good evening everyone and welcome to the joint select board and finance committee meeting for April 10th 2025 this meeting is being held in hybrid format at 5:30 p.m here in the land use hearing room um as I forgot to do a couple times if
anyone is recording this meeting on Zoom or here please let me know and present this evening for the select board is myself chairman Jason Pone vice chair Diane Gail clerk Doug Mglin and CEO Nicole Parker wonderful how you
doing today i'm good sir mr d so finance committee is here today let's go around the room first paul Conley David Sherson Karen Deo is running a little late and I am Joe Dei you ready to go sir ready
right so we're going to work off of this list i know there's a few floating around and what you see is um basically the minus five the level funded they couldn't write too much because of the size here so versus what the finance
committee proposed the select board proposed and then when we come to an agreement that'll be that last line item on the right you want me to keep going go right ahead okay sorry uh so like the salaries we don't touch
um plus it was the same all the way across is it just in red it's things in red right it's not the things in it's anything that's not zeroed out that the two columns don't match so which Yeah which two columns is
totaled in the far right so um and then you have the select board is broken out by um operations and then the second column is capital um so between I think I probably fit all these so like
the moderator 150 both agree so the zero so it looks like the first moderator operations all the way down all the way down to the red so I think that's but it may be black that's saying if there's a value other than zero we have a variance
between pin com and or you have two blanks oh perfect if it's a zero on that column we just that's the ones we need to do which farms fin and so first up is select board salaries we
don't touch that that's the selected uh select board operations and then the last column is new salaries or capital no I'm talking about this this column way over on the right
yeah it's the difference between Yes the fin okay and the two select board columns and select board y things are in the last column okay thank you sorry so hired services
you guys want 76 we went eight right we went 17 10 oh I'm so sorry hold on 76 right and you guys are at eight so our approach was to go into operations on everybody and pretty much
minus 5% is what we did and at your meeting you guys went in and did certain things but you didn't really do the minus all the way down so that's that's where you're going to see the differences so on hired service we had eight and talked about possibly adding
even more because this may be we may need uh recruiting fees for an assessor we don't know correct and that's where it would come out of but eight probably wouldn't be enough no no but that's where Yes service come out of Yes
okay so if we leave it at eight it's still not enough it's not enough so we should go to 10 um I thought No Doug was really shaking his head mr min I was shaking my head in general oh good
okay no I think you caught that disease okay it seems to come up every now and then no I think that there should be there needed to be more money in there if we have to if we have to go outside to have a recruitment
uh firm for the assessor's position which would probably be about 18 to $20,000 by my guesstimate recruiting fee so we can make it 18 add 10 there make it 18
yeah I think you have to because that is a very important position that's coming up here so 18 if we need to find more we'll find more later okay do we know how close we are to figuring all that out will that be done in this calendar year you think or is
that July you know what I mean done in the calendar year it'll be next fiscal year for sure yeah the job description nor the posting has not been finalized yet for that role and you don't see that happen sorry to over that was what we discussed last Monday
maybe it's very close i just don't know so we don't know if that money is needed next next or is it needed now next year okay all within I see what you're saying you need it at the at the special or you need it at the annual
of course i guess we'll figure that out as we go further on okay undo did we match no no it's off by $90 where are we at right above it yeah i'll change mine to 1710 if we select four degrees i'm good with that sure we spent
$1841 yeah you went over so we won't do it again well you have d so if we got to go to 1,800 we stay you guys change our state all right so that's getting changed back to 18 so Laura are you typing how you doing
on this i'm I'm typing in i'm typing too i'm doing I'm doing both me too okay and saving all right so I'll I'll check out again conference and travel
once again we did the minus five and Nicole had that for Nicole and Naen and thought that was going to be utilized i'm sorry i'm trying to do something with the Zoom and travel and travel conference and travel we minus 5% that's yours
that's Yeah that's yours 35 we should be all right yeah with the lower number yep we over spent it this year i I volunteered to sit out the mass multiple if I need to 325 okay
volunteer recognition you guys can drop yours down to what we were comfortable with employee recognition no on both oh I didn't see oh somewhere in black oh
no it's all good sorry you guys went to 500 yeah we can do that you can give us so we're at um you didn't miss anything minor equipment is at 500 yep okay okay so you can give it back to us on employee recognition at
1500 what are you doing now we're going to give it back to you well we just gave you No no no we finally for a reason not to just say "Oh here we go we're going to give it back." This is all employees involved i understand infinite flax are
going to be smaller this year what do you want you want to stick with that $92 difference what do you want the $92 difference i heard a squeak from the far end there i mean I just got to say I don't think
that's a lot of money inventory recognition sometimes a little recognition goes much or do they give it to other people it's for every I don't every employee and although there will be a piece of paper for you
when you when I need a piece of member every volunteer on a I figured there'd be a trap door underneath a holiday lunchon oh we can't do holiday lunchons anymore
well we can we can if we if we reinstate this oh that's what you do with it you don't give like a spot bonus to somebody 25 bucks for Can't give bonus do that and it has to be added to your paycheck you got to pay taxes municipalities you can't do bonuses no
believe me I know i used to get a buck but just to move on we'll deal with 1,400 do the donuts on Saturday morning because I just want to weigh in on that one keep those that's the hundred bucks right there just so you know
so to 1400 to 1400 yes i'll give them $100 okay we really went the 5% rule for a reason okay i know and I went further on a lot of things i don't appreciate that but So dues is dues again
just what it is yeah so the dues go back to 2500 yep travel is what it is as well with the two of them and different organizations then were participating in period so it
was at 31 so you want to go to 6,000 are you guys okay with that keep administering their officer if you're telling me that it's something that they have to do then it you know that we were I'm not aware of and it is what it is i guess it's professional development and now Naen is here too and
she is HR and she has all those certifications that she wants to get okay and continue with it says conference and travel but certification we have zero okay well I mean conference is for HR too she should have gone today but she didn't understood
just you say sorry I didn't mean certification because that is there and I put it at zero we're all certif up to date certified for this year no certification kind of like that ass in Boston once a year that's part of it I go to that she doesn't go to that yeah
there's different things yep but That's so you go there's one person that's not six grand though there's one in May I'm going to as well manager there's all throughout the year i know that I use I could use more but I concede and we'll use three and she'll
use three naen has different organizations that she has to go but we have zero in certification because we're all certified this we nobody needs any certification for next year yeah all right so you guys get 2375 we're at the 6,000
that wasn't very convincing oh well I said they get 2375 back on the next line at zero oh I get it and they get 190 on the next line because we said 400 it's not a competition
and I'm saying to you it's not a competition they get they get used to at the flag pole in 10 minutes i don't get any it's not cold enough for the flame things won't stick get out back by the gas pumps you think you'd ask well you don't
have them here that's what we have to say so all right so it's 2500 6,000400 and500 pages hold on a second yes now we can turn the page we'll let Laura catch up
okay said "Learn lessons." Oh is it did you update your computer yes good good good everything's good thank you Doug furniture is zero yep
phone to come home yeah we were waiting for an answer anyway salaries oh boy we knocked you down to three what did you knock down finance committee
conference and trail yeah yeah i'm I'm going to where we have to see a value so on the dues line can we just make it 196 because that's what their dues were this year yeah absolutely twos are dues okay
i mean at that point they just make it 200 you want that zero at the end in there D's going to go you know this has been trending and it's $4 true $10 yeah $10 an hour no we're changing it to
196 to I mean on the first page there was one uh there was a dues column yeah you did i thought we did move it off laura wasn't there $10 we were $10 shy on the dues you said we paid
when we left it there sl we left at 18 yeah we left at 18 sorry no conference and travel yes conference and travel i'm fine at three,000 for the conference of travels
for I'm fine with that you guys don't want to go supplies no what do you want to do on supplies i cut it oh they cut no we're going to leave it at the 300 wait is that Where are we
you have 300 your decrease was for 240 we went with your 5% decrease and we did too right yeah i know you said you said 300 yeah for um supplies
why do we Everybody turn in their green books at the end of this no I wanted to keep mine right and your rulers for posterity so is it does this come out of our budget this is the 382 yeah but we've been using these for years it's a small
number couple of them but we reduced it because the historical spend was $159 max over the last four years sounds like Joe the reason we can't reduce ours don't worry she's looking up right now to see what have written down
we have 300 right now yeah we had 245 because we went with your 5% decrease in yeah I keep hearing you i think it I think it was a choice made by the selecting because of the historical values that's what you said so what are you and still gave you
plenty of room so what do you want it to be i'm fine with the 245 i just don't know why it would be three though okay 245 well now that we settled that $55 I know the next one's a big Yep
yeah I know we said that because um we reduced it by half because there are no negotiations next year so you know as a buffer and possible discussions with other um salaries but there's no
negotiations no CBAs or anything next year three department heads right three department heads well I'm hoping it's not going to be all that but And you said one was actually this year didn't you no no no no i We're negotiating this
year they're all next year all next year yeah yeah that was my statement understood okay so 40 it is so if there's no negotiations is there what is Well there are we're in negotiations right now for next year but
next year we don't need anymore no contracts are settled where we have attorneys involved and things like that no real big names but okay next year this is not school 100% yeah dave there's three department head that
are under letters of agreement that are either expiring or need to have salaries pencile in for penn in for their second and third year of their agreements so that's what the res that reserve was set forth for thanks okay counting operations we actually did
have 300 just one that was missed yeah no 300 three we had because it was enter i didn't have it either i think just supplies supplies
why is the audit in red so supplies supplies 2000 or 1900 does somebody know something why it needs to be 1900 historical data
or you said all of our reductions action or do you want if you want well if you're taking 100 from the dues then but leave it at 2,000 for the supplies and we gave the side that's
what the 5% your dues were at 400 before yes but you can so if we do 2,000 for the supplies I have no problem you 2,000 okay it still is a 5% cut it is
still a 5% cut yeah mhm on the sheet if they're red so this the red line it's it's the prior budget amount but it has to in so the increases over the prior budget are highlighted in red
right it's going to go up to a,000 just to call out it's an increase over budget number yep it's going to go to 32 okay in the right hand column in the whole line that whole line here so no I got it in this line oh I see yeah when you see when you see it final you'll see 32,000
in there for audited accounts when it's final if this is your You don't have anything in assessor operations because they wanted to you guys wanted more information and we held off and then we missed it oh so then now we have
to go through and I think that that was to do with the hiring we didn't know where we wanted to go with numbers because we know you needed money there for the assessors you know what I mean we just know what the flow did and I think we lifted it so we went 5%
decrease on assessor operations yeah that's fine because we would have done the same okay but I think we were just worried about making sure there was funding available we assume someone's going to have on
assessor operation very% reduction other than the consultant rental our numbers that we have in here i got it i just was looking at the sheet the sheet says the same 5% decrease and level funded are the same number right
so I'm not quite sure that we both the whole 5% decrease or they Let me let me Do you have the decrease number the 5% decrease is the is the budget decreased 5% level funded column in blue is level
funded or if the department said they could function on the 5% or if they reduced it and mixed things right so it's level funded or adjusted let's say so this one is just
they said they could not do 5% decrease they're level funded at 2701 correct so what was the No they said they could do 5% increase but they didn't they didn't put it in their budget but when she loaded when this column got loaded if if a
department said just take 5% off everything we can do oh that's what's in here so it's level funded or what the department said they could reduce got it so the 27010 is the 5% cut correct okay correct thank you way around for that and the same thing
for treasure collector yep 26937 yeah yeah yeah i got Okay okay so is finance okay with that amount 20 They took $20 5% down right yeah we did we took 5% off on our on our paperwork
they took $20 off my sister in when they didn't they what when they turned it in yes both columns are identical okay
the assessors oh the assessors yeah they did not cut 5% no right based on history based on we said there was plenty in there plenty of room for that
so 2710 yep okay y and 206937 correct very good y I'm also making So it's the 27 yes yes that's the that is the 5% decrease you don't think it
is take your time so if if they started off the year with 12 but we've added the 15 the line for the revaluation but if you take that off I mean Diane went through we went
through every single line item for historical three years so I think I'm okay i'm just if you take the 15 out it's a you're right it's a $20 change $20 change okay you're right
so you're agreeable to I just the 206 we're good at 270 though yeah that's that's fine i know trying to move on no I don't mean to be know where I am so
the next you guys didn't have anything in there okay so so we're good treasury collector we're good okay everything is zero on the right so we're down to legal ads no we have
so are legal ads still posted in Westfields depends okay has you know whatever legally required yeah there's they had a mass general law requires those specific things so
well Mass General law requires what they have there's specific parameters you have to follow i don't know if we have to put something in a newspaper we put it in the West but is the law specific enough to say it's got to be in a printed newspaper yes yes
a local circulated newspaper well if you want to talk archaic you still need three bells on your horse and and sleigh so and that's still in there so yeah they leave archaic stuff in there trust me on that we don't know what we'll do when they stop the field news right well
what about the you know the reminder the reminder is actually published by the same company that does Yeah the Westfield know so it's not I can guarantee it's probably not going to be any cheaper that your next bet is probably going to end up being the Republican at some point the way the Republican
are they all owned by the same people with news but the Republican would be more legal advertising rates are high forbituaries regardless that's probably the only thing they have left where they're making any money literally um so few ads
here yeah it is what it is when it comes to the papers um are you attorney fees i am so I think we are zeroing that right what's that well I think we just missed it on here but you zeroed it out the other night and said we'll figure it out because we haven't gone out to bid or
anything yet and we'll negotiate down to what we're at so we're at 86520 right right and then we were just bringing it up to 100 just to be sure but then the selective zeroed it out left it alone we did yeah left it alone
we didn't but I figured we would hash it out here oh okay sorry that's why it's still there then i was like "Well I thought you guys and we're good with the 18,000 for legal ads." Yes yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah okay i just We really haven't gotten anything on that right haven't gone out yeah
because we haven't gone out so have you heard anything as far as anybody's rates and I mean I don't Everything's going up so expect it to go down i don't think it's going to go down but um but if you don't know what you're going to spend you might just be too
long that that was that's where we were at i would say leave it alone as we all know when we get done with this budget we are so upside down it's crazy right the numbers are crazy so you can
keep adding 10,000 5,000 but I think in the end we're going to be cutting so we'll make it zero for now level funds yeah you want to level you'll leave it at 865 yeah yeah 86520
yep you're fine with that i was looking at the wrong number i'm sorry Nicole what were you looking at i looked all the way to the bottom oh level i don't know if they didn't have anything in there anything in there we don't have
contracts um we are always negotiating it's labor contract claims suits oh all right it's all grievance all that kind of thing that we need to expert that should be more labor attorney than just labor negotiator okay it should just be
labor yeah the zeros you're plugging in the 266 on the tax title well I'm leaving it since it's there i don't know if you guys Are you adding it to your income side well I'm waiting for
a consensus on the tax yep it was one of the ones we I think we missed or I missed okay you can't really play with that can you no I think it's actually gonna get it's gonna get a change in that law too so Yep
okay we agreed on the full pads as well what's that we agreed on the folding pads as well so why is it a zero it should be or it's in the other column i guess
all the way uh capital right it's in the capital column but it's it's throwing out a 12 a variance in the last column though oh I see what you happens to say i'm looking at the zero
on the right why are you looking at those that's where I go because your I like to study the whole page though they do a lot of work in the web just to run down it you know give it done it enough right i know
we'll just It's process and you're right there is a lot of girls for conservation we must have done historical D we went to 15 and you guys went to a thousand yep
you guys are okay to go to a thousand yeah that's the same supplies yeah why are you 1250 supplies we said they needed more supplies for North Pond signage
and plant material and fencing and restoration over there okay so remember that when you come to me for signs that isn't everything i said they needed to change they need I heard signs i just
told Chris the other day he needs to revise his budget pretty quick if he's going to get it in here so we're fine with the 1250 because then we won't have to do any more science hopefully well we'll see i wasn't accounting for everything just
something i know just it's called a little bit of word so the increase comes off of your other side right on your on your selectment side the increase for town planner and the benefits right well I reduced my budget that's where it came
from this year so So you have in here increase 46,000 town planner um perhaps that's a little aggressive do we think we really need to allow another
46 so she was adding 29562 463 or 44 equals 75 and doesn't even put the benefits in there too that are already in the budget or in the benefit budget they're in the insurance budget it's just bringing it
out there okay so this is how much how much benefits cost like in the police so 75 is the number police officer and their and their benefits are are there just so everybody knows that that's what it costs well years ago they would just say "Oh cost this." And then someone would
say "What about the benefits?" And you go "It's personnel services i forgot that was what that was doing." Yeah okay so you guys just have to You guys have to Doesn't matter where apparently she's running over there so
keep up we got to keep up with her so you guys have to say yes to 75 and 2355 and then that is an 866 reduction yes are we on we're on town planner uh planning board yeah planning board
salaries salaries yeah when when it all comes out of the wash we're reducing it by 866 correct yeah how how'd that happen no that's the difference between what they have plugged in
there there's an incent there's an attendance incentive for the town um twice a year if you don't call in you get a day's pay so she added that there you go yes and that's if people get it usually people call in they don't get
but we budget for it so they don't call sick call yeah so Laura so Joe yes bincom is going to match select board on the town planner and clerical parttime correct yes ma'am
okay just giving Laura the go ahead we on operations we stayed at budget because it would be a new person and let them figure it out the first year that was our thought you said your dues are going to be your dues
so in 38 you guys did 5% we left it full yeah so $112 fine you guys are good with that yep do they need on their first year you
know $1,000 for professional fees and contracts of travel we don't know because we don't know what certifications they may come with what organizations they may be with don't know yet so wouldn't that wouldn't my dues cover that that's what
we don't we don't know if they're going to All right so it's $1,500 it's a difference of $112 more on planning board operations yeah planning board saying somebody brand new in the you know they're going to have to learn the ropes they're not
going to be bailing out and going on a trip the first you know I wouldn't counter that 10 months my experience in the other side of municipality they a lot of them aren't going to want to go to learn more especially if they're newer and don't have it they they really
should want to go to these things and learn it and we looked at the total budget really not the line items 2250 like I said let them figure it out if they don't spend it on travel line they may spend it on attending more conference more conference there's fees to the conferences there may be more
cons conference fees that they do on the web rather than travel but a little flexibility for a new person to move it around but I'm just asking the person isn't here yet correct correct they may not spend it they may have a lot of these stuff so right i mean I'm just You
just have to account for if they do so kind of think if somebody shows up day one they're not going to be you know all year getting in the car to go to a conference but anyway it's all good so it's $112 difference from what it's
$1,500 well I'm adding up the $500 for dues fees travel yeah that was that's already all in there for the current planner right that's already budgeted
so the difference is $27 professional fees conference and travel is $25 $15 for minor equipment uh $15 again for supplies and $5 for publications so
that's what their differences total is $112 okay we're good with that good okay we're good thank you straight acceptance is fine we both agree it's just in the wrong It's in the other column
just if you the right the zero dollar that that shows that you're in agreement or all the way down to supplies and economic development operations greg DY I think he plugged that in greg DY plugged that that he could go with
the 5% yes he did so economic development 1800 agreed yes for supplies supplies yeah so computer operations you guys are missing some numbers questions
right i'm not sure we had a response go ahead Miss Sherry said you have a question they were asking about computer operations missing numbers and I said I think we have had some questions but never got responses
yeah computer training what was our question about computer training computer training we agree i think it's a managed service provider hard we certainly had questions too on
the rise in cost on that i think that was we don't have an answer yet yeah we had managed service provider working amounts from what I have that we didn't know what the number is supposed to be so who plugs that number in i do where
do you get the number i get it from our managed service provider but I didn't get it yet they're all working together yeah yeah okay i was waiting on a detailed number they're they're gonna sh they're going to let me know they're going to go through it and let me know exactly what costs what so it went up
because we have cyber security net we have a new very much improved cyber security um division and uh that is an extra cost too we had a grant that was able to upgrade everything but now to manage it and there's a lot that goes into our managed service so they're
breaking it down to give us the exact number and tell us what different services we get now that we didn't get previously because it went up so why so we're just waiting for all of that it's not really much that we can play with but okay we are getting good detailed
information on it but you do know that it went up from 140 to 200 that's why that 200's in there details i put 200 in there 200 is a placeholder yes subject to change did they tell you around how much it was
going around i I figure around 200 from 140 hence can I please have a detailed uh ex response on why it giving us more that we weren't getting before for this extra money this
extra cost so that will be fine-tuned so are you guys okay for now for the 200 didn't have to be with a note that it's a placeholder then you guys had questions on minor and
supplies you went to zero on one of them but then you up the Yeah we just said there was enough in both of them for the total to be 475 and not have to worry about which Yeah yeah we're fine with that that's
okay if you're zero on the next one we're in agreement on the laptops 15 grand the 8,000 we determined was a last year's right spend towards that 12
And we said there was none for 26 so you want zero we have a meeting on Tuesday with our civic plus who is our platform to up to upgrade it now and use this money now
existing yeah okay s was fine what else still yeah i think it's historical numbers from Yeah you're talking about the salary changes i just saw that the custodial for fire that's all I saw
oh I think but we we can incorporate that with what we have currently right over time decrease yeah operations maintenance activities you may lower that well and and we went up on contracts and agreements and and
I'm not sure if things are in the right pools there either but historically in the maintenance activities that could have been 42,000 and then we gave a little bit more room on the other one
the contracts go up yeah so net they're pretty close how did contracts and agreements go up i'm sure every year that's we left it at budget we left we left it a budget what's I'm sorry we left it at the
current budget it didn't go up we left it there you guys did the 5% hey are you okay with that or no no I'd say with the five and the only reason I say that is we're working out some water issues now and there seems to be
sufficient money in that account this late in the year on contracts and agreements you know what I mean that's where you're going to grab that from so I don't think we're going to hurt us by 5% cut i don't think heard okay so you know historically I think three or four years
ago when management changed in that oper in that division of maintenance contracts and agreements became a huge thing and I believe we put money in all of those accounts i I don't want to say padded it but but we patted it and I think now we're seeing things have
settled down and and there's some room in some of those you know and this is one of them there's there's room in there because your contracts and agreements year to year if they go up a percentage or two I get it but they don't go up 10 or 15,000 i'm I'm fine that so I Well I guess what I'm saying
is but you want to not Yeah I think it does work at 52 or Yeah I'm okay with 15 i thought so too but we couldn't come to an agreement the other night no understood i just see what those contract all things that account I've
been looking at talk about that i didn't have a highlighter on there i didn't get I didn't Okay so that one was pending I thought it could go down if you agreeing i asked just use the finance committee number 52 and my maintenance activities were
selecting was that 180 no no but on maintenance activities he said 42 yes they said they they they looked at that they looked at that one 42 on that one well that's a good
win right there and at some point Diane I think you you need to someday we'll grab all the contracts and agreements and sit down and go through them all and see what the real numbers are postage meter we left it because postage keeps going up yeah
and we cut it just because it was in the category rate of 5% i mean that's the meter I guess but but and I don't think the cost will be going down no they won't be so we'll we'll move it back up absolutely electricity i knocked it down 2700 we
weren't hitting that yep anyway and it still leaves room yeah that's right same on the next line template left alone so fuel was knocked down yeah fuel was
knocked down electric knocked down yeah historical data is leaving it there historical higher is 38 on I mean sorry 45 I'm keeping up so you doubled it goes
up and down but um 30 reduced telephone to move to clerk what is that the phone for ALF that no that's the phone for the clerk um so right now we're paying it out of the town hall gotcha Yeah telephone so we're taking
500 from here and moving it to the clerk's line so it's in the right line got it so it's in that yes yates where does that normally run we took the 5% cut on that do we know it's going to cost us 2,000
it should be it just hasn't been done the last time we did it was 3,900 oh that's that piece that every year we got to update it right right but could that have the other number in there though that's the That's capital oh true sorry
so we'll leave it at two what is that again that is the when town meeting passes these bylaws and whatnot that is the piece that's supposed to be updated so you can go online and actually look it up and see it there come to town hall
look in the big book and see it there so we've made improvements over the years but we never took the whole package and actually updated it so later under capital you'll see another line item where we need to clean that mess up box it up again and have a new package and
it's around 25,000 and you'll see that later under capital right thanks yep like on the next page yeah understood if you want us to go to $4.99 on printing I'm fine with that that's fine thank you
sure are you i'm fine this is another case of never hit it no that's fine we're fine with that supplies i think we lowered it because it was in the column for 5% all in all we're still $20,000 lower than
the column on that copper splice and this whole in this under town hall yeah under town hall $20,000 lower so what are we doing with capers that was a good justification for staying level funded
so you want to level taking a lot out of the contracts and supply and other maintenance and etc and still leaving it just a smidge if something goes wonky i mean so are you saying there's cop you have
a reason to believe copier supplies will you know be higher than No we took a good whack at the lines above so we left those level funded it's a couple hundred it's what
$450 of budroom if they need another switch and don't have it in that language yeah it's paper and if you look I mean when I did the expenditures probably
month ago we were at 54 so understood so you're going to hit the 6,000 mark okay understood stationary supplies you're at 21 157 so are you good at
6,3150 there in 6,000 we went to the next one now stationary supplies we're on that now what are your thoughts guys what is it how is it different from your copier we don't know stationary is probably your envelopes um letter head
oh that should basically be office supplies for everything maybe we could fix that sometime i'm fine with the minus five well copy supplies be toner right do you buy your own toner or is that office supplies you know kind of like it's
minutia and it starts to take a lot of time people talking about it go to 29.93 where it should come out agreed$ 29.93 we go with your 5% if guy gets her happy we're good to go so Dave the toner now he's paid by the
paper how many how much is a re paper six bucks crazy right yeah I think David didn't you bring that up at a budget hearing previous what of paper right no with all his copers and printers and doing them as a service contract instead of buying them
and then right you just pay per page right maybe we have some of those one of you gentlemen brought it up in a budget hearing that is the right way to go and I said encourage digital copies that's also very important here on the page
seven capital So we're in agreement on the handicap accessibility it's just in the is the column math yeah i I had questions about it but they didn't get back to me just wondering what we did last year with the 3000 like Mr mold says we're we're always doing
something with the handicapp world you know we're never ever up to date so we're fine with it we'll be doing the front walk but it'll be under CPC oh yeah yeah that's got to come into compliance yeah it's part of that
so the main power switch we threw in the 20 it said to be determined is that still a placeholder i think so because either it's going to go through insurance we mumbled that a while back and um it's
working so I would leave the Well like we had a question on the sprinkler yeah so that's if everything goes okay that'll be done in this year's budget the uh quotes are old
nicole's working on the new quotes and if everything goes right they'll be in front of us at some point for reserve fund transfer and and we'll take care of that this evening we make a run so yeah that's a lot bit of much so which
one are we at though i thought it was a bit much as well but I lost that vote two to one you guys have to hash it out now well we're not in agreement with it me and Mr mulland discussed our reasonings
for it no I get it i said not this year yeah I agree with that and I know it's a bigger project and I know there's more buildings involved and 60,000's nothing i'm willing to wait it out i'm not going to die on that though thank you meaning
what if we need to based on some of the stuff I'm hearing after talking to Cole and numbers that are the dollars right we that's gonna get cut in 20 minutes anyway we have to hold off on it yeah I I agree that that's the future
but not this year no I will hold off i think there's going to be a lot not this year as we move forward you know it needs to be done that option definitely maybe not this year but in the carpet i say no but
show me well I I just don't know where it was going from yeah we never got an answer as to where right so we um It was a last year project wasn't it did we I We thought So we thought that we could say no maybe we find out and there was a joke that none of us had a key to the
building inspector's office to go look at it so let it go that's where it was right so I think it was for his part of his office but I don't remember which understood unless people are so we said no or what
are you saying we're saying no it again no on that well the problem was the epoxyy's about twice as much that's Oh the generator rebuild but we're all generators got to do it yep and it's the head not the motor yeah it's got to be
rebuilt rebuilt not replaced so this is And then this the next item is the item that we just alluded to 10 minutes ago so the the code book is horribly out of date the one on the website the one that we print right it does not reflect
activity at town meetings for the last lot of years so when people go to rely on that document on the web or it's missing key parts like the Airbnb stuff short-term rentals whatever
you want to call it contractors who did their plan according to what it said or didn't say not what we voted on right so this was a kind of an act of omission for a long time and this is kind of a catch-up and this is quite a racket by
the way what is it code something nobody else that does this ecode 360 or something like that whatever but it kind of got you by companies that do it in the whole country they already have like short hair for short hair it was neglected because we didn't just kept
getting it was neglected for it we didn't I don't think anybody had their eye on it to be honest with you yeah and there's a new town clerk and she just started finding everything one of her first things that when she came in said "Yeah we really need to look at this because the website's out of date there's sometimes at the end of the the
e-code document there's like a doings at the town meeting type of thing but it doesn't really put it where it needs to go in the bylaw and update the bylaws such as the actual law reads today um it'll just say amended ATM 318 whatever
and it doesn't really explain it if that and it doesn't have the text of what changed or if there's a new section of code inserted or there was a change um and the only other way to do that then is almost like reconciling it yourself and going through the doings at the town
meeting archive to figure out what changed in our town code book that's no way to no have a citizen or a contractor or anyone be informed about what the laws and rules are in our town so basically the new clerk went for
training and that's where they caught it was literally that's where they caught it and said "Hey this is way out of whack." And that's what's how the process started and what I'd like to see is even though it's in our budget right now if the res if there's enough in the reserves I'd like to bring that forward in the next few weeks or have Nicole
bring it forward and try to get that going now versus later so depending on what we have for funds available that may come out of there and go and get done sooner if you're okay with that i love that okay
so it's there for now yes the It's on report handbooks yep we had 4,000 as well that's That didn't updated here we're in agreement yes we are we did look at it one of them we're completely out of the other one we have 150 left but I think one more year let's
see what we really have left next year and then maybe we'll reduce it and then we're on page eight 4,000 4,000 yeah it should be are we on page eight because our next item is on page eight please oh sorry
those didn't come into the column sorry oh there a mic fit thing you don't have Oh you look at the zeros again you and your zeros yeah so you're looking for two officers don't be sorry oh you're doing good you're doing good
so I know I talked about this the other day and supported it i think those two officers come out this year i am not in support of adding the two officers this year now not with everything I'm looking at as far as numbers i'm not you have
look at your between your injuries and everything else going on uh right now which never goes away i I understand the reasoning behind it and I being a police officer and what I said at the meeting the other day i am 100% for adding these in but I don't think this is the year to
do it i really don't the between the market volatility everything that's going on financially and moneywise I think you just need to hold off and if this is something during the year next year you guys can pull off that'll be something to look at but I do not think
you should add these in right now well I I think he should at least add one in i'd be okay with one but I'm not going to do I He's He's out six already right now i I think he needs to He's down six right now and he's got two possibilities leaving what are you going to leave him
with we got two cruisers tonight i understand believe me Dr zelowski you're 100% right but that money is already in the budget so if two people leave we recruit and hire and those slot into the budget with money you have in fact you may end up
in the short run having a little lower expense because a that person's not in the seat on day one and two they're going to come in at a step one patrolman where a step three or a sergeant might have left right so and then you have the promotion process so
I the problem we have right now in the PD is they're short staff because people are hurt people are out people military people you know and we need to add I think we need to add at least one because that solves some of that so when you you have three
on a shift you go down to minimum manning on the off days when someone's out right but not staffing a shift at minimum and now you've got to start the orderins and the overtime and everything else and frankly the way our we've been talking about this the way our contract
with the police officers union is structured you absolutely burn out the bottom five people on the on the department because that's the list that's the list that gets ordered in the the the newest five people so topic of
discussion maybe in a future contract negotiation which you'll have to pay for but um that's something to think about but I think you could pl you we should carry at least one officer forward here in the budget so that we can take
some of that pressure off the rest of the department because it's not going to stop right an officer is going to get hurt uh an officer may have a child an officer may have to go on military it's it's a constant pressure and we've gone the staffing gone up where they're
trying to hit free a chef this extra officer which I wouldn't call extra at all this new officer would be go a long way to to alleviating some of that if you can even fill it we're lucky right now we have I mean doc
you 100% I would support adding two but this year after everything I'm doing the research this is not the year to do two you know keep it on there obviously for another add-on next year but you know two I can't I can't Brother you got to put one on brother
i can't support two i'll support one all right let's go move on i I would have supported two in the budget but I think it was we're at I think if this was last year I would have said 100% but after everything I'm seeing I'm not just add four was that
two seasons ago or two i thought we had when when we did the whole dispatch thing oh okay that was before that was right before I got here yeah we did the rideong and you know we did two right when did your car get stolen almost three years ago dave when did your car
get stolen because that was the same year it was we added four i got it i don't want to do this the numbers the fire department added three heads as part of the ALS transition and the police
department was two if my memory serves right we've had some turnover we've had some folks leave and some folks come some retirements and promotions and so on and so forth i think you're solid at one financial wise you know and Doug alluded to it you know and being on the
opposite side of this coin over there the contract the way they have it structured is killing people they need to fix that if you fix that you would not have the overtime issues they have please say that again the way their contract is structured is burning people
out horrendously the low end of it the low end of it it really the the way I've talked to people and I don't want to get too hung up on this the way it's been structured everywhere else I've been except for over here now you can only be held like two days where I'm at and then the next guy it doesn't matter who it is
does the most senior and that's really the way it should work after so many that you know the statistics after so many hours it's not safe to have an officer constantly doing that so I I you know so that's a contract that's not just a sheet their way their overtime
set up is yeah their callins and one of the things that I think they need to work on is they need to work on you they get called in on their days off no one I've never been anywhere this is the only place why is it because the union decided that would be a good I'm going to I'm going to be honest because this
has happened no it's called selfishness is what it is no it's called selfishness you have officers that don't care about the other officers because I'm going to tell you exact ly why because I've heard this for my career i got screwed so so should you that's the way it works Doc you know the
older guys are right yeah and that's that's the mentality you get and it's completely wrong and back to the money to the money so now I've said my piece on if we add an officer we cut into some of that 156,000 overtime right that's I
was going to ask you if if we didn't add any let's say we said no officers is that going to drive that overtime sure blind item up i mean if one more guy go down it could go down it could go up it never goes down two years ago we had seven officers and the dog i'm
offer seven officers and the dog were injured i mean it was like the most ridiculous thing you've seen as far as the the injuries and and the probabilities of having out of and what's the staff over there is it 18 or 20 sworn officers 2021 you had seven of
them out that must have been in 2023 when the overtime was up to 178,000 and then it went down when they all came back 100% the chief was taking patrol shifts and the lieutenant was taking patrol shifts
because we we couldn't be at minimums that so but we've had it's been a constant you know it's always going to be an issue it's a it's a physically demanding job and you have to be 100% right you
can't show up with a you know a pulled hamstring and and be a cops that day you just can't do it and so it it it's it's a challenging spot so I you know I think we should my vote is to put one in the budget we have we just had one come out
of the academy that just joined one that just joined us from another department we are probably going to have two vacancies those are going to have to get filled but that'll also cause two promotions from patrol to sergeant so and we have one going into an academy
correct come July i put one more in i can agree to my take on it i agree to one point what it is okay like I said if this was met last year a different story is fine
z going to page eight yep okay we got no agreement here huh right so guys went more or less 5% okay i'm okay with cutting the chief development training
we just went 5% on operations we didn't go into the weeds of you know 5% total i believe we did we did not move the the vehicle over and the only reason we did that was because
um when they want a new vehicle for the animal control you want to be able to see where they spent their money on the old one if it's all under one budget it's it just doesn't work for us so that's why we left it there can we start
at the top yes we can thank you sorry Laura yeah well before we start Yeah if we just added a new officer we're going to need some of these things we're just going to go down and say cut
five cut five cut five yeah which one right i don't know you're telling me which which one are we going to need well you just added to the school expense more than likely and there's a dramatic increase at the academy and yeah but that's still in there i we had that discussion about school expense and
about where it cost to go well we're going to need weapons for a new office in there can we start at the top yeah but yeah we will we'll go back we're going to need new medical additional medical requirements uniforms
ammo medical supplies crime uh maybe not crime supplies no not there'll be some minor equipment computer supplies for a new officer that's in that that comes out of that first um we don't get anything it's all part of the operation all shared yep okay why don't we start
at the top let's do that on page top one contracts 45 what they are right well but there's a there's a 2374 difference of opinion between the select board who level funded this and the finance committee can I make a recommendation how about we
have the chief go back and do this with one more officer and then have our chairs review those two together that's fine would that work for everybody that would be fine on the entire operations is that what you're saying yep that's fine right i can
do that little rocking sckum toy you know when we do this and goes like that that was fun or the chair can designate me and I'll fight you back no we're good beg your pardon for Yes somebody said
the school expense would increase if we had an officer what is that this the training school no no no no that should probably be listed before yeah we make it clear this well it's not just that right there's other schooling that officers have
required trainings under MGL and POST so should be police it should be very elicited police training yeah yeah yeah education it didn't matter about cut the resource officers and obviously school that's the first thing why is that going yeah don't touch the third rail oh I'm
just saying don't touch it all right police capital so the cruisers were okay right and we're acknowledging the fact that they're going to replace a truck with N1 cruiser one
okay agree on radios and we agree on computers yeah I think we're okay all the way at the bottom this is except for the lockers we said no i think we put in for Didn't we Is this the one i put I put in 4,000 for the
lockers and that the reasoning was they can be serviced and fixed over there yes they're not brand new and if you want me to go through the same speech I will tom Crocker's lockers got six coats of polish and is immaculate and Mikey Bridges locker the bottom of it all dented up because he throws his gear
back in as soon as you do that once the bottom goes the sides go so if someone wants to take the floor out of put a 2x10 down there and put the floor back in bingo we're all set so I didn't want them to use their normal budget for that god forbid so we budgeted four grand to
go in there and spiff up the lockers that's what we came up with pie in the sky four grand and then we won't have to replace all the lockers just fixing up i will say I went through there with the chief and I did see some saw yeah once the bottom goes they just
start caving in so do you want to add 4,000 for make do that's what we put in there i put four grand okay yeah like I said they'll get no sympathy from me on my Oh it's all good i They do They do need you know Hey
well they're getting a whole new place they Yeah no actually we're not hey can we buy the old lockers you don't want them they're worse they're high school lockers moving on in page nine
i proposed working i'm glad we agree on the cost i don't know what yeah thank you i'll be here anytime inspections and repairs and Oh we got a
Yep yeah that's the only the first one inspections and repairs at the fire department there's a We have two more,000 in there you cut five% now yeah do you know what we something we didn't know that they needed to
what did the chief say we did not ask for any We can do the same thing as we did with the police us two can go ask the he was in here for an hour right but when
we um we had asked him he aligned his the 178 to what you guys um allotted for him okay but we can go back to him and see if he can cut if 178
is still good or the 87 187 oh so he so he he dropped it down to the minus five you guys went in between we That's right we didn't go you didn't go minus five you went You went I said "Okay they
first round this is just basic." What one um 1780 87 is the number you guys and then he came back and gave me where he wanted it where he wanted it but it doesn't mean that he wouldn't take more well and
I just want to make a point too because this was something we had done in years past and it kind of echoes what chairman Peron has mentioned in uh previous boards of selectments meeting when you have whether it's under the police operations or fire operations
um give those department heads the wide latitude to to reorient monies within these categories such as the total comes out where we we think it's going to fit let let the managers manage um you know so if uh if he chooses to move you know
$65 out of food and move it into hose inspection for whatever reason oh yeah made that up bless as long as he stays within the the the rails of the budget I think We as as as those and not involved in those departments dayto-day should respect that that that is what we he put
in and mixed things around that's what we have it says level funded but that's one of those that was he mixed things up agreed i'm just saying we've done it in the past to give you know when you get down to reconciliation time and you go look we need to cut 500 bucks from this
department okay don't we shouldn't sit here and figure out which one of these is going to take the 500 let let the the chief of the department head decide that cut which he did for the east huh right so he did do that 178087
no no he was at he was at his net number was 187460 that's what we plugged in was what he rejiggered we didn't get that information we just had our budget so that was the first time
and then when the finance committee met they went kind of in between the 5% decrease and level funded gave him a number was that and then he re that's what's in green right here I wasn't
there he redid his yes see the green that was the night of um your meeting you guys weren't there yet I was there and then I had to come% No high speed internet so he agrees with your 178 yep that's it because he originally
put in 173 925% a little bit more but but he just told us he needed the 25 grand for turnout year yes well what he said was I need all of it even though I'm getting a
grant 27 25,000 we have it so you can give him Well on this one it does i don't know why it doesn't say 25 here well if he was okay with 178 but for a $25,000 turnout here instead of 22 add
3,000 to the 178 and call it a day 181 that's a strong suggestion right there i'm fine with it David i was just going to say the same just change yours to 25 and we'll go with that 25
so yeah some of these numbers are not matching i can't remember which ones we gave the different so we'll have the chairs reconcile amongst that but within within the confines to about 181 182 right
the inflatable boat we left it in but it would be the first thing to go and he said no it didn't make it out of the sock so we're fine with that i did ask him about it i said "Do you want the bedroom set or the rubber boat?"
And he said "The bedroom set." He's not wrong he's not wrong thermal imaging we were agreements on the monthly we were agreements on the came down because Darian looked at the correction trending three years y
four years years trending and the the bum remodeled I mean I imagine it's been that is oh god yes competitive and and updated expensive got a bunch of grants for a bunch of stuff they got grants for the
blue light special alarming in the wake system is was part of a grant that we've been holding on to for two or three years now which we approved the other night so that's coming in but $4 million to do some bunk
beds yeah yeah welcome to the municipal municipal construction so if you recall that was at 400 three years ago when he first approached us yeah it was like 400,000 and we all 390 390 yeah
um since then we yeah we gave up monies here and there to fix the AC system um and then to actually we did spend money to get a better number because that was a hypothetical you know the guy walks in and tells you per square foot here you
go fast forward they went out for a quote which we authorized last year for him to go to i think that was 60 grand or something at 40,000 so yeah that that is a real number at 250 with contingencies how much are the
contingencies Doug roughly 10% and you'll have a clerk of the works too because you have to to keep the contractors honest because you know they'll absolutely mess with it now in Washington DC
Nope not at all it's true story so there's a hotel that just opened maybe 5 10 years ago they opened it in cooperation with the Washington DC fire department there's actually an active fire station on the first two floors of the building
and the hotel lobby is on the third floor i'm suggesting that I said we need a hotel short-term rental deal we could cover some of this expense can put ADUs in the backyard right we just rent out the bunks on the nights
that they don't need them i'm kidding i can fill it i can fill that with little kids staying overnight in a fire station oh my god but by the way that is a true there is a real hotel that has an active fire station i'd hate to be sleeping there when
there's not yeah but probably the the sirens didn't go off at 3:00 a.m oh yeah they did 10 page 10 wait a minute this is the perfect time for that i believe we need to take
an a whole another section okay yes hold on folks maybe he's eating dinner he's not really on randy Randy Brown volume's off
text me we're good yeah are you texting okay that be funny then let's answer the question while we wait why the finance committee did not fill in public safety buildings
where's that one capital oh there isn't anything that's why um building department operations you did not fill in back to page eight oh back to page 10 while we're waiting for back to back to
10 operations is that what you just said building department operations operations yep so we did 149 we just reduced the two lines of
supplies and new code books and left everything else the same right and we call 5% use a blank we didn't do anything we didn't do to that where is it in our book then how did we skip it
so the building department has revolving accounts for the inspectors and I think that that was we did look into that that's right to see what we could do with the building department x amount of dollars in there and um what do we
find can't do nothing with it I mean no we you can you can um on building capital is where you are maintenance department operations where it can come out of there we looked at it they're blind but I
don't think any of this can come out of there right exactly Exactly i think our hope was that some of his own stuff could come out not that it would come back to us just Yeah yeah that it could be put into that his own thing randy too late sorry R
okay now that we're done with the police department chief Celery was cut finance i guess what do you guys want to do there what is the finance committee's pleasure on that one this is one of those things
where you're saying to take this money out of the revolving no we were trying to see what we could do so the building department revolving to do with inspections has a decent amount of money in it yeah and they have to keep so much in i think it's 40,000 they have to keep
in there y So there's a little there's a little cushion in there after that we were hoping we could take those funds and use them in the building department y to help with their budget yep but it doesn't appear that we can do that okay that's why we waited that's why they
fair enough but you can also if you can and I don't know if you can or can't but you could have that read as part of the warrant article because that's the source of to the line item right right you know the to raise and appropriate and the sum
of and it's from and you show the lines of where they those monies come from so if it is possible that's where that can be that's where that would come in right right right understood and did we not under public safety buildings
capital did we not start that yet or we went I missed that part we didn't we went right down to why why the finance committee didn't do something okay no but they're all at zero so I think Oh no they have a question mark on the floor
so yeah and then and we wanted to know what at FD got that was already done right we decided not to carry it in there the tile floor i see Lieutenant Tiger in I have it in my notes it keeps on too
lt can you hear yeah the lieutenant had the answer it was to do with Yeah I can hear you which tiles were they so we were looking into it and and looking at my notes and talked to the chief the money was I don't know why it's listed as tiles it's for new carpets
patrol room sergeants offices yes that's what I have it for and it's in the budget for this year to do it i see that again so they're going to be able to do it this year i think so that's why we zeroed it because they didn't spend it
this year right question we thought it was for this year right so agreement at zero for this year so they already have the money yeah yes all right so where are we going about the building department operations
wait can we before we go to the top go to the Can we start so on the top of this page yes there's a fuel there's a few differences under fuel fuel yeah i thought you guys agreed 37050 yeah I
heard that i changed it there was chatter there was chatter they agreed to 37050 and everything else was the same so the fuel% all right so now we're good letter we're good there maintenance supplies we did
62.84 6600 mine is 66 your says 66 even on the Okay we're good we're good in the capital now so the question is back to what do you
want to do with operations 01241 middle of the page yeah it's only $600 above the 5% where are we back now back in the middle of the page we have 14 we are back in the middle of the page
building m building department operations you're 149 or 151 so you guys cut more than we cut we didn't cut any we didn't even give a recommendation we didn't make a
recommendation up from 5% 1430 and 14 so we're off by 600 sorry we'll split it with you 146 which one would you like to change oh it's you can choose
something alert didn't you already went through the line items and went through measure he doesn't get uniforms by the way that's probably just that out of uniforms because he doesn't get uniforms
cut the uniforms there you go excellent choice thank you shirts all right then we're going to be doing that's a salary salary
that is a salary what you're asking no it's you're right i just All right on page 11 12 ony's on we're going to start where it says public works
okay we agree on you're yellow or you're in the thumb Why why is finance yellow oh zero there i see okay yeah i just No garage repair and maintenance cuz we did our minus five right and the
total expenditure this year is only 10ish so we don't agree on the first one you cut it five you cut the utilities five saw 3,000 if there's still street sweeping again as Mr min said this is
another one of those ones where I would you know you've got a director if he wants to move money around in the long term he's got to come in front of you guys anyways to ask for more if he screws it up so not that you will Randy so our number is
more 7825 our number is more or less what Randy had moved around mhm but we did reduce utilities
well when you guys came up with your numbers did you have you consulted with Brandy i thought he had compared the four-year history to what he moved around yes so in that sense yes we consulted with Randy he talked us
through it twice and what he moved around I compared to the history and that's what we changed here was the
utility garage utilities yep he had 51 we knocked it down to 45 can can I make a comment on that uh there was a recent change in our phone billing uh lower can probably
chime in more detail but that did increase our uh phone bill by about 400 bucks a month is that in that line it's in that line i think Laura put that in that line item yeah
in the garage utilities okay this is in the garage we talked about that on Monday yeah I remember you talking so what does accounting say that number should be because that's what my notes say accounting so the one you took 5,000 out
so you're saying I need to put that five back is that what you're saying Randy i think so yeah that's that's a five about $5,000 four 400 bucks a month you have this in front of you Randy no I don't have what you have in front of you i I'm looking at the the budget just the
line items of the budget we just went down to cut everything 5% as well yeah that's where you should just press brought that back over to the green back repairs and maintenance finance had
16 maint and select board had 18 there's that sorry there was a $1,000 in red that increase in garage utilities right that was what we questioned yes yeah we talked about you were talking
it was the yellow we were waiting for the answer touchdeping is up no I'm just going by what we did oh so you don't agree on street sweeping 27,000 fin 35 select port right
because we did the Can we start at the top yep the first line we have a variance of 1,000 actually right no 20 2,000 what the increase in red is 1,000 there down in Pincom we're on the first line repair and maintenance there's no
Oh sorry sorry that's not utilities sorry yep so we kept it at 18 as Randy had filled in there was probably room if Randy wanted to reduce that a little bit and you had it in yellow
randy that's a question can you reduce that two grand so I I don't have an issue I guess so that line there's a couple line items in here that are little unique that they're really not my line items they're actually buildings and grounds so garage
repairs is a buildings and grounds line item contracts agreements is buildings and grounds and I think there's one more but so I I don't I don't touch those line items at all okay but I have the fouryear history and we have room to do that then so
we'll take that to 16 that's fine yeah okay it works for Randy works for me we'll put the garage utilities back to 50 street sweeping we went to five as I remember we thought the expenditure is
awfully low are you going to add the thousand for the increased utilities right now is the It might be but we also have a lot for weather well we don't have sand anymore is the discussion that we have we still have to do it yeah we can't touch that
i have a question for Randy on street sweeping D issue yeah go ahead the historical numbers I have are 26,000 21,000 and 16,000 and of course we don't have this year yet the budget is
20 uh the proposed budget from FINCOM is 27 is that doable uh it I mean you you see the history it uh probably will be close some years some years it may be lower
just based on how much uh debris is on the roads so 27 I think in my 5% budget I did lower that to a number i don't know if that's in front of you was that What did I put that at 27 27 so
I'm fine with that okay you're good andy how are you with the conference and travel is it because this car come out of that what's that no does his car goes out of there
okay so we can't touch that so you're leaving that we'll leave it yeah his car is in there so drainage supply project 5% has 12 yeah that's what we put in yep
we gave him 15 that's uh actually no we changed it to we changed it to 12 my number on my computer's 12 leave that alone supplies is one that's on the other budget
i would Yeah you guys just want to break it down to 5225 i'm I'm going to change ours to 5225 unless you object boom done the uh we just go back to the port street it was
30,000 and we spent 18 on the previous page so uh can you tell us Randy what that might look like this year rest of year you you expended 18 on board i imagine that's you know cutting
the Just got to get back on season cutting trees and whatnot that are problematic right yeah it's all for I I thought we would have spent more than 18 i'll double double check that but we spend we spend that pretty much every year the full value
the prior years were 37 and 40 okay and he's at 18 so far as to date yeah yeah yeah yeah and we we we'll spend the full 40 this year for sure thanks we've already we've got some bills you probably haven't seen yet
haven't come through the county but yeah we we'll go through it yeah and it's never enough yeah I know i think that's a big number it's not cheap all right so on capital you good everything saving
well that's going to be the plug at the I mean side later that'll be the plug at the end of street lighting's next what's that street lighting lighting is next
lighting is lighting We gave We actually gave two more did you guys look at lighting i did it was 69 81 and 23 for some reason 68 and 48 year to date and I
figured with whatever little light changes we had to LEDs right this would go down 74 felt comfortable to us we're fine with that unless Randy knows something we don't
nope okay i'll change our physicals to six mine was 650 we did say 650 on that one as well what's that in road machinery physicals we had a little variant oh yeah but ours ours is
actually 650 as well yeah your parts of supplies is lower but it doesn't reflect in the right column which one personal slides you had 18 we had 195
good catch so did you guys purposely have n 18 or did you mean to have 195 hold on we had we reduced it to 18 it can be this was one of the things
he's moved things around and combined some things 18 is a comfortable number yep sorry it took me a long time you only spend five grand on tires huh branding completed trucks for highway
yeah for the highway trucks yep don't forget they they split those some of those across sewer and water and highway and so they'll have the same expense across all those okay sp
testing sample you guys want the 1680 that was the 5% and that was Ry's number um don't know what yours is 16 number there yeah it's not like it since it's just it was
1868 if you want yes this thing um we have $3,000 i don't know why that's 16 you're in 3,000 also yep yep okay i'm good um are we down in solid waste parts and
supplies that again we're comfortable with that number based on history okay we're fine with that for the total you mean the 10 10 parts and supplies in solid weights they were at 12 they were at 10
environmental monitoring it was a question on our side does that go away you guys have zero yeah I think we go away Randy yeah it does go away lucky okay and are we in agreement on the capital
the trash box yeah we both have 14 and the roll off and the compact yeah correct that would be the next question yeah we already All right that's it for that so we jump sewer and water for him and come back
they'll have there's a on page 15 there's a delta on the select board with the secretarial yes they have finance committee put in the $200 for the secretarial for sewer implementation two so whatever it is
I think they got Now we're going to stick to page uh now go page 15 at the end after the number 15 and 17 17 what am I talking about yeah no it goes
to 20 and then back at 15 oh they're on they're on separate the government separate tabs in different I did re number the pages we're good yeah
15 second 15 okay dpw all right i don't know why the numbers aren't entered oh I hit them okay oops they were hiding were they
dash all right i had We had 1300 where are we at at the top yeah where are we we're in um operations yep okay water operations for the first two lines we had 135,000 page 15 starts at school
what page 15 number two starts a operation page 20 15b i'm not going to have any of this documentation about that no 24 let me get
I just fixed oh okay i just fixed it somebody pointed it up i see sorry i fixed it too i hate when it does that page 15 still yeah the second 15 yeah
hang on let me just check okay so the first variance we have is telephone monitoring we left it at 30,000 telephone thank you okay there you don't have any numbers for you yeah I don't have I'm going to tell you what the varianes are right i'm not going to call
out all the numbers we I'm going to tell you which one's different okay sure telephone monitoring you have 2500 we have 3,000 what's the history based on what we have that's why
we% decrease to three we can go to your 25 okay what's next i have It's already down yeah we have telephone monitoring
yep yep how do they read the meter odor control product I think or something oh the pump stations sorry what are we talking i was asking Sher's
question okay about odor control product we had 155 i thought it could go down to 135 you guys have 14 we can settle at 145 please don't run out of that product
ever drive down East Main Street in a hot humid night yeah scatter maintenance we had it at 10 and that's a Randy question I guess yeah
we just did the minus five what's the history because I don't have any history so the question was where was that before or is it in it it was down in capital and this is just maintenance now going forward it was it's an operational
maintenance that we used to call capital yep yeah that's when it first came in as capital capital and it stayed there for a while but now it really is so now we're putting it where it belongs yes put it where history i don't know if I have I don't have that history then i
can't tell you randy has to answer that uh yeah we've spent I don't think we've spent We're not going to spend $10,000 this year if you want to cut a couple thousand we could probably make that work this year i mean this is the maintainer skater system so when when
you know something we have we get a failure an alarm that you know needs to be addressed and we call a consultant in and take care of it so it's kind of an as needed we have an as needed on call contract for that work so some years you may need it more than
others so I'll go with their 70 75 they put Yep okay under Randy under capital do you have Oh there it is but you have nothing in your capital for SCADA improvement
no we do not no we moved it all into maintenance the operations item last year folks I'm going to recommend that we leave that item at the 10K uh in the top five things that keep you up at night this is in the top three
well I don't know about me but maybe you Well I'm telling you right this is uh and probably better fit for an executive session discussion around that no agreed but you do not want to skimp on SCADA maintenance or SCADA improvement um if
there's potential issues that you need to mitigate however Randy just said we can take a couple off what if we go to 8,500 will we all be happy fine i am but one member and just the clerk over here but I'm just telling you in
the top five things that keep you awake at night this is in my top three doug you know I appreciate what you're saying but Randyy's saying e when there's an issue but I'll go with 85 you were alluding to like a capital upgrade to
make it more but he's still they used to carry it under capital and I believe some of that and Randy can speak to it as well they would carry it under bolt so yeah a a thing breaks and they come out and fix it but versus they need to do a significant some kind of upgrade or
some other thing to it for for reasons so you you do not want to hesitate to execute on that so Randy but you'll have two grand somewhere else he and move around that's fine i'm just making a point so what do we want it to be 8,500 7500 i'm good with Doug at 10 because
Randy doesn't Randy doesn't um grab that money for something else later if it's still there in the end it goes back to free cash retained earnings i'm sorry retained earnings i'm sorry and I want Doug to sleep tonight what's that and I want you
to sleep tonight but he's thinking of you on this probably won't happen anyway but that's Yeah but I don't want to be the reason why you don't based on your historical trends no no I'll still call you at 3:00 a.m buddy okay all
right thank you and then in capital you guys have question marks we did 425 175 and 30 you had question marks remind me what s is under
in our tabs is it DPW do you remember uh Joe we had questions on this one for Andy your questions about the um the permit compliances I think was our question was is that a new
position is that we were talking about you're having someone come in to do that yeah so we have our new MSR permit requires some reports uh that are required to that are due I think late late in the year late in December 2025
so yes I was going to have a consultant come in and do those reports that you know I cannot do myself right exactly so that is needed yeah and that's that's a one that's a one-time that's not a recurring item that's just a one time yeah well this year and then I'll have a
new new new process for you next year that you'll have to follow but yes yeah yeah not not this year this is a big year in that permit the MS4 permit where a lot is due this year uh the the the workload is not as heavy in future years
the other thing we just didn't understand we'd understand it's just this grinder pump thing is just getting crazy you're at 425 and then another 175 and I know the select board has had a long conversation about grinder bumps yep how did it play out with you
guys i didn't win she didn't win okay 60 total kids are we going to go up 60 grinder pumps we'll pump that up combined 425 and 17 so the total is 69 oh okay
and then Yeah Mike's just gonna hang out mike's just enjoying the pure comedy show it's fine you're So are we going back to the other pages we skipped now we're going to the new page 16
water oh I changed the 22 you're going to have to give us the ones that Yep went on operations yeah d's going to give us the ones that she has a variant from us
okay the first two lines we have 135,000 um level fun both of those can be 12 and 4500 okay so match us if if my group agrees where are you randy gave us
Another country heard from the new page 16 okay page 16 so the first two in operations yes they had 124500 we had 13 and five we can do that
as well we can go to 12 and 4500 perfect okay there for telephone and cell phone we had a really weird number 3192 oh because that's what the budget was
that's what budget was yes office telephone um historically we can knock that down unless there was something new there randy I thought that's where the TPX phone say i thought we had that phone issue
no that that's uh like our phones sir our phone plans for myself and Rich and others and then the office 2800 it says office telephone office so it's been the same flat number for the
last three years if nothing's changed that you know of there's nothing changed than 2,800 works well the flat h flat number is 30 so 3192 is the level funded
to date 26 year to date we're on 26 and that's old year to date that's old year to date so I think it needs to be the 3192 okay yep so we'll move up to the level funds same
thing consultant we left at a thousand um but I said we didn't get there so 500's fine we didn't talk a lot about water the other day we didn't at all we didn't
talk we did we didn't We didn't have them we didn't have them either we all get to talk about it now yesterday Water Springfield no no no bear with me
i just know the fact that we didn't have these the day oh gotcha gotcha i'm sorry we left 300 in food because we wanted to feed the guys during work on the road we have zero
bag brown bag lunch right i don't know why it is i don't think we did that we didn't do that intentionally h we'll throw it back in uniforms we were reducing to 2800 okay so we'll go up conference
we had a good Oops i'm sorry what was your So we had 300 for the food yep yeah and 2,800 for the conference and travel we were at 25 they were at 28
thought that was uniform yeah oh I'm sorry i'm sorry uniform uniform conference and travel looks like we're all Yes uniform sorry no worries should we in the same place we good yeah we're okay office
supplies we kept it at four because the year before he was at 4,800 the prior year he was at 34.99 so he's close to that all the time didn't they move their office down last year well this year they did it right this this line
stays so we kept it at four any still may go over we'll move it back up at the dig safe at a thousand is that I'm sorry so are you agreeing other than other than you're going down because you
agree on the uh I'm only calling out the ones very differences because I it's not filled in so I have to fill it in oh that's a green dick say if we left at a thousand right um it had not spent to that in the past that's why
we did the five i guess we can do the seven and by silence I'm assuming these two agree correct if it works for Randy Randy you're fine with that for dig Safe yeah it's fine yeah you pay for Dig Safe Randy we pay a buck every ticket that
that comes in you pay a what a dollar we pay $1 for every ticket that comes in gotcha oh okay so every time I call you okay understood disinfectant product the spend has been up to
$7,400 in fiscal 24 i felt this might even be short keeping it at six so we didn't reduce it okay for the air fresheners whatever we'll go up to six
what does that mean is that uh the chlorination the chlor chlorine for the chlorination system for the water it's affecting the well the well water bill printing we can use the 2500
thank you the water meter AMI we left at 22 in fiscal 23 it was 245 and then the following year dropped down to 11,000 it was too variable for me to
call something on it what is your take on that yeah no we we were uh our vendor changed uh a year ago So that's why there was a lag in the billing so the 20 we we will need a full 22,000 okay to share
we'll move it up then the scatter same question where was it before we took it or we kept it at 15 what did we decide on the last one we could They left it 10 on the last yeah
they left it long so we'll leave it at 15 here well it's up to Doug Moen i already What are we doing buddy i said my piece okay so I guess we're moving it back up doug is at peace so we had it at
15 yeah we'll leave it it's fine um administrative expense to town what was that line i think I'm blaming you it's the town's work that they do for the water department that's how you operate with enterprise funds it's not an
enterprise fund um but it's but it seems to have been 95,000 do you do that DLS calculation Randy seems to have been 95,000 for years yeah it has been uh there's there's a long story there um if you want to if you want to change that
we'll require a long discussion all right okay okay swing by tomorrow Randy whenever you're ready yeah on a Friday no no oh it's that one or a Monday or Tuesday any day that Thursday is not so good either that's that page
with their It has to do how you take all the other expenses of the town right and what you allocate to an enterprise fund there's just a calculation price of doing business right services to perform their job but they
take not there is a calculation it also gets somewhat it gets tabled it page 17 I believe you want that to be 40,000 infincom column in what
on page 17 capital the water system upgrade that was a 40,000 to North Longard correct not 4,000 right rand 40 40,000 yes 40 yeah 40,000 by
Nice try and then the rest is principal and interest and salary result rest is all all good now we're going back to the other sub yeah now we're going to find Jeremy page 11 till we're done with Randy
thanks Randy have a good night thank you all thank you oh that's why that's why BC she stayed on we're getting ACL that's why he had his dog barking in the back that was Ry's go with
it okay all right so page 11 up on top as we go right yes back to page 11 is that 11 the original vehicle maintain vehicle maintenance we want to leave by
itself still got to go back to page 10 what's that page 10 you want to go to 10 let's go to page 10 we didn't do the whole page we didn't do the whole page zeros just find the first
yeah there are zeros yeah and I have a building department where are you we may have answered them i just wanted to make sure oh sure take a second go ahead oh sorry no you're fine it's easier to fix now than it is tomorrow morning
tomorrow morning the next day sorry it's Friday it's even worse you won't get a base pay call out i haven't got a base pay oh yeah i won't get that base pay i got to talk to HR about that we don't have that yeah what would I do to get
you get you a raise in the train i made Oh no no i don't want to ever get paid on the fence ever uniform allowance is We're on page 11 page 11 animal control animal control uniform allowance uniform
allowance well they didn't agree to move the um vehicle but No we just have it somewhere else then right the vehicle maintenance yeah it's there they just want to put under the PD budget and I I just want to leave it by
itself so in three years when they want a new cruiser we'll see what we spend for monies sitting there it's It's a clerical thing i think it's fine where it is i have no I think they just want a unified fleet i I know what they want to
do they got to bolt that dolphin in the garage all right we've seen their work but I think the value the value you agreed correct the value you just didn't yes that's all in theory we agree sure
so uniform we bantered about this the uniform because she was going to be hiring people right we just did our minus five what we came up with minus five so 14 and a quarter what's the trend bend but they didn't have anybody
we didn't have it okay you like us to leave it like it is we'll leave it like it is well they used $267 i I'm with you but I wouldn't have a problem going with the number you have okay what do you want to do i would do a thousand you would you would do a
thousand you you proposed because I mean that's a lot of uniforms well uniforms are expensive they're expensive they're expensive they are expensive it's a police uniform without This is animal control i know she wears a uniform one of her assistant
no I don't know i'll do I would leave it and we'll if she doesn't hire anybody we knock it back okay won't be my problem 1425 1425 we're fine 1425 they're talking to people now right they're interviewing
they're talking to people conference travel education it's two bucks off stop it you guys went more than 5% yeah we were feeling that
and the historical I mean I can live with that too if you guys can 300 then we're even on uniforms okay so three
leaning goes up 2200 down to 1300 um that's why we did 1500 year to date was only 403 things can get messy there
you get a dog or something that bleeds all over your vehicle jason make a decision what do you want it to be i want to go with the 5% 199.95 oh that's what we had oh right that's what it says you guys
good with that contracts and agreements such a specific number 734 723 though is spincom going to 1500 I mean 1995 on it on which one again on
cleaning supply you were at 1500 right and you guys are at how much I can't with your 5% oh then why why are you asking me go you went with 1500 in your green box oh I can't see I Are you good with your 5% you
originally wanted all right thank you okay the run dividers yes we all agree it's just the calculation phones are up the same 2300 and 2000
and your 5% of the select portals so we said what did you say has a new efficient HVAC that's what I'm hoping so the it should go down or stay the same so we did the 5% okay which one are we talking about we're
on page 11 we actually went down a little bit more yeah you went down more than as far as 2185 we did two i'm fine with two for our reasoning we're not on Where are you you am I looking at the wrong thing electricity oh I'm sorry it
was dropped down one okay at 12:35 for you guys my bad the telephone and did history on that one and arrived at the 2 2000 fine with that
is that cell phones that is actually a landline in there isn't it it's both yeah it must be that it's both there's a phone at the visitor center there's a
lake management phone at the chairman's there's and there's a cell phone or two in there too all the 5690s those are all just have a single
not for those probably it's divided just like electricity yeah by department even if we do have like an agreement they still have to get put into the budget and it rolls up when she pays the bill she pays it out of the different
accounts let's go 2600 you okay with that the history is they've been at 2100 so 23 okay we're going to 23 on the phone leave them at 23 23 on the phone oh you guys did the same on your post i'm sorry
23 so now I'll get rid of that but supplies we can definitely um go to 665 i don't know where we got that number but it works how we got that okay must have been given to us it could
have been it could have been his couple numbers down yeah yep and security we had 950 and Yeah I think that was his number too 950 yeah okay
supply 665 17 correct 12 well 12 management doing so good with these you are this is zero and it's really
Again we got to click the questions page 12 okay all right management on top thank you capital capital it looks like we agree yes we do agree on that they took out
that piece place security we're good there operations so like weed control we said the routine has been around um 6,000 8,000 somewhere in there so we
said um yeah close to 10 it was comfortable came up with 9500 this is on the routine lake weed control yeah that's correct okay separate from hydrillaa yeah
mcgill with that on the consultant um historically highest was 8,000 7,000 nothing year to date yet of course we felt nine was comfortable
and then we agree on the beaver dance and then we're back to public works and we skip this page 17 did you go back to DPW Highway Division Capital page
13 agree except for What did you have going on the pay we're going to go back to that guy no behe no we don't have anything we have no numbers and no one knew nothing okay making sure
yeah now where are we what page are we on what's that something about clean energy i thought energy inflation i think we go to page board of Health
Operation 15 yeah human services yeah human services yeah in the middle so we're 15 hold on all right okay if it was stapled easier it was well oh they do
everything they can to keep me in line they really do they do at least somebody can yep lands right all right so where we at on page 15 so I guess we start with cemeteries reference
cemetery salary sex there was a discussion about that at the select board on Monday stipens do not go up stipens stay the same they do not go up they do not get a 3% increase the stipens a stipen is a stipen well we don't do salaries so I'm
not that number just Yeah right 15 middle of the page the original i think that number I think you guys number was based on a 3% yeah we don't touch so I guess you guys
go to cemetery operations but that's the the reason like you still have a number there right that's why it's highlighted yeah that's okay cemetery operations that's fine are we all right no right right there is this describe standing over me is going to do anything
everything in the Yeah basically the supervisor of the separate that logs all the It's right here sometimes comes in and does mowing and so Okay oh now he leaves
so repairs and maintenance okay you guys knocked that down cemetery and we did 5% yeah the history was 23 158 again that was a little volatile and depending on what's happening there we
didn't um take it back much well we didn't take it at all we stayed at 10 i'll split it with you nine he's at nine i only have 8954 that's almost 9,000 i
want a nice nice round number we're on cemetery operation i have 10 9251 and 50 cents no I think 10 is fair it's plus minus it varies widely year to year yeah but you
you've never hit 10 right yes i've been at 23,000 yeah oh 23,000 it's been at 235 okay yes 23 could have been 2,300 i'm sorry that's why I misunderstood so I'll leave it at 10 why did we let it get to
23,000 don't know what happened I think don't know what happened in 201 fine we'll leave it leave it at 10 but ground supplies we can take back to 7500 comfortably
which is trees shrubs benches etc sure i'm sorry that's the one that is trees shrubs plantings flag boulders and benches um that has been 164 16
so our 5% number works 16 million I'm okay with that okay it's in the ballpark 69 65 What's that 6954 giving her the
54 doing wrong numbers okay then we're on to page 16 i think the real 16 yeah the first 16-1 16 were fro
they don't have anything capping there's a $400 delta they haven't spent anything uh but he's said he had a backup contractor now a backup inspector so when he is not available he's got somebody he can call
correct so this is like anticipated anyway it'd be as needed right so we good with the two or Yeah we're fine okay who $26 in supplies
we used his rejiggered numbers on that actually so um we can go to 927 since we left the other one okay yep and his phone is new no longer on me it's not
on Council on Aging where maintenance we didn't need it because I assume it's the maintenance contract on their crafting system their attendance and all that they've spent 825
they're at zero where did we get 334 though uh that was the date but 334 is a weird number it's not 5% of No it's not i don't know what that is not even half
that's Is that what she just plugged in that's what she filled in 334 that's what That's what she gave us math errors on her sheet too so it's really 825 um it should be 825 that is what her
stand is okay and that reconciled now the education classes the increase in education she had 5,000 and we put 2700 2750 2750 oh sorry i missed that one yep
and you guys had zero you split it with you we split what harass i got it i understand and you heard my reasoning you were here it's up to you guys
do you want to split the 27 would you go two i'll go two is can I ask what if this is for the director's education no this is to add more classes for the senior she wanted to add more
educational classes not just exercise but like all kinds of things for the seniors she mentioned computers to me and stuff like that we It's a tight year what's that it's a tight year she can She'll have to figure
out what to do with two yeah okay that's all salaries this one next next meeting oh we went over there what are we talking about
page 17 yellows and some next yeah so we went over and just asked her about then we had um Danny show up Dan because basically they flip the first two is what Dan said they're using more for maintenance and contracts than they
are for library maintenance right there's some lines right yeah and then there's an increase of 6,000 then it uh I guess they're falling short but Dan's new at it so he didn't really
understand exactly where he's falling short but he's going to keep an eye on his so that's where he came up with the difference i believe they were moving monies around throughout the year to cover some of those expenses being covered elsewhere right
so we had a question on this also and we were going to come back to this today what would you um the spend has been 12 to $17,000 historically what I'm looking at all three lines
library I'm two lines library maintenance and contracts right combined um has been 17 okay yeah and we're budgeting 17 right well we've got Oh no
with the ad on you now we got 169 and he wanted to increase it another six and I'm saying he's pretty good where he's at historically keep him at 169 but they seem to be putting money elsewhere from others that you won't see of course because it never moves back up to those
line items you know what I mean so what's your pleasure so where is it pulling it from that should go down if we're going to increase this no understood i don't know where he's pulling it i I don't think Danny knows where he's coming from because he's new at the game um so I
said you know around 17 so he's at 169 i'm If they couldn't cover it under the library I think it got covered by town hall i won't which you've already kind of cut right so why don't we make this a
total of 25 you want to go 20 20 all together so reduce his 63 53 to what it's got to be yep do that math for me ask them how they want to separate it um or do you want to separate it for them so we undo so we just want the
maintenance so what's that 15 and look at what's included so let's do this level fund right maintenance at 13307 and the contracts at 3650 uh 3640
and what's the difference to get to 20 3053,5 maintenance again please contracts 3640 at what he currently has fiscal 25 pleasure again and if he wants to flip
those around to more into the general library maintenance the chairs can flip that later right yeah that's fine all right somebody make a note of that right so it's 20 we'll see where we want
ask so you may want to ask him if he where he wants to mix that up sc all right so that's 20 did you get that yeah okay so it's 20 we just got to figure out where you're putting them
reduced electricity because trending 22 is fair ditto with the heating fuel for eight did you is computer line support going to be 8619 i'm okay with that yep
i think we'll go next meeting found no change we didn't understand this all goes into their percentage at the end right of that grant and all this other the talk that they have so I think that's why we didn't touch any of it because we didn't want to
screw with that end game but since the select board wants to that's fine so that's something that you have to fund it a certain percentage they need a waiver okay good so telephone it's 3,300
so I gave him four history it's 3,300 minutes that's fine the rest of it I left level based on history okay and then that last line is the that's the
that's the math once this is done the increase the the red 2075 that number will change that's the variable and I think with all of that she still stays within her formula all right
i mean library capital does the whatever she's going to do however she's going to CPC for the concrete path do that too park and wreck 8295 is
um we're really still generous there was a jump in 2024 not sure what for but generally before that was less than 4,000 were you in 788 behind them the 8295 yeah I don't know what the 24 jump was
so I'm not sure what 25 is going to be so we left it at that and we couldn't get in to the municip okay we'll move that back up y the
others um let's see david came in and gave us these numbers right he mixed things as well uh minor equipment were 805 you're at 847 supplies 380 you're at 400 so we did the minus
5 it's your pleasure minor equipment you'd find at 805 you find 805 supplies on that 20 bucks isn't going Yeah that's that's fine yep that's just
how we did it various programs yeah we're sticking with 380 yes y5 so far we're still on the minus 5 805 the 380 okay thank you yep yep next up is various programs we're at 7553 talked to
her today i know she's would like to add some stuff so which one on various programs you want to leave that i would like to leave that we left it marble yeah that's why we left it yeah each expenses have yellow so you know
something yeah what does the yellow one mean we have they have spent 55500 4700 and they're well on their way already this year at 2400 which was of course last year because it's been
closed correct yeah but there's still stuff settling yeah so want to leave it level so that's why we left it there yeah vandalism park and wreck vandalism you guys dropped that to a thousand yeah because that they don't spend it
well well just because you said that you just Well you didn't sigh on that one that was him i was just in doing my breathe okay holy park miscellaneous you guys went up on maintenance
ranch trail i'd prefer to keep that level funded personally are they spending the 80 what's your I know he's trying to do the striping this year i don't know if that would be
capital but that's in his plan they also did talk about mowing getting him someone to mow the side of the trails and clear some more trees sub that out yes uh I guess I'm kind of indifferent on your in discussion no I got you
i'm indifferent what do you want it to be and which one now rail rail trail we were at 84 82 i'm sorry we're at 8037 and you're at 84 82 is fine 82 did you get that
all right wally park maintenance apparently the maintenance is going to go up because of the Oh yeah sorry we discussed Yeah cuz Nicole's the pad there was additional facilities pickle ball will be there the spray park will be there ball will be there there
is additional maintenance the pickle ball court no the spray park yeah we started started doing some work yeah it's coming woo woo hey can I vote on that that was a suggested number that's
not a contract with anybody no I understand you're damned if you do and you're damned if you don't split it at 20 i think they're going to need all that and I wouldn't be surprised if it's more at the long run we don't know when the
pickle ball's going in well I think the splash pad's going to eat probably just eat up the the increase we just gave well the last they also have a sprinkler maintenance line item too the last two years sprinklers sprinkler that's the different sprinkler sprinkler the last
two years were 18 that one doesn't come with a diaper yeah they spent more than they had in their budget for which one the last two years were 185 and 182 maintenance right miscellaneous 185 18 trillion madam so
the budget didn't 25 is probably safe we're spending it we're going to hit the levy limit anyways we're leaving at 25 yeah okay springfield this again has been 4,000 4,000
what's that maintenance it's been over the 3600 so we left it at that and figure it out sure some supplies aren't going to get any cheaper that's why I think we looked at supplies he stays right at they've been right at six
you know how that works right what yes yes thank you okay what's the joke it's not worth it okay i get criticized enough of my mouth what do you want to do with the supplies i said leave it at six oh leave it at six 30 bucks i'd say leave it at six
nothing's getting cheaper nothing at all lawn care spending 13 to 14,000 a year yeah right between where our numbers are right
145 was straight 14 14 even repair supplies didn't have any treatment to date so maybe 5% Depends how much it rains what's all the speedy dry and all
the stuff that they keep for the leaks if they have to dry the field and put down that believe some of that is they dry the fields not dry it's a drying agent that you can put down that absorbs the water and makes the field playable same stuff with diapers typical 24 they
spent 2,000 yeah they spend it's in there do we leave it yeah they have leads that they deal with on those fields okay they have a revolving account we can also tap into
Wally Park Water when the numbers were being bantered around i did my own calculations on that based on the hours of operating and expected window of uh it being open that
14,000 in fiscal 25 was pretty good so we moved it to 15 because there's a slight change in the water rate that's where we got it but that stood out the spray park with the spray park with the spray park that
is the spray part what's the project actually the spray park no this was the expected hours of operation oh I see what you're saying you just added the increased water rate into that for that little bit
so yeah good of course yeah and do not have say we got this week that they actually don't have Wi-Fi there's 600 bucks in your pocket don't have Wi-Fi and like I said we did not get the grant all that work you know it's it stinks no
I I know i I filled fill a lot of those grants out and it it's tough so depressing when you get that nope playcape replacement we cut Wi-Fi right yep we cut the Wi-Fi no Wi-Fi the place I just sent him a text i didn't get I
mean a message today i didn't get an answer yet on that if he was applying for CPC or not okay so for now it's still zero yeah has it been determined that that's eligible according to Jason's research it was it
should be it's considered a like I said an up an item that maintains it and it's usable condition and it's not regular maintenance then yes it would fall it depends on how they word Yeah if they use the word maintenance in that thing at all they would not get it it has to be listed as
a capital upkeep item and it is yeah yeah because if it's broken they're past the maintenance part yeah mr chairman with conviction yes yes it is yes yes it is there you go all right i did do the research no I
know you did so that should that's the appropriate forum for it but perfect let's just hope they do that next channel 15 meeting coverage and supports we knocked it down to a thousand because it
just doesn't get there no you skip that we're all in agreement on all that stuff yeah yeah okay channel table 15 meeting coverage and support under the salaries line well I guess channel 15 we changed it to a thousand because it just doesn't
get to that three yay n not getting um town fire again we knocked it down to 500 that's what it is and I believe that is for parts when it
breaks and there's a there's a monthly fee oh there is huh yeah yeah there would be yeah is that what it is that you pay that to
oh yeah because it is connected apparently it's about 450 bucks a year there you go if it doesn't break it I was going to say yeah just when it breaks it'll rise so we were at 500 there sand bill 480
so let's go to six on that six just to make sure she has enough it's a set price it's not like the ground okay to the set contract or is it like Well Verizon
you can add a fee it won't be They could charge you more for tax i did have a question on what remote meeting subsidizing other people's fun remote meeting did I say that out loud when we met Monday well you did you say what
what are the remote participation activities what has it been spending on them well it was 685 five and did you say you said anything i didn't get an answer did I i don't know
i think that might be in Why didn't you put it at the five or something the Zoom right maybe oh that might actually be Yeah 100% that's where we pay for our Zoom subscription from okay okay 100% five thanks good thanks for reminding me
yeah it's all of that then why are we budgeting eight if it's five well I'm not sure that's all of it that's a big chunk of it i can look it up i don't know what the invoice was last night uh what's it been thing we have to pay for Zoom oh yeah it's not cheap 685 and five
what is it anything over an hour or something we can't after that you can't do it for 30 minutes 30 minutes now it's 20 minutes they keep cutting it huh participate all right so are we leaving it at eight or is eight a placeholder or what
we went to 7600 on ours you have the decrease would be 76 i'm sorry yeah the 5% 5% i'd say August one of 24 so it's going to come up soon uh it was $5,497.50
we I got an email today we're two people away from the um limit i have 5,400 question that 8,000 it is yeah because it it also there's I don't know if that's in salary
or if it's in contract he's got it in needing coverage support i don't know what else would be in there but it also might have financed some of the towel and blah blah blah i don't know right those things are not inexpensive either i think we have
We did just buy that new one yeah the Hubba Deluxe one yeah sorry the next line supplies we went for the 5% okay we're fine with that on both of those and you did not so you can come
down again y um supplies and hardware but we went five they didn't Yeah we'll go five 19's an easy page 20's an easy page you get that back to 15 okay so um channel 15 supplies
that 692 channel 15 I'm sorry operations here I got it right here the supplies we went to 11:30 okay okay the next one we went to 713 i'm feeling five so that's
what right three kept saying hi so I was trying to figure out very last all right 18 is done 19 we're okay is that
sorry yep the equipment upgrade did we get an answer equipment upgrade yep we have a question on our fun channel equipment upgrades 8,256 we said that was last year right that
was last year right we're checking yeah i don't know if we got We weren't 100% sure we said they could have been what's that the uh
equipment upgrades was it last year hold on i I It's not last year i think 25 budget he had eight grand last year he he definitely and spent 20
do you want me to read it to you attached is a quote that I intend to take action on in July the broadcast of streaming equipment in the head end is nearing end of life and support will stop at some point equipment costs $12,655 that's what I carried over FY24 funds for that we need to carry over
again cloud streaming will be $3,60 and a two-year service port 2765 um so it's going to be Tel View it's this equipment up here and um and he I told him to do it this year told him to do it right now because he
keeps he has the money to not executing it right um but yeah it's he what he put in there i don't have it in here but he he needs it i can forward you but it's not in 26 budget so we can move on it's zero no he need more
so he's got eight and he's going to need 12 is that what you just said this goes out of eight so it doesn't really matter well it doesn't matter but it comes out start it now not in July he needs to start it now so he can use that money now and and
then finish it and he can finish it a is the number for 2026 money that we put in budget ch is that include the offset from uh Comcast
or the whole It's not tax well you pay for your Comcast when you pay your Comcast bill and you see that 3% line that's your payu consumer product yeah $150 ahead of
Yeah license i remember when it was $30 i'm sure that the CEO still got plenty of So where we at with that we're going to be at the eight yes okay age 18 so now we're on page 19
interest water's all set too right we already did it y EMS is less i think you were missing it from your reading path as well because yours is blind also
operations they had their recommendation we don't have ours right we had it in our It wasn't Well they don't have this but they had in the in the capital side they covered the capital they didn't
cover us we already did us too yeah where's my So there's nothing in our tabs here there is our big book there is there is it's just that when we went over we just missed it was after nine o'clock so
Monday okay what is it under a little hairy there that's the secret it really is once you hit nine it kind of falls apart it's after but after 10 o'clock maybe usually after three hours just to signal our brain
yeah because they could be the little ones too so he moved things around he did not recommend the 5% being Thanks i have not here that we looked at it
okay like the ambulance uh last supplies I have not usually spent and hope and he gave us a budget open 5%
decrease that he could live with like he moved his around 172425 that you have no I have his level funded with arrows all over it but he moved move some lines around
the 1815 the 1815 which is what we approved Monday i have Why don't we do like we're doing with the police and let the chairs go through this with Chief Stefanowitz again but let let Laura's got to put something in because
now we got to circle back and figure out what we just did to the tax rate based on this spending so we can figure out what needs to go we're not gonna get that tonight i don't think you know right i know i just wanted to scare her a little yeah
laura we just cut their budget so don't call 911 so for for now why don't why doesn't Laura put in the 1815 right that says level funded but that's really what he mixed up and then you two can talk with him on
this as well that's fine okay and then on the capital I think we were fine i think we did say next week is Yeah we said 6 and 12 on the capital
yeah yeah you got to fix the rest those tough books are only so tough so are we going to schedule another meeting or we're going over this when there's if there needs to be oops alterations to the budget i know there's reconciliation amongst the chairs but
there's usually after we reconciled the budget in total so I'm just putting that out there for discussion I I think we just approved them working out those
three sections with fire and moon okay which are the only questions we have we we didn't put anything up for the paving yet right now okay and we don't know what the budget is if it's within the levy limit within Prop 2 and a half or within what is our
our decision that before you plug paving in we kind of like to yeah so that's why I'm suggesting I don't think we can jump to I mean we can always put any number in for paving and I'm being a little
flippant you could put four million in certainly 40 million is not the right number mhm 4 million is is is something you can put in and then see where it comes out but you're going to have to look at where you are against the levy limit top two and a half and what people
can afford to pay and and honestly what do we do with the free cash well that's part of the calculation right right it is because you usually take some of the free cash and buy typically Well no what we what we could do is take some of the
free cash and buy some of the capital get the special and get it out of the budget for fiscal year 26 so we don't have to borrow for the capital which is effectively the same thing as using free cash to offset the tax rate which is not the best practice
but they're going to have to do but it's another way of doing it is you know if if you can go buy that supervisor truck for example huh most definitely you know then you just buy it at the special and now it's not on the annual right so that's one way to do it exactly we're
not paying interest right which is high right now we still do okay on many bonds but it's but for you know well if you look paid with interest on you can see what we've been paying well that would depend
but that's probably one way to look at that the schools went up significantly well I don't I think that was out of district they went up significantly from last year oh yes yes 13% yes yes yes yes
absolutely and then we got the out of this year now we have the out of district yes and that includes them cutting those teachers yeah most of the teachers were the teachers that are cut and losing jobs are I think it's two the rest are
they've moved them around or they retired or they're not refilling like they say cutting because they didn't they're just not they're just moving things around and they never
point first and they couldn't fill so they dropped it right they had retires they fill them the amount for out of district is that on the school budget line passed to us or do we add it no we have to add it
that's still missing it's Yeah it's And it's not $10 no it's not the whole thing was like 10.11 755 yeah then this the school deal schools are 14 million 14404 right but the the out of district deal
plus plus the six came up to I think a million and change by the time we were done and we're going to get 200 something back I think yeah we have 220 something 228 I think and then how does the resource officer that we bill where does
that com does that become a receipt line item we bill for that that would become a receipt oh yeah sorry that goes in order where does that go in our general fun it goes in back into Yeah
so yes there's Oh yeah so are we going to do when are we going to do that so Laura when does our drop date That's always usually back on that so we have When do we have to go to the budget books
so we have to have everything to the printers at least by May 2nd right and you need how many days to clean it up oh we need But you're going to need at least a week before a week at least a
week before to clean this up to get it a week or a week and a half to clean it up and get everything what is this today the 10th okay so we need to meet sooner than later you and I yeah yeah i can You let me know
i'll What if I don't have something I'll make it work as long as I don't have Wait as long I have anything I'll Wow any free time I have i need Should we do this in Florida i mean just you might
feel better if we just fly out on the 14 vegas no I prefer Vegas vegas i'm not a Vegas guy i guess we'll do it here give me a day um their sense of work i think
you don't even know what the revenue is yet that's what I'm saying and you need that's going to be a tough No it is prioritize your capital because some of it probably unless you're going to borrow or
something isn't going to get done we do t typically some of the capital we do bond right as a matter of practice yeah you could see it on the like that that roll off that's that's not going to be cash that's gonna be cash we're going to bond for that no doubt so then we
have to figure out what the payment will be and put it into the But I but I still think you guys should prioritize your capital which capital must be in and which can come out if need be
okay so you guys will make a date in the next day or two to to meet with them in the next day or two and then we'll pick a date for us to meet again all of us day or two but I can't do next Wednesday
April 16th or Thursday oh Diane do you have something I wouldn't say because it's thing yeah what the school thing no I have a different thing what do you need in order to get up to speed a year before you see us again
i just needed I probably needed vacation to Florida you go to Vegas you can teleconference i'll zoom in yeah you'll zoom with me um won't be the first time so today is
Thursday right so but next week we could we need to meet early next week okay but that doesn't that just gets us cleaned up with the messes that we have from police and fire police and fire and
I'm putting everything to get Yeah put everything together and to see where we are at and I think Oh I know we're we're got to we got problems we got Yeah and that's fine that's life
so how's Monday i can do Monday you tell me what day 12 so Monday okay so Monday morning maybe i think that's probably too soon okay that's fine tuesday tuesday tax day
tuesday tuesday's tax day it is I suppose pops up on my phone anyway um I have a 10:00 on Tuesday 3:00 you're gonna have to spend all Monday
doing this she doesn't look surprised this is This is my life i appreciate you figuring that out as it is all right but before we all pack it in there was more agenda we have
to Oh yes the $3,000 but we also have to vote for the chairs to work on this so move formally so finance committee I need a motion to approve the chair to continue
on with this budget second you made the motion yes she did okay you second that all in favor of JD i shared my eye so the motion from the select board is for the chair to work with the finance chair to reconcile the
budget to bring back to this another joint meeting for a final reconciliation second roll call vote Jason Pone I Doug Mglin yes and then we have what's it's almost just going to be anformational
meeting because if we've done all the work and we're pretty close then there ain't going to be much really left 100% if she comes back and says by way no I'm just saying if she comes back with the numbers and says by the way four million needs to come out of the budget she is this a real meeting that at that meeting
absolutely yeah yeah I need to bring a quad with me now so you're meeting Mon you two are meeting Monday uh we are meeting Tuesday at 1:00 oh it's a holiday Monday no I just want to give Laura a little bit of
time so we have we have a meeting this coming we have a meeting Monday okay following meeting is following week is a holiday that's what I received so we have item B on this for new business is the 30,000 threshold for
purchases yeah aha so so we can clar um in December 11th in 2023 a motion was made by Dian Gail seconded by Jason Peron to approve the capital expenditure classification up from 1,000 to 3,000
yep okay and in the code under capital um a capital asset item must be at above or above the capitalization threshold and therefore have a historical cost of 5,000 or more have a useful life greater
than one year um I don't I don't need to get into the minutia the capital capitalization threshold for building improvements additions must be amount equal to or greater than 25,000
i'm sorry I'm reading the wrong yes um is this MGL or is this No this is the the town um town's capital assets have estimated useful lives extended beyond one year and are depreciated using the straight
line method depreciable lives for different classes of vehicles and equipment shall be based on recommendations by Nope that's not it either sorry I just brought it up a little while ago i'm looking for the part that says that the department
assets i'm sorry everybody and search for assets no I'm here i just It's here and I'm assets below the capitalization thresholds but considered sensitive may include radios personal computers laptop computers
printers not copers fax machines and small power tools these items should be inventoried and controlled at the department level so we are having a problem with purchasing anything over $3,000 um just automatically buying it right just
buying a copier or any type of item over $3,000 and it inhibits the daily the day-to-day work um so even in the code where it says you know below capitalization thresholds our thresholds
are 25,000 50,000 um then you get into construction equipment and things like that and their useful lives but I would I would I would request that this vote just be either um you know revoted to to allow the
purchases up to the capital the $25,000 just on a daily basis for us to be able to purchase things and uh you know be able to do our jobs efficiently and effectively and we do live under
procurement laws and we all you know I think all these department heads they have they um don't want to break the law i'm sure I am the MCPPO i understand where and when and how we can buy things
and when we need certain approvals and when you know how we buy things uh with um you know the thresholds whether it's under 10,000 10 to 50,000 over 50,000 over 300,000 over $3 million all of the things I think I keep thinking you're
I'm about to ask when you're done and um and so um you know I just feel that at the department level or or to me they would I would be signing off on this that we were allowed to make these purchases all throughout the year uh
without having to go to town meeting or or to call a capital expenditure committ committee meeting what was I'm sorry so my question is simple think if somebody puts a piece of equipment in
their budget in their as a capital item in their budget they don't need f are you saying they need to come back and it's more than $3,000 they need to come back to the select board for approval or town meeting to buy it no town meeting already approved it this is an So my
question is is this is for an expense that's an unbudgeted expense that comes up throughout the course of a year so I just pick a winner of a copier right someone needs a $5,01 copier they did not have it in
their capital budget for the year because copiers have this way of dying whenever they feel like it that's what triggers this process right um well I mean Randy wanted to buy a copier and he had the money in his
budget but since it was over $3,000 it was denied but where was it in his budget it was in his supply item line item budget but is a copier a supply from the point of view of from an accounting perspective and I'm maybe maybe it wasn't supply and
I I agree and I also think I mean I I'm I'm you know learning to understand all of this um but you know maybe we should also think about reducing all of the different line items you know if you have four different line items for
supplies and it's co it's office supply it's copier supply like we could probably do a little better with that sure but regardless I when Randy requested this I thought it was completely appropriate he was taking out of all the appropriate budgets different
line items that he had that he had comes in yes so you know I think the town meeting allows approves this budget for people to purchase what they need throughout the year and I and we don't put exactly what we're buying in each
line item um you know we have an amount of money that we spend throughout the year and sometimes an unexpected purchase has to come up and so you know I again when this this came up when Randy got denied buying his copier for
$4,000 so I thought this seems a little bit um complicated or you know cumbersome to be able to go to have to go through this just to buy an just to buy an everyday necessary item that he
needs as they you know do bills and all of the important things that they do in the department so so you're not asking for a general fund transfer that comes in front of us you're just saying that the money is already in the budget and they're moving around the line items well he was it was over $3,000 so the
capital is at 3,000 basically and I didn't I don't even think it's a capital i think it's an operational thing it's an operational um but so it's it's you know the the finance committee and the select board came came up with the number however you came up with it um
Carl told me you know his that the select board wanted five the finance committee wanted one so they settled on three but I when we have this governing code here with all of the bylaws do we really you know do we really need
another layer of uh of a vote you know when it's here it's in it's in the code really spelling out um how much you should buy or how much you can spend and then who's responsible it literally says at the department level can you read that minute again
that vote was what what is it we voted on i know the value but I know the value but what is it what were the words a motion was made by Diane Gail seconded by Jason Perone vote unanimous to approve the capital expenditure classification up from 1,000 to 3,000 capital expenditure
classification right town code says it's 25,000 the what the code of the town of South town i'm looking at the town code i'm in the town code under capital i could have got changed and not codified i didn't want to say that to you i think
that or she could have spent 25,000 fixed it already what you're really asking is is can operational expenses up to some level up to $25,000 up to 20 that's a big operational i don't I don't know that there would be
one i don't think there would be one i don't think there would be one at all that would be a capital item yeah that would be a capital it's just when you get when you when you get down into the minutia here and the and the dollar threshold and you keep it at a low threshold it's it just inhibits the work
that needs to be done unbudgeted operational expenses proposal should be allowed if the money is in your budget in other line items well yeah i mean I'm not saying like uh you know she wants a dollar value upped
basically well I'm let's use the right words because they're really not capital so operational ex unforeseen unbudgeted well I don't want to say they're on budget either i mean we have a budget we have a budget for things that we need to buy i mean literally I can't so I can't
think of anything else besides Ry's purchase that was like and it and from the accounting side of things we minor equipment we consider up to $3,000 and then it becomes a capital line item so we're
looking at like that minor equipment line when you know I'm always the one that says "Hey you're right you're you're over that number." So are you So we're looking at the minor I mean I'm thinking in my head it's just
reclassifying what minor That's where I'm going so are you minor equipment is $5,000 is it well that's what we No it's a couple hundred right i don't even know what minor equipment is like what even is it is it listed somewhere i mean why
don't that's another discussion too probably for next year and and um you know well I made my point clear on this numerous times but you're correct minor equipment most of it isn't over $3,000 on a line item right right most
of it's But what do you consider minor equipment there's no list no what is minor equipment it's really subjective so it is absolutely reframe your ask your question what is it you want us to consider i would like you to
cons reconsider this vote and just make it go away and let people purchase things that they need to purchase and understand that we we know Mass General law we know the law we employ department heads that are professional people that
manage their budgets and we should give the trust into the department heads to know what they need to purchase and the and the authority to be able to do the purchase he was shaking his head until I looked at him and then he stopped i I think I I looked up minor equipment for
a definition because it it had to be there had to be one right because it's a standard accounting term and in the context of asset management and inventory minor equipment typically refers to tangible movable property with a unit cost below a certain threshold and a useful life of less than
two years often subject to inventory control and not considered capital equipment so if it's not minor equipment it's capital equipment right so and so what we're I think what we're being what I think what Diane is getting
at and I think I I'll ask the same question is is we're just raising the threshold of what is minor equipment from we're saying today that $3,000 and above it used to be a thousand is we're raising that to we raised it to 3,000
and we're being asked to make that 5,000 or more before it's not minor equipment and then it's capital equipment because it's got to one or the other right if I mean if minor if a copier to minor equipment from your definition there I
think of like as pens and stapler and that's awesome calculator that kind of stuff this category can include items like televisions video recorders computer monitors therapy equipment refrigerators handheld electronic devices games modular furniture desk
chairs and conference tables i was just going to say conference table so that's minor equipment as long as it's not a $5,01 conference table so I think that's the S so bump it to 5,000 for a year and see and see what we
screw up i was going to say 10 because the copier is $8,500 so I would love that to be 10 and you can look at it again in a year and I I can put my word that I can assure that none of my our staff our department
heads are the only ones who do any purchases will not be buying anything frivolous and I can't believe anything above a copier wouldn't be foreseen and planned for in a budget i but you don't know when the copier is
going to crack out 100% but I don't understand why that's not a process that you can't go to the finance committee for a reserve fund transfer and maybe you can't for capital and that's only for expense items I don't know when something like
that happens because that ends up coming back through the finance committee to the select board to approve it and then you have it we have to replenish reserves at the end of the year that money has to come from somewhere nobody in their budget I guess if you start to increase the stakes of
what is capital and then you allow up to a certain amount that is telling I don't want to be sending a message that some of these budgets have $10,000 in it that they could prop together to buy a copier if they need to
because they hadn't plan on one and they're going to take it from other operational line items without affecting the performance of their their department i'd much rather have a process by which you could go through the CEO and finance committee and select
board to say our copier crapped out we really need one okay here you go and and and we have that the funds available to do it because or else everyone else plan for a copier on in certain years or plan for capital it goes to capital
expenditures committee if it's above $25,000 and has a useful life of x years or it's in your budget right here because they did it or else I I when it goes away when it's under in that capital it's one and done if it goes
into that minor equipment it stay it potentially could stay there because usually your operations right my number was 7500 the number I was going to come up was 7500 I feel like the again the cumbersome
process comes when then you have to go all right now I have to go I have to call the finance committee and see when they can all meet and then I have to go and see when I'm going to meet with the select board and oh there's a holiday this week or they're not meeting this week and then four weeks later is when I
get to buy my item well I'll be honest with you if it's an emergency I'm authorized to sign period and then re redo it at my meeting later so if there's ever an emergency like that I can sign for it and then I'll do it at my meeting two
weeks three weeks later what if it doesn't get approved at your meeting yeah oh that's life it seems exactly it seems like something that I'm trying to think of something that that would happen i don't know i literally he's he's
approving it before it goes to the board that's all it's because I got authorization to do that that's why he's your first vote when you when you say we went through and authorized that before that it wasn't just me saying it we we had a meeting on that and and
agreed to do that and we haven't done it yet yeah no it's just another and it doesn't have to be a copier i mean think outside the box for a second of something that could crap out that would be critical to the operation of the town government in general or the operation
of the town in general and you would need to go and it would be a capital item that you need to go buy outside of the budget it's the equipment that Randy uses you know it can be used $30,000 a month
yeah I would I would expect that i'm saying something more like the leg fell off of this and then the table broke and then um oh we don't have a table now now we have to wait until we go to FinCom and then we got to go to select and then and then maybe we can go buy it later in few weeks i was thinking more along the
lines of some kind of even a piece of technology right there was some server switch thing down at the in the data center right and it all of a sudden decides that I'm all done you need it right the town relies on it day over day to do their business and
you know the redundancy is lost we need to restore that redundancy or whatever okay how how would you march around with that right so I'm taking it out of Ry's area because and it's not a copier copier you call them rent a copier for a week or a month until you
get one right but this is something that maybe you can't do that no and I guess you know if we did so we lost a server so we have you know we have um a computer line item budget and we have to call Wall-E and have them come replace a $9,000
server and they're going to do it today because they have it in in house and we need it to even get online so that's that's that's it right there i'm just trying to feed the discussion because I see I see both sides of this but there
has to be a control around that or and I I and Jason's right that you have to trust your department heads to do the right thing on this at times but there's also a process even in the dreaded private sector if if I need to go buy a
$25,000 server or something else I need to talk to somebody else before I go do that right or or explain it the next day right it doesn't just go by the buy and and it and it's all done so that's why I think we need to figure out that process
and I think whether the I' I'd interest to hear from the finance chair you know as a dollar amount for that threshold i think the $5,000 number was probably in the right ballpark since of where everything's gone in the last few years um costwise since we when we
did that 23 and very end of December 11th so two years ago basically can I ask would somebody besides the department head sign off on it
so but if you don't trust your department head then they shouldn't be a department head um but you could make it 10 i also look over every single item that comes through the warrant every even if the warrant's this thick and we can pull it if I saw something
inappropriate i've literally done it before not in this town but I've pulled things that are inappropriate that I know that we are using public funds we use public we use the residents money for everything that we buy and I'm extremely conscientious about that so we
could raise it to 10 with a signature before they go buy do that then accounting would most definitely require a signature when they submit it you know or the department heads will know that they would have to get a signature and it would be you know they they wouldn't
just get it because they want it and I don't think that they would do that I think that you have employed very you know and professional people that run their departments and I don't the only thing I can think of that it would really impact act would be something
like a copier or a specialized piece of hardware or something that 10 have we had this issue yeah well other than the I know the cop two copers in a year but they're 10 grand so I was looking
like I said I was looking to split the difference i would give her 10 grand with a signature that she approved that they didn't just do it they came to her and said "I need to do this for $9,000." And she says "Okay." And or she could give them an
alternative this is something that's not in their budget is this what we're talking about well things you don't know what's you don't know every single dollar that's in line item i mean it's it's there because you going to sp you need it right from year to year to year as Diane has
diligently done looking at historical what we've spent i think you're getting very very very close um to being extremely accurate with I was gonna say that because now we've taken some of that room they have right and each year
things go up and we are we are reducing it so we might even be too much number one 7500 what happens what happens if there isn't enough money in the budget to buy the item number oh then they then they got
to come in front of us or you guys would you know that's where you You know in theory you get it around this you know time of the year where a lot of people's budgets are twothirds right they'd have to do that anyway if you don't have the money so then what you have to do
so it isn't it isn't a real great fixer i mean I understand where I they and I understand where people are coming matters as of working in a municipality I have seen exactly some of the things that people are concerned about there are places that they will take I got
this money I gotta spend it and I and it does happen and I I can't say that I've seen it here but it does happen i know I've seen it i've literally been in conversation it's like well we got to spend this money it's not like we're giving them $10,000 i'm not I'm not saying this i'm just saying I understand
everybody's concerns but I think 7,500 for now would be a good number to start with and then you know I I would like to believe that $10,000 number dollar number is a good number but I think this will this bumps you a good increment i
mean was $5,000 that gets you past the need of a copier having to go in front of town meeting right 7,500 would just about I mean I don't think we really have any of our own mowers the police department got two copers for that price too it wasn't one for nine grand what if
you said 5,000 for the department head signature and between 5,000 and 10,000 with Nicole's signature in addition it's not a hardship to send you an email and say "Hey I need this here's the reason why you know can you endorse it?"
and reply back and then they can spend up to 10,000 in that situation i'm at 75 i think that's me i would like to see it definitely see it bumped to 75 today try it i'm at 10
it's a single purchase and it can be up to 10 depending on whose copier it is what if it's the planning board's mega print copier so that so the the police department was two copers for that dollar randy's was one for three or 4,000 right so as much as it was so much
for the police that was two copers they replaced two at that dollar value that you keep speaking but Ry's was four right so 7500 you have the
I I don't have any I don't for one second think that this is a department head issue that I can't trust the department right I think this is a matter of you need to be able but there has to be a check and balance
from the expense side of we just went through this intricate process Diane and Joe were splitting quarters over here on some you know $347 $7 instead of $374 so we're arguing for 20 minutes
over 23 bucks we can't be flipping about 10 grand i'm exaggerating slightly but you know what I mean so if somebody needs something for 10 grand and we need it we need it i get it but there's got to be a process and you can't expect and Ry's online I can't expect Randy to come
up with $10,000 in his existing budget line items to pay for an unexpected expense that he hadn't forecast for with the best of intentions and the best of planning right so you know I think you
know 7500 is a reasonable number if the if if the chair and and the fincom chair are with that okay and then and we go from there and we'll look at it and we can come back with another year you know and Paul you make an excellent point too is um if the
expense is significant and it's later in the budget year and there's not that much money available in left in the budget guess what we're meeting every week at least once a week at that time of the year anyway so it won't be that hard to find a little harder to find us if you want yeah when the budget
question say that 7500 happens all that money to get some different line items do we replenish no that's their responsibility to know how to manage their budget that's why I said the year really tight but if they have
but if they have to come in front of finance they have to why did you spend your money well I had to buy a copier in August because mine totally died and so right but I I I don't even know that that happens i was here right i was here at the end of the year or at the
beginning of the fiscal year last year and I saw plenty of was coming through people to expend their budgets which I have been harping that does that's not prudent that is not appropriate we don't
that's not how we spend the money so it won't happen this year but again we script a lot of it it is you script a lot of it and it's we and but and als and I so hold that thought i'll make the motion for the 7500 second roll call
vote jason P i thank Doug Mglin yes and we'll revisit it is that is that our is it a big vote too or is it just our vote anyway last time it was just your vote all right so I I also want to just finish with one thought because it is kind of
important for planning and I think I did it when I first got on to this board and Dian's done a masterful job of using the history very well to pro to project out the budget we uh still do need free cash yep
right you got to have it yep you know if you said "Oh I want to do a zero budget i want to come out of the budget here with $4 in the checking account." you're screwed it just won't happen enough stuff happens during the year where you need to move money around and then you
also need free cash in order you know we take care of things it's not wasted money it's not and we're very cognizant of the fact that that free cash came from appropriation and property tax essentially right so we're not overt taxing people to the point where it's a
you know beyond reason you've got to have some free cash in your budget coming out of every budget year you know just like the school has their you know their END and whatever you got to it's the only way to run a town so before you know
I've heard others talk about well free cash and it's the by the way the worst term on the planet not cash right exactly it's none of those right so I just wanted that we do it so fine-tuned every year either no I No and that's why
I was saying I think you've done a great job with looking at that historical number and trying to get some of these budgets and the laws of averages are going to start working for us even in probably into next year as we start to see how that works out and I think at the end of the day if somebody does
utilize that it should be fine if it's needed but somewhere along that road they're going to have to come back before VidCon because you know that their budget is going to go 10,000 come in that's why I wanted to bump it and you know you're still here to Nobody's
got $10,000 sitting around in a budget line at him that they can just nine out of 10 times they're going to be coming to Fin it's going to be that one time that Randy needs that copier and he's taken out of sewer he's taken out of a highway he's taking it out of water appropriately and boom it gets to his
office and work is nobody has to stop work mr chairman is there any other business before this joint meeting this evening no so on our select board side I would be looking for a motion to adj motion made second call vote jason Pron
I i absolutely second