##VIDEO ID:u9ZkLe7Hv7c## select board today is Tuesday November 5th and the polls are still open so if you're watching this and you have not voted yet stop watching and head on down to TC pasos and cast your ballot please stand for the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge aliance 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 lunenberg public access channel on Facebook live on the public access Facebook page and will be uploaded to the lunenberg access YouTube channel after the meeting this meeting will be held oops not that paragraph my bad 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 we're going to begin tonight with public comments so there any public comments from the board yes um yeah really briefly for those at home who are still paying attention um I made a public comment previously about checking your smoke detector so I just want to remind folks to do it I know some people heard it and and you know you don't have to feel compelled to do things because it's suggested but you know this is definitely the time of the year where we all hear about carbon monoxide poison in homes um you know boilers being off for the year you know there could have been a lot of stuff that has affected the proper functioning of your furnace or boiler system uh so just a reminder to please uh check your smoke detectors um and carbon monoxide detectors um specifically the carbon monoxide detectors in your home make sure that they're working uh so that way we can all safely get through uh this heating season thank you all right thank you for the public service announcement are there any public comments from the public Mr Burton yes thank you um George Burton 39 courtlink Circle I would like to um acknowledge and thank the zoning board of appeals for kind of a very um disturbing and abusive appeal that was requested by the individual it's an um Trustee of our HOA our homeowners association that has put a has a shed on his um on our common land behind his home taking an eighth of an acre of land um maintaining it like his very abusive charged our family $220,000 for something that we didn't do and basically was going to walk us out of our home and foreclose on us I think the town should be very aware of this they should um look at the October 23rd zoning board of appeals and it's a situation where we have the trustee placing a a shed on common land that is being was almost being protected by the town the zoning board of appeals did a great job a very tough kind of um awkward I'll call it hearing um because they there was a request made for an appeal without any basis to it and there was an actually an extension Grant um granted once and then they tried to Grant a second extension again very abusive but I want to thank the zoning board of appeals for doing the right thing um also wanted to bring up a situation I know you guys have done some studies on flath Hill Road I was walking on flat hill road on Sunday um got a a the same individual I'll tell you Mr proud again walking by me drove by me going Southbound Direction I was going Southbound he turned around in a driveway from the old appid Orchard came back at me held a phone driving with one hand holding a phone pointed at me looking at me so not paying attention to the road and saying Mr Burton at 7:00 or whatever time it was is following me to my granddaughter's home please the town please someone out walking on a fla Hill Road being told that it's nothing more than mental abuse and it needs to stop the individual then went past me stopped in the road got out of his car and started continuously to film me while I went down down flat Hill Road the opposite way again walking he is in his car two cars came up they stopped started talking to him and you could see that the the the I couldn't hear the whole conversation but the conversation got very loud from Mr Pratt telling him he can basically do what he wants this what he he's telling these individuals I have it all on recording it's pathetic the town needs to stop and the police the police officers won't even take a a they wouldn't even take a report from me and my wife the week before with very similar situation we had an officer Drive Away honestly from us um when we want to report these things kind of disturbing to us but um wanted to let the town know what we're going through and that hope this stops in lunenberg um it needs to it shouldn't be in the small little town but we're going to get to the bottom of it and we're going to get and everybody's heard me before we're going to continue to get to the bottom of this harassment that we've gone through it's unbelievable and it's these are things that can't even be made up this is for TV shows not for real life especially in a small town of lunenberg leave it at that and we'll be tuned in another time all right thank you for your public comment Mr buron are there any other public comments not seeing anyone else on Zoom all right announcements I do have an announcement well the first one I'll I'll plug again I don't know if I mentioned at the beginning of the meeting but polls are still open and they close at 8:00 P.M so you have what time is it now 55 more minutes to go and vote if you haven't yet uh and the other one that I have to make is um so the warrant that was sent out for the special town meeting contained some votes that were captured incorrectly so I just want to um go through the ones that were incorrect in the booklet and to just provide the correct votes um and we'll also be making sure that we communicate this at town meeting as well and we'll have printouts for everyone as well so that they can reference the actual correct votes so on Article Five in the warrant it states that the fincom voted 4 to one four in favor and one opposed the actual vote was 401 so one member abstained from that vote instead of voting against it similarly for article 6 same exact situation it's recorded as the fincom voted 41 the actual vote was 401 for article 9 same thing fincom 41 it should actually be 401 and then for article 11 it states that the select board voted 41 the actual vote was 311 so instead of one in favor it was one exstension so instead of 41 it was 311 all right are there any other announcements all right we'll move on to Communications from other boards I do believe we have one tonight good evening everyone Kate Burnham superintendent of schools um here on behalf of the school committee I shared uh with the interim Town manager and the chair um a list of projects that um largely come from our Capital plan our 10-year Capital plan um these are projects that would not require bid um so as the uh the board is deliberating over um what to do with any available Opa money um that's a list for your consideration it's a list that the school committee will um discuss at tomorrow night's meeting um I may have more feedback for you after they have an opportunity to discuss they may have other thoughts as well um but I wanted to make sure that that you had access to this um this memo that they'll be looking at tomorrow night and discussing thank you Kate can I just ask you for a favor so they're on the table right behind you would you mind handing them up real quick all right thank you very much okay all right thanks thank Youk you very much thank you yep so we'll be talking about that when we get to arpa uh because it looks like we're going to have uh quite a bit that we have to reallocate so we have our emergency list of easy purchases from department heads and this is one uh so those are all the school department requests but we'll get into that when we get to ARA all right we don't have any hearings or meetings tonight so we'll jump down to appointments ratifications and res designations so we have the ratification of the Town manager's appointment of Robin Nano as assistant Administrative Assistant for the board of assessors I'll hand it over to you Carter to introduce Robin um I don't think I can do anything better than we Julie bellu prepared in the package all right I'll pull it up we are pleased to announce for ratification the appointment of Robin Nano Robin has an extensive background in home and auto insurance as well as a banking background her knowledge of the registry process will be helpful with motor vehicle excise abatements as well as her financial background she is eager to join our team and will be doing so on Tuesday November 11th pending our ratification Robin's references described her as someone they can count on reliable supportive honest and a people person these attributes were noticeable during Robin's interview with the principal assessor and assistant Town managerhr director and some of the other things are just about the position it became vacant on May 17th 2024 due to a retirement the position received a considerable amount of applicants due to the minimum requirements of the position and the ease of implying via indeed of the applications received 11 were extended interviews of those 11 eight accepted interviews an offer was made at the end of July and it was declined another offer was made at the end of September and was also declined at the end of October Robin Robin was interviewed and an offer was made and accepted so are there any questions for Carter no all right is there a motion move that we ratify the town inter Town manager appointment of Robin Nano as the administrative assistant for the board of assessors second any additional discussion those in favor say I I those oppose no the motion passes unanimously all right back to you Carter for the interim Town manager report uh so on the uh projects uh the library exterior paint project was completed uh and on budget we do await the final punch list from the director of facilities uh we did Issue a notice of award for the DPW garage flooring uh they're getting their last items together for us and we expect to be able to execute that uh at the uh beginning of next week the notice of award has also been issued for the DPW partial roof replacement project uh they also have a few items payment and performance bond and we expect to be able to execute that contract this week we did complete the uh paperwork for the sewer manhole Rehabilitation project uh and the vendor has been in contact with the DPW director to begin to identify uh manholes which they can hopefully get done before winter sets in and then pick it up in the spring the data collection Services contract uh also was executed and the principal assessor is preparing to give them a list of properties for their inspection uh Library teen room bids were due yesterday uh we got four bids they were within budget about uh we had 120,000 uh the was 85 there was an ad alternate for 11 uh so we're checking references and uh concluding the paperwork on that uh Municipal Building design uh did receive their proposals um I don't know what happened last night uh but once we receive that report we can now open the price proposal tomorrow the town hall roof replacement and chimney restoration came in roughly 25,000 above budget we itially thought we could cover it within the capital funds but they are from two different years uh and also uh I'm a little uncomfortable because they're for two different items uh so we do have an underrun there uh and then we never quite know what's going to happen once you start opening a roof up until it's done uh I spoke with um Adam Costa on the Mass Avenue and I hope we can get that out uh in the next week or so and the pack manager is finished finishing up the audio updates here on this building uh we do have um Ritter building two projects are going out to bid tomorrow uh one package is for the roof and trim the other package is for the windows we know we don't have sufficient monies um but we are getting those packages out to bid and we'll see what we'll see what happens um so unfortunately the recruitment the uh Staffing's a little bit of one step forward you just filled one position for us and we thank you uh unfortunately we learned uh today this morning uh that one of our police officers is uh moving back to uh their family in Vermont um so we will be advertising to create a pool of applicants that ad will say that the pool is for the coming 6 months so that if we have another um resignation in 2 months or 3 months we'll have a PO of candidates um we will hope for lateral transfers obviously we'll send folks to the academy should we need to uh these police positions are becoming uh more difficult uh to fill as um uh Vietnam era and other folks uh of my vintage are starting to retire um the pack videographer uh remains available and if you're watching this meeting and wonder what's behind it all Reach Out and um perhaps you might be interested in working with them uh I'm pleased to tell you that of the three positions that we do have vacant uh DPW labor driver uh sewer business manager and assistant to the Sewer business manager I'll have interviews this week please light a candle say a prayer whatever your particular faith is uh because then that would really help bring to closure some of the vacancies we've had um the boards and committee vacancies uh I hope folks that um uh you know get a chance to read that letter in the uh town meeting warrant booklet about the uh import of volunteers to running the community and you'll see some of that uh in action from the finance committee uh and other committees that present Municipal Building design uh budget task force uh planning board perhaps you'll get to see some of that in action if you uh can join us next Tuesday evening uh at the special town meeting uh speaking of which the we have a star amongst us the chair joined me to tape uh a Talk of the Town we did a half hour preview walk through each of the the warrant articles uh for pack and if you have uh a chance to watch that it actually did bring up uh a question on the Mart um you know can we go to Worcester so I don't know uh they did agree to go to Amerson uh but we'll we'll have that conversation with them and try to get that done by next Tuesday night um I participated in the team meeting uh on Marshall Park we've got some um unfortunate news about that when we talk about the arpa monies um spent quite a bit of time on the status of various arpa items um we did work with Maya and we received received quotes they are our health insurance carrier uh we received quotes for two additional High deductible insurance plans uh we'll review them in a team meeting next week uh and then decide how to move uh forward on that um I will say that a good portion of the time probably 10 to 12 hours not necessarily my time personally but if staff time uh was spent on public records requests uh last week um I'm pleased to tell you that Miss bellw uh achieved her recertification for uh mcppo designation so that has been renewed um I did attend uh a portion of the capital planning last night via Zoom so I could observe the it presentation uh and then I sat in on the balance of the budget task force cool any questions for Carter all right awesome thank you very much Carter all right so moving on to Old business the first thing is status update discussion and possible action AR arpa funds uh so as Carter mentioned he was in a meeting today and found out that Parks is going to return approximately $750,000 of arpa funding um and that's sort of all we know about right now but it looks like we're definitely having a sizable amount of funds that we're going to have to reallocate uh but Carter has put together a list of emergency items that we can purchase and got a good amount from our department heads uh so we have stuff from police fire DPW and schools as we know Kate Burnham came in uh so I'll just sort of go over what this is too so we have on this list so police is asking for 45,000 body cameras fire department is asking for $74,000 for a power stretcher and loader I'm sorry do we have this this this no this is not typed up it's summarized in one of the letters that Carter provided for us uh so before the meeting I sat down with him to actually get the specifics for each request uh like I said this came in today so it's not actually in a spreadsheet but I will put it in one and send it out to you guys immediately so that it can be in front of us for the so it's in the letter and you're saying it's you're just reading kind of paragraph Yes I'm breaking it down for you guys with the actual requests so the $45,000 for police is for body cameras the fire department has three requests so 74k for a power stretcher and loader 50k to replace 50 or 15 portable radios and 23k for a stair chair DPW has a pretty long list so there's $472 for a gas powered cement mixer $10,800 for a 2.5 Cy don't know what that means loader bucket 11,500 for a tailgate cross conveyor 72,500 for a mini excavator 14,700 for a trailer for a mini excavator 11,45 for a JCB 3cx compact backhoe 194,000 for a catch Basin cleaner truck 275,000 for a John Deere 544 wheel loader $198,500 for a John deer 410 back home and then the school list is 59,92876 for the pickup truck with plow 33,2 for the Middle High School window safety film this is another comma era so I I don't know if it's 48,000 or 483,000 for the primary school classroom Mini Splits phase two I think both of those Mr chair are with an added zero at the end so generators $154,000 and this one's $483,000 yeah yeah most likely the 911 cabling project was completed so the explanation that I was getting from the superintendent before this meeting and I don't know if this is 100% accurate but my takeaway was that they initially were planning on going in and because each room has a PA system in it but they don't have a telephone hookup that they were going to go off of that PA system and then when they actually got in they discovered that they couldn't do that uh so it's something like that so I would assume that that's why that this is listed um I didn't read the description here but it's something something along the lines of that completed I guess out tomorrow but that's the explanation I got um so I think that's the status and it's my understanding that they have it ready to go for that amount if I can jump in I think part of it as well is that um you know it's a project that we know is already completed and it's so if we're in the position where we're looking for things that will qualify for arpa which this does um you know that we could then assign this to ARA the effect would be that it would create uh additional budget Capac capacity within the school budget so it would allow us then to ensure that hey if we're making this designation again we know the product's done we know what's going to be done before the end of the year because it's already done so it's a safe project yeah and I'll just press pause real quick before I continue reading through the school department requests there are other ways we could do that too um like Carter was suggesting that we could potentially put arpa funds into pavement management and then they would just have a lot of excess money in the budget that could then be moved somewhere else so there are options um other than just funding projects on this list of things that we can do to make sure that we don't at least lose it so we could put it towards like budget items like that and then there would be you know an overflow of money that would then be transferred elsewhere in the budget so um so I'll continue reading this and then I'll I'll let Carter speak to it as well um so the next one is $817 for the Turkey Hill Elementary School vest bu 384,000 for the fire alarm projects all right so Carter do you want to add anything well first I am not anticipating any decisions tonight yeah secondly I didn't know until uh midafternoon how much we were really looking at turning back I knew it was considerable um I'm not even comfortable with the number yet because when I read through the design proposals there are things that were not included no public meetings test pits needed to be performed but there was no time set aside to observe the test pit those kinds of of things so I will attend the Parks Commission meeting tomorrow night um and uh try to get a better handle on the number but I do think it's safe at this point to say you're looking at a $700,000 plus or minus turn back uh Finance director is here to speak to a a switch in projects I want to make you aware of and what we are hoping and I've had some other questions about you know different kinds of projects uh what I'd like to do is to get an understanding from this board that we would a lot arpa Monies to the current capital projects that might be underfunded this building for instance it's a $85,000 roof um and that's before they get here and they start opening things up um so I'd like to have the flexibility for instance on the library uh it looks like it's going to be $33,000 under got to get the final bill get the check the punch list and the like I'd like to have the flexibility to move that I don't know the exact dollars right now and frankly I I wouldn't be able to wait for a board vote on an exact amount of money um so doing that I can then put all the balance of these items uh onto a spreadsheet and give you the all the cut sheets I received and everything we can get that scanned out uh in the next day or so um I have told people that I'm uncomfortable with paying for a project that has already been completed I I don't think that's in the spirit of of the legislation um I'm also told people that I am uncomfortable with with any project that has to go out to bid I just by the time you get it in the central register you get it advertised you leave it out there for a while um and even if you don't get a bid challenge if you get a bid challenge there's a 45-day window right there by the time you get the performance bonds and you get this certificate and that certificate it's it's 3 weeks in general to get get these things all signed locked and sealed so uh when I went to the department heads I asked them for equipment equipment that was on a state bid list where they could get a quotation from the vendor and upon your uh uh approval all we'd have to do would be to sign uh so um I would like to ask uh Ezekiel to speak to you for a few moments uh on the Harper Roll Project a different direction I think he would now like to go in I would like to get an understanding that um any projects that are over and under I can balance those out keep you informed of what they are uh and then put together all of these spreadsheets um and the remaining cost estimate I've been asked for on another item um and um we do have two safety valves if you did nothing with this fulber safety valve number one is you pay the $470,000 for the two six- wheeel trucks that you're receiving in December then depending upon the Goodwill of the capital planning committee and the and the special Town meet or the annual town meeting in the spring you reallocate those dollars to other capital projects safety valve number one safety valve number two you have $600,000 is my understanding in your budget for pavment management use arpa money you're already under contract you need only issue the task order for next year under the terms of that contract issue a task order and then the money that you do not spend out of the general fund you can return it the free cash you can tackle any of these projects it buys you 6 months PR challenge for those at town meeting who voted for tax money to be spent on the roads will they understand the um accounting transactions that were doing they'll still get $600,000 worth of roads but they'd get it in a in a different way um we also have a little bit of contingency uh is he's uh chasing this down for me uh in one state the ruling was that all the interest earned on your arpo money had to go to the general fund we've been of the understanding that here in Massachusetts we can retain it continue to use it it's part of the program but not subject to the the rules um is he's partway there uh one more step to double check it but that we uh think is an additional safety valve because if you have to issue a change order on a construction project after December 31 I'm not convinced that would be arpa eligible because the base amount of the contract is what was committed the contingency is that wild card of who knows so if you go in one of these other directions with payment managed money or the interest we can cover that we do have the um Ritter building coming in in those two packages on December 4 I I can't guesstimate right now and we have a review we might hear about tonight from the municipal building design committee but I don't know the number on that either um so before we get into a discussion would it be okay if I was just uh I was going to wait for you to finish and I was going to invite him up so that we can uh hear about what he wants to do with uh his arpa project it's intimidating being in front of don't be intimidated no it's all right I just I had to say it all right so we have uh the 100,000 allocated to pay uh Payroll Services to move those services our way from Unice and into a service uh payroll service provider that's uh 92,000 for the actual um payroll service provider plus 16,000 for a consultant um with that being said I on October 28th um I had began actually let me back up a little bit I had started IM munist user group with the power users throughout the town on October 28th we held our second meeting and with that being said I had mentioned the change over and payroll software and the potential Erp system change to another company the users were not happy um they were not aware even though we've mentioned this in meetings an open meeting uh they were not aware of these potential changes and they were asking questions as um well 99% of our issues is because we have munus server on site how come we're not moving to the cloud has that been discussed is that an option so you know I reminded them that in February I just came in so the history with Tyler in the town is a lack of um support and they were in disagreement with me um with that being said they have asked me to explore moving to the cloud where Tyler has software as a service where they maintain all the infrastructure the updates the support training and um project change over so the quote I received when I requested um that was for year one um 126 313 for year one and I can send this a supplemental email to Carter say the number again how so for year one so the there it it call it um involves two charges 12, 298 for that's a recurring annual 6 6,15 for the onetime setup and um implementation so for year one it's 126 313 for that includes everything within munus that we already have however it's over on the cloud they're responsible for all the updates and um things like that in addition to that the mutus user discussion um part of the discussion is our current munus package we're paying for the payroll Erp system um self-service so I had asked how come this hasn't been implemented in the past the issue has been the server every time they started to implement there's been a blockage and is you know with the with the Department that were testing it was not feasible so moving to the cloud and um I have been advised by the users who have been at other towns stating that they have unit selfservice it works beautifully the time reporting the scheduling the everything they need out of the system is also uh IRS reporting State reporting and all of that is uh seamless it's um the issue is our server I I I'm hearing that the server we purchased um was already used it was not a brand new server that's part of the issue as well so when you try to re re re repurpose a server like that there are issues and it's already been aging as of the date of the purchase so I come to you um on behalf of the users to consider reallocating the 100,000 previously allocated for the payroll services and and um implementing implementing the IM munist user upgrade um un upgrade to the cloud per the users requests okay I would like to add that I differ a bit I do not believe that the munus support is equal to or Superior to that which a instate vendor can provide that said we have to make sure we are working with our stakeholders they feel very strongly about this and I'm hoping this doesn't turn out to be and I told you so but I would support the finance director's recommendation on the basis of we have to take our our stakeholders and our users seriously and I think that we have known for some time that the server was the main issue uh before we can even deploy the cloud we have another 30 some patches that have to be installed um which will get done in time so I would uh I would encourage you to uh support even though it sounds like maybe I'm not I I do think we have to take our stakeholders seriously and they uh Iz he came in to see me afterwards and it was sort of like you know wow where did that come from but I applaud him for putting his users groups together and for taking them seriously all right I'll open it up to questions while you're here there any questions from the board so all these stakehold this users group is internal to town yes correct okay I was under the impression maybe wrongly that it was the stakeholders who were complaining most about munus and it wasn't working um that was my impression also again I just WR to town in February um and I will tell you you've been living with it for 10 months yeah I will tell you firsthand every single issue I have come across has been the server um Tyler has been responsive to me in particular I can't speak for everybody that's been putting in tickets but um I will say um within 24 hours they do call me I'm busy so I don't necessarily return the message right away but they do follow up and they make sure that the tickets are closed um that's my personal experience with Tyler um and I asked them you know where have you been you know I I did I did address that you know where in November you know I have allocated These funds these this is not um information I was holding you know we were talking about moving payroll we were talking in the open it's just um I it seems like they they didn't feel like they were they were asked previously that's for the respons so when we had the chair of the Sewer Commission saying that once again they weren't able to get sewer bills out server I was on lots of those emails and those threads I was as well I unless you can point me to one I don't remember them ever them being Tyler ever saying it was the server never so now and I'm going to characterize this and you tell me if I got the right characterization okay MH I will start by saying I'm going to support what you asked for okay that's going to be the first most important thing but I will point out as someone in this industry first of all if you replace the server it wouldn't cost anywhere near $126,000 and so that's a simple enough fix okay but we paid them support they know the whole year and probably year and two months now of problems we were having and that we're going to pay them with that history of support that you are very well aware of as the prior Town manager was as prior employees were we're going to pay them more money than what our payroll option was to begin with meaning we're going to lock in with munice which we talked about possibly replacing and we're going to pay them more money with the same company because something in the cloud is magical and that the software that runs in the cloud runs seamlessly uh whereas the software they run on their on servers doesn't do I have that characterized right um yeah okay so a couple of things um let me start with help me understand munus does more than payroll correct are we talking about moving all of munus to the cloud you've I've only heard payroll so far but correct so we already pay for the payroll package within the so the munus is the all-encompassing Erp system we have our counting our payroll processing is done our tax spilling is done our budgeting is done everything is done through munus right it's just there's specific um modules that we pay for we're not using so for example the U self-service Employee Self-Service put in the time sheets things like that um so if we let's say we go with the other option we continue with the payal service provider and we search for another Erp system the combination of the two will most likely be the same cost because you still need an Erp system for the for the finances for the billing purposes for the sewer building real estate tax building motor vehicle and what have you so I'll use Carter's term one thing half a dozen another I don't know exactly how it goes but um the cost I believe looking at the numbers will be the same if we have a p service provider and an Erp system or IM munus let me they're not apples and apples the the cost is my decision wouldn't be a cost decision alone I mean cost obviously plays a factor but for at least the last n months I have heard incessantly about how awful Tyler technology was to deal with now you obviously have a different take maybe you have the magic voice maybe I don't know what's going on but that's not what we heard for 9 months at least and and it was already going on for 3 months before that that's what I'm relying on I'm like if we can't rely on the company who writes the software I don't care where it's housed whether it's on an on-site Prem server or a Cloud Server it's still their software and no one ever pointed to me and said hey we should get a new server cuz a server is just a piece of Hardware it's easy enough to get there are dime a dozen and you can get one for you know couple of T tens of thousands of dollars and it'll last five to seven years see everything I heard the issues were with patches and upgrades and doing big jumps and and having to patch in between because it was a big jump I never never heard of Hardware issue so well that essentially is the same thing well I I I'll just say like the issue is how our server is set up we had a huge gap from a very older version to a new one all those patches may not have been applied properly some of them are still missing so our setup of the software on our own server is the real issue so if we ran it in the cloud on a setup that is perfectly F fine and normal then we wouldn't run into those issues but it has to actually be managed properly so you know that's that's the issue right there I can see moving to the cloud resolving some of these issues I'm not 100% confident that's the case though I think can I jump in um I was very involved with munice when I was still an employee here and I understand it did get a little bit better but do you have anyone from your user group that's doing billing because the major issues that for the last nine months that have been coming up were with billing I think most of the stakeholders now aren't doing building mostly probably billing and doing invoicing and whatnot I'm not sure if there's anyone that's doing bills that was part of this conversation cuz my understand we have the treasurer she's part of the user group and um does she do sewer billing is anyone not the utility billing but she is doing the that was where the major with the real estate billing so the issue with the sewer billing I mean my understanding through the hundreds of emails is okay there's an issue you contact Tyler put in a ticket okay however as a user we don't have access to the server so Tyler calls me I have to contact our suar it MH they're not available or when they are I have to go back to Tyler and they may not be available sometimes I'll get a call from Tyler you know I'll call Tyler saying um you know I have suar here with me we can let you into the server they're helping other people at the same time so by the time they call me back maybe an hour or two later our it Prof scissor will be another site somewhere else they may not be available so it's a cash 22 so you're running in circles trying to Institute a patch do a fix and the utility billing I mean um the issue at hand looking back we had a consulter come in to to help with the super utility building as well as with the real estate tax building so he actually used to work for mut so he knew the background so when he um was implementing the fix he would send you know he send me an email this is what you asked me to do however they would say back you have to do these patches the fix is already there yeah when we go to do the patches say your has to do the patches and you're doing the Circle and it's a waste of everything everybody's time and money you know um by the time you actually Institute a patch I mean we had a meeting um last week to get us to the newest version um you know we instituted patch and the test environment everybody has tested weekend has passed there was some glitches they were supposed to do another test um another patch upon the previous patch and test in order to to it's just this cash 22 and it's just I think the users are at the end of the day is tire tire so and also I'm sorry to cut you off but um I had talked to a lot of other communities and they did say their their um experience with munus has um mostly gone away we're one of the few communities because we are on the server having these issues so I I have a lot of thoughts about this this issue um I am in support of of what you're you're proposing and conquer work now which I bring up regularly um we have a cloud-based munus and we don't I mean obviously there are still some issues but we don't have any of the issues like we had here in lunenberg um from the very beginning when I was still a user here we were talking about the server I feel like I'm really loud um that it was an issue and we had several meetings and it we were being told by suer that that wasn't the issue and that it was done correctly so it's it wasn't and I think that is a big problem that we were being told something that that simply wasn't true in in my opinion the server was never set up properly to to do what it was supposed to do which was compounded by the fact that we went we jumped all of those issues and the patches haven't been done and we don't have internal staff we don't have I believe we still don't have a network administrator we don't have anyone doing these things so I don't think even if we were to buy a new server we don't have the staff or the support to maintain it ourselves personally so whether it is um excuse me staying with munice and Tyler and going cloud-based or going in a different a different way I still think going cloud is is likely the way I'm not in the industry like my colleagues are but likely the way most of these things are are trending anyway so I am in support but I do think it's an issue that we need to address um with the it process um and and the fact that that was not handled can I finish um so SAS I understand the SAS model that's popular I mean that I assume the contract we'll have that will be on the maintain on the latest version and all of that my concern is with Tyler support their track record um and then the migration to the cloud which would be I would think they would keep it you know we'd be moving to the latest version how would that how how would that go and then my other question too is does the school use munus yes and are they included in your user group okay um so and so there would be no more on-prem munus it would all be moved to the cloud correct correct all whatever modules we have so do you know anything about how the plan to migrate um along with the quote they did provide me with a implementation plan with a checklist who's responsible for what in the timelines for each and I can provide that to you as well I'm not I'm it Savvy but I'm not a tech person per se I think the time has a lot of it problems mhm which I witnessed last night during my Capital planning it presentation myself uh I wouldn't be moving sensitive material to the cloud but that's me being in the industry but I know everybody does it but that's why we hear data breaches all the time so that's fine but as I said at the beginning of my comments so I wouldn't support it myself but this is on you if you tell me that you support it that I'm not going to vote against it it's but it's going to be yours yeah Michael R do you have any question questions or comments yeah I me yet it's it's sure um you know personally frustrating um and I'm speaking to my colleagues uh personally frustrating that we heard from um Paula in front of us several times complaining about this issue asking us to do something uh and after nine months of and then we had a meeting and we sat at the table right behind our finance director for almost two hours um speaking with um Personnel you know and I think in that meeting we learned that we were 11 upgrades behind that we were in 2023 or 4 at the time 24 I think that was this year 2021 and that we were 11 upgrades behind and it's like that's a no-brainer of what the actual underlining so I mean my it's frustrating when staff present a problem and the Personnel we have to manage um do not adequately address the problem and I'm not speaking to you I'm again I'm speaking to my colleagues here that's frustrating um cuz that is an expectation you know and I think that what what the finance director is doing is something that should have been done a year ago which is to talk to all the user groups and say who else is having this problem it's team a solution you know we we had a group in town a bylaw committee or a group that was focused on technology in town and at the suggestion of the Town manager we got rid of it and nothing was created to replicate it and so it sounds like what you're doing is replicating it and what you're what you're identifying is that on our 12-year-old server um or so that it's not able to manage the 2024 um technology which I think we all are aware that technology improves basically doubles in in capacity I think that was the thing every 18 months or so anyway so it's it's personally frustrating that we've lost a sewer business manager we've lost an assistant sewer business manager and all the work that goes with it we've lost our it person due to a failure to manage essentially um so I you know when I think about the cost you just proposed um you I had it written down and I if I remember correctly we're paying 60 Grand year already for this for the system and so this is doubling but when I think about staff time for the learning curve how much do we lose in terms of Staff learning learning a new system what does that cost us I would assume it's more than 60 Grand so bottom line is it's it's just frustrating to being in Groundhogs Day here um with recurring issues with the management of Personnel in systems I'm really grateful that you're taking a good lead on this and uh I support your request yeah I get all that frustration but at the same time if we can move to the cloud and that solves the issues that we're having with maintaining our own server and people can still use uh platform that's familiar with them without those issues then you know that is a good path forward to me um even though I'm not happy with how much it costs just to move the same service to the cloud you know it is what it is there's nothing we can do about that so um I did want to add um one more thing so I did say to the users if I am standing in front of the select board I need a a focus group to support and help me advocate for this change because I can't be the only one here and I do have volunteers I can I can pull together presentation for you if need be if if you would like for possibly not special time meeting before the one after um I can have them pull something together for you and so you get your eyes on it and your hands on it um yeah I think you can definitely work with Carter to at least have like information in like a document format for us especially when we go into the meeting that we're going to have the schedule for next week to deal with all of the arpa reallocations um so if we can have that for next week that' probably be beneficial Carter was there anything you wanted to add the only thing I wanted to add um is that had we gone with Harpers and the other likely vendor both are in the cloud the other vendor no longer M will provide you their software on your server and I can see a day in the not too distant future when munus gives you that same option the cloud or nothing I'm not crazy about the $50,000 increase uh in the budget that we will face immediately next year plus the retiree health insurance um and you know another salary issue we're looking at 350 plus or minus right out of the gate to stare down so um I share some of Mr Alonzo's frustrations I think um theoretically we will no longer be responsible for doing our own patches MH theoretically every time we hit the um the cloud their server everything will work right the only thing I can guarantee is whatever software you have someone will have a complaint about it because I hope they have security backups that we can do on site as safety precautions and not rely on them solely for backups I'm assuming you can export the data and just maintain your backups right well presume but I don't want to presume anything I would I would presume that a software company would support their software so I would have presumed that last year too well and that's the issue with maintaining your own server you know it it really does take off some of the accountability on their part yeah they're there to provide support but they're not the ones actually maintaining it and pushing out their updates on the cloud and that's part of the reason why maintaining your own server is such an outdated model you know you never see that anymore everything's on the cloud that's not everything though well I'm also I've been doing it my whole life believe me there's no trick and there's no shortage of people we have bad it people well you offer both on internally we had a great it person who got left because we outsourced the rest of it which we shouldn't be doing but that's another issue all right so is there anything else you wanted to add tonight um no that was it for the all right any Just One Last com just one last question so we're paying them $60 somewhat thousand a year now the recurring cost going forward annually after the initial move is 120 so we're doubling it okay the first year cost um depending on when we implement the the change will be uh prated as well okay but I mean it but that's what the difference is going to be it's going to be from 64 to like 125 or something like that no it's 60 to 120 60 okay the 120 the 126 it's as additional six for the support for the change Dar you had a question yeah iie do you know the timeline once you were to say Okay Go what would be the timeline to be functional in the cloud to have everything um I do not I can get that okay for you I'll add it to my list here right Michael Ray you had a question um thinking about the budgetary impact of another 60 Grand on the budget for software um could we enter into a contract or an agreement that allows us to prepay two years I can ask or would you get a discount for a multi-year I was going to say right exact exactly the first thing I thought discount multi you should get a discount okay Amanda did you have anything else no no no not that it needs to come up tonight all right all right well looks like we'll get you know just a write up from you guys on this just so we have a little more information but other than that thanks for coming in tonight okay than you yeah of course don't leave yet though oh okay the peard sticking around for something else you'll be in the in the wing all right cool all right so we have a long list of emergency things that we can fund uh we just heard of another one or another action that we have to take um I will add all the things that we had today the police fire DPW and the school requests into um an arpa spreadsheet familiar to what we've done in the past and I'll send it out to you like in the morning just so you can guys have it in front of you um but we're definitely going to have to schedule a meeting next week so that we can vote on all this so I guess we can talk about that now um we could meet probably before town meeting if we want to do that or we can meet another day that week depending on availability so what do you guys think what are we doing at that point reallocating the upwards of $750,000 of arpa funding or continue to discuss arpa since we're not meeting next week I think with this going on it's very difficult to not meet in one week unless the board is violently against the two major safety valves which are paying for the six wheelers uh and using the road program as a flex Point um I do think we could wait till the 19th as long as we have some general sense of direction for the next few weeks for instance I'm hearing General support for the reprogramming the finance directors but fourth um I've asked for your understanding uh on moving dollars from projects that are under the capital projects that are over uh so I think that if we at least have those pieces we can we can wait till the 19th so the board can take in more of the material and and and let it percolate a little bit longer unless you are just absolutely against those two safety valves because if you are then the my timeline in terms of need of decisions really does change I'm not violently opposed I don't like the word violently but uh I am opposed to the safety vals I think that they are good idea um but I think you know when we you know when this board allocated you know a million dollars to the um Parks Commission and I want to be clear about my position here when we allocated a million dollars to the park commission part of that and I believe it was selectman Alonzo that asked for it was to see a phased plan of because that way we had somewhat of a guarantee that these funds would be expended within the timeline and so think it begs the question to the parks Commissioners who I am eager to see and meet with of why weren't the funds expended I mean this wasn't These funds were awarded you know quite some time ago um and so you know returning 750 Grand I mean you know it's not lost on me that at the same time we have a warrant that there that is is likely going to be over passed over but it's for 5.2 million doll on the same on the same project so I think I would like to hear an explanation an answer on uh what occurred um and again not to point fingers but to get it and is the money that remains going to be spent for the purpose that it was initially given for um which was to construct so I want to get clarification on what these remaining monies are being used for but the spirit of it was to create to commit a million dollars to something that would benefit children something that would benefit seniors and something that would benefit everyone in between and so if we're going to reallocate that those funds I would like to see a significant portion of it given to things that support children and seniors and everyone in between and I understand that $475 for DPW truck does do that but they already have the money for that and so I would be looking at this school list and saying you know 911 cabling creating opportunities for classrooms to call 911 support it you know a generator I can support it um you know um window safety film I can support it um primary classroom Mini Splits I can support it Turkey Hill Elementary School vestibule fire alarm I can support it all and that you know this is more than 750,000 but I'd much rather see the money go to products that are on the state bid list ready to go that more similarly match the intent that I had when the funds were were allocated so I I would like for us to at least have thatc discussion um and I don't know if tonight's a night I I mean I want to be real I mean everyone's I'm sure a bit anxious here to get home and see kind of what some results are tonight U so I don't know how seriously we can have this discussion today but to answer your question to the chair uh I can be available next Monday I can be available next Thursday um and I can be available next Tuesday Monday Tuesday or Thursday Monday Tuesday or Thursday okay how about everyone else cuz we I'm sorry but I would be a lot more comfortable with this situation if we had a meeting scheduled for next week so that's just me I can't meet before special town meeting okay I figured that would be difficult Tuesday okay I could do Monday or Thursday Monday or Thursday what is what are those two dates we can't do Monday you're correct that's the holiday oh Veteran Day oh is it okay so that's the 11th anyway so next Thursday is the 14th trying to remember I have a I have a town man a town manager screening committee meeting and now I can't off the top of my head remember remember when I think let me look is it posted yet do you want me to pull I'm sure it's posted that's what I'm going to look at now all right I might be able to get there faster cuz I'm on the laptop I'm usually so the town manager screening committee I don't think it's posted yet I don't see it but from the last one what time do they normally get to can you see the tell yeah uh let's see Town manager screening committee last met at 6:30 on October 7th I thought you guys met on Wednesdays we meet on Mondays or Wednesdays depending because of the composition of our well next Monday is a holiday anyway so it wouldn't be able to be next Monday where are we looking at the 14th so probably the 14th are you guys available on Thursday the 14th I prefer not to leave meet on a Thursday yeah I could meet at 6:30 I have a um Municipal Building design committee meeting at 5:30 but it should be on Thursday should be a less than an hour meeting okay I agree with Mr Alonzo uh not meeting too late so if we can kind of put a hard stop on the other end of it yeah that would work well yeah I think that's fine I mean it's a very clear Workshop we know exactly what we have to discuss and figure out so Tom do you think you could hard stop at 7:30 like I said I'd prefer not to do it on Thursday but if that's the only time anybody else can make it yeah sure why not I'd love to make We R out Wednesday what is Wednesday not an option uh I didn't say that W I personally think it's going to be very hard to meet after coming off of town meeting on a Tuesday night that can go super late you know but if we all want to do two days that could be a little linky then yeah I can well it's up to whatever it's up to whatever you guys are available on Wednesday or Thursday I'll make it work so I can find a way on Wednesday if we need to I I think I can do let me double check I think I can do Wednesday or Thursday do Wednesday or Thursday Amanda and Tom how about you okay do you guys have a preference what about you Tom Thursday you said Tom Wednesdays would be better Wednesday would be better all right so you just want to say Wednesday make it work the Town manager screening committee that was the only pending question right well that's the what so that's the 6th the 13th yeah maybe the next week I I I wish I had there's 10 I don't have it on my thing yeah is um what time are you thinking I was just going to ask do you guys want to meet a little earlier instead of doing seven it sounds like you do I prefer to meet earlier okay but I can't do any earlier than 6 yeah 6 is the earliest I can do how do you want to do 6:30 give you guys some time to do six six is fine all right so we'll do Wednesday at 6:00 is 6:30 better yeah or seven whatever I'll I'll do it I'll my schedule Rene did you say you'll do six on which day Wednesday yes all right cool all right thank you guys now in response to the answer from town manager's question I don't have any problem with the truck I have not a problem I have a question about whether the paving would fit arpa and I'd love to get a Town Council recommendation because what you suggested is putting it in there and anything we don't use kind of flows down the free cash looks completely suspect of going around the whole idea of arper to begin with and I would I don't want to be again my point from months and months and months ago back in June is that I don't want to lose any of this if we can help it so any of these projects I don't it doesn't matter to me the the whole Spirit of the arpa was never an issue with me once it was opened up that we could use it to anything as long as we use it because I'm telling you we've already heard from the in town manager with the health insurance rates and I know what's coming up on the capital plan and all the things coming up we cannot lose any of this money otherwise it falls to the backs of the taxpayers yeah I don't really care about the spirit of the bill as it was initially proposed in whatever 2020 or 2021 now since we're at the 11th Hour um but I'm pretty sure that pretty much whatever we want to do with it is okay at this point so I two maybe three questions for the interim Town manager um one if we can have for next week the balance and how much of is interest versus the remaining um we might not have October's interests um but we could probably give you being able to separate what in case you said the interest we may be able to hold on on to and spend after as as kind of our contingency that's that's our understanding we're halfway there with do I think is he had one more contact I sent out a um a request from our do rep for regarding interest knowing what our non-interest balance is yeah Ju Just so I'm aware it is correct that the interest regardless of where it falls we do not lose the interest the only thing goes to the the general fund or potentially stays under our control under the same Opa distribution rules that's those are the only two options we're looking at we do not lose the interest correct that's that's correct and that's our understanding we would just feel a little more comfortable having been exposed to another state where it's swept to the general fund if someone at do sent us a yep you are spot on that is exactly the right mm you're looking at this exactly right and is there a chance for any more money to come back yes yes he just said like the library project maybe library that was looking to go to Maybe cover an over u i i i don't have a price yet on the municipal building design committee um so that could that's a big one that could be a big one do you know when we'll find out yeah so um I believe tomorrow so I need to give Julie the scoring sheet that we came up with last night uh we did it during the meeting and then once we provide that to her and identify that the bid was qualified which it is then she can open the scoring sheet I mean I for my own in my opinion if we get a bid for more than $225,000 for what we're looking to do don't hire it that is entirely too much money so that's my opinion so I am fully confident that that you know anyone that's in this space is going to give a a bid that's within the budget um and if it's above the budget it's just too much money it's not worth it m all right and I just want to be clear it's not just getting a number that's a good number I still have to get all these people under contract and things do go wrong so yes these numbers these numbers will fluctuate mhm so we'll definitely have a better idea at least on that one for next there will be no fluctuation as great as the one yeah this one that we're dealing with right now well I too would like to know what the other $250,000 um remaining of the arpa that we G we gave to the parks is going to be used for yeah that's a question I have as well so uh that will be we can get that answer by next week I'll have a better handle on that tomorrow night we have their proposal I'm frankly not completely comfortable with it I've described a couple of items Public Presentation observing test pits there are other elements that I think are missing from the uh proposal uh but I'll be at that meeting tomorrow night and hopefully that will provide me with more information at the risk of at the risk of this spilt milk argument this is not a position we should be in this all should have been done by September and some of us argued to push hard to get this done and we kept going out and out and here we are the first week in November with a week off the end of the year because no one's going to meet at Christmas to do this so we have one month now and now it looks like we have over a million dollar of $3 million that we had what three years four years to spend it is absolutely irresponsible that we're in the position if we can pull this off it'll be a miracle America I don't know if we were even I while I agree with you and part Tom I I don't even know if we were talking about the parks back then I thought we were under the impression then that this was locked in and good to go but I do agree generally um that this million dooll surprise to me is the surprise because I thought we had asked this question I thought we got an answer that it was good to go and then I asked for followup for confirmation that it was good to go and that was when I thought we got the response that we're not good to go but I do agree broadly with uh Mr Alonzo's sentiment that you know you know preventable predictable situation I have opinions but I will save them well in another format I I just want to say with all due respect you've seen the number of bids we've pushed out in the last couple of weeks that that was quite a bit of work and I would like the staff who push those out I wish they'd been pushed out a lot earlier I wish I didn't have to be as pushy I I I should be clear by the way and none of this reflects on you I think you have along with the staff have pushed out a lot of this I'm just saying that you know and I'm not even looking at this point it's it's that's why I started with the spilled milk thing I mean the point is we are where we are but I'm I'm talking about this board putting more fire under under people uh in the Summer where we should have been pushing more of this but everybody's like we had time we had time we had time and it turns out we didn't have time so you know I I do believe I've mentioned to several of you and I will have mentioned it to the recruiter um that project management skills are probably one of the most important things you can look at in your next town manager I guess I'm just curious if if you're pointing this at this board Tom what exactly do you think we should have done do you think we should have reallocated the million dollarss that we allocated for Marshall Park no I'm not first of all I didn't point at the million dollars that's a new thing for all of us but there's a lot of other money beside the this this probably what $400,000 $500,000 aside from that like that we could have you know we could have gotten projects and bids and made decisions on much earlier this is coming as a surprise and again I don't want to dissect it and and I want to be clear because I watch the Parks Commission meeting but their last meeting I understand the hard work they put in okay so I'm not looking to blame anybody but but giving people a heads up and hoping for the best when it comes to the end there had to be a time earlier that there was the inkling that this wasn't going to happen so there's a little bit of that but anyway that's the surprise but even the money aside from that 750 there was still a big chunk of money that we should have pushed for to get allocated more quickly yeah and based on what I've been told in conversations that I've had it seems like it goes way back so I don't know why a lot of things didn't get under contract no idea so I have one I'm hearing support for what the finance director is proposing I'm looking to find out if I have support and flexibility for projects that are under to reallocate that to projects that are over I can go ahead so I can go ahead with this contract here because I don't have money in hand I I couldn't sign that contract tomorrow even if it was ready right yeah so that'll definitely be top of the list that was 25,000 you said well I mean are are you asking us cuz I mean we're talking 25,000 right for the roof here I mean isn't that kind of a decision we can make right now I'm I'm asking for flexibility that after if that Library which is 99 if we go with the alternate comes in at 124 I'm asking for an understanding in tonight frankly that if the DPW floor comes in four under I can just move the money I don't have time to wait for formal votes for each of these I would advise you immediately um if we were going to but I'd like to try to take these construction projects and view them as more of a package so that if I'm under 15 on one and over 12 on another I can just let you know what we've done and move it M so and and and I I I'm sorry go ahead Mr sh I I think what you're what you're also saying is that for the staff um that this kind of gives them some tasks as well to bring all this stuff under contract between now and next week because next week may very well be a flood well I I I think the staff are all quite aware of my expectations getting this stuff under contract I I would have no problem with that with with a cap so I would say that if we're going to pass a motion I would say that we could give the interim Town manager ability to do that up to 152,000 I'd like to have 50 because I got 25 on the roof alone yeah 50 5 5 Z 5 Z not in total I mean in any one movement oh okay so if if you're saying hey I got 15 here and I need 15 here you can do that but anything that go or I I'll even raise it to 25 but if any any one single transaction is over 25 I'd like the board to be involved absolutely absolutely support that sure yeah I'm okay with authorizing that tonight as well um so where would that come from are we going to we still have extra funds there's please don't do that to me so I think what you're asking for is 20 is is what Tom just said and I'll make the motion that um I move to authorize the town manager um to move around in one transaction up to 25,000 for a total not to exceed 50,000 to ensure that the projects already previously approved by the board and the capital plan can move forward I can live with that second sure do we all right so I think that that gives you authorization then to move 20 up to 25 for any one transaction to $50,000 in total in total and it's for all the products previously approved that you've gotten bids on as well as any of the capital things that you need additional funds for and this is to this is just to Clarity for the motion this is a reallocation not allocation of unallocated funds it's internal reallocations I just wanted that to be clear on on the video here I would not do the question I was getting at so thank yeah and you second in that no I have a question though do we have to have the 50,000 cap is that enough so so if right right off the bat if we know you're going to have 25 for the roof if you have two more that is I I'll be right back here um I need the board to feel comfortable with the flexibility that it's giving me I'm okay at this at this point um we'll certainly keep you informed every step of the I'm with you I mean I did not expect the cap like I said the cap itself was immaterial to me as long as no transaction went above 25k singly if there were five $25,000 moves I'm like I'm fine with it so I will amend the motion to remove the 50,000 C is there a second second all right actually heed it so this person who second it okay any additional discussion those in favor say I I those opposed no the motion passes unanimously all right so you have that flexibility now thank you for that uh yeah you're welcome for that vote and that confidence and we will keep you informed every step of the way yep so it sounds like we're going to get a lot more information too going into next Wednesday so uh we will have that to uh potentially reallocate all of the 750 plus or minus ,000 that looks like uh we need to reallocate all right any other discussion on arpa tonight uh yes yes uh you know one of the release vals that I do want to just advertise that I do support and it was kind of noted um well no no it wasn't fully noted that was something else is um you know this These funds can be um given as a um one-time payment to staff that was something that was in the legislation and and I just want to state that I am totally okay with that that if we find ourselves in a position and there's enough time to get a payroll through and we're talking you know um some money that I think giving staff will never and see a one time check coming to them even if it is for you know 100 bucks um or a couple hundred that I I be fully un this is something that I was advocating for U and I didn't bring it up tonight because we weren't able to get the actual numbers for an actual proposal um but it is something that Carter is looking into and something that I am going to actually propose next week when we have those numbers um but we are thinking about because this is a very easy way to get this money out it'll take I'm told one business day to process it um and the eligibility that we were sort of discussing Carter and I was uh if you were under the employment of the Town while there was um the emergency declaration for covid and you're still under the employee of the town then you would benefit or you would qualify for a onetime bonus for that um let's not call it a bonus one time payment Co payment emergency payment emergency preparedness payment or something of that nature so it was my intention to include that when we really started going through and deciding what we're going to pay for but since you brought it up B hey thanks for doing all that leg work yeah no problem um but we're still going to um crunch the numbers to figure out how many people are included how much we could potentially set aside for it Etc so all right any other discussion on Co I mean um arpa arpa Co and arpa are two phrases I really don't think any of us want to have to all here any more after uh December all right hearing none let's move on discussion on special town meeting so the first thing that we have to do is review the language of article one we have that language for the motion now for where that money is going to go to um so I'll read it so the motion is I move to raise and appropriate the additional sum of $125,000 no as follows to line 13A salary reserve the sum of 17,500 to line six Group Health insurance for a total increase of $125,000 in the amount raised and appropriated under article 7 of the May 4th 2024 annual town meeting so Carter do you want to speak to uh where you want to put this money um is he calculated when the salary Reserve was created to pay retro FY 24 and prospectively FY 25 it was underestimated by about 18,500 give or take I have an affinity for round numbers so I picked 175 our reti health insurance came in ranging from 10.6% at the lowest end where we have the fewest people enrolled to a little over 20% we used a melded 17.5% across and I think the figure was actually on the order of $300,000 plus or minus that this will impact the budget so we took the 125 minus the 175 and simple math 1075 uh if there are other places you would like to allocate it uh this is um your your judgment call uh it's just what we're proposing based upon what what we are looking at is that a fair summation is he so this article that you read is in this document right which document are you looking at the STM motion discussion document yes yeah yes okay is that what you read it from because it doesn't have the 107 no no I read it from a different document so what what does it have the 107 I read the actual motion so maybe this is a different saying STM motion discussion right y yes I'm hold on I mve to raise and appropriate the sum of 17,500 looks the exact line number six group health insurance doesn't have a number it needs the sum of yeah we were still plugging this together oh some of these things have come at the very last minute what am I missing it looks exactly the same as the one I read so I didn't read anything that's not listed here that's in this talk what do we so what what we're looking at the document entitled STM motion discussion all right so what I heard Carter just say and this is why I'm confused to I heard Carter to say $107,000 but what I'm seeing here is $125,000 yeah to line um 13A salary reserve the sum of 17500 and to line six group health insurance for the total increase of 125,000 so you should have a memorandum called STM motion discussion let me do the math real quick if you look at the the amount for line six is missing there's a math there there's a math there it's 1075 I think something's missing from after the 17,500 what it says is an to line number six group health insurance then there's nothing and then it says for a total increase so are we missing that 107 we're missing the 107 we are missing 10 107 line six amount is missing there's only one amount all right we're talking a lot about numbers and a lot about dollar amounts big numers and I I want to say this with the most utmost delicacy but T we the school thing had errors that we didn't know what the number was we didn't know where the if the comma was wrong and the number was these are Big Numbers it makes a whole lot of difference if it's 11 15,400 or 154,000 and in this I mean these are articles with hundreds thousands of dollars we need to be accurate on these things so we really need to do a better job of doing this so anyway I I'm assuming that it says an line number six group health insurance the sum of $17,500 that's what it should say but I'm still confused on on no cuz then the M doesn't add up it shouldn't be that much money it's 125 - 175 right what else we're going to distribute $125,000 by putting 17,500 in one line item and $17,500 in another line item that's what I understand those two add up to 125 but what's so confusing is the retire Insurance note on the same thing that says we're we're we're not covering that increase we're just putting the money we have got it yeah got it all right go ahead Carter Mr Alonzo is completely right and I have to suggest to you that going into your annual town meeting or a special town meeting The Last Action whether it's your votes or the finance committee's public hearing has to come at least 25 days before the meeting there simply isn't time to do this at this kind of pace particularly if you have illness in the office or anything goes wrong I agree M you know our town clerk the post office first wouldn't take our check you know our town clerk finally went down there and as you all know she does not take no for an answer and and really pulled our fat out of the fire but I suggest to whoever is here in the spring 25 days is the minimum oh yeah to get it all right and ideally you'd have 30 yeah especially for an annual town meeting 100% yeah so let's go through this article again and figure out exactly what we need to add and wear so it's I move to raise and appropriate the additional sum of $125,000 as follows all right so to line 13A salary reserve the sum of 17,500 to line number six group health insurance and then something has to be added here the sum of 107 ,500 $17,500 for a total increase of 125,000 in the amount raised in appropriated under article 7 does that sound right to you Carter it does all right so we'll definitely need to um update the motion paper that we have here to include that um are we in a position to vote to recommend tonight with that change made or do we want to hold off um I'm fine with it I'm glad I asked this article to be put in yeah especially now that we have those numbers yeah yeah for sure I'm fine with it as well all right cool is there a motion I move that we approve the language of article one as read second any additional discussion those in favor say I I those oppose no the motion pass unanimously Article 1 the select board recommends approval 5 all right any other discussion on town meeting that we want to have tonight no Carter is there anything else you wanted to cover on town meeting uh no no all right cool I appreciate the uh momentous effort by all I know that a lot went into uh this year with the interim Town manager so I just want to comment on that and yeah you know it it is it is always frustrating when things um you know um aren't correct but I think it is you know certainly you know not to disservice all the efforts that have gotten us to this point yeah Carter Annie our executive assistant the town clerk um and probably other people that I'm not naming right now uh really deserve a lot of credit because we ran into issues at every single point in this process there was about a day and a half where the file of the booklet was locked and no one can open it to edit it which was going to be the day before it needed to get mailed out that had to be resolved by it um there was issues with the post office not wanting to accept our check and wanting us to pay for it in a different way and then saying that they couldn't fulfill our request and you know we had to come up with backup plans to get it mailed out um and fortunately all worked out and we were able to resolve all those issues each step of the way but it was a significant undertaking Annie worked overtime last week to really help get it out the door so thank you for the hard work and the effort that went into getting all them out all right let's move on to current business we have review and discussion for the draft of proposed purchasing credit card policy I didn't have a chance to read through the draft yet um so Carter I'll pass it over to you to introduce it pass it on to our finance director that sounds good to me come on up uh the only thing I will say is that uh this addresses uh issues that we heard in the listening sessions uh with respect to both uh initially being able to pay for items and then get reimbursed in a timely manner um I don't have a draft of the Poli draft policy in front of me but um I've worked with several organizations with the p car policy this is not out of the ordinary for um a town to have um so the draft itself is for you know to um support the town for um supplemental expenses such as travel lodging um signing uh and paying for trainings um post office mailing as well you know it's just so those in in inci purchases so uh um we've authorized not authorized we've aligned spending limits to departments with Town manager approval as well as um oversight by the select board um it's really all I have it's um really the the range will be really tight it's one card for the town it's not each department head would have one it would be centralized and the town manager's office Central purchasing would be the car holder um so essentially it would work at how the town's working now if somebody has to order through Amazon they put in the request ensure there's funds in their budget um it would get approved then the purchase would be made copy of the receipt then would go to finance at month end we would reconcile and pay the credit card bill so it's only one would the card need to be present um it would be the car holder so let's say I have a training I would make the request send over the registration link to I'm assuming who whoever the town manager's office going to be in charge of the car um they go in with my login credentials pay for the training send the receipt over to the department head and to finance and how's it do how's it done now um everybody's paying for their own and get reimbursed doesn't exist it doesn't exist right well the people are paying for travel assuming on their own credit card their own if you have you know a training or a conference and you know in advance sometimes you know uh you can do a purchase order and I'm just saying without this policy people are putting on their personal one and then asking for reimbursement correct and how quickly did we reimburse people um it's uh depending on when I we get the paperwork it's the next next warrant it's the accounts payable warrant So within this draft also we um suggested a change moving it from uh the accounts payable to payroll so it' be within the next uh paycheck oh okay which now is alth the current process um is you pay for it you provide them a copy of your credit card with the last four exposed which is the one that are most commonly used yep for identifying you yep you then await your credit card bill and you black out everything except the items you paid for and then you submit it for reimbursement it is you're not giving receipts it we do and you and you produce the receipts from the registration it is cumbersome at best so the idea is to put it more on a straight reimbursement you know I paid for this here's the registration and the department puts through um the voucher for payment I'm sorry go ahead Mr chair um I'm completely in support of this this is something that many people in town over my tenure there have been advocating for and it just we didn't have support of our um previous Finance team um but it does I I did have a chance to review this ahead of time it looks like it it it does align with you know mgl and and uh 30b as well as there's a whole thing they have on their website about how municipalities can use uh procurement cards and it looks like this aligns um it's even more strict with the accountability the checks and balances that you have listed in the spending limits and the prohibited usage especially just having one card where most many towns have more than one card so I'm fully in support of of implementing this I think it's long overdue yeah um you know I want to I want to be respectful to our process here and uh since this is being presented tonight that you know we might need another meeting to vote on it but I I want to ask about um why one card like I'm going to I'm going to give you a scenario scenarios is that the town manager is at a conference the conference is in Vermont and she has the card physically with her um that means that everyone else can't use it right so I it may be ADV I understand the strict controls it may be advantageous to have more than one card um that's my opinion but I fully support the policy and this comes up all the time um and you know everyone has different is of different economic means and so sometimes asking someone to front this you know for things that they need to do for the performance for the performance of their jobs sometimes is a barrier and so this kind of releases those barriers yeah I fully support it I'll have to do um a more thorough read through we're reading through it now I mean would the policy prevent you from purchasing two if you guys wanted to cuz I don't see anything in here here um it does say one procur one C we can um at any point in time we can amend the policy and of course yeah but um that was Carter suggestion to to begin that's that's because of one of my Mayors who bought gas for himself when he was at a conference you know yeah I I would encourage you to keep it at one to start with um I mean it's intended for you to buy the airplane ticket if you need one uh pay your conference fee ahead of time pay your first night's hotel reservation it's and and many of the folks who are going to these kinds of events are of a higher income level and can under this new system you know now this could be done within two weeks and if you're at the conference on Thursday and Friday you submit it on Monday depending upon uh that's a payroll week in your pay yeah reur sepay that Friday no more Separate Checks this will be part of your paycheck I thought this was supposed to take the place of reimbursement so there's two separate things so the I I haven't read this this wasn't this only got put in our packet today so I think the conversation is aligning to we have the employee reimbursement procedure and the peard policy so the p car policy will um you know do the the everything that we spoke about earlier the reimbursement policy we still have reimbursements for mileage you know someone's driving we still have reimbursements you know there would be one-offs here and there but we're trying to streamline that as well and concurrent with us yeah I didn't read the reimbursement procedure I will have a question only because it came up right away as I'm looking at this is that somebody's going to have to do the overhead of making sure that departments don't go over these limits so is that going to pose a problem uh I don't believe so no it' be under my oversight really I can it it'd be under my oversight I understand that that's why I'm asking you so I don't think it would be a problem okay all right are there any other questions I will have to read it thoroughly again yeah didn't appear until today so right yeah no and I saw a typo as well looks like or maybe someone accidentally hit backspace and removed a zero Under Fire Department but anyway thank you for coming in uh so we'll need to review it a little more read through it and yeah thanks very much all right thank have a good night have a good night good night you too all right any other discussion on this or are we good for tonight all right moving on I have these we'll address them um after town meeting discussion on annual climate survey policy and select board Town manager goal setting process so we'll really start picking that up um after town meeting minutes I don't believe we do we have any minutes tonight no no I didn't see any in there okay good warrants I don't believe we have any warrants either tonight all right action items do have one just as a followup I had asked several weeks ago about uh from our HR and in and assistant Town manager about you know the the current state of departments and everything and just wanted to check where that is and we're we're going to have to get you a revised timeline on that uh the arpa push as really put that off um but I will have that uh meeting with her tomorrow and get you a revised timeline on that we owe you that thank you any other action items committee reports um budget task force met last night we had um our principal assessor and chair of board of assessors there to discuss split tax rate and single tax rate and the impact and all the uh ins and out of of that um and then we reviewed some of the uh the points that eie and Tony will present at special town meeting um and school committee as we heard is meeting tomorrow night that's it capital planning met last night we heard the reports or the presentations from it from fire and from DPW all chalk full with the usual you know projects from each of those vehicles from DPW and and lots of of um drainage and and infrastructure Pro uh projects from DPW uh Cemetery from fire the usual vehicle rotation that went out uh you know 10 years and it um was very light on projects I think next year was the only project they had something for which was a bit surprising for me so the our next meetings we now we've heard from all the Departments and we will now our next meeting which is I think in two weeks we'll start prioritizing them and discussing them in probably early December do our final prioritization and ranking and submission of that prioritized list to the interim Town manager I don't have any um I have two uh Municipal buing design committee met last night um and we um had approximately I think four companies perform s sidewalks over 20 people were interested um we received one proposal prior to the deadline and one after the deadline that couldn't be considered um the minicipal buiding design last night we went over uh the proposal we ident we looked at the minimum qualifications as identified the RFP um we confirmed that the proposal met those minimum qualifications and then we walked through the rating sheet um and generally we rated The Proposal that we received as um acceptable and advantageous and the the rating scheme was unacceptable acceptable advantageous highly advantageous um there were several things that were in the Hal advantageous column but overall I think it was in the acceptable and and advantageous column that we had created um based on the schedule we are looking to conduct an interview on the 18th uh as noted uh I need to provide that scoring sheet to Julie then she can go ahead and open the the bids and then we'll have uh or the price proposals which are separate and then we know how those pricing what the pricing came in at I am expecting it to be below the 225 um and then let's see I just had some notes Here uh the proposal indicated that they could comply with the schedule that we presented which is basically having um everything wrapped up and a presentation to the select board on February the 4th um and so uh and they did demonstrate experience with similar projects and with historic projects I will note that I spoke with Joe um um our PEC uh director and coordinator there apparently was an issue with the recording into the cloud last night uh and only 2 seconds made it out of the 1 hour and 45 minute meeting um so we will ensure that the minutes get approved in a timely manner and we did last night approve I think four sets of minutes the other thing is uh student initiative uh so I met with uh High School Middle School Civics teachers the principal and I believe was a curriculum specialist I I I apologize for not catching her title and so we discussed U Better ways that we can support students during their Community projects um and so as a reminder you know we do the one day um in the schools in February March time period where we briefly just talk about kind of how the selectboard operates how town government operates and what was mentioned in this meeting was about an hour uh what was mentioned in this meeting was that one thing that would be helpful is to increase exposure in e8th grade um to some of the uh functions of government an idea that was thrown out there was you know if we had like a 15 to 20 minute presentation template for for department heads uh that you know if they could kind of set aside 15 to 20 minutes five times a year that it would allow kind of exposure in eth grade as they're talking about in eighth grade civics kind of how local government uh state government and federal government works that at least they have that that touch point and that would go well with the um the discussion that we have with the with the students in the spring another thing that was mentioned was when it comes to the student projects on the uh 10th grade level um High School level is um some things that were thrown around was kind of talking and engaging with elected boards and appointed boards um to compile ideas of things that we think a student project could be helpful on um and then kind of funneling those ideas to the um the the high school um um Civics teacher and then potentially having like a board fair in which you know similar to like a job fair but uh a board fair in which um we have elected and appointed officials available with like different tables so that way the students um who are doing the products and then engage members of those different boards so certainly more to talk about uh this is the initial kind of thing there's more things to iron out um but I thought it was a very helpful he healthy and productive uh conversation cool and I do not have a committee report tonight so I have a question about committee reports and I just wondered if anybody was going to comment on it but I will comment on it uh so I watched the plan the Parks Commission meeting last week and do we is do we have an official no they're elected so we don't have AAS on so well actually no that's not true everything is elected sorry that was just what came out of my mind no Okay the reason I bring this up because not once cuz I to hear what was going to go on with the OPA funds but twice during the the meeting the chair when talking about their warrant article said that she had spoken with our chair and who said that we would support the article if they put it in annual town meeting and then we would be supportive of it if it was a exclusion question as opposed to a raise and just borrow question and I was wondering why would she say that but why would she did you have such a conversation with her I did but I never spoke for the board I spoke for myself okay well she presented it like the board would support it okay so we have to be very careful yeah I know and I I was CU I know better than to do that um you know it's my personal position that if we take on any debt it needs to be excludable not regular debt I communicated that and I don't know if it was communicated in a way other than how I initially communicated it then you know it wasn't my intention to say anything for the board as a just wanted to know because again she said it not once but two different parts of the meeting the same exact thing mhm okay maybe we need a liaison is that what you're suggesting I no that wasn't my point my I just I don't know why there would be it's these kind of things that that these kind of miscommunications wherever that happened that set out bad precedent because if she's telling her elected commission that this board would do it cuz she's getting it from the chair and if that's not accurate then their their commission has the wrong impression and that's not good I don't want people to you know take things for granted one way or another that aren't true that's all right yeah I didn't watch the last one but you know I i' would say it's incorrect to speak on the whole board like that uh it's not a reflection of how I act actually said in that conversation so I wanted to ask yeah no it's fair to bring that up um like I said I didn't watch it but if I did I probably would have said something um so yeah all right upcoming meetings uh next Tuesday special town meeting then we're meeting on the following Wednesday November 13th at 600 p.m. and then November 19th public comments are there any public comments from the interim Town manager none Mr chairman any public comments from the public seeing no public are there any public comments from the board nope all right seeing none is there a motion to adjourn so move second any additional discussion those in favor say I I those oppose no it is 8:52 p.m. and the select board is adjourned to everyone at home who tuned in and watched our meeting tonight thank you I know that there are probably other things on the television tonight that uh may or may not be more interesting to you than our meeting so thank you for tuning in if you did and I hope you all have a wonderful week and we'll see you next Tuesday at special town meeting e e e e e e e e e e e