##VIDEO ID:H7jrjLsqFy4## this is of course a quad board meeting board the finance committee school committee the capital plantion remind try get outo so good evening everybody this is the work we've done now so' been a ro for a couple meetings um to see better alignment between expectations for all of us as to go for iic introduction expectations great um so I think the purpose of this meeting is to reset we've got a couple of these now uh this will be the first one since the special town meeting had conversation decisions around the features which was certain to uh and what I really want to make sure we're starting to do now is think to head towards annual town meeting certain maying on that but in particular because there are a lot of requests that we have out there uh and I think we' talked be very about that request but this board is not for us to come together and as we move forward from where before were nebulus get data behind what Center committee and the for the school committee is looking for the capital planning uh has always done a great job and they're working on BET station duration and then us back so we for town meeting foration um wanted to Town Administrator go through the list of all the different and we'll also cover a few uh basic overviews on how overriders work because that's topic that's up and com up so want to get a bit more mechanic on that look at the different soal flavors I would say or that use for over rides and then this is time for all four of us to be in the same room and really ask each other questions see where where we stand what we think is feasable what we good for the community what we think delayable appropri think needs more data all those type of questions are the table and so uh this is a good opportunity for us to just see where each other is at of all is forward and um much better to do that tonight in November then last minute in February for annual town meeting so here we are before I turn it over administrator are there questions on what we're hoping to do here tonight hoping to C all right so I've asked i' asked put together and with all of your help actually um High overview on many of the topics I just alluded to a single sentence so some of these are one slide some of these are a few more on there but other turn over the tiny administrator to D the presentation that is much smaller than I thought it was going to be even at the font I did although what you see here is just um the highlights from what is already uploaded in BO du in fact everything that you see is already in BO um then some so some of the Committees provided additional internals all that is also in board talk so you go and look it up tonight or later PES it's all there in fact um I'm gonna what I'm about to say is what I've already said and a bunch of St com and then and select and I can see Linda is looking over my notes so if I miss something she'll she'll she'll help me I also have a head cold probably like most of you so see how I do okay this is just a snapshot of where I am in the budget development so um I would say we're still kind of in the nent stage of FY 26 we're we're FAL year 25 right now so we're preparing for FY 26 and Beyond this is where we are with that so um I always start with the revenue side from the revenue especially um following the recent classification hearing that the select board had the other day where they said the tax rates you can start to forecast what your your growth is going to be for the next F year so with that um it's it's kind of a simple equation where you just take how much property taxes you have this year add new or um you multiply by two and a half for two and a half then you add a new growth and things are doing pretty well we have a relatively stable economy um so not quite the the huge gains that we got when M Crossing was building the mark baset shopping tenter was coming along like we're not going to see huge strides in property taxes like that but the economy is relatively stable so I think right now and I'm sorry sorry if I'm misquoted but um I think I put it at $325,000 wor New Growth doesn't really mean anything to you guys if you're I'm looking at this big spreadsheet that's pretty good in some years I started making only $200,000 that's new taxes so that's a again that's sort of a reflection of the economy the housing market turnover it's it's good anyways um my first point says $1.4 million to increased property taxes over fiscal year 25 for projected Revenue that's really good um so again that $1.4 million takes into account um um the the regular tax increase and the new code um and then my next po Point says I'm uh currently assuming level projections for the other Revenue sources that's state aid local receipts so think of that as like meals taxes excise taxes um and transfers from Enterprise funds and we have three Enterprise funds currently which we'll touch on later we have sewer water and ads and a little little bit of those um funds are then transferred into the general fund if I have an admin worker that's that's like handling bills but they also do some stuff in the Public Works office and a little bit of the Enterprise funds covers the so it's a transfers but I'm I'm usually very conservative in both revenues and expenses so in this stage of the game I I I didn't I don't like to gamble so I said okay what one of I feel comfortable with as far as my Revenue projections for the next year dep that's what you okay now we go to the other side side of leisure which is expenses and as Jeff pointed out I'm going to just highlight some of like the big tis okay so we're not going into odds and ends most of the Town departments are tiny it's like two people so even if they wanted um another agreement paper next year that's not going to that's not going to it's not going to make any change in in in the in the in the spreadsheet really um these items are sort of like aspirational and this is something I wouldn't have listed here if they didn't if they couldn't all individually go the Justified and additionally some of these are not necessarily discretionary they're um they're like salaries so I'll get into it uh and no particular right off the top there was the new Senior Center leasing for about $200,000 um that had you'll hear more from Council on Aging in a minute about that um then I have I'm sicking to the left side of the column says salaries for contracts right so that's that's this is just Town departments I'm not speaking for the schools um this the school department does budget for their own salaries um however we do share the benefits costs amongst the general fund so I'm this bullet is only for um Town departments so that's my own contract um the Public Works director's contract and then I have two unions on the hook so that's uh the the Public Works labors and the professionals inflicted parls um then I have uh the usual increase but it's not clear exactly how much is going to be right now for liability and property insurance um then I have on my bullet here the cost to keep the lights on that's that I was told by our Consultants a 10% increase um for lights and gas and and utilities cost for facilities um It's not nothing and then um back now I'm over on to the top of the right um Capital funding in this current fiscal year fisc year 25 we set aside $50,000 for Capital expenses that's that's from the general fund that's out of operating so don't that's separate from bonds that's separate um uh free cash and this is not the sewer and water Enterprises this is just general okay so just I know it gets really nuanced but it's important to make those distinctions so in this fiscal year we have $50,000 I I just put a number on there for FY 26 planning and I bumped it up to $200,000 which we've done once in the past and I would love to get back there because I'm sure the capital planning committee would advocate for if not son so that that's on there um the select word heard from the fire chief the other night for a deputy fire chief position it's something that's been um discussed um a chief had had recollection from back in 2011 so something the town has been um advocating for for a while below that I came up with a number this has not come from the school department or school committee I put an 8% increase for the school department um which is a $1.8 million over fy2 again that's from Greg Johnson it's not I didn't even ask M but that's that's all just and then um next is benefits um which is mostly health insurance now again that is shared the school department and and town proit right so as the agent of the select board I negotiate the the benefits for H out town we do that in collaboration with and and everyone else who pays into it um this is not a negative reflection on the town um in fact our loss ratio is relatively favorable we're slightly above where our provider would like us but overall the the market um as I'm being told by our Consultants is um not good so um other towns are really struggling with their insurance needs we're not so we're not we're not we're not you know worse off um but I was still told to expect a 9% increase now this is still pretty early on and I won't even know our true number until February March that's that's the usual name of the game individually I might be able to find room for these the downside is to do all of it all at once that's where it gets tough and at the bottom you can see I wrote uh you know the difference between the revenue and my expenses is $1.8 million but um some that that is not so far off where sometimes I am although this is my seventh you know annual budget um with with we sort of supplement it you know as well every year but um so I'm I'm pretty I'm much more confident in where we are with a lot of these numbers so $1.8 million is a lot um and we we'd have to look at um as the sort of months and weeks go on we sort of solidify those numbers more and more and then we see you know like my my conservativeness gets a little more angry but that's a snapshot anyone have any questions on that again that that was rears because I've said that about three four times now any if you want more details but not not just a minute if you want more details it's not a lot more but you can go to do you'll see the spr what's up next year it would be likely to be the same type of percentage increase for is going into FY 27 yeah I don't know I really don't know so um those those two are really don't know that's why we pay Consultants I I uh um I mean obviously it's there those are two different markets and two different usages and and for both of those um well let me let me break it down so for energy costs we try to go as I don't know about these we try to be as efficient as possible with all our energy consumption so we've been taking advantage of State programs for many many many years um I would be surprised actually there was a non LED light in any of town um we have the solar field a long time we have solar panels over at the high school now we're we're planning on the solar panels over at the um at the elementary school and and um you know geothermal Wells like I I it's hard to get that number down so really again that's not even a reflection of anything wrong with the town's doing it's just Market in fact we actually have a slight Advantage um because we bid out our our supplier for PS gas electricity so um unlike the individuals right so households kind of have one game in town unless the community electricity activation program comes to pass but um you pay a source I don't pay a source to keep these lights on we we went out to bid so anyways but um for benefits um you know we have robust benefits and that's not a bad thing that's actually that's advantageous to us especially as we be with region that's you know that's our understanding um I compare our budget to what the Department of Revenue says I should compare my our budgets to but those aren't my neighbors um so when we try to be competitive with you know commuting at distance and whatnot um we try to stay you know competitive to those you know conquer sub very still acting um but we have great benefits um and we try to be really collaborative expect stay in deficit every year I really don't know don't know great question um yes and no I would say I would say I hope that energy cost level up I hope that it could be a little more stable uh for health benefits um I mean we were told to expect the increase last year when people started going back to the doctors after covid seems to continue and then um um like I said we're I thought we were doing fine so our loss ratio is not that bad so 9% is high although in the past I've been told to my initial budget is to stay high and then it might come down as it gets closer to years I may get told oh it's not 9% that's more5 but and that would be optimistic I my gut tells me it may not be nine it's probably GNA be pretty high any first re um you may two years ago so when State push for and got passation that was advertised as being something would bring a lot of new Revenue to the local communities specifically they focus that money when advertising it on education and infrastru mostly Transportation infrastructure I if I'm not mistaken now we have seen some recent munches who' been added I know beens projects that have been accomplish specific that but they also added in bike lanes that don't really affect us here in May they've added recall inst which is wonderful for those who need to make their way and they've added Financial of students various ways those are my understanding where to and but it hasn't down as advertised to the local level and u i I think that we should push for that to happen I think there is an issue especially withs not only here at but else that is concerning and this that something help us at the local level or education buts specifically I I hope someday we see that second make it good Innovation and progress in our buildings and for the energy cost we have seen larger buildings and increase in energy and that's strictly because of more technology computers 247 you know you got a police station pass there be an increase in usage we can do address the lights being left onight I don't know if there's reason for that it's difficult to drive I'm not specifically that's the school I see most drive by see the front side school time at 5:00 in the afternoon we can do better and that's School specifically might be very Ral but I do see on at the schools as because it's last you see it and I don't know how late kids stay there what janitors [Music] to but something looking at especially as move on to another you know right we are sensitive to energy consumption we're required this but also in order to be able to bring communities Awards we have to show we have to show that we're that we not taking it light 247 any other questions Maran this is Maran Shi she's the chair of the Council on Ag and I I'm made it come all the way up I'll Stand Up as Greg said I'm Mar she also chair of the salion board and the council director here also uh we're hearing tonight in support of the council and aging's two resolutions regarding sen the first resolution requests a line item in the uh 206 budget for estimated funding for an interim Senior Center on the second recommends to the select board that a request for proposal be pursued for this interrupt space and um uh you see in the very fine report that the Senor Center committee has presented their recommendations regarding uh an interim space and most of you have seen at least some information about the University of Massachusetts study Aging in Mayers and Community use assessment which focused on the senior needs the senior population but um the data information also included some young people who center lives um what we want to do now is quickly summarize um what the need is and present a vision for what the senior center might be and as I I would like to thank not only about the inter Senior Center but some of these comments apply to any future per facility that so uh you you Mass study included interviews with six key players in town people when ship and it also include po which were comprised of seniors from the town who either use the the senior center frequently or occasionally or never showed up so that we get a broad view of what profession of as you know a Ser probably many of it somebody we also sent a survey to town seniors amazingly we got 1,35 responses B response very so from the results of these inquiries we think we have a pretty good idea unfortunately people of Mayor do not see the the current facility as adequate and they don't use that many of them for reasons that we have been over many times fresh amendments on that one of is La central location many people don't know how to find us much bigger issues challenge parking lot problem off the parking lot of school more importantly parking lot is very slow it's very hard to get uper but the big one is the limited space because it constrains our ability to provide the services and programs the n and we're about third of now and new housing attracted to see in bu here G which has many new senior citizens that we want to Welcome to our space even though they weren't citizens before they moved into a senior living facility they are C so the limited space means that U many of things that the UN survey indicated people wanted can do it we can offer it but only to a certain number of people because there's no class space size appropriate size for um Additionally the state of the current facility we've all heard about that rooms the tiles and rcky rails and things like that um exacerbates the feeling seniors that they are neglected that they're unseen both singles and groups feel isolated because they don't know where to go to different kind of social interaction information about health and wellness a sense of belong Community where they value they find that um so what would this new Senior Center like hopefully the intro Center would have all of these uh tributes certainly permanent one way the one that immediately comes to mind is accessibility flat parking line um one that doesn't um provide problems is easy to get into building people also mention frequently that they want the place to be centralized in our town could use access they want some things more VAR progams and many of these wereidentified study obviously more exercise space um you also L more educational programing the sort of thing we often collaborate to the library to U provide we'd like to provide some of that our stud as well uh more room for arts and performance activities critical is space for comensal things paining has so many resources to help people with their problems but you can't talk about problems that people have in a space where people can over hear what you're saying it's veryable so people are am do a wonderful job the space that she has um but space where can feel comfortable time and have their problem solved as well as other a good zum exercise workout um people need Transportation U Services that more easily our non seniors uh they also need abil we also need ability to accommodate intergenerational programming this was mentioned in um it good for teenagers to be it is good for middleaged people to be with older people to see what is it going to be like when I like that so if you have intergenerational progr you can meet that some of us don't recognize that in time to do anything about it suddenly we wake up and oh my goodness what do now I haven't been paying attention to what happens with older people generational programming you can address that me and the other thing is this could be um a Cornerstone for building Community many people wanted to have the permanent Senior Center to be part of a community um Center we talked a lot about MERS when we talk about the schools we talk about kind certain students are when we talk about senior centers how many seniors on Serv but it's not how many today it's like a river every time you look at the population of full you look at the they age out if they are followed by others so when we talk about the cost of the S we're not talking about photos people who are here today we are talking for years to come about the cost to provide all these services to thousands of people it's a river every day it's different the senior sen commune spent 11 months studying how project forward it doesn't put a lot of other towns the resources that may have these and you have them rep but there new thinking that has entered the discussions and I want to share that with you and new and thinking is the possible solution the financial impacts this project are so often met with the support of the Council on Aging a beast space where the interim Center may may be procured but does not require outl Beyond tables chairs furn program thing many of those things can be procured with funds we have in hand thanks in great measure to the Friends the idea funding in this way in estimate response to request foral one potential blesser would not have requirement to pay for the initial build down of the space up front that cost would have been amortised into the yearly rent over a long leas so that instead of us paying to have the plumbing and electricity anding and all done which for one potential interested party with approach milon that's not there there's no Capal outl aging board is recommending and a request for proposal Beed for such an interim support interim space supported by just the year 26 which as Greg showed you is not huge that is a Le it's not a capital out stand here to make this request to you but we are two voices among many many many that we thank for their diligent work and you've heard this before but I say it again this is more people to figure out the numbers starts with the mayor Community L Center committee that first moved the Council on Aging Golf Course thinking it would be a temporary temporary liation it includes the many who served on different interventions at the Council on Aging board who worked to find a per po during the teams of this Century we welcome and thank The Talented tenacious Senior Center focus grp his in the community minds and conversations in years with Friends of Man seniors who group made real study and who are squirreling away funds for Furnishing Senior Center Senior Center Community has already present you with their report and request and here's where the numbers get big all the people were involved in new M they sent those surveys back because they were interested in a new Senior Center and lastly the overwhelming majority of near to 800 people in the room last fall at the special town meeting patiently waiting for the boat to be t on the Green Meadows project and who therefore had to listen to the presentation regarding funding Senior Center got excited about it and voted over well to find the money this is a huge team that has moved this ball down the field now you're standing in theone we have thrown you this first and will you catch it thank you thank you thank you mar mar been invited upcoming slbo meeting provide a detailed overview got very detailed overview right there but uh there'll be a chance to SL questions at that on the top of my mind and making sure we have enough I'm giving you just an advance of what I'll be asking to for making sure that we're including a number that be sustainable for not just next year but for the years to come and then the last question access Jack they're going to be needing additional staff support space so that's somethinge just wanted to let board know that there'll be a chance questions that and that the um we don't know what Happ people have mentioned that it good eight to 10 years to be planning but SE permanent Senior Center um some of the responses that we got to request information mention we years um 15 um that was not negotiated just we want this is the basic outlines project tell us what you think and um so we got a lot of VAR information I was really surprised at how different some of the posos were the one that mentioned um spreading out would how all about anyone in 15 years but again we negotiate that that's just throw it out there asate thank you very next up is uh schools think I have three for you tonight I know at you um so historically this first slide just shows you what we spend versus what Val so in order to run all of our programing meet the needs of all of our students and our students quite frankly are more expensive to educate now than they were 10 15 years ago we have more El students special education students social emotional and mental supports for our students it cost more to educate kids these days and you can see the blue has been what's been allocated by the school committee year after year after year green is what's been allocated by the town and you can see there's a difference we spend a little bit more than the round this is what you have which we understand it's have has to cover everything and we've used our revolvers over over the past years and years and years that's how we solve that Delta go yeah next slide I literally I have three slides but most of our revolvers are small in terms of how much money is actually in it's a low amount of money and so for example if it's a revolver for facilities that's how we spending facilities and it's never enough right we have three buildings they're each large they have lots of classrooms they have librar they have infrastructure we can quadruple the amount we have in our facilities revolver and it probably still isn't enough but we get by with what we have the School of Choice One and those numbers have changed um over time you can see back in 2017 2018 all the way to now and some of that is more kids used to come to me why is that they just did more students came and the amount was greater that we got for child so you can see that the beginning balance of those accounts at one point they were pretty low 60,000 then it goes up half a million $668,000 there's a lot of money coming from school choice what's nice about school choice I'll tell you it is not the facility it is not a special education account it is an account kind of like your savings account if something were to break we could use school choice to help pay for if we needed a new teacher because we have we got a student with specific needs and we needed another teacher we could use that so it can be used to really offset your budget a little bit can you do that every year yeah as long as that blue number stays up there you can do that every single year which we have done religiously for a decade so we haven't come and said we need more money we always ask for M that's what we do right we want to offer the best program for our students no question about it but here's where it gets kind of scary and I think I mentioned this at town meeting that blue number has dipped right which means we've used it and it hasn't been and we knew that was this is not a surprise Wayne tells me year after year that numbers going down and I'm like I know but there's we can't leave it in the bank at the expense of student that's the Dilemma we have we don't have widgets we actually have little human we have those little children that we want to help so we do spend that low number down you can see it was way up there now it's down ending balance at the end of this year and we'll use this as you know this year I think without the sheet f is about a $900,000 deficit between difference between what we're going to spend and what the time is allocated and we will use the majority that will come from schools that's what it's for but we don't want to spend it down to zero and we would like to have some balance in there for emergencies for us so we don't have to come back and say I don't want to have to come back to Greg and say Greg I need cash money for X Y or Z so you can see that's being used and it's not being replenished we have less kids coming and we get less money from the state to school chice that's something next slide thanks before you go can you go back absolutely hist 1920 with the beginning balance and what was going on at that time what led to what looks like $200,000 that that year like nobody left the house right yeah yeah so 2024 25 now it looks like we're actually having a better projecting A better ending bance and we have and now fy6 looks like we use some of it every year it just but this year it went actually okay but then next year yeah okay so that's 400,000 the Del between what's going in and what's coming out so what's but that's not necess so that's that that the that's that's not the school budget that's not what you allocate the school more with the schools school committee correct I'm saying to this account you're getting certain amount in school choice and you're spending certain amount that deficit is 400,000 approxim as we just covered right I think that's what use Wai and correct me if I'm wrong correct me if I'm the school choice revolver when at the end of the year we're having oranges at the end of the year we have more money at the end of year this is high in June that we had at the beginning well that's because transfer Choice put in the operating budget at the end of the year and that so take the expenses out is the equivalent of putting money into the account yeah so so it looks like by the top to June 2025 that would have about the healthiest budget [Music] in June 2 so the end of this school year yes this looks like we have 700 like be $772,000 in that time at the end of 25 this June of five how much comes in per year in this count or maybe just verify 24 23 at the um it used to be uh 50,000 mon now because of the shift in the the students in and out it's like 50,000 for the year which is why this drop off why you don't see that number go off going forward 600,000 a year yeah budget for this year we approved leveraging uh this was before we Clos fine 24 um we approved it relying on school choice for a certain amount I think that was about 9,000 whatever that was what Wayne is saying is that when it comes to closing if there are other accounts that um have a bit more in there able to not rely Choice as much where it wasn't as money is coming in is that it was just less relied upon to do that but the TR I know we go through this at U in our budget subcomittee we can see what comes in our our and Trend school choice has it's see the one part SP was really a new um but now we're seeing is a lot of are either homeing or we have a lot of lot of schools allow their students their teachers to have their students go to their schools we have teachers or um students mayor who choose out CH out and so you end up paying sometimes more because a parent might be a teacher in another district and the child there so that's where it it can depend on like the benefits of what a particular town I offer to get a tenter but it kind of is that shifting um um the unknown but we are um the hbag right now that second hbag so we are tapping into our school choice as one of the ls to help um second we got money approved we got extra money coming in so we kind of that's where that allows us to be able to tap in those unexpected we're seeing a lot more about fower fower is something that very much talked about you remember 20 30 year mark you have systems that are kind of major systems that are kind of so that's what we want to be able to rely on that fund those type of things um transportation is another major expense that on school choice um the cost of Transportation isn't funded by the budget um parents pay us the remaining is funded by schent ches and that kind of can change how much you had um as well and it looks like you've done a good job team very cognant of and I would encourage anybody to look at so every every we have report School puts out about how we close out the year there's a presentation to the school committee and it goes over all of our funding um where the balances were how TR that're seeing get that kind of like give us a little sign of what's coming into the year so are we you know we're not in red or where those Trends are as we're the future so that's where that SCH Choice can be a little bit um hard to plan with for operation purposes one it's not finished at the and we're with more regular operation so it's kind of um you know you can see the the trend there a little bit so the lack of replenishment should be proportional to the number of students were expected to fund here correct so this there's a Delta the number of students that we need to educated school system relative to that half million dollar drop that this me corre we have that goes up so the r of students are going up really students were Beyond students so um it's not necessarily look to our commment it's our people want to come to meet like we advertise every year how many seats we have open to see you want to come um you know maybe school people might have some in town stone at parents of do Cho but that's what we do as a school committee side how many seats we could take if people were interested and that's where we draw particular we try to it's a double-edged sword let's call it what it is we do advertise we do say When what when we have open seats because we don't want to put ourselves in the position having too many kids in a grade and now all of a sudden class size is too high because once you say yes you own them now when I I say you own them you own them in terms of all of their services till they graduate so and don't you you don't get to pick and choose there's no Lottery here yeah St yep I think yeah two right now at the school that's exchange there's a separate that one's actually much better for us and those yeah two years ago had 15 I have I don't think it's gotten to that I mean they're sort of to pick back out but not to that uh I think there program that they're they're talking about next couple years they wor it's Spain or what not because you verion kids that are matriculating out to high school by um they haven't turn anybody away yeah do exchange like from to go elsewhere that is that are just incoming school choice or is that a net of incoming and outcoming so in other words in 2526 see net gain of 772 I think it's just what we start balance what you end so you're It's a combination of how much rign for the year and what you Rue so there's a separate if they get 2 million in exp Dr Elementary in middle school and they decide to school that's that's I can see I'm just kidding um can you move it down so I can see the top r you know yeah yeah no I'm fine now thank you team I app see is this year's budget and then there's a lot of assumption because we have contracts that will be under underway we have we don't exactly know what our expenses are so asking us to go out to like 530 is a little bit of a shot in the dark here so we gave it our best shot in terms of what do we know how many teachers how many Paras what is transportation what do utilities look like what have they been going backwards forwards so we were super conservative so you can see that salaries go up expenses go up as well you can see the school budget this is the only number on that screen that's actually hard is the fy2 budget that's what the school up so that number in blue that 23888 353 you can find that everywhere it's on all the documentation after that point we're estim you can see the chart is really trying to tell a story and it's not the story I wanted it to tell but it's still a story um because I was really trying to get this number lower at the bottom of War and the story would be that here's what it costs us to do business somewhere between 24 and $28 million annually going up based on salaries and whatnot Town projections Now Greg was nice to here he GES 8% I heard that at the beginning of the meeting this number would probably be BL but so in all in all funny and the goal of this is to say depending on what we can do I'll be honest there's not I mean you know mayor right you know the schools many of you have children who work in the schools grandchildren who go to the schools there's not a lot of like what could we cut to reduce these these numbers up here A whole lot there's not much left there's not people right we have one facilities director we have one of like everything right so there's not a lot to do up there what this is supposed to show is that if Greg in His Infinite Wisdom with all his resources could give the school 2.75% this is the deficit it's pretty bad at 3% it doesn't get a whole heck of a better at three and a half or 4% it starts to go down I was hoping it goes down a little bit more I was really trying to get a black to get a black here to get us into the where we want to be can we work the chart and get that number down a bit probably I mean like I said we were we're estimated and I'd rather estimate a little bit high and be conservative at this point then come in low and say gez I need another couple hundred thousand because he's going say no I already gave it the fire chief so I want that to happen that's what that looks like and one of the other additions here which makes this hard is for the sake of argument we said Peg right the peg integration has been sort of Grant funded at this point through those contracts we don't know if that's going to continue I know that theyve kind of trying to pull out I don't know if they will or if they won't so being conser we said if we have to pay for this we're going to start to build it in these budgets in few years which is why these start to go up even more than just Sal yes today one of the things that came conversation recently about the bleachers um was that once the bleachers go down we won't be able to host any for when our kids are in posting like tournaments which means that we have to build like Transportation because they all so you have for instance right now had the socer the girls and the boy soccer we both imagine they would have to be bust you know all the time in New W games um going to different places so that would be an additional transportation that we would need to building to above just kind of day-to-day um that we need to be building into the operating budget as well um I know that uh Mike Arya was G to get some numbers because he was looking at a example last week of where the teams just as a scenario I don't didn't get it by last Thursday so we get it we send that because I we also have some information about the demo that be out on this week as well for that but was a a consider we always had discussed that we couldn't post games but the aspect of our kids are still going to need to play you know in post game and so we can't post it means to pay um for them to WearEver they and they're not like neighboring towns so we do anticipate the cost of Transportation um for that to be going up on top of any um Road through um that is built also as well you getting because you're hosting now yeah the renes are going to go they're not and that was um I just anst um that had the scenario talking about on Thursday but that's exactly so we can't have rentals who do not cve we would need to get botties that are which we don't have now and um we would have to write the lift for the wabm so they can do the announcing whatnot but it won't be a future was other just to give you basic information I'm sure we'll be to discuss it many of times thank you thank you don't mind a guy behind the curtain hey look at that great uh anyone open the PowerPoint on board docs for some reason the formatting is very strange so I was really hoping it actually look good and I didn't have to say I screwed up the formatting here um as always thank you all so much for giving us the chance to talk these quad meetings we're always happy to speak about Capital um and think about this presentation cap really started think about like what are the main takeways here that we want to come at and the first thing is capital is confusing it's very difficult I think we are all starting to get aware of this there's a lot of going uh projects going so with 10 minutes we are not going to be able to cover at all uh and in light of that what we did was we put together a PowerPoint that's included in board dos which goes through a much more intense like readerly format so rather than just full up points kind of explain are I highly recommend if people after this meeting want to learn more that includes water sewer St water pavement roads anything we could really think of that we could throw in that or large projects that just need background information what an ms4 permit is for storm water if anyone wants to know like that stuff is in there again highly recommend taking a time to uh look at that and that's not just because we spent the time building it I really think it's actually useful for people to take it quick read through that being said with the time that you had I think most important thing is to try to knock out the biggest bullets here and just like everyone else sorry for the small font right off the bat I think we start to break down Capital into extremely expensive very expensive and only somewhat expensive in our three different categories we should start at the top which is the most expensive dep that's going the most recent one we're talking about tens of Milli type projects the one that's coming up that we talked about last quad board meeting was storm water infrastructure and that was one of the biggest ones we said that was one of our priority general ones right now we have about $6.8 million in stmm water infrastructure that we have on the books uh for projects that includes mostly frankly if I back up for a second our Sol water infrastructure has about the same amount of mileage in piping as our water and super our water ins we spend about $2 to3 million each per year maintaining that infrastructure our storm water we spend about 120,000 we're a little bit off on it now I'll say that there's also treatment plants and stuff in water and SE sure that takes up a good chunk of that let call 500,000 a million but we're still off let's call it 120,000 versus a million in call conss so that's one of the big things we need to talk about our ms4 permit for those that don't about storm water that is the thing that allows us to take water and rins and discharge and for us that's the acid frankly in the water shed if for some reason we to fail that we are not allowed to discharge water we have a great new pool in the center of our town because we can't open so it's something that's really important it's something we talk about we don't want to have a flooding situation storm water is obviously important good news is we're making progress with that we are currently waiting the results of a $200,000 Grant to look into setting up an Enterprise fun for St water which be something that could be a good to pursue as a town and to think about other towns are doing this exact same thing to think about this it makes it more of like utility for our town so that's something we should continue to do that's one of our development goals here is to continue adopting fund that that's something we should be thinking about if I take a step back and say all right get away from Enterprise funds get away from water sewer those types of things what about a building the number one building we should be considering for big stuff as a town as a DPW Yard and then Justin Dem marker was here'd be shaking his headb ears our DPW Yard is currently falling apart if anyone has not been there there are three building one of them is K so we can go in inside of it it is health and safety has the second building in best shape is our salt shed doesn't store much besides salt not the building you want to be in the best shape on and our third building is the DPW garage itself that garage's roof is failing and the back wall structuring comps so if we do not build a new one we're going to have to spend a significant chunk of money putting up a new roof and building a new back wall we're talking the millions of dollars right there so that's something we need to be pursuing we've always talked about bundling basically flow except for in capital planning committee that a Progressive Insurance joke um but we need to take this time to think about potentially new space something that's bigger something that is suited for a town something that's scalable frankly right now our DPW Yard is not big to house all of our equipment so we park some of it outside what happens when you park it outside it rains it sloves guess what happens to our equipment it rusts it falls apart faster our life expectancy is of those things drop in addition if anyone's been there in our chair who's sing up here tonight Doug he had us go on field trip to the DPW and the current break room is one of these Fen tables right here in the center of one of the garage banks with all the trucks around we can't use the roof's fall the bathroom is not 8 you actually have to take a step down step back not the best situation for us as well the garages can't even house some of our taller equipment you're not tall enough to bring it inside to actually work on it these are things we have to start to think about as a town oh yeah I mean at least the one we have a mechanic who also does poli vehicles um so he's always in there and then the rest of the grw comeing in because that's also our fuel farm so yeah I would say there's not some of there 24 hours but I would say probably from about 6 or 6:30 a.m. until just part of this conversation that we know the staff that are also we talking about like equipment and salt and I kind of go to like just like the buyer station you know same thing it's just that people this is their environment um there all time to like from a safety perspective um I think it be also just good to continuously emphasize as well couldn't agree yeah something we definitely as the town should be probably our top priority in cap PL committee with regards to Big projects this is something we're not funding this to fre C we this is something we have to bond out for most likely but again I'll leave the actual Financial details to fincom and everyone else but if that was something want to pursue that's going to be the top of the list I will say right now they're undergoing a study which should should be done sometime hopefully in early 25 maybe not in time for time meeting not sure yet yeah you great I will steal Greg that so more St that again things are moving down there that's something we just need to be aware of that's one of the big ticket items that's that's come now if we get away from those super big items and we go to still the expensive things about this is like the $750,000 to $5 million right now we have a couple roofs in town that are significantly struggling Council and aging building if the council and aging were not in the golf course we as a town might want to rep prioritize that building if they stay and then we might want to fix that very quickly it's obviously F school as everyone just mentioned U I think Wayne or somebody else just estimated that potentially around $3.5 million fix the follow to rep replace if we don't build a new DPW Yard DPW and we also have the town hall it's called those are four major roof projects that are coming up that are again roofs are not like house roofs that are 25,000 depending you know roofs are expensive uh you these are in the millions of dollars mostly because you're also running infrastructure through that think about electrical conduits HVAC conduits things like that it's not as simple as like your house shaning roof it's a it's a different process which is why the cost is significantly higher you have to move the HVAC units you got to do all that uh Greg kind of guessed he said he's like Capital PL probably say $200,000 Capital it yes I'm going to come up here and say it we need to spend more money on Capital so if we drop down that next level into the still expensive but for let's call like the 500,000 uh right now we estimate that we should be spending approximately and I say we independent study uh estimates we should be spending approximately an additional $335,000 a year on our pavement that is just keeping the roads in better shape see here Elm Court this is one of our accepted roads uh that is not our worst accepted Road uh that those are some of the lovely potholes that we have on that I don't live on elport but I imagine people that do are not super happy about that uh basically as we continue roads will deteriorate just as anything else we put in right now our chapter 90 funds which is about $365,000 a year to work in our pavement we are estimated to maintain our current level not improve just maintain our current standing we should be putting in $600,000 and again that's based on the independent study to actually improve it back to our state minimum standards we should be pursuing around 900,000 and that's just pavement we're not talking about sidewalks which we do not have a capital plan for whatsoever and we do not have any dedicated funding for that whatsoever we're not talking about actual infrastructure of the traffic itself like that intersection down on me FS that's that's not looking at the pavement that's redoing traffic lights and rerouting room that's like in uh intersection infrastructure think about that as a different question a different concept so again like this is just looking at the black topics we have a lot of holes we should be fixing these things these are things we should be thinking about not trying to be Doom and Gloom just putting some stuff out there looking at a lot of short right now so I'm just trying to to put some things out there um the other cool thing about funding a capital line which is awesome and this year is something that's super important to do it for is we actually have opportunities to get maximum grants if we have funded Capital lineups uh this year there's an opportunity for us to apply for one of the green communities decarbonization grds we get to apply for it once every three years uh if we put up $350,000 in a dedicated line item we could potentially get a match around $500,000 in matching which could replace the HVAC system in the town hall which is currently both undersized and failing that's a great opportunity for us to put 350 in we get 500 slap together again it's if we should get if we get the grant we've been highly successful in getting grants in the past but that's be clear it's not always going to happen we could get denied that Grant get denied swarm water grants but we're thinking about these things reg Lindsay um is that state state GRS it's a good question if I find out it is a state program and if we have taken advantage of it so much we're actually not eligible for very much anymore because we you know DW directors for the last couple of times they done it so this is similar to that but um this is one of those few opportunities that's kind of remaining for us because again we've maximized all our efficiencies was a great question but we can app this to yeah spring so springtime type we can apply for so we'd be able to excuse me and um I believe Justin wish was here to quote me on this exactly but I believe he said that application they do in June so we good spring time meeting approximately in may we' be able to get that application in June good point this but we'll probably know by then so generally the state doesn't announce grants that doesn't have money yeah so um okay so this is proba right but yeah um so again these these are like the projects that are top line and again right now our capital for those that don't know we use our free cash doers so give or take it's call a million a year we take a million bucks we Lop off the cost of snow and ice because that's what you fund uh with free cash we knock off snow and ice we knock off anything we've already allocate free cash dollars to in advance let's say there's something like an emergency or something like that that we can't use the reserve fund for we need to add additional money in the reserve fund you're left with like $700,000 if take and that changes year to year so don't be like Ben said 700k again run out some rough numbers for people to understand where these things are at Capital is expensive uh you know right now we're down one of our largest dump trucks that is also what we use to plow our roads one of those suers cost $450,000 that would knock out a lot of our total free cash and that way if you said like all right 700,000 take off 450 and we didn't fund a capital line item you can't do a $350,000 uh addition as well 350 plus 450 right 800,000 we're starting to really shrink our budget quickly the idea is starting to think about prioritizing this fashion uh I would say jacking up the number as much as we can with regards to the um where's my my thing here with regards to um like an operational line item for Capital planning and again that's an addition to free P so try to get ahead and starting to move forward you a lot of these things are expensive and I know it's it's tough to say I want to come up here and talk about helping kids with schools and I want to help help your seniors and instead I'm the guy that talks about pavement Improvement plan so I know my wife also knows how bad it is as I talk about these things too so again like I get it we have to think about how to allocate our tax dollars but we also have to see this eyes wi Open start to think about how are we going to approach this what are we going to say and there's going to be trade-offs we are going to say no to some things we are going to say no to some of these things on this list we're going to say no to some of the things in the PowerPoint we're going to say no to some of the things department heads want we're going to we can't have it all so it's like how do we start to think about this holistically and how do we like do it in an appropriate manner that we're not just doing it one up we're thinking about this year after year after year just shipping away and getting better and better that's what we're really trying to do questions yes please um for some of these projects like the library y a project like that I there perhaps the opportunity when you guys are talking to does that ever enter the conversation or could it um it does not enter the never yeah I me it's a great question though for a towns perspective that's a great question right I think that you know that's how some towns do things with playgrounds right there there's def examples of fundra f to playground obviously addition to things like CPA funding and things like that we try to think about a lot of different Avenues with associate funding I don't think we've ever looked at fundraising them specifically yeah for sure yeah any other [Music] questions what's like the time frame at which they become diely picture green bed over than ter into problem what are we looking at for those yeah I believe that the depends on obviously a lot of factors one is like roof type how you do it a lot of these roofs are this yeah paraphrasing here from people that know far that they're like a rubber based surface the problem with something like rubber is Through Time Light just slowly rcks away what the DPW I believe the estimate that's like around your 20 to 30 year mark not about these things but that's also not to say like repairing I know that you know Capital planning puts or the capital re from the schools to ongoing $50,000 maintenance for these uh groups just to keep them up and going patches of the things uh trying to fill Hol stocks and stuff like that so but again think about that 20 30 year mark approxim like that I wonder where we are depends on the facilities so like this school is we are at hopefully tomorrow but the U I recall this reason tell me pointed out the H units was at its life expectancy so this I mean that's how it is and the state has programs like the celebrated repair program the MSP we're already recipients of and that's a question I'm to ask later I don't know if we're eligible because we're already getting like $50 million to build an elementary school does that mean we're no longer moving I I would hope that this not as narrow in their Vision but we would would be we would have to get buy like everybody else but the state does recognize the building is spent to last 15 years the roof 20 years3 so um they used to have a program like the core program which was Andel right changed it well right so the state ran out of money last year so they didn't even do the programming right well we were lucky enough to already get core um so my suspicion is the state would say if they were to State prare program they would probably say in line we already got $50 million um right so but where no better Norm works out than a lot of trying to figure out cation bonding I just I feel like I just started hearing about the DPW Gage within the last year oh Justin would cry if you heard that that's one of the reasons we expanded the pr meeting meeting so but I think I think you know so the was expanded sense been as touch School demands of the plan so this did come the DPW last so calendar year 2023 umed the TR that was the first was an official board we were like visiting show um GW on that presentation and then the next real official review was June last year right so but it has been time before the like expanded for like a year just the robustness of of getting all the information and you know collecting it and putting it together and so just not as them as as we we are very grateful to have now well there was no clear to that this so um prior to the recent duration of this I don't need joh um like when I started in 2018 it was staff so and generally staff doesn't come to tell you oh look who what was us we say here's what we think we can do this and that's it there's no cisions there's no advac there's no no friends of the de for all so so that's a shortcoming and it's hard to sort of like have I'm sorry all3 like the DW it was in a pipeline but that pipeline do not adver and the big numbers big yeah I'm going to speak later to so last I'll say is again I'll just reiterate we get it like we don't have the money to go out and ask the taxpayers to fund every we understand that you know there some of these development items is trying to develop something like a Fleet Management plan so we try to proactively understand more when vehicles are starting near that end of life so we really have an idea of when those things are coming so we can start to plan for it more and more we're trying to refine this process as much as we can and we're going for with that that being said we just need to keep having this awareness of what's coming down the pipe what we can do to actually fund that if we're willing to put up more of an capital L that we can get to year after year start to take away and then again as big things come up we might have to go and swing and hit some of those big ones but the idea is just trying to think about now where we can start to fund stuff slowly through time and get back on sides to where we wanted to so that's that's suggest of it again please look at that PowerPoint goes through a lot more information with regards to info rules stuff like that if you have any questions email the five of us we are more than happy to answer and talk or email any other department chairs obviously that are specific to those requests so yeah how what's our current status on modeling stock help us to put different project over this we' use and I believe something else um and I just wonder what current statuses of having a reliable model system that will allow us to project already what I'll let if you want to talk briefly about clear you're besid my clear expert so we're on CLE we have um all the Departments right now the projects I think we're about halfway actually submitted but they're all putting in hav submitted in yet um that's 102 projects we upgraded this year to a long dat version so we have the ability to um do a little bit more scenario analysis with it so what happen is pre cashes million million and a half what if we only fund fund I one and two we can run scenarios and the new software we haven't gotten into that because we need our our list to be refined and kind of take out the stuff that we know there's no way we're going to fund because we're not going to projects and then we'll start to build scenarios and be able to prevent them here because say under this scenario we'd be funding these projects this scenario so it's coming along adoption seems high and we've met with most of the department show system um do you think recommendation just similar to what you provided in June be something so you have that priority just okay this is we wanted to look at ones that were under right just kind of grou those we proceed with a capital override this is what that would look like is that something that you would like put I guess model or um present in that similar way so as we're thinking about um tackling some of them like what is the more I say lower gr but that you might get like the bank for your B you know were able to do a whole bunch is there strategic plan maybe at that so this year we we added some new fields to the ID ver so we're able to get car so they're going to give us this the 10 toward safety the 10 towards facilitating grow the town there like five it's legal that's one and we also they all have St stack L there so this is our two so here use those from and then we typically every year say well you know free cash usually about so right how far can we get million and that's and the next year these would all next year so and think we're getting better be able to show more longer term but you don't perceive um you still perceive free cash as the fund I'm just wondering you know because the the cost of the projects obviously will continue to grow as well so it's their value approaching it a larger systematic way that tackles some that are you know rapidly growing expense so that we can start plateauing you know or just feeling like we're chipping way them versus continuously having I think the having a line is really a short-term solution that that has to build up you know 250 or whatever that at some point and that's get well SE and water that's all separate that's not part of what you guys were talking about we have two slides power sorry but no I think again just kind johnan said as well I think it's just important to note like we're an advisory committee to Greg and to the select in that case right so we kind of come up here and present and try to educate so people know what's going on and obviously it comes down to the select board and Greg and everyone else in fincom and talking about how we're going to that budget and how we're going to build it if we want to talk to the citizens about that and then decide what to do from there but yeah we think about those things often regards these are these are outside budget that we would solve like free cash is a variable I think you said last year it's probably not going to be getting back as much as we add been always right now risk but um these gentlemen have advocated strongly and they contined for and for like more robust oper that is how we should and that is something we strive and I advocate as well at the end of the day though it's difficult to weigh all these things and they're all needs I'm not saying they're wants I'm saying these are needs and then It's just tough to kind of make you know pull that trigar as to which one um but they're doing their job they're telling me how much I should I just want we get like I guess more Stu and you talk about it and I feel like the projects are just going to only expensive before we start actually make like some incremental even if there smaller movings of bring into town moving so it doesn't feel like this huge you know undertak but they' done it some that's what the 50 up to 200,000k Bri yeah there's always like if you add some Capital it to like a line that's larger than 50k and going forward like you can always start to chip away at some of these things we can do a better job at buying vehicles on a more regular bases sometimes saving it because we have to buy that dump truck next year which costs a couple hundred thousand dollar versus something else if you ever want something be like what would you do with this extra money the easiest way in your head just like pave something fix a pocket right you can fund stuff like that like through it off the bat that's a very easy thing to have in the back of your head you know there there's other equipment that can be fixed fixing new roofs you know working on sidewalk again like sidewalk Improvement plan we don't have one right that's something we don't have like those are some of the the base things that are going on that are easy just to put in the back of your head any dollar you want to put toward that think Capital planning and frankly a lot of people in town be like yeah good for it but again like we also have to think about as you're kind saying like trying to plan it out and think about how do we optimize given that we're never going to have too ample amount of money given that amount the idea is that we do think about that often and we try our best to to run those scenarios and advise obviously the folks that uh we help support thank you the next very come I don't think we can go to the town every year for million Milli because we're I don't it's a combination I don't think it's going to be a one I think long-term strategic plan of how do we how do we tackle it and then also how do we stop us from continuously growing like you know we're kind of behind so that's where I was wondering if it made sense to go with larger Capital you know a one time just to get us to a place where we feel it's sustainable place to start doing that annual like building it into the budget that are so how do we do a little bit of to get us to a place that it feels moreable and if there were some of those Smalls that we could do that um I think you know also OPP would want to see all right you sure yeah if I don't it's gonna get so much more like I can't afford it right now because it's G to be 10 times more than if I don't or if I don't do this some might get H or like the consequences of not doing the thing so like talk about the storm water like piure the floods in North Carolina like what what what thing are there things that like Greg you're thinking to yourself like fa we don't do this we be really big trouble yeah every day no I'm being serious I was still Ser every day um we had to um Town Hall open history so we can fix the heating in my office like like that that is that like yeah every day and then these guys see it a little more person because they they get they're so privileged to get invited to the W br but but and y'all see it every day too um like when we when we seal the road y'all see like crack see the the line that is a temporary fix or we do cold asphal myw gu dve around they put a little bit in that stuff piles out the next time over that is that is partly a Band-Aid that's like a mama's kissing on scratch that that but but it's something but it's not it's never none of those things are going to be enough like like even fixing my little heater I know that I got to fix the roof because the AC's out I also know if I'm going to fix the AC I gotta I gotta make a green gotta make a people Mission should probably research some Grant to see if I get geal WS like and just because I'm little chilly like there there nothing in my is as subtle as like as like this little thing I'm sorry I don't mean to like like upset but I I meant that like that's the gig so I'm used to it but it's um yeah I would say all and none of these things that like the D Gage otherwise it's not because people are looking the other way it's not it's actually it's because there's always L and I'm sford some put up it's amazing but like most towns have a list and we can't yeah because we're because because like we're nonprofits so you can't you can't I can't start selling a product to get more money there are ways which we'll get into in a minute maybe with storm water the concept is with sewer and water Enterprises um there was um maybe four or five years ago race shot up like it went from like a minimal increase couple percentage points to like it went up a lot and and that was no like we was that was collectively understood that we were going to have to make that in order to change that happiness and balance to go from oh we're not keeping up to now you need to right that um and that's the one for those two edes it's not perfect I'm sure I'm sure like Justin would love more money but at least like we were able to get to a point where I confident we're on the right path to but it came at a cost ideally we'd have to that's the same whether whether it be the storm Enterprise the trash recycling Enterprise um so that's two more expences or um or like even the amb Enterprise actually kind of fixed itself so because of um the May Crossing came along and then mind you see ambulance is going multiple times a day down to that well that cost a lot of money and that PID for new ambes new so it that's sort of the cycle and but every year you have to you have to make sacrificial like you have to say like okay so I'm going to invest in this but I can't get to that and that happens and unfortunately some of it just happens but it's it's not to say anyone made wrong choice years ago like I don't any assessors or any of or any of board members they you make the right choice have all right next year I'll um part of their scoring process does include there's two different metrics or two different things that they score on which are um cost savings and operational efficiencies so basically if we pay for this thing now this to save us money in the future and if we don't this or this and what operation thaty so when you're seeing how the capital when you're looking at that list specifically what you're talking about been backed into their St I keep think me like I really wish years ago really wish we AG better are there things that's true you can think like that but like but 5 years they make the yeah when if they know the bleachers need to be replaced but we I didn't there was no money like like that's your next year it's going to be expensive dishwash buy this year you buy it next year it's going to CR and it's the same with they some of the things they talked about process about what the price but but the same today conru there are certain things that also other VAR influence what happens like the the golf course an example you know I think just in your presentation then were saying if the COA doesn't stay there this building so that's listed on this list so there there's a that's obviously one of projects that have that variability but yes any construction it's a rise class so it's going to go up but there are some other things that we may say in a couple years oh actually we don't this all right I gotta can you unmute yourself Jill yeah can you hear me yeah very well great uh Nathan are you in the room yes I'm here awesome yeah so I'll I'll let Nathan take it away um so I think you you put together the slide here but we wanted to just touch on some of the projected expenses um that Nathan and the rest of the finance committee have been working hard on and uh we're excited to give you a little sneak peek yeah so we've been working on on big old spreadsheet to keep track of the m to accounts and projecting forward up through fy3 up to FY 34 or debt information is really best upu to apply so going directly to Mike earlier about like when you're going to have access to M you play We upload TOS right now so you can download it play around with it um you you can adjust all of uh and it assumes that any that the school budget and town Sal go 2% each year and everything else level service but you can go into any year just um then there's a setting on the bottom you can enter any salary increase go newer contract is for specific amount it's ending change it there um it also has up to four overrides that you can put in and up to four debt issuances so just as an example we modeled out three different scenarios the um bottom line there is uh is like I said like service with a Sal school budget increase 2 and a half% each year um the next line up is adding in a $200,000 override in FY 26 um just because that was number we heard Rec Senior Center um next line up is is for an $800,000 override school budget plus $200,000 for the senior center and then the red line is if we do all those things and F1 27 we uh we have issuance of for um so you can set it to any future year for dead stance you can set a term um this one is assuming a 30-year Bond at a 3 half% interest rate um and then if you want to advance the next slide yeah we're trying to keep track of of our debt service percentage so like right now we're kind of like right in the top when tile towns in in Massachusetts um at about like seven a little over 7% um let's see trying trying to read those numbers there uh with the green meow school that's going to be jumping up to about 10% we the some of those lines are going down that's assuming we have no no um initial debt no additional debts um and if we are you know uh having overrides that goes into our Revenue so that increases for overall budget certain proportion to The Debt Service percent has going down we also have a couple of upcoming debts that are being paid off for the library the the police station um in the next couple years so you can see a big dip there the red line is if in FY 27 we build a new tpw garage um and then the third slide is uh this is something I'd like to get like um uh much more timeing tun perspective on this is a really gross estimate of what the average tax bill would be for somebody who owns a$ 500,000 household um for the next few years based on those the shape of this one's the same as the first one right just the XX yes yeah and I mean part of that is a pretty thank I heard a question on what the number top I'm assuming the furest the biggest number you see yeah 11,139 and then the bottom and this is again in 2030 so 11,139 and the the green the to 10,754 so about 400 Grand difference but but that's 2030 so that's 00,000 over and bunch of Two and a half% assumption for the basic yep Julian has a question go ahead okay uh can you hear me okay um yeah so I think part of the benefit of this is that Nathan and the team have made this really nice spreadsheet where like certain scenarios you can start to do this type of modeling and I think as we come together and start talking about priorities or even just trying to understand what those priorities might look like this could be a potential tool um that we hope could be helpful for instance um just from Greg's initial like proposed budget I have a new model built up for FY 26 now that takes in 8% increases to the school budget and you know take as Bas play with any dead issuances or overrides other Sal increases I just wanted to actually say that I've been to some of the recent meetings where youve shared this you guys talked about it and I think done a phenomenal job with um how it's just I know we've seen a couple of these through years of how we're but it seems like it's a I'm hoping it's use it right right that's really the goal is that we have it and it's usable um because a lot of work has gone into it and I think it has great value um I almost wonder if that you would be able to put like instruction sheet it's very simple because there's turnover in ours um and also for department heads and so if there is an opportunity to have like to have just quickly like what are the um what are the feel that someone who maybe is less um Excel sa um plug in and play those numbers I think that would make it feel less scary um to look at I but I think it's amazing that to that so awesome I just made a note of that I really like feedb from anybody else that would want to use it or wants to see anything from it um I Heard and I wanted to make sure so um the an assumption who said about like the the staff for the school um salaries they I would say probably would not be wan to put under for any estimates for that so the contracts that have um that are postco are are have been the issue right now from the general budget there's one item to the school right so it doesn't br any further on well there's okay that makes sense then we talk about that b more so and I actually I there are report so we might have certain Wes that because that is kind of looking at that de yeah yeah I'd like to talk with you further about centers try to marry the way the school looks at the budget with this the dominant fraction of that bud model School salaries and everything else already something in fy2 goes down to 2.7 so that's as far as I have but I don't know what por portion of the school budget is the teacher salary so cool I got the de issurance what did you Factor G do another round yeah you factor that yeah so um the debt issue WIS for uh FY 25 is you know what we what B is she so far and then that point I'm just assuming that it's going to be um I'm assuming it I know I'm excited I would like to have some of these visualizations up front of town meeting next spring just to show graphically what the impact of thank you I'll go lightting so um because we've already talked about Stu so as I already said I'm pretty confident with our water utilities that for years this Le board has been setting rat reflect our longterm plans and needs and so that that's where we are our water as I said earlier a couple more in the shoot we got the solid was second time meeing that is going to be slowly rolled out in fact coincidentally tonight there was a solid was recycling task force meeting that now now that they got the green life ins meeting they're going to be starting to plan what the roll out Enterprises and then you have storm water ENT um which is you know what mentioned by the Gap planning committee it's been something that's been advocated by years um just to kind of fill in where we are that so um we have been will be um applying for an Eva Grant to be able to fund a feasibility study that Grant cyle starts in calendar year 2025 no and then um but that's just the application but we've been investing I think it's like 120 000 that's thank you so like about that much that really just s of scratches the surface um to meet our long-term skill water needs it really justay pays our consultant to make sure we're complient with reporting and it doesn't really do anything for infrastruct the other bullet um oh yeah so um the other bullet speaking of that with storm water enterpris is that you know in this sort of scenario that we get the feasibility study we would be advocating for the storm Enterprise again that's that there's a lot to all that and it get brief to then um as Jeff was referring to um doing an override is a little complicated if you really want you can go to a board do or you can Google it you can check out like that 30 something page how to override a from the Department I would recommend you go to one of the sections where it talks about the different types of overrides now there is actually a lot of flexibility in how a a municipality would consider executing an override with certain limitations when it comes to like you know the state election law but um it really does try to give you some options I just looked it up you you all can look up that very first line I know it's it's the template's kind of funky but it's grayed out but if you go to uh the Department of Revenue specifically division of local Services you can look this up to it has our override investment so every year the town sets a levy limit how much we're going to collect in taxes okay so that Lev limit again is as I said in my first slide it's based on your your current collection plus two and a half in that's your Levy limit okay but you can override that limit right so you're overriding how much you can collect in taxes um and there's a couple types of overrides there's what we typically do for major projects dead exclusion it's a type of override a second type is a capital capital um capital I can't Capital exclusion I can't there's a funky name um that is meant for specifically capital projects and then the the operating override is this what we're to and um our override capacity so that's your Levy ceiling right you can only you can only raise your taxes up to a certain point our lovey ceiling capacity is $1 15, 99,000 so so we're good if we're not I don't I don't think we're at risk of hitting our our capacity but that doesn't mean you want to tax them that much because that's like 2 and a half% of the assess value of everything in town so don't you don't want to do that but I don't think anyone suggested that there's a couple other ways again this is like barely scratching service but there's a couple ways you can do an override and do bur you can pyramid it meaning like you you have the max amount of override you want to do you want to do all that stuff I said on the first slide that would be that would be a number actually similar to what like there's like there's an encompassing sort of amount and then you can go a little bit less and a little bit less and a little bit less and each of those tiers points out less programm and less operations you going to pay for and then you can ask the voters what do you want to do the most half of that quarter of that or what that's a pyramid or two and then you have a menu so you say do you want the seat in your Center do you want a wuty fire chief do you want Capital do you want health benefits any option quick question that pyramid op I think the way it's presented the voters they would vote on the smallest amount and then that approves go up is that how I have not sure okay I think you could I phras the question it's tough I in in the back of the department revenues guy does give examples yeah so I'm really just kind of scratching the surface I think what what I'm yeah it's there that's legal but the general concept is you want to you want to sort of te to what you're trying to get out so are you trying to give the sort of menu options if you want where you say maybe Department by Department that might be in overwhelming for they might say like I know about so how would I know we'll just the Ops or you say hey this is what we think we all need and it's this amount some people might be like want my taxes to go up 100 bucks I only want my taxes to go up 50 bucks so they choose option which is in a per and that means they're only doing half as much as you so it's a lot it's a lot to think about and then there's multi-e so in one in one ballot you can say hey do you want to raise your taxes x amount in this fiscal year and then the next question is x amount or Y amount in that next FC year and then Z amount in the next fiscal year it really gives a lot of options I was actually surprised about how much um sort of like leeway you do so this was touched on earlier and John actually just mentioned it for debt scheduling as he just said um there there is another I call it a CH but like another um set of bonding that we have to do for the elementary school because you don't you don't take out the full amount we went over this to tell me you don't take out the full amount you do you do but you know according to self advis you take out a certain amount and also you don't know what the final cost is going to be like we have an estimated cost of the full project but if it's slightly less you don't need bond to the so at the end there you kind of it's like a you don't it's not exact science until the end then you know EXA um and then the DPW grad replacement so um uh in that regards um we are we were grateful enough to get you know through the advoc of Representative Po's office to get Federal ARA money that would got trickled down to the state and then she was able to earmark that aror money to us uh for hundreds of thousands of dollars to do a feasibility study 100y garage which is going to tell us what we know we need a newy garage but it's also going to tell us hey should you repl it in the current spot probably not or should you do it somewhere else is now okay so that I'm very much interested we I expect to get that in cend year I don't know when but when we get the results of that it's it's going to be really telling and then it'll and then kind of like you know how you build a building you do the feasibility study you move the design then constru so like that's that's how that gets phased out and T in the last couple of projects like Elementary School and the fire station we paay for the design study using pre you don't have to do like that we were actually just just how worked out we to do that I took that back for school we we pulled a million dollars stabilization and then and then knowing that we deliberately put money back into stabilization try to this back up or not we're pretty close so there's a couple of ways it's just all strategized I think the last thing I I want uh I noted here is um is a question just to give some credit to Jeff for for provoking this question just sort of like what if scenario and I write I know it's great it says an FY 24 so that's last disc of year just close come 100,000 override so an override where you ask the vo to go up by 100,000 over what what was sort of like the expected living you went up $100,000 an override would have added about $27 to the tax P for average sing hustle okay so that but again that's very Nuance right so I don't know the value of your hital so you'd have to look at the and that changes every year the classification or just heard what the house and household value was and then what the expected um okay I'll get to that in a minute Jo and then um and it changes every year so like the the board saw about the value went up on so like which is which is good but it doesn't mean like you're tax yeah Jill thanks uh I was just wondering is that $27 per year or is that per quarterly tax bill uh that's a year yeah you're right you're right s tax bill you're right that's a good question so I think it's year right yeah okay I just wanted to double check I thought it was to yeah thanks question I mean but those are the same considerations we bring up often it was asked about the leaches I at the at the back of my exhaustive memo I write to the you know about the I usually my last paragraph is if you agree to everything I recommend it's going to cost you ta for so it's always a consideration but it but that is taxes so you know the cost of living is your water bill your sore Bill your energy costs grocery bill taxes like it you know we I I take it on really lately so it's all do we have access to data for I'm going to say last 10 or 20 years on what other towns have requested in the way [Music] prob you can yeah yeah it's actually very interesting it goes back very and it so it is very helpful um yeah I was looking at that in terms of strategy I for example the men operation experim oh oh good yeah that's great I remember there was actually the um there was ones that so I think even that question although that's that's good context and and I'm glad you asked that question like it's very subjective to your municipality so I my guess is more um towns might be okay with the pyramid structure because they're just going to pay whereas like smaller towns might say I don't know I'd rather put more money in the fire department and so they want the menu style so they can so they don't to choose all or nothing they just choose one or the other the other so you have to kind ask yourself some kind of time uh that's it yeah all right well we at the 2our Mark right now some time for discussion but a lot of discussion along the way I know been having and as we get little closer start to see request reest what that looks like cont but for tonight I a good LEL set on all different groups a lot of great work a lot of as I said more statistical rigor being brought not dis but and so open question so no particular for the rest but we question so about is it better more favorable if there other operational considerations should be do an approach like or do we have something like separate how we that I think that would be help to understand what the majority consensuses I I think um I said you know privately but I do think the town as officials um would like us to see aign on you know what is support do have support these are the things that we think collectively we want to you know present to the town versus kind of every like separate projects I think there's Val come together and that way but I would like to get some understanding on if there are other out things that we want of know it takes time to build that out um together and strategize on that so I don't know if that would be decided any point soon but i' like to hear more about what as Greg said what I'd like to just add on to that that maybe in our next CLW we can how we're marketing whatever our our you know suggested strategy going forward how Mark that to the town and making sure that we are trying to educate the voters um so that we get a favorable out and I also just to back um question that rece our town concerns we about you know water infrastructure sewer infrastructure um I think myself I haven't quite realized that we are are actually um being addressed to like there's not extra funding or Capital project for sewer and water that needs to happen that's being addressed through the Enterprise funds through a planning I don't know if that's so being communicated in a way that the public understands because I think there's so much that needs to be fun St mechanism it's been progressively it's being funded through the increase of their their rate so I think that element would be helpful to also like we're not whatever we're doing is not at the cost of sewer like that is actually has meum being addressed I felt like a lot of the public felt like we couldn't do this because those other pigs that happen and um I to speak to are being addressed but think helpful to understand the public what are the things that are funded already it's an issue so water but actually addressed the Enterprise try to both content I water and sewer like that one one of the issues we have is just how do we appropriately educate people because it's extremely complicated all these things we have to somehow do you want to talk about PFA regation that potentially could be that has just recently been released by the EA and we are going to have to somehow address do we have to talk about um with regards to sewer we talk about just maintain infastructure upd infrastructure with regards to any of those C like the the bre of the conversation is always challenging and I don't know the answer is you want to put uh Capital planning and income just in the market room and just have the public come and just ask questions I don't know if people would show up you know like those are like I don't know how we explain that to folks again it's It's Tricky it's very and maybe what I was thinking um like you know the house is not father for SE water for these things like whatever they are because we already have aing mechanism where they ENT SP right I think that's the and that you don't have to talk about like all of the things that are happening maybe at a very high level like these aspects are being addressed with Enterprise funds now there's always going to be the risk of you know pass you know the roof fall and those are all unknown any any but I think the public needs to be aware like what are the things they need to focus the attention of like are not being addressed certain things and maybe that's the the way these are are being addressed through these meetings through this funding mechanism these are the things that are not being addressed through any funding mechanism and it maybe simplistically like that would be able to start to kind of so they're not going to get lost in the details of what you're talking about like I think that people would usually go down a r of of too much information for some of that stuff I think it's more about funding the messaging has been contradictory because I heard a lot of people say I don't want to vote for the leachers because those aren't as important as water our water ground adjus says we're going to have no water someday soon you don't have enough water from town I don't us all issue that know people talk talk about they don't talk about talk about infrastructure but they're really talking about capacity and those are two different issues as well our proposed development is not infrastructure per se problem the pipes it's really we don't have enough water so isn't capacity being addressed that only studyy we find purposes or through you have to build whatever you call doar so the whole thing we don't really have geology or unless comes through we pay millions of dollars P from our we have as right build because it's kind of like it happens the happens it's when you have the Sun that kind of throws things that people might be confused about where there's urgency in funding and that maybe that's why I just think it was a there's a whole bunch of things that and I think would the Contex it can go so many different ways um that I think the messaging of what is funded or what has a source versus right versus what doesn't then that I think starting there would be really help because there are certain things that I don't s that certain things are add this doesn't countur for but I think that to context is capacity you're capacity the infrastructure is being slowly over time through the r yeah I think generally talking it's just general it's not necessarily specifically on which has funding or which some funding s which doesn't by virtue of the fact that an overrider was AED to that would um so I do think that people generally get that I think we me generally better education about the greatest urgency and why um and that's about letting people understand all of this stuff and or people understand all these things and then the choices um so part of it I think what you're talk about isie of the larger education process so that people are informed yeah make Choice all of this stuff requires everybody a um a certain stere based on water we start this eting and we're up there water um I don't us it's it's a it's a walk around worri that's huge a huge concern to the point I I think the Natasha are that there were people that hear water thing saying oh my God wor about my water I can't know this and you tie it back to you tie it back to an old right you talk about old right it's going to have to be very clear to people that we have a fund s for water issues and those concerns except for the fact we may run out of or you may have a failure which could could you know break that those Enterprise apart in the one to me is the one thing that I that a lot of both um know certain things based on the fact that you know and then stand up there over great job mayly this conversation education I think with regards to an override we're going to have a first Mo issue that once we put up warrant articles if you're warrant article number one we go to F then people say oh we're article number two is more tax right we vot to fund that like I already spent money on number one number two I don't know if I can say yes and so I I'm fearful that our town perspective if we don't somehow go with either menu option option say of one is too expensive op two is still too expensive op where I'm going even if it's one article so St approach most commun Tri and pass they ended up voting for it however this was the toughest LA to pass in active just that consistently for an override in this one year and they worked really really hard on about sequencing I think that's what I was trying come ATO because I don't want it to be Department you know department and it feels very Ang there we agree that these are the things collectively to prioritize town then it doesn't like you know the senior center the school it's do operational things you know that might be a possibility um because we agree collectively those are operational things that we want to know facility fund together where it doesn't feel that competing projects that's what I think would be more helpful our our voters um because that's feel like that packaging together like that just kind of takes away the choice if you want to vot to the senior center but you don't want to vot to the school package them right still presting it like these are the things that we prioritizing like we saying we recommend voters would have to vote on on whatever it is but it's not that we would be like separate you know you know what I mean that then you worry about like this one passes that doesn't could still come out that way at least whatever can't all so I think do have responsibility present top five to five so presenting make a choice but are you saying take those top five I think that that requires some explanation so that people can be in their I think it's a matter they but that we're not collect right right exactly not like the select you know doing this one separately and you have you know this is seniors are doing this separately like feel that we we've done some analysis we talked about we understood what Happ in our position that's why we we're bringing this by forward work together it's very important to say I don't want to this or I do want to fund that but it doesn't feel that we're you know all the other projects um you know that's kind of I think prioritize what do we want to prioritize some fashion go forward that yeah so that's sort of what I was going to say is that I the two things that I start discussion about after meeting about like why are we vo bigger issue and the other was if all those hols together go all those meetings and they can't agree if something important I want to wait and let them all sorted out and St figure it on same P then we pay attention and I thought that like hearing that from multiple people after the meeting they didn't really trust what we were saying because we were all saying different things try to do each other and so I think some extent coming together you say there are different priorities and people should it's totally like to Prior different areas but to say that like we've sort of set like bringing it to for as a whole like these are the different areas Wei because of our water I did hear people say they can't for this because senior senator is more a priority I I was that I'm about to talk about the microphone it was more walking out why issue why that water you after me about it but obviously the senior we all know were saying that was there so are you referring specifically to fund agre took place at meetings between these groups um I think over the you know past Town meetings that people Mak comment people after the were telling you that was their perspective that these groups haven't figured out priority accting so why one project at time instead of figuring out what the priority meeting no yeah to the question the first move issue um is there a procedural reason why the moderator has to announce the vote totals as ited during the meeting or we reserve that until after any override but that's the way but you have the vot is the next is significant that was not presented during discussion but so and then just a little more so the war SEL through tradition the select board news had been deferring to the sequence of B articles that the moderator say generally there's not this much sensitivity like usually it's like well we'll put that at the end what people interest about this other um but in reality although your Charter does say that according to certain criteria has to accept it is the board's the board can say this is what I want first but in general the moderator I I just say yeah possible point I think that some things have have failed or succeeded based on how he table and how put them in order I think this group needs to determine number one what the over is going to be a myriad of choices have to decide to the point among what so you don't have to do I like it implies choice you don't to do that you can say here's the one number that we're asking risk is that fails you get n so so that's why that's why the Department of Revenue says SP up but if if y'all I mean I just was like kind of looking back I think there's four but I apolog not mistaken I think there's four major items my suspicion is y'all want me to keep so I I took I took that off okay but but the sort of like things that are not within the standard whatever um increase the budget is whatever however much school need um and the Council on the AG for Grand that's two I'm still pluging a de and then an increase to cap with four so so I don't think it's going to be increas Capital not any pro I didn't I didn't get into numbers like those the four big all numbers beone of those numbers all by Factor 10 or Dr by Factor 10 so break down unless but that's of today I Haven they haven't got all that could change is it possible for us to do a trying to go back to split the difference between menu and the pyramid but to do a bundle pyramid where you say maybe a third of school requests and the most highest priority for those other towns side requests and then PID the next [Music] prior hard get a grasp hard that's why I mean I just think maybe not Reinventing the whe other towns have done so types have succeeded maybe we start that what are the type of override that pass can you see if time also unlik stand says everything having to do with schools vote on the senior center and then you vote on the amendment suddenly you got an entire scenarios I don't it might be tied to the want to check on that question ready to's about 3 minutes what's that yeah I was get before I did that but I do want to try to end this at 9 o' it's been a great discussion I've got a lot I think and so this as presenting I mean I don't anything ex try to get together uni approach you may not also some Market want to give people something that gives them confidence that they know their day and I don't think consistently I think the lack of in and it shouldn't be should I'm going to put it in the newslet this week follow on CL say what we do and they's coming what there's just're so it as as as we did Aller when we priori I think we need to do that thought thank you everybody less break and so that's said and I just didn't he that yeah yeah the yeah all right thank you all right thank you everybody