Speaker 1: Good evening and welcome to the Tuesday, March 11th meeting of the Natick Select Board. I'd like to open the session at 6:10 PM and ask those who are in the room to stand to say the Pledge of Allegiance and observe a moment of silence, Speaker 2: Pledge Speaker 3: Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which stands, nation underground indivisible, with liberty and justice for overall. Speaker 2: Thank you. Speaker 1: First item on the agenda is 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 to for debate during this portion of the meeting due to the requirements of open meeting law, this section of the agenda is limited 10 minutes. And any individual addressing the board during the section of the agenda shall be limited to three minutes while the select board endeavors to ensure that all interested persons have the opportunity to address the select board due to time constraints that may not be possible. In cases where there's intense public interest in a particular topic, the board may schedule a future meeting to allow for further public input. Mr. Scott,
Speaker 3: Thank you. Speaker 4: Roger Scott, 40 Water Street. Thank you. So I've to, to preface this, I've del delivered this statement to the fire chief Jason Ky and to the police Chief James Hicks. And so my first time to bring this before you, and it's a personal statement, I have says, I am concerned about the safety of the NATA community. The Natick Select Board approved the construction of 32 units of housing at five Auburn Street. This development will add over 100 residents to Auburn Street, a dead end street,
and will endanger not only the new residents, but also the current residence on the street. It is a dangerous fire hazards situation. The street has a fire hydrant near the river and the next hydrant is on Route 16 at the corner of Water Street long distance away. Auburn Street is 20 feet wide with street parking allowed the plan submitted to the town allow for 41 parking places on the property with nearly every square inch of this development accounted for with little room for error for fire or other serious emergency execution by our safety teams. One cannot dismiss what is happening in the United States
regarding the outbreak of dangerous fires in Hawaii, both north and South Calif Carolina, Northern and Southern California, long Island, New York, and numerous other locations across the country. Many of these have resulted in loss of life. We can't put our residents in danger. We must plan for safe living. Since this project is still in the planning stage, a safe outcome must be planned. A maximum of no more than 15 units of housing should be mandated. There must be the ability for multiple fire trucks, police vehicles, and emergence in VE vehicles to maneuver freely
for life-saving response, not only for the residents, but also for our firefighters who raised their lives for our native community. I hope you'll consider these concerns and pass some local legislation protecting this neighborhood as well as the other neighbors of neighborhoods on dead end streets from any future development that may be carried out unfairly for the residents of those streets. So I I, I brought this, I I was pushed to do this because we're doing the zoning board of appeals on, on this and we were told that we'd have some follow up with the fire
and and police on this and, and, and as the last zoning board meeting is, they got the approval from the fire department without ever having, we were told we'd it would come at some point and they already have said, the developer said, oh yeah, we got the approval from the fire department. So it felt me that I had to, had to bring this forward since we are running outta time and that's what I'd like to have from my statement tonight. Thank you. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Scott. Not to enter in debate. I just had one quick question.
Have you had the opportunity to read that statement to the ZBA Speaker 4: The next ZBA meeting? I'll Speaker 1: Thank you. So we are in discussion and decision. I'd like to start with our financial policies and procedures review tonight. Our deputy or assistant town administrator for finance is before fin com. So cannot be here, but this was the only night available for us to meet this week. So I would like to open our conversation with that
and start with our, the, the select boards financial management principles, which were passed in 2016 and which are due for review. And I'd like to open it to the board for comments and discussion. Speaker 5: If, if it's helpful, can I provide a brief overview of the principles and that would be helpful how we currently work with them. Thank you. Sure. So the financial management principles for those who are working from home, these are, I believe available on the town's website, but they're also located on pages 3 0 1 to 3 0 3
of the current preliminary budget book for FFY 26. And they're the principles as noted by the chair that were adopted as most recently amended in 2016 by the select board. There are some needed updates, but by by and large the town has followed these up until the pandemic. And then we had to put some components on pause due in large part due to the pandemic. And our intent is to be coming back into compliance with these policies pending the override vote.
And I'll go into a little detail if the board would like me too about what ones we had to put on pause during the pandemic and what ones were pending the override vote to allow us to get into compliance. Just in the high level, these are principles outlined by the select board to help town administration and the finance division really do the planning and the finance from finance from a financial perspective for the community. A lot of it has to do with how we handle reserves, stabilization funds, capital planning and budgeting. I'm really just reading the sections. Debt issuance and management, financial planning
and forecasting, cash investments and management, retirement system funding and opep. Opep is the other post-employment benefits. But it gets into some level of detail within these sections that allows some guidance. That provides guidance to to, to the town administration also regarding use of free cash, for example, how reserves and one-time funds should be used with regards to the capital. And so that's where, just that, that's the level of detail that this provides. Some components that that, that are helpful to the dialogue
around the select board in the override include things like in the opening paragraphs or the opening principles. The reserve uses one of the bullets here, for example, notes that reserve reserves in one-time revenue should be used only for capital or other non-reoccurring expenses, except as noted below. One of the things that we've talked a lot about with regards to the override is reducing our reliance on free cash, which is considered a one-time fund so that we could use it for capital and other non-reoccurring expenses. So that's a very big point of what we've been as a community
been trying to do, but also consistently not following for many, many years, even before these were probably adopted, we've been using free cash to a certain degree to support operations and free cash is considered a one-time funding source. The override will help us get back into the historic typical uses of free cash, but it won't reduce that and get full in compliance to that particular bullet. Another item just in that same section, talks about maintaining free cash as a, at a minimum of 1% of revenue. So those are appropriated free cash numbers, so, or half a percent is the shall not be lower than.
So when you see our free cash spending plan, these are the items that we're trying to meet. When you see unappropriated free cash and our free cash spending plan that's trying to meet that particular point. Similarly in stabilization funds and it lists the different stabilization accounts that the town had. Town meeting has set up, you know, as general stabilization, operational stabilization capital. Those are the three primary ones. There's also a few others, but those are funded through other avenues. But in general, stabilization bullet A of stabilization funds, it says at a minimum be at a level
of 2% of revenues with a target being 5% of revenues. So when we say we're trying to meet our minimum targets, this is where that's coming from. These are the targets that we're talking about with the public and with you. The select board members as well as the finance committee are the targets that we're trying to meet. Similarly, operational stabilization talks about maintain for purpose of augmenting operations in case of sustained economic downturn associated with loss of revenues. And then it talks about what a sustained economic downturn is.
It actually gives a definition regarding significantly reduced one year to the next state aid or local receipts being defined as more than 5%. It gets actually pretty specific. And that's where, for example, during the pandemic we actually had that with regards to local receipts, we had a year over year loss of local receipts from an estimated almost 19 million down to an estimated almost 11 million. That's to 12 million. That's that met that criteria, which is why during the pandemic we felt it appropriate. So did town meetings. So the community
to utilize our operational and general stabilization accounts for the purposes of supplementing operate the cost of the community, of running the community. But then even in that sense, it says that the target amount of money for the operational stabilization accounts that'll be sufficient to sustain operations through a three year period of economic downturn, which shall be equivalent to 10% of state aid revenues and 5% of estimated receipts cumulative for a three year period. So again, are these the right numbers that I think that's what the board might wanna look at.
But this is what we have had since 2016 to follow and what we've been really working since the pandemic to get back to. And it's also one of those items that it does change year to year because our revenues change year to year. Our numbers change year to year, so we might meet it one year, it doesn't mean the next year we're going to meet it because we have to invest again in these same accounts in order to continue to meet these criteria. The, those are the big points about the stabilization accounts. There's a couple other things in here that we can certainly dive into. But another one I'd like to just note,
actually there's a couple more under the caps, capital planning and budgeting, it talks about the five year capital plan, which we do. It talks about funding capital projects for most cost effectiveness and return on investment. And then it says a minimum of six to 7% of net general revenue within levy should be set aside annually to fund capital needs. And even during the pandemic in full openness, we did not meet that. We were below that. But then the last several years we have been meeting that the challenge is that our capital needs are, are even exceeding those numbers,
but their capital needs because we had to pause many projects during the pandemic, we're still playing catch up. It also notes that for creating radi agency guidelines available revenue expenditures are between eight and 12% are necessary for, to for, sorry, I'm trying to paraphrase a little bit for purposes of, of the public, 'cause they might not be reading this, but basically we're trying to maintain the burden ratio below 10%, but it should be between the eight to 12% values, which we do meet.
So we've been largely meeting by and large all of the, the capital items, the capital requirements. One thing for consideration that has been, especially during the pandemic we have had to deviate from a little bit is in the debt issuance and management it says large capital projects generally costing over $1 million and having useful life of 10 or more years are typically funded with debt to spread the cost out over many years. While we certainly try for that during the pandemic, we had to deviate from that a little bit because we were trying to keep cash on hand.
So we borrowed for things even under $1 million. We would like to get back to that 'cause we do think that that's a valuable principle. But again, so much depends on how much really the somewhat the fate of the override, but also how moving past the override and moving into future years, how we best work with the select board on our capital planning. And I think I mentioned this or will come up next week when we talk about the capital program, you'll see how we are, how we're working with the capital program pre with our present day knowledge pending what happens with the override to then set us up for understanding
how can we basically meet the capital needs of the community while still meeting through these principles moving forward. The final thing I'd like to point out, but there's still a lot in here, so this is just what I'd like to point out for for right now is in the opep or the other post-employment benefits bullet and it's on the last page of, of the document and it partway down the paragraph. And this is something that I would actually recommend pulling and maybe making a little more prominent. It talks about the establishment of, of the funds,
sorry, the, the town's contribution to OPE costs will be funded into the Opep trust fund established for purposes of using one-time funds IE free cash for or annual appropriation in the future even says free cash in here after one, setting aside a free cash amount equal to half of gross revenues and two funding capital stabilization at fall town meeting with free cash in the amount equal to 2% of local option hotel tax, plus the local option meals tasks collected during the previous fiscal year. The town should appropriate at least 10%
of the remaining free cash to Opep. The reason I recommend maybe pulling that out is some of that criteria is actually unrelated to Opep, it's more related to how free cash use should be appropriated. And I would argue that that's actually a a something that could be highlighted a little bit elsewhere in the document because it talks about the use of the 2% local option hotel tax plus local option meals tax collected. So those are some things that we, that's another one that due to the pandemic, we had to deviate from, you know, during the pandemic with the local option taxes going really
significantly impacted from the pandemic. We are just getting to the point where we feel comfortable where we can start making those contributions. Again, the way that it's outlined in this document. Speaker 6: So Jamie, what you just read is that doesn't agree with what we have on posted online. Speaker 5: So we found a version control item whereby there was a draft version that was a previous one and that might be the one posted online, but the one in the budget book is the current one. So the one posted online should match this one that's on the budget book. Speaker 7: If you guys want to mail that. 'cause I just extracted from the budget book
so I can mail that around. Speaker 1: Yeah, if you could do that, that'd be great. 'cause that's not the one that is uploaded to the new Novus Speaker 6: Peak. Speaker 5: Peak. Correct. The peak one should be up updated because it's the one that's from the budget book that's the most current. Awesome. Speaker 6: But did it, it isn't Speaker 7: Send it to us in January. Speaker 5: We need to update the peak one with the one that's in the budget book. 'cause the one in the budget book is the most current. Yeah, got that correct. We did find a version control challenge from that 2000. Nobody was here during 2016, so we had a prior draft that did not include those two bulleted items out in the EP section. We've since fixed that, but we have not, not fixed peak. So I apologize for that. I thought
that was fixed on peak as well. Speaker 8: Yeah, for some reason, the one I'm looking at is the 2016 revision with the stuff you just described. Speaker 5: Correct. And that's from, Speaker 8: I pulled this from last meeting. Speaker 1: Oh, then I can pull Speaker 5: One does not have the version. Oh, we did confirm that this, the version that is in the budget book is the current version. Okay. Speaker 8: And Speaker 7: That's what you're about to send around Bruce soon as I get mail and I'll send it to you Jamie too. So Speaker 5: Yeah, the one on the town finance division website is the, the one, the same one
that's in the budget book. The one in peak, because we were just version control from 2016 is the one that we will update with the one that's on the website and in the budget book. So if you go to the finance division section of the website, there's a link to financial policies and that financial policies is the PDF that is reflective of what I just read and in the budget book. Speaker 1: Okay. Can we take a two minute break so I can pull the budget book? I wanna have it physically in front of me. Speaker 5: Sure. I can also just print out copies of this if that's helpful. Speaker 1: That'd be great. If you could print out copies. Why Speaker 5: Don't you print out copies of this? Speaker 1: Okay. Let's just take a two minute break.
So a couple of questions that I wanted to start with. It looks like this was adopted by the select board or, or a, a financial management principle document was originally adopted in 2011. And in the, the general part it says it should be reviewed no less than annually and maybe but not required to be revised as a result. So it looks like every year until 2016 it was reviewed and amended. Do you know if this policy has been examined by the Board
of Selectmen since 2016 or the select board? Speaker 5: Not so I don't, I I can't speak, I I don't know to what level it's been examined by the board. I'm not aware of any updates made since 2016. This is the version that we have on the books Right. That we follow that we've been following. Speaker 1: And it's not required to be revised, I'm just wondering Correct. To your knowledge, has, has it been reviewed by the select board? So Speaker 5: Not not in any, in my time as ta It has not been examined in a way
that you're looking to examine it now. Okay. Meaning it was, it was been discussed at the board meeting, meaning we follow the financial financial management principles of the board. It's, it's in every budget book that we produce as these are the principles that we follow. But I don't believe it's been, you know, point by point looked at. Speaker 1: So may I suggest, and I'm open to some comments from the, the board that, you know, the, you have a planning document for the year. So in November we do tax classification, we do budget, and you know, those types of things. Could we add this as a standing item for the select board,
regardless of the composition here in October on your calendar? Speaker 5: Absolutely. Speaker 1: Yep. So I, I'm thinking October before we go into the tax rate in November, but I'm open to other suggestions. I think that's, Speaker 8: I think, sorry if we could do it late September before town meeting and if, because if we revise them then we can publish the revised ones in the book. Good for Speaker 1: Fall town meeting. Good point. That's fair. Speaker 8: You and I were on this same page. Speaker 1: Okay. So, so September, any other comments? No. Okay. So let's put that as a standing agenda item for September
for the select board that we review the financial management management principles. Speaker 8: Pope? Speaker 1: Yes, Ms. Pope, Speaker 9: I do have a question Speaker 1: Because Speaker 9: I think there's a little bit of gray area that this was revised in 2016. It's possible that it has been reviewed in the years between 2016 and 2025. And I'm wondering does there need to be some sort of note that says it's been reviewed or do we just keep it at revised? Speaker 8: I would mark when it's reviewed.
Speaker 1: I think that's a good point. I think maybe just, so right now at the, the bottom of the document it says adopted March, 2011. Revised, revised, revised, revised. We can say reviewed on whatever date, 2025 reviewed in Approved. Approved. Yeah, I think that's a good point. So that future select Speaker 9: Boards, no, that at the very least it's been looked at. Looked Speaker 1: At, yes. And, and not just, you know, select boards so that the public knows. So town meeting knows that these have been reviewed and approved by the then, you know,
the then current board. Speaker 5: I I, I would, I would venture I guess that this has been had limited review at least in the last five years. Partially because of the pandemic, but partially because it still says board of selectmen. Mm. Oh. And that was three adjusted, I wanna say in 20 19, 20 18, 20 19. So I don't, it could be that 20 17, 20 18 it was reviewed, but we don't, I it the revision date is what I have as the most, the last time it was comprehensively looked at. Right. Speaker 9: And that's my reason for the suggestion. Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 8: That's Speaker 6: C
Speaker 1: Yes, please Speaker 6: It. Before that review, it would be very helpful if we actually got some numbers associated with all of these percentages in here so that we know where we stand. I mean, you know, free cash minimum of 1%. So if we could have the data in, in preparation for the review, I think that would be very helpful. Speaker 5: So like what that equals is what you need. Yes. So how Speaker 8: We're doing towards Speaker 6: What, what it is, what, what the current levels are and, and what are we there or behind are we there and what the, what the numbers in this document actually would mean.
Speaker 5: So obviously that changes year to year. Right. So I'd like to know, so with the FY 25, I can tell you that we are meeting the minimum targets for the stabilization accounts and for the free cash. Speaker 6: Right. But before we have our meeting, if we can have the actual numbers Speaker 5: Oh, you're talking about in September? In Speaker 6: September, Speaker 5: Okay. I think you meant like now. No, not Speaker 6: Now. Not now. No, no, no. A Speaker 5: Little bit. Yeah. Speaker 6: No, in s September right Speaker 10: Now. Jamie, off the top of your head like now Speaker 5: Of this, I appreciate what you're saying. Yes. No, I'm getting that now. Yeah. Speaker 6: So in, in every instance where there's a specific number cited, you know, percentage
that we should have if we, Speaker 8: This, this percentage is and this, here's how we're doing towards that. Speaker 6: Yeah. Here's where we are and here's what the percentages would be. Speaker 5: Bar chart. Yeah. I mean I would also like to know, and maybe it's a conversation that happens now or maybe it gets paused until September. Like there's some needed updates to this obviously like board of select me to select board. And I think even some of the, the, the formatting could be adjusted just, or even just pulling out, for example, that section that I read into opep. I would love to have that. 'cause I would never think to look in Opep to know how free cash, free cash
and percentage of local option hotel taxes should be thought of with free cash. Like I almost pull that out necessarily change it substantively from a policy decision, but pull it out so that you can read it a little bit more clearly. But then there are potentially some policy questions for the board to consider. Like are the calculation approaches to the general and operational stabilization funds the right ones. Right. They they very well could be. I just think it's worth having that dialogue and, and Speaker 6: Just, I've noticed that some of these are slightly different figures than we have in the
new policies that we have that we've received. So they should be consistent. Correct. So I'm wondering if it would make sense to have a review of this before September This year. Speaker 5: This year? Yes. This Speaker 6: Year. Yeah. To, to actually go through and, and look at this policy and revise it and, but then annually maybe have it reviewed in September. That's Speaker 1: Kind of what I was hoping to do tonight. Yeah. Or at least begin that process. Speaker 6: Yep. Speaker 5: Yeah, there could also be, for example, a a new approach to something that's not even in here. But again, to your point, Linda, having a more comprehensive look at this between now
and September for this year. And then it can be a little bit more of a standard review moving forward. Speaker 8: So I actually have some specific questions about if, if we want to go into the feedback on the policy, and I'm gonna start at the, in the middle. Do we still have a one-to-one stabilization fund? Speaker 5: Yes, I technically, yes. Speaker 8: Has it got anything in it? Speaker 5: My understanding is it's, it's, Speaker 11: It's maybe Speaker 5: Minimal handful full of thousands of dollars, maybe Speaker 8: Not much. I'm, I'm wondering if maybe we pull it out of the policy and also maybe put something on fall town meeting to dissolve that stabilization fund. Speaker 11: Well, here, here's a question on that. Right.
And I, and I think dissolving it probably makes sense, but we should ask the the schools because that that was how they used their Speaker 8: Account. Yeah. But we could give give, we could give the $4,000 to them. Speaker 11: No, what I'm, what I'm saying is do they want that earmarked separately as a stabilization fund? You know, say they have some sort of, I don't know, donation or something like that, that they wanna put in that specific fund. But I, I'm just saying before we pull the plug on it, let's ask them. Speaker 8: Yeah. I mean I think that's, I think that's fair. But also remember that they do manage their own finances.
So this is a weird one. Yeah. Since it's school related. So that was my first question. Just a note for the future, normally, and you know, what you just talked about relative to pulling out those formulas out of the EP section, sort of along the same lines, I'm wondering if we should have a specific principle about the use of free cash as opposed to including in another one-time funds. Because, you know, we could say, for example, as a principle, no more than 30%
of free cash will be used for operational purposes or whatever we want to say, right? Yeah. Speaker 5: I mean you could back into it based on what's already in here to determine what does that leave Speaker 8: Right. But I mean, I, I am wondering if we should call out free cash, call it out cash specifically. Specifically as a, as a topic with here's how it's gonna get used. Here's here's what our principal say we should use it as. And whatever we decide that is, I mean, we don't have to decide it's gonna be, any of it's gonna be operational. But I think documenting it specifically makes a lot of sense because people see, you know, one-time funds,
they think about stabilization, they, you know, but free cash is a recurring one-time fund Speaker 5: If you'll, in a way yes, but it's, it fluctuates and Yeah, it's not exactly guaranteed. And Speaker 8: So it just something to think about. I don't know how to word it. I don't know what the percentages should be off the top of my head, but, you know, at least we could find a starting point and then debate it. Speaker 5: Well that's where I'd almost, well the other question to your point, 'cause in theory the way that currently reads it, let, it provides some guidelines on
how free cash could be used to support, for example, OP e Yeah. In several places and in several places. But an opening bullet under reserves use and recommended balances just says reserves. And one-time revenues should be used only for capital and other non-reoccurring expenses. So just that alone would argue that 0% of free cash should be used for operational purposes. Right. Speaker 8: But we haven't done that in 30 years. Speaker 5: I, I know. I'm just that you would also need to update that bullet as my point. Yeah, no. Like there's a lot of bullets or components here that would need to be Yeah, Speaker 8: But I think calling, if you could say that
and then the separate section of free cash would kind of override that. You know what I'm saying? Right. Speaker 5: Or unless otherwise noted here or something like that. Yeah, yeah. Speaker 8: Right. Rich don't say override. That's a little touchy. Speaker 6: Oh, I've already been triggered. Speaker 5: Supersede with su with supersede. Supersede that or, or, Speaker 8: Okay. Sorry. Couldn't move. Speaker 5: So the, just for your knowledge, the tech stabilization account has $8,394 in it according to our budget book page 34. Speaker 8: Okay. The next thing I'm wondering is in debt issuance and management, there's no discussion of bans as
and how they should be used. Speaker 5: Yeah. That might be a good thing to add. Speaker 8: And you Speaker 5: Know, like just in general principles? Just in general Speaker 8: Principles. I mean we know right now bans is the right way to go. They aren't always, but we should be having a policy that says they should be evaluated regularly. First step maybe, or I, I don't know how to word this. Speaker 1: So rich, I'd like you to explain for people watching at home what a ban is, Speaker 8: What it means. Oh, it's upon anticipation note, they're short term borrowings right now bans are less expensive than long term borrowings for whatever economic reasons that's happening.
It's unusual. So we're saving money right now by using bond anticipation notes for our debt. There are also limitations from DOR on how long we can use bans for particular kinds of debt. Thank you. So, Speaker 5: You know, they typically only pay the interest, not the principal. So it has to be very strategically used. Speaker 8: Yeah. Speaker 5: So for example, a ban for an automobile, which might only have a five year lifespan. If you ban that borrowing for two years, then you only have three years left to pay off the principle. Oh
Speaker 8: Yeah. So we should probably, Speaker 5: There's differing reasons why you might use bans. Speaker 8: Yeah, we should probably document that in our principles. So that Speaker 5: Just giving some not going crazy guidelines. Yeah, Speaker 8: That's, I agree Speaker 6: With that. Yeah. I mean there's a number of these things, I mean do, do they still make sense? Like, you know, we'll strive to issue debt on a level principal payment basis. Is that still valid? Is that relevant? I don't know. I mean, are there other ways of doing it these days that maybe we prefer? So I think that, you know, all of this needs to be re-looked at and you know, we do have the new principles too.
So Speaker 8: Yeah. And I'm just, I'm highlighting things that seem to be missing as opposed to, you know, oh, should we change this? And I think the last thing I wanted to, and now this one is a, you know, have we got the right percentage question? And that is six to 7% of general fund for capital. And it's not something I want to decide tonight, but you know, is that the right percentage? Given that we've typically been borrowing for a lot
of our capital, we also haven't been doing debt exclusions or capital exclusions for large projects. And it does say we should. And so, you know, we're not meeting these in practice and should we have a principle that we're not gonna pay attention to? And I don't think that's the right answer either Speaker 5: Or should there be Yes. We shouldn't have principles that we're not adhering to and the capital component, should there be maybe thresholds that then trigger certain things then to happen next? Yeah. Like if we're at this level or this size project, the exclusion or another financing approach or
Speaker 8: Right. And of course only Speaker 5: Cash or something along those lines. Speaker 8: Right. And then of course the other side of that is, you know, if we make too hard and fast a principle, we could run our, our debt costs up beyond where we can afford to pay them. I'm not, and we certainly wouldn't hit our, our debt limits because that's, those are absurd, but we might take them beyond where we could reasonably cover them. And so that there has, there has to be some give and take in in. Speaker 5: Yeah. One thing in talking with the finance team about these current set of principles, they're, they're actually like by and large, really good.
We've been following them by and large, like I mentioned, there are some components that we had to deviate from during the pandemic. But what we appreciate about them is they are specific enough to give us direction, but broad enough to give us flexibility. Yes, there needs to be some updates. Updates, all of which we've talked tonight and there's more. But they've served the town I would argue fairly well obviously we got hit with a pandemic, which there's a reason why we had the reserves the way we had them and why it was worded that way and that our principles that actually we have Speaker 8: Language, Speaker 5: Successful language Speaker 8: For that. Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah. And that's exactly the example of the type of
economic downturn, sustained economic downturn for which we establish these funds and then use these funds. So by and large it worked. Our challenge right now is one just modernizing these a little bit, there are some other components that might, we might want to update based on the municipal modernization acts. But by and large they're, they're still extremely relevant. I would argue we are largely following them. Except those examples that I, I noted we had to deviate from during the pandemic, which are somewhat expected to have to deviate from some of these during a pandemic.
And we're working to get back to them. Our ability to be successfully at getting back to them will be reliant on the override or how quickly we can get back to 'em will be reliant on the override. But I do think I give credit to the previous, you know, years of the board for what they've done here. And I think it's, it's a really strong starting point is my point. But to your point yeah, it's don't get too specific or too prescriptive. Yeah. Speaker 1: So with the, with the exception of the SEC section on bond debt issuance, you know, Dr.
DOR has recommendations on percentages or credit rating agencies, sorry, have guidelines about what our general fund debt service should be. How do we know that the, the other percentages that are sit, sit here, 5% of estimated receipts, three, you know, reserve amount may not exceed 3% of the tax levy. How do we know those are the right percentages? This was done 10 years ago and our budget is $200 million enterprise. How do we know, is it appropriate to involve DLS? Is it appropriate to ask an outside audit agency
to look at this and say these are one that specializes in municipalities in municipal budgets? Speaker 5: So we do, we do have, for example, financial experts that help us when it comes to preparing for a, a borrowing financial management companies that work that we work with that do municipal financial support. So I will, I can certainly speak to the finance team, but I suspect they will have some insight into some of these items because they help us when it comes to ensuring we retain our AAA bond rating for example.
That, you know, they work with their rating agencies and municipalities to line up what we have and, and, and then they also help us guide like, when should we go off for permanent borrowing? What's the best time to do that? How are we gonna ensure that we have a market for our, for our debt that people want to buy? Because ultimately it's a, it's a competitive market. We need to put our borrowing out there. We're a sure thing as compared to other more risky investments, but we still want to get the best rate for us. So they help us with, with those planning principles, with those, with those approaches. And I suspect they'll have some guidance in some of these principles as well.
Some of them will likely also be outlined or support provide us with support, which is some DLS guidelines. So, and and a good example of that is the, the the maintain a burden. A debt, A debt ratio. Yep. The burden debt ratio. There are guidelines from DLS and DORI think it's 15% is actually what they say we shall not be above. And even some of the rating agencies I think keep it around that 15%. We have chosen to be more conservative again to the town's credit, I think to a certain Speaker 8: Degree. Well I think, I think it helped us through the pandemic because Correct.
We had expenses we didn't have to pay if we'd been higher. Right. It would've been harder to, to Speaker 5: Just, 'cause we can go up to that amount. Doesn't mean we should go up to that amount. No, Speaker 1: I'm fine with 10% I'm, Speaker 5: But some of that will come from different PO locations is my point. Speaker 1: There's also not a section on enterprise funds, but it's mentioned in the reserve's use and recommended balances where the select board of Selectmen select board, in the case of the water sewer enterprise fund vote transfers from the reserve fund and the comptroller makes such transfers accordingly. I don't remember ever having done that. I know
Speaker 8: It hasn't been a need. Speaker 5: Sorry, where are you? Speaker 1: I'm in the, under the first bullet in reserves use and recommended balances Speaker 5: At the Oh yes, yes. Sorry. Speaker 8: Has there ever been a need to draw on either enterprise funds reserve fund, Speaker 1: Specifically the water sewer one is the thing I'm looking at. Speaker 8: And we should mention the golf course too because it's actually in profitability. So those, Speaker 1: Those were my two points. We don't have a section on the enterprise funds. And then to the extent that they're even mentioned, it's just as a buy and buy voting transfers. Speaker 5: Yeah. I'd have to confirm the particular question about the transfers and reserve funds.
But to your other broader point, having a specific section just for enterprise funds, I think it's absolutely a great idea. Okay. 'cause there also some components to, with regards to potentially even debt and capital that might be slightly different in those Speaker 8: Those Speaker 5: Areas. Those areas. Yeah. Speaker 1: Gotcha. Speaker 11: That makes sense. Good idea. Speaker 5: I mean we do, and I know it's different, but we do appropriate, for example, retained earnings for the enterprise funds is essentially the,
the enterprise funds is version of free cash. Right. Right. Speaker 8: Well it's interesting it's because the capital equipment and capital improvements warrant articles typically mush the enterprise funds in, in terms of the appropriation, which we have to, so in capital planning and budgeting, you know, we should probably be calling out, you know, the, the enterprise funds there too and what their limits are.
Speaker 5: Well that's, that's kinda my point. Yeah, exactly. Because the minimum six to 7% of net general fund revenue IE within levy should be set aside annually to fund capital. That's not enterprise fund capital. Speaker 8: Right. Speaker 5: Just general fund capital. Right. And we don't mention enterprise fund capital in, in the capital planning and budgeting. And, Speaker 8: And Speaker 5: We also, but it is mirrored in the same process. Speaker 8: Right. And we don't all, we also don't carry enterprise fund debt in our debt service budget. Right. So it is actually in the enterprise fund itself.
Yep. But does the credit Speaker 5: Agency look at it True, but the credit agencies consider it all of the towns? Yes. Speaker 8: I, I understand that. Speaker 5: So we do put it all together when we're going out for borrowing and, and the enterprise funds have a capacity to go higher than maybe the six or 7% and or a need which can have an impact on our credit rating. I mean it hasn't because we've been really strong from the management perspective. But I know when we were in the middle of the pandemic and then the PFAS issue came up
and we were dealing with those costs, we were looking at the potential capital costs needed for PFAS. This was before we got from the grant funding and, and before we did our, our 50 year plan and before we really got handled around that, what, what our approach was and we were really concerned about the ability to borrow to cover those costs because the debt to revenue ratio is gonna be so potentially in balance in the re in the enterprise fund that was gonna impact our overall town balance. So we were, we were very much looking at that.
And then obviously you learn more, you do more, you do more planning. We, we got that back on track, but our initial review of some of that stuff was like, ooh, this is, this is gonna be tough. We might need to go out for, you know, we were talking internally anyway about potential debt exclusion for PFAS and water and sewer. It's still not off the table. It's just we're in a better position Now this, this again goes back four years. You've, since the select board has since revamped the program for its rate setting, we have additional revenues in, we now are signed up to join MWRA for our supplemental water.
You know, we've done a lot since that time. But the point is that we were looking at some of those things and this is currently, I wouldn't say silent, but it's not, maybe we need to add a bullet or two to that point. Speaker 9: Mr. Erickson, I have a question. You mentioned the percentages being raised, I think for the water, I think it was for the water enterprise or the fund that you were just talking about. Would that require a vote of town meeting? Speaker 5: Yes, because any appropriations for water and sewer enterprise funds still goes through town meeting. Okay. And that includes capital, which includes borrowing.
So town meeting authorizes the select board to borrow just like for regular capital, also for enterprise fund capital. The select board, just like you set tax rates, also set the rates for the water and sewer. So this upcoming May, you're gonna be setting the water rates for the upcoming year. You don't do that for golf course? Well you kind of do, you do set fees, but that's largely done through other avenues. But you do handle the borrowing for the golf course as approved by town meeting. So town meeting ultimately has to appropriate any of these general fund, oops, sorry, general fund enterprise and enterprise funds.
And then depending on what it is, if it's borrowing then the, the board has to then actually do the borrowing. Thank Speaker 1: You. Speaker 5: Yeah. And that's also why you might have an appropriation for borrowing at a town meeting that might not actually be in front of the board for a year or two. Because sometimes we need the authorization to put like an, like a, a vehicle. It's taken us, we we're still waiting on a ladder truck that we ordered two plus years ago. We're not gonna borrow for it until we have to pay for it. So we got the authorization from town meeting, I wanna say three years ago for a ladder truck. We're not gonna bring the borrowing forward to the town
'cause it doesn't make sense for us to pay for cash that we don't need. Right. Until we have the item asset. In that case of a ladder truck. Speaker 1: One of the questions I wanted to raise tonight is in times past the select board, I don't remember when I had, when we first, when the town first was able to impose local option taxes. So that's the three quarters of 1% that's added to our meals. And I, I don't know the percentage for hotel rooms might be the same, Speaker 2: But regardless, Speaker 1: So my question is the, at the time when we were first able to do that,
that was supposed to be set aside for capital only. It's never happened. Speaker 8: Actually it did. The first two years Speaker 1: It has never happened. Well I've been on this board. That's Speaker 5: True. Speaker 1: So I'm wondering what the, what the thoughts are on returning to that as a principle. Our local option taxes. Especially now that we've, you know, liberalized our alcohol policies, we still have licenses, we have restaurant licenses. We have, we have three package store licenses.
I can't even imagine you make, we make no money on o off-premise liquor sales. I can't even imagine the population of this town supporting three more package stores. But restaurants, yes. And so, and no hotels 'cause where will they build? But I'm hoping that local option taxes will, will rise like it did in Wellesley. Now they have 50 restaurants to eat at since they've liberalized their policies. I'm hoping that that happens. Something like that happens here and it's gonna generate more income. Do we want to consider taking local option taxes and dedicating them to the capital account?
I mean, capital seems like the Speaker 11: Last place. Speaker 1: Well it just seems like it's always underfunded. It's the last place we look. We're always deferring. I have never met a resident who says, God, our roads are great. Speaker 8: Yes. Speaker 1: Yeah, go ahead Bruce. Speaker 11: Yeah, I was just going to say, given that we've established that we want to review this annually, it might make sense to do that for at least the next year to till we replenish the capital and, and get some of the major projects done. The other question that I had in my mind
and I I don't know what's happened to it, is the, one of the things that was talked about at MMA was the ability to raise more from local option taxes. And I don't know where that stands with the legislature Speaker 5: Still pending. It's Speaker 1: Still pending. They're hoping there's a, a push from the MMA to have it adopted by the end of this month. Speaker 11: Okay. Speaker 5: But then it was allowed to come back to the town for town meeting, I think to adopt as well. Yes. And that's, I think that was only related to motor vehicle excise taxes to increase that
by a percentage point I believe, or two maybe more. I forget the final wording. 'cause there was a couple different versions going around at one point. Okay. Yeah. Speaker 1: That's the Municipal Empowerment Act. Speaker 5: It was part of the yeah, the Heal Administration's Act when she first came into office. So it included a bunch of other things as well. But that was the, the, from a revenue generation perspective, it was, I believe tied to the, to the motor vehicles excise tax. Speaker 11: I, I think they met resistance the first go round and they revised it this year and, but I didn't know where but the, where it was stuck in the, excuse me, in the cycle.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's with the legislature right now. Speaker 1: Mr. Sidney. Speaker 8: Yeah. So on the local option taxes, I think we should put a principle in that says we dedicate them to, and I would say capital or other one-time expenses because there may, you know, I don't know what else might come up, but, you know, there could be something else. And one of the reasons I say that is because when we established the, and I was, I remember this very clearly, the presentation from the town administrator at the time was this is what we're gonna use it for going forward.
It was a promise made to town meeting that we were gonna do that. And I think that to the extent we can, we should be keeping those kinds of promises. Speaker 1: Agreed. I agree. Speaker 5: So one, one thing to keep in mind just with local option taxes is, and forret or wrong, just through the years and especially with the pandemic coming outta the pandemic, they're now just a, a revenue source. So if we're targeting a certain amount of them or a percentage of them to capital, Speaker 8: That's, it affects what helps goes into operations. Speaker 5: Correct. But it's essentially taking a revenue source away
from operations that needs to be supplemented somehow. And we're already talking about an $7 million override. It's just, it's just another revenue source that we'll need to figure out what that impact is. So maybe that might be a north start to look for. I agree that one of the, we figure out how to transition to over the years. Yeah. Speaker 8: One of things that we could say instead of just for capital, we could say or capital related debt. So it, Speaker 5: It gives some flexibility. I just, I want the board to think through. Yeah. And this is more for us to help you think through because we would need to then say, okay, here's what
that from a scenario build perspective, we might not be able to get there next year, but, but pending what happens on March 25th, we can then better plan, okay then we can accomplish this by 2030. We can accomplish this by 2028. We can, I just think there's gonna be, depending on what some of these principles are, we'll have to think through how to transition to that. Some probably one year we can do it. Something whereby we're dedicating what's currently just a, it's become a revenue source. As for operations, I think it's gonna be more challenging
for us just to make that switch one year to the next without, like if we take, let's say it equates to $2 million out of local receipts and put that towards capital, well then we're probably needing to take an additional 2 million of free cash and put it towards operations, which means you're going from a $3 million free cash reliance based on our forecast to a $5 million. You know, so we just need to look through that. Speaker 8: If, if you allow some of it to go to debt service, if you allow some of it to go to debt service, then that also, that actually eases the need. Correct, correct. Right. Speaker 5: So well, yeah. Well it's dedicating
that revenue source towards debt service right now on the back end. We can argue that you're already doing that. Yeah. Because it's a revenue source and that's an expense. Speaker 9: I'm also, I'm also curious as to what scenario the promise was made, because I think it's important for us to keep our promises, but I'm very curious as to like, what was the environment, what was the scenario in which the promise was made? Because, and, and please check me if this sounds odd, but to me, the financial principal, well principles are,
are meant to withstand variables. So the financial environment is a variable, but the principle is kind of more of an anchor. And so I'm just curious as to what the financial environment looked like when that promise was made. I Speaker 1: Can speak a little bit to that 'cause I Speaker 8: I can too, if you Speaker 1: Please Mr. Sydney. Speaker 8: Yeah. So at the time we were looking for ways to supplement our capital budget. We were underfunding capital significantly. We weren't even putting in the $10 million that we are now.
And these local option taxes became an op a a available. And the presentation, both through the finance committee and to town meeting was, hey, if we get these, if we can pass these, they're not gonna cost the tax our local tax payers anything unless they go out to dinner. And it allows us to fund capital, which eases our need for other operational funds. And that was kind of the, the situation at the time. And there was a, if I remember correctly, and I could be confused about this,
'cause it was 10 years ago, Speaker 1: 20 10, 20 10, 25, 15 Speaker 8: Years ago, you know, there was some consternation about levying another tax even though it wasn't gonna hit the local taxpayer and concern that it would drive patrons away from our restaurants and hotels. But the argument that we could fund capital with it carried the day. Speaker 1: And it represents 10% of our budget now, just a tad over 10%.
So in terms of revenue source, Speaker 5: Yeah, all, all encompassing. So that does, the local receipts is beyond just hotels and meals. Speaker 1: It's excise Speaker 5: Tax and excise. It's also licenses and permits are in that calculation fees, investment income. You know, we do generate some investment on our, on our cash holdings that we have legally trash disposal charges. There's some other things that are also part of that. But yeah, it's about $20 million for next fiscal year is what we're estimating. Speaker 1: Yes. Speaker 6: But my recollection is that what, what we were talking about was the hotel
motel taxes. That's Speaker 1: That's specifically what I was, Speaker 6: Right. And that's, that is in the, I mean that's not, Speaker 1: It's not $20 million. Speaker 6: $20 million. Speaker 5: No, no, that's a few million dollars a year. It's about 2.7 it it talks about But that's approximately, yeah. Speaker 8: Yeah. The first year it was like 1.2 million or something like that, if I remember correctly. Yes. And it wasn't, it wasn't a huge number, but it was enough to help pay capital, you know, make, do capital projects. Speaker 6: Yeah. In the, in the budget book for FY
26, it's 1.5. 1.47 from Speaker 1: Restaurants and hotels only. Speaker 6: Yeah. And then there's the marijuana retail tax, that's $150,000. Speaker 5: And they actually had us, when we submitted our estimates at the end of last fiscal year, they actually had us reduce those. Speaker 6: Oh really? Speaker 5: The state did. Yeah. And Speaker 6: Then there's the meals tax, that's another 1.1 million. So depending on what we wanted to include, you know, if we wanted to include all those three. But I think the hotel motel was the one that, that we talked about would definitely be used for capital. And like Rich said, we did for a while
Speaker 12: For our Speaker 5: Correct. Speaker 1: Other thoughts on the management principles? Speaker 9: The afar bonus stabilization fund, Speaker 5: FAR Florida area ratio is what FAR stands for. It's part of our zoning bylaw essentially allows for, and I think we've actually since amended it, but it allows for additional development in certain areas of town in exchange for a payment to go above a certain Florida area ratio. For folks listening at home. A Florida area ratio is basically the ratio between
a building's square footage and the ground it's on. So if you have a 10,000 square foot lot and an FAR of 0.5, you can build a 5,000 square foot house. Speaker 8: Or building Speaker 5: Or building. In some of areas it's, it's like 0.75, but you can go above that or 0.5 or one or what have you if you pay a payment and to allow for that additional development at that location. And the thinking is that then that money can be used to offset that development cost either in
that surrounding neighborhood or elsewhere in town. Some communities do something what's called a transfer of development rights. That's another version of an FAR. We, we chose Natick years ago, chose to do it through payments. But transfer of development rights is essentially a allowance of the local community to allow for a private developer over here to buy the developable possibility of land over here so they can build it here. It's kind of like doing that. Speaker 8: And it's all about open Speaker 1: Preserve. Open space preserve. Speaker 5: Open, open space or what have, yeah, exactly. So FAR is money that we received largely from a couple projects.
One was the mall, one was the, when Boston Scientific expanded years ago. And there's a couple others. MathWorks then has since done some of that as well. But basically it goes into an FAR stabilization account for the purpose of buying open space elsewhere in the community. Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, Speaker 5: That fund has always, always set unused for the last 10 years. Yeah. Speaker 8: Because we haven't found a good way, Speaker 6: We don't have any plans actively to use that, that you know of in the future. Do, do we, I know we're not in this Speaker 5: Budget, so there were plans to do, when I started here,
we were actively looking at a couple different parcels with the conservation commission and then there was a study committee that largely impacted the sort of ease of the use of that funding as a funding source for some of those things. And since that time? No, we're not aware of a desire. I know the con com was the active user at that time. When they went through that study committee process, they basically said, look, okay, it's not our call anymore. Speaker 8: Yeah. The funds are pretty severe, severely restricted. Speaker 1: So let me, let me pose a scenario. We don't have many lands
that are in chapter status chapter, was it 60? Speaker 5: Yeah. Chapter 60. So Speaker 1: That's open space where it's designated forestry agriculture or Speaker 5: Yeah. It's a property owner designating their land for agricultural purposes and then they get a tax break for that purpose. They can choose to get out of that simply by notifying the town. The town then has a right of first refusal to buy that land if they want to. Right. But if we don't, then that just loses that tax status. They don't have to sell it, it's just we have a right to buy that. Speaker 1: Or they can sell to a developer if we choose not to sell.
Exactly. Is that an, is that a use by which the farm money could be used for, let's say, Speaker 5: So the, the study committee, I believe was pretty clear in what those funds could and could not be used for. My understanding was that it has to be used for the purchase of open space. Speaker 1: So open space could be agricultural land. Speaker 5: Yes. But I don't know if chapter, like buying a, a restriction on a property would would count. So in some cases we might buy a, a restriction, like a development restriction. Like we, we own a preservation restriction on
portions of land up off of Pagan Lane. The town purchased that about nine years ago. The intent was actually to use the FAR bonus stabilization funds for that purpose. But I believe that study committee determined that was not a viable use because we weren't fee simple owning the land. It was a restriction. It was a like an easement basically over the property. Speaker 1: Right. But I'm not talking about buying a restriction. I mean, if we bought, if, if somebody o owned agricultural land and I'm thinking about one property owner in town and it's, and it's in chapter status and they said we wanna sell it, we have the right, the town has the right of first refusal to purchase that,
that would be a fee simple purchase. We wouldn't be purchasing the restriction. We'd be purchasing the open space. And Speaker 5: Yes. In that type of example, yes. That would be a fee symbol. Speaker 1: And so that would be, the far funds could be used for that. Speaker 5: Could I, I don't wanna say definitively. Speaker 6: I mean, didn't they also have to Sorry, didn't they also have to be used in the area nearby? Yes, that Speaker 8: Was about what I was Speaker 5: Yeah, there's the desire to be used in the Westine neighborhood. Speaker 6: Yeah. So Speaker 5: Approximate to the area where they were paid. Right. Speaker 6: And that's Speaker 5: What, this was all part of the study committee work. And I know since I've been here, I have not looked to to for the use of those, those monies just
because it was such a interesting study committee and challenging process to get to where it is. So those monies have largely sat unused. I think part of it's for fear of use to a certain degree. Sounds Speaker 6: Like that's something we ought to look into though. Yes, Speaker 1: I agree. I don't know the authority that a study committee has on Well, yeah. Statutorily or under charter and bylaws, a study Speaker 5: Committee. I mean, ultimately in my understanding, and I'm not a lawyer, but in talking with several lawyers from different firms town meeting, once funds are town funds, town meeting can choose to spend those funds as they see fit.
Speaker 8: But it also seems to me that, you know, in conjunction with some CPA funds, they, they farm money could actually help with a purchase because they Right, that's what I was thinking. Combine things and, Speaker 5: But the fire, the FAR bonus stabilization funds are really my understanding are really for that purchase of open space. Like we could not use it, for example, to buy affordable house for re rehab of open space or like if it's already owned by the town, we can't necessarily use it for maintenance or maintenance or putting a park in or putting trails in or doing something like that. Yeah. It's for the purchase of open space
Speaker 6: Is, is that something that we can get clarified before town meeting? In case town meeting decides they want to potentially appropriate these funds for something else? Speaker 5: You mean for an article that is on the town meeting warrant? Yes. Well, the irony is that the sponsor of that article was the chair of that study committee. Speaker 1: Again, what authority Speaker 5: Does Speaker 1: A study committee have in terms of binding the town? Speaker 5: I would, I would probably wanna look at that, that study committee's report. Speaker 1: So I'm, I'm looking at mass general law Speaker 5: If they use legal counsel as well to help their study committee. Speaker 6: Not for this, but do you use Speaker 1: Yeah, mass General law says that the stabilization,
because this was created as a stabilization fund, can be used for any lawful purpose, including without limitation. And there's a whole list Speaker 5: Of Yeah. But I, I do think town meeting does have the authority to adjust those purposes as they see fit. I'm not a lawyer though, to know what then potential impacts that might have down the road. Speaker 8: Right. Except that the farm money that went into that stabilization fund was pre restricted. And so the fact that it happens to be a stabilization fund to segregate it from an accounting standpoint doesn't necessarily remove the restriction on the funds contained in
the stabilization fund. Yeah, I'd Speaker 5: Like to see those restrictions. But this is where I know in talking to legal counsel funds that come into the town, let's say if we got mitigation funds from a putting aside FAR, if we receive mitigation funds from a developer for doing X, y, Z project, that in theory, based on a decision of a different border body is for the purposes of rebuilding a park town meeting in their infinite wisdom does, granted we're receiving the money for, for a purpose
through one board town meeting, ultimately is the appropriating authority. And my understanding, again, talking with multiple lawyers is that town meeting could, it's really their, their decision. Speaker 8: Yeah. And actually this goes back to, oh, it's gonna be, Speaker 5: So they could put it towards a purpose that they see fit. Speaker 8: It, it's gonna be 15 years ago again, where we used to use some of these mitigation funds without asking town meeting to appropriate them and somebody called us on it. Yeah, I, I would Speaker 5: Agree. But we do, we do have to seek appropriation from town meeting for sure. Speaker 8: Right. But at, at the time we didn't think we had to for
designated funds and we do, Speaker 11: It was sitting in the conservation commission Yeah. Balance for a while. And that's, Speaker 8: Well not just that, but other, or the forest Speaker 11: Stabilization fund Right. Was set up to pull it out of that, pull that money out of it and just have it earmarked. Speaker 8: Right. But there were other mitigation funds that went through the same process. Correct. Speaker 5: Yeah. There are very few or very clear master law is fairly clear in which funds don't have to go through tam many appropriation. So like some of the funds that the Conservation commission receives for permits can go right back into their, their work.
That does not have to be come in as a general fund, not mitigation, but peer review funding for projects don't have to go to town for appropriation 'cause they're for that purpose. But those are very clearly spelled out. Speaker 8: Right. And, and while the reserve funds have to be reapproved every year and the purposes of ins and outs to find the actual use of those funds, as long as they're within the purpose of the reserve fund can be, don't have to go through appropriation. Speaker 5: Correct. But those are reserve funds. And obviously these are Yeah. Stabilization accounts or Speaker 8: Right. No, I, but you know, slightly different.
Those there are limited ways to not have to Speaker 5: Correct, yeah. Appropriate Speaker 8: Money. Speaker 1: So we're looking at $2.8 million in far stabilization. Would it be a lift right now given what the finance team is going through in preparation for town meeting and being short staffed? Would it be a list, a lift to get a list of what that, what, what, what that stands for? I mean, like what comprises what events and then what those restrictions are? Speaker 5: I think that's more of a legal question.
Probably not a finance department question. Yeah. But we Speaker 1: Have to have, we have to have some, yes, it's a legal question, but we have to have some documentation that X money came from the Natick Mall. I'm gonna make up a number 1.1 million. Speaker 5: So this is where I think all of that is in that, that F fa R study committee's report. 'cause they went through fund by fund, where the money came in and what it's for. We might have a copy of that on the back and I'll check our, our documents. We should have a copy of that somewhere. Speaker 1: I'll just write the chair. I mean that, that might be,
I'd rather he'll he'll have it. Yeah. Speaker 5: I believe, I believe that's all in that report. Okay. And and I believe there was legal counsel guidance given at that time. Speaker 1: Okay. Speaker 5: That was right when I was starting though. So I don't know the full, the, I was not involved in that. I'm just remembering just from my first probably six months to a year here of what I recall happening. Speaker 1: I just think it'd be really helpful going into town meeting when, when there's already discussion about taking the budget and making changes if the override passes,
not taxing up to the levy taking money from this account, that account. I'd like to have a really clear understanding of what some of these things are. Yeah. So thank you for that. Speaker 5: Sure. The, I mean there are other, like the inflow and infiltration stabilization fund that has even other types of regulations that are re that put restrictions on, on those particular funds. Mainly our relationship with MWRA, meaning
they require us to do certain amounts of I and I work, it's, it's the acronym for that. And that fund is used for that purpose. And if we don't, then they hold us accountable as part of our flow of wastewater into their system. Speaker 8: Yeah. And I remember we used to get a pretty good discount on our MWA charges because we were so good about handling our INI. Speaker 5: Right. And, and with new developments that come into the system, we actually have to do,
depending on the project, and depending on if it's a brand new connection versus an existing connection connection, we have to do a certain amount of mitigation. So for example, if we have a brand new connection for a brand new project that, and these are not the right numbers, but let's say they're adding a hundred gallons a day into the system, we have to actually remove 400 gallons of infiltration into the system. It's a four to one ratio. Speaker 8: What if we no longer have that much infiltration, which Speaker 5: We're doing the master plan now to actually update that for next fiscal year. Speaker 8: Yeah. 'cause that would be really, I mean, I know we've been really good at it.
I know we're never gonna be perfect, but you know, if we're, if if we ever get to near zero infiltration, that's gonna be a really good thing. Speaker 5: Yeah. I mean, I guess the benefit of any system, like a utility system is it has to have regular maintenance. So, you know, we might be relining a pipe this year in 20 years, it's probably gonna have to be reigned. So Speaker 8: Yeah, Speaker 5: It's just the nature of, it's just like owning a home. You have to paint it every once in a while and replace the roof and replace the windows. And
Speaker 1: So if there isn't any more common on this, on the financial management principles at this point, I think our next steps is our next step would be to ask town administration to have the finance teams outside consultants just look at the percentages that are here. Speaker 5: We, we can provide some thoughts both from guidance as well as from just our own experience on that point. Speaker 1: That'd be great. I think that's probably the next step. Speaker 8: Yeah. And that's a good idea. Yeah. If, and I, I doubt we're gonna get it
before town meeting's over, but it would be great to get pointers of what, what the finance team and you think, you know, because you've mentioned there are things you'd like to, you think should change. It'd be good to know what they are. Speaker 1: And Speaker 5: I'd like Yeah. O obviously we'd love the direction from the board on those things. Yes. So Speaker 1: I would like all members of the board to commit to writing and send it to Mr. Erickson. Some of the things we talked about today. So pulling out the water sewer Speaker 8: Enterprise Speaker 1: Enterprise fund and having a section on enterprise fund. Have a free cash, pull out all of the comments about free cash and have free cash in that section.
I'd like some direction on from the schools about the one-to-one technology stabilization fund. I know it's only $8,300, but if we're cleaning up our books, I'd like to see 'em cleaned up. Debt issuance and management. I'll put this in writing too. You know, the band, the bands, adding a section on bands and, and then pulling out the section in the oped opep funding paragraph that you mentioned. Speaker 5: Yeah. That to me is almost tied to the free cash section. Yes. And, or maybe it's free cash slash local option taxes
or something along those lines. Speaker 1: Okay. And I'd like to ask the board to get their comments, thoughts in writing to Mr. Erickson before next week. Speaker 9: Madam Chair, are we able to send these in a, in one document or do we have to send them individually? Speaker 1: Send them individually so we don't violate open meeting law. Okay. Mr. Gates is, has his hand raised Mr. Gates, if you can unmute yourself. Gimme Speaker 5: One second. I'll get him. Oh. Speaker 1: Or we'll unmute you. Speaker 13: Just let me know if there's an echo. Speaker 1: Nope, you're good. Speaker 13: Okay. The question I had back in February of 2023, the division of local services actually put together a, at the request
of the town financial management review. And I just wonder if there's anything in there that should be included in the financial management principles, because I don't think they've been updated since at least 2019 and, but they had several recommendations on various things associated with that. So that was question number one. And so it, it would make sense if any of those make sense to be included in the financial management review to actually take a look and include those if they haven't been. And secondly, I just had a question on, in terms
of debt issuance. When we have an underwriter issuing, you know, longer term debt, say 15, 20 years, what typically is the underwriting fee that we pay to them? And is that amortized within the repayment of the funds? Or is it paid upfront? Speaker 5: So on the debt issuance, excellent question, and I do wanna do some research on that to get you the correct answer. But my basic knowledge is o obviously it depends on the amount
that we're issuing for debt. So like a $10 million debt issuance is gonna be a little bit different than a $20 million issuance. I believe we amortize that into the debt. But I would want to confirm that because we also typically get, typically at a premium. And that's essentially like a benefit to the, to the community. It's, and so I'd want to confirm that with our finance team, right. We've been doing it the last couple. Speaker 13: Yep. Yeah, it's, it's not unusual to actually amortize it, but some, some towns will pay it up front, but it, but it makes more sense in some ways because it actually does reduce the, the costs over time
because you'd have one big hit initially and then it comes down later on anyway. Okay. Thank you. Speaker 1: And Mr. Gates, thanks for your comment about the DLS report. That's something I think the five of us should individually look at because we're gonna be, we have, we'll have different takeaways. So add that to your review for comments to Mr. Erickson. Speaker 5: Yeah. Speaker 1: I know that most of the, most of the recommendations from DLS have been implemented. Speaker 5: Many of them have been, many have been, many have been, some Speaker 1: Will never be, Speaker 5: Some will never be
because they're just, we're doing different things to actually address the, the items that they noted. Many of them are practices, not necessarily principles. So there might not be a correlation. Right. But it's, I think it's an excellent point to ensure that, yeah, we did commission that it was our request to have DLS come in and do that work. And yeah, it's a, it's, I think it's a great point to make sure that we're not missing something from that study that would be relevant to these principles. Yeah, that's good suggestion. Speaker 1: Thank you. Why don't we move to, this is at the pleasure of the board. Do you want to start going through the financial policies
and procedure review or do you want to, are you ready to discuss potential commitments from the select board? Yes, Ms. Slager, Speaker 6: I'm just gonna weigh in on this. I think without Mr. Townsend here. Yeah. It doesn't make sense to review the, the policies, but I wanted to talk about what our process is for that. And I don't, you know, we can do that now or do that Speaker 1: Later. Yeah, let's do that now. Go ahead. Speaker 6: So I have a, a lot of questions and comments about some of these. So I don't know if it makes sense for us to review them and send them off. Speaker 5: I'm actually wondering if we can schedule, maybe it's just maybe the liaison is Ms.
Slager to meet with like me and John and just go through those questions and, and to have that Speaker 1: I think that's a great idea. Just Speaker 5: The best use of the board's time. I, the best use of John sign. Having questions, having, having like these questions that probably a good chunk of them if we just have a dialogue would be a lot simpler than at a meeting. Speaker 6: A a lot of them have to do with, you know, are we actually doing the things that are in here? Those are a lot of those questions. Speaker 5: All of these we are, yes. There's some others that we are still working on those updated. Speaker 6: Right. But some of them involve things that are
to be presented to the board and I know we haven't seen them. So, you know, it's a matter of, you know, when are we gonna do them? Okay. You know, reports that are supposed to be generated that I've never seen. So things like that. So processes, that's one part of it. Another is, it looks like a lot of these were kind of cut and pasted from somewhere else. So some of it doesn't necessarily apply to us. So there's a few little tweaks. Okay. I think that need to be made too. Yeah. Speaker 1: So why don't we do this then in terms of next steps, if Ms. Swogger and Mr. Erickson and Mr. Townsend can get together and then the four of us send Ms. Wolf logger
our comments and notes. Mine are not that extensive and they probably overlap with yours. So the comments that I had about policies were things that I didn't, I, for me, I didn't need Mr. Townsend here for. So why don't we do that, then we'll put that off. Does that sound okay in terms of process? Yeah. Speaker 5: Okay. Just, just for reference, for people listening, many of these policies, the procedures are largely internally driven by our, by what we have for our systems and things along those lines. The policies, there's a lot of templates that DLS provides. So the copy and paste is probably
because we were trying to follow the, the practice that DLS recommends all communities in Massachusetts to follow with. That said, I, I appreciate that. We might need to make some tweaks to adjustments. And I did notice some of those as well as it Yeah. From, from November. But the, the PR internal facing practices we are following. Speaker 6: Yeah. Have we gotten feedback from anyone from the finance committee on this? Speaker 5: Not, no. Speaker 6: Do you know if it's been presented to them? They Speaker 1: They've had it since October. Speaker 6: No, but have not, Speaker 1: They've had these since October.
Speaker 5: They've had those, I, you know, we, we've been available, but that has not, we have not been asked to present these to them at a, at a, at a meeting. At a meeting, okay. Speaker 8: Yeah. What I, no, I will say as chair of the audit advisory committee, we had conversations in the audit advisory committee about these policies and how they were being worked through. And one of the things that got clear to us, and Todd chair of the finance committee is the vice chair. I think he's the vice chair right now of the A a C. So he's been in these conversations, you know,
basically what we heard a a lot about was these are really, you know, internal policies about how we're going to manage different parts of the finance system. And that's just what we, we were told, I'm not saying that's right or wrong or, but I just wanted to bring that out. Speaker 5: Yeah. And there has been a, these are still, I mean, we're following from an internal practice perspective, we're following, following these, well in theory, they're to be reviewed also by, and,
and really approved or endorsed by the select board. And I think we need Speaker 6: To vote these Speaker 5: From a finance committee perspective. They were probably waiting to see, okay, are these the final ones or are they gonna be adjusted again? Speaker 8: Yeah. And one of the things, Speaker 5: I don't wanna speak for the finance committee as to why I think that's part of the potential reason. Speaker 8: Yeah. I think one of the things Mr. Townsend tried to make clear is that they were being very careful to make sure that the practices identified in these various policies are the right practices and would work for the town before they published the policies. Speaker 6: And I, I noticed in the last presentation that we had on
that, that some of them were, you know, there was a process for each one of these and when they were actually gonna be implemented. And some of them I don't even know have been vetted yet. So that's have been vetted. What do you mean have, have, have gone through in, in practice? Speaker 5: So some of them have actually, all of them have in practice we've been, but we are still making, just like any practice, we, we, one, some we need to do some internal trainings. So a good example of that is, you know, purchasing, we're always doing some internal trainings
and we're always adjusting based on staff capacities or, or any changes in procurement laws. Another example is, I'm trying to think of the ones that accounts payable. You know, we're still doing some of those things, like implementation of those. But yeah, a lot of 'em have been put in place. Speaker 6: Okay. I mean, you know, 'cause I, I noticed some of the ones that are pending. For example, you know, there's an encumbrance policy. It's supposed to be, was supposed to be tested in January and then trained this month. Speaker 5: And we have done that. Okay. Yeah. ENC CU and the accounts payable, we've largely been doing those trainings,
like the entire AP process. We actually rolled out the, this fall. We are still working on some components of that, such as the turnover process. But that also we find one thing that we're doing with all of these policies, some here on this list, but also mostly the ones that we're still working to update, is now that we have munis upgraded and updated, rather than fixing the former process and procedure, we're seeing if Munis makes sense for us to implement their module, their system to be the version we use. So a good example of that are,
and we did it with, for example, the accounts payable is a good example of that. We're actually rolled out, they, they're now having, for example, the school department input their invoices into the system rather than be it a paper heavy turnover process. They're rolling that out to I think DPW next. But that's why it's a little bit of a work in progress because we're finally, we, you know, we're finally able to use Munis and we're finally able to do some of that work. We weren't able to do that two years ago, three years ago. Speaker 6: Very exciting. Yeah. Speaker 5: So it, this is where just time we need to continue
to update some of these things. Payroll is another example. We're actually in a process of analyzing what we should be doing next with payroll because our former payroll coordinator is longer with us. But now it's an opportunity for us to look at that and say, do we, do we use Muni for that or do we use a different program altogether? So we're actively doing some of that work. We just, cashbook is a good example. We just had our former auditors come in and revamp our cashbook. We still do some internal training. So it's a work in progress, but we have that revamped, we're looking at Muni for components of that
because you can automate some of that cashbook work. We haven't totally settled on that yet because we need to know that it works. Munis, as you heard last week, we're now starting to try to use for tax title purposes. We think there's a module in MU that can help us with reconciliation of accounts as well, like our evolving accounts and things like that on a more, on a, it's a big capacity challenge in the collector treasure to, to do everything that they're doing. So that's why we're looking at these systems upgrades with Munis now that we have it upgraded to be part of our solution to build capacity without having to
necessarily add a, I mean we, we need to fill positions, but necessarily adding positions per se. Speaker 1: Good. So let's, if this is Tuesday, we have events or meetings every night this week. So if we could get to Ms to Ms. Slager, our comments on policies, questions by Monday, and then you guys have a meeting next week, Speaker 5: We can find a time. We're in the coming weeks. I think whenever, to me this is a bit of a, I would argue
that this is something we should always be doing. It it, like we'll set it in place, but then a year from now we might find that there's a new, something that we need to look at and say, okay, how does that change our, our practices, more practices than policy, Speaker 1: But we do need to approve these. So I'd rather it be sooner than later. We do need to approve these. And there'll be another batch, you know, coming from finance probably after town meeting. Speaker 5: Yeah, after town meeting. 'cause we're looking, this is the, the next batch is, it includes things that I just mentioned, but that's where we're looking at Munis to see how much we would want
to use Munis to automate some of that work. Can we use Muni to automate some of that work given some of our, our realities of our systems. So that's, that's why it's a bit of a work in progress. Speaker 1: I had a question that I keep forgetting to ask you is, is part of the review about payroll also looking at an outside provider and outsourcing that Yes. To a DP or Speaker 5: One, an example like that? Yes. Okay. We looked at that back when I, I was actually still deputy town administrator when we looked at that last and we actually interviewed a DP and a couple other vendors, we just realized that we had to do our muni upgrade before we could do any of that work.
So that put that project on pause among other projects. Okay. So a good example of other systems that we're looking at improving internally that we had to put on pause at that time is like hr, we want to more streamline HR through Muni. A lot of these items that during pre and even certainly after pandemic we wanted to do and we're trying to do, we could not do because we had to do that muni, that infamous muni upgrade that we've all that we've done. And we've actually also added some internal capacity to be able to help implement some of these munis items.
'cause waiting for Munis to do some of this work has been, has been a challenge as well. They've gone through similar staffing challenges like municipalities have. So their capacity is limited as well. Speaker 1: Yep, yep. And I assume part of that process also includes talking to other towns that have adopted modules to ensure that they're not still in beta. Speaker 5: Correct. That's why the, for example, the tax title, right. We paused for a bit because we were hearing from other communities that they were having challenges with that we then were able to understand what those challenges were, dive into
that module and fix them for our purposes, which is why we were able to implement that hopefully successfully. I mean, it's been a short amount of time that we've had it implemented, so we need to continue to work with that system. But yeah, the intent is to try to ensure that we can learn from other communities and, and D-L-S-D-L-S the folks that did the DLS report have extensive experience based on their own backgrounds with Muni as well. Okay. So we, we do obviously call on them when we need to. Speaker 1: Okay. So the next item is, before Speaker 8: I move on, I just, you know, I I want to just commend the administration for making use
of every possible outside source of information they've got. I mean, they're, they're doing everything as efficiently as they can and they're making use of a lot of resources to supplement internal expertise. And I just want to commend you and your team for that. Thank Speaker 5: You. Yeah. Yeah. The, and it's been, it's been an ongoing struggle with some of the staff turnover and, and just the reality of municipal government and workers, you know, finance divisions, labor,
like we're seeing it in not just that finance division, but that seems to be where it's so acutely aware of. We're really seeing it. And it's not unique to Natick, but it's just something that we have to get more and more and we are getting more and more creative. Like for example, you mentioned, you, you asked for an update on, on just some of the, the tax title work. You know, we're pulling in temp support to give support. They're starting, I believe they were supposed to start this week, but they might be starting tomorrow. Along with really trying to internally elevate people who have been doing a great job.
So we're, we're pulling all strings that we can. Speaker 1: Thank you Mr. Erickson. Good. Good comment. And ditto. Ditto. Yeah, ditto. Speaker 11: Ditto. Squared or cubed. Speaker 1: So it's it, because of the way the school committee works, it's really gonna be, I did meet with the school superintendent last week to talk about what kinds of commitments the school committee could make so that we could have a joint set of commitments to the taxpayers. It's virtually impossible for the school committee to have an off cycle meeting.
It, it really is. And whatever commitments are made is something that they're going to have to vote to approve. And their policy for their board or committee is that there's three meetings before something is voted. So I pride ourselves on being a little bit faster nimbler. And I mean, it's a different, they're very, very different boards, different culture different, I mean, for one thing, everyone except for one person has a full-time job and children, and that means children's sports and you know, just, they're really
hard to wrangle seven people. So that means that the select board's going to have to go it alone to come up with what we want to tell the taxpayers we're committing to do in the context of an override. So I think it'd be great to have a tax recap policy. I've talked to Frank fos, I've talked to people in other towns, I've talked to our assessor. We'd need to get buy-in from the finance department and and fin com. I think they would be, I'm gonna guess, but I think they'd be very much imp you know, approve of it. That's one idea. It's not the only idea.
So I wanna hear from the board on what kinds of ideas that are broad, achievable, and transparent. Speaker 5: Can I ask just to define tax recap policy? Speaker 1: Sure. Lemme pull. It's intended. Oh, it's not, I'm using the wrong word. Let just pull it up. It's, it should be on Speaker 14: Peak. Speaker 1: Peak. I wanna call it lemon or lime or, I don't know, for whatever reason. I just cannot remember that. All right, let me pull it up. It's not so much a policy. It's, well, it is a policy. It's a, it's a procedure by which the tax recap process is put into,
you know, basically it's laid out and put into writing where roles are defined. There's deadlines, you know, the board sees it before you know it's actually due so that we can review it. Where is peak? Here we go. Speaker 5: So there's an example on peak for those watching from home. Speaker 1: There's two. Yep. Speaker 5: True. There's two. The one that I pulled up was just the tax recap capitulation policy from the town of Carlisle. And it talks about a timely and appropriate charges on taxes to property owners in support of an annual budget set forth in the roles timely
and accurate annual tax recap helps in short town complies with state statutes. I'm just trying to think of like the basics of how to explain in layman's terms a tax recap policy. Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. It's, it's, it's, it's a bit wonky and it may not be any more than having a policy stating what we already do. I don't know. Yes. Ms. Wilger. Speaker 6: Yeah. I think a lot of this is very well defined in, in MGL, but I I, I don't think it would hurt to have our own policy that's slightly more specific since it does involve the select board. You know, it's more than just of, of, you know,
the assessors or, you know, the finance team. It also involves us. So things that involve us, I think it, you know, makes sense to, to have a policy on, I'm not sure what kind, I mean, how that helps us in terms of a financial commitment. Because like I said, this whole process is really very well defined under state law. So, you know, I think it's a good idea to have it, but I'm not sure that, that it serves, you know, that a purpose, Speaker 8: That purpose. Well I think it serves in the way that we can make it clear in that policy that we're actually actively reviewing whether we should
have a split or a single tax rate. And that's something the public wants to know that we're actually doing. We're actually paying attention to that. It's not obvious from to the general public that we actually do consider that pretty seriously. And the policy would, would make that clear. Speaker 1: So when I think about commitments to the taxpayers, I'm not looking at budgetary numbers because I, I can't do that. And we can't bind a future board by saying, this board says there will not be an override, there will not be a debt exclusion. That's not what I'm, when I talk about commitments,
I want the town to know that this board takes very seriously the fact that we are asking for $7 million. We're asking the voters to vote that in. And in exchange we are going to ensure that our financial policies are completely reviewed and approved. That, and that they're up to date. That we have policies in place that are transparent. That, and, and I'm looking for ideas. I mean, you know, the Arlington example is not necessarily applicable because I mean, they made some, they made some
commitments that they could make. Those aren't commitments we can make. So I'm looking to this board for ideas about how we tell our taxpayers that we didn't come to this decision lightly. And there's been a lot of discussion about all the stuff that happened 20 years ago. So we are where we are. So what happened 20 years ago, 10 years ago, five years ago, we weren't on this board, but we're on the board now. So what, whatever went wrong 10 years ago, five years ago, let's fix it. And so that's what I'm looking for from this board. Speaker 8: Now I will say there are a couple of the things in the Arlington commitments that we could do.
Right? Lemme Speaker 1: Pull 'em Speaker 8: Up. So for example, minimize impact of taxpayers, continue new tax relief programs. Those are things we can commit to. Just as an example, it's three or four of those. So here's, Speaker 1: Here's an example of something that I was thinking about last night. 25% of our town are seniors. That's a little over 6,000 people. We've been talking a lot about the impact. We, I mean the community have been talking a lot about the impact of this override on seniors. How many seniors are in the tax deferral program? Do you know? No, 25.
How many, how many people, how many seniors in Natick receive the circuit breaker tax rebate from the state? 644. So is it the case that of the 6,000, only 644 are, have wages lower than 60 or revenue of 65,000 or less? If that's true, then why is there such a disconnect between the 25 people in town who are deferring their taxes and the 644 that qualify? So maybe what we do is send a letter to every,
we can pull out of the, the nosy book, whatever we call it, the census book. We can pull out by birthdate and send a letter with a stamp on it and an envelope so it doesn't get lost and say, here's a list of, of what we can offer. You call the assessor's office for tax deferral. This is what, it's one of the best kept secrets I think our town has. Yeah. Speaker 11: Can I interject? Yes. One of the things that I pushed to get was an update of the information that is hidden, I wouldn't say hidden is,
is not readily accessible on the assessor's website and the communications director and the assessor's office and community services combined to upgrade that site considerably, number one. And number two, there's an echo in here, I'm not sure what's causing it. Get an update. So we have all that data that we could put in that letter. So I think the combination of the two, the, the intent was to get a one page summary that says, here are all the programs you may be eligible for.
Thank you. And I think you're absolutely right. I think it's an awareness issue because once people become aware of this, I know that the assessor has, has told me several times that in conversations with people they didn't know this was available to them and they were glad that they actually somebody steered them to them. So I, I think there's a combination of the, of the two things, excuse me, that we're doing that would help in this area. Speaker 1: I do know I, this will, what I'm about to say
may make Deb and, and Bob Brown upset, but we don't have newspapers. And if we had newspapers and, and go back and look in the archives, the Morse library select board meetings took up a whole half of a inside page, everything and everybody got newspapers and they read about them. And so we don't really have a way, you know, I don't know how many people are watching at home, but talking, I, I do know that Mr. Herrick, Mr. Henderson has gone out our tax assessor to the senior center at least twice in the last year to do a presentation.
It was an interesting presentation afterwards, a woman said to me, this doesn't help me at all. And I said, why? And she said, well, you have to qualify. And I'm like, yes, you have to not have resources to pay your taxes, but if you have resources, then you have to pay your taxes or not. I mean, then we can just, you know, I mean there's, everybody has choices, but I do think there are, there are people I know, I know of three couples since I've been on the board that I've st steered to Mr. Henderson. So three of those 25 are people that crossed my path that are now in the tax deferral program.
And that saves them $10,000 in cash a year. So, so that is something that is something I think we could do, we could do a letter, Mr our communications director Jay, has put together a one pager so that that is an idea. And I'm, I'm, I agree there's some things we can do with the Arlington commitments. So minimize impact on taxpayers, particularly seniors and others. So pursue new revenue sources. Tomorrow is the grand opening of Abbey Labs three, their new facility charges $500 a square foot to rent.
That's major money coming in on assessments. We need to make sure that we are making a, you know, a a business environment that's friendly to businesses. They don't use the resources that, you know, residents do, but they pay in taxes. And I, I think we can direct the town manager town. Well, you'll be a manager soon. So a town manager to continually look for budget efficiencies that can produce cost savings in each department. He's been doing that for four years, at least the four years I've been paying attention. So some of these things we can do, but I, I wanted the board to think about ideas that we can,
we can put together a one pager and say this is on our select board page. Say this is what we are committed to doing because we know that we're asking people to make a financial, you know, to, they're making fi financial commitment by voting on the override. Yes. And Speaker 11: Thank you Madam Chair. Yes. One of the other things that I'm just reading in there is, and we, we can sort of generalize some of these things like, for example, protect against future fiscal shocks and maintain the town's strong bond rating,
maintain financial reserves at 5% or better for the duration of the three year plan. Now we, we can look at our financial management principles and what we see on the horizon and we can make that not make it a general statement that, that these are the, the guardrails that we're willing to, to operate under and hold ourselves accountable to. But you know, I think we, we all need to sort of look at this document that we're trying to construct and say what things make sense?
What can we steal from other communities who are doing a good job on this? I should say appropriate sounds better. Speaker 1: So I, I know you know this and I don't know what Mr. Erickson is Arlington a city or a town form of government. Speaker 5: They're a town. They have a strong town manager, but it's a representative town meeting. Speaker 1: Okay? So one of the, we can make a commitment to maintain financial reserves at blank. We can do that, but town meeting can choose to, I mean we can make that commitment, but we're, we don't appropriate money town meeting does. So town meeting can say, sure,
you can keep your stabilization fund at 5%, but we're going to take from it and not tax up to the levy. And if that happens, we can't commit to maintaining the town strong bond rating. Speaker 11: Well, but having said that right, that this is the executive branch versus the legislative branch, we can only try to affect what the legislative branch does, right? They're, they're the prerogative to change that. That's not something that we changed. It's something that town meeting decided in their infinite
wisdom to change. That's not a reflection on us. We have stuck to what we said we would do. Now if somebody's got a beef with that, then they have a beef with the how, how the town meeting decided to reallocate it. Speaker 8: Yeah. But we could also re re reword some of this. Like instead of we're gonna maintain, we can say we can direct the town administrator to do its best job maintaining and then, you know, Speaker 1: Well no, not do his best job. We can direct the town manager to maintain financial reserves at X. Right. For the direct till 2030, we can do that. Yeah. Ms. Slager.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I I I think I agree with Rich. I think that there's things in this Arlington document and what Bruce said that, that we could use. And I think if we, if we say in in the plan or in the budget, we can, we can, we can have a say in, in that Right. What town meeting does afterwards. Right. You know, we have no control over, but I think there's a way to word this that it would make sense for a commitment from us. Yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. Agreed. Challenge accepted. Yeah, no, I I, I hear what you're saying and you're right. I mean we, this would be a commitment from us.
It's not a commitment directing town meeting to do X or y We don't have that authority. No, it wouldn't suggest it staying in my lane. Speaker 5: I do, I do think it's important though. 'cause the town administrator's budget is what gets presented at town meeting, right? So if the directive, like your financial management principles is to do X, that provides us with clear, me and the finance division and the team with clear direction on what we should be putting the funding into as those parameters. So a good example of the 5%, if our financial management principal said keep 5% in
reserves, I'd be basically saying with an overrider without an override, we're not there right now. We have to increase reserves, at least the ones that are in our general and capital stable general and operational stabilization. So that is a signal to me to then have that be part of my budget recommendation. And it's very clearly outlined in our budget as to why we're doing that. And it's a signal that to really the community and town meeting as to why we're doing that and then to, to everybody's point of town meeting chooses in their infinite wisdom to, otherwise it's, that's, that's their choice. But at least it's a signal to say this is
what we're doing and, and why. Speaker 6: Yeah. Yeah. And, and Arlington says financial reserves, that's very vague. I mean, what does that encompass? Who knows? Correct. So we, I would suggest that we, if Speaker 1: We're gonna be specific, Speaker 6: Be very specific Speaker 1: Homework. Yeah, I agree. Speaker 6: Use NAIC terms. Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I agree. So in my notes, I don't know if you got this Mr. Clerk, I gave homework. So Monday we get questions regarding the financial policies and procedure review to Linda to get for her meeting with finance and town administration.
The second thing, oh, I know what it was. The financial management principles we need. Here it is. We get feedback to Mr. Erickson, let's just say Monday. Yeah. Because we, we meet again on Wednesday and I'd, I'd like us to make some movement. I know. I, I have to tell you guys, I'm so impressed with my colleagues on the board, your willingness to meet and do all this homework and these heavy lifts. I'm, I'm really, really thankful and I wanna acknowledge that this has not been an easy year to be on the select board.
We've not had one week off, well, let me rephrase that. We had one week off, but the week we, we had another week where we had two meetings. Yeah. So we made up for it. Yeah. We, we made up for it. And I'm, I'm, I'm very thankful for all of you and your willingness to pull weight. And Rich is doing a side project for me and doing some research. And Linda, your experience is super valuable. I want to thank Linda and Kristen again for doing the Natick 1 0 1. A resident recently wrote me and asked, how can I learn more about Natick government
without actually becoming involved? No, but you know, fair. I think that's great. It's a hell of a question. And I said, well loaded. I directed him to the Natick 1 0 1 series and I said, start with the select board and then watch the school committee one. And I gave him some ideas about what to do and where to look, and he was really thankful. So thank you too for doing that. Thank you all for being so good with your time and, and energy and, and hard work. Speaker 5: I just wanna note that to you. You Yeah, same to Speaker 9: You. Speaker 1: Well, I don't have a life, so Speaker 9: Not do I, I wanted to just piggyback on the Natick 1 0 1.
I didn't get to send this in an email, but I wanted to, and I will follow up and if in fact about this, because there's more to talk about, but I had a meeting with some folks that I, that I meet with semi monthly at Harvard. And we were talking about different democracy practices and I brought up the fact that we don't have a newspaper more on that. They gave me a resource to someone who, who funds things like that, like local journalism to try
to put journalism back in, you know, back in its localities. So that's one piece and I'll follow up on that. And the second piece was the praise for Natick 1 0 1, and I'll speak more on these people, not gonna do it in the public meeting, but they, there was a lot of praise for native 1 0 1 and how it needs to be a model for localities and municipalities and how people are looking for that type of thing in and around their communities. How there's a, a real need for civics education. And so I just wanted to say, you know, kudos to you
and Jay for like, getting it going and, you know, making this available to the residents to answer questions like that. But there are, there are gonna be bigger people who are gonna look to it towards, like, models for other places that, that really need to do this on bigger levels. Speaker 5: Yeah. I wanna say thank you for that. And full credit to Jay, it's really his brainchild. We were looking at the former series that the town had, which was, I think great in its time. But learning from that
and actually doing understanding where that, that was both positive and maybe fell short was really what helped inform how best to approach the Nick 1 0 1. I, I actually think it's great that, like the example you gave about a person who doesn't wanna get involved but wants to know about local government. Well we have a video series that you can go to on our website that we're gonna add to continue to add to over the next X numbers of years. And I'll probably be back up as town administration in two years time to revamp that video series for that. And select board will be back up there in two
or three years time to revamp that. Like, it's, it's just a really, I would argue, a sustainable approach and, and a, and an approach that really allows for people who might not be in the room at that time to still get the materials and the information. So thank you to Jay if he's even watching for that, for that, for that thinking. Yeah. Speaker 1: It is eight 10. Is there an admin administrator update that? Nope, it's not on there. So you can't speak. I think we have a lot of work ahead of us. So rather than staying and talking, I entertain a motion for Yes, Mr.
I'm sorry. Memorial School. Ah, yes. So the, the Memorial School Building Committee is being formed. That's not on the agenda. It's, it's an update. It's not on update. It's not on the agenda. Okay. So sorry. We'll do it Wednesday. Thank you for pointing that out, Ms. Thanks. Let's make sure that's on the agenda for next week. I actually have some notes about Speaker 5: Memorial school or, or just general updates. The, Speaker 1: The memorial, the appointment from the select
board to the Memorial school. Okay. Building committee. I'll entertain a motion to adjourn or are there any other comments? Speaker 9: So moved. Speaker 1: Second. Moved by Ms. Pope, seconded by Mr. Sydney. All in favor, please say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? We are done. Have a good night. 8:09 PM At eight. Oh.