h hello I don't have my normal computer so you'll have to can you hear me I can't hear you hold on can you hear me yeah no Peg you muted but I can hear you too I can hear you okay awesome now now can you hear me I can okay good I have to adjust my screen one second okay
and my dog just took my chair did you happen well you know Top Dog April that's right no yes oh man um Ann will be joining us soon I think and poor Kathy Kathy yeah what happened she has Co oh no yep and she says she's taking uh what
chity that stuff but she has the cough she's coughing a lot she's really really tired and I remember that hopefully fingers crossed so far yeah I um I haven't uh I only had it that once I haven't had it yet no I didn't give it to my husband yeah I've had it I've had it we didn't we didn't quarantine either we we didn't and I didn't catch it when
had it like months and months later well that's good yeah we weren't sneezing and coughing either so yeah welcome George hello so long I feel like I'm coming home you are good that's good we have a limited time with George okay yeah something came up I got a scadaddle yeah so and well we'll keep we'll get started and Ann will be joining us okay so I'm going to put that well
let's let's Wait Another Minute she has H Co she's not well oh that's terrible yeah so she's not she's really not feeling good I haven't heard about Co in a while is it coming around again she's the first she's the first person I know that now around here that has it yeah we're all stuck indoors yep well let's wait till 5:30 um okay and then we'll go from there at 529
and I think Ann will be joining us soon okay and maranne maranne is there but I wonder I well she's not I can't hear but she's there yeah and we'll see her at six yeah that sounds good so George welcome thank you nice to see you all I have to tell you I haven't been wearing my Celtics hat lately is that why we're losing yeah that must be it
I I mean I can't figure out why they're losing all the time all of a sudden they're doing terribly Terri I know it's awful what if I wore the Hat I never I'm not into this at all do you think that would help couldn't hurt help you know it's winter you can't wear a little cap and Ann's here I got her I okay good okay so let's start this meeting it's 5:30 um okay all right Ann welcome welcome
and let's get going um everybody's here except for Kathy yeah well let's get the meeting started okay and um George is going to talk to us about parameters about co uh the cola and we I don't know furog is out yet is the furog it's not no and so yeah it's unfortunately um I know you wanted to we were talking last year about doing another alignment study right and the
line yeah I I should be able to get to it um pretty packed schedule and the finance committee has been a little more demanding than most years but um helping with G with the budget but um I should be able to get it done I don't just don't know how quickly what I can show you is the the cola calculation and what we've been doing the last few years and I I wasn't I wasn't on the committee when that was developed so I wasn't sure
how it was developed or if we could review that and the whole idea of reviewing it and making sure that it is keeping employees that's that's what we're that's the main goal and we probably won't be able to do the second part until um till the fur clogs out and all of that so George what George why don't you to sort of yeah can you take over Melissa's screen or the screen yeah I'm gonna just hit the share y let me let me make you a great yeah and so what I did was we calculate the cola at the
every February based on be you should be all set okay we we calculated every February based on the um CPI index and at the end of January so we don't have that yet but um what I did was I took December's index and I'll just update it in a month but this will give us an estimate of where we're going to be um for for the fiscal year but
before I go there I just let me so to address April's comment about how did this come about it came about because every year the select board the finance committee and and the Personnel Board would sit down and try to come up with the cola for the upcoming budget and there was no real process to it there was no real um parameter or just
it was mostly debating and you had ended up year after year having people on one side of the room who wanted to limit the increases and then those bleeding hearts on the other side of the room wanting to make sure that they were getting a decent wage and it just we it was always hard to come to consensus and ultimately it was just based on a vote and there was never really any consensus so it was you know somebody came up with the bright idea why don't we just use the CPI why don't we just use inflation indexes I
think that was you George um may have been may have been me um so what we decided was the policy is right here and you can all read it in this this is the policy but basically I'll just critique it real quick we decided that we would use a rolling three-year average of the inflation indexes so that there wouldn't be great so that there wouldn't be volatility in the pay increases from year to year we we try to smooth it out
but uh someone suggested that we put guidelines on it when we have inflation that is higher than 4% for a year we would use 4% for that year and you'll see that down low con conversely we would never use something less than 1% for any year even if there was negative inflation or less than 1% inflation so that's the policy and
Peg I can send this to you afterwards and you can have this but at some point it will have to be updated um for January so then we did some research and we decided that these were the indexes to use and it basically represents New England all Urban consumers in New England there's not a whole lot of indexes um and this was the one we decided was most closely uh related to
town cbury Franklin County and so the first year on that is index year 2017 so what I did was I went um to the FED website and I looked up these codes and I'm going to skip down this is what you get when you go to the website they have the code the description a little graph of how inflation has been going and then have the tables of the indexes and it's the differences in the index from month to month year to year
that that we calculate the percentage increase in inflation so for instance 124 559 is December 24 that's the most recent number I put that number here but what we've been doing is each year at the end of the January we've been collecting what the index is so 105 658 21 105 658 oh I'm a liar 10 oh wait 105 658 so
you can see these are the ones we've been using year to year and those numbers are right here and then I would calculate the change so from here to here there was a 2% increase in fact if you look at it 100 to 102 it's almost perfect and then the next year was 225 and then 61 61 under our policy 1.99 2.25 are in the range of one to four but this is too low so we use
the one and then take the three-year rolling average this is just taking those three years in calculating the average and then subsequent year inflation was over 4% we use 4% and then the four-year rolling calculation was 2 2.42 same situation here created created a a 3% average as
you can see c441 is n pretty straightforward there and then so on and so forth so now last year was actually within range so there was no reason to adjust the limit so what we ended up with were these have been the pay increases that we've been giving employees year to year and right now if January's index didn't go up at all stayed flat from December it would be 9 at 2.92 chances are this is going
to go up and this will be closer to 2.95 I'm expecting it's going to be somewhere around 2.95 give or take one you know 2.96 2.94 so this is what we've been doing so for the purposes of this conversation today I I did these calculation what this is is the three-year rolling without the limit so this is taking the average based on this column where
I'm sorry okay so that makes sense right and so what I what I see here is the calculations and now you can see we're getting much higher numbers because inflation was higher and this is the difference between what we gave and what we would have given had we not had limits so I probably should shorten this here you can get a bit see more closer together and you can see the difference
and so we have been lagging behind and this is why the alignment study I think I based on this I think the alignment study is probably not going to yield us very good results as far as so and last year it didn't look good no it looked like we're slipping and I um so everybody knows I did a little calculation April I sent you the one for the police chief yes yeah um I used to do that for Becky every year anytime there was a contract negotiation she'd like just take all the salaries for all
the towns for specific jobs so for the police chief I send it along to April and that one makes us look not good anybody who looks at the wage tax survey and looks at police Chiefs are getting in Franklin County and Compares it to shutesbury I think we're going to find that um we have not kept up and I think this could be part of the reason although the police chief wasn't negotiated so I'm not sure that it is but we're going to appreciate that
this this year the only this year the only other thing I would add is so I mean we can see the difference between what we did and what we could have done um the question is what have other towns been doing you know how have other towns been addressing inflation rates that were two or three times higher than what has historically been the case for the last 20 years have they been giving raises at this level I don't think so but I don't
know well perog will help us with that a little bit right or yeah we'll certainly see where where we are relative to everybody else George could you explain to me um again the red in the January column uh 2025 December 24 could you tell me again about that so we use januaries that's why this says January but this is December of O So until um not until the end of the first or second
week of February will I have januaries and once I do I'll put that in here and then we'll have the right calculation so I'm calculating the three-year rolling based on um Cola each Year's um increase and this increase of 2.79 is just what it would be as of December from last January but I'll put januaries in it'll be another number more like this and then I'll get
the actual calculation and then this will be the actual pay increase based on and George can can you remind me what committee came up with the three-year rolling average was that this committee or f p this committee okay yeah Personnel I mean I don't know if you want to be on record saying this George but do you feel like that's still a good good approach well that I think that's why you wanted to do the alignment studies to see how rep Fairing and based
on what I see here I'd say you know the employees are probably not keeping up with inflation um yeah well then I think the uh the spike in inflation took us all off guard and I don't think we can assume that will never happen again right yeah in retrospect I wonder if we should 5% yeah yeah I was gonna ask you that too about that and do you know George
yeah we were we served together serve together for one year yes for one year so who is this strange person coming um wow so it's a lot to digest so so here's the numbers let me yeah I it is there's no easy path no and then George when the actual increases happen does it always go out you don't ramp up 2.92 to three right
it's right we go no so I argue for you know going one percentage place but somebody wanted to go to so okay he liked the idea to so we go we literally use that number wow that was last year's number yeah I know I'm I don't I don't believe in the hundreds myself so I just so I just this is the number at 4% so if I use 5% right and we call that five and call
that five now our differences aren't nearly as great right and our average stays up and last year I'm sorry that was my phone last year was a 3.3 it would have been 4% so you know it is a fairly substantial difference going from four to five yeah so maybe the rolling average is not a good idea in in this particular case um I think the rolling
average would be a good ideaa if we didn't have a limit oh yeah I like the idea of the Rolling average because it's Smooths out increases and it's not like one year I got 6% the next year I got two yeah it would be a more you know people could plan their lives a little better around it but it also meant you know there's 7% inflation rate and we gave a 1.62% No 2 point I mean we gave it 2.42 yeah yeah and there that don't think I
think that hurt people and we could say it'll catch up when it when if when it goes down but the catchup has not been that great right yeah I and yeah I I tend to think that and again I don't think it's so much the three-year rolling as I think it's the limit so if you took the limit off entirely what would that how would that calculate out well that's this one yeah that's this and there's your difference
okay and then like I said we could make it 5% and that certainly closed this these these numbers got not as far off and you don't have to make a decision now unfortunately I don't think we're gonna have the alignment study done in time for the budget yeah we really need to though yeah i' I've asked I've asked Gabe as soon as she gets it to send it to me I asked Becky too as a matter of
fact if she sees it in Sunderland please send it to me yeah the end of January when end of it usually comes out the 10th like February 10th 12th 13th somewhere around there and when are the when is the budget decided George um I don't know April what do you think um beginning of April a town meeting's going to be the end of April so yeah so March end of March yeah oh
hopefully with the school that's that's a whole other thing yeah it would be it would be interesting to to if we could calculate this out the the numbers using just straight cost of living increase for each one there's the four year the three-year rolling average with limits well and and without the guide we've done the ones with limits but one without the limits to see where we land yeah so if if if that was the case then
the increase would be 343 okay this year because that's what these three average out to okay and what is it actually and our under our policy using December's number it would be 2.8 2.79 okay so you know that's this different that's this difference it' be half a percent so how does it fit in where you know if we really are that off you know
if the alignment is off that much we're going to have to do what we did a number of years ago is just is bump up this the positions that have been most impacted by that yeah and you know that's what we did last year for a couple positions and we might have to do it for a few more this year and if we keep you know you don't want to do that every year especially this year in particular because we have a real problem with this budget this year we're looking at a huge increase in expenses and the revenue and
the new Revenue just aren't going to be able to cover them the elementary school the regional school health insurance it's just it's all adding up the police department wants restructure we're increasing hours for the administrative assistant which are all things we have to do I don't think we're wasting I don't or I think we're generally quite Frugal but this is the reality yeah and you know the Town Administrator salary is going to go up the police chief's going to be negotiating yeah so then fire next
year so that would be 27 and it does seem like we do salary adjustments above and beyond the cola we've done that quite a few times and it would be nice if we could cut that out the whole point of this was really to make it proor if you will to just have a formula and a methodology that would just be would work we missed those annual fights yeah it was I think it was to subvert some of that yeah no that was the point this absolutely yeah now the
fight is do we use a four five or or no you know Cola limit right but at least it's our discussion mostly rather true the three the three all three sitting in a room together um yeah I'm I'm leaning towards not having a limit on Cola I think that that that's at least a starting point at looking at this you know maybe keep the rolling average but there's no limit on Cola and that really would have impacted I don't know what
yeah it would have impacted this oh it would have definitely the employees would definitely be closer to the other towns in frankly yeah and we've got great employees we do we do not want to lose them no no and it's just so much time and energy and effort to hire new employees yeah yeah Municipal Employees just it's there's not a lot of people with municipal experience because the Master
General law has specific rules they are different than Private Industry yeah it's interest yeah working for the government you know working for the government essentially okay go ahead I was just gonna say I can send the schedule to Peg um and Peg you could mess around with this all you want you just got to be careful um but you know this column here is what April is proposing so that is really done already
and um I'll do this schedule um if I don't hear from you about any changes I will create this um you know I'll get the index for January and February and whatever you decide I can f i can modify so maybe this is no longer if if April's proposal goes through then I would just change that number or really just use this column and would this would be um dead I mean it just wouldn't be necessary anymore
well it might be good to have just that well true you're right never mind never mind well it's okay whatever yeah I was just thinking for just just as a number to watch and to just a little more data you know but this is so this is a Personnel Board schedule um I'll send it to you Peg I'm happy to do the January if somebody else wants to give it a try basically um the websites oh yeah so here's more description about what what our choices
were oh look at that I didn't know that was there here's the you can go to these websites and what I do is I just delete this I just delete this table and I paste in a new one which is the same table only it'll have 2025 and January's number here everything else will be blank of course and then just take that number and drop it here and I'll do that yeah George I'm not really great at cutting and pasting I'd rather not problem as long as I'm around I'm happy to do it yeah okay it's easy
peasy I mean i' set up so you know just I hate to make changes unless we're all talking about it I mean myself I mean well I'll just leave it at that okay I'm comfortable with you doing it George yeah that's fine I'm happy to do it okay much appreciated um before you have to go does the you said you could meet it on February 13 or February and not the
20th and the 27th you said February 13th or the 27th correct yes so when would it be more advantageous would would it be better to wait until the 27th when we have all the information we need hopefully by then yeah I I at this point I don't know it would be really I could tell you if I knew when I was going to get the survey
until that survey is published I can't start and so the 13th might be too soon right okay so can everybody's I mean you could tally put me on the 13th and then just move me if uh move the alignment study to the 27th if it doesn't show up the problem is I'm not here for a week so if it shows up between those two dates that doesn't mean I'm going to be able to get to it I won't be able to get to it but you know George you send it I might be
able to pop it in it or okay yeah I can send you the spreadsheet I used last year okay that I put all the data in and I can even give you a quick if you're it's a little tricky it's a little messy and I can show you how to use it um I know you'll figure it out but I could help you make some of see some of the things that I was doing okay because some positions are salaried and some are hourly and so to make them all the same I convert them all to hourly
so what does this committee think about the dates go with the 20th you know we're looking for the FR poog 24 minute wage salary is that we're looking for the 25 oh 25 that's right okay yeah I was GNA say I found it yeah yeah no it's for it's for salaries that are currently being paid okay and so town meeting ends then the fall comes the towns get their budgets together now they can they have
that data so George can meet on the 27th and that might be better with not knowing when fog's going to be out you might want to put me on 13th and just you know boot it to the next meeting if it's not ready that's true yeah okay the sooner the better right that's that's what I'm thinking so can can everybody here meet on the 13th April yeah yeah yeah okay
okay now one other thing about this I guess we should also be aware of this this is the policy that everybody agreed on and was documented in the minutes I think that statement right there um means that to change the policy you might need to get Buy in from the other committees know that the personel I I mean that's not for me to say but it's good I was I was starting to remember there was something about if something happened we had to have the three
committee meeting yeah or individually yeah does this qualify for that George in your opinion do you think it's not an extraordinary year okay yeah I would say maybe not oh by the way look this sign this is done by the finance committee so there you go this is my job all right so that's the policy I mean that I remember we worked it out in the room and we put it in the minutes so
that was it this is what we were going to do and we've been following it but it's time for a change in policy so George and Melissa yeah is it okay if George forwards all this information to you so that you'll be able to share it yeah Oh you mean on screen yeah of course I can do that I'll send you the spreadsheet I'll send it to both of you yeah yeah you send it to both of us so she could have it too because um that would be great but again the final one that we're going to use for the year
I'll do it yeah based on whatever decisions you folks make okay yeah that's good and Melissa I appreciate that because I'm not a very good sharer of this kind of stuff that's fine that's fine we all we all fit where our talents lie that's right amen beauty of having volunteers is yeah yeah well that's much appreciated and George we really appreciate oh you're welcome yeah thanks George yeah you're welcome nice to see you yeah to see you see you next week see
you next week right bye bye bye bye thanks a lot okay so next on the agenda so we' got that well let's let's clear this up then so we are going to meet on the 13th yeah Y and we'll see where we are with all this information in the furog thing so if everybody can meet it I'll I'll write to Cath and tell her you know
hopefully she'll be feeling better by then but maybe not so she'll know and then we'll go from there all right so anything else I need to add for the minutes on this other than what's Okay okay so George okay so moving on Maryanne is is uh she's there there she is Maryann can you take put put yourself on audio will
take I'm can't hear you still can't hear where is Maran is your regular speakers on your computer on mute because sometimes that Han I hear you oh she's on the phone I can read her lips
she's on the phone in San Francisco can you as a as the um well hold on let me take a look I might be able to help you Maran hold on one second give look can you unmute as the host if I ask you you'll give you a button so see if this works do you there we go all it's different I think because of the new account things are a little bit different um but it's different on my phone so is the new account done and
it's rolling out yeah I think so I mean I don't know if you if you have a new anyway it's fine here I am and you can hear me and I've got a bridge behind me I don't know why I like it yeah okay that's the bridge over the the lake wola bridge bridge nice have a bridge over the Clin yes we could a toll there okay we could
make money good yeah yeah that will help us out our Cola yes okay yes good yeah tell us about um okay request okay all right yeah go ahead all right so tonight's request so the library the new library so the current Library gets very minimal kind of janitor services but it falls under the Town building janitor um
and I think that it makes the most sense for the new library to just sort of fall under the town buildings janitor um and um but I think it would be good if we could start out with four hours a week of janitor service um so that um you know trash can get out emptied a couple of times a week bathrooms can get cleaned a couple of times a week um um I'm going to get one of those robotic
vacuum cleaners one of those rumbas um so that so that the place can be vacuumed on a daily basis but you know floors will need to be washed and um and and we want you know it's going to be a brand new building we're going to want to try and keep it clean um so um so Becky this I started talking to Becky about this um before she left and she said to talk to the Personnel committee
so here I am and I surveyed pelum Wendell um Leverett Irving and New Salem to see how many hours a week of janitor service they had and you know it's a range from like 3: to 7 and I think um I think we can start with four hours and see if we need that much and um you know I don't think we'll need more than that especially with the Roomba
so so I think it makes the most sense to add it to the town hall janitor position um and um and uh so you know but you're the Personnel committee so right um You Well usually Maran that this would go to the Town Administrator to to to um I think do you know if I I don't know what the budget line is for that item
right um so because the the janitor does fall under um the supervised by the the Town Administrator right um or the custodian under the Town Administrator so she'd have to be or Gabe would have to be brought into the conversation um okay and would have to add would have to seek from fincom um money for the line if it was over
what was there okay um does it do you would you need to rewrite the job description in addition I don't know if there is a job description I've never seen one in the Personnel Board for it and is the custodian part-time do we yes he currently Works eight hours a week eight hours a week okay so this is a pretty significant it's 50% increase right and I mean he does things like you know he changes the light bulbs yeah it's really amazing you know um like he's it's and and he used to do more at
the library when we were using the composting toilet um and before covid and then since Co he I mean he used to empty our trash and and vacuum and then we just started doing all of that during covid and then you know he still changes our light bulbs if I remember to leave him a note that light bulbs need to be changed um and then we've stopped using the composting toilet so um so anyway
but I did so I did email Gabe and let her know that I was coming to this meeting so um so I can send her another email asking her to add to that budget line I mean it's I'm sure it's not a very big budget line um ah yeah I don't um I don't know honestly yes yeah although I disclosure for those who don't know my husband is the custodian
right so right that's why I knew how many hours he works a week right and I did talk to him um because you know because um because it just to me it makes the most sense that we just have sort of a town buildings person um and um and he's willing he was willing to say he was okay if I said to him I want somebody
else and he was willing to take on more hours yeah I was going to ask that yeah so um and um Mel Melissa is it okay with you if he takes on more hours he's not listening is he no he's not listening I'm perfectly fine with that like you know like he's okay with me being on the select board so you know right yes okay yeah well Maran I think I think it's great that you thought of this and I'm just curious if other towns have talked about any particular you know
sanitary not requirements but things that we need to think about postco you know because I mean I'm thinking like door handles we know there's going to be hundreds of people using the library right so I think it's really important to think about services that people are touching a lot and making sure those are cleaned on a regular basis to add to add to that and I just read an article in newspaper that the current neuro virus is not killed by hand sanitizer oh really buy soap and water or bleach
concentration of bleach water soap and water 20 to 25 seconds y so that's something to think about touch points yeah last for days on surfaces too right I had it was out in Colorado I had her take it got off the plane this was two years ago and it was you don't want to have it all I can tell you is you it's right yeah I'll just say that those po those
covid cleaning protocols have all kind of Gone by the wayside and um but you know we like we are gonna do like if a lot if a if a bathroom needs attention we're going to give it attention like on the you know like hopefully he'll kind of have a schedule and he comes on you know Mondays and Thursdays I'll make that up and and we're going to be open every day
and we'll you know we'll we'll have a protocol where we check the bathrooms every night and you know we have a spray bottle and we have gloves and we have paper towels but but things should have a good real serious cleaning a different time of cleaning yeah um IBA is a great idea yes you know and and especially because it's gon to be all one floor you know and um so I think that's a great idea and then um and then we're going to
have the door that most people will come in and out of is going to have a walk-off mat which will really you know catch a lot of that dirt but that'll have to be that has to be sort of taken apart and cleaned every once in a while but really like so after the winter you take that apart and you vacuum it out um and it you know and it would be like I would feel really good about Chris coming there twice a week and just helping with that kind of stuff and we'll put we'll put you know the trash
I'm thinking like we the trash won't really be an issue because now we have to bring the trash over to town hall and it gets put out with the trash but I think the trash hauler will pick up the trash yeah yeah you know we'll put the trash out at the end of the driveway at the library so it'll be I think we can handle that um so um so so you think I should talk to Gabe and yeah so so yeah I'd say talk to Gabe me um because the
supervisor is the technically the Town Administrator okay so that line is added or subtracted to based on I guess that per that person you know okay would it be Gabe that would be taking this to the fincom currently it would be yeah all right okay okay so all right so I'll do that I'll send her an email tonight or in the morning and then um and then have that um you know get that
in the works um and for next year it won't have to be the full 12 months but you know I think we could probably um you know maybe we better budget for 10 months but I'll talk to gab about that too you know um the library is set to be finished I keep um kept meting to ask that question as somebody and right um so so the end of July is the end I said something about yes and um and then you know and then
there's um I don't know then there's like a period where you review a bunch of stuff you probably know what it is it's the close out period the checklist yes training on all the training on all the systems that are in the building right so you'll want to make sure that you want to make sure you're trained on that that there's someone may maybe Chris maybe the town is at least there's you know at least some duplication there right right yes of somebody who knows
and then um called a punch list not a checklist yes and then you know and then it takes a couple of weeks to move everything in and um and get everything all set up so um so you know so by the end of August or maybe you know the middle of September or something will be in that new library um so um but it's um you know now that the framing is really kind of picked up steam it seems like
it's happening okay okay good so I'll talk to Gabe then and then if she has any questions she can come well she can just talk to you Melissa um because um I'm yeah she sees she sees Chris Chris's up at the at the Town Hall like yes I don't know if their schedule's necessary overlap but right yes okay all righty but like you she certainly sees you on a regular BAS so we we're communication all the time
yes yes okay all right terrific okay thanks so much all right all right have a good night all right good night I can figure out how to leave this meeting yeah enjoy your Bridge all right let's see got it um so with what you no no can the host leave oh do you want me to kick you out yeah no don't do that
because then I know what I'll do I'll I'll get I'll leave all right okay good night everybody oh there she go okay um so with what she just said I think maybe we should look at um the job description of the custodian for town so I don't think we've looked at at least I don't remember my time on the Personnel Board yeah there there may be one there there's a stash of all the the uh um job descriptions that Becky and I put in the
town administrator's office it's in the closet on the right hand side about partway up there should be a stack of them there Melissa are you writing I am writing it and I was saying we really it's we've got to get those you know on uh uploaded in yeah okay that's not a I actually have some stuff for the fire department I've got a scan too or the sorry not fire Emergency Management so um I could add that in CU I'm going to use a highspeed scanner that just puts
it in and separate it out so maybe I'll grab them to do that and is there a way to scan them in and also be able to edit or that if you're scan quality of the thing you're scanning H these are probably not great quality yeah there's there are if it's it's good enough quality like you know when you copy a copy and keep copying a copy of a copy a copy it just downgrades or at least that's what if you get like the one or first copy or
maybe a second copy it can work out okay like you can you can you can convert it and then you have to read through it to make sure it converted it right um well you do that anyway but um so Melissa you're talking about scanning it to put it where to have it in a PDF so we can share them yeah oh okay yeah I I thought you said something about putting them online yeah I mean April I don't know if this is what you're getting at but having a a you know a computer folder with all the job descriptions yeah word and then
you can just you know PDF which is really easy I me one of the things the select board has talked with the with Gabe and and ultimately it'll be a conversation going forward is a uh Cloud document management so yes Personnel Board can have a folder we all can be able to see everything there Fel board can have you know a folder or access to to things uh it gives the town clerk access for and Records you know that whole thing um
it's finding the right product and getting everybody's computers backed up to it and setting a file naming standard right yeah that's the easy part but that's it's all the background stuff telling to save things is one thing but yeah oh this New Town Administrator is gonna have fun yes and Melissa I didn't know it was your husband who is the custodian but the reason I was asking Maryann about the hours is kind of related to the conversation with we were having with George right like if she just says oh
it's only going to be four hours but the real need is six then it's like next year you're coming back and you're saying we really you know just to try to yeah get Baseline right why I said that was it was my husband because I'm like I'm talking I should let people because you know it's full disclosure you know um exactly I don't sign his time sheet that's a that would be a violation of um yes I can't do that other people saying stuff she um so it would be uh yeah
you're right in like you could come back she's kind of what she just said she's Landing in the middle right kind of in the middle of yeah of the tails the need is yeah um so and the Roomba that's going to save quite a bit of it's a great idea I would love to have a Roomba in a room filled with cats just that's anyway I had one scare me and I was like
ready to call 911 because the person didn't tell me they turned it on when left the house God and I heard this thing downstairs and he sounds like it's rumbling through stuff and the dog ran up the SC stairs looked scared I'm like well you're not helping me so then yeah I almost called 911 I went down to look and see what it was it was the vacuum cleaner was the Roomba I told him I almost had his a Roomba arrested huh who were you I I was in chabe it was he lived on the side of a
of a street and the neighbors were all out and they they were you know and I didn't know someone to come in the house I know if you locked the door the the two of them left and I was working on a project and um it was just me and the dog the dog freaked out too so wow wow yeah um that's good um moving along or Melissa did you have
something you wanted to say no no I'm writing down job descriptions so we don't um okay thank you so MaryAnn's gonna she will go to um Gabe and talk so that's good um I'm look I was just looking back at things I mean things have been so busy with Town administrative position etc etc we've sort of lost track a bit of what we were working on before all
this started whenever that was and yep go ahead I well I was just gonna say I remember there was the classific did you guys finish the classification no no I'm so close and what I was hoping to do tonight but I can't I was going to invite Kathy to join me in doing this but maybe um any one of you would would like to there's there's like two or three job descriptions that have to be
rated um one of them is the town administrators and it's it's a you go through a series of questions and you know it it what it it's a way of sort of um comparing different job descriptions in in level of you know making it into different grades um so like the the um Assessor's clerk is going to have a different grade than the fire chief and looking at and find and finding a way of
weighing those different responsibilities the old form that we had used for years really gave a lot of um credit towards jobs that required a lot of muscle and so that that sort of offset and and we acquired another U method uh that looks at also it's you know level of responsibility level of you know material that you have to keep confidential that kind of thing um and
it it would take we probably have a couple of hours maybe hour or so of work Worth to finish that um and if anyone else would love to join me that would be very fun it is it's kind it's interesting April I would be more than happy to join you if you teach me okay I feel like that's the thing too on this committee I I don't know a lot so I would really welcome the opportunity to learn and you you've taught me so i' yes
we all you know what was funny I I mentioned I mentioned the Oxford comma today at work once and there was a there was that we had Rogue things going on we had a whole bunch of Rogue letters and the person thought it was funny well and and I was at an assessors board a board of assessors meeting last night and you and pointed out the the Oxford comma and the chair of the board said oh yes of course
soing around G to be all over shutesbury and somehow we'll make the paper yeah that's mascot the Oxford comma yeah yeah put that on her flag right I know we we this committee does need to send somebody to the police chief um not hiring uh contract negotiation team and and um that was something that I would love to do oh okay oh that's good call
good call so if anybody wants to I'll I'll make a motion to nominate me to be on the police I can make that nomination for I'll nominate April to be on the the um police chief uh contract negotiation okay all those in favor Ross I make pie on I okay I and spy all
right okay there hasn't been anything set up for meetings yet on that no but that's coming yeah we were a little bit ahead of the ahead of the process with that um so one other thing I wanted to ask about was um so trying to get us back on track if and when we can um so we've talked about the classification schedule which was one of the things I had written down also the personnel handbook where are we where are we on that I mean
we were working on that ahead be uh actually before the classification it was so so I asked I I asked Gabe to um she is sending me if she didn't already they asked her the last a couple a week ago um there's a form that she had pulled from another town that recently did it that walks you through everything you need to have for an updated one so we can use it as a as
a standard of including things that we may not have already had in there um or a checklist punch list whatever you want to call it so um she I believe she may have sent that to me I'll have to look through my email and um we could use that as a we use the old one cross off what we have and then if there's anything we need new verbiage on we can go from there so that's the Personnel handbook yeah she got I I believe and and don't quote me on this I think she got it from there's a TA um group Bliss serve or group of of
information out there and this is one of the most updated ones that recently been done so that will help us because we were kind of ours is so far ours was so old that that what do we need to bring it up to you know the standard [Music] so go ahead I was I was probably going to say what you were going to say so go ahead no that would end that way we can use it as a basis and and um re not have to
rewrite what we have but then also add what we don't have um and KP law also has some forms out there that may be language we could use in those places where we need to put it in because KP law does um it's La labor it's our labor attorney um office so that might be helpful anyway so that's kind of where we are in that so I can bring I can for those things for the next time that would be
great yeah okay and I don't know I think our major discussion will be on the 13th of February you know what can the um and then we'll see what else we can bring in um the and another thing the the final thing that I came up with was we were talking about um strong Chiefs and fire and oh that's right Becky was going to get a definition from Donna I can I can reach out to Donna for for that I have to reach out for her for something else
already okay that would be good to get started on that so um and you guys probably want to read the Mass General Law related right okay can't think of anything I'd rather read it's short and they're not long they're not they're not long at all they're really just actually say yes on that one April I know I may I may have seen I was on the study committee for the fire chief and I I think I I'm I'm sure I've seen I'm sure Walter presented
that to the committee yeah it's it's like a very one paragraph it it just hones it in as as he's the he gets the the chief is in charge of the um the department higher fire um equipment it's the same for um uh the police chief there might be a little bit more of the police chief for regulation but that's a summary and and we were going to check with with Donna on that exactly what that meant okay well that's great because
those are the you know the um classification and the personal handbook and then the strong chief that we sort of with everything else happening everything sort of dropped off and it would be go we can um I had a question and now it's out of my head oh well remind when we talk about the strong Chief stuff we might want to make it an agenda to
the the Two Chief job descriptions so just we should maybe think about that when we read it and and talk about it just kind of you know as as an appendix or something on there just so it's you know I think it is woven into I the fire chief that it's a strong Chief okay so they wov it into that I don't believe it's the police chief one not not woven mentioned but not woven so okay okay well we can talk about that when we
get to that so I'll put George on the agenda first Y and then you know I'll put the other stuff we if we get to it we get to it if we don't we don't I think um Cola is really important and given the time constraint yeah and everything else happening that's what we'll work on first yeah oh is that okay with everybody y that's perfect good other there's just always something
anything else that anybody is thinking about well I just had a a question have do you know Melissa has the town received any um applications for the they have they have um we had the um search committee had their first meeting today um and they're Bound by um they I didn't know Bound by confidentiality they can't any of that information and selectboard
can't see it until we have their recommendation um so that's they had their first meeting today um so they're kind of organizing so the first meeting is usually organizing chair you know how we're going to do this and all that sort of stuff and um I don't know out of that what their next meeting schedule is but that's kind that's kind of started that process has started yeah and it's a rolling there isn't a deadline for application right just yeah it's rolling okay yeah and and please let me know if
anything I ask because I don't know what's yeah no no no and then and um I can only know so much so yeah but yeah they're under confidentiality and and uh so Gabe is is helping with that process and um so it started it started good great and Gabe's with us through February is that some I believe I believe at least through February don't remember um exactly the date it might be
early March I don't remember um or and I and I don't know if I don't remember if I think it might have been flexible but I'm not sure um we we talked about it but it's been a while you know um so and and Geneva came back the former admin secretary came back to help us with the past um stuff and we've had an intern in there helping out too so how about the administrative assistant
position what's happening we have not posted that one yet um so we have we are we are going to do that um last week got really busy and Gabe and I didn't sit down and deal with a post didn't sit down and do the post thing uh to to to post it you know the advertisement well ideally our new ta would be part of that but yeah yeah we talked about that last time you just may not have that luxury yeah um a lot yeah
it's a lot of change at once lot of um but with new people come great ideas too sometimes and so you know different ways of looking at things and you know all of that so um we shall see we shall see time so Melissa are you are you okay I know that I don't know if this has the zoom stuff settled yet as far are you okay setting up the meeting for the 13th of February yeah
yeah yeah I didn't re I had I had I didn't realize we didn't post a link so that's why I had um emailed you and asked because Gabe noticed the link wasn't there and so I was like oh I said I had yeah I set it up in December but I could not the last meeting in January the the early one we had the fifth sixth I could not get it to work um my husband who's much more Savvy at
computer stuff he couldn't get it to work so I went up and talked that was that was when I think they they started pulling in all of the other zooms into this one account with the licenses and um it would pulled it in it reset those accounts passwords and such so I think that was the problem it was in the middle of doing converting over going from the old passwords and stuff
by pulling it in it reestablished the accounts and then there was a little bit of a bumpy road for a few people there um which was not foreseen and so now it's all tightened up and Gabe has has a method she outlined at the department head meeting um there's five five licenses that are specific to committees and then because committees like ours that meet once a month she has
um she's assigned to two two different committees to that so if you do on Tuesday someone has it on Tuesday the person on Thursday has it on Thursday um but she can explain that and I'll have her I'll have her um let me know which one we're on um okay I swooped in and she she gave me the link tonight for her for the Town Administrator account um so so would you mind doing the 13th for
us yeah yeah I'll post I'll get her to post the link for the 13th all right much appreciated it's crazy it's good it's all good that's happening yeah okay once we have the password and the signin and password we'll be able to to do it ourselves and we won't need to I don't know if it was my password that didn't work but yeah I don't I just wouldn't go there not and I had I had trouble at the Town Hall last Tuesday for the selectboard meeting I'm like this has always worked what's going on I couldn't get it to work I had to use my
older computer and have game started oh wow wow okay so committee is there anything else that we need to talk about I'll be sending out the minutes and if they need changes you'll let me know okay yes anything else I don't think so I think I'm good I'm good I'm good should we make a motion to adjourn sure we should okay I make a mo I make a motion we adjourn this meeting it is
6:30 oh dingding right on time yay favor make peace o i and Stein I BR I okay all right so we made the hard we you don't have to worry about your hard stop Ann at seven o' I know thank you good taken care of all right so we will see you all in the 13th yep you again Melissa if for working on that oh you're welcome very frustrating for
me okay take care by everybody bye stay healthy everybody