##VIDEO ID:v2oEg3veYK8## all right I'll um call the lunenberg finance committee meeting um to order uh in accordance with requirements of the open meeting law please be advised it's meeting meeting recorded and broadcast over lunenberg Public Access Channel and Facebook live uh we also have a zoom meeting you can find the zoom in the calendar at lunenberg ma.gov um and with that can we all rise for the Pledge of Allegiance pledge of allegiance 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 um anyone have any announcements all right recording in progress all right sorry for those in on Zoom uh for those on Zoom who I think are now joined in um Town Hall was locked when we got here took us a little while to get in so we started a little bit late and my apologies um with that uh any public comment from the [Music] public all right and seeing No Hands raised any public from the any public comment from the committee okay um so our first order on the uh agenda tonight is a scheduled meeting with the budget task force uh to go over some of their findings especially ones that um pertain to finance committee and our recommendations and adjustments that we would would make throughout the uh upcoming budget season and maybe even longer term um so are you two both doing it okay I don't think we have three okay we so it's fine do you want to sure I you didn't get to talk I talked plenty on Tuesday but that's right um so yes so the budget task force um provided a list of recommendations we met up for five months very in depth um talks and um the data analytics um provided by um individuals from town um department heads we talk to the assessor Department we talk to almost everybody and anybody you can think of um so with that being said this list of recommendations was sent out um Tony provided a uh an update on Tuesday however I don't speak as well as Tony I'm not going to try to fill the shoes but I'll do the best I can so Within These we have a list of 20 recommendations um provided so I'll just go through the list um you know as we gone through these items we tried as best to um analyze the gaps within town you know there are several um issues um financially that the town is facing down so I'm just going to go through the list of recommendations one by one and you can ask any questions either one of us can address uh first recommendation consolidation of town accounts as I came aboard you know and as we went through the process it's apparent the town accounts is astronomically large it's complicated which it doesn't need to be um so Consolidated on to accounts um is another um recommendation down the line with with regarding the CH of accounts but this recommendation number one in particular is regarding our our bank accounts and our investment funds um um so here you know in order to um achieve the highest year possible you know um we set forth a warrant this past uh special town meeting for The Prudent investment Ru so this had already been passed so the next step within this is we are waiting on the finance department we are waiting uh for the new town manager uh to update our financial investment policy and um I don't know when's the last time that's been reviewed but it's um with this new rule in place we need to update and um consolidate our accounts in order to um H achieve the highest yield possible for the town as well as um maximize our Revenue at the end of the day and that investment policy really should be reviewed once a year um you know there updates to the markets to whatever have you but um that's the recommendation here there's no ask on this one and maybe all of them sure one question I have is is is this is this something that town manager can just do on their own is this select board driven or does this start to require um you know a town meeting um well the financial investment policy does need recommendation I believe from the finance committee so once that's updated and reviewed the finance committee should receive a presentation from myself and also the new town manager as well as this since it's a policy change or an update it should go to select board as far approval with recommendation hopefully from fincom at that point we would um address any we would management from town myself and the new town manager and also the treasur collector would make our recommendations with feedback from the fincom will make the adjustments in the final presentation to the select board to vote and approve so I'm assuming that's the standard process any questions thank you let see double sign oh okay so the second recommendation which I talked a little bit about earlier is a targeted diagnostic audit so our chat of accounts is massive it's overly complicated as I'm going through and as I closed out fiscal year 24 there's a lot of accounts that should be Consolidated there's departments that should be Consolidated it's just it doesn't need to be so confusing and trying to find information from 2015 is very difficult unless you were here during that time you'll say oh I remember this is what happened but if you look into the chart of accounts it's very difficult to do a deep dive um in that sense so with that being said to have this um diagnostic audit the goal is to um identify any Miss Missing crucial financial information for the town and also to streamline um what the financials look like in order to create a better picture for the citizens that live here they should be able to easily understand and pinpoint what they need and what the town needs and what they're trying to get out of that information it shouldn't be this um this overly complicated digging through process which is really is what's happening right now um and also you know we do our annual audit our books are in good shape but this is more of a deep dive to see if there's anything cuz you I don't know if you know but if you do an annual audit it's more of a higher level picture are we going through you know we're doing Mass Journal laws are we um is there's anything funny going on that kind of thing but this is more of an in-depth um targeted audit this is um we have an estimated value um we don't have one at this time we're not sure we would have to build that up to what our um what our request would be we want to make sure it's targeted we don't want to make it overly complicated where it's taking a long time to process but this will be a onetime cost to the town this is not this won't be a cost savings um any questions concerns would you periodically do this as well or or do you think this is one and um I personally would do this just one time and then um do an annual review of what's needed and maybe within 5 years possibly think about doing it if there's any areas of concern um but um as as we clean everything up everything will be easier to manage look at and review I don't feel like um this would be an ongoing issue it's just this one time it's going to be um really a deep dive okay do you have a like an estimate of what that would cost at this time no um we have to kind of look at exactly what type of firms provide this kind of work for municipalities in particular I know um you know there's audit firms that do this kind of work but um I need to know take a deeper dive as to what um not only just the chart of accounts but how far back what to look for that kind of thing so we don't send them on a goose chase and they're not they don't know what they're looking for so um as part of that recommendation and I love feedback from the F specifically because I've been here 10 11 months so it'd be more of I um what do you think we should go on that route more of a conversation for later on do you think there's any grants from the state to do this kind of thing I know there were grants for like the policy that was one that came up with our Colin scoring and there were some of those ones that they may be federal or state grants available um that's one that's actually been one of the routs I've been going down there's operational grants I think um we may be able to Target but without knowing the cost yet yeah it's hard to pinpoint the amount sure um when you're taking bids do you have a process of how many bids you want to look at to provide the service how do you what's the process that you guys use for that where does the money come from well depends on what you're looking for so anything under 10,000 doesn't require a bid anything 10 to 50,000 requires uh three quotes per state statute uh you don't need to go out to um public bid but you can um anything over 50,000 you have to put out to public bid that requires you know an entire RFP package to be built and so on and who makes the final decision on the accepted bid if there are bids out um the manager makes the final final call and I'm assuming at that point if it's something like this the fincom would be involved as well sounds good all right um recommendation number three kind of goes hand inand with the first one it's The Prudent investment rule we had already voted at uh special town meeting um yes I think um depending on Market the market it would yield um anywhere from 15,000 to 250,000 in our return value it's just it's not a mechanism of putting the town funds at risk is um just diversifying the portfolio so you know the state has 20 safe stocks you know this just BR broadens that beyond that but um we have you know our trust funds are managed by bonu and they do a good job managing and managing our risk so we don't end up in a with a problem in fatan sake we had a presentation on this um well probably at to meeting but also to the fincom over the summer um so it'll be on tape if you yep awesome thanks how am I doing all right you want to talk about CPA cuz you're more yeah sure I can talk about CPA so CPA Community preservation act um this has come up in town to vote for a vote twice before 2002 2007 was um voted down or didn't pass a vote um and then it came up most recently in 2020 it was never brought before the town it wasn't put on the warrant because there was other things going on in 2020 no one knew what 2021 would look like so so it's back so what it is is it's a search charge um that's based on property value there are a number of exemptions you can utilize um that include income uh exempt the first 100,000 of your property value uh age and so on um it's a 5% minimum to participate maximum 3% sech charge the funding comes from the um what is it registry of deeds is that the department from the state so there yeah there are fees that are collected with every property transaction that go into the CPA trust fund um every they just announced mid November what the 2024 match was so the way the match works is 80% of the money in that trust fund gets distributed um among the CPA communities matching their contribution okay so and then there there are two more rounds so there's total of three rounds of funding in the next two rounds that 20% is is distributed in next two rounds the in order to part participate in the next two rounds of funding you have to have the 3% sear charge so everyone in CPA it gets that first round of funding rounds two and three are tailored more the the population of the community as well as the property value per capita is factored in and you're put in a desile lunenberg four out of 10 so try to favor the smaller communities wait them a little bit more for the round two and three um uh uh matches so for this year the men every CPA Community got 18% um and then for those that were eligible for subsequent rounds I think eight got 100% match something like that so you can get up to 100% match the money that you get from the search charge in the match has to be spent in one of three categories there's three categories one is around open space and historic preservation the other one is about um housing um affordability and the third one Parks is parks open space right so you have to distribute your 10% in each bucket what you do with the remaining 70% is up to you you you can propose all the other projects historic preservation Ritter Town Hall historic buildings we have coming up Parks Marshall Park projects that are on the horizon for the town um you can divvy up the remaining 70% however you want um but the actual commitment of the fund to the project so that goes to a town meeting vote so the town decides how that money will be spent project is proposed and and everything presented to the town at town meeting um like I said there's 200 communities now none of the communities have who have joined have backed out yet none four have had a vote to revoke their membership that vote was did not pass in all four cases so um so it's kind of a savings account for the for the town um it can you know lessen the the burden on residents to fund these big projects we have coming um and I I wasn't a big fan of it at first and the more I learned about it and heard about it and thought what we're looking at for the future um I became a bigger fan of it and I think it's definitely worth exploring so if we voted in at 3% that means if your property tax was $100 it would go to $103 or it's 3% 3% of your property uh of your property value assessment assessment of the assess value not what you're paying on the actual tax 3% of assessed value of the assessed value and there are exemptions like you could forgive if your property is worth 200,000 you the town can vote to have an exemption to forgive the first 100,000 so that the three the SE charge would be on 100 ,000 if you forgave the first 100 so there's there's an a lot of communities do and and it doesn't have to be it can be you know 1% It can be 2% it can be 1 and a 12% anything from 0.5 is the minimum to three when it came before the town for a vote I believe it was 3% both times it just recently passed in Townsen at a 1% sear charge and there's a you can see so much information on this of what town has what sear charge and and what exemptions and how long they've been in the plan the lowest match that I've seen over the whole time of the program was 133% was the lowest I ever saw and it goes up to 100% you're not guaranteed 100% but even to be eligible for the 100% you have to maximize the 3 and do the 3% search charge so so this would be an item that select board would take up and potentially put on that's the ion doll question who would who can take this up um Society was exactly 2020 Rebecca lantry gave a presentation to to fincom to select board um I went back and watched those meetings um if Rebecca's in town anyone know her I think she did a lot of work researching this in 2020 um she brought it forward as I think she was chair of historical commission at the time um if she wants to pick it up again or or pass on you know the information that she has that would be great um it does require if it passes another committee to be formed yeah which I think is actually maybe the biggest hurdle no um but I yeah it's definitely worth exploring so so the process would be it has to go to a town meeting and then it also has to go to a ballot vote so so this is not something that that can so shortest timeline goes to annual town meeting then it goes to election in November that is probably the shortest and so then we'd be eligible for 20 26 7 six well depends on when it's it comes out every they just announc it like middle of November so it's we may miss the 26th depending on yeah yeah so things never move quickly but we got a lot on our plate as it done know yeah a little bit um but yeah I think it's it's def especially in light of of the projects that we have on the horizon I think yeah um I love the viability of this I like the additional Revenue the matching funds I like that the the sech charge is flexible with exceptions um I watched this and read about this a little bit and it went to town meeting and it went to you know the second time and just came to the council um what you going to do differently to get a pass like to get residents on board like what were the mistakes that were made I I don't know I wasn't here in 2007 that was the last time it actually came before the town the select board voted to not put it on the the warrant in 2020 because of just it being 2020 and and so much going on and there probably was no appetite that year I mean no one knew how we were going to come out of the pandemic um but override passed last year you're right TJ um Mandy whoever else uh so I think I think it's an education process for sure would have to be um done because it's not a tax it's a search charge on your cess value it's a savings account it's it's like you have a 401k at work company does a 5% match if you don't contribute 5% to to reap the full match you're leaving money on the table right I mean these projects we're going to pay for them when they when it when they're going to be done we're going to pay for them do we want to pay all of it or do we want some help with that cuz even like 10% someone's like oh that's not a really good match if if I said hey give me your money I'll I'll guarantee you a 10% return next year would you be happy about that I would be um I'm not saying it's a 10% minimum I mean I've seen 13 as a minimum but there's no guarantee so yeah it it would be a challenge I think the another challenge If This Were to pass is getting the projects approved that has to go to a town vote um so I know in some towns money has sat in these different buckets for a long time because they couldn't get agreement on how to use the money and and it can sit there right um and some towns purposely let it sit and build and build and then spend it but the town is in control of how that money is used so to me a a story needs to be put together around this whether we need another override at some point down the road for operational and then any debt exclusion we're looking at or or borrowing for some of these big projects that are out there and I think collectively all of those need to be assessed um and put in front of the the public if we wanted support on this CU although it's a search Char in the end it feels like a tax it shows up on your tax bill it feels like a tax I know yeah yeah and to piggyback on Chris here um maybe make the public aware of the various exceptions that may be available with this to ensure like a fair and Equitable application across the board they know there's a way that they may be able to get an exception it might so those exceptions have to be stated when it goes to town meeting okay so that's part of the program you have to have what search charge what exemptions you want in place so the town votes on all of that um I think one one interesting bit and I I haven't had time to do it and I don't I don't know maybe Rebecca lantry did the his you know go looking back at the projects the library or well that wouldn't probably have qualified any of the projects that have been done in town that would have qualified for CPA funding what what did we spend and what would we have spent kind of a historical retrospective and then looking forward project out these are the projects we're looking at and without CPA and then different sech charges you know ballpark what we could expect to um help fund those projects and of course what it would cost the you know res like we did with the over you know we they did with the override on property value X and this is how much more your property tax will be right and cups of coffee cups of coffee which if you were cups of coffee lately not because it's less money um that we're spending just doesn't get you much coffee um yeah so anyway that I I wasn't aware of this program honestly until being on the budget task force and I think it's really i' I've come around on it to be honest what's your timeline to present um as a warrant partical who meeting who's presenting this as a we had so I think I don't know if this is going to come from the select board or not I mean I think we have to discuss it but I would not Envision this as a 206 time meeting in either one at 25 you mean a 25 sorry okay yeah yeah that that is okay that is beyond that's that's quite a stretch goal yeah okay uh I would love it but I think given the history it has to be done I I think we'll get one more shot at this probably for a while yeah I think to get something like this past it needs to be a collective um front it can't just be one committee one board one Department it has to be a group effort um in order to collaborate and educate the public I mean she was just yeah she was just saying you know our buildings are almost dis array I'm just going to say they need drastic repairs and this will just help I mean we have Marshall Park everybody knows what's going on with Marshall Park and anything else that's coming down the pike this will only help the town and the residents this is not just a savings account that we're just going to pull it away in store forever as we fund this these warrants will come at town meeting okay do you want to fund this project that kind of thing and we could take up residents actions too if resident wants to put a warrant you know we need our Parks focused on they can focus on that or if there's a school building they can focus on that but um this is really the start like she said you know what did you want at least 10% of your money back you know instead of paying 100% of the project you pay for 90% I mean it it's a huge cost savings to the town and I don't think the warrant has to come from any particular I mean I I would love just the public to a Citizens you know Grassroots or combined effort it doesn't it's we all know it's it's it's too much work for a small group of people um I mean everyone in the budget task force I mean as everyone everybody um they did a lot of work on top of the day job you guys know how much work you have to do on top of your day job to get this done so um yeah okay I don't want to lose sight of it that's that's I don't want it to fall off well do you want to keep going sure you want me sure oh um so number okay I'll have to get my water um this the number five was the green grants for the hvx at the schools these are I believe we have Dr Burnham so she can correct me if I'm wrong I'm I believe this is in the works already right these H these are projects that are being done I know they've been talking with the um green communities and so this is you know something that is was already um kind of on their radar and planned okay and I know Dave is on Green community still oh yeah I think right in orade if they want to chime in on this feel free um I think the next two yeah so the next two are around solar field one on the Oldtown dump site and one on school Lots so you may have heard of various um select board meetings during arpa discussions um Michael Ray Jeff brought up um the looking into solar on the Oldtown dump site um and then also the possibility of having solar on the school lot so this this could be a revenue Source um know there's different ways of doing it we discussed it on the budget task force as you know if you I don't have solar panels but you know a lot of people do they get credits on their electric right and I've heard a lot of people having trouble dealing with getting all the credits that they earn and it's just they carry over and it'd be a lot nicer to to least one one possibility we talked about on the the task force was you know you lease the land to someone who puts their solar panels on and you just collect the cash from you know that that's cash coming in not not utility credits um or you could put your own solar panels on there um so I don't know enough about it to to say anything more than that but suffice to say that it's it's a potential Revenue Source um we have two places in town at least that that could possibly take advantage of this okay um question yeah have have you done any feasibility studies for either one of these projects or is that or is this just the beginning no on town dump I don't think anything was stunned for the school Lots I don't know if Dr Burnham looked into it um as far as I know we have not yet okay so it's it's an idea like it's it's the to-do list is this long and this how much we can actually get done um the Brooks house lease so that that was covered oh that was covered at um at town meeting so we're we need to look into CU we we are losing money maintaining Brooks house right now I know what Chris wants to do with brook house Brooks house but um so if we could Lisa oh you want to next one um yeah so so that that is known um so that's another possible source of Revenue you want to do this one yeah yeah I think we need to move on Brooks house we need to make a decision and just go with it and the the municipal building committee which I'm on was asked at our meeting on Monday to take that over um and we're going to be meeting two Mondays from last Monday to discuss whether we had the capacity to do that so um that's something I don't know much about other than you know what we passed uh at at time meter we do have an estimated value of 30 to 50,000 based on the lease agreements depending on what they what they entail how would you come up that well it's uh looking at other towns what they lease their buildings for and depending on the use that's B essentially what the leas did you deduct our maintenance cost from that that seems high huh that seems high what was the number uh 30 to 50,000 yeah that's what I have too that's I I'm saying I think that's high for a lease on that building you think you only get 30,000 a year um depending on like I said I don't know the building itself I Haven been in the building that that often but um it seems reasonable based on other research I've looked at other towns what they least the buildings for that's not like you said That's not including the overhead as well yeah I will say the the capital plan list associ ated with Brooks House's um I I forget the number but like half a million sticks in my mind to maintain it to repair it to renovate it to make make it leasable bring it up to code but how much are we spending on it now just to keep it ight yeah keep the lights on that that's why you know my opinion on what to do okay any questions on this I think I think we understand the recommendation um next recommendation was the review Town trash and recycling programs uh my understanding is when the recycling program was established it was free uh to the res to the town it was at no cost but now it's um I think the current cost is $250,000 a year and it's just Rising um it's the town has to make a um um let's see so the town has to make a decision if they want to continue this going forward you know we can get out of the business Recycling and just kind of um have the C privatize or we can um somehow incorporate this into the annual budget and increase the cost um it's depending on the town decisions What the residents want but um this is a huge cost and it just it's significant in it's hitting the operating budget for the time or you could go subscription based which is possibly yeah any anything else as well any questions no I think it's time to do that analysis and make a recommendation on it okay um one thing we don't know is actually how many people are actually using the town trash pick up vers is private but everyone can use recycling even if they don't use the mhm if they don't buy the yellow bag yeah but the bigger question is how much is actually even being recycled right yeah yeah and there's no value in recycling like there used to no we used to get paid for it now we don't right if you do it with the program you just you would sell more bags to set the trash there would be no recycling but again that's a conversation that needs to happen yeah um chapter 90 town roads so I our understanding is there are certain roads in town that need to be delegated as town roads and they're not currently but we're still maintaining them is that correct so um delegating these These Roads as town roads and having them established you know with the with the Commonwealth will increase our chapter 90 funding depending on the number of Roads uh we have estimated value of 10 to an additional 10 to 20,000 a year yeah and and I've looked at the list of Road and they're all roads we maintaining and they've already done a lot of the analysis as to whether we've voted them in to me this is a go do this this this came from you I know um so what a great idea well it was actually um Bill Bernard had brought it up in one of his presentations and it just seemed like a go do um and then with the analysis that had already been done for something else was actually the routes for for the trash contract they showed that some of those roads that had already been approved and were valid roads so yeah I don't know I don't did you get the slides I sent you I don't know if you got them but the list of Roads is on there I I included so yeah okay all right any questions all right um High deductible Health Plan um so so this would um have an an alternative option of health insurance for Town employees um for a high deductible plan which be a cost Savings in return for the town um you know health insurance one of the most lar largest costs and with um most tra most people will opt out or traditional health insurance if they can save on the other end if they they're not going to go see the doctor as much as they don't anticipate so they can have this High deductible plan pay less monthly and have a cost savings themselves as an additional option it's not taking away from the current options of insurance it's just an additional there's also typically a health savings account that can go with this which is triple taxfree so it's a huge Advantage for anyone that's thinking of um Healthcare and their retirement HSA so it's taxfree going in it's taxfree during you know and it's taxfree coming out so corre I also think like by because we're diversifying health insurance options the town can better manage and predict like health insurance expenditures contributing to overall Financial stability you know I think is a good thing yep and that goes along with uh recommendation 12 is the health insurance buyouts so you know um this seems like a no-brainer to offer health insurance byouts you know some if someone wants to take off or take up their spouse's health insurance so they can find a health insurance somewhere um we will give them an incentive which will be a drastic cost savings to the town because even though we're providing them with a buyout with a cash incentive it's still a lot less than the annual cost at the town we be paying and the estimated value would be dependent on the number of buyouts which is not there yet do you see any issues with unions yeah okay is there any short-term costs aligned with this yes um not that I'm aware of no okay just the cost savings really um and how are we going to get across to employees that the buyout is not like a reduction in their benefits like when I see this I'm like oh my gosh am I losing benefits you know what's going on well I don't think we'd have to educate the staff that it's not an actual reduction of benefits it's I think it's another benefit at it so you can opt into the health insurance that's fine or you can take a cash incentive and use your spouse set somewhere else it's not you're not taking away the health insurance you're saying well if you if you like have this amount of money and can go somewhere else you know and that'll work for the time as well so it's not a reduction it's an added did you look at how many staff currently do not take um health insurance I did not Paul number that no cuz they would instantly opt out of it and we would be paying those folks I wonder if PEC would know cuz this would this would this is that's who would drive this right yeah if there'd be a break even how many if we if we got 10 additional employees okay then we're breaking even if it got 20 then we we're making money that would be and it's a nice option to have because it gives the employee the you know your spouse has a great benefits plan then that gives a little extra money in the pocket so that's um also you be using like the legal department to make sure that it includes like the Affordable Care Act and we're just making sure we're covering all of our VES well yeah we we wouldn't just write something up you know the collective bargaining units would have to agree it have to go to was it per P I said perk but it has to go through P to through the vetting process it has to go through legal there's a lot of steps in between um so this wouldn't be just a memorandum it would be an actual process Brian Leighton presented the high doable to you guys ready yep yeah okay um any questions next recommendation is uh the payroll and purchase order streamlining this is really a cost savings but it's really a more time saving uh for the staff um here in town so you know after a diagnostic audit and with this myself and the school district business manager we can eliminate duplicate duplicative uh processes within the the ISS within the timeline so for example we are currently upgrading we be we will be upgrading our imun system uh sometime in January through March the process is already on the way with that being said once the upgrade happens the next step is to go to Employee Self-Service that will eliminate paper time sheets people should be able to process their payroll off site wherever they need um there'll be a lot of Education with that I can see paper time sheets y paper time sheets happen trying to get this into 2025 but uh as the steps go go forward trust me trust I got here and I was surprised but uh are you using paper time sheets cuz the system you're using now is not no the system using now so I I guess a couple of years ago the Employee Self-Service module was opened and within imun system that we have however there were so many issues Incorporated with that with the with the version we have and the server didn't have the capacity to manage the data so right now there's a paper time sheet system but our payroll benefits manager enters it into the munus trying to reduce all that duplicate duplicate D I can't even say it duplicative work I need my water also and also this uh streamlining the purchase order process as well so as things goes out to bid just utilize and the tools that we have instead of um having all this redundancy and that will free up the staff instead of running around crazy trying to coordinate all of this they can just simply move on and focus on the real work that needs to be done I think there's a lot of these um streamlining and efficiency things that could be done in town you know even like boards and commissions booking a room for a meeting yeah it's not even documented how you do it as far as I can tell and the poor people who are trying to manage them and the poor people on our side who are trying to coordinate you know to to get agendas out in a you know timely fashion that it it just screams for like put workflows in place right we're still emailing agendas and emailing minutes just put a workflow together use minutes software I mean there's so many tools that are out there these days to can standardize things I mean everyone does minutes differently everyone does agendas differently mhm um so I I think there's a ton in the streamlining that could be yeah could be looked at [Music] absolutely any any other questions um stand and the next one is standard standardizing um and improve workflow within Town finances as well again and improve and Implement a standard chart of accounts for all departments current the chart of accounts is different for each department depending on who you're talking to so DPW doesn't align with fire fire doesn't align with accounting accounting doesn't align with the assessors um streamlining the chart of accounts will make for not only easy interpretation but easy reporting as well so you'll get the same report regardless of who you talk to so if you say Bill can I have your chapter 90 funding you should get that easily from the report you should be able to um and also you know the Departments they will be able to do the work they need to do more efficiently as well without um having someone tell them well this is what this means this is what this means everybody will have the same information just the dollars would be different essentially yeah it would help us to have standardized reporting through our budget cycle um and selectboard for when they see things and everyone so I I am totally with this one all right uh next one is the school Ser contracts uh which is actually currently um happening with the school um K it's on but um she can correct me if I'm wrong but um my conversation with Dr Gilson um they're currently reviewing the current contracts to the solar panel providers to determine the school's panels are providing the maximum Revenue to the town um and it's necessary switch leases and consolidate leases syst as well so that's actually um currently under the way um number 16 and 17 go hand in hand is currently um create a regular review process for school fees and town fees so um right now you know it seems that the the fees aren't reviewed reg regularly you know there should be some kind of schedule and annually depending on the type of fee that's going on you could put them on a annually biannually or every third year you just put them on a cycle to en able to review so that way you can look at a department and say okay the next budget um recommendations are up guess what you're next to review your fees um see if they're substantial not substantial but if they're are um you know valid and you know okay for the coming year or if they need to be um increased in order to produce additional Revenue to cover the overhead cost Associated sounds good um this one um the warrant of delivery at town meeting so currently the current process is a paper process and it because it is a paper process it reduces the timeline uh for the warrant to be sent out to the public um in order to reduce that timeline you know you we can do um there's a cost savings here of 7500 every year that will be had so in order to reduce that timeline you know you can send out emails to the town post it on the town website saying here's a town warrant you could post it at a shorter time frame and if you need one you can pick it come pick it up at Town Hall pick it up at the library pick it up wherever um and we will have those available to you but that's um 7500 which isn't a lot but it's a recurrent cost and you know we're trying to save the additional pennies like Tony said finding the coins and the cushions so this is one of them which is seems like a no-bra to me but um this is the recommendation green too exactly um this one here here um recommendation 19 consolidate town and school snow removement and ground maintenance it's just reviewing the vi viability consolidating town is snow removal and ground maintenance um I don't know too much about this but it just if you want to I don't so we had a lot of discussion um around this it's not obvious that there'd be a big savings um the logistics and staff we didn't the outcome of our discussion was we we wouldn't be saving any money the one caveat I'll give is you can imagine if we contracted out these Services we don't want Town having one vendor and school negotiating you know there's probably more power negotiating together for a common vendor but that's not the current situation um so that's why it it fell to the bottom this one comes up a lot and we we just couldn't see how we could get to um to any savings there's Capital Savings associated with this in my opinion how uh we have multiple snow plowing trucks and the school's going to buy a a truck with a plow we don't need do we have enough drivers for all of them what do we have enough drivers for all of them that's a different question okay on I think I think that's that's the cuz I think we would use all those so are we using all the trucks I guess we have three on order one t pickup truck one ton um not one ton uh what are the big ones 10 ton five or 10 I'm sure sizeing and then um the schools wants trucks you know each has Lawn Equipment they all have mowers I mean it's just you know and we don't have the staff for all this stuff so I I think there's real savings in this one I don't know about it Logistics H I don't know about you don't know about what I think there'll be some complexities there operational differences coordination and management differen I think there's you require more staff that negates the there's a loss of control which is what the real issue is people want control and when you you should be you should be um if you have a perfectly plowed school no one's leaving or coming if the roads aren't plowed right this makes absolute sense to me and you don't have redundant departments in any businesses that I know but I think the schools and the sidewalks and the roads kind of have to be plowed simultaneously right why well for the reason you just said if if the schools are clear but the roads are you can't get to school and if the roads are clear but the school's not you can't put them the kids in the school yeah so it's just a capacity issue you don't need two departments running it I think well I think what you're getting it's it's a big difference body it's Staffing to run there's directors in both yeah higher paid directors in both managing small groups we're topheavy you got Capital Equipment that can be better shared yeah we're going to have four 10 ton plow trucks with like two operators aren't we taking some of the older ones off aren't the new ones replacing some yeah yeah yeah but we we're purchasing three and we may purchase a fourth one under the capital plan and how many are coming off those three are replacing some I assume three we lost okay so so it's a net neutral it's just a turnover of equipment right like a a life cycle like you get a new laptop from work every 3 years right I I again I see no reason for the schools to be in the business of plowing driveways and doing Lawn Care it makes zero sense to me they're in they should be in the business of educating and just because you have a town manager and a superintendent doesn't mean that they need to have bodies under them the control facility and snow removal so it's it's moving so it's still the the mowing gets done you're just you're you're changing the organizational structure yeah not how the work is actually done right and the same thing with it the fact that we have two it departments is ludicrous you suer is one of them suar yeah and whomever the other one is so watch the board of assessors meeting last night so if you have two directors and they're both in charge of their own scope of work who do they report to who's the singular person you dotted line you dotted line to one of them we do it in business all the time our engineering are you asking now no she's asking now it's a current organ no now there's there's ones to the superintendent ones to um so it's a dotted line to those solid line for the for the facilities director for the school solid line facilities direct to the town manager which the facility director for the schools is vacant again so it's a perfect time to make a change we don't have enough Staffing Peter would like to say something Bard more more board me okay board me can't see that far I'm not I'm not bored from this discussion good evening um so just for a point of clarity um the requests that are is is currently uh uh under consideration for Capital planning um is not a net increase in trucks for our DPW uh my understanding is that our D DPW when you know running at full authorization for 10-wheel uh dump truck plow Sanders uh there's a total of five vehicles uh right now we have I believe one functioning vehicle in that category uh we have three on order uh and there is a request for a fifth the the problem in my opinion is not equipment in the DPW or equipment in the schools we we have had the sum total of equipment to be able to do the work the the problem is is that there's a different Mission here um the schools have to be able to execute 990 hours of instruction and 180 days somewhere between the week before Labor Day and before the 4th of July and to do that they need to open school and to open school you need to have cleared and sanded parking lots and you need to have cleared and sanded entryways and sidewalks and that is the focus of the facilities Department in the schools to be able to do that the DPW needs to keep roads clear for vehicles to be able to Traverse those rules those roads Vehicles including school buses yes but it's a different level of priority is of work um just by way of example last week winter we had I don't know two big big storms maximum my parents live on whum road and 2 days following a big storm the DPW is out there with a plow blade plowing sidewalks on whum road well if if that's how we're going to you know and and and I'm not faulting them for it I understand there were equipment issues with with the uh with the trackless at the time but the net net is is that there there's different priorities of work amongst those different staffs now now Chris you're absolutely right if we had very competent managers who could manage multiple missions with similar equipment simultaneously I I would be all for it but right now I have no confidence that we have that level of sophistication of management particularly given everything that you've just shown around the lack of modernization that we have been able to accomplish in lunenberg over the last seven years when you think about the ways of work that are different in business over the course of the last seven 7 years and what we have done in lunenberg which is zero in terms of modernizing our ways of work I think that that's where we should be focused uh and and we can we can deal with plows and snowblowers and lawnmowers uh perhaps in another year thank you all right I'm not coming off this one I've been my opinion for 5 years and I'm going to make it known in every single thing some ad hoc example of using plows on a sidewalk does not change my opinion that a department of two in a department of seven should have two directors at director level pay I will say part of the diagnostic audit some of that conversation was looking at the way the town operates not just looking at Finance the one of the options might be to look at Town operations in order to streamline processing um there are other recommendations within here streamling process processes but part of the diagnostic audit one of the thoughts would be to to look at to operations to trim the fat right per second I I'm I might be able to be sueded um but I've only been here a year um but what I've noticed is that there's not a lot of positive collaboration going on so it would be a I I think the challenge is to find those managers that can work together and I think this would be a perfect well that would be the expectation I think you'd have to build in the culture and right I I think this comes up to it's hard to do this m but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it just because it's hard doesn't mean we don't do it um I think Homer Simpson said the opposite once but uh it's the way I mean we it seems like the right thing to do if we were starting up a new town and we said hey let's get a group with plows and and and wwn more and we'll have a small group over here that does this and a bigger group over here two managers go what are you nuts well yeah it might take a couple of years it might take three years but let's start the process and get it done yeah and I think culture-wise in personel wise we have a new town manager coming in we have a clean slate a fresh start I think if there's any time to start moving towards recommendations of um organizational efficiency across both sides of the municipal and school portions of the town you know it's a great opportunity I mean let's not do it just to do it it has to sense we have to set the program up for Success we don't want to just do something to do it um I think we need to put people in place that we can trust before we like let's just do it I don't you know I um yeah I have two comments one we we do have a lot of people in key positions who have been here less than a year one is standing right here which is is tough coming in C playing katchup as he's had to do a lot [Music] of work and clean up um but the the positive side of that same thing with with Dr gillson um who's been here even less time um is it's a fresh perspective you know you get lost you're buried in it you're too close to it you can't see and you have people who come in bring other experience with them or sometimes just have a whole new Outlook and question things that you're just oh never occurred to me I'm just it's because it's been done like that right um my other comment is it it used to be one Department right in lunenberg before my time it I don't think so when well there was never a facilities department on the facilities was split from DPW that was a split I'm thinking of there was a yeah yeah okay yeah that's the split I'm thinking of I don't think DW ever did school facilities right I'm thinking more grounds than facility I'm thinking more the plowing the mowing than the facility right did did dpw's facilities ever um manage the grounds of the school not that I know they may have they may have assisted I don't believe they have completely managed them not to my knowledge Chris okay okay and they have assisted with snow removal but they never completely Managed IT yeah do you want us to do the last one or is yes you sure um we're going to be under so the last one is a a we spent it's on here because we we spent quite a bit of time um split tax rate um I'll give you the background how this came about um when we were looking at Benchmark communities mayor kept coming up it's kind of um to really simplify it it's if you took lunenberg and just Shrunk The the size the the ground the land um it's it's it matches up pretty similar to the the demographics of lunenberg um and they have a split tax rate they have for a very long time I want to think it was 2003 um when digital was in place in mayard and it never went away um and they have managed to grow their commercial even having that split tax rate so Evan Waters um did a lot of comparisons with mayard and we had Linda McQuade and Brian lefon come in from the um assessor department and board of assessors um to talk about it and if you saw the tax classification hearing um it it just it's too much of a burden to put on lunenberg um businesses especially in light of the fact that there's no way to it it's it's it's a peanut butter right across all the all the businesses so whether you're small business with five employees or Tony's favorite example is Walmart it hits you just as hard there's no way to wait it within that so it's on here um because we we we really looked at it this was one of the things like well it's always been done that way well let's question it let let's try to you know turn it upside down look at it every which way um and we landed on on a single tax rate and as did the um the board of assessors um and and any change in that would obviously require you know legislation so um so that we just tagged that one on at the end because we did spend about I think a whole meeting on that we had a pretty lengthy debate um when heavan was still here on this as well I think he brought up a the mayor data that he showed the buzzer I think he brought it up at one of your meetings too yeah yeah I I think the data that's not in there is they're near mro and Hudson they're near 45 and they're you know so they're kind of convenient in the proximity to other towns um that are bringing yeah business through there they are a cheaper alternative to conquered they're right cuz I live there right next to conquered um yeah um and then it's kind of sandwich in between you know you've got Sudbury you've got Acton you've got conquered even Hudson um so it's it's a little it looks on paper a lot of the numbers match up with lunenberg but it's inside 495 its location is it's very close to um multiple Commuter Rail stations on the same line but multiple stations so um anyway that that's on there um but we again we landed on this single tax rate anyway but we did I have a question um did the town um do a financial impact assessment just about the fairness of implementing the split tax rate I know we don't have a lot of businesses we have Walmart but all of our other businesses are quite small yeah go ahead Linda did no I believe if you look back at the tax classification hearing the ass Board of assessors did do that kind of Deep dive to the impact to the community the other um thing I'll bring up as well if we went with a split tax rate we'd be the only town in the area so that might be a hard economic hit um any new businesses could just go to ler pitsburgh if they right on the Town Line we would just lose them they just go straight over and have the single [Music] rate so that's all our recommendations that we have great yeah there's probably nothing really Earth I mean it's probably a lot was to be expected or you could have predicted but I think having the diversity we had on the task force coming to the same um conclusions I think just reinforces how real they are um and I also I want to I I said this at the select board meeting I want to take this opportunity to um say it again publicly to thank eie Dr Burnham um Dr gillson Tony Tony was Tony was great chair um hope he's having fun coaching basketball right now um and Heather was on to start and then Carter joined us and and Carter's experience from other communities was was um was helpful um Evan Waters also had um a lot of numbers a lot of a lot of insight um a lot of data a lot of data which is that's my favorite thing so um but I think we had a lot of good dialogue we had a lot of people come in the only thing we didn't get to Capital any Capital plan recommendations but um when I wrote the charter for the task force I was you know I know that the capital planning committee wanted to have a long-term plan in the spring and um so I was kind of leaning on on that but that's fine um that didn't happen so we didn't we didn't get to really dive deep into that um but we have the capital planning committee to do that anyway um but I think the discussions were really good we had we had um all the we had department heads in we had the union reps from come in teachers fire um police everybody and it was um I think it was it was a really good interaction um I think the the group functioned really well um so I want to thank everyone for their time the employees who had to stay here and um put in the extra hours um is really appreciated CU I know that they are stretched in and we're about to head into budget season so there's no time to come up for air so I'd Echo all the thanks on that one question I would have is well a couple questions is the committee going to dissolve at this point is I believe so yeah um so so this presentation I think so Tony sent he sent he said he corrected four typos I don't know what they are um so once we get the the typos worked out on on the executive summary and then I have slides that I sent to Chris we're going to have um that go on the town website we have there's a budget task force site so we'll have this document the documents out there for the public um I I don't think we can keep going given what's coming up all right so my recommendation would be that we also have probably an office you know action tracking tools right we should take each of these recommendations and set an action for it and I think it's select board that chartered this to begin with but but drive these to to conclusion right not just we did a whole bunch of stuff we'll Implement a couple things yeah and the conclusion may be we're not going to do it right we're you know we're not going to go to a split tax rate we've closed out on this action um and I think as a town we should get better at at driving you know towards that kind of mindset treat it like a project treat it like management like any of us do in the corporate world so mhm just a recommendation mhm um no believe I mean I think all of us spent so much time on this we don't want to see it fall off um so yeah I agree I second and I think Chris just volunteered for something else I'm not fall anything next time this comes through you'll be the careair of the next round buest that's right um so did um Dr Burnham did you have anything else you on that committee for the for the group no nothing more to add I would just Echo um the Gratitude um that was already expressed um to all the members for the the work that they did it was um there was a lot of good conversation and a lot of good work done I think okay I just I also want to specifically thank Renee for bringing this forward you know being new coming to the town my position I'm sort of an asyo this actually opens up to see what's actually happening every part of town so I appreciate it and I want specifically thank her anything else from the board I'd like to say thank you for all that work that's a lot that's a lot bringing all those people together the right key people is is challenging and all the people you mentioned are key people so I know that you put a lot of work into getting everybody brought in so I thank you I appreciate it I think it show you know the town side and the school side can work together I mean we we questioned I I brought up school regionalization again just you know put that out anything was up to go on we weren't going to turn away any ideas I mean they could all get shot down after discussion but have the discussion so collaboration starts with leaders behave exhibiting the values right so I think that's a great example of that y agreed thank you thank you all right so before maybe uh Dr Burnham and Peter um leave just because you're here um I'm going to skip to one item on the agenda which is uh reviewing the budget season schedule um so I had I had been talking with Carter a bit about putting putting together the the budget season calendar um and I've asked him for two things well he he told me one thing one is he needs 25 days to put out the warrant right so if we backwards plan this 25 days I asked them for for um from the time we have the budget um hearing the public hearing that we need three additional meetings after that um in order to finalize to to deliberate on our recommendations fresh not off of a 4-Hour meeting um we need all the warrants so that we can vote on all the warrants and then we need two additional weeks to make sure we can draft a a a finance committee report and then come back to finalize it and vote on it um so I've asked that you know based on that 25 day and the timing of it and the fact that we meet on Thursdays that those four meetings be kind of in the in the calendar now dependent upon the forward planning aspect of this it can drive towards what are the critical um aspects that say school department would need in order to have a budget in time for that public hearing um I don't think any of us want to go through you know three 4-Hour meetings each and every week through the entire winter again right um and I know things pop up um but I do think finance committee needs time to do our job as well um and I think the The Habit we've gotten into of not having a a finance committee report in the warrant um is one that we should we should try to stop um having so I would ask that eie if you want to comment on this as well and while iie is coming up I I don't have um Carter's recommendation yet he was unable to get it to me for tonight I suspect that um you know maybe in the first meeting in January he'll he'll have that um I will say I met um a lot this week with Carter sending up uh budget sheets um to Prov to provide to the Departments to get their recommendations I sent that out U right before this meeting uh Chris I think I seed you on the email okay um to get the department heads recommendations for FY 26 we're giving um them until the 21st to get back to us uh Carter is working on a budget schedule however with Opa and capital lately it's been pushed back because the OPA funding is actually ending this next week so we're just trying to get that wrapped up but um he's working on getting a schedule but just wanted to give you an update that those cheats to the Departments for the requests did go up okay and it's based the sheets are basically here's your FY 25 budget list your recommendations any specific requests you need to do an actual analysis and deep dive to let us know why okay that kind of thing that's the operating okay all right thank okay um Mr be I'll allow you to hey Chris thanks um can you can you elaborate a little bit on on the information that you just shared in terms of the the timing cuz I'm looking at calendars and backing off days um but I'm not sure where we're starting from like 25 days is that from when the warrant lands in my mailbox or a town meeting or or what what is the you know what is the starting point of the backward plan um and then do you have any insight in terms of who's actually doing the the work here my understanding is is that Carter's contract ends in about a month and and the charter stipulates that you know there's a 3-month period and then a 3-month extension and then has anybody has anybody articulated who's actually carrying the ball in this in this uh in this game so to speak okay so I will read you what Carter emailed me which has said I've come to believe that we need all final actions in writing at least 25 days before the final town meeting to allow for Quality controls proofs Printing and mailing so I read that as being 25 days from the date of the town meeting back in okay okay so town meeting is on May 2nd so you back off 25 days from that that's April 7th and then you're saying you need three meetings before that so that would be theoretically April 2nd March 26 and March 19th and that sounds kind of like the timeline we've typically been on for the public hearing is that third full week of March if all things go well right I I I think so I don't have a calendar in front of me I I think what I do want to have is I don't want to go through the entire briefing of Articles debate everything else and then deliberate on everything I I I'd like that that week for us all to digest everything and then come in fresh with the deliberations and and to rough out what we think should be in the final report um so it's it's public hearing you know t+ 7 Days um for uh deliberations and um kind of outlining the the final report one more week for um a draft one more week for um um a final report which would then have to meet that 25 days which is gets awkward because of of a Thursday and stuff like that but so I think we're in the ballpark Peter I I just think that um you've been in my seat oh yeah yeah yeah no I I get it but but I I what it's worth we we did get those reports out um this is a this is a recent phenomenon so um as painful as it is yep uh but but I I hear you I hear you um I just I think we need to I think we need to continue this conversation and and land on a land on an agreed upon date where in particular the school department presents its approved budget and and you know the part of the discussion that we got into at a school committee meeting several weeks ago when we were talking about this is you know do we want to go back to the days where where the superintendent is presenting a you know 95% budget because the school committee hasn't made a final approval and they're presenting to you you know their their best educated guest and and my preference is not to do that but my first year on the finance committee that's exactly what we did uh so so you know I think that that those are the those are the challenges here okay so my plan would be that when when Carter gets that to me that I'll circulate it to the um select board they'll probably get it anyways and then to the school committee um I think they have the hardest job in meeting all that um you know that also comes down to all moneyed articles um need to be in place for the um public hearing as well I I think we found ourself in this or maybe we'll have additional public hearings to hear moneyed articles because they're not f there's got to be a pens down thing for finance committee to to do our job so that that was the reason I asked for it um and the reason I I think I sent you know an email to select board as well as um school committee members just to to be transparent in what I was was looking for from um from Carter yeah to your second question about how is this getting pulled together I'm not sure um I'll have to talk I guess with um with Carter and and um and um Caesar about that um you know at a minimum hopefully we get uh you know at least a budget number you know two school committee so you can start to to um you know do your do your planning as well so it's going to be a it's going to be a fun time so I but I did want you know school committee and select board um you know Renee you can you can pass that back as well um I'm sure Tom will listen to this and maybe others um but that was that's my ask at least any um comments or questions or concerns about what I um laid out um related to that okay uh anyone else in the audience all right thank you um so let me let me just take the rest of of new business uh Town manager search committee update um the town manager search committee has finalized its job um we had interviews last week um in executive session they remain in executive session uh with six candidates uh we down selected to three candidates to put forward um and now it's between uh John petran who's our consultant in this process um and the select board I think they are going to meet on the 7th and the 14th I think the 14th 14th of the actual conduct of the um the next round interviews so at this stage those names will become public the three that go forward and the interviews themselves will also be public so everyone can attend and listen or watch and and hear about it um um I think there'll be about 75 minute interviews uh they asked for about an hour of um Q&A um and then 15 minutes for the uh candidate to present something that they had previously presented to see kind of their presence as it relates to that um so hopefully with some negotiation timeline after that and you know hopefully we have a manager um not not too not too far from now but um it's going it's definitely going to make for a challenge in budget season um excuse me and I think um as a as Finance director you're probably going to have a lot on your plate to to help with this and I think between fincom and select board I I think select board's going to have to take on some of the responsibility of town manager um for for getting you know decisions made and and that sort of thing so um hopefully it it it leads to a a good end result from from our perspective through budget season but um we definitely moving forward on that uh filling that critical role in town uh any questions related to that all right um a capital planning update I had sent I think I did did I send you guys a a list of all that um so Capital planning finalized its recommendation on Monday um for for this year and then um Peter whose chair is going to start calling um probably monthly meetings to start to look at the actual planning aspects of capital planning versus the review aspects of capital planning um and start really looking at the 5-year plan in more detail and um a whole bunch of of other things our our meeting is is probably online at this point if you want to see the last one but um we will continue to try to get to a you know 5 10e Capital plan um as part of this as part of this process um with that said were there any comments or questions or concerns related to the capital plan as it stands right now and we will have further hearings on it okay um so that's the last of the new business um ezy did did you have a finance directory report um on Tuesday I presented the FY 24 year in financials I think I forwarded it to the group as well I wasn't planning on presenting again and welcome to watched the meeting but um if you have any questions I can feel free to ask I could address our final free cash was approved at 2. 7 and 2.27 2.25 two 2 2527 I I don't have it in front of me I'm sorry um and also our tax rate has been 1436 $14. 36 um yeah so um my largest recommendation I think to the select was to look at um the Staffing and Public Safety the overtime um is already over budget um not already over budget but it's at over capacity for FY 24 and that's apparent in the Staffing level if you have additional Staffing that over time will come down and be cost neutral I think if you add additional staff over time goes down but uh it would alleviate the stress of the staff working the overtime and I think they're already stressed out as it is from my conversations but um you can see it in the numbers it's really apparent and a lot of information in there um I guess hadn't been brought previously but I had been there's been request to add those things in there like the trust funds special Revenue funds um and things like that so it's not just trying to gauge what the fincom and selectboard want and just add those in there without overbearing everybody with too much info yeah no I I appreciated the the detail I haven't anal studied it yet been kind of busy but um any questions from the the board on that committee guess we're a committee I don't know the difference this is good oh thank you thank you I'm trying all right thank you thank you good night good night all right um under old business um we had project 2011 which is the school funding formula 211 I guess um referring to the number of communities that are um fall into that what is it minimum Aid um any updates on any of that I I should probably it's um it's a thing that um I forget who brought it up I thought you brought no I I don't think so it's uh 20111 communities with in of the 351 in Mass fall into the same situation we fall in with Chapter 70 which is we get the the minimum increase every year that's $70 maybe a 100 um so there's kind of this caucus forming hopefully forming amongst these two 11 to really attack that this is a systemic problem that that needs to be solved Tom did you bring this up well representative Scarsdale was the one that has been at least in this area heading heading that up so she was the the one that uh had it I think at the time I think Evan was uh involved I I actually went to one meeting that they had and that's where I learned a lot about it but I haven't heard much about it um beyond that but it's um something that we should keep on our plate uh if if um it becomes a factor then obviously we like the other 210 municipals cities and towns will we want to push that through as best we can okay uh so I don't have any updates on it but I just wanted to keep it there is it it's it's obviously something that um our increases are not reflective of of um you know the the two and a half% and the in inflation in this area so I I think it is an area where the the schools um needs to be properly funded by the state yep yeah I'm Carol a Shambo uh school committee secretary and um the 211 initially they met um with representative Scarsdale as you said and then there was another meeting after that time where representative Scarsdale met with some I think networking type people to try and push this forward I think the more that the legislators our legislators and other legislators here that there is a major problem with that funding um situation the better off it's going to be her feel is to build um capacity with a lot of people and she's not giving up on that so you there hasn't been a big meeting of everybody recently but there's still work being done okay thank you and then you know Tanya you probably don't understand Chapter 70 no one really does I think um but um there are presentations online we've had Consultants come in or rep that understand the formula intimately um I can probably find a date it's in our agendas when they came um you may want to watch that if you're interested in in in the in the formula and if you understand it you can explain it to all of us um so is this is this just specific to town government or city government so what ends up happening is we get a cherry sheet a cherry sheet is all the state funding as well as what we kind of owe to the state uh once a year in Chapter 70 is school funding from the state across the board towns and cities towns and cities y yep um and there's a lot of factors that go into how that's calculated um but the result is um I think it's called hold harmless uh we end up getting about $70 more per pupil every year uh where others are getting more like 2 and a half% and yeah that's low it is low yeah so it's hard to make up the difference when the school budget is more than half half of the overall budget in the the you know this the state um contribution to that is is diminishing percentage wise every year um so take a peek at it yeah um uh grant writing services you know one recommendation is to come up with a policy on the grant writing um I I don't know that we're going to maybe use much of it this year but I think we should I do think some um groups might be trying to get some money but they don't know the process by which to even do that so um I I know um have was going to try to come up with a policy and for how to how to deal with that um but it's something that we should we should look into uh consolidations of services and departments we talked about that earlier um all right so anything on old and new business that anyone wants to revisit great all right minutes we have uh minutes from October 10th and October 24th have folks had a chance to review them yeah okay I would would entertain a motion to to approve them unless there were any concerns can I approve if I wasn't here you can or you can abstain we we would be able to pass without it but you can vote on it even if you're not I mean I reviewed it seems okay fine I'll make the motion are they going to um fix like the the font there's a lot of spaces and gaps and stuff oh I'll look at it it's this wasn't too bad but the other one that was of the lot I'll look at it before I send it in I'll look at the formatting so we had a motion from Tom was there a second second all right any further discussion all those in favor say I I all right all right we are all caught up with minutes other than the last one for the and I looked back like 3 years and made sure that everything was posted online so the only one we're missing is a joint meeting with select board I think when the um the our representatives were here so I'm not even sure that the one question Evan had was worthy a minutes but uh we're we're really caught up just so I thank Daniel for that all right um put my paper uh committee reports I gave two of mine do we have any other committee reports missal building I'll just bring that up we had uh a bunch of I'm on that committee we had a bunch of meetings since our last meeting uh we hired we had one firm that uh uh submitted proposal we hired them they um Monday we had a meeting and they presented a very rough draft of what they P the uh what they perceived as um what would happen and so basically what this is is the uh renovation of this building here town hall and the renovation and addition to the Ritter which would become the new town hall and um it was the first draft if you saw the meeting uh look at it uh the committee wasn't uh very excited about the addition how it looked and where the main entrance was for the that but the architectural firm that's what they do they want to know what we want and so they took that information and we'll we'll see what happens at our next meeting but um there one thing I I Learned was that the U it was said a couple times by a few different people that the um the addition on the Ritter that from the original building from 1910 the 1960s or 50s Edition isn't in very good shape and and has lots of issues uh so uh I think that's going to be a uh um a concern I again I don't know if that's how bad that is but that's something that I'm sure as The Architects go in and do more work they'll they'll see um but um we're moving along and hopefully we'll get a um a a report to uh show everybody what what the estimated cost will be and what the final product will look like for these two buildings um we were also let uh uh at the end of the meeting um our chairman who was also on the select board Mr Jeff told us that uh that the select board had asked us to take over the um um the um Brooks house Police Issue and uh there were some people that wanted to and some people said we didn't have the capacity and so we decided to bring it up at our next meeting so we'll have a discussion about that was there any discussion on the TC pasos building I hear from the facilities director that it may not survive the winter yeah well that's we're not talking about we haven't talked about that we are aware of that and and it's brought up from time to time but it's uh we're we're basically trying to focus on uh phase one which is Ritter and Town Hall okay and I maybe the Brooks house okay um any other committee reports all right I watched um s commission has short meeting they ratified to um support the hiring of the sew sewer new sewer business manager or gentleman I forget his name um that was uh last week I think okay so that's it all right and I don't have any other committee reports we may need to look at um if Evan had any committees that we needed to reassign but um he had a lot of commit yeah but we can only do what we can do I guess um [Music] so all right um actions and topics for future meetings um we're currently scheduled to be uh January 9th and January 23rd and then we kind of probably enter budget season in in full force um so is there anything we want to talk about on the 9th or the 23rd I will put the um um the budget budget season schedule on again anything else that when is um is car going to be presenting a budget in January um preliminary budget yeah I think they he normally does is that well he had mentioned before usually like to do like third or fourth week in January okay I will [Music] is I will I will check with him on that and maybe that comes out as part of the the schedule that he's he's putting together right now so yep good good ad anything else for anyone all right um I I do want to just you know kind of tell the committee here that my my work travel schedule is looking pretty ominous in the first quarter of 25 um so and we're we're only five members so one of if two of us can't make a meeting we can't have a meeting for Quorum reasons so um I we need three we need four we're a seven member body with only five people on it um so maybe part of that as well as if you you know you you have some friends who want to join the finance committee um we would we would welcome it um we we did have seven members last year um so we kind of e and flow but for various reasons folks leave um and the other thing I I will say is that um after after this season I I am not going to be chair again next next season so I do I do need someone that's going to um maybe pick it up for for next year um maybe we should send out a mail or like this so what commission did members just nominate Jean cuz she's not here she's Vice chair if I quit she's chair so that's kind of how I got the role right um okay um with that um any public comment from the public uh [Music] Dave sorry about that I've had intended to get my camera and everything goinge um to identify myself Dave pasos member of the green communities committee and presently uh resident of Jefferson in New Hampshire um if you want to understand that give me a call um just like to make a couple of quick comments in regards to stuff you guys talked about this uh this evening uh during the uh budget committee's uh comments um Department of local Services has a number of services that are available to all town cities and towns of Massachusetts um to do some of the work that uh has been mentioned as uh auditing the town's books um probably take a little bit deeper look into what they offer it's free and the only thing that I'm aware of that uh would be required as a vote of the board of Selectmen to ask them to come into town and do it uh I never looked into exactly how deep they'd look but I know it's deeper than what they did for uh Financial policies Etc so that's one thing I I kind of noticed from the discussions that I had some knowledge of um the consolidation of accounts personally the only thing I caution there is any changes in the financial uh processes in in the town of lunenberg need to be thoroughly thought through uh there may be a reason why there's redundancy in a few places uh over the years and I I don't know how many people remember um but we had some substantial thousands of dollars of loss uh and fraudulent invoices charged through the school system I'm not pointing anybody out but that's where that uh emanated from and it was caught on the towns side bookkeeping initially so there's some there may be some reasons for uh verification of invoices Etc going from from one department on the school side to the town side and back to the school side again so just be aware of that um on the surface it doesn't make sense but it might if it's something that's a check and balance uh against fraud um let's see lastly I had uh one other thing that I had mentioned a couple of times before I left the committee um and that is that I I really think somebody needs to take a hard look at the possibility of a local income tax um it's not a simple process to put in place in Massachusetts because it has to start with the legislature and the minute you say that people say oh God that's too much work but you know if you go through the steps and get it in place there are some big pluses to it um and during the meeting I sent a link to your chair uh by a message and if it didn't come through Chris let me know I will get it to you um and it listed a number of states and towns across the country that do this and the percentage is anywhere from 1 to I think it's 10% actually in in one state and in some states it's uh the programs administered by the state uh the state taxes the income and there's a definition of what income is taxable um and then it's drawn on by the towns or depending on how the original uh legislation is formed or worded the towns themselves are authorized through town meeting um to do a local income tax which one of the big pluses I saw to it was that it shifts the tax burden from your seniors your well income seniors and your low-income families trying to survive in lunenberg um by shifting some of the the revenue burden that the town needs to operate uh from the value of the real estate to the value of the individual's incomes um yeah call it a millionair tax call it whatever you want but it accomplishes a goal that I think is uh would really help in many uh aspects of it okay thank you Dave uh Peter you had your your hand raised yeah thanks it's like a finance committee old home week uh so um thank you for the opportunity to to say a couple of words here um I'd like to comment a little bit on the report that that we just heard um from the the uh the budget task force and I I I think that we owe a Deb of gratitude to all the participants of the budget task force um I think that the work was good um but there there are three things that that you know I'd like to just offer some comment on relative to that work um first is it it strikes me and I I mentioned this a little bit earlier um you know across all of these recommendations the opportunities to to lead and to change and adapt to meet our needs and to modernize uh over the last several years that for whatever reason we have missed and and neglected um I I just it's good that we're bringing these things up now but but what have we been doing uh over the last several years I I I I'm I'm just dumbfounded by it um the the second is now that we have this list uh some of these items strike me as potentially interfering with other very high priority items and and uh work processes that are already underway and and frankly need to get dealt with and brought to fruition uh so for example the municipal building committee and their work um if we are conflating CPA and a debt exclusion to deal with the municipal building problem um I I worry that you know we could set ourselves back another three years uh and and not accomplish anything so my recommendation um would be to prioritize the things that we can do um that are going to have potentially the the greatest impact but but also are not going to um distract us or sideline us from other things that that really need to get done uh in a very timely manner um you know the comments that were made about TC pasos a little bit earlier are very ominous to me and we don't have even sufficient backup plans to to deal with that building right now and and we've got to bring particularly the municipal building project we we've got to make progress with that this year but there are others in the schools that that are are right behind it that that we also need to deal with and I'm a little concerned that we're going to distract ourselves um the third is what brought us here um the the reason why that committee was appointed if you recall was the budget crisis that we found ourselves in a little less than a year ago uh and the the person who spearheaded this committee selectman Emy voted against recommending an override because she thought that this work needed to be done first uh and that we needed to make sure that we were pursuing all potential uh Avenues to make sure that uh we understood do we have enough money to run the town or not and what can we do to to to mitigate those those gaps and so I I I would like to bring us back to that question um do we have enough money to run the town in FY 26 um are there items on this list that are going to have that can potentially have an impact to our budget and operations in FY 26 um I I don't know having listened to this presentation um if if anything on that list is going to affect us for next year uh and would affect the decision around an override or a debt exclusion or any other financial decision that we need to make for FY 26 um you know a lot of this I think you know could be substantial improvements over the course of years and I I think we should begin the process on a lot of them um but I'm very concerned about the upcoming budget year uh I'm concerned about the predictions that we have for health insurance which are higher than the predictions were last year uh at this time and and what are we going to do about it and what of what has been discovered over the last 6 months is going to inform those decisions um and and and honestly I after all that work has been done um I remain with more questions than answers um but nevertheless we have to run the town in FY 26 and we have to make decisions uh in the next several months about how we're going to do that um so I I think the work was good I'm just not sure that it's getting us to where you know to solving the problem that that I I was hoping we would get to when when that process began um and then lastly you know I said this on Wednesday night at school the game the game here is Chapter 70 um which there was a little bit of discussion about earli earlier about project 211 um we have got to solve that problem uh when 40% of your school budget is coming from the state but it is increasing at 05% a year and your expenses are increasing at 4 to 5% a year it is unsustainable and we need to demand leadership from our legislators uh to solve this problem I I applaud representative Scarsdale uh for her efforts um but this is going to require a public mandate uh and so far I have heard nothing from either of the other two members of our delegation our entire delegation has been invited to school board memb uh School Board me uh meetings they have declined uh and and there has been no leadership in terms of building a a any kind of consensus or movement or proposal to actually go out and solve this problem uh it is overdue and I I'm hopeful that it can be solved in calendar year 25 um but I'm I'm uh I'm also very skeptical thank you very much thank you Peter uh any additional public comments from public any public comment from the board all right um I will end on thanking everyone for the hard work I yeah maybe there's no Silver Bullet here but um um I I do think that good work went into it and collectively I let's let's move forward um but with that I would entertain a motion to adjourn so moved second all those in favor say I I I I all right we adjourn thank you everyone good night nice that's a short one