of the six full-time paramedics by contract that's a double time so again in the Cal last calendar
year that was an extra $23,000 and the bigger concern is burnout with our staff uh next slide to just to give you kind of an idea there's always forced overtime whether it's police whether it's fire we
have to maintain a certain number of people but in 24 71% of all the shifts that had to be forced in were Sundays and that the proposal would take their they currently work a 48 hour week
that would change it to a 42-hour week would have at a fourth shift of three firefighters and that uh we've discussed again I'm in discussions with the town manager fully aware of the budgetary challenges that the town is looking at this is something we might be able to do
over 1 to three years when we talked about Staffing plans those of you that remember the fire plan we had five people part of that plan was around fy20 was to go to this schedule it didn't happen at the time the town manager for
reasons of hers did not support it so we've worked along this way for now now we're starting to run into it uh next slide again not to give people sticker shock the estimated cost if we did it
all in one year was uh a little under $464,500 that includes cost of new staff uh change in the amount of overtime that we would need uh and one promotion for a shift Commander on that shift each shift
currently has an officer a fire officer either a captain or a lieutenant assigned to it this shift would have that as I've said we have some other options this could be done over up to three years and that we could we've discussed it we could make it work the
plan would be the pum could be redistributed covering and filling in more weekday with the potential of giving us a fourth person to staff to second ambulance you know guaranteed more time and that but that's down the
road uh get next slide in summary in the fourth shift it would provide better coverage for the town we would have career staff seven days a week not pum we're not worrying about a pum not showing up a pum getting
held over on his regular job at the last minute these people get ordered in just like anybody else uh um we've run into that problem we've lost people at the last minute because hey I can't come in because I can't leave my own job uh that happens a lot like I said they're all full-timers
somewhere else um at least having career staff seven days a week spreads that out I know I've always got a full-timer uh and like I said the PDM could be reassigned to fill in and give us the potential with no real cost
difference on the PDM end to be able to that second ambulance a lot more of the time what we're seeing with the closure in Nela Hospital we're seeing a lot more transports to lemonster which isn't a bad thing except we're seeing our weight times are increasing at the hospital
they've increased on an average of about 7 minutes per run since September which is you know and that I haven't uh checked it in the last month couple months I would not be surprised to see if that has trended it up we had an ambulance holding the wall there for over an hour the other day because they
would not have a bed or they did not have a bed or a place to put a person which means we've got one ambulance left and hopefully we have somebody back covering the station what we're also seeing is an uptick and mutual Aid our ambulance Mutual Aid overall was down a little bit from
2023 but what we noticed is right about July the number of runs per month doubled right about the time they announced that nooba was closing what we're seeing is we're seeing longer runs to towns that we didn't go to all the time because their ambulances are tied up
because of the closure of nooba Hospital the towns that were right near nooba some of them might had a 30-minute turnaround time now they're looking at an hour and a half 2 hours 2 and a half hours going to further hospitals means they're not available means they're calling other towns to cover their calls
which means we move out more that way and some of those cases that means now if we're way out in Townsen somewhere we may be transporting to Southern New Hampshire in nashwa or St Joe's we could be going to Haywood lemonster hospital is overwhelmed we may see more transports
to UMass to wer to St Vincent's two two and a half hour turnaround time instead of 40 45 minutes going to lemonster these are some of the challenges that we run into again with the fourth shift uh it's a recruitment and retention thing
as Chief timido mentioned they lose people to the state police they lose people to bigger departments we don't have the equivalent of the state police but we do have bigger departments we have departments in the area that almost everyone around here is running paramedics and that as I mentioned the
statistic at the bottom of the screen if you look at fire departments around the state that run 247 coverage 191 work the 42h hour week six work the 48 that we work and that and that is most definitely a recruitment and retention
issue our last hiring we had two experienced paramedics that interviewed we had them on the hook they couldn't take the pay cut and they weren't going to change the schedule so we lost them in the long run it worked out we trained a couple of our call people and but we had to pay to train
them ourselves which the four people that we trained ourselves cost the town overall $120,000 roughly they are under a buyback agreement that they have to pay back a c graduated amounts if they leave within 3
years one is already out from under that other ones will be coming out within the next couple years they are great people I want to maintain them feta paramedics are like gold right now in this state and it's very easy to look around and
see what other people are paying I want to hang on to these people and that this is something as my union president is so eloquently stated more than once some of it's a quality of life thing so of it's a wear and tear thing but I think it's
better for the town in the long run too and again I know what we're looking at for money I'm I'm not blind to that and I understand if it doesn't come together this year but the problem is not going to go away either it's going to be here can you go to the next slide so again uh I have presented a
more in-depth plan than I'm talking about here with numbers that I presented to the town manager uh we're discussing it and that's about all we can do right now again understand it's a difficult implementation this year but the problem's still going to be there we got
to look at it some point and again even in even with that that's going to require bargaining with the Union if we were going to do it sooner they're in year coming into year three of their contract that would require impact bargaining and that's that's a whole different thing so I just kind of want
to put it out there that this is an issue that we've been facing difficult to Contin continue on with the budget uh next slide I've requested an additional 5,000 in our EMS uh Supply budget this is mostly Advanced life support supplies
medications um our original estimates were from about eight years ago from other services uh we are busier and we're doing more ALS than we expected and what wasn't calculated in was the crazy fluctuations in prices so we've been still trying to pin down where
we're at on that uh we have to carry a minimum amount of medications and restock according to state regulations and that some of that we end up replacing it before it gets used uh it expires like anything else in your medicine cabinet uh we're working on a
couple internal controls to tighten up what we need what we don't need but we're also trying to get a better trend on what we're going to need each year so that request is there too uh next slide i' requested an additional $1,000
in It software we have multiple softwares that we use through the department uh report writing apparatus maintenance and checks that we have to document all the time uh some add-on modules we get a lot of software through
the Dispatch Center that cost that you saw per town that includes quite a bit but there's several things that we have to do excuse me on our own uh we have a scheduling software that we use uh we're in budget with that right now uh my
concern is is they like to prop uh throw increases well after we've set the budget so I'm kind of trying to be prepared for that last year they threw some surprises at us so we we never know uh last uh next
slide I'd also requested an additional 10,000 in uh radio maintenance uh Capital this is the budget to maintain radios portable radios mobile radios radio infrastructure this isn't part of the capital money that we had that's
different to replace the backbone this is like portable radios uh mobile radios replacing maintaining some of the backbone and infrastructure that line hasn't gone up since probably before 2010 been 10 grand for a long time think because
everybody's aware we've seen a lot of increases cost of you know cost of everything is gone nuts one of the things we've been working on in the fire department is our portable radios are obsolete through arpa funding State funding we've been able to replace a
little more than half of them my goal has been is to increase the line item that we can replace two or three radios a year with like you said with the body cameras that in 10 years time we're not talking about replacing 40 some odd portable radios all at once
again I would like to spread them out like we had a couple years ago we had increased our Capital protective clothing same thing after we'd gotten a large amount on Capital funding to kind of get us over the hump we're trying to replace so many sets of gear a year that
we're not having to again do it all at once uh can you go to the uh next slide we did apply for an afg Grant which is a federal assistance to Firefighters Grant last year to try to replace them and we did not get that the radios run for we
call a fire ground grade radio it's not just a little walkie-talkie it's a heavyduty radio with a remote microphone it's built to with you know be water resistant shock resistant somewhat heat resistant On The Low End these run between $3 and $5,000 per unit with the
current budget I might be able to buy one a year and still have money left to do maintenance on other things the goal is to be able to at least buy two or three a year right now the current radios we bought were a little over four grand a piece uh like I said we've replaced
approximately half but I still need to keep replacing them I had asked for this last year and it was not funded so uh next slide just an update for Capital uh on fy2 uh or kep update currently the new
ambulance that was bought with arpa funds that we ordered two years ago is supposedly scheduled to be delivered to the dealership this week in fact I spoke to the sales rep and supposedly it's on its way uh so that will replace an older unit and that will become the primary
ambulance the current primary ambulance will move to be the backup ambulance so that one won't go out quite as much uh the radio infrastructure replacement is underway uh hopefully going to start seeing that uh begin and end and be done
this summer next slide for the proposed 26 budget the main thing we have on there is replacing our fire prevention vehicle the current vehicle's 10 years old 100,000 miles
it's done well for us uh we're running into some storage issues the plan to replace it would be a/ ton pickup truck similar to the the police's uh unit it would have a cap uh we could carry a little bit more equipment in it we can move the fire gear out of the passenger
compartment so if it's carrying contaminant stuff like that it's keeping it away from people that are riding in the cab all the time we can put it in the back we can carry a little bit more forcible entry equipment some basic firefighting equipment because this vehicle's out running around town it
does inspections the duty officer op uh runs it some of the time so it could be anywhere that somebody's responding with it the Sundays when we're at the prum shift all the officers take turns being on call one of them may have this running around too uh we modeled it off
of uh another Community nearby has basically the exact same vehicle they use it for the deputy chief shift Commander it's worked out really well for them uh so we kind of modeled it off of that uh next slide Just a Touch for people that may
not know uh the town supported us nicely or very well out of the arpa funding uh they covered replacing uh the ambulance that's du in uh with some equipment with it to the tune of 56,000 we replaced the stretcher system
in the existing ambulance uh it's a power up and down stretcher and the system that comes with it also is a loading system so unfortunately people have some people have not gotten smaller and this is going to cut down on back injuries and potential back injuries
with that people and it will match the system that comes with the new ambulance so the clots will be interchangeable uh two IV pumps one for each ambulance this is something that the state hasn't quite mandated yet but it's strongly encouraged and for the
paramedics to administer certain medications they have to be a precise dosage uh the pumps make it a lot easier and these are designed specifically for ambulance work they're not the big clunky ones you see in the hospital they're very small and they're designed to work in an ambulance uh next
slide uh Power stair chair stair chairs are basically the it's a little portable chair that we can take people up and down downstairs uh like I mentioned with the stretchers we've run into more and more some larger people this one actually has a tread system on it that
will actually drive it up and downstairs if we have a larger person we don't have a lot of people there again hopefully avoid one back injury somewhere along the way we were able to gain uh 15 of those portable radios I talked about uh
for the State uh for our guys and we are also were're able to replace uh several tables chairs uh Furniture in the station it was actually a request that came to the fire Association that arpa funded uh and kind of improved the
quality of living within the station to touch on some of the other uh grant funding uh next slide uh in this fiscal year we received a grant uh for just under $119,000 uh from the state for
firefighting equipment uh this included I know and it says a protective clothing dryer the big concern for firefighters you probably heard it with p and with everything else and the contaminants is uh cancer exposure it's a big emphasis for us to wash the equipment we have a
uh a commercial washing machine that we can wash it the downside is trying to dry it to get it back in service so the guys have it uh we had one dryer but we could basically do one set of gear a year or one set of gear a year one set of gear at a time this one will do two
or three sets of gear at the same time it's getting late uh and that we can get the gear back in service get the people back in service much faster uh three small hand handheld thermal imaging cameras uh
they're basically like a personal camera they're a safety item fire individual firefighter can have them they can use it to find their way out if they get separated uh they're very handy for looking for spot fires looking for hotpots uh they're kind of a new technology that came out uh and they're
very very useful we're finding and they're very lightweight easy to use and then we're looking at replacing some fire fire helmets we replaced the coats and Pants last year on a grant uh and some uh protective G uh gloves for uh vehicle extrications things like that
also we received the uh emergency preparedness Grant uh from the state again that's that's Federal money that trickles to the state uh we use that we have several people that have become CPR uh Advanced life support instructors uh
also Trainers for stop the bleed we so we can conduct these classes for the public uh we were able to purchase several training AIDS uh for that through that the firefighting Grant unfortunately is in its last year currently they're cleaning up some of
the leftover money from years 1 through four on that we have put in for some additional equipment we don't know if we're going to see it yet or not uh St tuned and the empg comes through the state unfortunately that's Federal money so with a lot of things with Federal we don't know what's going to happen with
that I forgot to add it on one of the slides when we talked about Capital but one thing we did is we submitted for a federal assistance to Firefighters Grant to replace our small Brush Truck it is on the capital plan and currently I think 27 or 28 it's been moved up several times the
truck is a 1989 when we look at the requirements for the Federal Grant none of our bigger apparatus met the requirements because the truck basically has to be over 30 years old to qualify that was the only truck that qualified if we get the money and we don't know what's going to happen
with the federal money but we would basically be getting it's about a 5% match so we would be getting a $300,000 truck for about 15,000 from the town the town share of it the capital planning committee is aware of it we will not know anything on that until probably
sometime in the summer so unfortunately that's basically a lottery ticket with these and now with where the federal government is we don't know what's going to happen with those grants uh next Slide the other grants we receive is for uh student awareness of fire education
and the senior safe or safe and the senior Safe program we receive about $7,500 each year from the state this is for education in the schools for fire safety grades K through three uh for senior it covers overtime Personnel cost
to conduct some training uh with the new Senior Center Director we're already working on uh several programs to come in and present there it's also supported our smoke detector project that we stock a lot of smoke detectors if we go into especially like an elderly person's house and they don't have any we can put
them up for free for them because Statewide overall we found 50% of the fire deaths involving elderly they had no smoke detectors in their homes and we've still encounter this on a regular basis going around you see people that they don't either don't have smoke detectors or oh I I've got one there
yeah that's from 1975 and it probably hasn't worked since 1985 and you run into that uh last slide again the impact of the budget as recommended it's a level service budget except for the full shift
proposal uh it would fund our It software needs better than we are now the same with EMS supplies and hopefully better fund radio maintenance for that and last slide thank you for all your support the
town has supported us very well and it's much appreciated I I can't ask for a better bunch of people and that and I I want to hang on to them any questions yeah one one quick one what would be the percent increase maybe aie
would know or you know 26 from 25 I I don't have that number off the top of my head what the increase would be and maybe we can just circle back to it if if as he has it so uh any
questions from the board the committee I guess we're a committee not a board um so going back to your slide eight and nine when you have responses by your I'm just trying to understand your graph um the one that you said effects
of New Growth um is it is this the same data between the two graphs uh if you're looking at slide eight basically what I've done there is back they started building the like the original I believe it was uh well
Emerald place or arve was started being built then and a couple of the other projects started around then so what we started doing was calculating how many how many runs are we going to fire medical and inspections in these projects and you can see in the first
few years there wasn't much cuz they were under construction uh you started seeing them more and more like probably 2011 2012 uh most of TR town was or good chunk of TR toown was built out arve was
fully built out uh as you move along further down the road I want to say 1718 Rogers way was finished uh around 2021 the the large building at TR toown was built which is all over
55 and when you see that again you see the inspections are up the inspections drop off because they're Apartments they're not like houses that we reinspect them every time somebody moves uh the fire calls those are usually alarms uh somebody burned the toast set
the alarms off elevator problems things like that they pretty stay pretty steady where we see is the uptick EMS calls medical calls and that so you're near slide eight you have a scale of thousands those
are on slide eight that I'm looking at those are those are in the hundreds right so you go from like 2014 let's just see the first up pick there is 13 is when you start first start seeing well actually you still can
actually go back to 2010 and they go up steadily as these buildings were built out so is your slide nine the just increased because now we're just we went from 800 to a th000 I I think maybe we're on two different slides the the I
think my slide seven is the responses by year overall those are all our calls for everything right the next Slide the one that says effects of New Growth yes was the demand on services from the newer the apartment buildings the bigger
housing developments like Riley Road so these calls only go up to 200 versus 1,000 is the is just the new development they're describing just the calls the additional calls that we've picked up from those complexes those are part of
the numbers on the previous slide those are part of the numbers the previous part okay that's just when when people question like why is the runs gone up but that's where we've increased our population significantly what when when people question what are when when people sometimes of like well why are
the runs going up well sometimes we can't judge we don't no they they can go like this like like the police calls they can vary but we can show in years past people questioned like okay what's the effect of all the the building going on in town everybody talks about the
schools and the effect on more kids and what they need well this is the effect on Emergency Services right but when we look at the overall services that you're delivering between 2014 until 2021 it seems that you stayed between
900 and a th000 right so although we had new growth and there were more people in that in those areas the overall somewhere there wasn't as much demand there was not as much of a demand and you see generally most of the calls have
stayed the same the big increase has been EMS we're seeing more demand for but even that overall between 2014 and 20121 the total calls for EMS medical
stayed between 900 and a thousand okay well I it's just I I you know if you gain on one place and lose on the other I I it's just it doesn't overall it doesn't seem that the overall
EMS Services call for the town has increased has increased on certain areas but I mean the the EMS calls of where we've seen the increase they they have stayed sort of flat up until 2021 then took a significant they've they've jumped
then and they've stayed about even so far now whether that's that's going to change I don't I don't know right right and you know just like we saw with the police during you know during Co their call numbers went up and
do seem to be leveling off um I I you know I'm trying to understand the the value of that graph um on your presentation because overall we're you're still the having the same number mostly the same number
of calls year over year they've if you go back and break down the solid numbers they have slowly crept up over time right the EMS calls have taken a s a sizable jump we've gone up probably from
since 2021 we've probably gone up a couple hundred calls a year we were under a th000 runs a year around 2020 right but that's not necessarily associated with those developments that were first went online it's not strictly them but it's it's a part of it it so
there's what you see is you see a lot more sicker people at home and that there's a lot of what we used to see and I can go back a long time in that when you used to see you didn't we didn't do LIF Tois 30 some odd years ago we weren't doing lifis because if some
elderly person fell they had family nearby now they don't have that Ames nowhere's nearby call of Last Resort it's fire department you see people that have extensive complex medical conditions that 30 years ago probably didn't survive to being home to get home
now they are I think anybody who's dealt with the health care System recently knows how often that you may have a loved one in the hospital and go well according to the insurance diagnosis you're all better go home and they're not ready to go home and we're we're seeing them again as Chief Tibido
can attest we've seen a lot of mental health substance abuse right uh I think we're still scratching the surface from postco with that we see that much more and again we get called no I I I can only imagine um you said that and I was
surprised so out of all your calls that you get for EMS and medical 72% of those end up going to a visit to the hospital they go to the hospital that's that's a pretty big number the rest what is the revenue for the ambulance fees that you receive and where does
that go in our overall I don't have the number right in front of me off the top of my head but it goes into the general fund and how much do you have an idea of how much that money it's between 3 and 400,000 usually every year I don't I don't have the numbers for the increase in the ambulance rates we are estimating
probably conservatively a $ 30 of $4,000 increase because again so much of it is Medicare Medicaid 2third of it right we have to accept what they pay which is a fraction of what we actually Bill and
what covers the service so that just goes back into the general fund the F part of free cash is that no it's in part of the revenue for the community is is that does it go back where does that $300,000
land it does it does Land part of the free cash it goes into the overall calculation of the receipts for the town okay so there's offsets so we have Coastal that we pay um to um as part of our collections as well so there's a Reconciliation process at the end so it
does go into the free cash as overall so thinking of I don't have the exact number but so the money that we received in that ended in June 30th 2024
MH that we received throughout that fiscal year correct got certified in 20 in November October November 2024 and now we we can only use that money in 2026 well it's not appropriated so it's
sitting a free cash right so you can reappropriate a term meeting is there a mechanism where we we can create we are not sitting on money that it can be more of a revolving fund that we are because
you know when inflation is well a few things that happens my mind you know here we are appropriating half a million dollars for this and for for his budget but we are always taking you know money that we can
allocate somewhere to assign to things that we actually have money hanging here we just because of the our process of realizing Revenue we're it's not on our books so with that my question is is there a way
that we can realize that money in the current fisal year so that it can offset maybe his budget sort of a revolving fund and then you know we're realizing that money right away it makes it easier
to you know actually you know telling us that out of his budget $400,000 gets re re you know we get money back m it's a very different picture yeah it's part of the mutual aid for the town so um so I could take a
look and do a little detail and provide it to the finance committee I can do that to you but that goes into our overall Revenue so it's it's part of the overall so you have the opun bu budget right you have the departmental spending but on the other end you have general
fund revenues that offset so it's there it's just it's buried within the the calculation but you want to see is it as a part of the actual revolving fund because we just have like you know half a million dollars s sitting in the sky
because we are not realizing that Revenue in our books in a way that can be realized you know like when we receive grants we can use that money um to right away why can't we realize some of those Revenue as you know by setting
up a evolving fund a uh a uh what do you call that thing uh Enterprise fund I mean there got to be a mechanism that we are now waiting you know like for some of that Revenue we may have received in
September 2023 and we don't we're not using it until July 1st 2025 it's for me it's mindboggling yeah I'm trying to let my brain around the question but um I can provide some
detail the actual hard numbers so you can see where it's because there is the actual ambulance billing um revolving fund that's certified a town meeting um you know they have the revolving funds with the spending limits and the ambulance billing is one of them but
then that money comes in right away it can be realized right away correct the thing with revolving fun correct correct so I can provide that detail for you yeah abolutely you know when I see our free cash at $2 million M and that wasn't always the case like
if you look at our bucks from 2010 2011 you can just look at our town meeting um budget it was always the case that we had such a high percentage of our budget to be in free cash and and it has to do with financial practices of the Town manager how how is
the to manager comfortable managing her you know it's her budget I get it but what it worries me that we just passed an override for a million dollar and we had $2 million hanging in the air that just had not been certified and we could
not touch it we actually had the money to pay for that override but we just because we hadn't realized in our books because of our financial practices we had to pass an override so for me it shows the it we we are
not it prevents us from being intentional and strategic with the money that we have that's that's my concern with that okay okay so if we could figure out if there is a way to realize the money as it comes his budget will look a lot more you know it makes it
feel like we he should have that that third that third shift you calling it yeah fourth shift fourth shift okay Shi yeah all right okay uh the total overall increase also is 2.32% 2.32 yeah okay 2.3 okay um I do I
was wondering if you were going to get there um one of the things that I do want to add that um so there's another way to take in ambulance receipts um it's something that we can talk about probably going forward um I think that there's possibly a different different
philosophical opinion of how to approach it but um it's an ambulance receipts reserved for appropriation account um where all of those get set aside in the bucket often times what you are doing is you are looking for the ambulance replacement out of that fund so it
becomes a self-serving Capital fund um and so however many years you're planning to replace the ambulance you set aside that amount every year and then that additional whatever is left over excess that additional can offset uh the operating budget however unlike a
revolving fund and unlike an Enterprise fund it still is reserved for appropriation so you still need the mechanism of the town meeting vote right to get it out I don't believe that there is any mechanism which we could get what you're suggesting which is an Enterprise
or revolving fund otherwise I think that every fire service in the state would be doing it I do understand that that is incredibly frustrating that we're sitting on this money and we have to let it come through um but but ambulance receipts reserve for appropriation is something that we should talk about
going forward my guess is that is this is a state regg kind of thing is how this is handled corre my guess is just guessing that the this is a lot of money and it's
money coming in and do you have controls on it do you have is it a slush fund you know so the state's like saying we want to make sure that the cities and towns have a control on it and have a really proper procedure that's a good thing on the bad side you now have a delay of
actually using the fund so it's probably weighing risk versus reward and maybe if you can figure a way to maybe mitigate the risk while taking back some of the reward that would be that would be fantastic because like and I'm thinking of the parks revolving fund you know some of some looking at some of the
items that the chief is using um they're related to ambulance you know if that's what we are appropriating that revolving fund for inel meeting we can be realizing that money as soon as it gets in it still passes the budget but it
does allow us to tap it in earlier yeah so I think what we'll have to do is research whether mgl allows which I don't believe it does but allows either an Enterprise or evolving fund um however the ambulance receipts reserved for appropriation is a cleaner way to
say um potentially it depends on who you're asking but to say that this is the amount of money that comes in to support this business of the town and that we are um using that to purchase the ambulance that runs the business of the town and offset the staff rather
than just live in the general fund and then when it's time for an ambulance we're finding the money for capital in free cash yeah I think it's it's trying to find a way to to be strategic about the money that we have and not having that putting money under a mattress as a
way as as our financial policy of and often I think what we're going to as we have these discussions we are we are handcuffed by what the law requires and that the flexibility that we are seeking is just simply not allowed all right thank you well I'll
look for your report so let's keep that as kind of an action maybe for something to to pursue during the um kind of the summer months I don't think there would be any I don't think we would be able to do anything do anything this budget season
um so Chief my last question for you is you know we we have moved now we have uh EMS full paramedics right and when did we launch that in m in lunberg to be full-time paramedic we start the program
started back towards 2020 when we started training people uh we went live with it January 1st 2023 on a part-time basis uh as we got more paramedics trained up because our career people we sent four of them to
school and that they had to go through the schooling they had to do their ride time they had to get certification and then once they're certified they have to do 50 calls supervised with an experienced paramedic before can work solo uh so we had to send them over to
lemonster to ride with their unit right since that was the easiest one they're the same medical control doctor as we are and that once we had them all done that they could all do that April 1st 2024 we went 24/7 okay with it so for
for the public and for me like if you were to describe in a high level the better services that we are getting Now by having that full paramedic if you could because you I'm sure you know I don't know what the difference is param basic EMT can do a basic patient
assessment they can provide oxygen they can do some minimal uh medications like Naran things like that and it's about 140 hours of training paramedic is 2,000 plus hours of training it's usually 9 to 18 months full-time School depending on
whether you're in a college schedule or program uh they can do a lot more advanced cardiac medications they can push hard medications like fentanyl morphine things like that uh they can do Advanced uh Airway protection uh
endotracheal intubation they can do uh you know we can use the automatic external defibrillators they have manual defibrillators that they can actually cardiio vert people they can do 12 lead EKGs to see if you're actually having a heart attack and that before we had to
wait for an somebody to come in from another town to do that service for us now that service is right here with our people so we have a lot better A we have a better response time I'm convinced there are several people walking around today because we had a paramedic right
there not waiting 10 or 15 minutes for another Community to get here to back us up uh and we have better supervision and control if we had a problem with an out of town medic for whatever reason we had to try to follow up with their agency
and hope they addressed it now if there's a problem which there hasn't been uh it's a lot lot more accountability for us and again we're a small town they're all dual trained so we take if it's a medical that comes in first they go in the ambulance if it's a fire call
they jump on the fir truck and having three people rolling out on the firet truck is made a I think it's made a difference on several fire incidents that we got a truck there faster and got water on the fire faster and more effectively then in years past when you were waiting five six seven minutes for
guys to go get the truck and then head to the call somewhere it's not just EMS EMS is a big part of it but we fire is still there and it's still a challenge right so overall the Tom is better served with the service that weing since 20 that's
it thank you I just had one kind of maybe philosophical question going back 20 30 40 years you had the fire department and EMT do you see them in 20 30 years being
separate because it seems like as as baby boomers are raging the calls on EMT is going to go up uh you have fire trained people but also EMT trained people is that you know would it be better to have separate entities at some
point do you would you want to pay for eight firemen and eight EMTs or eight firefighter EMTs or you could regionalize it or something I don't know but it just seems to me that fire and medical aren't the same thing and I mean I understand historically you know
firemen went to a thing and there was somebody and they needed help and so medical came in and but now the world has changed is has there been any discussion like that because it seems to me it just doesn't seem like that's I'll answer it as simply as I could in a small community like this I would never
ever ever advocate for separate Services we're it the Dual Purpose is saving the town money cuz if you had separate you're still going to be paying even if all right if you're paying for say a regional Ambulance Service who's going to go to that call and take care of that person until that
other ambulance comes from who knows where fire department you're going to have First Responders you're still going to have to have people in the station because you still need a fire department sure right the challenge you know again some places in a bigger city that works smaller communities where we have to do
more with less you want the Dual trained people like cities like Boston do they have like EMT areas and fire fire they they run a separate City service you know City a third service Ambulance Service okay separate from the fire department a lot of the big cities do
that some you know most of the smaller towns we're both right we do it all just for back history we've run the ambulance since 1969 as part of the fire department so and that it's it's a challenge to get the people that want to do both but it's
not impossible and that and for a small town that's really the option so we relied on a third service private ambulance for our ALS for a long time that is one of the reasons we went ourselves because we had challenges
getting them they had trouble challenges Staffing and I'll be nice we had some challenges with billing irregularity private ambulance has to make money any way they can MH so we're not in it to make money we're in there to offset our costs and provide good
service to the town just had a quick question on slide I think it's slide 16 on your uh fourth shift proposal it says it includes expected increases in overtime would wouldn't that go ahead sorry so wouldn't that fourth shift kind of eliminate a
lot of overtime required you would eliminate the double time for the pums but you're going to hire people they still are going to have time off and that they're going to come probably come back for call so there's going to be overtime there for those people you know we estimate you know two weeks of
vacation and that we estimate a certain number of sick time you know certain hours a sick time certain number of hours a personal time uh certain number of call backs the sick time is usually off on the low end the call backs are usually higher depending on the person
uh with the change in the schedule because they're working a few Less hours a week if they keep the same base salary the overtime rate is going to go up your hourly rate is go goes up so we're accounting for that as well too okay um unfortunately not business
overtime is cost of doing business so just I quickly um Google Massachusetts Enterprise fund ambulance and that is a June 2024 DLS article
increasingly communities are establishing Enterprise funds for their business type services example water sewer trash disposal Ambulance Service skating rings Golf Course airports and Etc and one thing I know from the sewer
department when they calculate their Enterprise fund and their revenue and we approve in Tom meeting they are counting on the money they will be receiving that year to allocate so it's not just money they have received is money they they
will be receiving as part their accounts okay again I think it's worthy of a topic probably after budget season um I think there's some second order effects like budgetary impacts 2 years down the road when you've kind of your Revenue
source is taken now not then so um but Mike did you have any followup to the questions you asked on that no I'm good I'm good I I guess I did have one which is um you know going 48 hours to 42 hours uh seems like that would be a
savings versus a you know cuz the you are given a benefit now of um it's a topic for negotiation I I'll say that as nicely as I can that's a topic for negotiation I'm
don't have a dog in that fight yeah okay I mean a half million dollars is almost a half million dollar is I can tell you most depart there's been two departments in the area that have gone from 48 to 42 one kept the same hourly rates so that
the top end salary dropped but with raises that brought it back to where it was within 3 years the other department kept the base salary where it was so the hourly rate went up which again doesn't affect your salary it affects your over
time okay I don't know who does our negotiations um I guess I do know who does all right um I I mean I don't think you're proposing that for this year though right it's that's ongoing discussions with the town manager understanding that you know
money is not good this year okay I have one thing just just for the record the category of ambulance I think falls under more of an ambulance section that the town is working with and not fire your fire SL paramedic as one correct
say that again I'm sorry so you're the fire department when this regulation puts in ambulance I don't think they're talking about fire safety or fire paramedic combination State policy wide I I had the same thought again I think
it's just worthy of additional I think we should really check into that you're talking CH as far as the ambulance or the Enterprise fund yes I I again I and I do not claim to be an expert on that but I usually understood Enterprises funds would fund themselves we are not
going to fund ourselves on that it we I I I I can't say that enough is because we are not everybody thinks we're an affluent Community we are not that affluent that you have it the majority of people are on private insurance they're on Medicare Medicaid it's a
fixed amount so again it offset some of our cost but we're not going to make money at this we're providing a better level of service for our town and yes if you want to say yes it's supplementing the fire department cuz we still need a fire department ambulance services you are a fire paramedic service which is
completely completely so we we is the lunenberg fire department Ambulance Service the state would the state doesn't care who owns the ambulance if you're an ambulance service you're not so okay any other comments
questions all right any from the public and um that includes Zoom if good evening in Glenn McLoud 436 Reservoir Road I have comments just of of in support would it be more appropriate to wait until the public comment you can do it if it's related to
this yes it is uh first I would just like to commend both Chiefs very comforted by the uh service that they and their team provide the town and I was very impressed in the uh presentation that they did provide tonight they clearly work well together
and I personally hope to see that continue through the years it's my opinion that uh Public Safety is one of the you know fundamental responsibilities of what the government provides its citizens and what I would uh categorize
that as police fire and DPW and police and fire being in my opinion the two most important departments um and services that this town provides its its citizens and I'll speak specifically to um the
fourth shift proposal I you know through you I would um insist implore the town manager to make that happen I think that's for self-interest I think it's best for us the citizens but not only
that you know probably equally as maybe more important is the pleas I have heard uh well pleas from the staff but the you know The Proposal from the fire chief that we need the fourth the three firefighters the three additional
firefighters uh is very clear and the fire chief has articulated very well why that's necessary I mean when I moved to town a little over a year and a half ago it was one of the first things I checked out was the police and fire and and through my Brief Review the fire
department was fulltime so as I spent time here and I realized that it's it's uh technically full-time coverage but the the employees full-time um lunenberg firefighters cover six of the seven days
of the week and I won't go through his his proposal again he did quite a good job but I think it's imperative it's a foundational responsibility to ourselves as well as the staff getting back to the staff his plea was they need help those who have
dedicated their careers to not just help us but save us our asking for help we need to implement that help they help us on a daily basis they've committed their lives to the service you know they're they're not going to have you know
second second homes vacation homes you know when they commit themselves to this job they commit themselves to Public Service as the the police chief had mentioned that's what that's that's the the employees that stay with the town
are those that are committed to public service and we need to show that same committal to the firefighters in this situation I think it's it's an imperative and uh without speaking for him those of you who have attended town meeting have heard the same thing that I
have heard from those who again are are you know basically saving us and getting back to why I think it's so important and and for you to keep it in mind in all these difficult budget decisions is if a threat came into this hall right now the the police chief and his team
would would address or eliminate or stop that threat and if there was anything you know any injuries incurred the fire chief and his team would then step in and help that person they have the ability to you know we have the the
worst day of Our Lives they are here to chart and organize what what our the future our future looks like our personal future and we just need to ensure that we we we show them that I know it's I know it's a lot of money and
um and you know we C we can't in theory do it in one budget but a plan should be in place and it's this is one of the fundamental problems I think is conf U lunenberg is
confronting there's a lot of issues and and I you know I won't go down that rabbit hole everybody is aware of them but it's one of the fundamental reasons why at at this time I do not support the proposal for the new town hall as well as the redoing this meeting house
because there's so many fundamental issues that need to be addressed and fixed first and it's not to say that it you know something isn't necessary but I just implore you to stay focused on the importance of Public Safety and the role that government has in providing that to
its citizens thank you very much thank you any other um questions or comments from the public on this can I have a followup question on that yeah absolutely
um your fourth shift I mean do you have like a staged plan at all on how you would do that over time we we could do it I you know a you know on a perfect world three all at once was great we could Implement that quick uh we could
do it two in one year one in the in one fiscal year one in the following cuz again it would be a matter of redistributing the pum and that to fill what you'd have is a couple shifts of three and a couple shifts of two with a prum filling in we could do it one a year it's stretching a little bit but it
wouldn't expand the number of hours we're spending on the prum right now so it is doable with one one per year over I I understand what you're saying I mean it doesn't really help you by doing an a staged plan but it it slowly gets you to
that point without going to the 42 and even hiring the one it spreads the current career staff over 7 days a week so it sort of now we've at least got a paramedic there it it eases some of the issue we still need to get the three but
we could make it work that way okay yes so I provided the town manager with kind of a layout of what that would be cost-wise over the one year two year three year so yeah so I I do think that
if this is the recommended budget we're going to have to have maybe a do back on a focus on on how this would uh how this would work and then I mean we still haven't heard the preliminary budget yet right so we're a little uh we're in a
transition year for sure sure it's a unique year I understand that everybody understands that but it's something that we have to get in front of people that this is concern yeah and I me I mean I have a daughter that's alive because of you know police and fire responding and
our medical system um so I there's no one that's more supportive than me of of the you know the the um the First Responders so um but I do think we you know we need to have a little bit more of a discussion on this and a little bit
more of it in the context you know as was uh mentioned by the um previous speaker on um where is lunenberg going right we' we've got we've got school deficits perhaps uh
we don't know the final numbers on that we have growth that we need on our services um and we have you know some major projects that you know some people want to undertake um we got to make some hard decisions as
a town and I think it's part of our responsibility collectively to lay out that plan you know for the for the town to to make an informed decision um and it's going to come down to priorities just like was was said so um but if it
is the recommendation I think both select board and um finance committee will need a little bit more um you know Target on it CU we'll have to to vet it we'll have to make recommendations on it um Etc
so if there's nothing else um we can excuse the Chiefs all right thank you thank you thank you thank you both um and up next would be uh Chris Riley for the land use department and I will I will thank Chris
for staying late um I think there was a little bit of a miscommunication as to uh when he was going to present so I uh I appreciate you being here used to the late hours you are planning with planning
board so Anderson what you say thank you so much for air our budgets and does the booth have your presentation do you know they do okay to little all right well go so there you go I'm going to be brief this
is a pretty bare Bon we like bri I'm a small fish so um nothing like the two presentations you just heard well this is the Forum no I the is your microphone on do you know is there you got well I mean that's
it's red that's is I hear you here we go good thank you oh in Serio uh so I think probably um I should
start with describing what L use is for some of you you probably every now and then see a bunch of people running back and forth playing in traffic from Ritter to town hall back and forth all day that's that's L usually mostly
us and uh what is land use do uh next slide please well there's four core functions in land use what we call land use planning and uh planning that's what I spend most of my time doing supports the
planning board apdc uh other what we call bcc's boards committees and commissions any land use related type of body uh planning department will support them in their permanent Authority uh we also have conservation
the Conservation Commission and we have staff at conservation agent that supports them and we have the building department otherwise known to some of you all of you have probably had some interaction with them e
so sort of overall is um you know a first blush or first impression we don't generally talk about or charts I didn't come in here sort of promising that or or you know having a specific plan for that we talk about team L use team L use
functions and all working towards that same mission and vision so that's sort of what we're all about over there in Ritter so how does l use do it we require fees for application of all kinds any applicant that comes in needs a permit or needs to go before permitting Authority we require a fee
for that so that offsets a lot of the expenses of our staff which is primarily what land use funds um and um just some of the other costs related to making sure that residents applicants and so
forth get the most streamline and efficient permitting possible that we can provide we also have external peer reviewers uh those are assigned by the permiting authorities and those are paid for by the applicants so if you you happen to be watching a planning board
meeting or a conservation meeting often is an applicant whose Project's being reviewed and it's being reviewed by a peer reviewer paid for by the applicant not the town these sort of services these Consultants are very expensive so it's a major major cost savings for the town
that they would otherwise have to uh offset with a town engineer let's say or some other technical staff uh also a tech fee is required um this is a fee that was set up I guess a couple years ago by the select and this
Tech fee which you would know about uh it pays for our online permitting system open gov and that's what we utilize as an efficient tool to make the permitting process is streamlined as possible for the applicants for department heads
reviewing applications and so forth it's sort of a One-Stop kind of process where we can gather all the information and have the most efficient process possible leading to permit and Beyond so that's an important part of what we do as well and then of course there's compliance
and enforcement with boards committees and commissions they deliberate they render decisions like you do and then what happens next uh does everybody just walk home and you know they forget about it no we go out and make sure that everything is built the way that it was
approved that things uh are provided the way they were required and we make sure that the volunteer effort that all you put in is Meaningful um so it's a core function of what L use does as well so
why do we do it um the town obviously through town meeting uh is sort of um I wouldn't say imposing but they're um giving us L use Direct on what they want to see and where they want to see it and
how they want to see it so it's that you know sort of will of town meeting uh saying this is what your zoning bws will be this is what's allowed what's prohibited this is the permitting process to get that approved so that the town's protected and all the
impacts are addressed so neighborhoods are are preserved and um you know any sort of uh things that need to be mitigated are for every butter that's affected by a particular application very important part of what we do uh I would say under the statute as
well the state we're hearing more and more about this these sort of decrees or mandates or you know things from on high coming down mandates to us uh land use is the one primary at least land use related types of um issues that is
handling these to make sure that the town doesn't run a foul of State Statute of the law and so we're always tracking that a lot of our Authority a lot of the planning board's Authority comes from what called the zoning nebling act
there's all sorts of Statute that allows for Town bodies and those Town bodies need support and guidance and recommendations to deliberate and make the best decisions possible ultimately we're staff we're providing expertise
but we don't make the decisions we provide recommendations so that that the the volunteer boards and bodies can so that's also an important thing what we do um and we do it um sort of lean we're a small kind of
operation uh you know we have five full-time employees over there myself The Building Commissioner conservation agent then a couple of administrative support people smalltime operation uh handling a lot of big time um activity
so um we don't have big Capital expenses you know our budget is mostly driven by staff uh that support everything I've talked about and um we have small line items like everybody does every organization does office supplies
clothing for for some of the people who do a lot of um on-site inspections uh professional training that kind of stuff things you typically see in an organization just as uh background support for uh fulfilling
their mission so that's in a nutshell everything that we're about and um moving to I'm going to move right to the budget and you can see from those four core functions that I've outlined that we're uh pretty level funded we are
every year from one year to the next to the next it's pretty consistent and salaries that go up just a little bit according to steps or whatever uh that's all by formula and schedule and um every now and then there may be something
that's identified that somebody thinks is important to enhance the mission or or the operation we've got a couple of very small things in our budget requests this year one of them for conservation is professional training not only for the conservation agent but some
Conservation Commission members this is to go to a conference an important sort of seminal conference for what they do and that's well within the bounds of what you consider a normal envelope of professional training in a particular department and um for me in planning the
director I have full-time admin support I pay for my own professional development it's just a thing I do that I've uh made as a priority so we don't have a lot of professional development in in planning uh conservation we've covered
building he goes to seminars and so forth some of those have a you know nominal fee um that's to keep his certification as a Building Commissioner with the state building commission and so these are necessary things to keep him certified in his role and uh then
the zba uh there that's just time for compiling minutes and things like that we have a full-time administrative support person uh who thankfully supports the zba and pro provides those minutes and we have a small nominal fee
for that so in a nutshell that's the whole thing you can see it's it's not a lot I said we're kind of a small fish in the whole big pie of things but um an important function and um want to thank you for your support and you know the
town support selects and everyone recognizing that planning is an important thing for the goals missions and vision of the town and um and the all of the L use functions obviously are um Mission
critical you either do them or you don't and if you don't then you're um in violation of the law actually at the state level particularly so that's about it I'd be happy to answer any questions all right any questions from the board yeah I don't think I have any
questions either um any questions from the public all right thank you Chris thanks for your time appreciate it very much thanks okay um those are our scheduled meetings our
next um we don't have any new business per se old business um just to go through it if there was any um General budget discussions that anyone wanted to talk about uh we could do that now um all right uh we've received draft
warant articles um just for everyone's awareness um sometimes I get um presentations sent to just me sometimes they're sent to everyone I try to put them all in that um SharePoint so hopefully everyone's found them um and
if you haven't let me know and I can try to help you to to be able to find them um that's also where our minutes go for for review there there's a minutes in review once we've approved them I put them in minutes approved um and send
them off to um the town clerk for for posting um but most of the I'm trying to keep up with it but um you know most of the presentations are in there now um and there's a folder in
there for Warrant articles as they they're starting to come forward so that the draft warrant articles or the placehold of Warrant articles are all all in the now um I just kept on here anything budget
task force recommendations related I know there's been some discussions among some of the boards about some of the recommendations that were were pulled together from that um I don't know if anyone had any discussions that they wanted to do on that uh for the newer
members um there was a presentation what was it in December maybe um that if you want to go back on the video and hear what the budget task force came up with um you could go ahead and and do that um
all right uh with that um Jen was there anything you wanted to say budget related at this point or keep it okay all right um we do not have any minutes from the previous meeting that I saw um
other than that we're we're all caught up still which is a good position to be in um any committee reports um and just for again the newer members um we tend to um assign folks to
um either committees um like I'm on Capital planning committee I was on the town manager selection committee um or screening committee um Tom's on the uh building um committee whatever you're calling it
now building design yeah building design committee um yeah um Jean are Le on to school we'll have to go back through that because I think through us getting to a small board and now back up to full size
um we'll we'll have to make sure we we assigned some people um we did you know didn't have anyone assigned to um the um Master planning committee when Evan left um
so but any other committee reports okay um any actions or topics for future meetings I did make a note on the ambulance um revolving fund for a future meeting uh important dates our next
meeting is Thursday so this is kind of our busy week um at least for now um and then uh gear up Thursday 36 will be a busy meeting because we have um Council on Aging coming in I'm going to do them
first and then uh we have Monte Tech and school department um the monitech brief is already in the in the folder uh mon Tech's an interesting one where they basically tell us what we have to pay them and we have to pay them
um uh but then school department will obviously be a another big topic for the for the year did the schedule change Chris for the 27th I facilities in sewer and to me and your budget on the schedule yeah
preliminary budget we added on the 27th but other than that it's preliminary budget in DPW facilities and Sewer all right so not school and Mone te next week yeah that's on the sixth sorry if I said it was next week uh that's the sixth and we
also are adding Council on Aging on the six because um Deb Deb one or Deb two um not sure which one they can find it on to me um was was
sick last week so we we moved her to the sixth all right with that is there any public comment from the public Glenn McLoud 436 reservo Road Ju Just a Little housekeeping I forgot my opening my opening statement was do do
you know what police policemen and firemen have in common you're going to say it now that the Chiefs left I was going to say I really did forget but it is because no U they both want to be firemen but anyway I uh what well the
dog does did you see the dog he looks like a fire dog yeah yeah yeah yeah yep but um I did for I would have said that but I did legitimately forget but really one of the statements from the Chief Fire Chief that took me back and he
needs credit for the the the honesty and the straightforward answer that he provided one of the the new member here to my right in the history of the planet I think when any uh Town department head has gone for an employee they say it they sell it by saying it's going to
save on overtime the chief gave a very straightforward and honest answer answer to your question and that I I really appreciated that answer and and I those two things I did want them to hear hopefully they'll hopefully they'll review the very last of this meeting but
it was really I I was floored by that answer yeah thank you I do think we have honesty from our departments which is a which is a good thing um all right um I don't see any other
public online um any public comment from the um committee um I would like to ask a request from uh the town manager if we could have the breakdown of the sources of our um free cash certified which was
I think a little over 2 million last fiscal year just by the sources like you know today we just learned 400,000 was from ambulance yes so um I am I'm not going to be prepared for that on Thursday um but we can
absolutely get that to you before in the next week or so um and I will be talking about there you do want um a certain level of free cash so there are recommendations from the Department of Revenue of the amount of free cash that we should be generating out of the
budget and I'm going to be talking about that on Thursday and um we are right in that Target so we are right in the spot where the Department of Revenue suggests we should be but we can absolutely provide a details of what what lines
we're turning back um to free cash where and often it's so there's really multiple things that are happening you have expenditure lines that are unexpended and you have Revenue lines that are uh conservative and and those are the two
main drivers of free cash so um but we we I want to be cautious because I know there's a lot of folks listening in the public we need to have a certain level of free cash it has a purp when we are in the Target zone of Department of
Revenue and and and I I it would be good to have a conversation about all these things yes you know just again from my Google like air has the ambulance as uh Enterprise fund and and what I think
within again it's financial decision is all about being intentional what we do with money right and here we have Department that is trying to increase their staff that the town needs you know would like them to do because we have
had this plan and there's you know like we just got to be real and intentional about financial it's not just and and the other thing that I will say is that I came from a community that used free cash in an operate in an operational budget we had a structural deficit we
had a structural deficit for decades um it was not huge um we had a policy around it but it is not good budgeting practice to use free cash for operational funds you will Cliff at some point by doing that um free cash is great for supplementing the snow and ice
budget which we are often in a deficit position on free cash is what funds our Capital plan but free cash cannot be what funds our operating budget we can have lots of conversations about um how we can be less conservative with our Revenue I think you're going to see that
we've we've been a little less conservative this year with our Revenue so that will tighten up what that amount of free cash turns back to we have um budget lines that we are tightening up so there'll be less free cash but you we need to be cautious that we don't want
to bring the free cash level too low because we will have other consequences where we won't be able to maintain our vehicles our buildings and the other types of things that you need to use that one one free cash onetime money onetime things operating
taxation on going long-term things but we'll be talking about all that and I'm I'm glad that you bring out the point because I think that there are folks that are listening to these meetings that they don't understand what the what free cash is it's different it's different types of money so I appreciate the
question all right any other public comment then with that I would entertain a motion to adjourn so move second all those in favor I I I all right it passes
we're adjourned