all right I'm going to open this meeting and uh if somebody with the packet pulled up would like to read a motion session move to enter into executive session to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining as an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the bargaining or the public body and
the chair so declares relative to the ask the clerical union and relative to employee benefits and we will return into open session uh following the executive session second motion is made and seconded all in favor chris yes
lindsay yes david yes mike i'm a yes as well if everybody could rise for the pledge of allegiance i pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with
liberty and justice for Good evening this open meeting of the select board is being conducted both in person and via Zoom speakers on the agenda will be participating remotely and the chair may allow for the public to provide comment the select board would like to hear public comments and
if there is further action that is required by the board the chair will add the manner as appropriate to a forthcoming agenda depending on the comment the board may make if they are able to within the confines of open meeting law respond with information as opposed to needing to deliberate on the matter please note that while an option
for remote attendance and/or participation is being provided as a courtesy to the public the meeting or hearing will not be suspended or terminated if technological problems interrupt the virtual broadcast to individual attendees unless otherwise required by law accordingly please be
aware that other folks may be able to see you so please take care not to screen share your computer anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording all the materials for this meeting except any executive session materials are available on board docs and we recommend that members uh that
members and the public follow the agenda as posted on board docs unless I note otherwise we are now turning to the first item on the agenda before we do so permit me to cover some ground rules for effective and clear conduct of our business and to ensure accurate meeting minutes the chair will introduce each speaker on the agenda after they
conclude their remarks the chair will go down the line of members inviting each by name to provide any comment questions or motions please hold until your name is called further please remember to mute your phone mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking and please remember to speak clearly and in a way that helps generate accurate
minutes for any response please wait until the chair yields the floor to you and state your name before before speaking if members wish to engage in colloquy with other members please do so through the chair taking care to identify yourself for items with public comment after members have spoken the
chair may afford public comment as follows the chair will first ask members of the public who wish to speak to identify their names and addresses only once the chair has a list of all public commentators I will call on each by name and afford three minutes for any comments public comment for public
hearings will only be accepted in person per open meeting law all right and public comments is the first agenda item tonight are there any public comments in the room this evening seeing none are there any public comments from those joining us online
this evening all right very good uh for those following along at board docs we will now move to the consent agenda we have two items both cemetery deed transfers anybody like to read the motion move to approve consent agenda items A and B is recommended and authorizing the use of
digital signific all in favor good to be all in the same room we will move on to item five the use of town property uh we have a project proposed from the Girl Scouts for uh weeding I believe along the rail trail do we have any representatives who
would like to come up and talk about the project good evening good evening uh you can stand here but just remember the microphone is here and you can sit microphone is here so just be clearly right to that spot and we should be able to hear you okay i'm Laura Kennedy this
is Lucy Kennedy by Orchard Paris and we will be along the trail fantastic uh and and where along the rail you might not actually no from Sunbury
Street to Great Road okay and when are you looking to do this from Friday April 18th and are all the Girl Scouts prepared very good all right all right can I ask
you was it's Lucy right and Lucy did was this your idea or was it your troop's idea and how did you come up with you know the whole plan it was our troop's idea how were you the lucky one to get presented to come
in did you volunteer or is your mom the troop leader the troop leader well thank you all for so so much for volunteering those are the types of things that that otherwise may not get done and will help us all out thank you
yeah no thank you so I'm a big user of the rail trail and I'm always appreciative of the work that people such as yourselves do so thank you come back and visit anytime do you have any questions for us
all right all good to go all right any other questions from the board go ahead Lindsay i will move to approve the use of the rail trail between Subbury Street and Great Road by Girl Scout Troop 70515 for the removal of invasive garlic mustard on Friday April 18th 2025 from
2:30 to 4 p.m authorizing use of digital signatures if approved second all in favor thank you very much for your help appreciate it thank you thank you um and now we have a Girl Scout gold award project uh this is
a this is a donation uh which is um being offered to the town for the installation of AEDs around town so good evening how are you today um I'm Sienna from Cher Street
um currently I'm doing my gold award to um install five awn um one in at Alumni one at Fowler Fields one at Rocklands um one at Memorial Park downtown and the last one at
um at test landing in production um I'm here today because I have received many donations or many pledges to u fundraiser project and um for
this account to be approved by the book very good so I've seen a lot of great projects come through i love this idea um of all the different options why a did installation so um I'm a soccer player i'm a junior at United High
School i am a swimmer and a lifeguard um and I've seen an increase in professional like athletes collapsing on fields due to sudden cardiac arrest and they have come to the US and especially
during the 2020 European from Denmark was playing and collapsed and that game had to be postponed and rescheduled and this has been there's been an increase in cardiac arrest in young athletes and
a will help end shock if um there's no impulse due to this unfortunate well the importance is clearly there so thank you um questions from the board more of a comment um first off uh having
been the father of two Girl Scouts I know how much effort it takes to reach the level that you've reached which is essentially the equivalent of of Eagle Scout for Boy Scouts which is u you know a tremendous achievement so congratulations and you began your
comments by saying that you are a soccer player rumor has it that you're a star soccer player at High School so congratulations on that and uh I'll hopefully get to see a game next year thank you no questions just a comment thank you
for taking this on and doing all this work it's a great presentation i always find it interesting to figure out what Eagle Scouts and uh um Gold Award Scouts are doing afterwards what are your plans to do after you graduate um I want to go to a four-year college
and then probably major in exercise science with kinesiology and go to PA school which is physicist school that project is very fitting with that plan so I wish you all the best all right i have a question how would one of us donate to you to your cause if we wanted
to um where would I find a link or some way to donate to this effort we're setting up or we have an account set up yeah we have an account now set up through the town i think what Sienna needs to ask for today is that you need
to be the facilitator of the funds um that she can forward the link information of where to donate after okay maybe we can put it up one last question when these things are when these things are installed um who will do the installation and you know will it
be town employees doing it or will it be a company that does the uh you want me to that one um so we have a third party vendor that's going to install basically like radio box so it'll be a self-standing box that will have an alarm on it um that when the door is open it will call
911 to alert that the door's been opened right so then we will come up um the fire department has agreed that we will check them and you for the pads and the batteries make sure they're operational and then I think right now um we're kind
of working with our AED um supplier to figure out the temperature of them um we think that we're probably going to have to pull them out of the units over the deep cold winter um but we're still kind of in the process so So if it's that
wrong someone has an incident who grabs the thing out of the box and uses it and who and who trains them so that will be part of Sienna's project she's going to be doing townwide um stand by standard CPR training okay um all the
ads now come with full directions that are very ABC on each one where to put the pads how to turn it on and shock so any bystander should be able to use them it will just take care of that one or two minutes before police fire okay
any other questions somebody like to read the motion or we actually have two so yeah Greg explain not so easy the first motion is to approve donation this is a donation oh you're not you're right if I misspoke that you're you move to accept
the donation i shall move to accept the donation of $16,150 for the installation of AEDs at multiple locations in the town of M yes that's the motion that's the motion the motion i think it was read and seconded all in favor
all right who would like to read the second one move to approve the installation of AEDs at multiple locations by Sienna Hesbach as part of her Girl Scouts political award project contingent upon approval by the appropriate authority for the specific land in the town of Mayor and
authorizing the town administrator to approve the use of property under the authority of the select board for the installation of AEDs second all in favor well thank you very much for your work good luck completing out your gold star project and uh hopefully we'll have a
proclamation at the appropriate time for that as well thank you so much congratulations congratulations give you cash you should be very proud thank you oh where you been to see you forever i know
we miss you we miss you goodbye thank you guys have a good evening all right uh we have one more item on use of town property we've already approved a primary date for this one i think we're just asking for a rain date is that correct that's right but also I
wanted to you know float it by the select board if you would like um you can set a policy that allows the town administrator to approve any use of crowark right now the sele policy is that you authorize the town administrator to approve the use of copark for school activities it just
helps for deconlict it's just easier it's really my main man Greg who just makes sure that the the scheduling is deconlicted so in this case it's a similar sort of similar concept we have the the board has already approved the use of proficially now in spring and summer like there's a lot going on and
this applicant has already reached out to the I think it's made baseball to see if they can get on for this particular time um which so we we only approved the use ultimately if that if whoever has already been authorized they they would
have to um sort of forfeit that time um you know it's like first come first serve so um I think at a minimum I I do recommend that the board approve that first motion if the board would like you can sort of you know extend the adornment you've already given the time minister's office
by just saying any use of the code park but it's up to you any I I assume there's no questions on the rain date for the event we already approved any questions on that second piece about authorizing the town administrator to um schedule non-school events
no I would just maybe uh suggest or request that we do agree to the second that we just throw the events that are accepted into correspondence somewhere just have a heads up that there's something going on i think that's smart you know that way when someone says "Oh
you approved it." We did yeah great okay that's it i I No objections to that personally yeah and um I guess I know there's no restrictions on like political events or whatever because theoretically somebody
could have a political event at that location I guess so um so would there be any uh and and of course there's free speech issues and everything else that could block certain things but if there's an unusual event that be
u something that you would or you know in a future town administrator since it becomes a policy um would relay past the board or no um I mean I try to keep the board
informed about whatever but and it's and I feel like you just fate by saying that quotas are being used for political activities i just think of all No I appreciate that unintended consequence is the real issue so the board um has already and I just think sort of like
anecdotally in a similar policy the board has authorized the town to prove the use of signs to go on on public land that somebody go so that's not any public it's only those like like under and uh and with that we came up with a sign policy that says like to that effect like it can't be political it can't be for profit it has to be sort of
like objective um and um how about this um maybe table that and I'll come back with a policy that you all can look at about the Nobody else has a concern i'm not No I think it's I've always been pushing for giving
more authority to areas yeah because it is mostly good schedule um but I can come up I think good policy is a good idea because even when it comes by me I like to have policies that applicants know like this is what I'm looking for before I
Okay okay all right so we'll um do the first motion and wait on the second motion i think Yeah okay very good i will move to approve the use of Crow Park by Bright Path Early Learning for the Easter egg event rain Saturday April
26 2025 from 3:00 to 5:00 pm authorizing use of digital signatures if approved second uh motion has been made and seconded all in favor all right very good we have a rain date for the egg hunt thank you uh we'll move on to item six which are
appointments to the board of registars mr mr chair if you will I'll you may I'll give some context and explanation please okay so uh the town clerk has been working diligently in the past couple weeks to trying to straighten out the board of registars right so so by uh general law there's
and and guidance we got from town council there's supposed to be sort of like a balance between the the major political parties on registars um and so she's been trying to make sure that membership is there and there's been some turnover amongst the the representation and even some transition from one party to the other so she
trying to she tried to figure it out um and she reached out to representatives from both uh committees including Cadmore who's here this evening uh representing the Republican town committee um and so both committees have provided some input um I also want to
note that there's a difference in in um the terms so she was looking at the memberships and what terms they they serve and so um uh so you know you can see the Republican town committee has has different terms than what the motion is for the republic for the Democratic town committee i also want to point out um
there's almost a difference in urgency the Republican uh talent committee appointment would not start until July 1st whereas the Democratic would start um today April 15th um also some more nuance for the Democratic uh committee
there's two candidates um and it's I might get these names wrong it's Kate Wheeler and Taylor Leak so um but we found out today that Kate Wheeler would would actually sort of defer to Taylor
to be the to be the appointee so that kind of makes the board's life decision a little bit easier um so and that's what I would recommend just to just to go with um Taylor for the Democratic side for the Republican side um it's a little more complicated and maybe Miss
Fen can explain but there's three candidates that have been presented by the Republican Town Committee um and I don't have their names in front of me but it's in it's in board dots um and so there the board have to choose amongst those three
go ahead go ahead no please introduce yourself yeah I'm Vicki i'm Victoria i go by Vicki Kudmore i'm chairwoman of the Republican Town Committee i live with one path unit and I've been here for 30 years that's great so it's up to you Mr chair how you want
to how you want to skin it but um if you want you can knock out the Democratic side and then because that's the more urgency so just so I'm clear on the um for the Democratic members we have two names we're only selecting one one has said defer to the Yes that's correct
that's right okay uh would anybody like to read a motion on that one yeah i'll move to appoint uh Taylor Leak to the board of registars for a term do I have to say Democratic nominee Taylor
uh maybe maybe you can say registars you guys registers for a term of April 15 2025 to June 30th 2025 authorizing use of digital signatures if approved second all in favor okay there's the first
section all right and now we have three candidates for two no I believe it's just the one let me just We have three candidates for one spot yes does the Republican committee have a preference here um I've listed them in alphabetical order i will say
they are all trustworthy independable and committed to voter integrity here in Mayard um Darl Whitney is a lifelong resident just to give you a little bit more information uh Ron Lady um is
probably the second and not longest resume here in Robert Wily I think has been here the shortest maybe three years so um I I'd say any of the three but if you
wanted to a recommendation for me I'd probably go with um Ron Lady just to start with you might know that he lives at 30 Glendale Street in the Church of the Third Dimension if you've ever been
inside of that amazing place it's a 3D studio and museum basically so but Ron Ron would be a really good candidate and he does know a lot he's very in tune to Maynard and what's happening in Mayard
but Daryl's great i think he's you might know of him i think he's served on maybe the police force here in town at one point he's retired now and Bob's most good so anyone that you
choose dart board method would be okay but I probably just say wrong be um I know him probably the longest of the three anybody have any questions or comments what are what are the basic requirements someone that fills one of
these positions great no no it's a good question um so mostly they they work hand in hand with the Templar and they are they have oversight over a lot of the elections although they're they themselves not to be confused with like the election workers right but there's a certain
responsibility and to offer transparency and whatnot that is what the board of registars does is they they sort of like verify voting rules they make sure that the elections are done according to match law um yeah that's why it's important to have the balance between the two parties my understanding if
there is ever a situation where we're close to a tie on on some election there's you know extra responsibilities or at least an openness to overseeing the process at a closer level um so that and in that rare but not completely unheard of event there may be extra
responsibilities yeah doesn't come up very often but right it's important frankly I have no issue with Ron Lab no or do I would anybody like to read the motion then it's Ronald by the way if you the the town clerk notes that if you
you should use his full name it's Ronald and I've heard a couple of different pronunciations of his name i think he goes by lady yeah that was my fault i should know better ron if you're listening I apologize
uh move to appoint uh Ronald uh Levby to the board of registars for a term of July 1 2025 to March 31st 2028 authorizing use of digital signatures if approved second all in favor
well thank you to both our new registers and thank you for coming in this evening thanks thank you i know this because Ron made it a comment at our meeting last week and announced this meeting quite clear all right uh item seven we have uh one
contract from stand uh that's right i'll te it up a little bit so um mostly through the hard work of the department of public works led by Justin Marco but collaboration with other departments um even yours truly and trying to help out with the bureaucratic side of submission
you know submitting the um to the state for this because we have that grant we have half a million dollars awarded um from economic development which is fantastic and this is how we plan on spending that money which is going towards and help team up a little bit but it's keep in mind we talk about water a lot but there's also the sewer
side of that so this helps with our uh trying to modernize and keep up with the demands on our wastewater correct so the board may be familiar that we actually received a grant prior to this $500,000 roughly two years ago it was a
house grant that actually executed what's called the preliminary design phase of the upgrades of our um sewer lift station that's located on Powder Mill Road um with that there was a collaboration to Greg's point between the office of municipal service
department of public works and the TA's office to um achieve a secondary grant through Mass Works to move that preliminary design into what's called full design development so design development will make us shovel ready um the goal here is to be shovel ready for
a future uh project that we can collaborate with a future developer with for another mass works grant to actually execute the project um as you know we have capacity constraints throughout our system mostly focused on water but we do have capacity constraints within our
collection system this is one of them if we are unable to achieve our water capacity processes and improve that we would still potentially move forward with this um under a bonding mechanism but the goal here is we have not used
any funding from town residents this is 100% state funding to get us to full design development shovel ready which is the preliminary approach that we need to start planning for when we have future development so that we're ready to capture larger grants
any questions yeah once the uh the project is designed um is that also going to be covered by grant money when we go to do the next or is that so the only grant that's capable of funding a majority of this outside of
a federal earmark the only grant that's capable of providing roughly about 3 to four million but the estimated project's about 7.5 would be a mass works grant very similar to made it across but what that comes as consequences we would have to look at one of the large developments
if we don't have the water then we can't team that up our goal is to move continue to move forward with our phasing plan so that we can open up for development and if that's the case then this would be something that would be show ready to partner with one of those
developers as our target massworks grant now the Massworks grant unless the state consistently upgrades its funding mechanisms its max awards are still not 100% for this we would still have to bond that but as we as the water and sewer commissioners are aware when we
phased our water program we're also phasing our sewer in between the phases so that we're not layering on the rates we're trying to have a straight line um forecasting when it comes to our D process so this is we're in a good position this is one of those plans that
I would argue is probably the right time to do it is we're still about five years in advance where a lot of our water stuff we're plus years behind so we're in a good position to kind of let it sit on the shelf and try to maximize as much money as theoretically if somebody comes
in u a year and a half year from now and says that they want to develop under the MBTA zoning and build up there that we could then jump on this say okay we have to upgrade then we could apply for the mass mass works grant or whatever else
is out there and it's ready to go and so you could even make that same scenario so let's take our MBTA zone running um even if we don't have water capacity based on its geographic location let's imagine that they're able to connect to act concrete it's physically possible
over there for water we could take their sewer and we would maximize our mass works grant to achieve this right still building out the power mill road corridor still looking at other benefits that could bring to the town it would be a deliberation between many stakeholders
but in essence we are preparing to try to maximize a large grant to achieve this questions somebody like to read the motion move to approve the contract number 1480 with Stantech Consulting Services Inc
for engineering design services for the powder mill sewer pump station and force main improvement in the amount of $495,000 authorizing use of digital signatures if approved second all in favor very good thank you do you mind if I add
one more caveat that I forgot i actually want to give Greg a little kudos so we did put in two ear marks this year Clark the execution of this final project was one of them and NW is the other so just so you know in case you want to reach out consistently advocate for that
that's this is one of our targets at the moment thank you all right uh next up we have a layout hearing for Wisteria Lane so I will start by opening the public hearing at 7:44
p.m and then I will turn it over to the town administrator to give us an overview of what we're looking at here actually I think this is great so this is Mr eric who joined us i haven't seen you for a while how you doing it's been well very well thank you yeah good so um he built it um uh he is one of the we
have a handful of very um active builders and and and uh construction um gentlemen in the area this is one of them um Walter so um this has been a long time coming so this this subdivision has probably been in the works for he can speak to it more um but
it's uh um you know it's down past the main crossing it's it's on your way towards subbury the house has been built for months if not years now um but with the understanding in collaboration with the plane board that eventually would be accepted as public roads and so this is the sort of like procedure to get to
that point so and and per general law you have to conduct what we're doing right now which is layout hearing and then um it's generally not controversial um and especially this evening when it's been such like a a planned um project and then um the follow-up step with this
is to go to town to have it accepted overall that was the that was the synopsis that's a good synopsis okay so when we went to the planning board we went with the intention act meeting all the planning boards towns requirements and regulations to make this a public
road it wasn't set up as a condominium or homeowner association and we have completed it in that regard met the more strand requirements to you know for that and we have met all the requirements of the planning board with conservation
commission and DVW so fantastic and this is much better hygiene than some of the unaccepted roads that we've seen around town so this is not allowing that to transpire yes quick you don't mind yeah so this is the this is the right path right into the others but I do want to add one
caveat um Walter part of this development actually u gifted a property of land that's close to our old Malro area it's actually where we explored and found one of our new future wells so this Walter has been a great park the town of Mayard in the BPW so well thank
you for pointing that out and sorry for trying to make you go quickly through that that is important thank you very much thank you um anybody have any questions on this before I see if there's any public commentary being this is a public hearing we is there a notice we should
we have read a notice at the beginning of this or no uh no i believe that we already did oh no i'm going to double check with Greg greg with this is the language that we got from council list is it not but we didn't read it into the we didn't read into the record the fact
that we were entering into you know it was on on file the town hall typically is is maybe when we have a public hearing which is what this says yeah yeah we typically we have a public hearing we read notice of the hearing into the record correct that it's been
posted appropriately posted with the media and Okay no you're right i'm Greg can you speak to it really quick if not Sure so I I kind of went off of what we did last year um with the actual if you read the
motion to open the public hearing and I don't think that we had to do that last year i know we we do that for other public hearings um so I I don't think we had to do that this time um but we do have I did have the motion checked by town council uh the actual motion itself
we've we've learned recently that different public hearings require different sort of notifications and and so yeah it's a good question and I and I apologize for the inconsistency but I think we see the next one for water and sewer is actually a legal notice to be read and that's I think what Chris is
talking about right sure so are we clear all right uh any other questions from the board okay i'll open up to the public are there any comments from the public this is a public hearing okay if there are no comments from the public and no further questions
to the board we do have a motion motion to lay out nearby adopt the following roadway as a public way wisteria Lane is shown on a plan entitled definitive subdivision plan Old Bay Road LLC zero Parker Street map 29
lot six town of Mayard prepared by control point associates in dated October 22nd 2020 and recorded with the Middle Sex self-registry of deeds as planned 181 of 2021 motion has been made and seconded all in
favor of Chris no this is public hearing So we'll go roll call chris Murphy yes david yes mike yes and I'm a yes as well motion is approved thank you very much thank you very much appreciate your support thank you can I get a motion move to close the
hearing at 7:49 p.m all in favor chris yes lindsay yes david yes mike yes and I'm a yes as well we will move on to our second hearing of the evening and this time I will read the notice yeah uh the mayor select board will hold a public hearing on
Tuesday April 15 2025 at 7:15 to be held in person and remotely for the purposes of discussing the town water use bylaws specifically water and sewer rates the public is invited to attend at 195 Main Street Mayor Massachusetts 01754 and via
Zoom using the access instructions on the posted agenda to be found at www.counter-mma.gov and I will now open the hearing at 7:50 and I'll turn to the town administrator first although I think this is a topic we heard um at length of the last two meetings but particularly two meetings
ago i appreciate that but um right I'm just going to pass it to just well with one with one sort of like nuance um and I know the board appreciates this but this is sort of like for the for the public if you will um these are the rates the rates are reflected in the
enterprise funds and the enterprise funds are then appropriated to town meeting and those that is where water's doing and those are utilities which is different from taxes and it's it's which are reflected in the general fund um but but these rates whichever decision the board goes with these rates are then
reflected in a later agenda item under article acceptance for approved time meeting and then ultimately to the voters so just like that's just where we are thank you please go ahead Justin excellent job would you like me to go through the entire uh presentation again or do you
want me to be a little more concise overall my preference is more concise i think we went through the presentation two meetings ago we had a ample opportunity to ask our questions in time since if we had any follow-up questions is there anybody from the board who would like to spot check any particular areas of the presentation or have
questions on give us a very high level summary please all right so in front of you today we have um two rate recommendations for the water commissioner sewer commissioners um one is 7% and one is 9% the 7% funds our
operational requirements for FY26 July 2024 um it also incorporates the continuation of our phased in water treatment capacity improvement program it starts to transition our financial savings account per se for phase two
which is Rockland out water treatment upgrades and new source um exploration our second option um nine which is actually our recommended option at this point our 9% option incorporates all of the same criteria as the 7% and
adds 2% to onboard a $100,000 uh water filtration rebate program um based on some feedback and guidance that we received um for some areas that have um historically encountered discolored water near the old Marro road treatment
facility which if we can um confirm as well um those are the two options in front of the board today if there's questions pertaining to details of each scenario in front of you I'm happy to answer those um there is also a subsequent uh request for clarifying
transfer of $100,000 within FY25 which is our current fiscal cycle to potentially onboard the new rebate program sooner than the July 1 allocation of fiscal funds so I'll note that last m that last piece that Justin mentioned is a separate motion outside of the public hearing so the public
hearing will be to set the rate that higher amount Justin mentioned in 9% um would allow that sustainably into the future but if we want to do that reserve fund transfer that would be separate and after the public hearing um my comment on the additional 2% is
I've I've still struggled with the equity of that whole program um it's I'm not sure that first off I also believe that people who have already put in um systems are not included might be a
little unfair people who are proactive people who are going to rush to get a a system into their house versus people who don't have the funding to get there are going to be ahead in line above those so I think there's a lot of inequity there um and I also think you
know as good as intention the whole thing is $500 for many people is not that big of an impact relative to the cost of a what I'm hearing is a $5,000 investment uh three to $5,000 investment is typically the the range that they
hear so those are my concerns and I'd like to hear thoughts from either the public or the board as to where they fall on that i would really like to find um state program that and you know there has been
some discussion but it's nowhere near ready um about bringing in more funding that could be more impactful for more people which is really what I would like to try to try to find but I'm I'm interested in
hearing what the uh you know what the board members have to say and perhaps even members of the public i I'll make a few notes i I am in favor of the higher rate to do even if it's a small amount something to help those impacted residents i think that's number one
number two I'll note that we're not locking in with the rate what the dollar amount of that program looks like so after this we can have a discussion if we would rather increase the amount of that rebate which means it would be getting um the number
of people we could impact in one year would be lower but we would have a so we can still dial that up or down and there's trade-offs there that are quite obvious and then the third thing I'll note is that uh approval of this does not preclude also accepting help from a state program if there was additional
money that would allow us to help more people faster as well so we we can still pursue that option and still should pursue that option if we can find some available state funding but this allows us to do something more immediate than that would be available so that that's
my three points to that statement um yeah certainly I I share David's concern about the equity issues um I'm also aware that we are a community and one part of a com community is experiencing these problems and have
done for a while and if we're uh in my view a good community then we will help each other so I feel like there's there is some responsibility um for the whole town to try to help the the affected part in uh on this issue um even
imperfect though the system is um I also wonder uh about the long-term implications is this something that um we can put some kind of a sunset clause in just to make sure that it doesn't necessarily go on longer than any other
factors that might yeah in the next couple of years or so the way I had pitched this would be we would keep this extended rates out would cover an extra $100,000 until the program until we stopped getting applicants to the program some year and then we would reduce the following year the rates back
down by a conservative amount now any future select board could choose to dial up or down this program in future years so it depends on who's sitting in this in these chairs you know one year hence twoear sense etc etc yeah I don't know if there's a a formal sunset mechanism
but the intent as far as I'm concerned uh from this board would be to you know have that program be in place until the number of applicants drops back down to zero and then remove the program and that's a complete period of time um but
there's nothing to stop a select board next year from drawing that back down or doubling the size of the program if they so chose can I cover a question just about the funding process so there's the money that we would and I know that this is separate process from the bar and sewer
rate increase but there's the money that would that already exists at approximately $100,000 that we would be able to take from the enterprise fund retained earnings and apply to this program potentially reserve fund reserve fund which we're targeting reserve fund which
is a different cost okay got it and then this if we would go with the higher rate increase that creates another revenue stream,000 for our fiscal cycle and so do we have to wait for the fiscal year
to turn over to access those funds or can we basically borrow from ourselves and pay back later so for the 9% those funds aren't available until July 1 okay so the $100,000 for the fiscal cycle of July 1st to June 30th that's the $100,000 which in perpetuity or not
based on rules and regulations that this board or future boards want to change that won't be available to July 1 but that's why there's also a subsequent request for a reserve funding which would make funding available not just on the select board's approval it will take
the select board then fin approval and then launching of a rebate program that would have to then be approved by select so there's a couple of steps still there that money would be available the second you been comp and then you approve the rebate program those funds would be
available between now and so in essence hypothetically if the board approved the 9% approved the reserve fund and all the subsequent authorities did we would launch this program midayish and then we would have $100,000
from May to July but technically the reserve fund we could we could earmark that money and do um do a carryover fiscal cycle so we wouldn't lose it with it going into the books and then July 1st would bring on that extra the process of administrative intake anyway that you'll have to be doing in the
meantime right so okay but in order to expedite how quickly the rebate program that will take the reserve fund more than the 9% but the 9% funds it going forward okay thank you do we have a way of vetting the um sort of the
authenticity of the claims as I understand the problem is such There are some people who experience this problem frequently there are others that experience it occasionally uh depending on the condition and I'm just wondering
uh how practical that would be to to vet and what burden that places on town staff to do yeah so Mike if you recall within our rebate uh presentation we had an isolated map targeted with a
combination of discoloration forms past emails past phone calls and our water utilities institutional knowledge of over 30 plus years for many of my staff members in our water and sewer utility within that we provided a map which is
the boundary criteria that we would use to prioritize the applicants now in part of that we weren't going to deny applicants that provided reasonable support outside of that zone which would then have followup inspections by our
utility staff for conformity um but we can talk about the rebate program again but yes it was an isolated area because we know how our system operates and we are aware of the consistency of the discoloration forms because it targets the address locations and our historic
knowledge when we do our hydrant flushing our staff is noticing the coloration in our system as we do our operation so we know it's always been and we call it the triangle from Helic is the old model road area which is where the treatment plant heart is but
we're starting to see it creep up to the Thompson Street great road area which is why you're actually most likely seeing a lot of residents or customers seeing this either for the first time or more readily than they would have in the past
you may also um not see as many customers in the the area that I indicate as OMR area most of those customers to David's point have been living with this almost every day for 20 30 years have already put in filtration systems so they don't see it because
their filtration systems ultimately working a lot of the a lot of the recent discoloration forms are that expansion of that affected area as we discussed in the past multiple variations are are supporting that drought conditions extreme demands things are pushing it
out into the network um but within our mapping we can go over that with the rebate program if you feel comfortable um and we can even discuss that today if you want i did put that I did include that i believe Greg Wilson included the presentation for the rebate program on
board street so if you want to talk about that with questions just to kind of get a better understand with the comment about the uh the mapping I then am reminded um I live within the
uh in the affected area and so therefore from an ethical standpoint from my training uh given that I could be benefited from this theoretically positively or negatively from any
perspective i would probably need to recuse myself from any participation in any increase vote relative to the water rates yeah the language is a bit broader on that but yeah understood i don't think
you're doing anything by recruiting yourself you're keeping yourself safe any other questions all right this is a public hearing i'll open it up to comments from the public are there any comments from the public on the water rates with the water rate
proposals all right seeing none if there are no other comments then there are two motions in front of us so are we reading the uh number two so I would uh sorry number two i would just say I move to approve as opposed to motion to I move to approve the water
and sewer utility use rates for fiscal year 2026 FY26 as listed in exhibit 1 water and exhibit 1A sewer effective July 1st 2025 from the memo from the director of public works DPW Justin
Marco dated April 11th 2025 authorizing the use of digital signatures if approved all in favor Chris yes i'm sorry can I get a second on that please thanks sir all right all in favor chris yes lindy yes david you recuse myself
mike yes and I'm a yes as well take a motion please motion to approve the in town sewer only customer fee from 50 to $275 for fiscal year 2026 FY26 effective July 1st 2025 authorizing use of digital
signatures if approved second all in favor chris yes Lindsay yes i think you're safe on this one david I'm safe on I have a vote yes Mike yes and I'm a yes as well fantastic and I will move to close the hearing at 8:05
p.m second all in favor chris yes lindsay yes david yes mike yes and I am yes as well justin thank you as always excellent i do have one after the vote typically we try to inform our customers um on the bill cycle in advance we're a
little late this year so we're going to have to send a separate letter informing our customers for advanced notice which most likely won't happen until after May so we will try to get as much advance notice as possible but our customers are really going to see this um post May and
then again at July 1 when they get their bills ready so we do try to strive to get it out there as quick as possible as long as possible but just due to timely understood thank you all right next we have the rebate program um which I think we've just had the discussion on any
further questions uh I think Lindsay's question pretty summed up what we're doing financially here to support this and this would go to FINCOM correct the reserve fund transfer what the rebate program is strictly between the water commissioners and the DPW director
how you want to proceed if there's any uh conversations or tweaks that you would like to discuss we can also discuss it at the next meeting because based on the reserve fund no matter which direction we do have to wait for FCOM so the money still won't be available soon so we'll vote or not vote
and we go to fin or not and then it'll come back to us with with the discussion about exactly what the plan looks like yeah you as the policy makers for the rebate program you can define it so if if David's concerns of 2,500 aren't
enough or if you want to expand it I leave that up to the commissioners to provide guidance we are happy to provide more support um the $100,000 is the funding mechanism to start program do we do you have a different final version of that plan than what we've already seen
or is there going to be a final version to us no we have it yeah so based on I'm assuming I appreciate the discussion that's good so in March 4th because I just actually just check so March 4th um Henry and
Justin gave the presentations for the open rebate there was a lot of healthy discussion about it um but we didn't take a vote at the time then tonight um we're asking the board to just approve this this $100,000 wish from the reserves but I don't because I didn't mean to be presumptive but there is a
scenario where you could say you you do both you approve the use of $100,000 for the service and contingent upon the that that money actually being available because finance committee approves it you also start the program so if if you want to give the green light tonight if the money's going to be there you could
i didn't have that motion in but you could say you know in accordance with the memo that was provided from March 4th you something to that effect like you could say like do the program that was presented and understood but you don't have to so it's up you can you can um the board meets
again uh May 7 um up to you and if there is guidance that you want to provide in the meantime we can definitely work on anything even through uh separate emails together that you
would like tweet in advance but we can discuss it now i'm We also don't know that the pincom will or will not have questions they may have few questions they may have a lot of questions we don't know right now adjusted
to the fin won't be giving input on the actual program just transfer the what we're planning to do with that money they will have questions on it and so they may therefore have questions on the program $100 absolutely okay so so we're better
off waiting till that we're better off waiting just in case they do want to make it okay would the fincome address the issue of what the long-term impact of uh this 100,000 is now on the long-term impact of our you know water
program for the next few years i'm sure there they'll give you guidance on what their recommendation is based on impacts holistically i believe the water commissioners with the DPW director probably are u more wellversed in the
financial forecasting of our rates than because they're not involved in our regular rate gearing process i think what what I'm sure they'll provide some guidance and want some absolutism to what that $100,000 is going to go to right i don't know if they're going to
want the the minutia of 500 750 i think part of it is they're going to want to make sure the $100,000 isn't subjectively given without guidance um but I can't speak for Yeah depends on the member of course some of them are a little more scrutinizing than others depending on the topic
yeah I mean so the same guidance I provided to the board we're in Q4 so technically right now we haven't drawn down anything from our reserve funds so we have three months left where knock on wood we don't have a major catastrophe we did target the $100,000 number versus
the half a million based on that risk adverse approach i am still comfortable presenting the $100,000 making sure that we have financial capacity for an emergency but July 1st will come quicker than we think which will actually
replenish all of our funding for any of um a potential emergency situation so as long as town meeting votes on the reserve fund transfers technically that money is from free cash and retained earnings which technically becomes available before July 1 um so that money
is actually right around that yep so I mean it seems like tonight we can move to or at least have have the vote to make the reserve transfer so that if we do vote um in favor of that Fincom can
begin the process of deliberating about this yeah they could say no they could say no yeah but we can at least do our part now to keep this moving right and it doesn't lock us into that you know how much we want to distribute per per rebot right
yeah my only advice is I so Greg um indicated that I am presenting or I'm meeting with Fincom over the articles on the 28th their agenda is pretty packed but if the board feels like this is something that is it's very important i only suggest that you reach out to the
chair and see if they can work on their agenda it is right around the corner so I will give them a call pretty cool i think it's I think Joe's gonna be Katie's going to be at home be picked all right there's any further discussion on the rebate program even if we don't
if there's questions and I think you want me to respond so any questions uh we still have a motion in front of us i think we'll some of the questions that Chris started to ask and then we've already started to ask we'll have an opportunity for I would presume at the next meeting uh but if there's direct or
input to put in now that you have a preference for anything you want to see more information on now is not a bad time to ask yeah I for my part I would definitely want to see as much as one can predict uh the the impact of of taking the
100,000 now does it mean that uh years worth of backwards motion in in our long-term planning or does it have a minimal impact that's so it's the two phase right so the board approved the 9% now it doesn't have a negative impact so
you presented the long-term operational costs and we have not if the board approves the reserve fund income approves the reserve fund the articles that you'll see later are still there to replenish the reserve fund back to the
original $500,000 within like weeks because you can spend um retained earnings the day after town meeting yeah so ultimately if Mike to your question if the board didn't approve the
9% and reapprove this 100,000 then there could be a negative impact moving forward the two options presented to the board of seven and nine actually never changed the ball in moving our phased treatment process forward in a world if
that was five and seven and you were contending against moving the right fixes for the overall system versus an isolated I think that would be more of a concern right now what you have done is ultimately continue to move all of our original plans now that we've engaged in
in five to six years those are still moving forward rockland is still moving forward with your approved break we are still on schedule and on pace which starts the window July 1st the one thing I would do want the caveat here of that five to sevenyear window actually starts
the second we get money July 1st not now so there is some of those delay factors but that's just the bureaucrat all right any other questions i have a question you may go ahead from street um as far
as the rebate goes and just you just answered what would be the and this might be jumping the gun because we're not at that page yet for me as a homeowner what is the process we fill out the form online and then what happens after that
as far as the install i mean do we get to pick our own people do we you know can you discuss all like just give me the heads up with everybody how that will work and performing a situation we have our own and
I'll just give you a quick question um and we'll we'll represent the rebate program too as well but just a quick walk through is is the second we launch the rebate program we will launch a public advertisement so that people are aware within that public advertisement there will be strict criteria laid out
in a step-by-step procedure on our website but it will be a hyperlink that's sent out on Facebook etc within that those who wish to preapply or apply will put into the system we know based on the discolored form and the location
you'll be required to put your name your address etc so most of your normal information your customer order customer information at that point we will review you to Mike's concern are you within the area you will get a free approve based
on your area location or you will get a review if you are outside of that location as a criteria but ultimately we are not plumbers so you are required to hire your own licensed plumber we will have a step-by-step procedure they will have to follow plumbing code we will
have to pre-install expect your approved we want them excuse me preapprove your system based on the criteria that we put forward we are only requiring NSA NSF certified which actually has over 5,000 plus units you can choose from in the
world your plumber will then pull a plumbing permit you as the customer will provide all of the model type the serial type and you will actually have we will ask you questions are you comfortable spending this money what are you aiming to accomplish because we're also there as customer support um and as you move
that process forward you will then get an approval to move through execution of installation at the end of that installation we will require a closed plumbing permit which every licensed plumber has to do we will require that the make model pictures etc and then you
will receive final approval with an unbuilt thread of your next available that will all be dragged and stay and stay within your customer file if you're unaware we have 4,400 customers we have files on every single one of our customers from service calls
you name it just like any other utility so that will carry with you so there's a lot of questions that we've received in the past of okay you receive your on bill credit but you sell your house well on bill credit stays with the bill but it gets transferred at closing which we
don't control so that's a negotiation between you and the buying agent so if you have $2,500 worth of credits on there because you sold your house tomorrow you can work that out in your own legal environment with your with you as the seller and the purchase that they
offset your credit i know my suggestion would be as I'm speaking for senior citizens or people that don't know about plumbing is maybe Justin and who's ever involved or could put together a vetted list of evil we can't
be able to do that because government can't support a private business yes we that's why we encourage licensed plumbing they can call around and contact uh physicians i would just tell you doesn't take much to go look at
alumni fields fence advertisement doesn't always fair but the perfect example is if you go through the mass program doesn't recommend your contractor either so they only approve the contract to make sure that's a good Thank you
and once you put this out there are going to be vultures and I feel bad for that so I I hope that I don't know what's going to happen but I'm speaking for people that I already know that are really nervous about this whole program
and want to do it one they might not have the money up front so I I plead to everybody to really think about that that these people paying minimum amount of water bills but they don't have they live paycheck pay or that they're on a fixed income
and that these this is going to trigger a huge crazy um I don't know what the word is but that is actually one that is one of the highest risk we brought forward to the court you open state federal or local funds to
allocations of any prize gain you essentially open up inflation so that is a concern and it should be a concern but part of that is we always recommend that you call around so if there is times where we get requests if you're unaware
we we require a driveway so when you get a driveway we all if a customer or resident reaches out to us we always request that they pursue three quotes from qualified licensed contractors the same approach with Blackard we recommend everybody reach out to three qualified
contractors to gauge different price that creates competition competition drives price down i've done my due diligence with this and I am in this field so there are going to be people out there that will give discounts actually when they get to an amount that
will be doing that so just kind of putting it out there to who's ever listening that um that it's a huge concern for just for community to help other people and this is it's a I don't know if everybody knows but it's an underlining
concern and there's a lot of buzz about it not on social media but it's concerning to the elderly in our in our community know and water is essential so I would hope you know thank you any other questions
all right then I will move to approve the use of $100,000 from water enterprise reserve funds in the fiscal year 2025 FY25 to initiate the proposed water filter rebate program as presented on March 4th 2025 second all in favor
i'm recusing it understood did you get that score okay all right we'll move on to item nine which is FY26 budget development thank you Justin you're welcome thanks Joe Mr chair yes so um
money's on our mind um it's been a long time coming but we're in preparation for the May 19th annual town meeting um the board has some work to do uh there's a number of articles all related to financials uh that the board has not yet accepted to go into the final warrant that's that's a little bit later but the
next really three items four five whatever a lot of the rest of the agenda is all related to this topic um amongst those articles is the general fund um as well as precache and transfers etc so I don't think it's really anything new
both because uh these topics when it comes to um um how we're going to fund solid waste recycling uh sort of capital expenditures uh for pre-cash and transfers from stabilization accounts as well as general fund budgeting now um
for the context of the board as well as as the general public two significant updates um I'm presenting to the board tonight for the general fund one is uh thank thankfully our my town accountant checks my math and he found that
$62,25 was not um calculated in my revenue projections so that's good $62,000 to black um with that I went through all the various accounts um and I had hold from here and there in a number of town departments paper office
supplies and reserves so um my recommendation to the board is I didn't put all everything back to exactly what the heads had asked where but I tried to capture especially some of those smaller items but as well as training um I want to make sure our training budget went back to where we left it to be yep and
then uh but my one of my personal sort of endeavors is to make sure we have healthy reserves so in my recommendation for that $62,000 amongst the other items is to bring reserves um from 175,000 to $225,000 so 550 grand into it still less
than the traditional amount of $250,000 but I feel a little bit better than that and for the context of the board and public that reserve fund actually is is it doesn't serve one department so both the school committee or school department and the various departments
can potentially draw from that as happened literally just the other day um school department successfully advocated to finance committee to to take I think it was $60,000 whatever whatever the amount was from the reserve to to repair or replacement with HIV fer so having
service benefits everybody that's 62,000 that's from the that's from the general budget the the governor's yes general budget general government fund in other words it's not
free cash that was that was located it's it's it's recurring funds so it will be there next year if it's appropriated by the by the assuming that's true with any that's right so uh well yeah I mean like sometimes there
might be formula 8 changes um but this and I don't recall the breakdown I think this was part of the formula when it came to veteran services library services but it goes general fund and so that that's good um but yeah I think that's I'll tell you where my thought
process is going and I don't interrupt your thought why don't you finish your presentation fine so so the governor's budget is just a proposal so now it's with um the two two houses ways and gains committees um eventually you know that goes back to the governor's desk so
we won't know what our final governor we won't know what our final state budget is in state aid until July August but I feel pretty confident usually this is what we do we set we set the budget for town meeting based on what the governor proposes in January so that's that's what this is
okay now some bad news snow is expensive and it doesn't go down so um uh the finance team recently looked at all the um invoices and the collection of those expenses and it's not great so traditionally the general fund sets
aside $119,000 um sorry $117,000 towards Snow Ice um but we don't we don't adjust that because the department of revenue allows to go into deficit for that particular account and that's what every town that
I know that's what they do and so we do what every county does which is we set aside free cash um my original recommendation to the site board was $300,000 because that got us to the average spending which is around $400,000 uh but sure enough our we're
we're very much um in the red um when it comes to snow and ice treatment and and this gentleman can explain more but generally prices of everything goes up also good business services goes up and even though you may not see as much snow the treatment itself is very expensive so to treat the road to buy the product
and then pay the labor that that is cost you know if there's significant ice that actually costs more than snow clearing because you can just put the snowside but you have a huge snow or a huge ice and it's all for public safety you need to treat that and there's a cost so um I
took the I took the latest numbers from that um um and then I I tried to figure out what how we could pay for it in using pre-cache and I did and so what I what my recommendation to the board is it's a I basically rebalanced how much we might
be using for free cash to pay for solid waste recycling and instead it goes towards snows but that also means it's a bigger draw from a general stabilization transfer to pay for the rest of the solid waste and recycling the upside is there's a different article in the town
me to be able to transfer back the the unused amount of money for feasibility study uh for the elementary school back in the general fund it's not going to be it's not going to balance to balance it but we are still sort of even though we're my recommendation is to draw from general stabilization we're not ignoring
it we are putting money back into it my my my optimism is that we will continue to do that but again I feel confident in my recommendation to draw from general stabilization for solid waste perspective because that's what it's there for so it's it's sort of it's meant to be our backup and that's what
it's providing that's the bad news but it is solved by by precache and um and otherwise the the amount of projects that I still recommending remains it's just a difference in transfer from general stabilization okay but um
another big topic for the select board to consider is um the select board has been has been considering a change in plan design change for years frankly actually but this year and and especially in light of the frankly dismal health health policy
you know health insurance policies that every town and every city has has gotten uh in the commonwealth we happen to be actually on the more fortunate side the dismal part is the rate increase not the policies themselves no fair enough fair enough thank you okay so um our rate
increase proposed by our health insurance provider was 9.92% um that is not an insignificant amount and it's hard to budget for that so in dialogue with the employees we we have a proposal to adjust the our our plan and which could which
which will provide a a reduction in that premium and those calculations I'm presenting to the board $263,000 to use towards somewhere in the budget um I have recommendations for that which I can give now Mr chair but I I don't want to take away your time but
I um um but I I provided my recommendations in spreadsheets to the select board under under this item and it's also reflected in the articles of warrant approval in later items um so I can give whatever level of detail you want i can give my recommendations now Mr chair but I also don't want to take
away from your dialogue so could you bring me through the rest of your presentation very good so my recommendation is to All right let me also give some context um uh right now the select board is considering
um two items for a potential override one is for a new senior center um at 141 Parker Street and based on the estimates of that lease agreement the the life board has been hearing um a request of $200,000 for FY26 as an override that's
for seniors this the other one is for the school department so the school department um has um you know in in recently one of their proposals from the school department was a $1.1 million override request and that's what was presented to that that town hall that
special board meeting at the library was that $1.1 million however on Thursday night last week the school committee met again in light of what they heard from that town hall and participation and they changed so their proposal was a multi-year
override in FY26 next year their proposal is $650,000 in override and then in FY27 which is the second year it's $225,000 and their overall um goal is to boost their their their budget um
by $875,000 that's a combination of that 615 225 um so there you go 875 above the January TA recommendation level yes that's correct now um and that January um recommendation for me is 2
and a half% over this fiscal year so um I don't have the dollars essential pardon me but um in FY25 plus 2 and a half% gets what my recommendation is then that's on the table so to speak um but if the board would accept my
recommendation which I'm giving now which is to take that $263,000 which which is the premium savings if you will from health insurance and to put that towards um towards the school department so that would give them that 2.5% over this year plus
$263,000 and I I'm reading off I'm reading off my script for you that that comes to $836,000 or about 3.65% 65% over this year now um that's still not what they were looking for right so the the the school committee is still asking for
more than that um but the but um yeah it's up to that the decision is up to the select board and if you were going to do an override then it's both it should be reflected um in in the article so you'll see two
articles which I use the the division of local services option of the contingent appropriations so you can it's two different votes um and that's how it's written right now i didn't I didn't change my recommendation um to match what the school committee recommendation
is for the multi-year override so you you don't see the multi-year override written because I didn't write those but we could um but the the expectation is for the select board to choose those tonight now uh that's because this is your last regular meeting before we need
to go to print can I ask a question on the multi-year override um so in the multi-year override do do voters do they like vote this year at this town meeting and that approves the amount for this year and
for next year or do we have to vote again next year no you vote this year it's the article written i I approved this much for this year for this department for this year and then a second vote i had to look this up so it doesn't have to go back to any kind no because then the next the next ballot
question is I approve this much for this department for this year and you and you specify when that fiscal year starts so in this case FY27 July 1st 2026 so it's as long as sort of specify like how much to who and when is it two
separate votes you know back of the DLS guy it was two different votes because one could fail and it will be passed so you could give certain amount of money for one year but not the next so theoretically the voters could vote no on 650 for this year and yes for 250 in
the following year and there's no override this year I guess so which impacts Yeah this year's budget um that feels kind of unlikely but theoretically possible theoretically possible um before we get into that the detail of
how we want to go about that particular process if I may go back to um the proposal that you made um for putting the
62,000 $62,000 back into expenses yeah um I would like to propose that we give that 62,125 directly to the school budget okay and again offset further the need
for an override because I think that uh the items that you listed although important as everything in our budget might be um I would prefer to assist the
taxpayer and relieve them of $62,000 in operational costs that they we might be able to absorb for them sure in doing so I would then add on the
$263,000 that we talked about relative to the um to the savings quote unquote i hate to refer to that but they tack the health insurance anticipated cost benefit to the community uh for a total
of $325,125 also to the school department therefore making their increase from the 650 that they were asking for for this year
um the number would then go down to close to $300,000 right sure then we can discuss whether or not we have uh based on what we heard last week uh a stomach for asking the residents
for $225,000 next year because then I think we've given uh a substantive amount or an alternative would be okay this year we'll we'll allow the balance of that 650 that they were going to ask for and
less the 325 out of the number on an override but nothing for next year because I don't want to commit the voters to anything for next year based on what we heard the other night greg can you re reiterate the allocation of the 62 yeah I think your allocation was a
little different uh no it is different so he's he's countering by but he's So could you remind us Oh oh like where where all the different Yeah what was your recommendation of the 62 i mean the bulk of it was that $50,000 which goes towards uh the reserve fund and then the remaining $12,000 is a little bit here
and there like it was like $2,000 for for the town administrators for training and development which we use on everybody it was a little bit of money I think to various aspects of the DVDW like I I just sort of like went down and where I felt like there was like odd events but to David's point like if if I
was already comfortable with my recommendation um I still I still like my but I think you did a great job at making I'm now just trying to work it so that of the tax yeah yeah and I appreciate that too so um I to the to to
David's point I did feel comfortable at the time uh without the $62,000 and moving forward with my recommendation of what to appropriate to each do I like to be able to bring all those various accounts back to like where the department's been preferred yes we we go over the free budget anyway every year
but I mean I don't like to contribute to right so let's put the money where we're actually going to end up spending it instead of doing where do we take it from when we go over that budget we come out of that out of everything so at the end at the end of the just robbing from ourselves on that one so it's it's a it's a it's a so I I don't think we
should take it out of that tree budget where we're going to rob from the rest and that comes into future year pre-cash in the wash anyway is where that would go ditto the reserve fund and I we already took out of the reserve fund the cycle already right so we're not replenishing up that full amount we're
just getting closer to what our normal level is correct okay and so that ends up being future year free cash as well if we don't spend it down which that's the point of reserve fund you hope you don't need it Correct okay all right thank you um Okay
thank you just wanted to be clear on that i Okay well um other questions sorry Greg did you finish your narrative i think we jumped in a little bit at the end but the major points are there [Music]
uh yeah I think that's it um other questions from the board i just have one detailed question on the uh snow knife should the um 40% of that deficit is on
the u the treated salt and looking at the document presented here about the the snow ice budget there was no original budget for treated salt and in the event we spent 193,000 plus uh could you just
explain what's the story behind that as to why it wasn't included in the original budget I would yeah Yeah obviously assumes that it's something that we would normally use no good point so it's accounting so you're right and I'm looking at the same there we do have
an account number for treated salt and and why we didn't allocate a portion of that oh I do so that $17,000 is this that's traditional amount that I've seen for the seven years that I've been here and that's where it is and I my guess is we probably put the exact same amount in
all the different account numbers are so nice of that $17,000 but we don't know how much treated salt we're going to we're going to need every year so it's it would be almost like it would almost be like crippleless and valueless if we were putting a number in there because ultimately I know I'm going to spend
more than the first $18,000 and I suspect that's again you could you could basically look at where this original budget in this column that I provide you i I about 99% sure it hasn't changed in a decade and because we don't know how much treated and salt we're going to use
every year so we don't put a number in there and that that's the big that's the big deficit as you point out like that $193,000 that's that the number I don't know is I'm not going to go well that as well as salaries and and and maybe contractors like that's the those are the numbers I don't know
uh so we leave it blank because we know we're not going to have I think I think in one way I could reallocate this $17,000 to put a number in there but it would just be for accounting purposes just to have it so it's obviously zero is that generally right yeah i mean it's
a financial policy across the board what happens with snow and ice it's the one accounting measure that allows to go into deficit because it's very unpredictable so treated salt typically was under supplies we categorize it for more experience so you know how much
money went to each specific thing um traditionally in municipalities you'll see one line item that just says snow and ice yeah we have compartmentalized it out even though it's zero accounting but it is up to the board's consideration of financial policy when it comes to snow and ice to Greg's point
it hasn't changed in over a decade because it can be deficit spent the theory is if you overshoot your budget and you actually don't have a very conducive winter then you have to wait for that money to hit
free cash but it's again it's a financial policy which direction do you want to go most municipalities do it exactly how I'm used to um but what we can do moving forward is when you don't change that number ever you still need to account for that inflation we should
start to earmark or free cash more than just the traditional 300,000 because this is going to continue to rise the deficit part is going to continue to rise okay i know free cash is lower than state guidelines which is also my
hesitency to pull from reserve funds other questions so I I want to note on the you and I did talk to the school committee chair who has joined us this evening good evening Natasha um their proposal i think they noted that failing an override at the TA recommended budget
they were looking at a potential 11 staff cuts um that with this 875 over two years they're still looking at three to four staff cuts and then depending on how that plays out um drawing down reserve so they have come back from a
level service uh following the feedback of last week in the proposal that we're looking at today and I just wanted to convey that message and the seriousness with which the school committee is is taking the overall fiscal situation and Mr chair I want to add another item i spent some time this
afternoon um crunching numbers when it comes to the average single family tax bill came back from these decisions and I looked at a spreadsheet which I provided any four dos i also put an auto copies if you want to see the front but if if that is helpful context like that perspective is helpful to you as to like
what the tax bill may be now it is I also want to point out for the public there's a lot of assumptions in that because we're only using what we know which is the valuations of properties right now and the and the and the split tax rate we the DLS which division of local services does provide a calculator
but they say okay so based on the snapshot of your valuation right now and your your current split right now here's what the effect may be if all those are the same going forward which we know they won't be and usually the board adjusts the split tax rate every year somewhat and then we know valuations
change every year but you it is still a good context um for how much the impact may be so that's all it's and I I kind of came up with five different scenarios and it's based on the um the average single family household value in
FY25 this year is 543,324 which was a question I got at town hall they didn't have it on so um and the yeah so that's it and housing value goes up every year
other questions or proposals I don't have any proposals per se but I'm I'm wondering if you're going to you know I'd love to hear from the school committee i um yes I think before we go
there um is there an agreement generally among us that the 325 that we uh the 263 rather that we recognize from the um the savings from health insurance uh
goes to the school department you're asking if there's agreement on that a general agreement among our board i think so i would prefer further discussion no no I I I get that so the bulk of it I would say yes i I had voted
putting some funding back into a capital line item but I I think that's open for discussion now that discussion has to finish tonight we need to get the point for the war so there's not a lot of time so I I wouldn't I wouldn't I don't think my concern is getting us to a number that will pass yeah I think that's
everybody's concern so the lower we can get it and the more money we can find that doesn't really impact other things which goes back to the point that I made earlier you know when Greg did propose his budget he was comfortable with those line items with the that
62,125 out of the budget i don't understand why we wouldn't just take that money and say we didn't need it based on and I I'm not saying we didn't need it was so Greg was comfortable with it um and not just give that to to uh to
the schools as well to avoid having that number go high and the lower we get that number the more likely is that they pass a vote understood i think to answer your original question for the at least the bulk of the 263 if not the full as an individual I'm comfortable with that going to the school you know that I I
get that i think I I think we'll as a group somehow get close to that but that 62125 small disagreement on that but I'm still I'm still encouraging that okay
and Natasha has her hand raised i'm happy to hear from that anybody else want to make a comment before I turn it over to Natasha yeah natasha could you uh would you like to offer any coloring of the detail
based on um you've already described it so first um Natasha River School Committee thank you very much for um having these important conversations and receiving the school committee's feedback and response to um last week's
forum um and and considering them so I think just listening to how the conversations have played out um what I'm hearing is uh specific to the 263 um I would say the first um suggestion
would be to remove an FY27 um multi-year override if that amount would be going to the school so that it would just be um so you take out the 225 then it becomes only a single year and
then you further reduce the um if it is that full amount I'm just making that assumption then you further reduce the 650 by that remaining 38,000 um so that to David's point um it the
override amount that would go it would be one number which is uh one year which really gets back to the position that the school committee really wanted to address before and it would also um allow ow the increase to be um what was
already in the 2 and 1/2 cap so it does not add further beyond um in subsequent years and that original ask would then I think be about what is that um 612 I think is roughly um behind the the
napkin crunching which is basically taking 650 minus the 38 if you're again assuming that the two that full 263 would be going um and then offsetting and what that what that second year
really represented for the school department was um the dependence or our ability to be less dependent on our reserves because the multi-year did require us to increase our reliance for 300ish plus and I think everyone was at
that's really at the top tier of our comfort zone for operational so if we um do not have the subsequent year then we're able to then proceed with FY26 not at that same level for um and again
achieve there will be some some considerations with staffing but it won't be to the the same level um that would impact uh programmatic um aspects what number would you need i think it works out to be 620 if you with 612
thank you so approximately in in that ballpark without your 62 and David I I really appreciate I I know the context that you're doing is looking at how much less we are needing to raise taxes for our residents um I think that
lens was similarly looking at when we were looking at revisiting our recommendation uh the the feedback we have received pretty standard i mean that you do have people on the fringe but it was really that not that there was not support for doing it it was a
just genuine fear of how people could survive dayto-day with a lot of these things happening and so that that feedback was heard and that is the strategy that we attempted to um incorporate into our revised
recommendation hearing that that message was heard um I think that that um absolutely is important in this forum here that people are going to be able to see to hear that that was heard as well um because I've heard not only from that
first off although we're not on that topic but I I really want to congratulate the people who showed up i want to congratulate everybody who did who was involved in that in that process and it really did send us a message I believe as leaders as to where people are coming from and I heard from a
number of people since that evening um with their expressing of concerns i'm sure all my colleagues have as well um with their concerns and or you know thoughts so anyway going back to the point yes I I think that our goal my
goal here tonight and and is to try to find a way to limit the number if we have to ask for any override that should be limited to something that people are going to support and that people feel comfortable supporting in the long term
and that's so as much as we can dig up um to hear that we got these new numbers i mean Greg should be congratulated for some of the efforts that or not some all the efforts that he's been doing as long with yes I know it's been no easy no easy feat going through all these other
pieces to bring it's a larger larger dynamic playing behind the scenes as well so I do appreciate the select board and and um Greg for your work in that effort my hope is that we could find a if we have to give a number that it's a number that will pass and that people will feel comfortable supporting and so
the more we can find to uh to add in to reduce that number the better off it will be at the end of the day well I think if looking just generally the the six if we're again assuming the 263 as a whole is what we uh what the select
board would be recommending um for the school that would bring the override amount down um more than half of what it originally came in for um I don't have what that estimate would be for 612 but I believe when we were looking at 650 it
was about $150 for one year so it would be you know somewhere over a hundred maybe i don't know i'd have to look at the website but from from a context perspective um that's what I provided so you if you're you're right you're pretty
close actually the um if you're want to follow along to the board I at the bottom of this little spreadsheet I calculated and I calculated both the school request and the council request so um like the fourth one down from the
bottom of the sheet by the way I still have this hard copy but it's um that it's the 612 that was referring to but I added the 200 for the schools so that comes out you know uh average single family increase for the over item of
$812,000 is 190 per household so yeah so 190 so you're probably you're pretty close with that 150 for the schools and then and then some for the seniors right i think there's was like like 50 so it came out to total like under 200 for I
think the collective amount um and then feedback that we had heard again um just to reemphasize was that not that people were adamant of not supporting it it was just the dollar amount to bring it down and I so I do feel and I think the
school committee feels that this is a more palatable number um 650 or if it's that amount i would also want to strongly emphasize that the priority that we don't go below that number because there are minimums in order for
us to remain intact the tenative agreement we have with our paraprofessional union contract so that would be my um guardrail um advisement to the select board as you're thinking about um what that FY26 number for the
school overall would be um the recommendation is based on what would be required for that thank you Natasha thanks i I do have a question and forgive me if this was answered and I missed it before
and you may not be this is for you Natasha you may not be able to answer it for certain reasons in terms of potential uh personnel reductions um you've itemized in the presentation uh for example free personnel for the high school free for
and so forth um is there any indication as to which programs or departments would be effective for example would it be you administration guidance uh special subjects uh regular teachers or is that information that um you're not able to release at this point no
actually we u we did discuss that um on Thursday so if with the if it was 650 would be that again um about four positions um it will be talked about also at our um at our budget hearing
tomorrow i just wanted to uh me pull up to see how the um how um Superintendent Hos indicated um so for 650 um it would be hold on just going through a chart that he
had done for us so it would be about three positions and it would be um one at um believe the high school was one um Oh I just Hold on one
second there was um a mix of it was spread out so it wasn't all teachers one was a teacher one or two were a teacher one was not but those positions were not were that um some of them were just being not rehired so they weren't
necessarily a loss in a layoff necessarily um some might be just um a position that is they just will not post to fill um and so I think that again it's a combination of those things a bit
as well so I think until um I don't have the specifics on the details now the superintendent doesn't give us exactly those those levels i I think the the information that a number of residents would want to know is
whether or not particular programs are affected especially those with small staff you whether it's arts or or music which of course are no the the reassurances that we've gotten from the superintendent is that the the proposed
recommendation does not impact have significant programmatic impact it would be um you know not hiring positions that you know that have become vacant you know by and then moving other things around based on seniority um we also do
expect to discuss the bus fee so there might be a less increase of a bus fee just because those are costs that are going up but it might be more of like and they haven't gone up in a while but it might be looking at $25 possibly just to again to be less reliant on that it's
subsidized through the operating budget um and then so that it's more of an incremental increase if anything um and you know you're not hitting one large um chunk like $100 in a year per se so I think it's just recognized like a couple
of different areas in that regard thank you welcome questions or proposals on the budget i'll put out a proposal my recommendation would be that we follow the town administrator's recommendation
on the $62,000 for the reserve fund and for DPW and etc that we take the 875 total request from the schools and already add in the 263 we have from benefits lowering the need for an override to
612 and ask for 612 in a single vote and skip the whole multi-year thing which I think is uh adds unnecessary complexity to the proceedings or 612 or somewhere certainly on board with that last um to
try to get and I would encourage the board to take that 62125 and add it in as well because I I think it's I as I said like the lower you can get it and that's close to $100,000 off of that
override number and and I I think every little dime is going to help and it brings you You know I I just really think that it's it's better for the for the taxpayer and
it's better for the school department they're they're they're lowering their risk of a notebook fair enough it's an asymmetric risk um my desire to keep reserve funds and other things full is No no well I just want to explain it and
and in another environment I I may feel differently but I think the volatility that's out there i think we're this is not in any other environment this might be the rainy day year that we want to you know start thinking about those i think the rainy day is still ahead of us
in in terms of fiscal outlook so I I don't know that we're looking at a better situation so to preserve those pockets of money and reserve and stabilization I'm a little bit more sensitive about and so that's that's part of my inclination to keep the reserve fund a little bit more full closer to
where we've had it traditionally and not skimp from that um in this fall of our but I think no I think we're getting down to the point split i think I think though that that and I'll I'll let I'll let you speak and I'll fight for
Justin's tree budget that that's $6,000 just just as volatable in the town budget um for people who are who are on fixed incomes and are on retirement income that are be reliant upon 401ks that they're looking at on a daily basis
that is dropping and uh and every little bit is going to be important to those individuals and if we have an opportunity to protect some of their uh hard-earned money that they're that we
can save them I think we have an obligation to do so especially given that Greg had given us a proposal for a budget granted he had stretched it thin but he was comfortable that that was appropriate for us to move forward he was not suggesting that we were in any
trouble we never heard about the fact that we stretched out very thin we were in trouble now we have some money that we could possibly take and move somewhere else and save the taxpayer that's what um that's what my responsibility is towards the taxpayer
and that's what I'm gonna do i I I'm kind of looking at that comment and looking at what Jeff said and and thinking about the 263 and the 62125 we're sitting here talking about overrides how how do we do we have to
say we're stretched in if we're sitting here looking at an override doesn't that imply we're stretched in yeah yeah i mean so so I mean we know we're stretched in so to to suggest that we weren't and that there was 62 $62,000 to go to some other
places we don't have to be told if we have to be told that it stretched in the $62,000 could be better spent in other places or should be red fields should be spent in other places other than adding it into the schools minimized and override by you
know a few more dollars i we shouldn't have to be told that we should know that and I think to Jeff's point we you know if not this year will we need that $62,000 next year are we going to have to go search up for that kind of money you know next year even though it seems
a lesser amount does not does it not at some point come back to bite us in the amount of 62125 i think it does or the potential that it will given the instab all of the instabilities that even you guys are dealing with people's 401ks and
whatnot the 62,000 in you know in reserves is that it's going to help it's going to help you know to minimize some of those things next year or you know we'll need it once we put it in the other place
it's gone forever once once we slide it into anywhere with the 263 well that's fair enough that's not to knock on the schools but once we once we spend it it's gone forever we still have it in in in budget spots where we can
get to it at some point if we need it for something it's there but once we transfer to the schools or if we transfer it to to any departments it's gone and we don't we as a group of five and and um together with you know Greg
and department and Stephanie it's gone and we don't have it if we need it for something and I think it's I think it's we're safe and wise to take that 62125 and use it as Greg
suggests personal but can I just add um I agree with you anything that we can do to reduce the tax burden I I'm all for but the 62,000 if it's $25 per h 100,000 so we're talking about like 13 $14
totally it's $11 it's 11 put it in the calculator so I agree with you theoretically like philosophically anything we can do to reduce that amount but I'm not sure that the $11 per year per person or per household rather is
worth losing things that are coming out of the budgets that Greg is talking about and to Chris's point gone forever so that's you know while I totally agree with you philosophically I think in this case it it's not there's not enough bang for that buck in my opinion versus what
we would lose all right and that is the smaller of the two conversations so I'll put back out there then the proposal I've got on the table which is a $612 override which factors in 260 612,000
yes thank you $612,000 override which factors in 263,000 additional uh over the TA recommendation so that's a total of assuming the override passes 875 which is what schools have requested over a two-year period just over one 812
right 875 sorry I missed the yeah so the 812 is because I added in the $200 so it's 62 okay forget it I understand yeah yeah I'm track what you just said I thought it was the 612 the total
override amount would be asking for is the 612 plus 200 for the senior which is 812 Yeah yeah yes exactly you're saying the same thing yep okay so I'm in support of that proposal okay any other comments on that or
questions or alternate proposals okay natasha has another comment natasha um just real quick I not that I would ever want to say please turn away money for that's being discussed for the school but I would echo the what is
being said about the $63,000 um because ultimately if that were to go to the school department um all it would be helping us is to less rely on our reserves so I would hate to um protect our reserves at the
expense of the town's reserves um so I just wanted to clarify that that point um a little bit and um you know in another conversation I might not be saying that but I just wanted to just clarify
thank you Natasha all right i'm still unchanged on my proposal okay all right uh great anything else you would like to discuss on FY26 bud development before we turn to the warrant
uh I appreciate you asking no what I what I'm doing right now is I was I was following along but I was trying to make sure I was prepared to change the we get to the actual articles because it's not a lot of change um because that was presented but pretty much where where I where I've
already put off we'll get into it okay all right okay all right any other questions or comments on FY26 budget before we move on to annual town meeting warrant all right let's move on to the annual
town meeting warrant thank you Mr chair so um the board has a number of articles yet to accept but again this is all it's all related right certified general fun the sewer enterprise also I want to point out for the water enterprise there's two options
if you open up the document which is the warrant the draft warrant um look at the second one based on what you read this evening which is the 9% it's the that revenue the 9% so look at that second one sorry the public content control warrant tracker
Is that what you're talking about or opinions were in draft in executive yeah put in executive because I didn't know how the board wanted to do so i didn't want to blast um where where you you have different We're on um if you go to 10B it has the
documents Greg talking about so they're both under item 10 but 10B is where the documents are oh sorry oh I'm sorry it's actually under both 10 A and B it's under both but there's an additional uh document under 10 yeah there is you're right there i would I'm looking
under 10A and I'm opening the executive content of the draft got it okay thank you but I'm but I'm really reading off of what the good work also does of keeping a draft policy so um as I was saying there's uh there was there's two draft articles but the board now is
indicating the revenue reflecting the second article for the water price and then there's the sewer retained earnings water retained earnings uh oh actually there's two so there's there's two water retained earnings one is to um replenish the reserves and the second one is for
caps and then uh the retirement board um segment so the select board had asked for um uh representatives of the retirement board and we are doing this evening so you have Dian Montes and Kend Mars as representative of the retirement
report and then uh you have the override um uh which is a contingent budget for council on aging that's $200,000 you have to transfer from general stabilization for solid waste recycling that reflects that preced and then you have to override for the continued
budget for man public schools and your draft article it says $650,000 you would that would be adjusted to $612,000 and then um and then an easement and and here I kind of want to do a quick note um I'm not happy about this but sure enough you do have an
article in front of you that you have not yet seen until this tonight which I'm not a fan of uh we were notified by our council to our attorneys that uh in conjunction with the with the represent representatives of the Braftoft which is the old Coolage School that um those the
owners of the old Cooler School are looking for which is now private but they're looking for an easement to be able to connect um their Eversource connections for utilities at the top of the hill if you're looking at coolage school it's going to be off to the left above the baseball field and right where that new parking is um it's not much
land but it's it's an ement and it goes through public property so to it would be required um to grant that ement you know if the subway put it on the word and approve that so it's it's pretty minimal but it is in there
um and that's it so again if you're looking at the draft warrant um I believe uh the the two changes are reflecting that $612,000 in that school override amount and taking that second vote uh
second the second version of article 18 which is the water enterprise unless the board because the board had not yet taken any action on any of these but in particular the board was reluctant to take action on the retirement board site so we can discuss that as well
okay um maybe I'll suggest we just go through the remaining draft controls one at a time see if there's any questions and we go through it that way so we'll start right off on C are there any questions on certified free cash or you know Greg described how we would his recommendation on the general
stabilization changes based on the pre I'm sorry based on the snow and ice costs any questions on that as it stands all right any questions on the town general budget i think we've had the subsequent discussion so most of it's on the override any questions on
the next four which are sewer and water enterprise and the retained earlings and I'm sorry five because one is for capital improvements sorry can I go back to free cash i'm so sorry no that's okay um so am I understanding that because snow ice was more than anticipated what
changed in free cash no I appreciate that sorry that I missed this so look the bottom so if you're looking at the article 4 and it's and that $92,000 is highlighted that was the change so I I needed to I couldn't I couldn't use this much um um free cash to pay for the
solid waste recycling general stabilization you need to take other items out of free cash yeah the later the later article on general stabilization will be higher than it was yeah it was okay thanks sorry no no keep going it's believe me I uh I've been going crossite the last
couple of days with this too so it's great all right any questions on the five articles related to water and sewer all right so I'll let's um the retirement board I believe we have to move it forward um is my understanding i did have a
conversation with the FINCOM chair they um last night voted not to recommend there was more nuance than I had anticipated so we'll hear from the representatives themselves but the request is in line with what we see in other towns the one actually we talked about a lot with the fincom but the one
comment they made is is based on investment funding and if there's a poor return it is at risk that it would be on the town to fulfill that obligation now these are even smaller amounts that we were just talking about but I just wanted to convey that conversation from
the FINCOM and their non-recommendation vote which is fresh as of last night and I believe we have a representative from the retirement board is that correct or Ken how are you tonight good and you good do you want to give us a maybe a 30
second um overview on on what the article is trying to accomplish and the motivation behind it uh well first off it's going to uh make everybody equal one member of the retirement board is paid a stipen the other four are not uh
so it kind of equalizes the playing field for everybody it's kind you know when people come on the board and then they find out you know that they're doing the same thing as everybody does the same thing why is one paid not and the others aren't um 75% I would say of
of retirement boards do pay a stipen um over the last it's been 11 years since we've had an election to fill a slot on the retirement board the only ones that have come we've had one person two out
of the last three year two out of three years we have one person come forward um so they're on automatically by default because they're interested um this year we've had our fifth member who is
uh not he's not associated with the town or the retirement board at all it has to be completely separate um he decided to step off after 16 years on the board and one of his recommendations was that you
know you probably should pay because you can't find people um we do have somebody that came forward only one candidate to take his spot that person lives in Somerset um over the over since like I think it
was in 2011 or 12 the state uh legislature requires uh the retirement board members to have 18 educational requirements over the three-year term they also require them to file annual
statements of financial interest for them and their uh immediate household um to PERA which is our government oversight agency you know as far as their uh financials their debts uh assets u so
we're just trying to be a little proactive and hopefully you know start getting some candidates to to fill this these positions they the retirement board is mandated uh to meet month at least monthly uh there's there are times when they meet
more often um but that's kind of the direction we were trying to to be proactive with and like I said kind of even the playing field the funds do come from um our investment income as determined by Parak uh which is the
commission which it refers to in the statute um the yes there's going to be up up years and down years uh the the last two years we've had uh was over $8 million in investment income last year it was
over 7 million the the year before um so uh we don't feel that you know $12,000 stipens um would be taking a a big hit for the for the town or for the the funds in the system
um retirement board members are fiduciary of the funds and uh you know they're required to make all the investment decisions so it's it's not we do understand that
you know other boards in town do not pay but we are a separate entity we are not the town of Maynard acknowledged and thank you for for your work any questions all we're voting for is to accept the
correct put but should we should we give a recommendation i don't think we would be asked to either way we're not the sponsors who is the um one individual on the town board that does get a stip and is that as part of the town of
town's contract yes and is that paid out of town funds versus out of uh Kevin who pays who pays Kevin's statement we we reimburse the town we reimburse the town for the stipens
okay thanks so so is it is is it taxed is the stipen tax yes burdens on it the the town has tax burdens attached to the 12,000
the individuals have the tax burden not not we don't the town doesn't pay taxes well is it is it a payroll situation or Yes it's paid back through payroll we reimburse the town for the payroll
right so so in if you're reimbursing the town for the payroll and it goes on a payroll system there there is some burden you guys might see the burden but it's it ends up driving it higher than $12,000 doesn't it how biker there's there's burdens on
payroll we reimburse the town for that cost i I understand that and that's what I'm saying you you want you you reimburse the town but it's it's more than $12,000 because the tax burden's upon the
employer which is what that that if you're paying a stipen essentially you become an employer and there's a tax burden associated with drive it higher than 12,000 is that correct or incorrect we don't we reimburse the town we
reimburse the town for that share for the 12,000 plus that cost for F okay so it's so it's higher than $12,000 to to Yeah yeah it's 1.45% I think it is i don't know what the
percentage is i'm just asking the question yes because other people will ask the question at town meeting I would guess u Ken when does the uh retirement board meet retirement board meets usually the last
Thursday of the month time of day usually at uh 12:15 so the people that are on there are are on payroll in some cases yes not all but they would
do it on their own lunchtime if it was a town employee and um just so I understand the um PIDCOM's concern was that if the 12,000 plus 1.54% can't be funded out of the uh
retirement earnings then the town will come out of retirement funds but you know it could be retirement funds can't pay for it the town is responsible for that amount is that correct the town pays a a an allocation to the
system so I suppose you could say it's part of that allocation but I don't believe it would it would change your liability from year to year greg um how many other if you know that was I have a question for Frank Kim um
how many other companies serve on any boards as part of their contractual arrangement that get paid i'm sorry i I you kind of broke up on me Dave i'm asking Greg the question is how many
other Yeah so we think it's just the retirement huh we think it's just retirement yeah the question was how many other town employees serve on town um on the retirement board no serve on
town boards or committees as part of their contractual obligations and get a stipen for sitting on that board and the answer was just the member of your committee as far to my knowledge yes
um the I've got the FinCom comments so I think that was one thing that we had talked about but just the actual commentary that will be on the warrant the FINCOM acknowledges the efforts of the retirement board and their time dedicated to ensuring the stability of the pension fund while the requested amount was in line with similar towns of
other retirement board stipens FINCOM had concerns of funding through the retirement investment returns in an uncertain fiscal or uncertain financial environment ken also Jen Welch gets um a stipen from us we pay her as well she's not But
she's not on the board no she's not she's paid for her services as uh the custodian of the funds correct but I was just saying that that's through payroll as well and that's part of her budgeting for her pay her salary
she's in Miami she's right she's not on the committee any other questions okay all right uh we'll move on any questions on the override contingent budget for Council on Aging which is
that $200,000 yep any questions on transfer from general stabilization solid waste and recycling any questions on the override contingent budget for Mayor Public Schools i don't see the updated number
but 612 I believe is what we That's right and I put it in the I I was trying to work best and listen um I did put it in the warrant uh for um in the next item yes we just double check with Natasha to make sure that's on
yeah Natasha has a hand yes Natasha please go ahead um so just to confirm it's the 612 for the FY26 is that what you guys are um make sure we're all on the same page yeah so it would be if it's the 263 that's assuming that 263 is
going to the school and then that um 225 for FY27 is reduced and the remaining um gets applied to the FY um to further reduce the two um correct okay um and just to clarify uh Greg um I can update
the comments specific to that part when is when do you need that by so I would like to I I would like the select board to provide the comments for sponsoring the article okay if I'm not I can just add I can add this yeah I can add school stuff in if that's or no do you not want anything from the school
department i I think we'll have a presentation at town meetings so I think we can keep the comments relatively brief i would like to highlight the cooperation between the slack board and the schools i would like to highlight that we know that this is a difficult time but we think that this is in the best interest of the town and and we
appreciate the the work of everybody to get to this something along those lines so keep them brief and then the details I think we'll we'll have the school committee present at town meeting so that's where we can dig into some of the the topics there that's what I would recommend that works for me any
objections to that anything any other messages people want to convey in those comments then I think we can maybe authorize the town administrator to fill in the details on those uh between now and the time of print is that all right yeah i mean I I already had a draft in there oh but I I'll was a
little it was like the school committee recommends and we're just kind of passing along i think this I want to I want to put I heard this is this is from the both of us so this is this is from Well it's from the select board but we're in alignment with the school committee here yeah I got Okay i want to make sure we're coming across as unified
front not Yeah just passing along a school committee recommendation okay thank you very much thank you all very much thank you Natash uh so Mr chair you were at you were at the um contingent of budget for schools and then you have the one more which is
the the new the easement which I think maybe we might have some questions on being that one's new so any questions on the easement was being asked for here just to clarify what the area is uh in
question yeah if you there's a there's a it's not great you kind of have to use your imagination as you look at this uh design but if you go into page 15 in the draft board you'll see the you'll see the you'll see the the bird's eye view um so actually coincidentally the board
was talking about Elwood Street not that long ago when we were talking about um repainting the handicapped parking space on Elwood Street which is like next to the baseball field so if you were if you were on Elma Street and you kind of look it up um there's it just kind of there just
needs to be a little bit of access through so it's not you're you're still going to retain ownership over over that park but just ever sources need to get in there so they can plug in the building so to speak so I I just had one question coming out
from a number of people whether or not not that we want any more snow but affecting the tradition of of families that that uh do their sledding there in winter uh I suspect it'd be under you yeah so yeah
recall you did you did approve sources pole movement on this this is the subsequent secondary part so they are putting underground electricity yeah so they'll trench it we can't control the weather like that
requires an act of the legislator so petition oh is that why it looked good for Kate this morning cool all right so I think that's all of them we have a draft warrant here i don't know if there's much sledding at that location any not exactly i think
they'd be sliding into the uh football it's still there the coolage oh you'd be surprised kids will slide anywhere all right uh very good so if you want it
Mr chair you can accept all those yep anyone do the honors um in 10 A 10 D i can do it if you want i can I don't mind doing it reading 10 A you're reading the whole thing okay move to accept and approve the following
draft controls draft control C certified pre-cash appropriation for fiscal year 2025 draft control E Town general fund budget fiscal year 2026 draft control J sewer enterprise fund fiscal year 2026 draft control K water enterprise fund
fiscal year 2026 draft control N sewer retained earnings transfer for sewer enterprise reserve fiscal year 2026 draft control O water retained earnings transfer for water enterprise reserve fiscal year 2026 draft control R water enterprise retained earnings transfer
for capital improvements draft control X retirement board stipen draft control A R over O override contingent budget for Council on Aging draft control AS transfer from general stabilization solid waste and recycling draft control
AW override contingent budget for Mayor Public Schools as amended draft control AX easement Elenwood Bankraftoft as shown and forward to the finance committee for review and comments ready to continue uh motion's been made
and seconded all in favor very good i'm sorry what was that is there another motion oh no maybe I need a refreshment no I But we do need to approve the warrant as a whole in 10
B yes so now you'll see what you just approved yep yep it's updated i'm getting it through yep well I will move to approve the warrant for annual town meeting 2025 as presented and authorize the use of digital signatures if approved all in
favor all right i take a moment to thank everybody this was not the easiest budget cycle and I'll I'll reiterate what I said at the meeting last week this conversation is much more acrimonious than other towns uh maybe Davis could give us an overview about
how good or not is in the other town but I do uh want to recognize the professionalism that everybody has tackled a very difficult financial situation and uh we'll continue to work forward going into town meeting
and that thanks extends to you Natasha and the school committee uh thank you all it's a team effort and I appreciate um everyone now we now we can start in advocating um or informing um continuing to advocate and inform yes
absolutely thank you thank you all right now moving on to item 11 which are town elections so we have the annual town election and then the special town election warrant is the warrant updated with the amounts that we just noted
thank you Mr chair because I'm noting that right now okay so I didn't get I don't have the word document in front of me to be able to to quickly make that i will start with moving to approve the warrant for the annual town election i should be able to do May 6th 2025 authorizing the use of digital
signatures if approved second all in favor very good so you're right Mr chair for the special election the draft warrant was just the number I had at the time which was it was $200,000 for the council on aging but it was 1.3 uh for
the schools so I I recommend that the board approve it as amended to collect $612,000 uh do we need to mention 612 you probably should because it's not written all right um yeah let me just open this up make sure I understand language
yeah you could read you can read the ballot questions if you want and then just use the correct number amending question two all right so let me first move to set the date time and place special town election as Tuesday May 27th 2025 from
7:00 a.m to 8:00 p.m in the Fowler School Auditorium 3 Tiger Drive Mayor second all in favor all right and now I will move to approve the warrant for the special town election of Tuesday May 27th 2025 as
amended to reflect an amount on question two of $612,000 second 10 administrator is that good all right all in favor all right very good and authorizing use of digital signatur yeah but I think um
the town town recommended white signatures sir we'll get those to you all right sounds good okay fantastic uh there's no other questions on item 11 we can move on to 12 senior center planning we have a meeting Thursday correct all right meeting
Thursday yes we do thursday we have [Music] no right any questions or updates on that or other updates i think we're all right
and we just uh approved the warrant with the lease and the override request so fantastic updates on this green meta school building project hey we broke ground um it was a beautiful day like I said it was nice oh there was one one correction we have to make about
breaking ground that was way off we're 153 years old oh he said we like I was listening he said "Didn't we just go through the whole thing?" Is that MSDA CEO no that was
that was Nick People forgot about our next meeting because they will give me a little brief today they want to put me in a pile of dirt or something so uh but I I couldn't believe he said 120 i was thinking I may have big didn't just do that
uh but that was a nice ceremony it was good it was good and I I was I appreciated everyone's turn up we had a good crowd i told the department heads about it um we I didn't expect a huge public turnout but actually they were actually planning to bring a few classrooms out and have them but the rain kept them in yeah rain earlier in
the day they decided that better keep them in but uh the speaker of the temp Kate Hogan decided it was going to be beautiful when she showed it yeah and and it was so that was wonderful there is a point of business unless there's anything else about that but there's a point of business
vice president of my department calls for me to attend a meeting it was shovels and dirt i mean it wasn't wasn't a lot to see it was nice that there was a lot of people fight almost the whole fire department was there and representation of the police department
couple DPW folks and it was one of the things I noted was how good it was to actually see a lot of the uh Green Meadow Building Committee in person that's right meetings are in online so being in person I think so i was telling
Greg when I was there that when we sit in those meetings some of the guys that we see on a monthly bi-weekly basis look pretty big yeah but this is like that's no idea like you know like because
you're you're close to your laptop or whatever and you you look a lot bigger and then you meet with Chris like I two or three of them and you know one of them I thought was like this toe ends up being like 6'2 or 63 it was pretty funny though to see people Oh yeah we've never had a live meeting of that committee
we've only ever had so many I think you're right like when I see you guys I know how we all look and I think you're right people you don't know it's kind of interesting to see who they are but it was nice to meet you know most of those folks yeah in person for a change yeah because we don't get the informal chat
opportunity online right there's no there's no Yeah so it was very good um it's nice so it's exciting that's a big step and as Kate said next big step is the ribbon cutting but between now and then I suspect there'll be a number of change orders there'll be a lot of bumps in the road you guys have seen whatever
sort of house will be show on TV something inevitably happens so that that's what's to expect but it's good big step um there is a point of business for the board to consider the select the school building committee had approved a change order amount of
67,738 goes towards addressing um uh I want to make sure I'm going to quote this right geotechnical observation uh for the early sight package of blasting air while putting in back observation which was more than anticipated so the school building committee had approved
that amount but it's higher than what I can authorize uh I will move to approve the contract amendment to design services additional geotechnical construction administration services for the new Green Meadow School project in the amount of
67,738 authorizing use of digital signatures if approved uh any questions all in favor very good thank you anything else on item 13 nope
all right uh item 14 two correspondences move to accept correspondences A and B as shown uh second all in favor all right moving on to acceptance of minutes
two sets of minutes move to approve the meeting minutes of January 21st and April 8th 2025 as shown authorizing use of digital signatures if approved we found them we found them okay over there
are those the ones you were talking about we'll catch up town administrator report uh thank you Mr chair so um town meeting is coming up so one thing I want to highlight for the board um the chair and I have discussed this but just sort of make sure you guys are
aware um the town meeting is scheduled for May 19th that's a Monday but uh the board had a regular schedule um select board meeting on the 20th which is the next night on Tuesday but there's a lot of articles so um I already kind of warned the department heads this might be a two
nighter i know our moderator likes to be efficient um but he you know and thorough and he does like to give the time appropriately if it goes in the second night I think the the board just kind of know we might have to shift things and maybe we have to meet on a Wednesday night so that'd be a lot of seeing each other um three nights in a
row but um but just kind of I I recommend you look through your calendar and then um I'm taking a vacation starting I'm leaving Thursday night so don't look for me you'll be in good hands um Stephanie Doug assistant town administrator you you'll be in good
hands we'll be around and then um I also want to highlight a couple great things that that the departments are doing um town clerk's office went to Camila Gardens so I appreciate her efforts trying to get the outreach there to make sure they're aware of like their of their voting status and election procedures that was great julia Fannery with the Department of Public Works and
Water Department in particular she just came back from DC where she did a great job lobbying with the rest of our of our regional partners um with Congress um and meeting with which is great so she's very excited about tell you all about it if you if you ask um Zoe Peele um has
been made our conservation agent she was the administrative assistant for municipal services and she she applied she did well by the conservation commission they it's a joint appointment between myself and the conservation commission and now she's the conservation agent and then but now we
have the back post so cool and then um uh I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the firefighter academy so we have a new firefighter Keegan Sheridan great and uh and then um it's a three-day weekend this weekend so um
Monday is Patriots Day a lot going on with the 250th in particular public safety notice uh for the fire chief i want to highlight the fire chief says no no open burning this weekend um I guess all the chiefs are saying don't do it because whatever resources are available
are meant to be focused on the various events and 250th and marathons etc so fire department doesn't want to be going to check out someone's leaf burning that got out of hand they want to be able to focus all their resources on on the bigger events so no leaf burning no open
burnings this weekend how's that information right now sorry it's probably a good idea so we can we can do a we can do the we can do the first one call we put on the website i think we put on social media can you put on social media for either the I
feel like people do follow the police department and fire department we can do that we do every day until we get Yeah that probably is the best place if you are going to do social media with with an explanation as well i mean on Yeah
that would be help y that's what we're saying like we're going to deny it if if you ask this weekend you're not getting it okay so that was it mr chair questions any questions to the town administrator all right uh chair report
so I wanted to thank everybody for the participation of the town hall one week ago i think we had around 60 people in person i didn't actually get a count of how many panel line start at 82 82 people online that's the max it went it
climbed up wow and then about the middle of the meeting it was at about 82 I think and then it declined like a bell curve that's more than we've had to go up to some town meetings um that wasn't a joke so um regardless I think we've gotten
some feedback regardless of where people stand on on the way it was conveyed the content i think you know I said 2575 talking and listening and those are often aspirational goals but we hit pretty close uh we were a little over half an hour maybe between Greg and
Brian on the talking portion and we got a good hour and a half of questions in there so I I was happy that we were preserved that balance um I thought uh everybody did a good job on answering questions i think we we clarified a lot of points we heard from where the public was and overall it was a good event so
thank you for everybody who participated and uh helped out with that event also um was happy to attend the groundbreaking ceremony today uh really nice to see a lot of different people come together uh clearly a huge moment i think um somebody mentioned we'd be I
think Kogan mentioned we'd be uh having ribbon cutting in months which advanced the construction timeline so to get on that and uh but looking forward to seeing that project move forward smoothly and thanks for everybody who showed up to that meeting as well and
then finally just wanted to um well I'm looking forward to seeing everybody at the conquered 250 events on this weekend so that'll be a that'll be fun will be a big moment there that's it for me go to Chris no just echo the the
sentiments about last last week's meeting and the groundbreaking and then again going to go walk a little Saturday uh I also am appreciative for everyone who came to the town hall last week i thought it was a great conversation um
and thanks to the chair for facilitating that conversation so well um and to both Greg and Brian for their presentations and their um question answering i thought it was a great great event overall and to the library for hosting
us um congratulations to Zoe i'm happy to hear that we are retaining her and she's moving into that position um and uh I also just want to thank this is my first round of full budget cycle to warrant approval um I know we're not
done yet but I am appreciative um for the competence of our town staff and our school staff and our school board um and this board um it was a less painful process than I had anticipated and um which I feel like maybe is saying a lot
given that I keep hearing that this year has been really challenging so uh thank you i appreciate that um and I wish you a great vacation next week Craig oh yeah enjoy thank you Lindsay david yeah I would echo the comments on the meeting last
week i think I think was excellent and I think we did more listening than talking which was the the goal and I think most importantly a message was heard and I think that's very very important because
it gives credibility to us as being listening and not just dictating and not just saying what we think sometimes we have to make the tough decisions that aren't very popular but other time but most of the time we need to listen and
react on where our residents are looking for us to go um tomorrow night i don't know if I'll be able to attend unfortunately but the um the housing trust is meeting its monthly meeting so if anybody's
interested in poking in on that that'll be on the line um I think there's some approvals and it's exciting times because we're being able to get to approve very very precious units you know that are needed for us um as well
as issues with u getting money for u future projects as well through the CPC etc um so that is I believe all I've got so thank you thank you David Mike yeah um again echoing uh other comments that
have already been made uh especially with regard to the the meeting last night uh last week but in particular also just another recognition uh that I don't think we should take for granted uh how well we do collaborate with
groups in the town especially around the budget um and and that's it's important to recognize that we're able to focus on the issues rather than what other talents experience with difficult personality like this so so that's
that's really good to see and I think it says a lot about our town and how we go about resolving problems um Greg have a trip to Ireland come back with the challe that's easy to get through right you
just get it's just wood yeah and and also again congratulations to Zoe again for moving into that position i wish her well um a good addition yeah we're excited all right well five Tuesdays in April
means we've got three weeks for our next meeting so enjoy your week everybody that's right i'll make a motion to adjurnn all in favor all right bye everyone