Well, you're going to be long time. >> You see Amanda Moore in the waiting room? >> I do. Okay, cool. >> It was a good test. >> Thank you. I I failed. I will not fail again. >> You're watching waiting.
>> All right. Thank you. >> All right. Welcome. It's Thursday, February 19th, 2026. I'm calling the Lunberg 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 the Lunberg public access channel and on
Facebook live on the public access Facebook page and will be uploaded to the Lunberg access YouTube channel after the meeting. There is also a Zoom link that can be used and a call-in link. Those can be found at lunbergmma.gov
on the Lunberg Finance Committee agenda. And with that, if we can stand for the pledge of allegiance. Pledge >> algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under
God, indivisible, liberty, and justice for all. >> All right. >> I do not have any announcements. Are there any announcements from board? All right. Is there any public comment
from the public? Is there any public comment from the committee? >> All right. The next up on the agenda would be town manager and finance director reports if there's any. Sure. I'll give a just a quick brief report,
Mr. Chairman. >> So, thank you. Brief update on the FY25 closeout. Um, I had last reported that we had an extension through February 28th. Um, it's looking like we are going to be able to meet that uh deadline. And
um in that although free cash has not been uh fully certified and we are not at a final number, free cash for um this year is looking to be relatively healthy um in excess of $3 million.
Um there are some reasons for that that we know right that um there was a large turnback from the Lunberg public schools uh that benefited free cash. We've also had some higher than normal um investment income revenue on the local
receipt side. Um once we are fully done, we can do a better analysis on all the wise and wherefors of the high number. Uh but that certainly changes the preliminary capital plan and other funding that was premised on the $1.8 million um of estimated free cash. So
once I have a final number, I'll be revisiting uh the capital plan. And I think with this level of um free cash coupled with um some economic uncertainty both generally and particularly with uh health insurance, I
think we should be uh it would be wise for us to consider uh making uh deposits into both the stabilization and the health insurance stabilization fund if possible. So I'll just leave it there for that. So, I did peruse through your your
preliminary budget later. Um, I'll probably ask what the investment income was for this year. So, >> with the uh actuals, >> yeah. All right. Um, okay.
So I did say current business order may change and the order is going to change. Um I am going to ask um uh Chief Sullivan to go first. Um
and then um police and and facilities will be after and they can rock paper scissors or however you decide disputes within the town. One of you is armed, I think. So, >> at least I think I'm probably better off standing than trying to sit right now.
So, >> all right. >> All right. Uh, let me know when you have it up. >> Please fire. All right. which I have it up. >> Okay. Good evening, uh, Fire Chief
Patrick Sullivan. Uh, this will be the presentation on the fire department and EMS service. Uh, again, we're an all hazards response agency. Uh, go to the next slide. Our main services are fire suppression, emergency medical services, hazardous materials response at least at
the operational level, technical rescue, again at the operational level. We also provide a lot of public service support to our residents, things like lockouts, uh sand for seniors, assistance like that. Sometimes assisting with uh injured or trapped animals, assisting
the animal control officer. Uh fire prevention safety training and education is a big part of the job. Uh the two inspectors are going pretty much non-stop when they work uh and handle hundreds of inspections each year. uh and again training and administration
and support to keep the operation going. Next slide. The organizational structure and this again reflects the fourth shift proposal. Basically everything in red is our career staff, black are our call staff and in yellow or orange uh that
would be the proposed new shift on there. So four shifts of an officer and two paramedics. And then we have the call force on the side that they respond paid by the hour. They come back basically when we need them. Cover the station, take other apparatus, respond
with that. Again, three people in the station that gets the first truck or the first ambulance on the road. Beyond that, we rely on everybody else coming back in. Next slide. Just a quick uh outline on you asked about service trends. Again,
this is basically how our call volume has gone. We saw about a8% decrease in our overall runs last year, but a 3% increase in EMS, which the EMS has been slowly trending up for the last few years. Uh, specifically, we saw a 19%
increase in mutual aid responses overall, and a 37% increase in EMS mutual aid, which is been part of the whole Noba shutdown and the strain on the whole area. We're spending a lot of time in each other's towns.
Uh, next slide. So, the total budget request, and the town manager will also have that too, is uh 200, there's a typo there, but it's uh 2,97 or 2,975542.
It's basically a 22% increase. Most of that is the 42 or the fourth shift proposal. That's adding three people, making one promotion for the officer on that shift. and that uh increases in the overtime for the assuming for earn time
off call backs things like that for the new people and a proposed or planned change in hourly rate for the existing staff which will affect their overtime rate that's there to make that up. It also include includes
It also includes uh It's about brought the cool kid. >> What was that echo? >> I touched this >> but it turned that one off. >> And it turned that one. Oh, that's off now. >> Okay. >> Okay. >> I can hear >> that. Also includes
>> that worked. >> Hear a ghost. >> Someone's on Zoom. >> I guess that's somebody on Zoom. It's PAC that is unmuted. >> Okay. >> Oh, PA's unmuted. >> Okay, >> I'll give it a second. >> I muted him.
>> Okay. Uh that also includes uh increases for uniform allowance, holiday pay, which are contractual. Uh there were a couple other lines in there that uh we're in, as the town manager will probably mention, we're in the midst of contract negotiations with the firefighters union. Not quite finalized
yet. uh some still moving parts, but there are a couple things for increases that we will see that have been worked out no matter what. Those were for uh educational incentives and certifications. She's added that in to the budget. Again, major cost drivers,
like I said, is that fourth shift, uh increasing call volume and inflation rate and consumables. Basically, of that increase in the budget, all of that is a fourth shift shift except for 15,400.
Sorry, >> I didn't mean to shock you. I'll just find out here. >> But uh we especially in a lot of that is mostly uh EMS supplies and equipment because what we are seeing between somewhat of an increase in calls, acuity
of calls and the fact that stuff is just skyrocketing in price things that we're see we've seen some things that have doubled in price in the last couple of years and that I think as many of people have probably seen with other items. >> Thank you.
I guess >> it's it happens. It happens. >> For those that don't know, as a little nonsecular, this is the chief's last budget presentation before his retirement. >> I'll try to cover up that smile. >> You're making it really interesting for him.
>> Yeah. Gee, thanks. I I don't like interesting anymore. I liked interesting when I was younger. Uh the other increase in the operating side of the budget is uh replacement equipment. Again, a lot of the lines and
a couple of the other lines that we'll talk about in the budget have not gone up in 10, 15, 20 years. Those have been $10,000 right across the board. And that we've gotten a few of them increased over the years to try to keep up with inflation. My goal has been kind of
different years, try to hit different ones and bring them up because basically our buying power to replace equipment to fix things has gone down and down and down because the money hasn't changed but the expense to do it has gone up significantly. Uh next slide.
Uh this is the the radio maintenance budget that's included in with fire. Uh I've included that that has about a uh 33% increase uh just going from 10 to $15,000. Again, cost of equipment, radios has skyrocketed. This amount has
not gone up in years. Just trying to uh replace portable radios, they're running towards $4,000 a piece now for fire ground uh grade portable radios. We've replaced about half of them on uh on the ARPA money a couple of years ago, but we're still trying to chip away at that.
And we've had to repair several radios, fix other things. So, that has chipped away at that this year. Like I say, it's, you know, costs have gone crazy because unfortunately, a lot of this stuff is imported and that. So, I think we're seeing problems there. And some of the
older radios are at the point they're not serviceable anymore. You can't get parts for them. So, we can use them as long as the batteries take a charge and we can get pieces parts, but once those fail, they're done. So, uh, next slide. Uh, vehicle maintenance.
Again, uh, 16% increase. This has been a bugaboo for us for years. Uh again, we needed a reserve fund transfer last year. There's been a I don't remember what year it was, but a few years ago, we had to look at that, too. Basic costs in there will cover some significant
repairs, but if we see more than one, we're often exceeding them. We had an ambulance that we spent probably $15,000 on repairs. The truck is a 2019. Granted, it's been hit twice by drunk drivers, but it's had emissions issues.
turbocharger issues. Those are stuff that the local mechanic at the highway cannot fix. We have to farm them out. And that and that, like everything else, is not cheap nowadays. A lot of the newer vehicles are very much more technologically sophisticated.
Jim Stickler at the highway department does an amazing job. He can fix a lot of stuff, but when you get into electronics, you get into heavier engine or transmission components, we have to send it out. And that can get really expensive with some of these shops. So
again, there was an increase for a request for a $10,000 increase on purchase of service for sending stuff out. We've we burned through quite a bit of a chunk of that this year already, and I still have one truck sitting waiting to go out for repairs. So, next
slide. Uh the emergency management, hydrant maintenance budgets, uh those are unchanged. Haven't moved them. Emergency management is really besides the salary for the emergency management director who is me. It's $2,000 for supplies and
that the hydrant rental is the cost we pay the Lemonster and Lunberg water districts for having hydrants in our town for them to maintain them and for us to have the ability to use them. That number has not changed. I'm not aware of any increases coming with that.
So, you had questions about funding sources. Uh the main source of our funding is the general fund. Uh most everything we take in in terms of inspectional fees, ambulance receipts, they go back to the general fund. So grants, things like that, they are
supplementing what we already have. Uh we usually receive around $7,400 from the state for fire safety education for both kids and for the senior safe program. Uh we have people we go in, we get supplies. That's where some of the sand for seniors comes from. We get
materials. We can rent the fires safe trailer for the kids. We go do K through three down at the school. Uh so there's that. There's been a firefighter safety grant that went for 5 years. Uh that ran roughly uh 15,000 to $19,000 a year that
we were allowed us to buy a lot of equipment. offset the fact that the budget's been that line hasn't gone up in the budget in a long time. We were told that grant was done last year, but then all of a sudden it appeared this year. So, we're working currently on trying to get that spent. The challenge
with the state is once they approve it, we have to have it spent by the end of June. And if any of you try to know like ordering some things online, some stuff is there in two days, sometimes it's there in 6 months. And emergency equipment is even more so on that. We're trying to look at replacing some of our
uh extrication vehicle stabilization equipment that we have for that. Uh the EMPG, emergency management preparedness grant. Usually we would be in the neighborhood of 3750 on that. Uh that has not come to fruition this year. That is federal
money that's filtered through the state. I haven't heard a lot on it lately, but I think the state told the federal government where to put it because of a lot of issues going on at the federal level. There are a lot of uh a lot of things attached, strings attached to it.
So, we have not seen that. We do get usually roughly $5,000 in donations usually from the firefighters association for equipment that we normally wouldn't buy out of the town budget. We've bought uh reflective jackets. Uh, we've bought just I had it
loose here. Hang on. Come on. Uh, reflective jackets, an ice rescue sled, uh, a hydration station for the firefighters. We bought everybody water bottles so they can stay hydrated. In
fact, one's right over there. Uh, and again, that's something usually when the firefighters association does their fundraiser every year, they kick a little bit back towards the department to get some stuff. Uh, I think one year they bought us an AED to replace that. Um,
uh, let's see. The other one that everybody's talked about is the Nobel mitigation money. We do have currently about 165,000 that we're looking at that currently. It can be split between FY 26 and 27. The caveat is whatever you you say you're
going to spend in 26, you can't move over to 27. So right now we're looking at using it just to provide either overtime or predium staffing for eight hours a day to add a fourth person during our peak operational time during the daytime to give us a fourth person
in the station which means most circumstances we can staff the second ambulance more reliably and would have four people going out the door or we'd have two people back in the station if the first ambulance is out that we can at least handle the beginnings of a second call and we're less reliant on
call back coming into the station. Uh for FY27, plan is to put some money aside to train at least one person as a paramedic. Whether we get the fourth shift or not, there's a good chance we may have a retirement. Whether we can hire a paramedic or not
is still up in the air. A lot of that's going to depend on the fourth shift proposal. We might have a better chance of attracting paramedics for that, but good chance we'll have more than one. So putting some money aside for that for the tuition and for some overtime for
back fill and paying the person to go and then the rest of it again would be 8 hours a day uh for a fourth person. If the fourth shift proposal goes through, we would be moving the predium that we do now out to 16 hours a day through the
week and that would just be used to supplement that that in theory we could put a fourth person in for 24 hours at least 5 days a week. Again, that money is finite. You know, the question had been asked about whether that could offset any of the full shift. The danger is that's onetime funds. It's like using
free cash. Sounds good, but we'd be back with a handout going, what do we do now after a year? Because we don't we don't have it. It's again, I want to use it to supplement what we're doing right now. We talked about some equipment. We're not in horrible shape on equipment right
now. Uh I say that after we had to fix one of the stretchers, but uh you know right now for me it's getting more boots on the ground. We got more people to handle the call volume that we're dealing with. Um we did apply for an assistance to firefighters grant. That's
again a federal grant to replace engine 2 that is on the capital plan. Uh we did not see that in that and I we honestly we never even got a reply on it. That was about the time the government shutdown happened. But I know chiefs that got theirs, they were told that yeah, all these went out at the same
time and we never received anything. So we didn't get it. So uh next slide. So basically to summarize again the budget is requested gives us three additional career staff to put three people on duty 24 hours a day with
a predium filling in up to 16 hours a day to support them to put hopefully four people in the station most of the time but at least three. Uh it provides better working conditions for our people. Their schedule is a little bit less than what it is right now. It spreads them
out more through the week, but we're not relying on the PDM or the part-time people for one day a week. The career staff are always there. The PDM will always supplement and give them a better response. Like I said, the big thing is that we could staff the second ambulance more frequently and it gives us more
people if there is a fire going out the door. uh a level funded budget or it also addresses shortages in the budget that again we've had lines that have not gone up in years and that while inflation has been really kicking in hard and we're just trying to keep up with some of the
rising costs. Again, level funded budget without the fourth shift is going to put a strain on our people. Like I said, when you look around departments in the state, there's 191 that operate on a 42-hour week. There are five that will operate on a 48 hour week. That is a
very big incentive when we're trying to hire people and it's a big thing for us to hang on to the existing people that we have. They have very marketable skills and they always have the option to go somewhere else and they've all been there long enough that pretty much everybody is out from under the buyback
agreement that we had for people that were trained. They've been there three years. They're done with that. So, and and again without the expense part, it's just getting the window to buy supplies and stuff just gets smaller and smaller
for what we can do. We already robbing one line to pay another to cover EMS supplies. So, and a less than level funded budget would the next step would probably reduce some of the PDM coverage. So, we'd have even less people available. So
questions. Miss Lockwood, you had a whole bunch of questions. I don't know if I answered. Do you want me to go through the list or are you happy with most of what you got for answers? >> So I I all the replies that I got, I put it on the folder for his um were longer,
so I print it. I'm printing them all, but I'll I'll save them all in the folder. Um I did have a a couple. When did the show close? >> Was it 24? >> It was 20 >> 25. What's that?
>> Oh, no. No, it was uh it was only a couple years ago. I think you're right. I think it might have been 24. >> 24. >> Yeah. >> Oh, >> yeah. Sorry. >> Sep September or 24 I believe was right. >> 2024. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> 31st. September 1st. One of the
questions that I had was we are increasing the career fire friars but the pdium's salaries are maintained flat and you explained to us on your response you know why is that so more direct a
followup to that question is how many hours in men hours are you increasing coverage on the station The total manh hours probably is increasing
total manh hours in the station are probably actually increasing by about 16 hours a week by adding the additional predium. The career staff you're adding you're covering the uh career staff will be working on an 8-day cycle not a seven. So the schedule moves across the board instead
of working a six day cycle. Currently we do 96 hours of predium >> per week. per week. There's three people on Sun on Sunday and if we can fill them, there are two that are in overflow on Saturday to give them four because generally there's not a lot of people in
town and that and that's if we can fill it great. If we don't, we don't. That would be taken across the board and we probably have to add a little bit out of the firefighters salary. That's always been based out of that's our call people. That's the predium. Some of that's a function of how busy we are on the call side. how many people come back
and then like I say whether we take the you know everybody gets the predium shifts or some of them go unfilled >> so 100 hours per week so >> 112 or 116 I think >> so we're talking about around 100 hours
a year just rounding that the firefighter so that coverage the 96 hours. How many hours are the Sunday shift? >> 72. Three people.
>> 72. So based on on the budget, if you if there's no increases, I'm just using, you know, high level numbers. those extra 72 since you're level funding that line the call on call firefighters that
would be the distribution expect to be extra on the fire on >> there would there would be some traditionally we have been under in that line the last few years and that because we just we don't have as many call firefighters we're not getting as many back as we used to so that line has traditionally been under each year so I
think with the addition I think we can handle it within that the call firefighters are into the SAP So depending on whatever raises we see out of, you know, any changes in the SAP would be the the differences there. And again, they're not they're in there for if they're working a shift 10 or 14
hours. So >> yeah, I I I just expected the on call firefighter line to drop. >> No, because we're reusing the money somewhere else. I'm reusing the staffing that we're doing to fill to put a hopefully be able to staff a fourth
person supplementing the career staff. I'm trying not only is the the fourth shift happening, but we're also trying to improve the coverage for the the second ambulance and for fire response with that person. >> So >> that's I'm not interested in dropping that line because I want to keep, you
know, improve what we're doing. So, if we go back to your slide number three, um, which it has the, you know, your current setting there, uh, the the shifts, right? >> Yep.
>> So, now you have 5200 hours. Where are you putting that 5200 hours in here? Is it a fourth person on every shift? >> The fourth, there would be a fourth person at least some of the time during the daytime on each one of those shifts. they don't they're not reflected on
there because at this point I would you know part of the problem has been on the Sunday shifts we have to maintain staffing there so we're forcing the career people at double time in with the prediums if we don't fill them I'm not going to force a full-timer in to maintain four we'd maintain the three
but that it doesn't reflect it on there but that fourth person there would be a fourth person probably 16 hours a day >> on each one of those shifts >> a day on each of the >> when each one of those shifts is working there'd be a predium firefighter probably working eight, you know, an 8 to 4 and then a 4
to midnight shift. So it' be two of them working. >> So this budget that you presented technically on that on that slide should your ideal would have a fourth person there >> in in theory there would be a pretty >> you're but you're requesting funding for
that. >> I'm I did not request it to be dropped in the budget. It's already there for the prediums. They're already there in the firefighter salaries. >> I mean, I I I would I would I I wouldn't say they're there because right now we're using
>> that's what we used to pay them the 96 hours right now. >> But they are on the fourth shift on Sunday and and I I understand. I'm just trying to get a clear picture of the money with the people that you're So that money now is going to be for a
fourth person on every one of those ships. Each one of those shifts we would add three career people. So you have three career career people every day of the week and that they would be supplemented by that fourth predium person to give you hopefully most of the time four people on duty not three. >> Okay.
>> The ch the big difference is on Sundays right now we we have to rely on the pdiums and if they're not there we have to force you know or pay career people overtime to cover those shifts because we need a minimum response. with this with the force shift we have that
minimum response the pdiums would supplement still going to use them but the relying on them isn't as critical as what we're dealing with right now >> right and and and I think you explained well I'm just again the you know your chart doesn't match with the new design
that you have um and I understand you you explain >> the only thing I didn't put on there was the predium the >> pium um what do you you know with the increased calls to and going to different cities and closing with Noba. I understand. I I was just trying to
understand that part. Um and I do have I I you saw my email about more details on the ambulance. Jen, did you get to see it? >> I did. >> Okay. I I'll follow up with with you about it >> on on the uh the write-offs. Yeah. I've
spoken to the finance director on that. We will get you that number. I just don't have it right in front of me. >> Yeah. I was just trying to understand >> we were doing it quarterly for a while and then we this that was we were averaging about 20 25,000 each time. So we went out to semiannually but with the
turnover in the finance department we've kind of pushed it off a little bit. >> No, it makes sense. >> You know it. >> Yeah. >> And those do go like I said those go to those go to collection. We're >> I don't want to speak for them but that's writing it off the books as a liability for the town. Doesn't mean we won't ever see the money.
>> Collection agency will pursue that. So, we do have a collections company in place. >> Works works through uh our billing company. Yep. >> Because sometimes the billing company are different than the collection company. >> They're a different company, but they contract through them. So, >> so correct me if I'm wrong.
>> So, Okay. >> But we we do pursue it and that sometimes it's it's chasing the wind. Sometimes you do get some money back on it. No. >> Do you know what we get from the collection? I mean, they they probably most collection companies want a percentage. So if they collect 100
>> I don't have that number in front of me. I don't that's I'm really more up on their end than my operational end. >> Last and >> they call we haul. >> Is a lot of that stuff in the that is not collected. I remember last year or
the year before you were mentioning like you charge $2,000 for an ambulance but Medicare only pays a,000. >> Correct. >> You have to accept that thousand and so that's other thousand is >> to be part of that program. We can only accept what they pay which last time I looked the numbers are somewhere between
25 and 37% of what we build. >> Okay. >> We have to accept that and we can't chase the person through. >> Right. So that's a lot of that number. Is that a lot of the number? >> No. Uh no. There's the numbers I provided to Miss Lockwood showed like what they call the offsets. But that's
what that is is basically Yeah. We build that out but we can't collect it. That's not part of the write-off. If I had 1.3 million build in 25 and you collected just over a half million >> does that okay so just so I understand does that not include the money
>> um that we've just not are going to get because of Medicare or the insurance >> the balance is probably the combination of the Medicare and some of the write-offs in there okay so but the vast majority of that because we are probably about 66% of our transports are Medicare
Medicaid right >> that type of insurance Okay. >> Which on the flip side is a good thing for our more elderly population. It protects them from big bills. >> I that was the follow-up question that I had, Tom. I I asked
um basically you know how much is the how much was received from maxing out on insurance or Medicaid Medicare and how much was written off because you know that we have collected
the maximum and then the other question is how many claims have we not received anything and I think that's and what's the value of those claims >> and >> that I don't have an answer for you on that. >> And I think I think the the I know the
collections company and the billing company will have that >> probably the easiest but thank you. >> Mhm. >> Any other questions the um for the fourth shift you have a lieutenant >> correct? >> Is that a requirement or something that
you think is just better? >> That is in the table of organization that I want to see for the department. each of the other shifts have a shift officer, right? >> And that uh you know like the police have a sergeant on each shift. Occasionally if one of them off is off, the senior firefighter fills in as an acting lieutenant, but the whole plan
would be to have a shift supervisor. You know, right now it's convenient. I live in town. My deputy lives in town. My deputy's in his 60s. He's probably not going to be here that much longer. Don't know where the next chief might be. So you may be relying on those shift officers to do a lot more, but they
handle the day-to-day operations. >> So currently when you have the fourth shift, you don't have a fourth shift, but when you're doing the that time period, is there a lieutenant? >> We would promote somebody from within. >> No, but no, currently >> the people you because you were mentioning you have to get other people
to come in and it's really tough to get that those your current people there. Does that current shift being done that you've pred? Yeah, the pdeium shift. Does that include in lieutenant? >> The pdeium shift has an on call officer. All the the career and the call officers
take turns being on call for that day. Okay. So, they're around. They're not may not be physically in the station, but they got the radio nearby. They're listening. They respond if they need a have a need for an officer. Okay. >> Which that was something we budget $5,500 a year for that because they get $100
stipen for that. That also would go away if we have the career staff seven days a week because you'd have an officer and everybody would be really happy not to have to be on call on Sunday. >> Yeah. >> Jona,
right? >> Um I did have one question. the um one of the recent Boston fires, the Ed Walsh Y >> resulted in a finding of the hoses being inadequate.
>> They had problems with the burnthroughs on the hoses. >> We we do not we've looked we've looked into it. We haven't purchased any yet. I've been kind of following up with some departments because my question has been as the trade-off is yes, it's more fire resistant, but it is more difficult. Is it more difficult to handle to move
around? I remember the old days when I first started some of the old double jacket cotton hose. It took a lot to burn that stuff through, but you needed two men and a boy to move it. >> Okay. >> And that that's the downside with the newer stuff is it's very it's lightweight. It's easy to move, but yeah, you do have that risk. >> Okay.
>> So, something we're looking into. >> Um, and I think one of the moms was look of the >> they they were providing some funding towards that. We would be looking at just doing numbers in my head, but
you're looking at probably a couple thousand feet of hose that we would have to replace for that. >> Okay. >> So, >> so you don't think it's a problem? >> I I don't see it as a problem. Not for us anyway. We haven't run into that. We usually have more problems with brush fire hose burning through, so fire runs
by it. So, >> okay. >> But it's it's on our radar and we're going to look into it some, but maybe something down the road. We just replaced a lot of our attack hose over the last few years off the grant money. So most of that hose is only a couple of years old. >> Okay. >> So,
>> okay. Um I didn't have any other. So, um for me, thank you. >> Thank you. >> Um with your retirement coming up, thank you for your service. >> Um >> your last budget presentation, >> you can come >> unless you guys move things up in the fall. I don't know. I might get stuck
with capital before I'm done, but >> Yeah. Yeah. Um, maybe you can come and sit on this side of the table, too. >> You know, I'm probably not going anywhere. Yeah, you may not be rid of me that easy. We'll see what happens. So, I I'm not I'm not heading to Florida or the backwoods of Maine. So,
>> okay. >> I'll be in town for a while. >> All right. Well, thank you again. >> All right. Thank you. >> Um, no. So, can we actually have Chris go next because the um parks commissioner
also my wife is on. >> Oh, yeah. >> Where's that? >> So, thank you. >> And I will pull up the Did we get that?
>> It is in the >> Oh, the share point. Um, I just got to find it. >> You having trouble finding it? >> Do you need it, Chris? Do you need me to drive it? >> Um, I have it. I just have a lot of
windows open, so I'm going to find it. I'll let you if you don't hear from me. I'm there. >> You all set? >> Yep. All set. retired. >> I feel like I should have announced it too soon. Everything fell apart. Make a mention.
>> I won't be announcing my retirement tonight. I have a few more years. >> Play the lottery. Maybe you can. >> Yeah. All right. Um, first slide is obviously just the cover sheet, so we can jump off of that one. Um,
the um Oh, welcome to this is a facilities department presentation. Um, I guess we'll run through a quick department overview. Uh, our key services are building and grounds maintenance. Um, and then facilities, capital and budgeting, planning. Uh, we
also do all the parks maintenance as well as overseeing the recreation department and the town beach. Go to the next slide. Um, this is just a quick shot of our organizational structure. Um obviously town manager is at the top below select
board. Um then myself um below me I have a shared admin with DPW. Um I just like to note that her salary is carried entirely within the DPW budget not mine. Um on the right hand side of the chart I have my recreation director which is
currently vacant. Um as well as the beach director and then our seasonal beach staff of lifeguards. On the other side, I have a facilities superintendent and what I call a facilities technician, although he's official title is custodian. He does not clean for us. He
actually fixes things. Uh onto our next slide here. >> On the recirector, you you do have candidates though that >> we've done three interviews. Um all promising candidates. Now we have the challenge of picking one. >> Okay. >> Here are service trends by fiscal year.
Um, we track these through our work order system. Um, couple things I'd like to point out. Uh, my office is in the RER building, which is why it looks like there's never any calls there cuz everyone just walks down to my office. Um, similarly with the DPW because my
staff is based out of there cuz that's where the trucks are parked. Um, the other one to note is the TCP. We added to that system later on, so there's fewer calls for service there. Um, these do a pretty good job of capturing,
you know, which buildings need the most attention. That being said, my guys do walkthroughs every day of each building, and the staff tend to just grab them and fix little stuff that really never gets captured. >> Was 24 when you implemented >> this system? Yes.
>> What's that? >> This system came online and FY24. Yeah. Or end of I think it was to 25 we actually started. >> Okay. Um, the previous system was brutal to use. To clear out a work order, it took six emails. So,
we jump on to the next slide here. We'll start talking um the money. Um, so I kind of broke my budget up between the way it's listed through our system of public buildings, which is utilities, and then facilities, parks that way. Um,
so this first section here is the um public buildings which is all of our utilities. Um, one exception to that is the library pays their own utilities, so they're not included anywhere in this. Um, our current budget at a level fund is
287,500. That being said, it appears as it's a 29% increase that is due to finally capturing the TCP utilities in a budget somewhere. um and they are pretty significant on
that building. Um another thing that we're currently working on is adjusting all of our solar credits within the town. Um some of our buildings have pretty serious surpluses. We're not allowed to just apply that credit to another bill. We're allowed to adjust how the credits
are acred. So every 6 months we can change it. So we're we're tweaking everything to try and get it back down to where it should be level. So we're hoping to start seeing some savings from that. >> Do you have a dollar value of how much that is?
>> Over 100 grand in credits depend on various buildings. >> Okay. >> So and it's one of the more complicated things is it ties in the schools and it ties in community solar farms as well as the solar on the roofs of some of the town buildings. So, it's
one of the more ridiculous things we deal with because it's four different solar companies involved and Unatil and National Grid and it's fun. All right, on to our next slide here. Um, this one was kind of broken into two
slides to make it all fit. Um, this is the facilities maintenance budget. Um, I'll just kind of run through. It's 770,474. um still considering it a level service for the most part. Increases are tied to
some of us TCP. Um we also have an increase to the purchase of service line to cover repairs that don't rise to the level of capital but are still need to be handled. Um the one we have coming up for this year is every 20 years we're required to test uh
sprinkler heads and quite a few at the fire department have failed. So, that's about $15,000 to replace them all, but that doesn't meet our capital threshold. Uh, we also have an increase to our contracted services line, which is the
line we use for um generator maintenance. Um, maintenance of the exhaust systems for the DPW and police garages. Um, part of that is um the new generator at the senior center needs service. We also
picked up the service for the generator at the TC Pastor's building. The rest of it is just regular inflation. We've also increased um our building maintenance supply line um mostly due to inflation, but some of that is um my
current staff is fairly talented for certain things, so we've been doing more work in house. Um we've installed a couple minlit air conditioners around town and different places. Um we just had them redo the um planning admin office in house. So that's causing an
increase to that those lines. Um salaries here are shown at the current rates. Um that being said, my um my two facility staff are part of the DPW union negotiations that are operating off of a 2-year-old contract.
So we are likely to see some changes there. Um, they're currently negotiating with the teamsters. Um, one new thing that was added in here is a vehicle allowance for myself. Um,
when I was first hired, I was told that I wasn't even allowed to get mileage. Um, because the buildings were so close. Turns out I've been doing quite a bit of driving using my own vehicle. Um, DPW director gets a truck, building commissioner gets the vehicle allowance,
and I we just matched with the the vehicle allowance for the building inspector. Figured it was more cost effective than the town buying another truck and having to maintain all that. Um, one good thing to note budget-wise is
the town's betterment costs for the when all the sewer went in expires after FY28. So, um, next year for FY28, it'll be $63,000, but then it's gone, which will free up some much needed money in the
budget to start tackling some deferred maintenance items. The next slide, if you jump over, is just the uh the actual spreadsheet itself. Let's see. Uh, one thing you may notice on the sheet is the um facilities manager who's
my superintendent line going down from last year. It was just a typo last year that got missed somehow. We we did not demote him. It was just a typo. On to the next slide. it was be as soon as you're ready of course the um the
parks portion of the budget. Um so for parks um the total budget is 145,43360 um represents an 8% increase um and the increase for the most part is to our purchase of service line um and that
covers everything from repairs to landscaping. Um, right now our landscaping contract at Bare Bones is $44,590 of that. That doesn't even cover mowing the parks enough to cover baseball. That's 17 cuts a year. Um, for anyone
that's been lives around here in the spring, you get cutting every 4 days. Um, just to get it to where we need to be, it's another $15,000 worth of mowing added to that number. Um, not those here.
And that that landscape contract, by the way, did start in FY25. So, the prices are at least locked in for another couple years. On to the next slide. Um, this is just showing our revolving fund for the TC Pacios building. We currently have a
couple of tenants in the building. Um, public access TV is in there. They pay us about 6,000 a year. Um, we're also renting four classrooms to the Shapiro school at uh, $24,000 a year. Um, this fund uh, we also have, um, a couple
miscellaneous gym rentals, but that it varies every year. We have pickle ball, volleyball rentals. Um, this this fund starts at $0 every year. Well, it's really only been going for a year with the way we have it set up, but starts at
zero dollars and we just basically bill everything we can against it to try to offset some of the TCP costs. On to our next slide of funding sources. Um, this graph combines um
all the facilities including the parks. Um, so the vast majority of our funding comes from the general fund. um small portion from the TCP revolving we just spoke about. Um small portion for the parks revolving which was dedicated to parks costs. Um there are grant
opportunities. We try to work with the green communities folks as much as we can. Um those grants tend to bounce back and forth between us or the schools, whoever needs them more. And then on to my um FY27 summary recap.
Um the biggest changes this year are really budgeting the TC Pasios building. Um there's been quite a few conversations about winding that building down and shutting it down completely. You know, we were hoping with our partial decommissioning to see in the range of 50% savings in heating
costs and we're seeing about 20. So it's still very expensive to run the building. It's not well utilized and at any moment we could have a major failure over there between a roof or a boiler and we would just be shut down. You know, other than
that, the only real changes were kind of inflation and minor things. That was all I had for you. Any questions? >> All right. Is there any questions from the board?
>> No. Thank you for sending me the questions. >> Thank you. We appreciate seeing questions ahead of time. >> I bet you do. I have one. Are you Are you hiring a parks director? >> We've interviewed three and we have two of them are actually Tay. So, I have to get together with the HR director and
make a pick and hopefully get somebody on board preferably before we need to hire lifeguards for the beach. >> Is there um a component of that position that is a grant writing component? >> Um it's not officially part of the position. I would love a candidate who can can do that and help bring some more
money in. Um it it's going to sound weird, but unfortunately we had three good candidates, which makes it difficult to pick one. It's it's nice when you have a clear standout person, but I think we'll we'll figure it out. And either way, I don't think we can go wrong. So, >> my advice would be to get somebody with
some grant writing experience because there's a lot of money to be had in grants for parks. um specifically because we are next to an underserved community, Fitchburg. It allows a lot of arts and culture grants to come into this town. So, I would definitely try to look at that.
>> I appreciate the input cuz I know REC is one of your specialties. It is not necessarily one of mine. >> And Jen had something to add. >> Yeah, I just want to add for clarification, thank you, Mr. Chairman, that um this is still funding the part-time recreation position. I know last year we had talked about um ramping
that up to a full-time position. um with the former director. Those conversations were in their infancy um when she departed. Um that may be a conversation with whoever the pick is to pick that back up, but at this point it's funded at that part-time level for
>> How many hours is that? >> 19. >> 19. >> Oh wow. Run the whole parks department. >> Good luck. >> It's it's challenging that the goal is and has been to to grow the department and and really establish a thriving wreck department. We just need to get the right person on board to to get us
there. >> Great. All right. Well, good luck with that. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Any any other questions? >> No. >> Um, >> as it relates to TC Pacios, we did have that funding for the roof.
We're not doing anything with that, right? No, that the funding was initially for the section middle section of the building where the school department was occupying it and once they were moving out, we decided not to spend the funds and then I think town manager can explain a little better what
what happened with the uh the funding there. But >> you can see the microphone already moving over. >> I can see it. >> So um thankfully gratefully we did not spend the funds on the repair of the roof at TCP. So, um, you can recall last
year, uh, I had talked about moving the the money to a different portion of the roof. And in looking at that and looking at the prior year capital, the, um, $300,000 that was appropriated from a prior year capital to fund that TCP roof
was also utilized in the FY26 capital plan to fund a portion of the capital plan. So when that double funding was realized thankfully the TCP roof hasn't uh been we haven't started
engaging in that area and there was an equivalent amount of money and it was in this building actually it was the windows and the HVAC uh design for the for the town hall building that was a it was a little bit more than 300,000 but I
asked uh Mr. Ruth to not proceed. And you will see a article on this town meeting warrant. Um that's essentially a cleanup article rescending some votes so we can get the money from the original appropriation directed into this FY26
capital plan. It's really a housekeeping matter to make it legal. Um but thankfully again we didn't spend the money in either area but it was double counted essentially. >> Right. So, as it relates to like the capital projects,
um I always kind of have to go off memory of where we are on certain things. One thing I I think this board would benefit from is kind of a ledger of all the projects that are out there, what the status of them are, and then, you know, some of them that are kind of
old, what the plan is to kind of just be done with them one way or another. Um, you know, maybe something that goes into a quarterly report or or something like that. Um, and then so
you are starting a plan on decommissioning TC Pasios in its entirety. >> Yep. We we've started that. We've spoken to all the stakeholders at this point of trying to make plans for everyone to get out of there. I think, correct me if I'm
wrong, the goal is to not heat the building through another winter. >> Not to what? >> Not to heat the building through another winter. >> That's that's really the biggest cost. I mean, that that gas bill is at least 45,000 a year. This year has been colder than normal. So, we've been chewing through more. Um, and part of the issue
with it is the TC Pasio school used to heat the old high school. So, the boilers now are wildly oversized and just very inefficient for what they're doing. So when you say the goal is that means bring in a warrant article in one of the next two to decommission it or
just kind of demolition by neglect. >> I mean I would love to get capital to go get going on the um asbestous abatement only because no matter what it has to be done and it's not getting any cheaper as the years go on. Okay.
>> As far as a warrant article to >> No, I can I can speak more clearly to the goal. Um so we have um the user groups that are in the building some are um easier to relocate than others. So um the Shapiro center who's leasing space
from us is relatively easy to relocate. Um the town clerk although not easy to relocate elections it's doable to relocate elections. Um similarly pack is exploring um currently with Fitchburg access TV leasing space in Fitchburg.
They have a state-of-the-art um studio if you have not seen it. Um the most difficult user group is going to be the food pantry. Um when we originally spoke to the food pantry about timelines, unfortunately Chris and I were speaking in fiscal years, not calendar years. And
so when we were saying fall FY27, they were thinking calendar FY27. um once we got on the same page around timeline, they've expressed concern with their ability. We're going to have further conversations with them. >> Okay. >> So, the goal when when uh Chris spoke to
the goal of having people out by the heating season, we're planning to fund the operations of this building through FY27 with the hope that we do not have to actually expend the money. It's too early now, right, to know if it's practical for folks to actually be out
by this coming fall. Um, but that is the plan. Once we're through actually winding out down the building and the user groups, I do think that we have fair amount of cold storage over there that uh files that will remain and then
I think you'll see perhaps this time next year a warrant article. >> Okay. >> All right. uh >> if all goes as planned. >> Okay. Any additional questions from the committee? I usually ask if there's any questions
from the um from the um from the town um from the public. Um so there are folks on Zoom if they want to ask a question. I'm I'm okay with that. I I forgot to do it during during fire. All right. Then with that, thank you,
Chris. >> Thank you very much. >> I was going to sit, but they all stood. >> All right. >> So, I just have to All right. >> Over to you, Chief.
Slides. >> You have the slides. >> Good evening. Uh, Chief Jeffrey Tibido, Lunberg Police Department, uh, with my budget presentation. Obviously just the first slide, Chris.
>> All right, let me just >> All right. >> Oh, it's behind me. Uh, next slide. Department values. >> Yep. The one I want to hit on here, um, one of the values we have is that we recognize and value our employees and recognize they are the most valued
resource. We'll strive to provide our employees with the necessary resources, training, and career development to enhance their professionalism. This you don't really think about these things, but our last two candidates picked Lunenberg PD because of our values that we had. It's uh, right now
it's it's obviously an employee market. Um, everybody's fighting right now uh nationally, locally for police officers and firefighters pretty much uh any any service uh public service right now. And
it was just uh kind of eye opening that two of them said, "Well, we came to Lunberg because because of that line," which kind of shocked me, but next slide. Or, uh, organizational chart, you have
me, uh, chief of police. We have our administrative and operations lieutenant, Sean Zurate. my executive secretary, Kennedy Jackson, our part-time admin assistant, Gail Kemp, our front desk clerk, Evelyn Row. You
have uh three sergeants, you have the K9 patrol K9 officer, a traffic officer, um three patrols on the day shift, three patrol officers on the evening shift, one vacancy on the evening shift, two
patrol officers on the night shift. That's also one vacancy. And then we have two SRO community uh officers, Brad McNamera and Cam Monroe. Our detective Joshua Matthew, and then we have a
vacancy for uh a detective in our plan. Some of the service trends on the next slide. Um we've been seeing steady increase since CO uh uh CO during CO our numbers were extremely low. Before CO, they were extremely high. Some of you might
remember, uh, before CO, we had a 10-year plan of trying to get to 25 officers here. That's, uh, that's where our numbers were. So, I mean, our first number for arrest, we're up towards the uh, 400 435 mark. Last year, we were at
315. Um, before that, I think we were at like 250 and around CO, I think we were at like 180. So, they just been steadily increasing to all of our numbers, all of our stats in my town annual report. Everything has gone up, which um we're
going to get to pre-COVID numbers. I anticipate, which is what uh originally why we had why we had increased staff so so drastically in those years. everything from animal calls to firearms
licensing to accidents. Um, actually the the only thing that actually went down is house breaks, which I'm proud to say that went down. >> That's good. >> I'd like to say because there's more officers out there patrolling. If you're seeing an officer, you're probably not
going to break into the person's house, right? Next slide. uh our budget 2,581,5572. You'll see the majority of it 2,484,63928 is basically personnel. Uh it's driven
by our collective bargaining agreements, uh our stipens, our overtime, and our training. That's that's the majority of it. Um we're in a contract year, the first year of a contract, uh that the union negotiated. So you'll see that there is that slight increase in there.
Our equipment our equipment line not so much of an increase but the two increases are actually which are the big ones is for body armor. Um replacing the officer's body armor which has a 5year life and by contract we have to replace
after 5 years for the officers. And then also uh software building software that we didn't used to have that we had to absorb into the budget. So that that accounts for the $7,350 increase in there. Other than that, um it's pretty much level funded in those
in those lines. The body armor, it would be replacing six officers and it would uh would be the six officers that were here 5 years ago. All these other officers that are coming on have new body armor. So, in the past, uh, 10 years ago, when
we had everybody that was here and they were all here and they stayed here and they were here for good, we used to be able to do it with capital because we purchase it all at one time and all of the off 25 officers or however many was going to get all of them at the same time. Now, we've obviously had had a lot
of vacancies, a lot of hirings, a lot of new retirements, a lot of new people coming in. I I put that in the budget just to stagger it so that, you know, if we need to replace six next year, the following year, we might not have to replace any of them. You're going to see
a 5year cycle on their on their uh body armor. So, we just we're not going to meet that capital threshold of 20,000. It's just And if we did that, basically what we'd be doing is uh throwing away body armor that's only three years old
if we replace them all at the same time. So, next slide, uh, Noa Valley, uh, radio watch for police, fire, and EMS. Um, that's pretty much staying, uh, staying the same,
28,000. And then your salaries clerk line is your um front lobby from 7:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. And then the salaries overtime line is to keep the front lobby open from 3:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Um that was all in when the closed um 10 years
ago um to keep the lobby open and for people to come in and receive the services. The shoulder is obviously shared by all the all the communities in the shoulder and we all pay the same price across the board. Uh us Harvard, Lancaster, Hudson,
Sterling, Bolton, Berlin, everybody pays the the same amount. Although right now we have the highest call volume >> for other reasons >> for lots of reasons. Yeah, >> Hudson just joined, so they they might
actually take that take that uh >> next year. >> Can I just jump in here real quick, Chief, if you don't mind? The I want to add that the reason why this is flat is and it wouldn't be is because Sterling um and well, Hudson came on last year um
and then Sterling is in the process of coming on which is keeping the assessments down. Um the administration board has been strategic about finding the right communities to come in to our regional dispatch that won't be a burden on the regional dispatch but will help
level out these assessments. Um eventually if we don't keep growing we will see a spike once the state 911 grants run out. Um you get a grant funds when you onboard a new department to the district but that will run out.
So, while you brought that up, do you see any like maximum to how many could be in a region? >> I think that they're going to be limited by their physical space at their location at Devons. Um, so they're
pretty tight in the in the the dispatch area as currently configured. Um, we're also negotiating with Devons themselves on some more space. Um, so there's potential there for buildout, but I think with the space limitations, if we
are going to remain there, we don't probably see two more many communities coming on unless they're small. Um, Malboro uh had been very interested in joining the regional dispatch. Um, but we didn't feel although they would have certainly benefited us uh financially, we didn't
feel that that was the right fit. So, we are being strategic around who we're bringing on. >> Yep. Yeah. Yeah, if you remember Fitsburg wanted to join two years ago. >> It just wasn't wasn't strategic enough for them to take on a load like Fitchburg >> and the same thing with Marro uh another city. It just wasn't it's not feasible
to take on that. You know, Sterling and Hudson, those are more feasible for that for that center. >> Okay. And then do you have an just a rough estimate of how much we save by going to this versus in house? We could get that for you. What's
>> two 200,000 to not operating our own dispatch center? >> Yeah. >> How many dispatchers you'd have minimum two on 24/7? >> 24/7 uh employee benefits. I think we used to have what? Six. Six dispatchers.
>> You're probably in the millions. >> Yeah. >> I think 10 years ago 10 years ago, I think the the number was a was I mean Sully would have known. We should have asked him when he was here, but uh I think that's that's the reason why we had switched over. >> Okay. >> Even at that cost, we're still at bare
minimum. >> Okay. I mean, I I think most folks know that my view on regionalization is positive if we can do things. And I think this is a good >> The other thing too was all the grants that they were they were the state was throwing at uh regionalization of 911.
That was one of the the big contributing factors of why we moved over there 10 years ago is because the money was just being thrown at it and it was such a such a low cost. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Thousand Townson was the one that jumped ship, right? They left.
>> Townsen went to Prol. >> Oh, okay. But they were with us or no? >> Uh short period of time. Yes. >> Short period. Okay. And then they went to uh Pepper started their own regional which made more sense for for them to go with Pepper.
>> Okay. >> Uh next uh police, fire, and medical. We share uh police and fire share this line. This is for um our new employees that have to go get physical exams, psychological
exams, and drug tests. seen an increase in this um drastically by what the hospitals are now charging. Um on average $722 for a physical for one employee, it's uh $550 for their
psychological and it's $125 for their drug test. So, uh I think I think it was 500 at one point in time. It went up to $722. Again, we're at the mercy of the uh of the hospital here. So, you know,
if you between us and fire, if we each hire, it was only 4,000. We bumped it up to 6,000. Um, between, you know, the two of us, that's that's us just hiring two to three people. Um, and each employee has to has to go through this. >> Yep.
>> Um, some years hopefully, some years we don't use it. That would be great. >> Yeah. But we've been in this cycle of hiring and and uh and uh retiring here for for a little while. I hope it stops soon. That's for sure. But uh that's
just one of those ones that um we share. And all depends on who's hiring anybody. >> Mhm. >> I have two vacancies, so I can tell you if I get those two vacancies, I it's going to be $2,000. Uh vehicle maintenance uh level fund in
that. Um, basically that's uh staying level funded for our purchase of service, our supplies, and our fuel charges. Um, keeping that at 67. It's it's been working. Um, we've been coming in pretty much right on right on that mark for the last couple years. So
hopefully cars don't break. Um, maybe now that uh there's a little more free cash, maybe capital, you know, we'll be able to get two cruisers. Uh, we'll see. I'm just putting that out there. >> No, and in our our cycle, I mean, just to touch on that, you know, if you
replace the two cruisers every year, which is what we have been doing, it it cuts down on the repairs and that's the reason why we can keep these lines. That's just, you know, the nature of it. >> So, bigger vehicles. >> What's that? >> I think you need the bigger vehicles.
>> Oh, yeah. >> You let me sit in one. It's pretty tight. >> It is. Yeah. So the Ford Explorers are tight after all the equipment's in there. Um >> you know, one of the one of the main project we we're always replacing like the seat belt. Um basically the seat belt is hitting the officer's um uh duty
belt. So that's constantly getting worn. Um that's one of those. So yeah, it is tight quarters. Yeah. >> How many cruise cruisers do you have? >> Uh 15. >> 15. Yeah. uh one Tahoe and they're all all the other ones are now hybrids.
So, um two old gas ones that are detective in SRO cars, the mileages are are real low. And so, besides the vehicles that are used 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, if you have a vehicle um
that's assigned to one person, it the mileage is going to be low. You're going to see less um obviously less repairs on that. You have a pickup, too, right? >> Yeah. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, the F-150. >> It was a heated discussion a few years ago.
>> Yeah, supposedly. Yeah, it comes in handy in the snow. Um, that one has the EcoBoost uh the EcoBoost uh engine in it, and it's almost pretty similar gas mileage to the hybrid, which is pretty pretty funny. But, you know, yeah, we do
that that pickup. Um that pickup enables us we keep all uh the road closed stuff in there. So that's actually come in that comes in handy a lot of times when we have to close a road. All the stuff is in the back of the truck. An officer can jump right in it, bring all the saw horses down, close the road immediately
and uh that saves saves a lot of time. Um you know um some of the times DPWs on we we'll be able to use the DPW. they'll be able to come out there, but in after hours when they can't get there right away, you know that that's what that's used for. >> And soon they'll be able to pick up the
signs from the Flat Hill Bridge. >> Yeah, the bridge opening, Chris. >> Everybody's politicking. >> Uh we'll move on to animal control. Animal control uh level funded. This
this is a budget that we really um we're going to have, you know, we're going to have to talk about in the future here of of uh really increasing it. What this has been the saying here for a while. Um, and luckily we have a devoted
employee of 46 years, Kathy Como, that uh does this um pretty much out of the uh goodness of her heart and is willing to get paid, you know, minimum dollars for for uh the calls. Last year, last
year alone, we had 305 uh calls for service for animal calls. You know, 305 is not a part-time animal control officer. 18 of those were dog bites and uh along with that she has to do 47 barn inspections and 19 kennel inspections.
All of those numbers increase from 2024. So um >> um I have a question with that. So are all what do you categorize as animal control calls are all those calls answered by the animal control or
sometimes police officers? police officer will go there first and then uh the animal control officer will show up if needed. So if if it's something so say there's a dead animal, you know, and the officer can remove it or DBW can remove it, then
the animal control officer wouldn't show up. If it's a cat or a dog, the animal control officer does show up to to remove that deceased animal. If it's a wild animal, then we will remove it. But if it's a dog or a cat, basically um she takes the animal in, she'll try and
locate the owner, and if not, then um the animal will be cremated. >> I I I was just curious, I'm not disputing what you said that, you know, it's a lot of work. I was just curious to of the calls that you have, how many were attended by a police
officer and how many were attended by the animal control officer? And I'm not sure if you will have that data, which is okay. >> The way it gets categorized by dispatch, it comes in as an animal call, >> right? That's what I figured. >> We would just we would have to go through all 305 calls and just say she
showed up. >> I would say 85 to 90% she's showing up. That's just the employee that she is. That's just how she is. And if it's a, like I said, some of the wild animal calls, maybe
not. But if it's a domestic animal, if it's a cat or a dog, then she she'll be showing up. >> Sure. >> I think uh you know, the chief has mentioned that this is an area that we're going to need to explore. I think the town has benefited from this service agreement for a long time, but speaking
to regionalization, this is an area that in the future regionalization probably makes sense. And we've talked about starting to explore that because it does take some time, you know, more than a year sometimes to get something in place depending on how big of a regional group
might be interested. But there's there are other regional animal controls around. Um, unfortunately for us, they're a little bit too far distance-wise. Um, but this area isn't served by a regional animal control, so
it is a possibility for a shared service at some point. Yeah, I think Fitchburg and Limbster, they share one full time. >> They've gone back and forth a couple times. I'm not sure who's who's doing it right now, but yeah, it has it has gone
back and forth. Um >> this, you know, we're not the only city in town that's facing this. We're this is across the across the state need. you're seeing uh a lot of the I was just speaking with the chiefs at our new
Shoba meeting and uh they're actually all all using one animal control officer and they're like they can't take anymore. Don't you don't you ask, you know, it's just there's just not it's there's a business opportunity out there for you any
entrepreneurs out there watching. Uh, next line. Injury leave. Uh, this is IODD. It's either used or it's not used. Um, we haven't had to use it in a in a little while. So, uh, that's just a line that
exists there in case that happens. >> I wasn't sure um what $4,000 would cover as an injury relief like that. That's not a replacement of an officer. >> No. No. That IOD cost is uh I think it's
the officer gets injured on duty and then that will cover their pay their back pay. >> Examinations >> in examinations. >> Gotcha. >> I haven't seen it used. >> Yeah. >> Go look back and see when the last time
>> when the last time. Yeah. >> Knock on wood. Uh our officers haven't been hurt. I think might have been Officer Omar when Officer Omar when he fell off of a
he was chasing a suspect. >> Yeah. Uh that was uh 2010. >> Yeah, >> I think it was 2010. >> Yep. Then he went he left Lunberg. He went to Grath.
>> Uh next slide, the lockup. This one's level funded. Uh, again, pretty close to using that same amount every year. This has to do with uh when somebody's arrested. Uh, we're trending a little high right now this year with that. Um, we've seen a lot of arrests
this year so far. Um, I I don't know why I can't predict that line, but um that line is uh has gone down uh with the Wister House uh lockup safekeep. I don't some of the some
people might remember that that line used to be $125,000 when we used to have to watch watch prisoners uh here at the station. Now we can bring all male prisoners to uh WA County Sheriff's and uh and they'll they'll hold them overnight for us. But we still have some
uh some prisoners, female prisoners can't be brought there. Uh people with medical issues cannot be brought there. So we we still have occur some cost here. um for for that. Or if they're uh they're going to get bailed, then that
would cover either the the four to six hours that they have to be held at the station before before they make bail. Funding sources, uh obviously a big big part of that is our, you know, the town budget. Um the other thing we have in here is the jail diversion mental health
grant uh that we were awarded this year. Um that grant is $109,000 for our uh co-response clinician um that we share with Lancaster. Um that was a grant that uh we had lost
and then got back. >> What? >> Say one more slide. >> Oh, next slide. Sorry. No, >> we didn't get awarded the traffic uh highway traffic and safety grant this year. Um usually we used to get that every year. We applied for it this year. We we didn't get that. That's what we
use to buy all the radar units that we have around town around the schools and the uh mobile trailer one. They don't tell you why they don't give you the grant. I I was looking for an explanation so that you know maybe we could uh do better next year, but they
basically either approve or deny you and they they denied us this year. So, the only grant that we were awarded was the was this grant for the uh mental health clinician that I was speaking with Chief Moody over in Lancaster today. He's very happy with uh the clinician Vanessa and
uh so far she's working out great with us. Those numbers have also increased. Uh we saw mental health related incidents uh of 88 and two in 2024. Um 2025 we saw 131. So that's that's
another line that went up. That was probably the main reason why we we uh cities and towns have this uh jail diversion program grant and mental health clinicians are again embedded in police departments uh statewide. So we'll see how that works out. That's um
most likely will be renewed in in uh in June and hopefully we'll get another year out of it and uh continue that program. All right. Thank you. Any questions? Chief, before questions, I think did you want to go over your organizational
chart and talk about some of your staffing reconfigurations in terms of the detective and SRO? >> Sure. >> So, I was uh looking to reconfigure from our two SRO's to uh two detectives. Um,
we would still have a SRO and a comfort K9 in the school, but uh that would go down to one and we would implement uh second detective. What happened uh again here I'll go to my sheet with these calls and obviously what we're seeing is
cyber crimes fraud has uh gone up from 40 to 60. Internet crimes against children uh they were at four last year. This year they're at 10. And those those increase in calls and those
those kind of cases actually are not a cut and dry case. Those cases take months and months to uh if you want to solve them, if you actually want to look into them and find somebody uh responsible for them, then uh that's not
just a cut and dry call. those last uh the last one obviously was publicized. Officer McNamera took place in that was uh that was 6 7 months of an investigation to recover the money for all the people that were um fraudulently taken for that money. The restructuring
we we had that detective in there. We've had a second detective uh on the board there for a little while on that organizational chart and I think uh this is probably the right time right time to do it. So, how would the school resource officer duties change on a day-to-day
basis? >> We would just have that one officer that would just rotate in the schools >> across all the schools. >> Yeah. >> And how does >> how it how it was uh before we imple implemented that two years ago? >> How does it work today? >> Today with the two officers
>> honestly right now officer McNamer is being pulled a lot pulled a lot for these other crimes. Okay. Okay. These internet crimes that he has the expertise in. Unfortunately, um like I said, these these these internet crimes and uh the crimes uh against uh
children, you know, those investigations are are are a lot these internet crimes have have become have just taken off. And uh if you really really want to prosecute and really want to find somebody that's uh you know
involved involved in this stuff, the investigations are just it's it's unbelievable how how much goes into these because you you're looking at subpoenas, search warrants, um for the computer, for the phones, uh for the cloud storage, for for all that. It's so
extensive. It's so time consuming. Um >> and right now chief um you have officer McNamera is primarily in the middle high school. Yeah. >> And officer Monroe is primarily in the primary school. >> Primary elementary.
>> So offic So one officer would rotate through >> right >> all how we had it before when there was just one officer. It was just rotate through the schools. >> Okay. So Turkey Hill is just kind of doesn't require as much. Is that what >> Turkey Hill Primary? >> Okay.
>> Right now has Officer Monroe. >> Okay. >> High school, middle school in the same building as uh Officer McNamera. What we would do is it would just go down to one officer again what uh what Brad was doing for years. He just rotate through the schools.
>> So Brad would stay at the as >> No. No. No. >> Brad would Brad would go into uh the detective position. >> We would have one SRO. >> Okay. But the dog would stay now with >> we have plans for another comfort dog. Okay. Uh if that gets funded the uh we
wouldn't be losing the comfort dog. It would it would be a different comfort dog. It wouldn't be Hank. Hank's on the verge of retirement. Uh but yeah, we would still keep that comfort dog program. >> We're not defunding. We are not defunding Hank. Hank is retiring.
>> How does How does the school department or the school committee feel about >> this? I had a preliminary conversation uh with the superintendent informing her that this information was going to be relayed this evening here for the first time
>> and um I will say that the information was not received well >> no no no surprise there right it is a schools and and it's something that folks have become reliant upon but >> okay >> is a service dog a capital item or just
you No, this the comfort dog. >> Comfort dog. >> No, it's just the uh $20,000 for the handling fee. >> But but there's the dog is there's already is a dog. >> Oh, and >> we don't have to purchase a dog or anything like that. >> Okay. >> Nor uh
you know, Brad's been so excellent with that that uh um >> breeder >> breeder that nor would it cost us. >> Okay. But there is already a comfort dog, another comfort dog that officer Monroe has that
>> is not is not utilized. Um, if we utilize another comfort dog, that's another $20,000 in handling fees. >> Okay. >> For you know, >> we could have all the dogs we want if we want to fund them. just you know
>> so as I mean for do you I forgot when we instituted the SRO's because that was something that wasn't always there >> no that was two years ago
>> no the no the first SRO >> we had one for all the schools >> yeah but when was that that came in line because I don't think when my kids were going through school >> uh that started Lieutenant Zarate was our first SRO here
in town and that would have been >> 2015. >> Yeah, makes sense. My my last kid graduated 2016 >> and that that would have lined up with the legislation that uh was passed in Massachusetts that uh each city and town, each school had to have a police
officer in the school. >> So that's dele that's delegated by state law. >> Oh, great. Another unfunded mandate. Okay. Correct. >> Um, so we had one SRO with >> I mean our school setup has not changed,
>> right? Since 2015 and we had one SRO into 2024. >> Correct. >> So we're going back to the setup that we always had. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> All right.
>> Any other questions? Jay, Tom. No. All right. Um, any questions from the public? Just raise your hand or unmute. >> Okay. >> All right.
>> Thank you so much. >> I also want to thank you again for the tour of the facility. That was really helpful for me. >> Yeah, absolutely. more than happy. Uh, you know, right now the roof's leaking if you want to come by. >> Oh, it is.
>> Yeah. >> The ice, you know, the ice dams right now. Everybody's >> Where's that on the capital list? >> I think it actually it's >> I think it actually is. >> It's this year. >> Yeah, I know. But is it above the line? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> No, the roof. Yes. The roof.
>> The on the $1.8 million line. The roof was the last thing that was funded. >> All right. I'll be chipping ice tomorrow if anybody wants to come by. >> Would the new roof fix that? The >> Yeah, I think I think what has to happen is that roof's obviously that roof has
uh you know played out its life. I think it's over over 20 20 years old. And what would happen I believe is that you would actually do ice water shield uh higher. Uh the specs are different and you know 20 years ago all you would do was uh ice
and shield I think three feet up. I think the new specs I I mean Chris would be able to talk to this but I I think maybe more more like 12 ft is probably in order if not the entire roof. It costs a little more in the front but your roof doesn't leak in the in the
end. >> Yeah. I think we're supposed to get snow though. >> Great. More ice. >> You can use the ladder truck. >> All right. >> All right. Thank you.
>> Good job. >> Thank you. >> All right. Preliminary budget. >> Yeah. >> You're going to drive? >> I think I can drive. >> All right. >> All right. But I am going to stay seated. >> That's fine.
>> So, thank you everybody. Um, before I start, a couple things. Um, first to the public that's watching, um, I'm going to kind of jump to the punchline here. So, the budget that I am
presenting this evening is not balanced. Um, it is, uh, reliant on an override. Um, and that monetary amount, um, is 3,357,213.88. I expect that this number will continue
to change each and every week as we continue to make adjustments um to various items. I'll try to identify some of those items where I think that there's movement, but I just wanted to kind of get that out uh in the advance. Does this mean to the public that is watching that we are going to town
meeting with a $3.357 million override? No. At this point, what we're doing is identifying what the potential gap is and there's going to be a lot of discussions and um around how that looks and how do we get to town meeting from here. So, this is kind of the to the
finance committee who's been involved in this process over the past several months, you know, where where we've been to get to this point. Um but the public may not. So, uh it's been a work in progress. It's continued to be a work in progress. Uh the other things uh that I
want to highlight is similar to uh the departments that you heard um go already um if there is a cost of living increase for a salary administrative plan employee if there is a collective bargaining agreement um that's still
under negotiation any of those colas are not reflected in the current wages um you're looking at the current FY26 rates um those additions will be taken care of as we always do in the uh salary reserve
and at this point um when I get to that um that has not been adjusted yet I will highlight for you areas that are above level service but I'm also going to highlight for you areas um where there have been reductions um we have been
deliberate in looking at our lines and seeing where we can make some reductions based on actual costs or actual service reductions themselves. I also want to be mindful um or have you be mindful that when we make a reduction um whether it's
in a service or uh just bringing something closer to actuals, two things happen. One is if that was a line that typically generated a lot of free cash either for the capital program or whatnot, it's not going to generate the same line the same amount back
again. Secondly, when we do this, we can only do it once. So ne if we come closer to reality this year in our budgeting um we're not going to be able to do that same um apply that same logic here next year
because we're already reduced it. So just a couple things uh to keep in mind as we start but we're going to start with the revenues. So the and we're going to go through how we
get to each of these, but this is how the total revenues for FY27 uh pan out. The large majority of it, 71% is local property tax. Uh 36,332,000. State aid 11,44,000.
Local receipts 3,360,000. enterprise funds $383,397.19 with an asterisk. Why is there an asterk here? We are still working on building out um the sewer enterprise budget and the pack enterprise budget and those
indirect costs um will potentially affect that number. Okay. So, how do we get to the maximum allowable levy? We start with last year's levy limit of 32,910,811.
We apply the Proposition 2 and a half allowable increase to that number, $822,77028. And then we add to that the estimated new growth of $400,000. and to that the excluded debt of 2,199,35252.
This gives us the maximum allowable levy of the 36,32933.80. So new growth of 400,000. What is new growth? New growth is the additional tax revenue generated by construction, renovation, and other increases in the TR property tax base during a calendar
year. It does not include in increased value caused by normal market forces or by re-evaluations. It also does not include if you have a repair of something. So, you have a roof, you've put on a new new roof, not
new growth. you have a three-bedroom house and now you add an addition. Now that is the benefit of the addition is new growth. So that's a little bit of the difference there. Um you have here uh the past 10 years of new growth uh
estimates against the actual new growth. So on the left hand side the bar chart is the original estimates and on the right hand side in the green is the actuals. you do see a spike in 24 and 25. Uh there are a couple of items from
the per the assessors that have led to those spikes. Uh one is that uh in FY24 and 25 there was uh new growth that was missed in the prior fiscal years that they caught up with and so you had a higher than normal new growth. And then
some of FY25 is attributable to the Lemonster Shirley Road uh large complex. The large commercial complex >> is 26 as that's estimated >> estimated for so this so that's this is this is estimate 518,000
is represented in the green bar to the right. That's our last actual compared to to that estimate >> that's actual to date or that's our estimated. So the the time that was the timing has already occurred. New growth actuals don't happen along our same uh
calendar timeline. Um but yes that's the actual new growth. >> Okay. Any questions? Any questions on new more questions on new growth before I move on to state aid? Okay. All right. So state aid is the second largest piece
of the revenue pie. Um currently these figures are based on the governor's budget. Um, next will be the House budget, then the Senate budget, and the conference committee. And we won't know our final, um, state aid until sometime likely in
July or August. So, we are going on the estimates at this point. Typically, um, things improve from the G governor's budget. So, the governor's budget is a fairly conservative and safe place to be budgeting from. Um, so our total state
aid receipts are $11,44,917 offset by our assessments of 1,69,349,000. Um, you see the breakdown between uh different types of education, uh, local aid, unrestricted government aid, veterans benefits, exemptions, uh,
stateowned land, and our offset receipts. uh those are those offset receipts school choice receiving tuition and public libraries automatically sweep the school and the library. Um last year on this same slide there was also an
asterct indicating charter school tuition sweeps. That is untrue. So um it does not. So charter school tuition sleep stays here. Um, folks may say, uh, and just to address that point, there's 9,726,3
in education aid. Why isn't that automatically sweeping to the school and that's due to net school spending. So, um, it's not a requirement. You heard a lot about net school spending. Um, but that's the answer. So, then we have our
assessments. mosquito control, air pollution, RMV, MBTA, regional transit, school choice sending tuition, and charter school sending tuition. Um, while we're on mosquito control, um, I did discuss at a recent select board
meeting. Um, this is a controversial proposal, but potentially um, eliminating the mosquito control program. We've been in the program since the 80s. Um, there is mixed feelings on that, but it is something that we are
discussing. At $91,562,000, I would be remiss to not bring it up for exploration. >> Um, so yeah, I don't care for the mosquito control at all. Um, if you want to know, but we had >> Huh? >> You don't what?
>> I don't care for it. >> You don't care for having it or >> for us paying $90,000 for it for >> She doesn't want it. Oh, >> she's fine with me eliminating it if I was allowed to. >> Yeah. >> Well, what what does it take >> the process? >> Yeah.
>> So, good question. So, um the process to get in to the mosquito control program is the same to get out. It requires a town meeting vote. >> Let's do it. Um we we used to have the um
um 300 something,000 200 250,000 from uh new >> smart choice. >> Yeah, >> it's it's uh the third one down under education. >> You lost it for I think a year and it was back as of last year. >> Smart growth. Okay. >> Thank you.
>> Okay. Any other Sorry. Any other questions on state aid? >> We did submit everything else there. >> Yes. Um yeah. Um the you know the receiving the receiving the school choice
receiving tuition is now down to 77,000. again like I have brought this up to the school committee and the superintendent many times and this used to be over close to $500,000
you know just prior to co and that means that it's an extra you know $400,000 that the Lunberg taxpayer is now picking up on top of all the regular growth that we have because you No, this is not a
it's not like we take that money out from the school and now they become it has always been the town cherish sheets assessment. >> So, you know, we I I I have asked and I know they voted um to offer 10 seats
per grade at a high school this year, but this is on them. This is their responsibility to manage this and they have because of their actions they have reduced funding that comes to us
that serves them about $400,000 and they expect the Bloomberg taxpayer to pick up that tab. So just want to comment on that. >> Any other comments on state aid? >> Okay. >> Chapter 90 is that is >> so chapter 90 is um
>> GGA. Nope. Nope. So, um, chapter 90 is specific road funding that doesn't come through the cherry sheet. Okay. It's a separate appropriation by the legislature. Um, the UGGA has um the MMA calls it the guttural name of UGGA. Um,
unrestricted general government aid. Um, it's it has no strings attached. It is uh state funding uh that comes to the town to be used as the town deems fit. Um the chapter 90 um appropriation which
is not on here um but I can get for you um they were looking at funding uh similar to that elevated level from last year. I think he was I think if I'm correct using um the fair share tax as a funding source. I could be wrong. Okay.
So um >> one more question. >> Okay. >> Regarding the mosquito control that assessment is that based on is that a use it or lose it? Is that what we actually benefited? >> So it's a formula and I'm happy I'll
share let me share the information that I've found about mosquito control with fincom. Um but it is a formula. It's um based largely on land mass area. So when you when you actually look at the uh
member communities of the uh central mass mosquito control project, you'll see the city of Malboro sitting right next to Lunenburgg almost dollar for dollar and they have a substantially larger budget than us. So it's to be in
the program apply the formula total c let me do it backwards. total cost of the Central Mass Regional uh mosquito program divided by the formula. We get the assessment. That's that. It doesn't it doesn't matter how many times they
might come out for extra sprayings or it's this is the price. >> Every year I ask my my my address be excluded. >> Excluded. >> So it doesn't increase when individuals ask for their
Let me get you the information on that though. Um, and I know that this is going to be incredibly unpopular generally. So, all right. >> The MBTA assessment or Yeah. assessment. >> What is it for? What do we actually get
from it? Um, >> nothing. I >> I think it's based on region and proximity. I'll get that >> next door to a >> Y >> MBTA. And then the regional transit is that Mar is >> yes
I'm happy to provide the whole cherry sheet manual if I actually didn't know it existed until last night and so I'm happy to share that newfound knowledge that there's a manual describing the entire cherry sheet a portionment so let me share that
too >> more than you ever wanted to know on the >> there's a lot of information that is on the slides All right. All right. The smallest uh piece of the revenue pie is our local receipts. Um
definition of local receipts are local estimated receipts that include motor vehicle meals, room excise tax, um room excises, fines and forfeitures, fees, licenses and permits, other departmental receipts, penalties, interest on taxes, excises, and
investment income. It's um separate from real and personal property tax. Um they can vary greatly and uh per the division of local services quote local receipts should be budget budgeted conservatively
and not at historically high levels. So here you have um the FY27 local receipts estimate. I have not made any adjustments to local receipts uh for FY27.
It's the same as last year. Um, in the FY26 budget column, you will see that several have asterisks next to them. Those are uh lines that we increased last year.
Um, in reviewing uh the local receipt estimate, um, there's not too many areas that I'd feel comfortable at this point exploring. Um I know uh Chris uh Mr. Chairman sorry
you um had commented on investment income and what was the past investment income you see there we have it budgeted that's the big outlier I think right is we have it budgeted as $100,000 and the actual uh was $588,966.51.
Similarly, last year you had really high um actuals on investment income at 414,000 but then before that prior to that FY23 264,000. So this is wildly uh volatile and is
based on the market. Um I think I'd like to see how whether and if this continues more than two years whether or not that there should be making >> we change though based on the prudent investment laws that were >> so the >> yeah the prudent investment uh rules oh
you're saying for the investment income does that is that what's impacting the investment income >> I don't believe that that's the key driving force but we can check with our uh folks at Bartholomew around that Okay. Are we actually investing prudently or are we just going along the
same way we were before? >> I'd have to check with the Treasury collector on changes that have been made, >> but this is mostly from the market. >> Okay. I just, you know, the prudent investment I think came in last year. We passed it. >> Yeah. Yes. Two years ago.
>> And there was a lot of funds that we had dug through that were, you know, not making much money. um compared to what one to make. >> If if the performance of this fund is indexed upon the prudent investment rule
as opposed to just market conditions, then that makes revisiting this a little different. Certainly, um similarly, motor vehicle excise tax is doing well. I'm concerned about frankly the economy and um whether or not that's going to
continue in in this economy with car purchases. Um but we may revisit uh some of these local receipts. >> How about the adjusting the ambulance as well? >> Yeah, so we adjusted ambulance slightly last year. Um we could that was another
line that we talked about potentially revisiting. Um if if we make adjustments to local receipts, it certainly helps the current operating budget. >> Mhm.
>> But it impacts the capital budget in the future. So it's there is a little bit of a balance there. I mean while I know that DLS I think wants between what 5 to 7% in free cash in the end of the year.
Isn't that the mark? I you know I don't think that's beneficial for the towns. Um you know anything that we have that we leave it in free cash that we don't estimate we have to wait like whole year before we can actually use it. And and I
and that's a that's a big leagu. So like if if you know that that ambulance receipt from July 1st that's extra we cannot use it until July 1st of two years later. >> No no no no. So ambulance receipts we can use so we are because we are
estimating these receipts in our operating budget. Let me go back. Hold on. Okay. >> Because you you just said that packs are free cash, >> right? But it's something different. So on this slide here, these local receipts, those ambulance receipts are
contained within that blue chunk of the pie to fund our present current operating budget. So as they come in, they are available for use without further appropriation immediately and they are being used to fund FY27's
budget. If um if one of the other local receipts is not performing as we've anticipated I whether it's ambulance or or any really account it helps to offset the total local receipts because we are relying upon $3.36 million in the
operating budget. Now the what I'm saying is that the if we get closer to actuals whatever amount above and beyond the 3.36 million that we're we're budgeting
for that's what can go to free cash >> right >> for capital purchases >> and and that's why I'm I'm making the case to increase the aspect in of the ambulance receipt so that we can use it in this fiscal year.
>> We can still use it. Even if it comes in and we've estimated estimated it at 200,000, but it comes in higher, we can still use it. >> We can't budget it, though. >> We can't budget it, but we can use it. >> Yeah, you would need another town meeting to to >> No, hold on.
You would don't you need a town meeting in order to make appropriations? It's it's the but you're looking not at the individual uh let me go now back to this slide. >> You can't like putting this simply like Chris said you can't
>> right but >> budget >> but you're if there's ones on this slide if there's ones that don't make it you're on this slide we're looking for the totality of the $3.36 million. So if you have a high performer we'll call it
and somebody is not performing let's say building permits are down that can the increase the actual increase that you receive from ambulance receipts for example can be used to offset some other line that's not performing. What was the
actual and the budget and the actual for FY25 local receipts >> for local receipts for FY25? Um, >> isn't that the report that we have uh 3.18 million?
>> So, I'm I you would have to toggle I'm sharing my screen right now, so I'd have to toggle out to look at the report. >> Okay. >> Um, but I did share with you the >> Yeah. Yeah, >> that's the one that I'm looking. It looks like the original appropriation was 3.168
million and looks like we ended with 4.6 million, right? So that's that's a that's a you know big big change. It's my point. So as we
>> the 45% increase of underestimating that we didn't we didn't use in FY25 I mean that that's a lot that you know that I'm making the case for us to increase a bit. >> Yeah I think >> so that we can budget more things. We we
can look at a few of the lines here I think but I think we also want to make sure that we are generating enough for our capital plan for stabilization for um if we're going to uh cover snow and ice with free cash at town meeting it is
a balance um but we can certainly continue to re >> the lever that can be pulled between the not balanced budget that you have here and the balanced budget could be looking at being less conservative. >> Yes. >> On estimating. >> That's correct.
>> Um new growth and local receipts. >> I don't think on new growth, but on local receipts. I think new growth is pretty >> there's not a lot to play with. >> Yeah, there's so it right. You're pretty close. 118,000 over estimated. That's that's cutting it. Um but local receipts
certainly that is a lever that could be played with. >> And and I I thought new growth isn't does does that come from the assessors or No, >> it does. >> Yeah. Because I saw them taking a vote. Yes, they Yes. So they voted for that the 400,000, >> right? Um yeah, you know, the the making
the case at least for me that you know, oh, it's good to save money that we don't touch it for two years because of possibility of doing capital and this and that. I I that's not my view good financial planning. Um, personally I think the villagers it's it's it we had
a town manager Caris Spidell that used to keep our free cash at a two one and a half% it was tight >> and whenever we needed to do a project we planned for the project and we borrow we did you know we raised like the same
thing raising for for capital like let's raise buy with cash and not necessarily borrow It's but you know this thing of putting money like knowing that we're buffing you know getting a little extra on the
budget it just doesn't give us a clear picture what is our financial situation so just and I think I said this to you on the phone today you know you're telling me we're going to need over $3 million in override but at the same next breath you're telling me we had $3
billion >> extra it's like Well, it sounds like we have the $3 million. So, it it's we just got to be a little tighter in my my my professional opinion, you know, having the finance background that we should try to run that a little tighter to
really get a clear picture of our actual finance situation. >> Yeah, we're happy to continue to look at this and like I said, we're going to continue to look at everything as we go. >> Sure. Thank you. >> Okay. All right. So FY27
total revenue available for appropriation, our starting revenue from that combination of the levy, um, excludable debt, new growth, Prop 2 and a half, starting revenue is the 51,436,771.99.
Um, and then we need to start subtracting things. So the first thing that we subtract from that is those two sweeps, the school choice and library um sweep from the cherry sheet. Uh the next is the assessor's overlay. Uh the
assessors also did in that same meeting where they voted um new growth voted this overlay amount of 260,000. um there was discussion on whether that could be reduced and I think that they had a fair amount of dialogue around it and felt comfortable with the 260,000
and then those cherry sheet estimates I'm sorry cherry sheet assessments the right side of the state aid um at 1,69,349 the next thing that we are subtracting is any amount of uh taxation that is
being applied to the capital plan um so I have at this point it's level with what was last year's appropriation $244,560576 that leaves 49,000 49750,699.99 available for appropriations.
So now let's talk to about expenditures. Um, I am going to ask tonight if I can answer questions about specific budgets, I will. Um, but as departments are coming in and presenting their full budgets over the next couple weeks, I'm
going to ask if we can try to keep it at a little bit higher level, prepare questions um, as we go. But, um, we have these are the main budget categories. maturing debt, general government and classified, general government, public safety, DPW, facilities and building,
human services, schools, culture and recreation, intergovernmental tax title. We'll go over each of these, but you see that the FY27 preliminary across all categories against the FY26 budget shows
an increase of 4,731,000 uh $477. Sorry, let me start that again. Sorry. Sorry. 4,731,477.76 at a 9.78% increase. And that percentage varies uh greatly across each category.
>> The public safety number includes the fourth shift. >> That's correct. The public safety number is the number that was presented this evening >> and the DPW has full restoration of the >> It does not, but we'll get there. >> Okay. I mean, I know we're going to hear Bill in a couple weeks.
>> You're going to hear a little bit from me tonight. Yeah. Is your FY25 actual number incorrect? It says 21 million. >> Oh, you know why? So I had an error in that school FY25
actual and I adjusted that but I didn't sum the whole column. So no it is not correct. Thank you. This is I you know I did say should I put these online in advance for the public to follow along? I said no because invariably there is going to be edits that we need to make on the powerpoints before we put them
online. So thank you. Do you know what the photos? Let me stop sharing. Sure. You can just update it. >> Oh, rats. >> Yep. Only only Karen left us.
>> What? >> Been watching. He said, "Are you watching the waiting room?" I said, "Yeah, but Karen left us." Oh, I have been watching it too. >> Yeah, she's done. >> Almost there. It's toggling between sheets here.
>> I muted pack by mistake earlier and shut down the audio. >> 45 568 511 60 >> What was it again? 45 >> 45
>> okay >> 568 511 60 and I'll share with you the uh revised I think I heard the fire chief say that there was one in his too that needed adjustment all right
>> let me start sharing again Okay. All right. Thank you for that. All right. So, um this just kind of this next slide shows graphically how that
breaks out. Um the largest portion of the budget is the schools. Uh that's both Monty Techch and Lunberg public schools at 57%. Um you see public safety, DPW,
um general government unclassified which contains insurance and general government um taking up the next largest sections. And then you have some really small um portions of the total budget, human services, culture and wreck at uh 1% of
the total operating budget. So uh the first item is maturing debt. Uh there is uh 2,537,578.36. This is a small decrease over last year of $9,862.
Um there is variety of excluded debt listed here. Um then on then this next slide uh there's non-excluded debt and there's also enterprise fund supported debt. All
three whether they're excluded um supported by enterprise funds or inside the levy all get funded from the same line. >> The line that says turf fields and then parentheses 760k that's how much was borrowed. >> Yes.
>> And that still has like What was that? A 15-year. >> Um, do you have the debt schedule in the fin folder? >> We do have it. I I >> can't remember. I don't remember it and I can't keep Yeah, when I'm Thank you.
>> We do have the information. >> Okay. >> All right. So, general government unclassified um 4,312,412. This is a $24,294.99 increase or a 4.97% increase.
Workers compensation, I'm just going to if I'm not going to if I don't hit it, there's nothing of note or it's level funded. So workers compensation reduced by 10,000. This is a reduction based on several years of actual trends. Um so this is not a service cut. This is just
reducing to actuals. employee retiree insurance. Um this does not include school active employees but it includes um town and school retirees and town active employees. Um we saw a 8.85%
increase based on our current plan. Um we are negotiating with the PEC currently which may uh affect that 8.85% 85% if there are plan design changes. But based on our current iteration of the plan, that is our proposed increase.
Gratefully, a lot less than the 20% we were facing. However, it's not good. Um the retiree plan increases um come in January. Um I'm estimating 16% on medic um manage blue for seniors and 19% on
MedEx based on recent trends. Um, but we won't actually know. I'm also budgeting for six family and six individual blueare elect plans within that. So, there's a total increase of $193,440 27 for a 5.86% increase. Now, you just
heard me say one sec. You just heard me say that the active plan increased by 8.85% 85% but and and we're estimating 16 and 19% increases but yet the total line only increased by 5.86%. Why is that? Because I went back and
rebuilt this budget from the bottom up based on actuals. This is one of those areas where we are much closer to what the actual budget is. And so we're we're far less conservative in this area. We will turn back less likely in this area.
So, so the the when you say budgeting six family and six individual, you mean above our current staff level, >> correct? Holding those plans. >> Okay. >> I don't understand the retirey plan increases in January and you're
estimating it. It's middle of February. So the act so we get the numbers um I think in the fall the increase hits in January. So this is I'm this is
perspective. This is for January of 2027 the >> So we don't know what the increase is until the fall. >> I believe it's the fall, right? We don't get the we don't get the retiree increases at the same time that we get the active plan increases.
>> Is that right? the fall for retirees. >> What? >> Um I wish we got them all at the same time because it makes budgeting incredibly difficult. >> The How many How many employees do we have on the town side
that are active employees, not retirees? So that that we >> I don't have all that data here with me right now to present but >> when I present the general government unclassified budget I will so if these types of things that you want details on
how many please include on your list of questions so that we can have those for you. >> I think Karen took a note on it too. >> Okay. Are you using the open jobs to kind of estimate these six family and
six individuals like the the two that are open on the police department? Um things like that like how are you getting these numbers? Like >> so frankly I'm very nervous of what of uh budgeting so close to actuals here. We need to leave some room. >> Okay.
>> Um so that does two things. One is that this is intentionally sometimes a space that we can go to for transfers if we need to because it's just is a budget that holds substantial accounts, right? We also know that we
are moving um potentially uh to a different optout plan that may have effects that people are coming off. So it's it's not necessarily a one for one for every head. >> It's I'm just identifying these are the positions that I'm holding.
>> Okay. So I feel comfortable that no matter who we hire, we have enough. Um people come and go from the organization. People get married, people get divorced. Um so there's lots of changes. Um but I think
I'm comfortable enough with this, but I'm still flagging my concern that this might be a little close. >> Okay. >> Do you have an idea of when you'll be done with negotiations with the PEC? >> I do. So the um the negotiations have to
be concluded by the end of March because uh notifications need to go out for April. Um I it is the goal that this is voted at the March 17th, no later than the March 17th meeting of the select board. >> Good day.
>> It's St. Patrick's Day. We're very close. The our final meeting with the PEC is next week. I believe our final meeting with the PC is next week. Okay. Uh liability insurance. Um a small increase there, 2.5%. Um
life insurance. Um we may need to revisit this budget, but it's presently budgeted um with a $5,000 increase based on our actuals. We need to do some more exploration in there, but this is like a $15,000 total budget. And then the
Medicare line that you see is not for Medicare. It's for your FICA tax. So we will calculate this at the end because it's based on total employee wages. All right. So I've left that alone for now. General government, we have uh
$3,25,5124. This is a $242,78810 increase or an 8.2% increase. Um the budget includes the following departments. So select board that has a $21,615 uh1
increase for 11.99%. Um some of that is bringing in our PR crisis communication contract fully within the select board office. It had been bifurcated out for billing purposes. Um but just to bring it all
here. Um, and there's some other actual costs increase there. Uh, town manager, uh, this is an above level service request. It funds half a year of an assistant town manager position
at $60,000. I've assumed a 15% increase to our legal fees, although I have not received any notification that they are going up. Um that is an assumption and reductions have been made to other lines. So town
manager total increases $77,028 um much of which is the uh half year of the assistant town manager. I asked the finance committee meetings and school budget by a whopping $225
because there's not a lot of use in that account. There's still plenty of account, there's plenty of room left for you to attend meetings in schools. Um, finance committee reserve I've left alone. Salary reserve. So, as I indicated
earlier, salary reserve has not been yet adjusted for FY27. I simply do not have enough information based on where I am with bargaining. So, it includes it will include the COLA for the SAP employees and any wage adjustments associated with
the first year of the three labor contracts that are currently under negotiation, DPW, fire, and clerical union. Based on where those negotiations are at, I do not have enough information to make an adjustment one way or another to this salary reserve line. So, it's
funded at last year's rate at this point. So, for the town manager, you're funding the first you're funding half a year, but you're get hiring a full-time assistant. >> The intention would be to hire a full-time um assistant town manager that
wouldn't begin until January of 2027 to just ease a we have some stuff that we need to do still to clean up and I don't think bringing on another person during that is actually the best to do. But yeah, we tend to take this approach.
>> It's to ease ease it into the budget. >> Yeah, we tend to take this approach. It's just that, you know, we know this, but you are hiring a full-time assistant town manager with this proposal and then the current assistant town manager HR director position becomes
an HR director position. >> Correct. And I don't think that there's any based on um uh wage compensation, I don't think there'd be any adjustments or savings there. I think I think based on her salary and her
hours, she's appropriately compensated. Um, so it's it's removing the title and and putting that elsewhere to um to those who are watching, we're talking about the assistant town manager, Julie Bello, um, who serves in the function of
human resources and uh, procurement. Um the reality is is the vast majority if not all of her position is consumed by human resource functions. Um and so the assistant town manager functionality of
being able to lead special projects and and run things and and work on uh different elements of the operations that's just simply unable to be um achieved through the current staffing structure. I think it's very common when
a community first, especially if they don't have a human resources position, I think it's very common for them to bring on an assistant town administrator or assistant town manager that has the functions of human resources as a first step. We've done that. It's been a
couple years. Um, town of Lunberg's ready for an assistant town manager. >> So, there'll be no adjustment to the salary of the of Julie or the person in that position. >> Correct. Even though there'll be some stuff's coming off, >> there's really not any stuff coming off
other than her title. Her job remains exactly the same unless we pull. The only thing that would come off is if we hire an assistant town manager who either is um MCPO certified, procurement certified, or becomes procurement certified and they took that procurement
piece. The reality is that allows her to do all of the HR stuff that we're not getting to. Are you going to be thinking about adding that component to the job description? The procure procurement component? >> I think an assistant town manager is
going to be holding some procurement. >> Okay. >> Because if they don't have MCPPO certification, they will be receiving it. All right. Next up, uh also this slide continues on
with general government. uh the town accountant. We have contractual increases for the finance director, town accountant. We have a $25,000 increase for the annual audit. This was improperly budgeted in FY26. Uh there are some reductions due to
retirement and folks coming in uh differently on the wage scale. So the total impact is not quite as high at $33,26048 or 10.29% TW 29% increase. The assessors, the assessors has um what I'm
going to call an above level service request of the of $27,500 in funding for the temporary special assistant uh to the assessor's position, which takes up much of the $27,000 600 $27,632
increase. So, um, if folks recall, the town of Lunenburgg has a number of directives, um, from the department of revenue to complete prior to the next full, uh, re-evaluation year, which is in three years, I believe. Uh, we had, uh, put money in at the annual town
meeting in a standalone line with the hopes that we were going to do an RFP. Um at the fall town meeting, we switched that money into a salary line and created a temporary um this temporary
position. Um and so there's $27,500 currently funded in the FY26 operating budget by way of that transfer. We are in the process of hiring now for the position. This task will not be finished by the end of
June 30. we will not likely utilize 100% of the 27,500 in the current fiscal year and this allows um us to have a way in the operating budget to continue to fund this. Um this is temporary. This will go away uh once we are done with the
project treasurer collector. Um there were small um adjustments made here for some additional training uh and certification stipen for the collector certification
that will go to my lean. Um $1600 of this 7,814 is what I would consider above level service and that's for the additional training and associated costs. it here is where you have service actual
service reductions to offset increases. Um so MUNS uh 100 about $108,000 annually I believe um was initially supported by ARPA funding um it's no longer being supported by ARPA funding u
and so it needs to be absorbed 100% in the operating budget. That is a huge jump in this line over last year. So, how did we get only a $43,000 increase? We reduced the IT contractor for four day down to four days a week.
That's already, you've heard me represent to you that that's already started in January. I'm exploring whether or not even in FY27 if we can drop an additional day and drop down to three. Um, we also eliminated the clear
gov software at the cost of $20,000 and telephone charges have um an increase here to the actuals. Uh, town clerk um together with the elections and registration and census lines. Um it is an election year and so
this $15,000 increase $15,328.97 increase um is largely being driven by uh the election costs land. And if folks who are really interested in looking back at old actuals, you will see fluctuations every
time there's an election year and then decreases the next year in the town clerk's line. um uh land use. So um not a large increase at all here. Uh the reason being you had
some high paid folks leave the organization offset similar to the assistant accountant position where you have top-end staff being replaced by staff that's newer to the organization. So the impact of other uh department heads that have come on board was not as
great. town report. Substantial increase here, $9,000 increase, $1 128.57%. Why? Because we were not truly funding the mailing of the uh books, both the um
annual town meeting book and the special town meeting book. So, this is adjusted to actuals. This is not an above level service request. Um I although the select board has not voted on any town meeting warrant articles at this point, they are discussing again the town
meeting warrant article uh relative to that that was at the last town meeting relative to this mailer. Um if that changes that would have impacts here although we wouldn't certainly we wouldn't know the outcome until we get to town meeting. uh central purchasing,
we've level funded it. As a reminder, uh postage from all departments last year uh was moved into this line. It seems to be working well. It's a $50,000 in postage and I was a little concerned whether or not we'd be able to manage it, but it's it's being managed well all
collectively in one spot. Um, but sometime I do want to flag because it was moved sometimes when you look at old actuals and there's something that's not quite matching up that it might be just that postage that's moved from there to the central purchasing line if that
makes sense. Physicals um similar to you you heard from the chief about the increasing costs um for the police fire physicals for onboarding new employees. Um, we're also have non-p police fire employees that need to um have
pre-employment physicals there. This is an adjustment to actuals. It's a substantial increase, but it's an adjustment to actuals here. >> Related to postage, is there things we mail that we don't we could opt out of? Like I get a quarterly tax bill and
we could just go online and look at it. >> Not everybody has it. >> No, no. That's why I say could you opt out? >> I don't know. >> That's a good question. >> We could definitely >> whether there's a legal requirement that we have to mail. >> And I opt out of almost everything cuz >> Yeah.
>> Let's see if the software has it. >> Awesome. >> I know. I like the electronic as well. Um, okay. I think that's it on general government. Yes, it is. Okay. Next up, public safety.
5,118,96526. This is a large increase, $571,115.98 or 12.56%. Um, police department, you heard from the chief earlier, it funds contractual obligations. Part of funding that contract, we eliminated one sergeant
position. Um we are reducing one SRO, adding one detective, not changing headcount there. Um but it does have some effects. And so the total uh is $175,38545. No changes to police lockup or injury leave. You've heard about uh the $2,000
increase in medical and the fire department. Total increase of $379,967.51. Um, it does fund the above level service um request of fourth shift 42-hour fire. It also includes includes um I don't think the chief spoke to this when he
was here, but it includes wage adjustments for uh his anticipated vacancy. Um oftent times when folks have been in an organization for a long time and they retire, they are not being compensated near the market and that is the case here. also increasing the
supply line to the actuals and no change in fire hydrant expense. Uh radio equipment maintenance, uh that's the $5,000 increase uh for equipment maintenance, radio watch, dimminimus, $2,000
increase. Um sealer of weights and measures is in the public safety budget. Um, you didn't hear either chief speak to it, but as they wouldn't, but there is a large increase here of $6,763 or 147%.
Um, we no longer have a local sealer of weights and measures. We contract with the state. Um, and so this is a fixed rate contract at the $11,000 and change that it is uh for the sealer of weights and measures. Um, and we're build
annually for that. I actually wasn't necessarily aware of that this contract was executed prior to my arrival until I received the bill several weeks ago and saw that the budget was not appropriately budgeted for that. So, that was a surprise, but thankfully only $11,000.
>> These guys find a lot nowadays. >> Sailor of Weights. >> Yeah. >> Do they find a lot of like uh like uh >> incorrect? Uh, I don't know. I do know that um you know there's quite a lot of activity and like even um oh the the
farm the produce to weigh the produce at our local farms where you're thank you Dicks thank you um I was going to say riches I was like I know this is not right but close at
>> at um at Dicks you know they were frantic coming in we need the sailor of weights and measures who's the sailor of weights because you need to weigh your produce there when you're checking out. So, gas stations. Um, but I don't know if they find a lot of people putting a little extra weight on the on the scale
if that's what you mean. Um, it is nice that it's a flat rate though. Um >> so as we um because we're still in public safety um as we you know move forward like you said these conversations um
you know I we are doing two things within the fire department which is we are increasing coverage and we are by adding that fourth more consistently and we are doing the fourth
shift. I I I'm not saying they are not necessary, but both those added brings makes that 37 379 really closer to 600,000
because we are adding 16 hours of coverage. That line is 221,000 on call firefighters and we're maintaining it because we're now going to shift at that.
So I'm you know we are going to you are proposing an override um but we will need to do a have a balanced budget that we bring it to town meeting as well >> you know and I
you know I think the fourth shift is would be my higher priority item so that we can get that as you know in place. Um I I'm just saying it it is two different things that amounts to $600,000 and we
my priority would be for you know that fourth shift um because it's it's I can't imagine being expected to work 48 hours the way our firefighters are currently. It's kind of crazy. So
that's my comment on that one. >> Anything else on public safety? >> No. Okay. All right. Public works to your question. Okay. 2,87,17751. It is a $330,22422 increase or 13.33%
increase. Highway administration. You heard um from the facilities director earlier that the Teamsters Local 170 um of which the facilities department has two employees um has not negotiated their contract since June
30th of 2024. Um so the rates that are currently in this line are those old rates. Those are the rates as of June 30th, 2024. Um, I anticipate that there may be substantial uh increases here.
Um, but I don't have enough information to estimate what those would be. But just to be clear, this line does not contain any contractual increases to fund um Team Star's uh 170 contract. Um,
it also includes a new uh above level service part-time administrative position um at $25,000 uh to assist the uh DPW executive assistant um who also services uh the
facilities department as you've heard. Um uh Miss Tucker is um responsible for quite a lot of processing of uh invoices that's frankly above and beyond the level that is processed by other typical
departments due to the nature of the department. Um there's a lot of grant reporting, chapter 90 reporting um that's associated with that. So, the request is to help with a part-time person offset some of that uh labor.
There's also in the highway construction and maintenance line a $25,000 above uh level increase in the drainage line. Uh that line was increased last year, but to continue to address the backlog of drainage work,
there is an actual increase for street light costs. And then there's an increase. So, we didn't restore the pavement management plan. We kept the pavement management plan as last year's um last year's level, not restoring it um to the pre FY26 levels. However,
there is an increase of $340,000 to address uh catch basin cleaning and street sweeping. So, that line sees a total increase of $371,000 um or 58.44%. 44%.
I'm sure you're going to have lots of questions for the director about that. Um, so, uh, traffic signs and devices we reduced, um, by $11,700, uh, to reduce, uh, the line striping, um, closer to the actuals.
Uh public works also includes the vehicle maintenance for uh not only DPW but also police and fire. You heard uh both chiefs talk about their increases, but there's also a $5,000 increase uh for the DPW line. Uh cemetery, the only
matter to note is that the contracts under negotiation there as well. Um also a member of the Teamsters Union. Uh tree removal was increased by $1,000. um to increase the overtime line associated with uh tree removal. Snow removal, we
are allowed to deficit spend. This is the only line uh that we are allowed to deficit spend by statute provided we don't make a reduction ever. Um and not ever, but under most circumstances. Um so there's just a 2 and a half%
increase. um director increases the line by two and a half% so that we're not always falling behind. At some point, we probably should increase this line so that we're not making up such a gap to close it out, but with more analysis
over, you know, this has been a a difficult year for snow and ice. That's this is hopefully an outlier, right? So, a longer look. We don't want to we don't want to go too high, but nonetheless, uh
recycling program. So, a large decrease here of $106,646 or 22.69% decrease changing nothing about the program. Um, in the discussions um about uh the recycling program in general, the
director did have a deeper dive review of his actual costs and felt that he could adjust um down this line closer to actuals. Um that said, we're we've already had meetings uh with Shaw um to
discuss potential changes um to the recycling program to see if a sticker type program or opt-in uh might work. Townsen recently did it with Shaw. It serves um there's no issues uh in terms of the provider in moving to that type
of system. They're out collecting data for us right now on number of households. Um but there are some logistical things that we might need to explore, but we are looking at that. So, we'll hear more about that with Bill's presentation. >> I don't know if you're going to know. I don't know if he'll have a lot more details yet. We're This This will take a
while to work on. >> No, but we'll hear about the reduction. >> Yes. >> Okay. And just for everyone's awareness, um we shuffled the calendar a little bit here. U Bill's going to present on March 12th. >> 12th.
Um so on public safety um or public works the you're increasing the $340,000 370
for catch basin. Is that so is that in lie of the of the the utility that they were planning to do? Because that was about the number that Bill said he needed. I'm going to let Bill address
that with you about exactly how he sees that operating. It's my understanding that that's insufficient to fully cover MS4 compliance. It's not we would need a higher number than that to be fully compliant, but
it's to help address at least that element of compliance. >> Well, they're also not looking for funding as part of that annual town meeting for that bill for that um
um department for the >> storm water utility. So the storm water utility um proposal that would be potentially going to town meeting is around setting up the mechanics of the utility but not um not setting up the
budget and not voting the budget yet either. >> But like I remember his presentation to us. It was about this amount that he said you know either give me this on the general fund or we set up a utility. And I was like, uh, I think many people here said, okay, well, you know, let's
consider that. But you haven't had a conversation with the storm water if they >> it. So, is this you offering them like I'm trying to understand because I thought we were going to wait for them
to do their thing and decide what they were going to come back to us. But it looks that well, we are being proactive on doing something without maybe. So, a couple things. So, Stormwater's meeting, as I understand, tonight. They might be wrapped by now, but they did meet tonight. So, I don't know what their
conversations have been. I have not had any conversations with the Stormwater task force. I've had conversations with the director. Um, my understanding of this is only around that one element that we should have been doing for years, which is catching up with the
catch basins and the street sweeping that's required annually. So I think based on the meetings that I heard and you know things that I watched is the the permit we are not in default of the permit. We the the permit allows you to
build the practices to get Oh no no no. We we are in we we are in default with the permit. So it's it's that we're not under an order. There is no federal entity in here EPA ordering us to do anything. if they were to come in and
look at our practices, I think that would be a different conversation. So, we have a permit um but we are not doing the things that are required by that permit. >> So, the permit has required um annual catch basin cleaning and sweeping for a
number of years and we're just not doing it. Actually, that was eye opening to me in the DPW director's presentation that we're not really doing any of this. That was surprising. And so this is to address that we need to be doing at
least the um catch basin cleaning. If if this is the I I don't know if this is a sufficient amount. I don't believe it is to be in lie of the utility but certainly that's something to explore with bill on the 12th. >> Yeah. I mean that that was the number
that he gave us. The other thing with the recycling that and I think I mentioned this on the phone with you, but if you could also make note like like many other towns, they're much more strict about what they allow to recycle.
If we are putting things that are on the recycling bin that we are, we know it's not going to be recycled. We're just putting trash on recycling. So, you know, redefining what the program is, what do we allow to be to go in that
recycling bin because I like I believe plastic that we throw it in the recycling, I believe it's something like 3 or 4% of all plastic actually gets recycled. And there are places that I've been to or vacation to, they only allow
one or two. And here, I think we go all the way to seven. Um so um and um al also when we see Bill's when I see his presentation it'll be good to
understand what his plan for chapter 90 um so okay thank you all right moving right along. All right facilities and buildings. So, um I'm not going to go through too much of this
because you just heard um the entirety of his, but uh Chris Roose, but 1,23,4816. It's $136,11.76 increase, sorry, and 12.74%. Um you've heard the contracts under negotiation
um includes um additional $25,000 increase to the purchase of services line 15,000 of which is above that level service um to address those items that he talked about that are high value
unanticipated or high cost unanticipated but don't rise to the level of capital. um the public buildings uh increases largely due to pulling the TCP building uh fully into the operations and budgeting it. So 66,42.90
or a 29.88% increase. Um this kind of next piece about the park director um you know changes every day. So we've had two interviews today and so we might not be vacant for much longer. Um town is
actually interviewing um on a later slide I have something that I actually thought it was in this one that says if this position is not filled we may need to refit the staffing configurations really to get the beach open. Um but it appears that we may not have to revisit that. Um so total increase in parks of
11,000 or 8.81% obviously depending on who is hired um that may change. >> The vehicle allowance. >> Mhm. Have we looked at a vehicle allowance for the DPW director >> instead of a vehicle? >> Yeah,
>> we haven't. >> A vehicle is very expensive. >> It's very common for DPW directors to have a take-home vehicle, but there's no reason that we can't look at that. >> Okay. >> Sorry. Um,
okay. I mean, the school the the school facilities director has a brand new truck. >> So, you know my thought on that. >> Say it again. >> I mean, I think everyone knows my thought on that, but
>> the take-home vehicle >> the previous one was. Yeah. I don't I I believe I know I don't know the current because they just have someone that joined them the past, you know, I think like in the fall. The one before did
have a take-home vehicle >> and that was part of the agreement with him. >> Yeah, it's a take it was a take-home vehicle. >> I did not know that. >> That's their facilities director. >> Yeah.
>> All right. Are we ready for human services? >> Okay, this is this is one of those tiny budgets, 1% of the total budget. Um so $480,1624 tiny increase. Um general health
expense, this is the board of health. Um again, contracts under negotiation here. Um that increase is really reflective of uh last year's COLA. um Nishopa Board of Health and Nishoba um nursing. This is
uh assessment increases of 30% uh on both of those. I um was frankly displeased to open up the assessment letter and see such a large increase um especially where the nursing position
had been vacant for some time and we weren't getting necessarily the level of services in at the adult activity center that we were getting when the position was filled. Um I've expressed general displeasure around this. Um, nonetheless, it is still less expensive
than if we were to bring all of this in house. Um, the Council on Aging is currently showing as a $20,147.50 decrease. Um, I'm not going to I'm not planning at least at this point of
decreasing the Council on Aging. There is right now there's been a lot of staffing iteration changes and a lot of discussions around staffing iteration. And so as budgeted right now we have the uh director position, the outreach
position, the full-time meal site manager position and the administrative uh position. And so there is there was this amount of money for a part-time position. And um I need to explore with the director some more about what that
looks like and what is it that we're funding and what is the long-term staffing plan to really understand how how the staffing configuration makes sense. So right now I just have it blanked. It's probably not going to really be a decrease most likely.
>> Say that again. >> It's probably most likely not going to be a decrease in actuality. >> Yeah. So I I I agree with you on getting clarity on what we're getting. We we you know I shared with you uh but there are
services that you know the center lacks um that we could be doing better for our seniors. So I definitely I I I appreciate you having the conversation you're having likely one that I would have it as well.
It is actually I asked that question in our last council on age meeting but we you know it's level service and and figure out what is the important what other services we can provide to our seniors um you know I think it's a good
conversation to have >> agree there's been a lot of changes and different folks coming and going in the organization have changed kind of what the staffing plan would be and I think that this is the soon to be the first time that all four of those positions
will be simultaneously filled. And so I think some of it is what does that look like now? What where are where are the gaps and and then to go from there. >> So we see them in two weeks. We'll have that ironed out by >> I would hope so. >> Okay.
>> I don't know if it'll be approved by the council agent, but yeah, we'll have a meeting. All right. All right. Schools. So uh total between uh all schools is $30,115
$1115,565 or $2,993,570 increase or 11.4.04% increase. So, this budget includes the Lunberg public schools at a $2,875,712 increase, 11.15%
and Monty Techch, who you heard from uh was it last week or two weeks ago with the 8.83% increase. Um, I'm going to let the superintendent and her team speak to what this request represents, but as I understand, um, this is the restoration
budget minus a few items. And I'm going to let the superintendent speak to that next, >> but we don't know what that is, so doesn't matter. Like, >> all right. Culture and recreation. >> So, just to confirm, that's 11% over
last year's budget, not including the $500,000. >> That's correct. >> Okay. I just want to I'll double check that now. Oh, now you're making me worried because I was doing this. >> And that number also the increase like they have a total request.
>> Um, but that increase is not considering the 500,000. Right. So, I'm just going to round numbers like >> So, the budget Yeah. the the budget that I received from um the school business manager, if you look at the bottom line
of FY26, it's not what the town's budget was at FY26, it's the budget plus the 500,000. So, I don't have a budget from the school showing the budgeted number plus the 500,000 plus the FY27. Um
it's a little difficult to speak to with clarity um around that one point. Um all right. Well, we'll hear them um next week. >> But I do want to double check that 11.15% is over the budgeted number and not the
budgeted number plus 500,000. I will double I'm going to confirm that. Yeah, I I was wondering if that 2.8 million is really not 3.3 because they're counting the 500 to be >> double last year. So that's that's my
question. Is it a >> Mhm. I >> is it a 2.8 or 3.3 because they're counting that they that 500 is a given. >> Is it over the right? That's is it over the budgeted or is it over the budgeted plus the 500? Right. >> I'll double check that piece for you.
>> All right. Culture and Recreation. Another very small 1% portion of the budget. 662,1624 or $23,12548 increase or a 3.62% increase. This includes two very small budgets, band
concerts and historical commission. I know we've had some conversations about band concerts and that's uh still funded but perhaps might be operationally a little different. remains to be seen before the season started. Um, but the library is where you're seeing a change.
Um, there is a $5,000 above level service increase to programs, but there's also offsetting decreases to book services there. So, there's an increase, but a accompanying decrease. Um, there is a $10,000 $10,937
increase to library materials and an increase to professional development, but also with professional development increase offsetting decrease to mileage. Um so some small um potentially above level service uh requests intergovernmental
um 2,635,339.93 or $238,2889.95 or a 9.94% increase. Um this is largely being driven by the Wister regional retirement assessment. um the vast majority of that we have no we have no discretion over
this amount. Um so this is this is essentially what this budget is. Um but it is a large increase and we should expect a similar 9.95% increases year-over-year. Um very small inter increase increase of $111.95
to the Montichus Regional Planning Commission. Um last year in the FY26 budget we brought the cherry sheet assessments inside the operating budget. Not really too sure um necessarily why why what our logic was. You saw how we
handled those assessments taking them right off the top in the early slide. That's how we're going to handle it rather they do not need to be appropriated as expenditures as their cherry sheet assessments. Okay. Tax. Can >> I ask one question on the prior slide? >> Yeah. And maybe it's just something you
can send us or point us to, but the the the regional retirement, >> who gets charged for an individual that that retires? Where they end up retiring from or like where they were over their
career. >> Uh the last the last municipality standing owns the retiree. >> Okay. So they could work 40 years somewhere, come here for a day, and then we own them. >> Yep. That's Yep. Right. Yeah. >> Okay.
>> All right. Uh when we talk about retirement, um this doesn't include teacher retirement. Um but it does include all other uh school and town employees that do not pay into MTRS.
Uh tax title, it's final section of expenditures here with no change at $30,500. So, ongoing matters uh that have budgetary impacts. You've heard me um talk about some of these, but just to recap, uh town's currently negotiating
with three labor unions, DPW, who's been out of contract since June 30, 2024, fire, and the clerical union. Uh we also have negotiations ongoing with the public employee committee relative to health insurance. Um, so some of these things are going to likely yield
increases and some of these things will likely yield decreases. Uh, potential windown of the operations of the TC Pasio Pacios building. Uh, depending on how quick some of that comes together, perhaps we can make some budgetary adjustments to the facilities line prior to town meeting. But there'll also be
subsequent impacts to the PAC's operating budget uh where they're going to have to pick up uh most likely some lease costs that are higher than the $500 that we charge at TCP. Uh we are exploring changes to the recycling program as discussed, exploring feasibility of further service
reductions with our IT service provider, dropping down to 3 days if possible. We're discussing those staffing configurations at the adult activity center. This looks like this next one is no longer relevant. park staffing configuration. If the part-time recreation director is not filled, it
looks like that is no longer relevant. And uh whatever the cola is for the salary administrative plan employees, uh right now I am looking at a 3%. Um so how um do our FY27 budget as
presented stack up against our available funds? So the total FY27 Town of Lunberg budget as presented this evening is the 53,17,91387 and our total revenues available for appropriation is less that at the
$49,750,699.99. That leaves the current deficit as described this evening at $3,357,213.88. 88. So the total new revenue uh for FY27 over FY26 is $1,374,26389.
We're going to take $117,858 right off the top of that and that goes to Monty. That's their increase. This leaves $1,256,4589. If we are to distribute that proportionally across the uh same proportion uh that the Lunberg public
schools and the town of Lunberg make up AC across the budget which is the school represents 53.33% of the budget and the town at 43.91%. That would mean that the schools piece of that 1.256 million is $689,5928
based on their increase. that deficit would be 2,186,652.72. The town's portion if uh distributed along these proportions would be $567,346.61 and the town's total budget increase including the fourth shift fire
department is1,73737,97.77. So the deficit for the town would be1,170,5616. So what's next? Oh, so um you have that deficit of 3 million. Yeah. Okay. If I add
on this slide, school budget increase 2.8 8 million and then I add the town 1.7 I get you 4.6 million. >> Were you going to add the deficits? >> Three. No, that's the it's it's the
deficits. Yeah, it's the deficits add up. It's the the 3.3 on this slide. the 3.3 3,357,213.88 88 >> is is that >> is the deficit and that's based on
>> so that's the total based on the total how much we're short if I take now new revenue and distribute it proportionally which is what this slide shows compared to the budgetary requests of the town and the school's
deficit would be the 2.186 million the town's deficit would be the 1.17 million if you add those two together and you come up with that same $3.3 million deficit. >> Okay. So, so it's not that the budget is
increasing by 37. >> The budget's increasing by a greater number than that. >> The budget is increasing by 46 million, >> right? Because you have the benefits of Proposition 2 and a half, the um the benefits of uh new growth. So, the
overall available if we can go back, hold on. back here. All right. So on this slide, that total 51 million $436,771.99. >> Mhm. If we subtract from that what that
number was last year, that's where we get that total amount of new revenues available for appropriation. Um, so we're already getting more money in because largely Proposition 2 and a half, the allowable Prop 2 and a half
increase. Um, it's a that deficit is what's above and beyond that increase. >> The 3.3 is above >> above and beyond. So overall the budget is increasing both sides four 4.6 which
is pretty close to overall 10%. >> Yeah. So here's the total on this earlier slide. I know it's a lot of information all at once but on the FY27 expenditure summary. Yeah. >> And I know you did a you drop it but this afternoon I couldn't read everything.
>> No there's a lot of information. So the the dollar change >> it's 4.7 >> is 4.7 million. The deficit is the 3.3. >> Gotcha. Okay. And so the the difference between those
two is that available the additional funds available for appropriation. And so that's just kind of illustrative. Um let me be clear on that. So is this the amount of money that's being distributed to town and school? I don't think that we're at those points having those
conversations right now. If we were to break down the available new revenue on that same proportion, this is how it would break out. It doesn't mean that this is what's going anywhere. It's just if we were
going to break out that additional 1.256 million proportionally, this is how it would break out. All right. So, what's next? A lot of information tonight. To the public at home, it's probably even more information because you haven't been
engaged in the tri board process since July or August whenever we started. So, first thing we close out of FY25 should be happening fairly soon. I hope to have our certified free cash very, very soon.
Um, again, we know it's north of looking like it's north of 3 million. How much north of that remains to be seen. Once I get that, I'm going to revisit the FY27 capital plan and other planned expenditures, OPED stabilization, snow and ice, and give uh finance committee
and select board a presentation on preliminary free cash expenditures. Um departmental presentations um are going to continue over the series of next weeks and we are going to continue to revise these budgets over the next weeks
and months. these um you know this is going to definitely be one of those circumstances where if you're picking up the spreadsheet and said didn't you tell us last week that it was going to be this well yes but we've done some work here and we've revisited it and we can do whatever it is or maybe the union
negotiation is further along and and we have a more clear picture um so things are going to change um tribard um will be reconvening I believe shortly to discuss next steps There's um a meeting happening tomorrow between the chairs of
all the boards and staff um to discuss kind of what that might look like. Um I anticipate that um there's going to be a lot of dialogue that happens in the community. Um but some specific dates. Um the fourth shift fire presentation is
this coming Monday um on the 23rd at the um is it at the adult activity center or is it at the library? I think it's at the adult activivity center. Thank you. Um, finance committee public hearing is currently slated for March
19th. Um, we know that we're going to need to take this on the road and answer some questions. So, uh, we're going to likely have some forums uh where people can engage in advance of town meeting. Um, this is not an easy decision for anybody to make. We're asking folks to
voluntarily potentially raise their taxes to a certain level and um you know they need to engage in that process and ask questions and we need to hear from them of what they value and what's important to them as well. Um this isn't any decision that I want to make by
myself. This is a community decision for the community. Um, and then annual town meeting May 2nd, 2026 at 9:00 a.m. hopefully not continuing into Sunday and Monday.
But I do anticipate a a lot of dialogue. I think that this this is always a difficult conversation for any community to have. Um, and I anticipate and expect that there's going to be a lot of questions for us. So that >> just one note on the the 319 date. We've
talked a little bit about whether how reasonable that is, >> right? It might it might be a little closing and if there's other moneyed articles that we need to hear, >> you know, we do need to remind folks if they >> are putting a money moneyed article forward, it needs to come before us. Yep.
>> To be properly put onto the warrant. I know there's at least I was going to say at least one committee that's presenting a money article. >> Okay. So, we'll have to get that into the calendar somewhere. >> Trust fun commission.
>> Well, yeah. Okay. Um but yeah, >> Jen, one thing that you talked about it and I you you speak really fast so it's like listening to YouTube on 2.0 O
speedh. It's a compliment. >> You know what? It's it's to that I'm going to make a joke here when I listen to these meetings at 2.0 speed cuz when I do I listen to them at 2.0 and if it's a select board meeting except when either myself or the chair speak because
then I'm like okay 2.0 with us speaking is way too fast. >> Um where what is the PR firm that you said it was in separate like I don't recall. >> Oh okay. So, uh, yeah, we've had that contract for a couple years. Uh, John
Gilfoil PR, uh, maybe not a couple years, it was brought pri it was contract was brought on prior to my time. It's just shy of, uh, $10,000 annually. Um, I I don't think that it's always been used as effectively as it
could have been. Um, they it's called John Gilfoil PR. Um, they do public relations for municipalities um, across the Commonwealth. Um the contract covers all crisis communications. If something were to
happen, they're here on demand. Um but in addition to that, it's uh three a month communications. They did the the piece that it actually got picked up by the wire and got brought nationally. So the piece on officer Mcamera um that was
drafted by John Gilfoil, a PR firm. Um they do there's other smaller stories that they write but they they write stories um generally just three a month and then if something happens they're here.
>> Gotcha. Okay. I just thought um yeah I mean so I I I am I am quite surprised like the town's budgets going up by 1.7 million. Um you
know if I take the fire DPW and the assistant town manager that's 800,000. Um then we're left with another 900,000. >> Yep. which >> we have some >> which is retirement Worester County
that's 20 whatever 232,000. >> Is that an assessed value that must be deposited? >> Yeah, that's that's an assessment. We get a bill and and is that the oped thing? >> No. No. Uh OPED is for uh retirey health insurance.
>> Okay. >> Um Worester County retirement is is retirement for employees. It's dependent. >> Okay. Um, >> so that is a >> that's a bill. >> That's a bill >> and it it's it's one sheet of paper with
uh one number on it. Uh >> what was the increase? >> We should do a little presentation. >> A little presentation >> eventually. >> Oh, sounds good. >> Because there's some >> a lot to it. >> There's a lot to it. >> All right. Worester County >> because really they're funding their own,
>> right? You are selfunding. So, it's it's a and I if I if I recall correctly, there was a vote taken maybe 2 or 3 years ago um for a higher increase so that retirees could have a one-time cola um
which has some of this impact um bad decision in my assessment, but um $238,178 on Wester County alone. So that's a 10% increase. >> Yeah. 9.95% increase. Y.
>> So if that's a 10% increase, that's like a$25,000 $30,000 increase. >> It's $230,000 increase. >> Oh, the 230 is the increase total. Okay. >> Yeah, that's the increase. >> Gotcha.
>> This that's a big line. That's a total. Hold on. Yeah. Too far back. Worister County. So now we're a million. >> So Worester County
total for FY27 2,630,750. much of this line actually. So that at the top of that slide, the intergovernmental, it's all Worester County except the few thousand for MRPC.
Um yeah, $4,589 of it is MRPC. Everything else in intergovernmental is retirement. And again, that's not town employees only. It's town plus any non uh >> non-teers >> non-teer school. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Okay, we're going to go through more of this in detail though, right?
When we go through budgets. >> Um, so we are at 10:15. Um, I do want to I I thought that your presentation was great tonight for a preliminary budget. I also thought that the um the department presentations were
really good. I know that um >> there was some rumblings within the >> the department heads formats and stuff. Maybe it was back channel, but they did a great job nonetheless. So, >> they didn't rise to my office. So, the rumblings.
>> Um, so I appreciate them putting them in the formats that we asked for, hitting on the highlights of them in addition to doing it through the the tri board, which I thought helped this process a lot. >> I think so. I think that everybody, department heads, public, boards, committees, and commissions have all
benefited from this information sharing. >> Okay. So, we had old business that's on here just for, you know, if anyone wants to talk about u potential prop 2 and a half override. We've kind of hinted at some of it or tribard discussion. So, if
anyone had a >> I had one question um from a couple weeks ago, there was a discussion about um free cash not being reconciled and all that. Um I I guess the question I have is um we
have a we have I know that they said there's audits being done. Audit was done. Have an auditing firm come in. Did they miss this or was it not part of the audit or was it >> N let me be clear. So the we have an annual audit every year. The last audit
that we have concluded was FY24. Um, we have not engaged yet around the FY25 audit. They won't I I actually anticipate an engagement letter today. I didn't get it. But, um, they won't start
the work on it until we close out. This is not something that would This was, let me be mindful of how I say this. This should have been completed in this should have been started in the summer
of 2025. and should have been completed in early fall of 2025. I was not receiving accurate information around the status. This is not something that an auditing firm would find.
>> Well, I mean, they would find it if it was >> they they wouldn't audit us. So, this is >> until it was >> they wouldn't audit us. And so, this is a process, >> right, >> that every year the town has to complete by November 30, >> right? That's so if you don't complete
that process by November 30, your audit doesn't start, >> right? >> You're not a because they're auditing the books as they've closed. Our books weren't closed. Our votes at town meeting from May weren't adjusted
in the system. Things were not happening. So the systems are in place though and the practices are now or being put in place >> being put in place. Okay. >> Like you know one of those is that frankly once we get to the baseline that
I'm going to see sign offs or whoever the town manager to have signoffs of the monthly reconciliation between the town accountant and the treasur collector so that that's happening by I mean that's required to happen every 30 days. if you keep up on that reconciliation, it's a lot easier at the end of the year
because you're you're not searching. So Karen Brochu um has been uh working on closing out. That's what she's been doing. And so she's remarked that she feels like she's lived a year and a half of a fiscal life of Lunenburgg in the
past month. Um and she sees all of the we've done. Um, but frankly the work that she's doing wasn't all necessary if it had been done >> as you go along.
>> Is there a penalty for not closing out your books? >> So we were so so the they can start to um give uh hold back your your state aid. um that doesn't actually start
happening until February. That is what I was panicking about because we were at the warning of you. We're going to actually start withholding your state aid and that's when we we did successfully receive the extension through the end of February. Um I don't
think we're going to need another extension. Um, but if we if we didn't, let's say if we didn't close it out or we didn't, we're just not able to get it together. There's there's another community. It's in the news. I can just say Hudson. This is the story of Hudson. Hudson has not been able to close out.
Um, and and they they're not getting their revenue stream in. The state has just turned I think I read in the local newspaper um maybe a month or so ago, the state has just after over a year turned that flow back on. um in in a
little bit. But no, there's serious consequences if you don't close out your books. >> And does it affect our grants? Like if we're writing a grant and we're not closed out? >> Um not in that way, but but um your grants need to be accurately reported in that as well.
>> So could >> and they asked for some grants ask for. >> Right. So I'm thinking like some of the things that we didn't get >> is because we weren't >> No, no, no, no. They wouldn't have known that. No. So at this point thankfully
other than costs associated with cleaning up um and effects on our operation. We haven't had and and by that I mean functionality. We haven't had negative impacts. It certainly has impacted our
ability to pick up the FY27 budgeting process and be able to just begin running with it. That's for sure. Okay. Thank you. I'm glad you got the extension. >> Me, too. And I'm and I'm glad that honestly I I I
got to say I don't know that we'd be in this position and that I'd be reporting this if Karen Brochu wasn't willing and able to step back up because it is only because she knows our chart of accounts and knows our system that she's been
able to do this in in the speed that she has. if if we had stayed with um outside consultants doing the work, it we definitely would have been receiving extensions um but I don't think it would have been done as quickly.
>> Well, thank Karen Forest. >> Yes. >> Maybe we can bring her in for our celebratory job. >> Okay. All right. So, we don't have any minutes. I I didn't see any minutes at least. Um uh any committee reports? I know we have
loose assignments on those maybe at this point, but if there is anything >> I mean I I don't think we have assignments. >> We had assignments, but >> um >> I mean I I from the time that I've been here, we haven't >> Okay. >> Anyone have any committee reports?
>> Um any actions and topics for future meetings? >> All right. Uh upcoming meetings. We're in the month. We're in the weekly push through fincom meetings um for the next, you know, several weeks. I
I know some of us won't be able to go to all of them. If you're not, you know, obviously find the 2X feature and listen to everyone speak quickly. Um thank you for pushing the materials into the the SharePoint so the um it's easily accessible.
Um any public comments from the public? Um, can I ask who's going to be in the meeting? Who's presenting next week? >> Next week is schools >> and it, right? >> And it Yeah. Okay. Schools and IT. >> Um, again, I'm going to offer to put
questions together. The department heads offered said that they were it was easy for them to address the questions. Um, so if you want to send it to me, I can get it. Do you know when we're going to get the school presentation?
>> I'll ask tomorrow morning. What? >> Um >> I think they're voting I think they're presenting it the day before at the school committee. >> I think I read that too. >> Um is what was said. Uh we were supposed to have them this week, but they did
need to get it one more week. So it might be tight. >> I I'm Yeah, I mean it makes it impossible to do a an analysis of their what they're presenting and ask questions. But the other thing I won't be here um March 12th. Go ahead.
>> DPW, >> I know >> what >> DPW, >> one comment I want to say is I want to thank Anna for putting this together. I think this really puts our department heads at ease when they get questions ahead of time and they feel much more prepared and we're able to hear and see
the questions that are asked and answered. So Anna, thank you very much. This is very very helpful. >> If you guys have any, please send it over and I'll save it on the folder like I did. So I won't necessarily have them printed, but you can take a look at them
or just follow or learn. >> Much appreciated. >> Yeah. And and the department heads, while they may be grumbling behind the scenes about my presentation format, I haven't heard any grumblings about me. >> Oh, good. >> But they have not grumbled about the
questions. Um to the contrary. >> Great. >> Okay. Again, any public comment from the public? All right. Any public comment from the committee? All right. With that, I would entertain a motion to adjurnn.
>> So moved. >> Second. >> All right. All in favor say I. >> I. Um we are adjourned at 10:23. Thank you all.