good evening everyone and welcome to the select board meeting for April 7th 2025 of the year at 6 PM in the land use hearing room this meeting is being held in hybrid fashion and present this evening is myself select board chair Jason Peron
select board vice chair Diane Gail and select board clerk Mr doug Mglin as well as CAO a my Nicole Parker and ACAO Aden Signoni start the pledge of
allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all item three is public comments is there
anyone in the Sir hi Joe DD258 Feeding Hills Road just a couple of things um during the last month or so we had heard that the cemetery was closed for the winter i'm wondering what that employee did under just a thought there's no heat in
there so I don't think he was fixing his all the way and when we drop a blade there plowed town's responsible for that area so we're in Wally Park we don't plow it because of the snow and we don't want we can't be responsible for kids slipping and falling i think it's the
same as the cemetery so I'd like you to look into that item E tonight is a three-year appointment through June 30th of 2028 from what I recall the current contract runs through June of 2026 so I'm wondering why we're extending it now is there a change in the do job
description if so I don't recall seeing that discussed anywhere i hope you can I hope you can clarify how much money is involved please keep in mind that the average bluecollar resident in this town someone with a small lot in a school is
paying around 4,000 a year in taxes hopefully they own their homes and they can afford to live here yes there are bigger homes in town and yes some of you sitting here pay more but we still need to consider the working-class families who make this community what it is last
week you approved a 3% raise for non-UN employees and in the past department heads more or less cut 4% please consider that thank you thank you sir is there anyone on Zoom that would be interested in
speaking see number two people and no takers move on to item for new business 4 A is acknowledge and approve the $33 cash donation to be deposited
into the libraryies gift account and I motion you accept that motion to accept a $33 donation to the library gift account doug will second the mot call vote jason Prawn i Dang i Doug Morgan yes item B is
to acknowledge and approve the $1,100 from Mark A nude and $1,000 from F bennett Kushman the second and Mark Nu to be deposited into the library's gift account and money get a motion to accept that motion
to accept the $1,100 donation to and $1,000 donation to library gift account second roll call vote jason Pron i Doug Moin yes c is to acknowledge and approve the
$485 donation from Tori and Tom Denton and South Civic Fund to be deposited in the South Animal Control gift fund and Suffach Animal Control Medical Gift Fund motion to accept those donations $485
doug Mogan will second the motion roll call vote jason Peron I dang i Doug Mun yes d is reserve transfer item D is going to be approve the reserve fun transfer to buildings and grounds
so this is for the HVAC unit right your finance approved last week and they had three quotes okay yep looking for a motion to approve the reserve fund of transfer to buildings and grounds for the replacement of the
heat pump at the visitor center at 93 Point Road for $15,000 motion made second roll call vote Jason I thank Mr chairman are they able to take
that expense out of uh fees at the boat ramps to cover this expense out of their revolving it did i mean we approved the expense here so we don't normally concern
ourselves in the budgeting process with the top line but this seems like this would be a if it's an allowed expense under that revolving this would be a good use of those funds because it's they collect them right at that building
if the rules allow it absolutely i'm I'm asking the question i don't know the answer i don't Yeah I was going to say I don't know we'd have to look into that but we just approved funding through the general fund right no we approved funding we didn't It
doesn't necessarily say where it comes from because we're going to have to make this reserve we'll have to take a reserve fund transfer either at the special or at the the annual to reconstitute the reserve fund okay so we
can certainly appropriate out of LMC into the reserve fund to replenish i think I don't know that's I'm just that's why I'm asking the question out loud normal discussions in past that came but I think you know LMC is very
we've talked about they like to work on you know do their own stuff so I know that's you know not we don't necessarily know where Mr sometimes gets his money but yeah we'll look into that uh sir Joe D uh 258 feeding hills wrote they don't
show much money in there revolving they show around 15,000 in there uh in the gift account they have $361 when this was printed all I got you sure yeah I can look into that I I feel like
there was some talk about it being a Southwork building and maybe not like management's responsibility yeah there was definitely discussion about that and but if it's allow if it's allowable use at least some of it could come from
there okay a piece of it right sure say maybe something can come from there item E ratify the agreement with need to as assistant chief administrative officer HR director and approve
three-year appointment through June 30 2028 wolf me can we talk about this N's contract yes yeah this was this all happened before I started so yeah there was what
we how long ago was it it's a good almost a year ago or maybe over a year ago yeah there was some discussion about once Nicole or Nicole sorry Naen got certain certifications and her job description was sorted out and that we
would um look into this i believe we all agreed not all of us but change of duties with whatever the new CEO skills basket was as well reconfiguration of
the office that the additional um and I know there were pos because of we eliminated two positions yeah so in you had asked us to re-evaluate my office and uh you know we determined
that between the three of us and mostly Naen and Margaret that you know the duties could be done by just us in the office and not two extra people um and then that Naen was going to take over all of the HR essentially becoming the
HR director assistant assistant CIO and and she is she has gotten the certification she's got the letters so um so that was I think your direction from when
Chief Landis was working and this was something that was supposed to chief Landis and And um so that's where we are with that there was some discussion previously there was some agreements not agreements but requirements that were to be made
the job description was rewritten um and we're at the point now where we want to give her that raise for the work that she's done that we' asked her to do and I and I've heard all the things you've said about taxes yeah i know i
got one of the bigger houses i know um and you know also working a municipal government where we're dealing with negotiations whatnot like that i completely understand that coming from Mr d um but if you go out and I mean even in
my career it's it's getting to the point where it's either pay people uh I hate to say it a a livable wage because it's getting to the point where a lot of wages are not livable um you know what I could live on 10 years ago I couldn't
live on now and uh if we want to have the people that we have here keep the people that we have here and entice more people to come here and stay here when we need them just got to pay them appropriately is way I would look at it you know if
especially if we're given those additional responsibilities that we asked of them that's where I stand on it i just wanted to address your concern specifically we did revise the job description we all
We all reviewed it correct you reviewed it as well it does match the additional duties picked up by missing people as well so I guess I would also ask and it I think
it would be a number we should be able to get would be if you take this is 20 five but take fiscal year probably 23 or 24 and look at the budget for select board
office and then net then it against what it's going to look like in fiscal year 26 with these new budgets i'll bet you it's really close because you eliminated one it should be it should be slightly less but you you eliminated at least one
FTE and replaced that with one FTE and then you had a CEO and and a new assistant CEO at that time now you've got a new CEO and ACA acco that law so that one FTE should be pretty close to budget
neutral i would think that money went to later i was sitting here Jack like where did that money go okay looking into that male i also believe that the salary is
commenurate with a fully accountable HR manager out in the real world as well yeah okay any further discussion just when we discussed this last
um you know I I was we had a lot of back and forth and discussion on this and it was to you know fulfill the existing contract at the time so we we've kind of held this up till now i'm not in opposition to to making this move now
given that the job description has changed um and the certifications have been achieved and the timing is certainly more appropriate than it was previous i would look be looking for a vote to our motion to ratify the agreement with
Nian Signon as assistant chief administrative officer director and approve three-year appointment through June 30th 2028 motion made do we have funds available to to handle this expense through the end of the fiscal year it doesn't start until
July 1 i thought it said April oh April that is I mean we certainly have it in our part-time salaries account i don't have it in her salary account
what's the pleasure of the board do they want to change that to started July 1 that's why I asked the question that I don't want to sign up for something that we don't have the money to pay for but that was what was put in front of us for
for review here and I don't know what's the process if we have to move money out of part-time to April May June 90 days i mean the option is April one or July
one i don't know if there'd be any opposition to looking into if the funds are available we agreed upon looking for one date or luck haven't agreed upon it clearly yet but is open just
it's okay I I must have too many tabs open or something well as of 3:31 we had 6180 in the overtime budget in 1915 spent
6180 so you got like four grand available there do you know what the math is i do not do you know the math at all um let's just do that later and
we'll vote on that again next week we'll just Okay bring it up again next week after we find out that information and then we'll make that decision question you have a question no I said that was an question all
right item F we should finish the discussion here before we move on so roughly we talking about 1,700 bucks if I'm doing my math right for the period that's what Yeah I the different that's that would be the
difference i'm guessing I don't have your train i was just freezing up because I think different numbers maybe three
uh this one which is the old one is agreement one the new one today JD1 is the new one JD1 no that's the old one
JD1 is the old one the other one on the back of the agreement there this says April 2025 okay so it goes well I mean I can here
right yeah well she's Oh that's good no just a little yeah [Music] this one we certainly do have it in our budget as a matter of fact there's some in my line item that's not going to be used and we have like 20,000 in
part-time salaries and we have 4,000 in overtime if the money's there I'd rather just get this done we've been had to kind of bring this back and forth a few times the money is there i definitely would prefer to just get this
done that is so we're only talking $3,000 for the remainder of this fiscal year close yeah I'm already
30 was that about 30,000 left anyway in my whole budget so like we said this came up before Nicole and everything like this and we discussed all this and we asked her to meet all the requirements and said that we would address this issue upon her
meeting all these requirements job description whatnot like that if we can afford to do it which if we've got $30,000 left in the CAO line item for now for how long we got left three
months i would just be looking for a motion just to get this done doug is still calculating no that's fine i'm just that's my preference just to have this item settled but I also don't want to you
know step on anyone's toes because I'm a lame duck so I'll second the mot call vote jason Pron yes the next item is item F which is the
fiscal year 2026 budget review but since this is probably going to take a little bit of time I'm going to go with Miss um Parker's recommendations to try and wrap up any of the other items we have and get this out of the
way so I'm going to skip down to item five other new business um I have none none no this here are there old i do oh sorry that's
um last week our payment box was hit and damaged and broken so um we have a quote for a new one but I'll I need your approval because it's 38.25 so it's under the $3,000 threshold we will be um
charging the individual that hit the box we have footage but I still need your approval because it's over 3,000 anybody want to look at it payment box green seen the mailbox outside exactly the same yeah the pay the tax
payment box they were able to some form of protest trying to break it they were able to bust it out just so they could open it but it's so it needs to be replaced the integrity is compromised so it needs to be replaced it was an accident it was an accident yes it was
definitely an accident truck on accident so it would be um or $3,825 but we anticipate recovering from insurance on the name we will as a matter of fact it will probably be less because we don't need liftgate service and we also don't need
the plastic collection tote because that one that's in there is fine but it'll still be over 3,000 one of those years where it comes whether you wanted it or not motion to authorize the 3000 up to
$3,825 for replacement payment box second roll call vote Jason Peron I move again nene business all right back to old business um myself
I'm still tweaking around mr moan have you had a chance to tweak not this weekend no no on the other I just started to tweak the other day myself the other thing my tweaks with the my version of the public nuisance um taken with your input
um they're almost done it's it's basically address the issues that you had and then I just have to wait for Mr molin and see what he's got for issues and I'll bring it back in front of you my intent is to um I would like to see it on the tunnel warrant as well let the
folks go vote on it and like I said I think this will very skillfully help augment yours mhm with the North Pond task force so that's where I am with that
um that's about it that's all I really have discussed it today the whole business i did the community meeting last Wednesday also discussed your bylaw in there as well that it would be um complimentary to in addition to um I
haven't updated the very few comments from the participants but I will review the I just haven't had time with the budget review to uh do that but I'll get that done this coming week okay Mr morgan
nothing for me sir other than uh I don't know i saw it in the uh department headnotes and then a couple people reached out to me as well that the Easter egg hunt is on a Friday this year it's good Friday right the
kids are at school bummer for the parents that were good for me change any takes care of I don't have any other no one has any other legal warrants we need to acknowledge payables warrant
number 2525B dated 3312025 in the amount of $467,352.98 8 cents we need the department head reports everybody was talking about going over those minutes we need to acknowledge and approve the
open session meeting minutes from March 24th 2025 i also I'm going to go with you guys because I just got in today without a computer so okay motion to accept the open session
minutes March 24th 2025 second roll call vote i'm going to abstain bank allies did we have exact no we didn't have the 10
no I didn't if I didn't say it I don't think I did we're acknowledging and approving the executive session meeting minutes from technically is it March 20 these are the third it was the 31 you know I heard you guys talking and I was just confirming
Motion to accept the executive session minutes March 31st 2025 second roll call Jason I stay and now we can go back to item F fiscal year 26 budget review does anyone
need to take a quick break at all before we start yes take a Yeah Just kidding all set all right Naen i muted it starting question so select board budget was just punched
in as level um besides the fixed costs and the um salaries are you know contractual and CBAs etc so ready for you guys to um you know put your numbers in there i I
wanted to kind of see the bottom line what the level would look like to compare it to our revenues um so that's why I had left it at um level and then you also have the 5% decrease in
green and then in red are some changes that the cells did have if there were if it was changed I put I put an explanation in the cell but we can go over it on the paper and then this is my first year so
I apologize and I hope everybody can bear with me as I uh navigate this with you guys for the first time and um and let's we'll go through it the way that you guys have always historically done
it well this is my second year and we did it different last year i did it the same this year i looked at the historical actual spending versus what was budgeted each
year to see how much room there was in the budgeted numbers historically what is [Music] our flavor what is our um risk level on how aggressive we want
to be this year before I start saying we should cut this we should cut that are we I mean you got to go through them one at a time i mean we took out some significant amounts last year based on some of your recommendations mhm see how
some of those play out mhm against actual expenses this year and then there were some that we held back and we'll see how those look this year and see what what if anything needs to be done with okay so I'm still going to refer to those historical actuals then as we go
through this that's fine okay where are you starting model ready i'm going to start right at the top yep think we have said anything that's not red is all yeah the only change administrative assistant is less she
makes less i left $2,000 in there for overtime there was this increase employee volunteer recognition but the only thing that was on there and I know the finance committee referenced it as well it was $18 what I think happened was an
increase of $18 even though the amount wasn't in there but I had seen it in some previous budgets i might have seen it in the pri prior three years um at 1482 and then it was brought up to 1500 so you're just trying to bring it up to
which I think even even but I don't have it in there at all at this point because I just saw that earlier today it was I don't know why did you see that Laura it was just like this red $18 yeah because you I think in the budget
request it said 1500 on the level side and he was trying to bring it up to 1500 well we were bringing it up I think we were bringing it up to just be an even number um but as at this point it's not in there at all so either we
don't recognize volunteers or you Well how do you how do you recognize volunteers because nothing was spent last year or this current fiscal year we'll do a better job this year at the holiday party is that this past year
is that where it came from pretty sure that's what um it came I believe from what I'm told all the parties came out of the gift account that was being replenished by a business that no longer is
um so there's that I don't know what you want to do I mean I don't know what you know you want to put 15 back in there um yes Yes Doug's nodding okay I guess here I'm
like I said where I'm lame duck deferring mostly to you guys i have significant opinions on something I'll put them in question on dunes is that like MMA views for each of us on solid what is that yes yes
hired service this was recruiting costs i'm sorry I'm jumping um was that recruiting costs see this is why I said if you wanted to get me your questions I could have them answered by tonight oh um I don't know
what has historically been in there um where are you on hired service i believe that was the recruiting for we did last year mri what no there was more than Well
that was more than MRI was so some of it was we had set up for hiring committees for the CEO position but we've always had as a line item for any kind of outside consultants we may
need throughout the year oh okay for consulting as well okay all right so I think that needs to go up and I'm not sure where it needs to go up because we are probably going to have to recruit for a planner and an assessor
and eight's not going to be enough we are setting interviews for the planner position now do we have candidates excellent okay assessor yes um I don't know what the cost um to
to do that i can come I can get some ballpark figures and come back to you guys all right let's let's do that and I don't know if it goes here or the job description for that been posted yet and the job posted internally first no right now we're doing planner in the
chief's confidential assistant and I don't think that we discussed whether it was going to be only an internal posting first or whether it was going to be
both and whether it should be for the best possible pool so but you come back with a number and then the rest of this I guess Nicole can you live with the 5% less on
the confidence minor and supplies um so looks like we hit it on the conference in travel that's probably just mask me well so that too I I mean Oh I changed it on the next page
for us um we actually I think that I hope we could make it on a 5% reduction as everything goes up and everything continues to go up and we don't as a municipality um I do fear that we aren't
going to make it on 5% reduction hence the reason that I kind of suggested at least a level funded budget i don't even know that that is going to be adequate in the coming year um but you know we have to do what we have to do so if we
have to start out with a 5% reduction and um figure it out later I guess that's what we do well I'm not around but I will say this the MMA conference is absolutely in my opinion worth worth it you know I if
we hit there already and I think that's pretty much that's the only thing I went through and the cost of rooms is not getting cheaper the cost of parking is not getting cheaper and it's I think it's imperative that the three members of this board go
to that if they can so I would not be in favor of cutting that budget i would want to see it level conference and travel yep agreed and Jason I'll just also Sorry Mr chairman I'll also just add that for the point of
discussion you are the sitting select board member and whoever comes into the seat just like when I and Miss Gail and yourself came into the seat at the close of the town meeting were given a budget that was passed at the town meeting 10
minutes prior to you being sworn in as select board member so you have a three member board you're you should be more than uh any commentary or set forth to the budget is your input is more than welcome and it's counterbalanced by the
three people that other two people that are up here so don't feel you have to hold back you will not be saying I appreciate that that's just I appreciate that i get it you know what I mean when I was elected elected or anyone else was elected to this board you came in owning a budget that was put forth by a
previous previous administration i greatly appreciate that you know my mindset's just you know I hate to put it this way it's in a way it's not going to be my problem next year so I don't want to make a bigger problem for That's right we still get to blame you anyway all right so we have to
make decisions here not just ramble i think we're fine with the 3500 and um you know maybe we'll look at that as to who goes or who doesn't go if we need to if it gets uh horrifically expensive
i've probably gone now for close to a decade you know and if I need to sit out a year I'll sit out a year but um you know if it's worthwhile for someone else in town to go I know we've encouraged the someone from the planning
board to go one year we had Randy go um it's definitely beneficial for people who can go whether but right I mean it's certainly a beneficial conference i would think it was I think it was a step down this year versus previous years to be honest with you but I don't like where it was um not just is what it is but anyway we got
to stay on topic here because this is uh okay there's going to be a long night if we gonna haggle d is staying 1800 or that's conference and travel right dues is probably mass municipal plus any other Correct other things are we going down five or staying 1,800 i
think that's what we're trying to do here we spent all the We overspent the budget by $41 there too we'll come back to fired service conference travel leave at 35 minor equipment can we drop to 600 we never spend Well in 2022 we spent
1,500 otherwise it's 2 250 300 can we make it six or five which was that minor equipment well that keeps coming up doesn't it just make it 500 bucks i think so too
i'm fine with that and you got to put the dollar back for field driver that's tradition it's not the dollar supplies are you serious absolutely i don't even I'm going to have to learn
about this one i don't even know what it means there was actually someone in that position i don't know you ever took the dollar i think the person passed away but we just said we would keep that forever if necessary dollar with the treasurer
tomorrow supplies may go from 17 to 2,000 we're budgeted for 15 we've gone over it once we can make it the 5% 1425 yes we'll just make sure at Mass
Municipal we get more pens yes and we'll make the employee recognition a full $1,500 agreed yes did we agree on everything leaving the moderator full level funded
$220 okay we have no capital chief administrative officer salaries are contractual these dues are are MMA specifically for you not select board them yes and your STEM and so forth well
the dues and conference and travel all of that is meeting is included in that so you'll see the red 6,000 are you are you on the second page now are you on 0129 under dues and still on page one 01129 we're on our pages are different
than yours but yes we're on chief administrative officer dues yep okay and yes we have 6,000 conference and travel you're increasing yeah because that's 1250 no and there you go that's computerized yep yeah that just threw me
screwed me threw me off to me so the conference and travel does not include certifications because that's a separate line right okay and that is expected to be 2500 for next
year for who you're talking but we have yeah so certifica um certifications are in our or in our contracts as well those are ex this is the expense this is
expenses this isn't compensation oh that's to get training um for certifications which I don't need because I don't need to reertify next year and you're all set correct yeah she should be good too so this is zero i we
could zero that out this year for sure that's what I'm getting at supplies we can make that 400 you haven't spent anything like that in a long time auto allowance is the contractual
thing on this line yeah you have no more furniture between the two of you or zero for 26 they they put it in there apparently so I could buy something when I came in
and I did buy a picture for the wall that will stay with Southwick forever but other than that I'm not going to buy anything in I have I'm never going to buy anything so that's a zero okay reserve fund account
[Music] um so in red Mhm you'll see of 75,000 and I have um the previous years i don't know if you have that up but I
have 22 there was 85 left i'm sorry yeah 23 there was 58 left and and 24 there was 73 left um but so this is to get this was to kind of come in line with at
least what um we've done in the past few years and trying to be conservative once we talk about revenues whenever that is um you know to our expenses is pretty tight
so just trying to look at the what was the reserves on account at the start of the year and what have we approved for reserve fund transfer so far this year 63 at the start of the year including the 15 and change we approved
tonight i have it like 140 right there's 136 209 but that's not including the 15 so you got to subtract the 15 add 15 add 15 well if you subtract 151
so that right no sorry give me that number again 163 and we had then we we took out 7544 1927 to equal 26791 and then we just you
15 maybe 384 for a mailbox well that's going to get reimbursed in the end goal on that but so you said 7544 1927 i ran this on Friday this is what was
expended and was left besides your Oh besides the 15 years that 19 How do we get to this number every year this is anticipated six unanticipated un anticipated
unanticipated expenditures right right it's for Yeah you got to put that that number is about right so you should basically you should try to get that back to roughly $160
$170,000 so you just you took out 7544 just rough math 20 and 8 28 plus 30 but what's the 163 why is that a magic number somehow we got there that's always been about historically you got
to have it was 86 it was 102 and then it was 163 well it didn't start off there so those are the revised budgets so it's always started off at 163 and every time we Oh and then when you spend it down
you adjust it adjust that gotcha so my guess is it's always been around somewhere close to 200,000 is what you try to keep around there i mean 160 175 so but you took 58 out so the you the 20 28 plus you said
30 is 15 and 15 coming so I think the 75,000 is a safe number um and it gives you you know and then we'll als we'll talk about the other side as to where you take that money from because some of that where you appropriate to go back into reserve
should reflect some of where the money went that's why I mentioned earlier tonight about like lake management and I don't know if they have the wherewithal to fund any of that work at at that building but that maybe the appropriation would come from there back into reserve to make good on that so we
do we budget what we do we want to budget 163 or to replenish to 163 true true so the 75,000 gets you right where you want to be well I mean this money goes away though at the end of the year right right so you're start off you got to
start off at whatever numbers so generally we start off every year at 163 the way she's proposing it is that we're only going to start off with 75,000 yeah so more than 50% so there I misunderstood that i thought
you carry the So everything goes away no how we wouldn't be funding it we wouldn't have it to move we have like historical is there any sort of average that we've been averaging yeah that's what I had i feel like 75 is way too these are
although we didn't spend 60 70 of it this year we're cutting a lot i I think by the time we get done with this we're going to be cutting a lot at some risk i think it has to be at 163 again okay
agreed sure don't let me talk you into it no I mean I was I I just was getting at the math a different way i didn't realize that that way i thought it was Yeah you good with that
thank you okay all right um do we need to talk about salaries or are we just going to if there's something we see that's odd yeah if there's something you see because the only thing that we have done is add 3%
okay unless there's a contract unless something unless Okay all right so finance committee was all leveled or actually it's a 5% decrease carried over and you only use 769 Mr somehow they
got bombed into ours I think so they got a bigger conference and travels that's it next year Joe you're driving to Are you staying at five car fivestar restaurants and hotels are Well he's Are you planning on
conference and travel to 3600 bucks next year well the idea is we have a pretty big board and and you beg them to go but you you see what happens i think that that gets I'm gonna say let's go 3675
yes make interesting that I think some of the it probably just got 5% discount around that's that's their 5% but I like rounding i know in the past when the select word went over end up coming out of ours
i won't cut it then oh you cut it you're saying I I I would I would have it half what half the amount that means you're not using it make it 18 well they have used it well I think we over Well I don't know what the
what the what's the historical use they did 3,800 one year 2400 and I think just Joe went last year it was 769 okay so three oh so you're not putting that be I'm ready to do both
what's that jason is suggesting 3,000 that's fine i think it last you know in years past we've had members of the finance committee go we've had members of the accounting department go i still think we should encourage more people to go to that conference as possible
there's a lot to you know I joked about it being a little lesser this year but it still was a great learning experience and I think just the hotel alone would have been about that much for so I'm thinking that probably the expense reports some of them were combined and
they came out of different lines and that's why some of them are over some are under $3,000 $3,000 would allow four people sure so right and if we don't touch supplies they can take the overage out of the supplies there you go
all right reserve for wage negotiations remember to turn in your books people saves them on supplies um so this one varies depending on when bargaining agreements are renewing correct
and we my understanding is that there aren't any next year don't have any next year no it's always it's going to be the year after so the year after i know i know i know i don't know if you're good with 50% yeah I don't think we have any coming up
we settled they are all You said you had was it fire was the one oddball we have they were out of sync they're all the ones settled this year there's some that are coming up FY27 but so 40 anyway in the event that
you renegotiate something else um 40 good but um it was 80 sorry I said over time is that what we get on the Yeah you'll be okay with that number but you remember you've got there are some
contracts that need to be negotiated there is there's a significant one that needs to be negotiated this year it's an existing contract that doesn't have a year two and three salary line in it that needs to get negotiated this year that should you should be okay with
that number if that's you should be okay with that number it's this year actually it's not next year that that's being we're in sort of negotiations right now okay all right but it's this year it's
actually not it's not for next fiscal year oh I mean it is for next fiscal year i'm sorry you're absolutely right yes okay accounting operations dues um if I can go out of order conference and travel based on history I would say
$4,000 minor equipment $800 and supplies $1,800 and then you can do what you want with dude i don't know if those are actual actually you don't spend that on dues either so my suggestions based on
historical 4,81800 there any comments here do you guys have any like mandatory conferences that you guys have to go to we um we go to um our April
conf um there is one in November that we do do attend and then there is one in June that we have not but we probably should be attending the one in June but and you
said the most they paid most expended was 3,800 two years ago so I said four so if there's another one we could say 14 300 to cover that i was just going to
leave four well I said four initially but where are you conference and travel yeah so I I'm fine with four if you think four is going to get you there Laura an extra day 1,700 bucks you said the highest was $3,800
mhm 431 if we could leave our supplies and miner equipment alone I could take the word that one's more overstated minor
equipment and supplies or we just go 5% on everything and and you said you 5% as long as you're going to be comfortable so let's we'll be comfortable i mean everybody has to do their share so so that'll give you room
for that conference then I think and so we'll just do the 5% on that yeah 5% so can really quick run that down um conference and travel is going to be 43.95 and then a,000 for minor equipment
and 2,000 for supplies 2000 is not 5% decrease though it would be 1900 5% 1900 on you said supplies supplies yeah my audit of accounts you're pretty good
with those numbers I think okay assessor [Music] operations um uh this is a reval year every five years correct so that is why that wood is going up just assume and you have this in at 5% decrease
correct i might have did you have that in at 5% no you said you did everything level this one's level but it's also equal to the 5% and I think they said they were fine
with five except for the additional um revaluation yeah so I have that at 37500
3500 plus 15 300 500 1300 4535 for total 27010 we got that now I just want to talk about staff development before we go on though um we knocked that down a little bit last year
it was pretty high they still don't spend historically it was 860 675 610 and 260,25 to date we can knock that down and let the new person reassess that the same way we let you
reassess some things we could knock that down some more they're not using it they will under new direction with a new They will under new direction but you're still in the assessors yes staff development staff development my
concern would be like you said you got I know what you're saying Miss Gail but you got somebody new coming in you know you're going to spend it in the following year i think in the following year but they may well they start will they have classes see I don't think they think you're
actually probably low if you're okay depending on where you wind up I like I said they haven't used it but because the office has been stable it's about to become incredibly unstable from
with the staff turn and you also run into the fact that you can't find an assessor so treasurer collector she said she could run on the 5% 93 for the salaries yes for the salaries
uh no on the operating expenses operations 1565 for which one treasure collector operations operations level or decrease the level is 15650
oh and5 she said she could run on Yep she was quite comfortable with that yeah that was so 1505 total on that legal ads
good i think that was pretty static attorney fees you have an additional 138 we were putting out to bid general legal
not labor labor are you expecting that we're going to pay more for a new firm i would expect we would pay a little bit more have we gotten any i haven't gone out i
haven't gone out yet okay that's odd but I guess we're paying for the service we're getting right well I don't think it's time everything's going up especially if you're bringing in a new firm
do we want to fix tap it i don't know what do you got 100 total is that Yeah 100 total level right no 86
82194 would be level i mean would be 5% decrease keeping it would be 86 520 what are you attorneys right here and then this would this red increases it to 100 oh but if you take that out it just
leaves it i guess we leave it because we don't know what we'll get right and if we don't like it we stay where we are right that would work for me or we negotiate with someone else you can have our business for the same so legal we have 100 and 400 for fees
negotiator 18548 level funded tax title 26 the town clerk i believe she said she was
good so she can survive she did right yeah yeah pretty sure yeah all right so we'll make her 5% also then 11 [Music] or elections that is what it is based on
the number of elections expected so no change there agreed capital the pole p agreed capital poll pads are we voting on these as we go through as well yeah capital items
agreed we're voting and then we'll just wrap it up at the end that we vote we're agreeing that's what we're going to approve on everything that we discussed today we have to because we have to reconcile with finance committee on Thursday i'm just saying not every line will go
through and so polls yes Jason these were so they could check the door i she's not electronic voting it's check at the door if everyone else is fine with that than I am
seems like a reasonable idea eliminate a lot of the I agree thanks save time reduce wages right i know they came up even when my first year when Michelle was still here if I remember right all right are we discussing changes we have to discuss changes in
um headc counts and requested rate increase here in conservation correct i'm a no on increasing hours and rate on this at this time yeah I'm fine no no on the
hour i think she's on the cusp of it again and um I don't again we don't talk too much about the funding side of this but I I was thinking out loud about this when they came in front of us last week if they're allowed to use some of their own
um because she mentioned like I said well you can't buy a computer with this money oh yeah you can right so I don't know you know they don't have they're not going to have $24,000 of it but if you could look at defraing some of the costs with some of the this under the state law that
they're looking to adopt or that we've adopted um to allow them to expend funds from revolving to for this um this also is more than that in the end in that
because you see that it's not just the 24574 he would also then have to hire a CPC secretary right to or take that money that administr out of their administrative uh line item because she's does that role as well
we have secretary in here well it says increase in secretary rate and hours below right and that's a separate person is there somebody in it who's who works for her conservation Ellen okay and then we want to increase
her hours too she didn't have a secretary before it seems like net net she's ahead correct i don't disagree with you i think you can look at um what is her hours
um is it on i didn't I just want to go into my book i'm sorry say that uh Ellen is six hours a week talking about the conservation coordinator b is 28
24 and 8 24 conservation so it's already benefited and eight for CPC but you have to look I don't know which which revolving account um as part of the law if it's the
departmental ones full-time employees benefits too you have to do the benefits too out of that right now it's very hard to rely on revolving funds for salary and I know I keep asking for some
clarification and justification for the full-time hours and what I received wasn't really adequate it was more what she can't do and not what she does and how she manages her time so I'm not
fully vested in I in in recommending that we do that yet i I I also looked at the number of applications they had and type of application i like to do the history over like the last four years and it's really not um increasing in
number it may mean complexity but it may also be the learning curve and as she gets more years in it it should be more efficient so I'm a no on both of those i saw her response and I be the same way
we talking about that so that's a no definitely no all right so conservation coordinator stays at 31284 no increase in hours or rate
it's already projected at an increase for 2023 and no increase in hours on the secretary at this time you said how many hours is the secretary getting uh eight um
she's working she's working with Sabrina for LP she's working at the program and she's working for not no but I mean she she has more than one got
it all right and then in operations the land maintenance was in at 4,200 and I would agree that has to stay there because they're going to revive that open space management group and need some of that
um do uh bear conference and travel could go down to a thousand it's been 200 500 138 one year it was 1195 they did something i think a,000 could work
somebody respond so the conference and travel if you said a thousand would work I'm okay with going down on the land maintenance until that committee and management is up and running i would want to see that money cut if you're trai- if you use 1540 is
there a traditional spending on that you have the numbers on that for land maintenance yeah 4,3524 that was for land maintenance for 24 for land maintenance yeah and they're 1,500 so far year to date but they have more they're going to
spend on North Pond they're going to need that next year to continue North Pond signage etc all right then yeah that's Yeah okay we'll leave that alone i'd be not alone i mean signs are going to be $7,000
yeah you're going to be over that they're going to be short at 4,200 this year yes you are they're going to be short next year as well um until you get all that stuff posted this Westfield River wershed are
they did they not do that membership anymore i think on theirs they had 800 but we had zero that correct and 2500 right oh no they had zero they had
zero too sorry my fault my fault and um and then supplies is actually up and again I think they're going to need those should we make it 1250
if you want to knock a dollar off i mean just it's so bizarre to have these one it's because everybody does a percentage cut field driving all right so here let's just run down this again and make sure everybody agrees from land maintenance 4,200 dunes 560 conference
and travel a,000 and supplies 1250 okay town planner um so if you see I just put the 75 there y um and I do see the benefits are there
and honestly there are there is already two extra that are bene that are funded in the benefits um line item but two extra right
they're they're b we budget for two extra people just in case so it's in there who benefited I think it was just in broken out to show you the cost i'm confused about what the bread lines
are in here what is it this is um the benefits of hiring the new full-time economic development it would be the insurance Medicare yeah I get that all right yeah I love that
um generally in our health insurance line item because um we budget for changes and then or two two new people coming on or two people changing
um their benefits as part of the um health um line item because this is just an FYI notation in here that benefits will also They'll go up is that what you're saying in benefits won't go well that person is going to cost an extra $23,5
in benefits in benefits in benefits in the benefit line are you increasing this byund and I'm confused i just put the salary would be that and then the part-time clerical
so from what it was from what it was as John parttime the 45 is the increase to 75 it's just a note 46 304 so it's not extended in the column it's just a note
gotcha I'm still not in favor and I'll go on a record with that again if that was a vote um I'm voting yes we already voted on this did we that we're voting on this budget number now i made my point clear yes this Okay yes
all right in operations here um you have it in at level funded i do you want me to drop it down to the file um well conference and travel hasn't been used would it be for they should
we've been begging them to send someone to Mass Municipal there's some excellent zoning and stuff that goes on at at Massal and it's high time that somebody town players have their own conferences too like the CPTC and that kind of thing so
if we drop it 5% it's like 150 bucks it with a new person is it worth it let them work it out say if you got a new person coming in and they they want to go to these things and there's more that they want to go to so we'll leave that at level
funded yeah I'd leave that straight acceptance 20,000 was this Barrett and Dwit yes I think it is okay um board of appeals
yeah i mean we can make that 5% right they spend nothing supplies so what's the historical amount zero zero uh 397 in supplies one year
oh no supplies i'm sorry yeah i'm in board of appeals yeah i would I was still looking at okay above it um economic development he rejiggered his
uh did he not i think reduced it moved it around bear with me while I catch up no I guess he's he'd be smart he did 11,800 he did the 5% okay
computer operations what the heck so are you dropping their supplies down to 1800 1800 sorry yeah I do computer
operations went up 39% the prior year we're suggesting it's another 16% this year is there new hardware and software in that i have no idea i don't have an answer i've been
talking with um with Wall-E about a new contract because we actually haven't had one since like 22 um the hardware software I did look at it and we use it we use it holy crap
and then the managed service I put that in there because there's this whole other component of cyber security now and all we got a grant to do all the implementation uh but to manage it going forward that's
sort of what he gave me last year but then I asked to for some more information and we haven't had that final meeting yet for me to get exactly why did it go up this much like what are you what extra are you giving us and what more services are we getting so
we'll have that conversation but I managed service is the same as hardware software support no different different companies not necessarily so so I can a little bit generally about this in
that because we did a community compact grant so unrelated to any of the providers part of the community compact grant was you got something but it tied you into some significant expenses and outlying years and this board voted to take that
grant no going into that eyes wide open so you kind of obligated yourself when you did that sounds like the sewer well not quite so that was 9% the history on this one was a 9% increase a 20% increase 54% increase and
this year another 42% increase i'm going to I'm being really um I'm probably overbudgeting I guess I should say i I'm imagining you're not going to come back at that he did last
year and I asked him to go back and look at it and give me some more information and so we're still this year working off of we're still paying exactly what we paid last year so there was no increase this year i anticipate an increase next year but I but I'm not exactly sure
where it's going to be what's your technical feel are these numbers right fair 39% and 42% increase over You'd have to look at what those numbers comprise and then and make an informed decision and and I'm I'm going to keep this at arms length i don't get involved
in this piece at all oh yeah so I you know I looked at what we spent in this line item hardware software over the past few years and even though a a big significant portion of it does go to
Wall-E it goes for the hardware and software that we buy um we have a couple are you taking the car buddy service or we talking are you taking so that is our accounting software that
is the Adobe it's the office 365 it's firewalls software I mean um and hardware it's hardware it's all of those components um physical stuff you
got some hardware stuff but They just go up every year you know all right are you comfortable with those numbers i'm hoping to come back with something smaller but Okay all right i don't want to be too minor equipment and supplies
are like never spent i would just combine those two and make it one line to supplies supplies there i got $475 out of that thank you so are we taking minor out completely and just leaving 475 okay
yeah and then computer capital 15 for new Windows upgrades requirements I guess that was and we are not doing any further website upgrade
i think this money was here to do it this year right so well I think that we either we're going to do it or we're going to encumber it and% we're going to do it and we're going to use this money so we don't need to f
fund anymore because we uh we will do it 25 is encumbered or not no I I don't No eight eight is eight is what they're we have right now I believe yeah
12,000 was in the budget we didn't spend any level funded is eight and nothing carried across so I think the 12,000 has not been spent at all there was a forced upgrade that was being done this year because the version of rupal I think it
was is they they were forcing us to migrate to the other old version of Drupal um from the old old version of Drupal that was the last I had seen from them so why it looks a little nicer but not quite no I don't think they did uh they
might have moved that looks a little bit more tad more user friendly but okay so we'll just encumber it again we don't have to budget for it again so it's zero this year but that's not going to get you a full-blown website update to upgrade i don't know i don't know how
much i mean I did it last year with Civic Plus but I don't think that we had the modules that we have here so and it but it was only like 5,000 so I don't 12,000 might be very close and I don't see where we could actually
even budget for more no I don't either i'm just saying I just So you can use the 12 for 20 from 2025 and it's zero zero for this year okay okay um on overtime in town hall
salaries we have not spent that budget like ever why do we continue to budget that much 12360 in overtime town hall salaries historical right where it is now it's under town halls
historical it was 86 98 58 and we've spent 28 so far this year half of that so we're tracking at five or six i think you could you can safely cut that down you'd have to go into uh previous
administration and outline years but there was significantly larger overtime amounts expended so and that had been rained in quite a bit you said the highest safe at 9 safe at 8,000 9,000
9 if we never said what 98 is the highest you reference because that some of that that's not just like I know it's under custodial that's just that's not custodial overtime that's total town hall am I correct town hall i think we all
have overtime in our own budgets too right i'm not sure if they're jogging me or not i was kind of looking the general direction so let's say 9,000 okay um part-time salaries same conversation
we're budgeting at 154 historically 123 121 131 we're at 105 so far this year why are we 154 well it's going up 3% uh that's not
offund last year's budget was too high as well that's what I'm saying it was 154 last year if it's 131 you said traditionally what it'd be like 138 compounded
40 140 sure 140 there you go thank you in town hall operations maintenance activities this is 49,000 we don't spend anywhere near that
we spent almost 38 this year so far 34 18 34 and 38 and we're at 49 we've never gone 49 we've never gone 40 we're at 38 can we go 42
are we going to kill somebody what did you say for historical 34 18 34 and 38 year to date year to date what did you say 42 42 seems reasonable 42 years
and this is why I said 163 back on on the reserve fund because if we run short when we true these up reality we may find something goes out of whack contracts and agreements we reduced the prior year we
can reduce it again because we're still not hitting this either 5747 47 27 year-to- date we're budgeting 60 say again 5747 57 47 4728
50 i'm afraid these agreements are going out next year 60 where are you on 520600 town hall contracts and agreements i don't know what we're contracting that we're not
using what agreements do we have that we're not calling on do you want to revisit that you want to look that up and come back for this year for this year okay 27 you said about another 15 mr dying what are
you doing Joe the sprinkler uh the sprinkler that's leaking downstairs they have money in that account that we can use towards it so I checked with them and um came up with a game plan and there's 20 something thousand maybe 28 in there that's not
being used we do still have three months left of the year though oh of course and I did ask that question and they felt I can send you the emails tomorrow and they felt that we'd still be okay and I think the sprinkler is 15 i don't have it in front of me i think it's a little lower than that but because we weren't
going with the with the current company that we have we were going to go with the middle the lower one did not have prevailing wage in it but he's got maintenance activities that we just said we were going to reduce too so there's got to be money in there he couldn't move around too
right there's not a limit activities i think 38 right now they only have Oh for this year correct for this year you're right you're right yep this year was was deducted okay
okay can I just ask a quick question sure just shout out go back back up to the salaries i know it wasn't recommended but I just the new part-time custodial for the fire department yeah I meant to ask about that
oh yep we skipped that skipped um sorry I missed it um I had asked this question about our custodial night already and so we're going to look into that and look into whether or not we can incorporate that
into the evening oh I think that we can i agree with you um just so you know so we were looking at these um these non uh non-union increases last week and I asked a question about that night shift
that does the cleaning in the buildings um but we think there might be capacity here to absorb that building so for me that's a yellow i'm coming back to it next week or in a day or two i don't know when we meet Thursday
all set Laurel good thank you yep yep thank you missed that um in electricity and fuel we don't hit the numbers we budget for
here and and I'm not for stripping everything although there's a lot in here that we just aren't hitting these numbers that we keep the electricity I wouldn't touch with the volatility you've seen this year let me give you the historical on it 60
and we've done energy saving measures here too 62 50 5745 year to date we're budgeting 72 and it hasn't been so take $2,000
off take 2725 the highest historical was what so far recently in 22 it was 72,000 make it 70 70 sounds good to me and same thing with fuel 18 30 12 and 14
year to date we're budgeting 35 but take that down five is that what we're saying 30 yep to 30 here again grounds contracted services what are we contracting for but
not using 18 19 18 10 year to date 30,000 budgeted you want to take see what's in there and that's what that's like our mowing and clean off and all that stuff on the grounds yeah on the
grounds and you said historical again i am patient 19 191 18 10 year to date take five now you have to see what the impact of having the ball courts and all the other stuff on that'll be under park
and wreck that'll be under park and wreck okay that's separately under park and wreck 25 um everything else there I didn't have any questions or concerns anybody Hearing none
town hall copier another copier 9,000 is that this year maybe or is that carried over i don't know i don't know what's going to die well we had it last year didn't apparently didn't need one do we need
one we don't know we don't we don't budget every until we die how old are all the printers around here counting how old are your guys ours is I say
sorry ours I have a whisper you know the next year or two we bought one in fiscal 24 pd got one dpw got one right so it's got to be good for another year take a year off zero zero
handicap accessibility do we do this every year yes just to keep up with things yes it's part of the comprehensive building study okay i think we probably didn't get as much done with the turnover in that department but there's always a gajillion dollars worth of projects that
you could do okay so the sprinkler here says 17 is that your 17 Joe okay so that's a yes in here well unless you're going to do it this year we'll say that's no right so that's a no the main power switch you said you had
some heat fix for that script lock it says to be determined we'll just leave it at zero because it's fixable well honestly I found a used part for six grand i'm So do we But it's probably 20,000 to shut
the power up do all the other craziness your part's not going to be your grand we're going to do it at night Parker don't worry so we do we want to put 20 see I'm of the mindset that if I did it I I wouldn't I'd just shut the place
down for a day adding to pay people to shut the place down you're going to pay them because you shut the building down and and you end up having to do the work on either a Saturday Sunday or a if you can come up with Yeah a holiday that's not a holiday i would probably me personally I would just let But do you
want to put 20 in for the cost for 20 for fiscal 26 20 have everybody work from home with a used car stop that three bay garage i I am asking the master plan committee to recommend a study of
space evaluation because we didn't really consider that in the master plan so I would like to I would personally defer this garage because we don't really know what we're going to do with it yet as as you said in your meeting
yeah i heard like pad bay some and and nobody really knows what to do so I'd say we can wait on 75 grand until we know what it's going to be used for and at that it's the best use doug's nodding you're nodding that's fine too
zero you have a place to put the boat that's the important thing there's a lot of money in that boat yeah it already is and it it will fit it just it does okay don't break don't gain weight what
was it probably lock upgrade option one was rekeying option two was electronic um I'm saying just carry an extra key for
seven or eight dollars so I met with Dan Friday and gave him a little tour of what um what some of the capabilities are i I really think you need to start moving this project forward and do and
do it in chunks over the course of it's going to be a five to six year project and then you and you take it out to cover the entire campus including the three bay garage that'll get built in year 19 or whatever um but it'll give you better security
and control over your facilities and give better access to the public um the current keying system is exhausted for lack of a better word they would have to re key the building again to set up a new master system and I just think it I think it's going you need to get on this
program eventually so I I would go in sooner than later i don't know if this is the year i mean this doesn't look like a great budget year or whatever is this year but that's my take on it i would do it this year i don't have any I don't think I don't think we're underserving anybody i
think I think when it comes down to it you're going to have to prioritize all of these capital projects so you can prove them i think at the end once we do operating you're going to you're going to have to really prioritize what you're going to do this year yep so I mean to
vote on it and say yes or no is fine i just think that at the end it's going to have to be something that you all there'll be a reconation here on what's going to work right but so I'm I'm saying no for this year
i'm saying yes to put it in this year and we can sort it out at the end sorry there short timer put you on a spot again i actually have I agree with you on this one the keys work i know the keys work but they don't because you know they
came and took away our master key right i said "We're going to get you a new master key." You know in years past people have asked me "Can I can we use a room here can I Doug can you open the the side door so we could turn on the lights in the auditorium for something
that was going on i just happen to be here." I can't do that right because the way that and and frankly it was done under false pretense right that they took away our master key so we'll get it right back to you then they re keyed the building and gave me a key that opens the outside door in the select board conference room that's what I'm saying
can you just Can you carry another key i already had 14 keys to the town hall i don't even know what keys open what anymore i just think police are going to come back in front of you in short order they're going to need to replace their electronic lock system that they've got fire department's going to be in front
of you soon with all of this other construction that they're going to be doing they're going to be looking to add and move to either fobs or cards or ID cards cards the town was talking about going to an ID badge system with people walking around with an ID card so people knows who's who in town hall well guess
what if you have a fob or an access system your card is your badge right can have an RFID like they do at all that you can use your phone blah blah blah i just think you need to start and so again once you start you you can get on the path versus I just saw this past
week you know longer term once MUN fiber is in and everything else great you could you could set up the Wally Park electronic uh locking unlocking of the bathrooms and so on and so I know they did that but now I don't know what they did but in five years when they're all
broken and need to be replaced again you could put these on these program on this program as well so I've said my you know that's just my take on it as far as I think you you sometimes have to go in a little bit bigger in order to save the
town money in the longer term and this is exactly one of them it's not going to be um a one-year program i would ask this is this a technology that would get cheaper over time no it has gotten dramatically cheaper over time the other and the thing that I showed Dan I said and you know Dan and I don't have any
dog in this fight other than I have experience using it and doing it and the and um you know one contractor that I did work with is already the town's contractor um but I told him to go get quotes and do whatever you know I don't want to see
another piece of computer equipment in the building that's not IT related directly but kind of shadow IT and it gets old and out of date and it becomes comes a security risk especially around access so whatever you do should be cloud-based and not hosted here and there's you know
there's several of them i showed him one that that I have experience with but there's others that are out there so that you know you don't have another PC or server under you know and I'm not picking on Dan you don't have it under Dan's desk or under someone at the police department's desk that modifies
the cards it's all done in the cloud you do it on a web page and and by the way when you get into a unified system like we're we we're talking about is it's police and fire and DPW and wherever else you have these locks one badge does it all and
someone comes great you add them someone leaves you check a box and their card stops working everywhere so we'll look for a police or fire grant and then add on to it for us 100% so what are we putting So what are we putting in here for lock upgrade one or
two i want to go with two right now at least start investigating into it and then you guys as part I mean I guess at some point we designate the chair to negotiate this amongst the chairs but or we're going to have to come back and look at this when we when Laura plugs in all the numbers and see where we are yep
but I put it in there and then let's figure out the number what the final do carpet building for the office what office building office i don't know 10 grand building office must be in the building building office 10 grand
i haven't looked at it i don't know open the door can you use your master no my key does not work on that bloody door so we can't serving the public that carpet was replaced in 2017 why don't we do it in 27 on its
anniversary i thought we had done the whole building this this room too 27 over a fiveyear project 27 mhm the next one is something that's at to me it's imperative this building is a a waiting for warming station cooling
station blah blah blah also if there was some other wider spread emergency in town we had Eversource in here for a week during the October storm as their Grand Central Station um I don't think we should be without that generation
i agree with um how annual report the book is $4,000 we'll keep that until we decide we're not going to print half of them i guess
the town the town annual town report 4,000 we're keeping two books right the inner report and what was the other one the budget for the budget in the report we're out of the budget we have about 150 left of
the right of this is that those yeah okay so those we could probably reduce but four grand between the two of them y So and you're right on the money with that because it said right here it says none expended so far but well that's done
timing is everything yeah my crystal ball wasn't working okay ready please we good move on mhm yes you good Laura all right
um before we go deep into place we have school resource officer up in the salaries and then we have a line below that says school resource officer benefits explain the difference now where is this in the police we've got one up in the
That's the one up in the salaries school resource office for all one right is that not one is in one direction and then we have the other one down at the bottom school resource officer benefits for
4465 what are what's this called out for why isn't in salaries what what's the designation here so last year we hired the second second resource officer and we wanted to isolate the benefits
um for the resource officer um so that it could be charged to the school so it's not in the lumpsum benefits line no it's not in the lump sum it's here right do we send a bill to
the school district for one full resource officer right wasn't that the understanding that we were including so we build for the officer and benefits okay all right and the other officer for the last decade that
we've had it roughly has always been fully funded by the citizens of the town of Southwick yes yes okay okay i just wanted to clear that in my head all right so we have in salaries
two officers requested which I agree with i agree with it but obviously you're going to have to see if you can afford it um you know that's something I strongly believe in because of my interaction with this community over the years in my
professional capacity that it's there in my opinion there there should be three on the midnight shift there should never be less than three but this is obviously something that you know it's new we've got to determine whether or not we can afford it i mean for all the reasons
that you know both chiefs have expressed to me with scheduling and trying to get people to fill the shifts and covering you can't you can't hire people um and then we're paying all the overtime um we could reduce that overtime if we have
full-time regular one of the biggest problems with the overtime and I'm going to say it from a personal opinion is the way that the union structured their overtime structure what they're doing to their guys on the bottom they're killing them like you and wear and tear on the
officers as well but but you know that time we can we can increase quality I think with more officers i would love to see it where it got to that where it was the three like I said the problem is you're always out
somebody injured you're always saying so so you know this is like I said I feel strongly about adding these but you know personally I'm going to say yes I want to add these but we got to reconcile the budget and if we can't we can't yep yeah i think you're going to
struggle to fill these roles you're going to have potentially two vacancies and horrible so that's that would be back filling existing positions i mean you can certainly push these forward and I'd gladly hire a police officer before I
hired an economic development director um so uh I would I'd push them forward but I don't think you're going to need that money this year for two because that would be net hiring four and we struggled to get two on board through the academy and everything else in the
last year and a half well it' be net hiring four but net hiring four plus two but I'm saying it would be a challenge to hire individual correct correct right so I'm just putting Oh you had values in
there i just put Yes yes on mine you had numbers in there um and then another part-time records clerk to keep up with the recordkeeping i don't I don't think so i not from where I sit right now no you know one of
the things I'd like to see um and this probably should carry under new business for next week or the week after or even after um after the board reconstitutes um is you know is to ask the CEO to
really take a look at the entire payroll process and some of it's going to be union negotiation it's I know I've had discussions with a lot of people in town about it um and there's there's pluses and minuses to how we do it now but I think that needs to be looked at and
revamped and there's a huge opportunity for efficiency and cost savings around secretarial now this is just to be clear this records clerk is for people who walk into the police department and need permits and records and and all of that stuff y um well we've gone to we're
getting ready to go to a new system called DTS where it is now the officer's responsibility to take care of that and it's all computer-based and it's eliminating a lot of work of course we have positions we still have them but um
well I'm not looking to eliminate any positions no I don't want to limit what I'm looking to do is to limit you know future growth right as we as we add more people and the manual processes and some of the processes that we have right now that need to be improved it will make our people that
much more efficient and capable of doing more well and just with that being said I don't want to get too much off topic but I'm already working with Munice on coming in and they're going to do an assumption on what we're not using what we could be using better and then as
soon as July hits we're doing an HR audit so and all that is part of it sure automating this was something I I had talked to previous uh police chief about me too a couple of times and firefie you
know and given that the you know with the changeover and the fire chief as well with the change over in the uh staff at the police department and uh they reduced some of the administrative over at the fire over the last bunch of
years now um this is something that's an opportunity to free up resource to do more i have a question on holiday pay here's another one historically is not what we're budgeting
um it's 69 7078 year to date 27 that's really low for this far in the year but maybe I don't know the cycle when you true that up um but we're budgeting 97 968
laura what's that what is that bas holiday pay so just based off the m maximum personnel with holiday pay if you had everybody if we if everybody because that's the pay so if they don't use if you had everybody there and they didn't use any
of their holidays we would pay out there at the end so you don't know can't really take that away you don't know how many are going to do the in any given year it's certainly not $97,000 historically
but it could be tomorrow if everybody's every single person wanted their holiday yeah if everybody was working could it be 90 we'll check it again next year you go right ahead because you know I check my notes oh I
know you do it's funny that we pay for the crossing cards too isn't it ours to in the community to the north what you think the school should be we do pay for those as well um Okay then in
operations they move some things around there's a question here whether to move the ACO vehicle into maintenance or not excuse me can we just take a a small break sure you need another cookie yeah sure sorry technical difficulties
over here what do just left us well you said carry on oh all right are you a police capital um we are No there's other questions in there you
have reds so the clerk was in The part-time clerk is unknown at this oops trying to catch up so we left off on the question of cruiser maintenance does anybody care where it is no um Tiger said that they
do it all anyway so it's easier in their life you just texted me okay well I actually had a question about the confidence travel and chief development training has not been very utilized uh I think it's combined
What is 715% of the 68 total fiscal year 25 spended is zero well you have to look at both lines they're combined now so it was 18 1900
900,000 and 1261 year to date [Music] so 71 traditionally or actually you said there they were not combined before they weren't combined and I just read you the
combined numbers don't ask me to do it again but they're they're low they're low so I guess I would agree with you i would say five wait the we're
talking 13 and so combined 25 budget would have been 30 $100 so it doubled so we must have anticipated more cheap
training for 25 maybe because he because he was just brand new i don't think we need to worry about that now um Nicole you want to ask about that and just see if there's a plan that we didn't make a note of
any others jason [Music] is that where you want to move ACL i got a question on ammunition we had bumped that up a year or two two years ago i seem to recall there was a change
out in weapons and needed to change the ammo can that come down now ammo it's um 26161 if you're looking for the number um I guess if you want to ask that
again that question also maybe Tagger knows if he'd like to chime in lieutenant Tagger yes um so basically what happens now is all of our ammunition comes out of that so for 40mm
launcher taser and firearms um with more people and things like that it's gone up astronomically we were operating at $7,000 for so much time and going over budget so much um I don't know how much more we would need at this point but that also comes when anybody goes to the
academy uh which comes out thousands of rounds as well you say several thousands of rounds right so in that if we have anybody going for being an instructor which we have coming up this month that's also thousands of rounds um okay
so I don't know about if we can cut it or if we can re-evaluate for next year okay um you were at the meeting with the chief on the on this budget did do you have anything to add to the chief
training development for his training for the chief training I know some of it I don't know what happens in his contracts i'm not too privy to that but he every time every year they have the chiefs of police association um training which is in different
locations so if he opts not to go far away so the town doesn't have to be the burden of the money but if he chooses to go anywhere outside of the northeast it's going to be that plus some of whatever is in that budget but I know some of it covers the chief trainings
that we went to this summer and say was in Denver that's true he did say that right okay so you feel okay leaving it at 7162 that was your question
i'll leave it alone for now yeah okay and I don't know if you have anything with the cruiser it would be easier for us if it was all in one spot okay i have no problem okay thank you sir all right thank you um thank you LT
and then in Capitol two cruisers yeah and one of those this year they've been there's been a lot of discussion on this one of those is going to be the replacement truck and one cruiser but budgetarily it's going to work out about the same okay not not like it will work
out the same portable radios yep yes need computer equipment they need to upgrade their windows as well yep [Music] um the Okay did they say they're switching over the radios is that what they're doing
lieutenant Tagger uh the radio yeah we're just getting new radios now um Okay so some just came in so that's going to be they we're always getting new ones just to replace the older ones out now that they're aging
out okay and some was also for new officers you said mhm correct yeah they're about what are they about 1,500 a piece are they going Well that's being that's being generous so they've gone up yes a lot okay all right very good so does yours have the
patrol boat still in there your your paper copy my paper copy does but it shows and firearms yeah those are zero yours yours is zero like except mine does not so electronic one had on it
zero though and the firearms and the storage building is zero as well those were hangovers and then patrol rifle 10 five yes copier they're good defibrillators yes
fingerprint machine 217 got to do it yes you're yet nodding yes he has to be he's You're saying yes he's nodding i I can see him out of the corner of my eye here lockers and floor i think we're gonna have to wait a year i agree well if it was up to me no
offense Lieutenant you wouldn't be getting new lockers at all wait if you saw what I lived out of mobile data those are I just said I wouldn't get locked they would never get locked computers in the cruisers and those are
aged out to the pending death of Windows 10 okay the MDTs yeah and policy and procedure update explained to indicate needs to do it yeah could it wait a year
i don't think so no you don't want to get behind on the policy procedure no it already is behind they just want to You don't want another lawsuit clean it up it needs to be updated completely you do not want to be behind on any of this stuff i just went through in service
today you don't want to it has to be done um I'm going to say yes but can you ask the chief if it could wait one year laura that's still working over there okay i can say it every time you hit show
next time you come to a break close it and reopen it and see it make sure everything's still there okay to be sure she's she's put it in too yeah plus I I write it so that's And she's doing it too so between the seven of us
somebody's got to have one of the right answers right yeah you guys all right so dispatch I keep asking why this doesn't happen aren't we supposed to start paying this year next year next year how does it keep moving i don't know how it keeps moving but I go to these meetings
every month and Mina told me next year we have to pay $50,000 how much 50,000 next year it's a hundred less of grant right so we must have got hundreds this year yeah she got 100% to next year oh we got to keep her around yeah we do okay that's the answer to
that she would check too and I put it in Okay as a note i like that answer okay then we're constable at 100 that's great uh fire chief we've already reinvested those funds clearly
between the ALS upgrade and and some other upgrades that were made throughout public safety that's where the dispatch salaries and expenses went yes call for stipens um fiscal 24 it was 50,000 it was 59 the
year before it's 20 so far year to date let's say that doubles to 40 but we budget 90 they pay that out right before Christmas usually when they total it up and pay it out right quarterly quarterly but still 59
and 50 the last two years even if It's 50 again this year but we budget 90 i wouldn't be opposed to going to 70 blocks well it depends on your man it
depends if anything burns down but we're h these are these are call fors right but we're hiring more full-time well like I said I wouldn't be opposed to dropping like 70% that still gives us like close to
$20,000 do you want to ask the chief on that if we knock it down to 70 is he going to have a heart attack thank you give me one second i don't hear anyone i didn't hear i was trying to get in
there's no one in the waiting room usually we hear the thing yeah oh my hair's a mess [Laughter] all right
and then part-time clerk um $8,500 at the most and we're budgeting 15 parttime clerk sorry I got distracted i'm sorry parttime part-time clerk fire yeah uh
most we've paid is 85 $8,400 and we're budgeting 15 12 have we had the person a full year now i've got three four years of history she's cut she's cut personally has cut back her hours um and I don't know
if Yeah we might want to talk to the chief as she plan well there's two two bullets to talk to him about yeah because I mean with a with a force this big to only have a $15,000 clerical is pretty small and they're still getting their payroll
done so you'll ask about that one as well if we knocked it down to like 10 so that would have gone 12 12 if if we get the information where that's okay okay he
explained every dollar that he was asking for well I didn't talk about salaries all right um I have a question i didn't have any concerns on other operating because he did explain it all very well except for
turnout here this is that question about he said he gets an earmark he is getting an earmark for this do we budget that if that was those government the budgets from the governor that were here and then they weren't cut but you got it
back yeah that was a 9C cut last year maybe only a half and he's getting the rest do we budget that or do we spend it when we get it i don't I don't know it might
be I mean I don't know exactly because I know you have to change it out you know everyone it's legal requirement out if it's years old or something yeah they are you know I know
i know you have to change it out and a lot of them are being completely replaced because they're taking like you said the PAS i know i know the question is he said he has an earmark for it did we budget it or not so I'm going to put that in yellow as a
question the question is whether it gets included or not um and I had a question on community outreach but since we are potentially cutting the other lines significantly I'll pass on that one any other questions
[Music] Jason good okay then we're in capital are we waiting for Doug [Music] nothing was changed uh those are qu No there's three questions there's three questions but no
uh two questions but no we didn't change anything um hang on questions two questions so a question on the part-time clerical and on the turn and then capital
we have 8,000 for an inflatable boat replacement 7500 thermal imaging camera for the engine and bunk them remodel 250 i'm a yes on all of those until you hash it out with Mr heated
you um I forget i would have to ask the chief again on like the the inflatable i can't remember i know he said that the other one was old but if it's something I could wait
I tell you what he said i want to say he said to the end the little motor on it was a hand down yes or no yeah i I talked to the chief about that i said "Did you want the bedroom set or did you want the boat?" He went with the
bedroom set what he has works that's if it works you're right my note says no too yeah that's why I was remember he said I think we left it in but like so we'll take the boat like as Parker said there's we're going to some fine lines we're going to be cutting here so yep
yeah they can't they or they'll sleep in the boat right okay my note said no too thank you for coming back to that all right so it was is yes on the cameras and the bunks public safety buildings
electricity we could probably reduce a little more but I know you're sketchy so Yeah yeah i don't want to touch electricity um fuel this is heating fuel I assume did you go past the boat um yes um the two
of us went snowboat yes camera and yes bumps okay fuel this is heating fuel correct Laura fuel is heating fuel where is the gas million it's in gas and
oil general oh we're in fire uh public safety buildings okay nothing unusual up to fuel fuel goes 28 38 28 25 year to date and
we're budgeting 39 there's probably a little room in there if anybody wants to suggest a number or leave it the only thing I would say is the 5% decrease i would go with that 37
but I wouldn't want to go much farther so this is diesel fuel for heat this is heating fuel or gas or whatever fuel is you said the top number you mentioned was a 38 in 2023 which must have been very cold
or before we replace the Yeah I wouldn't want to go any more than 5% decrease for all the other lines were you going 5% or were you staying at level i'm just maintenance activities contract i left what you had recommended
that would go 205% so 37,000 37,000 because you're right in that right that other number your high numbers right there is a little bit only a little bit under all right and I had no other one is it 37 37050 okay i heard
both numbers yeah I know i 37 yeah all right i had no other issues concerns changes to recommended numbers in there capital here we have PD floor tile replacement for
9900 an elevator upgrade in the fire was already done yes so that one's zero so it's just the floor tile
that's And do they actually That's in the bathroom isn't it did we What i just don't see oh that was the bathrooms yeah lp this is fire department
pd4 tile pd4 tile your police department floor tile is that for the bathrooms depending on which room we're talking about um there's the tile that's in the conference room that's the modular
floor these get replaced at some point but it might be the one that's there's a couple of rooms that are degrading where the uh the the tiles are starting to pop so is this a continuation of the project that was started that you did
the roll call room in the hallway outside of that not not if not if that's um I don't believe that's the epoxy cuz if they're talking the bathrooms the uh the men's room and the
bathroom up in the old dispatch there's actual tile popping off the floor in the old dispatch yep i just So they have 99 $100 in this year's budget right that
hasn't been spent at all so I don't know whether this was just level funding it's not in It's not in this current year so it's got to be the le it's got to be the carryover from last year that hasn't
been spent or done yet it's in it's in this current year under public safety 25 correct um so nothing's been spent can they do it this year they should be or it gets
lost or it gets lost yeah then we're not going to approve anymore so So 26 is zero and get it done if you can because it was already approved last for 25 lt order your tiles got that okay if you need them all right thank
you or look and see what it was supposed to be yeah if it's not yeah but it was supposed to be gun the only tile he showed me was in the bathrooms off the off the lot okay so are you signing
why this is 9,000 I haven't spent yet and I were just going Sky and trying to find tile that we got somewhere yeah if it's legitimate from last year Mr i definitely want to have it but LT don't go order tile until we actually find out where that might go that wasn't my state
look at I won't spend any money thank you let us know what it's definitely for yeah we'll get on it okay building department operations this is in the only thing I saw historically was
building electrical and plumbing supplies sorry the Sorry yep go ahead i'm back on the uh elevator upgrade yep for the fire department
that was done done so we don't So we don't need it correct that was a zero for this for fiscal 26 um building and electrical can go down 5% or more and new code books can probably go
down to like 800 and that would be twice what he ever spent once the code books I wouldn't count on because they all go up he hasn't bought any Jason zero listen history 0 0
$427 zero but you don't need them every year you just need them when the code changes i would want the code is changing if the if these new code books are needed then yes if they're not then no how about $800 not 1400 how about carrying the 5% decrease
1300 for the code books you don't need them we don't need them and 1,500 on the supplies yes I just changed in emergency management he had reduced No he
did hurry no he reduced his but rejiggered them so you want to use what he did he went down yes please okay so it's vehicle maintenance 1160 his radio communications was
2700 his minor equipment was 1,600 supplies was 1300 and technology was 690 and he'll have a decrease next year for vehicle maintenance because his vehicle counts are going to go way down
okay i got nothing else there animal control assistant animal control officer is there one to be filled in fiscal 26 yes they've been advertising for that
position yes didn't you hear him trying to recruit me is that was me that wasn't either of you but that's an excellent idea is this two of them part-time or one part-time it's one assistant part-time
okay three on Friday Saturday and Sunday or something it's too it's isn't it for an assistant acco and then the weekend person so under the parttime help is the
weekend and the I see okay and then I So assistant fees whatever that is has been 390 330 360 150 if we double it this year it'll be 300 and we're budgeting 2,000
those are their when they do the pickups that's what that is the assist fee for $30 for picking up what like a dead animal sorry we don't have a lot of D still
we're budgeting 2,000 and they're spending 300 so what do you want it to be pick a number 15 no 1,000 1,00 Why'd you ask i was going to say if
you had a number in mind just throw it out there because I'm trying to engage you guys and not make all the decisions for you part-time help 14 15 10 and a half year to date we're budgeting
198 we don't hit it I don't think anybody stays I think people so can we reduce it 15 what's that people that come clean place the animals yeah but we don't hit 198
15,000 we have hit 15 let's say 16 room 17 like 17 i'll go with that
is there a longevity than $75 yes okay i mean it's there i don't know it is they They must spend it because they spent half of it already um I have a note in here we can easily decrease her to
5% reduction on operations good agreed okay if you can and then you can probably fund her run dividers out of some of that decrease andor uh she already got that from her gift account
yeah so I figured that Okay so she's gonna we're going to use the 5% on that for all of it and lake management just went up on electricity all right and then her run dividers is
new heater will be more efficient wow wait run dividers yes correct bless you okay now what's the electricity conversation they ran their heater over the weekend over the winter because their thing was broken correct so they
ran portable heaters but what they're carrying it forward right so that should go down correct we got a new one from him didn't we the brand new heat pump is much more efficient so he said his 1235 is now okay
we got a new one oh we sent you a new one that's why it's not here you had it in your drawer you probably didn't grab it out of your drawer this week today yeah oh hold on all right so he said 12:35 was okay okay on
electricity no increase he said "Oh I have a question for uh Mrs parker in the technology budget is there enough money for Mr grenell to replace the cement mixer that's holding up half the
building down there yeah Dick i mean um it's not in this budget that's why I'm making sure no William said he has something for him good when I was helping him with that other thing I couldn't be impressed that he got 25
years of service out of the old one maybe it wasn't 25 but it was certainly 15 i'm sorry did you run dividers for the animal control we did say yes okay lake management telephone he said
$2,000 he said 665 on supplies and he said 950 on security okay 2600 on buoys yes
me and you majority we're on capital and Yeah and sorry yeah and he has I mean they I know they have to replace a bunch of them every year yeah yeah if that's he overspends in some
cas and I think he gets donated labor um he hasn't bought his DVR replacement yet dvr he's got zero on that and he has 1,200 on the camera
he did not but I guess he's going to do it again he's going to do it now the security cameras yeah he does them every year oh he does them every year yeah um they like they rotate replacing like he just probably hasn't spent this all right so that's his revised you good
Laura are you are you on security camera replace security cameras or is that security thousand above um replace security cameras that's what he does every year yeah okay in lake restoration
[Music] um we control weed control was $2,300 $6,000 $8,000 year to date 750 i know it's not the season but we budget 115
we have a separate line for the new hydrillaa mcgillas can we reduce this to nine he's calling you is that a yes
for the routine we do the routine and did they want to go up on the water testing did I see something about Yes we're going to come through for a second i got a question you want to go to what the nine for the as long as they can do what they need to do with that
well again I'm telling you what I'm telling you what the routine weed control was this is not the new special invasive blah blah i see that so hydrus 125 and here again is another question so you want to go down the liquid
control to nine nine i'll go 95 okay i was going to say 10 95 all right that the hydrella what did you decide on 9500 on routine
we're getting a grant for the 125 i say it's two that's a quite a math's a little off it's it's one of these that on again off again but this goes to that same question if it's a grant do we put it in the budget
in case the grant doesn't come through so put this in it's a All right so he only wants to if the grant doesn't come in is that what we're saying hydro he's not sure he's going to get a
grant okay so if he doesn't we still got to do it all right or it'll overrun the he said he he's increased the consultant or he's I'm sorry he's maintaining the
consultant 250079007,000 zero year to date um could we make that 9,000 so 25 what 2500 7900 7,000 and we don't know what this year is
9,000 I can go with 9,000 okay Doug's nodding water sampling question on this one is can we change the frequency of testing to reduce the number of tests he says he's
they're going to do increased testing how about we spread them out farther for the same honey is that possible we went through this a couple years ago i see what you're saying the problem is is that they test very close to the
beach um which tells you nothing about anything about 10 ft from where you test so they were going to look to increase their samples sampling and quantity in order to get a better gauge as to what's
going on in the lake especially when you get into the hot and dry season and they tend to have the ecoli issue um well that's in the health department isn't it that testing uh it's part No they part they do it all together i mean it's a
little bit of everything so I think it's in the others but Well since I knocked off the others I'll pass on this one if if you agree um all right so that's 1500 additional and then the canal beaver removal $2,000
well you just give him like a small bills and he goes away or they've agreed to 2k if that's what it takes to uh don't tell the other don't tell the other guy
good lord yes uh 2,000 and then it's another 6,000 for the specialists to come in and remove the dams and logs yes so what we cut up above pays for
those gas and oil 140 no concern [Music] dpw into operations all right you have a small increase in garage utilities and I'm saying why because the average is 35,000
and we're budgeting 50 nicole didn't budget 50 i'm saying why are we budgeting 50 when what's your historic goal 31 38 36 29 year to date
why are you looking confused over there what are you questioning i can't get on to Munis so I can't see what he's what the actual you know what he pays for with this exactly what it could go up to 50 i
don't know with those numbers 45 at least come down some sure yeah and take out the take out the thousand yep randy said 27 on street
sweeping randy said 3300 on conference travel education auto drainage supplies brandy said 12,000 what are you missing Laura no I just want to look back at sorry the garage utilities being researched
because they added when they switched over to TPX the bill went up yeah significantly um but I don't I haven't seen whether the the Verizon should go down a little
bit um but I still think there's So they've switched over to the same phone system as police fire town hall yep nice and that's in utilities you think yeah
that is in in their garage utilities it's that covers their gas their electricity and their telephone seems like they need to switch back if their phone sent them over the edge yeah it really it it was unexpected it was
very unexpected and seems like maybe they want to switch back the problem was they were looking at a ginormous expense to replace that phone system that was they couldn't get if I recall
this was a couple two three years ago that was a dated phone system already and not compatible with what we had so yeah the expense is up on an operating basis but they didn't have to spend capital to buy replace the full system any other questions
in DPW operation all right in capital we have paving projects 50 construction 475 improvement 30,800 those are standard
and what are they spending on the gravel road what's their spend the last three years on up above yeah maintenance materials for gravel roads 334 and 1700 to date so they're spending the budget goes up and
down yeah seems to be yep battle furnished there all right and then there's the paving and I don't know when exactly we arrive at that number is that math backwards yes okay
so no 4 million huh are you putting it in you We have to figure out what number million is where we are first I guess and then we Yeah because you bond it to that so it you have to figure out debt interest on a on a 10-year note but we have to do something we
can't not do anything we're already 35 million behind and then he has insulation for 20 and I know that they probably need to do it but the the comprehensive building study
said not to spend one red scent on that turnkey operation that the town got saddled with i had how much left in the green energy 12 25 24 well there you go that I asked
um Dan to see if this would qualify to get in touch with him and see if it qualified so we'll put in 20 yeah you can use the money insulation or be heat insulation that was one of the qualified they'll
just have to review it no I think so too and what is the what is the bay heat what are we doing there what is that about those stom anyway i'm sure it's for the garage base yeah so he doesn't have it value in
there either right he didn't have it same well would you rather have heat or paving i guess so we'll just leave that blank blank for now
winter roads randy said 3,000 on sand and 2500 on calcium chloride really yep and that brought him down to his um 5% decrease oh winter roads yeah
he's absolutely We can't We can't cut that one at all we have to Yeah you got to keep budgeting the same budgeted oh oh thanks Randy but nice try all right okay 111 okay the street lighting is that a
pretty fixed cost is that That's an electric bill for the lights all of the street lights but I think I know that you bought some LED lighting as part of a green energy thing and now you get a rate i don't know how much
that's going to that's8 to $25 i'm not being facitious but source is criminal about that i know we do all these green community things and then they're going to Well at least Eversource finally came out well you're $50 back they came up with a rate
for LED lights because for years they wouldn't even if you went and did the right thing and replaced the uh oh they replaced the lights sorry I think we're due for a break in a minute uh they replace the lights but they still charge you the full you know rate
so and Eversource is now at least replacing the street lights that fail with LED lights they finally are out of the sodium lights yeah only when they f Well some of them die so I was suggesting that we reduce this to 73 or we can go the 5% perhaps 722 because
history was 81 really high once but then it's been 67 we're at 48 now we haven't spent 76 you want to go% it's 5% 72 is the 5% decrease or we can go 73 I 73 and
let's just make sure we don't because you don't want to have to okay there's been years where the town started Ed turning off street lights to save money and the the repercussions were not pretty do you have them on hidden place i do not uh one there's one it's on
Pearl Brook though road machinery randy they voted for that they didn't want them any developer did not want them we have the conduits are all there developer didn't want them road machine you're
going to need it for another upcoming project what road machinery randy said he could do 46,000 physicals he could do 650 machinery he said he could do 46 is that what you just said repairs and repairs
46,000 parts we moved some things yes however even with all of that this could easily be 18,000 after combining all of those
if we were so inclined you all right with that yep could go to 80s i was just 18 it could be 18 even after combining the history i'm fine with that um Is it okay now Laura it's It's okay i
keep hitting save and those those moments that I don't hit save it goes I believe we have to increase the street and road name signs um Oh no we did that i guess this year
it's we moved that we changed that budget for that never mind no it went down we changed the budget we changed the budget because we already spent it this year the budget was like 8 but it's 125 now it's 125 but the
proposed budget's five back to five oh so yeah it was a one-year blem because of the federal mandate on the signage the Yes how many you needed in so many space in Yeah this is for the no parking oh that's that oh okay because there's
another one there's a whole another unfunded mandate from the federal government you have to be able to see them from space oh I don't know about that yeah okay so this was the North Pond thanks and Randy had
2500 in sand blast dpw road machinery we have a supervisor truck 60 grand yes that she needs to go that was a no last year um just a general question stormwater technician that's an allocation of the
one person into this department right he's he's split okay all right randy had in engineering operations 168 in testing
um I don't know what the increase in data plans is i don't know who put that in randy didn't oh that's Is that Is that from accounting it's accounting okay it's supposed to be data not mine
date just making sure okay like could be plans that run out of certain data i don't know just want to make sure oh no data data um 32 and Randy had 3,000 in storm water
mapping software here he had 4552 in fiscal 23 and 000 thereafter was that a one time is this zero check with him i don't know somebody want to check that
then i got nothing in solid waste salaries um in operations everybody good wave there [Music] this what do you have do you have level
funded there in solid waste operations not sure if I his number are you there what do you think interesting operation you have same thing in refuge
fees i believe Randy had 350 is that correct yeah there's 350 right and no it's 5% second miss 176 so far what Laura
i was just getting my rulers so his refuge means he had a 5% decrease at 350 and then level funded at the 366 250 what's your historical hang on one second let me get
there randy did have 350 it did have 350 okay 16,000 and so he had 350 if I take fiscal 24
actual times the 8% increase times the 8% increase it's 325 stick with 350 stick with 350 next year it can be lower arts randy had 12,000 you have 12,000 it
could easily be 10 based on actual spend anybody disagree which one arts and parts and supplies he combined some of these last year and even with that it's it can easily be 10,000
plenty of room we'll make it 10 thank you trailer can be 6,500 shave a,000 off or leave it at 75 leave it leave it capital yes no yes yes trash box 14 yes yes
amazing that that's one concrete pads well Doug Mvin's opinion well I would say no because you can always you can grade it for now rolloff 305 305,000
yes yes compactor 80 yes and then I guess if there's is that a new compact is there only one compactor that's to refurbish and replace the thing in the in our existing compat which we have $8,000 in repair
yes if we get a new one do we still have that repair well chances are that it doesn't make it till we get it replaced so yeah keep it until even if you start that you're not going to start it right away but it'll be under warrant there's a I
assume there's a warranty on this thing sure i don't know you're shaking your head too no they're going to construct the arm on site all right um sewer implementation
salary we have a secretarial but there's nothing in my number is there anything in yours an allocation I believe of but there's nothing there is there something in yours or is it Oh it's pointing to to secret is there really a person yeah I
did i didn't propos that we had this anymore sewer implementation committee meets two or three times a year oh this is not DP this is not All right well it definitely doesn't need to be $675 let's make it
200 if that okay gotcha miscellaneous operations they don't spend anything but we'll keep the 100 just in case I guess agreed all right uh cemetery so stipens do not go up stipen is a
stipen where are you cemetery let's get Let's go in order hold on top thing cemetery section in Oh I'm sorry in the salary line yes okay a stipen is a stipen is a stipen a stipen doesn't go up
what um if you if you got a stipen that's set in a stipen it's not a salary it's a stipen it doesn't go up i agree with that i agree with that it's how it's always worked in my life um
we have the same thing in some other apartment in apartments that's going to have to be addressed as well that number comes out when those 3%s are figured out and that if a stipen is a stipen that's not part of your 3%
increase but if but 18458 if you add 3% of that doesn't come up to any of those numbers any number if we take 18 that's
uh um so what it is what it is is the FY25 and the FY26 three and three because that's what the salaries are just like what what is a stipend stipens don't go up a stipen is a stipen
it's on a salary stipen is a set number i agree with you there's a couple of people that because here's the thing if we give a the police officers a stipend Yeah i for education it doesn't go up i agree so that stipen doesn't go anywhere i agree
i'll never fund them so you'll go back and so that includes everybody well there's other people that we already have go back and do all the all the typing say and someone will notify them that that was a yes it was a mistake in the past
fortunate this is why it's good to hire new people who put fresh eyes on things thank you Uh I find in operations ground supplies is
13006,6,5700 year to date and we budget nine we don't hit it seven we have hit six we could do 7500 7500 be fine with me doug are you
partial to that we Yes what 7500 yes improvements what does that mean this is another one we don't spend at that level it's 1614 16 year to date 5900 what is involved in that line i
will look at mut you'll check that okay not a huge variance but just curious what that is and if there's room in there in capital um we have lawnmower so what do we do with these do we include these or
not what's the verdict on this we got there's we read it the law says right yeah they were they have taken it out of there trust but but so does it have to be approved at town meeting for them to
take it out of that trust based on the way I read the law no the way I read the the empty didn't I get an opinion from Ben the cemetery unless something came down they're
they're able to spend it an approved expenditure though nope the the the opinion letter from the attorney said that they can do what they want with their money yep and they have to answer to the people that elected them
to that position if they are not efficient nor careful with their funds because that is perpetual care money that people pay to take care of where is it disclosed to the taxpayers so the taxpayers know what they spent that
money on i guess the I I don't know that money don't kill the messenger no but my point is I think when you when you go buy a a grave and or you pay for perpetual care you are saying you're going to take care
of my family or my grave in perpetuity it's not tax money it's funds that were spent by people who bought plots and the perpetual principal part of it correct the interest is in the town's balance sheet correct
i thought it was in the It's in its own it's in its own trust it's in its own trust is the trust part of the balance sheet no we don't we don't consider it at all no for anything new or expenses or
anything because that's the whole point of the interest is to fund the perpetual care of those graves so they have to be super careful as having a fiduciary responsibility all right at a minimum that should be in their annual report of how they 100% i mean I I I think we're
all in the same place here i I think it's I think any of these expenditures should go into the budget and where they take the funding from it should be you know just like we do oh this is going to go in front of CPC it comes out of the budget but then there's a very public
process for CPC funding correct this is this is a little different hasn't had any exposure so nobody knows how it works so so it is in their annual report though she briefed it in Adam
because of this process so this was a worthwhile process this is whether it's taxpayer money or they need to know how these elected officials are performing right okay i mean if they were to ever run those were the questions I had the other day we were in
here 100% how does it work okay if they were ever to run out of money and you know and not be able to perpetually care for things that they obligated themselves to boy I think the town would be in a very bad position yeah but I think their saving grace is that
nobody's ever spent anything so even if they spent some over the last 30 years I get it it could have equal now and what they are spending on are very useful purchases calivariums and things like that um but she has been I mean they
know now especially through Bartholomew that you know you need to understand that this is for perpetual care right okay in health inspector health yes yes ma'am the mower the green
is that enough mower for a property that big oh that's not out of that so I was going to ask why are we paying for more if they can buy it out of perpetual care there you go they We're not paying for that uh it's just more out of out of No
I think Well if that's their decision well they're ask No they're asking us to fund it that's why it's saying no we're not if we don't what will they do they'll buy it out of perpetual care okay if they can spend that money on anything they want 100% but let me just say this i'm certain that there's people
in that cemetery that paid $10 for perpetual care 150 years ago $10 was a lot of money it costs a whole lot more than $10 a year not $10 in perpetuity that's why the that's why they rely on the interest
from that fund to continue to grow if they take money out of there they're really depriving themselves of the perpetual care longer term because of the I mean that that cost always goes up right so that's kind of the trick for
that and I get it they haven't ever taken any money out so they probably have some headroom in there they have bought quite a bit of head room i'd say let them do it this one more time and they should be all set for a really long time i don't think $5,000 is enough mower
i just know what a a new zeroturn mower costs now is not $5,000 that's their decision well it is a I guess because we a couple three four years ago former buildings and grounds guy came in and tried to do a tractor thing on the cheap
and we basically told him no it would be a waste of taxpayer money and it was a waste of tax well he came back with a better one which was still wasn't a great purchase but it was better than the one he was going to propose um so I would just question that and
maybe we have him come back next year with a a better a better idea so what are we saying on this five i say no what are you saying i'm okay with that and just knowing that they could easily turn around and say "Okay we're going to take it out of perpetual care." But
that's at their that's at their peril my advice to them is to really price out a unit that does what they needed to do that's going to have a 10ear service life at least and then come back with a real number next year and we can we can look at that because
I'm okay if we got to be okay you know how much is a new I can go buy real 10,00 say 10 grand yeah I was going to say they're 10 and I'm not going to buy that for real i mean if you know I'm not going to get into the back and forth of what we all dealt with with that but if
you're okay and you want to take your money to buy a mini excavator you can take your money well with what we've learned $10,000 lawnmower okay so that's a that's a no it's a no thank you i missed that i thought it was
in that already all right and board of health i We're halfway there folks oh we're almost done i found nothing in board of health to comment on anybody else what nothing the only thing that I have in yellow oh
she has a increased cell phone because he doesn't get it it's not in his grant anymore the grant is no longer going to cover the cell phone so that's an increase i had a I had an inquiry on whether or not a board of health agent needs a cell phone because he has an office but I feel like it's been just
history to do that like we got the town clerk a cell phone and she only works in the office so I don't know why she needs a cell phone so I don't know why we do that stuff like that board of health i get it like if there's a a fire or something like that they may call the
board of health and the building inspector and he should have a town provided thing to do that um or a stipen there in but or you get a grinder pump that blows up in somebody's basement sorry I had to
say but I don't I can't speak I know in my last rounds I didn't I didn't provide them for them they they would come back to the office and do their work and make their calls and do their things and they didn't need to be on the phone out on the road um but again I think it's just
common place do we have a by the way just and this is a side question do we have like a town Verizon plan that we get a break discount because we have 15 or 20 we we get a government plan and even better
and everybody has that whoever whoever we're except for probably some of the first responders well and if like mine is my own you just give me a thing provided phone is not on there pretty is that what his
is provided or what were we doing with that he was well when he was talking with us he was undecided whether it would be well whatever is going to be the most cost effective whether we provided or he or again with for his own cell phone and then I guess
that's a policy question for next year that you can evaluate who's got phones and are they necessary and review that policy I guess right so for now that's an okay 600 bucks that's okay I like I said I'm just going
to go with basic on I know from other locations a board of health inspector can be called out in the middle of the night to make a determination i know yeah we call I know I called building inspector and the health inspector during a snowstorm when I was
helping out here because they had to go to a home that was potentially uninhabitable yep that's where I've mine okay anyway yep council on Aging we're
almost there council on Aging um nothing in salaries no changes in operations um they are looking for an increase in
programming education classes of $5,000 my opinion is no this is serving other communities as well with they keep saying that you know we have so many visitors from other senior
centers and we want to increase programming for other senior centers i probably would want to before I said yes about anything like that I'd want to know what these classes are they're their it's their exercise classes so
they offer more or I don't I think she's going to do all kinds of things like um art class things like that just other classes and there's a lot of exercise classes isn't there but they have a
revolving class account they have their formula grant some is that where that would come from yeah it I've seen it funded by those three different
accounts with glasses i don't know whether you know expanding it might be make a difference 2500 instead of 5,000 come back again next year for more i put in 3,000 i want to see what they
do with it and have her come back and uh yeah probably but I I agree personally I would want to know what they're going to do with it what are you going to increase what are you I mean we're cutting We're not cutting anything we're cutting services you know the cost of
services and and here I would I would go with the 25 but you need to know what it's going to I said 25 he said three we'll go 2750 okay works that's a
blend that's cooperation what's the difference i didn't have anything else in there anybody else [Music] and veterans cash stays what it is libraries increase assistant
rate and convert a part-time circulation to full-time and I'm saying no on both of those again we're cutting service levels potentially um I can't see increasing
cultural activities when we're fine-tuning everybody else's expenses what's the assistance current rate they just got an increase as well yeah I I was going to say I think the increases you did
um are those is that is is part of that part of that you know I think it's actually all right works out in works out better okay no um and the part-time to full-time again not this
year to me not if we're we don't know where we're at Doug's nodding so you don't have agreed [Music] um in library maintenance and maintenance
contracts here again we're asking for an increase to maintenance contracts what are these they're big increases is there confusion on the lines because they seem backwards we spend more on library maintenance than we budget and
less on contracts and even if I combine them I'm looking at 18,000 and we want to increase it another six did you follow all of that mhm
i do think the numbers are just juxtaposed i think want to get some clarity on that before Thursday electricity here we could easily reduce
22,000 spent 21 20 21 20 18 and 127 year to date 23 can't read the door 22 it won't be 23 and
put in LED lights everywhere 22 22 electricity to 22 same thing with heating fuel 6,000 8,000 7,000 5,000 year to date seating season's really
over um this could be 8,000 even the high was what um 8,023 which was the same really cold year we've had somewhere else i forgot where but I'm fine so this could easily be $8,000
um telephone it's 3,000 and we're budgeting four we can make it 33 well you could get TPX and take it up to four i was going to say they did switch they're on they changed their phone they got that new they got that new phone system up they're okay
right i think I don't think it was I haven't looked at double check that tomorrow i will it wasn't as I know we got that up they're good at what four just I just don't remember
a huge difference between one and they went to the same TPX as the town hall yeah so leave four and I remember that was they double check it before Thursday check that i think it was a couple years ago
all right um they they lost that on all that overdue book 20 and I didn't have anything else questionable on there and the information material of course is
variable based on the rest of that um and that concrete deal are going to go to CPC for concrete pad do we put that in here even though they're going to go to CPC with that application is the last I heard
what if they don't does it not go then it doesn't go then they can't install the thing that they already got approved a year ago i thought they had already we had talked through that with them that they were going to go to C there was some grant they were going to put in for some grants well then they need to move
their timeline up go ahead Joe yeah they're going to CPC with it oh I don't know what the if there's a rush on their side i met with them to go over the design work but they are going to CPC for that and if you want to go back up to maintenance and maintenance contracts
with them go over that um basically they want to flip it like you said they're there's more being taken out of one than the other at the end of the year they seem to have to find money as far as the increase goes they feel they're short that much every year when it comes to
those two line items they haven't been combi combining it they have not been brand new department head and he doesn't know too much so that's the statement I got all right oh so that's the buildings in grounds port
okay i met with all of them try to work it out all of who what's that all of who uh the lady that runs the library and um our maintenance guy okay at the library at
9:30 in the morning last Tuesday I think committee had questions okay that's why Okay um where were we no we're on park and rack uh no salary issues on that no
changes was that reviewed i know they have been in front of us a hund times about this issue and did we ever take a look at that or is this probably Are we okay where we are right now i'm okay where we are with what the part-time
council on aging and park and wreck oh she's not that well yeah whatever whatever her title is these days right um seems to be satisfactory functioning i know how I felt about it and I felt
that that person should not lose money but it's not losing money i'm just going to say I don't agree with it i made this statement numerous times i feel that there was a budget that was put in place and that person should have got that big but that's all I'm saying about it i'm
done with it in I think that should be something that should be looked at in operations beach contracts and agreements
um what was the jump in 2024 do you know it was 201700 it went to 7700 and then it went back down to well this year
four to date is that expected to be 7,800 again have to look at it because I'm thinking you know monthly you know the monthly dumpster alarm system you know
at the beach That's specifically the beach which is a very short period of time all right so you'll check that y um in various programs they are spending on average
$6,000 the budget is $79.50 50 last year in 24 they only spent 2600 i think she's trying to add more programs i know she is she wants Sorry the last few years
they're only spending half of that leave it i would and then and then we have other beach expenses which is not the contracts and agreements so that seems like an awful lot of money for a two-month
period park and wreck vandalism can easily be $1,000 if you agree and railstorails expense based on history can be 7500 anybody disagree feel not i'm all right with the vandalism but
I don't want to touch the road they've got a they've got a maintenance deficit coming over there anyway energy coming their way um miscellane Wall-E Park miscellaneous maintenance is
in red yeah I increased it because because of new equipment going over there and new things happening over there she's not around that's why I increased the water okay
the water when we said 14 14 was a good estimate for the period of time okay i had I had with that number too okay and that was pretty much right double to double well I think I did I didn't realize that you had already anticipated
this i thought this was already what you were using for water they use the only water city water they use up there is probably sinks in the bathrooms because it all the irrigation as well but they can't use well water for the spray park so that 14,000 was that okay i believe
so I'd make it 15 because they had a thousand of other stuff so let's make it 15 and then just just worth calling out Nicole i believe um this would be the first year in the existence of Wall-E
Park that so kudos to buildings and grounds that they were able to winterize the bathrooms and bring back up the bathrooms with zero damage or expense well additional expense besides the winterization cost every year it's been
our show so kudos to those guys for getting it right in Wally Park Wi-Fi we still don't have Wi-Fi do we over there no no so is that zero yes you didn't get the grant it's zero
but if they Sorry yes sir yes ma'am but if they put the locks that they can control by the phone but we have the Wi-Fi do they have those locks i've heard saw that they were purchased and being installed but they I don't Well they
need some Wi-Fi i asked Mr fernandez about it the other day and he had no knowledge whatsoever so I just happened to have a meeting with Dan on another topic and he had no knowledge whatsoever so kudos to them for getting it done because it was something that they always wanted to do and but I don't know
if that's relying on Wi-Fi or it's some other way i don't know or do we need $600 for roaming i don't know i don't know leave it in so they can use it it was in
the budget last year they didn't They didn't use it i know i don't even know if they've installed but I think part for it so I don't know if it's a park and wreck thing or if it's a maintenance thing we can ask Dan well he doesn't know about
the locks maybe he does now but he didn't know last Friday well let's leave the 600 in so they just leave it in for now whoever whoever puts it in whatever we took enough out and for some reason I think when I went over there looking at the Wi-Fi stuff they may have something
inside that maintenance building i know there's some sort of internet hook up on that all right well we'll check we'll check it and then Well hopefully in couple of years the MUN fiber will be up there and they'll have they'll be able to have Wi-Fi up there for the
whole park you bet so playscape replacement the spiderweb and parts is going to be CPC it should be kind of tempting I guess so this is zero in the
budget like the other like the library all right in agricultural BERT had 618 250 1188 190 and 475 can you do Can you say
that i'm sorry 618 250 11.88 190 and 475 so he reduced it uh no he didn't he just moved things around yeah um
in cultural what's that so his total center no he 618 his to he's he's basically level fun he's got 618 250 11.88
88 190 and 475 his total is 2721 he's $1 over his level he's $21 i shall deposit one more dollar into account for tomorrow's deficit date all right um Pat said her 5% reduction
was okay so she can go to the five can you tell me is that cultural projects operations yeah ultra operations 2375 yes
and in operations she said they'll come back in a year or two for more with whatever it is they're planning um oh here's another one so the channel 15 stipens he has an
agreement it does agree does it include increases like that it does yes it does what that specific numbers it's got spec if it's a specific number that's going to negotiate in you can't touch it i realize that I'm asking that
question meeting coverage and support what is that whenever he does a meeting he gets an extra $60 all right so that can be $1,000 because it's never up there at all contracts and agreements in channel
15 um in 2024 it was $9,000 and then it's back down to two 4,000 do we know what that was i thought he just fought a new thing that was out of support i don't know if
that's a I'd have to check with Ken all right so it's back down to four but I didn't know if that was a mistake or I think but it looks like this year won't be 9,000 correct town crier what what is that sorry i know
that it's $456 every year but we budget $1,200 is there something I don't know about it it broke a couple of years ago and I believe that was what the money was needed to fix it all right so we can
go back down to $500 to run it okay remote meeting participation activities what is that besides meeting coverage and support what are those activities specifically
i do not know question come back you built 5,500 this year against it yep what is it that's I can't bring up Munis so that's okay that's okay and then the other two can go down to his 5% because they're
not there in spending and just remember with um channel 15 the funding source is from pay channel 15 capital too yeah so all of this budget what is
the revenue from the 3% charge on your cable bill so it can exceed what our budget is or it could be we'll just take it in from that peg and we take it from the revolving cut and um move it over but we still shouldn't over budget but
Okay so um equipment upgrades that was last year's 8,000 yeah that was that okay okay but I Sorry yep go ahead we may want to check with him because
there was some project that was going to be he was doing in the fall the summer or fall he sent an email i don't have Okay so I don't know whether he needs some of this you know this year's money
plus next year's on the equipment upgrade on that equipment i just remembered okay there might be a change to that then educate okay all right debt interest and insurance i'm
sure those numbers are perfect do we need to run down that so where are we debt i accept what you tell me it is interest I accept what you tell me employee benefits I accept what you tell
me given changes we may have made in yeses and nos that you might have in there so that number would change most of those if you anticipate staffing changes if we it depend yeah if you keep
the two officers that will they're not in there so those budgets would officers if you're if you're doing the two officers with their benefits they're not in this number two new ones you're saying yeah the two new ones but the
benefits are in that their line item in the police budget they're in the police budget right now they're accounted for they're accounted for but if you see the red for health dental and retirement do you see the note this was before we started really
looking at our revenue projections which are really really dismal um that it was absorbing the giant cost for the employees this year to not to do something for our employees and not give them an increase and absorb this year go
right back to next year a lot of towns are throwing their free cash at their giant increases um so you're trying not to increase the premiums to employees yeah just this year but I don't think that's going to happen i I mean that's
was I wanted to try this exercise to you know that is probably one of the biggest things is ours is our health insurance 14 or 18% 18 18 and 20 um you know and that we pay 50/50 so
it's it's and as we're giving a 3% raise and this is going up 20% like they're so that was a thought a while ago probably few weeks ago a couple weeks ago um well in the paper the state did
take in more revenue this quarter than they thought yeah they're just not going to give it so it just says absorbing the whole cost without retirement and workers comp so that was their that's about 160 so that may change depending on where this all falls out yeah i mean
this is your approval here so I just put that in there to you know with the comment so you could see it and um see where we're at but I mean I'm seeing you approve capital and things like that that I think in the end it's are going to come
out they're going to come out anyway so I I don't I don't see how but that's the only number that's not factually accurate with exactly what we're going to spend like the debt and interest 1.163 it should be 101284 you see right next to it i see it
but if we let it but we know but we don't but it's got to go up it's got to go up by what you said 18 well 9% right half of 18 we can look at it i kind All right let me ask the question I always ask if we
spent 745 806 571 year to date why are we budgeting a million i'm sorry oh what were your benefits you have to account for everybody taking the most expensive health insurance that they have for
every employee in this town that's why you have to budget for it no I know what the cost is though and if it's gone up 14 18% why is it not my actual expenditure going up 18% why am I
we have 200 over there's more than you know just health and dental in there you have retirement payouts you have un we have to budget for unemployment okay but but the actual was 745 806 i don't know
what this year's total will be but what was the budget in fiscal 24 here if you want to take a look at this that's the breakdown actual actual well it's got the breakdown of what we're budgeting for everything all the
line items those are 745 is that what we is that the health portion well those aren't the totals that are in the actual numbers that you provided us are they all on this line is that this line they're all on that line or is
there any way we can actually break those down so I'd like to be able to see those individually got it on a paper table all right that's I think we need We definitely don't need more line items in this no no i just want It's very hard to figure out that that taken the school
number in here do you see that yeah the school number and where in your spreadsheet in the bottom and then add the 753 and the schools going up 12 to
13% over last year the whole budget right what you're saying the whole budget I mean how much more give 13% in one year I just about fell out of my chair well that's the problem just like
everybody else said and my wife said this you're going to lose You can't you're going to take it home yeah you can't it was ridiculous and unwise for towns and cities to have positions with money that was going to go away their excuses that they keep coming up
with are just that they're excuses it is not they weren't thinking they were thinking the wrong way you do all the research they shouldn't have hired people with the mic and I did add the out of district cost
to that you know whole entire cost but it's chapter 70 money back on that and blah blah blah i get it some not all next year not this year all right i saved my file okay laura go for it i don't have a total because I have notes
in my numbers column i have to see where it is if I didn't write all over Thursday we'll go back that's something I haven't figure out what's got to go when we meet with the finance committee and figure out what's got to go in order to get to a
reasonable tax rate i don't know how exactly you know how you do this every other year but you know one year there was a flipping of a coin hopefully it won't come to that um but I mean to find out to find out what you can do for
operating and then like you're saying math backwards or whatever that was then you can see what you can do for the capital but that's what she does is basically is she usually gives us she's going to plug all these numbers in and basically comes up and tells us the tax
rate which is four times what the the current tax rate is we go well can't do that what's got to go and then we get down to where we we figure out where we are with the levy limit where we are with Prop 2 and a half and then where we are with what we all feel comfortable you know increasing taxes or
decreasing taxes or whatever we're going to do here and then um we negotiate down and everybody's got their thing that's why you know I I listened to the finance committee meeting wanted to bond for you know $40 million worth of roads yeah that'd be
great yeah even if you did it at $10 million a year for the next four years right there was you have to look at that and then what we we in years past we bonded for some years a million some years 2 million some years four million
some years we put free cash against the roads some years we've used free cash to lower the tax rate which is not great policy i mean I water and I are working on our sorry we didn't do water and sewer spreadsheets
i don't know how much we can really I mean water and sewer are what they are we didn't have the MS on here oh yes and that was missing correct so we need to get sewer well we got water and do you
have water and sewer i do i know it's GPW that's not in there no it's a different tab i only town hall tab i'll give you my computer i mean I don't I don't know how
is when it comes to the water and sewer they're like special revenue technically enterprise funds the water runs itself but the sewer we have to give 303 to and I mean because he doesn't have enough revenue and is not anticipating the
extra revenue that he well thought he was last year so I mean I don't know how much can really play with sewer and water raise the rates on the sewer i'm sorry we'll set those rates but water the water the sewer sewer next time yes
the sewer in a year or so next watering is not an issue to me sewer last fall we had Are we going to go through these or not i don't have them to go through i can give you my computer i just again don't know how much you can what you can play with on here because well questions
if we Well the the thing is with these just as I understand it and I'm not they the water is a self- sustaining entity it is
but for anything that's a bond it's voted on by all town me why because it's guaranteed by the good faith and credit of every other South taxpayer so if they if the water we mess up their budget or they overspend and they can't
meet their obligations the bonds become payable by the town not just the water enterprise so that's why or else you would have a special meeting every year for water users to vote on their own bonds right yeah but it's voted on by the whole town same thing you know sewer is in theory is supposed to be an
enterprise fund but the fact is they don't have enough revenue to cover their own expenses so that's why there's the subsidy and we as much as everyone would hate to see it you're not going to be able to get away from that subsidy forever just because the cost of
escalation of cost to construct additional sewers is it's absurd and it was it's weird there was a town meeting vote where in 1994 that made it an enterprise fund
sure i wasn't here i wasn't even in town yet i was four years from being here but you have to find everything i don't know i understand an enterprise fund but I think we need to still look at the sewer and look at what they're you know
between the subsidies the retained earnings you know um the amount he's using that there's something's got to That's okay say that again
so so this year he um was budgeting $880,000 in revenue for 26 he cut it down to 8,000 um 30 or $830,000
um just in the revenue on the revenue on the sewer so he went so he so the 303 um from the town subsidy using 23,000 of his sewer capital money it leaves him
using $265,000 of his retained earnings and as of June 30th last year he had 516,000 and if his revenues don't come in there's no
his retained earnings is going down but we're he wants to use 265,000 so I think well discussion we had when we all had a meeting in I don't know October it it was a discussion and you know that
he said well or this was before you no no no i was here for that but this was just this week with Randy Lauren about or last week yeah today's Monday um can you cut anything because your revenues aren't there you know we know you wanted
to not use so much retained earnings and he said there's nowhere to cut we're going to have to use the retained earnings for it but this just is going to snowball just like the town budget will as our revenues don't come in and we rely on the This is why the grinder pumps have to go on the user this is why
the sewer ra needs to go up on the people who use the sewer i had this discussion that would be the pumps no it would be the use when does the debt retire do they have debt coming off for the parallel interceptor or any of those i mean
there's a minimal amount of debt that goes out this year like a couple of thousand maybe you know but those are out what are they 100year bonds i mean what did they do i'd have to pull up the
schedule you can email me tomorrow or Wednesday and just say "Hey the the parallel interceptor bond is done on this date and this is done that date cuz that's going to help him when he owns the infrastructure right?" Or something there's there were 40-year bonds weren't
they i have no idea i think I read somewhere 40 this is I mean I hate to say it but this is why people are moving out of this state left and right well and you know City of Westfield did us no favors by kicking us out of the pipe we're in and making us the parallel interceptor you're not going to get an argument from
me on that one and you guys paid for more storage and air filter well we thought we were going to have more sewer users so we bought more capacity at said plant that we than we'll ever use and they Westfield doesn't need it or want it so they're
not going to buy it from us no are we going to talk about these numbers or not we just accepting what he's put in here because I think they can come down a little he's asking for an increase in pump station i'm not sure what that
increase is but again has it hit the number that's budgeted those are the utilities those are So that's the electricity go this is I mean there's some small stuff that's all right i'm not making any changes contracted equipment and services to
knock off too i mean I wonder if this would just be beneficial if he just came to the Thursday night meeting for these two budgets i feel like there's going to be a lot of questions that we are absolutely not going to be able to answer on these two budgets okay
and um yeah the revenue is tight so giving millions to people that don't belong here what we have to keep taking million hundreds of millions of dollars out to people
that don't belong here okay so are we going to vote on all the agreements we made tonight i think we went as we we went as we went along to collectively what we did i don't think there was anything that I said there was things we disagreed on but it was two it was two against one or things
I you know you and I agreed on that Jason didn't and vice versa but what went in the budget we all at least yeah we wrote to disagree on those but they went forward I don't see a need to necessarily vote on anything EMS we still have to do they don't have it we
don't have EMS though we'll have them did you have EMS I go through my budget book yes I have EMS I did my own i have it but none of you have it you have it in my book
i have it here if you want I can tell you what I want to do but we can open up my book no we'll do this Thursday all right because I think there'll be a lot of there's going to be a lot of discussion on
EMS no on Thursday on Thursday well I mean we could go through your books and [Music] I not a lot all right shortens the time i'm here the next day
the only I really only had one question i think one question on medical supplies that it probably doesn't need to be $45,000 it could be 40 and that was it on EMS that was my
only concern are you there i am the only thing I would say that is I would I know the chief gave an awful lot of explanations i just would like to know is there if there are a lot of stuff that he's going to have to replace that's expiring i think he said there's a lot of stuff
that they do routinely the history 28 36 he had to do a big uh replenishment 24 was 32,000 45 and he's looking for 45 so he wasn't even at what he was
at so I think So what the jump was how much from last year to this year $5,000 i I think it could come back i It could stay where it is i think Did you give them the ad and the laptops
in capital the ad we did i know he said "Yes I for the cops." These were for the four ads that are end of service and then there was two laptops which I would have said yes for the same reasons as PD yeah the portable laptop user can
only go out once so how do you feel about reducing it halfway reduce it 3,000 down to 42,000 on medical supplies 425 425 and accept everything else
at level what's that at level bund or at 42,500 oh no but the rest of it he actually he actually moved things right so you have to look at his
book sure i think you have to look at his um what he has in level funded he moved things around so you got to use his number that's if and you're looking at the level funded number that's how we correct his
level is level yep thank you what did you say to What was that number you said 42 42 425 you good i'm closing my laptop i'll make
a motion to adjurnn second waves