I thought the meeting started at 7. >> Uh 6:4. >> Why am I going >> recording in progress? >> All right. Good evening and welcome to tonight's meeting of the Lunberg Select Board. We have a tri board meeting
starting right after this. Please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
justice for all. In accordance with the requirements of the open meeting law, please be advised that this meeting is being recorded and broadcast live over the Lunberg public access channel on Facebook live on the public access Facebook page and will be uploaded to the Lunberg Access YouTube
channel after the meeting. The agenda lists all the topics which may be discussed at the meeting and are those reasonably anticipated by the chair. Votes may be taken as a result of these discussions. Not all items listed may in fact be discussed and other items not listed may also be brought up for discussion to the extent permitted by
the open meeting law. So, the select board has a couple items that we have to get through first. And um up first is a joint meeting of the select board, school committee, and moderator to appoint a representative to the Montichus Regional Vocational School Committee. And we have Stephanie Quinn
here as our candidate. So, first I will ask uh the chair of the school committee to call the school committee to order. I hereby call the school committee to order. >> All right. Fantastic. All right. So, we are in our joint meeting now. So, I will pass it over to you, Miss Quinn, to
introduce yourself. >> Hello everyone. My name is Stephanie Quinn. I live at 150 H Hotton Mill Road in Lunberg. Um, I am a proud parent of two Monty Techch graduates uh in 2022 and 2024. They had a wonderful
experience there. Um, I have worked in a school district. I work in chumps for chumps public school for the last 23 years now. I am the history and social science department coordinator for the entire district. Um I look forward to serving uh the community in this manner
and giving lots of um insight and feedback from our community to the Monty Techch School Committee. >> Great. Thank you, Stephanie. All right, I'll open it up to the any select board members that have any questions. Trying to see where everyone's at. Brian,
>> thank you. Uh, thank you, Stephanie. Um, I think you have a very extensive background in education. Um, which I think would be great. I think you'd be a great member on the Lunberg School Committee as well. U, my question was going to be, what experience do you have as a vocational in a vocational setting
and supporting vocational schools? But the fact that you said both of your children went to Monty Tech, I feel like you support uh, Monty Tech as well. So, I support this appointment. Thank you. >> As do I. Anything else from any select board members? Okay, I'll pass it off to the school committee.
>> Does any school committee member have any questions? >> All right. So, we can vote on this separately. So, uh the select board can go first. Is there a motion to appoint? >> I make a motion to appoint Stephanie Quinn to the Massachusetts uh vocational schools school committee.
>> Second. >> Any additional discussion? All right. All those in favor say I. >> I. Those opposed? No. The motion passes unanimously. >> Make a motion or I'm looking for a motion to um appoint Stephanie to the Massachusetts School Committee.
>> I motion to appoint Stephanie Quinn to the Massachusetts Regional School Committee. >> I don't know. >> I second. >> All in favor? >> I I >> And then Mr. Moderator, I believe. >> Absolutely. I do have one I do have one
vote and I uh had the pleasure of talking to Stephanie earlier as we were getting set up and I can understand that she has a great passion for this and we hope she serves just as long as her predecessor did >> which was many many many years. Ara
Reynolds served us very well over those many years so I would definitely move to appoint her as well. >> All right great. Okay. Um All right. Congratulations. Uh you know you need to get sworn in tomorrow before the meeting. Okay. Okay. And you know where to go for that. Okay. Fantastic. Well, thank you for coming in, Stephanie.
>> Thank you, everyone. >> Yeah. Have a good night. >> You, too. >> Thank you for volunteering. >> Yes. >> Yes. Thank you for >> All right. So, the school committee can uh vote to close their meeting. Now, we have two items that we have to do still. Real quick,
>> I'm looking for a motion to close our meeting. >> I'll make a motion to close our this committee meeting. >> I'll second it. >> All right. All in favor? >> I to close our >> All right, we'll do this real quickly. So, up first, authorize FY2026 to FY2028
agreement between the town of Lunberg and the Montichus Regional Transit Authority, MART, for Council on Aging Services. Jen, all the way over there, did you get um a response from them? >> Yes. So, you have a response in your packet. Um but in short, uh the language
about the insurance for MART was a holdover language. They had not been reimbursing for the duration of this contract. Um, but the cost of the insurance is $29 if they were. So, that's what we would be looking at, but they haven't been reimbursing anyways. So, it's a language cleanup, but not a
substantive change. >> All right, great. Any questions on that? >> Nope. >> All right. Is there a motion to authorize the agreement between the town of Lunberg and Mark for Council on Aging Services? >> So moved. >> Second. >> All right. Those in favor say I. >> I. I.
>> Those opposed, no. Motion passes unanimously. And one more recommendations to the master plan steering committee on the master plan update. Do any members have any additional feedback that they want to discuss before we end up sending this back to them? >> No. >> No. >> No. >> All right. Fantastic. And with that, I
will Well, I guess I'll just keep the meeting going or should I close it? >> Close it. >> Okay. Is there a motion to adjurnn? >> Make a motion to adjurnn at 7:01 p.m. >> Second. >> All right. All those in favor say I. I. I. Those opposed, no. The motion passes unanimously. All right, we can start
with our regularly scheduled tri board meeting now. >> It's good timing. >> It's good timing though. >> Now it's 7:01. This is the tri board meeting of Tuesday, September 30th, uh, 2025. Uh, it is 7:00 and we are here in
the Bulada meeting room at Town Hall. And although it seems repetitious, it seems appropriate that we should pledge the flag. >> Sure. >> Okay. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. >> And although you may already have heard the same preamble, I will repeat it for this particular meeting. In accordance with the requirements of the open
meeting law, please be advised that this meeting is being recorded and broadcast live over the Lunberg public access channel on Facebook Live and on the public access Facebook page. Um, additionally, please be advised that the
town of UD Lunenburgg utilizes the Zoom platform as its host for these hybrid and remote meetings. This meeting will be held in person at the location provided on the notice. Members of the public are welcome to attend this in-person meeting. Uh please note that while an option for remote attendance is
being provided as a courtesy to the public, the meeting will not be suspended or terminated if there are technical problems that interrupt the virtual broadcast. If you wish to watch these this broadcast remotely from a computer, please use the link that was provided in the posting. The agenda
lists all the topics that may be discussed at the meeting and those reasonably anticipated by the chair. Not all items listed may be discussed and other items may be not listed may be brought up for discussion as permitted by the open meeting law. At this point in time, I would ask each one of the
committees to open their meeting. I'll start with schools. >> School committee is called to order. >> Okay. And select board >> uh select board is called to order. >> And finance >> finance committee is called to order.
>> Excellent. And the first matter of business is a uh uh we're doing preliminary budget presentations tonight and we're starting with DPW and I can see our director is here. Welcome. >> You may sit up here. You may have my
seat but I don't want to get up. >> There you go. Thank you, Bill. >> Yep. [Music] All right. So, uh, my name is Bill Bernard. I'm the DPW director. Fly through my, uh,
presentation. I'm going to start off by just listing my goals and objectives and then I, I dive into them a little bit. So our first goal is employee experience or to enhance the employee experience. And objective one is to work with the staff
uh to boost morale. Objective two again work with the staff to and um to get a new collective bargaining agreement for our highway crew. Objective three is to identify needs for
additional staff and advocate for that. Uh, objective four is to increase training. Objective five is um to work with staff again to identify weaknesses in our orientation and onboarding practices.
And objective six is to get the sewer business manager position reclassified. Goal number two is um related to the snow and ice budget. So the objective number one is to reduce spending by
using town equipment rather than hiring private vendors to plow our snow. Objective number two is to hire a new heavy equipment operator. Uh we've been short since August. Objective
three is to hire um two to four intermediate in heavy equipment op operators or seasonal heavy equipment operators to drive our existing equipment again instead of hiring out.
And objective number four is to request capital funds for another CDL class um plow truck. And goal number three is to is for a storm water utilities. So the first
objective is to um get a draft of a warrant article for the 2026 annual town meeting to try to get that approved. Objective number two is to work with the storm water task force to
um gain support. So by attending meetings like with the select board and the finance committee and others. Objectives number three assumes that the utility is passed is to start hiring staff to um fill out the the storm water
utility. And then objective four, again assuming it's passed, is to stop purchasing equipment that will be used by the utility. All right. So that's the the highlights of it. So now I'm going jump into it a
little deeper. So for employee experience, um going to need additional funding to accomplish the goals, right? So the first goal was the collective bargaining bargaining agreement. Uh right now we have some of the lowest
paid highway workers of the 25 towns that we compare to as low as the 10th percentile. Um the next goal is the U staff I believe is underst staffed. So rough standard
industry is one one worker for every eight to 15 miles of roadway. Do the math on us, it comes out to be six workers where it could be as much as 11 workers.
Um the reason why I want to increase is there's just increased demand almost every day for to get work done and we just don't have the staff to do it. And like this summer we had one guy out for most of the summer on injury, another
guy left. So we were down that's 40% of the staff. So we didn't do quite as much work as we should have this summer. Um goal number three, right? Storm water utility that will increase staff. if
it's passed, we can use that staff will be helping out with the highway staff. Um, additional funds is also needed for to help out with the executive assistant position. Right now, the executive assistant is shared between DPW and
facilities. Most days is okay, but there are times at crunch time. It's the workload's way too much. It's stressing people out. you know, mistakes can be made easily. So, we need some help there.
There's a big demand for the cemeteries, the grass to be mowed a lot more. Um, right now we only have one person in the cemeteries. We supplement with two seasonal laborers, but I my I think we need a full-time
cemetery laborer. Um, that'd be somebody who can just cut the grass full-time. And it would also help with goal number two, the snow and ice budget, because that person would be here in the winter, can drive one of the smaller plow trucks.
I also believe we need a a fleet supervisor mechanic. Um, we only have one mechanic now. He's responsible for all DPW, police, fire, and police and fire equipment. Um, why we need a a fleet supervisor is
we need to have better repair and maintenance records and we need somebody to help with purchasing equipment. A lot of that falls on me. You know, I work with the mechanic, but it just it pulls away from the DPW director's position.
Uh, additional funding is needed to reclassify the sewer business manager position. It's presently it's um classified as a grade eight. Uh, back in 24 the personnel committee ranked it as
a grade 12, but then they changed their minds. Not sure why. Uh there's no other position in town that manages a budget in in excess of $2 million like the sewer business manager does. That's less than a grade 16 and he's only a grade 12.
Um there's a perception that it's just an administrative type position, but given the responsibilities and accountabilities of the position, it is truly a management position. And there are no other positions that require the extensive use of munis and
knowledge of rules, regulations, and laws. That's less than a grade 14. So I think this is long overdue. [Music] Uh so potential cost savings if we
implement all this is um increased risk management training will via rewards and if we institute a new orientation onboarding and mentoring program we're definitely going to help with retention
and productivity. All right, goal number two, snow and ice budget. We can see cost savings if we hire if we purchase our own equipment instead of hiring out trucks. So, I did an
analysis. I got a big spreadsheet if anybody wants to see it, but the bottom line is it costs at least 8 and a half% less to use our own equipment, our own operators than to hire out. Um, and I base that off of the cost of our highest
paid heavy equipment operator. You know, if you put the other guys in there, that that 8 and a2% will grow. The average annual savings was just around $2,500. But the added bonus is if we buy the
truck, we have that truck year round, not just the winter. So, we can use it during the summer. Uh, so again, we need to hire another heavy equipment operator to get us back to full staff. The guy that's injured is supposed to come back next week. Fingers
crossed. Again, we need two to four intermediate heavy equipment operators to operate our trucks. Um, right now, well, we should have six trucks by the time the snow flies. I've had two trucks on order for
19 months, and they're telling me they're coming soon. So, um, we have six trucks, but we only have three CDL drivers. So, we we need to hire people to drive those trucks.
Um, I think in the new uh collective bargaining agreement is we should look at a CDL training program. It's we found it easier to hire laborers than to hire heavy equipment operators.
The the a lot of people with the the CDL license and the hoisting license, they don't want to come work here for the the small pay, but we were able to hire laborers. And if we train them up, have them get
their CDL, you know, first of all, we know who they are, right? They'll probably be here a year or so. We know if they're good. We know if they're going to work out, and in the long run, it it'll help us. Um, since I've worked here, it's been
just a revolving door and heavy equipment already. They come in, they work one guy a week, one guy a few months, another guy six months. The guy that just left was here two years. That that was the longest one. It's um there's other opportunities out there
for them. So they they take it. Uh so Snow's budget again. Uh like I said, if we purchase the new CDL class dump truck, um I'm going to request that in my capital request this year. And the
estimated cost is about 425,000. Um, that same truck when I priced it in 22 was only 300,000. Prices have gone crazy on trucks. So, the reason why I needed the seventh
truck is we have seven snow and ice roots. Right now, we only have six trucks. So, I have to hire somebody else to, you know, take on that seventh route. And that truck costs more. and a little bit about the Mass General
laws allows municipalities to deficit spend for snow and ice removal. Our goal is to reduce the deficit, but not to the point where it goes away because if you do that, then you can't deficit spend the next year. So over the last five
years, our deficit is $255,000. So you'll see in subsequent side slides that I want to increase by two and a half% each year just to help reduce that deficit spending. Plus if we're not hiring more trucks, that'll help reduce it, too.
All right, goal number three, the storm utility. So the reason why we need that is there's just not enough operational capital and chapter 90 funds to do all the work that's required by the MS4 permit. So for those that don't know the
MS4 permit is the municipal separated storm water storm sewer system program. It's part of the national pollution discharge elimination system established by the clean water act. federal act and the
goal of the MS4 per permit is to reduce pollution from storm water runoff that is just discharged at the local waters bodies through municipal storm sewers. So the the big concern for the feds for us is the the runoff that gets
ultimately into the Nasha River system. Um, failure to comply with this law can result in penalties that can exceed $50,000 per day. Do I think that's going
to happen to us? No. But it could. So, the storm water utility will be an enterprise fund, meaning it's self-supported with user fees rather than through general tax revenues. So it will result in less reliance on
operational funds. Um we'll be adding new personnel with needed administrative assistant to mostly for the billing purposes and it could be shared with DBW which will help with goal number one experience um employee experience try to
take some load off of the my um executive assistant. Uh we will need to hire a stormwater GIS/engineer. Um again that'll take some of the workload off of the DPW director
regarding field investigations and inspections, logging and reporting of data. Um we'll have to hire another heavy equipment operator whose main job focus will be storm water.
um they could do the sweeping and catch basin cleaning and uh other tasks. And again, that person who would be available in the winter to drive one of the CDL trucks, help with goal number
two, the snow and ice budget. The storm water utility fund will be used to buy um new equipment. So, we would need a a 110 dump truck. The cost of those is getting ridiculous.
$100,000. By the time we purchase it, I purchased one less than two years ago for $62,000 and now they're almost $100,000. Uh, we don't have a pipe inspection camera, which we really need right now.
We have to hire out for that. Um, we don't do it as often as we should, but if we had the camera, it would truly help us. And instead of having a the clamshell catch basin cleaner truck, uh, we want
to upgrade to a vacuum Jetta truck. Um, right now we hired them out. They're $2,700 a day. Um, and if we did have a a sewer overflow somewhere, having a truck inhouse would be there much faster than
trying to call vendors and see if they can come out. Um, you know, many of our pump stations, if that's where the overflow is, are right next to wetlands. So, we don't want to be polluting wetlands with an overflow.
[Music] All right. So the next slide is a look at the organizational chart as it stands today. And Jen, you can bump us up. We uh you can
see we're it's a small crew, especially on the highway side. We have three heavy equipment operators and two driver laborers and a highway superintendent. Um the next slide shows the proposed DPW
chart, right? So that would be hiring a part-time administrative assistant potentially, uh a fleet supervisor, and the full-time cemetery labor. And then the yellow on the right there is the whole new storm water crew, the the
administrative assistant, the GIS engineer, and the heavy equipment operator. All right, then quick overview. This is uh snapshot of the budgets kind of broken down by department.
Um so this is assuming that the storm water utility is enacted in FY27, right? So I dig deeper into it. So the tree removal department I'm
saying we could pretty much level fund going out the next three years. Excuse me. So general highway uh which covers a lot but um drainage and storm water line items are in that.
So we will see decreases in the drainage and storm water line items if the storm water utility is enacted. Um in FY26 the
payment management line got slashed pretty bad. So I put it back to where it should be in FY27 and the goal was to bump it up $50,000 a year thereafter. So that's what this plan is showing. So, I threw in chapter 90 here because
talked about pavement management and drainage. Um, even if we enact a storm water utility, we're still going to need money to do um engineering and drainage repairs. So I've re recently got a um
Calvin and bridge report that points out what we have what deficiencies and there's quite a few. So there'll be a project pretty much a year you know so one year I do the engineering next year I'll ask for the construction funds on
and that's on top of everything else the storm water utility will be doing. And we also, even with the pavement management money being put back in, we will still have to grab some money out of chapter 90 for pavement
management. All right, the highway supplies I say we can level fund that. Um, the next one is the labor, right? So that there there will be increases there, right? There will be a new collective bargain bargaining agreement
for the highway crew. Um, and then there's the regular payraises for the clerical and SAP employees. I just took a guess on where the numbers might be to for this budget, but until
that's hammered out, we don't know. And then snow removal. Again, um, I said bump it up 2 and a half% annually. So each line item I bumped up two and a half% each year going out traffic signs and devices. I think we
can continue to level fund that vehicle maintenance for DBW only. I think we can continue to level fund that. the cemetery department. Uh, pretty much
level fund except again for salaries. And again, it's it's kind of a guess where we're going to be and added in the new cemetery labor if if we can and then the recycling and the solid waste programs.
Excuse me. I think we can level fund those. We have a contract with GW Shaw through FY29 and um their rates have been pretty good and the citizens in town are pretty good about the recycling and putting their trash in the yellow
bags and not throwing away too much. So I think we can continue level funded there. So then I took a look at the budget if the storm water utility is not enacted
and that's just a quick overview. So the next slide kind of shows the difference but if it is not enacted and if it is enacted. So the difference is in FY28 335,000 and FY29 420,000.
So the next slide will explain that a little bit. And again, it's the reasons for the bumps. If it's not enacted, I'm going to need more money in the drainage line item and the storm water line item just to to do some of the work that the
MS4 permit is requiring. Um, so just this this one just kind of highlights what what is needed if the storm water is not approved. Again, funding to meet
the requirements of the MS4 permit and engineering support for drainage, storm water, and infrastructure repairs and to hire another heavy equipment operator. I threw in my uh pre preliminary look at
uh capital planning. So, it's uh FY27 around a million dollars. FY28 1.2 and FY29 around a million and it mostly consists of replacement equipment on our regular
schedule for that. um engineering and construction for drainage bridge, you know, projects. And one thing that's a little different is um for snow and ice. Um
right now our existing salt shed was built in the 1960s. So the timber structure that sits on the concrete foundation is in pretty bad shape. There's holes in the roof. It's sliding off the concrete at one spot.
There's no door, so moisture is getting in there. Uh, yeah, it's only a matter of time before that thing falls. So, I have I'm going to have requests for engineering to build a new shed and then construction of that shed. But also um
the nature of the storms, snowstorms now is it I'm sure everybody's noticed it's more rain and sle and ice instead of heavy snow. Um which requires more salt
and salt is not cheap. So, it's one of the things we can do to help reduce the salt is use liquid deicing chemicals or anti-icing chemicals depending on how you use them. Um, Mass DOT has been doing that for over 20
years and they've seen reductions in their salt usage. So, it's the the way of the future for snow and ice and we should be there. uh grants. So, I try to apply for as
many grants as I can. Um but most grants are competitive. Therefore, we can't count on them being as a funding source. And grants are for capital projects. They won't they don't help with the operational budget. Any questions or comments?
>> Must be some right. >> I'm ready. Oh, just call on people. I'm not going to do that. Brian's going to go. >> Yeah, I I have uh >> No, you just call on people. >> So, Bill, thank you for the presentation and the the detail. I did have a question about the storm water utility. Um, has there been other towns that have
uh implemented this? And also, uh, in regards to the user fees, can you be a little bit more specific of like who are the users, what the those costs of the users would be, what those fees would be? Um, would every citizen be a user? >> Yeah. So there's um I'm not sure how
many towns in Massachusetts yet, but around 50, maybe some more by this time. Um user fees. So right now, nothing's settled, right? We're still discussing it, but we're looking Oh, users will be
everybody who owns a piece of property in town, right? So residents and businesses. Um we want to keep it as less expensive as we can. So, I think we're going to set a flat rate for residents. It's looking
like it's going to be $60 per year. So, not not too big. Um, but then we have a sliding scale for businesses and others based on the amount of imperous surface. So, where the water can't infiltrate
into the ground, that surface. So, if you have a big parking lot, a big roof, you're going to pay more, right? So if you have smaller parking lot, smaller roof, you'll pay a little less, but it will be more than the resident's paying.
So again, we're working through those details. >> Thank you. >> You're welcome. >> Is the flat rate a fixed rate or will it change year to year? >> It could potentially change. Um, you know, we're also looking at maybe we
can um give people breaks on it if if they have storm water or BMPPS in their yard already. That's um something for the future, I think, just to get us up and running. We'll just do that flat rate of 60 for everybody and then
implement, you know, changes as we go. Um, I think I'll need a bigger staff to to help with that, right? Because somebody might come in and say, you know, I got this BMP. Why am I paying the same as my neighbor who doesn't, right? But but somebody has to go out and investigate that and make sure it's
being maintained, right? If it's not maintained, it's not doing its job. So that's that's why you need the staff for that. >> Did you have a slide with the cost to the town of implementing a storm water utility or there? It would be it would just be the fees. So would we charge one
year upfront and then it would be implemented after the charge is enacted or is there going to be the town puts some money up front and then it becomes an enterprise? >> No, there's no money from the town. So it'll all be user fees. >> Okay. So but there would be a delay
between the taxes and we have to pay the user fee >> and then it would get up and running. You would hire people and buy the equipment. in my budgets. I um in FY27, assuming it's enacted in 27,
the storm water and drainage lines in 27 are are the same or up from last year from 26, but then in 28 and 29, they go down, right? Because that's when we'll have the money like you're saying. Yeah. We can't can't start the
program with zero dollars. Um, I had another question. Uh, one of the slides said that there was a 25% more for hired plows and then one of the other ones said it was 8.5% more greater than a DPW heavy equipment
operator. And so what's the difference between those two figures? >> The 25% is wrong. So I had done that spreadsheet last year and at that point it was around 25% a different cost but the spread the biggest thing was the cost of
the truck went way up right so that brought it down to that 8 and a half% >> so outsourcing plowing did it get cheaper or what what are the parameters that changed >> what the biggest change was when I put in the cost of us buying a new truck I
had the $300,000 now it's $425,000 for the same truck. >> Okay. So, >> so I built in the cost of the truck into, you know, what it costs overall to to use it, right? >> So, which number is accurate? The 25% or
the 8.5? >> 8.5. >> Okay. >> I I have a few questions. Um, you said that there's no Um I staff is for FY25 was around 48,000.
In FY23 I remember there was a lot of snow that year. Um it looks like this year was also high but I didn't I don't think of this past year as a actual a lot of snow. Um do you have a cause like in FY23 it was a lot of snow. What happened
FY25? >> There was a lot of ice storms. So, it's basically your babysitting, right? >> Okay. >> They go out, they put salt, they wait till it gets slippery again, they go out and do it again, >> right? There wasn't a lot of snow, but we had temperatures right near the
freezing line and sometimes above, but the roads could still freeze then. So, they were there longer hours and we had more higher equipment at expensive rates. So >> this year because I know that the rental was also an issue in FY23 but I in FY25
we we are still don't have all the equipment that we need to have >> yet. Right. >> Okay. Okay. Um for the storm water, what is the that $60? What is that the group is thinking
you'll be collecting per year from the storm water utility? Right. So it's a use a fee. >> No. Right. But what is the total budget for that >> for for the operation charging people according to the fees that you guys have
developed. >> Right. So to use the fees I I think the budget was around $500,000 is what we wanted to collect. >> Okay. So you guys are aiming for $500,000. And right now those two lines, how much
are we using of your budget? towards that $500,000 goal. >> So most of the well the entire storm water budget goes into that. So it's around 125,000 but we're not meeting the requirements of the permit. So
>> Gotcha. So you're saying that right now we haveund almost $200,000 allocated when in fact we should need three uh 500, >> right? >> Okay. Staying on the storm water. Um I this seems to be a lot of equipment that we
would need to be buying. Is that correct? >> A few pieces. Yeah, >> a few pieces. >> Mhm. >> I I was just wondering if the storm water is something similar to when we did the pave pavement management plan, which was
we brought in a big infusion of cash to catch up with a lot of things and then we created a smaller budget amount that was able to maintain it. So my thought here is do we want to just do a one-time or you know I think with the pavement
management plan was over multiple years in order to catch up. Do we want to do a catch up and then the maintenance is actually less than what you know maybe is around how much we're actually funding right now. >> Yeah, I understand what you're saying.
Um >> have we run the numbers that way? I haven't run the numbers that way, but my thought is again we have all these um projects we got to get done. So
>> replacing culprits is a big one. So we can use money from the storm water utility, right? The first year, yeah, we're going to put out a lot of expense first couple years buying equipment, but then going forward, we can use that money for the engineering and the construction of some of these projects
instead of going asking for capital funds. I think we still need some capital funds but the request will be smaller >> and and that's you know kind of what I'm thinking is I you know I think there's another model to explore and I don't know if the storm water has done that um
because you know part of reducing the pain pavement management plan this past uh budget season was you know you were there and there was you know the new town manager had come just come and you said you know I believe we can we don't
need to keep increasing $50,000 every year because we have got to a point where our roads are really good and maintenance is actually cheaper. So according to you during budget season was we don't need to keep increasing pavement management plan of 50,000 every
year. So I think this is a result of diligent work on improving our roads over the past decade close to and getting to this point where we're actually spending less. So I generally speaking I would be curious kind of explored a similar scenario before we
create a whole new tax for um for the residents and generally speaking how are you planning the use of chapter 90 on your budget. >> Right. So that chapter 90 slide showed
um right for engineering for construction projects and then spending some money for the construction of those and for pavement management. Right. In the first year, you could see
there's a bunch of little projects, little storm water projects. >> And again, those could be picked up by the storm water utility in the future this month. >> Right. So, that's chapter nine. And that kind of goes with my storm water question is
>> if we have this money which the state just increased it by at least a couple hundred I think it was actually more than 300,000 this past fiscal year and and we have this infusion of cash again you know is there a scenario that we're not creating another
tax on people um and is this chapter 90 that you have presented here does this include is this with the storm water task force or we doubt it. >> That would be with So, just one word on the uh how much chapter money chapter 90
money we get. It's typically around $418,000. So, this year was they doubled it. Right. >> Right. But we haven't got it yet. >> Right. >> Right. So, is there a hang up? Are we going to get it next year? We don't know.
>> So, I made the assumption we're not. >> Okay. >> So, if we are Yeah. That that changes things a lot. So the chapter 90 that we have here is without the increase or without >> I put the increase in my first year but then subsequent years I just left it at
the 418 because that's been what it's been for about 12 years. >> Gotcha. >> Did you include the fair share? >> That's he said he >> No, but the fair share was what only $60,000. And are we going to get that going forward? I don't know. We were promised
it when we supported millionaires tax. Right. >> Question for the governor, not me. >> Um it one question I had on the um the analysis for outsourcing versus
hiring. And one request is can you just send along the latest spreadsheet to the fin at least maybe board. Um, when you put in the labor on that, did you put in the burdened labor including all healthcare and benefits? >> I did. >> Yeah, >> you did. >> Yep.
>> And how are you calculating the retirement benefits? >> That's part of the burden. Yeah. >> Right. They pay we pay so much in every week, right? So I have the total for the year and I again I base it off of our
highest paid heavy equipment operator. Well, um I was thinking of retirement like once workers have worked for us and they retired, we still have liabilities related to them with their health insurance. So, you know, long-term what
is do you did you use a a rate for >> I didn't look at retired people know >> um you mentioned the cemetery laborer maybe adding >> um and you mentioned things like cutting
grass but you know I live near the south cemetery and a lot of those headstones are in pretty rough shape and with this person take care of those things in addition. >> So the the headstones that need to be straightened, I think we have to bring
in a specialty contractor for that. There's been a bunch of discussions with the cemetery commission on that. Um we got some cost estimates. So you you might see some of that happening some >> Okay. But this cemetery laborer would
not would not do that. >> I mean they could you know if it's a simple fix. Yeah, if we had more time, we could do some in-house if they're simple fix. Some of them need a little more work. >> Okay. >> Yeah.
>> Sorry, one question that was on the other side of the page. the special truck for the icing with the uh brine I I don't know what the term how much does that that cost and what is the typical
savings that you know mass dot has seen it when using that versus not because our line for salt is I just quickly glanced here is about $220,000 what do you do think we would be saving if we move to that kind of treatment
>> right So, I I'd have to look that up. I'm God bless. >> I'm going to guess mass dod has it on their website somewhere. >> Sorry. >> Bless you. >> If not, I can call and find out. Um, we don't need a specialty truck per se, but we would need to retrofit our own trucks
to use the liquid chemicals. >> Got how much is that? The retrofit roughly? >> How much roughly? Uh, so on a sander about putting saddle tanks and a spray bar system, I don't know, it can't be too bad.
Probably 10 $15,000 per truck, although I haven't looked deep into it yet. >> Have we looked into some sort of regional pooling of resources? Um, for example, the pipe
inspection camera. I don't think we have the people to be running that all the time every day of the week. And I don't think we have well I'm not sure. I don't I would assume we don't have the need to be running that every day of the week. Have we looked into sharing resources like with the pipe inspection camera or
the vacuum jetter truck? So, we needed a chatter truck for a while and we reached out to I think Fitsburg and Lemonster who we have inter municipal agreements with for sewer and
they both said no you can't use our truck would I guess we'd need a much more solid agreement. Um I think the agreements are out there but nobody's talking about them. How many how often would we have to use
something like the vacuum jetter truck? Is that going to be constantly in use? >> No. No. No piece of equipment is constant in use. But um we could the other thing we can use it for sewer. Part of the sewer maintenance is just jetting lines as maintenance
practice. Um you know maybe once a week or it'll probably go in spurts. Maybe we'd be out for a couple weeks and it would sit for a while. >> Okay. Is that the kind of thing that you need as an emergency thing so we would always have to have it on hand or could
we have some sort of resource sharing agreement with another small town nearby? >> We could try an agreement with another town. Like I said, I don't I haven't seen any successful ones. >> Okay. Which is more expensive, buying the
jeter truck or the legal work to create a document that would allow for sharing between municipalities? Again, I'd have to do the analysis. My gut tells me it's probably cheaper to, you know, do an agreement with another
town or two. On the snow removal savings, did you factor in increased wear on our vehicles for that per for that? >> Yeah, pottedity analysis was an operating cost. >> Okay. Cuz I I noticed on your your
maintenance, you kept that as a level funding and if we start to use the trucks for snow removal, that's probably the heaviest wear that they would see. And then we have increased amount of vehicles as well through those years. So, I would just be concerned with that
level fund of the maintenance if we go through with all of that. >> Yeah. Um, again, well, we will have newer trucks, right? So, we have two new ones now and two new ones coming in. They won't need
bigger repairs like the two older trucks. Yeah. The the repairs tend to be bigger. So, the newer trucks for the next few years, I don't see us putting too much money into them for repairs. >> Okay, >> I'll set go ahead, Jen.
>> So, I'm going to put you on the spot here for a second. >> So, um just for clarity because I think everybody in the room has this, but so the MS4 permit, this is not something new. This is we are in year seven of the
permit and we have been paying for it out of operations and you setting up a storm water utility is a method um to address these costs. So, Bill, do you know for smaller municipalities especially, but you know, not
necessarily for communities that aren't going to bring it inhouse and they still need to achieve compliance. How are they doing the annual inspections and the repairs and the the
annual cleanings that need the catch basin cleanings? How are they keeping if you don't have your own catch basin chalk and you're not you don't have your own staff, how are they um keeping up with MS4 requirements without having it done in house? >> Sorry, you're on the spot.
>> No, that's fine. So, they're using operational funds, right? They they're hiring engineers to do the inspections and they're hiring companies to do the sweeping and and the catch basin cleaning and they're hiring companies to replace coververts.
But I don't know if too many towns I nobody's bragging about, you know, 100% compliance with the permit. A lot of towns are struggling with it. Jen, can I ask um are there regional
storm water utilities that are trying to work together because >> No. So individual this is each each municipality is required to have Bill please jump in if I say anything wrong. Um each municipality is required to have their own permit. So the permit is
specific. So um >> I am not so a utility is specific for that municipality. I have not heard of any intermunicipal agreements specific around storm water and sharing the labor
so to speak. Um I would I would contemplate that if we were going to have a true intermunicipal agreement that it would be beyond just the sharing of the trucks. Typically with an intermunicipal agreement you're sharing the people as well and you're sharing the costs of the people. So, um, we
would be likely sharing the truck, the operator, and the operator's health insurance and retirement and whoever the host community is. You you take the whole split. It's not just borrowing the truck. So, it's that
going towards an intermunicipal agreement. Maybe if there was one available would alleviate us needing to bring this in house, but it doesn't necessarily alleviate the costs and it doesn't alleviate the requirements. >> Thank you.
>> Anything else for Bill? All right. We want to thank you for your presentation. Thank you for coming. You're welcome. >> Thank you, Bill. >> All right. >> Thank you, Bill. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Now, we're going to move on. Next piece p piece of business on the agenda is facilities.
>> Oh, he's last. >> Mhm. >> Whoa. >> Talk to the facilities guy about that. >> Yeah. Really? >> Yeah. Maybe [Music] >> anything.
[Music] [Music] No. >> No. [Music] >> All right. Whenever you're ready, just go right ahead. >> Just waiting for uh Jen to get it up on the up. Okay. >> I'm a problem. >> You are.
>> No surprise. Okay. How do I tell it's a split screen right here? [Music] Chris, can I ask you a question before you start? I looked at your presentation a little bit. would be helpful as a school committee member to just be reminded on what your area of what
you're actually overseeing, right? Like what buildings, what parks, stuff just because I don't actually even know that. >> I actually pulled the slide out just trying to make it quicker for tonight. >> Oh, thank you. I'm sorry. I can I can run through it. >> Yeah. I just find cuz police makes sense like what the police do versus I just
want to make sure I understand. Thank you. >> Yeah, the scope. >> Yeah, the scope. That's the word I'm looking for. Yep. >> All right. Well, I'll uh I'll throw that in there before Yeah, you can verbal. It's just >> So, for those of you who don't know me, I'm Chris Ruth. I'm the facilities director for the town side. Um, that
means I am responsible for all of the town buildings with the um town hall, Ritter, teen center, senior center, library, um, Brooks House and TCP. The town now controls the public safety building, um, all of the parks grounds,
basically everything but high school, middle school, and Turkey Hill. >> Okay. in cemetery >> in cemetery. >> Um so if you want to jump down to the first graph here um one more please >> but not maintenance because the highway
department does the maintenance cemetery right >> the cemetery is entirely separate from us. >> Okay. >> Um so this is just a a graph kind of showing you where our costs landed for FY26. Um the you know obviously salaries is is
a big chunk and that that encompasses myself and my two staff members. Um the other two large lines are the contracted services and the purchase of service. Uh contracted service is more your regular maintenance of come in and service HVAC
units and generators and that type of stuff. um purchase of service is more of unforeseen repairs and when we have the funding available upgrades. If you jump to the next slide, Jen. Um so this is the breakdown for FY27.
The big change here is we are now absorbing into this budget all of the costs related to the TC Pasio building. Um and I'll go into that in some detail a little later on. Our next slide here is the same thing
but for the park side. Um this was our FY26 budget. Um the vast majority of it is our purchase of service line which everything falls under that between regular maintenance and repairs. Um if we jump to FY27, you'll see a slight
increase there. Um, part of that reasoning is right now if I do my landscaping maintenance as it should be done, it basically eats up my entire budget, leaving no room at all for repairs of any kind. Um, next slide here, just a quick
overview of where we currently are in FY26. Um, you know, we're about a quarter of the way through the year. Some of these numbers reflect, you know, percentages reflect that, some don't. Um, some are onetime costs. you know, obviously heating fuel we haven't used any of yet because we're just not into that season.
Hopefully we won't be for a little while. Uh so we'll go into our budget changes for FY27. Um so I'm just going to kind of hit the highlights here. Um the electricity
charges are going up quite a bit. Um part of that is because we are taking on the electricity cost for the TC Passio building. Um, we are trying to decommission the building, so we're hoping some of the costs come down. Electrical is not one we're anticipating will be lowered.
Um, the next big jump you will see on there is heating fuel for natural gas. Um, that jump is entirely TC Pacios. Um, in the past years, we've been running about $45,000 for a gas bill in that building. We're decommissioning by the square footage about half of the
building. We're shutting the heat off, everything off. So right now I'm projecting about half of the gas cost. It's a the numbers aren't truly half because we are now that we're using less gas. They actually gave us a rate increase. >> Sorry, can I ask was the schools paying
the electrical and the heating before? I didn't think we were. >> There's a there was a TCP revolving account and the the building never really had a budget. It kind of at the end of the year they robbed Peter or PayPal from whichever accounts had extra and that's how it was run for quite some
time. >> Okay. So did the did the um rent we paid went into the revolving account? >> It did. >> Okay. >> And that was it was about $27,000 was the rent that came from the extended day
program. So for FY26, that got added into my budget at the end to help cover some of the maintenance costs, but that's also intended to cover it's nowhere near enough because there was no home for the utilities cost basically for FY. >> The other thing is, if we recall, I
think was last year that I think it was the temporary town manager, he we had a line item to close the deficit. I think was in special town meeting. Yeah, >> we had that that account was like 90,000 the negative as a revolving fund account
>> that then we did a one time you know paying to balance that account. >> So what line item did TCP electricity and water come out of? >> So so similar to what was happening with the athletic fund is that the town
technically has cash to support some negative. So, I don't know because I wasn't in the finance committee. I don't know how long that that account was running on the negative, but I know Carter when he came in, he set that straight. And what I think the what we
did to get that account as zero was to put in about 90,000. Okay. >> That time the account was in the negative of 90,000. >> Okay. So, it's increasing the budget for facilities, but it's not that we're paying significantly more.
>> Yeah. The overall cost for the town >> is about the same. It's just actually putting it into a budget so we can see it and track it. >> That's okay. >> Chris, do you know what the deficit was this year? >> It was It wasn't clean, but it was still around that. We hover we were hovering
around $100,000 deficit for the last three years >> per year. >> Yep. >> For that building. >> Yes. >> Yeah. >> And this removes >> And I I want to second Laura. every revolving account should have a budget
and every all of them and that's it. >> I think the uh the TCP was kind of the redheaded stepchild that nobody wanted to you know the school was using it but they didn't want to waste money because that takes away from the other buildings and so it's it's been long overdue to
take care of this. Um the obviously the water and sewer usage fees will go up. Um rubbish removal has gone up a little overall for um the town buildings as well as taking on TCP. Um the facility salary I have right now as
you know kind of the standard two and a half increase but my two staff members for facilities fall within the DPW union. And at the moment my shared admin comes completely out of the DPW budget not mine. And part of that is because facilities
used to be part of DPW until about three years ago when it was split off. Um the other thing that comes out of Bill's budget, not mine, is my two guys trucks because when it snows my guys switch over to be DPW employees and plow. Um
>> does their salary stay in within your budget? >> Uh the regular salary does, but any overtime related to snow does not. >> Okay. Good resource sharing. the DPW and facilities work pretty closely together. So, uh the next line you'll see here
that was a jump is our regular contracted services line. This is again was the the standard maintenance. Um part of this is there are things that are not being properly maintained. Um you know we have contracts to maintain generators in town but it's really only one of the three generators is being
properly maintained. So it's stuff like that. Um purchase of service have also increased by 10,000 and part of that is just the cost of everything are going through the roof and it's not construction items are not staying with
the regular rest of the economy. It's it's skyrocketing. >> Chris, can you differentiate for me what is the difference between contracted services and purchase of services? >> So the contracted services is regular maintenance agreements. So that's >> the we have a company that comes in and
takes monitors the controls for the HVAC. They service units. It's the the generator. It's the landscaping cost for the townfall under that one. It's all regular planned costs that we know. >> Okay. >> And then purchase of services, >> whatever breaks or whatever we can
afford to upgrade at the end of the year. >> Okay. >> Uh the next one is contracted cleaning services. I actually put the budget back to what it was in um FY25. We lowered it
a little in FY26. Um we had a bit of a debacle with our cleaning contractor. Um so I put it back to the 86,000 that it was at. Um which I think will cover us for the next couple years. Um we have the TCP expense line that we talked about. That was the the 27,000
that we put back in to make up for the loss of rent from the extended day program leaving. Um and then let's see, departmental expenses changed for the most part. I rounded that up by eight bucks. Um teen
center expenses I creeped up just a little again due to costs of all the the maintenance and stuff. Um, custodial supplies, I jumped up 1,800 bucks and that's just because we've been running over the last couple
of years. Um, the building maintenance supplies, that one jumped a little bit, but that one is takes on some of the our Mackis and Home Depot bills for repairs, and we've been again going over on that one consistently.
Uh, the uniform allowance I didn't touch, but that could change based off of a union negotiation. And then the the sewer betterment fee is it is what it is for the year. Luckily we only have I believe one more year of the sewer betterment we have to pay. >> I I have a question. The the numbers
that you have here for prior years are these budget or are actual? >> Those are budget numbers. >> Okay. So we don't know how the expenses landed in the end of the year. >> Um no that would be a much longer meeting because at the end of the year we move money all over the place. So to
actually track that down and make it really coherent would take a little bit of time. If you guys want to meet separately and look at those, I'd be happy to put something together. But >> well, I I mean I I don't think it's that much long like there is a report that's actual from prior years. I'm I'm I'm
simply asking to know what I'm looking at it. >> Right now these are these are budget numbers, not actuals >> for the prior years. Yeah. And I generally speaking, I'm speaking for myself, I rather see actuals from prior years. That's how I'm used to seeing
some other reports. Just makes it easier to especially in a quick presentation. >> I can I can put something together. I'll just have to figure out. >> I I'll say like going forward whatever you have >> and some of these years as well I was not here for. So >> Right. Right. Right. And that's why I
think you know looking at actuals would help us form the idea of what we are doing for for the new years. >> U next slide we'll jump to. Um just goes to the parks changes. Um
this one I actually had the projections on this one as well. But for FY27 um I left the salary for our recreation director alone. Um for those of you who don't know our recreation director has resigned and we don't currently have one. So, until we hire a new person, I don't know where that salary is going to
land. Um, uh, beach salary went up by $1,000. Um, we've been consistently running over a little bit. Um, the beach hours vary from year to year. I mean, this week we're only shut down for a week due to bacteria. Last year we were shut down
for two. So, it's it varies every year and a lot of it's out of our control. Um, >> this has FY29 the salary for the rec director jumps up. Is that considering moving to a full-time position in FY29? >> That is the goal at some point. Yes. Is
to go to a full-time. >> It's interesting though because I noticed the purchase of service goes down a lot when you do that. Is that because right now the wreck director is >> Nope. That's missing a zero. >> Oh, okay. >> No. The
>> Never mind then. >> No. the p the the goal the goal for the purchase of service is to get us to about $100,000 for the parks right now. Bare minimum landscaping to do it correctly is about $60,000. The and that doesn't include repairing plow damage.
It's doesn't it's it's very bare minimum. The landscapers we had before the current contract were way underpriced and we got the way underpriced service. Um the departmental expenses I didn't change on that. it stays pretty steady.
And then the only other increase was the um the programming line which is the recreation department uses that for um some of the programs that we don't charge residents for. >> So purchase of service includes mostly landscaping or are there other
>> It's landscaping repairs. We don't we don't have it broken out in the um the parks budget at the moment mainly because it basically all goes to the same place. As the increases go, I'm going to start breaking it out just to track it better. >> Okay. Who does Kids Kingdom? >> Kids Kingdom technically still falls under the school department.
>> Okay. When there's a repair to the playground, that's us. Okay. I just wanted to >> It depends on what it is. Certain things we'll take care of, certain things. Um, you know, and you guys obviously had a lack of facilities directors in and out for a little while, so we kind of jumped in on some of that stuff.
>> I appreciate that. Thank you. Um, yeah, that's good cooperation. But Kids Kingdom is still us >> as of right now. Yes. >> Okay. >> Can I ask about the beach staff? I'm curious about 25 grand a year for the beach stuff. That's got to be more than one person. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's quite a few people actually.
>> What if people pay for um uh swimming lessons? Does that go towards this? >> Um it it goes back into the revolving account that helps manage this. >> Manage this. I don't This is just budget. This money that's being pictured here is not any of the revolving account money.
>> The Yeah. So the salary I just know this because you used to >> Right. Yeah. That's not all the beach salary. >> Yeah. I'm just curious how I haven't gone there in a while with my kids but um I know that there's you know they do swimming lessons that are quite
>> the swimming lessons. Yeah. It's the revenue from swimming lessons. Um, so the revolving account takes those the memberships and all and then when it pays out for, you know, anything. So those payments don't don't reflect in
here. >> Yeah. >> I just think in general something we've talked about at the school committee is I find it confusing when we're only looking at money that comes from the general fund, not revolving funds and grants. And I know that's a large ask, but I just think that's >> not really. I fully agree with you for
the public. Yeah, I just think for the public and for us as well, it's difficult for us to tease out sometimes. Um, and this is not about you. This is just about in general, I think. Um, >> I think we need to have a one pager of of all expenses and another pager with
>> all the revenue being used to support the operations. >> Exactly. Grants. And I mean, I know that you can't always count on grants, but at least some estimates and things like that. >> Well, I mean, >> certain ones you can count on. >> You can. Yeah. I think I think there is better way. Yes. You're preaching a better way.
>> Yeah. Yeah. I'm We're talking about the same thing. So, yeah, that's why I'm >> You're agreeing. >> Yeah. >> So, the real beach staff expenses is higher >> is much higher than that because that because the Okay. >> And again, it's it's seasonal. It's it's only during the summer when school's
out. Yeah. >> And it's, you know, mostly high school kids. It's a quite a bit lower grade. And I must say the um I know that the cost has gone up on the landscaping, but as a parent of kids who play baseball this year was much better with the mowing. So I really really do appreciate
that because the last vendor >> last vendor was uh >> it was less than ideal um for the kids during baseball season. >> That is one of the perks to being able to hire a contractor that's in town, >> a local person. >> They they actually care. >> Y >> um they've gone above and beyond giving us free stuff. I would say that. >> Yeah. Thank you.
>> Yeah. We've been pushing like and I say this from when I was in the parks commission and and I know they continue. I mean, you can see how the past few years we have increased that line and that has always been a parks commission request and and you know and I would be
curious to look at actuals although I do think that the facilities took over parks around 22 23 >> because for the longest time that money assigned to to parks were not >> quite was not spent in parks.
>> Yeah. >> And and that's because we didn't have a designated person to run it. And guess what? If there is a, you know, something going in happening in the streets, you know, the former DPW director had bigger priorities than keeping the parks nice and neat. So there was a strategic
decision on creating this department and putting some revenue there. And I think that that has gotten better. But yeah, for many years that line was not properly managed, which leads into parks not being well maintained. >> Yeah, thank you. Chris, can I assume the
29 projection for purchase of service should be 100,000? >> Yes. Yeah, I missed a zero there. >> Okay. >> Um, and just, you know, the the swim lessons were just or the beach passes were just under 9,000 in revenue >> and the swim lessons were both 3500. >> Okay. >> I love that you had that right there.
>> Thank you. >> Um, let's see if anything on this I didn't touch. Um, so one thing in the budget changes is the um the TCP cost. So we expected the gas to go down. Um, the the electric
we're not expecting to really drop at all. Um, there's less use in the building, but the I believe that the the major electrical draw in the building right now is actually the food pantry. >> Um, you know, this sucks up quite a bit of juice just to run those refrigerators in there.
>> So all that expense would you say is now like 27,000? Um, >> if you think it's coming from food pantry, >> so the equipment they have in there, if I go just off what the equipment is rated for, it would be about $26,000 for the year. Um, we did some some testing
and right now we're bouncing between um 21 to 17,000 a year depending on air conditioning because they have air conditioning in that area. >> 21 to >> 17 to 21. >> Okay. Is the AC controlled in their space only or is it controlled through
the entire room? >> There's no AC in the building besides that room. >> There's a window many little in the individual units their units. Um just as we have just thought for the future just as we have a line efficiated for this
the uh >> teen center >> the teen center because it's a specific use right um when we put that line of electricity going under TCP when there is one use that user I I I don't know if
there's a way to show break it up because that's quite a bit >> it is um the the problem with showing it directly is um that space isn't submetered. It was never designed to be a separate area.
So, you know, this was taking apart plugs while things are running to calculate what they're actually using, but they're what they're using varies dayto-day based off of the temperature inside the room, the temperature outside. So, without actually spending some serious money on electrical, it'd
be very difficult to track day-to-day. I just think it's important to understand the largest cost drivers. You know, the the heat in the building is, you know, the boilers are oversized, so there's some waste there, but part of that is cuz the boilers out of TCP used to heat the old high school.
>> Yep. >> So, you know, it's >> which we just finished paying a few years ago. >> You know, so it's there's >> long gone. >> There's a lot of waste in that in that building. Um, >> Chris, you can't control the heat in
that building, right? Um, yes and no. It it works based off of the local thermostats, but we can't talk to the control system anymore because it's so old. Um, as part of our decommissioning, we're going to upgrade that. So, we can at least because right now, if one boiler goes down, it's all hands on deck
to physically change wiring to turn the other one on. It's been tested. It runs, but nothing tells it to turn on. So, >> are we expecting less in electrical and heating costs with the decommissioning of a large portion of the building?
>> I'm projecting almost a 50% reduction in the gas cost, but the electrical I think is going to remain fairly >> because the same users are mostly in there and >> um and we have additional users now which are paying some rent to offset that I have on a a lower slide here. Mhm.
>> Um I think the rest of these items we had talked about. >> Where does the decommissioning come in on your budget? >> The decommissioning is a capital item. >> Okay. >> So it's separate from the operating budget. >> I just was curious. Thank you. >> Um >> but you guys are doing that inhouse or
are we >> Well, we're subbing it out, but you know, it's >> we just had the asbestous abatement done to get to the pipes we need to >> start shutting stuff down. And unfortunately, the building was cut up and changed so many times that any plans that we have are useless. Um the the
biggest thing is once we decommission it, the back half of the building we can start asbestous abatement and it doesn't matter when we decide to do it, it has to be done no matter what. >> So whatever it costs today, it will cost you more tomorrow. So the thought was with half that building shut down, we
can get half that cost taken care of and and then at that point there's a big empty shell and the town can make a decision about what we do with it. Chris, can you just because I know, sorry to interrupt, I know that there's a lot of talk in the community that we shouldn't spend any money until we know what we're doing. But if the decision
was made to either retrofit TCP or tear down TCP or any combination in between, that asbesus needs to get abaded nonetheless. >> Yep. We still have to do it >> there. There is no way around it. We own it cradle to grave. So, it's we can take
care of it now or we can wait 10 years and the price will be double. >> You know, it's and that building the plaster and the ceilings, all of the floor tiles, it is all over the place. Every every piece of pipe in the building is wrapped in it. Um, luckily the only place where there isn't a ton
of it is the roof, which is strange. But, >> um, I have a Sorry. >> I just have a question about the utilities in the food pantry. I think I am not an expert in this area, but I'm just throwing it out there. Um, there may be some grants available to help
offset costs of food pantries or >> Yep. And I'm not advocating for kicking them out by any means. I think they provide a wonderful service, >> but I'm just wondering if that could balance out that $26,000 a year in some way. >> It certainly could. Um, it's something we're going to have to talk with the
food pantry folks about. I don't know all of their funding sources. You know, they're not actually associated with us, >> right? That's it's not he wouldn't be applying for the grant, >> right? I was just if they could or had someone that knew what they were doing and could do that, then wouldn't that take the cost off the town as well?
>> They're not paying the cost currently. So, it's not You'd be asking them to go out and apply for a grant and do work on something that they're not seeing. So, yeah, >> it doesn't really I mean, we certainly could, right? But it's not impacting
them per se right now. So there's no real impetus for them to go and aggressively track down grants. >> Yeah. >> And I and I've had >> look into though. >> I've had a pre preliminary conversation with them and I think they kind of are
aware that this was coming. >> No time there. I was just wondering. >> That's awesome. >> I mean they they get rent for use of a building. Yeah. >> As does the teen center. >> Um including trash and everything else. and it's written right into the contract
that way. So, I think they should be looking for grants to >> to help with that cost >> if if it's available. >> I was just putting it out there. I'm not saying they should. >> I was just kind of more like I don't really know a lot about that, but I I'm pretty sure there are. So, I just I
didn't know how I'm unaware of how to go about that. So, happy to talk to the food pantry. >> And and all of their equipment is new, which is nice. Yeah. you know, everything in there is Energy Star and it's just >> it's a loss. >> It's part of the >> I also just I'm just thinking about if
whatever happens to TC Pacios, we need the food pantry. So, we have to either figure out how to help them stay or >> how we can help them move somewhere else in another build, municipal building that's not being used. I don't know. >> I agree. Their numbers have been steadily climbing from what I've been
told. >> Yeah. >> You know, I think I heard 800 families last month. I go there often and help. So, I know there's a lot of people that are benefiting from it. So, I just >> Yep. >> putting it out there. That's all. >> Um, what are we looking at for the asbestous abatement costs now
or for the half of the building that's decommissioned? I guess >> I have not estimated yet, but I wouldn't be surprised to see a million dollars. >> You say two million. 1 million >> but it's again I have to get estimates of you know the flooring of each room and you know I I have the overall report
but we have not fully vetted out the cost for the abatement in there yet at least for that portion. >> Are you asking for that in capital funds or what are you >> if I can get it together in time I probably will but yes. >> Okay. I think this next slide here. Actually,
I think we got to jump two or three here. Jen, we kind of bounced around a little bit. >> Sorry, I jumped ahead. >> Oh, you jumped too far then. >> Where do you want me to go? >> Um, the one that says the TCP budget. >> This,
>> it's a chart. >> I think it's next >> 15 right there. Um, >> so this one just kind of shows you um kind of the historical cost. Again, the rounded numbers versus, you know, what
we're what's baked into our budget now. Um, so before, you know, we were hovered around 26 to 30 for the electrical. Um, I have 26 for this year. And a lot of it is as we're closing it down, we're going to get better idea of where the numbers land.
>> Um, we're just starting that process. Um, you see I lowered the the gas by almost half. Um, water and sewer I'm anticipating going down a little bit just because there's fewer users in the building, but there aren't there still
are users. Um, trash is staying the same. Um, currently we don't have the phones set up in the building. Um, no one's using phone system. Um, the internet is a cost that we've taken on
and is fairly substantial. I didn't realize how much commercial internet cost, but it's about $518 a month. >> Who uses it? >> Yeah. >> Um, it's in there mainly for pack because their studios in there.
Um that being said, the wreck department when they used the space over there jump onto the system. But the the main need for it was um pack and if I add the electronic locks system to one of the doors there, it needs to it needs a network connection for that to operate.
Um below is just the kind of the list of the regular maintenance that's been happening in the building. Um one that may jump out at you is the landscaping costs. um as part of the school vacating the building um they're staying in the
garage space um through FY26 and in return for that they are taking care of the plowing and landscaping through FY26 but after that we will have to pick that up >> and you're estimating that should be 15,000
>> that a rough estimate between mowing landscaping and then DPW would pick up the the plowing just get added to one of my guys roots And again, there's less use in the building, so it's not like it needs to be open when the rest of the schools are. It's >> And the reason the school stayed in there is their other garage doesn't have
heat. So, >> thank you. >> The next slide, if you can, Jen. Um, so this one is just talking about the the revenue we're we're currently getting for the building. Um, hack pays us. Um, the food pantry we talked about
is is in there for free at the moment. Um, and we're currently renting four of the classrooms to the Shapiro school next door that they used started out as just a summer rental. Um, they've loved the space. So, right now they're hanging on to those four classrooms and I'll take it because it's offsetting some of
our costs which is great. >> Um, >> are they using it for offices or do they have kids in the space? >> They they have kids in the space with their staff there. Okay. um some other rental >> that pretty much u replaces the money
from the school, right? No, >> that's 24,000. >> No, that um >> yeah, it probably does offset some of it. Yeah, >> I think they're not losing for the year. >> Right now it's >> they're hanging on to it for the moment,
so we'll see how long it stays. Um, and again, that's one of those, um, the roof on the building was rated for 20 years and it's 40 years old. So, at some point where there's going to be some issues. Um, >> I mean, someone made a comment to me
last year about how we did such a great job with stopping the leaks and it was a drought. >> We had nothing to do with. >> Um, some other, um, revenue sources we have are from renting out the gym. Um
there's a pickle ball group in there that get around $4,000 a year on average that goes back towards the building as well as um the football program which be honest I have no idea what that actually is. >> I think it's some kind of soccer. >> It's indoor soccer on a basketball court
my kids play. >> Um >> they do it in the gym. >> Yeah, we are with like a club. It's not a really a club. It's like parents who organized a group that practice there a few times a year. We >> That gym's an important asset in town. We we do not have a ton of gyms in town,
especially because we have a combined in this town, we have a combined high school, middle school, and whereas other towns would have one high school, one middle school, and two gyms, we combined it. Uh so TCP fills a pretty important need. And it's during the day, we can have adults using it like the pickle
ball >> without having adults walking through the school. and the the Shapiro folks that are in there have quite a bit of staff. So, it's not like there's kids wandering around the building. It's they're almost a one to one over there. >> So, what will hap what will happen when
we're shutting part of two? They're in the part that's not getting shut down. >> So, so right now right now everyone has already moved out of the area that's being decommissioned. The only thing that's left is some of our town files. >> Not many. >> Yeah. >> Except the day was
>> Yeah. Um the other use main users of the group are the teen center and the the recck department uses that space. Um and the recck department typically doesn't make a whole lot of money off of um their programming. So money from that
doesn't go back into TCP, but they handle the rentals of the space and all that money is going back into the TCP budget. >> Now is the uh asbestous still in the area where Shapiro and PAC are? Yes, it's it's throughout the entire school. Um the majority of it is in the floor
tiles. Um if you ever walk through an old building and you see floor tiles that are 8 by 8 in as opposed to the one by1's, it's almost a guarantee that they're as >> it's vinyl asbestos tile. Uh stuff >> like what kind of liability do we have for letting kids? >> It's non fryable.
>> What? >> It's non fry. Right. Am I non fryable? >> Like there's a room in the area that's getting decommissioned that's been closed off because it's it's crumbling. If if it's not getting into the air, there's no issues at all. >> Like the tiles are fine until they start chipping and then it goes in the air.
>> And to be honest, what causes the biggest damage is roof leaks cuz the water sits there over the weekend, the tiles start to curl up and pop and then that's when it becomes an issue. >> I have bad news about that. >> There's always bad news about leaks over there. Um
do you want to jump two slides there, Jen? Um I'm kind of going back a little bit, but this is just showing the um my facilities anticipated changes through FY29. Um not a whole lot of is changes there. Um
it's really increasing the hours for the rec director, adding a part-time admin for myself, and then we had already talked about increasing the the parks budget. So it was really just, you know, the standard two and a half stuff and then the the two employees that we were
trying to get more hours or one more hours and one a new position. >> Why is generator fuel a new line in FY26? >> FY26. Yeah. We never actually had a line to break out when we fill the generators. >> What are the generators? >> Um the public safety building has a
generator. Um senior center has a generator and TCP has a generator. >> Okay. Now, if we don't have any significant power outages, it's their weekly exercise. It really doesn't use much fuel. If we have any power outages, then they they chew through some fuel
pretty fast when you're powering TCP. What doesn't power the whole building, but the public safety and the um senior center will power the whole building. >> TCP has a generator. >> It does. >> When did the Has it always had a generator? >> Okay. >> Right over by the garage. It's
>> so if power goes out, the food pantry won't lose. Does it still power the food pantry? >> I don't know 100%. Which circuits it powers, but if it needed to, we could get them up and running during an emergency. It may not be pretty, but if we had to, we could get it done. >> Okay.
>> And that was really the the bulk of it. We jumped around a little bit. So, if anyone has questions, >> thank you. They asked their questions as you went along, which was one works for me. >> Yep. >> If anyone's a Red Sox fan, we're up to one in the
>> Who does >> Can I ask a question? >> I had to look. >> Who does custodial for TCP now? Cuz that had been us and we were able to cut that position. >> At the moment, Shapiro is taking care of it from their area and the bathrooms that they're using. Other than that,
there's not a whole lot of use in the building. Um, and part of the reason that that whole thing happened the way it did is because we had a debacle with the cleaners that I would prefer not to get into in an open meeting. >> Okay. So, like the entrance area and is
Shapiro kind of doing that or >> uh that main entrance right now actually isn't being used at all. Shapiro is using that side ramp entrance because they're in that wing. >> Oh, yeah. So, >> and I guess >> and it kind of keeps it kind of keeps them separated from the rest of the building. >> Okay. And to and the food pantry takes
care of their own cleaning. >> Yeah. I mean, they're not in there enough to have, you know, they take care of inside of the food pantry. They always have and the, you know, the bathroom usage. They're there for >> Yeah. >> couple hours a day. So, it's it's really minimal. >> Okay. >> You know, same thing with pack is
they're here right now. You know, they're not in the studio, so they're they bounce around to the different buildings quite a bit. >> Okay. >> Thanks, Chris. Very informative. Yep. [Music] All right. And uh the chief's over
there. Some two chiefs. [Laughter] >> Yeah. >> All right. I'm going to stand up. >> Our first meeting, we let you go first and we said come early. So >> travel distance first and I had it's kind of a flip a coin. So,
>> all right. [Music] >> And you're going to present from there, Chief? >> Yes. I'm going to >> I just want to make sure >> microphone working as far as you can tell. >> They'll pop out the door if there's a problem. >> I I usually use my outdoor voice anyway. >> All right.
>> All right. Good evening. Uh again, this budget would be going out for uh next year. So, as most of you have heard, we've discussed trying to add staff for the fire department to improve our coverage. So the proposed budget would
be for staffing myself, the administrative assistant, going from three career officers to four career officers, maintain our five on call officers, going from six to eight career firefighter paramedics, and then again meaning uh maintaining the 30 some odd
call firefighters and EMTs. >> So the structure of the department would basically look like that. It's adding one shift of an officer and two firefighter paramedics. So instead of a three shift system, we would be a four shift system. Other than that, there's
no real change to the structure of the department. Just again to kind of touch base on what we do for call volume. That's our breakdown of runs in 2024. Obviously, big part of our job is EMS
calls. Uh right now we're on track to meet the same number or exceed it for this year. Uh at least in emergency calls. Again, I've showed the next slide a couple times. Just kind of shows our call progression over the years. In the
last few years, again, we've seen an increase in EMS calls. They've stayed sort of level, but they also have not dropped off. And this goes right along with development and housing in town. The more people we have, the more EMS calls we're going to see. And as I'll talk about later on again, we're still
looking at more development in town. Potential another 55 complex, uh, another big possibly another big housing development that's still in the works out there somewhere. You know, everybody always worries about the impact of schools with kids. It
impacts fire, too, especially with an aging population. We see more EMS calls. So you can go to the next slide and I just kind of touch on this. I've used this slide before too. This is kind the effects of the new growth in the developments in town. Not
only the multifamilies but the large developments at the single family homes too uh around town. And again just this is just to illustrate the increase in calls for EMS. We have more people more EMS calls. Fire calls usually kind of
level off. The inspections drop off as the buildings are built. don't require inspections as much unless they're single family homes and they're selling. Next slide. So, budget summary, uh, to touch on it,
the addition of a fourth career shift, uh, moving the staff to a 42-hour week, hiring three additional firefighter paramedics, and promoting one existing person to career lieutenant. This takes our career coverage out to seven days a
week. Instead of having one day that we are covering with part-time predium staff, that part uh predium staff would be adjusted to hopefully add a fourth person 16 hours a day through the weeks. So, we could staff either a both
ambulances or if one ambulance is out, we have at least two people back in the station. It's not a lot, but it's at least enough to get a truck on the road. Uh there also are some increases in the operating budget that I'll talk about uh for EMS supply and capital replacement
and radio and vehicle maintenance. Some of these lines have not changed in 10 or 15 years and that while our costs have gone up. So salary again the increase here in the salary is approximately
$221,88.35. This is based on three step two firefighter paramedics and one existing firefighter medic being promoted to lieutenant. Uh all these numbers unless I mention otherwise are based on our current uh firefighters collective bargaining
agreement with their yearly salaries. Uh they are coming up coming into year three of their contract the last year. So negotiations will be happening which could change some things a little bit one way or the other. But these are the numbers that I based them on now for
currently. So career overtime would increase by a little over $80,000. That's based on an increase in the average overtime rate for everybody.
It's based on additional estimated time off for the new staff. They get vacation time. They get some personal time. Uh we budget in some sick time. call back. So there's a base number to work with there. Plus with the change in the work
week, the overtime rate will increase somewhat. This number also covers that for the existing staff. Uh also for salaries is call fire and EMS salary that is unchanged at this time. We have not changed that in a
while. that covers the call back for our call for firefighters and EMTs and it also covers the PDM staffing which is currently 96 hours a week. Under the other uh if we get the new schedule that would probably increase to about 112 hours a week which we can probably
handle over that. Traditionally we run a little under on call firefighter salary because it's highly subjective depending on how many people we get back, how many calls that we have to call people back for. This past year, we saw a lot more fire activity in the fall, so we used a
little bit more money. The overtime usually runs a little over and we make up the difference here within the budget, so we stay within budget. Holiday pay, whoop, sorry, >> I didn't say Simon says. Uh, holiday pay would be an increase of a little over
$22,000. And that's basically the holiday pay coverage for three additional staff and the anticipated increase in the hourly rate average hourly rate for the overtime. Also under salaries there is uh now you
can go is uh training. We carry uh just under $61,000 in training. Uh we do usually run under in this. the primary or the big chunk of this part was to train new paramedics
uh covering their shifts while they're in school, things like that. We have not had to train a new paramedic in two years. That said, I would anticipate in the hiring process of trying to get three new firefighter medics, I would be shocked if we got three, I would
anticipate we would be sending at least one to school for it. So again, some of this covers that. This is also includes our call firefighter training which is every other Monday night. Uh it includes coverage for people attending classes
other training. The job is very intensive. So again the number can go up and down on what we actually spent. So >> So just a question the 60,000 is not including training for the fourth shift.
It would it would you know it would uh absorb any training that would be involved with them. If we had to send someone from paramedic school it would definitely involve that. >> So would it be more than 60 would be 60? Okay. >> I don't I don't anticipate a change in
that number >> even with hiring the three people. >> Gotcha. Thank you. >> So like I say we run we've been running under on that line because we have not had to train somebody. Do we if we have to train one somebody we will use all of that. So just some other items in uh
next sorry uh just other items to quickly touch on in the salary budgets for us. They're contractual items. My salary longevity for the career staff which the new people wouldn't get because they haven't been here long enough. Uh there
would be an addition of an additional $3,300 for clothing allowance for the three new staff. Um and then uh administrative stipens for people that perform functions for the department, our ALS and EMS coordinators, the training coordinator, fire prevention
officers, and the safe coordinator. Those are all contractual at this time. Don't see any major change in those, but again, those are subject to bargaining. So total increases on the salary side
would be $327,000 in the hiring and the increases in the overtime lines. The estimate is 137,269 for all of the OPED costs as developed by the HR director and or the payroll
benefits coordinator and the finance director. That's based on worst case scenarios for the topend insurance family plan. Again, that's probably a worst case number. Could be less. So, the total increase on the uh on that end, as I've mentioned before, would be
a little over $464,000. >> So, just to clarify, these are increases if we start the fourth shift. >> Correct. >> Okay. If we don't, do we have the numbers? >> Uh they would be
>> like the 2%. >> I I have a budget. I don't have it in front of me. would be it would be not too much different than what it is this year. >> It's something we have to >> Yeah, we have to Yeah, we have we'd be bargaining. >> And that was going to be my next question. So, this would be for FY27.
When is is the bargaining to start in FY27 or or 28? It wasn't clear in the dates for me. Thank you. >> Yeah, we'll be bargaining for July 1st. I'm expecting the letter any any time now. >> For July 1st of 2027 to July 1st of
calendar year, >> right? Their contract expires June of next year. >> So, >> gotcha. >> And that and that, like I said, there's some a lot of moving parts as as part of all of this. So, on expense
side, uh there's some incremental increases. Next slide. Uh it's generally uh level funded except for some increases in EMS maintenance and equipment. uh capital replacement equipment for fire, radio maintenance, and vehicle
maintenance. Our vehicle maintenance budget. We have our own budget, but it also isn't sort of tied in with the highway department. There's a request for an increase of $12,000 in supplies. This covers things like medication, oxygen, disposable supplies, and
maintenance of equipment, which we've seen a significant increase on. A lot of the medical equipment as we've gone to the paramedic level, the stuff has to be inspected every year. It has to be serviced every year. One of the service plans has gone up about $6,000 on us. Uh
the cost has run above our expectations since we started going paramedic from a combination of the increased call volume and that we're just doing more paramedic level calls. the fact that we have the paramedics available, the people are getting treated at that level instead of calling from another town either not
having them available or putting them available because of a lower acuity, keeping them available for something more serious. Like I said, the annual maintenance agreements have gone up significantly and it's just trying to move the budget in line uh with what our
expenses are. The last couple years we've been moving money around within the budget from other lines covering those expenses. We have lines in the budget to cover not the paramed the physical paramedic training but things like tuition for the program materials
stuff like that that again we haven't used and that's been supplementing this and again that could change if we actually have to send somebody to school. >> Can I ask you a question? >> Sure. I'm curious about insurance and does the town bill insurance when Oh,
absolutely. Ambulance comes like how does that work? I'm just curious. >> We we bill uh we went up >> you have like a billing person or I >> we we have a we contract we we contract with a company. Okay. >> That does the building for us. >> And so how do we set our rates? >> We the rates were updated about a year
ago putting us mid to upper range based on the communities around the area. Okay. The challenge that we face is 2/3 of our transports are Medicare, Medicaid, Mass Health, which means we have to accept those rates, which are a fraction of what we build.
>> Okay? >> And those reimbursement rates have been going down and will probably go down more if you follow anything with the news >> and that which is our challenge is always our challenge. As I always said, we're not a private ambulance. We're not here to make a profit. We're offset our
costs. >> We're here to provide a service to the community. Thank you. I just was >> Yep. >> Uh capital replacement equipment. Next slide. Uh capital replacement equipment is hardware, firefighting equipment, uh hose, nozzles, tools, thermal imaging
cameras, fire extinguishers, as opposed to protective equipment, which is firefighting gear, helmets, boots. last few years, we've uh actually the last five years, we've received between 15 and $19,000 a year from the state in a firefighter safety grant, which has
allowed us to replace a lot of our hose, much of our uh equipment, power saws, things like that, which has been a big help. That grant was the last year. That grant was last year. Uh and I've been told, don't expect to see that anytime soon. The state is not funding that. So,
any equipment replacement at this point is strictly coming out of budget. It's currently budgeted at $10,000. That number's been there since probably about 2008 and has not changed. And obviously costs have gone up. The state grants put us a little bit ahead of the curve, but
we're still not going to need to keep keep up. As Mr. Pad mentioned, expenses are crazy on stuff and that with vehicles or equipment, it's all over the place. Uh same thing in radio maintenance.
Radio maintenance has been at $10,000 for years. Uh the cost of radios has gone up significantly. This covers maintenance of the radio infrastructure, not replacing it, but maintaining what we have. It covers maintenance of portable radios, mobile radios,
batteries, repairs, things like that, which again have all gone up, too. Just as an example, to replace a fire ground grade portable radio is running about $4,300 a unit for us nowadays. And there's radios that are far more expensive out there with that. We
replace several of them uh fortunately through ARPA funding, but we still need we've replaced about a half to two/3. We need to continue to replace it. My goal would be that we can at least buy a couple a year to be able to do that and still be able to maintain everything else.
I've asked for an increase in the last couple years and it just hasn't been there and I put this out that it is a concern with inflation of everything out there. Uh the other big line would be uh vehicle maintenance. Next slide. Uh
as the finance committee knows, I asked for a $12,000 reserve fund transfer uh this past fiscal year to cover repairs on one of the ambulances. Uh again, vehicles are more complex. We're running
into more complex repair issues that DPW can't fix and that and we have to farm them out. So the main places this is being requested in is purchase of service as mentioned in some of the other ones. And when you see our budget, it has
reser uh purchase of service and purchase of you know sales. You know, sales is basically buying parts that our mechanic can do or things that we can fix ourself. Purchase of service is when it's something beyond DPW's
capabilities. It's a pump repair, it's electronics, it's an engine or a transmission, it's body work that we have to send it out somewhere. I mean, one of the ambulances we put the better part of probably 20 grand into and that truck's not that old and it's been a lot of emissions issues with them and that
stuff that we can't it just highway department doesn't have the bandwidth, the time or the technology to be able to do that. So, we have to send it out. Again, even with newer vehicles, we find now it's it's not mechanical, it's electronic. And that we have to deal
with a lot. All these vehicles beyond state inspections, the trucks with fire pumps, they have to those have to be serviced and inspected every year. The ladder truck has to be uh serviced and inspected and certified every year along with the ground ladders. A lot of that
comes out of vehicle maintenance as well, too. Uh and again, we're just trying to keep our ex our budget in line with what we have for expenses. So the total requested increase in the expense line is $32,000.
Next slide. So again the impact of the budget as suggested recommended it increases our career coverage in the station to seven days a week and that supplemented with uh pdeium staffing. It more properly
funds our EMS supply and equipment support needs. increases funding for our replacement of portable radios, other radio equipment, and it increases uh funding to provide more advanced service and mechanical
work for our emergency vehicle fleet. As far as expectations for the next three to five years, uh there would be step increases for the new staff as they are new. Most of the other staff are already at max. So it
would be mostly for the new people and just in within the the collective bargaining agreement. Uh beyond that, there's always challenges in recruiting and retaining new call firefighters. The challenge we see nowadays is we do still
get them, but we're not getting people that just want to be call firefighters. They we are the first step in the door to becoming a career firefighter. And we train them, we get them, and often times in four or five years they're moving on somewhere else. And maybe we hang on to
them, maybe we don't. Most of the true call firefighters that we have that have other jobs, they're doing those jobs and they do this on a part-time basis, are all over 50 and will probably be aging out in the next 5 to 10 years. And
coming in the door, the young guys are great, but they all want to be career firefighters. They're moving on. And it's a it's something we've got to look at. We we invest a lot in equipment and training and that and the guys are great but having that base of people the
suggestions been made to look at an independent staffing study. I would recommend that to look at what our needs would be further down the road. You know the next step may be a fourth per you know a fourth person on shift all the time. Whether we do that with predium or
we need to do that with staffing, I think it needs to be looked at and there needs to be some data behind it. My personal feeling is I think we can do it with predium for a while, but like everything else we've done, it works for a while and then it starts to wear out,
especially as we get busier and busier. 90% of the career the predium staff are all career firefighters somewhere else. So we are battling against their regular jobs and the demands that are put on them on their regular jobs for overtime for forcins things like that and that's
always going to be a challenge under that model. So these are things I say them not to scare anybody but it's things that we're going to need to think about that I would anticipate we're going to get busier as the town sees more development. there's going to be more demand for service and that as far
as the expense lines I would see I would anticipate incremental changes. Uh the big challenge we have is federal grant funding is very uncertain. Uh currently we had applied for a federal grant to replace our small brush truck.
We've heard nothing on that. We're starting to hear towns seeing it. Anybody follows the news? Uh they're all over the place. We get an uh an emergency management preparedness grant through the state, but it's federal money. It's usually just under
$4,000 every year. I have not yet heard if we're even going to see that money this year. I've heard I'm told if we do see it, it's going to be much less. And I've heard talk that depending on the strings attached to it coming from Washington, the state may not even
accept it. So I'm not holding my breath on a lot of grant funding coming in at least in emergency services for any time in the near future. Again supply and vehicle maintenance may c uh cost may increase. How much that's going to be a
factor of the run volume what we see in development. We've already seen the strain on EMS. It's probably a couple more years before they build the standalone uh emergency room in Grten if they get that off the ground. Um
with that, especially on the EMS vehicles, you're seeing more and more wear and tear. My capital plan last year, I looked at a plan to eventually put a third ambulance in the station and instead of a 10-year cycle, work them on a 12-ear cycle that they're doing four years frontline, four years backup, four
years spare. So when one truck is down, we still have a replacement and can keep two trucks on the road. And again, inflationary costs, I don't know what those are going to be. They're they're all over the place. So I would anticipate the expense lines would be incremental unless something crazy
happens like 2020 and stuff goes completely off the rails. And any questions? Yes. Yeah. >> So, did you have built in there an increase in equipment? If we add a fourth shift, they're going to need safety gear
>> that would would come out of the existing budget. >> Okay. >> And that Yeah. I mean, beyond the the contractual requirement for their uh their uniforms, the turnout gear would come out of come out of budget. >> Okay. But that wouldn't be
>> it's a it you know, we have $20,000 a year. That buys us around four sets of turnout gear a year. So we should be able to replace them out of that. >> So we would just basically skip a Okay. >> Yeah. I I don't see an incre a need to increase that at at this time.
>> How many on call firefighters do >> approximately 35. >> Oh wow. >> Right now and that again twothirds to threequarters of them are all career firefighters somewhere else which is the challenge of not all of them live in town. And a lot of these guys started out with us have taken on jobs somewhere else.
They stay on part-time or predium with us, but they can't afford to live in town. So, they live nearby. A couple of them have taken jobs even further away, but they still come out and work for us once in a while. So, they hang on to them. But, it's we don't see a lot of
people that just are doing another job and they just want to be a part-time fireman. It's that's how I started out. There's a few of us old-timers that started out that way and were were dying breed, unfortunately. >> The handymen and contractors.
>> That's what he's talking about. People who had a different vocation. >> Yep. >> That was norm a full-time other. >> We used to have six to eight town employees or school department employees that would drop drop what they were doing and respond on calls back when I
first came on and that's that's gone away. And you don't have the people that work in town anymore. We have a few, but they're few and far between and they're not kids. >> I mean, if you go back a few decades, um, there were students that were on
call firefighters. I hear stories from Bob Iver all the time. >> I was one of them. >> Oh, there you go. >> What what changed in 1997 was they required the physical agility test to be a firefighter in the state. You have to be 18 to take it. >> So, that put a big crimp in that
program. We still do take some interns from the high school, but they're much more limited. >> I mean, we had my my CLA, the group that I came through, we had six of us, and you generated two fire chiefs, a national park senior executive, an fire
protection engineer. So, >> yeah, a lot of some of those changes sometimes are driven by union contracts. >> Nothing. It was driven by the state solely. nothing to do with might have been virtually all of our career staff came as call firefighters up through the ranks.
>> Um so quick a few quick questions. Do you have a deployment plan if you hire these three new career firefighters >> be three people a shift? >> So the reason I ask is the following. Um I don't imagine you would be able to
hire everyone at the same time day one and then if we change how everything is scheduled like we might actually create more strain on the current staff if our plan is we're going to go through the force shift immediately but then we
don't actually are able to hire people. So I'm just I'm just asking to put it some thought on that in so we don't end up in a worse >> it would be a function of we would have it would be a conversation but within the department with the town manager once negotiations are done once the
positions are funded we interview them get them hired and figure okay it might not be July 1 it might be August 1st or September 1st >> that's what I'm saying like a deployment >> okay on this date >> we implement it >> right and that's what Right. Um
>> the other you know I know you have the effects of new growth. I think you mean you know you wrote large scale projects for the last 17 years. I think there are a lot of factors that go into this including you know aging population. >> Absolutely.
>> And I I and and I I think your main data came from when Lunberg had three developments that came back to back to back. I'm not sure. I I I see why this this slide is here, but I think it doesn't really serve the
purpose because I that I think you're trying to illustrate because there's so many other factors other than just that one. >> There's there's a lot, but when you at the end of the day, when you add more people, we get more calls for service. >> And I think, you know, that projection goes with that. It's not always one, you
know. It's, you know, I I I just I my commun what I'm saying is this slide doesn't really tell me everything I need I would want to know. It asks it just prompts me to ask a lot more questions. >> So, so that's
>> the point is they always always in conversations I have heard about how they worry the worry has always been with development that affects the schools affects the schools. Yes, it does. >> It affects other agencies. Oh, I mean especially we need over 55 housing, but
that does affect us. >> Not not saying don't build more housing, but just the point being it affects public safety. It affects fire. It affects police. >> I I I I think there's a story to be told there. I'm not disagreeing at all and I
fully support. I'm I'm just saying this one slide with this one data point just gives me a lot of more questions to you know I think we can probably have that conversation about the impact of you know aging population like um the last
projection that I saw from the COA. We are going to shift into a much older, you know, town over the next 5 to >> people living much longer, much sicker at home with no support system. And
their support system often becomes public safety because there is no one else to call when they fall, when they have a problem. >> Exactly. >> Family doesn't live nearby anymore. It's not the whole neighborhood's one one last name like I grew up. And uh it's
it's a different world. And and there's people that are at home >> now that 40 years ago would not have lived to be home. They are living with extremely complex medical conditions. >> Oh 100%. And that's why this one slide just gives me more questions.
>> It's about trying to say it's a function of >> you know we've gone from when I many years ago I can remember when this town was 6,000 people. Now it's 12. >> Right. >> We're growing. I mean, I only moved in 20 years ago and you're 8,000 and uh >> I still remember only having to dial
four digits to call across town. >> There you go. Thank you. And I'm not that old. >> Right. >> Anything else for the chief? >> They tell me. >> Okay. All right. Thank you. Appreciate it very much. >> Thank you. >> Last but not least,
>> you were manning the phone. see how many phone calls we got in today. >> I saw you run out in case there's something going on up there, >> right? >> All right. This will be a boring presentation. >> Really? >> Um, you have that up.
>> No, the other one, the previous one says uh pre 26. >> What? >> I'm on the market. >> Yeah. >> Oh, I need to go off the Hold on. >> What was it? PreFy 26. >> It's on the flashard, right? >> Yep.
>> PreFy 26. There we go. For those of you that don't know me, uh Jeff Tibido, chief of the Lunberg Police Department. Um, next slide. Uh, right here is our uh structure that
we have here at the department. We filled uh three open slots. Um, we have uh two new officers being being appointed on uh the 7th, which is going to bring us up to uh up to staff, which we've been battling for many years now.
Um, we've had high turnover and vacancies. >> Are those all the same color? I I can tell. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Well, I just >> they're all funded as well. Next want to
just take you through the FY23 24 and 25. Uh our total salaries. Uh the expenditures basically in the 97 96 and 92 range. Um obviously our budget is personnel driven. Uh it's 83% of our
budget is uh all personnel overtime salaries. Uh next slide. You can see um in the past years obviously um there's the amounts the actuals and uh what was uh spent and
then left over. When you see stuff left over that was for vacancies. We for the last uh 2 to 3 years we went through six officers that left and new officers. So when you have officers retire at uh you know at the highest step and then we
hire uh at a lower step um obviously there'll be money left left in there. >> So can I make a general quote? So the schools are not the only ones that sometimes hand back money. >> No, everybody
>> I'm just saying that's $177,000 there. >> That's good. >> That's that's not their overall firm. >> No. So that's one line that offsets. >> They didn't turn back 177,000. The police department did not say give back. Sorry, I guess I
misinterpreted usually what give back means. >> If if you look at the past years, we expended 97% 96% 92%. It's actually usually like the the general give back is probably in like the 20 to $30,000. >> Okay. I'm sorry. I just misinterpreted this. Said give back.
>> So what's that number mean? What does balance what does balance mean? Uh so let's see which one we'll go to. Police salaries. Go down. >> Yeah. Police total salaries. Uh >> go down here. Like >> keep going. >> No. Up
right here. So 17,000 given back 3,000 and uh so basically in those lines uh take for instance uh police executive assistant. Uh we had one person making more money. we hired the next person. So
in the middle of the year, that person was budgeted for 69,000. The next person came in and only made 59,000. So when uh you budget for the next year, uh we had people leave in January.
Obviously that line's going to have access. >> Okay. >> I explain it well. Um so say you have a you have a top patrolman leave. Yeah, I think I get I get why. I'm just confused why that isn't the amount returned. Do you
>> where does the money go? >> Yeah. Do you just move it to other expenditures? >> No, that that line would be given back. So in FY25, $463 $463 was given. >> We're looking at slide the third slide.
The police total salary this month where it says balance give back the 17 >> your F12 pending budget. >> Yep. >> How much overall was not salary at bottom line? >> Bottom line. >> Bottom line police.
>> Why can't we just subtract the top number from the middle number to get the bottom number? I think >> because it's a bottom line budget that includes things other than just salary. >> So total budget >> salaries under one by that amount. >> I mean 25 we had three officers leave.
>> So that okay >> giving back money is good. That's free cash. >> It's better than Yeah. >> I'm just I'm okay. >> Just pointing out that it's a big number. But I guess it's not a big number because this is just the salary portion. I think doesn't include the other expenses which is fine that that has now been explained to me. I just
when I looked at this number right on this slide, >> it said give back. So I I get it. >> Yeah, it's an under. >> No, but that money has been allocated to other areas that the police department needed. >> I was asking, >> right? Yeah, >> that's I don't know that he had that tonight.
>> That's fine. I just probably >> Yeah, it's just unexpended salaries, which makes sense because you guys have been >> Yeah, I mean it makes sense. It happens in every It happens in every department. I'm not >> uh obviously when somebody leaves it usually for a police department it takes us almost almost 6 months to
>> to to fill those positions. Uh if the person has to go to the academy um just just alone when you hire a new officer uh once that officer steps in the door there's an additional 24040 hours of training before they're on their own. >> Wow. So there's a lot of uh when we lose
a when we lose one person it's it's it's substantial to the to the department operations and when we lose uh six that's a lot but uh looking uh we got two new hires >> three new hires and uh looking looking
to stay steady here for a couple years uh down to police expenses Um, all this stuff right here you'll see is >> Yeah, you'll see incentives and stipens. It's all it's all it's all uh contract driven. That's all CBA. Um, that's all
driven. We're uh have a contract just settled. So, you'll see those numbers when I bring up FY27. There'll be a difference. And, uh, like I said, 83% is all personnel driven. So, it's all contractual.
Uh, next slide. Again, stipens, uh, everything contractual. Next, uh, overtime, community policing, holiday pay, court time, and investigative field services. Um,
investigative field services is uh your required uh investigations by your detective uh your SRO. That's above and beyond uh their shift. Um usually proactive investigations that they're
doing and not just your regular overtime of filling uh filling people's shifts when somebody takes off. What's community policing in regards to OT pay? Uh community policing is basically um high school football games,
uh boys and girls club, uh the Lions Club, uh Lake Sher Lake Shirley, Lake Wham patrols, the Miles for Miles, uh any community events that uh require an officer, we put an additional officer on
to basically house that event. Um that'll be under the community policing. Obviously, we we do a a ton of events here in Lunberg and we always have uh our officers involved. Um a lot of the school events, um open houses, stuff
like that, uh our SRO's go to. That's just not your regular overtime. That's actually covered by our community policing to have the officers there. >> Thank you. >> Next slide. >> Firearms training, uh specialized
training, and less lethal training. Uh all those are uh your statemandated trainings that we have to go to and it's all personnel driven and uh that's their above and beyond overtime. Uh each officer I believe we're around 64 hours
of mandated training. So we're at about 1,200 hours uh that officers have to do departmentwide that uh comes out of that those budgets. Next uh is uh the expenses expended um and
the balance. So the balance that's your 70% 86% 84% a lot of that is basically driven by uh you know yeartoear
having less people having more people. Again, it's it's really been a it's it's been a challenge these last couple years with the the amount of people we've had leave. So, having a steady budget throughout the year when you're
replacing shifts um has been uh has been quite a challenge. Next, >> why did people leave? >> Uh more money >> this uh this day and age right now. Uh >> I I guess Chief S Sullivan actually uh
talked about it. You know, the living in town, uh working your whole career in town, it it's a thing of the past. The um officers now are a lot younger and uh the market right now is very competitive
with uh cities and towns in Massachusetts as to even signin bonuses, which I thought I would never see. uh departments are offering signin bonuses uh for the officer to sign up if you lateral transfer. Um you have LA you have Lemonster, Fitchburg, first time in
history at Boston taking lateral transfers from out of the city of Boston. All all of this is unprecedented has never been seen in law enforcement. So it's basically taken on like a competitive market like the private sector basically. Um,
we just we just uh settled a new contract and uh just like that we got three people. >> Salaries. >> Yeah, >> it boils down to salary. >> It boils down to salary. That's right. >> Is there a net
um need across Massachusetts for police officers? And like how much is that >> as far as like uh lack of officers? >> Lack of officers across the state. If if you could uh if if you did the numbers some of the numbers I hear well we could
break it down bymies uh wheremies used to have 60 to 70 people uhmies now have like 25 to 30 um the Fitsburg State Police Academy that just ran that we got an officer out of they had 13 officers graduating they
they should be in like the 40 to 50 range so it's just as a whole and uh so what happens is is you have every police department, city and town in Massachusetts going for that small number of candidates
>> and it's uh you know a buyer market. >> Who's paying me the most? Who's offering the most? Uh the incentives, the bonuses, the education incentives. Um you're also seeing a lot a lot of the the officers are have college degrees now.
um 20 years ago college degree was not really as prevalent as it is you know so now the younger officers they they want to get paid for that education you know >> next slide >> oh can I what's with on the balance for
FY23 $98,000 were there grants involved that came into the fund >> no that was uh just probably that was in our expense budget so in the expenses is uh we probably didn't have any cars broken
>> cuz the b >> I'll break it down with the expenses. You know, >> is the balance remaining because the balance remaining is more than the budget. I'm just confused. Is that accurate first column? >> Not. >> Should it be 19,000? >> Yeah. Of Hawaii 23,000.
>> Yeah, that that's it should be uh what 18 I think. >> Yeah, I think it's 19. >> Sorry, typo. >> 1957. Okay. I just >> I'll take 84 from 65. >> Oh, no. It's fine. Emily did it for me. Um, I was just curious if there was some sort of
>> Thank you, Chris. >> Up on it. >> Next, >> the equipment maintenance. Um, print, postage, um, you'll see in the later slides, uh, the motorcycle is no longer, so we take
we took that one out. Um postage won't be in there either. Um in the equipment maintenance we were very high. Uh that was our repairing our body cameras. Um if you remember we got a grant for our body cameras. Uh we originally put them
in uh four years ago and their shelf life is pretty much like any electronic item. Um they break. So, we were repairing those at a huge cost and we replaced all of those with uh capital
and they haven't broke yet. So, but that that's something you're probably going to look at like a 5year lifespan, but we we uh originally we got a grant and then you know we we had capital for it. >> Next slide. >> And the game is over and we won three to
one. >> Oh, thank you. >> Oh, the Red Sox won. >> Yeah. Oh. >> Oh, these guys. >> All right. >> Good sign. It's a good sign. >> I'm recording it, but that's okay. >> A lot of watch.
>> Oh, >> but somebody out there is out there. >> Renee was going to tell you as soon as you got home anyway. Uh a lot of these these lines right here um our software dues, memberships, training course fees, um based on uh how
much the courses cost, uh dues and memberships, our accreditation fees, our uh MPI fees. A lot of that is uh driven by accreditation and um digital uh detail software is the software we used for our scheduling and
overtime and details. Next slide. Uh office supplies, firearm supplies, um badges, and our K9 expenses. K9 expenses obviously is food, vet bills. Um again,
a little fluctuation there yearbyear depending on um vet bills and stuff like that. Uh they were higher one year. Poor Hank got hurt. See, you'll see a check. See, you'll see
it was I >> Why are we laughing? >> No. Hey. >> Yeah, cuz every person went a >> uh lock up again. Um we're at 15,000 this year. Uh last year 158. We went
over a little bit. That all depends. Um if you look back, our our lockup budget used to be used to be around $100,000. Now, um the Worester Sheriff's um started a program where they house uh male prisoners for us which has
drastically decreased our lock up by about $80,000. So, just in that program of the Worester County Sheriff's um doing that for all the cities and towns in Worester County, we were able to reduce that budget by significant
amount. Uh this year um FY 26 and 27 will be about 15 grand which is usually usually what we do. >> Um question chief are these people that are held at the station and then transported. >> These would be nonvailable.
>> Okay. >> It would be uh high bail if they not able to come up with bail uh default warrants. Um >> and so they stay at the station or they're going someplace else. >> Uh males are going to Wista County. Okay. Okay. >> Uh safe lockup and females would be staying in house. >> Okay.
>> So most of that expense would be uh for females. Males if they're not bailed that more likely than not transported to whist. >> Okay. >> At uh pretty much no cost to us. >> That's great. >> Which like I said that that was like an
$80,000 reduction. Next slide. >> Thank you, Sheriff Lou. >> Yeah. Uh this is our Nishoba Valley uh regional dispatch. Um it's usually around 200 200,000 depending on which
towns. Um additional Hudson on it always fluctuates when we take on more towns it goes down but it's it's pretty much been steady around the 200 range. Uh radio watch which originally was our dispatch
center. Um that's for our uh Evelyn who sits in there. That's her salary from 7:00 to 3. And then the salary overtime for is to keep the uh lobby open from 3:00 to 7:00. That was
uh that's Monday through Friday. Um basically we're open from 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. >> Are we charged per call? >> No. >> No. >> Why would you ask? Nobody serious. Nobody would ever want that. So,
historically, Lunberg was uh the biggest uh the biggest town, biggest call volume in Ashoba when we joined the Shoba Dispatch. >> Are we the biggest town or we're just the most troublemaker? >> No, we were the biggest town. >> Okay. Yeah, good to know. >> And uh right now uh we took on Hudson,
which probably has is probably going to >> be in the higher range than us. >> Mhm. But you know, you also have you have communities like Berlin and Lancaster in there, Harvard. Um >> although some of those small towns have high points, right? So like a town like
Berlin that has nobody, they have them all. But we are still winning. >> We are looking on taking on Sterling. >> I think Sterling >> and it was if one more comes on this line will drop. >> Okay.
>> What year did we start Nesta Valley? Was it It's like a decade ago. >> Oh yeah, that was a while ago. >> Okay. You don't have to know the exact year. I'm just um >> So, how is that a budget by town if it's not by call value?
>> It's a formula that takes into factor. Um No, it's not in this. It's even >> Yeah, it's across the board. Yeah. >> My last dispatch, it was a formula. >> No, we we pay the same as Lancaster. We pay the same as Harvard. Yeah,
>> it's all the same. Oh, so >> yeah. >> So I was I >> think we should move the question. >> I originally wanted to have a common place, but when I talked to the chief that was going to go not in our favor, but at some point that may be
>> uh just just the police department alone, we're probably looking at like 22 we average about 22,000 calls uh you know interaction with the So 22,000 is pretty high volume. >> 22,000 like 911 calls.
>> Not 911. No. Oh. So they do our business uh business line after hours. >> Um say if we stop a car, we call into them. >> Oh, okay. >> So for them it would be a call, you know. Is there any long-term plan to cretail
costs from Collins from the town of Lunenburgg regarding like high volume users? >> No. >> Okay. >> Next slide. Uh animal control. Animal control has uh
pretty much been been the same for a a long time. This is we've enjoyed uh the excellent work of our longtime employee Kathy Ko and if that ever ends you could uh probably see a significant uh probably that line will double.
>> Yep. >> Um it's something to uh you know keep in the back of your minds. I think she's been here for 46 years of uh dedicated service. And uh if we were to uh have
anybody other than Kathy, we can probably look at double on those amounts. >> Is it realistic to think that somebody who's worked here for 46 years is going to keep doing that? >> She's an excellent employee. >> She likes doing that. >> She's dedicated. >> There you go. >> She's very stubborn.
>> When Sully was talking about uh the people in town that live in town and worked in town, you know, she's she's she's one of those dedicated servants. That's amazing. >> Yep. I don't think we'll ever see that again. [Music] >> Next slide.
Vehicle maintenance always uh fluctuating. Um purchase or service, supplies, fuel. Our fuel is is pretty much, you know, we go with the the cost of the cost of fuel. You'll see it was higher in some years. Uh right now, um it's a little lower.
were trending pretty much the same. Um, purchase of service, it's if cars break. Um, we had a we had a bad uh bad year in uh FY24. We had a great year in uh FY25
and we're off to a bad start right now. We've had three major failures in the cars uh this year alone. Um, knock on wood, they were covered by uh warranties, but our three of our hybrids, we saw major failures in the
batteries, and each one of those hybrid batteries costs approximately around $20,000. We don't have the infrastructure to fix uh the hybrid vehicles. Um Jim's a diesel and gas mechanic and doesn't have the doesn't have the equipment to
service hybrid vehicles either. Um, so that's also something to keep in the back of back of your mind is uh the the cost if we ever had to replace one of those batteries in the hybrid. Um, luckily we haven't, but three this year they were all around the 50,000 uh
50,000 milei mark for those vehicles. Um, that's where they were. No rhyme or reason why all three of them went at the same time. Again, very challenging and uh not happy about it. Next.
Thank you. Um, I do have a Excel spreadsheet for FY27. I don't know how long we would like to stay here tonight. Um, just basically it's our CBA costs. Uh, I have it broken down. I think everybody got it. Mhm.
>> So I guess the general question without getting into the details of the chart is over the next few years, what is your desires or plans as it relates to growth >> or not? >> The next so the next three years for our
CBA we're looking at 3 three and three. Um that's basically how it breaks down for our salaries is uh 3%. >> The other um the expenses and everything else pretty much level funded. >> What about personnel? Are you looking to bring on personnel over that?
>> If we can keep everybody after uh the appointment of October 7th, >> honey, >> we're going to keep everybody and uh there'll be no more further personnel. >> We actually dropped personnel to fund the collective bargaining agreement. We dropped one sergeant. So, we're going to
run one sergeant down to run the CPA. >> Okay. But your general staffing plan projection is >> for the next for the next three years. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. >> We uh we eliminated the detective sergeant uh detective sergeant position. >> We just want for the record keeping
minutes if people are leaving. So you uh >> just and somebody else left over here too. >> Uh I have to go but I think Laura is going to be able. >> All right. >> Anthony Scalabbrini leaving for the minutes. Sorry about to call them out. >> Tony is leaving.
>> You may need to adjust. >> That's okay. Um, >> what else? >> I just want to say thank you from the school committee for your strong commitment to the schools and the um the uh you know school resource officers which are just such a huge part of our
school community and have really um really play such a vital role. So thank you. I know that's a expense to the town and that doesn't come out of our budget. >> Yep. >> Uh town of Lunberg um we have a great relationship with the schools. We always have
>> and uh the fact that we we have uh technically three SRO's I'd like to say because we have Hank in there, >> you know, we have Hank and uh >> Brad McNamera and uh Cam Monroe is a huge commitment uh that we have from the police department to the schools.
>> And the other huge commitment we have in town that we have to thank the people for is community policing. Uh we have a community policing line budget there where uh our officers are out there. You know, obviously you can see in the community policing line all the events in in the town of Lunberg, we we try and
put extra officers out there to have at those events that um some cities and towns uh don't don't have that. So I'd like to thank the towns people for that. Like to thank all these boards for that. That's uh it's I'm a big community policing guy. Uh you see me at a lot of
these events. uh coffee with the chief at the senior center every month. It's just uh something, you know, I think is unique to Lunberg and and I kind of take pride in. >> Well, we appreciate it. Can I ask about the comfort dog? I know Hank is going towards retirement, which we'll all be
very sad about. I know there's been some discussion in the past about replacing Hank. Not really replacing. You can never replace, you know, >> the OG. You can't replace. >> Yes, exactly. But could you give us I know we're we're going late, but like two seconds on like what the plan is moving forward or I
>> uh do we need more money? >> I believe I No, we don't need more money because uh the Brad Brad has a a great relationship in the uh comfort dog community. >> Yep. >> And with the the breeder that we have hang from,
>> you know, we've got commitments that that we will we will have another comfort dog. >> Excellent. as long as uh K9 expenses funded. >> Okay. >> And and the uh K9 care overtime. >> Excellent. >> Those are those are the two lines that
that bring you uh that bring you Hank. >> Excellent. Thank you. >> Anything else? >> No. >> All right. Well, that concludes your presentation. Thank you very much. Uh and uh that takes us through our entire agenda. If there's anything anybody
didn't get a chance to bring up that needs to address be before we get ready to close. No. Okay. Seeing no one, I'll ask the finance committee to close their meeting. >> Um I'd entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> So moved. >> Second.
>> All those in favor say I. >> I. >> I. >> We are adjourned. >> You are adjourned. And from the schools, >> can I take a motion to adjurnn? >> So moved. >> Second. >> Second. Okay. All in favor? >> I. >> All right. >> Okay. And select
>> oppos. I say all right. So, the meeting is done. Yeah, you're done. Are we going to select quitting? >> Is there a motion to adjurnn? >> I'll make a motion to adjurnn at 9:29 p.m. >> Thank you. Second. >> Uh, all those in favor say I. I. >> I. Those opposed, no. We are adjourned.
>> Anybody at home that wants to catch up to us, we have meetings on October 14th, November 12th, December 9th, and January 13th. And this meeting is adjourned. >> Thank you, Mr. [Music]