This government meeting is brought to you by Eastworks and our local cable subscribers. Okay, I think we've got most people here. I'm going to call to order the meeting of the Southampton Select Board for June 16th, 2025 at about 6:05 p.m.
Uh we have a quorum here, I believe, with myself, John Lumbra, and Ellen De Brun. We are missing uh Steven Johnson and Dan Lavlli. And they may tune in, but in case they don't, we are three. Uh and then for finance committee, if you
guys would like to call yourselves to order, please. Yep. I'll call our meeting to order. Uh, in addition to the usual suspects, we welcome our new member, Jamie. So, absolutely. Welcome, welcome. Thank you. And I my apologies for being
late my first meeting. No, that's quite all right. No, no, you're not late. Really? Good. And we've got uh both Chief Illingsworth and Chief Pulli uh in as guests as well. Um, all right. I think uh I Oh, here comes Stephen. Hold on.
Hey, Stephen. Okay, great. All right, so I think we've got a pretty much a full house. This is who we were expecting. Um and then uh Scott, we'll turn it over to you. I think um our basic focus for the meeting tonight is just to talk about end ofear transfers and um so we'll let
you walk us through those in terms of what we need to do and we'll take it from there. So if you can make that as a little bit bigger at all possible, I don't know what's possible. There we go. Much better. Thank you. Okay, Scott, I'll turn it over to you.
Okay, so these are our traditional uh end ofear budget transfers. There's some smaller ones and there are some larger ones. Um, one of the things just to keep in mind that hopefully next year we won't have as many. A lot of these will be um under the new budget process. Uh, for example, the library maintenance and
the library expenses uh would be able to just they're going to be essentially in one big bucket instead of having to be uh transferred at the end of each year. So, that's going to help um kind of alleviate some of these. Um and but the bigger ones are usually the ones from wages to expenses or or vice versa,
which we would need approval regardless. So, if it's a small transfer from like library maintenance that you see to library expenses, um that would just be uh something that Johanna could automatically do. But if you go down to one where it's um assistant accountant wages to highway building that would
still require u select board and and fin approval regardless. Um so a lot of them are usually the standard ones that you've probably seen in the past. Uh some of the bigger ones um that that you can see uh the biggest
ones that are outside of the normal municipal departments are the um $87,000 for elementary expenses. Uh that's something that we we met with uh Don and her team. Uh they're they're Norris School is in the negative about $87,000
uh right now. Technically, it's closer to about $300,000. uh but they were able to use some uh grants and some other funding to make that up. Uh the other big one is health insurance. Um so with the increases, especially with the 20% increase going
into next fiscal year, uh one thing that we do, uh we bill a month in advance. So we're billing June for July. Um additionally that we we had some open enrollment numbers. Um Jyn's not here unfortunately, but uh we had some
increases in enrollment numbers as well. Um, so that would uh increase it there. Um, legal expenses, it would probably be the the next one. Um, everything from the council at town meeting. Um, oh, one
sec. Bradley's just um, sorry, I'll uh I'll Bradley's just trying to join uh on the phone. um legal expenses, everything from the land transfers to uh the cannabis to um uh
town meeting um and all the override stuff. Uh that kind of significantly increased it. Um so we we have uh the um uh billing up until um April, April, May, and then we're just waiting for
June. So that's just to give us a little bit of a buffer per uh buffer uh for the June bill. Um most of the other ones uh such as general highway expenses and highway wages, that's just Randall transferring from one to another. Uh same thing with like police expenses. It
goes from wages uh to expenses with same thing with overtime. Um the other major ones are just a deficit in our transportation for local school and that's uh that would be the uh the
bigger ones question. You want to get Bradley on? Yeah. for the chair. I have a question for Scott. Okay. Just think he's trying to get Bradley on first. Stephen
Okay, Stephen, why don't you go ahead and ask your question just so just as you scrolled by I saw highway building expense listed twice with the same account number um more towards the top.
I didn't catch the line numbers. Uh it looks like 15. Yep. Mhm. Yeah. Right. Overdrawn at $800. So just let the top of the column Scott. So the the overdrawn accounts are on the
left and then the sources of the funds. Okay. Are on the right. Okay. Thank you. So, we have highway building up there and then also down below, Stephen, you said I thought so. Yeah, it's right there. Yeah.
6,500. Yeah. So, there's two highway buildings, the same account. My guess is there's not enough money in one of those funding sources to pay it all. It looks that way. Yeah. Probably it'll be coming in just
momentarily. Yeah. [Music] Is Stephven's question that both high general highway expenses and general highway wages seem to have the same account number on the funding source? They're both
using the same account number, but they're titled differently. Um, I see that the re that the funding is coming from different sources, but that there are two different entries for
the account ending 5705 for highway building. So, I think I'm beginning to answer my own question. Yeah. Or John did. Okay. Why don't we Why don't we start at the Let's start at the top and just kind of go through these. If Bradley's with
us, let's just go down one by one. If we've got questions, let's just go through them. The first one's so library maintenance overdrawn 285 and 90 cents coming from library expenses. Okay, let's just go quick. Any any comment, thoughts? If not, let's just keep on moving to the
next one. So, go ahead, Scott or Bradley. Run it down. You're still muted, Scott. You're muted. Sorry about that. There we go. Bradley. Uh Bradley, you're there. I think you just lo I think you just uh got to admit it. Um Yep. So, next is just the assessor's uh consultants for
1,125. Um the vocational transportation is changing from lo from uh local school transportation to the vocational transportation amount. Um so I have a I have a question on that. Let's Yeah, let's let's talk about these that are large at least. Go ahead, John.
So what I mean I guess somebody needs to explain to me why why did we did didn't have the proper budget amount. Vocational transportation is a single bus. It runs 180 days. We know what the daily rate
is. How are we short? And this is the bus for Smith Vogue, right? We I based on the title, yes, that's what I would assume. Okay. And it's coming out of local local transportation which is the buses for
the elementary schools. I thought on the original one through actually could you just scroll down to see and what the note is because I All right. So, yeah. So, something we're not budgeting correctly if that's going to make up for
three invoices that are all within this fiscal year. Or am I missing something? Bradley there to answer this at all. Bradley, would you have any insight into that? I know we invited Alisa and Don, but I'm not sure if they they made it.
Let me text Bradley. Make sure it's going through. War the Warren clerk can tell you that I would not be able to spend the time to differentiate the different purposes from the one
uh company providing bus services. This is not something that I would ever be able to pick up and looking at warrants. Right. It is kind of odd. However, that we're two months short in our budget for vocational transportation. I don't
understand that. You know, if there were extra services, maybe there was a field trip or something that they had to pay for, but that might be some extraordinary expense. But to not have the invoices yet for the full year and
and know that we can't cover them is concerning for sure. Brad, are you there? Can you hear me? There you go. Yeah, I have three invoices from Duran
Schools. I believe I checked and it looks like every invoice that we paid so far said vocational school on it. I'm not sure if we budgeted incorrectly or we just uh I'll check again, but I'm quite sure
that we paid them properly, but we just have the three additional invoices to pay, right? So, the v the vocational one, Norris pays that, right? Because the elementary for whatever reason, the elementary school has to pay for the vocational transportation.
That's not a Hampshire regional expense, but the um and and it's it's one bus. I I guess I'm just my follow-up question, Bradley, would be then how confident are we in next year's budget number? Because if we only took the existing line item
and we increased it by the 3 and a half%, I think, in the contract, we're just going to be short again next year. I I would probably be a little bit more confident next year's number. Um, I know last year was a little bit of a a last minute thing and because of the lack of
people in the finance department, um, you know, I I know that the school committee kind of had to rush to put everything together. So, well, so to not belabor this, how about we we know that we've got an issue with the vocational one. I would vote that we or make a motion that we skip over that.
We not even act on that one tonight until you get more clarity on it. Okay. Anybody disagree with that? If not, let's move on down to the next one so we can make this an efficient meeting here. Fire building expense is
the next one from fire truck maintenance. I have a question. Um I know it looks like that that uh that line is in deficit $44 right now and the request is
for 2500. So, do we know what the additional 2,000 is for already or is that just like an in case? Uh, that is uh Can you guys hear me? Yep. that is I've been paying uh building
expense uh invoices out of the uh fire expense account and that would be just basically to balance the budget back out correctly. Um what happened was Eversource bills I didn't
budget for that last year because we would never see an invoice for it. And um so now that we have Vader accounting, I am able to see all those bills as they're taken out of my account, my
building expense account. So that's why. And then we also uh overdid our uh we had no lights outside the building. All the lights had had basically worn out and so I had to replace all those and
that was basically almost $3,000 uh unexpected. So that's why I'm I'm requesting the 2500 transfer just so I can get my budget back into uh the proper account.
Okay, that answer your question, Becky. Okay. Yes. And preemptively, I have a a sort of more global question for the next one. Um, I'm wondering about the use of wage
lines for expenses. Is there any kind of policy that exists for that or is it just kind of like if there's extra money, we use it for whatever there is? I guess I'm asking because I I sort of um as a policy have a an issue about
using wage money for expense money. So can someone just sort of speak to that? I um there is a period of time the last 60 days of the calendar year where through this process of the both boards
you can move you can use wages for expenses and vice versa. the rest of the time during the year it can't be done. And if we this exercise to kind of zero it out on both sides is to an attempt to get the cleanest free cash at the end of the
year when we close out the books because if we if we don't identify the funding source then they'll take it off the top before we get to our free cash number when it's coming down. If that makes sense. It makes sense that you can. I guess I'm just asking about
should we should we so like for example and maybe I know the chief is here can talk about when we get there the police expense police wages being used for police expenses and what those cover like are we just like we have extra money and so now we can spend it on you know buying
more things or are these things that should be budgeted and maybe this money should be going into free cash. Well, in this particular case, I think that this is coming out of the um these three or four line items that are being requested for the 5625 are coming out of
the assistant accountant wages. So, that's when our either we didn't have the assistant accountant for the full year, right? And had excess funds that were budgeted, but we didn't have a body in place or it was when he took his extended amount of time, right? So, there's that's why there would be money left over to be able to use it there.
But your question about should we is is a different question altogether. Yeah. I don't know. As we've been as we've been talking about next year's uh fiscal year and we're like, "Oh, well, there's going to be leftover money because, you know, let's say the highway department doesn't
fill its five positions or whatever." And that's money that we're already saying like is available for something else. I guess I'm just worried about I guess I'm just worried about using wage money for expense money. That's all. [Music]
Okay. Yeah. So, I I would just kind of echo Becky there to a and maybe this is a different look when I look at it. Um and I know we're on the fire building expense of 2500 and it sounds like it'll cover the deficits
that's there and then gives roughly another $2,000 to get through the rest of the year here. But these are like until you get down to winter roads expenses, those are all nice even numbers. So that tells me that
all those accounts aren't over overdrawn to the exact penny. You know, $1,000 here, $1,250 there, 2500 there, $800 there. So, so I would go back on Becky's side saying it sounds like we're just shifting even dollar amounts over there
or at least it gives the appearance that that's what we're doing so that we can spend it by the end of the year. Got Bradley response. Oftentimes we don't have the exact invoice number to go off of. we know that there's an invoice coming for uh an
electrical credit invoice or something else, but we don't actually have the number in mind. So, we have to give a nice conservative number to know that we'll cover that. But, so that's why there's some clean numbers in there. When we have the exact numbers, I will use the exact numbers.
Yep. So, Bradley, to that point there, are you are you comfortable with all these numbers that are in here that we're moving money into? As the accountant, you believe that that is money as well as you can determine it that you'll actually need to spend by the end
of the year on normal routine things that would have been like the utility bills for example. Yes. Okay. Other than the departmental the departments who came to me with their own requests with their estimates that
like I had no input in those but I trust that they're being truthful. Yes. Hello. John, can can I ask you a question based on your past experience and you mentioned right the kind of the preference or or the benefit for the
free cash certification. If some of these accounts are left in a deficit, do we have the same net result at the end to free cash? I'm just wondering, right? Are we Yeah, it just makes it a cleaner cleaner cover sheet, right? It doesn't
hit all these dings as it's going down. Doesn't Does that potentially though leave us with like a comparability problem when we look at, you know, prior year expenses to current year? because we're going to effectively kind of mask that some of these these expenditures
were overdrawn and it's going to make the transfer account potentially look over spent or like higher than actually was incurred. Well, you're still going to come out with actual expenses though at the end of the year by the time we close the books, right?
Well, the the old the old system had a separate column and I honestly don't know if Vadart has that. That's my ultimate question, right? When we look next year at assistant accounting wages, are we going to show that there was an additional five, you
know, $5,600 incurred there because of these transfers? Yeah, we should find a way, in my opinion, to to keep that so it's visible. I know in the past past fiscal years, we've had to do three or four different transfer meetings. This is
it's not just usually that we get all the transfers in one meeting. We've usually had to do it two or three different meetings worth and so between now and and July that has to happen. Um and um so I don't know how many more of these we will have but this looks like it's a pretty comprehensive one tonight. But I would agree that we need to keep a
a separate column that shows the transfers in so that we're very clear in terms of what was maybe underbudgeted or under uh underestimated. Yeah. Okay. Can we keep on moving guys? Um, are we at highway building and the
assistant accountant wages? Is that the one for the 5625? Are we I know Becky started with a couple questions. Are we anything else in that particular category? Looks like all of those are coming there. Um, and those are overdrawn and future
expenses. Is that the right one? Um, yeah. Go ahead. Uh e the estimated electrical credits for June 2025. Yep. Okay.
All right. Um Okay. Winter road expenses for $125.98 and 9 cents coming from winter road wages. So this is the one. Yeah. Go ahead. On that one, Scott, I didn't we already absorb
or take the $87,000 out of free cash to square that up this year and and now the account's overdrawn again? No, that that was just for the the excess of winter roads and and future expenses that this is just keeping within that amount between the two
budgets that we already budgeted for. I guess I'm not following. The free cash transfer was already handled. It's just we knew that there was additional money in winter roads wages that we could pull from. So, we didn't pull the full amount for free cash. We took a majority from free cash,
but then there's still some that we can pull from wages to cover the rest of the deficit. Okay. Mhm. Okay. All right. If no further questions, next one. Police overtime, police wages,
and then police expenses, police wages. Any comments there? Ian, I think you're here. Yes. Yeah, I um to Becky's point, that is um I can understand where you're coming from with uh thinking that we're just trying to spend money and that's not the case for for my situation
right now. Um my my cruiser uh I've been told, has significant exhaust issues. It's scheduled to go to the shop on Wednesday. I don't know when. So, um, next Wednesday. I don't know what that'll be. Um, it could be two cat catalytic converters, which is
significant amount of money plus labor. Uh, also, one of our cruisers has a it recently an unserviceable dashmounted camera. Our police department doesn't have uh body cams. We have dash mounted cameras. So, um, because it's
inoperable, it's it's outdated. They no longer produce these ones. I got an estimate for a new one. The estimate, the quote I had for a new one um is $15,000. If I were to uh have all my cruisers,
all my patrol cars equipped with a dashmounted camera, which I think is is important uh especially with uh you know the sentiment of transparency and policing nowadays. Also, a ballistic vest was required. Um
that's actually for me. I haven't had a a ballistic vest replaced in probably over 7 years. And um I'm currently not in any deficit of spending. This is to uh make sure that I don't go into deficit if I were to get
these purchases. Thanks, Ian. Anybody have any questions of Ian? Okay, I'm hearing none. Let's keep on moving. highway building expenses and general highway expenses. Um, is this the one Reggie you were questioning the account number on or?
Yeah, just the um the sources the two sources have the same number but different titles. Okay, I see that highway expenses and then the next line, highway wages on the right hand column are both the same same account numbers. Correct.
Bradley, is that an error maybe or The account numbers are wrong or is the descriptions wrong? Well, there's the uh highway expenses and highway wages have the same account number. Is that correct or not? 511 the description. I would go with the
descriptions over the account number. So, I might have copied it over wrong. Sorry, I didn't I didn't catch the whole thing there. Bradley, go ahead. So, it says expenses and wages, correct? There's two different descriptions, right? On the right hand column. Yes.
Correct. Yep. Again, I'm not looking. I I can't see it right now, but I would ignore the account number. It was probably an error. Okay. Somebody just changed it. Scott. So,
so Scott and Bradley, we have on the left hand side, you know, a transfer that we're pulling in 81,000 from general highway wages, but then we're using general highway wages, the line above, as a funding source. So, it almost seems like both the highway
building highway expenses would be pulling from highway wages. It doesn't make sense that we would use highway expenses for a funding transfer. and then do a transfer back out of that or into that from highway wages.
I'm wondering Chris if it should be highway wages on both of those lines on the right. So I'm wearing the way it's looking right now that you said that because yeah, we've got expenses going into building and then wages going into expenses. So
something doesn't seem like it's right in that first one. Okay, great. All right. So, that's a Who's typing? Is that Scott or Bradley? I can't see.
I think it's Scott. Okay. I would assume Scott that the correction would right hand side. Bradley, were we taking money out of the highway general highway expenses for
um the wages or vice versa? What What does the transfer description say? Pretty sure it's going into expenses. What one line is highway building to highway expenses and the next line is highway expenses to highway wages.
So we're transferring into one and then then taking it out the next. Yeah. So it's the first one that doesn't seem like it's right. I mean that transferring 81,000 from wages to expenses I would think would be believable given the vacancies at highway but the one
above that for the 60 I know Bradley you can't see this because you're on the phone but the 6527 and 90 cents coming from general highway expenses to highway building doesn't seem to make sense. Isn't that the same that's not
the same account? Hold up. Bradley can't see the edits that we've just made. So, it's it's really unfair.
I would suggest that what is intended here is that there are Who don't move, please. There are a couple of expense lines, different accounts in the highway
department that need to be funded from general highway wages. Yeah. And you need to undo all these edits that we just made on the fly and reflect
that intent. that was two expense lines that are somehow discreet and they're going to be funded by one wage account and you'll get the account numbers to make sense because we've done
it in committee and it's not right and it won't get right until we start over again. But I think Scott moved it back to the way it was. But number I, I was going to ask what the note was on number I because building would be normally part
of expenses, is it not? So building expenses to cover that. Okay. All right. Should we hold off on this one, too? Or what what would you want to do? The wage one seems to make sense from the 81,000. I do have a question about that one.
Go ahead, Becky. Um, so right now there's $155,000 in general highway expenses and we're moving another 81,000 and the description just says to cover expenses. I'm just curious what those are.
No. Do we have any clarity from Randall on that at all? I'm trying to track Randall down. He should have been here. Well, while you're tracking him down, can we hop on down to the next ones and come back? Uh, I have another meeting coming up. Uh, the next one, let's jump
down. Is um uh hold on. Um, it was up up above still, was it? No, letter K. Oh, it was a K. Okay. Sorry. Yep. Uh yeah. So fire department wages and fire
department expense. So going from wages to expenses for $7,000. That is for uh my capital expense request uh where the pickup was approved. Uh they did not approve the uh
decals and radio and lights that would go with that pickup. Uh, originally my quote back in January was for like $4,000 and a new quote is $6350.
Uh, $6,350 more. So, I just put down $7,000 just to have a little bit of a buffer. Okay. So, that's basically to equip the truck that had been purchased through the car approved through the capital fund,
right? the the capital uh expense or account only approved the pickup itself. It didn't approve the emergency lights, the radio or decals. Okay, understood.
Uh the next line, uh EMT wages expense. Um that would be to purchase new uh portable radios. All our portable radios, most of them are from 2010,
uh, actually 2008 to 2010. And the new, they're unserviceable. Uh, Motorola does not maintain those anymore. So, I'm looking to purchase four radios. Basically, they would become station
radios for the day crew and night crew to have. Um, they they would stay here at the station. they wouldn't be uh going home with people. Okay, thanks for the explanation. Yep. Anybody have any questions? Yeah, I just this is one of those
examples where I'm like um why why was it not um requested in the FY26 budget? Um it seems like we're moving money to I know we need the equipment. I don't argue with that. It's just the way that
the money's being moved. Uh, basically I keep my budget as a at a minimum as much as I can just to uh, you know, keep my budget in check. Uh, and this would be, you know, like I said, it's it's
something that we need that we don't uh, budget for. So that's why, you know, money was left over at the end of the year and that's I requested it. Thank you. Yeah.
Could my colleagues on the select board maybe Becky might remember too. Um it seems we just did a raft of Motorola radios. Was that for the police department? And would this,
if authorized, put the two departments on a equivalent or the same platform. We haven't had, as far as the police department goes, um, Stephen, we haven't had any new radios. Um, and they
wouldn't be able to. They're on different frequencies. One's UHF and one's VHF. And in for in for them to be interoperable, you'd have to have what they call a triband portable radio. And a triband portable radio costs
anywhere between uh now anywhere between8 to $13,000 a piece. A piece. Okay. Thank you. No, I I agree. You know, if if Chief says he
needs them, he needs them. I just think that this is an example of had this come out on the capital request, it probably would have been ranked extremely high. And there might have been some other things not funded, and this one would
have got funded. I mean, it's over $5,000, but each each item is not over is how much is each each item isn't Well, no, it needs the $35,000 to buy four radios. Okay. Unless I misheard maybe that$35,000 is just for the radios,
right? Got it. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that could have been a capital request then if that's the case. A minimum of 5,000, right? Yeah. And it's and and it's not because and I'm not saying this because they're not needed. They are needed. But I think
we we need to tell the tell the folks, you know, like here's $35,000 just so we can get four radios so that they can talk to each other and have something that's not 20 years old. Um here, no one's really going to know about it unless they watch this video,
right? Because we're we're we're watching the budget. We're saving all the dollars. Okay, we didn't have that catastrophe. Let's get the radios that we need. But and we're improving the budget process. So maybe this is just phase two. We we take a finer finetune clone to how we do
capitals capital requests. Now that's all. [Music] Okay. I guess I don't have a sense of are we going to keep moving with these or does do people want to put put some of these aside that you're
questioning until we have better explanation or a second meeting or decide not to fund it at all or to allow the transfer? Well, I'm waiting till we get the letter N. All right, we know we've put one aside at least.
Any luck on getting Randall? Uh um at all? No. All right, then. Let's keep on moving. Scott, I think you kind of explain the uh legal expenses already. Does anybody have any further questions about that?
All right. Uh then let's do number n, the elementary expenses. the prior prior year incumbred expenses request for coming from there at 83,000 and then 4,000 requests from the reserve fund to cover this cost. Do we know more about that information from Don?
Bradley uh Bradley had met uh with Don and her team last week just to go over everything. Um Bradley, if you could just give a quick overview Oh, Bradley, if you could give a quick overview of what was discussed. Don's team uh showed me up the
projection of expenses for the rest of the month and they concluded that they needed about $80,000 more expenses without over the budget. So, I don't have the backup. Don said that she would
email me that file that had that number, but I mentally took note of it and included in the transfer request. So, I' I'd like to when you do get that backup, Bradley, I'd like to see what it is. Okay.
What what the details are on that? Can can somebody explain to me what the prior year unencumbered expense is? What is that money? How is it available? Prior income expense. So, Nor school had requested
So, that was for previous year bills. Uh, Nor school had requested about $180,000 last year and they only needed $40,000. 65,000 of it was for the van that they never they used the preschool revolving account to use. So, that's a big chunk
of the money they reserved. So, we had that available. Okay. Okay. And that's how about the reserve fund. Where where what is that and how much money is in it? That's your money, Reggie. We give you $5,000 to handle all the emergencies
that happen in town and only finance reserve. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, there's 20 20,000 in there, right? Yeah. Yes. Originally, we had a $10,000 request for legal expenses a few months ago, either end of February.
Yeah. Now there's $20,000 available in your reserve fund. Okay. All right. So, John, are am I understanding that you would like to hold off and not deal with the elementary expense line tonight? Yeah, I mean, right. So, I have a question. I just want to see what the details are in
there and and you know, trust and valid. I also would want to hold off on um that $81,000 for or I would suggest we hold off on 81,000 for the highway if there's currently 110,000 in there. Mhm. What $200,000 are we trying to spend
between now and June 30th? Okay. All right. All right. I'm not sure we'll be able to answer these questions tonight, so we may need another meeting to do this. Um, all right. Let's move on down to the group health insurance. Uh, we know that insurance costs went
up. So, it looks like if I'm reading this right, we want being requested for 175 and 42,000 for health insurance for retirees and then basic group health insurance. Um, all of that coming from prior year incumbumbered funds and um again,
Bradley, this is money that had been available last year that was not spent. So, I know Scott explained some of this that this is the incre we pay in advance, right? So, the June payment is actually for July, right? Okay, I get that. But, um,
how how did we get all the way up to June 16th and no bells went off that there was going to be a shortfall in health insurance? Again, even number, $42,000. The open enrollment, does it follow the
uh fiscal year or the calendar year? fiscal year. Fiscal year, right? So, you only get open enrollment once. We know we don't have every single position that's eligible filled in it. And I just reiterate that when we were working on
the budget, the um we the select board made requests for details and they were never given. We were told it was you can't give out someone's name. It's a HIPPA violation, which isn't true. We didn't want date of births. We didn't want social security
numbers. We didn't want um any medical issues. All we want to do is employee X. What are they? A family, a spouse, or single. So that we could validate the math here. How are we just going to repeat this again next year? Is we're moving money in to cover it? And we did
a budget based on someone's work paper. And you know, I don't even know if if the I don't know how this went so wrong that on June 16th, we're just finding out about a $42,000 shortfall. Yeah.
Yeah. I'll I'll probably take over budgeting and the health insurance for next year. [Music] But this is a bill that's due now for July. Is that it? Uh, yes. Okay. Yeah. And agenda didn't give any other
information to me. So, again, John, would you like to hold off until we try to get more information? No. I mean, I think it if it here the the bill's going to come in, it's got to be paid. We've got to pay it. I just $42,000 is is a a full-time
parah at Norris. I mean Mhm. We're we're moving $360,000 around. Mhm. That's half the ask that we that we look for that now is just found within the general budget.
[Music] So I I think the medical bill the health insurance needs to be paid. I mean so I wouldn't want to hold that up. Okay, understood. But I think we can still get more clarity on it whenever we get back to finish these few others that we may not approve tonight. We can still ask for clarity on
that if we can find any backup information to understand where that came from. Um, Madam Chair, yes. In addition to the global concerns that have been raised about moving money from
wages to expenses and then the extraordinary capital request, um I'm really concerned that
whatever we work out here, it informs budgeting going forward. We got to get an anchor on this stuff and know what our yearon-year expenses are as they may escalate.
But um for the public record, and I this is really important to me, as Joan observed, this is half of what was on the table for an override to support our schools. And you know given different
timing and different information I mean if this is true it would go a long ways towards meeting the needs of the schools. So for the record, because I don't know, do we have any ability
instead of granting this list of request to fund some of the work that would have been supported by the override had it passed?
Well, let me let me add to that just for clarity because it's my my understanding other than the few things that we're hearing about such as the capital request for radios or a couple things like that. This I'm assuming Bradley this is based on invoices that you've been shown that need to be paid. Am I
not right? I mean these are bills that have been incurred already by these various departments with a couple of exceptions as we've been raising them here tonight. Is that correct or not? I mean, I don't think we have $360,000 that we just magically found to cover
other things other than our internal budgeting here as laid out. Most of these transfer requests have backup and uh reasoning for why we need the money. And I went and I found uh sources for those transfers.
if the department could not find the amount in their own department. This is something we do every year. It's often uh done in three or four uh acts. This is one big one. So, it looks bigger
than normal, but do you expect any room? Go ahead. Sorry. Go ahead. This is one big one saying that yeah there's 17 requests when usually there was only five at a
time right okay I think I was trying to say the same thing earlier on too that you know usually we had four or five different meetings to talk about endear requests so I agree that this is a big one for a change which we haven't usually seen do
you other than what we might not approve tonight do you expect any others coming you've put out a final call have you not Yes, I asked everyone for any final requests and I got a update from police chief and nothing else. I assume we're
all set. Okay. So, it would just be an extreme emergency that something happened and they have a invoice that they did not know like if some department gets an invoice that they weren't planning on getting and then it would be another
uh request coming late. Okay. So, so I guess the question is should should they I don't know who they are, but should they have the authority to okay these expenses
u before it comes to the select board because we're approving these after the fact when someone's already made the decision to spend 35,000 on radios and somebody's made the decision to yes spend an extra amount on health
insurance or whatever. Well, a lot a lot of these are contractual. We have to spend like health insurance. We have to provide regardless, right? I'm sorry. I'm sorry to jump in here, but I'm going to have to leave for
another meeting. Luckily, we have still have a quorum. Yeah. And actually, I'm gonna probably follow you. Becky, John, can you take over? Sure. Um, all right. Hi, I'm so sorry to interrupt. Uh, this is Nicole Marcott
with the Conservation Commission. I think there was maybe a miscommunication on scheduling um for tonight's meeting with the shared account. We were supposed to start our meeting for 6:30. Um, and we can't run two meetings at the
same time. So, we're aiming to hopefully start for 700 p.m. Otherwise, you may have to cancel. Okay. Hopefully we can uh everything if you'd like. Okay.
So guys, I need to sign off for another meeting as well. If John, if you'll take over, but I'm I'm understanding out of this that there are at least four or five different lines that we might not approve tonight. If we could just be clear on which ones those are. Appreciate that. All right. Thank you.
No problem. So, we want um I didn't take any notes. Recap. We're going to we're going to hold on Randall's request and we're going to hold on I think it was a transportation um
budget for the um elementary for that one. the we wanted to make sure that the three invoices or was everybody okay with that one? It was something with the schools going to table the elementary expenses the 87,000 81,000
correct. Yep. Until we have the paperwork on that. the um y the vocational transportation up top. I I think that one's okay cuz it's a very odd number. Um and it's two invoices that we have in hand and anticipate
another invoice coming in. I think the question there is we need to double check our budget number for this upcoming year if we built it off an erroneous number to start with just so it doesn't keep cascading.
I move that we adjourn to a date and time certain. Okay. Do you want do you want to approve all these other ones first, Stephen? And just hold J, K, L, and N for backup material so that Bradley can do these
other entries. Yes. Okay. I would accept that as a friendly amendment. All right. Any discussion from the select board me second that all right those in favor
I I passes finance so I'll in Becky's absence I'll make a motion that finance committee approve um the transfers with the exception same as
the select board of JKL and I believe that was N Yep. Yep. Yes. I I will second that. And just to confirm, was that N or M? N I think it was N. N.
Okay. Okay. Want to call the vote, Doug? All in favor? I I All right. If there's nothing else anything else we have to deal with, Scott or No, we can adjourn.
John, I was just going to say if we're going to do budget numbers, we should check the health insurance budget number two, just to echo the other one, just to make sure. Yep. Is Nicole still here? Yes, I am, Stephen.
All right. Um, someone who has control of this meeting should pass the baton. Sounds good. I will again move. This government meeting is brought to you by Eastworks and our local cable subscribers.