let's get started I have time at 701 um just got note that Patrick heern is on his way he was just finishing calling a TR and girls basketball game so he is on his way and we'll be here shortly but um why don't we just start at the end of the table and do roll call vote and establish quum Joe Ali present Richard ke is present Jean K is present Erica Jacobson present Frank
present and Tracy is present present great so we do have um Quorum and our first order of business is to review and approve the meeting minutes from January 7th and we do not need Patrick here he was not present at that meeting so he wouldn't be voting on approval of these minutes anyways
so to approve and Vanessa right second any discussion comments edits L chair all those in favor of approval of minutes I I
opposed none okay all righty now the next order of business is public comment to receive oral Communications from members of the public members of the public May address the finance committee for up to three minutes the finance committee will not engage in
discussions of topics raised during public comment but may choose to add a topic to a future agenda this agenda segment will be limited to 15 minutes there's no public other than bill here and do you have any public comment tonight I do not thank you okay um and then the chair is also share any written or email Communications since the last meeting there have been no um resident voter Communications received since the last meeting so it's been
pretty quiet so the first order of business is to um take vote on two appointments to the capital planning committee as we discussed in the June uh excuse me the January 7th meeting that the um the change and the uh direct result of the passage of H 4742 is that the select board is we are
going to put forth appointments to the capital planning committee this is the bud this is the group that we need to vote on an appointment and then it goes to the select board just for approval um but this is the way it's working we are sending two representatives to Capital planning the names for nomination that were submitted are Joe Ali and Richard keys I would entertain a motion I to make sure that we do this completely so
no one questions it I'd say we do go with Joe first I'll entertain a motion to appoint Joe second second any discussion before we vote Joe are you willing to do it yes what are your qualifications excellent any any questions or
discussion all those in favor of appointing Joe Ali to the capital planning committee opposed none all right now I will entertain a motion for the appointment of Richard ke to the capital Planning Commission committee perfect uh any questions or discussion are you willing to serve I am excellent nominated yep asking so any
discussion all those in favor opposed none have fun all right Tracy let me know whatever I need to sign to make it official I'll just get a copy of your minutes once they've been voted perfect they can start serving okay February 11 right yep
a week from today 3:00 3 o00 right here all right is Marshall yes is Marshall still I have told Marshall that in an email told him what that I could attend the afternoon meeting by Zoom by Zoom I couldn't be I can't be here in person okay during the during the day okay
actually there we go excellent um so the first order on Old business is the DCC meeting recap for January and if we want to we can also talk about the upcoming DCC meeting which is on February 6th it's two days
from now at 6 PM by Zoom um because it will go over the operating bu budget assessment implications and some documents were shared with everyone so I think the big thing so when um so um Brian discussed uh removal of the incast and there's a graduation requirement and a competency they're still working on a competency but
everybody that passed the mcast is going to go on and one thing you did mention that since the mcast started what was it 2000 2001 anyone that did not meet the requirement over the years can now apply whenever they have the news so they're going back to to look at that which very interesting so can apply for what they didn't meet the mcast they meet the mcast requirements so they were they were not granted they not granted so graduation so they could
apply to graduate yes yes so I wonder what the application entails I mean how do you how do you I don't know how do you go back over you know you look at their old yeah their old transcripts yeah so it would be very very interesting yeah added workload or there yeah look what exactly when they don't need it so then the the majority of the the meeting was on the M msba
acceptance and the multi-step process so basically actually yesterday so February 3rd was the uh was this first chunk of money the Peri starts yesterday February 3rd and it goes through 31 off corner so what they're pushing but Brian what they're pushing since they had that subcommittee looking at the building is to try and get all of the paperwork in and have it
submitted for the August meeting so they can transition to module 2 so the speed it up excellent so take advantage of of that so it's multi multi module so that we're in module one you want to get the module two and three uh picking a designer and then module four so it's it's mult years out that U I say about seven years yeah so where are we statistically
in the game at this point I know the percentages change based upon lovely the rest two and what have you was that talked about it all like where where we are in terms of percentage of coming to fruition percentage of fully coming to fruition once you reach the stage was there any talk about that no I don't if they did I don't remember yeah so I don't I don't all then so but then again the next meeting's Thursday THS as you said that's that's
by Zoom that's by Zoom that's at 6 I want to say 6 o' 6 o'cl CU they they have a school committee meeting at 7 so they're going to have the BCC meeting 6 to 7 via Zoom then um go right into the school from the because that is after the so we do have the number from the state in terms of minimum local contribution and Foundation enrollments so the overall percent change in minimum
local contributions for the district was 3.06% Newbery this year saw a 1.10% change from last year so last year was the year that we got hit with a pretty big jump in our minimum local contribution this year was just a 1% in increase um overall enrollment is down by 64 students from last year so a
almost 3% change down and our new enrollment number we are Newberry is 605 of 2092 so I have some little calculations that I was doing on the back of one of these so last year year our enrollment newberry's enrollment last year was 28.6 2% this year it is 28.9 1% so a very small change pretty much they did
remained unchanged with Newberry at about 29% of the student enrollment rally at 33% and Salsberry at 38% um the impact on the operating assessment which is detailed in this which is has a hypothetical and then a um example an assessment calculation
example right now using some preliminary numbers um for discussion purposes um Newberry under this scenario would be looking at approximately an $820,000 increase or 6.81% we fall in the middle by percent increase rally is the one is the town this year that would be
um they're going to absorb the bulk of that that they're coming in at 9 54% increase and that is because of their the high bump to their mlc their minimum local contribution Salsbury is at 6.46 so it's um looking back at previous years we just without without knowing anything
we should have known that it was going to be between a 5 and a 10% increase in the school in the operating and that's going to trickle down to about a 5 to 10% increase give or take to each of the towns right and we've always made a commitment the board has always made a commitment to fund our educational services at at least 50% of our operating budget um we
we've used that model and we've honored it for at least the last 12 13 years um we've exceeded it in some cases we've suggested in the past that um we do this 50/50 sharing uh of new revenues any new growth we happen to receive on an annual basis and anything beyond that so if um if uh we would fund 50% towards the
general operating budget and 50% towards our general our educational expenses anything beyond that um would be considered for override we haven't had to do that we've gone beyond it um but we were able to um make it you know make it work with other adjustments in the budget but but um I I do I am concerned I think as we spoke about it last year that things are getting more and more difficult so if you if you were if you
were to run utilizing the example figures 6.81 points MH and I know you don't have all the back in that calculations for any new Revenue growth whatever else where does that put us in terms of covering the six and a half points we'd be overall budget wise we'd probably be in a deficit of about $700,000 $700,000 out of 820 year your
increase whole budget ENT entire budget based on requests yeah yeah so in light of New Growth we only have about 100,000 of the $821,000 we get about 200,000 in New Growth yeah about a good year y you know so it's not it's not a significant amount of money but um the sky isn't falling It's Not Unusual for us to be in a deficit position at this point we're in the very early stages of budget development um things are going to
change we don't even have any numbers from Essex Tech or Whittier at this point in time I think you remember last year we got our numbers as we were going into town meeting so um had to make some adjustments we had to get a reserve fund transfer last year so um you know it's early but it's it's definitely getting tier expect yeah I think so I think so it's not unexpected but 6 and A2 points
year-over year I mean Point me towards anything that hasn't gone up 6 and a half points year over year agreed these years sounds kind of low 6 low if you talking about healthare it's certain rate low weight low so so I was going to add so Brian brought up there's still in discussions on Healthcare they were hearing about 20% increase from other towns 21 21 okay the bus contract the uh they had the
competition between coach and nrt nrt1 but it's still a 12% increase so those were the the two big ones and then talking about witty or so I also saw in the paper in that Whittier was also accepted to the nsba so they're moving forward I like the direction go on with that y so we shall see but it's not all bad news the MMA
the governor announced some new initiatives for Road improvements extra money for Chapter 70 Transportation so you know hopefully our unrestricted General um Aid is going up I think 2.2% or that was the Pledge anyway we'll see as uh as the the legislative process that we follow spr this may be a little out of order
but Tracy do it was now a good time to kind of walk us through the budget calendar just to ground everybody on where we are sure so we've um dep department managers have all submitted their their requests the special articles were due yesterday we are in the process I'm sorry yeah yesterday uh we're in the process the capital planning committee has already started their discussions we had presentations from Police Department
the fire department and the DPW we have two departments coming to present at the next meeting we've got it and the Council on Aging um we've done we've done a pretty amazing job if I say so myself in terms of being able to fund all of our Capital Improvements without requesting a Deb exclusion I remember back and I think Jean you were probably here with me at the time back
in last 2011 2012 we were talking about the elementary school roof and we were going to have to do that exclusions for that well we've had to phase it and yes it took longer to do it but this year we're proposing completing the roof completing the HVAC system and appropriating another couple hundred th000 to start interior renovations to the elementary school and we've all we've done that page ago so um as the the influx of um of araund has helped us
exponentially in terms of vehicle replacements for dump trucks and four-wheeled excavators police fire vehicles we've even done some recreational playgrounds and things we tried to spread it out amongst all the functions of our governments so that that helped us out significantly but now this year with the budget proposals and the presentations that we've received so far we'll be spending down most of our
free cash and most of our um stabilization fund um and you know we need to so we're going to move forward with those those projects but if if you should ever decide that you know we want to move forward with we've still got a H situation and we've still got a fire department on Moran AB that really has outlived its useful life you don't want to spend down the entirety of all
your reserves when you're going to be um rated by Credit Agencies so just things to think about what do we have in both those accounts right now free cash and stul head it's a little over 2 million a little over 2 million yeah it's it's no not stabilization got a couple hundred thousand yeah yeah that free cash is
about and ATM is on the 22nd yes all right so we will have a few meetings um going into that time of year so good to know at which meeting do we um for the finance committee meet to vote so you meet jointly with the select
board on the 11th um we'll go through warrant review some years you voted in that meeting other years you've um sometimes you take take up some of the Articles and leave some of them so but generally that's can we leave until April 1st no we actually after that um so the select board has to sign the warrant on April 1 so it's posted um so that's the
same night we have a me meeting I think we my my feeling is we need to take a separate vote like we are we need to listen to it the first time listen and then do our do our voting yeah sure maintain um yeah we could probably fit a meeting in um uh maybe
March 18th is that a date one time we actually adj um what did we do we met jointly and then you left then we adjourned and left to have our own meeting which is Poss you know that could be a possibility unless it doesn't seem to work unless we need more time but I would think um yeah just and that's we did do
that I remember yeah so yeah there's let's think about whether or not you know just that the discussion the board versus a joint board is different it is yes you know so you really need to I agree that we need separate ation I kind of feel like the warrant review and the discussion that we have there is kind of the is is helpful but that having our group meet separately um we can talk about that I
am just I I might be aw on the 18th so trying to make sure that we March 18th so just want to make sure that we think about that so as we get into we'll do our March 4th meeting anything that we might have a draft before the 11th mhm okay some I mean you can have what I have I'm happy to provide yeah that would be great presentation it won't be the no no
it'll be the worksheets okay that's good y That's all right we that's fine I think that makes sense any other questions about the schedule or any surprises is that during April vacation no or the Tom meeting Tom meeting I have no idea is that oh is it
y it's they the school could we were hoping to do it the following week but they couldn't accommodate us oh at um is the high high school the high school that was the only date they could give us why think that's better than that be it can hold more people we've all we've had very few
meetings that would necessitate the capacity of Triton versus n well we had the issue where we couldn't see all right the membership all the voters that that came out they the board decided that that was the board this season or to Clerk or us Town not town clerk they can review it this time just because we don't have anything terribly heated I don't
think you know I mean we can we can you know what's going to draw a crowd and what's on you know in general usually there's a dog issue [Music] Le we can put it together so I feel like Tracy pretty much gave us an overview of the CPC meeting recap as well actually a little
bit more she had public works but uh Chief Fisher was a Cruiser replacement in the town landing uh there's some U Pyon pylons that they need to replace okay and then Chief Evans said the Lucas mechanical chest compression replac that new structural firefighting year and then U he received the Grant on that right Tracy so he did he did and then the replacement of vehicle extraction tool and then fire department
record management some software updates so it's hardware and software so what they have right now is going to be out of date Obsolete and they need to upgrade and so that will include all the hardware software and any training that they need for the Personnel to utilize it and then that'll generate the reports that they need to report the state and federal so replacement was already in the CPC schedule that one was not and that will
likely be deferred until 2027 okay till we need to be compli so the cruiser that's sort of on a doing that go back and paid through the operating assessment because it's a threee rotation so technically it doesn't meet the criteria for Capital planning because it doesn't have the 5-year useful life but we just bring it to the
committee any any Capital purchases they could get a question at town meeting so we just feel like anything that this Capital Andel we discuss it okay but you're right excellent and then we did um for fiscal year 25 any
surprises yeah I say but we looking looking at the year-to-year comparison it looks are we in the year where motor vehicle excise is later this year must be I hope it always come the big commitment is in February so it's when we have this meeting it's always look yep yeah we're definitely like yeah behind but expect to be behind at this point in the air everything else is
tracking where it should be expenses are F we don't we haven't identified anything that it's out of wh at this point time it is only early February [Applause] so I hear the Snow Dragons going outside my house named the we could use the uh budget three Ines at a time are like tort so we named the snow plows when the kids were little snow dragons when they heard them
go by any other questions for Tracy anything Personnel wise that has an impact on budget that we need to be aware of or anything no good big raises for everybody I heard that 2% there are no steps no chairman of the FL of Elman wants a big rise this year I
is that what we heard the vice the vice chair oh the vice miss that sorry sorry Bill you can't pay him enough I think uh if that's it we have no new business taking care of everything we need to
um I would entertain a motion to adjourn all those in favor of adjourning all right theour 7:30