this government meeting is brought to you by eastworks and our local cable subscribers okay PL order the meeting of the Southampton select board for March 25th at 6:02 p.m. if you could stand and sa plge of
Allegiance I pledge aliance to the of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation God indivisible liy and justice for all and this will be a joint meeting
with Finance but we'll wait till you have your full yes full membership here um any open time for the public I don't see anyone citizen speak I don't see anyone so Scott I think we'll let you uh let us leave the agenda my understanding
is this is basically just focusing on budget tonight um picking up where we kind of left off and what we've maybe learned in the interim uh and uh giving us any further information that might get us a step or two closer to what we got to do okay uh
um so a lot of it revolves around the schools at this point and there's three main things I want to just talk about with the schools uh the first one was there were some cost that you may have heard about for um central office from North School in our education funding um kind of was an issue I'm sorry started
on the wrong slide um the first issue was our fi2 24 teacher summer acrs which is essentially the money that we carry over from fiscal year to fiscal year for teachers that are paid throughout the summer so July and August um we we need to keep that
money aside and then every pay period during the summer we pay them the money that they they've worked throughout the year basically so some choose to take a lump sum and others don't right right so we do give them the choice uh most choose to spread it out over the summer
um so for the last couple years um those haven't been carried over um so there is a one year two years one year one year okay uh I thought was FY 23 but yes one year and now we have to do 24 okay
so we have um a balance due of77 uh ,000 roughly we're still waiting a verification from the schools but it should be right around that amount um which will so that's rightly that 717 is
just two months worth of pay four payrolls for for the summer July and August of 2024 summer and 23 2 yeah right I mean because so this this
takes care of the the payment that didn't happen at end of 23 24 but then this counts what we need to pay for this July and August right right so this would essentially come off of our free cash at this point so we do have we're
still cleaning things up and going to get certified for free cash so this is a big ass risk with until it is by the state but uh we should have about 3 1.2 million in free cash uh and 710,000 is going to come right off of that for uh
the balance due so do we have the breakdown of what that 1.2 million is that was the undated fund balance at the end of fiscal year 23 okay um so essentially we assuming
that we get you know free cash certified uh we would need to reduce the amount that we deficit spend for snow removal Randle still getting me the final numbers but it's going to be around $1 $107,000 and then we'll have 349,000
remaining uh which brings us to the next issue which is our central office costs for nor School uh this is the amount that we pay to central office for their administrative support um this is kind of a multiple Town issue so there's a
deficit that we didn't end up paying of 400 $54,000 um I did talk to Don a little bit so I'm trying to work out a payment plan if the if they agree uh to pay it off over the next couple years and I would recommend taking you know I don't
know 150,000 from this year's free cash towards it depending what the payment plan is and that would leave us with a little under $200,000 remaining for free cash this year can I ask a question what is free cash used for generally is it limited or
constricted in some way or is it strictly just select where to uh vote uh it's different in cities and towns so for free cash in towns we have to get it approved by uh town meeting so it can be for um projects or if you need snow
removal money or pretty much anything so it can't be it's got to be a voted at a town meeting consequently if there's something that comes up over the course of the year before or after a town meeting too bad get away to the town meeting well well the way once free cash
is certified yeah and you know tradition traditionally this is like a September thing mhm October and and we're working towards that but when so then you would have that pool money but we have our own um highly suggested bylaw St that says how the how the funds need to get
divided up 10% to opab 35 and I think to 30 30 there is a discretionary amount left over it doesn't utilize the whole thing so in theory we could use that Mone to help with the budget for next year or you could but it has to be that
right so it's like I think it's like 30% for Capital no for operational stabilization 35% for capital for example and 10% for OPB or% so that's what we traditionally have done in fact we've done maybe 10 or 12% for OPB if we've had the luxury to do that but so
just backing up a second so if you've got maybe the million two which is the carryover balance so we we don't have a sense that's not including what we're thinking our free cash will be this year right this is from last year that's from last year so we know we've got the
million two already right we're comfortable with that uh well I'm not comfortable until the state certifies it what they certify it last year but right but for this this year right but we're starting with a million two that right we know okay so
then current year undesignated is 450 six so is that I'm just help me understand that a little bit better so this is this is not the total of our anticipated free cash for this year is it the
456 uh after the 710,000 yes oh after the after that's taken out M okay so you should you should so if we start with the 1.2 and then you're adding in the $476 and the $100 to the 1.6 million back
out we're backing out 953 in free cash 23 free cash is that because that's what got booted in those other buckets you get undesignated fund balance is the best indic of what free cash is 1.2 million that was the UND
fund at the end of f year 23 then with all the deductions we had 900,000 of free cash so that's how we got the free cash number if I still bring over the $12 million from my balance you add in
the prior year F free cash a number in the petty cash then you bring it back in and then you reduce it by the the next year's free cash number you get your current unto the fund balance that's your basis for getting your free cash
number so that's our starter number 400 whatever Bradley is the reason why the fy22 is coming in after the FY 23 UND designated because of the timing so you had your you know maybe I
Mis misunderstood but you described the 1.2 as the beginning of year undesignated fund balance for FY 23 that was the number at the end of the year of fiscally year 23 and and and at the end of FY 23 and at the end of FY 23
fy22 free cash was not yet certified so that's why chronologically we then pull that balance in no this just the calculation you have to do every year this is the number the sheet I send to the state every c yeah so the free cash for 22 was the
476 then added to the free cash for 23 the 950 that's where you get your million too right that's what it looks like I think that's just coincidence might be coincidence okay right because then that brings your prior year total fund balance to 1.6
million mhm and then this year current year reserve for expenditures 953 and the footnote says fiscal year 23 free cash I add this to make it easier bud and seem to make it easier for you people just
23 you want are reducing the number by that Reserve you have to reserve the free cash you have to make sure you have that money in your accounted for and then next year when I'm closing the F year 25 I put that back in we reserved
it okay it one question I had that I didn't want to ask at the to meeting is where are we getting the money to pay the uh prior year bills in this current budget or you we going back that's not part of that 74,000 right that 21,000 we approv is coming
out of this year's budget that that number would be at the end of the year I send out a memo to l department saying do you have prior bills and then we reserve that money those that identified yes but when we go to a town meeting and we need to reserve money like we have to pay high year bills we have to pay out
of current year account so what we pass on Saturday that 21,000 coming from this year corre budget yeah okay good welcome Becky do you guys want to uh call your Finance meeting together since you have cor yes call the order sorry um we have a forum so call the
order at 613 very good all right thanks okay so go ahead so keep on chugging here so with the central office expenses of if we can work with uh don central office to get a some kind of a payment plan it
should leave us with a little under 200,000 remaining for the first two two out of three issues with the school and town budget okay and the 107 snow removal that's something we've already agreed to that's Randall's winter wages and winter whatever that he's in deficit
he's we're allowing him to deficit spend so this is where that's assuming there's no more hope not yeah and then the central office but if we don't fund it mhm that 107 will come up next year's free cash right it's an automatic offset yeah so here we're paying it all up
front but could kick that can down the road or a portion of it portion of it maybe I don't know if I want to kick all of it but the we do good at the and then the 150 central office so just just for clarity for those that haven't followed the school situation so
this was cost that Norris owes to the Hampshire Regional for the central office Norris's portion to the central office to the central office which we believed we had bud bued and paid out right is what we thought we
had done we definitely budgeted it but I don't believe except for $37,000 we can find any proof that we actually paid anything okay and part of it was a billing issue between the central office and Norris Norris was never build is what I was understanding they central
office should build the wherever the bills come here oh or they come here now they're going start doing it they never got built okay so they weren't yeah they weren't not a regular schedule so that we would even know when expect them I think okay so I think that's a challenge is is that yeah we could talk about that as we
go forward but this is going to lead up to the next issue one one would think I mean it stands the reason that the $400,000 cuz we budgeted yeah if no bill came to present itself against it that
that money would fall out to fre free cash and I'm guessing that some of it was masked by that one year year acral that didn't happen might have but 23 or 24 one of them we had a big year on free cash so that was what happened yeah yeah
23 so kind so we didn't pay it we got the money back we decided to spend it on something else yeah unknowingly well unknowing that that a Bill had that we had not been build and the money fell out into free cash and so therefore we used it not recognize if a Bill had not come into us right correct but with it
coming out falling to us in free cash we would have put 35% of that on the operation stabilization account and I understand it may not be the time to touch it but that is where we pocketed 35% of that money mhm okay well then we can talk about how
we can be sure that I mean I think the school is slowly with Don's help and various others up there they're getting their um administrative house more in order but you know there's things like that that I don't know how we have sort of a early warning system if you want to call it that way it's like
how do how do we how do we recognize when we've got a problem like that when we look at reports and things like that so I think it maybe it's just a future discussion or later tonight but you know just having more regular in joint meetings might be a help on something like that too quarterly or something but
I don't know course how does a how does a central office live without the 300,000 not get how did they pay out 1.2 million have cash yeah because the same exact problem happened in Williamsburg and Westampton yeah we're not we're 55%
of it so you could almost double that number yeah for what the issue was and yeah somebody's not getting paid we didn't pay them but don't they have to pay somebody well they they use their reserves unknowingly because yeah so previous snowball I think previous
business administrators didn't know what the available balances were because of lack of timely financials and updates so we thought we had done all of our expenses it looked like we had on our books but then we ended up with this extra free cash that really should have been a bill that we never received
basically so or payment so so do you John you Chris everybody believe that this year is going to be the cleaning up year and really make sure this isn't going to happen again cleaning up but I wouldn't say it's the end of the cleanup year it's going to take multiple years I mean do you identify the problems enough
not not that you you're on a payment plan obviously you just pointed out that it's not paying it off I'm just saying are you do you have your arms around what happened and avoid I I feel comfortable with what's been explained so far but I don't feel comfortable with um at least as of today
there's still 75 grants that have been reconciled so it's you know I believe I assume the worst and then and happy with whatever comes out so I've got to think if this level of misspending or coding was
happening what was happening in the grants are we going to be over did we overextend some of the grants and we got to reimburse those you know charged of the wrong Grant correct and then you got a crisscross cuz one of the issue and I think it's getting better but it's not I don't think it's resolved one of the
issues Bradley has is he can't reconcile the grants on his books with central office which is some of the reasons holding up free cash whether they've all been reserved or not but this is a reoccurring issue that happens and then nobody knows how to do a draw down so anyway so theoretically we can
try to work out a payment plan for the for 54 and pay some of it this year and some of it mm later on I don't think we could afford paying all of it I don't think we can either so anyway and what is the current annual cost expected to
be for central office on behalf of North somewhere around 440 or 526 annually yeah and and so looking at the incoming expense report this is this
is the school budget looking at the incoming expense report the Bradley provided for the end9 24 um it look I can't see where the charges to the regional on behalf of
Norris would come are they they're in Norris they're in Norris's budget yep Y the second page is usually the the this is the school overiew well we had open that up yet I was looking when given if
you go on page three of six on the fiscal 26 budget it's the bottom section central office salaries core expenditures it's some this year it's 575 next year it's proposed be
$695 of that $695 there's a that $92,000 is year two of um the forensic audit cost so that number should be dropping next next year and then completely eliminated the year after that we're
paying that much we got answers it's we're only pay that's only 55% I understand that's stagger well so this is the this is the school budget that we got on Friday um the school committee did meet um fast
forward to the page last page last page um sorry oh uh P five of six so their FY 26 preliminary request which is right here 7.41 7
million that's up from 6.5 million from the previous year and as we learned on Friday that 6.5 million is their actual budget but they offset close to a million dollar uh from Grants and things like that so we only see the 5.5 on our
side so sort of like with our COA how they use grants to offset a lot of things that we don't actually see in the budget it's just on a much bigger scale with a couple zeros added to it yeah cuz last year I think our budget for Norris was around the 5'6 was it no right so
then yeah so so yeah this is where we're we'll have a new challenge so they're looking it's uh comes out to roughly about 18% increase uh the school committee is going back to look at Alternatives uh some reductions on their part um I did Express I think you know
4% is something just from the town's perspective um I'll go over our budget with a 4% built-in um but they're going to look at reducing and redoing their budget uh over the next couple days and probably should be next week so no it's
tomorrow night tomorrow night okay because you have to what's the April 1 meeting that's the public hearing okay all right so to do it 3 days before that but the um 4% on the 5.6 is like $250,000 our contractual obligations are over
300,000 so well let's go ahead and continue with what you were going to tell us that's a question an educated person so um if Norris isn't able to cut mer 15% 18% doeses a town have recourse does the
town have to approve the expenditure to Norris the to the town whatever all right there's two things contractual language uh requires the school committee to put forward a budget that
will fund the contract and teachers contract and that has to go and the and that has to go before the population so yeah here's the 18% here's but that means you got to approve the override that goes with it the town on
the town side they don't have to put it the balance it they can put the put the override in there and if it fails then they come in with a second option but the first option that the town votes on has to be the fully fund or fully meet the contractual obligations but what we did do a couple
years ago is not to fund this right that was different we voted down Hampshire regional's Contra uh budget budget right but in the event that no other community did it we had to figure out how to fund it so we temporarily used CU you have to have two communities out of the five communities have to vote it have to vote
it down yeah it's speculated that Goan is going to vote down the whole thing so I have one question just because it's summary on the noris line item right you're at the 7.5 million y
so I I get the 4% placeholder on Norris's old number or the 5.6 is one we use and you put 4% on the current vocational did you just do the 3 and A2 on Transportation cuz we know that hard number um or did did you mark it up at
all I didn't mark that up at all so this is just off of the general the the total number from last year's education for vocational Transportation noris 4% so uh I did reach out I'm waiting for the vocational numbers um they said it's going to probably be a little bit longer they're waiting at from the state um
transportation I think you know we're still waiting on um well that got signed so that's a three that's a three and a half four and a half three oh three and a half okay like that be local and Vocational Transportation
okay okay and then the north so um okay um all right so sort go back to your other slides there where you were yeah so looking at the the budget um going line by line um the select board I
I did send out this last week uh some potential cuts and some Revenue adjustments um see that up there looks like this right here that one um so just line by line the select
board what was uh originally uh 20,000 for compensation I reduced that by 15 so now it's be 5,000 what is the Personnel compensation for the so the the 20,000 that we did last year was for like midye adjustments
after the compensation analysis and that allowed us to do those midyear increases in January so I Wasing hoping to do another 20,000 for the upcoming year once we do the job descriptions and kind of fine tune a little bit but um I'm confused is the sliw reverse no that's where we HD the
money the town employ so you determine that a percentage of employee is actually slip board cost so if it turns out like the building inspector's job description changes in their ranking changes so we could use that 20,000 part of it to adjust it we put it aside like
we we reserve the 20,000 to go ahead and make the adjustments mid year based on all the salary classifications we redid I do remember that so that's happened that already happened and we were hoping to do a second round of that and that's where this 20,000 had been part of our
wish list I guess I would say okay right now but we can this is this is these are your first thoughts about potential cutting okay let's go uh the Town Administrator uh line is the same the information Tech was reduced by 4,500 in
that comes from the it capital um the maintenance budget was reduced by 3500 um that was from the general fund for trash removal so we built in some extra for trash but hopefully we can get that back in um and then we have the
same uh level services for the U the custodian accounting Remains the Same assessors Remains the Same uh the health department is a little bit different from last time and I'll go over that uh so last year the Board of Health
um was set up with a revolving account and that was at $60,000 and we put $10,000 of seed money in it and that's generally been used for Charlie's expenses um and essentially that that allows them to bring all the
fees uh that they collect keeping it in the health department and then they can spend it on up to $60,000 worth uh Jerry is retiring this year um so it's so it's now a time to kind of restructure the health department um it
may we may want to go back to the old style the the idea is whether we call a health director or health agent or anything like that that we have someone in there that can do all of the required uh inspection so title you know Title Five okay um food inspections and
everything and under regular most towns you know that money that they bring in the fees go back into the general fund last year it's not going back into general fund but it's going into their um revolving account so because they needed it to cover Charlie's salary for projects that
he was doing so the first thing is I I reduced the hours per week from 35 as requested back down to a 32 and 3 hours is paid by the SE septic betterment that was about $5,000 worth and then I reduced with Jerry retiring I reduced
the anticipated step for the position um from a j7 to a j3 so there was a little bit of savings but depending on who we hire in the next couple months that could that could change a little bit with the operating
expenses and for some reason it always gets cut off on the laptop but um if we're going to be taking in the fees I would want to go back to having a line item for special Consultants so about $20,000 they would be capped at that if they needed to expend any more than that they
would have to either find out revenue or bring it in from their other inspection not inspections but you know their court fees things like that so it would be set um it would be a set amount of money that they could spend from if they needed more then they would have to go to the sey board or finance committee so
Scott you're saying that the way you're way I'm hearing is so that the the work that Charlie's been doing now has included those inspections and these special projects like problem properties and so forth right right so if I'm hearing you you're saying he
wouldn't do any inspections title F or health or food inspections he'd only do some limited number of special projects of which a lot of that money gets reimbursed through the court fines or whatever for that property owner is that
right exactly so we would want the day-to-day stuff our health director Health agent should be able to do and those fees would would be transferred into back to the town um Charlie you know we Charlie charges us
$60 an hour minimum of 2 hours so if there's a regular inspection I mean the town has to pay $120 for Charlie to do it and we may not be getting that back on the fees depending on what it is so I have a couple questions um I've heard actually from the
current director um who's been in that Ro for a long time that there really aren't any qualified applicants out there that will work for this money so that's one question I don't know how confident you feel you can hire somebody to do these things that with the salary and with the number of hours that's one
question and the second is um have you already reviewed this with the um chairperson of the board um I'm meeting with the board on Thursday they're having a special meeting okay to discuss um so this is and I was going to be there too so I'm glad to hear that I did
talk to Jerry about this and she seemed okay with it okay so um as far as recrui candidates I mean who wouldn't want to want to come work here well agreed I mean well we really don't know um it has been advertised in a long time I think the salary has been adjusted fairly um
okay you know I think we we really don't know until we do it but you know I'm I'm confident we're a Comm can do kind of place here okay uh it may not be like a health director level might be more of an Health agent level but we'll have the qualifications in the and educ and the
certifications necessary right most health directors will oversee or manage multiple Health agents but both should be able to do the same basic functions okay so so is there any downside we just created this revolving fund a year ago
is there any downside to eliminating the revolving fund I'm trying to figure out it does get reauthorized every year anyways well it does yeah okay we have well we have to authorize this oh the SP okay fund as well as the spending to allow it to keep going so there's not I mean just it's one of those articles at
town meeting that we reauthorize all the revolving funds yeah great and for the for the revenues um if you look historically it's been 42 46 54 so that would bring 50,000 back I roughly estimated 50,000 today we have brought
in the health department right here you quicker yeah so on the revenue report it's up through December 31st but then I added up all the turnovers so as of yesterday it's $4,525 as of okay so I'm confident we
coming into the busy season mhm yeah so uh they have been hard at work we should easily hit the 50 so that would bring it on the revenue side um a lot of still question marks with the health department um we did again we did put in the landfill
monitoring and we did put in the mosquito control that raised by $1,000 last week and that landfill monitoring we took out of Randall's budget is that right mhm that's right uh for the building department I did reduce it uh the 20,000 that I would have liked to have for problem properties um boarding
up things special legal cost things like that so I took that out and then reduced the um the tree budget by a couple thousand as well for the cemetery um I transferred uh Robert's requests mostly to Capital uh
so I reduced that by about $115,000 uh conservation um their operational requests are the same but I did I did cut the position I don't we have the list of AR positions for you John
um for accounts on Aging there was no changes but there was a change on the revenue side so so meeting with Kate um the two biggest things were one using the COA fy22 earmark from
arpa which is from the state for $24,000 and that would fund the Outreach worker fully for next year uh after that there would be no more grant money available so it would fall to the town uh the second part would be using $7,500 from the state Grant so over the
last couple years we've been trying to work to fully fund uh the COA out of General funds it wouldn't get there it would take care of at least one more at least half a position and it would still leave one and a half uh needing to be funded by the general fund
so the next part is oops um finance committee so I I cut your salaries quite a yeah that's pretty must
had the wrong address um I never invoiced us we didn't pay so I did reduce um I'm sorry go back to concom um I did reduce the uh the
concom agent so it was partially funded this year out out of arpa the other half out of general fund I know we're talking about maybe some other Alternatives with that position in the future so um for counc on Aging that stayed the same for the request but their funding was
increased finance committee it was um outside of your $200 in expensive you had that $330,000 Reserve fund which I reduced from um 30 back down to five which has been traditionally fire department remains
untouched Highway Department remains untouched as well although there are four vacant positions uh one mechanic and three um CDL Drivers um they you know if we do need to continue there might be some ways that we can um try to
hire two this year and then maybe do half years on those to stretch out the hiring process on them a little bit I really don't want to cut those positions if if we can avoid it cuz randle's already been 50% and we really need at least eight people to operate it so so so how are we doing it now if we're that
short uh over time and a lot just stretching everyone out and a lot of stuff's not getting done they're doing the mechanics themselves so they're able to get the street sweeper back by themselves but they're not mechanics so um the historical commission was uh
still have a th000 uh the library I did reduce the uh request um for the 25 hours back down the 19 to make it non-benefit eligible uh open space was $500 Parks Commission um the $6,000
difference they could either take it from capital or some of their other um that they might be able to have uh planning board was a $500 from last year uh police department I did take out the placeholder for a 2% Cola increase for
their um for their Union uh it was just placeholders it could be more could be less but uh reducing that out of it we'd have to wait negotiate the contract over the next couple months we're not going to be done by July 1st anyways so the funding could be done by a special town meeting next year um I would like to at
least keep kept it in there a little bit but um that comes out to be about $28,000 uh town clerk Remains the Same uh the transfer station budget which is an Enterprise fund but I did talk to Randall today so he should be able to balance it next fiscal year he's a few
thousand short so he might have to adjust um the bag fees and the permit fees a little bit um but he's pretty confident he won't have to dip into the general fund to balance it so so things have improved a little bit over there then on that that's good
mhm um treasure collector Remains the Same uh veterans agent Remains the Same water department is Enterprise fund I'm still got to work with Brett on the uh indirect costs but I don't think they're going to be any lower than I predicted at this point uh Hampshire Regional we built in
the uh 4.74% increase that goes to about 5.99 5,999 the Norris school um again that's just the 4% placeholder KN on wood uh debt is solid um you know there's nothing that we can do on debt employee
benefits at this point the biggest thing is health insurance so there might be a few things you know a few hail Maries that we can do like a opt out program um but we'd really have to scramble for that Scott just a question on the Health
employee health benefits does that include the Norris teachers yes yeah okay that's should that be broken out so we can see Norris is part of Norris it seems like it's kind of distorts what Norris looks like it's actually much more expensive than
some school districts will take care of the health insurance costs and then like do chargebacks for the town side others the town will just fund it right this is where it gets drinking this is why we really regionalize because Norris is not a regional it's a department of the Town Town's responsibility but central office
is regional so the that health insurance actually falls under the Hampshire Regional budget and gets all down through us um but I suspect after tomorrow night's meeting you're going to have these are the it's almost going to get to where here are the names of the people that
are going to be let go and then we can cross reference the benefit side so Scott the Hail Mary SL optout option there uh do do you have any does anybody have any idea maybe John does
about some people that could opt out and save some money on the heal this a partner or spouse already has coverage someone else it it could be possible um you could have spouses both under the Hampshire Regional that are in two different districts that may be taking
one in a family pan we encourage them to go into the other school district so that happens a lot um but it does believe it or not you I mean in order to get them to do it you'd have to monetize it you'd have to motivate them to do it so we the GIC has it the group insurance commission on the state
level and they pay a percentage of the premium um most most towns will pay a set dollar amount for people that have actually been in the plan for a certain amount of time 1,000 2,000 3,000 $4,000 depending on single or individual so that would save we would give you like $33,000 to go to your spouse's plan
hopefully that would cover any deductible that they might have or any other health insurance cost and then we would save the 16,000 so 20 minus 2 or three so the 12 the the the problem is you know do we have to it does kind of
snowball cuz you end up paying out every year and then if you don't fund it or if you have an end date for that in 2 or 3 years then you have this flood of people coming back on your insurance so you got to be kind of careful of that and it's too late to do it this
it's too late to do it this year but the town participates in the Hampshire Co Cog system we could we could pull out of that and we could just go with the gick and GI didn't get a 20% increase
okay so what it's campshire County County government um yeah Council of government oh okay so but is Reggie is your question to say okay here's this lump sum that's health insurance how much of it is Town
employees yeah and retire no not oh we can find that out actually and how much is you know to have that broken down and say okay these are all teacher related these are all other town employes is that that your question it was because I think the times people might want to know what the school is costing M it
kind of gets lumped together so it's hard to hard to distinguish and I must say though this over the last three years anyway been a huge attempt at getting more transparency into the school budget I mean this was even more convoluted when I first got on select board I had less of a clue than I do now
which isn't much but um so I think they've really made some strides to do that but there's still places where at least you know just for the backup just for us that have to look at this stuff to understand you know the magnitude of things I think is would be helpful if we could kind of just make a mini break out
of that if it all possible so expanding on Reggie's Point by analogy with the same breakdown apply to the O the retirement obligation that could be broken out by well teachers have
their own retirement system so it's a little bit different but yes we ultimately pay for all that so the OPB liability is for the most part regular Town employees um let just bring it up here when when a Norris teacher retires do
they stay on our plan do they yeah they so no it includes the noris teachers so again pie chart that shows what the population served is attend cost think I put on Treasures um yeah okay
let me just print the [Music] treasures every year when I wrote a reappointment letter it'd be salary it be taxes paid on your benefit into BL
blah blah it be your health insurance your contribution to retirement and by the time we were done it looked like they're making something yeah the 27 paycheck so um retirement contribution
workers comp unemployment compensation which if there are cutbacks we have to talk about as well um Group Health retiree Group Health active employees Medicare our group life which we contribute to oped that's for the that's
the study that's the study and then the group life for retiree so it's really almost all those categories are both Town quote Town employees and school emplo so I I have I have three questions but one of them is about the health
insurance so I I got the budget worksheet but what what I don't have is the census of here's who's taking it because that would also tell us who's on the other side but in past
practice it's been the norm to always budget for four empty family spots mhm so I I think it's important for us to know if we're doing that or not because I mean a family for a full year
is $38,000 uh I'll check what in on that yeah uh one thing is I did run the numbers if there were Norse reductions on who might be you know most contracts are last in first out unfortunately um
but the um for the first five so there would be two family plans one individual and two did not opt into it so that just gives you some sense but that might be able to balance off the unemployment costs which are roughly about 30 to 40%
cuz I'm thinking the four open spots at the highway department are all four of those fully anticipated to be filled in the worksheet right because that is that has been for the past two years even before you got here the past three years the go-to place when we
need1 to $100,000 and we pull it out M if we're going to go to the spot where actually people are losing their positions yeah I think there should be a conversation about that number y m [Music]
um and then we have um for the last one shared expenses for the town um employment ad advertising postage legal expenses our weights and measures our state assessments for schools which will be transferred to the school budget later on so we'll have one budget for
everything um Town assessment Piner Valley Town report insurance through Maya um our Peg program um so there's not much there um and that leaves us with a deficit of about
$112,000 so and just that's that's building in the 4.7% for for Hampshire Regional which is basically where they're coming in with their budget they're pretty much okay we're we're kind of in sync with them right but it's only budgeting 4% for Norris that's
right and that may go every percentage for Norris is a little over $80,000 $80,000 right and we T we test the superintendent with a $775,000 deduction so just say it's 77,000 is the
average pay that's 10 positions and they're not all going to be teachers so it's probably going to be 10 parents five teachers somewhere along there um well not to just to be clear that the 18% that they put forward is the contractual obligation that's what
you're talking about before well there is there's an ask for a stem teacher in there and five so one extra position which we've already told that's out and $5,000 for one two um two positions I don't see that in the detail
but but you're right that's going to be something clarified tomorrow night and then the rest of it is just contract well right because the bcba that they want to bring in is currently that's a $80,000 position but we're currently paying $150,000 to outsight
onic contract so it yes it adds but it it actually saves on the budget and then $5,000 for substitute teachers addition those are the only real asking there but before we get excited about this number can we go to the revenue mhm y I want to
just talk about the revenue next yeah so I went I went and pulled up what the governor's budget is and I had I there's two things I just want to clarify so CH no that's not it it's
underneath the Chapter 70 stuff right there so I'm I'm pulling from the DLS website right now and things match except Charter tuition reimbursement we have a placeholder of $45,000 but the governor's budget gives us oh
no maybe you change that all right forget forget that one did what about exempt all right you can change that too cuz the electronic version I have that was at 95,000 oh no uh no that really yeah that's I just it's fine you have the
right numbers in there now oh okay um of course legislature could have their way with it but right um so for the revenues most of the stuff outside of the health department up here uh that remain the same I did look into the
meals tax and last year um at the 50% mark it was at 60% and we're at 59% right now um so the other things are again thinking a little bit outside the box for other revenues um we have the
septic betterments uh the Enterprise indirect costs probably won't be lower than that dispatch Grant which offsets the $175,000 that we pay to East Hampton um One Source is a onetime revenue we have $97,000 sitting in our ambulance
stabilization fund wasn't wasn't the dispatch Grant didn't it taper down year-over-year after 3 years okay isn't that supposed to go to the grant fund fund 24 it is but this is just for our Revenue I mean our offsetting so we'll once we do the actual budget it'll be a
little bit it'll be in a different group but I'm saying if we're going to have an expense uh total versus a revenue total should we just move the dispatch expenses out of the general fund totally so it's well we wanted to keep it in there so that we can all right remind
ourselves that it's going away soon so that we know the act three years 3 years of grant money that we don't have to pay for but then year four I think it goes 50% and then year five is 25% maybe I forget there's a that's what it is there oh yeah
hi thank you yeah um yeah so that was more just to remind ourselves that this is going to be a bill coming not not right away but we know we're going to have to deal with it at some point and the ambulance stabilization is that different than ambulance receipts yes so
two things the ambulance stabilization that was started 10 15 years ago I think and that was a little bit of money put aside to buy an ambulance eventually it's been sitting there we haven't grown it lately um and ambulan is going to be around $500,000 we we're probably going to have
to look at a little bit bigger on our Capital needs um so that's one source of onetime Revenue that we could use right now so well but that has to be a separate vote Yes to get that out right and it's
probably it's probably a 9/10 vote because it was restricted when it went in yeah so uh and the other thing is if you look at our ambulance receipts for this year uh you just make that a little bit bigger sorry stop spining yeah I
know I'm I'm going going dizzy here hang on thank you that's is I think it's about the indirect costs things oh transfer from ambulance fee so I did up it to 375 which is additional 50 So currently
we're probably going to have an FY 25 ending balance of $448,000 um up for the first 6 months Revenue it's been $172,000 and then we carried over how much did we carry over 235,000
was from fiscal year 24 from the previous fiscal year so generally we use ambulance uh fees to balance the budget it's the the ambulance service itself runs out of deficit with the salary so the good chunk of the $500,000 that we pay in the fire department goes towards
EMS um so that has uh that would offset it a little bit more but and that's the highest amount we've ever put in that that line but looks like we're doing that amount of business huh mhm and then the other last part would be
sorry um I included the COA earmark and the uh COA State Grant and then that comes to be that gives us the revenues and did dble quadruple check with our assessor to on that.2 sorry can you just
go back to that the state money right there yeah that that's the number the the exempt we have it's a 25,000 in there and this sh the governor's is 95,200 that the state is giving us to
cover the exemptions for the veterans it's at the bottom line certainty 95 or wish they reimburse us yeah I see does it have a date of when it was updated um this is just the governor's
so nothing else from but the um the two 2.7 million CH everything else matches except for that okay um let me just grab that really quick except FS l [Music]
y 9512 we adjust that if it's reimbursement it would be strange to see it go down in any Cas and that reimbursement is based off the previous year's actuals so we we get the the citizens of the
Town took those credits in this year and the state reimburses us I think 75 cents on the dollar for it yeah last year was 44 didn't we vote to increase the tax consumption
for conect no I think they're some effort at the state level to yeah it's the it's senior I'm reading is that what they call something they're talking about revising
it atend yeah so it's vs and that's also the the elderly yeah so what have been our actual expenses on that like this past year though that seems really if we've only
ever budgeted 25 how do we well we we would have always budgeted the actual I mean for the receipt or the expense I guess receipt I'm what we receip last 25
downstairs this is not supposed to be a comfortable conversation yeah um 58 really are you here committee so well that's what we ended up actually getting I think Chris was
look were you you're looking on the expense I yeah I was looking on the expense what we pay out that's what we're going to get for this year 25 that's uh last year oh yeah F yeah this year sorry but see this is a good example because we budgeted on this number so that' be part of free cash and
then the same thing we budgeted on this number 2.63 in Chapter 70 and we actually got almost an extra $38,000 there helps a little bit here and there generally speaking if we budget based on the governor's number the end number is
always higher generally hopefully it's a 50/50 shot hopefully it can only get better maybe 20 years ago during the feran days maybe not I know so with that adjustment what's it do to the bottom line cuz I think you went positive yep it goes to Sure
should work is done that's a little too easy I don't know I have a question about the council aging was it state grants that we were including in our Revenue total mhm is that money going to the general fund no
it's going to offset their off salaries offset so we're just counting it for revenue for this ex exercise because the expense the full expense is in here mhm yeah and I have a question about ambulance collections cuz you said the volume kind of went up as far as EMS and
other ambulance services are we collecting 100% of what's built or is there like a you know we are we the chief is looking into that we do use a third party administrator for that um and they a percentage of whatever's taken in U but I don't have
the exact number cuz sometimes medical collections are tricky to get I just wonder what what's not collected and whether a few phone calls might haveen even from us not from the third party right so this number of 57 is that with
the proposed cuts that you had in there yes it is right Cindy one comment on that this may just be obvious but we should try very lightly with any discussions related to the collections of debts we may find ourselves you know falling under laws
that apply to you know okay so with the this looks great but it's only the 4% for Norris and we're pretty sure they're going to come in somewhere between the four and the 18 most like I think the 18 is definitely coming in but
there'll be alternative options yeah so from the town perspective if we're good yeah or relatively but but what you were saying if 1% increase is equal to $80,000 you know even if they went up to a 5% yeah that wipes that out right then and there so and we're I think I think
assum assuming that whatever reserves are built into the health insurance are reasonable which could be defined if that ends up being the final number on the town side is you put the 20,000 back into the comp and you put the 30,000 back into the reserve of the uh
Finance I would probably do the space holder for the police first the 28,000 yeah mhm well either that or that's where we're going to go and get the money from okay right but one way or another it's in there somewhere to be used yeah but it feels like we basically are
at our Bare Bones here with your proposed Cuts I mean yes um the next Cuts would be I mean we we we do have some increases of hours like you know Judy and and and uh Dave you know our custodian that's like 2 hours 3 hours that's like a couple
thousand no benefit doesn't trigger benefits no no so for the um I mean it's like $5,000 so it's not going to the positions that were funded through ARA with the exception of the one that's already been mentioned are any of those becoming permanent under the general
fund no just the Council on Aging one and then we're cutting out the conservation and the Council on Aging one is because we're going to use the state Grant to fund it through and then we got to deal with that issue a year from now [Music]
yes so and the other goal is you know if we can right now our free cash is 950,000 in change what do you mean the we that was approved and we reserved it in all the stabilization accounts okay I
mean it's going to get you know next couple years we should think about trying to get as much in our free cash as possible as well so not just this year but what do you see coming down the public just out of curiosity well I mean other than the
projects that are ongoing now no I'm talking about cuts and state aid things like that you know it's you know last year we got a few cuts it wasn't a lot but they started reducing the grants and this year it looks like this year is going to be okay but afterwards we don't know MH
well after you find out about the percentage that's the mystery percentage 4% or less or more would then you would is it a good idea to start looking at some of the things that were cut back like whatever there were loads of well
the two the two priorities you were just saying right would be putting back for salary adjustments okay for the police and the okay is for their CBA okay and then some more back into the reserve fund okay those probably be the top two
or three things to try and make almost all again if we can um but in terms of any any other strategies here I mean the next things would be things like um vacant positions but realistically that's only in Highway
that's like $200,000 worth not including health benefits uh other than that we'd have to start canceling like our Nova's contract which is 37 our Johnson Controls contract things like that are the biggest chunks of change we we have to still keep our my insurance and all that stuff so it's not a lot of
flexibility no but I think it the window is short for next year we you need to yeah you you madam chairwoman need to identify the new funding sources you know are we going to do anything with that water runoff thing that we've been kicking for two years you know the the
what the storm water rainoff tax you know cuz right now we're just pay we're pay all that out of the general fund mhm what what are any other Revenue sources that we should be looking at I was just thinking about finance committee okay we wanted
to build in money into the reserve fund for uh Winter Road expenses when we have a deficit yeah what happened with Randall's budget did you leave that 40,000 sitting in his line that we were going to move over to well we talked about moving at the
finance is that still sitting in his budget his original P's original ask cuz it it would be right there if it's still in there or I should say the one that we want to delete the capacity to deficit spend right
yep and I'm also saying that instead of just using all free cash for uh offsetting the deficit this year we could use the reserve fund we could use other sources to reduce it for having to use all free cash mhm
using all of it it's still sitting there at $38,000 oh yeah we have to go you had to go back to this yeah um or the 55 I mean it's it's in there so whether it's there in the reserve
fund it's still supporting that bottom line number MH right we just have to remember to bucket it how we want to the um so two other things do we do we I'm sure we do know can we know
um not so much where the all the extra money came from that created the free cash number that's coming out now but we're pretty close to closing March at least calendar wise into April is it possible to look by line and what year
to dat spend is and those line items because in theory they should be at the 75% tile Mark right 9 months into the fiscal year um I mean for salaries yeah some of them some of the things we we spend right away at the beginning of fiscal year
that's perfect then it says 100 yeah but I'd be looking for goose M um we can do that the expense report is up to what May March 10th or something is it but does have the budget yeah it does have the budget there right it does
I think it was the last one expense here we go up to March 20th right rley I think or was that the day you sent it sorry that's March 6th March 6 okay that's it so last week
right this is the latest one I have I think so John what you're saying is anything that's less most things because of where we are in the year we should be at the somewhere in the 60 to 70% range on most of our spending is that what you're trying to tell me well definitely amongst the salaries right right and
then um like you know it makes sense to me that the audit yeah hasn't been fully spent yet right as an example but then I think when you get into wherever they put the money for the management software system that all gets spent right away right yeah
mhm yeah there a couple things that we pay up front there's some one of the wasn't it one of the uh insurances that we pay up front cuz we get a discount M right that's the retirement contribution to okay which the reduced number is in the
budget okay did we the 158% spinage election registration wages mhm that's wages it's a problem is that part of what we solved well no cuz we agreed
to that was one line on was Saturday right no that was for something else and that might be a timing because sometimes there's receipts from the Secretary of State um our it we just got the check for5
$5,500 so we double pay this so that should offset a lot of that um that's why it's overexpanded I think to one of your earlier questions Chris um and this would be I wouldn't want to
make this it's easy enough but have have forcing the collective group of us to have these quarterly meetings mhm with these reports you know um I think would help everybody MH go along but we I
Wonder that's not going to help un noris cuz it's one line item unless we're getting the detail down there but I think is the ultimate plan Bradley for for you guys and and Don's group to reconcile quarterly on an ongoing basis be the plan yeah so that could be part
of the review process yeah I think that would be great I know what you guys think like we need we had kind of talked about that as finance committee but if we did it as as a better waiting until I just think the you know if we're we're about to
have another potentially a newer person on the select board right um if we're doing this quarterly 90-day increments we probably won't be so much unknown at the annual budget cycle right because we've already looked at these line items and kind of understand yeah the whole
process and maybe you know we'll we'll recognize something that you know we haven't gotten a bill for something or something I mean it feels like there's got to be some red flags that we should be seeing and I I tend to look at the percentage variances you know on things when I get these reports but I'm looking to see that we should be
at the 60 to 70% I'm not paying attention to something that's only been doing 30% that's underspent so far that's not what I when I put my eyes on this I'm looking at the qu% right so if something is really underspent I'm not
focusing on that I guess look at these reports and maybe that's you know to look at it's like why is this only 25% and here we are you know 9 months through the year and just sort of for a lot of these expenditures we should be able to break them down at least by
quarter if not by month for like the salaries and and charch we should be able to track yeah Y and how we're doing the um the counsil on aging and what was the other one that we just saw in there um we're showing the offset we're
showing the money that isn't general fund money coming in you know does it for next year does it make sense to look to CU it is a million dollars those other Revenue sources that are coming into offset the Norris numbers so we see the real Norris number right that's something that I'm
trying to do with our Budget moving forward so last year's budget the Council on Aging it was offset by the count by the grants but not and if actually Grant the 175 right the right it doesn't need to be there but it's there because we want to see it so we know when when it falls off but I would
say we should strive to do the same thing mhm as far as noris goes yeah I think to the extent we can especially if if you know gradul in the central office folks are going to be reconciling every every quarter I think with the number of grants that are out there amongst the
entire district for the schools I mean I can't imagine trying to reconcile some whatever it is 75 grand I mean what a nightmare um so I mean I think there's got to be something and I don't know how many of those come to to norish specifically but there's definitely some but I know that that there was one you
questioned Bradley I know the other day about you know there's a what a $95,000 deficit on some grant that you're seeing on your books and Central offic has got to help you figure out whether that matches their books or what the heck it is right so that's that is like one of
the things that is still just holding us a little bit you know to to put in our request for the free cash right certification I mean that's that's the biggest thing you've got that isn't solved yet am I correct on that yeah been finalizing the acrel which I'm
pretty sure I know the number and I cated but it's yeah they say that we have an old name for it on our books and it confuses them when they see it so need a new name for it to match to what they have well if the grant name changed
they should let you know how are you supposed to know that but they can modify their name to parentheses to calls it yeah exactly back at for for example as we're just talking about you know what we look at is 3/4 spent take a look at the um the M ms4 storm water
since John mentioned that so we had that allocated at 68,000 and here we are uh what do we got 20 is that 25 what am I reading right now we've already we've only spent 17 is that right yes so we've
only spent a quarter of it and then there was a prior bill I believe it was just approved for was that wasn't that a study with time Bond no so there's a contract tied to that no no that money was ARA
money no this this isn't this isn't related to the cul study this is ms4 oh yeah stuff that Rand has to yeah rand's we got to pay for that right but this is this hasn't been spent down very much
yet so again if there are certain ones that we know it I guess it would be helpful to know what do we pay up front ones that we know that we should be looking to see full payments somewhere within the first quarter mhm and then what are ones that lag and maybe they come in twice a year
I don't know or so I don't know it it would just be helpful to kind of understand the cycle a little bit better um and I think even on on you know the the state money that comes in you know whether it's Chapter 70 chapter 90 I mean what what do we expect coming in in
a given month if we just took you know well that that that piece is easy that's cherry sheet money that they give you the what gets paid monthly gets paid quarterly and what gets paid twice a year okay so we could have a little like cheat sheet it would be helpful I think personally I don't know what you guys think but it would be helpful to have a little bit of cheat sheet if we want to
call it that just say okay if this is these are the kinds of revenues that we should be you know watching out for and making sure that you know we are seeing them right because from our point of view 2 years ago when when um the do do shut
off our Revenue right right that would that would have been the flag for the select board to spot it yep yep so maybe we can work on just getting us a couple of those little breakdowns just so it'd be easier for all of us to really grasp what's the the kind of the cycle of
stuff coming into us on this isn't that a little little on Scott and Bradley though too just to see that we haven't been build for something or that it's coming in much slower I mean you guys do that as a matter of course I would think in terms of just just knowing that
stuff and then reporting to the board do we get a verbal for the reporting say yes we do I think we can make that a little bit more structured maybe than it has been right feel like we're at court now no but truly I mean I think you know
maybe it were structured or formalized compared to you know the the kind of the adoc you know ad hoc you know conversation here and there about you know asking a particular question but really kind of sitting down and taking a look at these things and understanding you know what's what's going on or not
going on um would be helpful I would think Chris that we would want kind of to lay out as part of our internal controls right that we investigate variances over certain amount timing differences you know of a certain amount um overages like it's just the top of my
head but we should kind of flag things that you know once a certain you know budgeted line item has a certain you know event or is missing or is over that you know it it has kind of a a specified you know
investigation I think that's a good idea any suggested percentages got to look at got look we'll come back to that see we see what we got here then and take a look at that but I know I think that would be good just as a guide for us to you know as we try to sit down and do a quarterly
review on things um you know yeah it would be a bad idea at all okay so what else can we do at the moment I mean in terms of any other strategies I mean if if NSE is going to come in with a jundo request which we
expect your guys are going to vote on that tomorrow night would it be or what do you yeah we got to we got to find so we're starting at 4:00 tomorrow hopefully we'll be done by 7 so the the timing is not great um this year so there's a couple things that you can do
if Norris continues with the quest of 18% we can cut on the town side and preserve Norris we can cut a little bit on each or we can cut Norris um you know that's the cut part or you can go for an override um it's a
little bit tricky just because with an override you're going to have to do two budgets one with and one without the override depending if it passes so you're still going to have to decide that anyways um and our town meeting is May 6th so I'm just thinking it has to be 35
days I'm not sure if there's something special for school override but our town our election is May 20th so it's with it's below the 35 day threshold so we may have to do another special election after the town
election for what do you mean May 6 is the town meeting right could we could we jump on the town meeting if if the budget is approved for with an override a town meeting and then it goes to the ballot can it go on the town May 20th no
we had to oh you'd have to do the ballot afterwards right we'd have to do the ballot in June like we did when we did the land purchas we had to have that or tentatively schedule a ballot now to have them close to each other yeah oh cuz write the 35 day
clock here's what I think is got to because contractually we have to sit the 18% or whatever it's going to be um and I think for what the other piece that we're going to do is last this current budget we had $931,000 in offsetting receipts or Revenue sources and now
we're down to like 7 something so what is that difference and I think I think at the very least we can get back to that 931 the question is going to be if that wipes out the reserves then we've got the same problem next year smaller number but the same problem
um so and contractually we have to put forward the budget so I it's either pass past the budget as presented with which includes an override requirement or you fail the budget and here's the
cuts that are going to come out of it m one of the things is I mean just timing wise cuz looking at the entire town uh May 20th town meeting approved the public safety building committee so that's going to be on the ballot and then if there is going to be an override a couple weeks after that and then we're
looking at a special town meeting for the remaining of the cost in probably September and then another one election in November so just looking at everything and you know chances of Passage it does make things a little bit more difficult yeah it's really challenging when we've got these these
big projects before us that we're you know we've been moving on for two years now I mean to have I mean we've already you know told the voters pretty much what's happening on the public safety side of things and then to come in and ask for more money for schools is going
to be a tough re realistically I mean it we we can if there is going to be an override for the schools we can postpone the 3 million and just do the full amount in the fall for the public safety complex the whole 27 and not the 24 um and then it would just be an
override for the schools for this spring if it's NE if it's if the 3.2 million is not voted in then that's look negative moving forward and having those two things so close together I think it might be a little bit more difficult yeah I again it's just my voice there's
four other votes at the table but I I don't know how you do not put an override question up when you're talking about 5 to 10 positions at the school I
I just don't know how you don't give the citizens the option well I I want to definitely stress this the town side we were able to just on the town side we were able to not only do the increases but you know the health insurance increases all that other stuff on our side so we were able to you Norris is a
town Department that reports to you so it is a town issue right if people in 1966 had regionalized we wouldn't have this problem right now we'd be getting 80 cents back in our transportation but everybody wants their little foms Norris is a fight them of this town it is part
of the Town budget as far as I'm concerned it's not our previous Town Administrator like to build walls between the school and us and and we are one town in my humble opinion no I think it's just a it's a hard hard settle given all that we've
been trying to do in terms of these these building committees and moving forward with that and those costs are not going to go down anywhere June anytime soon so but now that we back so now that we've gone through to meeting on the 3.2 million per plan had been to put it on
the ballot in whatever that is May right so you're saying if we didn't put it on the ballot we would just wait until the fall and put the whole some other the ballot yeah so in the fall we were going to request the 24 million we would just request the full 27 so that puts us at least 6 months behind in
terms of the OPM and the arch we we could still do like all the stuff that we were going to do in the summertime anyways um you know just getting ourpes ready you know doing our home because we we told the voter the voters voted that we can't spend any of that 3.2 if approved unless the bigger number
approved well and some of the people that spoke said why are you breaking it one person one person sorry one person the rest of them were you know didn't say anything about it but yeah one person was very vocal about combining it that's
true you know and that's not even talking about the senior that's not talking about sewer project that's not talking about Broadband which had been you know a higher priority two years ago I mean other other stuff you know I me we've got lots of projects going on which is wasn't Broadband number one on
broadband's been the number one theoretically for four years now but it seems to be spping toward the sideways I don't know where it's going but yeah so prior I mean that is one that could eventually be generating
you know Revenue generating for the town but um if we controlled our own so yeah go ahead different topic go ahead but can I ask a question about Capital so we've taken some of the things out of some of the department lines and put them in
capital so where how is that process going how does that work where is that plan so we're we're trying to resurrect the capital committee um Judy tried to um get everyone together last week at least get the emails and try to schedule something so there's not going to be a lot of capital across this year it's
going to be mostly DPW police and fire and I think library has a few I might have a few minor things just for like Building Maintenance um so we have about 350,000 in the capital uh stabilization fund right now um there's some bigger cost items that we
need fire trucks ambulances heat system for a street sweeper heat system which Randall may be able to squeak in but yeah I mean these really we're looking at Capital like mid Capital stuff that just is ongoing
couple cruisers for Ian I think one or two Cruisers a truck for um for the fire chief some basic stuff and that's going to heat up a lot of it assuming nothing else breaks yeah but those are all override questions too I mean you you
can't go very far at 350 and you're only supposed to spend half of it the other half is supposed to get invested and hopefully well now that we have the pro in person you know we'll be making 3% or whatever the number is going to be but um that all that all requires going
to the voters and getting more money it's it's it's yes we a lot of people were I'll say asleep at the wheel over central office and now that problems come home to roost but we've willingly been deferring
maintenance since the firehouse since 1860 something the um you mentioned something early on at the beginning of the meeting with the the extra free cash that we got mhm whatever in 23 beginning in 24 y
that we didn't recognize was a a bill for Norris so we used it as free catch put it into operational stabilization or well 35 would have gone there 30 into capital and then 10 into right so were you saying that we could maybe pull some of that out to cover some of the Norris costs I mean we we could but that's a
onetime adjustment and then it goes back to Scott's looking at from the other way that we need to build that up to a million and then my guess is that it'll be pulling teeth to get him to agree to let us dip below a million at any point in time a million is even not enough
it's only 5% most towns have plus 10% but the only way to build that account is to over tax right it's so it's it's I mean I'm looking at this right now Bradley's end of year expense report and our general operating accounts you know
we we did not spend $256,000 just in that first section um and most of them I can explain the reason or just by looking at the line at it I can see what it is or why we did it but a lot of it's in the fire and yeah
there were two positions there actually those two positions were in this year's budget they weren't in the previous one here the um so do we really need to use all those ambulance receipts coming in or is there just extra wages and and that's where it gets to you know what have they actually spent
and what are they likely to spend and I think it's late to do it through this session but I think for next year if we're doing the quarterly we can f tune because we're always looking at the budget we have the previous the budget we're working on and
then the two previous historical years which are great but we're not seeing what is being spent in real time when we're looking at at the uh budget numbers on one report I mean we can because Bradley gives us a separate report we can go back line by line and match them
up yeah but even looking at the March expenditure report I mean I guess we're lucky we'll keep our fingers crossed fire truck maintenance we've only spent a third of what we budgeted um I mean a lot of times people will department has will not spend
anything till the very end to make sure to make sure they have the money or I better spend it around never get this money again next year I think it's more the first one sometimes a little bit of the second but yeah I mean Randall Ian You Know Rich Johan they are those are
our biggest biggest budgets and they're very very fiscally prudent yeah if we look at General Highway expenses it's only 63 in out of 242,000 MH but that's where we hit the money for this winter Road M this 107
that you're looking for that's where we plugged it which is why I don't understand understand why we're taking the full hit to the to the well only because you must be putting in 100% of the unspent money in the free
cash again I think we should find some sources to reduce the burden on free cash for winter road expense and wages I mean I'd really like to get the Randall's budget reflective of what his actual expenses are outside of the
additional winter roads so really I mean all the maintenance stuff and that's one of the the cycles that he goes through is he's not spending money in maintenance because he knows he's going to have to spend some money in Winter roads so it's you know I'd really like to just keep you know an actual budget for a highway and then reduce the winter
roads from the free cash so and the only other place to reduce it sir was you were suggesting maybe from the reserve fund is that what you were suggesting what's in the reserve fund right now but that would be reducing next year's free cash right now
$2,839 is available in reserve fund but the finance committee is approval but I still don't when I asked the question he's been short staff for four people all year and just say it was 50,000 per position that's $200,000 and but then you said it was
used for contract adjustments but we didn't give out $200,000 worth of raises to the remaining three people four people there yeah so was it used to for contract raises for outside of his Department no we won't be able to do that
yeah well and just my last thought why we're on Highway is you know for any kind of a strategy to help offset whatever is coming at us from Norris not getting rid of those positions but maybe you know trying to fill certainly try to fill two as quickly as we can maybe
three if there's a you know person out there but at least by delaying even one position until mid year you know you've got a six-month savings quote unquote on salaries that could help us a little bit and if we had to really stretch our budget like chewing
gum here um but of course it's compounded year after year it is but I mean it it could help us with some cash flow maybe in the interum but we also got to get four the likelihood of four qualified candidates coming forward all at once is right
highly unlikely so we may have a couple of month savings here and there just because of the delay of getting people hired on you know we haven't really gone uh advertis it that much so we we are hoping but um I think with the new salary adjustments we're pretty confident once we put the time and
effort into recruitment okay any questions you guys down there I feel like we're jaming way down here I think a lot depends on what comes out of the meeting that wor tomor because I don't see how we
can account for a 18% increase taking from other parts of our town that's a big ass I think that they have to they're going some that the one sticking point Scott and
Bradley that I still have is when I look at the FY 24 expenses and I try to you know see where like the unbuilt central office is captured I just really have trouble even if it was bucketed differently seeing where we
actually it looks as though we deficit spended right compared to what we budgeted um were -67 so if we didn't pay we didn't receive those invoices we didn't pay them you know I would expect to see something
that is building up to that 450 so that would be from the north budget to central office right so you're saying FIS year 24 yeah the unbuilt central office yeah right so what's causing the issue is
we're taking the two months July and August that should have been reserved in fisc year 23 we're paying it in fiscal year 24 money that that's the that's the school teachers Bradley mhm the other number the 450 4 50 is also paid out of
the elementary school account right yeah it's it's in that it's in one line item yeah so so it's not across the Local transportation Char Charter School transportation under Elementary School which on the December
report right showed about 96% spent so for the current yeah sorry we're on year 24 yeah get I'm on 24s okay yeah
sorry sorry hang on no not spent um yeah 96% Spence we had 165,000 left in that line according to this but we have overages in v v tuition and so right so under education there total education
shows a shortfall of $14,000 right right but if you go down to other sources you can see that like rule 8 came in 117 000 of that was one of our offsets so there's more in there the that's where that
$95,000 issue is the 142 idea Grant um [Music] is okay so not only a quarterly cash flow budget would help but sounds like
we need some places where we have concern we want to see more disaggregation in the reporting I mean it would be good to see what noris is getting charged and paying to central office
because it's a question not only have they not build us or we've not been able to track and pay the bills but are we getting value or is that an extraordinary expensive service I I would recommend for Norris to do a
more of a line item budget that we can monitor just like how we did with some of these other ones where you know with the police department budget for you know we went from three in operational to what seven or eight line items this year so you can see a better spend yeah I would probably do the same with if we can somehow do it with Norris where you
know Personnel cost maintenance things like that maybe yeah I I think it's on our side it's it's how how many and I don't I haven't been in this system to know how easy it is to cre sub accounts that roll up you know so Norris could still be the master but yeah if the
Norris budget has 10 components can we do 10 sub accounts underneath that hit those individuals and then they need to know central office needs to know that this is my central office number here's the corresponding Town number Y and the invoice needs to reflect that then at
the end of the year we can say how come you didn't transfer 300,000 to central office M yeah I think there's some some improvements that could be made to help see that better are the other towns requesting that from central office or I
don't know I mean as bad as bad as it is for us Williamsburg is in much worse situation than us um but I stay out of their financial affairs so tomorrow night school committee's meeting theoretically to hear what their latest budget iterations are tomorrow is the final meeting we
have to take a vote tomorrow night okay and then what happens on the first that's the public meeting where the public can weigh in come in and comment about the budget so I anticipate just a likely session so if you want to do a joint session that works yeah that that's going to be here
or School uh it's going to be at Norris because there's caucuses here right we got the town caucus here so figure that out um Ian we might be able to meet in the counsil on Aging or something like that mean caucus begins at 700 usually we're there we help Lucy run it sort of how
long does the caucus usually go for it has to stay up till 9: but sometime around it's usually about an hour but she has to keep The Ballot Box open for 2 hours okay yeah but it doesn't last that long usually 45 minutes I mean we can push the selectboard meeting back
half an hour um oh we have selectboard too yes yeah I might not be there I'll be over at Norse I know that's the problem either that or we move s for to you know another night you know to the next night for example rather than Tuesday night anybody available
Wednesday second you think the first is my birthday and the second is Jacob's I'd rather you have it on mine than his it's on everyone's calendar goodness gracious yeah
right well that's I I guess yeah we'll talk about that see what our sure what we have for an agenda for the next meeting tell truth well should we do I mean somehow should we put on the agenda depending on what
the outcome of of the noris budget is M pre request an override for yeah well we know that but contractually we have to put through the full budget mhm we can send an alternative option as well right um but the only way
and then that has to go to the voters and the only way that can go is with because you you're not going to find $775,000 to cut on this side no so they just we've done the cuts here um so it's either 100% of the impact outside what's already happened here is going to come
on the North side to that department or the override has to go through and then it's up to the to the folks to decide what to do so um I kind of philosophical question for
you why does it wait till now to for them to know they have a problem right that they've gone up by this much like can we serve them better by giving them like we talked about kind of when we had these cor meetings or whatever mention that like how do we how do we prevent this from happening where they where
they just like oh we have the budget SE yeah there's not too much not money there you went up by 18% like I think that something like that should be obvious how we avoid this again I do think they started selling the alarm about 3 months ago but that's also 2 months after Dawn got there so part of
this syst the revolving SE step turnover bit just you know digging in and trying to finding things as they keep UND digging okay John the contract that's driving the increases when was that um entered into between like the teachers
union and the school district the current version uh is up for negotiations next year so it's a threee it also puts in I say restrictions on class sizes which would be part of the conversation but in theory no more than 25 children
per classroom we can go to 30 as long as we make a reasonable attempt not to and how the perfect way to explain that is classrooms are at 25 and a just pick a grade second grade are all at 25 and a
new family moves into town and they have twins well we're obligated we have to bring them in to the school cuz they're now residents and they go into that category so we would straighten it out for the next fiscal year and that could let us get by on that um but then in
this too the our kindergarten class this year we have two classrooms for kindergarten and generally you want to keep those at 15 maybe 18 yep we've got 48 kindergarteners coming in like your biggest class it's the
biggest class ever it's interesting because this year's preschool classes are actually the enrollment is down so it's interesting there must you got to pay for it yeah m i mean we're paying for kindergarten too I'm just think who's rolling into CU my son's going
into kindergarten next year and those are much smaller classes than the previous year yep so all right so we may be facing the notion of an override and then then having to come back and decide what do we do with the
vote on Public Safety do we present both of them in May do we push Public Safety off as the Big Apple in the fall Y and then that still leaves a giant question mark with senior center yeah which is nowhere in the discussion right now in
capital and Broadband andur yeah we need you're not trying to do that this budget giant time how we we just need to have the conversation anyway about like what years do we want to try to do these things and well I mean you know I mean certainly that you know Public Safety
has been hanging around for more than 10 years I think he's talking Capital oh capital I was talking about yeah Capital planning yeah you know I don't I think there's too much for us to f off all at once right no I think it is we've got lots of ambition
and lots of great projects yeah finding the money to help fund them is you know stretch thin at Town levels and grant money is a challenge on some of the things that we want to do that are construction related um so um and who
knows where the Federal grant money that flows to the state is going to go so as Reliant as as as lucky as we've been with some some grant money I think we need to be a bit conservative in terms of our thinking about it because we don't know really what's going to happen there I would just be
lucky but you know I mean you know from the tech committee I me the MLP we we've had the two votes to create our own Municipal Light plant to be able to run our own Broadband we need probably what I don't know $7,500,000 to do the next phase of that which is a study about a
business plan essentially it's like what's it going to be I mean if we if we were to run our own Broadband you know we would charge the customer I.E the residents X but you know we would be you know having to pay x amount on the loan and you know whatever buy for the
citizens right it would it would have to be a a revenue generating thing and that's what we've been talking about for at least three or four years now and that's really quite honestly slid to the very bottom so isn't that a big upfront there is yeah so You' have to borrow the
money yes you'd have to borrow the money and so I'll make the point I made earlier if we're going to borrow any money we need to have our financial situation we we don't today yeah you know in terms of our bond rating and all that stuff yeah exactly yeah we borro 40 something million plus whatever
these and you know so we got we got you know 100 million of stuff that we want to do that's our problem it's a good problem but it's you know and we're very you know you know it's it's a challenge though and so I think trying to balance all of these is perhaps a lot of things have been kicked
down the road for too long we have and trying to write the ship is a little bit tough okay so I think we probably have nothing else for tonight unless we do um let us
probably aim for anybody that so anybody that wanted to come to the meeting tomorrow is here at 4:00 yeah okay for the budget hearing just to hear what Norris has got to present you're welcome to come downstairs I think yeah um
otherwise you guys have to have your hearing on the 1 y for sure um so we'll have something final by the second a day a day behind schedule so maybe since change the meeting to the second well second or third I don't know
give it a Break um what day is that anyway third would be a Thursday what's people's Thursday April 3rd look like for anybody if we had to no
meetings yeah I I would think so so we can you know make a declarative comment I guess about what we're doing with the the full budget cuz we would you would you'd Envision that we'd have to present two budgets to town meeting or for the override for the override so one with
one without and one with or one different level balance with and balance without balance with and yeah yeah so I think yeah we have to be yeah and I I'm not in I don't again just my view of not trying to but the
um an alternative to the override would be the operation stabilization account but that's just a one time yeah and then we're going to count down the issue for next year then we're back to trying to build it up again so yeah does does 6:00 on the third work for anybody everybody sure I'll be in Missouri unfortunately
you'll be in Missouri oh I already have another meeting y okay so that is just pick our our headquarters I'm I'm going to be in Iowa oh my I'll be in can we make that a zoom meeting we
could do a zoom meeting we could do a zoom meeting maybe both in person and zoom I don't know do HB do a hybrid so what's what's on this so you guys are really all traveling all all right you had be going there all right um how about on our side does
Thursday work for people I mean Zoom or in person any preference yeah all right let's let's try and do maybe a hybrid Scott and then we can zoom in anybody who's available come be we won't have a forum but we can if
we can and I can both attend we could ask questions at least okay yeah okay and you're wa I'll be you're me up okay all right let's let's aim for that so with that could I take a motion to oh
sorry uh you guys want to adjourn your Finance meeting first make a move we adjourn second all right what time you got 748 all right and select board motion motion all right second second all those in
favor all right we are this government meeting is brought to you by e works and our local cable subscribers