quorum. So, I will call the Maynard Finance Committee meeting to order at 7:01 p.m. Uh, and I will start reading the remote meeting script uh as the rest of our members log on. So, uh, as a preliminary matter, this is Jillian Prrenter. I am the chair of the finance
committee. Um, please me to confirm that all persons and members uh, anticipated um, on the agenda are present and can hear me. Um, in accordance with open meeting law regulation 940 CMR 29.10,
please be advised um that the finance committee is attending this meeting remotely. In addition um because uh the members are attending remotely, all votes taken at this meeting will be by roll call vote. Lastly, um if any FINCOM members are not clearly audible um to
their fellow members or any members of the public, please notify the chair immediately and we will do our best to remedy the problem um and we'll inform the public whether the meeting will continue. Uh VINCOM members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Linda,
yes. Miss Daniel, yep. Katie, yes. Nathan, yes. Male, yes.
Uh, and Peter let uh let us know last time he wasn't able to make tonight. Um, we do not have any anticipated staff or other speakers on the agenda for this evening. Um, good evening. This is an open meeting of the finance committee.
It is being conducted via Zoom. Um all um participants will be participating remotely and the chair may allow for the public to provide comments. Um please note that while an option for remote attendance and or participation
is being provided as a courtesy to the public, this meeting will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual broadcast to visual attendees unless required by law. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be may be able to see and hear you. So, please take care not
to screen share your computer or share anything um you do not want to be captured by this recording. For meeting materials, you can find our meeting materials on board docs um and we recommend that you follow along on the agenda as posted um and the materials
there unless I note otherwise. Um, and we will turn to our agenda now. Um, but before we do so,
I will make everyone else uh co-host in case something happens to my computer, the meeting can continue uh and otherwise. All right. So, everyone should have abilities there now. Okay.
Um, so for tonight's meeting, we're going to follow up on what we've received for planning, um, discussing the received articles and any potential voting and discussing who will draft the comments for the different articles. Um,
and I think that that'll be the main focus of our meeting tonight. Um I did want to before we jump into that just note that topic number two is planning for the multi-board meeting. That is no longer on September 18th. So at the
select boards meeting last week um they opted to delay that until after um the budget subcommittee meeting which is coming up um I think it's on like the 23rd but I'll get into that on my chair comments. But before we dove into the
special town meeting, I just wanted to highlight that um tonight that there is no plans quad board meeting on the 18th anymore. And they'll send a poll out for us um with some alternative times in like October, November. So it sounds like it
might be kind of close to um closer to towards the special town meeting. Okay. All right. So, um, so I'm going to jump into the articles that we've received. So,
close a couple windows here so I don't get lost. So, at the left last select board meeting, um, these Is this too tiny? Should I make it bigger? It's acceptable. All right. Not hearing
any complaints. You want me to make it bigger, I guess. Let me know. Um I'm going to zoom in a little bit. So, there are these are the currently the articles that the select board has um accepted into the special town
meeting warrant. Um and there are um potentially planning board articles as well. So they have their public hearing on Tuesday, so tomorrow. So um so we're waiting on potentially those. I think there was a couple of those
potentially. Um and also looking for a potential home rule petition for Ruffles. Um and we should know in the next few days if there's going to be that occurring or not. I believe that was for a um liquor license request. Um
and there is also the potential citizens petition on anti-coagulants which we discussed at our last meeting that Robin shared with us directly. Um there is additional time for citizens petitions to come in. Um but currently these are the ones that
have been selected by the accepted by the select board to be put on the warrant. Um, and there's potentially some planning board articles pending the hearing tomorrow that might also be adopted into the SDM warrant as well. Any question on the general flow? I'm
going to open the document with control A through J next. Okay, I'm going to stop sharing. Going to open the actual word file with these documents. Next and we'll get it to the top.
Share. All right. Um, so this is an article that we went over at our last meeting where we were talking about the survivors benefit. So this was talking about option C and
sort of changing the amount um for that uh like talking about what the current benefit allows versus what they're proposing to increase it to. Um, and the retirement board did get back to us um from our questions. uh and I did circulate that, but I'll go over them
quickly here. So, one of our questions was understanding what the scope of this was uh and who may qualify. So, for option C, they let us know that you can only name one single person to be your beneficiary. So, that can be your
spouse, your former spouse if you have not remarried, your child, your parent, or your sibling. Um, so that's that's sort of a little bit more clarification on who may qualify for
receiving option C. Um, another question we had was how long was option C like not an option? So starting on November 7th, 1996, uh, after that date, any future retiree had the option to choose option C. Uh,
and it's always an option going forward. Now, um Jill, I have a question. Oh, sorry. Just so it it can also um go to people, not just the spouse. It can go to like
descendants. So, yeah. So it could it can go to the spouse, a former spouse if you haven't remarried, a child, a parent or a sibling. So it's sort of whoever is um what's there's like a legal word for it like whoever is your inheritor or
your main beneficiary at your time of death. Okay, interesting. Because if it's someone young, that could be a benefit they get for a really long time. But Yeah. I mean the um but the retirement board did respond Jillian, right? Uh
that it this only affects one person. Oh, okay. Correct. Yeah. So, um so this is um this will only impact one person and then no other person after that. Um,
so this that's the only person prior to November 7th, 1996 that was this did not have this option available to them. Um, is my understanding from our correspondences with with the retirement board. So, um,
before his passing, he was receiving a set, um, amount per month, $3,500, and after the death of surviving spouse is only receiving $500 a month with a net of $75 after health insurance deductions. Um, so the reason for this
proposed section to the increased benefit, had he elected option C, her income would be significantly higher, about $2,375 per month instead of $500 per month. Um,
and our followup there was asking about where is this coming from? So, this money to fund this would be coming from the retirement pension fund, not the general fund of the town. Um so this is specifically from the
retirement fund uh as required by law. So and they said that this issue should have been corrected earlier um but it was only recently addressed um or discovered that this individual um didn't have the access to option C.
And um just to confirm, the intended beneficiary um of this uh change is someone who's a surviving spouse of someone who retired before 1966. That is my understanding from the correspondence. Yeah, I still I still question the
children part because usually ch like pension options don't pass to non-spouses, but um the spouse is probably the most important one anyway. But now is is that we're able to vote on today?
I'm sorry. Is this something that we're able to vote on recommending or not today or Yep. Unless we have lingering questions, we can vote on any of these articles we
got additional um feedback on today. Um they have been accepted by the select board to be included in the warrant as well. These ones specifically. Um so if we're comfortable and we feel like we've had all the questions, we can vote
on this today. If there are additional questions you'd like me to ask the retirement board, our next meeting will be on next Monday, which is uh 15th. So, and that that'll technically be the last
meeting we'll have before our quote unquote written comments are due for printing in the warrant. Um, but they were pretty late this year and considering that some of them haven't even been accepted by the select board or shared to us. Uh, you know, the zoning board articles I think will be a
little tough. I'm hoping we'll get them in the middle of this week after the hearing on Tuesday. Um, that I can circulate those and we can talk about them on Monday. But at least this isn't 50 articles like the annual town meeting.
So yes, the answer the short answer is yes, we can vote on any article we would like to vote. Um I mean I mean in that case this is only affecting one person. This is like a legacy thing that they didn't have this option at the
time. It's not affecting the general fund. that's coming out of the uh retirement like pension account. Um it seems that like it won't affect that a lot, but it could be really helpful for like one person. Seems like the kind and correct thing to do. So I would like to
um move to recommend this article as written. I second the motion. Oh, who who was that? Nil. I was gonna I wasn't jumping. No, I didn't. No, no, you got it, Linda. I didn't say anything in time. Okay.
Okay. So, we have um a vote to recommend uh and we have a second. Uh do we have any further discussion on control article E? All right. I'm not hearing any. So, uh I'll stop sharing because I get lost in my windows here. So, I will take a roll
call vote to recommend article E. Uh, Linda, yes. Nathaniel, yes. Katie, yes. Nathan, yes. Male,
yes. Uh, I am also a yes. Um, so that is uh passes. Would anyone like to volunteer to write the comments before our next meeting on
Monday? Um, I'd be happy to write the comments uh if no one else is uh uh really interested in doing it or is is I'm happy to do it just like generally. So, okay. All right. So, I have your volunteership for this one. Thank you
for that. Um All right. So, that's article Article A is the acceptance of legislation to increase the survivor 101 benefit. Okay.
Uh I don't think I'm sharing my screen anymore. So let me go back to Zoom. All right. So now we have um control article B. Um so this is for the Maynard High School SH scholarship committee. It's a
tongue twister for me today. Um it's interesting how some of these articles have names and some of them don't. Um but that's fine. Um so as we talked about last time this was sort of an oversight uh and we did
also get some feedback from the bylaw committee here um on this. So um it has it is an existing committee. Um it was founded um back in 2018. they decided to have members appointed by the select board and established some ground
rules for it in the 2018 town meeting article which I shared uh uh I think for this meeting uh or the last meeting um like the actual 2018 article where this was voted in at town meeting um and we apparently found out that there were
some issues with appointments to the committee um and that was when the bylaw committee realized that they need to update the bylaw to reflect um how this is currently working right now. Um due to some institutional knowledge
that was lost um it sort of slipped under the cracks. So and it came up when new people were being appointed to this committee again. So this bylaw would sort of um bring it up to the current number of members and the terms and also
that the superintendent um of the school or their design will be a permanent member. So that was the feedback we got from the bylaw committee since our last meeting. Uh and otherwise. So this sort of seems like um I don't think routine is the right
word, but it's sort of like amending something that got sort of left off as a typo type thing. Um, yeah, it sounds from the response that, you know, we have a de facto um, Maynard High School scholarship committee that's been meeting for
several years. This is just updating the bylaw to recognize that because we forgot to do it in the past. So, um, I I would move to approve this article as written as well. And I would um second um on recommending
this control number be All right. So, we have a vote to recommend. Um, do we have any further uh discussion or questions on control article B for the uh school scholarship committee?
All right. So, I will take a roll call vote to recommend control B. Linda, yes. Nathaniel. Yep. Katie, yes. Nathan,
yes. Nielle, yes. Uh, and I am also a yes. So, that is a recommend six to zero. Is anyone passionate about writing the the comment for this one?
I can write the comment for this one. All right, thank you for that. All right, now let's go back here. All right, so control article C, I don't think we
talked about this at our last meeting. Um this was discussed at the last select board meeting. Um so this is looking to see if the town will approve um to allow for wine and malt beverage
liquid liquor license holders uh a lot of tongue twisters tonight to trade in their existing licenses for a non-transferable onremise all alcohol beverage license. So that would mean that in addition to wine and malt beverages, they could also serve other
quote unquote like hard alcohols as well. Um so this would mean that the jurisdictions combined total of the licenses for any type of liquor will stay the same. So it doesn't increase the number of licenses. So we currently
have a quota of five um wine and malt beverages and 14 all alcohol licenses. So potentially if these five wine and malt beverage license holders would also like to be able to serve all alcohol,
they could um try they could submit the the license to do so. So um this is um I guess as of August 21st there's one that's wine and malt beverage license.
um and one all alcohol license that is currently available in the town. Um, so like we're not currently at the maximum for either of these categories, but this is sort of an option
to change the license to allow it like basically allow 19 to be all alcohol licenses instead of five just wine and malt and 14 all. Does that make sense?
Yeah, I I'm confused by the wording and I I think I I'm kind of confused about the state law on this to begin with. Um Okay. So, the quota allowance just the way this is written, the town has a quota allowance of five wine and malt beverage licenses and 14 all alcohol license. If
if it seems like those are two different things, right, that we have a limit of five of one and 14 of another. Um, yeah. Would this is this saying that we could dissolve all five of them and just have 19 all alcohol licenses if we wanted to, or is it only that one business could do
it because we happen to have one available all alcohol license and then we would have two unused wine and malt licenses that other businesses could apply for. I think it's the second thing that you said, Nathan, as opposed to the 19. Okay.
So, okay. So, so because there's only one available, we could not have two businesses applying uh trying to trade in their their malt for that. Or I mean, we we could have them trying to do and this
would allow the uh select board to I guess I'm like a little bit confused about like what's the current state and like like versus what this is would be changing it to. But I think the quota would change because it says the quota allowances would then change to show
four wine and malt and 15 um all alcohol. I think um I think the four and the 15 I guess is like what would happen if one business traded in their um wine and malt license for an all alcohol license because then we do um because right now
we've got uh five oh I'm sorry right now we've got four or so ones available and then if one traded in um we'd have one extra um waln wine and malt license which someone could get then we'd have that extra all alcohol license. I don't know if that makes sense but that seems
to be I guess my read of it. Um uh Nikil, can you speak to what does this mean? Um the town will vote to accept the provisions of C138. Uh is that paragraph 12D or section 12D? Is that like mass general law? Yeah, I for some reason they they've
excluded the um the GL or the MGL, but it looks like I can pull that up super briefly. Um uh that just deals with the title of the section is licenses authorizing sale of beverages to be drunk on premises.
Um veterans organizations, corporations, etc. Suspension or revocation, hours of sale, liquors and cordials, liquor legal liability, insurance requirements. So, um it seems like it's uh dealing with
but if I do like a control F for quota does that sorry um that doesn't turn up anything. It's a pretty long section. So I I could certainly read it and you know get back to everyone at the end of the this
discussion maybe. But I mean, generally when we accept a when we accept like a state law, what that probably means is that we're just sort of um ensuring that the town has the ability to do something reflected in state law uh which is in this case allowing uh business to
transfer their wine and malt uh license to an all alcohol license. Um yeah. Yeah, definitely. That's a really good read of it. And that's a really good point to bring up too is that the l the people who grant the licenses from my understanding are the select board. So
they would still have to go before the board to request this change. So it's not sort of like a default thing. I I mean I I can't really think of a reason not to vote for this. Um it is is
there any is there is there like an argument against this? Well, I couldn't find one argument in favor, but um it looks like in many towns the license fee for an all alcohol is a lot higher than for wine and beer.
And I don't I can't find what it is for Mayard, but in many towns it's it's um significantly higher. um which which would be maybe a good financial thing. Would we be um like losing out on
revenue if people uh trans are you like do you get to transfer your license for free or do you still have to pay the the specific amount of money that you would like normally be paying for the all alcohol license? Do we know that it looks like you had to petition to have it change it's non-transferable. So
you would have to petition to change back to wine and malt and then you could transfer it. So I don't know what that pro you know. So we might the town might say no you can't transfer and then they could sell the license again which might
have a good financial benefit. It says they'll need to apply to change their license category back and then they could transfer And I guess if there's like, you know, fairly frequent turnover of like businesses and stuff, which, you know, makes sense because businesses come and
go, then we that that that makes sense to me. Like we would definitely be getting that extra revenue um from those from that transfer process. And if we have questions about the fee structures um or otherwise I can reach out to Greg
about it to get further clarity. But uh as one member, I think passage of this article gives this the select board the option to do this but not the requirement to do this. Um and it's I
you know I personally think that it's a good option to have if that's something that you know a possible business would like to bring their craft into the town. And like the article outlines, it's not going to increase the total number of
licenses. That that would stay the same. Yeah. It doesn't seem like like the current like there's no mechanism for this right now, right? It's just if you have like you can't transfer, you can't upgrade your license. Um, this is giving another option for a business and it's
but and it's giving the select board control over that process, but it's not like it's not like taking something away from a business where they'd be able to get it through some other method and now they have to get like an additional level of approval. Right. This Yeah. Do I do I understand that
correctly? I mean, theoretically, this could add another avenue. For example, if this if there was no available all liquor license, theoretically someone could apply for a wine and malt beverage license, use that for a while, and then try to upgrade it to an all alcohol
license later. So, from my understanding, we might want to ask some additional questions. I'm sensing some hesitancy in the room. Yeah, I mean, speaking personally, I think I'd be comfortable voting on this today if um
if somebody wanted to to make a motion. Um I just, you know, I just I'm just curious. I'm like I'm like hunting around like is there something I don't quite understand about this that I need to know more about? Yeah, I definitely feel comfortable voting on it as one me as as one member, but it
could be uh you know, if we wanted to uh you know, go all the way in terms of detail if we wanted to get some clarity from you know, Greg or whoever about the the fee structure sort of that someone had mentioned, you know, if we wanted to like include that in the comment or something just to, you know, illuminate the the situation, we could certainly do
that as well. I'm I'm sort of fine either way, I suppose. Yeah, I I kind of agree. I think it would be nice to know as we're voting on this if the fees for the all alcohol license annually is going to help the
town. That would be a big plus here. I mean, I don't have objections to this. If we want to vote and then clarify it, can we vote and then get more information for our comments later? We can also vote at the next meeting and
still have time to make make the uh printed warrant. I would wait then. Yeah. Yeah. and ask what the license fees are. So, how much more we might It's not going to be that much. It's
going to be four, four or five, right? What Yeah. And I think from the select board meeting, this sounded like it was relatively newer Massachusetts law or a law that was something that wasn't an option in the past and that's why it's
coming up. But I can also double check that. Oh, yeah. Okay. I just did a little Google search because when I I was looking at the um uh the ma legislature.gov site and I saw section 12 A through C, but I didn't see D. And
I found a I know some law firm saying the legislation from like seven days ago saying that they just passed section D and a little brief description of it. Um so yeah that that corroborates what you're saying.
Cool. All right. So I have some questions there. Um, do we have someone who would like to write the recommendation for that one? Um, I'll I'll write the uh I'll I'll write a comment for it just because I'll
you know kind of force me to like figure out what this what this means and uh write a little thing for it. I think that I'd like to do that. Okay, thanks for that, Nathan. I'll paste that in there.
text only. Okay, so that was article C. All right, I'm doing what we've done in the past where I sort of make a little word file where we can like put our comments in and if we recommend or not. Um, but that's not on the screen share
right now. I'm sharing just the um draft articles which is great. You can't see how terrible I spell. All right, so now we're on to article D and article E. These are related to um
solar solar panels and batteries and things like that. Um so oops sorry scrolled too far. Um so article D. So each time um Greg would like to install some solar
panels or like batteries or things that are related to that um on the schools or on that property. Uh it it requires a town meeting article um from my understanding from listening to the select board meeting.
Um so this article D is talking about using a portion of the roof and the parking lot. um of two different schools um the Green Meadow and the Fowler um and put it in the control of the select
board um and also on top of like town buildings like the fire station and otherwise so um and have that under the charge of the select board so that they can enter into power purchase agreements for certain
periods um and do sort of all that negotiating meeting. Um so Greg, and this is outlined in the comments that Greg um outlined at the select board meeting last week. So um each time that he wanted to put like a
solar panel on a school building, a town building, any kind of uh municipal building, uh you'd have to come to town meeting with a warrant uh article or a special town meeting. Um
so um there are not yet any planned um installations. I guess this is sort of him thinking forward forward thinking. Um and to be able to take advantage of like the required programs and meet those deadlines for grants and things
like that. Um it's proposed that these articles are passed to be able to do that more quickly so that the select board can be in charge of that contracting process. um rather than having to have a town meeting article about it. Um
so I guess back in June 2020 there was an article for solar panels at the high school. So that's sort of like an example of what how it was done in the past. Um, so this article is sort of saying like we want to take all of the land and
the buildings um, and have the ability for the select board to enter into contracting to have a solar firm put this kind of stuff on there. So article D is about the installation
Um, article E is about the batteries or like a storage system. I guess they're two different systems. I'll say when I read this today, I thought this was very strange because I thought we might have a roof a roof
article at town meeting and I'm wondering I mean we we were talking about how in what bad condition when we met with capital planning and what bad condition our roofs are in and like how does this fit in with would you have to
repair does this tie us into repairing the roofs to put solar in. I don't this seemed like a I I don't know what the tool I you know I can see maybe it allows you to do some things but I just I thought some things about the roofs
and and I was surprised it mentioned Green Meadow because I thought Green Meadow was going to be like all energy sustainable. Well, I was kind of surprised about this but that jumps a bit into my expertise there. energy sustainable is usually
only used for the building itself. So, the ability to produce past that is probably what this is looking at for that one. But then for the rest of it, um solar companies won't put solar panels on roofs that are bad. So, even if we give
um the ability to put solar panels up there, the roof issue is still an issue aside. panels also increase roof lifespan because the panels themselves are the first, you know, they actually take the wear and tear for the most part. Um, so those are all interesting
facets, but um, it doesn't really remove the idea that you just mentioned that the the roofs are still going to be a problem one way or another. And Nathaniel, is there any other way than leasing um leasing to a private facility that would be more advantageous
to the town? It seems like we're leasing space to a private facility. Would we be better off, you know, buying it? So, we're we're red because our our electric costs are so high for the town. Um would we is
there some other strategy than sort I don't know leasing the space? Well, for solar, yeah, I mean, owning it is always better, but that's So, owning it is better. Okay. Yeah. But it's capital upfront costs. So, y
um if you don't have the capital, the next best thing is to effectively give a loan to, you know, or get a loan from utility company or some private development of, you know, private installer. You get a cut of it, they get a cut of it, you work ahead
together. So, it's kind of a what do you want now question, not necessarily what's the better choice. It's always better to own for solar panels, at least in the current state, but it's more about do you have the upfront cash? Yeah. Um, I could just be reading the
article wrong, but um would it would it not be the case that the town would be would be like the lesser on the on like the roof property? Like, so wouldn't it be the case that like we'd be sort of renting out the roof to the solar company basically and they'd be paying us money for that and then we'd be
paying them money for the energy or am I just not reading the article completely correctly? Yeah, we might want to look at the financials of what happened at the high school or at the old landfill on W on Walnut Street. I mean, have we really
what we've really gained? I don't I don't know what the deal was at Walnut Street or the high school. Sounds like the high school is one of these similar releasing the space on the roof. Do you know Jillian did they discuss it at the select board meeting? I could
listen I could listen into the No, they did not specific financial detail. Okay. seems like they are doing this in a pretty sort of um you know for foreshadowing way I guess because it
it's very it looks like it's very discretionary from sort of a sponsor comments paragraph like they're not even like planning to do this or anything they just want to give themselves the ability to do it now I guess although not yet planned and pre-author pre-authorizing use etc etc.
Yeah. I mean um like the plans for Green Meadow involved uh doing like the solar panel system on the roof and uh over the over the parking lot. Um, so if this is like a necessary step in that process, um, I mean, I think, you know, Linda, Nathaniel, you bring up a good point
about, you know, whether it's better to lease or to, you know, have the upfront capital to like own the solar panels. Um, but since this isn't actually dictating what we're doing, it's just allowing the select board to enter negotiations with different solar panel
companies. Um, I think it it makes sense to recommend this article and try to move it forward. Just to clarify that a little bit, the current school project is I believe all ownership. This would not allow or just this is not like a we forgot to do something on the solar project. Let's
you know fix our laws to allow this to happen. This the solar project the ones that the carport is already part of it and I believe it should be an ownership uh situation. We should own those panels. I think uh you believe it is the case that we
are going to own the panels for the carport specifically. Yes. But this was talking about roof and other areas of the school that might not have been already incorporated into the project. So, I'm assuming that they're using the concept of additional square footage as a a tool that they could
effectively sell to another company that would want to install solar panels and some agreement that would hopefully, I would assume, be beneficial to the town if it got approved. Could we ask the select board or or the town administrator about the lease or did
they consider the lease or own and do they consider the roof conditions? Um, yep. So, I'm taking I'm taking some notes here right now. So I have three questions currently and I that's what I wanted that segus into my my seeing if I
caught the conversation correctly. So thanks for that. Um so I wanted to ask the first one is we wanted to ask why this article is in the STM currently. Uh it seems it's more future proofing rather than concrete immediate plans. Is this anticipation of the new building or
school? So sort of asking why now? Um the second question is um our understanding is that many roofs in town are having issues. Um if there are repairs required before solar is put in place, would these articles also cover
um the authorization of that repair? And the third question might be about the high school, the the financial history of that high school solar. Yeah. So um the third question I have it currently written as can you please give
us examples of how the solar panels on current buildings like the high school works in terms of financial um terms like for example were they leased or bought um panels or batteries? Um how much revenue or offset to the cost um do
these current solar efforts cover? Um sort of like asking more about detail. That's great. Thanks Jillian. Did I capture all of our current questions for articles D and E?
That sounds good, Jillian. Okay. Um, so I will work to get those written up. Um, so we don't have a recom I would it sounds like um I mean I currently don't
but it sort of sounds like the rest of the committee also might not have a current recommendation right now because we have some outstanding questions and we'd like to learn a little bit more about the process. Um, is anyone particularly passionate about these two topics that would like to
write sponsor comments? Um, I can CC them or make them aware of the responses back from Greg before our next meeting. Uh, if not, I can take a stab at writing them. Yeah, I had I don't have any. I can I
can try to write it up. I'll I'll volunteer. Okay. Would you would you like to do the both of them or just one of them? Oh, I think I think it would be both, right? Do they go together? They go together, right? Yeah,
they kind of go together, but Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, I'll do I'll do both. Yep. All right. Thanks, All right. So that's D and E. All right. Then a bunch of them uh a
bunch of them were removed. So then we randomly jumped to the letter I. Um so this is looking to resend authorized but unissued borrowing balances. So
these are for specific um these are from past town meetings from all the way from tw 2009 um up to 2020. Um and this is working with the treasurer collector and the bond agency. So we're looking at
previously a authorized but unissued debt. So either these projects are done or they're not going to be started. Um, so this is sort of just to get them off the books and say like this was authorized in the past, but it will
never actually be spent. So we'll cross it off. So this isn't um going to put money back into like the general fund all of a sudden. is just saying we're not going to spend the money that we had authorized that we could spend like like we said we could
budget for this uh but we don't need it. That is my understanding of what authorized but not issued means. Cool. I mean this seems like a pretty easy one. I move to recommend uh control
article I. I'll second. All right. We have a uh recommend for I and a second. Do we have any further discussion? No. All right. So, I will take a roll call vote. Uh Linda,
yes. Nathaniel, yes. Katie, yes. Uh, Nathan, yes. Male, yes.
Uh, I am also a yes. So, that is a 6 recommendation. Um, is anyone particularly excited about writing the comment for I sure I'll write that. Write that. All right. Thanks. Thanks,
Nathan. All right. Oh, I think I stopped sharing. Let me share my screen again. All right. Now, we're on the last one that was approved by uh the select board. So, this is control J. So, um
this is for PAS settlement funds. So from listening to the select board meeting, it is my understanding that there are settlement funds that are coming from corporations that either used or generated or otherwise are
responsible for um paying settlement funds um to the government um or otherwise. So, it's my understanding that there is a sum that we will be be receiving from these settlement funds. Um, and in order to receive it, we need
to vote for it at town meeting. Um, and where it will go. So, it will go into the water improvement fund. Um, and it will be used to pay for infrastructure maintenance and operation of the water service system. um
in theoretically in relation to these PAS um and the controlling them in the water supply. So I don't have sponsor comments for that one yet. Um but that was my understanding of the discussion from the
select board meeting last week is that you sort of have to have a town vote to approve to accept the funds from a settlement. Um, I assume it's probably also like a leg legal settlement where if you take the settlement funds, you can't later sue
people about things. Um, but that is um I don't have sponsor comments for that yet. Is is this the um like the state firefighters academy uh polluting the uh
the pond that we we would otherwise be able to use for like for uh pumping water? I don't know. They didn't really say who this settlement fund is. I'm not sure who is the parties that are paying this
settlement. Um but I can ask The question I had was what is the water improvement fund? Is that part of the enterprise funds that we do for water and sewer or what's the balance? Where are we otherwise funding the water improvement fund? I just didn't remember that. I
know we had all these enterprise fun. I don't believe it exists. Um Oh, oh, so it's a new fund. Okay. I think and that's why I really would like sponsor comments for this. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That would be that would be
helpful. Julian. Yeah. Julian. Yeah. Thank you. Um, okay. Just just for a brief uh Oh, sorry. Go ahead. No, no, go ahead. I'm just I'm I'm taking all the comments here. Just from a um a brief Google search.
So, it looks like there was there were two big settlements, I guess, that happened relatively recently. Um, one of those was a company called 3M and um the other one was was DuPont, apparently. Um, and I guess it was like sort of a nationwide thing in that um, every like
municipal water system basically could have been like a valid member of the class. Um, but it was like state agencies basically doing it. I think um, it looks like the 3M1 was in South Carolina, but it was like a nationwide
thing. Um, so Okay. And um you someone I think it was Eugene you were correct um whoever said this I suppose that um it looks like it was uh you know with prejudice in that you know you lose the legal right to file a
separate uh lawsuit against 3M or Dupont the other company um in exchange for any monies received for the settlement. Okay. So, like is that decision already made for us by like the uh the Commonwealth's lawyers or
you know is this like I'm inclined to say yes. So, the the notes that I'm looking at now is um something from from the main attorney general's office. Um, but I assume that state attorney generals were sort of the level that this was like engaged in at, if that makes sense. Um, I'm sure
Massachusetts has like a I I don't I don't have any reason to believe that like different municipal water systems within Massachusetts are, you know, bound differently. I assume the AG probably just handled it sort of um, you know, routinely and stuff. Um,
but those do those do seem to be the only two companies that were involved in these uh big lawsuits so far. And it looks like like the members of the class are like any municipal water system. So, including including us.
Okay, that's really helpful. Thanks for looking that up. Well, yeah. So I I guess uh before voting on this I would want to know um whether uh this vote would bind us and prevent us from you know us or like
whoever else might be uh pursuing lawsuits from you know continuing that or seeing any any like awarded money. Uh and also if this represents the sum total or if this
is a portion of the of the settlement fund. Um, I sort of had a request as well. Um, sort of a bit of a different one, but just like when we regardless of the way in which we we do choose to recommend or not recommend this article, um, I'd love to to write the recommendation for this one because it's, you know, sort of
legal adjacent um, and that sort of thing. So, okay. Yeah. My sense is a quarter of a million dollars isn't going to go very far for PAS remediation, but yeah.
Yeah. Really? At the risk of being um overly optimistic, it may only be a portion, but my my reason for suspecting that is just because um just from like the the news stories about this, it looks like the settlement is supposed to be paid out over like a 12-year period. So, we
may see more portions of of it potentially. But good news. Yeah. Yeah. I like seeing like some I I like seeing a number. Uh but that's, you know, a drop in the bucket, so to speak.
Okay. And this is um Okay. So, I have all the questions here for oops article J. Um, so we would really like sponsor comments to have more background. Um, we have
questions if the water improvement fund is existing yet. Um, if it is, how much is in there and what is it typically used for? Um, is it in the water sewer enterprise funds, not the general fund. Um, and then the other ones are more about this specific article. So, whom are the parties that are paying the
settlement fund? Where is this coming from? Is it a state or federal class action? Um, would this give up our right to lawsuit in the future if we take a settlement? Uh, is this all we expect in the settlement or is it a portion of the fund? Um, would this be
in exchange for giving up the right for future litigation or was that decision already made by the state lawyers? Uh, and how far would this money go towards our PAS remediation of the town? Uh, for example, what amount would fully cover it?
It looks like um Denim got almost $5 million from this settlement fund. So, uh this we're not quite getting that much. Um it looks like that's sort of unfortunate, but if it if it if it is indeed the the
whole amount, that sounds way better. 5 million. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. They probably have It's probably determined by how much PAS is in the system. So, but I will ask that question. So, um
so I know their PAS levels are pretty darn high. Okay. So, I've gathered all those comments. Um, I will also send out after this meeting a word file so that we could use as um as a template to sort of write our
comments in. And I've also put the questions that I'm going to ask uh in there as well. Um, and for the individuals who indicated they would like to write those comments. Um, I will send the email to I think pretty much all our questions will be to Greg. Um,
and I will CC that individual on that separate email um, about those articles so as not to violate open meeting law. Okay. Um, and like I said, we're probably going to have some planning board articles, too. Um, I don't have
those yet. I tried to look on the planning board website for their public hearing tomorrow about where the documents are, and I just couldn't figure it out. Um, and I looked on board docs and I didn't see them there either. So, I think I'm just not looking in the right place. But, um, regardless, Greg
said that we shouldn't necessarily talk about them tonight until the public hearing tomorrow anyway. So, I was just trying to get ahead of the curve. So, um, it could also be like the articles that were stricken um because our
current set goes from like E to I. So, there was a whole bunch of articles in the middle that just got taken out. So, um, yes, I think that was that was pretty pretty good progress. We voted on a
couple of them. Um, and the other ones I'll work on the followup on for our next meeting on Monday. Uh, are there any additional topics or things people would like to talk about for the FTM? All right. So, I would say that our next
meeting on the 15th would be technically our last meeting before they would like our sponsor written comments. Um, so we'll get as many as we can. Um, and if there's any additional articles,
um, like for example, I don't recommend we vote on the citizens petition until it's actually has enough signatures and is finalized and signed. Um, so like that might not make it that might be a handout at town meeting. So I'm I'm anticipating we're already probably
going to have a handout anyway. So we'll just do the best we can. Right, I'm going to save this before I accidentally delete it. Okay,
great. Um, all right. So, yeah, so right now the special town meeting is scheduled for October 27th. Uh, and our public hearing will be one week ahead of that. So, like I said, our next our next quote unquote deadline is
uh the printing of the warrant, which I believe is September 19th. They would like everything by then. So, I think the following Tuesday or that week is a select board meeting where they take all of our comments um and then they print the they they approve it to go get
printed and stuff. So, Okay. All right. Um, right. So, I guess if there's no additional comments there for the special town meeting, our next is talking about this multi-board meeting. So, like I said on our agenda, I had put
it might be on September 18th, but that is no longer the case. Um, the select board at their meeting last week voted to postpone it. Um, so they would like to put it
um trying to see here. How do I wrote this down? Uh, so my understanding is that there's a budget subcommittee meeting on September 23rd. So they would like to sort of run through some of the topics there. Um so uh my understanding at that
subcommittee meeting is that the uh the CPC will be presenting sort of something about the capital uh needs of the town and a presentation sort of like they did to us. Uh and they also reached out to see if there's anything we would
like to present about sort of the state of the budget and the projections going forward. So I think even though we're not going to have a quadboard meeting on the 18th of September, there will still be that budget subcommittee meeting. So I'm not sure if there we can sort of
treat that as a dry run if there is something we want to present. Um I would propose that we talk about that tonight or we bring it up as a topic at our next meeting on the 15th. Um,
so I know we were talking about potentially having like graph different scenarios or sort of showing how I think one question that a lot of people on the board still have is understanding how the school for the new school like the budget is going to sort of impact the taxes and I
know in the like so at our last meeting we talked about sort of that estimated calculator and that might be something to feature at this budget subcommittee meeting on the 23rd. um is that something that you all have been
working on or um I've been uh currently putting together um using the calculator um some graphs um for some stuff that Nathan had sent me. So this is um you know just like a multiple line graph but it's like
baseline and then with the 67 million DPW override um and then with the uh 2.5 million uh Fowler roof override and then just uh the graph would show uh for years uh including 25 uh just as you
know a reference point but for you know fiscal years 2025 through 2030 just to see what the average tax burden would be uh in each of those three scenarios. So the I do have the numbers ready to go for that. Unfortunately uh data wrapper which is the um the software that I I
use to make the graphs is um having a bit of trouble just getting the uh the software to work. But the numbers are all ready to go. Um and certainly I I think as one member would you know if if we wanted to show off sort of the the calculator uh I would I think feel comfortable doing that because it has
been working you know pretty well. though. I um I I spoke to Ben from uh capital planning a little bit earlier this week and it I I like kind of want to work through some of the numbers that we're like
using in that system um and kind of like talk through them with the committee to because the uh because he shared some some revised numbers for the the Fowler roof repair uh that I wasn't aware of that are like maybe I don't know like
another 2 million above. of what what I had initially sent to you, Nquille. Sorry. Like right after I I No, no, that is that is I'm actually that is almost uh pretty much a good thing actually because I I would I think like to um make sure like my my methodology for lack of a better word is
correct honestly before we're actually putting accurate numbers into this. So that is totally fine with me honestly. I'm I'm I'm glad that we basically have like test numbers that I can um you know make sure that I'm I'm doing correct methodology for basically before we're actually presenting them or using them.
So that that is totally totally okay. You know, no works there. So I'm trying to find the uh I'm look through my emails. There are a couple documents that um that he shared
from capital planning. Uh sorry, just give me just give me a moment to pull those up. No worries. You should have the ability to share as well. Um I would say anything you share if you could send it
to me after the meeting. We can also make sure it gets posted on board docs too. Cool. This is this is like a welcome to my life. You have five windows open. You got to find the one window you want to share. Yes.
You got to do it all on a 12-in laptop screen. I have the benefit of a second monitor, but sometimes that just means I have multiple windows on two different monitors. Makes besides besides the new capital projects, I wonder at the budget
subcommittee if they might revisit what they're going to do with trash because we did what did we do last year? We they did a slip and slide on trash. We did an override for I mean, how how are we going to do this trash enterprise?
What's what's that going to look like? It's is it going to defer you? You're going to pay the money but someplace else. Um what what are the water rates going to look like? Sort of that allin that allin thing and plus taxes are going to go up two and a half%. And how
does that school budget look? I mean they they kind of bare bone their override last year um and health cost. Do we have any inkling about the f the just the operating budget going forward and and these capital projects on top of that?
You know, not that they're not important, but um I think we I you know, FY26 was tough. FY27 I think is going to be worse, but that's just my sense. But um
and it's nice to have models about how much more but you know we got to be realistic and I think all in as we're shifting costs all around. I won't be able to make the 23rd. Darn. And that's a good point is if if more
than if four or more people are planning to attend, I think I have to technically list it as a joint meeting. Yeah. And I need it at least 48 hours notice to list it as a meeting. Ideally 72.
Uh and that's business days. Weekends don't count. Okay. So, this is a draft of that uh Ben had sent me of of quadboard. Um, and
here's the uh here's the thing with the Fowler roof. um that this is like a summary of another document from the uh the building from the Garland company that there's two sections of roof and originally they're talking about um only
this section the slope section as needing to be repaired and the estimate was about 2 million or 2 a.5 million depending on whether we replace the shingles or do the metal roof. Um the con the uh the strong recommendation is
to do the metal roof because the shingles you would have to like take the entire thing off and then there might be like rotten timber underneath the shingles before you put it all back on. Um and the metal roof is favored by a lot of education departments that have
aging roofs uh because you kind of you leave the existing structure in place. you know, whether it might be like rotted shingles or rotted timber underneath or or who knows what. Um, and you put you just put metal on top of the
whole thing. Um, and it allows whatever's underneath to kind of like dry out. Uh, and you can kind of like ignore the damage for a little bit longer. Nathaniel, you're might know
more about this or can opine on uh the advantages of of one versus the other, but that's I'm just kind of like repeating what what I heard. Um the second part is the flat roof, uh which is close to failure. Um like I think the
slope part is already leaking. Um, and but the flat part might have you can restore with a 20-year membrane, which I think is just kind of like like a sprayed like like layer over the whole thing, or you can replace the whole
thing with like a two ply assembly that would last a lot longer. Um, but it would cost more. So, the membrane is uh 1.4 million. Um, the 40-year version is 2.2 million. Um and yeah, so 57% additional cost for
100% additional use. Um average cost per year decreased from 70,000 to 55,000. Uh this is this is Capcom's analysis of it. Uh, and I what I think that they
were leaning towards um doing the more expense the metal roof for the slope portion and the membrane for the flat portion. But you know if these are like the estimates I think it would make sense to you know model out all how how
many two how was that like all all like all the different scenarios all four different scenarios we could do I guess six if we just did one or the other. I think it might also be important to take into account the
not just the roof lifetime but also the building lifetime. Like is it envisioned that this building will last for another 40 years? Yeah, that might be why they're recommending C instead of D for that part
because then it would be 65 years old. Well, keep in mind that building and roof lifespans are assumed to be with relatively minimal maintenance and then a replacement is needed. But just because you hit a of lifetime doesn't mean you have to replace the
entire thing. You can do all sorts of little sustainment things to add many years to that. So I wouldn't necessarily see like you know 15 years left on the estimated building lifetime and then assume you have to build a new building in 15 years. It's more that you'll
probably have larger expenses to maintain or keep it up. Yeah. As someone who owns a house from the 1800s. Yes. So, I mean, if if um uh it sounded like Capcom's like like
thinks this is the number one like major uh priority that the town should be aware of the the expenses and that they wanted to discuss at the quadboard meeting. Um, so I don't know if anything that we're presenting should try to match that or try to be
like separate like like should we be saying like try to like model out like what would that look like to you know taxpayers to average single family home um if we were to issue uh debt to pay for you know one of the different
versions of replacement here. Um or if we should just be trying to like outline like known, you know, expenses to the town going forward for like the next next couple of years absent this sort of uh a specific project
or what do you all think? Um the first thing you described is um certainly I think I would be able to do that pretty easily because that is basically what I've been doing um kind of since our last meeting. up just with like the the updated number from Capcoin. So I'd certainly be happy to do that kind of regardless just because the
the Microsoft Excel infrastructure is already there for me to do that. Um certainly. So um I'd be but I'd be you know fine with either of course. I mean, my sense is something like a five-year plan is what we're going to need because even if and I don't know if
you can do this project in two phases because it looks like the the the beige if it's not today, it's to it needs it's going to be need to be done maybe in five years. I don't know. Um but
does it say here? They're saying it's near life expectancy, but yeah. And I'm not sure if in Ben's presentation he talks about because I remember in the past they were talking about like sort of how they were recommending to phase it when they came
and talked to us. There was like a like a chart saying like this is critical and needs to be fixed in the next like five years. This is 10 and this is 15. So I think the red was like immediate and then the yellow was five years. I'm not sure if that carries
into this presentation. Yeah. Um so that's the other thing the uh uh Capcom has. Let me stop this part. Um,
Capcom has like they already showed us their uh at our July meeting they had they had a fiveyear plan. Yeah, they had a fiveyear plan. Um, and they they had parts that they thought should be paid for with like a debt
issuance versus what should be paid out of free cash um versus like I like deferred like maintenance. Um like like there are like fixed costs that we know we have to do like you you have to buy two police cruises one year, one police cruiser the next year, two
police cruisers after that. Um and is that the sort of thing that we should just be like modeling is like part of our budget? Like we know these expenses are coming even if we typically pay them out of like free cash. Um like maybe that should just be part of what like the police department's budget is like
yeartoyear. uh so that we're budgeting for these like known expenses rather than just doing everything out of the remainder. Um versus I don't know like you know we could be trying to replace you know a dozen
different roofs over the next few years. Um like are are we are we trying to model like everything that we we know we might have to pay for or are we trying to like stick to like our fixed like uh salary increases and expenses for each
department? Um how much how much of this information should we include? Let's start my second question and the last one is I'm still not totally clear on how to do the uh Green Meadow um debt issuance. Uh
before I just kind of had all right, we know what we did the last last year. We know what we budgeted like this year. Um and then next year and onward I was just taking like this is going to be the average that we're going to be paying out over 30 years for the whole project. Um,
Capcom did a different thing. They took the they they're assuming like three phases of bond issuance and they're just kind of assuming that phases two and three are going to have the same schedule as the first one. Um, Nathan, on that last one, one thing
that I uh found while I was preparing the graphs from earlier is um DLS actually has like a debt service calculator basically and it's pretty nifty. Um what you what you can do is um you can enter in uh the amount to be borrowed uh as well as the interest rate
and the term and but just when I was doing it you know I kind of kept our default I guess of like 3.5% interest rate but in 30 years but you can customize it and then it gives you the whole sort of schedule. um it didn't really it didn't it didn't give me like phases or anything like sort of how
Capcom was describing it like as you mentioned just now but um I have you know every reason to suppose that the numbers are accurate and stuff and it looks pretty pretty detailed um I'd be happy to send that along of course um but that that's what I've have have have been using sort of for the the stuff that I was doing um
yeah I mean that's kind of what that's that's basically what I what I had to begin with is I know you know for I know the total amount we're going to be borrowing to pay for the uh pay pay for the school. Um, and you know, in in effect, you know, what we're actually paying, I forget if it was like 3.5
million a year or something over the on average. Um, but we actually for the first couple years, it's been like 900,000 or so because we haven't we're only bonding for the stuff that we're paying for that we uh so far. And I don't So, I I know the first two years
were last, so we know what that looks like. And then it I had just like spiking like going up to the the maximum amount like the maximum average over the 30 years. Uh Capcom did a little differently where they did kind of it sort of slopes up and then slopes down at the end. Um but that's you know just
a different way of estimating it's a different and I don't I don't know which one we want to we want to go with. And the one I was using I guess adds like a third thing. It's like a gentle downward slip for some reason, but for I couldn't tell you what that reason is, unfortunately.
And Nathan, I wonder if at the budget subcommittee, we might want to focus on the as you're modeling this out that that key metric that you have, which is the percent of the budget to debt. And if we're getting close to 10% or over,
we we kind of know we're in trouble. Is a is sort of our key metric there of how much debt we can we can um or should be carrying without, you know, impacting bond ratings and and other things. And that might be kind of the key thing
key takeaway there. So all right. So one thing is because we have uh because we had those two overrides that increased you know increased the expenses and increased our revenue
increased the size of the budget. Um that percentage goes down. Yeah. that service level a little bit and then if I adopt so this is adopting what Capcom did. So
it's basically saying like this part I know is correct because this is um I got Greg forwarded this you know it's uh the first the first amount that we borrowed um
is goes out to FY54. Um, and this is the principal that we'd be paying each year. And then down, sorry, no, that's that's the interest.
And then the principal is up here. So that's accurate. So like in FY25, we paid down 294,000 principal and 688,000 interest. So it was like 982,000 altogether. Um,
and what Capcom is doing is they're saying that that was a third of the cost of the project. So we need to have so we'll we're just going to assume they'll issue another bond that's going to look exactly the same in two years and another one that's going to look exactly the same as that two years after that.
Uh, so like roughly speaking, it it manages to make it like slope up and slope down at the end. Um, so if we look at it that way rather than just like jumping up to the average that we'd be paying for like the the total
sum of the loan in FY27 um then the debt service level stays decently below um 10%. Yeah. you know, it kind of peaks in FY30
at 8.36% or sorry, FY29 8.6 um and then there's some other debts that fall off uh you know we remediation petroleum the
Yeah, that comes off. Yeah. Yeah. You have Green Meadow getting bonded as late as FY29, but I thought the school was going to open at FY2627. Huh.
Yeah. So, this is this is just I I I liked what um I liked what Capcom was doing. Yep. Yep. Yep. It's a different way of estimating. And my way was like crudder of just taking
the average and having it jump up, but I knew it was like right to the total amount of the loan. Um, this way is like feels like a little bit funny to me, you know, because it's like a little bit more specific. It makes me want it to be more accurate, but it's still just like a different way of estimating it. Yeah.
Uh, but I mean, it does make the it does show the debt service levels like staying a little bit steadier below the 10%. Um, yeah. So, what what do you think about doing
it this way? I think that's good. I don't know if the Green Meadows Building Committee can tell us because FY29 seems late for that third trunch, but um and if we don't think we're going to pay
it like in FY20, if we're not going to borrow again in FY26. So, you're saying we're not going to hit another bump until FY27? But but but I think it's a great model, Nathan. I mean, it it shows it very
clear. the three tanches and you could you could change when when they're going to hit. Yeah. I mean, it' be But then and then and then you have a model that's new any new debt. So, if it's the roof, it's the DPW garage,
we could model it really well. I'm not sure they would know about it, but the Green Meadow Building Finance Subcommittee is meeting tomorrow. Um but it's at 9:30 in the morning.
Um we can also you can the our two reps can also reach just reach out to the chair and ask for um or I can ask for clarification too because somebody somewhere it's either
Greg or it's the schooling committee has an idea of how these tanches are going to work. Yeah, I'd like um yeah, if there's anybody who has like a greater clarity, that's probably the biggest single factor on the budget right now for like debt service and like what it's going to
look like to your average taxpayer. So that's I've gotten a lot of handwaving like we haven't done the tranches yet, so I can't tell you the details of the finances, which is fine, but like how you could at least tell me what the plan
is. Like are you going to do all of the next one and the next tunch? Are there going to be three tanches? Like Yeah, I mean I guess we could I mean it something could show both. I mean this this is this is what it would look like if if the rest of it were issued um in FY27.
Then FY27 would be the the biggest one. It would be 9.44% debt service. Uh and then it would go down after that, but it still wouldn't hit that 10% number. Um, yeah. And I think, you know, sort of
circling back to your your other questions, it's sort of because I before in the before times when I was making the spreadsheets for Bob who was doing some of these scenario planning, um, it's just the most important thing is
just being upfront about what is included in your model and what is not included in your model. So, you know, like the the enemy of like these talks, I think, is perfection. And that's something I've always run run into in the past where,
you know, someone's most interesting thing is not included in the spreadsheet or, you know, there's there's a project that they think really should be on there that's not there. I think it's just it's something we just need to take a stance and say like, we know this isn't perfect. This is the tool. This is
what is encompassed in the current tool. This is what is outside of the tool. So like for example, this is not going to model any enterprise fund because we're only looking at the general fund which is completely reasonable. Um but you know if people want to model that
then that's something else like we just this is the biggest budget right now and I think it's important as one person to focus on this right now to have these large scale discussions to talk about you know what are the priorities coming up like I know that the water and sewer
enterprise funds and those bills are important too but they're going to be not as proportionately as large of a total cost compared to your taxes. Um, and I think a lot of the things that are coming up that are big
ticket items are going to potentially go into the general fund like the new buildings, the new capital things, etc. That's my two cents. So I would say don't don't be overwhelmed with the
details if um so like for example in the past it's always helpful to sort of throw a baseline and say like this is the baseline this is assuming we don't add any new debt that's issued like there's no overrides there's no nothing and we
only grow at 2 and a half% or something like whatever your baseline model is and say like okay I took this baseline model and then I added in the 2 to 4 million dollars for school roofs. And this is what it might look like in the next five
years. So, and you know, here's model number three where we don't do the roofs, but we instead do the DPW garage. And like this is an idea of how that might impact the budget and the financial and the sort of the average single tax bill.
That would be my recommendation. Overwhelmed. Yeah. Is that kind of what we're looking for is um total budget and average single uh taxpayer because like another thing that that bugs me is how to
predict revenue like the total tax revenue that's easy if we know like new growth. Um and but net local aid local receipts I'm not as sure what to do with that. And then finally, because the biggest chunk in revenue is like we
add two and a half percent every year plus new growth. Um, and then for most of our expenses here, um, the main thing that's increasing is salaries and they're pegged at two and a half% even though it's not quite right. Different
departments have different, you know, go in different ways. I have the education department a little bit different from the rest of them. Um that means that because the salary is a portion of the total expenses for each department, um the expenses don't rise
as rapidly as the as the revenue does. And that's not quite right. Like I think if we're only looking at expenses, it's pretty good. And if we're only looking at revenue, it's pretty good. But when when we try to marry the two things together, um it it starts saying things
like, "Oh, look, we're gonna have a ton of we're gonna have like a million dollars of free cash, you know." Yeah. And I think that's that's something I struggled with in the past because I was actually looking at the line items and I wasn't digging into as
much detail as you are, which I think is why it looks potentially like there's a surplus. Um, so like in the past when I was doing this, I was just increasing the the growth like the eight or so lines that are there instead of going individually inside each one. Mhm.
And that would it made us look like we had a $2 million deficit. So it went the opposite way. So if you just increase everything by two and a half% rather than like the specific items um or being sort of more granular about it.
Um like I think it's important to think about the messaging. So, like in my opinion, based on the experience of the year-to-year budgeting cycles is that, you know, we don't necessarily have enough money. We had to do an
override for the schools because there wasn't enough money in the general fund to give them what they needed. And I'm not exactly sure how to faithfully capture that because it looks like potentially
Even in FY27 there's a surplus. Is that right? Uh yeah, I'm looking at the computer with my old eyes. Let's see. Oh, sorry. Thanks. But what's what's scary here is that our two two big budget items are the schools
and we have that slated as like 2.3% increase and and employee benefits which is you know 20% of our budget. schools is 40% of our budget. Um or more 50% of our budget. Yeah.
And I don't know that's that's really that's going to be really really tough for both for both of those categories going forward. And in the past I wasn't increasing I was increasing everything by I went in
the five years into history. Yeah. and I increased everything based on the average percent of what for like the past five years what the line items were which is I'm not saying that's the right way to do it I'm just saying that that
is how I explained it to everyone and it was really wonky like the schools were increasing by so much that we were like in such debt so like I think I took the average this was back when I think one year they got eight or a 9% increase and that really
threw the average for a loop because I'm not sure that and that's something I think that's important to talk about in the budget subcommittee meeting is going forward in this projection is two and a half% for schools reasonable because I kind of feel like it's not
yeah and and unless we deal with those two big ones the employee benefits and the schools you know the tra the trash enterprise fund is small potatoes too. We got it's whatever,
right? So I think this is something you can makes you in a panic already. Yeah. like you can say like if the if everything stays at this level then you know the budget cycle will be sort of even
but you know I I think in the past the school has really it's like at least 3% it's usually closer to four every year and in the past that's I've done models like that where it's like you know instead of increasing the school by 2%
you increase it by 3% three or four or some other number. And it got like it got a little bit frustrating because obviously everyone wants something else. Um and sort of making a model for everyone. It might be easier just to
have sort of like the spreadsheet out and sort of talk at the subcommittee meeting and say like this is sort of how my spreadsheet works. I don't want it to be overwhelming but you know looking if we want to try to keep the schools at this number like the budgets will look
like this you know talking about what the drivers are the big ticket items and the benefits and the education and saying these are you know some of the larger items um you know followed by general government and health insurance
um you know health insurance is a gamble that can anywhere from 2% to 10%. So, um it's getting to be a pretty big number for it to be 10%, too.
And then, I mean, we also have this right here. I mean, this is why we're we have a big surplus here is we took $1 million out of public works um by removing solid waste, right? which you know that's something
important to talk about too. It's going to come from somewhere. Mhm. I've had a thought bouncing my head that I actually kind of sent a message to Nathan a while back on. Um, we keep pushing up on this debt service concept
of 10% and I don't think I've ever fully understood why 10% is like suddenly this this bad number. Um, it's just a ratio of your revenue to expenses. So, the reason I was thinking about it was, you know, me and most of my friends in town
bought here because the prices are lower, which means our revenue by definition will be lower. But expenses are going to be tied to where you are in general, not necessarily your immediate locality. So the price of goods is not tied to Maynard. The price of goods is tied to where we are in Massachusetts.
So comparing ourselves to other towns on a um our cost per square foot value might be an interesting thought. I just had no idea how to even remotely get to that kind of comparison or if it was
worth the probably hours of effort to get there. But like maybe our town's debt service bad number isn't necessarily 10%. And it could be 15 or 20 if we consider the fact that our revenue stream is just inherently lower
due to our cost of homes being lower um relative to our neighbors. So I'm not really sure how much that's worth exploring, but I thought I'd throw it out here now with this whole cost of high taxes and everything else that
there's a relative value that in my mind matters quite a bit. Yeah, thanks for bringing that up. I think for me the 10% debt is more about our bond rating and what kind of bonds we
can get um when we go out to bond things. So my understanding is when they determine like how much fees and interest and all this other stuff you have to pay and like how qualified you are for a bond, they look at your that debt service r%.
Um, so my my understanding is that's where the 10% came from and that's um I'm not entirely clear about what the cut offs are for like good, bad, and ugly in terms of bond rating.
Um, but I think that's where that 10% came from in the in the past. But it is something that I've heard a lot of people grumble about in town. Like, you know, I could move to Sudbury and pay the same amount every month for
mortgage plus taxes, but my house would be worth a million dollars instead of, you know, 300k or something like obviously it's not the same. like I was
like so you know I uh that upfront capital is a pretty big difference. That is a pretty big difference. Um yeah. Well, I definitely be interested. I didn't know about that 10% being a bone
rating concern. Um I'm googling it right now and I can't find too much, but I I've spent all of this time that since you've said it Googling it, so it doesn't mean much. um if we could get Yeah. And I couldn't really get a straight answer either. I think it was
um it was the past meeting that I downloaded the the DLS. Um it DLS, no DO, one of the acronyms
that starts with a D. I think it was Department of Revenue. I think it was do um that was talking about the different bond ratings. Um but that's something that I think would be really good to talk about because maybe other people are thinking that like you said that
number doesn't have to be 10%. They can be something else. All right. So, I think we had a good discussion about this tonight. Um, so my understanding is that we're definitely interested in talking to the
committee about some key metrics and sort of aligning on what key priorities are. Um, sort of that 10% debt service number came up as a topic too to talk about and like how does that really factor into our bond rating and is that
really going to hurt us or is it an imaginary number? All numbers are imaginary but some do have repercussions. Um so I think that it's really nice um system that uh you Nathan have have drawn up and and male has
helped visualize. So big kudos to both of you. So thanks for that. Um recommending to sort of discuss the full picture not get too lost in the details. details are always important, but I think at this meeting considering who will be there uh and also for informing
the general public sort of the the broader strokes we can paint um I think would be more impactful and then we can dive into detail if it's sort of asked about um is my recommendation. But definitely emphasizing that this tool is
looking at the general fund but not necessarily other funds. So like not enterprise funds whether that be trash or water sewer or otherwise. Um and that's not captured in this modeling but sort of looking at the base level and then building from there and saying you
know here's a couple different scenarios which I think is what the select board is looking for. They're looking to understand based on where we're currently going and some of our key decision points what that might look like in terms of, you know, this will add $500 or this will add x number of
money to the baseline, whatever that is of the average tax bill. So the big big things there would be trenches for the uh Green Meadow School. Um whatever happens with health insurance whether that increases 2% to
10% let's say for uh for is that for for benefits overall or was that health insurance in particular? That was for the line. Yeah. For benefits. Um
and then um and then a couple big projects such as uh roofs and um with the uh the vehicles that we know we need to replace. And then I think so
what I'm doing right now for education is a little bit um is is a little crude. I looked at the school budget and I figured out so like this is the total budget. Um and then the salary is about 78% of the budget.
The teacher contract right now is 3%. I'm assuming everybody's a teacher. That's not true. Um, but I couldn't find details for like custodians and uh in like the current calendar year. Um, but I'm just modeling if if every employee gets a 3% salary increase
year-over-year, that's about a 2.3% of the overall budget. You know, if you proportion 3% of 78% of the uh of this of the total. So that's that's what I'm doing for um the education department.
Uh, and then but that yeah, but I'm not sure what to do with like health insurance. But that seems reasonable to you, then I can I'll just go forward with that. Right. The the thing I I was wondering about is when the new school when the new uh
Green Meadow opens up if that's going to affect the um the fixed expenses like a good question. Yeah, that would probably be a question for the school facilities manager I would
imagine. Is that is that theoretically if everything is green it should Yeah, it's him. Yeah, that's him. Um I think it's hard to estimate until it's built, but it should technically be a quote unquote green building. So
theoretically the energy cost should be more manageable, but if everything's electricity, I don't know. Okay. Um, so I think I'm gonna take some of that and I'm gonna I'll Nil, I think I'll write out a couple scenarios um
like Jill suggested and send those new numbers over to you if that works for you. Yes, that sounds great. Cool. Thanks everyone. That sounds really exciting. I think it will stimulate good discussion.
All right, let's see. So, um I think that that's all I had for discussion of this multibboard or sort of budget subcommittee meeting topic. Is
there any additional topics for that? No. All right. If that is the case, um we are moving on to our routine agenda. All right. So for our routine agenda, we have approval of the minutes. Uh thanks
for sharing those, Linda. of our last meeting on August 25th. Um so this was a similar sort of discussion as our last discussion. So this was talking about the STM
um and about the control different control articles um and the citizens petition. Um I did share with Robin that comment you had about updating the language there. Uh and then the liaison uh as we talked
about sort of um being updated here. So thanks for capturing that. and then talking about some additional uh capital projects and town needs. Then we are on to our routine agenda again.
Um, and now at the time of that meeting, we thought there was going to be a chord board meeting on the 18th, but as a post meeting notice that has been delayed or changed. So,
we haven't done any transfers yet this year. Is there any additional feedback or discussion on the August 25th meeting minutes? It It looks good to me. I I move to approve the um August 25th minutes as
written. I'll second. All right. We have um a vote to approve as written. Um so I will take the roll call vote to approve. Linda,
I see that you said yes, but you're muted. Yes. All right. Thank you. Uh Nathaniel, yes. Katie, yes. Uh Nathan,
yes. Mail. Yes. Uh I am also a yes. So the meeting minutes have been approved. Thank you for describing them, Linda. Um all right.
Uh now we're going to move on to updates from chair and members. Um so I already gave you the update about the budget subcommittee meeting. Um, if more and I'll bring this up at our next meeting, too. If more than three people
from FinCom are planning to be present, then I will need to post a meeting notice. So, I'll sort of do unofficial poll next week to see if more people are going. Um, I did want to let you know that the
ATFC, so that's like the the the finance committees like for the state, they're having their annual meeting on October 18th. Um, and I I circulated a notice about that from um the municipal boards. So, if that's something you want to go
to, it is not required. We do technically have a small budget, so you could be reimbursed for I think it's like there's a small fee to attend. I think it's around like $50 or something. So, if that's something you want to do, just let me know and I can figure out
how we can use our budget to pay for that. Um, I went to the one like a couple when I first joined uh and it was helpful. Um, but I don't think I'm going to travel to go to this one um myself this year.
Jillian, my update was actually going to be to ask um if I would if I might be able to go to that. Um it looks like just I pulled up the email. It looks like the registration uh fee is um either $65 or $75
um depending on if uh the town finance committee is a member um of the AFTC. I'm not sure if we are, but I I certainly would would like to go um as one member. So if if it is possible for the the registration fee to be reimbured, that would be uh really
lovely for sure. Sure, I can figure that out. Uh and how that works. Uh awesome. Yeah, I'm not entirely sure if we're a member because I if we're if I'm supposed to use our fees every year to pay for the membership fee. I I don't
think I have been. So, um but we do have a small budget to be able to do things like that. So, um I will double check with Craig. Thank you. All right.
Um any let's see I already told you about changing the quadboard meeting so I'll let everyone know when we get the doodle poll or otherwise um about when that might be but it'll probably be in like
October or November. Um, we did also get a memo or a correspondence from the zone of boarding appeals or the ZBA um about 30-32 Walnut Street. So, it was a memo that was approving a one-year
business permit um at that location. So, that is sort of just for our information. There's no action for us to take there. Um, but that's sort of how that works. when they someone requests a a license or a
permit, um we'll get notifications sometimes about that. And yeah, that's all that's all my updates. Is anyone else Oh, sorry. I'll be on the planning board. Um I'm going to do it via Zoom tomorrow, but I'll be on um their
meeting, so our following meeting. Hopefully, I'll have some updates from that. Cool. Awesome. Thanks for sharing that is the um the business at the residence on Walnut Street specifically
or just separately about planning board separately but I think they will be discussing that because I did get a memo from I think Bill um on that so I think it's a part of their meeting tomorrow. Cool. I live like right I I walk past that all
the time so I'm just Okay. what the Yeah, the memo. What kind of business was it? I couldn't figure out that they had handy person service. Oh, okay. All right.
Uh, do any other members have updates you would like to bring to the committee tonight? All right. I'm not necessarily hearing any other updates from members.
Uh so if there's no future discussion there, um I will talk about our future meeting for our agenda. So our next meeting will be on, let me just make sure I got the date right before I say it. next Monday the 15th.
I have already secured a Zoom link for it so I can get the meeting posted shortly. Um I would recommend that we have sort of a similar agenda to today where our main focus of the meeting will be talking about the FTM articles doing all of our voting and
recommendations that we can to make the printing deadline um of the 19th which would be that following Friday, not this Friday. So, that would be our last meeting before that. Um, I'm anticipating that we might have open
questions about the planning board or the the articles that we don't actually have yet that the select board has also not approved yet. Um, and the citizens petition will probably also not be signed um by then.
So, um that I think that we'll probably have a little packet to hand out at the town meeting as we have in the past, which is acceptable. Um but we'll try to do as many of the ones that we do have on hand now. So, at least there aren't 50. So, I
don't think it'll take two nights hopefully. So um are there any other should I also add on a sort of a discussion and planning for multibboard slashbudget subcommittee meeting
like if we want to talk about any of the graphs you guys are doing or the planning the modeling there and then I'll add on the routine agenda stuff gives us the option I suppose which is which is a good thing. Okay.
Um, all right. So, that sounds good. And then technically we could also have a meeting on the 22nd. I guess that would depend on how the meeting on the 15th goes. Um, that would be after our deadline, but we might be able to finagle Greg and otherwise to try to get
the 22nd on our belt maybe to just polish off any final articles. Um, because we usually meet on the second and the fourth Monday of the month. So, um, but if we cover all our business on the 15th, we can also just cancel it.
So, but I'll have it I'll have it there now as a tenative meeting and then that'll lead us into October. So, um, our public hearing would be on October 20th. So, that's a week before the town meeting which is on the 27th.
And then technically we would usually have a meeting on uh October 13th as well, but that's called Columbus Day, Indigenous People's Day, whatever. I'm not entirely sure if that's considered a holiday. Um
so, uh I can get clarity on that, but that's not that's not a problem until until October. All right. That's sort of all I had unless there's any additional topics from
people here. So, I will I'll send out the sort of word document I have with some of our questions and the draft articles um and who will be writing the comments for each one. And I will also initiate the emails to Greg and the person who
has volunteered to write the comments um so that they'll be in the loop. It'll be several different emails so that we won't break uh open meeting law. And that's all I have for tonight, friends, unless anyone else has anything
you'd like to talk about. All right. Uh, so I would vote that we move to adjourn at 9:05 p.m. Would anyone like to second that? I will Katie, you got it.
All right, I'll second that we adjourn at 9:05 p.m. on the 8th of September. All right, so we got a motion. Uh, so I'll take a roll call vote to adjurnn. Linda, yes. Nathaniel,
yes. Katie, yes. Uh, Nathan, yes. Male, yes. All right. Uh, and I'm also a yes. So, uh, we've closed the loop and we are
adjourned. Thanks everyone. Bye. Have a good night. All right. thing.