the meeting of the mayor and finance committee to order at 7:03 p.m. Um, I will start by reading the script. All right. In accordance with open meeting law regulation 940 CMR 29.10,
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 his or her fellow members um or to any
members of the public, please notify the chair immediately and we will do our best to remedy the problem and will inform the public whether the meeting will continue. Um as a preliminary matter, uh I am Jillian Pernagast. I am currently the chair of the finance committee. Uh um please permit me to
confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. Sing members, when I call your name, please respond in the affirmative. Nathan, >> yes. >> Linda, >> yes. >> Nail,
>> yes. >> Peter, I don't hear Peter, but I assume you're here because I saw you come off. Can you hear me now? >> Yes. >> Okay. Sorry, I don't know what happened. Okay. >> Yes, I'm here.
>> Uh, and thank you. And Nathaniel, >> oh, he also came off of mute, but I didn't hear anything. >> No. >> Uh, I'm still not hearing you. Oh, there you go. I got you. >> Awesome. Great. I can hear everyone.
Thank you for confirming. I will continue with the remote meeting script. 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 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 individual attendees unless required by law. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may be able to see 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 find this meeting posted to the WAVM YouTube channel. Uh thank you WAVM for your support. For meeting materials, they
should be posted on board docs. Um unless noted otherwise. Um and we will now turn to the agenda. All right. So the agenda for tonight's meeting is a discussion and we'll start off with the
discussion and brief debrief for the joint board meeting which was on the 12th. Um so I wanted to say thanks all for uh participating. Um and I'm sorry I couldn't make it in person but I didn't want to share my germs with
you. So um I'm almost fully recovered from COVID. So that's great. Um but I think it was a really good meeting. uh and I could hear and follow along on the conversation remotely which was uh really great um to be able to do so. So
I I did want to sort of open the floor for feedback. I think that um I did want to say thank you um to Nathan for for presenting. Um I think you did a really great job. Uh and I think it was a really nice overview of some of the the complicated financial challenges that
our town is facing. So thanks for that. >> Thanks Jill. appreciate it. >> We appreciate you. >> So, I don't know if this this might be I know that you sort of are playing around with some additional ways to sort of
grasp things. If we could we could also talk on that topic. But I think for me I came out of that meeting sort of with an alignment of you know there's I think we sort of got we're on the right track with what the big things are potentially um or like the big questions are for the
town. Um so I think the modeling was sort of in the right vein and sort of in that direction. Um, I came out with a little bit more curiosity to kind of know more about the golf course and sort of where that might be going, which is why I also
circulated some information about the, you know, financial background and sort of the yearly reports or monthly reports that um, the select board gets on that um, because I don't really know too much about the workings of that. So, that
might be something good for us to educate ourselves on. um you know and what the directions are there because I don't I think like we talked about in the meeting I'm not sure that you know investing a lot of money into the existing structure is
is the way to go with all of our other priorities which I think that sounded like a bunch of other people also agreed with but I'm going to stop for a coughing fit. So, if anyone else would like to give your input on uh on that, please
jump in. Yeah, I uh I also thought it was a good meeting um good discussion and just to have people go through all that stuff and um yeah, I thought it was useful and we
we certainly have some issues, but I think it's also good to get, you know, just in a room to say, "Okay, yeah, let's let's stop putting the golf course on the list, frankly, because we're never going to do it. So, um,
and certainly the capital committee has put a ton of work into mapping this stuff out and, you know, hopefully we can keep up with it. And I, Nathan, I thought your stuff was very good. Um
yeah, I I was trying to impress on some people that, you know, everybody says, "Oh, my taxes have gone up 40% in the last 10 years." But really, that isn't that different than what two and a half would have been or basically $1,000 over two and a half.
So, I thought that was kind of good to point out, too. Um, so thanks for that. I thought it was also really good too the way you pointed out sort of the was it the GDP or not the GDP but like sort
of everyone's the average in aggregate income is like increased by a similar percentage as well. >> Yes, exactly. >> I really like the uh ratio. Well, it wasn't really the ratio shown, but the
increase in income versus increase in homes versus tax increase. And you could see that the while the incomes hadn't gone up as much as the homes, but our home values have all drastically gone up while the taxes have not necessarily been going up as high in a relative
manner. >> Um, so yeah, I was I was curious about that. I was thinking about that. Um, and just, you know, cuz I'm from the group of people who most recently moved to Maine. I moved here like four or five years ago now. Um, so I've got like a I
don't know like a I'm thinking a little bit more about like the houses and the mortgages and for me moving to Maynard like the it's a lot cheaper than the surrounding towns. You know, I was like moving west from like the Cambridge area. Uh, and now I'm in Mayard and I love it. I don't want to
be anywhere else. But um you know I I'm thinking about like what my position is and how I think about taxes in relation to like the total amount I'm paying for my mortgage. And I was just curious like how is the population changing in Maynard. Um I think uh some
somebody mentioned that you know it's a different population in Mayard now than 10 years ago in regards to like the golf course. It's like what about in like terms of like taxes? like what's the kind of the difference between like longtime residents um who may have like paid off their houses already and like that's that's like the one bill they're
seeing. So when that goes up 40% that's their that is their housing cost going up 40%. As opposed to somebody who's paying a mortgage and it's like oh that's like a small that's a part of the overall payment that's going to my escrow to like pay for the mortgage but it's not like the whole thing. So, um I
talked to the assessor's office and I got all like the home sale records going back that they had. Uh and I, you know, I just found for like each lot I figured out what's like the most recent time day date that has been purchased and I made
a made a chart of it and I divided into like and this is what it looks like. Uh thanks for sharing Jill. Um and you know it's colorcoded into you know five groups of like 20%. So, and it kind of roughly breaks down that 20% of our um
single single family homes were purchased in the last 5 years. If you go back 10 years, it's it's 40%. Um if you go back 20 years or so, it it gets to 60%. If you go back to uh 30 years, it's
80% and then the last 20% goes like all the way back to, you know, there there's a couple houses that were last purchased in 1900. So, I'm assuming that they've had new new owners since then, but it's just like a default date put in or
something. But, um I don't know. This is kind of like I'm not I'm not sure what to do with this information exactly, but I I was curious about it. I put it together. So, I thought I I would share it. It all goes along with um house prices and tax
rates and you know where the and income changes and how that's affecting different groups in town. >> I liked the data. I just um you're probably aware of this, but maybe a voice for everyone. It's I wouldn't read into it too much a lot of the time here
because uh it doesn't necessarily, you know, if a home was bought 30 years ago, that doesn't mean the mortgage is actually paid off in any way, shape, or form. there's reorggaging there, you know, there there's a lot of different pathways that maybe they signed a 15-year mortgage, etc. So, like it's a
really good stepping stone or starting point, but I almost wouldn't touch this data any further to put into an analysis of saying, you know, x% of the town has paid off their mortgage. >> Yes. >> Because there's just so much variables in there. And I mean maybe I'm wrong and maybe it's only you know like 5% of
people ever take out a second mortgage on a home and you know 3% or 15year mortgages or less etc. But without that extra piece of data I don't know how much I would go further with this other than it is interesting. >> So so
Nathan how do we interpret 2025? We've got quintel 4 and quintel 5 by year of purchase. Mhm. >> So 2020 we've got What does that mean? I'm trying to think of quintel 5 for quintel
5 year of purchase. How do you interpret that? Because we've got yellow and aqua. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. So basically um I >> the news >> Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Yeah. >> Yeah. So I I took like the total number
of lots and I divided by five. it was something like like 500ish uh 480 500 um so just counting backwards you know the last four years is less than 20% and then you go back into uh
2021 or whatever year that is and you know 80 if you if you count up to like five the the 20% it it gets you partway through all the sales from that year and the remainder goes to the next quintile down. So that's why some years there's kind of like a break between uh
quintiles. Does that make sense? >> Not quite getting at it because we bought our house in the 80s. >> Mhm. >> So we're in the purple. >> Mhm. >> We're quintile one. SFL
SF sorry SFH is single family home by your purchase. So we bought in the 80s and so we still own >> another way to think of it. >> What's what's the I'm sorry what's the y what's the y ais? 100 100
>> that is the number of of uh houses sold in that year. >> Okay. Okay. So we have we're having more more turnover of homes. Okay. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. Well, it's it's not more turnover, but of the people who are
current. Yeah. Okay. >> Because because it's only showing the most recent transaction for >> Okay. Yeah. Okay. >> Um to the degree that that's relevant, it seems like there's a pretty big um uh
decrease between I guess that must be 2022 and 2023. Is that because there's like some transactions which like haven't made it onto the assessor's books yet or is there something else that like we would need to be um thinking about there potentially or is it just the market you know doing its thing?
>> Uh well interest rates went up >> interest the first thing I can >> I think what it's showing is I got my house at a good value in the 80s right? Yeah. >> I got a bargain. Okay. Thank you. So I bought my house in the 80s and now
like 2025 I I made a lot of Okay. >> Yeah. I mean this is this is kind of like you know just taking I mean a lot of stuff can happen right but like taking a proxy of a year of purchase is you know whoever purchased it is still
living in the house. um then you are in 20% of the single family house population of Maynard uh of households that uh bought their home before 1994. So is that is that what it's telling us?
Because how many people in Maynard bought their house before 1994? It's telling us >> Yeah. So it's saying it's saying all of that purple going from 1900 to 199 is 20% of the population of Maynard.
Whereas at the very end that teal that aqua section equivalent group 20% of people of households in Maynard uh purchased their home in the last five years it's like a pretty huge proportion honestly I mean 20% in in just that sort
of small recent spend of time. Pretty striking. >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. I don't know what it is normally for I mean, maybe like any town you go to like 20% of the homes have been purchased in like the last five years, you know? I I
just don't know. I I was just curious what it looked like in Mayor. So, I put this together. >> Yeah. >> I mean, there does seem to be like a dip around And Nathan, where where what was the source of this data? >> The assessor's office. >> Assessors. Okay.
>> Yeah. So, um I thought this was kind of interesting. Uh, another thing I'd be curious to look at is, you know, some of the graphs on um that I was presenting on like what's our tax rate look like and you know um what's what's happening
with like trends in Maynard. Um what that looks like for the town surrounding us. Uh so how does that compare to like what conquered or Hudson or Stow or Sudbury are doing? I know those are different towns. They're like different like the the single family house like
average in conquered and Sunbury are very different from what it is in Mayor. But like as a point of comparison, I think it would be interesting. I know um Jeff has talked to me a couple Jeff Swanberg has talked to me a couple times about um you know he he has like a list
of like five towns that are comparable to Maynard. They're sort of like scattered all across Massachusetts. And I think I think that would be kind of like an interesting thing to see too. But I don't know. I'm also just curious like our neighbors in Metro West like just around us um what what the tax
situation there is compared to ours. Nathan on Nathan on this chart if you just did like 20 like now single family home by your purchase a sort of a pie chart of now what would it
come out to be do you know what I do you know what I mean because we've got like you've got quintile one is people who bought in 1800s up to 19 2020 So you're thinking most people who live
in Maynard now are in that like 1990 to 2000 2000. >> Yeah. 80% >> rough. Yeah. About 80% of >> Yeah. I would think like a pie chart or a bar chart like that of of collapsing
the years these years might be I don't know I mean like when people bought their homes and who's who's lived in Maynard you know since the last century >> yeah I mean um if if I understand what you're saying like if I made a pie chart
it would be a pie chart with five >> not a pie chart or a bar chart of like these these quintiles. So, it's it's definitely going to be biased towards 2020 to 2025. Is it
trying to think 20? Are you talking about taking like an average of the like different >> Not an average? Not an a not an average, but um anyway, I don't I don't think we need to belabor this. Sorry.
>> Okay. >> You know, we just thought that was kind of interesting. So, >> yeah, it is very it is interesting. Yeah. >> Oh, okay. I guess another, you know, in regards to the golf course, you know, if we were talking about this in um in 2012, 2013 is when we acquired it and
when we did like a survey of just a survey of the people who happen of the 60 people in town who happen to go to the golf course to participate in the survey and in the survey notes, it said that it's a disproportionate amount of is like basically everybody there is somebody who golfs at the golf course, by the way, because I I I pulled that
up. Um, but if we're talking in general about the town population that voted um to acquire the golf course in the first place and what they might have been thinking about it and what the population today might be thinking about it, um, 40 40 50% of the town households
are different today than they were back then is another way of thinking about it, which is a lot in 10 years, 101 15 years. All right, I'm going to stop sharing this graph currently. Um,
and I did also want to share, and I think it's something I don't remember if I emailed it or not, but uh, interestingly enough, there was in the Maynard Voice, which is sort of like our local newspaper, I guess, online. Uh, they
were also they had an article about home prices on the November 17th issue. So, um, that was something that was kind of interesting with nearby towns. Um, and these numbers from biddydata.com, which I'm not familiar with. Um,
but it's something always interesting to think about, you know, the rentals and sort of the median income and the house prices for for our nearest neighbors and their general sizes. So, um,
just a little plug for the local paper. Does anybody know a good source for finding um median income? Because that's something I I really want to know because like average tells you average is like useful, but if you know
if if like a multi-million dollar house sells, you know what I mean? like average skews um very quickly, but like median kind of tells you like half of the half of the town's population is making under this amount and half of them are making over this amount. Um so I think that that can be like a lot more
useful for actually figuring out like you know how how much taxes are like affecting people if that makes sense. Um, and I just I I couldn't find anything good for it on um uh DL on the um division of local services and I
tried pulling like census data and I don't know I was just having a hard time. Um does anybody have a good good source for that? >> I was just like spitballing but in terms of I thought the census looked sort of promising um in terms of I guess like median like household income. were what
were some of like limitations that you were running into there um with the census data maybe because DS may not have it but I know the census is like usually kind of decent about like like that kind of data. >> Frankly, I was I was having trouble exporting the data from their website or even having >> Oh, gotcha.
>> Like >> Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's fair. >> There there there have like thousands and thousands of different like options for like ways to like but nothing I I got would populate. Um, yeah. >> So, if you know how to use the census website.
>> Yeah, I can have a look. I mean, for sure. Um, and sort of like the main thing that we're looking for is like the median household kind of income data and stuff. >> Yeah. Yeah. Any any median income? Yeah. Median household income. How however they uh >> however they like have it uh for like
the last 10 years. I think it's some ways that can be more informative than the you know what DLS has is the uh income per capita. So that's you're taking like children and stuff and you're dividing like the total incoming into town by everybody and it's useful
and that's what I wound up like charting, but it's still kind of a weird way to think about things if you ask me. >> Yeah, median would definitely I think be more helpful to the to so what I think what we're trying to do. Yeah, that's a good idea. All right. Uh, the one other thing I did
want to plug was that I took from the select board um board docs documents. There was some information posted about the September um sort of summary the like the monthly summary and the year total to date um for sort of numbers
that the golf course runs. Um, so I think this is something that we might also be able to think about in terms of the benefit to uh outcome ratios, you know, of considering fixing things like the golf
course. And I think like Peter said, I think for me as one person, it sort of made sense as we talked about at the joint board meeting that this is something that, you know, might not necessarily be a priority just because of the
the numbers. So, and it sort of goes over, you know, how much is from the different, you know, revenue updates from passes and otherwise. And uh >> Jane, did you share this with us? I I
don't um >> I believe this on board. >> Oh, in the last email. Okay. Thank you. Okay, never mind. >> I think he has it on board docs, but if it's not on there, I'll double check and make sure it is after the meeting. >> Okay, thank you. >> She wasn't able to make the meeting
tonight. >> Yep. >> All right. Um Okay. So I think and we also did get um we got draft meeting minutes from the the joint board meeting. So um we'll
have to post our meeting minutes later on, but I think this could be um potentially a good base for us to start from Linda for um >> Okay. Yep. >> minutes. So >> Jilline, do you think we >> So should we post these minutes from the
quad board meeting? >> So these are minutes specifically from the select board. Um so we'll have to sort of adopt them to our own. >> Okay. >> Um >> and and I thought the consensus was from the special town meeting. We don't need
to do minutes. That is now my understanding from Okay. Yeah. Okay. But from the but from the quad board meeting we should post minutes. Okay. >> My understanding. >> Okay. Okay. Thank you.
>> That's I also wanted to double check. >> Okay. >> So special time meeting. Okay. I have notes from both but but quad meeting maybe we should Yeah. Yeah. Because we didn't we didn't
hold for the STM. We didn't hold like we didn't call a meeting like we didn't um discuss and vote like we didn't have to revote the articles on the floor. >> Yeah. >> If we had to do that, I think we should post minutes, but we did not.
Okay. Um, is there any further discussion for the joint board meeting on the 12th? >> Um, actually, yeah, I got I got something. Uh I I I think I would really like to see a
dedicated budget line for um capital like capital planning, capital maintenance, um whatever that is. Uh like I I know we're not putting like I I would be in favor of some sort of uh
override and I think like a lot of people in town, you know, that's one of the things people talk about is like maintenance and the condition of roads. It's something that people see and interact with every day in in some way. Um, and yeah, I think Ben did like really highlighted how
many repairs are coming up in the next few years and just having some something like dedicated to that instead of just, you know, uh, counting on free cash and aortioning it where we can would really um is really needed in town.
Yeah, I think the challenge is that every year there's sort of a tight budget and it's um and I'm not trying to make excuses. I'm just trying to say that the money sort
of disappears. So, for example, um one of the questions or one of the things we talked about last time is getting more information about OPED and when that is going to be potentially funded. Um so, I have additional information from Greg on that. And one of the challenges is that
coming up in and I think the budget subcommittee meeting minutes or sorry minutes the budget subcommittee documents um that I got from you Peter are you know potentially really helpful to visualize stuff like that where it's
like I would also like to see that but like where where are we going to where's it going to come from? So um so one of the challenges is you know that we're like just in this this was
October 24th was this general fund budget development for FY27. So I mean we're already 300K short. So, you know, we want to put in a line item for capital that's, you know, 200, 250, I don't 500, like 500K,
like what's our number? Where's it, what are we going to cut to make that number? And that's I think what I have a challenge with. So, um, and I think, you know, that's something he's trying to think about here. So, like he's trying to add like a placeholder in, which I think is what this placeholder was for.
And that's what I was actually going to ask if you remember Peter from the meeting. thinks I wasn't actually at that meeting. >> Um, yes, he's starting with the 400k for the capital, which would be the budget Nathan's talking about. Um, but you
know, as Julian outlines, a lot of budgets start with a number like this. By the time we get to the end, um, it ain't there. So I mean the one thing >> uh compared to other years this deficit
of 310,000 is actually fairly low. >> Um the one thing I would point out is that main public schools are only in here for 3 and a half%. And you know in other budget years where
the deficit is much larger you know they're starting more at five or 6%. And you know usually get cut too but you know one of the reasons this doesn't look quite as bad as other years is because you know education's only in
there for three and a half%. So >> the other thing I worry about is our capital reserves. If we have something bad happen, we're not funding, you know, I forget what we have, 2 million and we should have
somewhere between five, you know, up around 10% of our operating budget. >> Yeah. in case something, you know, for our rainy day fund >> and
>> and then that and then the health insurance where we're doing 8% and they're re they're saying 12, but I I know that people say, well, it starts high and it goes down, but >> well, the 8.8% 8% that is there in this
line reflects a 12% health insurance increase. >> Okay, >> that budget line also includes uh the pension and there's a few small other small things. So overall
>> that 8.8% increase does factor in a 12% increase in health insurance. and some of that money like uh we got updated numbers for the OPED. So the OPED requirement for FY27 is going to
increase by about 225K from last year from FY26. So and that's to cover the OPED part. So I believe that part of this 926 is that 225
>> for OPED >> and OPED is what is that Jillian? OPED >> the OPED for FY27. Uh I don't think I circulated that uh letter but we got a letter from um
>> but what does this stand for? OPED >> oped um OP >> other po postmployment benefits >> okay post >> retirey healthcare >> okay thank you >> yeah so
um for this current year we've budgeted $3 bill315,451 for FY26 for OPED for FY26 7, we have to increase that by $224,669. Um, so we got a memo from the retirement board for that assessment.
Um, and I can circulate that for like us to talk about next time, but we should have that program fully funded by 2035. Um, is my understanding of what their
projections are. Um, so we just had an audit for the retirement and pension plans in 2023. Uh, and I can also link you documents to see that. Um, and we're currently in the process of an audit right now. So, Greg
said that he'll have more information in the next couple months um, about how the audit is going to go. So that's a little plug about about the the benefits line and a little bit more about what that some of the things in
that number are. >> Julian, why is this? It's the public works going down so much. >> That's the only saving grace. >> That's the trash contract coming out. Oh, the trash contract coming out. Okay, >> that's the trash contract essentially
moving to an enterprise fund. >> Okay. >> So, the taxpayers are going to pay that. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. So, that's solid waste and recycling. >> So, taxpayers are going to pay that. Yep. Okay. >> Yikes.
>> I Does Does anybody Can anybody explain the new deputy fire chief? I feel like like Greg has had that as an as a want every year since I've been on FINCOM. Like it's been like such like a regular thing that I like missed whatever the original explanation for like why one is
needed is. Um anyone have like insight into like the fire department and how how that all works? >> Um that has been a request for a number of years. I don't think I want to. Uh, so there
was a study of the fire department and I I'm not sure I'm going to find it that quickly. I want to say, you know, 2010 or so. And coming out of that, you know, it was
primarily we needed a new fire station was, you know, the big push of the study. Um but that you know there were some resources that weren't you know up to standards as the fire chief has been descri the
assistant fire chief has been described. It says oh you know this report says we need it. I actually last year went back and tried to read the report and I can't find it in there. Um so I don't know what to say about that.
It certainly has been around for a while as an ask. And you know, as they talk about it, the fire people, it's they are hardressed to do their routine work of inspections
and fire education and safety stuff because the only staff besides the chief are people going out on calls. Um, so I don't know. I part of me would say if we can get over
the, you know, that we really do need something more then wait, why can't, you know, we staff it as a firefighter to do inspections? Why does it have to be a deputy chief?
And you know, I'm just talking salary there that we could have someone and then you know, if someone calls in sick, then you know, you don't have to staff it. You can keep people out, you know, not do the inspections and have the
instation person go over and do the firefighting. I So I don't know. And I'm sure there's issues with, you know, they work 24-hour shifts or whatever they work and, you know, it doesn't work for like that, but
seems like there's got to be some way to staff it besides bringing someone up very high in the management of the organization, you know, along with the cost that's involved with that. Um, do we know if the the new deputy fire chief is going to be like a
firefighter firefighter who's getting a promotion? So, the the salary is increase isn't like the full amount of the deputy fire chief salary or is it like a total sort of new position that they're new hire they're like bringing in externally because I guess that would make a bit of a difference.
>> Well, it would be a new position. So even if it were an internal promotion, which I would tend to think it would be, you're still going to then replace the captain and then have to replace the firefighter that they promote the captain. >> It's a new position. It's all new money,
>> right? Yeah. So, I didn't have too much else to add here. >> Yeah. Actually, Joe, I'll send that fire study. >> Um, >> I do think if it stays in the the budget, then we can also invite the fire
chief and Greg to talk about it as well. Would be my recommendation. >> Yeah. But we know >> if you can I was also looking for that but I think that was before jail time. >> The the big budget busters are schools
is 25 but that employee benefits 11,000 is a killer. I mean the the the 250,000 or 230,000 for deputy fire chief pales in comparison to employee benefits.
It's 20% of our budget and schools are half our budget. Um, I don't know. I always think we we got to think about something about employee benefits. If new employees can, you know, kick in more, are we doing a
tiered thing for new employees or can we do anything with that? I know I know it's really tough, but th those are the budget busters. Um, this might be a silly question, but why is the increase listed at 8.8% when it then
the the note right next to it says that we have to be sort of complying with like a minimum increase of 12%. Is there like a particular reason for that? >> Julian just said that because the eight the 12% is only part of it. >> Oh, >> because it's pensions and other things.
Yeah. Yeah. So, but it's a it's a concern, isn't it, Nick Hill? >> Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's like that's like it's strapping us, right? It's stra It's >> And I was just reading I mean, I got my my thing about my own health insurance
and was going to go up this year. It's like a crazy um and and not to to dive into the weeds too much, but just in terms So the reason why it's it's I suppose less is that that 12% is only for like some
portion of it and some other portion is is I suppose covered by the the the people on the plans themselves basically. Is that sort of the right way to be thinking about it or >> uh Yeah, I think it's so like health insurance is about 2/3 of that line and
retirement >> pensions is is onethird of it. >> Okay, gotcha. Okay. >> Um >> yeah, and this this goes with how the split is. So like we right now we have like a 7525 split where the town covers 75% of the premium.
>> So and Greg sent around sort of that summary. Um I think I we talked about this in our last meeting where you know what's the typical split and the range of splits for surrounding towns or other towns um comparing um and the most
frequent arrangement is a 7525. So it appears 37 times out of 74 different >> towns in in the state. >> Thank you for the explanation. uh much appreciated. >> You know, on that um you know, the
pensions are going to be paid off in 2030 and I think somebody mentioned at a recent meeting that we've like accelerated how much we're paying into that. Um and I'm sure that pays off because right those are like investments
and the more we put into that the more that kind of pays back uh over time. 2035 if that's important for your spreadsheet. >> Oh, it's it'll be paid off in 2035. >> That's my understanding. Yes.
>> Okay. >> Oh, sorry. Is that Jill? Is that the pension number or the OPED deficit? >> That's the OPED deficit. >> All right. That's different than the pension deficit. >> Yes.
>> Okay. So, what's the what's the OPED deficit? Is that I mean are those both being paid out of the uh out of the pension assessment um line item or >> is OPED coming out somewhere else? >> Well, pension retirement obligation the
assets >> that's 2035 for that's not OP. >> Okay. So as of 2023, yeah, the pension retirement obligation as of December
2023, which was our last audit, it was 62 billion769,49. So that will be fully funded by 2035. So, and I can also circulate this um for us to have posted at our next meeting.
Stop screen sharing. Too many screens. Another potentially very silly question, but um with the the the OPED being like fully funded, so does that mean that if like all of that 62 billion like came do at once, like it could afford to be paid? Like that can't possibly be the
interpretation of that, right? >> Or is it like >> No. >> No. I so I think the 62 million represents the sh you know I'm assuming a little bit but that it you know the net present value of the future pension
obligations >> right >> and yeah it you know we'll have enough money in that we'll essentially only be paying we'll continue to contribute but it'll just be for the you know
what's needed for current employees. >> Gotcha. >> Right now, we're paying for both current employees and an added amount because we have this deficit. >> Okay. >> And again, just to be clear, Nquille, this is pension, not >> OP.
>> Right. Okay. Gotcha. Right. And this is also something that I can invite the retirement board to come talk to us about too. Um Ken is leading that right now. So, if this is something we'd like to,
you know, talk to them more in depth about OPED and the retirement um pension obligations, um I I would recommend we wait until they finish that audit of the the pension and retirement funds. Um
which would be like the next few months, but we can definitely have them come talk to us about this, too. Jillian, does the town have an HR director? I I should know this, but who could talk to us about employee benefits
because it's 20% of the budget and um and increasing more every year and uh >> you know how those >> I'm not sure. I think Greg is my go-to person. So >> I mean I think that might be that you
know I think Greg to talk about employee benefits and because it is 20% of the budget I think we have to and and it's increasing more than two and a half% way I mean way more than two and a half% so it's it's something we have to address in the long term not
even the long term for next year. Um, >> I guess what would the what would the action items be though? like we >> Well, well, I mean, I hate to say it, >> but I mean, um, you know, I I've been in
public sector, so hiring freezes, um, having new employees doing some, you know, doing having a tiered of new employees paying more for their benefits, hiring freezes, furls of existing employees,
looking to um you know, do we outsource some some um town functions or regionalize? I mean, these are these are horrible
things to to talk about, but I mean, I worked in public service for a long time. We had all of these options, right? It's just you you know, new employees pay more you reduce hours whatever and maybe we don't have to do it this
year but I mean because she can balance the budget without the capital the capital money. We could look to see what other towns are doing. I don't know. I mean, I think these are all things
that Greg and the select board are currently examining. Um, I'm not sure how much they can do in public meetings because it does have to do with unions and the contracts there. So, they might be doing that in the executive meetings that are closed. >> Um,
So, I mean, if I think if we have specific questions or we want more information about how the current system works, I can definitely ask Greg. Um, I'm not I'm not entirely sure what else we can explore with him, an
open meeting or like what the question is. Like I think we realize that this is a large amount of the budget and we want to be conscious of how that is going forward. Yeah, it's a it's a large amount of the budget. >> It's a large amount of the budget and he's projecting it's going up 8.8% 8%
which is you know unsust it's unsustainable with 2 and a.5% >> is that >> budget caps >> is that increase the I mean we're looking at percentages which ties into our town revenue and things things in
that nature but is it out of sync with our neighboring towns because a big piece of this that I've always kept in the back of my head in my mind is that despite the fact that our property values are lower. Um, cost of goods are
going to be the same, you know, in 15, 20, 30 mile radiuses, regardless of what home values are, generally speaking. So, if you have a lower cost of home, the, you know, cost to repair a road or cost to have health insurance is going to be
the same with a neighboring town that has twice the value of house, meaning that town has more revenue to pull up on. So I would want to look into that kind of stuff first just to see if like if we're out of sync before I would be
interested in furloss or having rules for new employees personally. >> Yeah. I mean, I think that's what we we talked about in our last meeting was sort of about Greg did a survey of what the different splits are that other towns in Massachusetts are doing. And
you know, the 7525 is is by far the most common, which is what we are currently doing right now. Um, >> make sure that that >> But I don't think that analysis talked about new employees if the split was different for new employees.
>> But also, I believe general >> dollar per employee either a split might be that but if we're paying for better insurance for example on overall then the R75 is higher relatively speaking so I'd just be curious if our actual raw
dollar value for good goods and in this case it would be healthcare is actually out of sync with other towns or if we're actually right on par and we just happen to be unsustainable because our our town revenue just can't pull as many dollars. I recall that like often during these
discussions like someone often says like sort of the way that Maynard has has done things is that um that the salaries for the public employees in the town are a bit lower but like the benefits are like uh more you know generous to to make up for that. Um
could that be like one possible explanation maybe for sort of the the striking figures? Apparently, that's not actually the case. And we're right in the average. >> Right in the average. >> Is it the case that our salaries are
lower, though? >> Last time I looked at schools, our our teacher salaries were right in line with Wow. >> state a state average. I don't know about other I I want to look at our surrounding towns, but with the state average, they were in line.
And I believe teachers I mean I believe schools are the biggest part of the the FTEEs for the town. I that's my understanding but we might want to look at that is where we're where we have the FTEES. >> Yeah. Historically speaking, so I know
in the past we've sort of always talked about what is it, Peter? A 7030 split where like 70% of the FTEEs are generally school and 30% are town. Does that sound right? Um, I I think
we talk about it generally as 6040, but that's based on budget numbers, but I think you quickly get to 7030 if you do things like split up the debt line to schools and the benefits to
schools. I don't know that that refers to uh positions. I think he's and I'm trying to remember which would have the school is certainly personnel intensive. You know, there wouldn't have been like the solid waste contract or
some of the cons. So yeah, I don't know if schools are more personnel intensive than the town side or not, but yeah, I I think Linda's first statement that, you know, are schools the majority of positions, that's definitely true.
All right. So, I'm taking good notes here. I'm going to ask Greg about um you know, it's great to see that 7525 split similar to what other people are doing, but just sort of asking about if he has any information on the growth
costs. So like for example those those ratios might be similar but if we're in a higher premium or like tiered program is that 75% also like a higher cost in general is sort of the question I'm I'm getting
from the group >> and and also if other towns are doing something for new new employees if they have a different tier structure for grand you know grandfathered in And and these are horrible discussions,
right? Um but it's a big it's a big number. Anything else we can do? Yeah, really great questions. I think we had a a good discussion on
FY27 here. Um, did we have any additional discussions we wanted to bring up on this or I'll stop sharing. Okay. All right. So um
I think that was that was a good discussion leading into our our budget forecasting and sort of the second second topic here which is budget forecasting which is you know talking about FY27 uh also like the public outreach discussion. So I think we talked a lot
about you know visualizing the data in different ways thinking about um you know how we can potentially talk about these priorities and uh challenges facing the town. Do we have any additional discussions or
topics we'd like to talk about that forecasting? Nathan, is there any like spreadsheet um updates you wanted to bring to our attention? For example, >> I I think it would be helpful if um somebody looked at water um cost of
water and I don't know like any any other like major um costs of living that people are paying in addition to the taxes. That's you know a question I hear a lot and I don't have a very good handle on it. Um,
I know uh I I know Justin has sent me a lot of documents on water usage and I I haven't had time to like dig into it yet. Um, but I feel like I'm only kind of like one track right now with the stuff that I' I've been looking at and I sort of want to expand that to, you
know, what are other towns doing? I'm wondering if somebody else wants to take on water or any other cost of living and try to like chart that out. Um, Nathan, I'd be happy to take a look at um documents that you have if you wanted to like forward those to me. Um, I'm sure I could at least have a have a gander, you
know, and stuff and see what I can summarize or something. Cool. Well, I'll forward what I have to you. >> I mean, does the rest of the the the committee think that that's like a worthwhile thing to be looking at? I
think that's great. And I I was wondering I could look at my past water bills for like the last seven years to see what the rates were >> if that helps. I don't And I assume the town must have it going for the I knew you did through 2017.
I don't know if I have them that far back, but I'll look at my water bills, but I mean for the rates the rates that we had and send that to you. Yeah, >> there must be something on the water rates because they they I mean last year
they went up I think nine or 10%. So, um people are going to be feeling that I'm sure. >> Yeah. I mean that's also a thing that like you know there's only so much that the that your
house like the value of a house is going to range on like a single family lot. Um, you know, but whether you are somebody living alone or whether you have like three or four kids, the amount of like laundry that you're doing, the amount of like water usage you have is
going to be drastically different. >> So, an average is useful, but I don't know if we can get it break it down to like a per per person or something. Uh, I'm not I'm not sure how we would get at
it, but you know, just doing it by household might not be the most useful way to look at it. But um yeah, N I'll send I'll send you what I have and you know keep keep that in mind and like like try to like think of some different ways of of getting at
that information. I think that I think it'd be useful to make it kind of mirror um you know what's like the last few years you know last I mean I chose 10 years kind of arbitrarily on like the the res you can make it something like that so it just matches up completely if we want to keep
reusing information or make it more focused on but I think having like the last couple of years and then what we're what Justin is is predicting for at least next year I'm not sure how far out he has it staged Um, when you said reusing the same information, sorry, what was that in in reference to? I I just didn't catch it
maybe. >> Oh, I was just saying, you know, if we um if we at like the next quadboard meeting or or putting together like a packet, you know what I mean? And and if I don't totally rework the graphs and I say, "Okay, here are the 10-year graphs that you remember from before and now
we're adding on water." Might be >> Oh, yeah. Same time scale stuff. Yeah, that makes sense. >> Yeah. Again, I'm not sure how much information I got from Justin because it he sent it to me like in the summer. Um, but uh yeah, I'll I'll send it to you.
And is are there any other like major costs we might want to be trying to look at? For me, I think I'm definitely interested in how it's going to shake out since we're taking the supplemental budget from the general fund for the
solid waste and recycling completely out into a new fund. Um, but I don't know that that's something that's easily projectable. And I also think that there's a task force for solid waste and recycling because they're trying to figure out how to
negotiate that contract right now. um that that's necessarily our purview, but I think that's like another sort of mystery to me of how that's going to like, you know, are trash stickers going to double or is there going to be some
other like pay per house? I think that's something that the trash forces that the solid waste and recycling task force is trying to figure out right now. >> Yeah. I' I'd like to know um what shape that's going to take. Um you know,
because if it's like everybody has a cart and they're paying like a certain amount for like the cart, you know, the the trash can or however many trash cans they have, uh you know, that's that's a big change from right now when a person can just put out, you know, one bag with
a $2 sticker on it. Um, but yeah, LA last last we talked to them was like a year or two ago and there it seemed like there are several different possible plans they could go with. So, I don't know if you um Jill, do you
think you could reach out to that uh task force and see if there's an update? Yeah, I can definitely see how that's going. All right. Do we have any additional topics we'd like to talk on for talk on for the
budget forecasting and uh this otherwise outreach discussion? All right. So, it sounds like the action items are Nail, you're you're sort of going to look over and maybe graph a little bit for water sewer like enterprise fund trends. >> Yes. Yes.
>> Um okay. So, I can put that on the uh would you like me to put that on the agenda? I can put the general fund budget and enterprise forecasting um as a topic for our next meeting on the 8th.
>> That sounds like a good idea. Yeah. >> Okay. >> Um Okay. Sounds good to me. All right. So, uh, if there's no further discussion on this current topic, um, I
would suggest we move to our routine agenda. All right. So hearing no descent, I will bring up our meeting minutes from November 10th. Uh thanks for sharing those, Linda, and
thanks for taking minutes. We always appreciate. So here are the meeting minutes from the temp. Um so we were talking about the special town meeting. Um we were planning for the joint meeting. Um, and then we went
over some routine agenda items. So, and we talked about our schedules and journ. Do we have any feedback or discussion on the meeting minutes from the 10th? Is there a motion to accept the minutes?
>> I move to accept the minutes of November 10th as written. >> I have a second. >> Uh I'll I'll second Peter. >> Great. We have a motion and a second. Do we have any further discussion, comments, or otherwise?
All right. So, I'll take a roll call vote to approve the meeting minutes of November 10th. Uh, Nathan, >> yes. >> Male, >> yes. >> Linda,
>> yes. >> Peter, >> yes. >> Nathaniel, >> yes. I am also a yes. Um, so that passes 6.
Thanks for that. All right. So that's that's all the minutes I had for us to vote on tonight. Um, so the our next topic would be update from chairs and members. Um so I think the updates that I gave
about OPED and the retirement funds I sort of gave already in um our previous topic. Um and I think we're in the process of that audit right now. So I would recommend that once that audit's done, maybe we have them come and talk to us about when that how that looks and
you know if everything's going to phase out in the 2035ish time frame. Um, we also were approached by um there is a citizens group that is planning to have a um citizens petition um or potentially
a bylaw. It's not entirely clear yet. Um it's a town meeting for um for lighting. So, um they they want to propose a lighting bylaw um
to make recommendations on like the brightness of lights um and how that could potentially impact um you know wildlife and otherwise. Um so this is sponsored by Green Maynard
which has um sponsored some um past articles um at town meeting. So right now they are talking to people in the town um getting a legal review um and also talking to the bylaw groups. So
um I did want to give everyone a heads up on that. So, um, they're getting feedback from all of those groups right now and they'll have a bit of rework to the current bylaw that they're trying to write. Um, so they expect they're not going to be ready to meet with us until
January. Um, but they will keep us in the loop um, ahead of, you know, that submission for uh, the bylaw. So, just to put it on people's radar >> under the um, citizens
Oh, sorry. >> When are the citizens petitions due for um our May 2026 town meeting? >> That's a great question. Uh I haven't gotten a timeline yet from Greg for the May town meeting.
>> Uh it's fairly late. >> 90 days. >> I think it's as short as 60 days or less. Maybe it's 45 days for special and 60 for annual. It's one of the last deadlines is when
citizens petition. >> Yep. Yeah, I'll definitely keep you all posted once I get that. Um I'm not going to get that from Greg until So generally is when we start getting sort of the outline for annual town meeting is after the February meeting where we have the
sort of that budget proposal um set forth by Greg. Um and that's you know one of the foundational things for the the annual town meeting obviously is the general fund. So I figure we'll probably start hearing
around that time frame in February. So, that's all of Jill updates. Did any other members have any additional updates you'd like to bring to the attention of the committee? >> Um, I had a few like EDC updates just from like their their most recent um publicized minutes. Um, just like a few
things I guess. Um uh apparently um sanctuary and art space were highlighted as as you know uh being of artistic value um in a recent Metro West Arts report. Um some people may have seen this. Um two new businesses are hosting ribbon cutings uh in the near future. So
that's sort of nice. Um, the Maynard Business Alliance, which I guess is sort of like our chamber of commerce, um, was unsuccessful in an application for a cultural grant from the state, uh, to help with a winter fest event that they're doing. Um, but unfortunately,
they weren't successful. Um, the downtown has received official designation as an arboritum, which will enable access to some additional grants. Um a food truck policy is currently under draft um which will aim to balance the needs of the food truck
entrepreneurs while protecting the rights of brick and mortar restaurants. Um there may be a potential bylaw there um which will be modeled after Hudson's uh bylaw which is currently on the books. Um there's there uh will apparently be some more housing at one
Summer Street and it looks like um eight new units potentially on the second and third floors of that uh of that building. Um and then two of those are going to be affordable. Um and uh last thing, the EDC feels um sort of kind of in line with what was said at the
quarterboard meeting that um economic development sort of generally will be stymied by a lack of water capacity kind of until that issue is resolved and they may draft uh kind of like a white paper on that issue sort of highlighting it from from their perspective. Those are
sort of the um the EDC updates. So >> that's really nice. Thank you for sharing a >> lot of really interesting information. >> Um I did lie. I do actually have one additional update too. Um so the select
board at their meeting on the 18th they um they're going to have a municipal building advisory committee that will be formed. So um this is in addition to the current capital planning committee. Uh this will be focused on municipal
buildings. So um this is something you can find on the town website. Um so they're seeking volunteers for this committee. And then if you click on the top link to learn more about it, um they want to have five members,
you know, with with staggering terms. Uh they'll be appointed by the select board. Uh and this will advise them on scheduling, financial estimates, design, supervision of construction of municipal building projects. Um and they'll
they'll do that annually and submit it to the capital planning committee to like keep updated long range building maintenance and capital spending plan for all buildings. So this is something I wanted to highlight as as sort of unique from the capital
planning committee is something that was just put in place at the last select board meeting. So we cannot be on more than one committee at a time. Um so just to let you know
but um if that is interesting to people you may know they can apply. Okay, now I'm really done. Are there any other members that would like to give um updates? All right, I am not currently hearing any other updates. Um,
so our last topic would be the future meeting agenda planning. Um, so our next meeting is currently scheduled, let me double triple check my calendar, for December 8th.
Uh and then I would propose that we sort of adjourn for the rest of the year. Don't have a meeting on the 22nd. Uh and then we would follow up with a meeting on January 12th. >> You're here
>> the meeting of first year. So um so as topic for our meeting on the 8th I currently have general fund budget and enterprise um enterprise costs. I I don't know it's
not the enterprise budget it's like water sewer enterprise budget and other expenses. feel like the town's people. I don't really know what to call it because it's not the enterprise budget, but it's like enterprised
costs to the town's people. Cost of living. There we go. All right. Um and then planning for our next year like success in the upcoming year. Um and then routine agenda.
I'll double check with Greg. I don't think the retirement um audit will be done by December 8th. So I would propose not to have that as a topic yet. Um but I can definitely provide updates in
our update section. I'm not aware of any budget transfer requests or anything at the end of the year here um either. So, this is not the end of the fiscal year obviously, but it's the end of the calendar year. So, not as big of a deal in municipal
finance. Um, but if I hear anything differently, I will let you know. But currently, that's what I have on the but on the agenda. Are there any other topics that members would like to propose? No. All right. I am hearing no proposals.
Um, so if that is the case, um, that is all the topics I have for this evening, unless any other members have topics you would like to bring up tonight. All right. If that's the case, uh, would we like to take a roll call vote to
adjourn at 8:24 p.m.? Uh, I'll move to adjurnn. >> I'll second that. >> All right, we got a move. We got a second. Any other comments or discussion? No. All right, take a roll call vote to adjurnn. Nathan,
>> yes. >> Male, >> yes. >> Linda, >> yes. >> Peter, >> yes. >> Nathaniel, >> yes.
And I am also Yes. Thanks everyone. See you on the 8th. >> Bye. Happy holiday. >> Have a good night. Happy Thanksgiving. >> Happy holidays.