Speaker 1: Good evening and welcome to tonight's July 14th meeting of the Select Board. This time I call the meeting to order at 6:03 PM I'd like to ask the board if you have any announcements. No announcements. And we will at this time stand and say the Pledge of Allegiance and observe a moment of silence, Speaker 2: Pledge allegiance Speaker 3: To the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God invisible with liberty and justice for all. Speaker 1: Thank you. At this time we will go into the agenda item, public speak.
Any individual may raise an issue that is not included on tonight's agenda and it will be taken under advisement by the board. There will be no opportunity for debate during this portion of the meeting due to the requirements of open meeting law, this section of the agenda is limited to 10 minutes and any individual addressing the board during this section of the agenda shall be limited to three minutes. Is there anyone in the room who wishes to be recognized and speak during public speak? Is there anyone online who wishes to address the board? Seeing none, we will move into discussion and decision. Tonight we have the finance director and assistant town administrator,
John Townsend, to discuss the first item on the agenda, which, I'm sorry, the first item on the agenda. We're gonna push to the end, the discussion and, and potential adoption of financial management principles. Thank you Mr. Townsend. Speaker 4: Thank you Madam Chair, members of the, of the board. Fortunately I seem to have lost Ms. Gloria. Just go last. So right back? Yeah. Okay. She does have the presentation about, while she's doing whatever she needs to do, I just wanna go over just briefly sort of what we're going
to, and we did did, we did send, I sent, she sent a copy of the presentation up to you. If we can post it to Nova's agenda so you can sort of take a look at it. Yes, we, we don't have it. I, I know I just sent Jamie to post it. We literally finished it about 15 minutes ago. So this is 20 pages, unfortunately a fairly dense text with regards to making changes to it. Now I understand it's gonna be a little difficult to sort of get through it and get, you know, wrap your heads around what it is we're trying to suggest to you this evening.
So what I would suggest that we sort of, how we sort of approach this is that we will run through all these numbers for you, have a couple of alternative suggestions for you with regards to consideration and then, you know, get your comments, have discussion about this and you know, if it looks somewhat in the ballpark of where you wanna be, we'll actually take it and run an analysis. Or actually else Gloria will run the analysis basically looking like five years back. And then when we do the forecast,
we'll do five years forward to give you an idea about how this will sort of work out. So one of the problems with the financial management principles is that, you know, a lot of it is based on free cash. And when you start doing the math and when you start sort of figuring out how everything fits together, you're gonna realize that it doesn't really sort of add up. So, you know, what we sort of wanna do is first of all make certain that the financial manager principles sort of recognizes the reality of our situation. That we do use a certain amount of free cash and operations
and what that amount is, and then sort of build from there with regards to how we put money into stabilization funds, how the rest of the allocation of resources are under this particular policy and and procedure. So therefore, you know, discuss a little bit of the numbers comfortable with it, we'll run that analysis, we'll give you a, a real more of a, you know, based on past, past history as well as what we see in the future coming, how this actually would sort of work out. So you can make your decisions with regards to whether it makes sense to you, whether it meets your objectives with regards
to these particular principles. So let's sort of run through the various sections here. First one, the general section, we don't move this up just slightly so I can make sure I can see haven't really made any changes to this. Gets the thumbs up if you have, you know, comments or questions or make adjustments to this, that's fine. But we are sort of just leaving it as is part two. Moving into the principles here, sort of updated policy benchmarks for you Clar, clarify some policy language
and then we're gonna reorganize some of the sections. As you probably know from having read this, a lot of the sort of order on this doesn't make a lot of sense. There was a lot packed into that opep section at the end of the, at the end of the policy. So therefore we sort of broke out out that into various sections to make it a little bit more sense with regards to going through our principles. Next thing, so we're gonna start off here with our reserves. The reserve from extraordinary expenditures under MGL, chapter 40, section six. This of course is better known as the finance committee's reserve fund.
So the reserve amount may not exceed 3% of the tax rate. I think the initial SEC section, did it have 3% or 5%? It has 3%, 5% what in, in the the statute? The statute says 5%. 5% would basically put the finance committee's reserve at about four to $5 million. Clearly that's not what we do. We usually own 200,000. Works out well for us so we moved it down to 3%. So in case you know, we did need to increase that, it's fine, but it's probably a little bit more realistic
once again, getting back to the whole, trying to make the entire policy sort of fit together 3%. But generally the recommendation, you know, based on when we're putting the budget together will probably still remain the same around the $200,000 mark. A free cash reserve, half percent of the net general fund revenues excluding onetime revenues just sort of updated the definition there. But pretty much the same thing what we've been currently trying to achieve here and reserves one time revenues should be used only for capital or other non-reoccurring expenses except
as noted below. This is something we sort of moved up from one of our other sections to, since we do think that this is a very important consideration when we're talking about our reserves and one time funds. So basically clarified what revenues are formatting additional headings to make sure a little bit clearer. With regards to referencing things, this is something that, you know, we, we, we use this policy a lot and I oftentimes spend a lot of time hunting through these paragraphs to try to find things. So trying to put some headings in here to make this a little easier to access the information
that's contained in the policy. On the next slide please. So this is stabilization funds and this is sort of one of the big sort of drivers in the whole policy, first of all with regards to how we sort of allocate the funds. But as we saw at the past town meeting something of interest to a lot of people. So we took some time with regards to trying to first of all clarify the, the, the stabilization funds as well as make some recommendations on it that I'll get to in just a minute. So the general, the general stabilization funds used
to be two to 5% and we, we toned it down a little bit to two to 3%. We just really don't meet that 5% target. We do sort of get around to about 3% at the, at the high end of things we're currently around about 2%. So probably just a little more realistic benchmarking for that particular stabilization fund. As far as the operational stabilization fund goes, this is something which, you know, I would say, I'm not gonna say it's sort of cumbersome with regards to how it sort of reads, but the actual sort of calculation as well with regards
to the definition about how when it is applied, this is what we used very heavily relied upon in the CO era and we think that the definitions actually sort of work. We probably would like to sort of work a little bit on the definition to clarify it a little bit, but generally speaking the sort of definitions about you know, when there is an economic downturn has worked out fairly well for us. So you know, the operational state, looking down to the bottom part of the paragraph, ization stabilization should be sufficient to replace lost revenues through a three year period
of economic downturn, which you know, corresponds very well with regards to what the experience we had when it came from COVD. This should be equivalent to 10% of the state aid and 15 to 20% of the estimated local receipts cumulative for a three year period. 15 to 20% is a little bit more accurate with regards to first of all of what it is we're actually doing and what it is we spent during CO. So once again trying to redo the benchmarks based upon what we saw during COVID and what we feel will be necessary to sort of sustain us
through a similar type of of event which was approximately $7 million. So we're slightly below that currently in our are. So just with regards to some of the, the suggestions that we might make for, for the modifying the stabilization funds, first of all would be the consolidation of the general and operational stabilization funds into a new emergency operational stabilization fund. This is somewhat the way that we did operate when we came to the COVID years.
We used both the operations stabilization funds so the consolidation of it might make sense and that it could address, excuse me, it could address the wider sort of range of things that we need to address both economic downturns as well as those exigent emergency sort of situations. So add also perhaps suggests the new infrastructure stabilization fund, we spend a lot of time talking about the decaying infrastructure of the town. So a lot of towns do have stabilization funds that, you know, address that particular issue
just focused on not just capital needs but actual the infrastructure to up creek critical illustration over a 20 year useful life funded by this stabilization fund. And then finally to add what I'd call the new override stabilization fund, probably find a better name for that but basically to avoid the potential of requesting of their override before the pension is fully funded. So when you look at our stabilization, or excuse me, the, the forecast for the upcoming year, a lot of people noted that I think it was an FY 28,
we were having approximately a $3.8 million shortfall. And this actually is fairly common when you look at our past forecast that you know, we do have those times when we're running maybe two or $3 million short. Now I think a lot of concern for folks is that when you look at that is are you gonna come back for an override just for that particular amount of money? But this would allow us to have that maybe three to four, four to $5 million of, of stabilization set aside to deal with those particular times when we're facing those
shortfalls that would require cuts in order to balance our budget. So just a couple of in ideas with regards to modifying the cap stable, the STA stabilization funds, capital planning and budgeting. Skip down to 0.3 here. Well first of all, this is a typo. Section 5.7 should be 5.8 of the town charter funding for capital projects should time to be maximized efficiency, cost division return on investment. So we adjusted the amount that we feel is necessary with regards to funding the cap stabilization fund from a
six to a five to 6%. One of the reasons why we sort of shifted it down a little bit is once again looking at the historical, what we've sort of put into this, I don't think we've ever hit 6%. So to move it down a little bit, be a little more realistic, five to six is where we're in that range most of the time. In addition to making that correction, we also added two additional sort of points to the caps planning and stable and budgeting. The priority in using cap and general fund cap steel funding should be, should be. So one of the issues we have is how is it that we go about
funding our capital projects? So one of the things that we've constantly tried to do, and I think it should be sort of prioritized here, is a transfer of un preceded bond un unended bond proceeds coming around saying this is something we should prioritize first before we sort of look at anything else. Then do the re appropriations, free cash cap stabilization funds, tax levy borrowing and debt exclusions. So laying it out there, how it is, we actually go through and figure out how is it that we're gonna start our cap, we're going to fund our capital.
Then talking about the town's authorized indebtedness to not exceed 2% of the equalized valuation of the towns per MGL 44 section 10. The actual cap put onto it by that section is 5% of the EQV. This particular cap on a 2% actually keeps us under 9% of our debt to revenue ratio. This of course is a very important ratio. You've heard me talk about it before, something that s and p looks at when they do our bond rating and one of the things we wanna make sure is we do keep it
under nine would actually be good to keep it under eight. Our current is about 7.44 so you know one of the very, it helped out a lot in our bond, our bond assessment because of the fact that when you get eight, you get under eight you get top points. But we wanna keep it under nine just to make sure that we maintain our aaa but also just from a fiscal point of view it is conservative is the best way to sort of approach this, keeping that at 2%, not going up to a 5%. Okay, should be a school in town should
be included in the capital plan. I think that's already in there. Cap credit rating guidelines recommended the town maintain a general fund debt service payment ratio as a percentage net operator of zero and 8%. Once again moving that down from 12, I think DOR actually says you can go up to 12. We don't think that's a good idea. In order to maintain our aaa we think, we think that benchmarks should be set at a top off at eight And then affordability analysis determined by this measure will be undertaken during annual forecast and financial indicator analysis to the select board prior
to general fund debt being authorized by town meetings. So we'll provide you with this information before we actually get request borrowing. Once again, this is very tied to the comments that were made with regards to s and p's analysis of us and the rating report that we got, just making certain that we do stay within their parameters to keep our aaa. So adjustments here, once again we did formatting did a change the reference to the the charter revised percentage ratio of the benchmark to align with suggested practices, added language related to priority
fund utilization of capital fund, capital general fund capital financing, added language regarding authorized and debtedness and updated the debt ratio benchmarks, further modifications, future updates necessary to align external credit rate agency criteria. So if they do change, which they, they don't change at all that often but when they do we should probably sort of respond to it and taking a look at our, our management principles to make certain that we're aligned with what's going on in the marketplace. Debt issue and management made some
additional comments here. Capital projects should be carefully scheduled and monitor to minimize borrowing costs. When optimizing investment opportunities. The town shall at least annually consider the need for debt financing based on the progression of the appropriate capital projects with the financing method of tax levy borrowing the town may issue temporary debt in anticipation of issuing the permanent long-term debt in accordance with MGL 44. Section 15. I guess there was a request for us to sort of like give you some idea about how it is we sort of go about deciding when we're gonna borrow
and what type of, what type of instrument we're gonna be using in order to address our needs. So you know, chapter 44, section 1517 authorizes the town to do the temporary borrowing of a number of different types of instruments. Tans tax, anticipatory notes, gans grant, disciplinary notes, and of course our favorite bands bonded disparate notes. And then the second comment here, third comment here, bonded to talk a little bit more about the bands because that is something that we do use
on a regular sort of basis. Basically making sure that we're building into our budgetary process, the flexibility to allow us to address issues. First of all that need to be addressed upfront quickly, but also allowing us to provide a little bit of flexibility in our budgeting going forward. Allowing us to use those particular instruments. This is the ban of course, that we only pay the interest on it and not the principle. And so we can push things off a little bit, not push things off, but strategically put things so that we provide some adjustments for our budget coming up.
And then talks a little bit what a band is. Skipping down a couple of data bullet points there. All debt obligations shall have maximum maturity depending on their E And so once again getting into the how it is we sort of go about deciding how it is we structure our bonds. First of all using the estimated useful life on a project which you of course are all familiar with because that you're, you're ones that decide that dors guidelines on asset useful life scheduling, maximum borrowing terms DOR does set up guidelines, which of course we take into consideration and make your recommendations to you on useful life.
And then taking into generally the best interest, the best financial interest of the town. This oftentimes come in I I the example I'd use is this last bond issue. We did have sort of a discussion between whether it should be a 25 year note or a 20 year note going through and doing the scenarios on this. We did feel that the 20 year note, even though we could have gone to a 25 year note based upon the useful life of the items in the, in the bond issues, was the better financial decision for the town. And in the long run we would save money on that.
So that's something we wanna make absolutely certain that regardless of what it is we can actually do. There's oftentimes you can go out on some particular items for 30 years, just not a, not a smart financial decision. Just wanna make sure what's in the best interest of the town. And then finally to strive to issue debt on the level principle payment bases is reduce the total amount of interest, which is what we usually do and allow for predictable and sustainable budgeting in the future. Generally speaking, we do go about a level principal payment issue. Some of you that have been around for a while remember the, remember the Kennedy School then we actually did a,
a slightly modified version of that for the first couple of years to give the taxpayers a break. But generally speaking we do try to do the level principle payments as much as possible. Going on to the next slide, the next page here. Refinancing the town must achieve a net present value of at least 3% or a million dollars of life of the existing bond in order to consider it for refunding. We sort talked about this a little bit when we did the bond issue. This is a very expensive proposition to go forward on. Usually a little over $300,000 is what it costs us
for this last bond issue. Just wanna make certain that you know, yes it might be great there's a slightly lower interest rate, but are we actually going to do, do be in a better position should we decide to refinance course once you refinance you're locked in for another 10 years on these things so therefore you know, if all of a sudden it drops another couple of points then oops you missed it. So being being sort of, you know, smart with regards to making certain that when we do decide to refinance it is carefully considered and that there's a little bit of guidelines regards to how we sort of do that.
Projects we remaining balances after completion shall be reviewed annually by the finance department, the deputy town administrator for operations. Prayer should be given to Unended but finance funds before initiating new borrowing. So one of the problems that we oftentimes face is that, you know, we don't really know when people finish up their projects and it is something that you know, once again frustrating for people when you start to look at our, our debt schedules but also just when you look at the funds and this is all this money sitting there, but we just haven't decided to sort of let it go.
This basically is setting a three year sort of guideline with regards to once three years has passed, then we sort of like assume that you're sort of done unless you're gonna say otherwise. And therefore we go about the process of of course under under $50,000 the comptroller can do it under 50 thou over 50,000 we have to go back to Tommy for for, for reappropriation. But setting those guidelines up so you know when we're sort of take capital projects and move them along in order to free up that funding that we might have already borrowed authorized on an on an issued debt remaining shall be
reviewed annually and annual authorizations determined is no longer, no longer needed shall be presented to the town meeting for rescission. A detailed general fund debt amortization schedule that reflects all standing debt finance project will be provided in the annual budget book which is released on the town's website. I had this conversation previously but we will put up on the website the entire more detailed schedule for everybody should you decide or should anybody decide that they'd like to do that. So the adjustments here, basically red lined above to conform to the Municipal Modernization Act formatting,
adding headings and numbering once again to make it easier to read, specify the circumstances when bans will be used and the transfer of honesty to bond proceeds and add language regarding the debt repayment maturity and structure. Insert description of the debt refinancing, financial planning and forecasting once again gets that thumbs up here 'cause it's pretty much what was sort of there already. Revenue should be, obviously revenue estimates should be realistic yet conservative to minimize the potential of shortfalls in the subsequent years operating budget and corresponding impact on free cash. Once again, this sort of goes without saying
to project project local receipts. The problem once again, a lot of times we get a lot of questions with regards to how is it that you come up with something without going into a lot of detail, trying to provide some sort of, some sort of how it is we should come about this. So in order to project a look at receipts, which is one of the popular things people wanna know, use an analytic analytical trending of historical collections based on specific revenue sources and availability of economic data where appropriate
and the recommended percentage of local receipts. Projection of the prior fiscal year's collection is no more than 90% basically following dors guidance to us. That's what we do. This is what we sort of follow we think is is prudently conservative under dors guidance. So the forecast, we sort of changed that from three years to five years. We've actually been doing five years for the last three or four years, right? Yep. So we've sort of made that switch already. We just find that comes up with a more useful
and accurate product to review. An analysis of the financial indicators should be reviewed annually and be presented to the select board to monitor town's financial health and make informed plans and recommendations. Once again, something that I know everybody here looks forward to every August and we'll be back to you at the, hopefully at the end of August to to provide that presentation to you. So the adjustments here are basically sort of formatting and adding some heading and numbering updating in certain language regarding revenue projections and finance forecast and indicator analysis to align with what we're currently doing.
Cash investment analysis. This was actually, we didn't delete the entire thing, we just moved it to other sections of the policy to make more sense. So this is all there in various other places, I promise. Retirement system funding, not a lot of change here. Sort of going down to the bottom here to fulfill, to fulfill general funds obligations or capital needs. One time non-reoccurring expenses. So a lot of talk has been about 2030 and what it is gonna happen when we finish up paying out our
liabilities for the pension fund. Now currently the financial management principles basically say that that money should be taken and put into opab. We wanna give a little bit more flexibility there. Obviously we think that funding opab is a very important and of course we added a little bit more language in here to make sure that it is, that it is indeed covered. But we wanna provide a little flexibility with regards to, and that additional language is in the OPE section, which we're gonna get to in just a second. But to add a little bit more flexibility here
to allow the money to be used for a little bit more than just funding opep. So clarify application of the form of pension funding, formatting and adding changes to related to the general funds operation or capital needs. So here's Opep, the section we just sort talking about. So this was the section that we did a a lot of the changes on took out a lot of the, a lot of the references to free cash, which you'll see shortly. But sort of setting up the town appropriately, at least 10% of the remaining certified free cash, the OIP trust fund after setting aside free cash reserve and contributions of the cap utilization fund.
Now generally speaking, this is not something that we've sort of been following. One of the problems, and I've sort of alluded to this, is that you know, when you have all these things sort of competing for free cash, especially operational side of things, it is difficult to sort of meet this. Now we do feel we need to make that contribution to opep and in generally speaking and talking to the s and p folks and talking to our financial advisors, they're all very sort of happy that we make any sort
of contribution at all as opposed to a lot of towns. So, you know, we do the best we can which has been sort of holding in line but at some particular point in time, yes indeed we will need to sort of get a little more serious about funding this and that's why you know, the town, the section that comes down under here upon contribute and skipping down to number three here upon the contributory pension liability becomes an actuarily fully funded position. The annual contribution in OPED will be lease cover, the pay as you go benefits as determined
by an annual actuarial report. So what this basically does is that first of all it sets up that we will do a study, an actuarial study to decide how it is we can actually fund this. This is very similar course of what they did with regards to our pension liabilities. Have the actuary come in, this is the program you need to set up, give us a couple of, you know, 20 year program, the 10 year program, 15 whatever it is that we wanna do. But one of the things that we wanna make absolutely certain that we do up front is to make certain that taking
that money the investment should go towards at least paying the current obligation for OPE in order to say that it's just and very much like we do with pension, the pay to go is paid by the town, but it's that additional liability that the actuaries figure out. So you do what your PayGo is plus enough to, to do your liabilities. So basically setting us up to have that same sort of situation we did with our pension liability applied to Opep, but allowing us to also, you know,
$10 million only goes so far to tell you truth of the matter. But allowing us to provide at least a little bit to have some relief as well. So once again a ref we're reformatting this editing for atory and then adding some additional numbers and headings. So a couple of new sections here and I think we talked about some of these previously, so just want to sort of go over them very quickly for you. Budgeting, planning and goals, strategic goals provided annually and monitor throughout the years to serve as a tool and guarantee fiscal health, health
and financial stability. Town is required to develop a balanced budget. Handling cooperation with town administrator, select board, school administration, school committee, and of course town meeting ensuring that expenditures are realistic. Budget and revenued are conservatively estimated. Obviously you, you look at this and go, well this is very obvious but I do think it's important that we do sort of state the fact that, you know, these are our basic sort of goals and for how we sort of put together we will, you know, we talked with Linda about, we do have a policy in the financial
policy manual that goes over the budget and how it's sort of put together in a little more detail. So you can take a look at this, maybe took a look at that policy, you know, if you want to add some more to it, you know, I think this sort of sets out those bare bones sort of things. But depending on how much you sort of wanna provide guidance to the finance department to whoever's putting the budget together, you can do it here. Free cash. So discussed this once before. Non recurring re revenue source we primarily use for capital expenditures. Nonrecurring costs if necessary.
Free cash may be used for the towns operational expenditures. Not to exceed two to 3% of the total projected general budget expenditure for the fiscal year. So generally two to 3% is what we source views. We actually would've gone over 5%. Yeah, 5 million. It would've been 5 million. About 5 million. We actually would've gone over that should we have gone with the initial budget before the override. So one of the concerns that we do have is the sort of continued sort of ramping up of the use of free cash.
So trying to put some guidance on what it is when we're putting together, together the budget, how is we should approach free cash. But also this gets back to the whole, we're relying upon free cash very heavily to fund the stabilization funds and in order to get there we need enough free cash to do that. And this I think, I hope, and this is part of the whole running that analysis to see where we end up, but I think this will provide us with enough to meet those targets. Once again, getting back to this whole instead
of having something where we just, we can't, we can't do, trying to get something a little more realistic, but putting a cap on, let's say putting a cap but putting a little bit more conservative recommendation with regards to use of free cash will help us obtain, you know, those particular goals that we set out. Other, other places in this particular policy television. But this is right a spending plan for all free cash during the development of the budget, which of course we do quarterly financial reporting, I think we sort of went over this previously making certain
that you know these, you might want to add another thing or other, other topics as the board may request or may find interest in. But just sort of setting out the quarterly re review performance, which we do. Operating expenditures of course do a little bit on the enterprise funds year to date department spending. We provide that year to date in investment performances, not a problem. We get that from baral me every, every, every year. VA bank score for all financial institutions holding deposit deposits, we provide that every quarter. It usually doesn't change by every quarter.
If it does then we usually drop that bank, but that's not a problem to provide that either. So new new section contains, contains content from the deleted cash investment management section, how we put it in here. Other new section, other encumbers should be route annually and released as deemed appropriate by the town administration. Probably have we had that conversation on a regular basis about how we, how often we review our encumbrances we put down here annually. We can of course review them and I know Michelle does review them on a more frequent basis, but we did at least as sort of a, a,
a floors to do it annually. Fees and charges be renewed regularly to ensure where appropriately they cover the direct and indirect costs associated with a related service and or that they fulfill a policy objective or other purpose of the town. Something I believe you do on a regular sort of basis. Town investment policy shall be reviewed annually by the select board and town administrator. New set, this is a new section contains content that existing sessions that did not really belong there. So existing things that we sort of put in this sort of catchall sort of section so they don't get sort of lost
as people sort of go through the EP section. So that is very quick and I hope somewhat helpful try to try to go through this very quickly. But once again, if you have some comments, concerns, ideas, we'd love to hear them. But would sort of like to get that general sort of guidance with regards to this looks sort of in the ballpark so we can actually do that more detailed sort of analysis to give you, to sort of actually show you what this would look like on a, on a three to five year sort of basis.
Thank you Madam Chair. Speaker 1: Thank you very much Mr. Townsend. Mr. Sydney. Speaker 5: Yeah. Thank you for doing this. I generally like what I've seen, but I do have a couple of questions on slide 11, which is financial planning and forecasting. You describe using analytical trending of historical collections based on specific revenue sources. I wonder if it makes sense to call out separately building permit fees because those are not typically projectable based on historic trends.
Those are gonna be based on, oh, we know there are projects or we know that the, that we're going into a downturn and we're not gonna have projects. Speaker 4: Yeah, there there's a number of number of those like that, you know, so Speaker 5: Yeah, I I'm just concerned about historical trends, you know, and that's the biggest one. I mean, motor excise taxes are similar but they're not huge like building permit fees. Speaker 4: Right? No, absolutely. You, you see that spike, you know, every time we'd put up the graphs up there, it's that spike is, oh, that's a building permit from MathWorks, this Speaker 5: Comes up. Yeah, Speaker 4: Exactly. Yeah, no, absolutely. At this particular level, I, I'm very hesitant to sort
of say, you know, sort of, I don't say cherry picking something and sort of saying except for this, we understand that and we actually, when we do that we don't, you know, make Speaker 5: Sense. Right? Makes sense. I'm just concerned about the, you know, a a future board coming in and saying, well you're not projecting, you know, you're projecting not using historical analysis and, and you're lock the, the way it's written, it locks you into the historical analysis. And maybe there's a way of just like inserting a phrase saying or other pertinent factors Speaker 4: Well when appropriate sort of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Well Speaker 6: One second, Ms. Speaker 7: Slager. But, but rich, I think it does that by the second part of that where it says availability of economic data where appropriate. I mean, because that's, that is looking at the trends and the economic data and taking that, it's not just about the historical collections data. Yeah. So I think that is the part that you're looking for. I think that's an overarching, Speaker 4: It's sort of an and or sort of thing, historical data and or, Speaker 6: And if I can add to that from the building permit fee perspective, we do have the outlier years as noted.
You know, a big project comes in. But if you look at the historic trend data that is actually relatively speaking accurate in how we do some of our budgeting revenue projections for things like building permit data. And so then, and the economic data is absolutely where we look at where we might see, okay, this year might be a little bit lower because we're seeing investments in properties to be a little bit less, we absolutely look at the economic data for like building permits. So I hesitate to, to sort of, and and that's just one example 'cause there could be a half a dozen other examples. So, you know, I, I can understand maybe like an and
or type scenario, but I do think calling out a specific revenue, Speaker 5: Well I I just wanted to, I wanted to like maybe I I was concerned about, you know, always using the historical trends, you know, where it's not necessarily gonna be accurate for next year's budget. Right. Speaker 6: And a hundred percent of the situation's understood. And that's where I think the availability of economic trend data. Okay, Speaker 5: Good. I just wanna make sure we get, we had it covered 'cause it wasn't necessarily that clear to me. My other question is on slide 14, OPEP
you talk about an annual actuarial report. I know that the pension fund is not doing an annual actuarial. They're doing I think every two years or three years or whatever it is. And I wonder if this could be, could drive us to having more expense than we necessarily want to have, maybe extending that to two years or whatever the pension fund is. Speaker 4: Yeah, So I, I think and so, so the pension fund, the, the plan, the 30 year plan we had was part
of an actuarily based plan. They did. And it was one plan. Yeah. I mean, with regards to opep, we do it is every two years and then we do a sort of refresher every year. So you, we'd do, we'd have someone come in Segal or whoever it is, some actuarial outfit, do the plan, set up the plan for us, and then as we do currently, we would continue to do our biannual plus the, the update every two years. Speaker 5: Yeah. I just, I'm concerned again, you know, a future board might look at this and say, where's how come we're doing this every year?
You know, they, because it looks like it's a full actuarial every year. And, and I don't think that's necessarily accurate. Speaker 8: Yeah, just following up on Rich's point, maybe you can just specify that two year full report and the annual review of, you know, what's going Speaker 5: On. Yeah, it's a, it's absolutely a minor point. Yeah. By the way, Speaker 8: Good idea. Speaker 5: I'm, I'm really picking NIS here. Yeah, Speaker 4: I mean, because, yeah, well Speaker 9: We have a print full agenda. We Speaker 4: Do two years, a full every two years. But we do the, we do one every year. That's what's the money?
Speaker 6: Well, there's report every year, but a full report is Speaker 4: Every two years. Both full report is every two years. Yeah. Speaker 6: So every two years you do a full report and every two years you do an update report? Speaker 5: Well, Speaker 4: Yes. Yeah. Basically. Speaker 6: Essentially. 'cause they're alternating every other year it's Speaker 8: Full. Yes. Speaker 4: Update. Full update. Speaker 8: Yeah. Speaker 6: Maybe that could just be as determined by the, by the annual reporting or something like that. Speaker 4: Yeah, I can check with our actuaries to see what they sort of recommend. Yeah. So and see what Yeah. And what Speaker 6: They come up with. Yeah. And the terminology. Speaker 4: Yeah. If it, if we only get away with two years, then that's fine. I mean, our, our auditors, I tell you look for it.
They look for that update every, every other year. So. Speaker 8: Okay. Speaker 1: Are there questions or comments? Mr. Sidney, you had the Speaker 5: Floor? I'm, I'm done. Thank you. Okay, Speaker 1: Ms. Slager. Speaker 7: Thank you John and Gloria and Ian, this is great. This is a loan overdue, I think, do I have it right that you are when we, as long as we don't have any major changes, that then you'll get back to us with some of the figures. 'cause I'm having a hard time making sure that these make sense because without the data to look at about where we've been and, and in the forecast.
So is that something we're gonna expect afterwards? Speaker 4: Yes. I mean, so what we, we plan to do, we probably already have the data and glory I think has already run most of it for the past. But we would like to complete the forecast and then sort of plunk those in as well. So you'll have both the data for like the five years before and then the forecast five years after to see how it performed in the, from the past. COVID of course provides some problems there, but so you'd get a, you yes, you'd get a good look at at least what we think would,
how this would sort of work out. And once again, we might do this and find out it doesn't work, in which case we see that, okay, coming back to you might be, sorry that didn't work, so we have a new set of sort of recommendations for you and this is how this, this plays out. Speaker 7: All right. Yeah. That, that'll be very helpful because it's just really hard to, to, you know, make, make sense of it. So one question that I had was about opep, it's a little confusing to me. So on slide 14 we talk about free cash and at least 10% going to opep, right?
But then we also talk about funding the pay as you go. So I'm not sure how those two mesh together. Speaker 4: So the, the 10%, so for certified free cash is, you know, currently what we're doing up until 2030. So the expectation is in 2030 we'd have the actuarial come in, do the plan for us, and then that plan was sort of set up PayGo and then you'd provide the additional liability to reach the, you know, 164 million
or whatever we have to sort of do. But the 10% free cash would be currently Speaker 7: Okay. It doesn't say that though. Speaker 4: We can clarify that. Yes. Yeah, Speaker 7: It, it, it just says 10%. It doesn't specify before 2030. Right. So if that's the intent, then the town prior to 2030 should also apply on slide 14 to number one. Yep. Yeah, Speaker 4: We, we can clarify that. Yeah. All Speaker 7: Right. Yeah, so it just, that wasn't, I wasn't sure how those two right went together. Okay. And then mostly I have some other things
that I can just email you on. Okay, Speaker 4: Sure. Speaker 7: Mr. Evans, Speaker 8: Mr. Slayer caught the oped one. And, and thank you all for doing this. I, I think this is considerable pro progress. Couple questions and, and again, I'll, I'll do the same thing that Linda suggested is send these via email. 'cause none of them are really particularly big. One that I did want to talk about is where it mentions the far stabilization fund. The word used is should rather than must
because my understanding of far stabilization funds are shall you don't have much, much flexibility legally to use that for other things. So maybe that's just a wordsmith Speaker 6: Well part of that's just in the discretion of the, of town meeting. Speaker 1: And also that's one of the things that we've committed to look at since there was a committee that Speaker 8: I raised that as an issue. Speaker 1: They, they, there was a committee that purportedly looked at this and did all the legal analysis, but there was no report that we can put our hands on. Speaker 6: Yeah. I can't confirm
or my understanding of really any stabilization fund is that town meeting can choose Right. As as they wish. Alright. Whether it's in our case FAR or Okay. If a community has general or something else, okay, I'll town meeting certain withdraw LBL Speaker 8: I'll withdraw that because this based Speaker 6: At least until we get the legal analysis updated Speaker 8: Information. Okay. The other thing that I just wanted to raise is OPEP and how GASB looks at it. Do you see any changes on the horizon from them?
Have they, have you heard any rumblings that the rules of the game may change sometime in the future? Speaker 4: Unfortunately not. Speaker 8: Okay. Is that the good news or the bad? Yeah. Well Speaker 6: That's predictable. It is, I Speaker 4: Guess. Yeah. I, they, they basically, and this is once again going back to s and p and auditors as well. They just want to see you making that commitment to trying to chip away at it. Speaker 8: Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you mayor Chair. Speaker 1: Thank you. Are there any other comments
that we would like to make the finance team aware of? Otherwise, Speaker 6: Can I ask the board a brief question? Yes. Under the stabilization funds, there's, there's future modifications, but then there's the existing, I guess a question I have for the board to give direction to John and team, where are you leaning in that sense, Speaker 1: Ms. Ger? Speaker 7: Yeah, I, I don't, I will need a lot more clarification on this. I, I like the idea of the infrastructure stabilization fund. The override stabilization. That's pretty amorphous to me.
And I, I don't know how that would be defined specifically and how that would differ from our regular stabilization fund. So I, I would need more expansion on what you had in mind for that. Consolidating the general and operational. I mean, they used to be one and then we separated them. So I would wanna under Speaker 6: Not technically we, we had a a, we had a stabilizer I think that was created in the sixties and then we added one. Right, Speaker 7: Right. Speaker 6: Okay. So they, they weren't together. We just added one and then we added a capital. Right,
Speaker 7: Right. But Speaker 6: They were, it was the Speaker 7: Purposes used to be in one fund. Speaker 6: Yeah. I mean I guess the general, and it wasn't termed general, it was just stabilization fund was created in the sixties and at the time in the sixties, I think it was actually for capital purposes largely. And I think through the years it just became general, hence the adding that term to it and then Yes, correct. We added the operational. So I guess it took that purpose out of the general, although again, during the pandemic we kind of used them, not one and the same, but we kind of used them for all, all intents and purposes to cover all the needs that we had. Speaker 5: If I remember correctly, until we, until we were able
to create the operational one, we actually were only allowed to have one at under mass general law. There was a change in mass general law that allowed us to create additional stabilization funds. You're right. Yeah. Speaker 7: And, and so if we do combine them, I'd like to see how the funding mechanism, because there's, you know, there's very different funding mechanisms right now in this for the general and the operational. So I think it's a little premature. I'd like to get the changes, these great changes solidified and then talk about if we wanna do something in the future.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I just know during the dialogue of the override, there was discussion around an override stabilization fund. 'cause some communities have that. There was discussion around the difference or the distinction between general operational. So we wanted to, to at least put that on the plate for you to explore and for just the community to explore. But, but what sounds like from this conversation, running it with our current suite of stabilization funds is really what you'd like to see first before we start adding or combining or changing. I just wanna make sure we give that very clear direction to the team so that we're not adding the workload.
Speaker 1: No, I think that makes sense. Mr. Sidney? Speaker 5: Yeah, I just wanna say that I like the distinction that's made between operational in general, in that operational is specifically for the purpose of the economic downturn or the reduction in state aid. And I like the fact that it's where we go for that and we keep the general stabilization for, you know, real exigent emergency as opposed to an operational situation. I actually like that distinction. You know, as far as the, i I like the idea
of an infrastructure stabilization where we can plot money for HVAC systems or whatever. Yeah. Speaker 6: But we started doing that really under capital right now. Yeah, yeah. We kind of combine it all into one in capital. Yeah. But Speaker 5: Capital three vehicles regardless, I'm not, I'm not in fa I'm personally, I'm not in favor of combining operational in general. Speaker 6: Okay. Speaker 1: Mr. Mr. Evans, Speaker 8: Thank you. I'm somewhere in the middle. I agree with the general, general and operational stabilization fund. I really like the infrastructure stabilization fund
because that identifies it clearly as what we're, what the purpose of that fund is. And I, I also like the override stabilization fund because that was definitely something that came out during our override discussions. And in talking to other towns, it helped residents understand what the board and the town administration are doing to avoid doing something like that. And I think in our particular case with the 2030 fully funded pension, it, it puts a spotlight on that
that says that there are a couple things that are gonna come up. One is memorial school, which is gonna be a debt exclusion, and the other is the, some of the debt exclusion money plus the fully funded pensions are all gonna occur around the 2030 timeframe. Right Keith? So we're basically trying to spotlight, here's how we're going to try to avoid having to do this. And by putting money in there that's readily visible
and identifiable, I think that will help. That's my 2 cents. Speaker 1: Thank you. Mr. Townsend, do you have any questions for us? Has our instructions for next steps been clear or do, do we Speaker 4: Yeah, I think get a pretty good idea about where you folks serve are. So we'll be happy to put that together and get back to you. Speaker 1: Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you for your, you and your finance team's. Really hard work on this. I know it's been a lot in addition to year end and tax title and, and, and everything else. Speaker 4: A little busy. Yes. Speaker 8: Things you might be doing. Speaker 1: Yes. Thank you again. Thank you.
Speaker 8: Great stuff. Speaker 1: Next item on the agenda is the discussion and potential adoption of financial planning policy. So we have six to look at individually and I'd like to confirm, I was just looking but I didn't see, so for those of you who are at home, if you click on the agenda for the agenda item, you'll see a number of policies that are numbered.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Those are not current. What you wanna do is click on item C, financial planning policies. There's six of them. And when you open that, it's a 35 page document with all of them together in one document. So we know that we're all looking at the same document. Speaker 6: I'm gonna apologize. I thought I had deleted those. Speaker 1: It's my knowledge. Agree. I was throwing a lot at you. Speaker 6: The knowledge of the system. Speaker 1: Well, it's a new system and I was throwing a lot at you to, to, to get up. So Speaker 8: I do not see, I don't see that under discussion of other Speaker 1: Financial, so when I, when I, when I click on agenda Yep.
And then I go to the agenda item number C. Yes. What I bring up are six numbered policies. Yes. Okay. Look on Speaker 10: The mute, don't get an anything. No, you get an Speaker 1: Error. Okay. So that was Speaker 8: What I was, was trying to Speaker 1: Describe error. Okay. So I didn't, so you did remove them, but not the, Speaker 6: Perhaps it didn't make it all the way to the but, but item C financial policies, six is on there. And that's, that's Speaker 1: What we're looking at. That's what you're looking at. So just if you're at home and you're clicking on and you're looking for where we're discussing, you want to look at item C,
financial planning policies, Peren six and Peren, PDF. And that has the most recent version. These have been updated almost daily for a couple of what, what Ms. Slager? Speaker 10: I don't see this. Speaker 1: Okay. I don't know what to tell you, but I have it on mine. So Speaker 10: Let's see. I'm not looking in the packet. Speaker 8: I'm not looking. Okay, where are you looking? Okay, Speaker 10: I'm looking here on the agenda. This is the most recent agenda C Speaker 8: That's what I was trying to, Speaker 6: I have it on the shared screen if folks and see, so I'm in the agenda. I have, Speaker 10: Yes. Speaker 8: Yeah, that's what I have. Speaker 6: I did. And then you click on, that's where C this is what you
Speaker 10: Get click, Speaker 6: Click on and it comes up with this screen. That's I get. And then item C is what you click. Speaker 10: Those are bad. These Speaker 8: Four six. That's insane. Yeah, it's all removed. Speaker 10: What I'm talking about is something different. Yep. So I want you to look at what I have when I bring this up. I have something on my screen that you don't have on your screen. I did not. Okay. Speaker 8: Yeah. And I've, ive closed and opened my browser four times. I'm too two seven. Can you Speaker 10: Go to, Speaker 8: How about we do, Speaker 1: Let's take a five minute break. We're back. We are having some software difficulties.
So for those who wanna follow along, we're gonna put the document up on the screen and you can follow with us there. The documents will be uploaded tomorrow when the administration staff comes in. So we're gonna start with the first policy and that's annual budget. So for those who are curious about the process, what we're talking about is the policies, not necessarily the procedures. Those are different policies and those aren't something that we're discussing tonight. So I'd like to open it to the board for those who have questions or comments on the annual
budget. Ms. Slager, Speaker 7: I just wanna say thank you again to Ian and to John and everyone that worked on this. I met with the two of them and, and went over any of the comments that I had received from the board at that time. We went over all these policies. They were very responsive in making the changes. Mostly it was, it was small items, nothing very substantive from what we had seen in the fall.
Although the staff also went through these as they have been implementing them. And it, they've made changes where appropriate. So this really is not only based on theory but also to some degree on practice. So they've had, they've had these in place. You can see the dates at the end. We've also added, I think you to 10 some more granularity about the policy. So it's not only when the policy was developed, but when it was effective when we approved it. And then a proposal for when it should be reviewed again.
So this is something that you hadn't seen, which I think is a really great addition. And so I know Rich and Bruce, you might have some additional comments. Mr. Speaker 5: Sidney, thank you. I, yeah, this, this is really good. I went through this policy this afternoon. I really only have one question and it's really a question in section B, which is balance sustainable budgets.
Number five, it talks about proposed reorganization reporting structures. And I just wonder if there should be at least a nod to the charter section that requires town meeting approval for reorganizations. Just to keep it just so that, you know, approving a new budget with a reorganization probably is what town meeting needs to do. But it feels like there should at least be a nod there, Speaker 7: Ms. Slager. So actually we this, because there are in, in some of the changes that I believe the charter and bylaw review committee,
I think not every reorganization needs to go before town meeting. So Speaker 5: Yeah, I just, yeah, I think that, you know, maybe a sentence that says, you know, if, you know for, for a reorganization, you know, we just, like I said, just a nod saying, you know, if the reorganization is significant, you know, town meeting gets involved or whatever it should say just to recognize that there is a possibility that such a reorganization could be rejected
and it's not, you know, I think that typically, I think, I think if I remember the discussions over the years about reorganizations, I think it's enough. If the budget contains the reorganization and town meeting approves the budget with the reorganization, that's enough. But I think that a nod in here about, you know, there is a charter section that could get involved, I think might be worth just maybe a footnote or something Speaker 1: Mr. Townsend. Speaker 4: Yes. That, that's exactly, so when we take a look at this, yes indeed town meeting does need to approve that,
but it's part of the budget process that would be the approval. And when this does happen in the budget, we of course do point it out. It is part of the actual budget text and everything for the approval of town meeting. So that's, Speaker 6: I I hesitate putting too much detail into this other than maybe like a footnote reference to like compliant with charter section ball or Speaker 5: Something. Yeah. That's all I'm saying. Speaker 6: I don't wanna get too, too detailed of like, subject to a, a, a significant 'cause then it's subjective. Speaker 5: Yeah, no, I think And
Speaker 1: Things change. Yeah. I, I would hate to keep up with Speaker 6: All of the, I don't wanna, I don't wanna, don't wanna add, I don't want to create an a less, less flexibility or more oneness. I want it to be sort of consistent with Speaker 5: No, but I think that the, the issue I I'm seeing is if, you know, if, if some, if a new finance director, which we're gonna have looks at this and doesn't realize that there's a charter section fair, it's just a, I Speaker 6: Just, it just by reference of the charter section is a one Speaker 7: Thing. I agree. Yep. The original language said may propose significantly reorganized reporting structures,
which I said we gotta delete significantly 'cause it shouldn't do that. Yeah, but Speaker 5: You're, yeah, no, maybe I, you know, I think probably a footnote and, and a reference at the end of the document an an additional reference at the end of the document is, is, is sufficient just to acknowledge that that section of the charter exists. Speaker 8: That makes sense. Speaker 1: Any other comments? Mr. Evans? Speaker 8: Thank you Madam Chair. I just have two and they're very minor. First is in the paragraph, the second paragraph under policy.
It says further last sentence. Furthermore, the town administrator and deputy town administrator finance director will cultivate strong communicative relationships with the native public schools and school committee and with any other regional service partners to ensure active collaboration on school budget projections. And I wanted to add into alignment with the town administrator's budget because it's, it's implied that that wouldn't happen, but I'd like to call it out specifically. The relationship is great now
and hopefully will continue far into the future, but this covers the fact that it needs to be aligned. Speaker 6: That brings up not the alignment. I think that's one thing. But a question I have maybe for John and Gloria that just came to my mind, regional service partners. I mean, it's in a section implying that it's strictly school, but did you also mean we now have regional dispatch? Because then it's not just about school budget projections, it's, it's just overall budget projections. Speaker 4: Well, I can definitely say we did not
consider regional dispatch Speaker 6: Since we're quite there. Yeah. I mean this, this created more recently, like yes, regional dispatch is a newer item, but as we think more regionally with some of our things we might want, Speaker 4: I wanna expand that. Yeah, yeah. We could make that adjustment. I don't think that's a problem. Speaker 8: Okay. Speaker 7: Ms. Aka I just wanna, can I, can I just address your point a little bit, Bruce, about the alignment? I I am, I'm not sure what you mean by that. I mean, this is the town administrator's budget that's, and I, I'm just, Speaker 8: Yeah, let me elaborate on what try get across, which is, this is for the town administrator's budget,
but I, I feel that it should be clear what the expectations are of Natick public schools in the school committee. And that there have been times when I've been on the finance committee where there has been, I, I'll call it the Hatfields and the McCoys and there, there have been butting heads on a budget. Neither would budge. And ultimately there has to be alignment on the town administrator's budget. Town administrator ultimately owns the budget, right? So what I'm trying to get across is a convergence that says,
yeah, you can disagree. You, you can propose whatever you want at the Natick public schools and school committee level, but ultimately you have to work with the town administrator to align with the allocated budget. Now, I don't, I thought that that sentence, adding that clause would do that. But if, if people disagree, I'm, I'm, if we feel it's strong enough and implied, then I'm, then I'm good with that. That was what I was trying to get across. I can move on to another one since that was so easy.
This one's hopefully Speaker 7: One second. Mr. Evans? Mr. Speaker 8: C? No, no, I I Speaker 11: I have another one if Mr. Evans, when Mr. Evans is done. Okay. Speaker 8: Alright. This one is fairly easy, which is a, moving down to enterprise funds under budget goals. Where did it go? The, it's all one sentence, nevermind. Where it says from the general fund, by maintaining sufficient revenues to support the direct, indirect and capital related costs to run the enterprise fund operations through user fees. And I added or retained earnings,
Speaker 6: Well retained earnings come from user fees. It's just Unended user. Well it's, it's fair enough addition, you know, it's like free cash. Speaker 8: Fair enough. Okay. Speaker 1: Mr. Sidney. Speaker 5: Yeah, so this is, this is a new one. As I was following along with Mr. Evans, I noticed that it does say deputy town administrator slash finance director in this, in a few places in this policy, in other policies it just says finance director. I think probably the correct thing is finance director, whether he's a de deputy TA or not, although he probably will be, we should use one term throughout all the policies for that,
for that person. Speaker 6: Yeah. My my my personal preference is to keep the deputy TA slash finance director, but your point of consistency is the broader one. So, and that's, that's a valid point. We can certainly try to make sure that we're consistent across the board there. Speaker 5: Well, I I, I, I can imagine a time when, you know, maybe not this time around, but we hire a finance director who might not be hired immediately as a deputy ta, but be planned to move into that role, in which case finance director is actually a more accurate term. Just the thought. Okay.
Speaker 6: I appreciate that. Speaker 1: Other comments on annual budget? Speaker 8: The question? Yes. A question in terms of process, are you wanting us to approve the individual policies as we go through them? Speaker 1: That would be ideal. Speaker 8: Okay. You ready for a motion? Speaker 1: I'm ready. I am. So ready for a motion? Yes. Speaker 8: Move to approve the financial planning policy for annual budget. Second, Speaker 5: May I make a friendly amendment? Speaker 8: Certainly Speaker 5: With appropriate scrivener's changes. Speaker 8: Yeah, we should do that probably for everyone.
Speaker 5: Please. Yeah, let's approve with appropriate ners. Speaker 8: Yeah, Speaker 1: There's a few font formatting issues Speaker 5: In there too. Yeah. And you know, maybe changing town administrator, taking out deputy town administrator or adding it into the other policies, whatever. And we don't have to talk about it again. So, Speaker 1: Moved by Mr. Evans, second by Mr. S, seconded by Mr. Slager with a friendly amendment by Mr. Sidney to allow for Scrivener ever Scrivener errors. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? 4 0 0 on the annual budget. Congratulations. Next.
Lemme see if I can't open mine. Speaker 5: Capital planning. Speaker 6: It's on the screen. Speaker 8: It's alright. Bye. Speaker 1: I can't see it. It's, it's my glasses. Capital planning, which is page eight in your, in your document. Members of the board. Comments, questions Mr. Sidney? Speaker 5: Yeah. In the policy paragraph it says, by providing funding in the operating budget and to protect its capital investments, I think that it might make sense for that to say operating budget and capital improvements budget. Since we're talking about capital planning,
those are typically separate budgets. Speaker 6: Where are you again? Sorry. Yes. Speaker 5: Where are you? Wait in the policy paragraph, right? In the first line under policy, Speaker 6: I am under Speaker 1: The, the town will maintain an operating budget. Speaker 6: Am I in the wrong section? Speaker 7: Will maintain its physical assets. Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm jumping ahead to where I thought Rich was so rich. Where exactly are you Speaker 5: Referencing? So we're in capital planning, right? Speaker 1: Yes we Speaker 5: Are. Okay. The word document, the first line under policy. Yep. The town will maintain its physical assets by providing funding in the operating budget. Yep.
Speaker 6: Yep. To protect its capital investments and minimize future. Speaker 5: Yes. And I'm suggesting adding capital improvements budget, Speaker 7: Isn't that part of the operating Speaker 6: Budget? But it's part of the operating budget. It's just a line in the operating budget. Speaker 5: Okay. Even though it's typically voted in a separate warrant article and Speaker 6: Well the capital, the capital program is voted in a separate line, but that's funded potentially with separate funding than operating budget. Speaker 5: Well that's my point. So if we're doing capital planning, sometimes the funding is not from the operating budget but from other Speaker 8: Source.
Speaker 5: Other, other capital sources Speaker 1: That are in the operating budget? Speaker 6: Not necessarily. It could be from other sources. Speaker 8: Unextended Speaker 5: Could be free cash, could be the capital stabilization fund. Speaker 8: Unextended prior projects. Speaker 5: Yeah. Speaker 7: So how would you feel about deleting in the operating budget? Just say funding by providing funding to protect its Speaker 1: Vestments Much more elegant. Was Speaker 6: Limited. I was getting there too. Just delete. That's fine. Instead of adding. Speaker 7: Good, good point Rich. Speaker 8: That'll do it. Good idea Speaker 1: Mr. Sidney. Further comments? Speaker 5: That is the only one I found here. Speaker 1: Mr. Evans. Speaker 8: This one is under capital financing.
Speaker 5: Oh, I did have that. Yes. I'm sorry. Speaker 8: Where it says each year, blah, blah blah through funding derived from a combination of property taxes and I inserted local option taxes, free cash and stabilization funds Speaker 1: Aren't local option taxes part of our free cash? No, no, no. Okay. Speaker 5: They're local receipts or Speaker 1: Local receipts. Yeah, we should have local receipts. And Speaker 8: Then when we did the capital stabilization plan, we talked specifically about using local option taxes. Yes. And so down under the
CIP shall be prepared and financed in accordance with the following principles. I added restaurant and lodging local option taxes. And then we can define what that is. Speaker 1: So sorry. So it won't be all local receipts, it'll just be that portion of local receipts because excise taxes are part of local receipts. Speaker 8: That's a good point. Because Speaker 1: It doesn't matter to me. I'm just looking for clarity. Speaker 8: No, that's a good point. It's, yeah, I would say local option taxes, I'd probably keep it say local option taxes maybe. Speaker 1: Yeah. Local option taxes. Yeah.
Speaker 8: Yeah, that'll Speaker 5: Work. I'm sorry, Speaker 4: Just clarification. You are, you, you're referring to the, the, the financial management principles. So that is actually free cash. It's just a certain percentage of the local receipts. Speaker 8: Okay. Speaker 4: In free cash. They actually goes to pay, we don't actually fund any with the actual Speaker 5: Receipts. Yeah, I gotcha. Yeah. Yeah. And actually the local receipts are actually considered tax levy when we appropriate a town meeting. Yeah. So, okay. Speaker 8: I'm splitting heres, okay. Yep. Speaker 5: Just I do have one other thing that Mr. Evans reminded me of.
Yes. At the beginning of that section, E section we talk about strive to appropriate five to 7%. But I would in, in other policies we mentioned the financial management principles and I might do something like, you know, each year as described in the financial management principles, the town will, and that kind of links these goals together. Speaker 1: Can you point out exactly where you would put that? Speaker 5: That'd be right here each year in, you know, as described in what I wrote was as described in the town's financial management principles.
Yeah. The town will strive to, the town will strive Speaker 7: And that should be a reference too. Speaker 5: And that should be a reference also. Yeah. Speaker 7: The bottom. Speaker 8: Yeah. Good catch. Speaker 5: Because if the, you know Yeah, right. Speaker 7: No, if one of 'em changes and Speaker 5: Yeah, exactly. Speaker 7: Good point. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 5: And other policies also reference the financial management principles? Speaker 7: They do. And some of them are included in the references. Yeah. Speaker 5: Yeah. Speaker 7: Yep. Speaker 1: Okay. I'm just making a note. Any other Mr. Evans? Sorry, Speaker 8: One more. This has to do with the betterments betterment assessment.
I'm sorry. Where it says for any public, it is the last sentence that for any public improvement being proposed for betterment, betterment funding, the town administrator will present the following to town meeting for its approval. 'cause we, well I'm not gonna, Speaker 6: Some betterments are not, John correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought a betterment of like a sewer system doesn't necessarily go to town meeting. Speaker 5: Well if the Speaker 6: Town, it's by approval of like the, the people who are getting that betterment. Like if we're expanding a sewer system into a neighborhood Speaker 5: Or sidewalks or curb stumps or whatever. Well the actual betterment is approved by town meeting.
Speaker 6: Oh, the final approval they buy into it. Gotcha. Yeah, that's true. That's true. There is a final approval process. So if it's that final approval, that's right. Yeah. Speaker 5: 'cause the town has to appropriate the money for it before it can get it back. Speaker 6: Right. Right, right, Speaker 7: Right. Speaker 8: So I was just, Speaker 6: I just know there's also other approval processes. That's why. Yeah, Speaker 8: There are some. Yep. That's fine. Speaker 1: Okay. Any other comments on capital planning Speaker 5: Move approval as amended with scrivener's changes aloud. Speaker 7: Just so we're why don't we enumerate those so we know to Yeah,
Speaker 5: So this the, the capital Speaker 7: Financing, Speaker 5: So removing in the operating budget in policy, adding a, just adding a clause about describing financial management principles and capital planning and in betterment assessment for its approval after the word town meeting. And then other scrivener's errors has identified, there's a spelling mistake somewhere that I noticed. I'm not gonna call out. You can get those fixed.
Speaker 8: Second Speaker 1: Move by Mr. Sydney. Seconded by Mr. Evans. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Any opposed? 4 0 0 Debt management. I should note for the public that are watching at home, many of us on the board met individually with Mr. Townsend or sent notes or comments. That's why there isn't as much discussion at the board. It's not that we're not looking at these rigorously, it's just that in order to avoid violations of open meeting law, we had to interact with him personally
and individually instead of crafting these on the go in a meeting, which takes a bit longer. So debt management members of the board, Mr. Sydney Speaker 5: In inapplicability. I don't, in the second to last sentence, excluded our short term borrowings. It says done. I would, I don't like that word. Done. I think there's a plea, you know, executed or, yeah. And it's, I we can treat that as scriveners as far as I'm concerned. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would. Yeah. Speaker 5: Yeah. But that's, that's the only thing I caught. You have that John tns got it. It's just that one word. Just using a simulator did you say Speaker 1: For that? Issued? Issued Speaker 5: Is issued is fine. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean whatever word makes more sense Done is. Speaker 1: I understand. Okay. Speaker 8: I'm doing it for Speaker 1: You. That's fine. Other comments? Or Speaker 8: Yeah, sorry. Speaker 1: Mr. Evans. Speaker 8: Let's see. Under section on debt limits section B, item three. You talk about MSBA, which
most human beings don't know about. And we should spell out what it it stands for, which is mess School building authority and then parens. MSBA. Speaker 1: And it should be hyphenated. Speaker 5: Yeah, we can, we can treat that as scriveners, I assume. Yes Speaker 1: We can. Speaker 8: That's it. Speaker 1: Or minor mod as you know. Minorly edited. Mr. Evans, do you or Ms. Mr. Sidney, do you have any other Speaker 5: Nope. Speaker 1: On these Speaker 5: Move approval of the Speaker 1: Debt management policy Speaker 5: With, with Scriveners appropriate scriveners errors.
Second fixed Speaker 1: Move by Ms. Wilger, seconded by Mr. Sidney. Any comments? Discussion? All in favor, please say aye. Aye. A Aye. Any opposed? Passes 4 0 0 enterprise funds. Mr. Sydney? Speaker 5: So this isn't actually about enterprise funds, it's about enterprise indirect costs. And I think we ought to retitle it. 'cause it's really, the whole policy is about indirect cost allocations. Speaker 1: Okay. Let me look at that. Speaker 5: I don't know. Mr. Townsend, do you have a thought on that? Because the rest of the enterprise fund budget is covered in general budget,
Speaker 8: But there's a question And is it only indirect cost allocated to anything other than the two enterprise funds? Speaker 1: Not unless we start doing that with the schools. Right? Speaker 5: Yeah. Speaker 8: Right. So to me it's, it's, it makes sense to have it within here and not elsewhere. Speaker 5: Well, I'm just saying change the title. Enterprise fund, indirect cost pro policies. 'cause it's not about the whole enterprise fund. It's only about, I hear Speaker 1: Right. It's not by funding it, it's not about Speaker 5: Right. Speaker 8: I understand. Now, Speaker 1: Mr. Townsend, what do you think?
Speaker 5: I don't think we'd have any objection to that. No. Speaker 1: Okay. Other comments? Speaker 5: There's a grammatical error in background. The word is should be R, but that's scrivener's. Speaker 1: I know, but could you tell them so that Speaker 5: It gets, it's Speaker 8: Approved. Tell 'em so it gets, Speaker 5: Yeah. So first line, the bookkeeping for blah and blah division should be R No, it's Speaker 7: Is bookkeeping is Speaker 8: Is a mass now it's, Speaker 1: It's a collective. Now one singular. The Speaker 5: Bookkeeping Speaker 7: Singular is, yeah, I, that was my first thought too. That it should be our, but it's not. Speaker 5: It's okay. It's correct. All right. Anyway, that was move.
Speaker 8: Move approval with scrivener's errors and, Speaker 5: And renaming them. Speaker 8: Renaming. Speaker 5: Second Speaker 1: Move by Mr. Evans. Seconded by Mr. Sidney. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? 4 0 0. Next policy is forecasting and I am opening to the board for comments. Questions. Speaker 5: I got nothing. I didn't either. Speaker 8: I was gonna Speaker 5: Say this. Good job. Perfect. Score. Silence them. Move approval. Speaker 8: I'm speechless. Move approval with Scrivener. That's
Speaker 5: What I just said. Speaker 7: Yeah. In case there are any Right? Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 8: In case we missed them. Speaker 5: Second Speaker 1: Move by Mr. Sidney. Seconded by Ms. Slager. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Speaker 2: Nope. Speaker 1: Passes 4 0 0 investments Speaker 5: And let's see where I get here. Speaker 8: Got nothing. Speaker 5: I had a comment. Okay. Yes. In whatever section is E, which talks about diversification, there it is. I just wonder if there should be consideration for
diversifying across banks to ensure that our deposits are properly insured. 'cause there are insurance limits on the size of deposits. And I don't know if that's even possible, but I wonder if we should at least recognize it. And that's a really a question whether it's even possible. Speaker 4: So, Speaker 5: And I'm talking about banks, obviously. Yeah, Speaker 4: It is possible, but it probably be its own sever policy to tell the truth of the matter. Speaker 5: Because if, I mean, if, you know, 25% could be, you know, way more money than would be insured
in case of bank failure. Speaker 4: Oh no, a absolutely. But it has to do with both the types of banks that we invest in collateralization. And that's like a whole nother issue that, you know, the board may want to consider that. But like I say, that's a whole nother policy. That's a whole nother presentation with regards to the expenses involved in that. And whether at the end of the day it's actually worthwhile. Speaker 5: Well that's sort of why I asked the question. Yeah, Speaker 6: It's a good question. I just, I'll just defer to John on this one. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 5: John Speaker 4: Is a, it is a good question and we do consider that. And we do have particular sort of guidelines that we do.
We do sort of follow. But once again, it's probably outside the scope of this policy that does have more to do with investment of like our, you know, Speaker 5: Our liquid cash. Liquid Speaker 4: Cash, but also like your trust funds and you know, opab trust and that sort of thing. As opposed to what we do. It does have something to do with our short term fundings. We'd have some things in that. But with regards to, you know, how we sort of, you know, like I say, collateralization. Speaker 5: Yeah. And I, and I'm not even concerned with what goes into like investment funds, you know, the long term non-liquid
or less liquid investments. I'm really sort of concerned about Yeah. You know, what's in our checking accounts or checking accounts. Speaker 4: Absolutely. And that as are we. But that's like I said, a little beyond the scope of this particular policy. But if you're interested in that, we will, we could actually draft up another policy with regards to banking. Yeah. Speaker 5: Okay. That was my only question. I, Speaker 1: Are there members of the board Speaker 5: Move approval with governors? Speaker 7: Did you have more to say Speaker 1: This Mr. Mr. Evans just Speaker 8: Wanted to make sure, 'cause Ms. Walser had a insert there that said at the end
of reporting requirements she insert it a sentence that Yeah, it's in there. It's in there. That's in there. All right. Nevermind. I'm looking at an old version. Speaker 5: Yep. Speaker 1: That's the sentence the town administrator do do we'll report to the slip court annually. Yep. Yeah, we talked about that. Okay. I heard a motion Speaker 8: You did. I'll second it. Speaker 1: Move by me. Mr. Sidney. Seconded by Mr. Evans. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Four zero. Zero. So we have the first sixth down,
Mr. Erickson tomorrow. In addition to having these uploaded to the agenda, could you also ask Jay to put them on the, they'll be on the finance committee website. I mean the finance department, department website. But I just wanna make sure that these, these are also, these are also added. Next up is discussion of financial operation policies. There's 10 policies and I do have them. Speaker 7: And again, yeah, it's Speaker 8: The same. Doesn't work. Speaker 7: Same thing online. Speaker 1: If I send you this URL, let me just send this URL to you guys to see if you, if it works.
Speaker 5: Well I downloaded them earlier. Have they changed since? Since earlier today? I, Speaker 1: I got these at five 30. So Speaker 5: Does anybody know if they've changed since earlier today? Speaker 12: We changed this right after that meeting. Speaker 5: I'm sorry. Speaker 7: Yes. Then yes, we make Speaker 12: Ation after our meeting with Linda around. Speaker 8: Okay. Speaker 1: That I just, I just sent you a link. That's the link I'm looking at. That seems to be Speaker 8: Use those. Speaker 6: Catherine, I'm just pulling up the email that you sent me. That'd be great. From Tiana and others. So I'm just pulling that up. Okay. That was from five 30 again. Five 30 this afternoon. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 6: I can certainly forward that to the board
so they have those documents. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's better than the link that I sent. Speaker 5: Not that I'm getting the link you sent. Yeah, Speaker 7: I haven't gotten it. Yep. Speaker 5: Ah, there it is. Speaker 7: Yeah, that works. The link works. Speaker 5: So that's only the, that only open Is that all the doc? All of them. Speaker 1: So there should be two documents. The first document is this, first six policies. Okay. The second one is the next 10. Speaker 5: So you sent a link and that link is item D and when I click on it, I get fraud risk policy. Yeah, I get that. Yep. Speaker 2: Assessment. Speaker 1: It should be a, it's 48 pages long.
Speaker 2: Yep, Speaker 1: Yep. Okay. Then that's what where we're starting and it's up on the screen fraud risk assessment policy. Speaker 5: And just before we go in, how different, how, how significant were the changes you made? I mean, were they major or minor? No, Speaker 2: They're Speaker 5: Minor. Okay. So if I were to work with what I had origin, the comments I have, we should be fine. Okay. I just wanted to make sure 'cause I read it, I, I have comments in my PDFs. Speaker 7: Yeah, and, and just to be clear, I have a number
of SCRIVENERS errors that I have not had a chance to give to Ian yet. So I'm not gonna go through all those tonight. I'm gonna do that afterwards. But, so everyone knows I've got some Speaker 5: Pending, we'll just approve what Scriveners and Yeah, Speaker 7: I've got some pending. Yeah, Speaker 5: That Speaker 2: Makes Speaker 5: Sense. Okay. Speaker 1: Okay. So fraud risk assessment policy comments or questions from members of the board, Mr. Sidney. Speaker 5: So I wonder whether there should be an explicit call out regarding electronic controls and training, particularly around things like phishing
and whether we should be including, you know, advice. I, I, you know, I think this is two questions. One is, should we be calling it out? And the other is, should we be invoking the IT advisory board as a advisory board for, you know, one of the things when I was in corporate was we got, we did periodic fraud and phishing training. And you know, it's, I think it's important
because that's where, that's where a lot of the, the unintended fraud happens. Speaker 1: Well, is that, lemme think about that. Speaker 6: Is that, I guess a question for maybe John, is that relevant to this or is that more of an IT policy? Yeah, I'll tell you, I mean we do do those regular trainings, but this is, I'm assuming this one's intended to be more about internal fraud and things like that. Not necessarily Speaker 5: Efficient. Okay. I just, I just wanted to make sure. 'cause if the, you know, perhaps we should have a separate policy about that then just
to make sure it's obvious to the public that we're doing that sort of thing. Speaker 1: I think of that as less fraud than, I mean, fraud to me implies a personal intent to defraud the town of, of monies or assets or, you know, other things outside fraud risks are a different thing. Speaker 6: Probably more security. Speaker 1: Security. It, Speaker 5: It security. That's fine. I, I just, I was reading this and, and that came to mind, so that's fine. Okay. I'm okay with that. Later on. In further on under item A,
the last paragraph, it says the arm assessments shall be provided to the town administrator and the audit advisory committee. And as chair of the audit advisory committee, I was wondering if these had ever been done or 'cause I haven't seen them. Speaker 4: Yes, they, some of them were done. So this, this policy originated in 2016 and we're just, it's two basic sort of, it's the setting up of it for each, each department doing their own sort of assessment, coming up with their own sort of plan. And then it's the implementation of the department plans. So we got two depart where a lot of the actual departments are set up their own internal sort
of things and then COVID hit. And so we got sort of derailed with regards to that. That's Speaker 5: That's fine. I just, I was surprised to see it. Speaker 4: Yes, yes. That's, Speaker 5: That's all's So I'll I'll follow up later. Yeah, we'll talk, just we'll talk. Speaker 7: Yeah, so when I, when I met with John and 10, one of the things that I asked is in this document there's a lot of things that are reports or things that should be done on an annual basis and anything that affects the select board, I've asked to compile into a list. That's great. So that, that's one thing.
So anything that we should be getting, we should know what those are, what those deliverables are and so that we can, you know, there's a lot of policies here. And the other thing too is some of the things that are in here aren't things that we are doing currently. It's more aspirational. So I, you know, we hope at some point that we can do all of these. But it, let's be clear, you know, we're not gonna be measuring performance based, based on what's in these documents and if, if there are things that we aren't doing, you know, hopefully that there's a plan to put them in place in the future.
But, you know, these are our, this is what we would like to see happening. And in most cases it is, but in some cases it, it hasn't happened yet. Speaker 5: Yeah. And, and Speaker 1: There are lots of reasons for that. There's good reasons. No, but I wanna just speak about that so it doesn't sound like we haven't been doing anything. We deal with a situ, we deal with software called Munis and they are modules that make it possible to do some of these things. Some of them are in beta, some of them don't work, some of them produce unintended consequences. So back, so these are aspirational in a sense
for one example of other reasons, you know, and there are other reasons that are good reasons. It's not because we aren't taking good care of the money Speaker 5: And, and I wasn't suggesting otherwise. I was, you weren't. Speaker 1: But I want the public to be clear's why we're doing this. Speaker 5: Yeah. And as chair of the audit advisory committee or whatever meeting I call next, I'll ask Mr. Townsend to provide a status update. And that will get back to the select board because I report back to the select board. And since we had since the A A C advises the select board, Speaker 1: Ms. Schlager, I also wanna thank you for getting that list. That was on a long list of things for me to do.
And later on tonight the board will be receiving an annual select board calendar, which represents the kind of flow of what we do month to month. That's something that we've wanted to do. Yeah, I'll do that after I get home. But I won't be incorporating anything from the reports 'cause we'll wait to get that from finance. So Speaker 5: Approve fraud risk with Scrivener Aris with scrivener's corrections. I can, Speaker 6: If I can just add one component to the Scrivener section just for clarity. I've only seen it once. There's one reference to his her as opposed to there. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 6: So anytime there's like a,
his her reference, I'll pull it back up. You probably caught most of them Speaker 1: I saw. Yeah. Under F Speaker 6: Reporting. Yep. It just says the town administrator or his or her designee. It should be their designee. Speaker 1: Same thing in the next one, which is the procurement. Procurement conflict of interest. But Speaker 6: That's the general, I think. Yeah. Screw to fix Speaker 1: It doesn't impact global replace. Yeah. Yep. Content. Excuse me. Next policy is procurement. Conflict of interest vote. Do Speaker 5: We, we didn't vote. Speaker 1: Oh, sorry. It's okay. All in favor, please say aye.
Aye. Aye. Aye. All opposed. Passes 4 0 0. Next policy is procurement. Conflict of interest. Speaker 5: No issues. Speaker 1: I didn't have any issues either. Speaker 5: Move approval with Ners. Speaker 1: Ms. Wilger, did you have anything? No, no, no. Mr. Sydney moved by Mr. Sydney. Seconded by Mr. Evans. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? 4 0 0 tailings? Yes. Speaker 5: So first of all, have we taken this to town meeting yet? Yes. So it's that, yeah, we look at the latest,
Speaker 4: Like the way correct that one. Speaker 5: Okay, so this has been to town meeting. So I just, I have a couple of questions and one comment. One question is, do we think this might require additional staff? We should just be aware of that. If, if it's true, Speaker 1: Mr. Townsend. Speaker 4: So we definitely use, we could use additional staff, but we, well the last time we did it was like about three years ago. So one of the reasons why we can't do it more often is because we don't have the staff to do it. But I am confident that we will be able to fit it in
within the next six months or so. Speaker 5: Okay. And the only other comment I have is don't explicitly name the newspaper in the policy. Say a newspaper, you know, similar to what the charter says, A newspaper of local publication or whatever. That's Speaker 1: What it says. Yeah. Mr. Evans. Speaker 8: Oh, I'm sorry. I was just stretching. I think it says that already. Rich. Speaker 1: Yeah, it says local newspaper. Yeah, I Speaker 5: Thought I, okay. Well there's a place I in the, in the version that I downloaded earlier today. Today it says Metro West Daily News. Does reference Metro West State changed that? Speaker 8: Pull Speaker 5: That out. Speaker 4: Well pull it out. Absolutely. Yep. Speaker 1: I'll entertain a motion. Speaker 5: Move approval with amendment,
the Metro West Daily News and Scriveners. Speaker 8: Second. Speaker 1: Moved by Mr. Sidney, seconded by Mr. Evans. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? 4 0 0. We are on purchasing my comments. Were just regard to formatting and I can shoot you an email. Yeah, Speaker 5: That's all. Yeah, that's all I have. Yeah, there's like Speaker 1: Missing Speaker 7: Paragraph and we need commas and things like that. Speaker 1: And line spacing. Speaker 5: Reconciliation. Yep. Speaker 8: All correct. Speaker 5: Move approval with Scriveners. Second. Speaker 1: Moved by Mr. Sydney. Seconded by Ms. Slager.
All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. That's 4 0 0 oh. Any opposed? 4 0 0. And we are rapidly moving on to debarment and suspension with reference to federal funds. Speaker 5: No comments? Speaker 8: No. No. Speaker 1: It was a really short one. Speaker 5: Move approval with s screeners. Speaker 1: Mr. Sidney moves Speaker 8: Second. Speaker 1: Seconded by Mr. Evans. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. And any opposed Passes. 4 0 0 counts payable.
Speaker 5: Nothing. This is mostly a procedure. Speaker 1: Much of it's procedures. No, Speaker 5: No. Speaker 8: It's all. Speaker 1: Any, any comments, questions? I'll take a motion. Speaker 5: Move approval with Scribners. Speaker 1: Move by Mr. Sidney. Second. Second by Ms. Slager. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? 4 0 0 allowance for doubtful accounts. Speaker 5: No comments? Speaker 6: Sure. Speaker 5: Sorry, I, Speaker 6: That's the doubtful account. Nobody
Speaker 5: What's that? Dad? Speaker 6: Puns. I said are you, that was Speaker 8: A dad joke. That was Speaker 5: Worthy. Speaker 1: That was worthy of Mr. Hickey or Mr. Joseph? Speaker 8: Yeah. Speaker 1: Dad Speaker 5: Puns. I just didn't hear it. Speaker 6: You said, you said no comments and I said are you sure? Oh. Speaker 5: Move approval with Speaker 6: Doubtful accounts. Sorry. Speaker 5: Second Speaker 1: Move by Mr. Sidney. Seconded by Ms. Slager. Aye. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? 4 0 0 Travel reimbursement. Speaker 7: What about tax enforcement? Speaker 8: Yeah, I missed that.
Speaker 1: Which one? Speaker 5: Tax tax enforcement. Tax enforcement is next. Speaker 6: That's not in the, Speaker 8: That's not in the version I'm saying. Well Speaker 5: It was, it was in the original demo. Okay, Speaker 1: We're skipping it because it's not ready. So we're gonna travel reimbursement. Speaker 7: You still need to look Yeah. With the, what we talked about today. Yes. Okay. You're confirming things I'll have to confirm. Okay. Thank you. Speaker 8: The taxes is omitted for today. Speaker 1: So we will go to travel reimbursement. Speaker 5: No comments. Speaker 8: I look good. Speaker 5: Move approval with, Speaker 1: I just had Do we, do we need to state that alcohol is not reimbursed under meals?
Speaker 6: I think it's worth Yes. Speaker 4: Yes, absolutely. Unfortunately. Speaker 1: But it isn't here. I just didn't, did I miss it? Speaker 6: Oh, you're saying it's not in here. It's not there. Speaker 8: It's in unauthorized expenses. Speaker 1: Oh, I'm sorry. Eye. Yep. It's under eye. Yes. Alcohol. Okay. Okay. Speaker 6: I'm Speaker 1: Appreciate Yes. No, I wasn't saying do we need to do that? I meant Speaker 8: Do we Speaker 5: Need that out? I wasn't, Speaker 1: I wasn't arguing for taking that out. I just Speaker 5: Do we Speaker 6: Need, actually the only question there is do we want to say alcohol, beverages, tobacco and other Speaker 8: Associated Speaker 6: Products? Age limited or, or something? I'm just thinking cannabis, but that's it.
Speaker 4: Cannabis and I Speaker 5: Sin products. Speaker 4: Those vaping things. Speaker 6: Yeah. Any, anything that maybe, or maybe have a little bit more of a catchall. Yeah. Speaker 8: Regulated Speaker 1: Products. Speaker 8: Controlled substances. Speaker 1: Well not necessarily Controlled. Controlled Speaker 8: Anymore. Speaker 1: Controlled, yeah. So substances floor products that are subject to an age statement Speaker 5: Or recreational products. Speaker 6: We'll, we'll figure out something and we'll put it in there. That's appropriate to catch all. We don't need to wordsmith it here, but we'll figure out something that makes sense. Speaker 5: Okay. Speaker 8: Good idea. Speaker 5: Move approval with scriveners
and the amendment to add additional restrictions. Speaker 1: Second. Moved by Mr. Sidney. Seconded by Ms. Slager. All in favor please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? No. So that is 4 0 0 expense reimbursement. Policy acknowledgement expense. Speaker 4: This is a form. Yeah. Oh Speaker 6: That's Speaker 1: Just, oh that's part of the, okay. Part of the policy underneath it said credit card policy and procedures. That's the one. Speaker 8: Yeah. There it's, yep. Speaker 1: Any questions or comments? Speaker 8: Look fine to me. Speaker 5: Move approval with scr. Speaker 1: Second move by Mr.
Sidney, seconded by Ms. Wolf. Logger. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? Passes 4 0 0. So we have reached the end of those policies, which was item D with the exception of the tax enforcement. Tax enforcement. Speaker 8: Have a great job. Speaker 1: Great job. I think we probably don't need the finance team. I mean, you're welcome to stay but you've already had a long day and done a ton of work. Should let him go. We were just gonna talk about a couple of other potential policies. One that I mentioned to you, Mr. Townsend.
And then we'll go with an update to our financial commitments to the public. Okay. Speaker 4: Well thank you very much. Thank Speaker 1: You very much. Speaker 4: Much appreciate that. We finally got these all done then we will take our leave. Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Thank you. Deeply appreciated. Thank you. Speaker 6: Thank you team. Yep. Nice work. Speaker 8: This is excellent work. Speaker 1: Let, let's go on to the financial commitments update. Jamie, if you could put that up on the screen for members of the public. Yep. Speaker 6: Sorry, just to confirm, this is the SP commitments for financial, is that what Speaker 1: You mean? It's the select board Financial commitments.
Speaker 6: Yeah. A Speaker 1: Yes, a sorry. And actually could, is there something? Yes, there is something. Can we take a five minute break? Yep. And we are back during the months of January and February and into March, the select board did some research and settled on a number of commitments, financial commitments from the select board to the public in the context of the $7 million override. These were commitments that they're loosely broken down in the document that's up on your screen that's been annotated and it, this is the July, july update on
what we've accomplished, what's ongoing and what we've been able to do under policies and procedures. We had four, four points. One was to review and approve all financial policies and procedures. That's in process. We still have more. We, we did 16 tonight, well actually I shouldn't say tonight. This has been ongoing for a couple of months where we've been communicating with the finance department conduct an annual review and approve of financial management's principles, which is in process. We did that today on tonight's meeting with Mr. Townsend in our last meeting, we discussed a split tax rate policy
by a select board subcommittee and decided upon a recommendation by a member of the public that it may be best not to rush this between now and November when we take our, our vote to set the tax rate or set the factor actually. But we will be establishing a working group with members of the financial finance committee and also members of the select board to determine the foundational research that we need to come up with in or, and, and to write a scope for an outside consultant.
And also look at what's available in terms of outside consultants. So this gives us a year runway so we don't have to rush and we can make an informed decision review adoption of a tax recapitulation policy that's slated for discussion in August. Along with the discussion, further discussion of the potential for additional financial policies, which we currently don't have or are not in process under revenue enhancement and cost savings. There were a number of bullet points. One was to direct town administration to complete a review of the trash and recycle program.
They will be getting back to us within a year. That's in process. Mr. Erickson. Speaker 6: That's accurate. I've already started dialogue with Bill Sprat, our, our executive director for Public works. And we've already done some, some preliminary analysis, but we are hoping, we're actually planning on bringing forward more like a process memo, so to speak to the board in the coming months. Probably in August. We still need to work through it 'cause we're, we're trying to understand exactly how to process this. 'cause it is a big study. So we wanna parcel it out into sort of key components
and bring that to the board just so that you can see how we're thinking of approaching this and get your initial feedback. Speaker 1: Thank you. The second item was to advocate with our state delegation for passage of the Municipal Empowerment Act to allow Natick to pursue new, should be user-based revenue sources. We've done that in the form of a letter and also talking with our legislative delegation several meetings ago. I, I think in retrospect, I would want to amend that sentence to not just pursue the, the new user-based revenue sources, but also the Municipal Empowerment Act allows for additional programs for seniors
and also people who are experiencing hardship, financial hardship that are not seniors. It provides an ability for town meeting to adopt portions of mass general law if the MEA the act is passed, that would give us the ability to allow for exemptions and other tax breaks for people who are in going through financial hardship. One of the things the town administration does routinely is to look for budget efficiencies to produce cost savings in each department. The select board directed the town administrator to do that. There's ongoing, but I have two pieces of information
and this memo will be posted on the website for the agenda for tonight, tomorrow, so that you can download it and read it more closely. But, and this is just a two items, an update on two items that, that these aren't exclusive, there are other efforts going on. So Mr. Marshall has a, has a seat on the West Suburban Health Group, the steering committee and his extensive review for our insurance has seen
our insurance go down from what was forecast. So we were able to get a 1.5 reduction in premiums from fiscal 25 to fiscal 26. And the town also is working with a broker to broker insurance. And even with the months for the lead up and the multiple applications, we were able to get multiple carriers, many carriers to quote on multiple lines of coverage. And again, that that resolved in a 1.5% decrease in premiums. Also noted there is that the carriers,
all carriers notice the town does a solid job of mitigating risk and had a solid claims experience, which is a testament to the ongoing effort of the te of the team of town administration writ large supporting local businesses. One of the most important accomplishments that the Community and Economic Development Office has, in my opinion, achieved this year is to move Natick from the bronze level of a bronze status from mass bio.org to platinum status, which makes Natick very attractive to international companies, US
and international in the life sciences field. So that has been completed and we are now on the mass bio.org website as one of the premium life science fields, towns, or that offers, you know, first class services for life sciences. And we are continuing to support business friendly climate and improving bylaws, regulations and procedures to support, attract and retain businesses. So one of the things we did is as road commissioners, we
passed a policy to allow downtown businesses on Main Street to have sandwich boards working with the building commissioner to make sure that we are in compliance with a DA regulations that's not listed on this board. But the other thing we did was work with the developer Stu Rothman for one South Maine to do our sidewalks. I'm gonna turn it over to Jamie just to talk briefly about how we were able to improve relations with that developer and also cut, cut costs. Speaker 6: Yeah, thank you. And, and this was reviewed by, by the board at I think two meetings back, back in
or maybe the last meeting last spring. And in brief, this is just a, a good example of how we were continuously working to partner with our business community and our property and our community in the, in the, on the business side of things, supporting local businesses on how to basically problem solve. And in that case, we had an agreement that that, that a prior iteration of the board had agreed to post the, the, the fire that happened on that property and also in support of some of the nuances of the property boundaries at that location. So that there was a win-win for both the property owner
and the town with regards to easements, but also completing some sidewalk work. And then during the process and during the redevelopment of that site, it, we came to the realization that okay, maybe that that agreement that was put in place before reconstruction had happened maybe wasn't in the best interest of both parties. So we worked with that property owner and we continuously try to do this with all property owners to come up with, again, a win-win for the town and for the property owner. In that case, we're able to basically still complete the, the exact same intent largely as what was outlined in
that original agreement, but do an amendment or a basically a new agreement whereby the property owner was still getting the sidewalks completed. We provided some forgiveness on, on fees in exchange for also the town still getting an easement, which again was all part of that original agreement. It just shows and is indicative of the, of the fact that we're always looking for creative ways to enhance and improve our local small businesses especially, but also just our local businesses and our local property ownership community in advancing strong relations, but also public improvements.
In that case it was a public sidewalk and so it's just, it's just indicative of, of that culture that we're formulating here in Natick. Speaker 1: Thank you very much for communications. We've established a monthly meeting among the chairs of the school committee. So the chair and vice chair of the select board and the chair and the vice chair of the school committee and the chair of the finance committee have met. We've had two meetings we meet regarding budget and other issues. And I'm gonna turn it over to Ms. Slager to talk about that. Speaker 7: Yes, as Ms. Coughlin said, we've had two meetings.
Our second one was today, the first two meetings have focused primarily on some of the financial policies, which we reviewed this evening. It's a a nice way for all of us. We're all very busy committees and we don't always know what the priorities are of the other committees and what's going on. So anything that comes up in, in our committee that might potentially affect the school committee and our finance committee and vice versa, that's the ideas that, that this forum is for them to, to bring up and for us to bring up.
So for example, we told them about the split tax rate from our previous meeting about how we're going to be setting up a year long process on this. And we had asked for a participation from the finance committee and the response was, well, when is it gonna meet in more details? And so we don't know. Another thing that came up today are, are things that are good to coordinate, which is when the warrant closes. And one of the things that we should talk about is funding for the, the Kennedy, excuse me, for the Memorial School feasibility study.
And if we need a warrant article for that, or maybe even multiple warrant articles and you know, is this something that's allowable? Do we need to get a legal opinion about repurposing some of the Kennedy funds? So things that, that involve all of our committees that this ensures that we'll have communications going forward and any concerns will also be raised. So it's just a better way to, and a monthly meeting to, to ensure that, that, you know, we're collaborating. Speaker 1: Mr. Evans, Speaker 8: I can hopefully offer a little clarity on
the memorial aspect of it. Both those questions have been asked. One, one is pending an answer. One of the things that has been requested of MSBA is an extension of the time to deliver the first plan. Originally it was, I think designed for, I want to say the end of October, and I believe that the extension was requested to be the end of November to allow us to get past town meeting
and to have the approval for the study that, that the design that we're looking for. The second thing is there's an August 4th there, there we're now meeting on a monthly basis, the Memorial Building Committee. The next meeting is on August 4th. Speaker 7: Yeah. And then so the, the thing that we wanted to make sure is that if for some reason the Kennedy funds cannot be used, that, you know, we have something in place to make sure
that we have the warrant articles keyed up to go if, if, if need be. Okay. And the other thing that I forgot to mention is that we're planning on having another joint school committee select board meeting. We'll be sending out invites. It's probably gonna be on a Monday night to mesh with the school committees meeting either on August 25th or whatever. The second Monday is September 15th. September 15th. So look for that and you know, just again, to further our communication
with our two bodies. Cool. Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is going to be really helpful. Building relationships. You know, we, we've talked the last four years about one natick and the principle of one Natick. And there's been a lot of bridge building by Mr. Erickson with the school department and school administration over the last, well, since he's been here, but in particular the last four years. This is an opportunity for the boards and committees to work together so it's not all on administration and developing relationships so that when issues do come up,
we can pick up the phone, we know these people well and say, you know, we, we need to talk about X, Y, Z or even just ask questions, how do you do this? So I think that's been a welcome addition to, to the process, you know, the processes we are establishing. The next thing about communications is to work with town administration to communicate current programs to residents, including setting a letter to Natick seniors to inform them of the programs that are available to them to defray, reduce or defer real estate taxes
or qualify for free water and sewer, for example. This is in process and part of that process was making sure that we had all of the materials that we need in one place on the internet. And our communications director has been out of town for two weeks. He returned today. So that is in progress and I hope that will go out within the next month. Mr. Mr. Sidney? Speaker 5: Thank you Madam Chair. I ju I, my only concern here is that if the Municipal Empowerment Act passes and the town meeting takes a a adopts a bunch of local options that come out of that,
I wanna make sure we don't confuse our seniors by having mailings that are too close to each other. Now I realize if we get something out in two weeks and then we're looking at January for the next one, that's probably okay. But if, you know, if things, if, if, if this one gets delayed too long, we might wanna wait for whatever town meeting adopts before we send something out just so we don't confuse people with changing programs. Okay. And, and just, it's just a consideration if, if it's a lot of ads, it's probably not a problem. But if it's changes to existing programs, it could be confusing.
Speaker 1: So my, my hope would be that the, that the mailing, and this is the way Jay's been setting it up, if the mailing will point people to a resource on the internet, and it will also inform the, the social worker at the community senior center so that whatever that URL is, those changes are gonna be. Speaker 5: Right. But don't forget, there are a fair number of elderly people who, for whatever reason, can't use the internet. Either they don't, can't, they can't afford it or, and you know, they end up going to the library
or they end up just, they, they need, you know, more contact information Speaker 1: And, and that's why the senior center will have that information. So it another, another program that I've been sketching out with a couple of residents to see if it's something we can do and worked with Jay. And it's very, very preliminary. The idea is to take cohorts of seniors who are active, who want to volunteer to serve as peer coordinators for a number of these things. So for example, I developed a, a a list of questions that are non-invasive about somebody's financial background
that lets them know whether or not they're eligible for, for example, tax deferral on their home or the senior circuit breaker or something. So you don't even have to be invasive or there's just a se So I developed these questions and the idea is to train several cohorts with Mr. Erickson. I mean, Mr. Speaker 5: Or or Speaker 1: No, Eric Henderson. Henderson, our tax assessor, to do some peer review trainings and make sure that there's a network of people instead of just one social person, social worker
for 6,000 seniors in this town. It's very preliminary to discuss, it's something they'll probably take place in the spring. But those are some of the things that we're, we've looked at doing. Yes, Mr. Evans. Speaker 5: Yeah. And I just, like I said, I just wanna make sure that if there are mailings, they're far enough apart and that there are ways for people who, for whatever reason, you know, don't have internet, that they know that there are resources they can, they can grab because, you know, it's, it's a hard population to communicate with sometimes. Speaker 1: Thank you, Ms. Wils. Mr. Evans.
Speaker 8: This is just a, an addition to what you're proposing. I think it's a great idea of what you're doing and I think approaching Ms. Snell about that. Yes, it would be a great idea. Don't, don't do all the heavy lifting yourself. Speaker 1: Oh, right. No, no, no. Just heaven snow. But I don't, I want, I don't come come with a half baked idea either. I just wanna make sure that we have, this was actually a suggestion by two residents, a married couple who are in their late sixties and they asked, how can we help Speaker 8: So young.
Speaker 1: I know, I know. And so I, I said, how can you help? You can, we can. And, and so, and this was also something suggested by Susan Simon Kang in a Coffee with a purpose. Like how can she help seniors and be a resource for them if she doesn't know. So Speaker 8: Right out there, Speaker 1: Let's see, next item on there. Speaker 5: Further study. Further Speaker 1: Study. So I think it's important to level set expectations. The select board took on a, a lot,
and this is not even including our goals that we established in March of things that we wanted to accomplish this year, in addition to having very full agendas. And so things are necessarily going to be slated for discussion in September and in October and probably sometime in November under further study. So I encourage the public to be patient. We're working very hard to make sure that one, our financial policies are solid, that our finance department is well staffed, they have the resources they need, that we're working very closely
with the school administration, the finance committee, and town meeting and, and preparing for the future so that we aren't caught. The, the fact of the matter is, in my opinion, many issues, financial issues in this town have been kicked down the road and they landed in on this board's agenda. And so we are trying to set up for future boards to be able to walk in and be set up for success so that we make tough decisions now and down the road, we don't have to worry
so much about an override or things like that. And that, that involves both revenue and expenses. So I, I really want to, we're still open to ideas, so if you have ideas, please send them to select select board@natickma.org. We will incorporate them. So if you, when you look at the agenda tomorrow, when the document's uploaded, you'll see there are five different programs that will require further study and they're slated for discussions September and October. Speaker 5: Madam Chair. Yes. On the one-to-one stabilization for technology, you probably want to, I I, I would suggest considering
having a discussion with Mr. Erickson and maybe the chair of the school committee and seeing if it's worth putting a warrant article on the fall warrant Speaker 1: That's on the list, Speaker 5: But that of course has to happen in August. I know if you're gonna put, so Speaker 1: I know Speaker 5: Discussion in October is too late. Speaker 7: Yeah. If we can get that, I mean, it's such a small amount. If that's something we can take care of Speaker 5: Intendent, I can see the superintendent's willing to sponsor an article. Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. That'd be great. Speaker 5: I mean, that's, that's the, the far we need to actually study things. Right, right. But that one, not the one to one. I think it's a small amount. It can be if, if we can,
if we can just like deal with it. Speaker 1: Makes sense. Speaker 5: Yeah, that's good. We don't even, almost don't even need to discuss it as a board, in my opinion. If, you know, if the school department and the administrator are willing, let's get it on the warrant for the fall and, and get that close up. Yep. Speaker 1: That makes sense. The last item on the agenda is discussion of other financial policies to adopt. The only one I have ready to discuss tonight, I attended a DLS seminar that talked about financial policies that towns might adopt depending on their size, the size
of their budget and things like that. One of the ones that I was intrigued by is the, the tax re, sorry, the, yeah. Tax recap policy, which we do not have, but I've spoken with our finance director and it's something that he, several towns have them and they basically lay out the process by which the tax re recap process happens. And a second one is not reconciliation 'cause they're working on that one. There was a second one and it's escaped me. So those are items that we'll be bringing
before the board in the next couple months after we've met with the finance director. I don't, we have a lot of policies that are in process now, so I don't wanna necessarily just throw out new ones for the sake of throwing out new ones. But by putting together a list of ones that the DLS has and looking at what we have, hopefully the finance director can say that's something we can do, or that's something we can do. And I'm, I'm, I'm hopeful. Sounds good. Mr. Sidney? Nope. I think that's all we have on the agenda of tonight. We adjourn. There's a motion to adjourn by Mr. Sidney.
Second. Second. Seconded by Ms. Wolf Logger. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? 4 0 0 and 8 34. 8 34. The meeting is over. Have a good night.