Jackie, I'm going to email her to see if she still I have the same phone. I have the directions of all the other commanders in the house. Let me go ahead and get started. We have a full
agenda. Is that yours? Oh, this is yours. Okay. Um I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting of the Shootsbury Select Board to order. Today is Tuesday, May 6th, 2025. Um, Melissa has to do something there.
Um, and this meeting is a hybrid meeting and it is being recorded. So, as usual, I'm going to start off by um reviewing the agenda. The first item on the agenda is public comment. Um after that we have
two sets of minutes from May April 22nd and April 30th. We might move a couple of things around depending upon if Matt Borowitz is going to get here. We had him first giving an update lake voting and safety
committee. Um then discussion of using CPA funds for shared housing coordinator. Um, Chief Burgess is here to address a letter of compliment received by an officer. Uh, discussion of security
cameras for the town hall. Then we have two assessors articles for the town meeting warrant. And we need to vote on the percentage for article two. Um, discussion of the administrative assessor position. Then review of the town
meeting warrant draft. discuss emergency management management director's request to engage Bill Gilmore for the Massachusetts Firewise program and then at six o'clock we will meet with the finance committee to review the budget for town meeting and
after that town administrator report. So what I'd like to do is is move um a couple of things around. We don't have Matt here. Um, and let maybe Kristen. Well, first let's do
the minutes. So, we'll start there. Um, so do I hear a motion to approve the minutes of April 22nd, 2025? Yes. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Um, all those in favor signify by saying I.
Please. I Carol I and do I hear um a motion to approve the minutes of April 30th, 2025? So moved. Second. Any further discussion? All right. All those in favor signify by
saying I. Thank you. Sonia I Dr. I. Barl I. Um okay. So no Matt. Um Kristen, do you want to go ahead and um Sure. address the select board? Sure. Um
so my my style of management with my officers is I always like to appreciate and thank them to their faces when I get um compliments from town residents and people from outside the town, but when I feel they've gone above and beyond, I'd
like to also bring it to the public's attention and your attention as well. So, if you'll just uh let me read this quick letter. Um, so this letter was dated March 24th, 2025. Dear Chief Burgess, I work for a little police department in Newberry, New Hampshire.
My husband and I were traveling in your area on Friday, March 21st, 2025. While looking for an establishment that had bathroom facilities after a 2-hour drive, we saw We can all giggle there. We saw an officer in his vehicle on the side of the road inquiring of any local
establishments. Your officer advised us that there's really nothing close to the area, but he would be happy to let us use the town facilities. Well, it was most appreciated and it was very nice to see an officer with friendly, happy, helpful attitude. If you would please,
please be so kind to give him this recognition coin. He did get something we we call a trading coin. It would be appreciated. and if he's ever up in Lake Son of Key area, please stop by in our little police department. So, when I received this letter in the mail, I then
asked officer Magguire, who was the officer, to come into the office and I said, "Did you help somebody recently and allow them to use the facilities?" He said, "Yes, I did." I said, "Great job." As that is something that we all would do. I said, "Did you know that the person that you helped was the
administrative assistant to the police chief?" He said, "No, I had no idea who they were," which makes it that much better for me. Um, and I know that he would do this for anyone. Um, so I just wanted to say knowing our town the way
we do and that there really isn't anything close by, you know, going out of his way to say, "Follow me. I'll let I'll find you a place to use facilities." That's what I wanted to bring to his attention. So, I will be the sensitive personnel file as well.
Thanks, Kristen. Thank you. Um, so do we kind of just have a quick discussion since Kristen is here about the security cameras? Sure. Okay. Why don't we do that, Kristen? We'll we'll go ahead. Um,
so I had just um I think when we met last week, Kristen mentioned that we were going to be getting security cameras for um the Highway Department corrects in the town hall both
uh in the case of a town hall both exterior and interior um security cameras. So I I was surprised um because I hadn't um heard about that. I knew that we had them at the elementary school. I was surprised
you were surprised. That's the way it goes sometimes. Um, so I felt it was appropriate for the select board given our um, oversight of um, municipal buildings to just talk about the security cameras. And I did a little
bit of research and I thought, you know what would be good um is if we were to come up with a policy because a lot of institutions, municipalities actually have a policy about security cameras and
particularly when you are putting security cameras inside of a building. I think we're all kind of getting used to the fact that there are cameras um on the outside of a lot of buildings, but once they're inside a building, um it's it's can be a little bit more sensitive.
And I know that the that there were regulations regarding you know private places so you can't have them in bathrooms and some other but I felt like we as a as a board should um come up with any questions you know we have and
I had forwarded to um Kristen a couple of things that I found online just you know one was a a relatively um brief policy was for you know a library which I actually sent to Maryanne too because that the same thing holds you know in
other buildings that um you know if if an issue comes up we should have an answer somebody says I'm being filmed or you know what's the why why are you why are you having these cameras and just be you know able
to answer those questions. So, I wanted to just put that out there and um see if um if you guys had any questions and how we move forward.
Have sort of sample policies. Yeah. But I didn't want to bring it tonight because I you know I thought we really didn't have time. So I guess you know what I could do is um circulate. So I found two things. One was actually a policy and then the other was a template, you know, that asks the the
questions that you would might want to answer. So let me ask question. Well, no, it's more questions about um you know what is what is the policy? I mean, one of the things is you know what is public who has access to the tapes? Um,
will there be audio, which Kristen has said, no, there's no audio. It's just video. But who's who's the caretaker? When does it get downloaded? How long does information get kept? Where are those cameras going to get put? All of those things that I think, you know,
should be explained before we go the installation. Um and and particularly for any internal cameras that all um staff within the town hall have an opportunity
to yeah to just you know voice it if there are any concerns um about the placement of cameras. Sounds like a good plan. Which how do we implement? Um,
well, I guess what I can do is I can, you know, I'll send what I sent to Kristen and then, um, maybe at the next meeting or I guess we could feed stuff back to you, the softboard members, because we can't do it amongst ourselves. I know, um, you know, not to
jump too far ahead, but we did have a department head meeting today. I can tell you that the general consensus is yes, we would like um, interior and exterior. Okay. A lot of people had some safety concerns which you know having worked in a nonvideoed community
building I can definitely echo. I think they're a good idea. Um but I'd be happy to you know feed some information to them to get more specific comments if you'd like. Yeah. Okay. So why don't I I will circulate what I sent to and then
maybe we'll just um address it at the at the next meeting. As I understand it, those the cameras have already been purchased, right? Yes. Um they've been purchased. Um I got the green light from Gabe um before she before she um
finished on her stay here and um they are sitting and awaiting decisions. Okay. All right. Good. So, we'll we'll
do this at an at a meeting. Our next meeting is our next regularly scheduled meeting is in a couple of weeks. The 20th. Yeah. So, either the 20th or the one after that depending on 20th is right before town meeting. So, hopefully everything will
be all set. I just texted. Okay. All right. Great. Okay. Um, so Matteo is here. Matt Borrowitz is not here. So, Matteo, um we will move on to you to
talk about um using the Shootsbury CPA fun shared housing coordinator. Yes. Uh so, thank you for the opportunity to talk about this. Um and obviously given Rita's professional uh past
professional hopefully she correct me if I have to speak sure won't happen. Uh so I'm I'm here to address the the board in my capacity as the chair of the CPC. Um I thought it would be useful first to provide a little context about why I wanted to address you and and then talk
a bit about what I'm hoping the select board will do. Um so in 2024 the median sales price for a single family home in Shburg is $475,000. In 2010 it was $235,000. In 2000 it was 157,000.
So the uh between 2000 and 2024 the median sales price for a single family home in cherry has increased by over 200%. Uh the median household incomes down is $8,327 which means that if somebody
earning uh uh the median income has decent credit and puts let's say 10% down to buy a house uh their mortgage would be $3,200 per month to live in Shoots Britain. Um that's about 50% of their monthly pay going to housing. And things
are of course worse for renters who typically earn less than the median um because the average rental rate for a single family home shoe in four was $3,750. The last time Shbury developed a master plan uh about 20 years ago in
2004 when the median home price was $162,000. The master plan stated, and I quote, "Housing in Shootsbury is presently affordable for most residents." Um, I think that the numbers make it clear that this is no longer the case. Um, so there's only so much the
town can do, right? Um, there are some things that can be done through the zoning bylaws, the accessory dwelling units um amendments, tiny houses amend forward are some options for that. Um, and of course the Community Preservation Act is another tool that we
have, but the resources for the CPA are limited. So section six of the CPA says that we have to set aside 10% of our CPA revenue every year for community housing needs. We don't need to spend 10% every year. We just need to set it aside. And it's a good thing we don't need to spend
it um because it would be impossible to do that without wasting that money. 10% of our um CPA revenue this year is $7,300. Not going to go very far for affordable housing purchases. At the
start of uh FY26 will probably have about $6,000 in the community housing account, $63,000. And again, the median sales price for a home we choose is $475,000. So there's not a lot we can do on the whole supply side of that
equation. Um so the question is how how can we make some kind of positive impact to address the affordability crisis issues. Um so there are two things uh that that I'm going to sort of suggest and leave
it to you guys to to fall over. Um the select board could ask town meeting this year obviously uh to appropriate CPA funds from the housing account uh and the undesated account to create an affordable housing trust fund and they would set up an affordable housing
committee to administer that fund. This is what lever does and some other towns as well. Um and the trust fund could be used for a range of affordability programs. So down payment assistance, rental assistance, those those kinds of things. uh it would generate like all trust funds it would generate income
through interest. who would also be supplemented with CPA money every year or a few years and there could be other sources of funding for it, grants, state funding, etc. The advantage of doing this is that by having an affordable housing committee and a separate trust fund, you wouldn't have to wait for
annual town meeting um go through the CPA process necessarily to use that funding. The committee could sort of have a little more nimble use of it over the uh the year. The second thing um and this is this was sort of brought to the
CBC and brought to me by um by Leid is the select board could ask how we need to appropriate CPA funds to partner with lever. Uh they are currently working to hire a designated affordable housing coordinator through Furog and to make it
financially feasible for them. They're hoping that other towns in the area will will partner and um I am a lot of other times. Sure. This is from Barbara Kuli. Uh these are her
notes about some of the things that the um coordinator uh might do. Essentially, they would identify and apply for grant opportunities for the legislation. They would advise the town on affordability issues and ideas and
then they would manage any um affordability programs that we set up. Um hiring through fur rather than doing it ourselves would mean that the town would really have to handle HR things like office space
payroll. Um and you know select board could fund this through a multi-year CPA grant because that would be more likely to retain I think good talent in that position. I should note that these are not mutually exclusive options, right? Um you could set up the trust in a
committee and then let the committee take responsibility for dealing with hiring affordable housing coordinator um and then the coordinator could in turn be responsible for advising the committee on how to administer the bus. And then there are other options too. If
the town is not yet ready to act on this, we could set up a task force like this storm water ocean task force to do some more research and provide some more potential solutions or options forward. But I think the important thing is that we do something to address the skyrocketing cost of living in town
because there are sure lots of people who love to live in shoes who just just can't afford to. Um, so that's what I'm putting on your plate. The reason I didn't want the CBC to be addressing this because it's not really in our purview. It's not comments from board. Well, one question
I have is just you said we have $63,000. Is that what you're saying? Community housing portion. Yeah, we only spent community housing funding. So essentially that's what establish this trust fund back 2000.
So we would start with that or a portion of that and also to make it meaningful I would also suggest moving some funds out of the undesated account. Those are funds that can be used for any Oh not all of those funds. Yeah I was going to say 63,000 doesn't really solve the
problem. It sort of seems like why would you set I mean my qu I guess the general question would be why would you set up a trust fund for $63. Well I'm not saying necessarily bad either but what's the logic? Well I think the idea is to to start it and
keep adding to it each year and at some point it's going to start being a lot more useful with drawn than if the money just sits in our CPA account where it's not doing anything. Um, you know, it was 10 years after the town adopted the community preservation act before it had enough money to do anything at all
community housing and that was one kind of buy property for the Habitat for Humanity since 2018, which is great. That helps one family and it doesn't really solve the supply problem. So in my view it's better to help a lot of people a little bit with the funds we
have rather than wait 10 years help one family wait 10 years help another family because given the rate at which how home prices are increasing you know as I said 20% less you know by 20 years that waiting 10 years is going to make it even harder to use the low
amount they have you know leverage in a totally different position they have $4.5 million in CPA funding they get a ridiculous amount of matching funding to the state. Um, but you know, we don't have those CPA resources. Why do we have so much money? I'm just curious if you
know why they I think I think they tax at a higher percent. They might be at the maximum. We do one and a half% and they're probably at 3%. So, and they started earlier. Yeah. They're part of the group communities that because they were first
generation the state gives them a tremendous percentage match and because they're 3% they get matching funds three times their tax that doesn't reallyffect the only Melissa Um those are all three really good
options. Um so I think we have to explore them right develop them. Yeah. You know I like I like the idea if if um are there any other communities other than than
that um I can ask last time I talked to her she didn't mention any others. I mean there are also only so many CPA communities around us right but yeah I mean obviously it only makes sense if it's true for county town
and you know it only makes sense in a town that is similar to leverage of being limited in resources and high question is so is sort of a standout town must be I assume that
there must more towns are like us in Franklin County say that have $63,000 or whatever it is and few fewer have one and a half million. Isn't that true? Is that true? Must be I I mean I would think so. I don't know the history of
when different towns around here adopted the CPA. Um the community preservation coalition website does have you can see which towns are at 3% which towns like up 1.5 and that tends to be a good indication which ones are watching the CPA money and which ones have just
enough to do you know a few things here and there. Um but yeah I don't know I haven't talked to Barbara about this in several weeks so I don't know where she was pursued. Leverage is also a step ahead of us in that they already have an affordable housing trust in an
affordable housing committee. It was a very popular and successful thing when established and it's been largely inactive over the last decade last six or seven years. They're looking for that. Um I think it's certainly something that
we could pursue. I was just looking at the map to see who else. Um, so Sunderland, Weightley, um, Deerfield, Conway, Shelburn, are the other, um, Franklin County towns that have
state. Yeah. um right so be great I think you know just to defay some of the costs and and in part because um if it's if if there are similar problems the person's not going to be doing necessarily something that um
wouldn't apply that couldn't apply to you know a few communities um the the the trust piece of this like setting up a trust so the trust um takes there's a town meeting just set that up. I think
it's in the statute. Um, and the the nice thing about a trust is that you can deposit like CPA funds with the trust and Matteo, you said you can do it outside of the town meeting cycle, but it's also the trust is also able to
accept gifts. And so if I know in the case of um I think it was a land trust in Amoris, maybe not the affordable housing trust, but like somebody donated a house and somebody who'd been really involved in um work. So So the the trust
can then take it and then there doesn't have to be further appropriation. So the trust has a lot of um a lot of powers. And we'll say topic of other towns. Um Barbara did indicate that it would be preferable not to have this person
spread to the game. Then ideally it would be three, you know, maybe three towns. Um I think that there would probably also be some challenges the person would face. They identify a grant opportunity and suddenly the three three towns that they're working for are all applying for a competitive grant. Um but
but sometimes they you know regional grants are actually encouraged and there's there are benefits to doing something regionally. And then the other the other thing on that is um if the different towns and partner hires coordinator are contributing to that in
different amounts, right? Lever might have a lot of resource put towards it. We don't. That might then be reflected in how many hours you get that person, how many hours lever gets that person. It's certainly something we couldn't do on our own, which is why doing it for
sense if we I think a portional charge would be a great idea. Well, you know, based on how much money you have, so if you have a lot of CPA money, your opportunities are going to be that much greater. So, um, uh, so how
do we proceed then? Um well, I think um I think we should uh well, we'll need to talk about these individual things and then find out the process if if we're heading in this direction. The task force is always a good idea, but maybe not necessarily. I
think I think we know that that that it's a it's something we need, right? Um, so could could we do like a a meeting just to see if there's interest like a community meeting and just say the board is thinking about this and
just to come together and you know we could um invite like Shelley Garing to present from the Massachusetts Housing Partnership a former colleague of mine who does work with trust and on CPA
We haven't had we haven't had any meeting with her, right? That public meetings. Yeah. You know, that I think would be really helpful. She probably she lives in Boston, so she'd probably just do it remotely, but um maybe we could plan on
that sometime. And then just like leave it open, you know, have it open to the the public. Let Shelly talk about what some rural communities have done. I mean, there are examples. So, I can't remember. It's not
Charlotte. Um, you know, some there there's some of those um kind of western hilltowns that have done some small rental developments. So, but you know, as as Taylor pointed
out, it's really hard. It's very hard to to do those, especially if you don't have any water and sewer infrastructure. Um, but there are other things we could possibly do. So, all right. Maybe in Thanks for tossing that ball into our
court. Maybe. Good job. We have that community meeting. We invite the uh CPP and the department. Yes. Yeah. I think what I'll see you is Yeah. Yeah. And then maybe maybe out of that we can get a a few
volunteers who are willing to um to do the additional research without having to set up a Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. Okay. No, Matt. Yeah. Huh? No, he said
um 5:35. He's he's traveling out of work, so double duty. Okay. All right. Thank you, Matteo. Stay tuned. Um All right. I'm just going to keep an eye on the time. Um so, the next item is we have two
assessors articles for the town meeting warrant and article number two requires a vote. And Leslie and Oh, George April. George, who's who's uh who
wants to give the um the presentation on this? I can give one broad. Okay. And that is in 2021, the town voted to give cost of living uh increases to the seniors and blind
um not blind, just seniors exemptions. that was allowed by the law and they didn't at that time there was no statute to include veterans in this. Now the veterans as of August 24 the hero act came about. So technically what you
would be doing in the broad sweep is bringing veterans exemptions up to what the seniors are getting. Uh there's tons of information that I can email you guys folks if you have plenty of time to read. Uh I don't know various towns I checked
the assessor's website today and various towns are approaching it in different ways to avoided this cost of living charge which believe me going to be a little extra chat task each year but they just said it double everything and
get that house. Um the assessor voted at their April 16th meeting to recommend it to the select board and they actually even voted a recommendation
of 100% that for we have read the details and we recommend 100% of the Um 22J yes veterans amounts to increase not to
exceed 100% uh increases all veteran exemption amounts by up to the percentage not to exceed 100%. So article one adopts adds the veterans. Is that correct? And article
two is about the the percentage. Yeah. Clause 22 increases all veteran exemption amount annually by determined by the and we're already doing that for seniors. Okay.
22J uh increases all veteran exemption amounts by up to a percentage not to exceed 100% as voted by the legislative bot for July one and that would apply until town meeting decided to change it
again. Okay. So once established it would stay until we changed it or correct until we brought it back to town. It's not like the whenever you vote for a percentage every
year, right? Okay. And that amount can be changed at town. Um, so Leslie, is there a um is there sort of a lay person's explanation of of
article one, article two? Is there something that the assessors have? I mean, because there's so much like clause 22, 22A, 22. I mean, nobody's going to know what this is, but if somebody says this is what this article does, yes, this article adds veterans.
David Burg just uh volunteered to come to town meeting to do that. He was supposed to be here tonight. Okay. All right. No, that's that's all right. Um, I think more, you know, typically a town meeting we have we have handouts. I was talking
to Brennan about this and I don't know if it makes sense to have um something just like giving a a a paragraph or a couple of sentences because this is like way way complex. What is what is it
going to do? Um, so and and then article two, I assume the recommendation is to go up to 100%. Is that what you guys said? Yes. And on average, how much money is that? Did I see like $400?
Exumptions are the basic one is $400. Okay. And then it goes up and people if you're 100% disabled due to the doctor saying you are um you look
it's range I see is that the thing that you were referencing that conford had that con was speaking specifically about these two new options 22 I and J yeah and I I didn't print out their the
responsor speaking uh 22I and 22J are local options. So there will be no additional state reimbursement. The state does partially reimburse all of these
options. Um David Burgess created a stretching not stretching he created a chart where he advised the uh sensors as to how much he thought it cost down this first year.
and veterans. The number of veterans in our town which is significant and that came out to 4,000 in Yeah. And this is fun for the overlay. So that we know we adequate funds in the overlay. We you
know we overlay 40,000 and we never close to it. Right. Okay. So that would be great too. No question. Great just to explain or I don't know maybe there's just like a Q&A like four or five questions like what do
these two artists do? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think just for town meeting that it would be good. It just overwhelms. Yeah. But that's why I say the broad sweep. It's just that we've already done this for seniors,
right? There was no avenue to do it for veterans at the time. Okay. All right. I'm Yeah, I'm Are you in support? I am. Yeah. Yeah, that works. Um, so, uh, are these on the are these on the
warrant on the draft warrant right now? [Laughter] Okay. Um, great. And just didn't have the percentage, right? Didn't have that. Okay. Um, all right. So, you know,
typically what we do is we vote all the articles like when we do the whole warrant. Um, but we we can just take this up because it sounds like you need article two percentage. So, um, do I hear a motion to approve um the it's not
really art it's the first article as presented by the assessors to the All right. Any further discussion? All right. All those in favor signify by saying I. So I article two. Is there a motion about the
percentage? Um in clause 22 22 J. It's funny because it I thought it says here in clause 22F. Oh well. Yeah. It's of the personal
Oh, subject to the conditions in clause 22J. Okay. Believe me, that is why you It's so No, I know. And that is why we need just, you know, a really simple explanation. Okay.
Does somebody want to make a motion about the percentage? Um, so I'll make a motion for article two presented by the court assessors assessor's office that we um approved 100% for that article.
Second. Is there a second? Second. Okay. Um, any further discussion? All right. All those in favor signify by saying I take peace sign. Stop right. I thank you. Thanks for um attempting that. Thanks for offering
to to do Can I give this document to Yeah. If you wanted to kind of beef up your vote this might Okay. Yeah. I mean we could just Okay. All right. We could just have that
as something that was referenced during the meeting. Yeah, that should be because it says they they have to pay at least 10% of their tax. It's more detailed. Okay. Everything's more detail. Okay. And just for those folks who are here, I know
Brendan, I don't did you um uh come up with a deadline for for people who want to submit handouts for um your town meeting. Have you done that yet or that
Um, can you hear me? Yeah. Um, yes. I have not made a deadline yet, but of course, uh, sooner rather than later, um, would be beneficial. But, um, we still have a good week or two before
we're going to start printing. So, I'll create something and then David review it the next time he's in if that's okay. in life. Um, okay. Oh, AJ,
you couldn't get in. All right. Um, okay. Well, thank you. Um, all right. Order. Um, thank you Leslie for um the Okay, so Matt Borrowitz has um joined us and Matt
is the chair of the Lake Royella Boating and Safety Review Committee and he is here to Hello Matt um to give us how you where things are with the committee. Can you guys hear me? Yes. Okay. Good to
see you guys. Thanks for accommodating my schedule here. I'm in and out of meetings here in the Big Apple. So, thank you. The uh so what I want to do is just provide an update from the last time that we talked um post the uh
public meeting that we had. We took back some updates and there's a proposal and there's discussion being had and a motion on the floor within our committee to to do some amended work to the bylaws. So, some updates, some tweaking
and then also including a couple of new things that I think accommodated a lot of the different viewpoints that were heard from not only people who sent in letters but also people who are there present and we've been in discussion on that. I'd say our our our committee is still, you know, trying to find ways to
come to some consensus. I think we're going to uh try to finish up our discussion tomorrow at our meeting tomorrow and then have a vote on the amended bylaws that we uh we've talked about the the committee as a whole. I think there's a strong push for more
education and I think there's a kind of a consensus at least amongst some of the folks on the on the committee that we'd like to get something solidified sooner rather than latter with the idea that we'd love to be able to do education this summer and not prolong it into a uh
you know a 2026 type of thing. Um, and I'm not sure if you guys saw or not, but I had my hopefully my lovely wife dropped off a couple of signs. And this is these are by no means are these are these the exact laws or anything like that, but it's a it's a
representation of the type of signage that I think we could potentially promote um with the town that really kind of indicates, you know, what are our bylaws, what are the rules, what's some etiquette that's uh that's potentially uh you know, wise for the
lake. Um but also to a you know these are the types of things that I think you know visual written and also a visual pictorial view of the lake would offer a lot of guidance and a lot of you know perspective for people that come to visit the lake whether they're you know residents on the lake you know or if
they're you know visitors to the lake. Um we've talked a lot about there's we could put signage up at the boat ramp at the beach at the Lake Wyola clubhouse. We could send out flyers and laminated cards out to you know lake residents. Um, but I think, you know, one of the major things that, you know, I feel
really strongly about is that if we want to reinforce behaviors and make people aware, signage is, you know, education is going to be our number one proponent for that. I think you you dovetail that with having some reinforcement on on the lake with Shbury P and then the
environmental police whom I've spoke to said that they're looking to, you know, patrol the lake a little bit this summer as well. I think all that would really bode well. Um, I think our our our committee is struggling a little bit on a couple two different items. One is the
should we repeat mass voting laws in our actual bylaws. That's a question I was going to pose to you to you folks today just what your thoughts were on that. And then the other thing was just around you any kind of time amendments for, you know, usage on the lake. And I did a pretty comprehensive search on, you
know, 47 lakes that allow motorboats in Massachusetts and there's eight of them that do have some sorts of restrictions as far as time use utilization with the majority of them of those being a delayed start. So, in one of the amended bylaws that I we proposed that that's on
the on the floor is for motorboats not to go out till 8 a.m. um you know inclusively on the lake to give people time to either swim and or paddle at a at a time that is super calm and flat but at the same time accommodating for a lot of the multi-use recreational folks
on the lake that like to go out early for for weather reasons as well too. So, I think that you know the consensus is that we've been a multi-purpose lake for a long time. we're still all very we all want to be safe cohesively and I think know we're trying to you know wrestle that to ground right now and try to
figure out where we stand on that. So that was kind of the uh the update that we have and I'd be curious on some of your thoughts on should we reiterate mass voting laws in the bylaws specifically and or do we just include them like you looked at the signage including you know mass voting laws in
reference so people know what some of those those are as well. Um, some people say we should have it so that people don't have to cross reference and look for it, which I can get behind that as well, but I was just curious on how, you know, uh, the select board looks at bylaws and would they rather not have to
restate laws um, that are already in effect. So, it's kind of a a quick and dirty update, but I'm open to any dialogue conversation. How how big are those how big a document is that mass loading by? Well, no, it's
it's actually quite simple. If I'm available, if I if I'm allowed to share my screen, I could actually show you. One second. Share really quick. It's they're they're pretty synonymous to what's on the the board that I shared with you, but again, those aren't
official until we actually have a mo we have a vote on it. So don't want to uh is that uh share share. So if you can see my screen here, move me out of the way. Yeah. Yeah. So if I'm looking at what we have
on the table today, um that's on the motion again to be determined by our committee. Still don't have consensus yet or a vote on this. Um I kind of have the existing on the left on the right I have the proposed bylaw revisions. So the main things that people typically will regulate on a lake is its speed,
its distance, its direction and times. Those are pretty much what you typically will see if you look at I've looked at oh god hundreds and hundreds of bylaws. Um those are the main things that they look at. So mile tweaks like on number one if we look at the top one here um just adding paddle vessels to comply
with all the mass boating laws and coastg guard regulations. the uh the time um 30 miles per hour still seems to be an appropriate speed for the lake for and then we have 6 miles per hour versus the 5 miles per hour. Reason for that is that that correlates to the mass boating
law. Headway speed is defined as 6 miles per hour in their in their laws. Um and then the sunset to 8 a.m. is a is a 6 mile per hour which means people can't go faster than headway speed or 6 miles per hour until after 8 a.m. in the morning. Um the limit this is this is
the distance same as the other one as before I try to clean them up and say speed limit distance direction try to simplify for people um we keep it a little more simpler people more have to read it understand it um the distance speed limit 6 miles per hour within 150 ft of shore that's a mass Massachusetts
boating law already so that's an example of one that should we be reiterating these on bylaws or make reference to them in a in some sort of educational document or signage um counterclockwise stays the same. Water skiing total activities, that's again where we
revised it to have a delayed start, which is somewhat synonymous with other lakes in the uh in the Commonwealth. Um and then we had to clean this one up. This one uh actually rebuttled um the uh it made reference to state beaches and
uh that wasn't a true statement. So we recrafted that to only apply to Lake Wyola Association beaches or town beaches. um how far away you have to stay away from shore and um if you cannot have motorized watercraft on those. They want just like canoes and kayaks to use the beaches. You can't you
can't come go in there with a motorboat and like you know dock it at the the town beach. Um and then the swimmers again accompanied by a boat when beyond 150 ft. That's a great uh you know best practice. Seen that a few times. And the other thing we added that I actually put
at the top of the sign that you guys have there just adding kind of an overall caveat of reckless or unsafe boating is prohibited including speeding near shorelines, swimmers or docks boating under the influence failing to maintain a proper lookout. I thought it'd be great just to kind of state in
generalities in our bylaws that we don't want to have we want people to be abiding by the laws and you know paying attention. That's kind of a catchall and that's something that we can discuss as well. So that's kind of how it looks. So yeah, the document gets again if you add in all of the other Massachusetts laws
that would be kind of restated in our bylaws, it's probably be about 11 to 12 bullet items. So just giving you an idea that way so I can stop sharing now. Yes. Thanks, Matt. The the only thing I have with reiterating the state laws if they
change it, right, and we won't know that. um if referencing it is better and then having so that's my only if it gets changed without us knowing um and then we would have to re either rewrite our bylaw or have someone watching it to
know if it's changed um that's you know I think that's what the reference to the Massachusetts and Coast Guard uh guidelines are listed as kind of like number one priority but I do think because I I I agree with some of my committee members that definitely by
having that on signage so people don't have to go look for the important ones is I think an important item because people should know you can't get within 150 ft of a swimmer um you shouldn't be 150 ft from a docker or a swim platform I mean these are things that we could easily reference to in in the uh on like
signage or anything that we hand out I agree I think what you're saying was just not reference it yes if That's what I changed or whatever it would be. Um, so I and I guess Yeah. Go ahead. I just
think I just think yeah reference on this problem. Yeah. No, I agree. And I think, you know, some of the some of the discussion is that, you know, we need we need a good foundation of education and enforcement before any kind of major
radical decisions are made or or construed on the lake. I think that's something that's we, you know, if there's somebody if there's a need to do a different time schedule or something like that, I think a consultant in a time study would need to be required in order for us to really have conceptual data on that because there's different
perspectives from residents who live in the lake versus people who don't live in the lake versus everybody else. So there's a lot of, you know, ambiguity of what's, you know, could be factual or true versus conjecture. So to me, I think, you know, making some mo mo
movement and, you know, cleaning up our bylaws and then also, you know, putting some some guard rails out there, I think is a is a positive thing for the lake community as a whole so that it remains this great multi-purpose use lake that we all love and enjoy, but people are
more cognizant of, you know, respectful of, you know, what's going on in the lake. And I think the education piece can really enhance that part. Um yeah, I I I just have a question um Matt about whether or not there was any discussion about wave boats just because
that had come up as a as a problem both you know environmental problem as well as a um safety problem that wakeboats are um you know degrade the degrade the
shore um stir up a lot of the um vegetation at the bottom of the lake. Bacteria. Yeah, we we've talked a little bit um I can't remember recall when we talked about those probably early on in our committee discussions. Um there's a lot of
different different facts and and and discussion around wakeboats in specific. The majority of the wakebo community from what I I've observed anyway is that they stay towards the center of the lake. They don't tend to uh get closer to shore. And I think that by reinforcing our 150 ft distance
requirement from shore will also help that as well too versus having people coming in close to shore as well with with the boats. We haven't we haven't gone for a specific boat category. We've uh advocated for a speed limit is what's been uh been kind of the the standard
for Lake Wyola. Um and other questions. So, uh, so you said the committee gets meeting tomorrow night. Are you going to try to submit something for I mean, that's what I was going to ask. That's
what I was going to ask you. Um, I I would I mean, if the if we get to the point where we can my my goal is to have, you know, we've had a meeting and a half already, very long meetings of discussion. So, I think we're at a point where the discussion has probably hit
hit its limits. So, it's time for us to kind of, you know, call for a vote on the amended bylaws. And then based on how that turns out, I'd like to be able to communicate to you guys this week if we get to that point with the proposed verbiage which I just shown I just show I showed you a few minutes ago.
Okay. So, to get it onto the town meeting warrant for this Yeah. I mean, again, because if we we can't really make signage or really kind of embark on an educational process without having something concrete, right? That's kind of where We'll be living in ambiguity for for another season if that's the
case. Okay. I get back to Brennan and our um our schedule. I know you were putting together a calendar. Brennan, what's the what was the uh the drop dead date
on the um on the war articles? Brandon, you there? Oh, okay. Well, it should be in by this week. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Seven days before town meeting Saturday. So, we
want to get the drop that date is. Yeah. Um Okay. So, if you have something for um town for the for the warrant um then you should submit that language to
us. So, tonight we're reviewing the warrant. Uh, we haven't discussed whether or not we're going to have another meeting before we finalize the warrant. Uh, I mean, we have another meeting on the 20th, but we want to obviously have this we we have to get
the the warrant language to town council to review who needs a few days. So, um, I'd say yeah, this week if you an article, um, you should submit that to us. Okay, I will do my best to see if we can
garner some some consensus. Questions about um format or lang warrant language um too. Well, there there is there is the one already on there for the planning board bylaw change, right? So
maybe that can be tweaked until gives us some insight. Yeah, just just see what you can do with the language because we would be um we would be uh creating a new bylaw or deleting the
whatever language we use about the existing bylaw or are we amending it? Yeah. Okay. Do the best you can. We will take it from there. I will do my best. How's that? Okay. I
will. All right. Good. Thanks. Thanks, Matt. Thank you, guys. Appreciate it. Have a good one. Bye. Um, okay. It's almost It is six o'clock. I I just want to do one more thing and
then um and then we'll get to the finance committee. We're not going to do the town meeting warrant draft right now. Obviously, um we don't have we'll be going through some of it, but um I wanted to talk about the administrative assessor position because I know that
that's uh something we need to deal with immediately. Um it sounds like we might have um this problem solved that we might have somebody who I'm looking at the Howard
Spner, I would have him speak. I don't understand that it is done and I do think we still need to advertise but Okay. Yeah. Um go ahead. Do you want to just give us an an update on where things stand with the administrative
assessment? Do you want us we going ahead and advertising or do we have I don't think we need to advertise at this point. I think um right now our situation is that we have we have an administrative assessor
who is being paid $6,000 a year and works for something like five hours a week I think if that much and then he does about half he does some of the work and then we have a consultant boy Bishop he does some other things for us
um he looks at all the he looks at the assessments He looks at sales. He matches them. He raises He changes the assessments so that they line up with market value. That's once a year. He also values our utilities. That's part
of personal property also once a year. I think we're paying him. So Leslie, this is like $2,000 plus $500 per electric utility. That's what the contract is that he sent for and the question is how
many electric utilities are there? I believe four, but I can't tell you. Okay. But it's in the neighborhood of 2,000 plus 2,000 give or take. Okay. Um I spoke to a boy on the phone and
basically Roy is willing to take on all the work that David does for us now. And he sent us a contract. The contract he sent us is the same contract as last year, which is say 2,000
plus give or take 500 or thousand. Um, I'm not sure how accurate that really is because I'm not sure he's factored in all the extra work that he's going to have to do. Okay? And I want to I want to firm that
up with him. Okay? But it's not going to be anywhere near the $35,000 question for a position. Okay. And I think he's going to be I think he's going to be fine. Okay. That's my guess. Okay. He's been working with
David. He knows David well. They interact all together. The transition will be very they've already started. They've already started to talk about it even though there's no contract. But there's no Yeah, there's no FY26 contract. He's under contract now.
Um, I think, yeah, I think we should just go in. I think he's going to be fine. And and um uh David Burgess is finishing is is his contract June June 30th. Yeah, his ter
his last date is June 30th. But my guess is again that David and Roy speak a lot. My guess is Roy David's going to keep working just not for us. um beyond June 30th or you So would we
would we start with Roy Bishop now or Well, we do have him. I mean, we have him anyway, right? But him taking on David's you know, he'll start to look at what he has to do. He'll talk to David. David will probably be available for, you
know, phone calls after June 30th. Um Oh, okay. So just doing a um some some having some overlap. You're right. Okay. Questions.
So that's step we're done at this right. Well that's yes. The question is is whether or not we feel like we need to go through um I mean the job description is it's
good to have a job description. We should should vote on the job description. It's whether or not we need to go through a um we need to advertise. Right, Leslie? I would just say that uh
the Sussex board has as a whole has not discussed what Howard spoke of Bishop and it's my personal feeling that there are things that are not happening. We
have been fortunate to have David Burgess all the time give us five hours a week and is not getting the work done in the office that needs to be done. It's been leaning on me that I am not and I am not qualified to do it.
Um that doesn't include the backlog of property inspections that sadly I went to the role of assessor program two weeks ago and She's feeling pretty down about not being able to
accomplish the things they want to I don't know how far they compared to the rest of the world. I know it's changing. I know that my brain is going downhill. I can't I can make aware of what happened. So I know all of us
experience that. But to be depending on me for office hours to do what an administrative assessor at 20our week was doing until this last three years which included co um and I think he's saying this without
having a meeting with everybody. It's not it's not right. It's my strong feeling that I'm not going to last forever. Uh boy did mention that his wife will be retiring in January. His contract says we'll have this all done
and you should be all set till December 3rd. That's what the cover letter said. It did not say that we can continue running this way. Uh it's not right. Our our values are not supposed to just be drive
by that. There are events going up. There's lots of things happening that are not being um but this is something to be a recessive you folks. So don't throw away that job description. Don't throw away the advertisement. I would love to see
the advertisement of the job description go out so that we might capture voice Diane who I told multiple people including is excellent. You are gonna need somebody if it can't go on forever
this way. My opinion they're not doing their everyday work. No. Um George. Yeah. Um Leslie expressed these feelings to to the board assessors. and she's articulated and memo to
us and I we will be talking about this as a board in our meetings and we need to evaluate the situation decide um we are good for getting evaluations taken care of in the tax recap process for
next year. So that's great, but we do need to see what the long run looks like and that is conversations with Leslie as well as with Roy. But I tend to agree with Leslie when they hear with
collaborate for Roy Bishop when I Leslie say we can think about this for a long time. I'm glad we're very relieved that we're going to be in the next month. We're going to be able to set a tax rate for next year. I mean I hate bringing budget to
come not even do that. So this is great news but we have to look at this perspective but we will it is a difficult market. You know we've heard this conversation in other contexts. There's not a lot of out there. There's an organization that basically sucked up
all the food accessors and it's contracting to the town for some reason doesn't work for them. I would say that personel has reviewed the the job description. The
board of assessors have reviewed the job description. If you could at least build that and make authorization that how how we're going to move forward with advertising. I would love to get that job description and an advertisement.
Right. In an invoice cover letter, he says that wife Dian's would be available to do these tasks that are that are not mentioned. Uh and she's not going to last long. Right. Right. Okay. But she's
not she's not available till January, right? He retires, right? And the things that Roy talks about in general, it's not those specifics. We haven't addressed our job that asks in detail as the
go. There's a lot that's not happening. Okay. Well, since I mean the personnel board did bring the recommend the the job description to the select board, I think we certainly can vote on that. Um and I just have these tools in the tool
chest so whatever is decided at the accessory meeting that they can move forward if they choose or when when are the assessors um meeting May 14th. Okay. All right. Um so
um I would assume Yeah. Well, first of all, do I hear a motion to approve the job description as approved by the for the administrative assessor as approved by the person? Second. All right. Any further
discussion on the job description? Yeah. All those in favor signify by saying I make peace I start. Now the question is do we um you're is the are the assessors looking for authorization to move ahead
with advertising and do you need a search committee for this? I would assume that for this sort of thing represents the personel board. Yeah. Well, we didn't I can't remember if we discussed the search committee. I think
um certainly there's a code of assessors that could do some of that. Um I think we advertise and see how many responses we get, right? Um and then and then if we need a committee, we can have formed one search committee. Yeah,
I the narrowed group of people said to the board, the board did meet to discuss this one on March 27th. I said March 31st. That's another thing.
But I'm ready to lower my responsibility by number of hours. I would love to be doing some cross training with another person so that I can I have told everybody if the configuration changes
don't worry I'm fine without a job. But I do feel that there's a lot of transition. You can't just it's hard to just drop everything and say you you take over. Okay. So you guys have a job description, the
assessors and then you're meeting on the 14th and you want to let us know how you want to move forward then. Um so that that if you address Yes, we did. Now we have Oh, we have voted. Oh,
I'm sorry. Okay. All those in favor signify by saying I. I have your eye. Feral eye. Sorry. I'll send it to you. I got a little Leslie. You have the job description. Sometimes I get lost. I'll send it to you. Okay. All right.
Good. Thank you. Thank you for all your hard work. Say that Howard has jumped ahead and done a lot of work that needed, you know. I'm grateful to you. Thank you, Howard.
And this gives you all your tools that you need. Okay, we have the finance committee here. Why don't you guys come up to the table so we can Oh, I'll take one. Sure. On paper. There you go.
I can put it up on the screen. I got mine. Definitely paper. something. Um, do you think you could have you want to talk to us about [Music]
us? Send it to us. Um uh how about um you next on that? Yeah. Yeah, that would be fine. Um, okay.
So, this is done. Um, how do you guys want to uh want to proceed? Do you want to go through all the articles? Put it on. Yeah. So, you want the warrant up, not the
bucket. Okay, let me call the finance committee to order since we have Oh my goodness. There we go. So, read, it's really up to you. I mean, if you if you wanted a brief sort of high level overview of the budget, we could do that and then dive
in. Yeah, why don't we do that? Um, I know in the past um you guys have presented something that you have as a handout at the town meeting. It looks like it's not quite ready to share although I I am going to insert a few things from it. But um but
yeah, we'll have a a you know an annual budget report that um pretty much after tonight I think we'll be ready to sort of finalize that. Share that. Um but I mean I think you know the the sort of key
uh key numbers here are um Yeah. You think it's ready? It's I mean this is estimates. So yeah, I mean but that guides the discussion. It might be easier to look at in the report because it just
summariz that's as of what the budget looks like today. Okay. Pop it up here. You want me to give you email? I'll email. Do you want to email it, George, or do you want to show me the end of the screen because you know your budget better than I do? Oh, yeah. Um, report.
Go ahead. Go ahead. Log. You know it better than I do. So, lo is easier to move around in. But let me Okay. [Music] I can stop talking while George is
pulling up. So, um, so we've got we the finance committee has developed a budget. We voted on it uh at our last meeting. Um it was approved unanimously by committee members. Um
just kind of a high level overview, we have a total operating budget of 7,678,86. That represents uh progress when you speak an increase um
of about $424,000 from uh fiscal year 25 as a proportion that's a 5.9% increase. So um let me just pause
there and just acknowledge that uh this is a really challenging budget year for for our town and every one of our neighbors, anybody who reads the newspaper. Um, and I think we've done really well
to manage what I think, um, was some really significant challenges. Um, and we can talk about a few of those. Um, I think the the you probably are curious about sort of what are the
biggest drivers that are reflected in that 5.9% increase. Um, and I think, yeah, this section here, um, that we're looking at on the screen pretty much
lays it out. So, we are going to we're budgeting for a 7.7% increase in our assessment to the regional school district. And I think you guys probably, you know, have have kind of followed this um this year.
That's that is an unusual increase. Um even though I think we all know that the region has had significant been dealing with significant increases over the last couple of years. What makes it unusual this year is that for the first time I
think in the history of our region um the um what we refer to as the statutory method or the um modified statutory method um is being fully implemented this year without any of the guardrail
measures that had been used in the previous few fiscal years. And what that means is that um three of the four communities that are part of the the region are experiencing very significant increases
in their assessment because the formula is actually not cushioning what have what have would have otherwise been um significant increases that they would have been required to pay. So for us it's a big increase. it's 7.7% for leverage it was 14 and change
percent and for Pelman's 212 22% roughly um and so you know I think I think this is sort of a good news bad news kind of situation it's a it's a it's sort of a painful um
sort of pill to swallow in this current fiscal year that we're budgeting for um but and we have we're doing something to kind help cushion that that increase we'll talk about in a second. Um the good news is is that this is the methodology that our town has advocated
for for as long as I've been a member of the committee and um it's we we're kind of resetting the each town's assessment so that I think next year and beyond we will not have these wildly sort of
distorting increases where one town is increasing by 20 plus percent and another town is 3%. I think that there's now that we're sort of resetting every community's assessment, we should we should have kind of more reasonable
increases in the future. And I want to point out that that is a um a budget for the retail school that's 812,000 below level service. Um and they had a big increase, a relatively big increase last year, but they are still working below
level services and have been for many, many years. So this is also a little bit about digging out of the home. Um other significant how much is not to disagree with but to slightly put a different angle on it. The one of the problems that the region school has is
they've had a decrease in enrollment. So level services for the same or decreasing enrollment is a complicated question and that's something that has to be addressed. Apparently, that's going to be a long-term uh study group that will study the future of the school and the financial the financing of that
service in the town in the region. So, probably a beneficial thing for all of us. Yeah. I would also say about the regional schools, it's been cut. There's been cuts to the regional school have been happening for 10 years, at least 10 years. And it's, you know, I say it all the time, it's one thing to cut
back as your population decreases, but what's been happening in region is programs have been getting cut. So it's it's it's deeper than it's more than just a reaction to shrinking enrollments. It's also lack of revenue from the state. The
chapter 70 money has not been keeping up. If you look at annual increase in chapter 70, it's 1% or less every year. Meanwhile, school expenses continue to grow. teacher salaries are, you know, they're finally they're coming up like all salaries. And so the cuts we've been
making are not just related to population. We're cutting into we're getting down the bone. Well, it's also not we're still feeling the effects of co I mean that that has not gone away. What about the fiveyear rolling average?
Does that get the statuto? Because you know you always you always had that Yeah. So, real quick, the the the the agreement used to be five year long after a population and that's all your
assessments based on. And when we negotiated that and finally came up with something everybody agreed to, they agreed to use a statutory method with one modification that is instead of using the minimum minimum contribution for each town, we would be rolled out over five years. And the other towns
seem to be okay with that. But as AJ said, we weren't we were using it, but we were putting constraints on it. Now we're not. Yeah. And the other talents are having to pay for that. So the way that this language reads, it doesn't mention 5-year rolling average, but it just says using the statutory method as
I outlined. That's in the regional agreement. Okay, good. I just want to make sure that there's nothing one of the things we we learned this year because Desi has sort of asserted uh kind of a a bigger role for themselves
in helping our region um solve this solve this problem. Uh, one of the things we learned is that we there is there really isn't a statutory method that it's sort of like every district that's utilizing it is expected to have
its own implementation of the statutory method. So there there are sort of concepts that are consistent among every community that's using it. But anyway, so the guards, right, the guardrails were Yeah. Um, so that's uh so that's a
significant uh increase. Our elementary school budget is increasing by 5%. We have this enormous increase in our health insurance premium. Um, this is something that's affecting the region's uh budget. uh and I think every
community uh in our area um the police wages um so that's a significant increase kind of built into that line there is a 10% increase that my understanding was is built into the contract um that uh
officers have um so they were going to experience a 10% increase in their pay this And then we're also we have a placeholder in our budget for the chief's uh salary. And so when you collapse all of that together, we're
looking at a 19% increase in um police personnel costs. Um cola increases for town employees is 3.32%. I think one thing that's actually I just realized is not on this list is we did have this salary alignment right
um study that the personnel committee um employed this year. We should probably add that that bullet to this. I'm not sure how much we'll pull up what what the total I think there were six positions if I remember correctly. They probably add up
more than 10,000. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So um so there were six positions that were deemed to be kind of out of alignment with what um neighboring towns had budgeted for those roles and so the
personnel committee is recommending certain increase to kind of reset those. Um so that so that's a portion of this. We don't have the number right yet. Um let's see uh the administrative
assistant there's an hours hourly sort of increase in the actual budgeted number of hours for that position. So um then we have some decreases. Um, last year we funded a $40,000
um, uh, appropriation for a town buildings repair fund. Um, we're not doing that this year, not because it's not important, but because they're um, I think actually due to a sort of technical error that that line got sort
of uh, overfunded last year. So, we we're not needing to do that this year. Um and then you know the rest of it is are kind of small um small increases. So yeah the only thing we'll need to add to this is is that salary alignment study.
Um I think I'm trying to think what else you know there this was a a little bit of a of um a simpler year in terms of capital items. I think you you probably noticed that while there are I think five
capital items. Can you go over revenue though? Yeah, sure. We can do that. Yeah. [Music] Yeah. Yep. Yeah. All right. So,
um, so, um, obviously we're we're utilizing our full 2 and a half% tax levy and we're actually, um, utilizing some excess some of our excess levy capacity that we've acred
over the last number of years. Um, and we're doing that for a couple reasons. Obviously, we need to balance the budget, but we we um uh you know, we've we I think we made
all of I think we exhausted um uh our ability to utilize cash reserves for operating budget um uh lines. And I think we we kind of maximized our
ability to uh to to do that. And so, um, in order to balance the budget, we're we're having to dip into some of that excess levy capacity, and that is going to have an impact on the tax rate. We'll talk about that in a minute. Um, we do have a pretty conservative,
uh, estimate in terms of new growth. Um, this budget assumes $45,000 of new growth. Um our kind of philosophy has always been to to um estimate these very conservatively and
what it's meant in recent years is that um you know we've actually the tax rate that has been implemented was actually lower than what we brought to to town meeting and we think it's better to air on that side than than the opposite. Um,
I think one thing we we should probably acknowledge is that actually I think this was a pretty good year in terms of the um estimated state aid. um you know, we we certainly have a lot of concerns
about um chapter 70 funding and and um but I think overall um this increase in state aid of $57,000 I think was a larger increase than we've observed in the last few uh
fiscal years. And that's by the way is an estimate. It's it's based on the house the house that's the house budget. That's um sort of the most recent available estimates. So that's what we're using. Yes.
Um and I should probably mention uh so if you want to go to four uh those are our capital items. And so you'll see there are five of them but they're they're fairly modest. Um
highway grader is being repaired. There's a new mower uh for the highway department. There's $10,000 for um needed repairs to uh this meeting room. Uh there's a new fire alarm system that
we need to um I guess it's not a new system, but it's an upgrade to the existing RM system that that is required. And then there's um an $8,000 for a grant match for um
the Lake Wyola district that um I think is connected to proposal that the time is submitted. Um all of those are our recommendation is to fund them um from free cash. I um under 4B here is a set
of five. Well, I should say actually four of those five are items in our operating budget. So, one, two, three, and five. Um health insurance, elementary school budget, regional school budget, and veterans
benefits. Those are four items where we're utilizing cash reserves. So, we're recommending we use cash reserves to um kind we really have two rationale for this. When we have a um an item like an operating budget item
where we think there's something unusual about what the town is um uh dealing with in that given budget year, we think it's reasonable to use cash reserves to fund that. So that applies to um I think
both the elementary school and the regional school. Uh the elementary school we have a kind of unique uh district placement. Um there's some expenses related to that. Um and on the regional school budget because we're
seeing such a significant increase as we employ implement the modified statutory method we are recommending using some cash reserves kind of pushing that the impact of that. Um and then the veterans benefits that's that's an that's a a
line where we anticipate getting reimbursed for that in the future. So for for a variety of reasons, we think it's reasonable to use cash reserves to um at least partially from those items and you can see the amounts there because you don't expect that they will
show up over the next year. Well, the health insurance bill. Yeah. So some so so in in in a couple of cases in the elementary school and the the regional school it's it's possible that we will not see those um in the in in in future
years. Um I don't know what the status of out of district placement is an elementary school but by by sort of definition those are unusual expenses that um we're trying to essentially cover for using um cash
reserves. In the case of health insurance that's really yes that is going to be an ongoing issue. We made the decision that rather than have that roughly $100,000 increase hit taxpayers all in
one year to sort of cushion that blow by um sort of absorbing half of that increase with with cash reserves and then having the other half of it basically um um you know use tax levy
for the other half. They said that um that large bump of 100,000 is partly due to having used up some of their reserves to meet the um pharmacy costs that were going way up. So, they should be on a different footing. So, we're not
expecting a $100,000 increase next year. We're we're hoping that putting some of the money in now and some of the money in next year would never include well we some of us disagree with us even though we all voted for this budget because I think it's completely unknown
what's going to be state pharmaceuticals given given the climate tariffs and the rest of it all these all these chemicals are made in China so we don't know but could we could get hit with a bigger surprise next year so this is a gamble Um and then C and D are
um connected to warrant articles where we're proposing potentially using cash reserves to fund these things. They're not part of our operating budget. So C is um you know we we are proposing using
cash reserves to fund the PAS mitigation line those expenses that we've we've obviously been incurring. There's a long sort of story that I know you guys are are aware of about we we um were under
the impression that we would we had applied for or received um no interest loan for this purpose. We think that that may not be available to us. So, we had pre we have previously authorized
the town meeting um the treasurer on on two separate occasions to borrow $150,000 each time for PAS mitigation expenses. Um he is about to secure the first of those
$150,000 loans I think in the coming couple of weeks uh if it hasn't already happened. And then the finance committee is recommending that rather than have him go out for a second loan which is going to have associated interest
expense that we can we've got enough cash reserves to um to fund that. And we thought it'd be better to sort of save on the interest expense and and and not um borrow um a second aotment of 15.
Just the budget point. It's also not clear when when and if we have to spend that second 50,000. We don't know. We have money in the line now. Yeah. And we and we are not going to be paying interest when we don't even need to spend it in the in the future. So having
these reserves in hand in the line will give us the opportunity to take money when we need it. In the meantime, I think it still gets interest. So I mean I think it's just gives us a little confidence. We can deal with what comes up. Yeah. And and in the town meetings we approved two
bans for 150,000 and but at that time we thought it was interest free. Right. We're going to get zero% right. Right. And and some possible forgiveness and you have an interest payment in this budget. Yes. Or Oh, you do.
So it's actually Yeah. So I think it's that change. So that's for the first of those 450k bands that So I guess my question to Haley and I don't know if you have this um number yet is um do you know where we
are in terms of the how much money we have expended and whether or not we've we've looked into that additional 150. Um, I have to connect with Gail on Thursday when she's next and she just fills up the war, but she is concerned that we're running out of money. So,
even the 300,000 is not going to be enough. No, she wrote us enough. So, they they have $4,000 left right now and they haven't put the 150 that's going to be borrowed
right now. 4,000 from the first 150. 136 was our first free cash. And so it's not clear how fast this is going out. We don't know what invoices have been forwarded to the right people. Um but we're not out now. Um but she said that
probably would be used in the Tigan bond uh contract or whatever it's called. Sure. I'm just Yeah. Please note after I pay the bills this week, I will have about $4,000 in available funds to pay future testing bills. Now, that's from the
first 136. Correct. And and and there's about to be an additional $150,000 that Ryan is borrowing again in the coming days that will that will fund that. Yeah. Well, we don't know what
other invoices are in process. That's the piece that we're catching up to. But we'll be prepared. Yeah. Because the monthly expenses are pretty significant. Yeah. and bonds right there right now as well. So built for this. So we just had
Yeah. So we had a bunch come come in recently. Yeah. I think you know for purposes of of planning what we really need to do is is um figure out going forward how much is this costing us on an annual basis.
assuming we're I don't know were we at 78 households or you know something in that neighborhood where you have the poet systems you have the quarterly testing um and uh you know how much is and then tyin bonds whatever they're charging and
Gabe made an estimate for us which is just simply an estimate she said 50,000 a year and the other piece is that the state changed the testing regulations since the beginning of this process. So there's lots of moving parts and but
they changed it in our favor. They made it less frequent. So okay, that was helpful. Can I ask you all a question about this? Now we went forward with this plan that was developed by the select board to do the testing to do to install the forwards and the rest of it uh with the understanding that the state
is supporting us with these trees and then we're going to go through possibly going to be event. So now that the circumstances, is there going to be a time when you review what you're obligated to do, what you want to do, and what the cost might be, and how that might come into consideration moving
forward because seems like it's a it's unknown. Yeah. Well, it's up to D what they're forcing us to they are they forcing us to do they sent the paper saying that was not that's No, we don't have any choice.
But I know that that Kayle's pursuing, you know, so so D really or Clean Water Trust really screwed up when they said, you know, and they did it twice, right? It was not only once, they did it a second time and then they came back and said, oh, you know, oh, that's not a
public water system, you know, it's a well, you can't have any of our money. But we're that's tomorrow. I'm meeting with Elena and um I think Maddie from Rep. Saunders office to talk about how their conversations went with the clean
water. So maybe we can get something. They're putting that arm twist on D. That's great. Yeah. I'm hope that the reps can help you. Do you actually have paperwork from war? I have only found one document. I think it's the initial
150,000. So I do have that. But their claim is that that never should have gotten the the green light. Yeah. To be honest, they owe us. Tell them we're next to the club. They don't know who we are. We're next
to the quad. We expect them. Are the equivalent of a well the way this is going, we will have a municipal, right? Yeah. So anyway, it is it is being pursued and and I would say the legislators um have been
supportive have been really supportive and and we're going to put the um yeah the pressure on D like that's great. Yeah, maybe someday we can transfer the funds back into the state. Maybe I mean it's a little scary to me to to not think of PAS as being in the
operating budget because to me it's in the operation. So, so I think one you we have had at least initial discussions about the concept of having a revolving fund and we can we can put a certain amount of funds from the operating
budget but I think we need that information and you talked about Rita which is having a real good sense of what this costs us on our obligations going forward. Yeah, it's hard to plan because at some point those um poet systems are probably going to need to be replaced. I don't. So the filters have
to get replaced but the poet systems themselves you know that they they become they could become obsolete just like solar panels become obsolete. I apologize. Go ahead. Okay. Thanks Bob. Anyway it's just yeah
it's I think in putting it we can't our operating budget so stressed we have to put it over there for right now until we get a number. But the other piece is I think the town needs to understand this is one of the biggest issues in front of our town financially and it's required
and it should be known that it's required and the town responded with we want to protect people's water supplies. So, but it's a big piece. It's bigger than anything else recently. And so we so when the town prioritizes what it
spends, it has to know that this is right there and it will probably be in the operating budget. Maybe not next year. We'll see. We need to start using the budget. Yeah. Um what's what and sorry one question way back with
regional school. What what's the sense and I know we can't really predict it but some of those other towns are having we have big increase. They they have huge increase. Yeah. Is any sense that that's happy with that? Think that's going to work?
I mean, so Lever passed their um Lever had their town meeting, I think, last weekend and they they approved their approved. So that I think that's a big one. and Ellum has um you know John Tricky has supported this this
proposed bud and so I think I think there's some occasion and one of the things that's changed since um we are implementing the the statutory method is that the budget actually only needs to be approved by three of the
four communities where what in previous years when we've had alternative assessments using these guard rails all four towns had to approve it. So, Lever already did. A Emerson is going to because it it benefits them. Um and so
between Pelum and Shootsbury, one of those town as long as one of us know and once people make the shift in their budget, um we are funding some of it out of our um cash reserves, but we'll be ready for next year. So once you push
your budget over there, unless something else blows up, which could happen, um I I don't think that they're looking to go back to the long fight about assessment. So there they are right. Okay. Cashew third. Yeah. Actually, so
last item is is D. So, we as as a fincom, you know, we were we were told that we're expecting about I know it's hard to to to to plan, but um we were told that to expect about $30,000 of
legal expenses needed to continue to um defend the town in the solar bylaw litigation. The finance committee made a decision which was instead of having this be an item in our operating budget,
we would like to engage the town in a discussion about this and we think it's a good time for everybody to either as a as as a community to either reaffirm our commitment to um defending the town in
this in this litigation in which case we need to have the town needs to appropriate $30,000 specifically for this purpose. This is totally separate from the legal line that's in our operating budget. Um or by voting this down, I think that
signals a a desire to change direction. Yeah. Yeah. And it's I think it'll be um kind of useful to have this opportunity to engage the the community in a public. So
So that was our thinking there. Um that is uh section five, you're looking at the status of our cash reserves if all of those things happen. Um and so the good news is that we have um we have um
uh guidance built into our fincom that um recommends having 10 at least 10% of our operating budget um in cash free cash reserves and 5% in stabilization reserves and we're
essentially there. We the if we if all of these things pass that $733,000 of free cash left over that represents about 9.5% of our operating budget and then the remaining
stabilization funds there represents 5.4% of our budget. So in total our reserves would be uh would reflect 14.9% of our annual operating budget which is essentially like where we want to be. We
don't want to be below that. Um so you know we are like I think in the last couple of years we've had a little bit more of a cushion than we're going to this year if all these things pass but that's where we stand. Yeah. The only thing about that if I can just add no one about free cash. I should probably do the one next to free cash. you know,
this doesn't count when it's being certified next year. Any new increases to pre-cash, which happens every year. So, the 9.5 AJ talked about it would probably be over 10%. Yeah. So any you know
unexpended budget lines from FY25 you know will will end up um moving into temporary cash. Is there any sense of um I mean I'm not saying you're doing the wrong
thing we're in but we're spending a lot of money a lot of free cash and excess levy capacity. So what happens? It's the classic question. What happens next year? Um well I think you know I think we have
to um I think we have to sort of manage the challenge that we've faced this year. Um and our approach all along was like we could, you know, was to try to
um try to try to recommend a budget that that does two things, right? It it funds the services that our town residents have approved every year at, you know, at town meeting. So, we think this
reflects the level um the level of services that um residents expect and and to receive in the town. And that this budget we think kind of
cushions the um you know the the the impact of you know what is a a very you know significant increase in the overall operating expenses. It cushions the impact on taxpayers by utilizing those
cash reserves. If if we weren't if those reserves weren't in the the sort of very healthy position that they were going into this fiscal year, I don't think I think it's fair to say we'd be making a different set of decisions. But we felt like we had um we had sufficient
reserves to to utilize for this purpose and we think it's ultimately in the interests of to give some tax relief to residents. Um and uh and so I think we feel comfortable with it made. Now who
knows what's going to happen next year. Some of the some of the big increases that we've we face this year. I think there is a sort of plausible argument for why those were sort of unusual increases. We talked about them already.
So hopefully um you know hopefully we'll be in a better position. But you know obviously that gohead and it's important to lobby our legislators for rural aid because the simplest thing they can do is just
up that number and not worry about formulas, not argue the politics. it's just pushed that number and the other kinds of revenue and so there may be some relief in this budget. Um they passed a supplemental or the House
passed a supplemental one for FY25 and they're going to fully fund the circuit breaker and that's likely to go ahead with the Senate. It's likely to happen for FY25. So that is good news. And the other piece is, as George has been saying, the lobbying for the Quabin um
waters and the pilot is another possible um revenue stream that at some point might lighten our load. We just we just had a meeting that before, but there's a lot there's been a big push back by the
so of course. So it's going to take a lot of it will take time and it will take a lot of letter writing and it will take a lot of argument 11 towns will coordinate our efforts. Well that's what we're that's what we're arranging right now. So we
had a meeting with Joe and um in all the towns um so that was it was a good session and I believe she's gaining political clout and so what she brings up and when she brings it up over and over I think it moves the ball down the
field but it is slow not how's the state got affected by the federal ultimately affect It will trickle down. The Senate put out there um did you see that the DLS released the cherry sheet
that the Senate proposed and it's no there's no good surprises. No. And so so that's a little bit I believe their reaction to to what they don't know is going to happen. But I think that philosophically this town is trying to
meet what we do know is right here and instead of um sort of putting off things because we don't know and here we are right on the ground. Okay. Thank you for that summary. So there might be a few little tweaks here and there but you'll
have that ready. There was there's one very sort of minor change which we learned about which is the the li library custodian expense which we
budgeted for this year in the library budget. Um it's about $5,000. I think that we were told that's a reasonable estimate of what's going to be needed in a new building. Yeah. Um Maryanne has told us that by including that in the
libraryies budget um that impacts um their their yeah they're because as a certified library a certain percentage of their of their budget has to be spent on um new materials and so that would
have a sort of a dull uh down effect. So they're asking us to pull that out of the libraryies budget and so there's a town buildings custodian line which I think we should move it to. Yeah, it's it's not affected by it
doesn'tffect it. Okay. All right. Great. Oh yeah. Do do you want to know what the sort of the tax rate? I was afraid to ask. Yeah. So it's right there um in that box. So um based on all these
assumptions um we would expect a tax rate of $16.60 for every $1,000 of assessed value. Um that's would be an increase from the FY25 rate of
$15.80. the impact on um the average single family tax bill is what's in that second part there. Yeah. So it's basically uh if you look at those two columns there. So the average single
family tax bill for FY25 was $6,257. Based on all these assumptions, the average single family tax bill would be $6,596 with this new tax rate. So that would be an increase of $338.
And that's the high end. Yeah. Because we think our revenues, you know, we're trying to estimate our other revenues lower. And if any the state funding or the local receipts end up being higher than the assessor setting tax rate, then the tax le goes down and these tax rates will be adjusted down. Yeah. So
hopefully I think we probably want to tell people you know the increase in your tax bill next year is probably going to be somewhere between 300 and 30 might be a better way to do that. Um but yeah I think you should think of
that as a ceiling. Yeah. So um will that be part of your presentation then too? Okay. Yeah. I just Yeah. I I think that's the bottom line. Yeah. Yeah. That's really important to make sure everybody kind of gets it. Yeah. Um, no
big surprise. Yeah. It's less than Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, I'll say, you know, there were until fairly recently, we thought this number would be more like $500. So, I know I know it it's it's a significant number. Um but I
think a lot of work went into um set of decisions we talked about here to to to provide some relief to to taxpayers so that it's not too and the other thing is in the past several years it hasn't gone up 2.5. That's why we
have excess levy capacity. It hasn't been jumping more than like $200. So, it's not uh and that's because we are careful and because we are conservative about how we spend the town's money. So, here we are. We have to deal with this and that's not such a big law. Yeah.
Yeah. We're always cognizant of the impact on the taxpayer. That's part of that argument part of that conversation. Yeah. And I don't know, we didn't mention this number, but the the the amount of excess living capacity that this budget uses is
148,5 total. Yeah. [Music] Capacity capacity. Yeah. Going into this year, our news capacity is 862. Yeah. If we use 149,000, it's going to go to 714. So we have enough produced le capacity
if at 140 150,000 a year last us five years. Yeah. Except that taxes go up every year. But when you talk to the state, if you're talking to the D and they say you got excess tax, well you're fine. That's what you're going to say. I know the people voting on the budget
don't agree with that, but that's their perspective. And that was a that was a different tension with the other four towns. They didn't have that piece. We they didn't have that ability capacity. Ammer does not have the other two towns. Yeah, they have excess living capacity.
One of them to the extent that you do I think has one of them does always. Yeah, I think in pretty good shape on excess capacity. I'm not sure about that. Okay. Um All right. So I think we can
move through some of these articles pretty fast because most of it is what we've already discussed. Thank you. And you can see on your warrant you've got you see our vote. So we voted on everything here. There's one that will happen. I would just just want to make sure that
you don't have any um further edits. So, if you can look at this because I know we like to get it Yeah. you know, as cleaned up as as possible before we send it to um before we vote on it and before we send it to um the town council. So,
when are you voting? Um well, probably not tonight. I think we'll meet next week. And yeah. Um and has town council looked at this at all? No. No. because she really doesn't want to see it until it's been Yeah.
It's a waste a waste of money. Yeah. Last year we were sending her drafts and then she's like I don't want to see these you know until you're short until well until you correct all the typos and so do we have this draft the fact they're referring to we need to I I got
it today actually. Yeah. I'll share it's pretty it's pretty close. So, article one is reports. Article two is the um and I had asked the question about whether or not we needed to have the 5-year rolling average, but we don't. Um so, that's the the regional school
budget. Article three was the the totals that we've talked about here. Um articles four um is a compensation. Yep.
One five is a treasure entering into contract with the balance agreement. So that's pretty standard. Um six uh grants standard. Seven you guys voted
on for um Katherine Hton. Um, eight is the Walter Tibbitz. Nine, uh, you guys recommend
um I I thought just on the private duty detail account, didn't we didn't Gail say that that I asked that question. You did the answer by that was that separate article so that we have a revolving
account. So, so people who do private duty can be paid, but there was some question about whether or not it belonged in revolving counter. I thought so. We gota we need to just check on that. Makes sense to have it revolving because you're getting
reversed by the utility. Yeah. No, I I know. I don't know why Gail thought it was it had a different but town. Yeah. Had a different take. Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. This is what this is when I asked Brennan. Um he he checked with Gail and
her response was um the questions. Um anyway, she's asking if it's a revolving fund. If so, the outside detail has never been added as a as a bylaw, so it does not belong there.
Um outside detail is an agency account and needs no authorization from county. So we authorized it to be funded and remember it's revolving. So but we say so when say you know one of the author doesn't detail right they're paid and
when the invoice and payment comes in from say national grid it's put back in. So maybe it doesn't work the same way as this revolving fund. The initial amount never changes as long as it's being reimbured by the national grid or yeah stay tuned with that that might even get
removed. So um okay uh so the PAS we we talked about the 50 and the 100 um rescending the prior authorization to borrow article 11 we
need to do if article 10 passes because we because we had previously the town had previously authorized Brian to borrow this money and so by passing article 10 we're actually using cash reserve
Okay. If article 10 fails, then we can just withdraw handle. We just withdraw article 11. Okay. Um, we have the mower, we have on article 12, article 13, we have the
highway department raider, um, the 8648 for the fire alarm system. [Music] Um, the $10,000 for needed town hall
repairs, article 15. Um, article 16. I just wanted to make sure that the wording was right on this. Yeah. Um, because I got really mixed up like what the $8,000 it's. So, it's for the match
the rural development fund um grant which is for the storm water management. All right. So, that's the that's the GZA proposal, the one that's due in
June, the one that is due in June. And it's not for the um the one for the dam repairs and and upgrades which is going to be CPA and
then a state grant. Yeah. Okay. And the 8,000 we might not need the whole amount. It might be that we get reimbured 4,000 from the Lake Wyola Association. Yeah. They have expressed interest in this item as well. Okay. So, the $8,000 and
and we'll just get this language proper is the matching funds for the rural development fund application for storm water
um storm water actually it's an H&H study so it's like hydrarology and And um yeah. Okay. So we'll just we'll get
that language for the ancient age study. Um yeah Tom go ahead. Yes. Right. Okay. Yeah. So we just have to get that. Um Yeah. So, and there was an addition to
that. Okay. Just so you know, we'll get that language. Um, but that's what um Do you Yeah. If you're Okay. Do you need to vote again or No. Okay. All right. Um Okay. $30,000. We know for legal
expenses, some solar bylaw litigation. Um then we have the MLP retained earnings. Uh, and then the whole MLP budget, operating budget. Um, do you
guys go through that with them? Yeah. Okay. All right. They go through the whole thing. Yeah. Um, okay. And I think Do you have any other articles? I don't think you do. So, there's a new one that that was a prior bill. Oh, okay. Just we
have another vote. I think we should vote on it. Yeah, why don't you go ahead and vote. So, but there's a new Yeah. article um to see if the town will vote to pay bills from prior years. A bill from Encore
Fire Protection dated 1113 2024 $134 for annual fire extinguishment service. So I'll make a motion to recommend approval. [Laughter]
Second, we just go down the line. Okay. Cash and I heming my eye voice from the 6 you had the language for that to get put into the um the article for the
grants. Yeah. No, for the for the bill prior to the year where came up with that. I got it. It's in here. Yeah, maybe in here already. Just one bill.
Yeah, 20 bills. Oh, there. Okay. I had the wrong I had the wrong copy. Okay. All right. Okay. I'm looking. Yeah, there were a few versions. No, it's okay. I think this is the I think I have to write one
minute here. I just have to get rid of Is that an extra? Yeah. Okay. So, let me get rid of this one. Okay. Um Okay. So, I think that completes our work with the
finance committee except that I just have to tell you um and and I know we've mentioned this before. Um I think Abe had mentioned it while she was still here. Um we're we're still dealing
during this fiscal year with litigation stuff around the the solar bylaw and um I can't divulge anything sort of outside of executive session but leave it to say that there's
there's still um ongoing negotiations discussions. I think we're meeting tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow um and uh with
outside council and the it's a joint planning board and select board meeting with outside council and Donna um to figure out what's happening. So stay tuned because there might be some additional expenses that will be incurred um this year. And just so you
know, um, uh, Gail and and Brennan pulled together, um, all of the So, we'll have that for you. All of the outside council and I can get that to you. The one thing we don't have, which um, Brendon will be working on is um,
and it's a little trickier is Donna's. We have it. You have it? Oh, okay. Great. Oh, good. Okay. Because that that was a little harder because you have to go through every bill. So, so we have the ones for um for Costa Palman and
whatever their name is. Um and you can get that for you and obviously we'll need it for town meeting too. Um so any idea how much this last amount will be for this? I didn't you know what I didn't even add it I didn't add it up
April. Um but I can go back and maybe just do it by you know by year. Um because for a while there really wasn't anything going on. Um so there was but then last few months it's been but what what do we have in our
[Music] sim 35,800 change? Yeah. 35%. Yeah. And then we have possibly 12,000 at the school because um coming through the salaries that didn't get um
pegged at the beginning. They projected what it would cost for that contract and there seemed to be a little short maybe. Yeah. Um but we also talked to people about transferring from um lines after May 1st. So yeah, so we have access um
but like our health insurance used to be that hot. It's not that hot this year. So So there's not a lot of um a lot of exc. So, are you are you doing are you looking at blind to blind transfers now?
No. No. Okay. I just turned over May one. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. It's just I don't know when this stuff is gonna hit. Um so, you'll see. Yeah, we might.
Um Okay. Well, thank you very much for all your hard work. Really appreciate it. make our make our job uh easy. Not part of our job. Okay. So, yeah, I'm going to turn the
thing up. All right. Thanks. Thanks a lot. So we just had um we have the emergency management team emergency management director's request to engage
Gilmore to Massachusetts. Yeah, we have to we have to vote on that. Remember we had it waiting and all we do is have to say official like it because we were in
our video but there's no money involved with that. Right. Can you guys take it outside and just put up your dukes? No. No. There was there was no money involved or if there was something that was coming out of the GM or or the grants with the
EMT, but we have to vote to authorize. Okay. All right. So, do I a motion to um authorize? Thank you. um to engage Phil Gilmore for the Massachusetts Firewise.
Yeah. Sorry. Okay. Any um more discussion? No. Do we have to get one? Yeah. We just Do you want to give him an email tomorrow? We approved it so he can you know close the loop. Great. Okay. Um so
all those in favor signify by saying I. Make s I barely. Great. So, town administrator reports. Um, I know this is a lot to try to do tonight. Paley, what do you um I
can I kept it pretty short. I can um so I can talk on the fly. Okay. If you need me to. Um but I knew we had a chance packag much. So, one of the highlights I wanted to say was just talking with all the department heads today. That's why actually the tables are set up this way.
No, it worked out for tonight. Anyways, yeah, it was really helpful. You know, we talked a lot about, you know, what past practices been kind of what people goals are for the future. Um, we made a couple jokes about maybe some repair work that could be done for the
building. That was helpful. You know, you know, they they said that that really hadn't happened in a very long time. Yeah. So, I thought that was a a good first step. And he we made it a routine every other month to start and then we'll try them in a quarterly. I said, I just want to get my feet wet.
um you know more communication than than not in the beginning. So that's a that's a thing now and I definitely want to kind of target things you know we talked a lot also about the website and issues with the fax machine and just you know
so so for me those are like easy wins if you can figure those out I think people will be very happy and shouldn't cost too much money. Um, I met with the Furcog last week and one of the people I talked to, I think it's Megan, um,
talked about the ADA accessibility grant and so that is something that I would like to see us pursue. So what um essentially for this first go around and Fur Pog already has um a cost estimate for their services to implement it, but
it would be for us to get a plan like an ADA action plan and then that sets the bar for a future round of funding which could include things like um accessibility features um digital accessibility audits, audiovisisual equipment to amplify sound. Um, so this
would just be like a groundwork thing and I think the grant u I think what they had quoted was probably $11,000. Um, but it is Do we have to write it or are they gonna write it? It's pretty much good to go. I think I just have to tweak things from their proposal. Um, but the thing that I do need you to do is to vote to designate
me as your ADA coordinator because if I if you don't have ADA coordinator, you can't apply at all. I think the town well I I mean you're new to us so we haven't designated you as that but I think in the appointed list the town administrator is that okay yes but we
can but you're you're new to us so we can make that for you. So do I hear a motion to make uh town administrator Haley Bolton the ADA coordinator? Yes. Second. Okay. Any discussion? All right. All those in favor signify by nine.
Thank you so much. I think that'll be really handy. Um yeah, you can just rubber sand through. But no, I think that'll definitely be in handy particularly in this one if we're talking about future upgrades. One thing I noticed when I was at the senior lunch today is that when people are talking
like I'm hard of hearing in this ear, but even I like you can't hear one another speak. That's certainly true in this room. It's because there's no there's nothing to grasp. There's no fabric. There's no change. What about that?
You can just place. Yeah, I think um I should follow up with her on that. I'm not sure if she was taking the lead. No, she wants us she g the money. She got us the money overlap nicely. So, whatever that
doesn't vice versa. Yes, she I think. Yeah, we want to make sure we don't drop. I think it was 15,000. Yes, it was. But that would help a lot fixing, but it was only for Yeah. It wasn't um we had the $10,000 on the warrant. Yeah,
I know. But it helps with the techy stuff, right? Which is huge. It is. Yeah. No, it is. And fun, and fun. Um, so I we talked about it. I'm waiting um tomorrow about the PAS. So hopefully
we'll have some goodish news to share. Um I'm optimistic from what I heard from them that they there could be some incentive for us there. Um we are mailing the documents for the home world
petition. So that's all said that'll get started um where it needs to go in the house. And um and then my last thing is I I would love to and I don't know the person's name. Who's the chair of the personnel board? I'd really like to who
is traveling right now? She's traveling. Okay. because I would love to get on your agenda and just kind of talk about um and I could even share with you what I've done so far for Well, I just I I I had sent it earlier and I don't know if you got the first half of the I sent it
again today. It just circled back to it. I sent multiple emails and I attached the wrong subject to that. My apologies. Don't worry. This is why I shouldn't be doing stuff at 11 o'clock at night. Anyway, um so yeah, you certainly can share. Um I
hadn't given anything to them yet because I I didn't know when our next meeting was and if he ke was ready for it. Um I do know there's a couple other things on there. There needs to be a custodial job description for the library. Uh because it currently is not
in it's it's a significant um Gabe had set it up I think with Peg. It's it's um a significant ads. So it needs it lives as two job descriptions. So yeah, I can explain what I can give you about that. And then um there was one other thing we
had to do for that and I don't remember what it was. It was a job description but I don't maybe it was the assessor one and we just did that one. So like what's your sense of person of the handbook in general? That's what we just Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The first half I
think what what I had done um with and I I added in the old language so there was a comparison between the two and then the second half I should have over. I have a draft of a whole book so we could splice or we want to make sure whatever
thing is are in for benefits in the old have to go into the new one. you can't change those unless there's a but um but I I don't but I included some policies on like complaint resolution and progressive
discipline evaluations. So just kind of and I just pulled a bunch of like new you know like there's the um there's some new act that allows people who have children like if you have to flex your turn to drop your kid off at daycare that allow you to go the states.
One thing we didn't have also was a domestic violence, the sexual harassment and there's five or six other ones that we had. They were all adopted as separate policies. We didn't even have but we didn't have a domestic violence. No, but that is so
but they have to be also distributed to each employee. You can't say please see your department head for the sexual harassment policy. Please see your department. But um but that could be a good way to get most of the staff in one place and talk about it. I definitely want to well I would recommend that we
we share it with the um and then of course do like aultment sheet um so yeah that's my where I'm at. This is almost a full month. So, uh it's really not that bad. I think um you
know, I think a lot of the the issues are solvable, I think, for the most part. Um from what I've seen, you know, communication can be fixed, buildings can be repaired. Um you know, but those things don't take they're not quick fixes. So it'll probably take a little
bit of time for you see real results. Um but yeah, I'm I'm definitely deep and busy. Yeah. Um and in terms of just like the broader goals, I know you're working on that. Do you want to um Yeah, I can ask that. So I I see us really needing
to get more modernized. um you know, you know, it is what it is, but um you know, there's some practices right now around accounts that kind of worry me and security. Those things should be addressed pretty quickly. Um I think you
highlighted one thing. Yeah. Um so there's that. Um you know, and just really making sure I've been what I said in the meeting today is I'm not really looking to change a whole lot right now. I want to just know how things happen. I don't think you can really do anything different unless you appreciate where
you're at now. So, I've been making it a point to say what is your department policy on this? Do you even have a policy on that? Um, so that they know I'm invested in hearing what works and what doesn't work for them and then you know you've got your
building and you had identified buildings. Um yeah, I think I was more setting up goals for you um in that document and then to say you know what are the what are the the the task um and there was sort of like larger um
yeah so I mean technology is a theme I think your grants um financial management making sure that we can maximize every dollar those are the big ones there's also tasks that fall underneath that um I
haven't gotten a chance to work on that document today. Yeah. No, that's fine. I think I just want to make sure we don't lose it because um you know, I think there's some really important stuff that you're already kind of working on. You
know, one example is is getting all the department heads and getting people to do goals and having performance reviews and all that stuff that you know just fell by the wayside that is naturally going to come from you. And I'm starting
to keep organized with it as best I can. I have a lot of Google Docs right now that are going so it's a little hard to keep track of. Also, one thing I said about goals with them is, you know, I understand that there there are budget realities in town, but I've encouraged them to think about, you know, what are
the things that you want that we can't consistently fund. You know, if you if you have a way to say, hey, you know, we've been thinking about maybe we want to expand the service or we want to adapt something, we want to implement a new policy, but there's no funding for it. It's helpful for people to know that, hey, this has been on the back
burner for maybe five years, right? And you know, how can we come up with a plan to slowly fund this? Yeah. Um, so I told them to do that and I told them I I'm going to be giving them monthly reports too. I want um, you know, I'm going to sit down with each department head individually to identify what makes
sense on that report. The same, but you know, I've said to them, I can I'm really good at creating graphic images um, communicating that way and if you give me the information, I can set it up, right? Um,
but I need that information from you because otherwise I can't advocate for you. I can't have your back if I don't know what am I supposed to be saying, what's accurate about what's going on. Um, that we talked about today and helpful. All right. So, we'll just
we'll set up another time um when a little bit more time. Yeah. Yeah. Have a I think before first Yeah. Yeah, for next week we have we have a meeting that we were going to use as our
time rather than um Can I make a suggestion? I think it might be helpful to do a couple things and maybe on the 13th um use that as a both a strategy session and there's something else that came up
tonight that I thought you know if you want to talk more about the warrant. Well, yeah. So, we should go through the warrant maybe then, too. Or I don't think so. Yes, because I know Brennan really wanted to get it to Donna. So, he had set the 12, although we're not going
to be ready. So, the so the 13th we would meet and do the strategy session and then the finalize the one. I think that Yeah. And we had had it on for um uh 4:30, which is still fine with me. I
don't know if you guys wanted it. So the 13 that's seen as fine. That's an old me. That's an old me, right? It would start that way for the next executive session on the strategy. Okay. Yeah. Um that's fine. As far as I
know that works for me. 4:30. Yep. Then we have enough time to get to deal. Um, oh, Donna's not available to six o'clock. So, could we do five and then
uh she can join us at six? That's the 13th, I think. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. We can get a pizza or something. Um, so 5:00 pm we do send out a All right. So maybe I'll just put it in my calendar right now. It's just okay. If I
don't do it right, then I always forget and it's always surprising me and I don't need any more surprises right now. No, I miss my limit for the year. But you know, we're not even near.
Okay. Um, all right. So, five o'clock and then will she be well, we'll have the Zoom set up. So, then um are we doing so then we also have to do another
one for the results of the strategy, right? Um, the 13th is Tuesday. Yeah, I think the 14th was done. Well, I have on the 14th, a second meeting that same week.
Is that what we're We can do it the next week. I, you know, I was packing, but it looks like they have an emergency management meeting. I don't know. I don't know if this is left over from what other No, no, never mind. It's not
over. I made it reoccurring. Um, well, we do have so we do have emergency. So 520 is greater. We want to do the 21st or do we do we want to add
and this would be to discuss what we talk about the results of two again. So yeah, I think we want Yeah, but I think we want to kind of move along with that deal. Um All right. And
um yeah, at some point we have to we have to talk about outstanding complaints that we have not scheduled um executive sessions for. So we put that on the agenda
for the person or No. No. Yeah. the regular. Okay. not there. The only thing we didn't get was another date for the
resulting strategy. Yeah. What does it say? We want to do that the same week or do it the next week. We should probably the same. So, so next week like the 14th. [Music]
You're not the or the same week of the 20th or the week of the Yeah. Oh, the week of the 20th. The week of the 20th. Okay. I have time on Wednesday the 20th. 21st. Sorry. Yeah,
that's enough time. Okay. All right. The 21st 4:00 at 4:00. Okay. Yeah. Before work, sir. I can I can be adjustable in my schedule. So, I I know it early enough before enough time to talk about every
layer. Yeah. And for and and give Yeah. Okay. I think so. All right. Do I hear any motion to adjourn? Doug, second. All those in favor signify by saying I.
Thank you. the eye. So, let me just um at least there was a little last time. Thank you. I'm good. Start this at 5:00 and then I'm just taking the 14 off of
here. This one. Right. We have nothing on the full team. No. No. We've done We've done quite a Yeah. There's still one meeting one meeting every week. Nothing to worry about. We need to get
rid of this. Look at that. I walked up. They're nice size though. They are nice. Yeah. I'm impressed.