CMR29.10. Please be advised that all FINCOM members are attending this meeting remotely. In addition, because FINCOM members are attending remotely, all votes taken at this meeting will be by roll call vote. Lastly, if any FinCom members are not clearly audible to their
fellow members or any members of the public, please notify the chair immediately. Uh, and we will do our best to remedy the problem and inform the public whether the meeting will continue. Um, so as a preliminary matter, I am uh the chair of the finance
committee. Um, my name is Jillian Prrenter. Um, please permit me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. Uh, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Linda, >> yes.
>> Nathan, >> yes. >> Peter, >> yes. Male, >> yes. >> Katie, >> yes. >> Nathaniel, >> yes.
>> All right. So, that's all of our members. Um, we do not have any um anticipated speakers or guests tonight. Um, so good evening. This is an open meeting of the finance committee. It is being conducted via Zoom. Speakers on the agenda will be participating remotely and the chair may allow for the
public to provide comment. Please note that while 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 individual attendees unless required by
law. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be able to see you and hear you. So, please take care not to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by this recording later. You can also find this meeting posted to the WAVM YouTube channel. Thank you to WAVM for your
support. Um, all of our meeting materials tonight um can be found on board docs. Um, and we recommend that the members of the public follow along on the agenda as posted there unless I note otherwise. Um,
and now we will turn to our agenda. So, uh, our agenda tonight, this is our last meeting, uh, of this year, calendar year. Um, and our topics tonight, we're going to be covering the forecasting for the
general fund and other cost of living expenses. And that will probably be the focus of tonight. Uh and then I did also want to plug and plan for our success and sort of the upcoming uh calendar year and set some priorities and then we'll jump into the routine agenda.
So um without further ado, I did circulate some additional documents. So thanks um thanks Nathan and Male for sharing those materials about some forecasting of the general fund and some of these other budgets. Um I also did
get some information that it'll be a little tricky to calculate some of these. Um, so from Greg, we learned that the trash task force uh doesn't exist anymore. Um, so they finished their job of advising the select board about what
the future of trash and recycling uh what they recommended it should be like. Um, so which is an enterprise with modern services. Uh, and right now they're looking to hire an administrator to kick off this program. So um that is
sort of a question mark right now. Um so they have to also do a procurement process pretty soon from what I understand so that we can um because I think our current contract has a certain number of extensions we can do for one year. Um, but at some point we will need
to do that procurement process to see if whatever vendor we choose can accommodate these like modern collection practices like the bins and other things we talked about last time. Um, or if we're going to have to pay like right now obviously we pay with
stickers. So there could be things where we pay by bin or otherwise. Um, so kind of without more information at this time, we don't I think it'll be really hard to project that specific item, but
I do think that it is something that I have concerns about since the supplement budget we were using is coming out of the general fund. Like we were paying for about half of our trash service through the general fund. And my understanding is in the later the latest
calculations for next year that's been taken out. So does that mean trash stickers will double in the short term? I don't know. But um that's, you know, that's one of the topics I think I
wanted to give you information on because we did talk about that last time and this is sort of the update I got from Craig. So I wanted to bring it to everyone. Uh, so ju just uh for clarification, you said needing to hire an administrator and that that is um that's a term for
like the company like uh like Harvey is like the administrator of the current uh trash program, right? Like you're like the company that's going to manage it. Not not like >> my understanding is I I think we're seeking to hire an administrator like
what we have right now for water and sewer. like we get a bill for water and sewer through like like an administrator in the town administers that. So, it kind of sounds like they're looking to hire someone to sort of coordinate the trash and recycling from my
understanding. >> Yes, I think that's right, too. They're looking to hire a person that I think would be on DPW payroll to, you know, kind of do a lot of the work for implementing the program. I'm not
quite sure if it's a continuous position or if it's more about the work of setting up the program and, you know, mostly I'm sure answering bunches of questions and reaching out to residents and stuff. Do Peter or does anyone know? Don't we
already have someone who manages like the trash contract and the trash stickers? Somebody's got to be monitoring that revenue. I don't know if this is like a new thing or we are just a replacement. It sounds like it could be a replacement.
I mean, I think the functions you described, Linda, do exist, but are fairly minor in comparison to, you know, implementing a new program like this. So, that's why they think they need the new staff. I mean, if
nothing else, you got to get uh say it's a July start that, you know, you got to get a trash bin that's approved in everybody's hands. um and you know get through to everybody so that they know their old trash bin
and stickers aren't going to work anymore when it starts. So I think it's a fairly intensive thing trying to do that >> are do you know if like the town is on like on track for like a timeline to get this all done by July? I'm just worried
because we took a big chunk out of stabilization funds to fund our budget for this fiscal year because there was kind of like a gap in uh funding. >> Um I and I said July 1. Totally speculation. I have no idea except that
you know it's not in the budget for next year. Um I What did you say Jill about the timeline? Did you I I may have missed something you said, but maybe you didn't say anything about the timeline. >> The timeline is the on my understanding
of the timeline is that we don't like I I can't I can't give you any updated information at this time because we're sort of waiting >> for that role to be filled, I guess, or created or >> Yeah.
So, I think that's I think it'll be hard for us to project costs out for that right now because I think right now it seems like a question mark. >> Yeah, I mean certainly for like co cost of living, it's like we can't possibly calculate it right now. I'm just concerned for, you know, the overall
budget. Um, and yeah, whether we're we're going to be in a position to move on to an enterprise fund to finance uh trash collection by for FY27. All right. So, that's that's sort of the update I had on the trash. Um
I did also get the update on the health insurance. So, um I circulated sort of an email about that because that's sort of one of the main or a big driver of um the increase in like our expenses
um for the town staff um and you know the teachers and everyone. that's employed by the town. Um, and sort of the cl the the updated information I got was like we talked about last time, the health insurance plan was recently
updated um through negotiations. Um, and you know, I think that we had some questions about if it's possible to sort of split the employees into tiers where like newer employees might get slightly different benefit packages. Um, but it sounds like it's pretty hard to do that.
um since we're such a small town. So, uh it might be like a risk for trying like recruiting new people to staff um to do different plans for new hires is is at least sort of how Greg explained
it to me. So I think these are all things that that are, you know, being considered since that is a a driver of the cost changes. So that's sort of the update I had for that topic. Um,
and for the OPAB and the retirement, um, I think that we talked about that last time. We can the audit will be done in a couple months. So, I think we can follow up with those groups, um, after that audit is complete, like maybe maybe in
February. Um, but I'll definitely put that on our tracker. Those are sort of the updates I had for things that are slightly independent or involved in the general fund for some of the cost drivers. And I think we also had some nice
potential graphics um for some of those if you want. Uh Male, I can pull them up or if you want to pull them up. I think you also have permission to show your screen too. >> Um sorry Jill. Um that was for the the water and
I mean, I can if you'd like to do that now. Okay, great. Right. >> Um >> Um Did you have a preference in terms of whether I should pull them up or did you want to? Um I'm happy to. >> I'm easy either way. Um if you want me
to pull them up, you just got to tell me where we want to go first. >> Okay. Yeah. No, I can pull them up then. Give me um give me one second then to to set that up. Sure. Um, can everyone see that? Okay. >> Yes. >> Yes.
>> Great. Um so um Nathan and um Nathan I suppose um well Justin through Nathan I guess has sent along um basically a lot of the memos that Justin submits um to the select board basically asking for permission um on uh the rate increases
um that the town does for like the water and the sewer drench though um just sort of briefly and I'm sure everyone like knows this already but I guess like so the way that it works is there's like the minimum kind of like flat fee um which is you know for 2020 that's happened to be $20. Um and then it's
sort of um I guess like analogous to like sort of the progressive like income tax system um and that the uh the rate of increase uh the cost um increases as you as you use uh you know more and more and more water. So um for the first 500
cubic feet um that is at a certain rate which for 2020 was 270 and then for for the next 500 um that is at at a higher rate um and then you know sort of so on and so on and they've sort of gotten it into four brackets um as I guess they would be in sort of the the income tax
setting um or steps is what they call it here. Um so those increase at sort of increasingly higher and higher levels as you use more and more water. Um and then uh I was able to sort of parse from kind of all of this data which uh uh came
from the memos um you know average low and high uses. Um, and so in terms of the actual numbers here, um, I, uh, you know, got this sort of pulled out this sentence from, from the memos, which I thought was helpful. And this was something that remained constant pretty much, you know, over over the life of
the of the years that I was looking at. But it looks like an average water and sewer uh, use rate uh, per household um, was about,500 to 2500. And then um sort of later uh in in a in a table within a lot of those memos, it seems like we had
maybe a more concrete value um of about 2500 as an average kind of use per household. So I went with um uh you know the average being uh 2,220 2,225 um and then I thought a good low sort of
ballpark value would be a,000 uh cubic feet per quarter. And then um sort of based on based on those sorts of um phrases as well that were in those memos, I thought a good value for high would be about 5,000. And then I I know I think the meeting in November, we had
talked about how it wouldn't be super useful to have it by household because obviously water usage is going to vary quite a lot by the number of people in a household because obviously you know um more people are going to be using more water. So uh the way that I unfortunately all the data that I kind of have h had in front of me uh from
those memos that unfortunately was by household. And so I thought that one way that I could try and uh control for that would be to just kind of divide the values uh by the number of uh people per household um kind of on average in the town. And I was able to to loop in some
uh good data from uh DLS and the census to kind of come up with values um for the number of people in a household. and then just sort of using all of that to make projections uh kind of for the future based on all of those sort of past values. Um and then pretty much
doing the same thing for sewer um which uses a slightly different um obviously the the the numbers of course are different but sewer also uses a uh it's a less uh a less gradated step system. So rather than four steps uh it's
actually uh three steps or brackets. So you know that's all in there. And then funnily enough, I guess from the memos, it looks like uh water and sewer uses uh in terms of cubic feet uh are about equivalent. Um so I had the precisely the same numbers and and that did seem
to be reflected in the memos. Um and this is uh for a quarter as well. Um so uh in terms of graphs, um this is the the sewer graph. So um it is of course uh as a lot of the graphs we make on the
finance committee I suppose the the lines are are going up um over time um and uh you know you sort of have the numbers there and then you can it is quite striking um sort of the the progressive aspect of of the gradation in terms of you know using more uh you
know more cubic feet per quarter is going to result in a higher cost and and a higher increase in that cost um as opposed to if you're using less. Um, and just to sort of break it down kind of explicitly, um, this is cubic feet per quarter per person per household, which
is a bit of a mouthful. Um, but that is sort of what it is. Um, and then I've I've sort of got the description in there. Um, and then, uh, same thing for water. And then we can see some of some of the variations both in the past and of course we've got those uh, future uh,
projections in there. Um so so those are sort of the the water and the sewer breakdowns and um certainly we can you know make revisions and stuff but that is sort of the the draft kind of at this stage of what these uh graphs and trends um do seem to be looking like. Um so
>> I have a couple questions for you NIL because I sent the information to you but I haven't looked at it in several months. Um, so are are are these your projections after FY26 or are these projections that Justin came up with? These are uh these
are original from me. Um, and these are based on the the the past um past trends sort of averaged out and continuing and then sort of kicked kind of further out. >> So like the average the average rate increase over the x number of years and you're just kind of like assuming it's
going to increase by that same month. >> Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. >> Okay. And uh and then the other thing you mentioned that that we have like a progressive um like a a tiered system. Did that come
into play at a certain point or has that been the case this entire period that you're graphing since 2020? >> That has been the case for the entire period. And I suppose that the way that you would kind of see that play out um in the graphs is so if we look at sort
of the the average um uh you know sort of cost calculation here um you know that's sort of just a calculation. Okay. So, we've got the the minimum um in there. Um and then we've got we're sort of taking the whole first step um which is at the 550 rate and then we're taking
um just uh almost but not quite all of the second step cuz we're at you know 2225 um so we're taking most of that 1060 um but not all of it and then we're not touching sort of that third step rate of increase at all. Um but of course we are
getting that sort for sort of the high. So that's I think that is going to be pretty much the reason why you see different slopes for these lines in terms of that that is a function of the the sort of gradation kind of the progressive um rate increase.
It's cool visual. I like how how you have that set up. Thank you. >> Um I had a question. So, from what I recall from being on this committee forever, um, is that in the
past there was some like periods of time where the water sewer rates did not change at all and that's why they're sort of progressively increasing um, in the more recent years. So, I guess my main
concern or question or both is that I wonder if the average over the past couple years will accelerate at a pace different than the average. Does that make sense? >> Yeah. I mean, >> we have like any better way to like
think about that, but >> yeah. No, I mean it is that is certainly possible. I mean, I unfortunately did not have sort of the past data in front of me. One thing which I I will highlight um which I think is sort of um ties into what you're saying there um is
that for the um for the sewer um in particular one thing that the town has done there which I thought was sort of unusual is that unlike with the water um we haven't increased the sewer minimum which you know the the sort of uh rate that is existing independently of what
your usage is. So that has stayed at $50, you know, uh throughout sort of the whole time period, whereas um with the uh water, um we've increased that from $20, um all the way to $40. So that's actually doubled over over the course of
the last 5 years, which is which is quite striking. Um but for sewer, we we haven't done that at all. So that has stayed con constant. Um and there sort of incidentally there was also one year um one year's change from 2021 to 2022 where the the first step happened to
remain the same um for for whatever reason. But in terms of what was happening in years prior to 2020 uh that is very much a dark spot um unfortunately. Um so in terms of whether that could be used to predict whether the rate would be sort of even steeper going in the future um that I
unfortunately I can't say. Um >> I can say I looked at my water bills I can go back to 20 FY16 and my water bills went up around 70% and I remember thinking compared to what Nathan provided like our tax bills in
about that time went up 40%. They were going up more and I I sent the spreadsheet to Nathan but I could send it to Jillian too so you could see or Uniquale so you could see the rates going back. And you're right, Jillian, there was a couple of years, it looks like, and someone told me, I don't
remember this, that the part of the water bill, I mean, part of our water used to be paid for by our operating taxes before the enterprise zone, enterprise fund. I don't even remember that. And there was a couple of years
where it is constant. Um, but you're right, but you're right. It's sort of um you know it's it's really penalizing um heavy users more now than it used to. >> Yeah. >> And to my recollection um from the memos
there was some discussion of um CO 19 error water restrictions which are are no longer in place. Um so that could be a factor maybe in terms of >> um if the if the usage was like artificially low then it could be coming sort of steeper in the future. Um
>> uh the numbers of course were what they were sort of in those years. >> Um but I mean yeah if any in terms of sending stuff I'm I'm more than happy to expand add some new columns to the left. >> Um for sure. So >> yeah, cuz I think it's important.
Um, and the other thing here is I understand that the new apartments, the landlords are separately um metering water. So tenants now are pay. It used to be, you know, a long time ago that water was cheap and landlords didn't do
that, but now they are doing it. So, I don't know how that figures in because this is not like for a resident, it's you're going to be paying the increase in water even if you're not seeing you don't see a tax bill necessarily, but you will see a big increase in your water bill,
>> right? And that does tend into one thing which has which I thought was sort of striking in in the um in the people per household calculation. Um because apparently that the the town's population um has sort of been gently declining basically. It seems like
although there was an exception between um 2023 between 2022 and 2024 kind of um but while the town's population has sort of been on a gentle decline the number of households um has actually been kind of increasing uh across the board and
that is something which is I think more also stacked towards sort of the future um in terms of uh the if the rate the rate at which the number of households are increasing may be growing. Um, so that could be I think sort of related at
least to to new sort of like apartments and stuff. Um, because the number of people per household um that is declining because we're seeing both more households and sort of a gentle decline in the town's population. Um, so that is
also that is certainly going to be factored into kind of the the last three sort of rows here. um because I had divided that of course by the the PPH per year. Um so that maybe sort of related to that as well,
but that was another thing that was just sort of striking on its own too. >> Anyone potentially explain why the idea of having a minimum would matter at all if you just baked it into your first step? I don't >> Yeah. I mean I this is maybe my own sort of workflow, but I just like I like to
have sort of everything in front of me as well. >> No, no, no. I get that, but I meant conceptually at all having a minimum cost versus just doing it in a per use and bake it into that first step rate. Like I get the whole idea of, you know, you're in the town,
you should pay in, but if you literally aren't using water, shouldn't you not pay for water? And then vice versa if you are using water then that $20 should be baked in. >> There was um this did actually come into this was actually like a thing that was
discussed in the memos not not for water but with regard to the sewers. Um, apparently I think there are like 10 or 15 households in Maynard, which um they don't they don't use any sewer use in terms of like the cubic feet, but I
believe they are still paying the the minimum even though they're not using anything cuz it's like the minimum. That's what you have to pay even if you're even if you're not using anything. So, I guess there may be some like households in sort of like unique situations where they would have to have that being a thing, but it's it's certainly not like a regular like normal
thing. Um, and it was like, yeah, 10 or 15 households or something that were in this sort of weird situation. >> Nquille, is it at all possible to compare our water cost to other towns or are we all different? >> Yeah, I mean,
>> you know, are we expensive or >> practically speaking? Um, I know that like I guess the towns like have to publish the changes on the website. Um it would depend on like how wellkept the archives are, but if I know we've talked a lot about like Milis as um sort of our
>> um you know equivalent kind of town. So if I'd be happy to like look into if Milis has like publicly accessible records um about just and these would the only records would really just be like the memos that I guess Milis's DPW would like publish each year or whatever
recommending changes to their select board. Um, but if I did have that data, that would certainly be possible because that's really the only thing I would need to do that is just sort of the equivalent um the equivalent data. >> If you Google it, it's the top hit actually and they have the rates from
FY19 to right now. >> Okay, perfect. So that that wouldn't be too difficult. Yeah. And I can um I can shle those on here for sure. I shot I shot that over to you in an email. >> Uh, thank you, Joe.
>> Welcome. Thanks for putting the graph together. It's very I like the visualization. It looks very nice. >> Glad to hear it was helpful. Um, yeah, and I can certainly add to this with Milis or pastures or etc. Um, and we can
we can have that in there too for sure. >> I I did have one more question about the um so you're you're dividing the rates by people per household. Is that uh something you came up with or is that like a DPW like reporting standard?
>> Um well that was kind of I know you you had mentioned Nathan last time that it wouldn't be super useful to have all this by household because obviously like the water usage is going to vary by household. So this is this isn't ideal because um the only data that I kind of had sort of you know abbre
uh from from a per household sort of basis. So this is just sort of my kind of just kind of hopefully controlling for it and I guess it also captures the um the gentle decline in people per household that we're seeing as well. But this is sort of a a nill attempt to
control for the data kind of thing. Um as opposed to a DPW thing >> just uh and you know obviously you've thought about this a lot more than I have. This is just my initial response. I I would like I like how you have things tiered. Low usage, average usage, high usage. But I I would think that for
a given household, high usage would be driven by having more people in the household. >> Right. Right. Uh so then dividing it all by uh the total number of people kind of the the levels of low average and high
usage kind of doesn't make as much sense anymore because that's based on household as a whole, right? >> Yeah. So so what this graph is so that is actually that is pretty much right. So because what what this graph is telling you is if you're um a household with low usage and you have an average
number of people in your household, then you know this is what your your trend line's going to be. If you're an average user with an average number, it's this is what's this is what's going to be it's going to be. And if you're a high user with an average number of people in your household, you know, this is this is what your line's going to be. So, in
that way, it is really just giving you if you have an average number of people in your household and your your use is, you know, sort of one thing or the other thing. Um, I guess well, I guess I don't know because I guess what we could Go ahead. Sorry. >> Uh, well, it would be that n that I mean
that's per person, right? So whatever that number is that'd be multiplied by the time number of people in the household to get the >> Gotcha. >> Right. Exactly. I guess what would um the the gap I think that we would be looking to fill would be like um some kind of graph or
maybe map which shows um you know how water use is like correlated by um the number of people in like a given household. So some sort of some sort of thing like that. But um
>> yeah yeah yeah yeah I guess what I'm thinking is that like the average number of people in a household with low usage is probably going to be a smaller number than the average number of people in a household with high usage. Um >> right no that and that's ex yeah and that is exactly correct and and that is something which which is uh
unfortunately not captured here. Um, but cuz and it it essentially it almost seems like we're I mean I I can see sort of the policy rale behind it, but it almost seems like we're penalizing people a little bit for having a household with a higher number of people
in it because regardless of the fact of the number of people in the household, you're you're you're getting a a less favorable rate just by virtue of using more water even, you know, regardless of the actual number of people in the household. So there is a little bit of a
sort of kind of an unfortunate state of affairs there in terms of that is because exactly as you're saying I mean if you're if you have more people you're going to be using more water um but it's not flat you know so that is unfortunately the but yeah that the graph isn't cap the graph is only
capturing usage by average number of people per household. I find it interesting because our we have five people in my household and we have a decent sized yard and water a lot in the summer and it looked like our peak usage was about 2900 in the summer
which is still under the high and that's with five people versus the 2.1 average >> and I don't feel that we're like really paying attention to our water usage. So, um yeah, I don't know. That's interesting. I I feel better about >> Yeah, you're doing a good job conserving
the natural resources there because because it it was sort of striking um kind of the range that Justin had highlighted because he was like yeah he was in these memos he was like yeah some people are just like using more than 5,000. So I was like all right well that's >> that's a lot. Yeah. >> Yeah.
>> Interesting. >> But they could potentially be commercial properties too, right? This isn't just residents. >> So this is um this is in town customers only. Um, >> so that would include commercial. That includes everything, not just
>> Yeah. Yeah, that would include commercial. Yeah, that's that's true. >> Okay. >> Um, so actually I I could ask this question to the committee kind of as a whole, but like what would out of town customers actually be? Because that was sort of surprising to see that like is that people who are just like
>> who would be out of town? >> There's some people in Actton that are connected to our water. >> Okay, that that must be it. I thought a few actually I have neighbors in Stow that are connected. Yeah. >> Are there? Yeah. Yeah. Just from just a few. Yeah. >> Yeah. It's just a few I guess act but I
know this near the Stow Shaws Plaza a few people. >> We we charge them a much much higher rate because they're out of town. Um funnily enough. So And I guess once this is something that you're comfortable and happy with like
sort of with the numbers and other things you have um I can also like bring in Justin too if we want to like talk to Justin about this um and sort of get his feedback if there's other like he might have some
kind of a spreadsheet as well aside from the memos like if we want to go back further or you know do a deeper dive or something. >> Yeah, I I would be totally fine with that. Um and I can certainly um if anyone has um and if obviously if only if you feel comfortable but if anyone
has you know old bills going like 2016 to 2020 uh kind of as you had mentioned Linda and I can also look at Milis um >> I just sent that to you Nick. Linda, do you know how far we can go back? Are we limited to >> Oh, we could probably go back further. I was surprised because I usually shred
things way before that, but when I looked, I had them. So, I'm sure we could go back further. I mean, >> I'll see if I can go back to 2014 even. But yeah, I'll I'll check. >> And I'm sure I I imagine I mean, if we
need to, we could ask the clerk or somebody must have them back, >> right? But it seemed the only thing I'm I'm concerned about because when like with Nathan's presentation, we did tax bills per
household, like the average household, and I'm just wondering about the persons per household. Um because if we're going to if we're going to make it additive with what's your tax bill, what's your water bill? Oh >> yeah. And that that wouldn't be too difficult just because this was um you
know kind of a hamfist attempt to control for like a variable. But I do have it by household flat as well. >> By household. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz then it would be more additive because we don't >> um we're thinking of the value of the house but not how many people are living
in the house. Right. It's right for the tax. >> You're responsible for the tax bill. >> Yeah. No. So, I've I've got I've got all the household stuff um already. So, that that is, you know, no issue. >> Uh for sure. This is great.
But no, that it's that it's helpful. Um for sure. Yeah, I I think um in regards to talking to Justin, I' I'd be curious if he had any specific feedback about um projections for like the next couple years because he's talked, you know, he has like a whole plan of uh
uh a plan of, you know, funding the um water and sewer. So, I wouldn't be surprised if he if he had some like numbers in mind already. Um, my 2025 base water is 45. Not sure. I have just figured out how to freaking look at my bill to see where my usage
is. I'm actually surprisingly low, but my base water charges $45 for my like the most recent bill I just got. >> I think we were we were definitely planning to increase it. Um, so it looks like
>> Yeah, I see the same thing. 45. >> Could that be for the upcoming fiscal year or is that >> 45 as well? >> Would this beif fiscal year 26, >> right? Yeah, cuz I guess because the 40
is for fiscal year 25, I think. So then the 45 must be for fiscal year 26. >> Um but >> yeah, cuz I guess this would be fiscal. Yeah, this is for fiscal year. So it's it's from the June of the year previous, I guess. Um, but that's good. That means
we're the pres the uh projections are are slightly uh overly pessimistic, which is uh maybe better than the other way around. But yes, so I'll be I can obviously double check these and stuff as well. Um Yeah. So if you you know if you think this is in a space where you would like
me to share directly the sort of graphics and Excel sheets like I could see if Justin's around because we're for our January meetings we're not going to have um articles to sort of discuss yet. Right.
>> Um >> yeah that that sounds like a good plan to me. These guides are things we could potentially think about doing. >> Absolutely. Oh, another thing about the uh the chart, Nquille, is is that the because these are like quarterly payments,
right? >> Right. >> So, is that is that kind of a quarterly figure um >> or are you rolling it up to like the whole year? This is uh quarterly only but yeah just multiply by four right for the year like that wouldn't be if we
wanted because if I guess if the if the tax stuff is by year and we wanted to um combine things and yeah I can that can become by year as well for sure. Yeah, I think like you know like we were talking about before it might be good if
it's sort of in the same time brackets as sort of you know the quote unquote Nathan spreadsheet which is like a yearly focused for the average household >> right um so and I'll just make a brief note of um
Okay. So, I'm I'm looking at uh my most recent water sewer bill and I guess usage that's cubic feet that column for anybody else who's also looking at their at their bills. >> Yes, that's that's where I assumed it was too. >> Okay, cool.
Interesting. >> Where are you, Nathan? Are you good? Are you below average? >> Below average. Yeah. >> Oh, good job. >> Yeah, but the average is apparently pulled together with all the commercial properties, too. So, Right. Right. All right. I think this is this was a
very neat neat way to visualize the data. I think we had a good productive discussion. So I think this is really a nice step forward for trying to sort of educate uh and also sort of estimate give people an idea of what
things might look like outside of just the tax bill. Um, so I think this was a really worthwhile exercise. Do we have any other topics we'd like to discuss on the water sewer? All right. So, the action items for me is I'm going to reach out to um to
Justin and to Greg uh and sort of tell them that we're starting to like think about and model stuff like this uh and that we'd really love to get their input um and if they have other recommendations for like visualizing the data and I'll see if they can come to
the uh next meeting on uh January 16th, no 12th, January 12th. And um ideally in that in that time I'll I'll try and um incorporate um some of the historical bills uh see what Milis is doing and then maybe get some uh per
household only and uh per year stuff in in the in data wrapper as well. >> Awesome. Thanks so much for that. I appreciate it. All right. Um,
>> good to stop sharing. >> Good to stop sharing. Thank you. >> Of course. >> Um, so I think our other topic was um I'm like lost in so many windows here.
Okay. So, um, so I don't I don't believe that I personally have any additional topics for the discussion of the forecasting for the general fund and other costs of living expenses, but I did want to open the floor if there's other uh topics there that other members
would like to bring up. All right. So, like I said, I think it would be nice if we could do something like this for trash, but I feel like there's so many unknowns right now that I think it'll be really hard to future project for that. But I think it is good that we are keeping in our mind that these
changes are coming. Um, and that is also an additional cost to the taxpayer. So, um, so I'm I'm honestly not sure. I'll keep everyone in the loop as I learn more and if this um this administrative role is
hired, I think that'll help um decide a lot of future direction in that that area. So, I'll definitely keep um keep everyone in the loop. So, if there's no additional topics for our forecasting for either the general
fund or the other living expenses, um we can jump into our second topic of the night. So, um second topic of the night, I wanted to just put something on here to talk about planning for success in our upcoming year and sort of setting our priorities. So, um, this is sort of
our excuse me. Um, so I know we go, um, we don't like our our committee sort of focuses a lot on the special town meeting, the annual town meeting, all the different town meetings coming up. So, I just wanted to put on everyone's
radar sort of planning for our upcoming year. Um, the next quote unquote big item coming up will be the February budget meeting. So, that's sort of where Greg presents his town administrator report and he sort of says this is what I recommend for the general budget or
the general fund for this upcoming year. Uh, and then we'll you have like a little presentation and we'll also have like sort of presentations by the key stakeholders potentially like the school um and otherwise to talk about sort of the upcoming budget changes. the
forecasts and sort of how general fund um can be used to accommodate all of our rising expenses um because we only have so much revenue. So at that meeting hopefully we'll get more clarity on what's going to happen because the trash
and solid waste and recycling that's being taken out of the general fund. So I'm anticipating that we'll have more information about what that might look like in February. Um, and you know, I think that will be the next item that we
have sort of on the books. Um, and then our >> Jill, >> please. Yes. >> Uh, sorry, can I comment on that? Um, just so members know, um,
the budget that Greg presents at that February meeting, uh, will be presented to the select board a meeting or two before the February meeting. I think Greg is required to present it to the select board
something like January 20th or, you know, towards the end of January. Um so to the degree that people want to look at that before the February meeting and then you know raise issues with it or have comments there is some
opportunity for that and that you know the February meeting you know if people reviewed it beforehand and had comments the February meeting could be more discussion than just presentation. Um, so I just wanted to flag that so
people know it, you know, it's available before that the budget will be available before the meeting if people want to review it. So uh that's all. Thanks. >> That's a really good point. Thanks for
thanks for that. Um that also leads into my follow-up point which is the annual town meeting. So that's always in May. Um so there will also be some headway before that. Obviously we'll let the town meeting articles um ahead of that.
So I don't yet have a timeline. So usually they'll have a timeline. Um I'm assuming the select board will probably vote in either at the end of this year or in January like the exact date in May for the town meeting. I don't think that's been um posted yet, but usually
when they do that, then Greg will work backwards and say, you know, like this is when all the articles review and comments are due for printing. Um so I'm assuming that probably sometime in March. Does that sound right, Peter? Everything will probably
be we'll start getting stuff and then it will be due in like March, April, early April, late March. >> Yeah. I mean, hopefully it would be more towards February that we'll see drafts of most of it, but who knows? We'll see.
>> Yeah. >> Yeah. And hopefully there won't be like 45 articles or however many articles there were at the last annual town meeting. There were a lot. So, um I do know one current article will be the citizens petition um for the
lighting. Um and that committee or group um so it's like a bylaw. They want to have a certain amount of um I think it's from I always mix the name up Maynard Green Maynard. Um they sponsored some articles in the past on like styrofoam and plastic bags and things like that.
So this one will be focused on like lights um and sort of making sure that they're like insect and environmental friendly so they won't like be disruptive to wildlife. Um, but I don't have the article draft yet, but
they have sort of reached out and said, "We're planning to submit this." Um, and then I think they're working with the bylaw committee and the select board. So, um, that's the only article I'm currently aware of outside of sort of the routine normal articles.
So, if anyone wants I I I'm the liazison to the bylaw committee. If anyone wants to see a draft of it, I have seen a draft of it, but they're going back and forth quite a bit. So, it's really in the ear rough stages.
>> Yeah. And that's kind of what >> Sorry, >> that's kind of what also the sponsor shared too that they're they're going back and forth and they're not sure if it would be useful for us to review yet. It's changing so much. >> Yeah. Um,
but I'm I'm glad that you know you're you're in the meeting and it is actually being >> Yeah. >> diligently talked about. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So, those are, I think, the big things that will be coming up for sort of Q1 and Q2 of next year. Um, and I
think in the meantime, you know, while we have some quote unquote downtime, not really downtime, but time where we're not frantically planning for a town meeting, um, I think it would be really great if we can continue to look at some of these future projections and modeling. Um, and that would be what I
would propose sort of be our goal in the short term. So like between uh now and Q1, so like the end of Q1, um sort of focusing in on those types of things because I think they'll really help people think about all of the costs
holistically and I think that it'll also aid in communication. So for the past gez, I don't know how long I've been on this committee. It's probably been at least seven years. I don't think it's been 10 years yet, but I think that every year we're getting a lot better at communicating across the town and the
boards. Uh, and I think that this type of graphics and also like spreadsheets, you know, as long as we're talking about them holistically and, you know, with caveats saying like, you know, this is this is not going to be perfect. This is
a projection. These are the limits. This is the input. like as long as we're being very open about how sort of these things are made, I think that it'll be really helpful um for the leadership of the town to look at these. So, I think it's a very worthwhile exercise for us to do. And I think it also could
potentially be really helpful um of course as one of our charges to sort of educate the public too because a lot of people will come up to me and they'll say, you know, my taxes are so high and you know, why isn't XYZ happening for a certain service that they really care
about? Um, and I think that that will also be helpful to sort of educate the public and say, you know, like there's so many different things that are happening right now. These are sort of all the priorities. You know, if you think XYZ is a priority, like there's also these other pri so I think it'll
help them also talk to leadership um of the town and also say like advocate for what is important to them um in sort of the context of everything that is happening in the town too. Um,
and I think, you know, it could also be something where we might want to put like an article in the, you know, town newspaper or something or, you know, like trying to think about other ways we could do outreach. I don't know if it would be like an article in a
newspaper, a post on, you know, the social media for the town or something. But, um, I think that's something we could also think about, too. because you know some of the people I talk to don't realize you know like oh my water's brown like but my taxes are
so high and I'm like well it's doesn't have to do with your taxes because it's an enterprise fund so it actually is your water and sewer bill. So um you know there's even stuff like that sometimes that outreach might be helpful for too.
So I think that's my little spiel. So, I did also want to open the floor if other members like want to talk about, you know, if there's other priorities that you'd like to bring to attention of the committee or if you're like, Jill, you're totally wrong. I think this should be a
different priority and this is the priority I want to promote. Um, we'll open up the floor. >> Well, I I mean I I agree with everything you just said, Jill. Um I think uh I think we've gotten positive feedback on uh you know some of our presentations
for the the quadboard committees. I think Nquille's graphs look great and um especially after like bouncing off like after you know talking to like after we talked to Justin about it. Uh I think that could be very helpful at like the next meeting. Um I also like what you're
saying about like outreach to the town. Uh the I I wonder if we're if we could be in a position to have some sort of printed handout for folks to see um to for people to look at, especially if there's like if if you are being
approached by like neighbors with like specific questions about things. If there's certain like questions you're hearing people ask a lot, uh we have like like an FAQ and a few a few graphs or charts that might answer some of those questions. Yeah, I I mean it's like a different
audience than um than the quad board. So, we we'd want to I think we should if we wanted to do something like that, we'd have to talk a lot about like what what matters to like a town planner versus like what matters to, you know, your average um resident. Uh
but yeah, what does everybody else think about that? I would say in the past at town meetings we have actually given handouts that sort of are like the finance committee's interpretation of like the state of affairs or whatever you want to call it.
Um so I mean that's something we could explore doing again. Um, I think when Bob McCarthy was on the committee, he sort of was champion of those and we've done we did a couple of handouts back then sort of talking about the big cost drivers um and with some graphics as
well too as sort of an education pitch. Um, yeah. Uh I think that would be a great idea especially if we have like kind of institutional knowledge of doing that particular kind of handout in the past >> and we do also have like a yearly report
too. So um generally that's more focused on like who's on the committee and sort of like the main things we did. It's a little bit less of like the state of things. Um, it's a little more procedural, but I
think that could also potentially be adapted. But I don't really know how many people actually read it. Like if if the purpose is outreach, I think we need to figure out or like really think about where where it's going to go and it so it just doesn't get circular filed on
the internet, so to speak. Mhm. >> And Jill, we don't have like a Facebook or Instagram page, right, that we post things? >> Um, the town does. Uh, we as a committee do not
>> do committees in general, like is that a thing for social media? >> Does and the town does. I'm not personally aware that other committees do that. The historic commission has a Facebook
page um because they're pretty active posting. That's one. The other thing I'm wondering is the senior center committee has an FAQ link on the town's website. I'm wondering should we do an FAQ?
You know, sort of the go-to questions like what's uh what's the tax rates been? you know, sort of like your um presentation, Nathan, what's how much of the tax bill's been for an average household? Um you know, what's the now what's the
water rates been? Um I mean, I think I think that's a great idea. uh especially at least >> if we we have if if we do the work of putting that together and have it post on the website, you know, and then then if we wanted to have a handout or anything, you know, that's half the
handout right there that >> Yeah. >> we've already done. >> Yeah. And it would be from stuff we're I mean it, you know, the presentations are on board docs, but to the extent that they could be more easily found might be good.
>> Yeah. I mean, even just as like a like a first step, as like an exercise for us, you know, that's kind of like the lowhanging fruit and like, you know, if we have kind of like the FAQ, then we can put together one place we can point people towards, then we can figure out ways to like expand on it and give more
detail. Um, yeah, I think that sounds great. Would you like me to add like public outreach or FAQ document drafting as a topic to the next meeting?
>> No, >> I think that's a good idea. Okay. All right. Do we have um any additional topics for this? You know, setting our priorities and planning for success in the upcoming
year. All right, I'm not hearing any. So, uh, I would propose we go on to our routine agenda. Um, so I will bring up the minutes from our past meeting. Thanks, Linda, for sharing those.
This was from the 11:24 meeting. should be able to see that. Um so this is where we talked about sort of the outcomes for the joint board meeting. Um we did some budget forecasting
discussions. Um and then we sort of jumped into our routine agenda. Oh. Um, the go up one line from where you are right now. Uh, Jillian reported on OPB. I think you they switched the uh P and
the B, right? >> Uh, yep. >> It's OB. other benefits. >> Oh, okay. I thought it was uh OP. No, it it is OP because it's other postmployment benefits. >> Other postemployment benefits. Yeah, I
think I spelled it out someplace, too. Okay, I'll make that change. >> Yep, you spelled it correctly. >> I did spelled it there. Yep. Okay. >> Yep. >> Oh, well, one out of two are bad. 3B.
>> Yeah. 3B. Yep. >> Yeah. All right. Do we have any further discussion, questions, comments? Would we like to approve the meeting minutes
of November 24th as amended? Jill has made a motion. Would I would I have a second to this motion? >> I'll second, Peter. >> We had a first and a second. Do uh we have any further discussion?
No. All right. So, I will take a roll call vote to uh accept the amended minutes of November 24th. >> Nathan, >> yes. >> Male, >> yes. >> Linda,
>> yes. >> Amy. >> Um, I'll abstain since I wasn't there. >> Peter, >> yes. Nathaniel. >> Yes.
>> Uh so we have six yeses and one abstain. Thank you. >> All right. That's that's all the minutes we have for approving. Um so now we're on to updates from chair and members. Um so
I do have a couple updates for us tonight um from the various uh various groups. Um, so I have an update about the Let's see if it's going to open. Um, so I know we talked last time about the
golf course. So there is actually a golf course advisory task force that is currently being um formed. This was approved by the select board on December 2nd. Um, so this will be four members that are appointed by the select board.
um one of them will be a liaison to the CPC um or otherwise from CPC since this is potentially uh impacting the the golf courses on the CPC land or like involved
with those funds. Um and this will sort of just be looking at you know what could potentially be done with this area. So, it talks about how, you know, at the special town meeting, the area where the golf course
is right now was partially paid with the CPC or the CPA funds. We sort of switch back and forth between the acronyms, but my understanding is they're sort of the same group. Um, and, you know, trying to figure out what might happen to the clubhouse and what
we want to do with that. So they're going to advise the select board um by like gathering feedback and looking at like proposals to figure out what is going to happen for future use of that land.
So I wanted to bring this to everyone's attention since we did talk about that last time and sort of you know the cost of that building and you know it might not make sense to actually try to maintain or save it. Um and you know going forward what might happen. So the
select board has sort of set up this advisory task force. Um and you know they have they're they're taking applications. So if you know people who are passionate about that particular topic um please have
them check out the town website. Uh in terms of my other updates, I did want to give you an update that there is a budget subcommittee meeting on Wednesday, December 10th. So that's in 2 days. Um so that will be interesting to um hear updates from talking about, you
know, updated um general fund uh information uh and otherwise. Um, so I think the only other update I had, um, so I I have two other updates. So I did
circulate, um, as Peter talked to us about last time, I did circulate the 2011, um, fire department report. So, um, that was something we talked about last time about, you know, fire chief and the need of a fire chief since that
was in the general fund budget. So, um, this is something that is why that was circulated. Um, I don't know if there's anything else you wanted to add there, Peter. >> No. Um,
I mean, no. Uh, except I mean, I'll restate. At least as I'm reading it, I'd be curious if anyone disagrees. I'm not seeing the recommendation for assistant fire chief in that report. Um
>> I also did not see it. >> Yeah. And I think that's you know was the basis of the original request for the assistant fire chief. Um now you know there may be other reasons you know what is it 14 years
later that they you know not based on this reporting but to the degree that it had been said oh you know we did this report they said we need a chief so we should do one like well wait a minute so anyway um that's why I had sent that to
be circulated Okay, thank you for sharing. Um, the other update I had and I sort of circulated this too is we got sort of an updated um documentation from uh the
Metro West group. So, um my understanding is that this is sort of talking about how they would like to advocate uh and coordinate initiatives for water uh development because that's sort of the
one of the major limitations to be able to expand the community right now. So, it sort of talks about the vision for water resources in this in the area. Um and it talks about sort of you know recognizing that a lot of communities
do need help with this infrastructure. Um and um you know and for especially like for clean water there's a lot of potential PAS um in a lot of the areas uh surrounding areas. So it talks a lot about water and sewer infrastructure to
support housing growth and about how that's necessary to sort of meet some of the state initiatives and how the state should have more investment in the um infrastructure development and also in the regulation to like promote clean water. So um
this is something like this this group is sort of advocating for more development in that area. So just wanted to share there's definitely groups not just at the local level but also the state uh and the um
the the like country level that are thinking about these things. So uh and that's all my updates. >> Do any other members have updates you'd like to bring to the attention of the committee? Um I would just mention um the EDC uh had said that uh the state
attorney general approved the um powder mill overlay district um and I I think Bill Nem has submitted an RFP for like an engineering survey that they're going to do on that um and that should be uh published shortly. Um and then the other thing um uh there was a lawsuit in
Cambridge um about one of their inclusionary zoning ordinances um uh uh based on uh uh indicating that a required stock of housing developments um needed to be affordable housing um which was uh I guess based on like the
fifth fifth amendment kind of like an eminent domain thing like you're uh you know you've got this private property that you're wanting to use for public use so you know there's regulations around that so something maybe to be cognizant of um because I know uh affordable housing is something that Maynard's also doing uh you know a lot
of work in that area. Um so just sort of two kind of random updates there. >> Thank you for sharing. Do any other members have updates you'd like to bring to the committee's attention? All right,
I am not currently hearing any. Um, so if that's the case, we would go on to our final topic of the night, which is future meeting agenda planning. Um, so our next meeting is on January 12th. Um
we are proposing to skip the meeting on December 22nd. Um so this would potent this would be our last meeting of the fifth uh calendar year. Um and our next meeting would be on the 12th. So currently uh
the topics I have are um this uh seeing if Justin can come and talk to us about the water sewer and sort of going over. So uh you know discussing of the forecasting of the general fund and the other cost of living expenses. So with a
particular focus on water and sewer. Um and the other topic would be sort of public outreach and like this FAQ document drafting. Um I don't think we'll have any articles yet for the annual town meeting. Um the
only group that reached out to me was that lighting bylaw group and they didn't think they would be ready until like the end of January, maybe early February. So um and you know pending uh I don't think like uh Peter mentioned
I don't think we'll necessarily have sort of the pre budget uh budget meet like the February budget meeting. I don't think we'll have the pre-documents for that for Greg yet for like until like the end of January. So, um, but I think right now I just
have those two topics and then routine agenda. So, just the water sewer public outreach FAQ document and routine. Is there any other topics anyone else would like to add to the agenda? All right. I'm not currently hearing
any. Um, but I think I'm not going to post this meeting until like the end of this month or maybe like the first week in January. I'll see how close town hall is, but we don't have to post it until like 48 to 72 hours before the meeting.
So, we have some time almost a month. So, uh, if you do have any other pressing topics in the meantime, just reach out and let me know. Uh and I think with that that is all the topics I have for this evening.