Good evening. Welcome to the Warren Committee meeting of July 13, 2026. This is the first meeting of the new fiscal year and the first meeting of the newly organized warrant committee as appointed by our moderator for this year. Uh I'd
like to call us to order by have just doing a roll call around the room. If people around the room could just say your name. We'll introduce ourselves in a minute, but just say your name starting with the person on my right and we'll say who's here. Macy Lee, >> Larry Johnson, Andrew Co,
>> Nick Tagman, Jimmy Stard, >> Levita Johnson, >> Elaine Craig Heath, Cecil Yang, >> James Le, >> Jay Fling, uh, Lindsay, are you able to, uh, >> yeah, I'm here. Lindsay Sans. >> Okay, great. Uh, now I guess we'll do
sort of the same thing, but a little bit longer. I want to, you know, just go around the room. Go that direction. Okay, we'll go this direction. Go around the room. >> Just say your name basically. >> Say your name again. Yes. It's like a party game. Uh, say who you are. Say
your involvement with Milton Town Government so far. Say your professional background. Short and sweet. Get let people know who you are. >> Okay. Uh, so yeah, like I said before, I'm James Lee Das. Um I was formerly an
IT uh systems manager um of all things from networks to all types of infrastructure and bringing us from onrem or paper to the cloud. Um recently I switched careers and I'm now an accountant. Um
>> so so now exactly. Yeah. Um my wife's a CPA. She's always said why aren't you an accountant? So finally just bit the bullet and joined her crew. Um, and I've been um in the IT committee for about a yearish,
a year, a little over a year now. Um, maybe two years even I think. But then with the warrant committee now going on to the sec my second year. >> Nice. >> I'm Cecile Yang. I'm a software engineer. Um, I moved to Milton like a
couple years ago, so I'm not really super involved in town government except for warrant committee last year. Yeah, I'm Elaine Craighead. Um, I've lived in Milton for 22 years. Um, I'm a dean at
Mass Maritime Academy. Um, I have been involved in the Milton Cultural Council um for three or four years. Milton School. I also chaired the Milton Cultural Council um school committee for
six and now the Warren Committee for uh a year and this is year two. I've also served on other town committees as part of my duties on school committee. Looking forward to a good second year.
>> Good evening. Levita Johnson. I've lived in Milton for 16 years now. I'm new to uh town government. uh and I am an entrepreneur um primarily focused on uh procurement specifically supplier
diversity um helping large corporations um develop working partnerships with procuring goods and services from minority women LGBTQIA disability and veteranowned businesses. >> Hi everyone, I'm Jimmy Stenares. Uh I'm
a director at an investment firm uh doing investment compliance and manage a team. Um this is my first town committee. I'm hoping to get on to more um specifically maybe school, but yeah, I'm looking forward to it. Thanks for
having me. I'm Nick Tag. Uh this is my second year on the war committee. Um I'm one of those crazy people that grew up in Milton. I'm still here as an adult. Uh I was on the um uh town meeting for about 17 years and I work at a
investment management company in Boston. I've been there for 36 years. >> Uh I'm Andrew Co. I've been in Milton uh 16 years also. Uh been this is my third year on the
warrant committee. currently uh an operations and IT executive. I'm currently a CIO for uh insurance company uh and looking forward to wrapping up my time.
>> I'm Larry Johnson. I've lived in Hilton for 26 years. Um I've been on town meeting for about 13 years and uh on a couple of other committees s committee I committed with teams le um I also uh run
porchfest >> helpfest I don't run porch I'm on the committee for porchfest >> and then um uh I work at IT as well um most recently I worked in cyber security as a manager for manag cyber security
department for about 10 years uh now working as a project manager program manager. >> As I mentioned, I'm Macy Lee. I've lived in Northland for 23 years. This is my third year on the board and I previously served as the secretary. Um I'm also a
candidate for North County District Attorney. >> My name is Jay Funing. I've been in Milton for almost exactly 20 years and uh I've been on the this is my fifth year on the warrant committee. I've been on town meeting for about 15
years similar to Larry I think. And um what else? My I I work at Eversource now. I work in the uh regulations department means I pretend to be a lawyer but I'm not. Previous to that my previous career was I was an employee
benefits actuary. So, if we get around the table, I didn't do this much last year, but in previous years at the table would start talking about health insurance or pension plans. I had a lot to say. Um, so that's that. And we have two members on the line. Uh, Lindsay or
Ron, I'll go alphabetically. Lindsay, do you want to introduce yourself? >> Lindsay Sans. I've also been in Milton about 16 years. Uh, I'm an attorney for an energy company called Vicinity Energy or District Energy Company. Uh, I served
on one term on town meeting not too long ago. Uh, I helped on the override committee and I most recently uh ran for planning board. >> Great. Ron. >> Hi, my name is Rona. Um, I'm a resident
of Milton since 2009. So, um, what is that? 17 years. 18 years, I think. 17 years. Jay, how's my math? >> Test your actuary skills. Um, yeah, I
I've been on town meeting, I think, six years now, and this is my fourth year on the warrant committee. I I also work as a in-house corporate attorney. Um, and yeah, excited to have another year of uh, you know, service for the town. So, thanks everybody.
Okay, so that's everybody's introduction. Uh let's move on to the first item on the or the next item on the agenda, which is we have to elect a chair. Are there any nominations for chair? >> Elaine,
>> I'd like to nominate Jay Fundley. >> Okay. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Are there other nominations? >> Okay. like to nominate Nick.
>> Can I decline? I do not have time to do that. I'm flattered by that. No, thank you. not >> do you want to do what we did last year >> which is you again >> no I definely
>> I feel like Andrew wanted to >> thank you >> some competition >> well if there's a pause of discussion I'd like to say a little bit about where I see the committee for this year >> and after that especially if you hate what I said certainly time to nominate someone else uh I'd like to share my
screen. This will look similar to well, it'll look very similar to what I shared last year around this time. Um, and uh, >> there slides today. >> Oh, I'm not going to go through the
slides. That's exactly what he changed >> pretty much. I I marked and read the things I changed. Now I'm aware we have three new members 100% attendance from our new members. So I you know I'll go over a little bit about what I went over last
year and even people who were here last year might be hearing things with different ears. Uh this is my agenda let's sake of time. So what is the role of the MAR committee? Why are we here? What do we do? We have a few roles. One
is we're the trusted adviser to town meeting. Uh, I'm not going to read this. Uh, town meeting when I describe it to other people who don't live in New England. I grew up in Texas. If I describe it to my friends in Texas, I say that instead of a city council, we
have a group of 281 people. A group of 281 people cannot do the investigation and research of all the items that you would expect of a city council. So, we do that role. We do all the research and
self-educating about all the issues that will go before town meeting and then we present the information to town meeting so that they can make an informed decision. Uh we do recommend how they vote. Like if there's a bylaw coming up, we might say vote yes, vote no, vote with these amendments. But the most
important part we do is not saying vote yes because we said so, vote no because we said so. The most important part is and here's what we learned about it. we did our research town meeting. Here's what we learned. Here's where we uncovered all the questions that we thought would come up. So now you can
make an informed decision. Uh next, we are by law the finance committee of the town. Uh what does that mean? That means and we'll be discussing this a lot more later in the year, but the budget
eventually is approved by town meeting. We are in the middle of that. The town administrator makes a budget proposal and the town administrator gives the budget proposal to us. We review it and we give the final recommend budget recommendation to town meeting. So the budget that goes in front of town
meeting is officially our budget recommendation. Now we do rely heavily on the employees who are paid by the town but it is our recommendation. Uh we also should take sort of a long-term view of the finances. Uh here's a slide that I didn't have last year because
it's going to reflect a change. Uh I've had pre four previous years on the warrant committee and every time it sort of feels like the town administrator with the help of the select board makes the budget. It comes in front of us and we say yes. Now partly we say yes because the town
administrator with the with the select board's help does a really good job. But I want us to take a more active role and I think I think that's up to us to do that. uh written in the bylaws and also in some schedules that people have agreed
on. The town administrator should be providing a a budget to us on January 31st. Not to get too into the weeds, but between January 31st and the time the more goes to grant some things will change. We'll have more money coming from the state. We'll learn, you know, our health insurance some will be
different, etc., etc. Uh last year and in previous years, we sort of sat back, let the town administrator do that and tell us what he thought. This year, I'd very much like to have, you know, they're in the room right now. The town administrator, Nick Milano, the financial director, Amy
Dexter, I'd like to have them in more often, especially after that January 31st deadline. Okay, you gave us a budget on January 31st. The numbers have changed in this way. You know, what do you recommend as far as how we change the budget? Okay, thank you for your recommendation. Now, we're going to say,
"Oh, we have an extra $500,000 in the budget. Where does that go?" After the January 31st date, it's really in our hands with the advice of the town administrator, with the advice of select board of course. And I I spent a long time thinking who needs to change our
behavior to make that happen. It's mostly us. It's mostly we need to get these guys in. We need to have them talking to us. We need to be proactive about making decisions. So, that's one change I want to make this year. Uh we're non-political. Uh elected
boards answer to voters. Town employees answer to their boss. We don't have any of that. Does that give us some perspective, some freedom that they don't have? Possible. Time commitment. This came up much more last year when I was talking to a lot of people who are joining. What's the time
commitment going to be? What I tried to do last year was to it's it's a good time commitment, but to have people doing the work outside the meeting and to reduce the time amount around the table, but making up for that with people doing work outside the meeting. Uh, for example, you know, I'll
talk in a second about we're going to have subject matter experts that worked very well last year. So, article five coming before us and I'll say you, Jimmy, you're the expert on article five. you go research it and come back to us rather than all of us sitting around the table learning about article
5 you learn about it come back and teach us um I will do my best to keep us focused at the meeting discussions can can wander and I'll try to keep us focused uh I did add you know the things the
things that I'm uh putting in red are things I've added for this year people have time limits people have restrictions on their availability that's fine we're all human we all have personal lives we professional lives. Communicate to me. That's fine. I'm not going to mandate that everyone do
exactly 115th of the work for the next 12 months. People people have uh commitments. Um going back a little bit about I I said we were going to have I tried to minimize the discussion around the table. the last meeting we had which was
the last meeting of last year there were I I heard the feedback that people wanted to have the article sponsors come in now I tried to not do that last year again to minimize the discussion around the table but I did hear that feedback so I'd like to I sort of hash that out you know as we're
building up to fall time meeting to people you know to what extent do the people want the article sponsors come in or to what extent is that not a good use of our time uh what's the role of the chair keeps on task. Uh I I will have my opinion. It's
no more or less valid than yours. I'm going to abstain from most votes because if the warrant committee votes A and I thought B, well, if I abstain, I can still my job in front of town meeting is I get up and I present to town meeting, here's the warrant committee's view. So
if 10 of you vote for A and I personally thank B, it abstains that I can get up in front of town meeting and say I thank A. Uh this is my final year on the war committee. If you let me chair, it's my final year as chair. Uh I think it's
important for me this year to make sure that the role is ready to pass on. Not to put define a point on. I spent way too much time in my basement working on Excel spreadsheets last year. I'd like to make, you know, like to make sure that things are in good shape. Hand
it off. One of my jobs this year is to pass on a job to any one of you, whoever is going to be chair next year, a job that can be maintained with reasonable effort. We're all volunteers. If I can't do that, then I failed. Um,
subject matter experts. I'm going to go over this a little bit quickly. It's it's what I said earlier. Each Warren article has an expert. Uh, they one or two experts usually they go back, they report to the rest of us. I did. I'll
skip forward. Yeah, there was we were trying it out last year and I know I stepped on some people's toes that uh you know other people were the subject matter experts and I would call up some people related to that and talk to them and so I stepped on people's
toes. We were figuring it out. So I would say that if again Jimmy is the subject matter expert on article five, anybody in this committee who wants to learn about article five can just go through the subject matter expert to keep things efficient. Um it got a
little funny also with the school committee because school committee budget school budget former war committee chair Dave Humphrey said it's like Jupiter it's grad grad gravitational field affects the rest of the solar system. So there were some things some aspects that I felt as the
war committee chair I had to be involved with some aspects of the school budget but then we had a school subcommittee. Was I stepping on their toes? I don't know the answer to that question but that's something to hammer out this year. Uh last year we had a a summit a two
night training since most people have experience maybe it'll be cut down to a one night training one night training but I think it was really helpful and even for people coming back maybe seeing a fresh eyes of what is our role what is our role in town meeting what is our what is the warrant things like that I
think it worked pretty well last year um financial policies I'm going to gloss over a little bit that was something where I don't think I was very successful last year of like big picture policies. What do we do with our stabilization funds? What do we do with
our free cash? Um I don't feel like we as a warrant committee really had a unified voice on that. So that's something that I didn't succeed on last year. Maybe we'll have more success this year. Financial policies, warrant committee, internal policies.
Um just sort of, you know, we're not It it it's it's a it's a balancing act. We weren't chosen for our 15 opinions. We were chosen to do what's best for the job and what's best for the town and to lay out the town. Here's what we thought
was best and here's why we thought it was best. It should not be well there are 15 of us. Eight of us vote for A, seven of us vote for B. Okay, that's a town meeting. The answer is A. Um, we really need to lay out our reasoning
behind all our decisions. Uh, what else? Individual department budgets. Again, it's always a balancing act. I think we leaned, you know, we're approving every budget. The I used the library is my example every time. I don't know why. No, we're
approving the library budget. We're telling town meeting the library budget should be x million dollars. Does that mean we get down to the nitty-gritty and say, should this money go to the library or not? Uh to a certain extent, yes. If the town has extra money, then it's our
decision of does the extra money go to the library, does it go to fire, does it go to savings. Um but also maybe we shouldn't be getting in too deep into the weeds of the individual budgets. It's um it's a it's a balancing act, but each budget will have one with the
exception of schools, each budget will have one person assigned to it. That person is encouraged to get a mini just come back to us and say, "Yeah, things are good." Or, "Oh, here's a place where I see some changes." Uh, okay. Hey, that was so that was faster than last year. So, I apologize
if I short changed anyone, but uh that's my vision of I see the warrant committee running this year. Having said that, I will once again say, are there any more nominations for hearing? None. Um, we have some members
on Zoom, so we need to do a roll call vote. I'll do the roll call. I'll guess I'll go around the room. Macy, >> yes. >> Larry, >> yes. >> Andrew, stay.
Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. Okay. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Seal. Okay. Okay. Uh Lindsay. >> Uh yes. >> And Ron. >> Yes. >> Okay. That passes. I am chair for this
year. The next thing on the agenda is the election of the secretary. Uh one question you might ask is what is the secretary? I view the secretary largely as vice chair. That's not the name, but I copied the secretary last year on if not every email I sent, then practically
every email I sent. I wanted the secretary to sort of be my, you know, be a witness to everything I was doing and to uh, you know, be my sanity check. I often reached out to the secretary last year to say, "Oh, what are we going to do in this week's meeting? What's
pressing and what's coming up?" So, I see that as a vice chair, somebody who will see everything I'm doing and give me advice. They also during time meeting they have a special role in time meeting. They sort of shepherd the people while I'm up there speaking. They deal with the more
committee members if needed and uh yeah that's it. So I am opening up the floor for nominations for secretary. >> Macy >> I nominated Ela Kit to be secretary. Uh she lived in building for 22 years as
she mentioned. and she's currently a dean at Mass Maritime, served on school committee for six years, five of which she served on science committee, also chaired the cultural commission. She has demonstrated dedication to this town all
but she is organized and I see her fitting into the role as vice chair. >> You accept? >> Yes. Thank you. Second. >> Yeah, I guess we didn't do Yeah. Okay.
Are there any other nominations? Okay. Let's do a roll call vote. I'll go around again. Macy, >> yes. >> Barry, >> yes. >> Andrew, >> yes. >> Nick, yes. >> Yes. >> Sure. >> Okay. >> Yes.
>> Yes. >> All right. Uh, Lindsay, >> yes. >> And Ron, >> yes. >> And I will abstain. I didn't abstain from last vote, but count me as an abstension for the last vote and for this. Okay, we have our
chair and our secretary. So, we are organized for the year. The next thing on the agenda is the discussion of town finances from the town administrator and the town financial director. You join us at the table. Would
you introduce yourselves? >> Sure. Nicholas Milano Amy Dexter, your finance director. >> Do you want me to start you? >> Uh, sure. Or I can just dive right. >> That was not that sincere. >> Okay.
Uh thank you. So Amy and I will just take a few minutes to talk about our preliminary results of fiscal year 26 on the revenue side and then do an overview of year end close out in terms of how our fiscal 26 ended on the expense side.
um for the new members of the committee. Several weeks ago, our committee met to appoint um or designate a member to approve year end transfers and reserve fund transfers which are um within the power of the warrant committee to do so at the end of the
year to move money across budgets or out of the reserve fund committee. So Jay was designated to be that person. Um so we'll talk at a high level as to what those transfers ultimately look like um
after I talk about the general fund revenue um plumary results. So I'm putting up chart here looks small. Sorry bigger. So what we're looking at is um
just a summary sheet showing uh where our revenue landed for fiscal 26 which is the year that ended on June 30th. Um, if you just look down to the bottom line, we had estimated about $145 million of revenue. We brought in about $149.5.
So, we brought in about 4.25 more than estimated. Uh, the big drivers of this have been uh motor vehicle excise tax and we spent a lot of time talking about this before committee, but motor vehicle excise taxes continues to be a place where uh we're bringing in significant
revenue year-over-year. I will note for fiscal 27's uh forecast, our forecast for 27 we had increased to $5 million. So moved closer to where our fiscal 26 actual was. And just to flag a couple of the larger outliers, uh penalties and
interest. So this is where penalties and interest on longer outstanding tax bills um and other leans would go. Uh the tax collector has done a good job of cleaning up some longer outstanding tax bills. So we had expected another bump in penalty and interest although as she
has cleaned up um the number of collections we would expect that to slow down in future years and then um license and permits at 2.4 million uh so well above its estimate of 1.485. That's great to see. There are a number
of large projects going on around Milton um and homeowners and um small property owners continue to invest in their properties. So, um, building permits continue to be very busy. I will note of that $940,000 above budget,
770,000 of it are tied to three um just to three permits um for a large 40B project, a daycare, and a project in Winter Valley. So, those large projects that are one-offs really do contribute to these large outlier um revenue sources, but uh we're happy to collect
it when it comes in. And then lastly, interest or investment income, which is largely interest on our money that we get from um our bank accounts. As with everybody else, we continue to see high interest rates on our savings. Um so
that's generating um uh significant revenue on a kind of annual basis. Now, for the past couple of years, we've been careful about bringing up that budget forecast too much only because if we were to return to the low interest rate environment of, you know, 8 to 10 years
ago, that number could um significantly fall. So, um happy to see these numbers, but as we indicated, we view three or four of them as really kind of not necessarily one time, but also not necessarily recurring at this point. So that's very high level overview of where
fiscal 26 landed on the revenue side. Happy to take any questions on this budget. >> Yeah. So the license you said we have a lot of license and permits a lot of building permits. Does that mean that in the next year two or three
things are getting built, things are getting improved? That's increasing our tax base so we'll have new growth. Does that >> Yes. So what we particularly when it comes to larger projects that are paying these larger one-off permits. Um they will be a
source of new tax revenue that will increase um the amount of the amount of value and taxable land that is built there for the town to uh assess against. So these large 4B projects that are being built, we capture them as growth even under construction. So if it's 30%
built, we're going to assess it um in fiscal 27 at 30% of what its total value will be and they will start paying taxes on that. So it gets built in over time, but it increases um the overall pie for lack of better word of money that the town can can bring.
>> Thank you. >> Mr. President, sol up almost 6% from estimates. Yes, we had increased trash fees for two years ago. It was an increase by a dollar. Um, so I think we still were a
little conservative on our on our forecasting as to what that additional dollar would bring in. So last year and this year I think we're around around 1.7 billion each year. I don't quite remember last year, >> but there was a dollar increase. Um, and that also is for the leans and penalties
going as well for trash. >> Yes. So there was a larger number of people who didn't pay then eventually they paid any penalties would account as well but the $1 fee is the main track. Is there an inverse correlation between
the property taxes and the uh the penalties and interest was there under estimation? >> Uh so we don't necessarily we collect about 99% of the taxes in a given year. It's it's not necessarily that we're collecting 100% of the tax. We levy 100%
of the tax levy. People will owe us that money, but it doesn't mean we necessarily collect it in a given year. So, um I mean, we don't always get to 100% of that amount. If there's a year where we collect a little bit less, the following year might be a little bit higher because all that's that comes.
So, actually that's a good point. So, Does that when it when the money comes in the following year for the tax revenue for the for the property taxes, does that line fall into the property taxes or does that fall into the penalties and interest? Does it get split up? I mean,
>> here what you're we're showing is just a summary um line for real estate property taxes will continue to attract them on a fiscal year basis as to when they're levied. Any penalties and interest that somebody might have paid for being six months late, they would have paid
interest on that. The interest portion and any penalties will go penalties and interest. The tax portion will still get recorded tax. >> Okay. >> So that is the revenue side. So that's good news. We certainly want to be on the positive side of that ledger. uh not
been talking about problem potentially in terms of the other element that I mentioned which is um year-end transfers. Uh so again there are largely two types of transfers that we seek uh war committee approval for. The first is
reserve fund. Um we put aside a few hundred,000 every year in the operating budget reserve fund. Uh that fund is held and only transfers can be approved out of it by approval of the war committee. So typically as we approach year end, we view that as kind of the backs stop for the operating budget if
necessary. The other transfers that we will describe are when uh the town meeting approves the budget, whatever budget accounts are listed in the warrant are um what the departments are allowed to spend against that line. So for example, the police
underspends their salaries and wage lines, but who respends their general expense line to move the money from one of those accounts to the other requires some approval of the war committee as well as the select board for these appropriation transfers. So I'll I'll
just kind of say in the big picture, the challenge that we were facing in fiscal 26 was that we had a significant winter with a couple of very large storms. So we had a very high snow and ice deficit in the DPW budget. We are allowed under the law to deficit spend that account.
We had budgeted 200 $160,000 for that budget fiscal 26. We spent close to 1.6 1.7 million. So our deficit was about $1.5 million >> that we were then looking to make up. And I'll tell you in the warrant I think it usually says this too, but on a in a
given year our snow and ice expenses are typically around a half million to $600,000. So, we go into the year knowing we're kind of up against it already within DPW with snow and ice. Um, the fiscal 27 budget does include an increase to that. So, we're starting to make a little progress to to right
sizing that budget a little bit better. Um, but that's just a way of saying we don't put very much towards what we know is a big expense. Um, so when we were as we were get working our way through the year, um, we had concern over a deficit
of that that size. Um luckily however um the budget is in strong enough condition to absorb that and um we are utilizing a reserve fund to absorb it as well as transfers from other budgets. So in terms of snow and ice specifically
share slides a couple PDFs here and I will say Amy shared this information with me this morning. I have not yet emailed it to all of you, but I will. >> Uh, so the first is this is showing what
we um is being proposed to be removed out of the reserve fund. $277,000 of the reserve fund to go to snow and ice and then um two smaller adjustments in the audit budget to pay for the audit and then retirement budget to recover in the retirement appropriation. So $282,000
reserve fund is being 100% utilized partly of snow and ice and to smaller adjustments. >> Can I give some context to the reserve fund for our new members or also our attorney members? It's a fund. It it had obviously 280. That's a very exact
number. I don't know why we put that number in there last year, but we did. Um I I would say it's primary use, although I've only seen it used once in the past four years this way. Its primary use is its emergency money. If some department
in town has an emergency expense that couldn't have been foreseen and they need the money and they can't wait for town meeting to approve it, they can come to us and we can say, "Okay, that happened once, I want to say two or three years ago. The wood chipper and the DPW failed. They needed $100,000 to
buy a new wood chipper. Instead of waiting to go to town meeting, they came to us. Can we have $100,000?" We said yes. So, I think in my brain at least, that's the most important use for it. even though it's not used that way very often. Then the secondary use for it is
at the end of the year things that went over budget. This is a release bounce. Am I wrong? >> No, that's right. Extraordinary or unanticipated expenses I think is the literal language. So I think that covers exactly how you describe.
>> Does this leave us at risk? No, I >> that was that was last year's. >> Yeah, I'm almost done closing the books and we're in good shape. So, I'm comfortable with using all there should
not be anything else that's needed for. >> And the year that started 13 days ago, we have a new budget, >> right? Yes. >> Like the year we're currently in, we have a new >> What's in FY27 then? >> What is current? I think it's 300,000. >> Yeah. I don't even
>> I think it's 300,000 even. I think we moved it to a round number. >> Yeah. 10,000 left over after snow. >> No, sorry. No, for so we're we're like two weeks ago with this. So we're back in fiscal 26 with this. So the $300,000
that's available for fiscal 27, we have not touched. We have not tapped into >> and we anticipate not doing that until around this time next year. Uh so about $300,000 is there available. >> Okay. So sorry that clears the deficit on
>> partially. I'll get to the next the next u sheet will show how the rest of it was um covered. >> Thank you. >> Sure. >> Uh so as mentioned um the snow ice deficit was about $1.65 million $160,000
had I'm sorry the deficit was 1.49. We had appropriated 160 but our actual expenses were 1.65 million. Uh so the way we got to balance that out was the $277,000 is described reserve fund. The DPW budget itself was able to absorb
another half a million dollars largely due to vacancies and and a bit of a spending freeze as we kind of worked our way towards the end of the year. um they were probably between um depending on the time of the year, six to seven positions were open
throughout the year. So um of the 26 kind of operational frontline positions, six to seven vacant um I'd say probably the course of the year um on a consistent basis. So there was savings um within DBW already, but because they
were under man, under staff. Um the other departments where we propose transfers are from the select board budget. So the select board budget is um where my staff is. That's the town administrator, assistant town administrator, human resources director, the admin in our office as well as the
director of planning and assistant planning director. The director of planning and the assistant planning director were vacant as well as the assistant TA position were vacant for much of the year. Uh so we had savings just due to openings in our small
office. The legal budget we understo the legal budget. So proposed to to transfer that out for snow and ice general insurance. We um we were just a little bit high on our budget for insurance. Um so we proposed to use that to offset
snow and ice. And then lastly debt with the $282,000 we had um adjusted our our plan and strategy around when we were going to issue debt. So money that we had expected to pay on principal and interest payments was went unspent and
instead will be um paid in fiscal 27 after we issue debt later this calendar year. Um so altogether the combination of the reserve fund absorption within the DPW budget as well as the supportive budgets here uh the snow ice budget for
this 26 is now zero. Um and the deficit has been erased or absorbed I should say by the other council this year >> what's appropriated for snow and ice for FY27. I'm just curious. >> Uh so we increased it by 90,000. So
$250,000 is appropriated for fiscal 27. So, uh, we expect to spend more than the 250. Um, hopefully not anything like 1.65 million. Uh, we will keep our fingers crossed, but just the salt alone runs us some $1,000, never mind.
>> Um, the labor as well as outside contractors when we do that. >> So, you're keeping the same salt reserve as last year then? >> How do you >> like the the money that you're spending on salt? You could scale. >> Yeah, we expect to spend, you know, regardless of If we have those large
storms that require multiple days and multiple nights of work, that's when we get budgets like this. If we have just a more typical winter of a bunch of small events, um it's a lot more manageable. It's when we get to the point where we're calling our contractors, and then
if you'll remember hauling snow in the middle of the night, having contractors on staff on in the overnight hours to snow and dump trucks and take it away, that's where this cost starts to shoot up. So you need didn't need to touch any of the I think it was 4 million of extra
revenue over a forecasted budget to so what happens to that money. >> So we we can't use the revenue to cover anything like this without a town meeting. >> Okay. So that falls to the calculation of free cash. >> Okay.
>> Um so basically the base of the free cash calculation is revenues in excess of what we budgeted and expenses below what we budgeted. That's the base and then there's a calculation where we I have to deduct things and but basically
it's like a net income is >> great. Thank you. So we like saying we we had thought we might need a come to town meeting to appropriate money to the stone ice deficit and that's where we could use anything brought in over and above fiscal 26 but we can't take from
the revenue to the expenses without the townation. And just to to zoom out across to the other the town departments despite absorbing the snow and ice deficit several of our other departments had um underspent their budgets. So we
do expect to have decent turnbacks which is budgets not spending their full appropriation. Um so as we close the books on 26 we expect to still bring in um still have you know excess of a million dollars under spent money across
all of the town departments uh just as you know they spend what they need to spend but they don't overspend which is uh and then the other piece is there we had set aside money collective barc that went unused. So that money is again
going to not be spent6. >> So it's a lot of free cash to start 27. >> I'll qualify that by saying yes, our starting number for the calculation is very high.
So more than likely result. >> Are you going to say it or should I say? >> No, I'm not saying it. Amy feels very strongly >> a free cash number is not a number until it's certified by the state in Octoberish. >> Um yeah, and if I can get my act
together, my my goal this year is a little bit earlier. So it has to be the calculation that I do, I do it and then I submit everything to the department of revenue and they go through and they certify it. And often times I may miss
something or I might treat something differently than they do and we work together to come down to the final calculation. So I'm very leerary to ever disclose a number until that certification has happened because there
have been instances not here in Milton but there there have been instances where people have been wrong. So I just don't want to go public with a number. So I always say and that comes back to my very first year here was I was told
there's no free cash until department of revenue certifies it. So that's kind of where that's going from. >> That's great. When does that free cash become budgetable for next fiscal year? >> Soon as Yeah. As soon as it's certified. So in theory, if we had a need, you
could go to fall town meeting if I had the certification from the department of revenue back. Um, historically we tend to wait till town meeting, right? There's nothing pressing that we need. >> So always kind of a year and a prayer. >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you.
>> And just that, you know, we're still closing the books where um very they're positive results, but more enough until that does happen and you know the accounting team that continue to work very closely.
>> So I guess I'll sort of follow up on Nick's line of thinking. Um so our new members I don't know if you saw this but I got up in front of town meeting and delivered some scary numbers at in the spring and you know yeah we're barely making budget this year and next
year it will be bad. the year after that will be bad bad. Whether you're a random resident of Milton barely paying attention or whether you're a member of the warrant committee who's very involved, you could say, you know, why are you saying we're going
to be $4 million under budget last year when we got we were $4 million over or in the good direction this year? Now, I will say I didn't do the math off the top of my head, but let's call it $5 million out of $150
million budget. Larger than $150 million budget. That's only a couple percent. So, what what I'll give you credit. What you did was you managed a hundred and something million dollar budget within a couple percent and going the good
direction. So, that's great. But I do see where again we have a man on the street or us in here making decisions for the town. Can we act like it's, you know, this spring hair on fire? We don't have
enough money for the budget when we've been millions of dollars in a good direction. Not only this year, the past couple years. You may not have an answer to that. I'm not trying to put you on the spot. Just something we'll need to think about. >> No, I agree. And I think where we've
tried to be, you know, I think we're all in town hall kind of naturally conservative and want to keep our revenue forecast low and want to hold the line on spending
because this goes the other way. It look it gets really bad really fast. Um but we've tried to be very deliberate about second-guessing those kind of biases or natural instincts to be more conservative and and to re-evaluate on the revenue front. Can do we feel
comfortable with increasing projections and if yes where we feel comfortable going to. So I think that's been one of the ways we tried to address a little bit of that is to to really dig in deeper on our revenue projections and and get to a place where um we're happy
to move them up and still feel comfortable with it. Um, so I think that's something we'll continue to do through this year and that um, you know, it's always going to be this is um, largely like I just described a lot of it is one time, not necessarily one
time, but also not necessarily recurring. So getting to a place where we feel how long the building permit will be strong for before it starts to kind of get back to its historic form. These are some of the things that we'll have to work through next.
Thank you. And then I I will note that we did share with uh with Jay um a number of other transfers that are largely from that are within departmental budgets when taking lines from taking money from one line to
another within a budget. Um, so, um, I don't know that there's anything to call out specifically. Um, but just know that in addition to these transfers that we're talking about that are taking money from one budget out of it to another one, there were some transfers
within the departmental budget across the lines that the town meeting approved that saw. >> Does it require the committee to approve to internal transfers? Yeah, these kinds of transfers require the approval of both the select board and the warrant committee. The war committee designated
the chair, former chair and current chair to do so. >> Yeah. So, at the last meeting, Bill voted me to be your design. So I signed off on these things this morning and the full lists J has share
and so a lot of these are can you go back to like just look at you know cemetery or police consolidated facilities all right it's like consolidated facilities in the warrant there's a line item for consolidated facilities salary wages there's a line item for consolidated facilities general
expenses and those have to be spent as they are stated And in this case, consolidated facilities, they overspent a little bit on general expenses. They've underspent on salary and wages. So they have to ask for our permission from one pocket to another. And that's
if you look at this sheet, that's largely what's going on. That's all I think we had unless any other questions or discussion you'd like us to. Do we have like a number um for
each department where we underbudgeted? Do we have like a full list of where we under budgeted where we stand now >> or over budgeted or whatever? >> We will have one. I haven't finalized that yet because we have until 15 to
continue bills for the 26. So I usually put that together after the last vendor one was processed >> and when we submit the departmental budgets to the wire committee includes a summary sheet of the prior year so you
can see what their expenses were on the prior year compared to what their budget was. Um for some of these things they might have been um expenses that we understood and realized but didn't fiscal year 26 are happening and so we
adjusted their budget for fiscal 27 accordingly. So some of it we may have addressed already some of it we may not have. Um and that's what some of our work. >> So there are adjustments going forward if they under spent this year. >> So yes and no. So if they underspent
this year and we didn't realize it till now, not necessarily, but if we saw something happening in the fiscal year several months ago and were able to adjust their 27 budget for the new year, >> we will make that adjustment and then it'll >> be fed into what we consider for their
budgets for the next year as well. >> Thanks. >> Okay. Um I guess can I ask you to keep sitting there for the next agenda item which um is discussion of annual schedule and plans. Uh I have to admit I did not plan out much to say about this
but can you remind us so we have a fall town meeting coming up. Can can you remind us when that is? Is that mid October or has it been >> October 19th? >> Okay. So a week or two earlier than it was last year. >> Correct. >> All right. So, working backwards from
that, the warrant will go to print and again lie to us saying it earlier, but late >> I'd say sorry. So, uh the warrant for the special town meeting has to be um received by town meeting members 14 days
before the meeting. So, it's a little bit of a longer uh duration than annual requires. So, it'll be in the mail uh by September the week of September 7th is when >> I'm sorry, the week of October 7th. >> September 7th.
>> So, I'm sorry. It'll be with the done and with the printer by the week of September 7th. >> Okay. >> For them to do what they need to do to get it in the mail in in mailboxes by October 5th. >> So, okay. Um, >> so we need to have made our decisions
about these fall time meeting articles by let's call it September 1st >> at the first week of September. >> First week of September. Yeah. With you know being done by September 11th. >> Okay. So we don't get our summer off.
It's good to know. Um, that's great. >> I I will say that my my uh plan for last year was hell or high water, whether we're busy or not busy, to meet every two weeks. I didn't succeed in that. We pretty much did that every two weeks, but we did more than every two weeks as
needed. Um, I haven't put pencil to paper thinking of how are we going to get to getting these things resolved by the end of >> Do you know how many? >> Yeah, that's the next question. So, Can you speak to that?
>> We are discussing with the select board tomorrow. Um we've received the draft of an article related to a um historic district in Milton Village that has um kind of bounced around the last couple years. We have a potential article related to the acquisition of Laboratory
College. Um we had talked about bringing the Adon station appropriation for the fire department. Um, so that would be the appropriation for the total project budget to town meeting for October. Um, the fire section building committee is still working through what their
schedule will be, so we'll keep you posted on on that. Um, the planning board has been working and deliberating a short-term rentals bylaw. Um, it's not complete yet. So whether that
will truly be ready for fall um, still be determined. The DPW engineering department has submitted a request for an appropriation for additional money for water manes. Um, so we're evaluating that currently internally. Um,
I know I'm gonna forget something. Then we have um some it's more of a housekeeping um but we have some work to do around past capital projects where we borrowed more than we needed for the capital project. So we need to appropriate those monies to another
capital project or elsewhere to put them to use. So it's a little bit more financial housekeeping. Um I think I will have a list um an approved list after the meeting tomorrow
um to share with you but that's kind of the the back of the world as okay so that's that's tough it's not a long list but these are tough items I mean advent fire station we spent quite a bit of time talking about last spring
you know if we're going from approving a million dollars to approving over $10 million. It's going to need another look. Uh Labber, as I understand it, as I understand it, we're going to be not not saying we're going to approve
the whole chunk to buy it and turn it into a school, but we'll be approving the smaller amount to buy it, which in some ways makes it easier, but in some ways makes it harder because then we have to answer the question, well, we want to buy it. Maybe we'll turn it into
a school and that's a good idea because of this. Or maybe it won't turn into school and that's still a good idea because of that. So that'll be complex. Um and then the short-term rental anytime we have a
a zoning zoning issue that's involved and uh sounds like we don't know when it's going to be appearing on our doorstep. So, um, yeah, I I guess I guess I'd like to hear from everyone, not now, but
maybe through email. What's your availability? Is the summer to dig into some of these? I mean, I know, you know, again, we're all human. We all have our schedules. Some people disappear over the summer, and that happens, but we obviously need to put a good bit of work in these. >> Well, I mean, it' be nice if we could
get started right away, but we don't have any of the articles. There's not a lot we can do except for maybe the fire station. We've kind of never >> Yeah. Um I'm trying to think. Do I mean, you know, if we have a fire station person Oh, I'm so glad you spoke up,
Larry. Fire station. Larry worked on the fire station last year, so it makes sense for him to continue. Sure. You know, you can start talking about open up conversations with the fire station building committee. >> Yeah. >> Similar with whoever's going to work on Labberet. There are hours and hours of
school building committee meetings that I have not watched. I'm not saying whoever works on it will have to watch those meetings, but they'll have to somehow get up to speed. And I'll just so on that those two specifically. So I know the fire station building committee is targeting meeting potentially the 21st and the 28th.
>> Okay. The school building committee is meeting a week from tonight to hear to have the architects in with their initial evaluation of the library building in campus as what it could accommodate for school projects and how much that might cost. Um so their initial report is due to the school
building committee and they'll be presenting that tonight to school. >> Okay. because they have to make a recommendation to warrant the select for by the second August. Is that right? >> We've we've tried to get to a point where the school building committee is delivering kind of their take on the
campus and the building by the end of this month. >> Okay. So, I'd like to assign experts to these articles. Probably if we're going to if we're going to be meeting every two weeks, I shouldn't say. Let's say we're meeting two weeks from today. I'd like to sign
experts before then. So, I'll be communicating with all of you through email. See what your interest is. You know what you'd like to work on. These big ones will have two or three experts each. Short-term rental library in Atheertton. Certainly.
The start district run. I believe you looked into it in the past. >> How does that work if we have two or three experts in the meeting open meeting rules? That's a good question. Um, and one we sort of maybe didn't
handle last year. I mean, for the budget issues, we had one person per budget item to avoid, you know. So, if there's a subcommittee, subcommittee can only deliberate, make decisions in an open meeting. That's a pain in the butt. Not because
I'm against transparency, but what I found in the past is let's say Larry and I are subcommittee and we want to discuss our issue. Zoom call Wednesday night at 7. Okay, fine. At least two days, but in reality, three days before that, we have to have it
posted on the town website. Okay, 6:30. Larry's busy at work. He can't make 7 o'clock. In any other situation, I'd say, great, you can't make 7 o'clock. Let's talk at 9:00. Let's talk tomorrow morning at 10:00. You can't do that. You have to reschedule an open meeting for it's going to be the next week at that
point. So all that is to say um the open meeting rules make it tough to have subcommittees that when we had the experts last year on these non-financial articles. We didn't call them subcommittees. I don't think we had open meetings.
Was that appropriate? Was it not? Uh I thought it was at the time. Um >> well everything here. >> Yeah. I think I think the distinction is a subcommittee decides things. >> Yeah. >> If you're the aan subcommittee, you would have a vote as the aan
subcommittee. They want $12 million. We think $12 million is good. Let's vote as the aan subcommittee to tell the full committee $12 million is good. If you're not voting on that, if you're just sort of factf finding and then come back to us,
then it's my understanding you're not a subcommittee and don't have to have open again. Not because I'm opposed to transparency because it's a big thing. So that's my understanding. Uh Nick, does that sound right to you?
>> I'd have to think about it. Okay, let's just call it a research team and be done with it. It's not a subcommittee. >> Yeah, >> it's a re research team. But arose by any other name. >> Yeah, we're not making decisions that >> I think that's the key. It's not making
decisions just reporting back to else. >> And in this case, I mean, there's 15 of us. There are more of us than there are. We have to have multiple groups. And some of them, you know, are going to require more than one person like the >> Yeah.
>> short-term rental is going to be a piece. >> Okay. >> Uh so yeah, I'll be reaching out to try to gauge people's interest and availability soon. And uh
yeah, if we have it hammered out by next meeting. >> So we have all the articles now. >> We have none of the articles now. >> None of the articles. >> But for example, Labber, we don't have an article in writing saying, you know,
approve X million to buy Labber. But we know we know the topic is coming up. So we're in fire station. We know the topics coming up. >> So we have topics. Okay. >> So you can start educating yourself about it. before before it's in writing and
officially sent from this board to us. >> Haven't seen the planning board meetings about the short but I think it's probably a pretty good chance of be ready. >> It's hard to say but it's so complicated. >> I mean Nick, do you have a sense of
>> you said another nuance is that it's actually going to be a general bylaws amendment versus a Sony bylaws amendment. So while the planning board is tackling it and we appreciate their work on it, ultimately it's >> it's really a select board that they would they would work on it submit it to
the select board. So >> the it requires a lot of inspections and registration process. It's more about getting all any kind of short-term rental registered having them inspected. So it puts a lot of burden back on towns to to do a lot of work. So I think
that's where trying to figure out the right balance. regulating an activity that is happening in Milton. There are 74 short-term rentals registered within the state tell telling the state they're operating in town. We don't really allow them Milton, but they're operating anyway. So, it's something that's happening.
>> So, this would get a regulatory framework around it. Um, and allow us to collect revenue from them. Um, but it's just getting to a place where balancing, you know, wanting to regulate them if that is the policy option, how to do so in a place that doesn't kind of overwork
departments that are already stretched a little bit, but just kind of balancing those factors what's tricky. Um, so yes, it's uh something they they tackled and and are working towards for fall, but I I I don't have the latest on on their progress on that one.
>> Um, and then after tomorrow night's select board meeting, we'll have a little bit more line of sight and stuff I can share and update that. and select court's also meeting on July 21st where I expect um a couple of these other articles that are more within our
control to being uh finalized and submitted for the launch. Uh labor will certainly take a little bit more time just because there's another partner here that we have to work through the real estate market and and that so it's a little bit more complicated. Um but as
always with any of these articles ifever whoever is working has any questions, you know, he's around. We're available to meet with you, whatever. So, we can get you some information, point you in the right direction and helpful. Don't hesitate to reach. Okay, I am promoting Joanna McCarthy to
panelist in case she has something to add, but maybe she's just one of our fans. >> Uh, okay. Thank you. So, that's uh we've got got a busy summer in front of us. If there's nothing else, I think we can adjourn. If if one of our members who
wasn't here, Lee, Michael, is usually good about pushing that side and saying Jay, stop filling the time. Ajourn >> second. >> Okay, we're not going to do a roll call vote. All in favor say. >> Thank you.