WEBVTT

METADATA
Video-Count: 1
Video-1: youtube.com/watch?v=tpuGMdhsjAM

NOTE
MEETING SECTIONS:

Part 1 (Video ID: tpuGMdhsjAM):
- 00:00:00: Meeting Convenes, Roll Call, Assessors Arrive to Present
- 00:03:17: Revaluation, Public Perception, and Accuracy of Data
- 00:10:06: Overlay Funds, Return on Investment, Assessor Exit Plan
- 00:18:35: Assessors Conclude, DPW Presents Sewer Budget Requests
- 00:21:38: Sewer Rate Increases, Grinder Pump Maintenance Explanation
- 00:28:14: Pricky Park Upgrade Cost, Condo Impact on Powder Mill
- 00:32:20: Sewer Discussion Ends, Transition to Solid Waste
- 00:33:59: Solid Waste Level Funding, Compactor Replacement Update
- 00:40:31: Freightliner Truck Replacement, Push Axle Discussion
- 00:44:32: Solid Waste Concludes, Transition to Water Department
- 00:45:17: DPW Presents Water Budget, Discuss Pickup Truck Swap
- 00:51:38: Dump Truck Bed Replacements, Water Testing, Loop Upgrades
- 00:56:35: Water Department Ends, Buildings and Grounds Presents
- 00:59:48: Building and Grounds Operational Budget Concerns
- 01:04:02: Library and Town Hall Capital Projects Discussion
- 01:13:53: Boiler Replacement, Awning Replacement, Generator Options
- 01:20:09: Buildings and Grounds Concludes, Police Department Presents
- 01:25:14: Police Dispatch Simple Budget, Animal Control Presentation
- 01:26:53: Animal Control Freezer, Assistant Academy Costs Update
- 01:31:41: Parking Lot, Vehicle Status, Salary and Training Discussion
- 01:34:49: Door Lock Question, Police Presents Budget Request
- 01:35:20: Police Dispatch Contract, Moving to Pro CAD System
- 01:40:18: Personnel Needs, Civilian Employee, and Radios
- 01:46:36: Consultant for Policies and Procedures, Garage Sally Port
- 01:50:28: Capital Budget for the Police, Security Fencing, Uniforms
- 01:55:45: Camera and Door Lock Upgrades and Discussion
- 02:07:19: Fire and EMS budget overview; Staffing request discussed
- 02:15:30: Cell Carrier change saves money; Call volume questions
- 02:23:08: Fire and EMS Budget Deep Dive; Supply Costs Focus
- 02:24:55: Inflatable Boat Replacement; Rescue vs Patrol Purpose
- 02:27:25: EMS and Fire Operational Needs; Equipment Replacements
- 02:32:18: Fire Apparatus Replacement Discussion; Industry Challenges Highlighted
- 02:38:14: Engine one replacement financing; Chassis and Maintenance
- 02:43:35: NFPA standards for truck lifetime; Minimum Staffing needs
- 02:52:34: School Budget overview: Personnel, Costs, and Funding
- 03:06:16: Budgeting Process Discussion; EN&D and Rural School Aid
- 03:13:19: SRO position funding, Projections, Enrollment decline
- 03:19:55: Walkers and Bus Routes, Special Education Outplacements
- 03:26:57: Vocational Transportation Reimbursement and Out of District Tuition
- 03:35:25: Next Finance Meeting; Budget numbers are bleak
- 03:38:49: Budget balancing with vital percent; stabilization Funds discussed
- 03:45:14: The schools' fixed costs; Regional vs district budgeting
- 03:50:32: Out of Time and Money: Need for Emailed budget updates


Part: 1

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Good morning folks. It's Saturday, March 21st, 9:00. We're in the land use building. It is the finance committee and the select floor to go over some of the budget items this year. We need a roll call vote in motion to >> motion. Need a second.

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>> Second. >> All those in favor Joe. >> Robert Conley. David. Thank you. And we'll select board meeting with a roll call vote. Dian I guess

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>> and no Parker is here as well. >> Here present. >> Ready? >> Yep. >> All right. First up, board of assessors. Come on up, young man. Get your names. And the last director of assessing John Kane, chairman of the board of assessments. Good morning, guys. Good

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morning. What do you have for us today? Our proposed budget for the year. >> Yep. Um we have gone up in a couple categories but down in a few ultimately um you know

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because we are in a reval year the expense for the consultant was going to was a lot more for fiscal 26 and it will be in fiscal 27 so we're able to reduce that significant and um

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yeah so overall our budget is lower than it was last here. There were a couple different moves that I wanted to make too. Um, as far as uh with the staffing, um, I was hoping that would you maybe reduce one clerk's hours and then, uh,

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use that funding to give the other clerk who has taken a larger role in the office uh, a bump up in pay and and more of a defined uh, you know, like a senior clerk position. basically >> is that vision for her to know

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everything down the road. So, >> well, yeah, definitely go on again, we'll have someone in play. >> Um, >> well, since she's the same age as me or I'm not sure. >> Let's not go there.

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>> Okay. I wasn't I didn't know that. >> But ultimately, that's something that we talk about in the profession and our professional association is to have an exit plan, >> right? And so, um, yeah, so when it's time for the director of assessing to leave, there's not a big goal and then

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you're hoping that somebody, you know, out of the blue response, but it's better to have something, you know, it's in place and hopefully you can get something like that going before it's time for me to retire. >> Gotcha. >> But we don't discuss salaries in this >> Oh, no, no, no. I just

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>> arena for today. >> Yeah. I wasn't discussing salaries. >> Now, we have six minutes left. So, What's that? >> Six minutes before it's 910 in the BPW command. >> So really what we're here for is the capital that they want and that's what I

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think is important for you all to hear. Yeah. And so a big part of the assessing is the public's perception of the office and how it's being handled and that it's taken a hit recently. And that was why I was proposing um because you know

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basically our data was shown that it uh there's some room for improvement and what we want to do is uh sort of set the playing field even and show the public that okay this is what we're doing. we found that there were some problems and now we're doing what we need to to to

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rectify the situation and basically have someone uh come in and and do an inspection of all the properties in town. It probably won't be 100% because we won't need to inspect newer properties and it won't include the commercial

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properties either. But um really I think it's it's overdue and especially with what I found since I've been here. Um it would be a effort that would probably pay for itself. Um and and also I wanted to do the same thing for personal

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property. And um I found several, you know, bills that did not have accounts that needed to get a bill. Um and and judging from other things that I've seen, I think that we should also have an inventory of the personal property done. And um that definitely definitely

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will pay for itself probably, you know, two or three times over uh as far as the tax dollars of new growth that we're going to capture. >> Le How will that be different from the adjustment that was just implemented? the adjustment that was just

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implemented. Well, that was a review of uh about 1300 properties that we were requested to do by the Department of Revenue and the depreciation factors were lower than you would expect. Um, you know, we had many that were uh had a

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poor rating or a very poor rating and that is something you see a handful of properties that have that but not hundreds and that's what we had. So part of that revealed we did a big correction and uh added about $52 million worth of value and that was part of why the tax

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rate went down as much as it did. And um because of that that leaves me, you know, wanting, you know, the the public's perception of us and the the data that I'm discovering and and coming to deal with since I've been here from from September. Um I would feel much

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better if we had that effort going. Let's get someone in here, make sure that we're going to reset the playing field and know that everything is going to be as accurate as we can get it. >> So, just so I'm clear, that 1300 properties that were lejusted, is the is

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this effort effort above and beyond that or is that avoid those 1300 because they're set and you're doing the the remainder of the properties? Um, I I still would like to have someone, you know, as I said, we're not going to be

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doing all of the properties. And so, we'll do an evaluation of which ones need to be and which ones don't. But overall, I I do I want to get almost to every parcel because the reviews that we did were were a drive by review as opposed to uh, you know, a full going up

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and knocking on the door and walking around the property to see, you know, everything is accurate. Do you have the ability to concentrate on properties that have not been reviewed recently like since 2011? >> We do have in the system notes from when

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the previous uh inspections were done in the last time the cyclical review was done. So we can use that to help guide us and as I said it's a property that we've just been to recently then we don't need to go there again. But uh I just wanted to mention you know there were 1300 properties but we only

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adjusted a little over 1100. So it wasn't every one of those 1300 properties that got adjusted but there were many adjustments that were made and um it just left me not having a lot of confidence that everything was being

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maintained the way it should. And so that's what this is going to allow us to do is get the hopefully the public's confidence back and uh also to make things fair and equitable because we want to make sure that I don't want as an assessor I don't want to charge anything you know I don't want to over assess anyone and charge them for

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something that they don't have but I don't want to not charge someone for something that they do have and so uh just getting it accurate and and making sure that everyone's paying their parachute need >> Randy that's the 18 to 22000 that you're

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asking to do the review >> to 22. I think I got an estimate was closer to 26 >> property right here. >> That's fine. >> The 150 is something different. >> The 150 is for the the residential inspections.

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>> The door. >> Yes. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> And that's a two-year project to get through every property, but it's 150 for the two years. >> That's an estimate. >> Estimate. Why wouldn't we do commercial at the same time? >> Because I think we could handle

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commercial leaf internally. >> How many properties are there be beyond 1300? I've been told >> there's 3,800 residential properties. 3811 or thereabouts.

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>> Did you have to set up a new process for when people are given the right to move into their home? I noticed in the article it said some houses got missed and they weren't reassessed and now that they're completely finished. Did you put in a process for that? So when they're given their >> Yeah, that's something that

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>> it sounds like it was missing. >> Yeah, there were some that um >> there was an value >> for a specific reason, but then when that was eliminated the >> someone should have gone out and >> Right. Exactly. So

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>> yeah, that's important because you know what if the house changed hands pretty reasonably soon? These new people think, oh, this is my tax rate and then you're like, which one hasn't been done yet? and they're like, >> "Yeah, I've run into that and people

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that have purchased um you know, and you know, when a purchase happens, then that's like the chance when we Okay, it's a arms length uh uh transaction and that means that there's pictures on the internet that I get to look at." So, they don't always let the assessor in,

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but now I've got 34 pictures to look at and finally see what happened. And there's been renovations over the years that we've never had recorded because people don't want to let you in. You know, the assessor is going to make my value go up, >> but that's not always the case. >> Doesn't count, but other stuff.

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>> Yeah. Exactly. And so then that's when you find out, oh, no. And even in the listing, it says, "Oh, totally renovated." And so that's when we have the chance to make our corrections. And um so how much >> it's the charges? There's $1.3 million

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in the um overlay and historically done about um used about 130 a year. So even one of the recommendations from do is to release that into most of it into um into the

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general fund. However, I think this is a perfect opportunity to use that overlay for this and and get it done. That has to go to town meeting of course. So this is that's really the discussion I thought that was important or you all

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was you know in the event that it's on the warrant you know for this amount of money to show what we have in the overlay and then what could be released to uh use for this purpose >> and that is an allowable use of I mean

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the most the most practical use of over >> it's an independent review of our >> independent nobody can't say >> that's right you know for someone working for you buy. >> Do you anticipate an ROI out of this net? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yeah. As I said with the personal

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property, I think with the new growth, it will pay for itself two or three times over. And uh with the residential, I would I would say we would at least pay for itself or or a little bit more. >> For the personal property, it's a

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requirement by do every five years. Was that done in the past >> um >> that you can evidence? >> I think it's ever been done. >> I do personal property for the last 15 years and never >> I didn't form but no one's ever knocked

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on the door to ask so I can't really say because I wasn't here but you know the >> inspected or reviewed or anything. >> They got past all of their reviews of the department of revenue. So some type of effort was put forward that satisfied

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the do >> and they call the overlay myself is cash in hand in an account. >> That's right. >> Yeah. It's a great opportunity to use that and then get these efforts done that are costing tax dollars, but really

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uh it it's nothing that's going to make our taxes blow up because we're using funds that we had already put aside for the potential liability. So you have a you had a 22 estimate high. You said it's now better estimate at 26. Yes.

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>> What's the 150 based on? Is there >> the 150 was based on just a number and a dollar amount per inspection? >> And so depending on the the group that we got and the dollar amount per inspection um and the number of inspections.

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>> Okay. >> You've done one third already though. Well, >> drive by, >> you know, we've done a driveby, so um you know, as we're we're going through neighborhoods, I don't think I would omit those from the inspection. But if

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it was one that I've gone to recently for, you know, a building permit or um an abatement, then that would not be on the list. As I said, I'll >> So that's only like 80 or something, right? >> Yeah. But uh new you know a lot of the

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newer construction I don't think anything that you know 2020 or even 2018 possibly up would need to be looked at. I would I would hope that that would be pretty accurate. >> So it's nothing we can do in house. >> We can do some of it in house. That's

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what I said. Uh as far as the commercial properties go. >> Okay. >> How many commercial properties? >> Um roughly I think there's about 350. uh anything that you found let's say we went through and they did this whole thing would that all be considered new

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new growth or just adjustments to the value >> I look at like new new growth to me would be like if you built a new house okay adding adding stuff if we just go around and we we do a measure of all the

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places we value so you decide that the house is worth another 30,000 what we had Is that going to be lumped into like a new growth category? >> That would not be considered new growth is only new tax dollars, something that hasn't been taxed before, right? So,

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it's a deck or a shed or something like that. And so, it would add up, but you're right. If I just said, boy, this place is in better shape than I thought >> and I made an adjustment so that the value >> it makes a difference because we can go up two and a half% plus new growth. >> Correct. So you have to be careful what

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you consider new growth so we don't get caught with all >> and Google maps do a lot of that for you on the ground. >> There are outfits that will do it virtually and you there's a certain amount that you can tell but in my

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opinion there's no substitute for having boots on the ground. >> They use they use Google right now they uh they use MLS they're members of MLS. So whenever something comes up, post it and the realtor has to post it like it is. So we

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get a free look at the house. Like you say, you got 100 100 pictures of each house. So you get because you know if you walk up on the door, knock on the door, they can tell you go away. They don't have to let you in. >> See about 30%. >> Some low and some.

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>> What happens in that those situations when they won't let you in? >> Then you have to make an estimate >> as it goes. make a very very high guess and >> that's what I was getting. >> Yeah, you make very high guess and sometimes interest your nuts. >> Yeah. They call it the circle of

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assessing. So you won't let me in and so I think oh you have you're you're have you know something to hide. So I increase your value and then you don't agree. So you apply for an abatement and then you have to let me in. >> And you have to let us. So >> but it's not a penal >> but yeah assessment

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>> it's the best educated guess. >> Right. Yeah. we don't we don't engage in that as a a habit. So just try and do our best. So usually I guess in that type of situation if I don't know any better I

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can't get it. So I just leave things the way they are and hopefully if there are improvements then people are getting their permits and that's how we're finding out and and going through and capturing things that way. Uh as as far as the uh clerks, you have

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one full-time clerk and the other clerk is >> I have two full-time clerks. >> Two two full-time clerks. Okay. >> In regards to that, we had discussed trying to >> kind of adjust the roles a little bit so that when Randy leaves and whoever is in that role is ready to to take over at

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least whether it's in the interim or full-time, you know, so we're not in the same situation we're in now. Right. We had a pretty big lapse of communication and you know knowledge in that department. >> Yep. Yep. >> Yeah. I'm trying my best to cross trainin everybody, train them on everything as much as I can so they just

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have a working knowledge >> as well as processes. We want to be developing processes for all the different things that we do to eat entry and all the different things that you want to look at and uh to let people know in the future this is how we were doing. this is what we do and how we're

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doing it. And so there's no question for the future of you know uh the process and we're basing it on best practices. So correctly we're putting in process the best way to do things and then it should be carried forward. Hit the reset button. It'll be a

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plug-and-play model in two years just to keep current realistically. >> Yes. Yeah. there along with developing the data collection manual I showed in the ask the assessors night once that is customized that also is a guide for

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people that come in that have never been here before oh this is what they consider average this is what they consider you know the different things so um that's all a goal of the department to get all that stuff in place >> okay

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>> thank you very Excellent. >> Thank you, sir. Have a good day. >> Thank you. >> DPW. >> Morning. >> Morning. You can ask him. >> You can ask from direct. >> Oh, okay.

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>> Mr. Andrew, can you hear us? Okay. >> Just said I'm not and I can't hear him right. Yeah. But can you hear us? I didn't one second there.

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Can you hear me? See Good. Hello. Can you hear Steve? >> Oh, that's not good. Just close. I think we say we start with swords. Is that different from sewer implementation?

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>> Yes. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Is the caps sewer? >> Yes. Solid voice. Does it say voice? >> Yellow all the way in the back. Actually is the last one. Your last

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>> yellow. Oh yeah. >> I was looking for your keys. It's always the last >> Andrew must be out with the galaxy's thirsty. >> Good morning, sir. Good morning. >> Rates went up. Yes. Uh so the sewer rates flow fees are going up about 8%

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this coming year but that included um majority of the other requests are just level funded. >> Is that sewer locked in for just a year? >> Uh this year and next year after 29 I believe it's unknown

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>> back in phase. >> Um the only other thing um operations everything was level funded. I did a has to increase the grinder pump maintenance to 60 due to the homeowner grinder pumps but are bigger pumps. >> Right.

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>> Can you explain that to everyone? We had a great discussion about it. But >> so the so we also have the grinder pumps that people have at their houses. We also have the bigger grinder pumps actually take everything and pushes it to west. So those pumps also have two motors in them and all that and they are

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slowly being used trying to replace parts of those but our only line item is the grinder pump maintenance equipment. So that's where I wanted to up. So last year we use a bunch for point of road but those are up to date so to speak. So every year I want to try to incorporate

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parts to pump one or pump two. That way our sewer form is able to manage everything and nothing's down two pumps because there's just two pumps down there for each seven of them. So when one goes, you got the other one. So you're on a on time. That one does anything. You're So we just want to try

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to make sure that we have stock supplies of bigger pump motors and all that. >> Yeah. I think our assumption was always just the grinder pumps at the houses. I don't ever thought >> we've been, you know, systems 25 years old. It's been good. It's just

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situations. Some of the pumps I use more and all that just get used for. >> Thank you, Mr. Uh the NP's permit is basically a permit from the national flu and discharge elimination system water act. Um I

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believe it's a fiveyear permit we initially prior there was initial money put in started. So we started the permit it's like three phases. So while it's phase two and phase three they're less. So that's why I dropped the amount from the previous year. Shouldn't cost as much, but we have time and bond to this thing

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giving us a hand and drafting it. >> One good thing is when for the principal and interest, we are one loan is coming off the books. >> So it does change the um amount even though we're still going up 8%. So, it's a tricky slope push this year to make

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sure that we don't underfund ourselves at the same time that balance in the >> Which one's going off? Is it there? >> I believe it was 30 the name I had. You wouldn't see it in the >> Yeah. Okay.

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>> Yeah. It's just the amounts change. What was it called? I think it was just like sewer loan 30. There's a bunch of them from the >> Yeah. And then in cap it was these grinder pumps. Yeah. Upon inspection. Um so back

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in July we had an issue where the pumps were pumping but everything wasn't going anywhere. So wet well was filling up. We didn't know why. So we had bumper trucks come in to help keep up. We kept working the pumps. We've still found no issue with the pumps. They work fine. We're

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not sure if we had a blockage. So the idea is to upon Maine see what it was. We think it comes down the echo. You might think it's a wall. So we're wanting to know in that section

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of the line that was preventing it, but knock on wood. It's been nothing fine. It's just we're kind of curious to why that would happen and it scares us. So >> yeah. >> So we want to try to take it apart. many new valves and stuff. Stuff is old, but we'll get the camera, see what's inside.

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If it was a fluke, it was a fluke. But if there is something, we jet ro it out, clean it, and then we know that for the next pump stations and all that. >> Is that the 60,000 per month? >> No, that's the island inspection one. 25. The 60 is just the place marker

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every year. Try to ask for that. >> What's it? >> So, How many pumps are there? >> There are seven fig rider pumps and there is 2 and you know we have over 280 granite pumps

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homeowner grid pumps. >> Oh so when you have a a placeholder for the 60,000 is that one of the big ones. >> That's all included. That's why I wanted to ask the gentleman up from the 40 to the 60 to incorporate costs. >> That's what we just discussed

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>> five minutes ago about the sewer pumps. >> Yeah, just in two different spots. That's why we're seeing it again. >> Okay. >> Is the town responsible for all these individual pumps, >> the current ones right now? >> Yeah, it's and David at 10,000. You see after that was

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what we just discussed earlier about the same permanent the under capital over here. Mhm. >> And then the five-year projection, it's kind of the same. Um, definitely changed. It's just very kind of a lonely list that we've had um where pump

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stations are always getting older and older. But I think if we have corporate more money, we can save on uh replacements. In the future, it would be nice to make some of them um submersible, which is

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Birkshire in the schools where the pumps are actually down in the wet walls. So that's how they're able to pull up easier. Otherwise, Priy Park and all that, they're above. So they have to pull up. So you have more issues wear and tear on the machines trying to hold everything up push

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and that's no particular order other than probably pricky park and then um powder mill only because I do know we're putting um there's this talk of condos I just want to make sure those pumps are able to handle the extra powder mill is the end line so everything from the lakes they

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everything pushes to powder mill then powder mill goes to gravity to westfield so if we're incorporating 100 units right there I just want to make sure Those pumps are they can handle it. They are the bigger ones but still >> the country the >> for the condos.

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>> Yeah. Right by automo. Yeah. That's just I believe is going in. I don't know. But I'd like to make sure that word protected just in case it doesn't 100 units on top of what we're already doing. I just the two calls. >> Yes. >> So pricky park is one we've looked at over the years and wasn't that Douglas

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Quicky when we got a quote and it was a couple hundred grand more than we >> Yeah. >> thought it would be. That's >> and we didn't do anything then. >> I mean, I'd love to try but it's a lot. >> Yeah. >> The system. >> Yeah. I think they came in at 600 two years ago. So,

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>> but that was during co times too. It was probably worth to reook at that. And then also um I think they also just had a recent issue there. >> Yeah. >> But it wasn't the pump or it was some other >> it was it was partial was an electrical issue there. >> Correct.

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>> Right. That's right. You found a low point. Yeah. You found a low point. Yeah. And then the one for power mill. If those if those 100 condos ever get built, >> the system there can handle it for now. But that would be next to be upgraded.

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>> I would like to at least if not. >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Yep. >> That's my just to make sure that's the end. I like to make sure that is really ready to go for whatever we add at all times. >> Okay. Is there any part of that that the builder would be responsible for?

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>> Not that I know of. Not not anything I've seen or read since I've assumed this position. You would think the 100 unit revenue, right? But somewhat offset at least on paper because what's the minimum sewer rate?

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Like what's the minimum bill for sewer? It's 1410 per thousand. So >> well that's why we said we couldn't extend any the rates that we would gain wouldn't cover the interest >> right but that's to connect sorry but that's to connect to

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>> to extend the sewer infrastructure to something this is already on the line they have to connect any connect to the existing infrastructure >> but I think the question was can the infrastructure handle the flow of a 100

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condos and the answer was yes >> yes does anyone here a sewer bill. Anyone on sewer? >> What do you want to know about what is a sewer bill? 400 a year, 500 a year, you know what I mean? And then we got 100 units going in. When you asked if the if

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the company was going to help us out, what what is our revenue stream off those 100 units? >> Average is probably 400 bucks. >> 400 bucks. >> I that's about for a year, right? >> I'd go with that 400. >> Sure. So there you go. >> Then you got to net the flow because we got to pay Westfield. >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But there's there will be dollars involved. That's what

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I'm getting at in the end. The station upgrade of course, but >> there is something there coming toward >> and we're overpaying for sewing now because we have so much empty space that we don't >> correct >> use that we pay for. So, >> correct. >> Thank you.

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>> It looks like you want you'll get pump station every year moving forward. >> It was just it's a place marker. Um, >> no, no, understood. We like like Echo Street used cell. It's just a small little section. So that pump never gets used. I mean that can always be pushed farther and farther. It just

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>> it's by the time you get to 32 you're at 30 years on a unit. You know what I mean? >> Correct. So we put in the time frame knowing what that what money we make on it. I at least at least being able to upkeep on the pumps right is to hopefully this system though

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currently. >> Okay. The dream would be that little replacement. >> Gotcha. >> All right. Anyone else have questions about sewer? >> Solid waste. >> While we're switching gears, folks, just for the folks in the back of the room

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and for those on Zoom, this setup in the room is a little unconventional to the way the audio is set up. So, if we can kind of use our outdoor voices when you're especially if you're at the deis speaking so that folks in the back and on Zoom can hear you. >> We have the microphones. are only up here, but you can't it's not as

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effective down the sides and to the bed. >> Thank you. >> Just solid waste the same exact. >> Yes, sir. Shadow 1433. It >> was orange.

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>> Orange in the middle. Thank you. It's orange. >> Thank you. >> Medium yellow. Those are color. Medium gray. Medium gray. >> Your sir. So on solid waste, I again

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kind of level funded, kept everything the same. Vehicle repairs um with the unknowing I left it as if we still were going to run the furniture out continuously. Uh compactor repair I did drop due to we do have funding to replace the compactor >> going to happen this year. >> Yes. Yep. Um that is in works. I still

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wanted to leave a little bit of just in case something haywire goes or what have you. Electrical, who knows? >> How long will that be down when they do do it? We're hoping a week, but we're going to revamp the transfer station itself. We might block up where the hopper is, set up a a whole new

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drive-thru. It might be a little more cumbersome for the public, but at least we'll have more like a one lane where everybody can still get um dump everything. >> Oh, great. Still open. >> Yeah. Oh, yeah. intention is to stay full open to move things around and you might have to bring some of our other

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guy highway guys up to help and all that because without the hopper we can go open top but you're basically cutting the tonnage in half that a hopper box would hold and that can hold like 12 tons. is all opened up. You got to pack it. You get you're lucky to get six. So, you're running two extra boxes. So, the

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truck will be running more down and die. So, all those things is to get that done before July 1st. Uh refuge fees I did lower a little. I is a good buffer for a lot of costs, mattresses, all those other things

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that we uh dispose of. Parking supplies is about the same. uh inspections. He just apparently have we have a D inspection every year and it runs the same. The trailer I know is showing age so hopefully we can update some of the uh the legs on it rusted out

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and whatnot. So we had to put on biometric monitoring was for the uh landfill itself. Right now DB has us on a yearly spot check so to speak. So we just report back to them if there's any leak and debris broke and all that. So that is worked out. So we haven't needed

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any value money out of that. Uh carrying on the electrical upgrade is to run actual electrical not um extension cords to the back. So the shed and back houses the motor, the back row and the water button. But in the winter

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time as they're all vehicles to be plugged in for the coal. Currently we have just enough power to plug two in. The third has to be outside up to go up to the the actual trailer. So, what we'd like to do is just run a dedicated line

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off the actual electrical box in the in the transfer station underground with enough power to be able to charge trucks, run an air compressor, fill up tires, all that from down in the shed. Currently, we're losing extension correct

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this year. And then a 40 yard trash box is something we ask every year because these boxes do rust out. We do usually try to uh we have a contractor come in can rewel fix up what we can but we currently the way the place runs is is

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so busy we have about two to three boxes for each paybridge hand and all that so the trucks falling we have one in place a busy day pumps we still have a backup and then so we're able to never turn anyone away so to speak that every year we try to get one of

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those if not upgrade or at least fix a few that we Then into the capital, we are requesting to roll off as everyone knows. So we do have a great driver right now. It's very hands-on. The truck does have over just went over 200,000 miles. It averages

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eight to 10 trips in four days when they're open. Florida hauling on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Mondays to play catchup. So that truck is all through um essentially even the three employees up there, you're really at two because the driver's gone all day all in

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boxes. That's why we're looking to upgrade that truck for that reason um to a a better brand of truck I should say. Not to say there's nothing wrong with Freight Liners. It's just for what we do with it. We need something a little more

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stronger that you go a little harder. We found that uh the match is going to mantic Connecticut. There's an hour and then b plastics are now going to East Hartford which is another hour to get there drop and then come back. So they're just running more highway

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traffic more miles. >> What would the you know kind of moderate or middle of the road truck be compared to the $400,000? >> The 400,000 was actually just a higher just in case because of all the prices and everything. We our folks came back

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right around a 310 315 325 play safe for a Kenworth, a Mac, and a Western Star. Western Star is just a nicer of the Freightlininer version, I guess. >> Yeah. >> But the Kenworth, as you see, there's many more out there. They're just a more durable heavy duty truck. And

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>> so for about 70,000, you're looking at >> Nope. It was just a at the time with the prices of everything in the the long wait for them all. It was just a ballpark and then we started getting our quotes coming back. The time frames have changed. Some of the costs have gone

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down. So everything's running within that three and a quarter now for a fully furnished truck. >> Okay. But you got 400,000 >> at the time when I put this in. Yeah. >> Oh, okay. I thought you were saying you wanted to opt for the kind of premium grade truck.

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>> Yeah. And my question is how much more would we be? >> This was just a 400 was just a benchmark. >> That's the 315. >> The Kenworth is a premium grade truck >> which now with the quotes will be around three and a four, >> right? As of today, it's around three and a quarter.

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>> And then so how much would a brainer or >> they could be cheaper, but it's just they they're all running right around that 310 to 34. >> So it's not a whole lot more money for a premium truck. >> No. >> No. But a lot of it comes down to the parts. parts availability, the service

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locations and whatnot like that. And some trucks are more prioritary where you have to get their parts, which if it's down, it's down and you wait. >> So, just trying to do the research of one that's readily available, parts are available. If anything happens, we can get it over to somewhere, get it fixed,

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get it back in line, and not have a long wait like we did before where it was just kind of a crazy issue that they couldn't figure out. >> Okay. Then freight learning was down for probably six months. I think well over two two months. Yeah. >> Think that was crazy. Yeah. Yeah.

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>> If you look at like USA trash, look at look at the guys are running these trucks and look what they're running. They're running for a reason. These big operations they know. And they make a great truck. I drove one all my life. Great truck. Uh Jeff keeps the freight

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liner looking great. Keep it looking great on the outside. You know, it's like that car you bought that was a great deal. Then all of a sudden you get underneath to look at it and it's so good. It it looks good, but it it needs to replace. Um you're going to get a pusher axle on the new one. >> Yep. Exactly.

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>> That thing's dangerous without a pusher axle. It should have it. >> Yep. Have that. >> Um it just it was the truck served the town well for what it was, but it needs a better model. We bought the Grand. They got a Mac. It's like 40 years old. It's still running. So >> yeah, >> put your you know what I'm saying. So

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it's it's a good investment. And then we're looking at a time frame. You're probably looking at maybe two years, three year old. >> Months eating, >> six months, eight months. Yeah. Oh, I like that. Getting better. >> Exactly. I think the western tournament has been the longest one at a year, little over a year. Everything kind of changed the last few years with after co

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and all the uh disruptions and whatnot. >> All right. Any other thing too? Uh would it would it be worth rather than getting rid of that truck, would it be worth just keeping it and buying another one to have it? Because you could buy you could buy a flatbed, you know,

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container. >> Y >> you could put your back hoe, a little back hole in that stuff. You don't need a guy with a class A license to drive it. That's >> that's an option, too. You know, we have a lot of options, but >> definitely need to get that truck

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ordered, you know, get it get it in line because >> when that thing goes down, Westfield bailed us out the last time. That might not happen again. We need that truck. Yeah, they got a new director over there. I >> know that.

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>> Yeah, that would that would definitely be something that, you know, we definitely have to look at. And and like you said, if if the truck's going farther away, a box fills up, we do have ability to keep the show running. >> Yeah. You move say somebody's just waiting, everything's filling up and all that stuff. So, it's kind of a game.

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>> Now, uh my only other question being that I'm always down transfer station anyways, but um like the old loader down there, I mean, is is some of that stuff getting so far out of date that it's costing them fortune? We're keeping stuff in the fleet too long.

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I don't think so. Yeah, those machines um they're up there for them and then we use them during the winter and that's really where their use is. So, I think they're not used as heavily as like the highway loader and the water back ho. So, I think we still got some couple years definitely. Well, especially as

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long as we keep up with the updates, the repairs, >> I think we'll be okay. It's the rusting is what inevitably is what hurts everything. >> Yeah. >> So, I I think we're okay for right now. >> Like I said, we got good hand in Jeff who's very capable. Yeah, >> for now.

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>> So, uh, he can fix a lot of good things. So, we're we're moving along quite well. >> I think we're okay for now. >> And, uh, yeah, I mean, the big thing would be to get the power out to the building. Shouldn't be wrong. Extension cords. That's stupid. >> Yeah. >> And I know you need concrete pads for

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the boxes so they don't bust out. >> Yep. Those are on the >> We're paying one or the other. Put in concrete pads and buy more boxes. Yeah. Same. Pay for poison. Okay. Sounds good. And it's kind of the same along the lines for the fiveyear is basically the

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containers, the pads, and then especially flatbed box for like you said hauling around a mini or whatnot where a lot of contractors do that. I don't if you guys seen them, they can do it without have a trailer and an A, which is something that I keep in mind because having an A license in your fleet is

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harder and harder to come by these days because it is a tractor trailer license. It's not just what we do is they have a guy with his A but we're throwing asphalt and I'm driving trucks all day driving. So, so these little things like that we try to incorporate try to help

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offset other things. >> Any questions about that? We'll move on to the water which should be the last one in about the new pickups. >> Sure. >> Yeah. The new pickup, the one that's all

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rusted out. >> Yeah. So, I jump in. Are you ready for this? Yeah. You want to take that? >> Yeah, if we can. So, we we uh we orchestrated a little bit. So, the existing police truck is going to go to DPW, we hope, and then the police is

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going to buy a a slightly larger uh pickup truck to be able to move that boat around better um and use it for that purpose. And the existing police truck got a relatively new engine last year. Remember, we didn't buy the right

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>> the truck. We bought the engine. Y >> So, we're going to do that and that should buy us couple two, three years to and then replace this supervisor's truck again probably. But >> it seemed like an equitable arrangement

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four-wheel drive. It's kind of all set up. It's got lights. It's It's all-wheel drive. It's got I think under 30,000 miles or so. >> Yeah. So, you probably get two years out of that. >> More than that? >> Like 25,000 miles. No, I'm still correct. Well, the engine has like four,

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>> right? So, yeah, >> it seemed like a decent arrangement. >> Yeah. No, whatever. >> Just pass. >> Yeah. Well, it came up in capital expenditure. So, we as looking through where we could potentially do something there was

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>> so bringing it back here to come into the budget. That sounds like what? >> Testing the water went up. >> Uh water. Yeah. So the cost for water actually if I follow line testing of water went up um just be able to test for quarterly. We have to test more for

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houseic acids and with THMs. >> Yeah. We're only um there every quarter for Jar Drive but now we are adjusting at uh town hall every quarter as well. So that cost went up a little bit. Yeah, but I wanted just enough to make sure um you test every two every month and every

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two weeks. >> So that the cost of water itself experience city of Springfield did go up I think it was 7%. So it was about just about 8 n grand. So I went to 10 just to cover and that is due to their work up at the uh Springfield Water Commission

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up in Granville. They're redoing all that up there and we're going to br some of the cost. this year is a little less something we'll have to look at. >> And we're still hitting our max on taking out of the ground peel with our permits.

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>> Correct. We're right around that. All depends on the season, whatnot. And then we use what their water when needed, >> right? >> It's just going to cost more when we need it. >> And that pering process is somewhere trying to get that updated. I know it's >> just sits on a table somewhere in the state, right?

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>> More of astronomy. >> Yeah. which I am working start uh other than that everything was a line item um level fund

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>> white surface material went down or no you just over the fund is >> we went a little lower because we don't use um a lot of the surface material comes from when we have repairs to be made oh >> so we have to back fill and all that and >> we usually have a stockpile so it's kind of budget Yeah, I don't think we needed

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I mean it's only was a little drop but I think it was the savings >> the same um dig safe I believe went up for the membership that went out >> disin disinfecting byproducts we dropped too we don't um the price of that is kind of leveled

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>> gota uh the AMI system we that's for our metering that's obvious that fluctuates every year as well different meters bottoms skated we left the same and then the if for capital the water system

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upgrade is to loop south lard in Bab road >> correctly we have continuality so if there's any other issue we can still shut things off water both sides of town more like the lakes the water tank inspection is actually going to be to power wash the outside of the tanks this

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coming year for D we did these tank inspection last here. That was good. And um what did they ask is that clean them up in the cal side. So we're going to do that. And hydrant replacements isn't every year where we try to replace a couple hydrants. They run about

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6,000 plus to install. So with the unit and then the help that do it, we run about if we can get three. I just find the three that are bad or no good and we replace them. >> When they're hit by a car, the insurance takes care of them. Yes. Yeah. But we still got to make sure we have the

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parts. >> Oh yeah. >> Um and then obviously if we move on to the fiscal 27 is >> one of the things obviously the uh replacement hydrates we always ask for but we were asking for a walk behind cutting saw or 20inch blade. Apparently

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we have a hand 14inch blade and a walk behind 16. But we found that 16 in doesn't get deep enough in the pavement for water repairs. And then usually we're either just using a machine to destroy more road or >> next to where you need to go.

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>> Next to where you need to go. >> Usually when that happens, >> it's a big problem. >> So the bigger blade I know contractors use about a 20 inch where you can get a decent 10 inch cut. Yeah. Eight 10 inch and then you're so you can clean make a cleaner cut repair for the road and all

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that. >> Understood. >> And it's usually actually the blades that buy are the biggest thing every year it'll cost. That's uh obviously the power washing in the tanks and the water loop and then the five year

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um I think so 28 we have leak detection that comes up about every two years we try to do leak detection around town. >> Yeah. >> And then we I just incorporated uh we have 14 F350 truck that might need be replacing. I don't have any quotes or

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nothing. Um, obviously water mile replacements that we like to try to do. And then we're back to the 5-year water tank inspections that they mandate, but that's 12:32. >> So, I met with you

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>> and we talked about your dump trucks. >> Mhm. >> Any thought about maybe is it time to start replacing? And I looked at the cab. The cabs are beautiful, right? They're not they're not destroyed, but the beds the dump truck beds are just rotting like there's no tomorrow. >> Correct. So on the highway on the truck

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one is a 2016 bed. They washed it after this winter and it's just going. Um I think we're going to try to replace that one. Tim is working on quotes of replacing the body. >> Three is I think we can get over to um I think it's Schllay's auto body. They can do a uh >> stuff and buff.

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>> Yeah. Yep. Exactly. Is we save that one. Truck four is a stainless body. So, that one should be good. That's the newest one. And then we just have truck two, that transfer station. And that one, the body has been repaired. >> Maybe it's something we can also the follow me um take and get it same blast and painted and all that. I'd like to at

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least replace truck one's body, but they don't have any quotes because I would just talked about it. And then once they once they washed everything off after that last storm and all that, that's >> Yeah, it was a whole lot worse. We took the uh the tarp off just cuz there's nothing holding the spring. So we're

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like we're not a single but it's the nature of these metal salt all that. >> Can you try to get us a quote for that though? So they're not going to do the the pickup truck for 80. >> So that's that was water department. >> No quote would be under highway, >> right?

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>> But I can Tim I was just talking to Tim and we're going to try to get one for Monday and we have it. Um whether it's to replace the body and then like you said the cabs of the trucks are good. They got mileage because they're everyday runners but yeah >> I can't see putting in for a new one yet. Not one I mean, it's 10 years old,

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but I didn't sell anything. >> Yeah. Do you license it with stainless? >> We're We'll quote them both. I mean, Stainless would be good, but if we're going to replace a truck, I don't know if it's worth putting a stainless body on it that might outlast the truck. >> Do they move though?

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>> Can you if you had this stainless? >> I think so, actually. Yeah. >> You know, like if you bought a new one and then you replace the truck in two years, do you buy a a flatbed, whatever? I don't know if that's different years of trucks and different >> Yeah, that's what I'm steel. >> Yeah,

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>> I might be able to get away with a 19, but obviously the 23 and then that's a 12 at the transfer. So, and that's a 450 too, so it's a smaller body. >> Yeah. 10 years left. You put the steel bent on it and it'll all die at the same time. Yeah, >> that's kind of >> And I know you power wash, you know, you have the the chem power washing the

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outside, >> but do we have anything set up for frame washing? We do have a a rolling sheet. You can get up there and try to blast. A lot of times though, it's easier. You just got to get on the ground. So, you're underneath, but you can get up there and get the saw and all that off too. >> Is I know I've seen a few things

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advertised. And I know on the on the fire side, we always try to frame wash and >> put the coatings on them. Um, is that something that Tom should be investing in is is frame washing capabilities for all our >> It would be nice to have a better way to >> I know collection is a problem.

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>> Yeah, but Exactly. But we do spray the bodies on the trucks every year. >> They look great. >> So the large trucks, the one tons, um the cost to drive them all the way up to do it just didn't make and they're farther along now where I think it's not especially not for the new one. But

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>> just something that Tom should be invested in as a frame washer to cruisers to everything. >> We got to walk, you know, you push it out, >> right? It's not the best. >> It's not the best that you just drive over. Can I go back to testing of water permit?

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>> Uh, back in 22 that was 9,000. In 23 it was 2.8. 24 it was 2.4, but 25 it was up to 167. And I'm sure I even know someplace in

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last year's book, but do you know why that was such a big jump? If I look I know we did testing for uh every year they offset testing for PAS and um different things. So I don't know if that was part of that. I can look into it.

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>> Is it periodic like every >> some are just one quarter for that year some are different quarters for the different >> 22 it was nine 25 it was 16. Is that a high every couple of years or >> the issue with Springfield water? They

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had high levels of halos acidic acids. So we have to we were mandated to test our water more frequent and also send out notifications of the water. >> Yeah, that was probably part of that >> 22 212.

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>> Yeah. Well, I think maybe 203 you know very recently we got to do it with all the extra runoff I think two years ago. might have been incorporating that 25. >> Thank you. >> Okay.

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Anything else? All right. That's it. Thank you. Thank you. I think he's online. >> Oh, no. >> Was there ever

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he just stealth building department? No >> buildings and grounds. There's nothing bad because it was spread all over. >> He just asked me if you guys wanted to

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go line by line or if you have questions because I don't know how big materially they change your self. >> So, and he hasn't done this before. >> Does anybody know what color it is?

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They were just saying >> no problem. >> Hey, we can hear you. That's great. >> And bear with me. I'm on my cell phone. For whatever reason, the laptop wasn't connecting correctly. >> Sure. You guys got a packet, right? That had

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all the boats. Yeah, >> we didn't talk about or fresh is the DPW, >> the salt shed, the roof of the salt shed >> didn't make this paper. >> Yeah. So we in in Cabcon we went over it

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was 65,000 for half a roof or around 128 for a full roof. So the back salt that we have it's molded supposedly. >> Um that's a vinyl top. So this the side facing the sun has got some cracks and rips in it.

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>> So it needs to be replaced because that's salt and need of course. Um I think in our capital expenditure we decided to do a full move because we all know when you slice something in half I don't see it working out well. So that's

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not I don't think we discussed it but that's also in here just so you're aware. >> Can Steve maybe speak to any >> Yep. uh for operational any uh kind of out of the ordinary increases

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that you can tell us about because we don't have reference to >> you should have gotten a packet. >> Well, this isn't are these all capital kind of requests? >> I believe so. >> Yeah, they they actually >> So, before we jump into these, are there

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any operational increases, anomalies from last year that we should know about? Um, let me see here. So, there's specific line items that I'm

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requesting an increase for, but what I don't know what building you want to show that. >> What do you have in front of you? A >> town hall. Where are your increases at >> uh for vehicle maintenance? So, we're sitting at 3675.

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Uh my request is 5,000. And what's the reason for the increase? >> Based on the age of the vehicles that we have in our fleet, they're starting to show signs of wear and tear. Uh based on what we've already used in our line this year, I think we're down to $40 and we

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still have roughly $2,000 worth of work that could be done to a couple vehicles. Um, I know we're also down one vehicle for the building inspector and I don't know if there's going to be any talks with getting another vehicle. Um, if that is the case, we already have five

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in the fleet. Um, it would just be nice to be able to, you know, maintain the vehicles as needed and have the additional funding to do so. What's after that? >> That's it for additional requests. Other

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than that, we either stayed level funded or did the 5% decrease. >> Okay. >> And you have library. Is that in here? >> Uh, y and

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over. >> So for library, my understanding is that they need a minimum amount for maintenance to have additional funding through the state. I don't know details on that end of things

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>> numbers wise, but where we stand this year at 3640, we're currently in a negative over $4,000 based on the work that had to happen this year. And with the age of the building and how the building was built, I would like to increase that number to

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6,000 as a precautionary just in case anything else pops up. Um, and then for maintenance contracts, we stand at the same number due to rising cost. And then let's see, that's town hall

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library. Will electricity go down, you think? Or what are we going to do with that? Because now that you changed it over and >> Oh, sorry. For libraries. >> Yeah, because that was the mess that we didn't catch in time. >> Oh. Um,

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>> not a huge vote. >> We'll just leave it like that. >> But >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll leave it, >> right? Understood. >> Sorry, Steve. >> Yeah, no worries. So, those are the only two line item increase requests. Other than that, the only thing I'm requesting

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are capital items. >> So guys, that's right in the library. >> The roof. You guys have a vote for that? 100 >> 949 >> 949. >> Where are we?

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>> What is the >> library? Oh. Yeah, >> it's what's the >> 9499 Yeah, nice and had prevailing weight in it. So that

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was good. >> And so >> so unfortunately the the discussion I had with a previous contractor was roughly 50,000. After I requested on paper, they decided they kind of wanted to back out. So I got two additional um

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estimates. Uh this one being the best. I know he has to go out to bid. Um, and he's local. He's been in the business for over 30 years. So, I figured with the 40-year warranty, which we all know how that goes, it's

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better better off to do so than putting a 25-year product on top of the roof. So, that way we get some more longevity out of it. And the paving >> and the paving was submitted, I'm not sure if you guys have that in front of

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you, by Palmer Pave. >> And we stand at 115,340. >> That's just for the library. >> Yes, that's just for the library. And that number of course is going to change due to it being requested for 2030. I just figured I would get a ballpark

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number set up. >> And is that just to fix the problems or to do the whole thing? >> Tear it up, regrade it, compact it and lay a whole new >> complet. And that's going to be across the board for fire PD and the connecting road uh

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to the town hall as well as the town hall. That's all in that same um estimate sheet. >> So we're looking at over a million combined. >> Yep. Yeah. >> Is the last the last

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Oh. So these are these quotes for complete redoss >> complete. Yeah. and and numbers may vary behind PD and fire because there's a concrete lot back there and that's up in the air to see what we could do inhouse

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with our DBW to tear that up and grade that and get that area paved for additional parking for the police department. >> Yeah, there's a reason why we left that there. >> But understood. >> So does that even the lot to the

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pavement >> where the association was? Yeah. Is it even or is there a bump there? >> There's a slight >> slightly. Okay. So, even if they tacked on to that to get it usable to park on. >> Yeah. >> My guess we the original concept concept

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was just prior to use it for extrication and stuff so they're not leaking all over the place. Hollow spots under it. When Steve and I looked at it, it needed to be injected to park on it. >> Gotcha. Hold the weight. >> Yeah. So, >> interesting. If it's going to become parking, you may want to just rip it up,

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>> right? >> But millions or so. >> Yeah, that just I believe that involves a little bit more to open up. Correct, >> Douglas. It's in a sensitive area, too. >> Yeah, that's plenty of room back there.

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>> Oh, yeah. There is plenty of room. Yeah. >> If you had to prioritize all of this, do you have a list which would be 1 2 3 4 five or four? 1 2 3 4. >> Um, yeah. If I wanted to break it down, it would definitely be Town Hall due to safety and trip hazards and then

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definitely fire and PD just, you know, with those guys in and out all day long and safety protocols for them. You know, sometimes they have to get out into Jify. So, I I would definitely prioritize the town hall and fire and and police.

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>> Gotcha. the library and the connected road. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> Depending what happens with DGBW and the road selection with with Beta. I know depot was on that list and

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the suggestion was if their big focus is on mobilizing in an area. So there may be some economies if we do depot >> they do this too. The depot ends right at the stop light and then does it turn into >> the stop signage. >> Yeah, it depends where we take it to.

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>> No, no, but that's where ends, right? >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And then along the bottom powder mill. Okay. >> Yeah. So, it's not a huge >> Yeah. I was going to ask the same question. We're doing a road project somewhere else in town. >> Yeah. >> Can you glom this project onto it?

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>> Yeah. Yeah. >> I know it's not chapter 90 money, but you just to save the remobilizing a whole building. My question the the footnote on the quote from Tom paving

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the gas wall cost was 615 per ton. How does that fit into any of the above calculations? Those are all far less. What am I missing there? >> Wage. >> Yeah, I'm not sure. It could be for prevailing wage.

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615 probably, you know, five times larger than market. I don't think that >> Yeah. >> Welcome to Massachusetts. >> Yeah. >> How can it be? I mean, they can't they can't be just an imperial cost.

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We'll get you that answer. >> Yeah, >> absolutely. Steve, we have some good numbers, too, from the latest study on asphalt per square foot and everything. So, that might help you, too. >> Okay. So, the the library roof and parking lot

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were on the budget for the five-year projections. Does that mean that they're not really necessary for 2027? Can they be deferred or >> Yeah, >> that's correct. Yeah, as as it stands, we could definitely hold off. Um, I just

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want to be proactive and bring it up now before it becomes a problem after, you know, doing an internal inspection of the roof. I'm not seeing any signs of leakage, but on the exterior of the roof itself, it's definitely showing decay in its age. So, I figured if we could set

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up a game plan now and have the funding set up for then, I think we'll be at a good standpoint with no no damage in the meantime. If you look at the roof from the outside, they're just starting to curl >> up on top there. I'm not sure that's the

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side the sun hits the most, but >> but it's just starting. So, he has the roof scheduled for 2028, right? >> He has the town the library parking for 2030, >> police and fire for 29. It is the town

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hall 27 you're expecting or hoping >> for >> the for the town hall parking lot paving. >> Did you have that on 2027 or future? >> Give me one second. Uh, I have that for 2029.

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29. Okay. So, none of those in the next budget period. >> No, nothing for 2027. >> Okay. >> We're just throwing around some big numbers, so I just wanted to spell that out.

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Okay. But then you might know where you're at with T. What do you have after that, sir? >> All right. So, that's all for library. If you guys want to bounce a town hall, we could go over. Let's see. for 2027 capital items.

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I have the boiler replacement and awning replacement. >> So, you should have a quote from Apex and a quote from Manchester Awning. >> Yeah, you said on a 27 budget, but it's

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actually on a leftover. >> Yeah, we don't find it from next year's budget. Right. We can still talk about it, but yeah, the funding is in place from a board. I think it's >> Yeah. >> So, we received that from

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the remaining funding from the town hall roof and HVAC improvements project that was completed. So, we have roughly 300,000 left over, which can cover the cost of the boiler. But the awnings are showing their age

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and they're starting to fall apart. So, those definitely need to be replaced. We're at a little under 20. Let me see here. We're at 23,32844. But for on the safe side, I put 25,000.

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The framing's good. It's just the awnings themselves. >> Could we put metal roof on those and get better wear on them? >> Um, definitely a possibility for sure, but then you would have to reframe those

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and then the cost would probably triple. >> Those are the originals though >> to my knowledge. 25 years on them. >> There might be some vinyl product you could look at, Steve, but all the

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quoting. >> None of the ice has swapped off the roof and torn anything, right? >> No. >> With the new roof breakers put in, it resolve that issue. And then

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you want to shoot to the five-year projection for capital items request for the town hall. Just give us a second. Anybody got a page? >> I don't think we have in here somewhere.

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I'm sure it's find it. >> No, we can't find them. >> Not even with the search. >> My search won't work. It's made this morning. >> That was my next question. Why are we getting the rest of the pages?

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>> What do we have the numbers? >> Steve, why don't you tell us what's on there? >> Missing besides fuel >> for capital items for the five years. I have generator replacement and then the parking lot paving both set for 2029.

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>> Both for 2029. Correct. Um >> now for the generator we have options whether we stay with diesel or go to natural gas. Um both still with the same option of 175 kilowatts. I currently am

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waiting on an an estimate for that but the ballpark our contractor told us was 250 to $300,000 on that. And for the paving to go back to that, we're at 205,535.

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>> Right, Steve? On the generator, was that um you talk about going to gas, is that dual fuel or or just gas? >> No, just gas. Natural gas. So keep if you're pricing it, keep in mind if if you want to go as an economy to go to gas, but because this is the

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emergency operations, your infrastructure would fail the gas line. So that's why we go with diesel. So it's an independent fuel source. >> Yeah. >> Um so just keep that in mind when you're pricing out things and talk with Ian from emergency management moving

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forward. We want it to be basic. Gotcha. Hey, can you bring us up to speed on the generator? I know we budgeted for I think a head gasket and our discussions were actually didn't need it. >> Yeah. So, after further investigation on

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that, I had a few technicians come out and run run different diagnostics. Um because personally, I didn't think it needed one based on my experience. um they did so and they indicated that there there's some issues with the motor considering it's from 1978,

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but there is no signs of a head gasket needing to be done. Um so with that being said, we have roughly $2,000 worth of work lined up to bring it up to par. It is currently operational. Um it's

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just one of those situations being from 1978. If we could get something in here newer and more reliable, especially in case of emergency, it would be highly beneficial. And you know, parts are becoming obsolete for

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something so old. So, if we have a a breakdown, trying to access parts are going to be pretty rough or we're ordering stuff from out of the country and we're waiting two weeks just for a single part to show up. >> Gotcha. Thank you.

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>> No problem. Does that cover everything with you? >> Uh, yeah. Town hall and library, we're all set. DPW is all set. Um, the only other request I have is for the police department.

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And that's for the AC compressor. >> Yeah. >> Which we've fixed a million times over the last few years. Yeah. So, one is one's currently running and operational. It's been replaced. Uh but the secondary

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AC compressor for that one unit is completely out of service and needs to be replaced. So, therefore, if we lose the other AC compressor, the police department's going to have no air conditioning. >> They're pretty much always in their

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cruisers. No. Oh, we got the we have the office staff here now in the summer. We don't have the problem, >> but I know >> you need a computer room, >> Steve. Did um Yeah, I know when we transition, we were looking at the

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police building for the green energy grant. I know we had to complete something before we re um reapplied again. Is that on the radar to apply for for that again or where are we now? >> So that that was all broken down by Apex

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to upgrade the system there. But I believe due to timing on the last grant, I think we we didn't meet a deadline, but don't quote me on that. So I don't think we're going to get the grant funding this year. Um but I know the boiler there is all set. Um, it's the

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main I know their air handler isn't to size, but um, it's definitely well overdue to be replaced. I mean, on both ends, but just to keep us going for a duration of time, we definitely need to get the AC compressor done. >> I know quite a lot.

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>> That would have qualified under that grant. >> It It did. It was like a $300 and something,000 bill to it for what they wanted for the green energy. However, when we sent them back, the electric hiccups with it.

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Number one, it was going to increase our electric costs. And then number two, when I asked, well, will the generator and emergency backup handle the additional electrical load? They couldn't answer it. And then all the green energy stuff was great, but it

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only had a 10 to 15 year window. So on a building that runs non-stop 365, I think I think Steve's idea of just putting solid elements in as he moves forward is about something. >> Okay.

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>> And go to the library without that that other plan or something. >> Good. >> I think Russ back in the day that when you were doing a lot of work over there, that generator was maxed out. They were >> Yeah, because back then you were like, "Hey, >> we're okay." But

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>> it does both builds. >> Yeah, it does both, too. >> Do you have a quote for the AC unit? >> Yeah, >> that was from Apex with a total of being

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>> I got it. Thank you. >> Anything else, sir? Not for over 25. No, that's it for public safety other than the the fiveyear for 2029 the request for the parking lot as we

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discussed. >> Folks have any questions? >> No. >> Well, I didn't say PPW director. Randy, what's the deal with the paving and that price difference? I'm sorry. Look at that. >> You're so used to seeing Randy sitting

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there. You had the same smug. I just assume it was you. >> Your eye doctor called. You have an appointment. >> Also, the German Shepherd's ready. >> Yeah. >> My first rodeo. >> See what he got her numbers. I don't know what

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>> we'll send you over to Paul. >> Okay. Yeah, >> break it down for us. Educate us. Thank you. >> Stephen, thanks for your time. Great job. >> Thank you. >> Great. >> Thank you guys. I'll be next

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>> virtual sign. >> What do we got? the animal control. Okay. >> What? >> I was just messing with your assistant, Asa over there. >> She's doing good. >> She's doing great.

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>> She's doing good. She's trying hard. Okay, good. >> How are you today? It's >> just dandy. How about yourself? >> Middle. My glasses are so great. I pulled up Annie Porsch.

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All right. So, let's see. Rabies testing. Mhm. >> I think the rabies testing um and the dog disposal um they only charge us $87 a load for the dog disposal. We only do

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it a couple of times a year. Sorry. Um >> where do they sit in between? >> They sit in our freezer. >> Okay. >> It's okay. >> There's happy in there. >> Thank you. Great information.

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>> Yeah, that wouldn't be a happier. But the freezer is doing fine. >> We got a new freezer. We got a new freezer a couple years ago >> because it wasn't working in the winter because the temperature difference. So >> is in your conference >> in freezes in the conference. Okay. So

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um the conference in education. So my assistant acco will be going through the um academy the animal control academy. Well, >> um, and that is a $600 charge. >> Um, it is not a state requirement, but

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it is extremely beneficial for someone who does not have a law enforcement background to and she's from Connecticut, too, as I am. Um, so when I first came in, it was kind of a what are you lost? Are you wait what? Um, so it's

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very beneficial as far as getting a real solid background in mass law in the animal control field. So, you can only benefit. >> Okay. But it's going from 300 to 2300. >> No, no, no. It was supposed to be 600.

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>> I increased it more. >> Oh, okay. >> Are you going to I I should probably go I probably should. Um there's basically there's a couple different courses you can take. There's an online one, there's an inerson one. There is a cost difference between the two. I had put it

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in for uh both our new acco and our current ACO in the event that she did not have it. >> Oh, I thought you just switched it up because I thought you said you messed it up. >> No, that so the cleaning supplies was 600 and the conference and travel was 2,300. And I'm

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like, "Oh." Anyway, I >> think you're looking at an older version. >> Yes. And then you told me you got corrected. So anyway, >> so you're going to >> I wasn't going I was I'm already an acco down years ago. >> So what should that number be then? >> Huh?

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>> You still want it at 23? >> We can go with the one. Um so >> what's what's the current number on the want to make sure I have the right to travel was 300. You spent 285. So we got to go at least what's her class? 600 3

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to 600 class 600. >> And we do um for continuing ed that's all online and it's all free. >> Okay. So we go,000 bucks is >> what do we do in veteran rooms? I mean

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do you ever have to send groceries? >> Yes. Yes. Yes. We have um we have two gifts accounts. We have a medical gift account that people donate to and we have a gift account that people donate to. Um the gift account we used last time to buy the shed so that we can

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convert it into goat, horse, whatever if we needed to have a stall kind of a thing because we've taken goats in and they've been in the kennel and it was really no um better be. Um and the medical account people will donate on

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behalf of somebody who's passed. Um they will donate just because and we try to keep it I try to keep it as even as possible on both sides. But we have a very very good um supply of funds from both accounts. So, and that was where

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our the gift account was where our um update with the um with the um I want to say Wi-Fi, but that's whatever we just did. >> Are you there?

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>> What did we just do? >> Yes, I know what Scott did the um the update the upgrade. >> It was for the video cameras and connected from the PD to the end control building. down there. >> So that came from our gift account. So

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that's an that's an upgrade that is um not around the regular stuff. So >> the building and grounds uh expense like potholes around your building or >> um the repair and maintenance, cleaning

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supplies and contracts and agreements definitely comes from Hillary has control over those. >> Yes. Um, we don't really do anything with those. So, she does that stuff. We're covered under from vehicle maintenance to >> anything in the parking lot would be buildings and grounds.

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>> Yeah. So, that's parking lot maintenance kind of first line. >> Yeah. Repair and maintenance would be for the our building and stuff. Y >> they have mowing landscaping there too. >> Okay. Occasionally we try

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>> that's covered under our annual >> right it's taken out of each line >> here should >> that would go under our contracts and agreements and again that's a Hillary thing so >> blade of grass

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>> pretty close there >> how is your vehicle doing >> it's okay good it works gets us to where we need to be >> it's good I know we had talked about uh getting a new vehicle at some point but

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I think that's way in the future >> that's one of the ones that we could rotate out crews are coming offline to be that because it's like for life kind of sort of >> right it would still need to be an SUV or like a minivans kind of thing But I know with the green energy stuff, there's some prohibitions around moving,

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you know, offline cruisers to be a town vehicle if it >> fuel efficiency, yada yada. But this is the acco vehicle is actually still under the police department, right? So that that would be a possibility to do that. >> We actually wanted to put all the

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maintenance and everything of that vehicle in our budget last year and it ended up staying where it's at. So what gives you any context? Thank you. >> Yeah. I would be okay with it moving. >> Yeah. I mean, we did put in a um task

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specific vehicle several years down the road here. One of those little van type vehicles. >> Yeah. >> But as of right now, the vehicles it's working, >> right? It works well. >> Couple years it was a little rough over there with vehicles. >> Yeah.

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>> Yeah. So you have under animal control assistant animal inspector training. >> No. >> Well, that's salaries. I'm sorry. >> That's salaries. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> We got >> That's good. >> Yeah.

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>> Oh, yeah. There's a transit style van 29 to 30. >> Talk about door locks collectively with >> Yeah. That door lock quote part of the other part of the in our budget. Yeah. Yeah. Any questions for Thank you for your time.

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>> Thank you. Have a good weekend. >> Access to police. Police dispatch. Dispatch is simple, right? 50,000. Dispatch is simple. 50,000 for the IMA this upcoming year. How's that working out?

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How's that working out? >> Y did you see how she's going through that grant right that you guys learned what grant >> it's through and our portion is 50,000. Is that an extra 50,000 or is that our assessment?

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>> She just said that >> 50,000 the assessment for this coming year. >> Yeah. >> So the 50,000 that she that we owe her for for this E91. That's all we >> owe. >> Dispatch has been working well. Um, like anything else, there's, you know, there's good stuff, there's not so good

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stuff, but all in all, it's it's functioning the way it should. >> They've just acquired another South. They're >> working on it there. They'll be all going in that building. They're already talking. Yeah,

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>> they're talking about switching sides with it for the time I >> Oh, the old library too small. >> Yeah, I must speak. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, what's included in the contracts?

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>> Contracts is a whole bunch of different things. The uh raise you're looking there is a new computer program we're looking at and that's part of uh our move away from our current CAD system. That's the computer aided dispatch. Um

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right now we've got what's called IMC. It's a dated system. It's a system that's no longer being supported by the parent company. We're going to be moving to their newer system which is called Pro. uh as part of that certain aspects

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of the program no longer exist and the biggest part of the program that no longer exists is the administrative portion. The administrative portion of that lets us do payroll, uh track details, stuff like that. The program we're looking at here is part of that

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$6,600 number that we're asking for over the top. Um that will allow all the detail building. It'll allow attendance. It will basically give us the program that's going away in so few words I guess we'll say. But some of the other

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things in contracts um we've got some of our other tracking systems. We've got a system that tracks uh field training progress. We've got telephones that are on there. We've got uh software that deals with firearms. U there's a whole

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multitude. I don't have an exact list with me, but that sort of gives you the feel of what's in there. >> Okay. >> Fire extinguisher service. >> Fire extinguisher. Some some things are three years, some things are one year. So, >> in there, too. >> Yeah. Anything that we have

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a service contract with that replaces things or services. >> Thanks. >> What's the doubling of uh medical? So the doubling of medical is basically we're taking two line items and we're putting them together. We've got medical

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requirements and we've got medical supplies. So we were trying to put those together and that number is going to look artificially inflated too. That was one of the line items. If you remember Joe, we took money out of there a couple times and the money never went back into

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it unfortunately. >> Yeah, it doesn't. Yeah. >> It says it has supplies. You're half of what? Three ambulances run for medical supplies. So, it seems a little high, but >> yeah, I believe one is nine and one is

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eightish. Well, looking at my question here, which I should do. Would you like further comment on that? >> No. Okay. >> Sorry. >> How many full-time officers do >> 20? Great.

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>> Really? >> Not all of them are currently working. going to be doing a couple out on medicals and stuff like that, but there are currently 23 full-time, nine part-time, and then five traffic control officers and two civilians.

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>> So, you were looking to add another part-time civilian? >> Yes. >> And so, is the existing civilian part-time, too? >> The existing facil uh civilian is part-time. That's Wendy. She's our records clerk, firearms clerk. Um, you know, we've asked her in the

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past if she'd be interested in doing a full-time position. She doesn't have an interest in doing a full-time position. So, we could probably handle that a couple different ways. Maybe we could add a few hours to her or some hours to her. Or we could hire a completely separate person

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to offset, you know, the additional 20 hours that she doesn't work. um with everything with records, public records and everything and with all the fire, you'd be amazed how many LTC's come across. >> Um so, and then you also have an officer

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assigned to court records, too. The court >> we do that sit Yeah, the um position is currently vacant at this point. I should say vacant, it's taken, but the officer is out right now, >> right? that position of the sergeant. Unfortunately, with where we are with

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the newer officers right now, I need supervisors on the street more than a supervisor in their department. >> Could that position be a civilian employee, >> court records person? >> Uh, not the way is currently constituted. The court officer actually goes back and forth to court. They

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testify in court. That's something a civilian can't do. So, and they do, you know, approve certain um records that go out. So probably not the way it's constituted. on radios. >> Yes, we went up uh $2,000 over last

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year. That was just based on cost. Um, when talking to officer Seagull, who does our radios the other day, he had said that, uh, next up on the block this year is a onelack radio and an 800 radio for the cruiser. Both about $6,000 a

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piece. So, we'll talk about that. Yeah. >> Is that the portable radios line you're looking at? >> I was looking at the um Yeah, portable radios. Yeah, usually a 10. And another def later this coming year

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too. Uh two of them. How many do you have? >> The one question I didn't ask them. >> There's one for >> one for each car. >> That's okay. Yeah. And then one >> one for me too. Careful for your

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>> they work. I I can tell you >> shots in the back western animals. >> Are we all set with shotguns? I don't see your normal um >> there's rifle and then there's there shotguns are new on there. >> Okay. So there was three rifles and five

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shotguns escorted. >> They're under what? >> Capital >> on the cruisers. Are we doing a pickup and a cruiser? Are we doing two cruisers and a pickup? >> Right now our intention is to do one

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cruiser and one pickup. You probably have three. Um Nicole had asked me yesterday got three estimates in there. One of those is a hybrid song. Just so you can see it. I have no intention of buying one if we don't have to, but I threw the the quote in there

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anyways. >> How how heavy is the boat? >> I'd have to look. I I don't know. Um >> but does it mean that 250? Yeah, because you're talking about weight. You're not only talking about weight, talking about weight like >> if you got to take it, you have to take it for service or anywhere else or it's

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floating in the water. >> It's No, it's just got to be a heavier truck. I mean, that's just all show because if you're taking that 1500 with that boat down thing, you're sailing across lanes. It's not just not safe. That's >> Does the boat help eliminate any of that? It's going to be stored in the

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boat house that you have on here. >> Say that again, Russ. The boat house. And they have plans to store it the season in the boat house >> eventually. >> Is that then take away the need to pick up take it back forth? >> No, it's because you were also part of a

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>> original boat for going and diving in different location. So it's not just sitting in one area. >> Do you know how long it is? >> Longer than the barn. >> You had to go there. All together

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itself was >> well they have basically an F-150 now if you want to break it down to that >> and the actual the F250 I think is actually cheaper than the F-150 >> the 250 truck the F-150 for super. So, it's more expensive than the 250. >> 250.

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>> Yeah. >> And they keep more of them in stock because DPWs and things like that. So, they keep more in stock. >> 350. >> Holy. >> Well, then you got to go to some other place to get it inspected. >> You ain't kidding. >> The nightmare.

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>> Makes no sense, but whatever. >> Yeah. You ain't kidding. Chief, last year uh you hired a consultant for the policies and procedures. How did that work out? >> Uh we ended up uh going with a company

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called Blue Voice. Um it's been working out well so far. We're still working with them as we speak. Um we recently signed a contract with them to provide some other services as well. So, it's actually going to fall into that contracts question you had. Um, they're

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basically they're an AI company that does different things. This was something that they wanted to get their teeth into, I guess we'll say. Um, we were basically a guinea pig for for lack of words here.

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So, we did get some discounts and stuff for him for that. And yeah, it's been it's been working out well so far. Maya point still. >> Yeah. Right. >> Yeah. Guess we have a contract with a couple percentage on Maya.

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>> What the the Maya for your uh percentages for for the discount rate in part of their contract with Blue Boyce. We have a percentage of the I know there was about five.

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The garage sally port we put that off last year. Correct. >> Yeah. Garage Sally port definitely need Joe's seen it first and it's decaying and it's starting to speed up a little bit. The good news is the drains are working.

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The drains are working. Don't know where they go, but they're working next year. >> They can go back. >> I think they found it. You think so? >> I think they found it. Yeah. Lab. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just Yeah. Right now. >> I think they found a ghost. Got the oil separator.

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>> Oh, beautiful. >> Sorry. Did we talk about the the dispatch operations? >> Not yet. >> Okay. >> Well, yeah, it's 50 grand. >> We had grants in the past. >> That's why it was zero. >> That's why it was zero. >> First three years of the implementation

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zero, right? This is first year our system >> and I don't know how that's going to work out. >> I don't think it changes on our end. I don't think it's proportional. I if I remember right, it was 50 and next year it's 75. >> Yep. Well, I mean, at some point they're

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not going to fund the whole thing, right? They have to share the cost. >> I think 10-year forecast, if I remember right, was 150, 125, something like that. >> Yeah. And but again, that was a projection, >> right? >> Um, but the industry is still changing a

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lot. Um, but I think we're going to be okay for the foreseeable future. Thank you. >> Has been very good about getting grants as well. I think that she's done all over. >> Oh, they surrounded capital.

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So for one, >> you're only looking for the security fencing for the 27 budget for the shotguns. Now go to the other capital. He's okay. >> I'm not sure why they're not all on the

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budget, but >> we should probably ask him to keep them separate. >> What's your one? >> Well, the years that he wants, >> I think the want

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>> 2027 is what you're looking for. >> Yeah. >> So, let's look at 2027 and then we'll turn the page. uniforms. >> Does that take care of all the glass or just a couple? The 10,000? >> It takes care of roughly 99 I believe.

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Yeah. Yeah. So, be two years worth of that. Yeah, unfortunately just with the way hiring went on the last few years and everything, we don't really have a nice even two vests this year, two vests, two best. When they expire, they expire and

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you got to replace. >> Gotcha. >> You have backtoback years of like nine or 10 unfortunate vests. >> Yeah, it's in the operations. >> Oh, okay. >> We're looking at the 2027 Police Department. Yeah,

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>> the security benefit. >> Yep. >> 69. It's a rough estimate for what we've got going on because we're putting in sights on the

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>> stock has lights on it. Since we're I'm hoping it's well over, but everything going up, not going down. Still waiting for quotes. It seems it's a difficult thing to get at this point.

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Even in your 2027, what is your priority in 2027? For example, all the we always do. >> Standard or those just because of increase in staff? >> Increase in staff. Um, also

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a lot of our wear and tear come from the training. So, what we're trying to do is we're trying to get ones that just stay training so that way the ones on the road don't get destroyed because right now there's six of them that are not that old and they're I don't know if I would really want to

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hang on the road with someone that's not up the park. >> These are outdoor voices. >> Sorry. Not that they can't work. However, parts break over extended use. And if you're using it for one thing all the time and then you go to use it in an emergency situation and that part just breaks and idiot. That's I don't want to

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take that chance with your life, with my life, with any civilian. >> Yeah, I was just more thinking. I thought they were they were like a standard, but I that's why I was asking because it says new. >> Yeah. No, well, these ones we're trying to get >> Yeah, I see what you're saying. >> Or replace, I should say, if that makes

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sense. How many rounds go through those through training period? >> Uh roughly 30 to 40 per officer per year. >> No, per training session. So we have to do at least two. We do a little bit more. >> Well 60 time 20

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well* 3* 32. So, >> and that doesn't include sorry that doesn't include going tomies or new officers getting trained in the per platform. >> Just for clarification, these are increased staff positions. These are

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fully staffed prior positions, correct? that you're adding these rifles to. They're not new positions. >> No, >> just for clarification. >> No, there's there's cars that don't have anything in them. So, when you have more people on the road or burn, we have people that have them and then we have

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people that don't have them. >> Yep. >> Just like tasers right now. So, you may as well bring everyone up to speed on the replacement camera server and door locks. I know we talked about in our capital expenditure. We did. It did. So, um,

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currently our server for our camera system is on its very last leg. They're actually afraid to actually shut this thing off. It's in such rough shape at this point. Um, and I don't want to get into too much obviously because we're a boarding

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meeting. So, it's to the point where if it if it goes down, then we're we're paying and we're going to have to pay quick. Um, part of this was when we looked at that, we also said, "Okay, if we're upgrading this, we should upgrade the cameras as

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well. We can do the um the acco facility off of our system." um that was on their their five-year plan to replace some of their cameras and stuff down there. Their system is actually shot right now. It's nonoperable.

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Um we tried to get this in on a grant. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like that's going to happen. It was part of the um body war camera grant we had applied for. We did get the grant, but we didn't get the number we looked at, which was

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sort of over $100,000. We got $28,000. So, we're currently looking at another grant now, a matching funds grant through a different source, which would actually let you piggy back on top of the grant that we already have. So, that

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may give us some relief, but not the total amount of money we're we're looking for in the, you know, the 100,000 here. >> Is that 28 you got going towards this or no? >> No. The problem with the 28 is

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it's for the body cams and like I said, we we had hope to put in the servers and stuff into there. >> And as you probably know, the body cams have to be negotiated with the union. So, if the union the town can't come to an agreement, we're going to have to

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give the grant money back. So, >> that's that's it in a nutshell there. >> Yep. >> Uh the other aspect on here is door locks. I know Doug has spoken in the past about the door locks for the entire town. Um, this is our chance basically to get on and, you know, start that

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process hopefully over at our building. >> So, the cameras are facility cameras or >> right now we're talking to facility cameras. Yeah. >> So, wholesale you going to replace all of them in the department? Uh, in other words, you got in your

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police department, they got cameras inside at the jail and so >> yeah, we've got cameras all around the building. >> Okay. >> And those all have to be replaced along with the server. That's what the proposal is. >> I don't think they all have to be replaced. They're going to be upgraded. Uh, the acco facility will get new

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cameras of the same same type that can interface together into our system. >> Okay. And this is not wearable. These this is not wearable cameras. No other cameras. >> How many wearables do we have? >> Zero. >> Okay. >> So, are you are you proposing that in a

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future budget? Wearables. >> We had applied for a grant. >> Okay. >> And the grant will cover the purchase of the cameras for the for the officers. But again, it has to be negotiated in >> Y >> between the union and the town. >> Is that a mandated Massachusetts thing

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to have body cams? >> Not yet. >> Who pays for that? But if they say you have to have it, >> if this if the state turns around and says you have to pay for it, the town's going to pay for it. >> How much do they cost a piece? Five grand, 10 grand, two grand >> to get the ones that we were looking to get the ones we were looking at. It was

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20 pretty much $28,000 to get >> each. Um, no, $48,000 for the total of we get I think it was what 10 >> I think it was because it was five and five. Well, it was whatever it was. It's not like the whole department. So, what we did is we were looking for one per person. They're not on the grant and

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that's why we can't $100,000 which does a server to storage that cost money. >> So if the state mandates it then the union negotiations are >> Yeah. And then the town's on the hook for $100,000. So >> yeah there's there's some loss on both

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everybody loses on that. >> Does the uh camera include interview room and technology for that? >> Yes. >> That's you know whatever you guys I know we have different levels. >> No all the things are in place. So, right now, I don't think any of the cameras are going to be need to be replaced in the station, per se.

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>> Uh, we're going to try to add one into our server room that records that, so if anybody messes around in there, we can see it. But, it's more of getting the lock system down, getting the cameras into the acco building, which is originally going to be $30,000, but

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since Mike Wescott had ran the uh fiber down, it's only going to be about $8,000 including than this one. So, we saved a bunch of money on that. civil corporate we're looking at to save money too. So >> So on police you have $100,500

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plus the 10 on ACL. >> No, this is all one that >> So the locks. >> So this is when someone gets let in. If someone needs to use the bathroom, if someone needs to be let into the hallway, if they're being assaulted or whatever, we can let the dispatch can

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key in and let them in. Right now there's a server, it's a Linux server. It's horrible. Um, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes dispatch can see our lobby, sometimes they can't. So, it's there's a whole bunch of different things that will be incorporated into one system. It would be much better. It'd be much more fluid.

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Um, right now the I came in about 9:00 in one night because all the keypads died because we're on some old type system like that's in your house that runs off a battery backup and the battery died so no one could get in the building. Okay,

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I want to try here. 2027 security fence and gates. 2027 it says security fence and gates. Uh that would uh basically between the police and the fire department to stop all the uh flow through traffic. >> Flow through traffic that happens on a daily basis over there.

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>> Darn it. >> Well, it's not only that. It's guilty. I can see her. It's being on the other side between the police at the police or prison. I mean, some people just walk and start staring at the cruisers, things like that. So it's like it's not a very secure spot back there for

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>> vehicles or anybody walking out >> to stop people from it's the >> Is that 2027? >> What's that? >> Is that an ask for 2027? >> It says 2027. >> I think it's you know I think I put it in there as calendar year 2027.

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>> Oh, gotcha. >> Would be fiscal 28. >> Thank you. >> Sorry. >> Okay. That's right. >> How many people can you'd be amazed if you sit there someday and you see the amount I mean you've seen it Russ the amount of people and

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vehicles and dogs and everything else going through the back there. >> But you never had an issue. It's just constant. >> Well, we got some close calls back there. >> Oh, >> yeah. Some guy drove his car through one of the buildings almost, right? Oh, that was a retired police.

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>> Having a moment. It's okay. >> Oh, caught that though. >> Yeah, the one on the fire department. >> That's beautiful. >> There there's been some close calls back there. We actually changed our traffic

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pattern around the back of our building. We used to come between the two buildings around the back by the animal control facility and then come out right at the back of our building. Well, we had a couple close calls cuz people would come in, you ride the edge of the building, the crews would come out and all of a sudden,

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>> right, >> you're nose with the other car. So, we changed the pattern to go the other way. But the other pattern, if you go out down by the ACL and you hug that corner, now you got a blind spot on the other on the other corner the DPW building used to be.

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>> Yeah. >> Speaking of I thought that's what Stephen was talking about earlier. Not the fire department pad, but the old DBW pad. >> Right. >> Right. >> That's what I thought he was talking about. Right. >> He was talking I believe he was talking

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about the DBW pad. Oh, I thought something about parking for us because >> we do park all our association side. It was because we wouldn't be >> Yeah, that's >> Yeah. >> So, it's it's that one which my recollection was they left it to

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encapsulate whatever >> correct oils and stuff were under. >> Yes. >> You don't want If you don't touch it, you don't have to deal with it. >> Yeah. We know that drain over there was

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probably useful. Yeah. 60s and 70s. >> So, is that um citizens that are going through the back here? >> Why don't you give him a ticket? >> Yeah. You stand out there and do that. >> But they're going to animal control.

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>> Are they still going? Do you have animal control? >> Some of them are going in animal control, but you get a fair amount. They cut through over the town. I mean, the roads in such rough shape right now. No wonder anyone would want to go through there, but >> Right. >> You also have walkers from Court. >> Yeah. All that stuff.

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>> Yeah. >> And we used to have that one guy, you probably remember him. That was the guy from across the street. Every time you turned around, he was behind you. >> Yeah. Saluting you, >> staring at some. >> All right. Anything else for police?

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>> Oh, that you can. >> Have a good day, guys. Thank you. >> Thank you. You want to hang around? No. Are you going to hang around? Absolutely. They're right over there. >> Yeah. Walk a little further. You hit them. I

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see. It's messed up. Thought we were better friends. Oh, am I in a rush? I know. So, your Are you able to pause >> so pause >> right folks? We're back. Up next is fire

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department. Sir, how are you today? >> Good morning. Richard, fire chief for town. um got a lot on the table. So, if it's okay, I'm going to ask if you could um take your fire budget and your EMS budgets out so you have comparisons

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because I'll be moving from one to the other. So, rather than having to locate them in the book every time, I think it'd be easier if you had them in front of you. >> Right next to each other. >> Yeah, right next to you. Even better. I just saw what was going on with the

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DPW and for you know >> I don't know where they were placed in the book but that would be public. >> So first of all I I do want to thank everybody in the past for the support for the fire department. Um, our mission

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has been one of nearly 10 years when we've been building the ambulance service and supporting the town with an ALS level service and that has taken some commitment from the town and the residents certainly and we are very very close to seeing um that mission 100% come to fruition. There's a couple of

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things that need to to happen in order to make it where we're safely operating as a fire department and able to answer all the calls and providing services. So, one of the biggest requests um going into this year is additional staffing. So, currently

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our fire department works uh with three people on duty. We are supported by call members who respond on fire calls, but we also have a predium position. So, each day there's a pdium position available to supplement EMS and that's

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typically a paramedic, sometimes an EMT. Um and however they work into the fold, um it's it's always been very helpful. The prediums are what we were able to build our system off of in the beginning because we only had two full-time people. Um, and they were newer paramedics. So, the prediums were

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seasoned paramedics who came in, helped the training and help us really get the program off the ground. Um, and we realized at that time that, you know, in order to make this work, we needed to continue with the prediums. The prediums would eventually um not be

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needed if we got to four people on staff. So with this what we have right now, uh the biggest request for the fire department for this current budget is to add the fourth person on each one of those shifts. That would be four full-time positions. Okay. By doing that, um there's two areas of the budget

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that would help that that helps. Um so if you look at your EMS budget and you have call for salaries, that's going to be the PDM budget. Okay. So, the proposal as it stands right now is to take that down to 70,000 just to supplement where we are right now

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because we're not using all of the 120. Um, I can't schedule for DMs. They show up when they can and based on the last couple of years and where we're at. That's about what we're using to fulfill that PDM shift requirement. It's budgeted so that if every shift was

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filled, it wouldn't be that much in the budget. but we typically have a hard time filling nights and weekends as one would suspect. So, if additional staffing was added, um all of that would go away. There would still need to be some of that as we transition to hiring

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full-time staff. Um but without budget for the most part, um the 120, which where it's at right now for fiscal 20 uh for 25 rather extended um was the 130, we would be able to make that that difference work for us. The second place

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where we're seeing um not as much used in the established budget is on the fire department side and when we talk about call for stipens there it is the fire department members and the primary reason for that is because we do have daytime staffing and evening staffing.

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we have three people on. So, the smaller investigation calls um the u alarm soundings um without any confirmed fire or smoke showing and things like that are typically being answered uh by the on duty staff. So, before it used to be

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any call like that, the call force would come back to answer that call. They're not answering that call right now. There's no need for them to answer that call. We still have our um duty shifts where we have a driver, a firefighter, and an officer assigned. Um but we're

420
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not pushing that as much as we used to because we're answering the call with the current full-time staff and career staff. So that budget could be adjusted easily. My guess is that that could go down uh almost in half if we were to add additional uh people. So just to put

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things into perspective of call volume um over the years our call volume has typically gone up by 10 to 12%. Um there's really no explanation why this is a nation nationwide trends call volume go up. Um but that also means

422
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ambulance calls have gone up. So we average um right now our last couple of years have been from 1,800 to about 2,000 ambulance calls. Now all of those are not transports. Okay. Um so what I did do um at the request of select board

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member Anderson and former fire chief was to look at what we actually take in for an ambulance call. And I believe there was a couple last year you had asked me what does it cost for an ambulance call. And let me preface this by saying we spent uh an entire year working with Medicare to figure out

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those costs and I was hoping to have that breakdown yet but that's still about six months away. So that included everything we did, uniforms, fuel, maintenance on the trucks, equipment on the staffing, all those things incorporated into that. So that would be a very comprehensive report. Unfortunately, I don't have that number.

425
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But what I can tell you is what we make query ambulance call. Okay. So based on excuse me on the last year, okay, um the ambulance service took in $665,611 in fiscal 25. Okay. And understand that

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fiscal 25 doesn't mean that that was built for every single call that occurred in fiscal 25. There's an overlap. Insurance companies pay in portions. Some of it's delayed. You could have something in litigation. So, it's a it's a lot of averages. So, some years are a little higher, some years are a little lower, but I'm just looking

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at statistically one year because that's our current staffing and the call volume that we had to measure in that time frame. Um we also missed um 87 81 calls rather um that were filled by mutual aid, excuse me. So either AWAM or

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Westfield that come in to take those calls. Our average cost um based I'm sorry, our average intake per call with the wall ones that were actual transports because we don't build for non-transports. It's only if they're transported was $666 per call. So the

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quick math in that was the potential for an additional $62,000 roughly. Okay. So those three things combined because the goal would be to actually capture all of those calls. It would be additional revenue coming in with the reduction in call force for fire and call force for

430
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um the EMS side would help supplement some of the costs of our of our staffing. Um I was hoping to have Laura here today to talk a little bit more about our cost for staffing. Um that's a number that we've been working on because again it's negotiated and

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there's ant anticipated percentage increases as well too. Um that's one of the things I'm looking at right now is adding four additional people. Okay. And that's one one of the things we're looking at. Um our growth of the department people would definitely

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satisfy the need for an NFPA requirement of having the minimum four people to be able to respond immediately for a fire which is also something that we haven't been able to achieve. We have applied for consistently for a staffing grant through the federal government and

433
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unfortunately we we've been denied um every year. We were very very close last year. So much so that we knew we made it through all the reviews. Um but I think it came down to available funding and there just wasn't enough to fund ours. So in the effort of of still putting this forward if safer becomes available

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and we are looking to add people that's something that could still be considered but I'm not sure where the federal government's going to be with that funding. they're currently shut down, so there's no grant funding coming out of the federal government. So, that's the big outs overall on our budget. Um, looking at pretty much level funding for

435
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this year. There's a couple of areas where we were able to do um some some savings. Um, one of the biggest areas was to change our cellular carrier. So, we moved from Verizon to AT&T FirstNet and we were able to save almost $10,000

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just by a simple move there. We're working on the fire. What's are we on the fire side now? I'm sorry. Yes, on the fire. Yes, my >> Can we just go back to the >> uh the personnel request? So, >> yes, >> you said the call volume has been increasing, but we don't know a root cause of that.

437
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Is it just people are So, if somebody calls like inappropriately because maybe they're more inclined to ask for do it because they want to ride to the doctor's office or something like that. Is that how can you

438
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>> in we are only 911 response agency. We can only bring you to the hospital. Some of the national trends that people look to be for suspect for this is the inabil inability for in the lack of people's capability to get primary care

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physicians care. So what used to be a routine doctor's visit or uh just you know procedural care um or annual care for themselves, it's not available right now. So what ends up happening is when they get sick, the only response is to go to the hospital. So they'll call 911.

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Whether it's a a preconceived notion that they'll get in there faster, I don't know. The hospitals do a very good job of screening. Everybody that comes through and form a triage and if they can wait, they wait. And if they can be need to be seen immediately, they're seen immediately. One of the unique things, the population makeup in South,

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we are tipping the scales on the elderly side more than the national average. So, we definitely haven't bouldered the population yet, right? >> Um, >> and and even if it's inappropriate, it's too late. You already have the call and you have to respond to it. >> We have to we can't say no. We can't tell somebody, "No, we're not taking to

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the hospital." We have to transport them, right? They can make the decision not to go. Um, but again, that doesn't if they choose not to go, then it really doesn't impact revenue at all. It's just a call that we responded to. >> Okay. >> Before you move on. >> Yes.

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on EMS you have it's labeled call force salaries on fire it's call force stipens are they the same >> um yes they are but the stipen also covers the duty shift that I talked about so when we were only staffed

444
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during the day it was critical that we had people so every night we had a fire officer driver and a uh firefighter as well as EMTs that were on there the EMTs at that time were sight ED as were the firefighters. Firefighters then get if

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there's a call the hourly rate for the call. >> So it's salaries plus stipens on that side. >> That's correct. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> How many refusals do we get a year? So um in fiscal 25

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um we did non-transports were 478 calls and transports were n 999. Okay. Um but then there's there's other things in there and other instances where the ambulance is called um where we don't need to make the patient

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contact but it's still an activation of a call. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Thank you. >> It's a large percentage. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. It's interesting. >> Where do we transport to? >> I'm sorry. >> Transport to what hospital 80% of our calls go to mobile. Um but that's

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sometimes predicated on the the need and the requirement for protocol. So it's typically closest appropriate hospital as a rule of thumb. Um but if it's a trauma in typical it's the base AP too the group homes have had an impact on

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you as well haven't they met up and other things >> seasonally it seems. Yeah. When they're full we have an impact um when they're not at capacity. Um and that's a that's a changing environment as well. Um, we do have several group homes in town and pe people wouldn't even recognize them

450
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as group homes. Um, some are uh the demand is higher based on the population that's in them because there's different levels of care in each one of the group homes. Um, and it's it's always unfortunately sometimes you'll have a resident there that needs a little bit more services than somebody else. So,

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you'll see an increase there. But there's again nobody can pinpoint exactly what's going on. One of the things that the Massachusetts and a lot of other states are looking at is mobile integrated health where there's a community parame medicine where we'd actually become in not a replacement for

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a doctor but a a conduit to advanced medical care instead of transport and we would do an assessment and be able to communicate you know tele communications with a with a hospital or doctor but that's still years away. A lot of the problem there unfortunately comes down to the permitting and the insurance and how that's all going to be covered and

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paid for. But right now this is the system we have and and the people doing the work are doing a great job. They really are. Um you know our call volume's gone up and again unexplained why but along with that a little bit more wear and tear on the people. Um so adding that additional

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staff one of the benefits to that is that people aren't going to every single call. Right now we have shifts where there's a single paramedic. So in 24 hours if there's 10 calls they go to all 10 calls. They have to. So we're trying to soften that a little bit. we'd be able to do that once we, you know, with

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the two crews as well, right? Um, and a lot of these calls do come in back to back and we've also had sequences where there's three calls coming in at the same time. Um, most of our call volume is handled during the during the day hours, I'd say, from 6:00 a.m. until about 8:00 p.m. There's our heaviest

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call volume and there's really not a block there, consistent block of what's the most popular, what's the busiest, but that's what we're looking at right now. So that's where the producers do help an awful lot and that's what the staffing would help as well too. All right. So the only other areas we

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saw um some changes in the budget would be in and so some of our supplies um and turnup year on the fire side. Um turnup year right now is steady. It's still roughly about $5,000 to outfit a

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firefighter. So, um, this budget right now incorporates, um, some additional replacement sets as well as new sets for additional firefighters if that were to happen. Um, if we get the board people, I still have a grant from it's an

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earmark grant from the state which would supplement some of the replacement costs there, but we've worked on a cycle. So, we're in circular placement cycle right now with the gear making some early purchases and even a couple delayed purchase to get us on a better sequence right now. Um, career uniform clothing

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did go up contractually right now. Um, that number there is to satisfy where we need to be. Um, and again that would have to be looked at again um based on some new people coming in because there's two different amounts. um 8 800

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per uh employee when it's uh their second in future years per share there's 1,200 front load of debt. Um and then our hardware and software maintenance budget we're doing very good there. Um but that's one of those areas where

462
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it it adjusts from year to year because computers, you know, sometimes you get three years out of them, sometimes you get five years out of them depending on what their use is, but we're pretty good right there. and our software contracts and agreements. Um, we've solidified those, so we're in pretty good shape as well. So, that's the fire budget in a

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nutshell. We'll come back to the fire apparatus in a few minutes. Again, on the EM, any questions on that one? Okay. On the EMS side, again, the significant uh right off the bat would be reduction in the call for salaries um for the prediums. And then the only other areas

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where we saw some changes being um in minor equipment um because made some good purchases um so we have some longevity with good equipment and so we don't anticipate unless there's a state change having to purchase any additional equipment right now. Um and then with

465
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medical supplies. So what we've been able to do in the last year is really focus on how we buy medical supplies and what we can buy in bulk and what we did for some purchasing power. So we pretty much concentrated all of our purchasing with one vendor which gave us a little

466
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bit of buying power. So we were having a bit of reduction in some of the items. Um and again sometimes it's just a luck of the draw where you need to have more of an expensive item. Um, but right now I'm comfortable saying that where our budget is at the 45,000 would easily get

467
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us through u the fiscal year that's coming. Even though we did have to have an increase in the last couple of years, that was some of the industrydriven increases which were substantial things and seem to have leveled off which is good. I think they kind of maxed it out and realized that there's not a heck of a lot more that they could start to do

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and start to ask for, right? looking to future for fire department. Um I'm sorry. Operationally, the only one thing that we're looking for was the inflatable boat. Um this is something that right now is no longer seaorthy. So it doesn't go out. Um it does have the

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workable engine that was rebuilt timely by founders. We did a nice job there. And we're looking to partner with our association on this practice. Um, we've looked at a variety of different types of boats. The advantage of the inflatable is it's lightweight and very mobile. Um, but it's not the strongest

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boat in the water for the type of work we're doing. So, we're looking at something that's a little bit more hard body, similar to what we have in Marine One. Um, still though, the association is willing to commit matching funds for whatever we do buy for that. So, the the smallest request would be the 8,000 for

471
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the inflatable. Um, and that could be supplemented by an association if they agree to that. But then if we wanted to go a little higher in in vote buoyancy and in functionality, the 8,000 would be necessary just to make that purchase. Again, partnered with the association.

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>> Chief, when would the fire department need a boat that the police department wouldn't be able to assist with with their boat? >> So, first of all, our our pontoon boat can go anywhere, which is the biggest thing. It fits under the tunnel. I'm

473
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sorry. Our our inflatable rather fits underneath the tunnels and can get there. We can launch it in any one of the the ponds. >> We have an inflatable today. >> Yeah. Right. Well, that was the intent and we're going to replace it with white size. So either way, it's going to be the same size. So you have that availability. The only big deal is in

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the hard is a little bit more heavier boat. So that's it. The other idea is that there's other bodies of water here that we need to be able to get to quickly. So Goose Pond is one of them. Um there's, you know, always fishermen and kayakers out there. So, we need to have that that one boat that you can

475
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strategically pick up, move, and go. It stays on the trailer at the fire department. It's easily moved anywhere it needs to go. And that's and it's also in the winter time when there's no boats on the water, but they're still open water. That's the craft that we move. >> So, it's typically rescue.

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>> Ours is rescue. Yeah. Absolutely. Rescue. Yeah. Police department patrolling do a little bit more work. Ours is just Emergency response on me. >> How old is the old one? >> What's that? >> How old is the old one? 27 years old.

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>> I said, >> we used to just leave the pump up every day. 30 pumps every morning whether it needed or not. I got 30 pumps. Now it's just it's it got to the point where like we we can't put people and they can't put them. We sacrifice

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there. All right. Um so operationally on the EMS side um the uh scoop stretcher is integral integral part uh that we use on day-to-day on the ambulances AEV is again requirement this is just a a cycle routine similar to the police department

479
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and then the video lingoscopes um this is a a high-tech tool that's used um for a fairway management and um again this is a priority three that's there right Now, if nothing else, we're

480
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looking to add just one new one because we have one of our ambulances that is um just the BLS level. This is an ALS level piece of equipment and we're looking to move it into that so that all three would be the same. There's other equipment that needs to be purchased with that. Um but that that's a little

481
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bit longer further on down the line. I'm looking for a reconditioned cardiac monitor. We do have um some funds available in our gift account as well as a carryover um dedicated for replacement firm monitor. So we're looking at that. Um that's something that could happen

482
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with existing uh well with the budget funds and the line items and improvements. >> Well, what's the situation for a langoscope? >> Video langoscope if the the device used to manage the airway. So we technology now they actually have small video

483
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cameras on them. you as you place it into the airway, you can actually see right down into the airway and guide the breathing tube down in there and in placement that way. >> Okay. So, if you're intubating somebody Exactly. >> Yeah. Yeah. Mine was just like a stick basically and you lifted up the person

484
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and you know went that way. Technology is a wonderful thing. So, >> it's nice to have because they built stuff and it's a much better tool to have. Um on the fire department operationally um five-year stuff um just replacing thermal imaging cameras in 28

485
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to 29 again 28 would just be a priority too to replace one camera. Each one of those would move up in a year if you had to on the capital items. Um I'm going to come back to the fire truck, but we're looking at replacing one of our ATRs as it starts to age out. Um we've asked an

486
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awful lot of those and they're they're been well maintained. Um but they're just they see a lot of rough use when they're being used. And then um fire hose which would just be um random lengths over the course of a year. So I'm only in that cycle now where almost every year we're going to have to see

487
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some fire hose being replaced. Um the current vehicle that I have is a 2018 SUV has 103,000 miles on it. It's been wellmaintained. um we could easily get another two to three years out of that. And then sea seedba cylinders uh when we

488
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start to replace those because there's a 15-year life on those 32 would be the replacement cycle for those. And so we'll start replacing some at a time, not all at once, and that offsets that replacement again. Um the only problem with that, just to be aware, is that sometimes the NFDA standard does change

489
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and it makes equipment obsolete. And one of the things we're looking at that could make those obsolete would be a restriction on PAST any equipment that has a PAST in it. So, and right now we don't know that they do, but they're saying that one small valve component

490
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does have PAS in it. So, they may just be able to change that valve out. We don't know yet. So, waiting to see that questions on those items. All right. Back to fire for five or EMS rather for five years. Um the cardiac monitor again

491
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looking to replace that's approximately $20,000 and we're looking to do that with existing funds. Um but if not that's something that we need to be looking forward to replacing. Um 28 again definitely need to replace one of our cardiac monitors. It could extend to

492
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29 if necessary. Basic monitor today with all the equipment that's required is $50,000. And that's true with whatever brand you're buying that's rogue worthy. and if you're in striker um wherever you're looking to go they're pretty comparable and then our Lucas CPR

493
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devices on a sequence replacement 30 and 32 for each one of the ambulances that is not a required piece of equipment but it is a difference maker when it comes to cardiac arrest and and positive out so it's something we we definitely want to have on the trucks um the third

494
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ambulance you know it's not a necessity on it because it's not required um it might even be a handme-down at that point where we take one of the other ones are out of service. This is a typically a piece of equipment that lasts a very long time because it's really well made, but it has a manufactured end of service life where

495
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they won't guarantee and thermostat anymore, but it's still functioning fine. So, that would be on the back at the end. And we've talked about an awful lot so far. Any questions on anything? Okay. So, I do want to talk about the fire apparatus and uh I put together a truck

496
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committee. This committee is made up of of people that are going to be here well after me and they're the ones that are making the decision on on what we're looking to to have, what we need, um some of the wants and some of the other things. Uh we have been stopping a

497
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couple of manufacturers um and we have been looking at trucks that are going to be a 30-year vehicle. Um it's replacing engine one. Engine one was purchased in 2006 for roughly $280,000. Um, we've gotten our money's worth out of it. I don't know we're going to be

498
02:32:51.680 --> 02:33:07.280
able to get many more years out of it. One of the problems, Jim, the fire truck industry is the duration it takes to get trucks. So, after co there was a massive purchase by private equity companies and fire apparatus as they consolidated

499
02:33:07.280 --> 02:33:22.319
companies. So, it took away a large portion of the competitive edge when it came to buying fire trucks. And so what we've seen is everybody's kind of clustered together right now and the price points are all clustered together. So three of the companies that we're

500
02:33:22.319 --> 02:33:38.000
looking at um price personal right now on the trucks we're looking at which is a firet truck with nothing fancy on it is anywhere from about 960 to about $1.2 million. Yes, it is a breathtaking statistic and

501
02:33:38.000 --> 02:33:53.439
number. It's like how can that possibly be? I will tell you that comparably Ammerst Aworm rather they bought trucks in 2006. They paid about $358,000 for theirs. They use their trucks more than we do. It's just a bigger place and and

502
02:33:53.439 --> 02:34:10.240
and busier. Um and they're replacing both of their engines this year at $1.2 million. The city of Northampton also bought a truck in 2006. They replaced in 2017. And in 2017 they replaced the truck for about $500,000.

503
02:34:10.240 --> 02:34:26.720
So in the last five years uh we've seen this remarkable increase in fire apparatus. Now there are some justifiable causes for this one is the cost of aluminum cost of steel cost of copper have all gone up significantly the cost of tires. Okay a big part of the truck is engineering. So you can

504
02:34:26.720 --> 02:34:43.280
look to save a little bit on the truck you buy if you buy something that's already engineered. But if you're looking to do something custom and you need something custom for the the service you provide which we do need some customization to it. We just can't buy something off the rack and try it and make it work. Um, we're asking an

505
02:34:43.280 --> 02:34:58.640
awful lot of our first line engine. But this is our first line engine. This is the life and death, you know, apparatus that makes a difference. It's the piece that gets the most driven the most. It goes on the most responses. It's also the one that's asked to do the most. We're very fortunate in that we're in a

506
02:34:58.640 --> 02:35:15.200
position where it's truck only because the equipment that we've been buying and supporting over the years is is ready to go. It just moves right into the moving truck. So, one of the things that's extra is the mounting and securing of all this equipment. I'm also building a fire truck that needs to be good in 25

507
02:35:15.200 --> 02:35:32.080
and 30 years, and it needs to serve the firefighting industry. And I have no idea what that looks like. We're going off of speculations. There's going to be some improvements. So, there are some things that we're building into the truck that are for the future so that there's cabinetry on the interior so that if we have an ALS response in an

508
02:35:32.080 --> 02:35:48.560
engine, that engine's certified and can do that. But we, you know, we're not doing that right now, but in 15 years, we might. So, it's hard to forecast exactly where we're going to be. But I can tell you that that's the forecasted price and the going price for a fire truck that's going to last 30 years.

509
02:35:48.560 --> 02:36:04.479
Engine one, the current 2006 truck was never purchased to last 30 years, but they were hoping to get 25 out of it. We're not going to make the 25. We're at the point now where the truck is starting to show some signs of age and wear and tear. And again, just the the

510
02:36:04.479 --> 02:36:20.800
price tag on it. It was done. It was compromised. There were a couple of, you know, not shortcuts, but just some things that were done differently. Um, and at the time, some of it was newer technology that people wanted to try out. A lot of it hasn't worked out. And engine one has really cost us quite a bit in maintenance. We've caught up on

511
02:36:20.800 --> 02:36:36.800
all the things that needed to be taken care of. And working with a current mechanic right out of Granville, um, company called First Duke, and they've been great on solving a lot of our problems and understanding that they're trying to keep the price of the repairs down in that truck. The rest of the fleet is in extraordinary shape. We're in very good. We won't need to buy

512
02:36:36.800 --> 02:36:54.160
another truck for 15 to 18 years depending on how long the Pierce holds up. It's also a 2009, but that truck was built as a 30-year truck. So, you definitely get some mileage out of that truck. Um, so that's kind of where we're at. The firetruck industry itself is

513
02:36:54.160 --> 02:37:09.280
offering some discounts if you pay upfront. So, there's all types of things like that can be considered when it comes to financing. They offer a lease program you might hear about and it's typically a three, five, seven or 10 year lease, but it's not like leasing a regular automobile. The the leasing

514
02:37:09.280 --> 02:37:25.600
program there is just a different way of looking at how they're actually financing the sale for you. You can finance them outright. Right now, the industry average is about 4.5 to 4.8% on top of the truck. Um, and then the biggest thing that needs to be

515
02:37:25.600 --> 02:37:41.680
considered is that there's a gap in production and delivery. So that gap it's starting to shorten a little bit, but for the most part it's about 30 months. So if the truck was financed this year and approved, we're still not going to see that truck until a little

516
02:37:41.680 --> 02:37:58.560
calendar 28 leaving 29 depending on which company we go with. There are some companies out there that are offering vehicle in a shorter time frame and perfect delivery. Um it's more a little bit more of a stock truck. Uh there's some minor minor customizations that can be done and we've looked at everything.

517
02:37:58.560 --> 02:38:14.080
We've looked at a half a dozen trucks already and we still have three more to look at just to kind of get a feel for what we need. And I understand it's a big purchase and a big commitment for the town. We're doing our due diligence to solve a lot of the problems and we anticipate could be a problem as well as

518
02:38:14.080 --> 02:38:28.960
answering questions that people may have. Um, and just I I'll be honest with you, I really thought engine was going to last a little bit longer and I wouldn't be here, you know, into asking for this, but it's something that's come to be. Again, with the production being

519
02:38:28.960 --> 02:38:46.240
anywhere from, I'm going to say 18 months to 32 months. We have to think about what's this look like the, you know, the coming years and how do we want to appropriate the funds for it. >> So, Chief, you're looking for funding into the 27 budget so that you can get it within a couple years. Well, I'm

520
02:38:46.240 --> 02:39:02.880
going to leave that up to the finance comp committee to figure out the best way to finance the truck. Um, but yes, I'm thinking the appropriation needs to happen now so that we can get the money set aside and start moving on the truck. >> So, how sure are you that if you couldn't get 25 years out of the engine

521
02:39:02.880 --> 02:39:19.280
one you because that's what you said, you know, it's not going to make 25 years. >> Yeah. >> What's going on with it? So again, you're taking about 65% of the maintenance budget on it. It has equipment on it. Um technologies that

522
02:39:19.280 --> 02:39:36.479
are no longer available to buy. So when it goes, it goes. So we have to find a way to fix it. That's that's getting creative or do without. But the transmission's the big one that's starting to show some of its wear and tear right now. Um we're starting to see some some body rot on the truck. Um and

523
02:39:36.479 --> 02:39:51.840
we're starting to see some fatigue on the frame as well, too. So those big things, it was built on a dump truck chassis. Dump trucks typically do not last longer than 20 years. And a winter in New England is is really tearing that truck apart. The newer trucks are, you

524
02:39:51.840 --> 02:40:06.960
know, they're they're aluminum bodies, stainless steel bodies, galvanized painted, you know, all kinds of precautions in the chassis itself. Um, >> manufactured domestically here. >> These are the companies we're looking at are very local, all Americanmade

525
02:40:06.960 --> 02:40:23.200
companies. Yes. Well, at one point with that one, I was manufacturers out of business. Went out of business 10 years ago. >> Yeah. >> So, you can't buy parts for it. >> We're buying aftermarkets and I'm like little We had to buy door handles. We got them from a a truck manufacturer

526
02:40:23.200 --> 02:40:38.720
that s you know, we're fixing the doors for the uh the dump trucks. The windshield when the windshield got cracked. It took them almost six months to find a replacement for that. That came from Germany. bill. That wasn't cheap, but it was the only one we could find, you know. Fortunately, the guy put

527
02:40:38.720 --> 02:40:54.319
it in for us for free. He was a great guy. So, let's get the firefighter in Brinkley because I get it. So, he helped him out. But that's what we're up against with that truck. >> I mean, you think the 900,000 that seems low to me. >> It's a placeholder.

528
02:40:54.319 --> 02:41:11.359
>> Yeah. Yeah, when this was put, trust me, these numbers that were here were forecasted from from years to come and literally five months ago, 900,000 was realistic, but things have changed. And again, as one of my sales people, we don't know where we're going to be in 6

529
02:41:11.359 --> 02:41:27.520
months right now or four months from now. We're in a war we weren't in 30, you know, 30 days ago. And we're already seeing some costs associated with that, you know, so fuel being the biggest one. Um, Chief Anderson when was the chief worked with a truck company um I don't know what you call Keith a truck

530
02:41:27.520 --> 02:41:42.560
consultant and um they looked at the replacement to the fleet and they had engine war schedules uh for replacement in 2026 but at $798,000 if we were to go to 2028 which is pretty much where we would be with that truck

531
02:41:42.560 --> 02:41:59.120
coming in it was still only $846,000 but even adding 3 to 4% which is going to be anticipated um replacement, you know, increases over the years. You you could see another $200,000 to $300,000 added onto the truck even when you

532
02:41:59.120 --> 02:42:16.240
start. Now, when we met with Capital, um Doug brought up the point that even when we had our ambulance, they came to us and said, "We have an increase and we we still didn't even have the delivery. The truck, you know, took almost three years to get that truck, but we were paying for that." And a lot of that has gone

533
02:42:16.240 --> 02:42:32.479
away. Well, once they lock in, that's your price. Only other concern and I'm just going to share this in case this comes up is the availability for certain engines. Okay. So the uh the workhorse of the industry is they call an L9 engine. And of course with emissions

534
02:42:32.479 --> 02:42:49.520
being what they are, they had to change that so they can no longer make the L9. So they've given us the X10. And it sounds really flashy, but it's not. It's a brand new engine. It's already had a few problems being used in Europe. Um that's one option. then you can upgrade to the X-15, which sounds even flashier,

535
02:42:49.520 --> 02:43:05.359
but that's about an $80,000 to $100,000 add-on to that engine. So, uh, if we move now and place our orders, there is a very strong likelihood that we can still get the L9 engine, which is really something we want to get. The proven engine workhorse parts will be around

536
02:43:05.359 --> 02:43:20.960
for that engine for a good 30 years, no problem, because they are everywhere. And so, that's one of the big things right now why we want to move. And there's again no guarantee that that happens. But if if we you know if we have a decision in hand and we can enter

537
02:43:20.960 --> 02:43:35.840
in contract in July one there's a good strength strong evidence if we have that evidence as well. Just one question the 30 you're talking about. I'm a finance director for towns

538
02:43:35.840 --> 02:43:53.600
and our fire chief gives me this runaround that the NFPA says 15 years. I said that's off the table that's not sustainable anymore. How do you get 30 years? Is that what's the NFPA guide for something like this

539
02:43:53.600 --> 02:44:09.439
truck? >> So, uh let me first preface this by saying I'm not ultimately familiar with all the NFPA requirements. Okay. So when you look at something finite in a truck, okay, the industry is building trucks that last 30 years, okay? And I don't think that's an unlikely or unreasonable

540
02:44:09.439 --> 02:44:24.080
ask from a manufacturer that's charging you a million dollars. A lot of it has to do with how the truck is constructed from the ground up, who's constructing it, the techniques that they use, the different types of body styles and and and manufacturing techniques and things.

541
02:44:24.080 --> 02:44:40.560
Um, one of the companies we're using that purchased, we purchased our tower from Sutfin is one of the companies we're looking at for the engine because I really like the way they construct their trucks. It's really, really solid and they build for the northeast. They have trucks up here. You have companies

542
02:44:40.560 --> 02:44:56.319
that only build for the south. They don't have to worry about some of the things we wor, you know, the damage fire trucks up here, you know. Um, we need something that has a little bit of port to make some of the hills. We also need something that can navigate the streets in a golf way. Not everybody has a a

543
02:44:56.319 --> 02:45:12.800
bungalow in a summer where there's, you know, hills, dips, and type turns as well, too. So, that's all part of that design. >> Um, there are fire trucks that are older than 30 years and still on the road and functioning quite well. You know, in fact, our old engine, too, is in Spencer

544
02:45:12.800 --> 02:45:29.760
right now, and that truck is going strong, but they had the money to invest into redoing the pump, redoing the frame, redoing the chassis. And for them, it was only supposed to be a bridge truck to get them to the point of their next truck, but they really liked it and said, "Ah, we'll put a little bit of money in this." So, you can do it,

545
02:45:29.760 --> 02:45:45.600
but I will tell you, alluded to, by the way, you probably draw. Um, well, France is no more. There's that's it, you know. So we can't get parts for it. We have a body part that we need going and have to manufacture it and that's going to be

546
02:45:45.600 --> 02:46:02.160
>> the thing to know about the NFPA is a recommendation. It's an industry recommendation. It doesn't mean you have to go with it, >> right? >> But if you so it it helps enforce your liabilities. But if you choose to run a truck 20 years, but you have an intensive

547
02:46:02.160 --> 02:46:17.600
maintenance program and you have that documented, then so be it. The argument I make is that same standard applies to Boston as it does to Southway, >> right? >> So, you know, we got guys out there washing the truck every day. We don't have people standing on the side of the

548
02:46:17.600 --> 02:46:32.800
road throwing rocks and bottles at the fire truck when they drive by. >> It's a whole different game. So, 15 years in Boston is 30 years in South A. And that's the argument, but but I can't sell that argument to a chief in my

549
02:46:32.800 --> 02:46:49.040
dinky little town that I work >> and and I appreciate that because I will tell you the tr the same is true with our turnup gear where NFPA says no after 10 years it's you know the recommendation manufacturers recommendation we have gear that's eight years old and it looks great because we take care of it. It's not getting worn

550
02:46:49.040 --> 02:47:03.760
like a firefighter in Detroit would be wearing it and going five or six fires a day. Doesn't happen here. you know, we still have the risk of contaminants and exposure. And if that were to happen, we'd get the gear either cleaned or serviced and and repaired if necessary

551
02:47:03.760 --> 02:47:24.720
or replaced if necessary. But we if you tried to fulfill the requirement of every NFDA standard, every community be broke. >> It would be. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. You'd think there'd be not just years old, but how much wear and tear or how many hours of

552
02:47:24.720 --> 02:47:41.359
>> So that's a perfect example. The turnout you could test it ways to test it, make it sure that it's safe. Yeah. Yeah, >> but the academyy's won't let a student in a in a class if it's over 10 years old. >> Right. >> So, it's all kind of influenced together. Yeah. >> It's a >> people making rules that they don't know

553
02:47:41.359 --> 02:47:56.319
what they're talking about. >> Right. Right. Right. >> Familiar. >> Well, and sense are not for practical application. Right. >> The tough age, but again, it's a recommendation. It is not a must. It's

554
02:47:56.319 --> 02:48:14.080
not the requirement. >> Thank you. >> Excellent. >> Okay. So, I have one quick question. Does it So, >> with the addition of that additional person per shift, does that get you to staff that second bus full-time? >> It does. It does. Yeah. And and again,

555
02:48:14.080 --> 02:48:29.920
one of the the side notes of that is right now we're doing call back so that we get people in, but if I have two people in the station, I'll do the call back. So, then you overcome. Yeah. >> You know, >> and just all those small things, you know, that happen. And it's like when you quit smoking, you're gonna, well, it

556
02:48:29.920 --> 02:48:46.240
was funny and then you don't you where did it all go? You know, it just it's it's a it's a phenomenon. It's kind of like why do we have to call volume? I don't know. >> Yeah. And you and I have had long discussions about >> that the demand seems to come up and match our supply, right, for ambulance.

557
02:48:46.240 --> 02:49:02.560
It's uncanny. I've talked to you. I've talked to the deputy about it. It's it's an odd occurrence. And um kudos to you by the way to I'm very interested to see that costing study. >> Yeah. >> Only because >> I've thought about it. I've talked to you. I've talked to the depth and I

558
02:49:02.560 --> 02:49:18.720
don't even know where you start because >> there's such a huge cost to call number one. Yep. >> Right. I don't know how you do that cost allocation. That's got to be a real interesting read when it's done. >> And and for us again, the slight is that Medicare is only looking at the

559
02:49:18.720 --> 02:49:34.160
transports, >> right? because that's what they're interested in and the insurance part of it and what the payment is. So, we would then have to take that as a law of average and say, "Okay, what about the other wear and tear on the truck when it goes to a call that, you know, isn't transported for whatever reason?" Or, as

560
02:49:34.160 --> 02:49:48.960
you pointed out, you could be using a band-aid on a call, you could be using the entire truck on a call and those supplies need to be replaced and they're paid back differently, right? >> But there's still that cost. Is it is it an accurate reflection of what it really did cost to do this? >> Correct.

561
02:49:48.960 --> 02:50:04.560
And again, just with the pricing index and everything all over the place in the last, you know, not better than this year, but two years ago. >> Oh, no. You know what? And and just you have this huge cost >> on on something that is completely variable. You know, you have to you have to have the station and the trucks and

562
02:50:04.560 --> 02:50:21.200
the people and the equipment and the training and all of this stuff. And and to a person in this room, if there was never a call, we would still spend the money because you have to be ready. But that huge call that to be ready to do that there's a huge I I call it like

563
02:50:21.200 --> 02:50:36.640
it's almost momentum right there's a huge cost to that first call and then the rest of it flows but >> to calculate it and put maintenance and everything into everything to get to >> yeah I know our state of readiness is the advice that really the response is

564
02:50:36.640 --> 02:50:50.880
the benefit of the >> readiness you you should see some reduction in this call as you were saying right so that >> and again on average anywhere from 80 to 90 in in the last two years, three years where we've had, you know, the three on

565
02:50:50.880 --> 02:51:07.920
on duty plus the PDMs prior to that and we were missing uh a lot of nighttime calls. We had to call in ALS for every single call. So, we're paying out for that. And so, it really wasn't it was still providing a great service to the community, but this is a better

566
02:51:07.920 --> 02:51:24.399
comprehensive and full service. >> Anything else? Uh the bug rooms are done couple weeks ago that come out nice. The uh >> quiet awakening system all that's all in here. Show me how that

567
02:51:24.399 --> 02:51:40.800
works too. So >> we've accomplished a lot. We really have. Um and then just on the radio system, I know we had a special kind of meeting appropriation. That project's moving forward nicely. Um there's a couple of just a permanent questions that have come up that are being handled by the town, but that's going to be

568
02:51:40.800 --> 02:51:55.520
happening very very soon. and we're right on pace over move over to the radio system there. >> All right. Thank you everybody. Thanks. >> Is the school gear yet?

569
02:51:55.520 --> 02:52:34.920
>> Yeah. >> Your eye doctor called appointments now at 3:00 at 6, right? >> Folks, come on up. Joy at 12:30. >> Thanks for sharing that.

570
02:52:49.520 --> 02:53:59.840
gave it to you, right? >> Is it the same as uh the other night. >> He's on the same night. Thank you. >> Sorry. But I still have going like this. >> Is that me all together?

571
02:53:59.840 --> 02:54:25.920
>> Yes. So once you all have those papers in front of you, most of you um due to the timing of this meeting um our presentation really can't change from what you saw on Wednesday night um because the school committee has not um

572
02:54:25.920 --> 02:54:42.560
seen our new proposed budget. So I certainly can't share it here without our school committee seeing it first. Um, so what we have here is I would just start with the FY27 budget explains. Yeah. Can >> you at least tell us if it was better or

573
02:54:42.560 --> 02:54:59.520
worse? >> So, we were we were able to make some cuts. I can't say if the school committee is going to accept the cuts or not. Um, we were able to cut uh six unit A positions for five unit A and one unit

574
02:54:59.520 --> 02:55:15.439
D position. um that we feel that we can do for next year. So there we're going to be proposing um some cuts to the um >> to this >> to this. Okay. The interesting thing is

575
02:55:15.439 --> 02:55:31.600
um on the day of or the day before our presentation, we found out that the PA system at the regional school is nearing its um end of life, which is a massive security issue and safety issue when we're going into lockdowns. We have to

576
02:55:31.600 --> 02:55:49.439
have our PA system working. Um Nick did reach out to Senator um Mark um yesterday to see if he could potentially put something in for the supplemental budget uh to help pay for it. Um but we are keeping an extra $100,000 in our

577
02:55:49.439 --> 02:56:06.080
school choice next year um in case it happens. It will not be put on it's not going onto the capital plan and we're not putting it on this year's budget. Um, if we need to do it, we'll take 100,000 off of school choice next year to figure out how to pay for it. >> Or I'll keep my fingers crossed for a

578
02:56:06.080 --> 02:56:21.439
potential year mark. Um, yeah, >> the the House passed the FY26 supplemental budget a couple of days ago, uh, which is going to move on to the state senate. Now, um, according to my professional organization, um, there's still time to request earmarks.

579
02:56:21.439 --> 02:56:36.800
So, I did reach out to Senator Mark yesterday just to say, you know, I I don't know what the timeline is and I realize you probably get inundated with these types of requests, but I at least want to put it on your radar screen and maybe start a conversation. So, you know, any little bit would help. Maybe

580
02:56:36.800 --> 02:56:53.439
not the whole thing, you know, perhaps we can get, you know, anything off. So, we're doing what we can to try to seek funding sources for that, but we certainly did want to note that that's a need that we didn't know about like six days ago, right? But we're not looking um for the towns to pay. We would take

581
02:56:53.439 --> 02:57:08.720
that money out of our school choice. Um but it is something we are going to have to address sooner rather than later. Um as you know the track and the other thing is our boiler where um we are not looking to take out a 5year um capital loan on those. We're looking to

582
02:57:08.720 --> 02:57:25.680
potentially take a 10 to 20 year out loan on those. Um so the cost per year would be much less because we have about a $1.1 million um boiler for the regional school for next year's capital and that will also be a 10 to 20 year loan. Um so it

583
02:57:25.680 --> 02:57:42.319
doesn't have as much of a financial impact on the taxpayers year after year for the capital reimbursement because we know that that's a heavy. Um >> we're looking at about 600 for the woodland boiler um which would be next year. Um I know at the round table back

584
02:57:42.319 --> 02:57:58.800
in December it was brought up that you know we should look at a 10 year instead of the five for that. Um which yeah absolutely I mean that's a huge burden considering that you know the regional school's going to need one next year you know. So um I I think I would do two separate borrowings with the blessing of

585
02:57:58.800 --> 02:58:15.040
of the people that tell me what to do. Um you know in terms of the track maybe for five because I I wouldn't I don't know why we would tenure that. I mean, Southwick does have the 100,000 sitting around from the C2C vote last year to cover most of what Southwood could be

586
02:58:15.040 --> 02:58:30.319
assessed for that project. So, that's already there. So, that, you know, while we'll borrow the entire 192 for it, um, you know, you do have 100,000 there to go towards it. So, I think five years for the track would make most sense. >> Yep.

587
02:58:30.319 --> 02:58:45.200
>> How come we can't use all CPC funds on the track? because the CPC or I should say CPA money um can only be used for restoration. It can't like the the project itself when we met with the CPC

588
02:58:45.200 --> 02:59:00.880
committee last year was deemed partially to be maintenance and partially to be restoration. Um, so what I did is I reached out to the fender to give the initial quote to kind of get some, you know, how much of this would be considered maintenance and how much of this would be considered a restoration.

589
02:59:00.880 --> 02:59:18.800
And based on that, the the CPC voted for the 100, not the full >> on the on the boiler for woodland, how old is that? >> The current one. It was not replaced when the renovations took place there, you know, little >> one you had to crawl through to get to

590
02:59:18.800 --> 02:59:35.840
the um bomb shelter in the underneath. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's connected to the pipes underneath the K and prek, you know, >> so is it a a one for one fossil fuel replacement or is it a high energy type of >> I mean it'll be much more efficient than

591
02:59:35.840 --> 02:59:52.640
what's currently there for sure. Um but >> but not at all heat pump type of stuff. >> And and the same for the regional school when you redid the regional school that didn't get upgraded either really. >> No. Um this year we you know we the woodland boiler was designed this year

592
02:59:52.640 --> 03:00:09.120
uh with the the money we did end up borrowing and the regional school they they are currently doing a study on it. Now what they learned from the study will lead to the design of that which will take place next year. um that's already what we borrowed this year. So,

593
03:00:09.120 --> 03:00:24.399
the company just has to, you know, do the design based on the study. My understanding is the study they're doing, they're going to give us two different options um for boilers for the regional school. Uh I'm assuming that's going to come at two different costs, although I have not seen the, you know,

594
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the the final study yet. Um but you know we'll um obviously meet with the architects when you know when they're done and you know obviously with the powers that be so we can figure out what's going to be the best way going forward for that. Keep it simple.

595
03:00:40.560 --> 03:00:56.399
>> How many quotes did you get >> for the actual boiler replacement yet? None. This is we're just in a design phase. Um we did it through an architect with whom we have a house doctor contract. Oh, so that they gave you the $600,000

596
03:00:56.399 --> 03:01:16.319
cost. It's just weird. Ours is only going to be 100 here. >> Yeah. Well, that's >> I mean, this was the whole school. >> Sorry, I didn't mean to take that off. >> Um, so if you just I the why sheet I

597
03:01:16.319 --> 03:01:35.120
think explains the most. Um, and our debt service they went up 38,000. I mean, yeah, 38,000. Our health insurance, it went about 170 cents. Um, our delta between our END, school choice, uh, rural aid and our circuit

598
03:01:35.120 --> 03:01:51.920
breaker. Um, we're 292 920. Sorry, I'm sick. 292,000 um I know uh in Delta from what we were able to play last year to this year. Um and that's simply because if you saw

599
03:01:51.920 --> 03:02:08.880
Nick's presentation, we're spending more than we're taking in. And if we event if we keep doing that, then eventually there's going to be no money to offset the budget and it's going to rely much more heavily on the taxpayers. Um, and we don't want to take out that

600
03:02:08.880 --> 03:02:25.520
extra 100,000 on school choice in case we have to put in um the boiler. Uh, I'm sorry, PA. I'm telling you, I'm pretty sick right now. Um, CEK tuition um has gone up 94,000, but it actually went up

601
03:02:25.520 --> 03:02:41.279
an additional I have it in the budget. >> This is updated. >> Oh, this is updated. All right. So, it went up 94,000 first. And these are things we just can't touch. Uh personnel cost, we're going to put that to the side because that's a 78,000. That's a

602
03:02:41.279 --> 03:02:56.720
line item where we could look to potentially save money. Absorbing the grant shortfalls we really can't touch. This budget still includes the additional SRO. So about $130,000 of the school budget includes uh two

603
03:02:56.720 --> 03:03:12.800
SRO's in it. Um school choice tuition we can't touch testing materials we need. We're a school. It's like how the fire department needs uh band-aids. We we need testing materials. Um charter school tuition and the Hampton County

604
03:03:12.800 --> 03:03:29.920
pension. So really when you look at it, the only two things we could potentially touch is the discrepancy between our delta between END school choice rule 8 and circuit breaker and personnel costs. So when we met with the fincom the other day, we went through um with our admin

605
03:03:29.920 --> 03:03:45.200
team and we just looked at potential cuts that we could make. Um this will be a cut of 14 teaching staff over unit A over two years. Um that's pretty significant to a teaching staff that has

606
03:03:45.200 --> 03:04:01.600
about 150 teachers in it. >> Um that's like a 10% cut in staff. >> What's the first what's unit A and unit B? >> Good question. Unit A is teachers. Um, unit D are our pair of professionals. Then we have a custodians unit, but we

607
03:04:01.600 --> 03:04:17.920
can't cut our custodians. Um, and uh clerical staff we have cut in the past. We eliminated receptionists and we have eliminated some uh uh clerical staff at buildings. We've moved some full year to school

608
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year. Um, save some money as well. Well, there's really >> is this actual layoffs. >> This will be the actual layoffs. This is not through attrition. >> When when you budget teacher salaries,

609
03:04:33.200 --> 03:04:51.520
the um do you budget when you have 120 teachers, do you budget at 100%. Or do you factor that down for the fact that you're going to have teachers that are going to be out on medical, maternity leave? In Connecticut, we typically take

610
03:04:51.520 --> 03:05:08.720
90% 95% of the gross salary. So you can fill that at subs at a much lower salary. Or do you do it at 100%? >> We do it at 100%. Because a lot of them or most of them have a lot of acred sick time. So even if they are out for, you

611
03:05:08.720 --> 03:05:24.720
know, x amount of time, they're being paid by their sick time. >> Yeah. >> Then we budget for the subs separately. Those are separate line items. Um, you know, basically when I do this, I take a snapshot of the current staff and, you know, I look at the collective bargaining agreement salary scales where

612
03:05:24.720 --> 03:05:40.000
they'll all be next year because some of them move up steps and some of them are already at the top step. Um, and you just kind of, you know, move that forward a year. Now, our staff changes, you know, sometimes weekly. People do come and go. Um, a lot of times with our

613
03:05:40.000 --> 03:05:57.120
pair of professionals, but there there's not a lot of steps there. So that's pretty much usually just a a swap out of a salary. Um I make changes all the way up until when the school committee gets the budget presented to them. So like when I start my salary projections in November, I know that's not going to be

614
03:05:57.120 --> 03:06:13.359
the actual what the school committee ends up seeing. It'll be close, but as people come and go, I do change things. Sometimes people will announce their retirements as well. They tend to do that by December 1st. So, you know, I'll adjust for that if we get any of that. And you know, I I fine-tune it as much

615
03:06:13.359 --> 03:06:29.840
as I can. Um, but when the school committee gets the presentation, it it's got to be that that's your setting stone at that point. And then whatever happens between then and and when the start of the school year happens, some people will come and go and then I just kind of keep track of like, are we

616
03:06:29.840 --> 03:06:46.399
ahead, are we behind, you know, somebody left, does their replacement make more or less than they did? I keep a running pallet of that all year long to kind of see where we are. Um and you know that's pretty much how we do our salaries. >> What happens at the end of the year if the school district has a surplus that

617
03:06:46.399 --> 03:07:02.960
go back to the contributing talents or get attained by school? >> It's retained by the school. It's what we call END excessive deficiency. And so this year we we were certified at about 9 um 900,000 >> 936 >> and we're using 650,000 as a revenue

618
03:07:02.960 --> 03:07:18.160
source this year's budget. >> Yeah. If we certify END that more than 5% of our approved operating budget, the rest of that overage has to go back to the town or it has to offset the following year's budget. It's kind that's kind of a town decision

619
03:07:18.160 --> 03:07:34.080
depending. I I don't think we'll ever see that, but uh for Mass General Law, if that were to the case, we would um the towns would decide how to how to manage that. And and every year the leaner and leaner we get with our school budget, the less and less you're going to see in END

620
03:07:34.080 --> 03:07:50.319
because there's not as much to >> carry over from year to year. >> It's it's ironic really. The better you get at budgeting. Yeah. The >> Yeah. the the Yeah. the tighter you are, but then the less there there is going forward to offset following budgets. You know what I mean? So it's kind of a

621
03:07:50.319 --> 03:08:05.840
catch 22. And like this year for rural school aid, um we had three teachers and a uh unit position in rural aid and they cut it by four million and it was like about a $90,000 hit and we had four

622
03:08:05.840 --> 03:08:22.560
staff members in that and so we had to find money somewhere else in our budget to pay for that additional position in rural aid. So we're going conservative this year. Um we're keeping it pretty much level funded from what they did last year because last year they started

623
03:08:22.560 --> 03:08:39.040
off at 16 million and in the final um rendition of the budget they cut it down to 12 million. And the advocation for rural aid was very strong last year and it's even going to be stronger this year. Um please read our Facebook page

624
03:08:39.040 --> 03:08:54.319
if you want information about rural school aid. The area's been doing a great job of explaining it, what it means, and the impact it can have on rural schools. It would have a significant impact on the taxpayers and on our budget if rural school was fully

625
03:08:54.319 --> 03:09:10.160
funded at 60 million. You would see a massive change on uh the discretionary uh line item. >> So, so does it look like, you know, advocacy is starting to pay off? Well, I can say that there was so much advocacy

626
03:09:10.160 --> 03:09:26.800
last year when they held the budget hearing at UMass Ammerst that they moved it to Lawrence this year so nobody would go >> really. I'm pretty sure that was intentional, but I >> just you know, but last year I mean the uh

627
03:09:26.800 --> 03:09:44.080
the auditorium at the campus center that was packed. I mean there was there was students there. There were we were there. Superintendent Willard and I >> um yeah, there was a lot of kids. There was a lot of superintendent. There was quite a bit. Um and they, you know, it

628
03:09:44.080 --> 03:09:58.319
didn't get us anywhere. As I said, they cut it $4 million across the state afterwards and then they moved the hearing this year out way out east where, you know, and it's by invite only. >> So that too. You can watch it. But >> and no one on the ways and means committee is actually from a rural

629
03:09:58.319 --> 03:10:14.399
district. So the entire committee is is populated with people who have no nothing at state in rural a benefit. >> Well, because rural aid, if you look at the map, is mostly a western mass issue.

630
03:10:14.399 --> 03:10:29.520
>> Yeah, that and a couple pounds on the cape. So why would you put them on? >> Yeah, >> that's exactly why. Yeah, one of the school committee members commented to me in the last month that um you know all that extra funding that came about that

631
03:10:29.520 --> 03:10:46.160
went to what specifically like 90% of it went to seven communities this >> SOA >> SOA so the school committee member said that Boston and the city of Chabe fell out of graces >> yes they're in the hold harmless list 271 districts are holdless right now at

632
03:10:46.160 --> 03:11:03.120
about 320 >> so how is that going to affect the calcul calculations or do you think they're going to update? >> No, we will. Well, first of all, we're what we call harmless. So, we get about 4 million extra dollars a year in

633
03:11:03.120 --> 03:11:18.479
chapter 70 funding than we should get. So, we are not going to see any additional aid from the uh state government under chapter 70 until that $4 million is >> or until the state legislature

634
03:11:18.479 --> 03:11:34.640
>> changes the forming. Um and those districts now. Yes. So it was Chabby, I believe Springfield, Boston um a lot of them um that got a lot of money out of the S SOA. Um they're not

635
03:11:34.640 --> 03:11:50.399
going to see the increases like they have in the past. So it'll just go to the other districts. >> What did they graduate out of the S SOA? >> No, they had a decline in enrollment. So they're now in a hold harmless because they're getting more than what they would be getting in the actual S

636
03:11:50.399 --> 03:12:07.120
SOA or >> it just explains how broken the education funding is out of Boston is I mean you know how it just means you can't get the >> prior year no matter what happens to your enrollment. And some of the bigger places like you know Boston and Chavey

637
03:12:07.120 --> 03:12:21.760
their enrollment has dropped where they're now there. West Springfield too I mean they're looking at >> massive cuts the exodus out of the state that people are talking about. >> The chapter 70 funding is broken. There's also legislative um there's a

638
03:12:21.760 --> 03:12:39.439
bill about um doing a study. We're not going to see the change in my time as superintendent but there's a study that they're voting on to look at the chapter 70 formula. But that's a few years out. >> Yeah. Two or probably at least three years out. >> Rule eight is our answer here. And and

639
03:12:39.439 --> 03:12:57.200
fully funding regional school transportation and fully funding circuit breaker. That's where we get our money besides from the taxpayers and the pennies that we get from the um increase in chapter 70 funding. >> Cupcake sales.

640
03:12:57.200 --> 03:13:19.279
>> Yeah. Can't even do those anymore. No, you can't. >> Can't even do cupcake sales. >> No raffle. >> No raffle. >> We talked about the SRO position um last time. >> Yeah. >> And I appreciate your position.

641
03:13:19.279 --> 03:13:35.279
Uh, but I'm just wondering if if some years down the road if the school funded it and decided not to, couldn't the town at that time vote to fund it? >> Perhaps. >> But you don't want to take that chance?

642
03:13:35.279 --> 03:13:53.840
>> I do now. >> Okay. I'm think >> I am but one guy, but that I I have a very strong opinion on that issue and I and I've been steadfast on it. Um, but I I wouldn't want to put the town in the position to have to do that. I'd like to

643
03:13:53.840 --> 03:14:10.000
continue with a policy that we've had for over a decade now and just continue. And if you really look at it, we're 86754% of the overall regional district. It you're not talking about a pile of money, but it's a policy

644
03:14:10.000 --> 03:14:26.319
position for for us. Um, and someone mentioned to me in passing as I was walking out that there may be there's a legal angle to all of this that as within the regional formula that we have to do it this way. I I'll if that is indeed the case, I would love to have a

645
03:14:26.319 --> 03:14:42.239
discussion with town council to understand what that is and and how that would work and how and what we would have to do to make sure we're still compliant with that but have that within the town budget. But um that's the first time I had heard it. It did come up at our fin meeting and

646
03:14:42.239 --> 03:14:59.279
they still want to keep the additional SRO in the budget. Again, we present to you our school committee's budget. >> Yes, we were told to keep it in there by our subcommittee. >> So, the town is looking at uh better

647
03:14:59.279 --> 03:15:15.120
utilizing at least a threeyear to fiveyear projection. Do you do projections regarding your 28, 29, 30 budgets? >> A lot of it uh goes into what the health insurance cost is going to be. We can

648
03:15:15.120 --> 03:15:32.960
look at it with teacher raises. We know next year there's going to be a 1% teacher raise, but after that we go back into negotiations. So really the majority of our increases are um uh personnel costs and um health

649
03:15:32.960 --> 03:15:48.319
insurance and the we have a lot of variables that we don't know about. For example, we don't know how many kids are going to be going to Westfield Technical Academy. We know we have a defining enrollment. We also know we're both harmless, but there's lots of variables in a uh school budget as in school

650
03:15:48.319 --> 03:16:05.920
choice. Um it's not a lot we can do except for personnel >> cost the only known >> I mean I do look at like our other funding sources like school choice and you know circuit breaker and kind of project that out a few years. I had a school choice chart in my presentation

651
03:16:05.920 --> 03:16:22.800
on Wednesday night. Uh which I I emailed that presentation Joe to you about five minutes ago but I sent it to everybody. >> Okay. Yeah. I just I wanted I have it in case uh you want to reference it. But um you know I I do project like out of district tuition as well for the students that we we do have to place in

652
03:16:22.800 --> 03:16:37.359
other settings cuz you know once they graduate they graduate right so you know some are in third grade and they're going to be here quite some time but you know I do look at that too to kind of look at what the spending will be there and then you the personnel cost

653
03:16:37.359 --> 03:16:55.600
increases are you can you can do it a couple years out based on when your collective bargaining agreements expire but You know, and then we can look at enrollment, too, but I mean the the kindergarten numbers are never >> Yeah, we don't know kindergarten. >> We never get great projections.

654
03:16:55.600 --> 03:17:11.680
>> That was my next question. Where are you seeing the declining enrollment and what grade levels? >> Oh, they're starting in kindergarten. >> Smaller class sizes are moving up through the system. >> Yeah. From from the bottom. >> Yeah, it's much smaller enrollment. So, we we discussed it as well. We're

655
03:17:11.680 --> 03:17:27.520
looking at um again when I started there were six teachers at a grade level and they were pretty full. Um in the next few years we're really going to have to start looking um at class sizes at the elementary school. I won't be here but philosophically my philosophy is K and

656
03:17:27.520 --> 03:17:43.439
one need to have the lowest um class sizes because that is where kids learn to read. And the study used to be that if you didn't learn to read at grade level by the end of third grade that you'd always be behind. Well, they've changed it and they're now saying that if you're not at grade level by the end

657
03:17:43.439 --> 03:17:59.120
of first grade that you're always going to be behind. So, I hold K and one sacred um in my work. Then I was a fourth grade teacher and I say that the other prediction number that we look

658
03:17:59.120 --> 03:18:14.720
a lot at is grants and we're always looking and getting information from the federal government on where grants are expected to come in. Um, unfortunately with all the tumultuousness that's that's occurring right now, that's something that we're not able to predict right now. So, we have numbers going

659
03:18:14.720 --> 03:18:30.080
forward. We don't know if those numbers are going to be good. We're being conservative with our grant predictions. Um, but again, we're very unsure of what that will look like. >> What is the class size of the current kindergarten first grade class? Do you know that?

660
03:18:30.080 --> 03:18:45.040
>> Yeah, we have 76 kids in kindergarten this year. >> So, I think it's about 15 16 kids in kindergarten. Right now we have 50 we have 50 signed up for registration. It's still early. Um but we are that 50 is looking to

661
03:18:45.040 --> 03:19:06.399
track again into the 70s whereas um we have grades our upper grades mostly run in the 90s. So that 70 is a significant drop down and kindergarten at 76. We do have a couple of bubble classes that went through that are were at the 125 when

662
03:19:06.399 --> 03:19:21.279
they got to the high school and students started going to West Tech. They're dropping now. Those those are our last really big groups going through and they're now freshman um and sophomores. >> 1998 155. >> Yeah.

663
03:19:21.279 --> 03:19:40.399
>> Yeah, that's >> lower than what I was in in the 80s. that. And so in my time here, it'll probably be going from six teachers down to potentially four at a grade level. >> Just refresh, we the ones that are going to CEK, etc. They're in your total

664
03:19:40.399 --> 03:19:55.680
headcount though. >> There are there are >> they only go for part of the day and they're in class of the day. Vice >> versa. Yeah. Yeah. I was wondering if you guys >> Yes. cheap.

665
03:19:55.680 --> 03:20:12.080
>> How many walkers do we have? Can we eliminate one of the bus routes by ecasing the walkers? So, the mile that used the base, >> we do not have very many walkers at all. Most students um our bus because we don't have um in the neighboring communities and students aren't living

666
03:20:12.080 --> 03:20:28.160
in those communities. So, for example, you know, south southwest, I don't have my directions. I apologize. Um you know, Gargan Teriff and all of that, we do not have a large walking community from there. We do have some walkers coming from um just across Powder Mill Road,

667
03:20:28.160 --> 03:20:44.080
but not a huge number. >> You're telling me from Fowler, Captain Fowler Apartments to the high school or >> those kids are walking. Those kids are already living here. >> Yep. It's still >> My second question is the 14 kids that we have out of district. How many of those have come back in district with

668
03:20:44.080 --> 03:21:02.080
our three new um special ed classes that made last year? >> Two of them we've tried to bring back and what and One of them were I really shouldn't be talking about this. We tried to bring two of them back. >> No, I'm just saying that originally they

669
03:21:02.080 --> 03:21:16.640
were supposed to go we're supposed to learn how to educate them and work within the parameters which which we need. Definitely. And then we're going to come back to our three special. >> Those programs largely keep that number of 14 from increasing. That's right. Farther than it is. I mean there no matter what kind of programming you may

670
03:21:16.640 --> 03:21:32.080
have in district especially a district this size there's there's always going to be the percent that >> will need to yeah I mean unfortunately the chapter 70 formula it builds in only 1% for that purpose so it's not based on

671
03:21:32.080 --> 03:21:49.200
your actual kids going out um we're I think it's about 1 point something% so we're kind of close to what they project but there's some districts that like 2% of their kids are We only have 1100 kids in the whole district. So that's >> 1200 >> 12.

672
03:21:49.200 --> 03:22:06.720
>> Yeah, we got about 124. >> And my last one is I like what you said when you're going to consider um consolidating some class size and making the classes not 14 private school but more public school 17 to 25. >> Yeah, thank you for that. >> Oh yeah. Yeah. No, we have we looked at

673
03:22:06.720 --> 03:22:24.560
that this year um as it's we're moving into the writing and our science of reading. It it was It was a huge pedagogical undertaking for our teachers and it is so differentiated and so individualized that um

674
03:22:24.560 --> 03:22:41.359
you the way they teach now it's about really getting to know each individual child and breaking them into groups and it education is something to see if you go to Marques K through six classrooms and watch them do a reading class. Um, it's

675
03:22:41.359 --> 03:22:58.239
a it's like Broadway performance how they get the kids to move and stay on task and know where each one of them are. And it's data driven and it's it's it's pretty impressive to watch. And like I said, we've seen great results. So, I'm a little leery, but I would

676
03:22:58.239 --> 03:23:11.840
start at the upper grades and then move my way down to the lower grades. Again, we don't know. Kindergarten is always we have a lot of kids who come to us that are have not been diagnosed yet.

677
03:23:11.840 --> 03:23:30.160
So, we have a lot of kindergarteners who if >> it's a great unknown. >> It's an unknown grade. >> I mean, some of them a lot of them some of them didn't attend any preschool. So, kindergarten is their first experience. >> Nor do a lot of parents teach how to spell like I did when I was four.

678
03:23:30.160 --> 03:23:46.399
>> And they're on screens. A lot of our little kids are on screens all day. >> Yeah. So, it's a big break, a big change when they got to >> We're going to get kids enrolled in kindergarten all the way for the week at start. We'll have a pretty decent number by like midsummer, but there'll always be

679
03:23:46.399 --> 03:24:02.640
like >> a couple. Yeah. >> And it could be just a matter of somebody's waiting for a house to sell and they're moving into town and they just wait. Or it could be that they're just slow. >> Yeah. When I was a building principal, I would get like 8 to 10 in that first week of school and I'd be like,

680
03:24:02.640 --> 03:24:20.560
>> you just noticed. Yeah, just um the nondiscretionary item the district services to town 12,000. >> Yeah, that's the uh assessment that Southvic pays to use our buildings for town meeting and for >> uh parks and wreck, you know, athletics

681
03:24:20.560 --> 03:24:35.600
and and things like that. So that way like we we never charge separately for that. That covers custodial fees and all the other stuff. >> Is there a limit to how much we can get for our 12 grand? >> Let us know. Whatever you want.

682
03:24:35.600 --> 03:24:49.920
>> What do you got planned? >> I don't know. I'm gonna think of something. >> What is um circuit breakers again? >> Circuit breakers reimburse their uh special education cost. >> It's in the agreement. >> Um basically what happens is each year

683
03:24:49.920 --> 03:25:05.760
the state sets a rate um of what it I don't want to say should cost, but it's like what it theoretically cost to educate a child with special need. And if it costs above that threshold >> for a kid and mostly it's our kids that

684
03:25:05.760 --> 03:25:21.439
are placed out of district >> it's not I mean so you'd have to be receiving a lot of services in district to meet that threshold but what then happens is we can be reimbursed for up to 75% of the difference between that threshold

685
03:25:21.439 --> 03:25:37.120
and what it's actually costing to educate a student. So, you know, say the threshold's 50 grand and it cost me 100 grand to be educated. That's what my tuition is at the school that I'm at. I can be reimbursed for 75% of the 50 grand in between the threshold and my

686
03:25:37.120 --> 03:25:53.120
actual cost. And then there's a transportation piece as well. Um, we can be re technically it's supposed to be 100% but it's never funded at that for uh transportation. >> They actually gave us 100% last year. FY25 supplemental at the end of the year

687
03:25:53.120 --> 03:26:09.359
and that helped immensely. That gave us about $109,000 last summer. We weren't expecting that we used this year in the circuit break. >> Yeah. Which is why we're increasing what we're using in circuit breaker this year because it's there. I mean, you know, and and >> and you assessed us transportation too,

688
03:26:09.359 --> 03:26:24.319
right? >> It's in there. >> It's that 158,976. >> Yeah. That's for the um vocational >> that we don't get reimbursed for. >> Vocational reimbursement is pennies on the dollar.

689
03:26:24.319 --> 03:26:41.200
>> But you get something or no? Oh, we don't >> I don't know. >> Um we last year we got 8,000 in reimbursement for the kids that were going everywhere. I mean because last year they were still in our budget, right? So we got about 80 I don't know

690
03:26:41.200 --> 03:26:57.439
8,700 or something in the in the July. Um, okay. I don't think that covers >> 90,000 or something transportation last year. >> And then also our out of district which was Do you have any idea how much that's going to be? >> Out of district. What?

691
03:26:57.439 --> 03:27:14.720
>> The out of district students. Last year it was 737. >> I didn't know. Um I think you have five graduating this year and as of right now you have about 14 who've been approved for WTA and Smith. Do you know how much

692
03:27:14.720 --> 03:27:30.640
it is per pupil? I'm I'm only level funding that right now >> for the vocational. We don't know their vocational level. >> The state sets the rates um and they don't come out till late April usually. Um when I worked in a prior district and

693
03:27:30.640 --> 03:27:46.319
I used to have to try to guess that for my budget I would usually pop that out about a 5% increase. Um, in terms of the tuition per kid, I mean, your numbers are going to fluctuate, but uh, you know, that's what I usually would do. And sometimes it was higher and

694
03:27:46.319 --> 03:28:02.880
sometimes it was a little lower. I as soon as I get that number, I'll let the towns know. I mean, you know, just they don't necessarily line up the release of that with when people do budgets. I've already >> And the other caveat this year is with C

695
03:28:02.880 --> 03:28:17.840
um, vocational school, they did a lottery. So kids weren't sure even if they applied for a I'm going to keep this a peer level. Um even if you were like the top of your class, you weren't guaranteed to get in because it was a lottery. So kids were applying to Smith,

696
03:28:17.840 --> 03:28:34.640
WTA, and CEK because if they wanted the vocational education, they would apply to all three. So the numbers could be inflated right now. We're really not going to know the true number until later on when they commit to school. So acceptance doesn't mean that they're definitely going,

697
03:28:34.640 --> 03:28:50.960
>> but they had to apply by April 1, right? >> March 1st now. >> Oh, it's March 1st. >> Yep. They changed that lottery. >> So you the select board made the policy to abide by the school committee's policy, which So if they came in late, then it would be

698
03:28:50.960 --> 03:29:07.279
>> I deny it. >> No. Sex is not a lottery. It's the WTA the spin portion. That's the lottery. >> No, they're a lottery as well. So even though though we're part of that collaborative, >> our kids can't just assume they're going to go there. >> They had 333

699
03:29:07.279 --> 03:29:25.279
applicants at CEK for 175 positions. >> Okay. So all the member communities has just seen such a huge jump that they cannot handle it anymore. So okay. So what what they did Karen is they looked at our past previous years of the

700
03:29:25.279 --> 03:29:41.200
numbers of kids that we had and so Southwick had um South Pal and Granville had 17 openings and we had 33 kids apply. Long Meadow had 26 apply and they only had nine openings because they're

701
03:29:41.200 --> 03:29:58.640
usually their uh they don't usually send a lot of kids. This year they happened to, but they only had a nine student enrolled lottery and it was the best. We as superintendents worked with the collaborative on what we thought was the best way to do the lottery um as the most equitable way possible is to look

702
03:29:58.640 --> 03:30:13.200
at our previous years and how many kids went. So even though we're smaller than Long Meadow, we had more openings. And unfortunately, the lottery was a system that came from the districts out east who were having some issues with

703
03:30:13.200 --> 03:30:29.120
their their system. And so they went to their legislators and it's affecting all of us out here who weren't having this issue. >> The vocational schools out east are like prep schools. >> Yeah, this was an eastern mass issue that somehow trickled out

704
03:30:29.120 --> 03:30:45.120
>> forunately. Um, Nicole, to answer your question earlier about the trans vocational transportation rebirth, that should go to the town, I think. >> Okay. >> I I I mean, it's always been going to the district because it was they were part of our budget, but I I would think

705
03:30:45.120 --> 03:31:01.279
it should go to the town. >> They don't know that it's >> I mean, it's going to be pennies, but I it should go to you. >> Yeah, >> we need all the pennies we can get. >> Yeah, it should. a little, >> you know, because like you're getting chapter 70 funding now and it's known at

706
03:31:01.279 --> 03:31:17.760
the state level that those kids are part of the town budgets rather than ours. That should follow it. If it doesn't, I'll make some phone calls. >> Yeah, I didn't get this year for last year. >> It should go. >> We got no chapter 70 this year for last year. >> But no chapter 70. You did

707
03:31:17.760 --> 03:31:33.680
>> I don't >> Yeah. 200 something. Yeah. >> 200 something. >> And our chair sheet. Did you see it? Yep. >> Yeah. And it's level funded next year in the FY27 preliminary cherry sheet. So the towns were held apartments for the location. I know that was a question

708
03:31:33.680 --> 03:31:50.160
that you know folks had and we didn't know and as I said Wednesday night I got two different answers from two different people when I asked question and um so yeah yes was the answer. And even though this year you might have more kids going

709
03:31:50.160 --> 03:32:06.319
than you did the previous year, next year your chapter 70 will reflect the number of students who said this year. So next year you send more kids. Your chapter 70 will go up. It will go down >> and then it'll always stay at home. So

710
03:32:06.319 --> 03:32:22.399
>> last question for me I think you said you reduced your wood shop. >> We eliminated >> you eliminated that. Are there any other technical classes that you hold that we've eliminated >> that could be handled at the tech

711
03:32:22.399 --> 03:32:38.319
schools that we're paying for? >> Well, we do have wood shop at um CE. This was more of an elective for the kids at the school. >> But that's what I'm asking. Are there any other technical education classes in the district? We do have a culinary arts

712
03:32:38.319 --> 03:32:55.439
class an elective at the regional school that that's still >> classes >> and what technology we have a variety of technology classes all sorts of >> but the kids who did the wood shop they

713
03:32:55.439 --> 03:33:11.200
it's it was an elective for them it wasn't um a career choice >> and we are the uh uh CEK is going to be opening an electrical wiring. We send a lot of kids out of district for electrical wiring.

714
03:33:11.200 --> 03:33:28.399
So, we see a huge need um in electricians. >> Yeah. Next couple years, CEK will have a program. So, we'll probably be a decline in the WTAs that go for electrical. >> Do they have plumbing there, too?

715
03:33:28.399 --> 03:33:46.399
>> Along with the WTA, right? Nothing is not >> Smith or Pathfinder does >> what we really need is an around here. >> Nobody has a track. >> Still used to.

716
03:33:46.399 --> 03:34:03.040
>> So when you're meeting with your >> So we'll know real numbers when you're meeting >> Monday night. uh they're not going to vote or at least we don't anticipate them voting on Monday night because they haven't seen um what we came up with when we met with the finance subcommittee on Thursday.

717
03:34:03.040 --> 03:34:18.960
>> Um we assume there'll be some discussion at that meeting, you know, and and then um then the following Monday, March 30th. Okay. >> March 30th. Thank you. >> Yep. >> Finance subcommittee just a subset of the school committee.

718
03:34:18.960 --> 03:34:35.680
>> School committee. >> Three members of the school committee. >> Okay. Fox, Denver Holder, and Rob Ste. >> Any other questions for these folks? >> No.

719
03:34:35.680 --> 03:34:52.640
>> Okay. Great. Thank you for your time. >> We'll be feeling better. >> Thank you. I know. I could feel it coming on Thursday. >> I could feel it coming at your meeting on Wednesday. I could feel it that night in my throat

720
03:34:52.640 --> 03:35:09.439
and I was like, "Oh, this isn't good." >> And then I ended up at my granddaughter yesterday. I was trying to rest. She was at the hospital the night before and her asthma and coughing and I was like, I'm not going to get better anytime soon.

721
03:35:09.439 --> 03:35:25.840
>> It is what it is. >> Make a motion to adjourn the select board portion of this meeting. >> Vote Dale. Doug. Yes. >> All right. I find it's still on >> you guys have looked over the books.

722
03:35:25.840 --> 03:35:41.600
>> Yes. >> We need to meet with >> Yeah. >> We're discussing our next meeting. >> Any dates in mind that you guys can show up moving forward. So probably a week out, not this week, but the following week.

723
03:35:48.960 --> 03:36:10.080
Elizabeth send out dates that week. >> I guess Saturday it need >> I said the one Saturday is it. If we need some folks to come in, we'll have them come in at night. >> Thanks. >> One Saturday. >> Yeah. >> Yeah.

724
03:36:10.080 --> 03:36:26.600
if you have any questions. I've met everybody just >> and I'm happy to come to your meeting too and um I don't know if I can >> April is okay when you're having it.

725
03:36:26.720 --> 03:36:43.200
So if you have any questions at all even call me cell phone whatever Joe if you want to ask me you know and it's looking very bleak. >> So how is that going to come up with our

726
03:36:43.200 --> 03:37:00.560
numbers at our meetings and I'm assuming you guys are still going to come up with going through the budget like you do >> and then we're going to meet to go over it or want to >> are you going to hear us something and tell us good luck? No, I mean I mean it's we hope to do more and I going

727
03:37:00.560 --> 03:37:19.439
through it and making it valid to get the rest of the pages >> and we don't have we don't have all the numbers >> waiting for all the rest of the pages. pages. >> We don't have >> I kind of had a

728
03:37:19.439 --> 03:37:41.840
pages >> they kind of handle the gas because it's a it's a controlled item. >> I know >> what's the number where >> they even know where we are. So here we are though is a department request and then a level funding and then a 5%

729
03:37:41.840 --> 03:37:59.040
reduction. Right? That's what we asked the very much in the 5% reduction. That's without using cash. I am not budgeting enough for out of district. Um and the schools I mean they're asking for%

730
03:37:59.040 --> 03:38:15.520
right. I don't know what they're coming up with now, but we have >> $768,000 in money. So, um our 2 and 12% that's the extra money we have. That is all. So, if the schools are asking for $1.3 million more than

731
03:38:15.520 --> 03:38:34.800
last more because they're asking for more than our our new budget. >> So, where's the free cash grow if it's not going towards the budget? >> Well, it's going to happen. You shouldn't put it in you. >> We're still No, there's no way. We've

732
03:38:34.800 --> 03:38:49.120
been relying on it and and if you see that we have a 15 million budget about um we have 4 million in precision and that's a lot. It's a huge percent of $15

733
03:38:49.120 --> 03:39:06.319
million. However, it is calculated. It is it is intentional because it's needed for every year's budget. But the problem is it's worked out that nice. Well, I don't think it was really ever intentional, but it's intentional in in accounting and how she has learned from

734
03:39:06.319 --> 03:39:24.040
previous accounting because I said, you know, we can we can balance the budget capital, not all of it. >> Um, if we could if we have to do snow and ice, so there's some money that we

735
03:39:24.399 --> 03:39:40.800
uh and and we could balance it with a vital%. You can't give my We can't give everybody everything that they want. It's just not there. I mean, this whole world is crumbling right now fighting. >> We never really So, you you've been here enough long enough to realize, right?

736
03:39:40.800 --> 03:39:57.359
So, it was say 900,000 free cash. >> We always kept behind it. Kind of sat there in the pocket, >> play ball, needed it, whatever. But and it just rolled over roughly a million towards the tax. That's where the inflation you talk about because we would put a million towards the tax base

737
03:39:57.359 --> 03:40:16.160
which kind of screwed with the number because it's not a true number, >> right? That's what you're saying. >> Right. They're using that as as >> so in this case we have four million, right? >> So then the other two million left we would almost try to always buy equipment with use the free cash to take care of

738
03:40:16.160 --> 03:40:32.160
some of those big headaches and always end up where we ended up. So, >> but now I mean I'm like I don't see $900,000 staying. Okay. >> Or is freaking out rightfully. >> Oh, no. Absolutely. Right. Lisa, right? I know. I'm like uh you know and and I

739
03:40:32.160 --> 03:40:47.359
>> So, where does that go though? >> What? >> But that 900 doesn't go there. >> It's it's I mean this is all your >> No, this is hypothetical, >> but yeah, but um >> I think to balance the budget. >> Okay. So, it still goes towards the tax base. >> Yeah.

740
03:40:47.359 --> 03:41:04.080
>> Okay. That's what I'm getting at. So we might have to put two million into tax base. There might only be a million left for capital. Like that's why we have to keep having meetings. Like you guys really should be scheduling at least not two to three meetings a month. Like we are every week

741
03:41:04.080 --> 03:41:21.120
after this week. >> That's the other piece of it. What is the death roll? >> I know. >> Yeah. There's there's like >> it isn't much this year. >> No. So that >> whatever truck that is >> right >> um rolling off is no it's like 30 grand.

742
03:41:21.120 --> 03:41:36.960
So if we borrow a couple million to do some maybe buy a drunk whatever then that'll replace that right that'll replace that probably we are borrow 3 million that is

743
03:41:36.960 --> 03:41:55.200
authorized it's about $50 a year so that so I'm saying two billion probably be around 30 like so debt so if we do that then we buy he's which I don't have yet for her to put

744
03:41:55.200 --> 03:42:10.720
together is all the capital from all of the right I don't I don't I don't >> I tried to explain it to her a million times and and and she's a great kid just to get us through you know but I we didn't even have it like you you want

745
03:42:10.720 --> 03:42:27.040
this but you you can't tell >> you have to you have to tell us how much it costs so uh you know we don't have we don't have that so then that will have to be prioritized because you can't do everything right and then the roads like what are we going to do about that so you know I

746
03:42:27.040 --> 03:42:43.120
don't know we threw >> in 4 million debt towards being 18 million and then you have your chapter 90 sitting over here >> throw a billion >> from free cash probably >> in the past we financed it or we've got free cash >> because I that's you know that's another

747
03:42:43.120 --> 03:43:00.399
thing right I mean we >> well when did we go stabilization >> I don't think That's a terrible It's worse than free. >> So, so stabilization is wonderful, right? Unless we drain it, people like poor town >> and then we qualify for all this stuff is how I see that. I don't want to drain

748
03:43:00.399 --> 03:43:15.359
it. I don't >> we drain drain it. >> It's pretty. You did. >> No, no, you're right. But I mean, you know, if you tickle it, the way the states figured this out, >> you got to train it to qualify for I'm not and I don't want to do that. No, I

749
03:43:15.359 --> 03:43:31.680
think I mean we are in a better position than a lot of towns. I was in my man yesterday and they're all everybody but probably closing the library getting rid of some

750
03:43:31.680 --> 03:43:47.520
fire like they're serious services cut >> and it's so tragic and it's because everything is going up so high >> and we are stuck at two and a half and you know I guess rightly so because obviously they needed to put a cap on it cuz people are going out of control.

751
03:43:47.520 --> 03:44:12.560
What I maybe they didn't forecast was how >> how much everything was going to cost versus how much we're able to increase. >> They should. >> So it's so people can't >> bring and I had I was had an idea earlier in

752
03:44:12.560 --> 03:44:28.479
the year. I wanted >> Hey guys, we're still talking over here. We're kind of having a meeting, so you can take that outside. I'd appreciate it. >> Sorry. >> Sorry. >> Do you guys still >> Yeah, we're Yeah, we're still going. >> So, uh,

753
03:44:28.479 --> 03:44:44.239
>> we're not making any decision. >> I was hoping earlier in the year before this all kind of happened. You know, we knew there was a cliff, but the town, this town is not added yet to create his capital stabilization fund. And then we could take it out of that for the

754
03:44:44.239 --> 03:45:00.399
capital. you know, you build it, you build it, and then you're able to take it from there. You invested it all year, and then your capital gets chosen by the voters. Um, you know, and at the town meeting. So, I mean, >> we can't even cover our cost now is so

755
03:45:00.399 --> 03:45:14.960
high to start that. >> It's it's very unfortunate. It's the um, you know, a huge percentage is the schools >> and that's just a fact. It's not anybody's fault because they have fixed costs, too. Uh but that also regional schools build their budget from the

756
03:45:14.960 --> 03:45:32.319
bottom up. They don't take like uh if you have your own district, you're getting 3% or 4% over last year, figure it out. They just build it and say here's a 10 and a half 10 and a quarter% increase. >> There it is. Oh, naturally >> was very happy that she said that she

757
03:45:32.319 --> 03:45:48.800
was looking at some additional cuts from Wednesday night because on her class side are 16 some classes and they it's not outrageous to ask for 20 kids in a classroom at that grade level. So that

758
03:45:48.800 --> 03:46:03.040
>> yeah, >> I'm very happy and I just hope that their finance subcommittee or their school committee um actually agrees with her and listens to her because but we can't afford it. >> I said that we don't we just don't have the funds for two, you know, and our

759
03:46:03.040 --> 03:46:19.199
cost 1.2 would have been our side of that the other night and our what was it 474 was our >> the circuit breaker, right? And 1.2 I'm like guys, we just don't have it, >> you know. So 5% would have taken if they

760
03:46:19.199 --> 03:46:35.600
took five if they took five and a half% it would have gone over but if they took 5% that would have taken our new grow and our 2.5% because it was it's 768 and 5% is 720. So if they just took 5% they would take our new money this year

761
03:46:35.600 --> 03:46:51.760
>> but then they have they need more so we have to cut more. We get squeezed out. That's the term the town gets squeezed out >> and that's just a >> All right. Your total number was 7 what? Sorry. >> Um 768 265. >> So 760.

762
03:46:51.760 --> 03:47:08.160
>> Yeah. That's our new our new growth plus 2 and a half%. >> Right. >> And then 5% over last year for the schools would have been 720,224. >> Right. >> So they could have at 470 something and they're at 1.2. If we're blessed then

763
03:47:08.160 --> 03:47:24.080
they come back at 760. Oh my god. >> That's gone. >> That's gone. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Possibly just do a little cuts. >> We'll have to do a lot of cuts. >> Was it five additional positions, >> right? >> At what? >> Oh, absolutely. Right.

764
03:47:24.080 --> 03:47:41.359
>> $90,000. But if it's a 7 $50,000, >> we're right there. We're right about 760. >> Yep. That's $90,000 teacher. >> That's over two years, though. So, I don't know. >> Yeah. And then that leaves us with our four million free cash >> realistically. >> Yeah. Um but that's it.

765
03:47:41.359 --> 03:47:58.000
>> And then if we borrowed like because we would return that debt borrow for a firet truck, right? It's a million or something. >> That's a process luckily. So it's so much this year, >> you know, and we get the I think what he's looking for is the okay, the signing and then there's a deposit, I'm

766
03:47:58.000 --> 03:48:14.960
sure, involved, but hopefully not the whole million. >> He said upfront payment is guaranteed and that's it. >> Sure. But >> the last time we did it, we bought the chassis first, remember? And then we we peacemeal it as it went. >> And now they're taking so long to build. >> So if we pay for it all up front, we can

767
03:48:14.960 --> 03:48:34.319
say guaranteed a million dollars. But if we don't pay for it up front, it could be a million three by the time it's >> Yes and no. But there's those options lock. >> Yeah. >> And realistically, you're thinking 50 grand per million is going to cost us to

768
03:48:34.319 --> 03:48:49.199
finance. >> Um >> is what you said. Well, 50 is what for the 3 million that we borrowed from Fiverr. >> So three Okay. So 50 Laura budget. >> So 50,000 a year for 3 million. Yeah. For 20 years probably. >> I don't know what she did for the term. >> Okay. I'll ask her.

769
03:48:49.199 --> 03:49:05.920
>> All right. It's a good number to know moving forward. >> Realistic with the projections of revenue, right? >> So she h that's where she kind of got a lot of free cash to was very conservative projections. Yeah. >> Um but we have to be more realistic because we actually really need the

770
03:49:05.920 --> 03:49:22.960
funding. So we h you know if you if there's a million if you're saying a million in in our local receipts for motor vehicle and we have consistently gotten 2 million then we have to be a little more realistic and maybe we do 1.5 million. So those are those are uh

771
03:49:22.960 --> 03:49:39.920
hard hard pills to swallow when you're so used to being able to be super conservative. But >> it's just a fact of of this budgeting cycle has to be more more realistic. So, when are you meeting? >> Again, >> I'll let you know. We're gonna I'll send

772
03:49:39.920 --> 03:49:56.160
emails out on a Monday with dates. Probably nothing this week, but starting the following week. >> Well, hopefully not too. >> And we're trying to get that citizen leadership academy going too, which would be on Wednesdays for the next week for eight weeks into April into May. >> We've normally met on Tuesdays. Oh,

773
03:49:56.160 --> 03:50:16.560
yeah. Perfect. So, we'll we'll keep that until the end and then we'll change it. >> Any other questions, guys? You good? >> So, we'll have a joint meeting and discuss where we all think we are. >> Yeah, I I'll be honest with you. If we can figure our site out, we're just

774
03:50:16.560 --> 03:50:32.239
going to email it and say, "Hey, this is what we're at before that meeting." >> And then she'll bring it back to you guys and say, "This is what these guys are thinking." And you know, at least on the on the small stuff, right? Just to get up and and running. And I because we're Yeah, I'm with you. We're running out of time.

775
03:50:32.239 --> 03:50:47.120
>> Yeah. >> And we're running out of money. >> So, it's all good. Just this is this is why we're here. >> Yes, sir. >> The reason they couldn't get a we couldn't get a electronic copy of the

776
03:50:47.120 --> 03:51:03.760
Excel version of the budget. >> Um I think they usually >> Oh, you do? >> Did you ask for one? Oh, Excel no PDF. >> Uh, there was a reason somebody said that. Was it verbally in one of our last meetings they said something about it? >> We can't remember, but Excel would be

777
03:51:03.760 --> 03:51:20.080
better. >> Excel send >> an Excel, but I think she embeds a lot of different formulas in there. So, we would have to extract all of that and just to send you the numbers. I mean that she we can do that. >> Why? >> It's not being saved as a value

778
03:51:20.080 --> 03:51:36.479
proprietary formula. know, but it's not really public with when she does different formulas and and puts things in there that nobody would ever understand. So that link to Google sheets and stuff >> to link to other worksheets and things

779
03:51:36.479 --> 03:51:53.120
like that. You can have you can have something to play with it, see it, but I she doesn't want anybody to have her, >> you know, that's fine. you could >> and sometimes if it's linked to something else it's obligation. >> There's also the risk that we'll break it and then we're arguing over numbers

780
03:51:53.120 --> 03:52:10.960
because ours is the official >> system of record. I just wanted a copy. I could create my own >> that's percentage column. >> It was a lot to get search. >> I was like I want it. Okay. >> And then I asked for a copy. I asked Betsy, can you just ask Laura to give me

781
03:52:10.960 --> 03:52:27.279
a um not copy? not a photo copy of the PDF, but save the Excel as a PDF so I can search it. And I didn't hear back from like >> Yeah, I have public. >> Can you Can you um search?

782
03:52:27.279 --> 03:52:44.319
>> Yeah. Can you make it an Excel? Can you >> I can try >> do that. >> I'll try and >> I think we could probably Google Sheets. I can have her send you something, but not like >> some of these they they uh link to other worksheets. Yeah, but it's not all it's

783
03:52:44.319 --> 03:53:00.160
gonna say >> it's gonna say reference. >> Has to save it as values, not formulas, and then they can have it that way. >> I have no problem with that. >> Okay, we're good. Meeting to adjurnn on the finance side. >> I'll make a motion. I'll second the

784
03:53:00.160 --> 03:53:11.920
motion. >> Second. All those in favor? I sharing with you. >> All right. >> Thank you for your time. Thank you.