All right, good evening everyone. Um, my name is Jillian Predigast. Uh, I am the chair for the finance committee of Maynard. Uh, and I would like to call our meeting to order at 7 p.m. Uh, I will start by reading our script for remotely conducted meetings. Uh, and
then we will jump into the agenda. In accordance with open meeting law regulation 940 CMR29.10, 10. Please be advised that all FINCOM members um are attending this meeting remotely. In addition, because all FINCOM members are attending the meeting
remotely, all votes taken at this meeting will be by roll call vote. Lastly, if any members are not clearly audible um to fellow members or any members of the public, please notify uh me and I will do our best to remedy the problem. Um
and we will inform the public whether this meeting will continue. Um so um please me to confirm that all members and persons anticipated on the agenda are present and can hear me. PIMCOM members when I call your name please respond in the affirmative. Nathan,
>> yes. >> Linda, >> yes. >> Male, >> yes. Peter. >> Yes, >> Nathaniel.
We can't hear you, but hopefully you can hear us. >> Yes, system. Yes. >> Yes, I can hear you now. Yep. Hello. Thanks. Um, and then I think Katie will be joining shortly. Um and um so that is
all of our members. Um we also have um from the town staff um we have Justin here tonight to talk to us about the water sewer enterprises. So thank you very much for making time to talk to us Justin. We appreciate it. >> You're welcome. Good evening everyone.
>> Um all right so uh I will complete our remote meeting script here. So good evening. This is an open meeting of the finance committee. is being conducted via Zoom, speakers on the agenda will be participating remotely and the chair may allow for the public to provide comment. Um, please note that while an option for
remote attendance and or participation is being provided as a courtesy to the public, this meeting will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual broadcast to individual attendees unless required by law. Accordingly, please be aware that other folks may 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 the recording. This meeting is being recorded. Later, you can also find this meeting posted to the WAVM YouTube channel. Thank you to WAVM for your support. Um, for all meeting materials,
you can currently find them on the board docs. Um, uh, unless we note otherwise, we recommend that you follow along on the agenda as posted there. Um and we will now um turn to our agenda.
All right. So our agenda for tonight um we uh I would recommend that we would sort of talk about the water sewer enterprise costs and sort of get a little update um from Justin about the
DPW. So, I think one of our goals is to this year is to sort of try to help encapsulate all of the, you know, potential costs with the general fund. So like your taxes uh and also some of the other things in town like the water
sewer prize uh water sewer enterprise bills um and sort of start doing some projections on those so people can sort to understand um you know potential impacts of different initiatives within the town. Um and so we understand that
it's a little bit harder to do that for enterprise funds because they're sort of use based. Um, so it's not um, exactly something that is easy to trend or to future forecast. Um, but I think it's also good since our town growth is sort
of limited right now by the water supply to also sort of, you know, just generally touch on that as well. Uh, and I know Nail, you've been working on some documentation for sort of the potential forecasting, you know, future and past trends. Um, so this is
something that, you know, I think the select board um also potentially thought and in the tri board meetings thought might be helpful for people to think about as we're talking about some of these general fund initiatives, but also, you know, how do we get more water and other things for the town as well
with the sewer uh water sewer enterprise fund. So, um, we know no models are perfect. Um, we really do like the way Justin, you've been modeling it for sort of the three different levels of usage. Um, we thought that's really cool. So, we're hoping to sort of just have an
open discussion between the groups. Um, so we can try to help people understand, you know, what do these things, you know, go towards? I've talked to a lot of people in town where they're like, well, my taxes are so high, so the water should be, you know, exquisite. I've had people talking to me about the brown
water and I'm like, "Well, your taxes pay for other things. They don't pay for the water sewer prize sewer enterprise funds necessarily." Uh, and they did not know that. So, um, they were quite surprised. Um, I was like, it's sort of different different areas. Um, and I've
also been talking, and I don't know, Justin, if you have any light on this one, is, you know, we've been talking about potential things for overrides for some of the capital needs for these systems, too. Um, and how that might work and if that's independent of those
enterprise funds, too. So, I'll stop talking uh and give you the floor. So, >> thank you, Jillian. Justin Marco, public works director. Hello everyone. It's good to see you again. I sometimes only get to see you once or twice a year, so
it's really good. I hope everybody had a really good holiday season. Um, yes, Jillian. So, um, we can get started. I uh I just assume it would be more of like a Q&A, but I can give you a general overview of kind of what you what you
were um indicating is um at least for my six years um within the town of Maynard um when we're talking about water and sewer um just understand we have two enterprise funds that represent the water and sewer utility. One is to
represent water. We treat and distribute water and another enterprise fund is to to handle sewer. we collect and then we treat it and discharge back into the environment. So in essence, when you see your water and sewer bills, you really have two financial structures with four
departments. So there's four utilities in totality. Not every community treats their own water and distributes it. Some just distribute it, some don't. Uh a majority actually don't treat it. And the same goes on sewer. So when you hear
a lot of residents talk about we have very very high water and sewer bills, it's because we essentially have every single utility service under a public water system or public sewer system and we're actually um doing that for only 4400 customers.
So sometimes it's scales of economy as well. Um so that will drive up costs in regards to that. um when we're talking about um you know dirty water or discolored water and we hear a lot of constituents talk about we
pay high taxes. I hear that Jillian more than you can ever imagine. Um and we actually put an FAQ sheet out um with every rate increase um that actually indicates the difference between general taxation and enterprise funds. I know
sometimes it can be complex for most to understand that, but as um for my six years and beyond and prior to the town of Mater has never subsidize their water and sewer utility using general taxation. So right now currently it is
100% self-sufficient based on receipts which are essentially bills. So, um, that's not to say that a community can't subsidize or allocate general taxation funds towards, uh,
public water systems or public sewer systems. So, the best way to describe an enterprise fund is that it's like a vault or a bank. It can take money in. So, any subsidy can come in, whether it's federal, state, general taxation through municipal government, onetime
fees. But it's like a vault where that money then can't go out. It has to pay for itself. So whatever we take in for user fees for water and sewer, we can't then reallocate that to buy a police cruiser. It has to 100% stay and fund
the utility. So when we talk about high, you know, constituents talk about high costs on their water and sewer bills. We are a nonprofit. Remember that we're a government entity. So there's no there's no profit margins. there's no capital margins. 100% of those costs go to pay
for 100% of the system. So, in order for us to to make major changes and address discoloration, increased water capacity, we highlight this in a master plan that we presented to the select board. Um, it's also can
be found on our on our website under the DPW under our water page that indicates, you know, roughly over $und00 million worth of investment that's needed to increase water capacity and to treat water um, i.e. discoloration, but far
beyond just discoloration to meet um, future standards regarding PAS and other contaminants that are emerging. Um, outside of that, for the first time um, in my tenure in Maynard, the capital
committee has made a recommendation to the town administrator to help subsidize a few smallcale capital improvements with that are housed within the water and sewer department through free cash, which is excess receipts for general
taxation. So if that gets approved and moved forward in town meeting and select board approve it, then ultimately that will be the first time in in its inception as enterprise funds that we can chase back through our records that the town would be moving to help
subsidize water and sewer improvements. Um, one of the biggest things that I took on um, six years ago was if some of some of you are lifetime are longtime residents and may not truly understand this is prior to 6 years ago, the the
town of Maynard did not increase its water and sewer bills for over 20 years, which means that inflation was actually eating and eroding into the utility, which is why we're now playing major catch-up. That's the best way to describe it, major catch-up. And it's
not abnormal. Maynard's not the only one. A lot of public entities tend to do this. Um it's very shortsighted. Uh lack of long-term vision and long-term goals. Um since I came on board, we actively
address rates on a yearover-year basis. Um not only to keep up with inflation, but to make aggressive movements towards our master plan and capital improvements. I think I covered everything in a very high level there, but I'm sure we can kind of go back and forth with some
QAQC. >> Yeah, that was perfect. Thank you so much. >> Of course, Joan. >> So, I think um yeah, so I think we were maybe going to bring up Muel, you had some different ways that we were looking at this forecasting. I think I gave you permission, so you should be able to
share files, too. But I'm happy to pull it up if you let me know what one is easier. >> Yes. No, thank you very much. Um, Jill, I I if this would be okay. I I did have a couple of um um kind of like follow-up slash like confirmation questions which
would um if I could ask those potentially before sharing if that would be okay. Um just about some of the >> absolutely >> the terms from like the memos. Um uh thank you very much Justin for for that great overview. Um, I did want to ask just like a couple of questions about some of the terms in the memos. Um,
which was I was kind of using as uh um you know the source for some of this forecasting like Excel stuff um that we were doing and that we were looking at uh at our last meeting. But I I was just wondering um when we are sort of talking about um in in town and out of town
customers um on those water rate adjustment memos is that like are those all residential customers or are those commercial in in there too on those memos? And then is in town versus out of town a residential commercial breakdown or is that sort of within kind of one of those categories I guess. Sorry if
that's a kind of a long-winded question but >> it's perfect. No worries. No worries. Um so in town customers represent both residential and commercial. We don't segregate that out like within general taxation you know we have a split tax rate within our water and sewer utility.
We don't have a split commercial residential. Now in town is within the meets and bounds of Maynard. So our borders so our utility though does service some minor out of town customers. They tend to be on the fringes of communities that do not have
a public water system. So when I talk about out of town customers, you're talking about less than 1% of our customer base. But in essence, we serve um some neighborhoods adjacent to the Heights or Asabet Heights Fletcher area, which is right on the border, which is
Stow. And we have a few customers in Actton when you go down conquered street past the golf course on your left. We have a few residential customers there. That is it. We have out of town customers but again they represent less than 1% of our overall dwelling uh
excuse me our customer base. >> Gotcha. Um and this may be not not necessarily too sort of speculative speculative question but um is there what would your thoughts be on sort of the kind of the breakdown or like
proportion between um like residential and and commercial commercial usage? um is even just thinking about sort of how to articulate I guess but would you say like residential usage is 50% of the the
total water usage or 60 or 40 or how would you you know spitball that if you had to >> yeah so we don't have major manufacturing or production manufacturing in town. So typically the best way to look at this when when you hear about capacity and when when you
may hear about like us coming up to a cap of production, you'll typically hear me talk about the difference of like how um use patterns play with water. So residential typically uses 110 gallons per day per bedroom,
>> right? >> Commercial tends to use 10 gallons per day per person. So if you had an office of 10 people, it uses less than one bedroom. And the results of that is because laundry, cooking, things like that are an excessive use of water. Now,
when we're talking about our top five users, our top five users tend to be um 50% commercial, 50% residential, but again, that's based on density. So think of them, right? Yes, it's commercial, but it's over a million square feet. So,
it's one of our heaviest users commercially, but our other heavy users are some of our really dense housing, Hallstead, within Mayor Crossing, things like that. Really, really dense areas outside of that. But I would say for a healthy mix, we're roughly about 70%
residential, 30% commercial. >> Okay. Gotcha. Thank you very much. Mhm. >> Um and then the other thing and you you kind of do talk about this a lot in the memo. So, you know, certainly apology if it's sort of a repetitive question, but um you had sort of mentioned um that I
guess like an average usage was about maybe maybe a little under like 2500 cubic feet per quarter and and is that true of both residential and commercial usage, would you say? Or maybe >> no. No. >> So, no, not at all. So, what we do is like the best way to describe it is
commercial tends to pay the highest rate. So, okay, >> residential has a tendency to be on the smaller scale, right? We're stacking chips with residential, so they don't always hit that tier, that higher tier rate. Essentially, instead of a split tax, we have a tiered rate system that
inhibits, you know, kind of inhibits or pushes down over excessive use. >> But in essence, a majority of our tier four is our commercial. They tend to always hit that. So, they're not they're within the average. So we do do a 100%
reconciliation of our bill to create that average. Okay. But in essence, a majority of the feedback we get from our our residential users is they fall within that average range. So it is accurate enough that >> that you can indicate that that is what
our average household uses. Our low is the same and our high is the same as well. We t again based on that I mean if we really broke it in like if we drilled down for for hours we may be able to see that usage go down 100 cubic feet.
>> Gotcha. So it's it's sort of all in the margins kind of thing. >> Um excellent. And so so just to be explicit so even though that um say for example like that um even though that that 2500 like cubic feet per quarter figure even though that does include both residential and commercial it's
still pretty much accurate for for both of those. >> Yes. Um, and I think you had mentioned like does 5,000 cubic feet per quarter that would be like a high a high use that would sort of be broadly applicable to both uses and accurate there if that's correct. Right. Okay.
>> Yeah. Because again we can do that based on the fact that we don't have heavy water manufacturing. >> Okay. >> So in essence these are all office buildings. Even like market baskets they barely use water. You have to understand like restaurants, people would assume restaurants use a a significant amount
of water. Honestly, 110 Grill uses as much as a resident in Howard Road that's using irrigation to irrigate their lawn, right? They have they they invest in in dishwashing equipment that uses really low water, high pressure. Their cooking
water is actually much less than you can possibly think. The same goes for like places like Dunkin Donuts. People don't truly understand that, but we as we see meter reads all the time. It's it's very comparable. What I would tell you is your 5,000 users tend to be those with
luxury items. Whether they have irrigation for their lawns, automated irrigation systems, those tend to be pools. They fill up their pools on a regular basis. Um those tend to be what I what we refer to as our luxury users.
>> Gotcha. and um the town and this is you know not in the memo so I'm I'm very much assuming the answer is no but you know we're obviously not charging by like meter width or diameter like any any stuff like that like other towns do we don't do >> so no so we do have excess charging
service charges which I can get I could show you our service schedule for things like fire suppression um hydrants mains things like that and then we charge by diameter we charge every aspect to the water that we produce through a meter
process. So, it is 100% accountable and accurate. >> Gotcha. Gotcha. Um actually, well, thank you for answering all those questions. I really appreciate that. That definitely helped with a lot of um kind of the assumptions that I was sort of building into like these um these forecasting models and that sort of
thing. Um, so >> of course >> I don't know if anyone else has has questions at this point, but >> Justin, how do you uh decide um where the tiers are going to be set? Is that kind of like an industry standard or is that something that um the water department has come up with?
>> No. So, so just so you know, Nathan, um the Department of Public Works, the director is not a commissioner. There is different tiers of authority. The commission, i.e. the water and sewer commissioners are the select board. Ultimately, they're the policy makers.
What we do as the DPW is we provide rate recommendations based off of a combination of operational needs, capital needs, debt schedule needs, indirect cost needs. That's really the four pillars that make up the budget. And then the rate or the revenue
requirement is based off of that. We typically within the Department of Public Works, we provide two rate options to the board, but we always have a default. If the board doesn't like those rates, we'll go back to the drawing board, right? So, every every
year we do a rate hearing. It's actually going to come up in about two months probably. Um, and then yearly we the water and sewer commissioners review our requests and our recommendations and then they adopt the rates. Now, we have financial goals. So when we're talking
about our rates, our target is to be under 10% collectively. That is actually our goal. Our goal is to uh meet inflation and then uh excuse me, strategically layer in our
capital improvement plan, which is our master plan within the timelines of allowance for permitting and bonding. So that's really our our overall strategic approach when it comes to our finances, when it comes to water and sewer. And so when you I'll
kind of circle back to the tier process. We create a tier system. Now not every utility has tiered rates. We use a tier rate system because it actually helps us reduce our capacity, i.e. incentivize
less use. So if you are somebody who who's ultra-conservative with your water, you essentially pay less. So we need to do that because we actually can't produce excess more water, right? So we have a physical infrastructure constraint that will not allow us. We're
at that cap now, right? So we have provided a lot of strategies in regards to how we kind of help sustainably manage our water and this tiered structure is one of those examples. Nathan, now we use a four tiered system where others sometimes use a three-
tiered system. Our four tiered system is geared towards overall policy and guidance that we've received from the water and sewer commissioners for years where they are very sensitive to our senior or um underprivileged
um uh residents. um where we kind of reduce that tier one, tier 2 rate at a lower level because that tends to be our uh senior population or our underserved population. And then we focus our tier four on our high users, i.e. our luxury
users. If you have the money to pay for a pool, then you have the money to pay for the water, right? If you have the money to pay for a lawn and irrigation, then essentially you're paying for luxury. We always refer to as needs versus wants, right? We're talking about potable water right there. This is the
essence of any first world country where you have delivered potable water. So we look at tier one and tier two as absolutes, tier three and tier four as luxury. >> Um that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for that explanation. Uh part of what
you were uh saying touches on the next question I I wanted to ask about like when rate changes are determined you know by the select board you have your annual rate hearing. I'm curious um because you put like a lot of planning into uh your goals for like the enterprise funds. Do you like do you do
you have like an idea of where the rates will be going in like the next several years or do you kind of like determine that on a yearby-year basis um at like hearing? >> Yeah. At the rate hearing, we project our rates four to five years regularly.
Obviously, there's variables, right? I don't have to tell you all this. You try to layer it in, but there could be, you know, a sidebar a sideball variable that comes in and you may have to adjust it. But our goal again, our five-year goal, fiveyear running average goal is always to have a
combination of 10 or under and then layering it in as we as we discuss, Nathan. And when when we do our presentation, what I can do is I can follow up with our, you know, probably our last five-year presentations that we provide to the board with our memos with
all of that that kind of look at a forecasted approach um when we're talking about water and sewer rates. So in essence, we just came off, just so you know, because everything is based off of again capital operating. We just came off of
finalizing and finishing phase one of our four-phase capital improvement plan. When we're talking about water capacity and treatment, what h what I mean by that is we essentially already bonded that. It's already been paid for. We just finished the project. We are
cleaning our hands, wrapping up projects completed, and now we're phasing into essentially three to four year window gaps. Right? So now in the past two or three years, we've been building bonding capacity. And we do this so that we don't have drastic rate spikes. So what
we do is we kind of look at this as a as a steady incline of rates, maybe a bell curve depending on what we have for federal or state funding that can help subsidize. The same can be said as if if the environment of Maynard's uh
stakeholders start to supplement the water through general fund, then we can in in essence reallocate our rates down because we're subsidizing a lot of what our long-term planning is through general taxation. It's one of the biggest arguments that the town of
Maynard should be having right now. Should we be paying for other things or should we be putting all our cards or decks into the water process? Do we want to make our rates X to pay for everything? Will we keep our taxes low? It's obviously it's a gamble, right?
It's a conversation of like where's the sweet spot for everybody here? Um, essentially when you put it all on users, you are essentially proportionately paying for the service. when you put it under general taxation or allocations of
general taxation. I'm just gonna I'm not going to pick on anybody, but let's imagine Nquille is at a tier one user, but his tax rate is much higher. Maybe he lives in a big house, but he's a single guy or something. And let's say Nathaniel, you're a tier four user, but
you live in a small house and you got three or four kids. I know they're coming, Nathan. You got three or four kids, right? Proportionately, you're paying a fair share when you do it now. But in essence, if we shift too much of that burden to general taxation, you can make Nikquil can make the argument that
he's subsidizing your water use and vice versa. Right? So there's a healthy balance to be found. The one thing I would say this with 4,400 customers paying for $100 million in bonds is unrealistic. I would have to quadruple your current
rate. So imagine every one of your bills quadrupling that it's unsustainable. So there has to be a fine line that we find with subsidy allocations and it's a bigger conversation. I'm sure you all kind of you know about some of the larger ticket
items out there when we're talking about facilities, bleachers, etc. But in essence, that's where the quad board really has to dig in and create a prioritized matrix of capital improvements.
Can can you fill me in on um what the capital uh planning committee is is recommending uh free cash be allocated for to subsidize the water budget. >> Yeah. So technically there it's a totality of $70,000 in FY27 broken out
to two projects. Um, one is a $30,000 jar testing um, analysis that needs to be kind of at the forefront of starting the design development feasibility of replacing our one of our water treatment plants which is referred to as OMR which
is the old Malbor road treatment plant which is the treatment plant that has the um, degradation to create discolored water not create it but not be able to filter out the coloration. So that is the hot spot area. That is the treatment
plant that has the discoloration. So that's the jar testing for that. It's a really low-level lowhanging fruit at the beginning of moving the 3 to 4 year window forward. 40 another 40,000 is put into a um a design study and permitting
process to allow the town to switch our current ortho phosphate system to a polymer ortho phosphate system. Now, I know that now I'm getting very scientific. I will explain what that means. So, a lot of policy has been
pushed over the last four years regarding lead lines, lead and water. I'm sure everybody got your letters and I'm sure everybody has heard about those policies from a national a global uh excuse me, a national and state perspective. Just so you know, in the
town in Maynard, we're moving all those policies forward. But what we do is in our community is we inject ortho phosphate which is a chemical that coats all pipes including all internal house piping. And typically lead piping is
actually internal plumbing into a house that we the town don't own. It's not in our water manes. It's in an old house that was built in the 60s that has lead solder. So orthophosphate's been used for hundred years and it and it goes and it coats the internal aspect of a of a
pipe so that lead does not leech into the water. It's a protection. Think of it like a force field. Nothing can penetrate. So we want to move our orthophosphate chemical to what's referred to now as an ortho
orthoohosphate polymer blend. So we use polymer blending which is a different process of the chemical compound. What we're hoping to achieve with the orthopolymer blend is to reduce operational costs which is always a good thing but orthopolymer blend has the
ability to actually displace coloration. So it will not be the save all but will reduce the cadences of coloration in our water. What it is is what I'm really gonna go down the rabbit hole. So, please Jillian interrupt me if I'm if
I'm going too far, but the reason that we have discoloration, it's iron and maganesees. What happens is we literally draw water out of a swamp. If you went over there, you would never drink this water. If you knew what your water looked like before we treated it, you would be like, "Oh my goodness, you guys
are a miracle." So, we pull out of a swamp. It's referred to as the iron bog. So it pulls out natural occurring uh minerals iron and manganesees. What we do is we separate those iron and manganesees with the chemical system called permaganate and or sometimes
chlorine depending on uh the treatment plant. What that does is it coagulates. It's actually referred to as oxidation but think of it as like taking these minerals and making them bigger. Then they go through with these big filter vessels like any filter cartridge you
would see, but ours are referred to as green sand filters. These green sand filters have electronic charges. So ion exchange roughly, but they are not ion exchange processes. What it is is think of like a strainer of spaghetti. So you put it all through all the spaghetti
kind of stays up top, but you have that weird watery substance that kind of has like the excess that gets through the holes. What ends up happening is then we have to dose it on the way out of the filter with chlorine to make sure we kill all bacteria and viruses. The
things that would really cause you harm, not coloration. Coloration is displeasing, but it does not hurt you. So what happens is once it leaves the plant, it is clear. So we don't know that discoloration's in the system. And so chlorine is also an oxidizer. So, it
goes into our veins all across our community. While it sits in there for long periods of time because we have very low users, we hold our water in tight because we don't have a lot of it. Over time, it has a tendency to start to
congeal again. And so, that coloration is just big chunks of iron and manganesees finding themelves back together. And so, your eyes can physically see it. And so our polymer blend has a tendency when it enter when it gets into the
system has a tendency to keep these things from coming together in large amounts which could displace color. I hope that all made sense. That was my highle Bill Nye the science
guy for you. Dustin, can I ask a question about um the water bills? And it's that when you set the rates, we have this minimum rate. And as I'm looking back at my water bills, it went up from in five
years from $22, now it's $45. Why? Why did it double that minimum? So the base rate even if you don't use any water. >> Yep. >> You know, it more than doubled. And for people who are using low water, >> that minimum like just to connect went
up so much. >> Yep. So, Linda, just so you know, that's called a base fee. That's just a customer fee whether you use water or not. >> The base fee revenue is actually based on the regular day-to-day operational needs. So, whether you use water or not,
that's how much it costs to run the plant. That's how much it costs to actually produce the water, whether you use it or not. That's how much it costs just to maintain the barebone minimum of the entire system is the base fee. Now,
what we were doing, and if you kind of go back when I said Mayor didn't increase its rates for a very long time, >> unfortunately, it didn't adjust those base fees, which are actually the guaranteed revenue, which is where we build our regular operating budget. >> They did not increase those to meet
industry standard, the inflationary factor over 20 years. We were sensitive to that, Linda. We could have easily came in and said like we showed the the loss of revenue to the expenditure instantly and we could have easily said what most communities are
doing, you need to raise the base fee 57%. Instead, we were very very strategic and we tal we you we strategized with as long as we look at rates year-over-year that we can spread that cost and make it somewhat predictable, which is what we
did. If you chase back those five years, it was almost a $5 a year increase, which was predictable. >> And so, essentially base fees are the needed operational costs and inflation. So, I don't know if you any of you got
to watch my uh DPW operation overview um budget uh excuse me, overview presentation. One of the biggest things when you're talking about DPWs outside of almost every other municipal department, commodity goods and services inflation
affects what our program services produce the most. So, when electricity prices go up, guess what we need to do to produce water? We have pumps. We have to literally run a machine 247, seven
days a week, 365 days a year. So as electric prices are going up 30%. That's a cost down price right into your water. So you got to think bigger here, right? So these are the things that we have to address for and that's where base fees had to be increased. So the same
>> why did sewer not go up? Sewer did not go up the base fee. So sewer's base fee was already set where it needed to be >> because the town of Maynard invested in its wastewater treatment plant >> almost 10 years ago and they adjusted their base fee to match that operation
then. >> So if you notice if you chase back Linda the last five six years you'll notice that water is exponentially increasing while sewers kind of meeting like a 2 or 3% which I would say is close to inflation. That's because we're not
investing any capital in sewer because without water, sewer doesn't exist. >> Yeah. Okay. Thank you. >> So that's why we're overly heavy on water. But we're sensitive because it's a combined bill, right? Essentially, >> if we were a separate utility,
I would not sit here and be so positive that your sewer wouldn't have been going up at the same rate. But we know that 4,400 customers can't support both capital improvements. But again, if you look at it like just from a bas of common sense, if we can't produce water, then sewer doesn't exist. So we have to
fix the water and then essentially if we can grab more customers with water capacity, we can essentially defer some of those costs, scale of commodity to then pay for our future wastewater and sewer upgrades. >> Thank you.
>> You're welcome. I had a another question about the tiers. Um I I just noticed that, you know, from tier one to tier two there's a big there's a large increase. Um I'm looking at my water bill here. Tier one looks like it's about $3. Uh and then it
goes to $850. So that's like a $5.50 increase. Uh and then it goes up to 10 for tier three and then $1267 for tier four if I understand that correctly. Uh, and I'm I'm curious why there's the biggest increase between tier one and
tier two. And I I would I just would have expected that on like the higher tiers. >> Well, the problem is when you over taxation or over tier the top four, it's not guaranteed revenue because someone could drop that down. So, we still have to meet our revenue requirements. And
because the board is so sensitive to our senior and disadvantaged um customers, we have been hyper restrictive on tier one and we can't we still need revenue. So if we go to tier
four and don't do anything here and then spread two and three up to four, we essentially don't bring in the revenue. There is a people stop. They're like, "All right, I'm done with my irrigation system. It cost me more to run than it does to install it. One of the things
that's the challenge here is we're running up against the sheer fact that we're squeezing for our water capacity cap. We're squeezing our residents, right? essentially driving down usage, which is great, but it's it's not buying
us enough capacity, cap capacity to continue to advance new customers because everybody that wants to come into Maynard wants to drop 500 housing units. It's not like, hey, we got a subdivision that wants to put five
houses in over here. Every time we kind of do that, we can handle that kind of growth, but nobody wants to do that. developers won't want to do that. The state is hyper pushing dense development, which is counterproductive to what our issues are. So, in essence,
we're kind of in this cap where we still have to have our revenue meet our day-to-day needs. And if we price point out our tier four users, they're just going to become tier three users. And we have to bring that cap that revenue back down to tier three, tier two, tier one.
So, it's counterproductive. So it is it is a balance all the way through. Again, Nathan, I bring forth two recommendations to the board every year. One with almost the best way to describe it like a flat tax or flat rate and another one with a hyper focus rate
based on what the what the select board continually asks for. >> So it sounds like what what I'm seeing is a big increase to tier 2 is is less that and more if you took an average kind of like across all the all those groups. It's it's a big decrease to for
a tier one >> compared to the average. Okay. >> It's a big Yeah, tier one tends to be our our seniors to two individuals that are using water far less. Remember when I talk about residential use, we're
talking about showers, laundry, those are heavy water users. Seniors tend to not take one to two showers a day. They tend to not do a significant amount of laundry. One load of you know five loads in a day like a family of four is going to do. So in essence that tier one is
really that that subset. >> All right. Do we have any more Q&A from uh at this time? I I I was curious if you could speak toward to um what like the the near future plans are for like uh like new
wells or otherwise increasing capacity. I know you spoke to um improvements at old Marlboro Road. Uh but it sounded like that was more about treating discolored water than in increasing capacity. >> Nope. Yeah. So Nathan, that it that was only based on the conversation we were
having in regards to Jillian bringing up discoloration. So, if you're unaware, I highly, highly recommend every single one of you as FINCOM members to go to our website under the DPW underwater and look up the tab water master plan. It is
a heavy hefty read, but it is well worth the read as stakeholders that may be challenged with questions like Jillian has etc. But in essence, I will break it down very high level for you right now, Nathan, as you ask that question. So, the town of Mainage Water Utility had a
four-phase uh improvement plan. That improvement plan encompasses new well sources or new water capacity sources while also addressing treatment upgrades. We have to hit this from two angles. We are being ultra uh we are
getting ultra restrictive from both our federal and state compliance departments to meet today's regulations which are adapting at a rapid rate. future emerging treatment processes. While we as a community, which is very specific
to Maynard, there is other communities like this, but most other communities do not have a water production capacity constraint. They have the treatment issues. We have to target both new sources and treatment in a strategic approach. So, we have a four-phase
capacity improvement plan, which has actually transpired into the long-term master plan. Just so you know, phase one is already completed. As you heard me talk about, we are finishing a bond. That phase one was a brand new well. That brand new well is
actually roughly behind Maynard Crossing. That brand new well source though, unfortunately, all of its water production capacity went to Mayor Crossing's development. So, we didn't have water capacity before Maynard Crossing. We put a new well on. Maynard
Crossing ate it up. So, we're back to baseline. So phase two, which is what we're shifting into, is um Rockland A. So we have three treatment plants. Rockland A is a future site for two to
three new well sources and treatment plant upgrades to address those. You have to bring on those well sources. You have to make sure the treatment plant can treat at that capacity load. And then we have to address emerging contaminants, i.e. PAS. So phase two is
roughly um just starting. We are we have some uh deficits in cost that we need allocated. Um but technically the best way to look at it is phase 2 is estimated to cost around 22 to $24 million. We are moving we were very
successful with acquiring a $2.3 million D grant for uh excuse me preliminary design. Unfortunately, it doesn't encompass all of the design needs. We're roughly about $3 to $5 million of design
funding gap to design both phase 2 and phase three, which can be confusing. Phase three is Old Mob Road. So, yes, we have a treatment plant that is beyond degradation. We have wells that are failing and the raw water is degra
degradating beyond reproach. Phase three encompasses turning on an abandoned well because the water capacity there is large, but the the actual raw water is garbage, meaning our treatment plant can't treat it. But
if we upgrade the treatment plant, we can then turn that well back on and acquire that water. It's already permitted. We also have another piloted well that we found in that area that has the potential to also provide a very hefty yield. So even every phase of our
four phase increases water capacity cap while also targeting treatment. So OMR's treatment would be to upgrade the treat. It's actually an entire new treatment plant. There's no upgrading of the treatment plant. It's all beyond reproach. The entire treatment process and the treatment train would have to be
upgraded to one handle the raw water degradation that's currently there. The previous abandoned well and future wells while also taking in Green Meadow all of our third treatment plants water to decommission that plant and go from three plants to two plants which is why
you're going to hear this cost tag get higher. But it's not just for that cuz we also have to remove PAS at that location too. So in essence, for long-term operational savings, a town of our magnitude should not be operating three treatment plants. Those are bad
decisions made 50 years ago. Hopefully none of us were residents of Maynard at that time, but just bad decisions made back then. So in essence, that whole phase three is close to $60 to hund00 million in totality. That is the heftiest because it needs an entire new
treatment plant. Phase two, which we'll go back to, should provide a bigger yield, which should allow us to open and unlock the growth capacity again, thus driving our customer base up from 4,400 to 5,000 hopefully. And at that point,
we'll be able to spread that new revenue to help pay for the bond to shift to phase three. It's all highlighted in detail within the master plan. But we do have budget gaps. We essentially are barely moving into
phase two. We are not full steam ahead. We don't have all the money and we're just going. We are barely going. So that's why cap the Capcom is like, "Hey, listen. We don't have much, but here here's some money. We want to put it towards water." Right? And this is where
that bigger larger conversation needs to be had about subsidizing the enterprise funds. If not, we're not going to we can't hit our 10% margins and we're going to start talking about 20 and 30% increases. And that's unfortunately that's what a majority of communities in
the Commonwealth are doing right now in Hudson. They've raised rates 20 to 30% year-over-year for the last three years. So the there is public water utilities throughout New England are failing
because they're the oldest systems. Lack of progressive proactive involvement in these utilities for far too long are resulting in the failure across the board. And those towns that have the capacity are doing it and
they're moving forward. A lot of your larger municipalities in the Commonwealth abandoned water treatment 20, 30 years ago and connected to MWR, which is something we're also exploring as well. But those are the successful
communities. You see the the growth pattern inside 128 belt. You see larger uh cities outside 128, West Bro, Malro, things Burlington, things like that. Those are all MWA connected cities which is means they can just grow
exponentially. It's not about production at that point. They're just shifting that cost burden on to somebody else. So what's holding Maynard back from growth is 100% our ability to produce enough water and treat it appropriately and then on the back end it will be waste
water and treating it. Sometimes what ends up happening and this is just I always give this advice to any stakeholder is when the conversations of large developments come in like Maynard Crossing. If Fincom has the ability to get in
front of another large development, it would behoove the community to understand that they should be pulling aside new growth and taxation for repercussions in service. What I
what I mean by that is typically communities will put a 10% cap. So 10% of new growth and 10% of new taxation will go into a kitty to support any issues foreseen underwater and sewer in
the future. 5% will go for the increase in fire and and emergency uh response. There's always a service need to any largecale development. And what most communities do is they see the new growth, they absorb it quickly, and
everybody gets 10 extra pencils instead of prioritizing it for largecale capital, right? And so, and it's a hard argument. It's political. It's far beyond just the finance committee. This will take the select board. It will take
Capcom. It will take the school committee to understand that, you know, not everybody needs 22 more pencils. We have to focus on things that actually drive up future growth which brings in revenue. When you treat a corporation, i.e. the town of Maynard like a business, then we can be successful.
Instead, we're not investing in the commodity that provides us revenue. We're paying for luxury items that provide us no revenue. And it's backwards. I often say wants versus needs. We're consistently paying for
wants in Maynard when we need to be paying for needs. The bleachers is a perfect example of that. >> Yep. I did want to stay I I appreciate that. Uh I did want to stay on the topic of
water and sewer tonight. So, I don't know if male if there's any particular figures you wanted to talk about and sort of get feedback on. So, um >> I can I can share the um like the revised graphs if if that would be helpful. Uh Jill. Um >> yeah, I know you were doing some
comparisons to other towns, too. So, I don't know if we want to maybe talk about how how we feel about that. Uh if that's if that's the town we want to use and things like that. So, I think this is new data for everyone to see. So, >> yes. Yes. So, would you like me to share screen then or? Um,
>> yes, please. Yeah, >> perfect. I will um I'll go ahead and do that. Uh, just give me one moment. >> So, and I think as part of background for that, as you're pulling that up, I can maybe set the stage. So, it's my understanding that these new figures are sort of looking at um Perfect. Yeah. And
I can let you talk to them obviously. I don't want to steal your thunder because they're pretty neat. Oh. Uh, no, no, not at all. Um, yeah. So, so this is, um, pretty much the same graph that we were looking at at our last meeting. Um, but I just made the revisions that we had kind of talked
about in terms of, um, I know last time we were sort of looking at it um, like per person, per household, which I I guess that I mean that wasn't necessarily super um, a super great metric. Um so this is kind of sort of
the more um original uh statistics. So this is just by the households themselves. Um this is per year. So I was uh multip I had multiplied those quarter figures that we had looked at um before um so that it could be by year because
we were talking about kind of the annual um basis of a cost of living um and kind of measuring it sort of by year as opposed to by quarter. So all of that is sort of uh you know everything's just multiplied by four. Um uh I'm very grateful uh to Linda for providing me with some historical data with regard to
2016 to 2019. So so thank you very much for that. Um I was able to get that data in there. Um so this is yeah you know not to sort of belabor the point of course but this is you know again just pretty much sort of that same graph. um kind of seeing some of the historical data. I think putting the uh sort of the
beyond 2025 trends kind of maybe in more perspective. Um I think kind of uh you'll see this on sort of the next draft, but as as Justin alluded to, I think we're we're definitely seeing um a steeper increase um in the water
generally um than we are in the sewer. I I don't have water and sewer lines on the same graph, but if I did have that, I think we would certainly um see that trend. But I mean it's kind of pretty not noticeable sort of uh regardless. Um and then you know this is kind of as we
were talking about um this is broken down by average. So we were talking about like 2500 or I should really say a little bit below 2500 um cubic feet per quarter as kind of the like average use in a quarter. So um I multiplied I
believe uh that by four and that gets us to 8,900. So, you know, a little under 10,000 there and then a low usage 4,000 cubic feet per year and then high, you know, usage of 20,000. So, kind of returning to those numbers and then
again just multiplying those by four and then uh very much sort of the same thing for the sewer. Um and we can see that that is you know again a gentler increase um even a bit of a decrease there um 2018 to 2019 for sort of a low
usage. Um and then this is sort of all of the new stuff uh cuz I mean those other two graphs are just kind of the revisions from the stuff that we were looking at our last meeting. But in terms of what's new um we have a a Maynard to Milis comparison here. Um,
I'll actually start with the water, um, since we were sort of looking at water. Um, but anyway, so I, surprisingly enough, um, Milis has slightly higher water usage than that. And, um, I was actually I was Linda, you and I were emailing about this a little bit, but
they do things quite a bit differently than than we do um, in the sense that they have it, um, measured in terms of gallons. >> Um, they they do still do it per per quarter. So, you know, just m multiplying that by four, but they actually do it per for in terms of
gallons um rather than than cubic feet. So, I was uh this is obviously all in in cubic feet. So, I was just able to make those sort of conversions. Um and then the other sort of important note with regard to milis um is that they also differentiate and I had asked sort of
Justin about this actually kind of to confirm that we we didn't do this, but they actually do differentiate in terms of the diameters of their meters. Um, but I I just sort of included a note. So, this is all based on uh a 5/8 uh meter. Um, and I I pulled like this word
dock from Milis's website. And on that word dock, it said that um most residential properties in Milis use a 5/8 meter. Um, so I just sort of ran with that kind of as the sort of estimate for the model. Um they pretty much suggested
um that commercial properties are using um maybe some of the larger meters, but it seems like the residential use is 5/8 which is also the uh uh least expensive uh meter in terms of the charge that that generates. um in terms of the
actual like milis measurements and and not to you know uh go on about milis for too long but in terms of the actual uh milis measurements from the word dock that I was looking at my understanding is that this appears I think this is residential only but I'm I'm honestly
not completely sure because the word dock that I was looking at seemed to imply that all the data was was residential the ones that we had sort of found uh on the website kind of at the end of last meeting um which was I think sent out by email uh to to to me at
least. But I I think that data is residential. It was kind of sort of implied to be residential, but I I wasn't completely sure. Um but uh sort of to return to kind of to the lines that you're you're seeing themselves. Um certainly so obviously Milis's um sort of uh and this is just average water
use. I didn't want to have six lines on the graph because that would maybe make it hard to look at. But but Milis's use is higher and they also sort of set things up differently in that our minimum charge is just our minimum charge, but from what I was reviewing from the Millistocks, they include in
their minimum charge um cross connection fees and capital assessment fees. And those seem to exist independently of uh how much water you're using. So, so regardless of how many um gallon gallons you're using, um you're kind of uh each
each user is sort of covering uh a portion of those cross connection fees um and those capital assessment fees, which is doesn't seem to be the the way ours is is set up. Um but that's the way that they they've sort of set that up. And so um based again on this word dock
that I was looking at from Melissa's website, it seems like they are just um kind of shuffing those additional fees onto the minimum. And then they then they do have the tiers. Um their tiers, they have three tiers and it's um in increments of 25,000 gallons um which is
a little over 3,000 cubic feet um if I recall correctly. So you know their their tier sort of rates are are lower, but their their minimum fee is quite a bit higher. Um and that sort of all comes out to their water usage. again an
average 8,900 cubic feet being a bit higher than ours. Um and then we see sort of the opposite being the case with the average sewer charges and I think that is in large part um because the milis minimum sewer charge doesn't have
those additional fees. So you're really seeing in in this graph milis's low uh tier rits or maybe step rates I could say you're really seeing those come into play. Um, and you know, our our sewer charges are quite a bit higher than those. Um, in contrast to what we saw
with the water. Um, I did only have milis data uh as far back as 2019. Um, so so the the starting year on this graph is 2019. Um, as opposed to 2016 as we saw for sort of uh the Maynard water and sewer graphs. So that's just sort of
like an overview. Um, there's also some like the data that just goes into it. Um I just have that sort of here. Um again just showing sort of the calculations in terms of tracking the minimums and the
the conversion to sort of rates by year and then um if folks are curious just this is sort of the milisk kind of calculations and in terms of converting that from gallons to cubic feet. Um so we have a rate of increase per 100 cubic feet and then it's you know within the
certain bounds of of usage and then um 100 gallons is is you know this amount as if I remember correctly that it's 100 gallons um but this is the equivalent sort of increment um and you know this 1 to 3,342
that's the that's 1 to 25,000 gallons that sort of portion of that and then it increments sort of in this way and then again we have the calculations uh converting from you know quarter to just sort of the multiplication there. Um so that's sort of the data that kind of
goes into the the graphs and then kind of in comparison to what we were talking about last time just providing a bit of a more historical view um going back a bit further I think um the graphs that we were looking at last time I think those only went back to 2020 um if I
remember correctly. So we have some some more data um to kind of put those future predictions from 2026 onwards into you know perspective. So so those are the graphs and um uh yeah happy to answer any questions >> and I think it's it's I it's kind of a
question comment but I guess um Justin in the in you said that you've done some of these future projections out for like the presentations to the select board. Is that part of their closed um like closed documents that actually aren't on board docs or are those Okay, so that's something you go back and look at.
>> No, they're usually in a slide in the PowerPoint presentation. So under board docs, just go to the make sure that you go into the presentation. It's always in the public um excuse me the public rate hearing. So we do that obviously that gets put in the
newspaper. It's a public hearing. Um, but typically those forecasting is one slide within the PowerPoint. >> Um, I do have a couple of quick questions too. Um, so you're just compare I'm assuming you're just comparing rates to rates. Did you
compare utility to utility? How many treatment plants they have? >> How many miles of they have? Things like that. >> So I want to have a shared wastewater treatment facility. They don't have an isolated wastewater treatment facility
like the like the town of Maynard. >> Right. So, so this is just um this is just like the average use and then what the comparison is there. Um the reason why um and maybe others others can certainly I think speak to this as well, but I know there's I guess been like
discussion floating around in terms of like Milis kind of being like a peer of ours in a lot of ways. So it seemed like the consensus from our previous meeting was to you know why not use Milis as as the pier sort of for this kind of uh you know comparison but just sort of the
general vibe if you will is that uh you know milises kind of appear to us uh in various ways. So just thought I would sort of use it for this one as well. Um but no just only looking at usage. >> Yeah they are in some ways actually. I I want to say it was uh it was Jillian and
Jeff that that did the um closest comp. Right. A lot of that was done on a financial basis, but Jillian can speak to it more. I don't know if we dove into operational comparison. >> Yeah, I don't know if we dove into an operational comparison. Those are the flags that I want to make sure you're
prepared for. >> Someone's going to say, "Well, why is Mainor paying double?" >> If they have a shared wastewater treatment facility, i.e., if you broke down our operating budget under sewer, our b our biggest expense under sewer is our wastewater treatment facility. the
town's largest operations or actually let me rephrase that. The town's largest third party contract is its on andm of its wastewater treatment facility which is over a million dollars a year just to pay a third party to operate it. So those are the things that sometimes can
get lost when we over analyze just the highle analytics and we don't dive into why. So that would be my only concern. No, that do we is Milisa part of the um like the regional authority M MWR that we
were talking about earlier? >> A lot of communities can come in different ways. Let's I'll give you a couple examples. You both you all know Sudbury and Actton. So Sudbury and Actton they have their own water districts who are not part of the DPW and do not essentially don't really fall
under town government. They are their own entity. So sometimes they can get lost in that process of comparison. Now there's other communities that have shared resources. So I used to work for the city of Malro. Northro is a small town next to Malro. It's starting to
become a little bigger city now. Malro had its own uh wastewater treatment facilities. It actually has two wastewater treatment facilities, one on the east and one on the west side. The one in the west 50% of its capacity is actually utilized by Northro. So they
have an intermunicipal agreement. So the cost comparisons aren't always going to equate. Milis could be the same way. So if it's a shared town now, Maynard had that potential opportunity. You're going to hear a lot of conversations of the past about Actton and Maynard fighting
over you won't take my kids, we won't take your poop. That's that's for real. And just so you know, the wastewater treatment facility in Actton and the wastewater treatment facility in Maynard are less than 100 ft apart and they're not shared. So like those
are the opportunity costs lost, right? So some of those things are, you know, we got to sometimes we have to dive in deeper. What I would say is if you're up to it, if you get your hands on their operating budget, so both water and sewer, I can help look through that with
you to help kind of understand why there would be red flags. I have no problem doing that if you if you get the time to get on that. Like ours, we can I can give you our line item by line item operating budgets for both water and sewer and you can kind of see that if you want as well. So,
>> and I suppose there would be kind of difficulties in finding like a town that's like has the exact same water situation as like we do obviously cuz you know that's >> no one does. You can't Yeah, you absolutely can't. Sizes of mains, ages of mains, geographical distancing. So
sewer is even more complex. If you you know water we use pressure so we pump it and geographic heights don't really matter so much. Pressures do a little bit. When it comes to sewer pumping is very very cumbersome because
everything sewer is gravity and so we have to use these riser pumps and get it back to gravity. Now we have 11 pump stations where others may have three based on their geographic location. Those are all run 247 electric right as
we see electric rays. I would tell you 100% of the cost changes in water and sewer. I would tell you probably 50% are coming on the back of energy increases for the town of Maynard in this state and New England region. We are at the
mercy of extreme electrical rate increases and that has a direct correlation to our water and sewer. All right, thanks for sharing, Muel. I think this is a really interesting way to look at it. And I think like Justin said, we definitely want to make sure
the graphs are um qualified is not the right word, but sort of have the caveats on there that you know there's there's obviously differences and and you did a really nice job of putting them on there already. So, we'll be interested to look at at past presentations maybe, Justin. and see how
our the projections go for >> for for what we have on our graph too. >> Yeah, Jillian, if you look up this the PowerPoint presentations under Bordox, if not just follow up with an email, I have every single file. >> Okay. >> Presentation.
>> Thank you. >> All right. I want to be sensitive of your time tonight. So, do we have any lingering questions, comments uh to talk with Justin tonight? All right. I think the only other question I might have and you might not have an answer yet is is uh are you all
expecting to make any articles for the upcoming ATM >> besides sort of the traditional ones? >> Traditional >> traditional Yeah. >> So traditional water and sewer. So like our reserve funds are um our minor
capital things like that water and sewer um unique maybe. Well maybe but it's not water and sewer. Do you still want to hear about it? >> Is it the the garage perhaps? >> No. It would be a it'd be a revolving
fund for uh road repair based off of permits we collect for road work from third parties. So Ever Source digs up a collect permits. Right now it goes in the general fund and it goes to pencils. So if we did a revolving fund where it'd
be a direct payment, so every road that gets dug up by a third party, we collect fees for, we would use that to revitalize roads. Obviously, that would have to be accepted by many bodies before it gets to town meeting, which may be a political nightmare, but I'm going to do
my best. >> All right. Well, we we wish you the best um on that one. >> Um outside of that, Katie, how is Heights Terrace during the winter events?
>> She's not listening. >> No, I am. >> Okay. >> It it I so I was skeptical where Maynard stops and so starts because the dip seemed to get a little bigger and bigger, but >> it's been okay. And kids know now to not
like ride their bike 50 miles an hour over that little dip. >> And but it's it's weird better than I thought. And the water has done its job and um we super impressed. >> I just want to make sure because I haven't had some feedback on that. So that one's a tough one. So that's why I asked.
>> But yeah, and I haven't had to go like in the winter sometimes we have to make the decision, do we go up the hill or down the hill? Like are we gonna make it up? Um but we haven't had to do that yet this year. So >> Okay. >> Excellent. Sorry, Jillian. >> No, it's all good. All right. So, I
think uh I think with that I would propose we sort of close the the water sewer DPW topic and we we go on to our next agenda items and and give you back your night, Justin. >> Thank you all. Have a great night. >> Thanks, Justin. Thank you. >> Thank you so much for your time. >> Thank you.
>> Night. >> All right. So, um All right. Great. So, our next uh our next topic on here and uh I think this might be sort of light tonight, but I did want to have it on here just in case there's anything that came up during our enterprise discussions was if there's any other
discussions on sort of the forecasting for the general fund and other costs of living expenses. Um, so I think that's sort of been tabled. Uh, unless Nathan, you have any other updates to the spreadsheets you wanted to talk about there. But I think it was more sort of
just having it on there in case there was, you know, items we really wanted to talk about. For me, it was sort of more thinking about these two things together and then sort of talking about our third topic, which is planning for the town meeting and for our annual report. So,
um, but I did want to pause if there's like specific nitty-gritty things we wanted to talk about about any of that other expenses for forecasting. >> No, I think you uh you surmised and summed that up uh quite nicely, Jill.
>> Okay. Excellent. Uh I appreciate that. So um so I think uh for me as one member I think we're in a really cool place with looking at these future projections and sort of having sort of a high level um so I wanted to thank you all for uh
you know especially Nail and Nathan for for your work on those spreadsheets and sort of just visualizing it I think will be really helpful. Um and this for me sort of leans into the annual town meeting discussions. So, one of the things we have to do every year is make
an annual report. Uh, and I did share a draft of that report to everyone, but it's sort of kind of cut and dry. So, it's sort of like uh I call it a copy a copy paste or a copy pasta of what we've done in the past. Uh, and I can sort of bring that up to talk about it, but
before we go too deep into it, I know in the past we've talked about wanting to add like visualizations or other types of materials to it. Right now, it doesn't have that. So, and that sort of leans into our discussion of these, you know, living expenses and and these
changes and costs. Um, and I would say if we want to put something like that in there, I think it needs to be very crisp. um and you know very thoughtful about what we actually want
to present and how we present it because you know there's always error in future projecting forecast and and forecasting and I think if we do want to put in some kind of thing about forecasting in there I think we want to be very mindful about what sort of boundaries we're using
because we're sort of you can't promise it'll be exactly xyz in the future so I want to be very clear in anything we put out sort of in like a pamphlet like that about what this is. Um I think it's totally fair to look at trends backwards because we know those numbers won't
change because they happened in the past. Um and I think it's also a very good thing to talk about needs and sort of educate people and say like these are upcoming needs that need to be prioritized by leadership. Um,
but I'm not as one member, I'm not entirely sure if we want to do a lot of this future forecasting in that annual report document. I think it's a good thing to have. Um, but I think it's as one person I would recommend we are very
thoughtful about how it's projected out because if people look at this, they're like, "This isn't what my bill is in three years or something." Like, of course, it's not. It's it's future forecasting. So, you know, we just want to sort of I want to be mindful about how we educate people. And I for me as a
priority, it would be more important to tell people like what what the needs are and like you need to talk to town leadership and really start thinking about what the priority is because we're starting to get to a point where we're squeezing the blood out of the stone. Um,
but I'll be quiet and open the floor and let other people talk too. And I can also bring up the document in question because I don't think I'm actually sharing my screen right now. So this is the document um of question.
Shoot the zoom thing is like right in the middle. All right. Um, so basically it sort of goes into who each person is. And this is actually not even updated on the town website for Peter and Nail. It says, "Your term ended last year," which I know is not true.
>> Um, but I didn't know what the new term was. Is it 2028 >> for me? Yeah, it is 2028, >> I think. So, yeah, I think it's a three-year term. >> Okay.
Why is that doing that? Um, okay. Thank you. Um, we'll delete that comment. Um, but basically how it is, there's like a paragraph about what is FINCOM,
where what is the bylaw that we answer to. Um, there's usually a paragraph about changes in membership. There's no change. Um, and then we talk about our reserve fund transfers. So, I'm like 90% sure that we
only did one last year. Um, but I was going to triple check with you, Linda, because they know it was at the bottom of all the notes uh for the meeting. >> Yeah, I'll check the last notes. I'll just verify with the last notes right now.
>> Um, and then and then usually there's like a paragraph about activities. So in past in past fin like reports especially when like Bob was on the committee instead of having words here we would have like graphs and pictures. So like this is
where I would say we could like if we want to put something in here about like the town is faced with a lot of financial decisions and you know the big things that we aligned at the tri board meeting were you know the four things we talked about and setting those
priorities are important because we have a limited ability to raise you know money from the town and so like we can I can sort of wordsmith this and update This This is due when is this due? This is due
uh February 6th. So, we'll have one more meeting before this is due to Greg. Um >> I kind of wanted to talk to >> Go ahead, Peter. >> I'm not sure how many people read this though. >> Yeah. I just wanted to note so I don't
think we've been more expansive with this particular document. Um the stuff I think you're referencing Jill about stuff Bob McCarthy had done was more >> is that an ATM handout? Yeah, it was more of a something that went along with
our town meeting recommendations and in general if we want to do a more expansive you know state of the town kind of thing >> I think that's a better vehicle than this document which I mean this will be
one page in a you know 200page document that yeah I I don't think anybody's reads through this to get to see what Fincom says. Um, so I just don't think this is a very good vehicle for us to
put extra effort into. >> Um, >> that's fair. >> You know, if we want to do something, you know, that was a more expansive state of the town kind of thing that was a, you know, preface or, you know, went
along with our town meeting recommendations or articles. I think that's a great thing. And you know that's what I think you're remembering Jill about what Bob was doing. Uh >> yeah because I was trying to find an old
one and I couldn't and that must be why. >> Yeah. Um >> I guess I don't know how far back our website goes on, you know, the FinCom portion of the town website, but it was definitely posted there.
I mean, I can look to see uh I'm sure I have a couple of copies, but um yeah, I just don't think this is a very good vehicle for it. I don't think a lot of people read it. >> And Jillian, you have in there that we
we did the future forecasting. I saw it in one of the paragraphs. >> Yeah, I think it was in this down here. I did check the minutes from the last meeting in FY25 >> and we only had the one transfer. >> Okay. So, it was just one
>> that's I checked the last the last minutes. Yep. >> Because you had a nice thing um activities. We gathered resources to assist in future budget and multi-year planning to be further developed throughout the
year. because it's on it's been on every agenda, right? We so it's recognizing we do >> we do talk about it every month. I mean every meeting. >> Yeah. So, I mean, this is basically what
if you look at our 2024 report, um, I sort of just updated the dates obviously throughout and I updated the reserve fund transfer. Um, but pretty much everything else is the same from the 2024 report. And the past couple years, it seemed like that's sort of how this
report worked. Um, and I think, you know, Peter, that's a good idea. Maybe we could make that sort of document as like a handout because I'm I would like to say that we'll make all of our recommendations and comments for the printing, but I'm also realistic there's probably
going to be a handout, too. So, if we can make something that would be like a one pager to go with the handout with the rest of our comments, I think that would be something that might get more circulation, too. And if there's a picture or a chart on
the front of it, maybe more people will pick it up and read it >> at ATM. Yeah. >> But if we're if we're sort of um cool with how the annual town report draft here is, it's basically pretty similar
to the 2024 one just with updated verbiage and dates. Um like we I can also add this to our agenda for next time too like in case anyone wants to take time if there's any other feedback. Um but that's sort of
all I had for this one for this document. >> Okay. >> Yeah. I think this I don't I don't think it needs to come back to us. Um, but others could weigh in.
>> Yeah. I mean, Greg's not going to complain if I give it to him early, but it's not due until February 6th. So, we can also talk about it next time, too, if there's anything you're like, "Oh my gosh," about it. So, um, yeah, I'll bring up the timeline because
we have a timeline now for the ATM. Um this is uh just a very very very trivial point but um I I did see that there are um there are some places where where we capitalize the C and and fin and then others where we don't. So I I wouldn't want to put that on anyone else
but I would I would be happy to to you know do that um on the thingy. So if you would like me to um but very obviously not really important >> because I am >> that that would be super because I am not super consistent with that. So I
appreci I always appreciate when people I'm very blind to spellchecking and grammar errors. So >> absolutely. Um where where should I find like a like a word doc version of the 2025 draft?
Uh, I'm pretty sure that I shared it um as one of the first emails, but >> Okay. If I didn't um but it should be I think it should be with the materials for the meeting. >> I see it on board docs. NIL.
>> Okay, great. Um, I can look there then. >> Uh, no. Uh I I wonder if on the you know if this is the official annual report if we should avoid saying fin and just say finance committee. >> Yeah, we can also do that. We can do a
word substitute just do the the search and find and replace them all. Um if the committee would like to do that. I sort of live in a world of acronyms as a scientist. So, just as long as it's defined once in the
document, I I'm used to using acronyms. >> I have no preference. I I'm happy to do whatever what everyone else wants to. >> Yeah, I'll double check and see on the town website. I'm pretty sure we refer to us as fin on the town website, too. So, if that's the case, I think it's
fair. Cool. Um all right so in terms of town meeting so the town meeting the annual town meeting is coming up um it has been set so um I'll we'll work on that report uh so that'll be due
February 6th our draft articles are due the draft articles to the town are due on February 13th so that's when Greg would like to start getting draft articles so we can kind of have an idea of what's actually there and the actual like final version of the
articles is February 27th. So, um that should be for the town articles. So, any citizens petitions are not due until March 19th because that's how it always works. Um and our comments are
due April 15th for printing. So, between when they're due on February 27th and April 15th, we should have time and several meetings to go over them. Um,
I don't have any articles yet for ATM because obviously there's still like a month. Um, but this is sort of the the general timeline. So, Greg is trying to be um aware of like when our deadline for printing is versus when the articles
are due. So hopefully we'll have a bunch of time there. So if our comments are due April 15th, then we scroll down here. The actual meeting is not until May 18th.
So it's about a month. And then we'll have our like a week before. So, on May 11th, we'll have our um our finance committee public hearing about all of our recommendations. Um and
otherwise, there any questions or concerns on the process and timeline? No. All right. can't see any anyone while I have my full screen uh shared. So, not hearing any questions or comments, but I
think this timeline looks pretty good to me. Uh I think it'll give us, you know, a good amount of time between when the articles are due and when our comments are due. So, I'm hoping that we'll have a good feedback session there uh and ability to talk to sort of the article
sponsors as well. Um yeah, so I don't I don't have any uh further updates for that right now. Um I do have some updates for our prior ATM. So the ATM back in 2025 where we
passed the town passed the rodent bait law. I forget the exact article number off the top of my head, but um I did want to share that the state attorney general requested additional time to review. So, they've extended the review of that article again um until January
13th, which is tomorrow. Um last I heard. So, um the attorney state general hasn't like gone either way on that yet, but I did want to update you because that's sort of an ATM related article. Uh, I'm not aware
that that that citizen may come back with um like a bylaw or something, but I haven't heard anything yet cuz there's still like a lot of time there. Does anyone else have any questions or concerns about this annual town meeting?
No. Okay. Uh if that's the case, um we're sort of on board for that. Um and then we would be moving on to our routine agenda. So I do have meeting minutes from
December 8th here for approval. So uh the meeting minutes from December 8th. So this is when we were talking about the the forecasting for the general fund and other living expenses. um and
talking about that topic. Um and also for you know what we'd like to do in 2026 and setting our priorities seems so long ago. >> I know. And then we were talking about um additional updates and otherwise
and no no reserve fund transfers yet. So >> do we have any feedback, questions or comments on these meeting minutes? >> This looks pretty good to me. I would uh move to approve the minutes as written. >> I'll second.
>> All right. So, we have a move and a second to approve the minutes as written for December 8th. Any further comments or discussion? All right. Uh so I'll take a roll call vote to approve. Nathan, >> yes.
>> Yes. Linda, >> yes. >> Katie, >> yes. >> Peter, >> yes. >> Nathaniel, >> yes.
>> I am also Yes. Um, so meeting minutes from December 8th have been voted on and approved. Um I think that was the only meeting minutes u because that was the only meeting we had in December. Yes. Okay.
Um yeah. So now we're on to updates from chair and members. Um, so as an update, I did want to share with you um, we did get information from the town um, and the select board about an update on the Eversource versus the
Mayor Power Choice for the electricity uh, supply charges. Um, so I did want to share with you that the Eversource rates were recently set. Um, so for example, the residential rate is 15.629 629 cents per kilowatt hour I think is
how you say it. Um so that was you know um like of 15.6 cents if I just round it. Um and Maynard power choice um if people go with that there's sort of three different three different offerings. One of them
is basic which has the limited number of um green resources. standard has a little bit more green energy and then there's also 100% green energy choice. Uh and all of those offerings are below the new Eversource base rate of 15.6
cents. So the basic one for Mayor Power Choice is 13.6. Uh standard is 13.8 and the 100% green is 14.8. Um so um the select board and other um
entities in town just want to sorted to spread the news about that that that power choice um that the the town is offering uh is sort of competitive compared to the new Eversource residential rate. So, I wanted to pass
that along uh in case anyone else gets questions about that um since it is one of those cost of living um things that we're trying to help model. So, >> that's awesome. Do do you remember if
that's like uh the negotiated rate was just for this year or if that's like locked in for more than that? >> Uh it is more than that. I'm trying to see if I can find it. >> So, this is consistent until November
2027. >> Cool. >> Okay. Um, we also did get an update from Greg about the electric charging stations within the town for the cars. So, that
program has sort of set up to be cost neutral where the cost they get from people paying to charge the car sort of offsets um like the maintenance and other services of these charging stations. So,
um, Greg circulated around and I shared it to the committee as well, sort of like the spreadsheet overlaying those costs. Um, and generally speaking, it's cost neutral and that's sort of how the program was designed. It wasn't necessarily designed to um to be profit like be a a for profit
thing. Um, so I did also want to share that on terms of the electric front. Um, so I think that's that's all my updates there for electricity. We did get um an update from Greg about the FY27.
Um close that. See if I have an actual document here so I don't have to speak at you about things. I'm not seeing it. So I'll just speak at you about it. So um we did get the
updated FY27 school budget request. So, we got Greg's sort of FY27 general budget request from the last budget subcommittee meeting. Um, the school budget request is sort of updated at their school meeting in mid December.
Um, and it's about 360K more than the budget that Greg proposed. Um, so it'll be that like just baseline, but it will also add shared cost as well. So, Greg said that some of their
budget requests um this might include benefits because I think some of that 360K was for potential positions. So, but that number does not include potential health insurance costs or liability or other
types of um insurance or expenses. So, like for example, a new hire that are eligible for benefits, that would be like about 20K per new position added for some of these benefits. Um, so that's something to think about when
thinking about this um request from the the schools. And I'm sure this will come up in our Feb February budget meeting. So, I'm sort of waiting to see the presentations for that. Um, I haven't seen those yet. does that February budget meeting should
be coming up soon too as well. Um it's usually like the second Saturday or the first Saturday of the month. So I'll definitely keep you all posted on that. But I did just want to sort of flag it for you. Um
is that there's, you know, a potential difference in the request between the schools and the the the baseline quote unquote Greg proposed budget. Um, and I can pause there if there's any questions or comments. Um, but if there isn't, uh, I also did
share some additional links. So, we did get some additional information from Greg from the do, the department of revenue. So, um, they've started their budgeting process for FY27. Um and sort of Greg's interpretation of the bottom line is that the state is
economically stable, but it's not really growing as much as we want or need. So, um like we're not expecting any windfalls or real huge increases in um the revenues to sort of off off um offset our expenses.
Um so that's sort of an update on that the budgeting process as it's being started by the state. Um and we also did get from do our FY26 they certified the the tax rate for
that. So that was set by the select board on November 4th of uh 2025. So that that has been set and it's been certified by DUR and also the Bureau of Accounts for Maynard. So that's all set. Um,
and a lot of that is covered in the budget subcommittee uh documents from December 10th. And I think that's all all of the chair updates. Do any other members have updates you'd like to bring
to the attention of the group? All right. I am I'm not hearing any additional updates or otherwise from the rest of the group. Um, so if that's the case, uh, I would
like to plan our next meeting, uh, which would be January 26th. Um, so I would propose that we talk about sort of this. I'll leave the
the general discussion of sort of the forecasting of like cost of living expenses as a potential topic if there's anything that comes up between the meeting now and then if we'd like to talk about um and then I think for me it would be a
lot for planning for the town meeting discussion of the report and like any outreach documents we want to make because I think we could potentially at the ATM maybe rather than the annual report we could maybe start thinking about if there's a one pager we want to put together talking about some of the
highlight highlighting the um you said a really nice phrase Peter and I can't remember English right now sort of the state of the union but for the town of Maynard um if we want to sort of do that >> yeah I'm not remembering what I said
either >> well it was great whatever you said that I can't remember so Um, but it is getting late, so I can forgive all of us. Um, but I would propose we sort of have
those those topics and a routine agenda. I'm also going to reach out to Greg because in the past we were asking about the like OPB and the retirement board because they're currently undergoing an audit or a review right now. And I don't know that that's done yet, but I am
going to ask um and if it is done, I might put it as an agenda topic for next meeting, but I don't think it was going to be done until March. Um, are there any other topics that people would like to add to the agenda for our
next meeting on the 26th? Nope. I'm hearing a lot of nope. Um, all right. Do you have any other topics we would like to discuss tonight, my friends? Are we are we at that adjournment time? Mayhavs.
I'm seeing some nods. So, um >> I'll move to >> I would. Perfect. >> I'll second. >> All right. We got a move. We got a second at 8:44 p.m. Any further discussion tonight?
All right. So, I'll take a roll call vote to adjurnn. Uh, Nathan, >> yes. >> Miguel, >> yes. >> Linda, >> yes. >> Katie, >> yes.
>> Peter, >> yes. >> Daniel, >> yes. >> All right. I am also a yes. So, we have adjourned. Thanks all. See you next time. >> Bye. Have a good night. >> Bye. >> Good night. Bye.