it is 700 p.m. I'm going to call to order tonight's finance committee meeting April 22nd 2024 let's take attendance Uh Kevin I don't see you yet [Music] Steve here right Tracy here Sandy here Joe here bill here Paul here Cody here Zach here I know Bonnie will be absent this evening and I am here okay got a lot to get through tonight I think we have presentations from South Eastern Regional and Bristol County Agricultural schools this evening we have uh Holly mcclanan and Mark Mor from South Eastern Regional to present their budget hello how are you doing very well how are you good excellent um was Mark able to send over the slides he was yes we did we did see those yes and Mark you can share your screen if you want to go through your slides Kevin's on Paul got it Mark do you have the slides if not I can pull them up on my on my computer and you are on mute mark hey well why don't I share my screen since looks like Mark's having a little bit of a technical issue soang just a minute I'm just pulling them up from my email so they might not look the greatest but they'll they'll get the job done can everybody see that excellent all right um so our FY 2025 um proposed budget um is uh represents a 6.2% increase over the the previous year um and that is we're looking at our our foundation budget is up 5.3% at just over $ 36.6 million um so the local assessment piece of that is um 13487 169 um the second uh uh big component of our budget is our regional transportation we did see a um almost 20 5% increase in cost for Regional Transportation this year um because we had secured our bus bids right before right at the time that covid started so we really have not seen the sort of fuel cost increases and labor cost increases that other school districts have experienced um already so um our um bus bid did go up quite a bit um to $2.3 million as you know we are supposed to receive a 100 % uh reimbursement for our regional transportation cost um but this year it looks like the house budget has built in about 84% reimbursement so we use the previous uh School Year's reimbursement to sort of guesstimate what the reimbursement rate is is going to be so that we can get to an estimated local assessment um and this year that's just over $1 million in local assessments um and we'll look at at a different slide to show you how that's all broken down but basically Norton pays a share of the local assessment based on the percentage of enrollment at South Eastern um every year we budget for um Capital um expenditures including our msba bond however we have historically offset that with end to hold the total assessments to all nine communities to $192,000 and we have done that again this year so that brings the budget to 39 uh 269 392 however outside of the budget we're also required um to carry um our bond payments um this originally was an Esco payment and and um was a a transition to cover the cost of our uh Performing Art Center so that is 49325 uh to all nine communities um as a total to all nine communities we are using some end to pay um for our OPB our um uh post retire health benefits um that's it no additional assessment to the communities so that um the total local assessment is 15 million2 32041 any questions on that before I talk about Norton's the specifics for Norton that make sense right now any questions from the finance committee members Madam chair yeah Cody I have a just a general question having sat through I think a couple of these now from Southeast Regional um there's nothing really that any of the nine communities that contribute towards this can do about this this this budget set by by the the elected Board of Southeast Regional right so we have consistently operated at net School spending so the minimum that we are required to spend according to the state um which is primarily our foundation budget is primarily driven by our enrollment which was up by 40 students multiplied by the per pupil rate that's set by the state and then to that we add our regional transportation which we're required to provide at no cost to the students and our other Capital expenditures which are our failure standard so as far as is there anything you can do about it um we do operate at the minimum that we're required by Statute thank you anyone else have any questions or comments Madame chair yes Zach um Holly as you know all the communities you serve Rockton Mansfield Norton Easton they're all in financial trouble we are in the situation here uh where we're looking at a 1% increase to our local school budget um and you're coming in here asking well not asking it's kind of like a hostage situation uh we're taking six 6.2% uh you know I know it's something probably Beyond H scope or any scope here but but you can send the message back to the to the uh to the administration there and and and I graduated from Southeast and so you can take that with a grain of salt as well that this is frankly insulting to the to the surrounding communities that are all taking haircuts that come up with a 6% budget when everybody's you know what's going on in Brockton you know what's going on in Norton and you present this and not to be rude but I'm not even sure what what you're doing here other than to tell us Yep this is what you're paying and you're stuck with it and I know it's not not you personally respectfully we are again operating at the minimum we are required to operate by the state of Mass Massachusetts so our increase our 5.3% increase is driven primarily by the increase in enrollment we had 40 additional students last year however I do want to recognize that we are very sensitive to the fact that many of our communities are minimum Aid communities um where enrollment is not increasing um that is why we continue to operate at net School spending so that we you know are we are trying to be as fiscally responsible as possible possible um the the increase in our budget is primarily driven by enrollment and the increase in Regional Transportation cost and but I I do hear what you're saying and I I am very sensitive to the fact that many of our communities our um are are not being properly funded that's something we've talked to our own legislators about um and you know I'm I'm expecting that they will take another look at the Chapter 70 formula um to see if if it can be um revised to be a little bit more Equitable to all communities so I I do appreciate that that uh is very difficult when other communities are not getting what they deserve but uh you know we we did hold ourselves again as we have for at least 15 20 years to net School spending um as as delineated by the state thank you for that Holly yeah all right so give me just a minute I'm pulling things up one at a time so it may take me just a minute uh so I just want to look at at enrollment data um so you can see that over the course of the last 10 years um we have seen sort of a decline in Norton a little bit um it kind of goes up and down between um you know the the the mid 90s to the to Mid mid 100s but um we did see a decrease this year of 10 students in Norton um so uh you're about 5.7% of our uh student enrollment I did grab the uh uh incoming admissions data from Norton we had 54 applications from Norton residents for the class of 2028 so the Freshman Class coming in in October um we did offer admissions to 19 of M uh four have declined 13 have accepted and we have two we still pending um uh hearing from so overall Norton students are admitted at a little bit higher rate than students overall so about 30% of students this year will receive a a a um offer of acceptance um but that number for Norton is about 38% any questions about that all right so let me just get to the to the piece about your assessment sorry if I'm pulling these up one at a time there we go okay so when we look at each of our communities you will see that Norton is 5.7% of our enrollment so the minimum contribution is just under $1.6 million um your portion of the bond payment is $28,000 293 um net Transportation cost for Norton is 6,781 and the net C Capital costs are $1,000 uh $13 for a total assessment of 1,692 899 that is a decrease of $24,988 from last year any questions about that okay and then the final slide I just want to show you is um for each of our students it does cost about uh $23,000 to educate them um and communities pay more or less of that $23,000 based on the um the state's formula um so you can see that Norton um pays about $7,595 for each student that goes to Southeastern um and I always provide this as as just a comparison so you can uh see how it how it's broke Bren down um Brockton continues to pay the highest amount uh total because they have the highest number of of students so mam chair any yeah Kevin I just want to go on I mean the highest total and gross but at a rate I mean their Pi is getting split up to everybody else Madam chair yeah Cody um I I believe we've got the schools our schools uh talking to us later um I don't believe our cost per pupil is anywhere near 177,000 like however ours gets divvied up um another thing that is was brought to my attention um is I I believe everyone on this slide has some sort of fees are are there fees at Southeast Regional for anybody do you have sports fees activities fees like we're we're feed to death and and our fees are going to go up because we can't afford to to educate our own kids um is that the case at Southeast we we do not have fees at South Eastern um in many cases we're not even allowed to to request fees for example we can't charge any fees for transportation we can't um we can't charge fees for most things to be honest with you um as a Regional School District as a title one school um we have a lot of restrictions on fees that we can charge for students um the cost of educating a student at a vocational school based on the types of equipment that we have to maintain um the size of our building the additional cost associated with operating large Building Systems like ventilation systems dust collection systems um medical waste um systems uh metal uh getting rid of metal waste several times a month uh is is why a chapter 74 vocational student costs more to educate than a student at a at an academic High School it um just a question to that I realize and and don't take this as me not appreciating the fact that like this that the education that they're receiving is awesome and I just wish that we could dictate to ourselves that we could collect the amount that you're collecting per pupil like you get to charge all the the the amounts and tell the communities that send students to you how much they're going to pay when we don't pay ourselves that amount and it's just like it's kind of crappy that you know it's so much better um because you can dictate the terms and you know as a as a share of of the amount just respectfully we don't dictate the terms the state dictates the terms correct like we we're we base our budget on the minimum we're required according to the state and and and we are trying to be good partners by doing that by living with School spending but we have seen an increase in enrollment in enrollment over the last 10 years and so we have have traditionally seen increases in our budget but you know respectfully we are not dictating what we collect that is that is part of the formula I don't necessarily think that the formula is entirely fair to everybody um you know but so I do want to make that clear that we are not Southeast is not dictating to people what we are collecting it is based on the Chapter 70 formula yeah for ucational students the the total budget is is set I understand that the state sets net School spending um I hope you have a lot more room because as all of these uh communities continue to shed um teachers and programs and clubs and sports and everything else you're going to get a lot more demand for people that can come in and you know I don't know what your your maximum enrollment is and what what you can possibly handle but whatever you're planning on I would I would increase it well right now we're at maximum capacity we have about 1600 students and in the high school um as you know we have a postsecondary program as well that has about 40 full-time uh students um but we are right now at capacity in the school Madame chair yeah Zach uh Holly what is your acceptance rate how many of the students that apply how many do you accept so as of this morning we had 1344 applications um for the ninth grade and we H can accept 4115 so it's about 30% and is that so you have a group of kids do you have to divide it evenly certain percentages per town or is it just by grades and yeah our regional agreement does not require a certain percentage by town it's it's based on so we have a a scoring rubric based on grades attendance um Behavior a recommendation from a teacher or a guidance counselor and a personal interview with the student um and based on that a student receives a score and they're admitted based on their score regardless of whether they live in Brockton or eastn or which is why you will see you know some years your assessment may go up and some years it may go down because the the number of students from Norton can fluctuate um but traditionally we've seen about 60 to 65% of our applications come from Brockton and about 60 to 65 of our students are from Brockton and and it tends to break down that way with all the other communities as well whereas the percentage of applications that we're receiving generally reflects the percentage of students we accept so um and I do keep an eye on that to make sure that nothing's getting out of whack um with those things but um the vast majority of our applicants and students come from Brockton and then from there you know stoton is the next largest one East Bridgewater um but we we do keep an eye to make sure that that roughly the same percentage of students who apply from Norton are represented in the in the um population that's enrolled thank you madam share yeah Kevin I was curious how many are what how many students are on IEPs at South Eastern Regional like and how does it stack up to the the demographic splits by town are there any towns that are over under represented when you would cross-section it with IEPs so this year we had well we started the year our October 1 number was like 15.3% um but once we have enrolled students we typically do see a spike um in IEP so I know we ended the year with about 25 more students on IEPs than we when we started um so the state does look at that data and they compare our total uh special education population to the total special education population in our region um and we are performing in terms of how we rank Accord with the demographics generally um it's it's roughly roughly the same if you look town to town we often have many more students on IEPs from a given Town than they would have in their own in their own uh sending in their own high school but I haven't I don't know the number right off the top of my head for Norton um but it's something I do look at every year thank you mam chair yes Joe uh Holly uh forgive my ignorance but I don't have children can you define for me what net School spending is it is the minimum amount that the state of Massachusetts says we have to spend to educate a student so at for one student the per pup per pupil cost this year is $223,000 and then to that you add your um Regional Transportation cost and your allowable Capital cost and that is net School spending thank you madam chair yeah Cody um and Holly just I I've done a a little bit of um study on this but I mean chapter 7 is uh about as complex a calculation as you can find and I think it's intentionally that way um but for for individual towns it's based on per capita income come and the adjusted uh values of of homes in each one of those so for your net School spending is it taking all nine communities and taking all of it and then putting a weighted average across all of it or how is it how is it done at a Regional School like this compared to to a town I think I have Mark do you know the details on that I'm going to see if I can pull up the um I thought I had the sheet that showed that maybe not so our net School spending is based on our total student population I'm sorry I thought I had that sheet available but I don't have it in front of me our net schools our foundation budget is based on our total enrollment times the per pupil cost that's our foundation budget then that budget is a portioned based on the percentage of students also and then also taking into account their per pupil their um chapter 74 breakdown so it is a complicated formula I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that it's not um so that's why Brockton pays less than per pupil but South Eastern is receiving the same amount of money for that student as we received for a student from Norton it's just that Brockton is receiving more chapter 78 to pay for that student than Norton thank you yeah I think the best analogy and I didn't come up with this analogy is that um it's like um uh when you pay your your property tax we all pay a different amount of property tax but we each get to go to the public school we each get to you know we each have access to the same roads we each have so that's the same basic premise around the per pupil um Aid it is based on relative wealth of the community as determined by a very complex formula all right does anyone else have any questions for Holly or Mark right hearing nothing thank you so much for your time thank you thank you Madame chair this I'm sharing um the Bristol County Agricultural High School um for fy2 there's two aspects of their budget um tuition which is $417 for 15 students are 6,255 and then uh the debt assessment which is 597 $ 5,979 66 per student for 15 students it's 89,990 for $149,999 Madam chair yes Sandy hi Mike um did this change from the original projections is did they increase it because originally I think we had 148 not that it's that they had they had sent us earlier a range and uh we took the middle of the road but of course they went to the high of the high end so it is slightly higher than uh previously we don't have anyone from presenting to us tonight Madam chair yeah Bill hey hey Mike this seems to be a re occurring theme that they never show up never that yeah I've never seen anyone from south from Bristol Agy and Madam chair we have no recourse to that sorry not if I mean we try and get them to show up and they just never do thank you mam as I said earlier and I wasn't trying to be rude but it's a hostage situation they don't have to show up here's the bill you got to pay it you have no choice and you know I could say a few uh off-color words but you know what they're saying to you basically did they send anything about the increase or decrease in student students over from last year to this year um I didn't I don't think I saw anything let me see is it typically around 15 yeah it's always right around that number let me see if I have last year's students yeah FY 24 was 15 also anyone have any comments or questions about this seems like it is what it is all right right moving on all right budgets [Music] budgets so um this first page is uh select board Personnel Services and expenditures Town manager finance committee oh you already did finance committee and Reserve fund um Town accountant assessor and treasure collector hey anyone have questions about any of the departments on this page Madam chair yeah Cody um I'm curious why the the column there for Town manager recommended changed I think when we voted on that it was 119 and change not 117 and change right when you when uh you reduced it to 100 it was 119 um I had to take $2,000 and move it into the planning budget anyone else have questions bring nothing charot entertain emotion to recommend these budgets Madam chair Madam chair yes Joe sorry can you hear me uh I make a motion that we Rec or that we accept the following budgets uh select board account number 122 line 510 Personnel Services in the amount of $ 76,5 70 in line 570 charges and expenditures in the amount of ,200 for a total of $78,750 uh account 1223 Town manager line 510 Personnel Services in the amount of $310,500 in the amount of 22,500 for a total of three $333,700 accountant uh account 135 uh line 510 Personnel Services in the amount of [Music] $246,400 purchase of services in the amount of $30,000 and line 570 it charges an expenditures in the amount of $3,120 for a total of [Music] $279,500 Personnel Services in the amount of 23 $ 3,45 and line 570 charges and expenditures in the amount of $338,800 for a total of $268,500 Personnel Services in the amount of $294,450 charges and expenditures line 570 in the amount of 51331 $331 for a total of $345,400 [Music] yes Joe no Bill yes Paul yes yes Z no okay I am a yes we have 8 yes two no for these budgets okay the next uh page is uh data processing um the town clerk conservation and planning board Madam chair yeah Cody um Mike can you remind me the um the Personnel Services on the town clerk um that that 120 is that the elimination of the um the assistant that was hired um no that's an anticipation of uh the current town clerk retiring and coming back on a part-time basis reduced hours is there a plan to hire a full-time town clerk in this fiscal year this next fiscal year um not right now there isn't um right now it's the plan is that uh the town clerk will work uh 24 hours a week and we'll have the full-time assistant and the part-time person any other questions about these Madam chair yeah Bill and and Mike where comfortable with that I I think so um based on the environment right now trying to find a full-time Town Clark um I think it would be good to uh go this route for now and then uh later on well after this next fiscal year see what that see what looks like after a year and with the town clerk going to was it 24 hours is that is the expectation every day or just certain days um I would anticipate Tuesday Wednesday Thursdays Adam chair is is she retiring at the end of the fiscal year and that 120 is for 52 weeks of 24 hour or 24 hours a week or is does she have a retirement date set and um that's Midway through the year um the retirement date would be at the end of the fiscal year that so that salary would be for her and uh the part-time I mean the other full-time staff person and uh the part-time and does that is that 24 hours going to be enough for running the election in November as well as the potential special election and I guess that the special election would happen before the fiscal year we discussed yeah that that is what I discussed with her beforehand the main thing we want to make sure that she is there running the elections if if she's set for 24 hours a week is uh and I mean does this number have a built-in expectation that the weeks leading up to November um might require overtime um we would move our hours around based on what's needed during elections so she may work more hours on a week when there's an election and less hours the week after that normally she she would take a vacation after election okay so it's 48 hours of pce pay cycle or 96 a month right yeah we're gonna miss her that's for sure uh was that bill yep so Mike the the part-timer and the and the assistant um they're subject to overtime the not obviously the part- timism but the assistant isn't salaried or is she um he um he he would not uh we don't anticipate paying overtime if uh there's any extra time it would be uh comp time so right now um the salaries for the two permanent positions would be 99,5 26 and the part-time is 2,907 and no no overtime just comp in some fashion right right thank you Madam chair yes Sandy um Mike can you um explain maybe you did before why the data processing went down the Personnel Services um just because of what we had to do um to cut the budget um we reduced the amount of hours for uh the one person working in that department and also um under charges and expenditures we had to reduce uh that also Madam chair yeah Cody uh Mike can you just um give an example of like what the ramifications of that means like you're reducing data processing what does that entail and what can is it going to have any impact on the general public or is this just going to be internal it could it it could because uh as you know Charlene working in that position posts everything on the town website organizes all these virtual meetings um so there there could be some impact there Adam chair yeah Kevin Mike on data processing how do I reconcile St this to the one that we went over in March like the original proposal was 408 this says they requested 468 and we landed at 393 to it I think it was in our March 11th packet so we as I said we reduce the hours of um the staff person from the uh 44155 to the 29436 and then under charges and expenditures right now we have um a staff person from MX Consulting three days a week and that's going to be reduced to two days a week Madam chair yeah bill so I is this a department that would essentially kind of oversee you know data breaches and whatnot or making sure that we don't have data breaches that kind of stuff so we're we still have that with MX Consulting uh they handle all all that for us so they they would just be troubleshooting if an employee was having difficulties so the troubleshooting will only happen so many days a week versus okay mam chair yeah Cody um Mike I'm looking at the the sub sheet um balance um because I wanted to I just wanted to double check we're cutting hours on the uh on the employee uh presumably if anything needs to get done and we don't have the um the budget and the hours for for them to do it um then the Professional Services cost would go up it looks like you've maybe accounted a little bit for that um is that where that would would land on the Professional Services so um under um expenses we also reduced um Professional Services from 310 was the request to 291 and which is actually a slight increase over over last year yeah it's about 14,000 yeah higher than last year that's what that's why I'm asking is that is that the expectation there is that the Professional Services cost will go up slightly um because we'll have to Outsource that work if it needs to get done uh no that that's not the anticipation at all uh because we've also reduced um the hours for MX Consulting uh the in-house hours but all the uh they handle still offsite all the other there's no reduction in uh all our licensing and permitting with them for um our cyber security and other software so Madam chair yeah so so kind of jumping back to you know data security and all that stuff should you know should should the unpleasant happen that there's no real buffer here that this would be some sort of you know Reserve fund transfer or whatever to cover those costs because we've reduced the hours of so many pieces uh well if if something happens um you know it we have insurance we don't know you know what what's going to happen and whether it all be covered but we do have uh insurance for any cyber attacks Madam CH yeah Zach I guess you know touching on what Bill Bill's saying here and just thinking of the this whole thing you know over the last week you I'm inclined to vote no on all these budgets to be honest with you uh you know are we doing our job here I mean is is is the job if the job of this finance committee is it's 1% of the town and 1% of the schools wash our hands of it and wrap it up uh you know this should be done in one meeting I mean but I think if you were sitting at your hitchen table and you were having financial crisis and you said well do we put food on the table or do we pay for a college education well obviously you're going to put food on the table first and we're not doing that I mean we're talking about we're talking about closing fire stations and removing you know school resource offices from the schools well you know I have a kid in school it's very important to me that my son gets a A good education like any other parent but it's much more important to me that he come home every night so what do the I mean are we here setting prior priorities or is just if if this is just a 1% of the town and one% of the school just you know vote one vote as approved you know as written and be done with it if not I mean I think the job of this committee is to go through it and say what are the priorities but Public Safety for me should be the priority education should be the next priority and then everything else right now we're just going 1% it's a 1% budget and this is just semantics really I mean we're gonna spend know not to interrupt you but I totally hear your point right now you know this is we're going through the 1% increased budgets um this is what we have to work with this finance committee is more than welcome to do our own recommendation here we don't have to be rubber stamping exactly what the town manager recommendation is if you see that a certain line item that's why we go line by line or Page by Page in this instance um if you see a certain line item that you think should get less so we can put that money somewhere else we did that last Wednesday with the reserve fund account um hoping to maybe give the library $117,000 um so instead of voting no you could always uh request a an edit to these budgets because this is what we have to work with with the 1% Madam chair yeah Cody kind of to Zach's point and one of the things I was going to ask once everybody got through kind of processing each one of these lines um I didn't know that the town clerk was retiring um I don't think that that necessarily changes my stance on this that 120,000 includes a position that was created and funded out of free cash in the fall of last year and when we're talking about laying off I think last in first out um is a fairly standard Rule and the fact that it was funded that position was funded with non-recurring revenues I would say what' you say Mike 20,000 for that yeah individual 20,000 yes so however much was built into the to that town clerk I mean we've got a we got a full-time assistant to the town Clerk and uh you know Lucia on on [Music] um uh reduced hours um as part of the retirement plan but that's that's one of the first places that I would look to cut if we're if we're talking about you know laying people off every little bit here is going to make a difference and uh that's fairly standard practice I think mam chair yes Sandy I mean Cody doesn't reducing the town clerk's office kind of offset that you're you're you want to get rid of now a halftime position in another halftime position so now you're going down to less than what we had um coming into the last Falls town meeting right I mean I I get your point that that it should be reduced because we added that position but it sounds like it already is being reduced with um the town clerk's position being moved to halftime except it is now being used to set like that that position is now established it was a brand new position that was created now we have we still have town clerk we're going to have to replace the town clerk with another full-time town clerk at some point we have the assistant of the Town Clerk and we have a part-time assistant that part-time assistant like we're talking about eliminating positions when when we're going back to the budget and looking at this next year and year Beyond year Beyond we've established a third position within that department using revenues that are not reoccurring and when we come back to you know staff fully staff the uh the position you're now carrying three positions where you know historically they're only been two that's that's the whole point here is you know we're we're making cuts and we're eliminating positions the public health nurs is going to be completely eliminated we haven't been able to fill it at the at the position it's at you know we're talking about eliminating [Music] positions that's that's just where my head is madam chairy just to respond I mean I agree Cody I think if we get to the point where we have a full-time town clerk again um we need to revisit that part-time position um right now I'm seeing a total of two right and those two half times are cheaper than one fulltime because and now we're not paying some of those benefits um I do hear you though that when we go back to a full-time town clerk that needs to be Revisited especially if we are not able to pass an override M Madam chair yeah M just if I could on that part-time position it was in the budget for years and it just wasn't filled for a couple years so um it's not a new position it had been there and the town clerk coming back for three days a week is based on knowing what the staff is and in that office so if we're not going to have the part-time position there's no guarantee that the town clerk's going to come back so then we're GNA have to move this back up to you know more like $142,000 a year to cover a full-time Clark Madam Sher yeah Cody that's essentially exactly my point you know we were running 117 and 122 and the prior years we're carrying 142 in the current year because we added that third position so if it's if it's not happening this year where you know the 120 is the Band-Aid over a year when we replace a fulltime and Lucia is completely gone and and replaced with another full-time uh town clerk the expectation there needs to be it needs to return back to two positions not three and right I think Sandy made that clear that that could happen at that time Madam chair yes Andy I ask a question on planning um yeah Mike did that I I see that change that went back up is that the new contractual salary for our new town planner it is so there's two salaries in that department uh the full time planner and um an administrative assistant for the plan Madam chair yeah Zach Mike you did who did we hire I didn't hear that we got a new planner um Paul dppi is back PA for H Paul is back Madam chair back Kevin I know we we've gotten to some in some of the details on some of these lines I just fundamentally struggle when I go back to the meeting packet where we meet with the department heads and they present a more detailed budget that rolls to a number we get a final budget that doesn't match that and this final budget we vote on is summarized to two accounts 510 and 570 that there's no Bridge as to what's in and what's out I can't understand what's changed and so if the goal is for us to have a three to four hour meeting to rehash everything this way it's presented serves that end well but I don't want to keep everybody on the phone for four hours to ask questions we asked a month ago to try to figure out what changed Madam chair a breakdown too Kevin we got your packet line by line yes same same we got before they're kind of you have to scroll down a lot to some of the documents all right thanks would it be helpful if we brought that up as we went through these budgets sure the group want to see that as we do it as we go through and let me I can bring it up all right where were we uh legal services to planning board wherever that page is let me get back up so um I think we started with data processing yeah yeah um so anyone that um data processing town clerk um those two had changes if anyone wants me to bring those up can we want to see a breakdown the group want to see the breakdown anyone uh so there's the town Clark anyone have questions on this hearing nothing and data processing questions on data processing right or nothing okay any other questions about these particular budgets or I can entertain a motion to recommend Madam chair yes Joe given the discussion we've had on these various budgets do does anyone want me to go through them individually in the motion rather than the whole page speak now or forever hold your piece y I'm fine with the whole page right got one vote for the whole page these particular budgets I'm fine with the whole page all right all right Joe uh I make a motion that we accept the following budgets number 155 data processing line 510 Personnel Services in the amount of 29 $1,436 and line 570 charges and expenditures in the amount of $ 363,462 for a total of $393,000 budget 161 town clerk line 510 Personnel Services in the amount of $12,432 and line 570 charges in expenditures in the amount of $675 for a total of $126,500 8 uh budget 171 conservation committee or commission either one uh 510 Personnel Services in the amount of $48,990 which seems odd to me but uh line 570 charges and expenditures $1 144,50 for a total of $163,400 Personnel Services in the amount of $152,600 charges and expenditures line 570 in the amount of $3,525 for a total of $156,100 Madam chair wait yes Cody just I have one question on the planning board because we're looking at when when we were looking at the the request at 141 383 that amount included part-time wages plus a salary for the vacant which has now been filled has any of that the part-time wages were any of those offset by now the fact that we have a full-time position filled and Paul's back were any of those hours decreased for the part-time position where maybe they had been increased where he was carrying an additional load from not having a full-time department head um we didn't have a part-time position there there was no paid position in the plan planning department all that was in the planning department was the uh administrative staff person part which is so it's a full-time position that's a that's a that's a full-time position the staffers okay it it's still an hourly full-time position right yes what was there overtime built into that number no okay um the the staff person did get um a stapen for handling the department by themselves for a time 10,29 that's not carried forward um I was was pulling back the old the 100 the 100 budgets U salary sheet I was looking at what was what was carried forward if whatever if that's removed then there there's been no one in the position uh the full-time planner position so whatever money's left over in that position at the end of the year just goes back as free cash right but but is that is the stien being carried in the number that was carried forward from from the fiscal year 24 is the number that we're carrying in that has was anything transferred over for the for stien to offset the vacancy not into fy2 no okay I'm satisfied if Bill you want a second second Kevin these still don't tie to what I saw on the packet on March 11 so I have to vote no okay Steve yes Trace yes Sandy yes Joe yes bill yes Paul yes Cody yes Zach no I am a yes okay so 8 yes two no for this one as well he um on this page is U Municipal Building expense uh Police Department fire department and Emergency Medical Services you've voted the other budgets all right any questions or comments on these anyone want to see a breakdown of any of these um Mike for me it would be helpful if as we're going through now just because you know the last two pages we've noticed like there were reduction of hours of some staff um so it'd be good to know kind of like if you could explain from your point of view the impact of any of these reductions for any of these departments yeah so um nothing's changed on these uh budgets but obviously here um we have uh police and fire uh where the Personnel Services has been reduced um and as they have said before that'll be an impact um in filling shifts um with the fire department you know they've talked about the possibility uh that uh this chart station will be closed and uh the police department I know he has talked about uh look looking at times where he may have to put someone on the street that normally would be in the station and um during slow times if uh there's a shift to vacant that the person from the station may have to go out on the road so um definitely impacts to both those departments all right thank thank you for that any questions comments on these budgets Madam chair yes bill um actually two um the the the police department also you know explicitly said maybe the station gets closed so that's still on the table Yeah you mentioned week hours would be possibly closed like during the day on the weekends or something right okay um you know my my favorite question on this page is the municipal building um as it pertains to the existing town hall and the cost Associated if we are keeping it standing despite the vote by the town to get rid of it and despite the presentations of saying how decrepit and dangerous it was to keep standing what is the cost to maintain that thing if it's going to stay up so the only cost um to maintain it would be um to keep the heat on low um but other than that we're not going to be uh keeping the light on um we're not going to have people in there until they make a decision on what they're going to do but they're still they're still reviewing that I know the building committee is still reviewing that but wasn't it I know it was said early on because I might have been share when some of that was starting to be discussed that the cinder blocks are in such disrepair that you know the whole place could crumble so there is a cost Beyond just heat to to making sure that it doesn't start to crumble and hurt someone who's walking right past it so that there there's got to be some cost in there that we're not recognizing Madam chair yes Paul so Bill to that um to that point um Mike I thought there was definitely funds in the account still to take it down so why is there a question about doing it um that because they when they were doing the F going out to bid they had cut that from the package so that has not been bid yet so it has to go back out to bid for that portion of the project right but but isn't the money there though so they should be doing that I mean sounds to me like there's a question whether they're even going to attempt to do it I guess I guess the question is what funds will they have available at the end and what are the new bids going to come in at mam chair yes Zach so as I've said before in this uh in this committee that the protection of life and property should be the number one priority uh I think if we don't fund that we have failed as a community uh you know it's life and death and I think that comes before anything else so I'm going to go against something uh I I've said previously and I'm going to make a motion if there's a second on the table to move 200,000 from stabilization to the fire department and 100,000 from stabilization to the police department that's my motion excuse me if this's a second Madam chair a second can can we discuss before we get to a second like discuss the motion or does it need a second I'll do a second for discussion purpos Cody would we be taking a vote to discuss this I think we can just discuss this and then we would do a vote a second to vote on it so we can discuss it first yeah that's the usual process motion second any discussion then vote so we've got a second from Paul so we got to vote on the second and then if it passes then we can discuss okay so we're voting just to discuss this not to transfer money correct I don't think you don't need to vote you don't have to vote to discuss you can just now that there's a second on the table there can be open discussion we're having open discussion about the topic that Zach brought up about transferring money from stabilization to police and fire correct Zach that is correct 200,000 the fire department 100,000 of the police department Madam chair yes Joe Zach uh just curious why those numbers just round up from what they're they're asking for the fire department is as police department I'm sorry is asking for 291 and they getting one uh 418 so just round numbers 100,000 I mean I you can do the math and go to exact what they're looking for same thing with the fighter pin they're asking for 4 million 96 uh the town manager recommending 47 just round numbers that's all okay thank you Adam chair yes Cody um Zach I I certainly appreciate the the notion and what you're trying to do I think I think I've learned um from what we did last year ping the 700,000 from stabilization for the schools on a one it the justification last year was it was a oneoff year the transportation cost went through the roof the special ed cost went through whatever it was uh and we pulled from that and it just set us farther behind on what we're capable of carrying year over-year and stabilization is not going to solve the issue here for me um I'm all for pulling it from other lineups items I am I'm 100% on board with like let's talk about eliminating other departments other other positions that are not um critical uh you know we want to we want to talk about that I I'm all for it I just using the stabilization as a Band-Aid to try and kick the like it just it continues to make it worse year over-year and I would rather us talk about you know it looks like we're going to have to go against the town manager's recommendations and say let's let's find 100,000 for police let's find 200,000 for fire where are we going to pull it from um I just I don't think pulling 300,000 from stabilization is going to solve this issue I agree with Cody um doing this Band-Aid fix same thing we did last year I'm definitely against doing that it will 100% vote no um but I also agree with Cody and that as I mentioned before as you see on the right hand column the finance committee recommendations we can change what it says in the column next to it for Town manager recommendations we can put what we want there if you want to take it from another budget another department I'm all for that as well I will not vote in favor of taking money from stabilization again like we did last year for just a Band-Aid fix Madam chair yes sec I have have no problem detaining you know anybody wants to make a motion to take you from someplace else that's that's up to them um I'm just saying this is very different to Cody's point from funding schools over this is a life and death situation when you take closed fire stations if one person dies for that for that incident this money all this money is irrelevant we are talking life and death situations that's what you're taking off the table now I you tell me what's in this budget in any Department that's more worth more than somebody's life and I don't care where that money comes from but tell me any Department in this town that's worth more than somebody's life because we closed the fire station I mean you guys want to live with that that's fine but I I won't have any part of it and I don't care where the money comes from close down whatever you want these these departments should be funded first in my view okay anybody else anybody else Madam chair I just uh the point about where it comes from you know point one point two is if we have a disagreement on some of these budgets now we've voted on two pages of priors where now we may want to revisit it's uh kind of like it's tough to unring the when we're halfway through these um when these things come up I don't have a solution for this budget cycle but Madam chair does complicate things yes Cody um I'm just like quickly trying to work through all the budget numbers that we have all the budget sheets um Mike can you remind me what inspection does 241 what inspection does yeah so um inspection is uh your Building Commissioner your local inspector and your um water inspector and your I mean your electrical inspector and your gas and pluming inspector Madam chair yeah Paul Cody I just um you sent out an article or or piece about the anfield schools and you had a question about the uh languages in kindgarten from the article and it might take away from that whole article which I found like Bazar was that for decades quote unquote they were able to live with a 3% increase in the man's field schools and I'm just trying to figure out why over the past 10 15 years I've been such a disconnected noton with with the school funding where they've been getting you know the three four five perent every year and still we seem like we're we're behind everyone else so I don't know what the issue is because I'm not a school person but um I'm just trying that's what I took away from that article I found it surprising that they could for their quote was for decades live with 3% and we haven't done that since that I'm aware of for years in the school system and I just I mean that's part of the way when the financial problems were at we're at is because it seems like we're always struggling to try to come up with more more more so that was just a side comment we we're discussing everything else you know Madam chair yes Andy there someone in the Manfield schools I can tell you that that Paul that the I I wouldn't say it's decades I there was an override a few uh many years back and then since that override the population's been been decreasing so you know they're talking about and we've seen some cuts and not that that's not terrible to see you know my colleagues getting let go but the class sizes are not impacting anywhere near what they are um because our population has gone down our population you know really went up um to a huge Peak several years ago and it's been dropping ever since so we've been letting go teachers as the population has been dropping um much much different scenario well areen we down a thousand students as well um Andy in Norton I don't think it's that much I mean we're down I would say uh I forget the total population but the high school has dropped down in Mansfield several hundred um so it's it's again the class sizes are still way better than than what they are in nor so it's not you know you see Cuts being H happening but you you've also got to look at the fact that their populations dropped and so their class sizes really have not been impacted by that Madam chair Paul do you want to respond to Sandy no okay Cody no but thank you Sandy I just I just thought that not had a drop in over a thousand students in the last 10 years or whatever too that's Madam chair that's go ahead Cody that has been a refrain from anybody that's anti schools for uh as long as I've been here um the fact is that the the the school numbers have been fairly steady hovering around 2400 kids 25 24 23 it's it's consistently around that number um if you want to take a single height like height year of like when they hit 3,000 then you're down 600 but that's that was like 15 years ago or something um I think in the packet that Dr O'Neal gave us I don't even know one of our joint meetings um it was projected that our students count was going to increase like seven or eight percent in the upcoming five year plan to answer Paul's initial question um it's been Death By A Thousand Cuts you don't you don't see it because you don't have kids in the schools but they they cut 12 positions last year then you know there was a lot of stink made about um saving the languages for middle school and or saving the the music department um for Middle School they saved part of it but there were still 12 people or 12 positions eliminated last year and year before that and year before that and year before that it's been little little little little little that's how that's how we have existed and continued to to go for the past you know 10 15 years is because little cuts are made here and there fees are increased here or there programs are cut here or there and it's just little by little and everybody forgets about it and if you don't have kids in the school and it's not your kid that's directly impacted on it then it's something that that goes unnoticed and you know it will definitely get noticed this year when you're eliminating 30 positions so I appreciate that uh Cody um Madam sureair if I if we could get back to the like trying to find money to fund police and fire as opposed to unnecessary or I won't say unnecessary NE I'll say less Necessary Things um I I hate to be the guy that's picking on the dog officer but if it comes comes down to the uh needing a dog officer versus needing firefighters to fight a fire or respond to uh to an emergency sorry that's $107,000 to eliminate that department yep Madam chair rather spend $107,000 on police or fire yeah Joe go ahead so I know that we heard from the Southeast Regional earlier Mike what would happen if we didn't fund that what they asked what happens in that situation um so unless a majority of the towns agree to vote against the budget um it would be assessed to us we would have to pay it okay it does seem like a hostage situation yeah and I you know I understand what what Holly was saying but you know it's this the state is not being Equitable about these things in any way shape or form Joe I won't be on her Christmas guide list this year no you won't you can't go to any alumni events and I did some research and be pass nor back in June of 2000 oh thank you Peter so Madam chair uh just a point of order should we have a vote on Zach's motion or he can resend it either way yeah Zach if you still want to make that motion we can no I think it's important that we have a motion so the residents do understand where the finance committee stands on this on taking money from stabilization on not fully funding the police and fire department by taking money from stabilization though specifically yeah I think specifically in my motion yes M Madam chair I I I don't want you know this committee to you know syn down to you know fighting each other but you know I'm I'm not against fire I'm not against police I understand what Zach is saying but there is really no simple fix and and you know like an override hate an override that is kind of the only fix any other any anything else I again you're G to be in this situation next year so you you whack a 100 th000 you you eliminate the dog officer this year what do you do next year we're always goingon to be in the situation so um you know i' I'd love to i' I'd love to vote in favor of what Zach is proposing but I also don't want it you know conveyed in the minutes or in the Public's eyes that if I say no to it that I'm against police and fire because that's not the case it's the case of there's no money so I I I don't see how you you you vote on it you take it out of stabilization you as we're trying to go out to Bond long-term projects you're going to hurt that Prospect and and have higher interest rates so that that's not a fix that that's going to make things worse we we you know un Le unless we all just stop with this hey we're not going to touch free cash there's no money so you know I i' I'd support Zack's Thing If he if he said take it out of free cash Adam chair yeah Zack Mike what is the free cash balance after all this [Music] we we will have um we will have that amount in there okay so just to to to touch on what Bill said while Mike looked set up number one the the override is a political issue and I don't find myself in this committee as a political political organization I know some members more than other are excuse me some members more than others are engaged in the Pol political process and that's their right to do so um but as this organization goes you know this isn't a political organization this is the money we have we allocate it the best we can I say this is a life and death issue now a life and death issue if you had a choice in your sitting on your kitchen table whether to put food on the table or pay the electric bill none of those options are good but you're going to put food on the table and that's where we are unfortunately it's not nobody's doing here it's not picking on anybody that's where we are so we're saying okay are we willing to put somebody's life on the line to save any of this you like like I said earlier I don't want to repeat myself of any other department if the money's in free cash then I will with and and everybody's willing to support that or a majority is I'll withdraw my motion and make a new one to take it out of free cash so Zach what you want is to just kind of keep people safe for one year because then what's going to happen next year when these departments that we're basic next year other departments if it was if I was king of this town I would even next year I would continue to fund that's I think as a society that's the basic thing you can do protection of life and property that's the basic thing you can do we're not going to have the free cash next year Zach then you're going to have to cut it from somebody else's budget oh so we're just going to delay it a year instead of just making the cuts now we're going to use the free cash this year and then next year make the cuts if you didn't have money to put food on your table you're gonna say no we're just gonna not gonna eat this year we're gonna we're gonna pay pay the mortgage and we'll you know and and we'll worry about it next year when they throw us out I'm saying it's a life and death issue I mean it's just like your your your kitchen table budget you have X amount of dollars you know if anybody's grown up I know I grew up with no money my parents had those conversations all the time this is what we got what are we gonna do with it this is where we are it's nobody's fault here but you're saying you want to delay what you're willing to risk somebody's life if that's what you're willing to do then that's that's fine uh but I I just can't have any M Madam chair yes Sandy yeah Zach I think you know again to to Bill's point it's it's it's a little insulting to sit there and say because we're we're not funding police and fire that we're willing to risk people's lives I mean that's not that's not really a fair statement when when you're trying to put food on your table you make other Cuts in other places in your budget you don't suddenly try to find money and borrow money and and you know big borrow and steal you cut in other places so if you have a suggestion for where to cut in the budget because to Paul's Point that's what's going to need to happen next year if we use a onetime Band-Aid solution now this is just not fiscally responsible for a town for a personal budget for a business budget to take and use money that's not recurring um one time as opposed to cutting in other places if you want to cut someplace else let's do that rather than trying to come up with a one-time Band-Aid fix which we have gotten criticized for everyone's gotten criticized for we criticized schools for using eser funds you know all of those one-time fixes are continually uh come back to haunt us and and so I think if you want to find the money somewhere else and cut somewhere else again we're open to that that that's something we need to find and see if someone's can suggest because I'm not hearing those options right now Madam chair yeah Cody um the next biggest budget that we have any money in it goes schools fire police and then highway highway salaries right now the town manager recommended budget for next year is 7937 45 the next highest salaries you said Cody sorry 793 for salaries yeah 793 745 um for salary wages for permanent positions um I don't know how much is longevity pay Fring benefits incentive pay all that but if we eliminated two positions Mike what would that what would that run because looking looking back at it I mean what we expended in 2022 was 687 2023 was 758 you know I think I think they could probably make do I mean the roads will suffer everything that they maintain will suffer but at least we would be able to maintain the overtime necessary for to keep police and fire fully fully engaged as they currently are without eliminating an entire department like the dog officer the dog officer is $118,000 for that department that's an easy round number that's why I chose it you can eliminate that it's not life or death highway is definitely not life or death either um what do you think Zach well the highway can be when it comes to keep I think I have a different view than most here you know and I think and to be honest with you and you guys are probably going to be upset at me for saying it but I say what's on my mind I think a lot of the members here have have a political agenda that are driving you know an override and that doesn't belong here and I and I just that's what I think and you know just because you're involved in that we want to make a statement oh we're gonna cut the police and fire so we we get attacks please on the fellow members because that's not fair Zach that's my opinion that wasn't that wasn't an attack that is an attack that we're all doing the best here we're all trying to make decisions based on a really crappy budget and very little money attacking people and saying they have political motives is just Madam chair please control the meeting okay so Cody made a suggestion about the highway department yeah I would like to I would like to address Cuts this year to keep police and fire fully funded I suggesting that we pull it from Highway I suggest that we pull $300,000 from Highway and reduce the salary and wages from 7937 45 to [Music] 49374 Madam chair yeah bill I I I I I want to say this the correct way um wouldn't wouldn't we be better to indicate to the town manager your recommendations aren't working we need and here are our priorities come back to us with a new recommendation it should not be our our position to say hey eliminate these these employees that's not what a finance committee does that that's getting into managing the town and and that's not our position our position is to you know priorities and if we don't like what's being presented say we don't like this you need to come back with different numbers that's up to the town manager to to say you know this gets eliminated or this doesn't I'm I'm not in favor of us sitting here going yes these employees should be let go that that's not that's not why I'm here so Mike would it be feasible for you to look at this and find $300,000 for us to transfer over to police and fire um I can tell you right now there's no way I'm going to to find 300,000 to transfer over um but obviously I look at that I'll talk to uh Jared for example and see what the impacts are on his Department of losing two more people we've already taken one position now we take two more um at a time when uh we're adding a bike trail we're adding sidewalks we we're adding uh a new Counsel on Aging property that's going to have to be maintained by them Madam share I mean Mike Mike maybe it's not even so focused on that just to say make the Assumption you have to keep police and fire flat to the department corre the flat to the department request the 300 some odd K how would you go about clawing it back anywhere else I'll look at that and see uh where any possibility would be and it and it's good you know you you guys you look at schools and you look at police and you look at fire but you know all these other departments provide a service to the town and if you don't have uh the accounting department and you don't have the treasurers Department you don't have the inspection department that pulls in a million dollars a year so you can fund all these things you don't have the treasurer's office that can cut collect the money you don't have the assessor office staff in order to be able to assess property so you get the money I mean all that stuff comes into play and you know you can only nickel and dime all these departments so long and at police and fire is important but the overtime is speculative you you don't know that's why you know you wait and see it if you have to add money later on you can but it it's there's no guarantee they're going to spend that kind of money Madam chair yeah Paul just Mike um police on fire habitually have come back in the fall um to tap into either free cash amble reserves or whatever um but historically we also turn back in at the end of our year money into free cash so that's why sometimes when I hear about free cash not being a reoccurring yeah it's not guaranteed but a lot of it is actually turned back by some of the Departments and stuff correct that that could have spent and I and I know historically in in the Wayback machine that there were there were administrators that would absolutely in June have a spending a holiday just to spend like crazy just to spend their account out rather than turn it back in to free cashed I think that mindset is completely changed uh I think partly because of the Town manager uh type of system that we went to you know so I just throw that out there as food for thought that I do believe that uh sometimes free cash is needed to uh backfill some of the accounts and that that might be a better way of looking at Zach's concern with police and fire is to we look at it in the fall and you can see from turn backs in the past few years how much did come back from Public Safety so my only concern though going into this coming fall is with the reduced budgets all around for all the Departments we're not going to have the turn backs that we've had um next year that would be uh a big impact yeah Madam chair yeah Cody I I know we're playing speculative games but if just looking at the numbers of gross overtime from 2022 626,000 2023 574 th000 the budget on this year was 677 we're at 207 through 1231 which was half the year so Trend that out it's you know call it $450,000 the recommendation there is $446 it's beneath the last three years that we've we've spent [Music] they're they're they're not spending any less time out there and we know that the budget it's it's the salaries go up the the guaranteed rates go up the negotiated contract with the Union gave them whatever 5% it was not sustainable we have a good estimation do we trust the department heads that gave the estimation of what they need to maintain level service to maintain chartle be staying open to make sure that the police station stays open on the weekends do we trust it or not are we having the conversation about going against the town manager's recommendations and coming up with a number because I think we we from from my perspective I think we were very clear at the outset we wanted to have this conversation a lot earlier we didn't the numbers that came in from the Departments came in the prioritization goes down to the Town manager to to evaluate where he wants to put the money and and make the recommendations we can go against them in the past we've just rubber stamped it here we are do we want to make a recommendation against what the town manager said and say okay take $100,000 dollars out of uh Highway take $200,000 out of Highway like we can go against it there's nothing that says that we can't make a recommendation against what the the town manager is recommending but I back to him to do the job that we already asked him to do I I don't I don't see that it's that it's necessary to go back and do that so we the rubber stamp we come up with another you know another solution here but pulling from free cash the the vast majority of money from free cash is not recurring it's you know know oneoff tax holidays or or turn Backs from prior you know earmarked things that we didn't spend it comes from all over the place it's not guaranteed year-over-year and it's part of the reason that we were in this position so we either make the cuts this year or we trust that the town manager knows what he's doing and the cuts are going to be made um according to the the budget that he set Adam chair Adam chair goodness Steve I'm Gonna Let You Go first I haven't heard from you appreciate it so I just I'm just curious where we are right now I think we had a motion in a second the conversations are kind of going all over the map okay I just like to take the article or the motion that we have on the floor right now let's vote for that let's see where it stands I think everyone's making good points at this at this point I think the town manager has done a good job regarding laying out a budget that we can look at obviously we all have questions I agree with Zach saying Public Safety the one thing I think is kind of unique in this situation is we have a a school budget with 30 plus million dollars that we haven't really vetted that much at all we don't go picking by Department we don't go picking by positions we haven't looked at that our largest budget we don't even have a listing of who the people are in each category with the various components of pay I think it's kind of surprising so I just ask that right now that we have a motion in a second on the floor if we can move forward and finalize that at this point okay let me just clarify there's a motion from Zach to transfer money now from free cash I don't know if I heard a second on that one I I think we have to vote the motion the second to pull from stabilization first that was his first motion okay all right Motion in a second and just to clarify 300,000 from stabilization correct 200 for fire for the police 200 for the fire department 100 for the police department all right M CH yes B one last question what is the um balance of stabilization and you know then do the math what will it be after Mike do you have that I don't James is gonna check it and is there an article did we vote for one is it coming up to put money into stabilization or is that in the fall in the fall thank you madam chair yes Andy stabilization FY 24 balance was 3, 170,171 [Music] um nothing just the 1.2 million from free cash Bill okay going for the vote anyone else have anything Okay Kevin no Steve I agree with zacha regarding the funding but I can't support taking it from stabilization so know Tracy I didn't hear you I no also Okay sandy no Joe no bill no Paul I agree with Steve sentiment but no for the stabilization Cody no Zach yes I am a no N9 no one yes okay so are we making Zach are you making another motion to take money from free cash no okay are we going to go back to those budgets that page of budgets Mike then okay okay anyone else have questions or comments on this page Madam chair yes Bo um I guess until we have more clarity as to the whole town hall situation or the existing Town Hall not the the um one under construction I'd unfortunately want to see these presented individually so a yes no on each one on this page okay that sounds good all right chair would entertain a motion to recommend um the municipal building account 192 Madam chair I make a motion that we accept uh budget 192 Municipal Building Maintenance line 570 charges and expenditures for in the amount of $164,000 for a total of $164,000 back Kevin no Eve yes Tracy yes Sandy yes Joe no bill no Paul yes C yes Zach no and I am a I'm GNA be a yes on this one okay six yes four no and the next one is Police Department Madam chair 210 yes Joe make a motion that we accept budget 210 Police Department uh line 510 Personnel Services in the amount 4,182 720 uh in line 570 charges and expenditures in the amount of $237,450 for a total of $4,420 145 second Kevin yes Steve no [Music] Tracy no Sandy yes Joe yes Bill yes Paul yes hoodie no Zach no and I am a yes 6 yes four no Madam chair yes Paul Paul um just a question for the nose um is it because we want to make an adjustment I'm just trying to get my handle around the nose you know whether we're trying to support the town manager's recommendations or try to do something different well I can tell you from my perspective I like to see this fully funded based on the on the Department's request okay um me too so should we try the free cash route that Zach alluded to instead of um stabilization as a one time fix at least for now certainly I'd like to see the town manager come back with recommendations to fully fund this and where we could potentially get those funds within the budget process and and not potentially use free cash or stabilization okay fair enough thank you what about everyone else who voted no were the other two people would you prefer or to see a different recommendation from the town manager or take from free cash Madam chair yes Cody I agree with Steve I'd like to see where where we could cut where he would make the recommendations to cut and it's it's it's really tough because we're not professional Town managers and you know we can we can decide unilaterally to take from one and and fund the way we want to fund it but and then he's got to deal with the The Fallout for that but I would much rather him figure out what that fallout's going to be on the front end and Cody haven't sat across from Mike on the other side of the table I will tell you that he does try sharpen a the pencil and beat down even our requests before we even put them in um that uh and I agree that we should allow Mike to do his job okay all right fire department Madam chair yes Joe I make a motion that we accept budget 220 for the fire department line 510 Personnel Services in the amount of 4,7 $ 34,7 51 line 570 charges and expenditures in the amount of $274,200 for a total of $ 5,898 second sorry go ahead sure Sandy um I just want to say that you know we can we can always revisit these correct if if back with different recommendations so I just want to make clear that that my re my my opinion right now is based on what we have in front of us if if um Mike comes back with different numbers and can find that money I'm I'm fully supportive of of um increasing those budgets that's where I stood as well Madam chair yes Zach yeah Mike what do you have uh what is the balance or James I think James is still on here in the ambulance Reserve fund give me one second let me look it up while he's doing that I we may want to consider taking ambulance funds and moving them into the fire department as well Madam chair should we um ask the chief his feelings on that first uh I think Deputy Chief Wilson is on chief Deputy Chief Wilson you're on you listening uh good evening yeah I'm I'm on um hello I that that's something that I think uh I'd have to speak to Chief Simmons about first do you know what the ambulance Reserve balance is off the top of your head you know it's funny James gave it to me not too long ago um I know it's about 4.6 million I'm trying to look back in my notes Jame James James can give me Madame shair yes James yeah it's around 4.5 million um but that does not include what we're using already which is a million dollars I believe we're using for fiscal year 25 yeah I think so and I don't know if we're funding any Capital out of there too for fiscal year 25 so that would come off the top was there capital mik they were using using some yeah Madam chair yes Zach so there's still well over $3 million I I think I don't think Capital was was that much Mike if I remember no I think it was some hose of 70,000 or something um I know there's already I think this this is on the floor too but I would if I would make a motion to Move It from the ambulance funds but there's already something on the floor I think you have to vote on that first yeah I think we have to vote on this fire budget first mam chair yeah Joe um Zach could amend the motion um for the amount okay that he wanted with the ambulance funds coming in there okay I I make I hope I do this right correct me if I'm wrong Joe I make a motion to add 200,000 from the ambulance funds to the fire department request of 4,734 751 I'll second that one quick question we would add it to the total right right Milli 525 mil 28,9 181 and you would have to amend personal services to 4,934 751 right okay Madam chair what one question sorry Steve I think yep just a question Mike is the ambulance are ambulance funds restricted to the fire department only that that's what the intent is um and I know before we're very restrictive about what we funded out of capital um had to prove Pro that it had something to do with the ambulance mam chair so uh who who spoke I'm sorry Cody Cody but they're a general fund uh appropriation technically if if I recall correctly from our our joint meeting um Chief Simmons indicated that the recommended budget even for the EMS was not going to necessarily support running two ambulances at the same time this this is where like I I feel like we're beyond our scope where we're trying to line item these things and pulling from you know resource or or um fund levels that Chief Simmons has you know an idea of of how he's running the budget for fire and I'm not comfortable saying take money from ambulance and stick it here and stick it there and we're going to like we're going to recommend funding all of these things when he's he's using those funds and he's earmarking or setting aside those funds for future expenditures because buying a new ambulance buying a new fire Tru maintaining all of those things like that's what those are set aside for yes it's a revenue in uh Revenue Source whenever they when they created that that service but it's funding itself and it's offsetting the the funding of other services related to it and I am not comfortable saying hey look there's a stockpile of cash over there I don't care what you've what you've necessarily earmarked that for and set it aside for to run this the way you're supposed to run it or the way that you think you want to run it we're going to come in and and stick our hand in your piggy bank and tell you where you're going to spend it I I it just it doesn't make any sense to me for us to be doing that at this level as opposed to going back to them and saying can you do this does this make sense how is this going to impact if you pull from this uh in the long run because just pulling 200,000 per fire and Personnel Services again is that going to get us into the same situation where it's not necessarily recurring Revenue it was a savings account that was set aside for future things and then the charges and expenditures under EMS the request there was 223 is is 201 going to be enough do we need to take 20 you know $22,000 out of that and and and put it towards that too that you can fully uh staff the EMS like all right so Cody this just goes back to my question of what does chief Simmons think about this before I would say that we go and do this yeah Madam chair if if I could if I could I would recommend that you approve what we have what I have recommended now and then I'll meet with Chief Simmons and go over all the long range plans for the ambulance receipts and the anticipated Revenue each year and then see if that's something that he feels is sustainable okay we come back think that we already have a motion in a second for this did we get a second for this amended budget line item believe Z you did you you did for discussion y m Madam chair if if if we agree to bring this back I'll withdraw the motion but I just want to touch a couple points that Cody made I agree with Cody that it shouldn't fire fund should not be used in other departments I think that's for the Department also I I don't have it in front of me but I believe and uh the town accountant or the town manager can correct me if I'm wrong but I believe we took in 1.9 million range last year in ambulance receipts now when we're talking about closing chly station and that ambulance doesn't become available Mansfield shows up adbor shows up Totton shows up you also lose the revenue that comes with that so the 1.9 that you're collecting starts to fade down because you're losing the revenue of the ambulance calls um so it's it's a double-edged sword there so I would be in favor of uh of hearing from uh Chief Simmons so I'll withdraw my motion at this time I'll withdraw the second into Zach's comment um the 1.9 if you're taking a million out already this year you'd be surprised how it barely stays ahead of the game which just happens and we've had a couple of good years in a row that we haven't pulled a lot from it for Capital so so I think you're right Zack think we got to take a good look at that yeah I mean personally I do remember Chief Simmons talking about you know kind of like needing this in that event that we lose an ambulance and um you know needing to fix it or buy a new one Madam chair even more Madame chair even more important than having Mansfield at adabo coming in and and taking the revenue that we would have gotten that call it's the fact that we're not giving good customer service by having the uh person having the heart attack laying on the flooor waiting for another town to show up when we should be handling it ourselves you know yes and and Madam chair just just for the record we do have two ambulances on order that have already been appropriated um in previous meetings that are backlogged because of the covid situation yeah okay so we withdrew that amendment in the second so now the chair would entertain a motion to recommend this fire department line item I I already did that you already did that okay and we had a second y okay all right Kevin yes Steve no for the same reasons the budget before okay Tracy no and for the same reasons as I had before for the police did you get say my name Paul sorry yes I did sorry yes okay Joe uh yes but that I'm agreeing with the no people I'd like Mike to to meet with Chief Simmons and understand how he feels about the ambulance receipts and also wondering if if it would be Poss if Chief Simmons is is amenable to those kind of changes which he may not be whether we could actually pull the entire three well if we could change that number to 300,000 and then move 100,000 of the money that's freed up to police somehow you know that I'm not trying to tell Mike how to do his job but hopefully we can make this work Bill yes Paul yes Cody [Music] no Zach uh no and I am a yes six yes four no Madam chair okay yes Zach uh before we move on I mean back to the to the town manager if we were able to get 200,000 from the ambulance receipts to fund the fire department can we look at ways to raise $100,000 for the police department and I know I I I know we're asking you to uh uh for the impossible but I obious yep I can I'll look at that yeah that's kind of what I was getting at too is if there's a way we can move that money even if it has to go all come from go to the the fire department like could could it be 300,000 that then frees up 100,000 for the police worth worth a discussion and it may just not work but just throwing it out there okay with that said Madam chair yes Joe uh I make a motion we accept budget 230 Emergency Medical Services line 570 charges and expenditures in the amount of $2,725 for a total of $2,725 second Madam chair second yes Cody um this is a this is adjacent to Fire and Police right this [Music] is like the the charges and expenditures related to this or in relation to first responder services this is an ambulance there was a second right yes okay Kevin okay Steve no for the same reasons Tracy no Sandy yes Joe yes Bill yes Paul yes Cody sorry what did you say Cody no Zach no and I am a yes and six yes two no I mean four no sorry madam chair move on um can I just ask Mike that if know as you're looking at these numbers if there's you know can kind of I know the ambulance is one scenario if there's any other scenarios that maybe you can give us different options you know and then pros and cons of those options like what would that be what would we be losing you talked about Highway you know what are the impacts of that um and you know just kind of give us some some Al to that that would be great thank you yeah okay any questions about these budgets do we also want to go one by one so um I just want to mention if I could um in this on this sheet the only thing that's changed is a reduction in the inspectional department personal services um I reduced the local inspector and the parttime inspectors uh a total of $6,000 um just based on the fact that you know the Building Commissioner and the cessor met they anticipate that our new growth next year will be 300,000 so I'm anticipating there'll be less inspection so I've reduced it by uh the 6,000 all right any questions on these budgets Madam chair yeah Cody um the worksheet on this does not seem to account for the $88,000 res Reserve fund transfer that was approved last week um for the Animal control officer I think that 939 1476 was what was carried prior to the reserve fund trust transfer is that right Mike it could be yeah it could be mam chair yes Steve so one thing one question I have is is on the schools every other budget that we have provides detailed salary information by individual for all the types of components of pay incentive pay longevity stiens Etc why can't we get that from the schools if we not asked personally I know I've asked over the past and then with that said I'd like to see it broken up into the department or to the expense lines that they're budgeted into what the counts are for each of those lines we we have no line of sight of that other than a total population count M CH yeah Cody I believe that was in the school packet that's been provided a couple of times they have headcount line by line of each position within the school department not the information that I received Cody so if there is something please point me in that direction but I have not seen it I'll I'll see if I can find it in the in the packet that was in one of the super funcom meetings that would be great and J yes Sandy to Steve's point we didn't get the breakdown like we got last year um we got a general categories but we didn't get the breakdown I wasn't sure if that was because some of those positions have not been notified that they're being laid off um so I didn't know if the the detail was purposely um not there because of that reason I know I know Dr O'Neal had said a couple times that she wanted to let people know um this Friday I think I think it was the 26th she said yeah so I think I'm not sure if that's that that's what the hold up is but I I agree with Steve that I would like to see the the breakdown of that um to the detail we got last year and I agree with Sandy on that one right but I think we just have to be careful I mean we just scrutinized last week several Town budgets and there's only one or two people in those and we had no problem having conversations about those so I think we we have to more of a a balanced approach in that and then going through some of the budget items and it's it's my fault for not asking at that point I see different things that I'm a little concerned with the strategy I look at substitute teachers they're budgeting $5,000 when they've expended well more than that what's the strategy is it because it's a bottomline budget and potentially they hope not a strategy that they're going to be funding that at some point throughout the year for something they didn't spend or underspend which is another benefit of the school budget with the bottom line the same thing as I'm looking at the custodial increases up there well well above 2.75% I'm looking at principal secretary lgn has gone up 8 and a half and several of those positions have gone up more than 2.75% there's another one that bothers me there's stiens for the Department chairs not budgeted last year $45,000 expended so far this year with a budget for 25 of 62 almost 63,000 what's the strategy if they're not budgeting a line item what's the strategy are they hoping to not spend it somewhere else and if so I'd like to request us to get to really put in that budget the way they're going to spend it let's see the budget the way it is actually going to be spent not the anticipated moving around if you will Mike does it make sense that Dr O'Neal and Christine are meet with us while we go over this schol budget yeah I'll I'll ask them questions I'll ask them if they're available for next Monday and um if you want just drop me an email on the detail that you'd like to see and I I'll relay that to her Adam go ahead Sandy yeah I was just going to say um to Steve's point about the salaries increasing again I think there's there's some uh maybe misunderstanding or missing information for some people that that the um you know you look at the steps and lanes and that has a huge impact on your salary increases so you're not going to see just see 2.75% that was the overall increase on the chart you know on the on the grid so to speak but like for example same thing happened with fire department you saw your salaries increase by 7.86% um you saw that we saw the police departments theirs um went up by 5.77% their their increase in their requests anyway um before the Cuts so again I I think you know that the you're not you're that's just not reason or you know an expectation to that you should have to see that that 2.75 is going to be reflected in the Personnel that when you look at people getting um different degrees and and credits and things and they move across and then they also move down each year as they get more experience up until I think 15 years is what this the schools have so you know unless you're 15 been teaching over 15 years you're going to make more than 2.75% and I think we do have a um we've had a little bit of lot of turnover in the last couple years I think is especially in some of the elementary schools so I think we have a lot on that lower end on that of the the scale that have then the the downside of that is that their increases are are bigger each year and I agree with you on that Sandy but we can go to the detail on any of those other departments and see what's driving it where the schools who can't because we don't get that detail I I would agree I want to see I would like to see the breakdown as well St I can appreciate that Adam so next Monday Mike sure I'll yeah I'll ask tomorrow uh yes Zach so on the schools I mean it's two-thirds of the budget I think you know touching on what Steve has to say that should be just a meeting in itself the schools are on there with all the detail with the with the uh uh the superintend and to ask questions I mean we've spent how many hours discussing an $88,000 bill for a dog officer and we're just going to vote on $35 million on on this I mean it doesn't make much sense I I just think the school school's two-thirds of the budget should be a me at least one meeting in itself with nothing else on the agenda and the second question I have for Mike is on the Communication Center why the $150,000 increase um we that ansfield and Foxboro been paying 450 they paid that last year we were still at 300,000 because uh East and Norton started a year later in uh the center so that that's why it's up this year and is there any is there anybody else I know they was talk of other Town signing on any news on that we we are still we had a meeting again last week um we're working with six other towns to uh see if we can bring them in Madam chair yes Mike and with that said is there any other anticipated increases in the assessment for bonding or any equipment or anything forthcoming no not not through the year no um and if we bring in the other towns uh we hope to uh keep the cost down so uh spread it out over six more towns hopefully uh keep the assessment down I don't I don't see it being reduced but hopefully uh it'll stay pretty stable Madam chair yeah Cody um Steve I shared the uh the school budget detail um recognizing it is not the 1% budget detail um I think from The Joint meeting the last joint meeting we had um I believe she said she had until she had to notify teachers as of April 26th yeah she said the 26 yeah I think that was the date so there's no way for her to be able to provide a budget with the actual Cuts but it was 29.4 positions that were going to be cut based on the uh the 1% budget that was provided um but this like that budget detail was in the packet from our um March 25th uh discussion with them it was also in the uh The Joint meeting under the select board and it's got if if you go back into the the worksheets back behind I I recognize that it's not the 1% because they they put together the the level Services budget which we had asked him to do um so the numbers that are in there do carry fiscal year 22 23 actuals and then the budget for uh fiscal year 24 so it does have line by line by position by Department by school um that's that's about as detailed as I think I would need um without getting into you know who exactly is getting paid how much I just gonna say Cody I just GNA say that that doesn't break it out into the individual teachers it shows you know a couple million dollars for teachers at the um at the L school and the different schools in Broad categories it's not the detail like the I think Steve was referring a police fire it actually shows every individual you know correct yeah M Madam chair we definitely got a more um a more broken down depart uh budget last year in the packet um with was broken down so I'm sure that you know she has that and again I do again think that that has something to do with the the notifications having not gone out yet and I feel we should level set going forward we expect that in each Year's budget all right so we definitely will wait on voting that line item so we'll do all of these individually on this page any other questions on any of the other departments I hearing none the chair would entertain a motion to recommend the emergency planning budget uh Madam chair U is there any reason why we can't do the three without the school department together I I saw your mouth move but I did not hear you I suppose we could I thought we were moving to do it line by line but we can go back to doing it the other way just does anyone have any objection to that okay okay Madam chair I make a motion that we accept budget 240 emergency planning line 570 charges and expenditures in the amount of $972 for a total of 9,720 budget $241 Inspection Department line 510 Personnel Services in the amount of 2483 $52 and line 570 charges and expenditures in the amount of $9,975 for a total of $258,300 Communication Center Line 510 Personnel Services there's nothing there line 560 assessment in the amount of $450,000 for a total of $450,000 and budget 292 Animal Control uh in line 510 Personnel Services in the amount of $17 $375 and line 570 charges and expenditures in the amount of $1,310 for a total of $8,699 second Kevin yes Steve yes Tracy yes Sandy yes Joe yes Bill yes Paul yes Cody yes Zach no yes 9 yes one no okay you want to keep going yep do I want to want and need are too different yeah all right southeastern regional anyone have questions or comments on these budgets chair yes Joe I make a motion that we accept budget 306 Southeastern Regional Vocational line 560 Assessments in the amount of 1,692 1899 for a total of $1,692 1899 are we going back to so we're going back to budget by budget again not the whole page let me if I if I could Madam chair yeah um just um one adjustment on uh this page um was under the Board of Health personal services um I reviewed the salary for um one of the staff in that office who is planning on retiring this year not this next fiscal year uh they are going to be working uh but they're going to retire uh before uh December I and so I adjusted the Sal salary based on what the cost would be to replace that person and so I reduced uh the personel services from 198 989 to 195 767 thank you for that uh I'm happy to do them all if people want to do that I doesn't matter hey what about this page do people want to do budget by budget or the whole page for this one whole page whole page page so in addition to that uh budget 308 Regional uh agricultural School line 560 assessments one for a to in the amount of $149,950 for a total of $149,950 budget 420 Highway line 510 Personnel Services in the amount of 93,587 charges and expenditures in the amount of $133,500 surface treatment in the amount of $14,000 line 581 repairs to private ways in the amount of $1,000 for a total of 1, 51,6 144 budget 423 snow removal line 570 charges and expenditures in the amount of $80,000 for a total of $80,000 and budget 510 Board of Health line 510 Personnel Services in the amount of 95,7 and line 570 charges and expenditures in the amount of $6,250 for a total of $22,700 yes Joe yes Bill yes Paul yes Cody no Zach uh no I am yes okay we have eight yes two no Madam chair yes uh Paul did I skip you no no just an observation um the southeastern regional I think her name was Holly superintendent was talking about the formulas and it came out to over $177,000 for student from Norton to go there and if I'm doing the math right it's only $10,000 for student to go to Bristol Agy isn't that the same formulas we got 15 students going to Bristol agie and it's only 150,000 different budg just didn't make sense to me different budgets set by different boards I thought one was she was saying she was absolutely the Bare Bones minimum allowed but the southeastern regional so I'm just surprised it would be that much lower if they're doing Bare Bones at the Aggie like just an observation Cody you know I don't know if agricultural schools are on a different level than vocational schools I I couldn't answer that yeah okay just an observation yeah Madam chair my suspicion is is based on the curriculums and the the labs and things that are needed that the the costs are going to be wildly different yeah okay any questions discussion on these budgets I'm just Madam chair yeah so I I forget what budget we pulled is it the 17,000 19,000 so the reserve fund is this is this where gets into the library yeah I believe so Madam chair yes Sandy I mean I know it's it's only a dent but wouldn't it make more sense to put it into police and buyer or police fire since we're prioritizing those seems like that's how the conversation is gone tonight how does everyone else feel agree good Madam chair yes bill um I I'll be honest I'm not sure maybe to Cody's Point uh a meeting or two ago you know it's a hanging fruit I'm not sure what 13 15,000 is really going to do for police and fire um you know that still leaves a gaping hole and and I wasn't a fan of this whole thing to begin with but um if you got the money to make something whole versus just making the hole a little smaller i' guess I'd go to filling the hole entirely and and 13 177,000 whatever isn't going to do bleep for police and fire Madam chair yeah Joe uh I tend to agree um it would be nice to have something behold uh and you know there's it's a sort of a black eye to say that we're one of six communities in Massachusetts where the libraries aren't aren't fully accredited So Adam chair yeah Paul so um I agree um the Brian stalters did a a Admiral job bringing up the fact that they've been on borrowed time with the co allowing them to look the other way and that they might actually get decertified if we don't do it but also I was impressed by the um the parent who got up there with the daughter that did the pictures kind of showing and he made the comment that you know the library is probably going to be more sought after than ever uh with the way things are getting whacked around at the schools and everything so I think that we ought to uh put the um the funds that they needed and I'm not sure what that figure actually was Mike um that the liers were looking for it would be the 609 655 um so how much of an increase is that Mike 17 yep just under 17 17 yeah so if you need that in the form of of a motion to move it forward I certainly would entertain adding that back into the library I can could probably go line by line on this page and then make that Amendment there when we get to library uh what if we were to group everything except the library and then do the library separate okay we can do that too sorry it's okay I'm just trying to trying to power through here all right uh so Madam chair yes Joe uh I make a motion that we accept uh the following budgets budget 522 public health nurse charges and expenditures line 570 in the amount of $12,000 for a total of $122,000 uh budget 541 Council on Aging line 510 Personnel Services in the amount of $152,450 and line 570 charges and expenditures in the amount of $7,100 for a total of $29,500 veterans agent line 510 Personnel Services in the amount of $15,804 70 charges and expenditures in the amount of $3,150 and line 57 n veterans benefits in the amount of $150,000 for a total of $28,946 30 Recreation uh line 510 Personnel Services in the amount of $3,849 and line 570 charges and expenditures in the amount of $1,891 for a total of $507 40 back a motion a second Kevin yes Steve one quick question sorry on the veteran on the veterans benefits if we capit at 150,000 I know it's a reimbursable fund from the state do we have to say no to a veteran if it goes over that 150 no you would have to provide the services and uh the veterans agent would have to come back to you for uh a reserve fund transfer okay all right um it worries me concerns me but I will say yes uh Tracy yes Sandy yes Joe yes Bill yes Paul yes Cody yes Zach no nine yes one no Madam chair so the library line item Madam chair I make a motion that we accept the budget line budget 610 Library uh with the following changes uh line 57 70 other charges and expenditures uh at the amount of $609,500 for a total of $ 69,6 155 second a motion in a second Kevin yes Steve no Trace yes Sandy no Joe yes yes Bill do we need to say where the difference is coming from otherwise yes I don't think we do because Mike already took it out of the reserve fund correct yep you did with your recommendation yeah so sorry Bill what did you say what's your vote Yes Paul yes yes Zach yes I am a yes 8 yes two no think you're done are we though this no oh yeah we you haven't voted so one more just to go back here I know last time uh employee benefits and unemployment um I know that at the uh meeting we had with the school department they had said um that 19 teachers were going to be laid off and anywhere from 19 to 24 people would be laid off um so what I figured here was 19 um and I think we should go with that for now if 24 people get laid off I doubt that 24 people are going to stay on unemployment some of them are getting jobs probably hopefully most of them are getting jobs if they get laid off in this economy um so uh if we had to we can decide uh we we could add money again in October to the unemployment and uh see what happens uh between now and October but I think this should be more than enough to get us through uh for unemployment and then the health insurance is reduced accordingly Madam chair yes Andy I just I do want to point out that that teachers since their contract ends in June unless their summer contract of some sort could all collect unemployment in the summer so they you know even if they get a job in September they could collect all summer right and this what I planned on with the 341,000 was through October so it would get us to November 1st if if we had 19 people that were at the max on unemployment and all were collecting till November 1st Madam chair yeah Cody um so if we're if we under budget on this unemployment comp in the fall we would have to pull from free Cash correct essentially okay and for the record that's what I think free cash should be going towards is stuff like this we shouldn't have to be carrying 341,000 in in a budget year-over-year for unemployment so right that's in my opinion proper use of free cash in the fall Adam chair yeah Zach to Sand's point I know my wife switched jobs last year I she she gets paid every other week and she get paid to September and the medical benefits from one job to the X lasted till September so is that accurate that they would be able to collect June 1st can somebody just verify that I I can I mean I know that for a fact just Z because I know collected um if they're let go not June 1st June 30th I think or June whatever the the end of the school is your your paychecks are stretched out through the year but you're not an employee after after June but they'll carry the medical insurance till till till through the summer yeah I'm not sure how the medical ins works yeah that that's great that's they know if they're on unemployment and they're laid off they wouldn't be on the medical insurance they may be able to collect unemployment that's one of the big things that never gets corrected in the state that teachers that are technically compensated for a whole year could get laid off could get hired back but they they still get to collect during the summer they should my own my idea is they shouldn't be able to collect until the school year starts and they're still don't have a job yeah Mike the the reason asked that is my wife resigned from a position last year and They Carried our insurance through September one you know she resigned at the end of the school year and and they was done but our insurance was carried to September one until she got a new job she yeah she was probably getting her paycheck spread out over the whole summer yeah correct okay questions or discussions for employee benefits or or unemployment compensation okay hearing nothing chair would entertain a motion to recommend Madam budg yes Cody I just want to I want to throw out a hypothetical um on the unemployment compensation let's say it is 340,000 341 we know it's going to get adjusted one way or another [Music] um what the what's the harm in having to come back for more in the fall versus carrying a $341,000 line item in the budget when we're already tight because we're already like we're already using 1.2 million or whatever from free cash into this budget what's the difference between like intentionally underfunding this line item budget and having to pull more from free cash in the fall um so I can look at that um I'll check with the treasury collector and see when the bills come each month to see how far behind they are um so you know we could take October for example and not fund October because we'd be having a town meeting and maybe maybe even September but I'll check with the town clerk Town treasure and see when the bills come this might be an so if you want to wait on it we can wait Madam chair yes Sandy I'm also noticing the employee benefits are 500,000 that we cut right so that um because of those cut positions so that's also somewhat of a guess um right I guess Cody to your to your point it's kind of it's it's it's not even a wash it's a little bit more of a cut than a so yeah we're putting extra 300,000 um in unemployment but we're taking out 500,000 from employee benefits Madam chair yeah Bill weren't we the weren't we the body a week or two ago who said to Mike hey unemployment isn't enough um just saying we we're the ones that caused it to increase so it I find it comical that now we're saying ah put it down again and Madam chair if I could to follow up on what Sandy was saying if unemployment if we don't need that much well then we know we're going to need more possibly in health insurance so if we leave it here we can always move it in the fall from unemployment to health insurance rather than have both accounts sure short Adam chair thank you I just want to respond quickly to bill so my memory of the conversation about this I think last week the weeks blend together was that there was a question on what that unemployment compensation was based on the number of employees laid off um so I don't think we were necessarily asking for it to be increased we were just trying to get a clarification on what that number was based on and Zach yeah I was just going to say that the the the school layoffs too are a moving Target I mean just even just the last joint meeting we had she said she go may go from $30 a student to $100 a student the federal funding hasn't come in they don't have they don't really have all their numbers until sometime in the middle of the summer so that could go either way in regards to the layoffs I think she's she's doing using her best estimates at this point of uh of uh what she thinks is going to happen but it's always subject to change if if you know she gets more Federal funding if she you know just like we should discussed at the uh at the meeting yeah so are we holding off on both of these budgets or just 911 um well if you move forward on these budgets as is um I think you you'd be fine until October and maybe we have to lower unemployment insurance in October but we might have to put that into the health insurance if the layoffs aren't as bad as we thought Madam chair yeah Cody so just Mike just to put a finer point on this from for my own brain if we're looking at employee benefits and unemployment C kind of in in tandem or in conjunction each other we wouldn't have to wait until the end of the year to do a return back for free cash because we didn't spend or we UND spend or whatever the whatever the case may be we could have a better idea of what it looks like in the fall and transfer from one line item to the other correct does that could that also potentially mean we could transfer it to somewhere else um if we know the employee benefits like whatever the it doesn't necessarily have to go from unemployment to employee benefits or vice versa right it's if we're well under that 341,000 then we look at at moving it from that line item to a different completely different department correct okay thank you okay so do we want to move forward on voting to recommend these budgets mam CH I don't have a problem either way but you can also wait to hear from the super intend it next week if if that's what you choose Madam chair I don't know if waiting for the superintendent till next week would matter too much because like you were saying Zach things could even change in June true it's a moving Target yeah Madam chair yeah Cody I'm personally I'm comfortable recommending these as they are if we want to if we want to move them um tonight I voting no on the other big ticket items was to figure out where we would potentially pull from and I don't see it potentially being pulled from this so I'm fine with with recommending these as as presented okay all right Madam chair yes Joe I make a motion that we accept the following budgets budget 910 employee benefits line 510 Personnel Services in the amount of 4,156 463 line 511 other Personnel Services in the amount of 8,627 769 line 570 charges and expenditures in the amount of $633,000 for a total of 13,417 232 and budget 911 unemployment compensation line 570 charges and expenditures in the amount of $341,900 Trace yes Sandy yes Joe yes Bill yes Paul yes Cody yes Zach no I am a yes okay so we have eight yes one stain one no okay it's all you have for us tonight Mike that's it I'll see some of you Wednesday yes Joe will be graciously chairing the meeting on Wednesday evening thank you Joe yeah take it easy and I'll be at on I'll be at EDC meeting on Wednesday at B iron Brew Madam chair yes Zach so what is the I'm just curious on the process going forward here uh are we gonna talk about a 3% a $4 million budget and a$6 million dollar budget or is that going to be after after the town meeting so I believe that Mike will still have to go through those budgets we will uh I can tell you what I would like to do I'm going to bring it up at the select board meeting Thursday night I would like to Thursday night schedule an election it would have to be at least 35 days from that time on May 13th so the election would be after May 13 on May 13th we could have town meeting and do everything but the budgets have the vote first and then come back to town meeting for the budgets so because I I just envisioned total confusion at town meeting with three budgets and trying to explain three budgets to people okay can you just repeat what you said so you'd not want to present the budgets to town meeting on May 15 right You' want to keep that article out of it out of the warrant that that's what i' I'd want to do I schedule the election hold off on the budget discussion until after the vote so we know whether we're doing a 1% budget in a $4 million override or a 1% budget in a 6.5 million so we only have two budgets that we have to iron out and present at town meeting rather than have three so you'd want a special Town election first first that would choose which override right budget but that's not another town meeting to present just the budgets correct and you are going to talk to the select board on Thursday about this yeah can I ask you a question on that on the election part Mike yeah so I'm a little confused on how that that works if you're gonna have three things on the ballot and it's going to say $6 million $4 million no override and how exactly is that calculated so I go in there I have vote one option two what what am I voting for right I'm I'm still I actually emailed the attorney today and uh asked her can you write the question and then you can you explain how the process works to me after that so uh because of too bad we don't have we don't have ranked Choice voting here yeah exactly I was saying if if if 30% of the public votes for let's say a $6 million override and then 30% of the public votes for a $4 million override and then 40% of the public votes for no override the no override wins isn't that the we don't have rank Choice voting here how exactly does that work and then the town meeting would present that those two override budgets so election right if 40% of the people vote no override you wouldn't have an override oh so I mean so by immediately I think it's candidates whoever gets the most vote out of the three candidates is the winner M chair yes Sandy I did find a sample ballot um for a different town and it's just it's you know written as two questions so we would be seeing as two questions one would be um will you do you want a $4 million override yes no a second question do you want a $6 and a half million dollar override yes no so I think that's the that's the right from what I've seen from other towns so you wouldn't have a if you vote no on both you don't want an override you could vote Yes on both and you again the higher the one that gets majority and is higher wins so to speak um or you could just vote for one so so the way I am I understanding this correctly that a majority of the people in town let's just say hypothetical vote for an override of some kind and it could still fail at the ballot boxs based on the three choices but I think the the idea is that if you votee for a six and a half million maybe you should Al you could also vote for the four million right if you really want an override you'd vote for both or you just vote for four million if you don't like the higher number I just think my personal view is that just causes confusion to people going to The Ballot Box I'm not sure how that's going to be explained um I don't know I I you're waiting for uh the attorney to come back to you Mike yeah if you could share that with the rest of us that would be interesting because yeah I'll let you know I'm still confused now let's just let's what one second bill so say the select board does not want to go this route after Thursday what does our schedule look like to get through two more budgets before we have to post the warrant are we on schedule to do that um that will be tough Madam chair yeah uh sorry Bill was first well Mike might have just answered my question I'm I'm now a little confused in in if we all of a sudden seem to have more time if we're not necessarily deadlocked to a budget then what's the purpose of Wednesday's meeting because if he's if you're extending it out then I think Wednesday we have to have the meeting it was posted today and we w we weren't doing budget at the meeting on Wednesday and he hasn't got approval bill from the select board yet to do that he's gonna ask the select bu so they could say no and that their meetings after our Wednesday scheduled meeting we have to plan accordingly to I guess plan a of going through three budgets in a short amount of time Madam chair yes Andy ask that a question for Mike um on the 4 million and the six and a half million um when is it going to be decided how that sort of even even just split General government versus schools um is that something that you've um come up with is that something select Board needs to weigh in on um who who kind of has to come up with those priorities um well the way I I anticipated was that I would take it just like I did do any budget I would just prepare my recommendations based on asset having $4 million more and present them to you which then you can review and say no we don't want to do that we want to do this Madam chair yeah Cody um two things first everything that has been communicated to the public to this point has been that there would be 1% 4 million 6 a half so you can literally see what it is you're voting for as opposed to just a IAL here's a number we're going to throw it out there vote for it yes or no you don't really know what you're getting for for it um so I don't understand why we're why we change the communication that has been had with everyone at this point which is exactly that like here what was the point of that joint meeting we're just going to go out just yeah we we the whole plan yeah in that joint meeting it was discussed that doing it this way we presenting the budgets at a town meeting to be able to answer questions and um you know be clear about everything to the town was kind of the way to go as opposed to them not and having present what exactly they're like here here's the allotment of 4 million like the option at 4 million here are the things that fire will will keep here are the things that police will keep here's the things that schools will keep here's the things that Council on Aging will keep or add or whatever like that that was the whole point was here's what 4 million option gets you here's what $6 and5 million doll gets you and whether or not like you have a legitimate discussion here are all the cuts that we're actually talking about here's all the people that have been noticed that they're getting laid off here's a $4 million option and the people that wouldn't have to be laid off here's a $6.5 million option the people that not only won't get laid off but we could add additional positions because we're talking about you know everybody gets stuck on fire and police and and and schools but we're also talking on Council on Aging and Highway Department and you know veterans and like everything else that that we're we're talking about here the whole point there was literally this is what you're voting for instead of saying yeah raise your taxes $4 million we don't really know what it's going for we'll figure that out later why wouldn't we have that before the ballot vote we could saying we would we were gonna skip it at town meeting skip that but we right we could still have some discussion on if a four million override pass this is what would be added back if a 6.5 added but I just a suggestion whatever you know as as I said it's up to the board what they want to do but is the you're saying that those those numbers would still be at town meeting or those those numbers are just going to be on the ballot and then once the determination on the ballot then it goes to town meeting to to vote on the allocation of it that's the opposite of what we've what we discussed in our joint meeting which was here's the allocation determine whether or not you want to vote on it and then send it to a ballot and I I think that I think that was based on the fact that we weren't going to make the April Town election so there was going to have to be a special election um I don't know if the thought was that we weren't going to be able to have and we the thought was we weren't going to be able to have that before town meeting so we got to go to town meeting and then go to the ballot but either way but Mike had something to say hold on I just wanted to um point out one of the things that I think um Lauren Goldberg said was that if you don't have it at the town meeting you'd want to have some you know public information sessions to present bugets um as because the the advantage of having at the town meeting is that you then that is your information session right you can present and you can explain everything um and have it all laid out if we if we did not do that then I think we would need need to have some information sessions to explain the three budgets and and and still have those numbers worked out to Cody's point right that that we still need to see where those numbers where those amounts were going and those numbers would be worked out prior to a ballot vote yeah can I ask how much how how much time has been spent on the 4 million 665 million options like how far along the process you are with that um I know what I think I had it at the Joint meeting what if we got A4 million doll overy what I would recommend adding back already I have that on the town side I know and now I'll have to work on 6.5 million Madam chair uh I think Paul had something for a sack Paul did you still want to speak yeah Mike if we have it right at the town meeting and we present the three budgets and the 1% passes and the other two don't then there's no need of a town meeting a town election right a town election correct so I'm just not sure why we don't go ahead and present the three budgets uh right at the town meeting as proposed and then uh only have the election if we need it Zach I know nobody likes to listen to me but uh if the want any success any success at all in this they need to come to one number I mean I know nobody watches these meetings but I just think this is just my personal view seeing we're in the Ed editorial section of the uh meeting this point is come up with one number whatever that number is because this confusion uh where people are going to go in the bipox and you know again we even the town manager at this point doesn't understand the rules of this how do you expect the people to uh but that's my two cents okay anyone else have dis further discussion on this or anything else Madam chair yeah Cody I'm just curious what the uh the rules around or the laws around public hearing and I know that's like that's why we have to have the Wednesday meetings because we haven't gone through all the articles on the uh on the warrant so we have to make make a determination final recommendations on all that before before the public hearing is that no so no to my understanding is we were just trying to use as much time as we can to get through everything we have to get through um we have to still vote on all of the Articles we still I assumed up until just 10 minutes ago that we still had to go through two more budgets um so just in the interest of the time we had left we needed to schedule a couple more meetings to fit everything in not necessarily trying to get through it before Monday okay just getting through it before we have to post the warrant yeah so the warrant like the posting of the warrants like the final drop dead date but Wednesday's meeting is going to be the non-budget items in the the articles that we're going through plan Madam chair yeah Zach one other thought seeing that may be a little bit more interest this year than uh the previous years I've been here has there been anybody give any thought about having this public Hearing in person someplace where people can show up ver rather than virtual so we've already posted it as a virtual mic is that right it's already been advertised yeah is there uh Madam chair just Zach's Point as long as I mean is there anything if people wanted to gather in a location and host the the webinar discussion for Town Hall and still I mean is that would that be against the rules to say there will be a venue where we're hosting it and it but like everything's going to be online I I'm not opposed to having so like if people want to I just don't know if it's if it's breaking any rules since it's been posted as an online um meeting I mean if a group of people gather around one computer uhuh that's not a not an issue but it doesn't necessarily mean that there's a public forum at that single as long as as long as long as there's not uh a majority of the finance committee in that room okay anything else any other discussion I did send minutes to everyone honestly I haven't looked at them at all um so we can definitely table minutes to when we have a little bit less on our plate um at a future meeting is my recommendation with that but if anyone feels different feel free all right I agree okay I didn't get a chance to look at them at all so yeah okay hearing no more discussion no questions the chair would entertain a motion to adjourn this evening's meeting no moved Okay Kevin yes okay sorry uh Steve yes Tracy yes Joe yes Bill yes Paul yes Cody yes Zach yes okay I to M yes all right good night everyone