Okay. I hereby call to order uh this regularly scheduled select board meeting. Oh my goodness. Time is 6:31. The owl's not on. It's on, but it's not. Okay, we got a little touch of technical
difficulty here. Or are we all set? Can you see anything, Joshua? Is the screen blank? Oh, I see uh the emblem of someone. That's it. Just the emblem. You can hear us.
Oh, now it's now. Good. Yeah. Excellent. Thank you. All right. Finance Commander, do you want to call yourselves to order? Um I we just call ourselves to order. We don't vote, right? We're calling the finance committee to order. We're all
here. All four. Okay. Okay. First order of business, approving the minutes from 714 and approving amendment to minutes from 616.
Make a motion to approve the minutes of 714 and approve the amended minutes of 616. Okay, I'll second that. Is there any discussion? Hearing no discussion. I
I two nothing for approving the minutes. Do we want to do the one day liquor license? Move it up so that they don't have to. Is Is he Are you here for the liquor license, Josh? Yes. Yeah.
Yeah, that would be great if you guys don't mind. It shouldn't take long. Yeah, these are really quick. So, um, we have before us a one-day liquor license for I don't have the date. You want to get I'm sorry. Well, they can probably tell us the
date. August 16th. I have it right here. Sorry. August 16th. And this is at the town park. We have all the paperwork and all the signoffs we need. Is that correct? Oh, perfect. They have everything in
everything we need. Okay. Um, do you have any questions for us regarding this liquor license? I don't think so. No, they'll uh answer all the questions previously. So, okay. I will entertain a motion. Motion to approve a one day liquor
license for the town park on August 16th. I will second that. Any discussion? Okay. Hearing no discussion. I I two nothing. Great.
Thank you. Enjoy your party. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. I guess we can go now. You're welcome to stay. Okay. So,
thank you. Next order of business is appointment of town election workers. We're not going to do the year end transfers first. Transfers. Oh, yes we are. Cuz I love to hear I did not
I can do the same thing. Y I mean you let those people go ahead. Yeah. No, I think thought we already did one and not looking at it. Okay. So it's um next order of business is review year end
transfers with the finance committee. Let's see. And so this year's um transfers are listed um on this page. We've got about 12 transfers to do or
11. Um most of the transfers are being resolved um within the motion and the vote that was taken at annual town meeting. So there these it's not a 100% comprehensive list of transfers because
we're we're able to move some around without the select board approval uh and finance committee approval. But if they're from different departments or different um accounts that were not voted together, they have to be done in
open session by finance committee and select boards. Um so um I start at the top so people can ask their questions. The first one is uh under the zoning uh expense account and there was a
shortfall of $27240 and uh in reviewing the account the problem we had more newspaper um ads placed this year. the account is um I think limited to about $800. So, it doesn't take much for them to go over.
Um and it's it's kind of unusual I think for them to go over, but it was an active year with the um dollar store. So, they did go over. Um the second account is the town buildings account. Um we're showing the shortfall of
$5,12127. um what's driving the this account has all our office supplies and a lot of um regular maintenance work and Comcast bills and things of that nature. It's um
but I think what drove drove it partially over was the increase in office supplies this year. paper went and it started the year before, but cases of paper went to $70 when they were $30 and things like that, I think,
in magnitude. Um, and also the we had a transition in the telephone account and a number of phone accounts were not cancelled when they were believed to be cancelled. and Mel spent uh quite a bit
of time this year cleaning up and and um all of those issues. And some of those were, you know, a few hundred here or there, but I think in combination. And then um $1,700 of this is also, I
believe, um something that we will be resolving through a reclass um money to pay Deb Radway. For some reason, was allocated out of this account, and it it shouldn't have been. I think it should have come out of
the TA line. She assisted with um the hiring of a new town administrator last year. Uh firefighter salary. Sorry. Well, yes. Yep. Sorry. Sorry. Um so, one question was just going to be partially answered. Do you expect this
account to be balanced again for the current fiscal year? Do you think it's now the budget is we're going to have another overage or do you think it's going to be okay for 526 as best you can tell? Um I'm hoping it's going to be okay. I'm going to go back in. I I did quite a bit
of work with the telephone accounts and the internet accounts and trying to get them um moved into appropriate IT sections within the selectware budget. So, after I go through I think we should I think I've addressed some of it. I'm
not 100% sure. It's only and and the the body of select board accounts, there's about 15 of them and they are all currently dumped into one account. And I I'm really working with
the accountants to in the future separate out the legal account, separate out our phone and I internet account and those things because it's it's a nightmare trying to um keep a handle on some of those things. It shouldn't be that hard. It should be much easier to
go, "Oh, yes, that's a problem." Um, and fix it. Yeah, that was my question, too, is if a lot of this you're or a chunk of this you're attributing to office supplies, did we budget better for office supplies this year? And I did increase I did increase this
budget this year. Um, hoping to have accounted for that. Question is this number, this 5,12127. Yeah. Doesn't match what the ledger summary had and it's close. I just didn't know if there was an update or if this should be updated.
Um, so the I was asking the same question. Jared gave me the the $5,000 number for and I assumed he had Jared is our accountant. Okay. Um, so I I I went back and forth with him on this because I as you saw it was
a little bit less. I think it was 48 or 4,900. 4600. Um, so he was working with a different set of numbers. His were a bit higher and I didn't know what he had in his figures
that I didn't have, so I went with his. Okay. I mean, so if we approve more than it actually is, you just set up a slight surplus in the right. Yeah. You don't lose the money, which is Yeah. Okay. But we'd rather go over than under. Well, that was my thinking. Yep. Um because I didn't know what he knew
that I didn't know. And so and in that under 192 there's a couple other accounts. I'm guessing that those don't have to be offset like energy municipal building energy solar because those were significantly overdrawn but those are handled differently.
Um they're overdrawn. There's a number of um energy accounts like for the library and for highway or police that did not get applied. So again, it's a it's how we are accounting for things.
So we have too many accounts for energy compared to what we're doing. So Mel continued the process that was established. So, she's dumping all the energy bills or payments into one
account, but at some point, somebody had split out uh electrical energy for every building and but it's so we're trying to sort that out and clean it up too.
So there were but there is a surplus in a number of um other other energy accounts and other building accounts. Okay. Um
civil defense is the overage is 400. Oh on fire I'm sorry. $154. It's a big one. Um half an hour. Yeah. So, that one I um I hope I didn't
have a detailed answer for you other than we do have we are I'm working with the treasurer to next year make sure all the way we account for days is completely reflected in the rate of pay.
um because I came up with a rate of pay, a dollar value for everybody and then she's taking that and backing it into the fact that we had an extra day this year and it's throwing off the rate of
pay by like 12 cents or 19 cents which per hour which it causes trouble. So, next year we're going to be squared off. This year we're still a little bumpy. We have a lot of those little overages um
throughout our expense lines that are getting cleaned up and some are bigger than others. Um okay. So then on to civil defense. You all are aware of our um onsolve is the
emergency um communication system or it's not always emergency. It can be used for just a regular ordinary event and we were that rate went up um $3278 um and wasn't budgeting for and
unfortunately I didn't catch it for this year. So, um I'm working on 27 and we'll get we'll have to double check them be when we get there because I'll probably raise it again by then. So, what is it? What is percent is that change? What's it roughly?
It's like out of 56 it's about two and a half. So, we pay 5600 for Yeah. And plus there's a $150 um furcog charge. They had assistance
through fur cog um funding. Um all right, the next line is the highway salaries. And here's where the the daily rates um are part of this additional money, but there's also George is the
only one getting longevity at this point. Right. But that's that dollar amount is for three people for an extra day. Yes. Plus plus George's longevity. Okay. So that's Okay. Any questions on that?
Um and the next one is the cemetery expense line. This one, if um Dylan, you probably were aware that we had u about an $8,000 $7,000 shortfall originally. There was
an invoice uh from New England Tree that had landed in this account. It should have gone to their trust account um not their regular budget account. This account in the budget is only to pay for
mowing of the cemeteries. Um, so that was um I did a reclass and that should be in the trust. It'll be in the trust at year end. Um, so the cemetery pays their mowing separately.
Yes, I think the contract is part of the same contract, but they pay it out of their budget. Okay. I just remember we appropriated money for mowing, additional money, and the question was asked, would it need to
be done at the cemetery also? But is that what this cemetery care veterans graves money is for? Cuz there's a $700 budget with no expendit, zero expendit. Is that supposed to be for that something else? I think that's something else. I think
that has to do with uh um with the out in front of town hall there's the cemetery memorial. I think they that's what they use for that because the other budget is 3,000 for cemetery general expenses. Yes. And they added 2,000 to that and um
and then spent 500 over 500 over. So and I think it's the most over because they didn't spend anything in the care. And um Melan, the contract for the mowing is up this year. So we're going
to Mel and I are starting to look at it and go through. I'm trying to find, you know, the original scope of work. Um I haven't found, but we're looking. But we're
going to work with um Mr. Hearn to try to upgrade because we've been over two years running now I think in our mowing costs cuz we end up it was a very rainy year this year so we ended up having to have extra mowings
right in the year before the cost of gasoline and stuff like that had it drove his costs up and adjustments were made. So so with this new contract there'll be a number of issues to figure out and it'll probably be for more work.
Um, and now the outofd district tuition uh goes along with the out of district transport uh transportation. These are our biggest overruns um uh to my
um sorrow. I called up Smith V and I mean I called the Frontier Region to talk to Shelley about. She's like, "Oh, no. You that's all on the town and you and there's no
warning for these numbers apparently." Uh, we don't get much information from Smith. I do we don't get any information from Smith until except for the Bills. Um, so how we we need to find a way to plan better
and and find out what how many students if the number of students going to Smith is changing because it's can be quite a bit of money. So this is transporting kids from Sunderland who would have been going to Frontier but to Smith. And what is the
difference between the two accounts? One is labeled Francher Regional School out of district tuition transportation and the other one's out of district transportation. Uh no one's well I always read it as one is for the tuition and the other is for the transportation.
Transportation. Okay. So tuition one transportation. Yeah. But so this is just the Smith. Yes. Because we have we do have district kids into other places. Right. But that just we didn't go over budget. No. So, so is that line item?
I went the out of district children that go other places are within the frontier budget. Okay. But Smith is not Smith is not. Okay. And that's because they're not if they went to Franklin Tech, that would be outside.
Yeah. Typically, they would go to Franklin Tech, but there's some programs that only Smith had and that's why students go there. But I think I heard uh Franklin Tech is picking up a couple of the new programs that Smith had and hopefully we'll get the children back.
Do you have an idea of how much of this is incremental students versus incremental cost? Like is the cost right but just an extra kid went or the same number of kids went and the cost run? Um I don't know yet. I need to learn how many kids it looks
like. It could be. It was 20,000 and went up to 33. It looks like it could be two or three children. I'm guessing three. If they're on their own, it's about $350 a day. It's great. If it pools someone else,
then obviously the place for transportation. Yeah. Yeah. It gets costly quick. And and this is tangential to this just because it's in the same buckets although it doesn't cause some to cover it. I noticed that well
Frontier or looking at Frontier I noticed that the general expenses are way over and then it's made up for by the transportation being way under. How do I think about that? Um,
you know, like transportation budgets on a fairly fixed contract other than every five years or so. Like it's are they doing less transportation than they plan? The contract on the but if you have individual kids that have to be bus to
special service. This is not out of district. This is in district. This is still frontier not out of district. We did just get a new contract last year. Yeah, I think that's Yeah, the contract is three to five years depend what we negotiate.
There's only one company that really does it. So, it's not a lot of negotiating, but it's a big deal. I mean, and and this year the state did offer more support for transportation in rural district. So, there should be some money coming in for next year. Not a lot, but more. I
guess I just, you know, is there any concern that expenses, non-transportation expenses are creeping above budget and then being covered with transportation being under budget, but who knows if that may change and then where would we be left with the expense over?
Yeah. And I I I didn't see the picture that way that our transportation is under budget so much because I know that it's 47,000 Frontier Regional School Transport. Actually, this this has a budget with no expended in it. So, I don't really Okay. I think that will be spent. I
would assume that that full assessment will be spent. It just hasn't been paid yet or received from. But the other thing that threw me, which I believe is um a fact I did call
Shellyley on this one, the other transportation line um is already in the frontier budget and that's will create a surplus um because it's listed separately
and in the budget for the year we're now you mean for FY25, the year we're closing Yeah. So that should um bring in uh you know a significant amount of free cash.
But that's a Yeah, we need the concept. Did we did you do that on purpose or that was I um I wasn't here. Okay. I still don't know if there was I I definitely had no input on this one or and I and I might have not seen it. I
definitely did not see it either, but um so we're hopefully doing better this year. Um as far as having some money left at the end of the year and I think good or bad, that will
make that happen. Um it's always good to have some free cash, right? And then the last item is another small salary uh difference. It went over $57.94. Council on aging.
Oh, I definitely did. Um, okay. So, the Council on Aging, it's this again, this is really um the South County Assessment Line. It's not really just a
Council on Aging. And what happened here is in late March um there was an amendment by um the director that was that's for some reason did not get into
our budget. Um so we are over by that amount. I mean we don't have the funding for $1,125. Um, and we need to get a transfer to cover the full assessment for South County Senior Center.
And here again, I can't explain why. I can say it's Yeah, I was just going to ask if there's a reason why the last two are covered from workers comp, but the others are covered by health insurance, if there's any rhyme or reason to which account we're covering from.
Um, that was the accountant's choice. All right. and but he actually hadn't he did not do I added in the uh out of district items and I just carried forward the health insurance because I know we have a balance of at least 46
48,000 in health insurance. That's why I ask you if you cover all of these. I was curious about the last two but that's just random. Um I just wondered if the South County you said they gave an amendment in March. Was there some reason in why they had to give us an amendment in March?
Cuz that gets that's easy for us to miss because we ask for the budget in January. We meet with people. So, so she sent it directly to Jeff. Um, it was a result of the admin costs for
Deerfield in her calculation of the budget were off. And so she got new amended figures from Deerfield and and in turn made the change and then passed it around, but it it didn't get all the way around
to us. So our our percentage of that change we're having to add now screen. Oh my Don't check for updates. It just did a major update at 5:00. I
was It should be enough updates. Okay. Um Becky, just it does look like there might be a typo in the Smith vote additional students line. Um, one says 636 and one says 626. So the totals are
correct. Oh, you're right. Um, so let me just verify which is the correct number. But again, if we do 636, then it's $106. No, but I appreciate that cuz that's how
where these issues start is and 26 is the correct n number. So it's 357 56. Okay. Any other questions from the finance?
Any other questions from the finance class? All right. So, I move that we the finance committee approves all these. If you guys make your own motion, I move that the finance committee um approves these year end transfers as they've been presented to us.
Second. All in favor? And if you have a clean sheet of that, if you all would sign on. Yeah. Two clean ones. You sign two just in case. Yes, that'd be great.
Is already always better than mine. [Music] This is on top. Um, does the select board take the plans here any or would like the planer for any other activity? Um, weformationally
I think we have an item later on where the um South County Senior Center is asking the select board for $550. And the reason they're asking is to extend um the design work by EDPM.
Well, we don't know. Yeah. Not certain, but yeah, they're looking that's your guess. Free up the Well, what about they basically reallocated money in there, but you want making just keep going? No, go ahead. So, they they think it's and Lauren, you can weigh in too. my understanding
looking to free up some money so that we can get somebody to help us consultant with the building uh to plan an acquisition for the space and what we need to do and all the things that may need to get done and figure all that out. So, um they were able to find a fair amount of money in their budget in
the budget and then there was a balance of I think 20 23 to some 2,000 something left and then they allocated it by our formula to the three towns. So they've asked us to see if we could uh find 550 to pitch into that effort and the other
towns are doing the same. Deerfield probably a thousand something. Are you guys aware that they're looking at the building on 116? Okay. So that's what all this is for. Yeah. And then we aware it also could be a $10,000 a month rent. Is that
we don't have I mean this is we're still exploratory. We're not committing to a $10,000 a month lease. I understand like if they're going to spend all that time on the research with consultants, I would be like out of range. The one information I would say is slow the roll,
right? Well, I mean, I think we've also seen a huge expenditure go towards studies for two buildings that now, you know, grant funds. Those were grants, but yeah, you're right. There was a fair am ton of money for that, right? But it it's regardless of where
the money comes from, it was still a large amount of money spent to look at the other two to look at the other. Say that they can't make a decision about this building without having someone do certain amount of work. Yep. And and then building and that's
what they're asking for to do. And the architect they've already worked with on the other two projects is well aware of their needs and programs. Same. Okay. So, it's probably the most efficient way to do it. Yep. I just
I'm not terribly familiar with the history of this project. I know a little bit about what we're looking at now. Is the the program for this building like is there a place that has this control document of what that is and how that was determined? I was involved until ago. Um, apparently
they did have a program because they uh through a grant an architect was hired and they did have two options for um basically new new construction. One was I think an addition and one was new construction and they did some public meetings and got feedback the price tag
was quite high. I think people pretty much backed away from that this building came up as a possibility. Um I was asked somehow participated part of the uh talking about the cost. And so there was
a walk through with the building inspector and with representatives of the town, you know, what a whether the building can meet their program needs and what and there are some real um code concerns that would drive up the costs of getting the building whether really
whether it happened or not or um so honestly without someone taking a look at it, we can't believe that they fit for what they want to do. Is the new deer library expansion ever been part of the exploratory
parts of space search for sub county or I have no idea what that I don't know I can tell you that um I mean have we built a library um there are issues often with actually
combining things for the Yes, Leopard did it. Uh, not leopard, Helen did it. They can find their library with their public safety in general. It's a little hard to get those things through the board of library commissioners cuz they really want the library to have autonomy and they
provide most of the money for the library construction projects. It's usually close to half. So, I know we when we did our library, we actually talked to them about combining something with the elementary school. They were not happy.
Um the other challenge is the tri county in South County. So it's the Deerfield library, right? And that's just serve three towers. So that because they did discuss it a little bit was never going to happen because the library association would also three towns and that's the challenge with the
building right now. Wherever it goes, it's only for three towns, three different funding budgets and location where people are, which if you put it in weight, which is one of the choices, are the weight residents going to
advantage and more weight people come? Right now we're in Sunderland and a lot of Sunderland people some people from Deerfield income but you know and I don't know if they have those numbers statistically in general which towns have the most senior using the place you
know and then what's the future 5 years 10 year 20 years of the aging populations in these three towns who's going to benefit from that. So it's yeah so they they actually that's how they're assessing how much each town pays is by the number of seniors. current
in the town. Not the number of people using it, just the senior population in town. They use 60, I think, right? Yeah. Yeah. Those numbers are going up. Yeah. We were talking about this as a group, but
I just the numbers just kind of got me freaked out. So then, you know, I I know we need something, but I feel like they keep aiming high. So, that would be the one. If you guys are talking to them, that would be the one piece of information I would have. Like it's 10,000 a month for
a lease is a lot, you know, versus the 2,000 we're paying now. Like it's just and that it's less than 10 or 15 million is true, but not the decision, you know, like just being less than something else doesn't mean it's affordable, I guess,
the right decision. Yeah. Yeah. It's much more than the current budget, right? So it's just it's a giant leap giant which goes back to the commitment around program like our this is our town and the three towns collectively what level of support can we afford in the context
of budgets that also have to support libraries and schools and the public safety finding that you guys doing that every week and the last little well actually I mean while everyone's here there's also going to be an issue of timing because I think let's face it we're at the beginning of our budget
here and let's say this is even viable but when does it come in you know how do we get paid for it you know does it have to wait till July 1 of 2026 you know that would be um
well I think the owner is saying they want it resolved by January 1st so and then we have the lease on the other building right so it's complicates well but they same that's good a good thing that
it's dark you said they would start lower but also to get in the bigger picture also our schools are shrinking that are aging population grow so that's something to think about too it's it's a lot
maybe we should combine the senior center I maybe school it's also a senior center for and then Oh, you already have a cafeteria and a gym and a gym.
Well, we're not you're not we're not deciding anything, but I guess I just wanted to have a little discussion. Sure. No, it's good. I'm glad I'm glad to hear it. All right. Um motion to adjourn. Second. All right. Finance committee. Thank you. So, more more to come. the photos that
meets Thursday. So, we'll obviously keeping everybody up to date. Sure. Thank you. Are you talking about anything else? How about what? Do I need to be here for anything else? I don't think so. I don't think so. No, we're they're just going to try to fund the $550.
That's all. We're just going to get the the money to get going. And we don't have to fund that part, right? That's I I think they can do it. They could ask do that, but it's not on the agenda, so we won't do that. And let me know when you want to meet
again. Just real quick, we usually meet again in like October or November to talk about when we're going to ask for, what we're going to ask for, and how we're going to ask for, and then we start meeting all the time. Yep. Right. Right. That's right.
So, um Becky and I will be in touch early. late October maybe to figure out when I know figure out meeting times but this probably this time probably works people. So thank you. Thank you.
Okay. Next up we have appointment of town election workers and we have a list of people. Oh yep. We need to first vote on the transfer motion
of funds. Motion to approve the transfers of 35,756 and58. I'll second that. Any discussion? I think we've kind of gone through plenty of discussion here.
All those in favor? I I do nothing. [Music] Okay. Next up, we have the appointment of the election workers. I've been trying to get this in
this video. Thank you. Oh, boy. I switched. All right. So then, did I get you? Do you have the list of election work? No. [Music]
All right. So you want me to just read off the names of the election workers? Yes, I would. All right. So this is for appointment of election workers. The term of office is
September 1st, 2025 through August 31st, 2026. We have Barbara Howie, Kimberly Wisman, Mary Gunderson, Christine Drake, Ronald
Howie, Stanna Wheeler, Michelle Burgess, Elizabeth Sllin, Deborah Bennett, William Sllin, Pam Parsons, Donna McKim, Jennifer Uncles, Olivia Leon,
Catherine Amstat, Margaret Nodderates and McCabvery Burgess. So motion to approve as read. Yes. Or you can say so moved. So moved. Okay. I'll second that. Any discussion?
So the only discussion I just want to fully disclose. My mother is on that list, Christine Drake, but there's no financial benefit to me or anything, you know, with having her appointed as one of these workers. So,
all those in favor? I two nothing. Perfect. All right. Next, we got Council on Aging appointment. So, I call the two members that are
listed um on our council on aging sheet. Um we have um Ladonna Atlantic and when I spoke with her, she said yes, she has had um
yeah, she has been busy dealing with other things, but she's happy to continue on. Okay. And then the other person is um Maryanne Kanic Kowalik. Kowalik, sorry. U Maryann Kowalik.
Maryanne is still um she wanted to just think about it a bit more and she'll be getting back to me. Okay. So for tonight we are going to appoint Leonna Atlantic for the Council on Aging. Do I hear a motion?
So moved. So I'll second that. Any discussion hearing? No discussion. All those in favor? I I two nothing. Next we got the Boston Post came ceremony.
All right. So, um I've been in contact um with the daughter of our um Nelly and Met Medits Medits and she is uh they are very open to
having a ceremony. Okay. And having the select board come for a visit. Um, they could be available at 5:30 on a Tuesday or a Friday. Um, so I'm wondering
Friday just for me if if you want. Don't hold it up for me. No, I'm fine with a Friday. Okay. Wonderful. And I'll check it. How soon would you like to do it? Um, I know you have a vacation coming up.
Vacation coming up, but I could do it. I'll be back on the 18th. So I'm leaving on the 6th. So I'll be gone then. Well, the 2nd. Come out. This Friday would be the 1st. This Friday is the 1st. Then the 8th I'll be gone. On the 15th, I'll be gone. I can do it either this Friday or the
22nd. Yeah. So this Friday is not really a lot of planning. Okay. Um 22nd or 29th. Does is the family planning on doing something where they want a little bit of notice, you know, to have gather their family or
she seemed to not need a lot of notice. Okay. So, I would maybe consider throwing out the 22nd or the 29th, whichever works for them. Okay. 29th just, you know, is the Friday before a long weekend.
Yeah, that might be tough. So hopefully the 22 22nd would be the best one I pick if you could. Yeah. All right. All right. Um the the next item I was just trying to get
some information um from the select board. We have reviewed um the South County senior agreement between Weightley Sunderland and Deerfield about a month ago and um had a lot of questions. After that we had um the
director came along with um Joyce Fortune Palmer who's on the board and the chair of the board and got some more questions answered. So I I know that it still has to go through legal review,
but I didn't I wanted to know if you all have more questions that you need answered. So I have a curiosity question and again it's only because of this new possibility of it coming you know being having a permanent home in Sunderland.
Yes. If how does that work for the employees? Do the employees become Sunderland employees because they are working here in Sunderland
because this become Right. So it's never been a question because these have been field. Yeah. And these have been temporary locations, right? So yeah, there was, you know, I know a piece is here, a piece is there, but because it's all been temporary,
what happens when a permanent location is found? I think do they become employees of the town that permanent location is in? I don't know. I don't think they I think that one of the goals is for them to manage that themselves rather than lean
on one of the towns, but I'm not 100%. Right. Well, no, that's eventually, right? But it's not right now. Now, if we do it here, I don't know what the transition how we deal with that in the transition. We probably keep the same setup going until
we made the change with Deerfield still managing like they are now even the worms. I don't I don't know. That's my guess. I have no clue. Yeah, I have no clue either. I don't either. We haven't I haven't and it just again doesn't m it just some of these things
become precedent setting, right? Because what happens because we do have some of these combined town things. what happens if you know South County EMS secured property in another town, right? Things like that. I think we just want,
you know, some type of clarification how that works long term. Yep. And I'll I'll definitely make that a question for Thursday. And I know I was Let's see what we're thinking. Yeah. I was at one meeting where one of the members was questioning whether
questioning Joyce whether um if the building was going to be in Sunderland was Sunderland going to purchase the building. Right. So I think people are having you know sorting out all kinds of right um equations of what what will mean what
for who does the purchase and how all that works. Yeah. And if you and then I know that that what they're saying, Joyce is saying anyway, is that their preference is towards a long-term lease. Um they think that would be less expensive for the town. That's right.
Um yeah, but yeah, lots of questions to be answered. May I don't know if that the leasing group might have asked that. Maybe I could um I'll check in with Lauren and see if they talked about that at all.
And I'll I'll get I'll take Fidious. excellent notes of this video. Yeah. Well, no, it just again because I don't know how any of this works, right? But when you start looking at insuranceances and you know,
well, you know, liability insurance, things like that with the building and, you know, just Yeah. how it works. You know, if you want to make sure that the town is covered and that we don't find oursel in
a dilemma of having an extraordinary cost we didn't plan for. Right. Right. I'm so our liability we didn't plan in fall especially with all those seniors um snowboarding and sledding
the hill now it's going to be oh that couple years you'll be able to go you'll hit 60 and you'll be able to big blow up thing will just Okay so questions from I always did the other. My kids did the
other hill on no silver, but I never done that one. So, well, yeah, that one's kind of behind your house. All right. So, we don't need to make any any more discussion about the agreement. No, that's great.
All right. So, we've already done the request for funding. Do we need to Oh, we do need to vote. We need to vote. So, what's So, you would Where would that come from? How do we How do we do this? I I think you should take it from the
select board expense account. I think there's I didn't bring the budget, but I think there's like six. Last year, you were able to pay for this. Well, in 24, I guess it was the survey of the building
in way down the street. Um, the one you like on Plum Tree. Oh. Uh, oh, Senhower. Senhower. The Senhower building came out of the select board expenses. Oh, so we kicked in some for that. Yeah. That's why I was thinking this would be I mean, if we then if we get in a pinch
later, we'll But how much is the total budget for the suck account? Um, it's kind of it's about $4 or $5,000. So, typically typically the big hit to that budget I believe is
when we go to the conference. Yeah. Um Okay. You know, there's hotel expenses, things like that. I think there's that hasn't happened yet this year. Right. Right. Right. So, but even if three people went, you'd
still have plenty of funding left. You should be okay. Yeah. Depending on how much the hotel costs are and parking and all that. Well, even if three thou $1,000 a piece, I think you should be fine. Should be easy just one night. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm just, you know, like I
said, that's our that's our big hit to that typically. Yep. Is the conference. So, yeah, I have no problem with taking it from that expense line. I I agree. I mean, we need to get it Let's get the money set. Yeah. I'll entertain a motion a motion
to transfer $550 to fund to fund uh the South South County Senior Center uh consulting work. Uh take it from the uh designer uh yes, design work. Uh and take it from
the selectman's administrative budget. I'll second. No. All the Any discussion? All right. All those in favor? I I nothing. Next up, we have review Scanland audit
engagement letter. So, we have um a new audit started. Um and I've been I was able to get um a copy if you want to.
So, in the engagement letter, they go through all the things that they will be reviewing. um you know the typical audit scope and objectives going through all our and and they'll prepare a management
letter reviews the audit procedures internal controls and responsibilities um frequency of these we're at this point we're doing annual until we get we need to it really on
firm ground and I think we've had I think our federal our ARPA money did go over a million dollars and so I think when you go over a million dollars typically you have to do annual audits with federal funds. Okay. Um
but it there might come a time I know Tom Scanland I just it made a funny noise. Wow. Um, as I I know in Chesberry for many years, we were able to go it three years
between audits when we didn't have major capital projects. Um, we had a a stellar financial team that Tom had a lot of confidence in and I'm hoping to get to that point here. Yeah. Okay.
Tom has been very responsive. Um, I've had a number of questions for them on different issues and um, change our date, right? That would be kind of part of um,
we changed this part. What are we looking at? It's just a tape. Looks like and the cost did go up to 14,500 from 13,000. Oh, wait a second. Check the What's the front date?
No, I believe this is correct. I think he is completing 24. Oh, all right. Okay. So, we won't use this one. All right. That 24 is correct. Okay. Sorry. That's the audit he's working on, right? He's going back. Yep. I think he had just finished 23,
but now I'm Wait till everything's finally clear. Yeah, that's right. Am I right? I'm doubting myself, but I think it's correct. It's got to be because they're June 20. Why would it be? We're in July. So, I think it would be last year once
we close everything out. So, yeah, I think it was 23 that we closed out and just started getting on firm ground. I Let me see if I can check. I don't have I can check.
So, do you want us to sign this tonight or Yes, that would be good because they've started work. They actually started work in June. Um, so make a motion. Yeah, I guess we'll have a mo do I hear a motion? a motion to uh accept
Scanland's uh proposal to do the audit. I'll second that. Any discussion? All those in favor? I I two nothing. I don't know if this who actually has to sign this is this. Um but you could sign it cuz you're the
chair tonight. Okay. I wasn't sure if it was a chair signature or I believe it is. All right, that concludes our new business for tonight. Any old business?
All right, hearing no old business. Select board update. Dan, do you got anything? I think we talked on everything I needed to talk about. All right. And as of right now, I have got nothing.
So, let's move on to town administrator updates. Okay. So, um I have one very interesting thing. Um our PASS situation, as you know, we had um we were doing
some testing recently. We had brought in the scope and on the first round of testing we had one positive test result for PAS. PFO A S PFS. Yep. PFOS. No,
PFAS P. But they actually there's like se there's six that are regulated and one of them is PFOA and it was the PFOA out of the six that we had hits on in um at
80 I believe it I'm sorry 76 um and at 76 we retested and when they came out to retest we are also able to test the neighbor um 86 that's across the street um a shared
driveway from them. Both of those tests have come back negative. Okay, at this point um we are going to retest yet again on that 76 that has one positive, one negative. It had a
negative in January. So, it actually has two negatives and a positive. So, it will be tested again. they want to wait um at least four to six weeks um so we don't you know just to make sure that we we know what's going on there. Um but
the news from D is that they are ready to close out um this IRA. If the if the upcoming tests come back negative, they will be closing it out because the initial hit last summer um from 118
Reservation Road was positive, but then it was negative in January and it was negative again in June. So that one has not, you know, it's already been negative twice. So
things are looking very good. um and talk and I didn't know what you know I' been discussing with him what would happen if if they're negative how how do we undo what we did and they're saying to do a closeout report not to do the
full IRA report we do not have to get the poets the u the filters for the houses at this point um and they will return to the regular monitoring of the landfill unless something spikes again be just an annual I think it's actually
bianual, but by annual twice. So they do twice. Yeah, the landfield testing. So that's um remarkable news at this point and we'll just I'll keep updating you, but it's hopeful. Yeah. Is it still bottled water? Is it
how what's it what's it still? That's what he's find. He was going to call me back today whether the bottled water needs to continue or not. It might not. Okay. Because because of the communication's been really good with the residents. obviously. And well, and I need to catch up on the
resident communication with the new information. We just got the test result. I've Yeah, I've got to get the test results to them and update them. Okay. And that's the one place I I need to catch up. Okay.
Because um and we will, you know, I have to let them know we'll be on hold kind of. Yeah. For six to four to six weeks. So, that's really good news, I think. Um,
and we're moving along with our um closing out the year uh working with the accountants um and getting out all the tax bills that happened um successfully.
So, things are are moving along. Good. All right. Anything else? All right, there's no one here, no one online, so we have nothing for public comment. I Let's see. Important dates. We have
our next meeting, which will be on August 11th, um 6:30 normal time. And other than that, I can take a motion to motion to adjourn. I will second that. Any discussion?
Hearing no discussion. All those in favor? I I two nothing. You can call us out at 7:32. 7:32.