I hereby call the order this regularly scheduled meeting of the sundland select board and finance committees uh do we have Quorum for finance committee all right so um at this time I call the order to sou board time is 6:30 1 p.m. thank you all right our first
order of business is to approve the minutes are we prepared to approve the minutes from two weeks ago wonderful at this time I would entertain a motion to approve the minutes from the meeting on 210 2025 how Mo we approve
minutes of Select board and finance from 210 2025 second all right motion made and seconded all those in favor I I I three nothing thank you all righty our first order of new business will be to approve a new
registar Alan Richards per the town clerk recommendation you want to tell us anything about that or um Wendy said this was needed to be done right away because of the work the ele um election work that she has to do in
preparation for town meeting M so she asked that we um reappoint the registar he's a longtime registar he's served over 10 years and he's willing to be reappointed great thank you any questions from the board on that all
right at this time i' entertain a motion to appoint our current registar Alan Richards for another year um for the town CL recommendation motion we reappoint Alan Richards uh as registar for the town cler's recommendation second all right we motion made and
seconded all those in favor I I three nothing thank you all right our other appointment today is to appoint a highway employee to the insurance advisory committee um I'm just realizing I I that
George didn't tell me which which Highway employee H it's John I believe it's John John scis yes scisky okay mention John all right okay I
motion we appoint John scavis um from the highway department to the insurance advisory committee second all right we have a motion made and seconded all those in favor I I I three nothing one thank you very much all
righty um that gets sort of our mundane business out of the way let's talk budget it is time for the the money the brass tax why we're here um so we're going to start with reviewing the budget Revenue changes uh from 4E 25 to 4E
[Applause] [Music] 26 so this isn't in our folder anywhere to see it bigger there's a separate folder called budget but this copy is in there um the budget actually the one
that's I think they're both in and one says expense but the other is the revenue sheet that doesn't say either all right it's just this is really hard say the budget recommendation no I was just wondering
if it was in the budget folder so I could see it bigger it's um the it should be in March 10th okay that's the expense one and the one below she okay and that's this copy um this is the expense sheet this is the
revenue okay but they're the same as these last ones we got um this might be a different this was earlier the total might be slightly different yeah great it's the one I okay
couple small changes y okay so if we look over the revenue sheet first then I apologize um did have a problem with the revenue sheet right
before um the finance committee is so we can call finance committee order we have two because we received your the did she resign herself yes Linda resigned yes so we have three of us but
there's two here so we okay great so go ahead and call yourself to order call to order finance committee wonderful at 6:35 sorry perfect thank you very much let me just make sure finance committee has the revenue
sheet as [Applause] well all right so um I just wanted to point out a few items on the revenue sheet okay so this is an expanded
version I I know Jeff had notes and he only gave you about six lines six or eight lines um the reason I'm I'm using this version is to be sure there's no slippage from year to year um and make
sure that we account for each each piece of the revenue budget if that's acceptable to the select board yep absolutely um so when you start from the top of this budget uh we're looking at
uh the levy from last year uh we bring forward the levy from last year in FY 25 which was 7, 468,000 we had the 2 and a half and then an estimate of New Growth this year the
estimate is very low it's $50,000 because our prior year was $50,000 there have been years where it's hundreds of thousands of dollars so there's a possibility that could um that could change um in the next year for FY
27 um but it doesn't look likely for this year so we've got um a definition of our Levy ceiling which is at 14 million the most important number on the sheet is
the the total valuation of the town is $585 million uh 77,6 73 for this year uh last year I'm I'm EST I'm caring for that
valuation as an estimate I believe it's going to increase next year last year it decreased we had uh an issue um with the appell at housing court that was settled that caused uh the drop and we
anticipate um our evaluations continuing to go up from that point um next year we do want to continue to do our cap stabilization I'm estimating and I will be um
if currently it's a carry forward of the same amount from last year 49,8 se5 if the select board is so willing to approve a 2 and a half increase on this amount I will increase it in the estimate for the next review it should
add about $110,000 um to our Revenue pool so that will help a little bit okay so potentially um next year when we do the recap uh the tax levy that you will see should be
8,114 917 or a number close to that after that um we went I went through the state cherry sheet I added in the chapter 90 money um I'm sorry the Chapter 70 money
and then went through and um added in school choice funds that are incoming for this year they're 294,000 in um I upon review of the we have the governor's budget these numbers will be
changing slightly in the next version of the revenue and it's about a a net $30,000 increase okay with um with adding those numbers in wonderful um so that's a little bit that we're going to
get there we will um see additional Library money next year potentially if the governor's budget holds a few thousand there and then
um there'll probably be um an a decrease I think in school choice which will not be positive for the schools um they currently getting 156,000 in school choices and I believe
that dropped a little bit on our estimated receipts what we find here is we have a healthy um mechanism with our estimated receipts where we should bring in about
$250,000 more than our estimates and that will help replenish our free cash and then the our entries for our funds and our sewer Reserve at the bottom um and if we do our Capital
stabilization correctly next year um we should have the benefit of that um that Revenue to handle our Capital needs for next year ending with 10,511 th000
dollars on the revenue side then if we go to the expense side um we find that our schools are the major driver in the increases as you all observed um at the last Finance select
board joint meeting um there's been one significant change the elementary school has um reviewed their budget and tightened it up dropping
$59,000 so their increase uh for FY 26 has dropped to about $44,000 I'm sorry a 4% increase from um A 5.6 so there are other requests in this
budget uh number of them have been reviewed and um tightened up their budgets the Town Clerk and Highway superintendent both have made um fairly significant cuts the highway
department has cut back his request for $220,000 increase for equipment and materials um he was persuaded to do this because we have confirmation that his chapter 90 money will be increasing from
180,000 to 300,000 per year so um every anything he was going to um purchase with that 20,000 he can purchase out of um the new chapter 90
funds the town clerk has also um tightened up her budget uh quite a bit the telephone line is an area where we faced a huge increase with
TPX I've been told that by transition in to Verizon we are saving money um over that increase but our new total for all departments is
$199,000 including the cell phones uh there are three cell phone accounts that town hall pays for other um cell phones are paid individually by department but their main phone system will be paid for
jointly um by uh by Mel or the admin secretary to the select board so we're just um centralizing the billing and um consolidating those departments and I have reduced the individual expense
accounts by the amount they had in their budgets or that they spent last year uh we got a report from the accountant and reduced those budgets by those amounts it was about 8 ,000 so it's um quite a significant
increase even even with the even by adjusting the cost so Verizon is our new phone provider there were a number of um well
you can all see in the in the select board area there were a number there were a couple of increases um technology is the biggest one and the other was in the town audit and my understanding on the town
audit one is because we're effectively paying for two years this year yes okay but just for clarity for anyone looking at this this is not a we expect it to continue to be that high just right it's a onetime um onetime cost
and should not continue will not [Music] continue what is not in this budget are Personnel changes Personnel increases we have one open contract our um police
chief's contract is open but I and I believe the school uh teachers union cont contract is not yet settled as well yeah the both the teachers and also the instructional assistant contracts the both of them the school contracts y we do have a new
police department contract there's a new Union contract with the officers that is driving um an increase to this budget um for their department so the police department wages does include the increase but none
of the other correct well the other ones include our best estimate of what those will be right the the school budget the school the school the school committee already included what they the best estimate of what they think that their their cost
are go up to in theirs so their budget's not going to increase beyond what we what they're telling us is going to be because they give us that budget what about the Personnel committee recommendations for all the towns they are not in there um those are being presented tonight and approv by
board so we have the dollar melt sorry so when we look at like Police Department when he presented to us he was asking for another full-time officer
to help offset part-time police was that his expanded budget or was that his um level service he just presented the one budget okay so what about like the
library the again library was looking to add Thursdays into the mix is that what included in here or I believe it's in the $7,000 increase because we hadn't added um she
has a $77,000 increase on her um staff support and we have not yet added their their increase so yeah it's in it's included in there so this budget is not the level Services budget this is the expanded
budget in most of these categories right so I think we need to look and see what this is you know and again I'm not if we look at those level service budgets because a lot of people presented two or they had a budget and
then you know an additional yep we have to drop back to that level service one without the library having the extra J without the police department having an extra off uh officer well he was
taking reducing his part-time wages dramatically but it was still was a $115,000 increase the but but that's the most of the difference between those two items is the contract incre contractual increases in whatnot um yes it's more
expensive we're not seeing we're not seeing the total amount coming off of the part-time wages for the full-time wages but the new full-time officer is not that entire amount it's less than that so yes it's not a onetoone trade between part-time hours and full-time
hours um but as he had presented to us one of the problems they're having is they can't get part-time office no I understand that but we need to you know I mean we've got to I don't come with a way to start trying to close this Gap I I just mean that if if we if we tell him no full-time officer it's not going to
just immediately take that whole big increase and put it back over in part time we're going to get the 30 we're going to take 50 something off of the full-time but we're going to still get the 37 back on the part-time wages correct and also be in a position but we need to actually see what that real
number difference is Yes man cuz there's some of it we can't do anything about because they have a contract with a pay increase which is wonderful I'm glad they have it yep but you know there's a difference between
those two line numbers being $30,000 and those two line numbers being $3,000 yes and I believe he said the full-time officer is $52,000 yeah Y and so um right 38 in the
part-time so right so we might not you know if it might still go that way but and I believe he said if he can't get another full-time officer with the reduction in his part- timr he's likely
not going to be able to provide 247 service is that 247 with two people on or is it 247 period I think it might have been two people on No period Peri so I don't think we they have 247 now you said they do they aim for 247 yes I
know they but then when when if they have an open shift they can't fill and they don't have a parttime offer to fill it they leave it unfilled and then they basically call those state troopers and say by the way you might get some phone calls from because we have no way in town um which I mean to be honest that is a discussion we could have about
whether or not we we as a town are demanding 24/7 Police Service or whether we're okay with there being more gaps if we're okay with there being more gaps that's a decision but that's a decision that the town should be making eyes open is that if you call the police at 2:00 in the morning on on a Thursday you may not actually get somebody in Sunderland
there may be a officer being sent to bernon so you know it's a right I'd just like to see what that difference is for the way I AG that um did did Eric give us a budget he didn't give us a budget without that right he just gave us the
one budget with he only gave the one budget um if we could get numbers on that for next time to know what it would be like if we said no to that um well he doesn't get to say no we get to say no I'm say if we say no to him I would like to know what those numbers look like um
because again if it's like 52 comes down but then his part-time goes up by 45 because it's not just the putting back in the part he took out it's also the normal increases he needs I'd like to know what the difference between those two is before we okay make a kind decision on that
um same thing with the library one taking out the that's just the $7,000 right right so that Y and the highway superintendent talked about adding a fourth person but he's holding out to next year cuz he knew it
was a tight budget year yep which we appreciate and I believe he asked for it last year too um yeah he has been for I got a question on the revenue one you can help with on the total estimated receipts it
says local Source total about 3/4 of the way down and I see fiscal year 23 actuals fiscal 24 actuals and then I see current year and propul FY 26 about $20 something th000 less you see what I'm
looking see the 943 410 local Source totals this is down below the total estimated receipt I'm closing up uh right there see that number and then that number9 goes down 200 and something thousand why
is that um because those are actuals so those those are those mean but those mean potentially the revenues could go up 250,000 yes okay okay so this is what what suland does and do is very clear on
your practice I mean this practice is the town Low balls their local receipts to generate free cash generate okay so you have two options either you could put what you you really
think it's going to be which is 250,000 more and so um instead of 739 th000 if you put in the 981 you could you could balance your budget with that that additional money
but you can't change your practice back and forth willy-nilly so R watches this and if if you do it this way they really like to change it is an issue you you got to really talk to them and do it
over time so this is this is why you count uh the town counts on using free cash every year this is where it's coming from and it's one of those things where like we could shift our practices but where we gain money on this side we're going to end up with less free cash the following year and it's this
it's all the same free cas the concern is that if you if you if you estimate as closely as you think and then then re sheets come in lower than you think they are that's a lot worse than ending up with extra free cash at the end of the year because you were lowball okay so it's just something we know that that's
that'll give in all right thanks that was actually a question I asked Jeff my first year also question this is a little bit different which one one that's the better one this let's stand this one so the question I have is
is my first cyle for this so when I look at revenues revenues are increasing by about 280,000 that's the bottom right change for one year for the next right and then I look at expenses those are increasing year-over-year about 440,000 right so youve got a deficit obviously
in that year but the structural deficit or the Gap to close is one biger Li so is there any history view or this left work could share like what beyond the freecast usage drove that structural deficit you know what other things play here other than just the year-over-year
revenue expense numbers so free cash is a big part of that is it we're going to be we the last bunch of years we've used some number of hundreds of thousands of dollars in the budget at from free cash um and I believe that's majority of what you're seeing and we will again most
likely this year use a chunk of free cash to balance it have we been using kind of the same amount of free cash every year for a number of years or is it been growing and that's down here on the yeah and that's partially what what Becky was talking about is is we estimate low we end up with extra free
cash and then that feeds into the next budget and then we estimate low and I understand that's where it's coming from the I'm kind of asking about the size of the hole and how that's changed over time uh it's been fairly consistent I think we've I don't remember the exact number but we've been putting roughly the same amount into free cash in every year about
250 was one year it's right there free cash used to balance yeah so it was because the C stabilization wasn't done correctly that year and they had okay cash I mean it's
good that we're funding cap capital projects a year ahead to stabilization and that we're using free cash the year ahead versus current year by increasing Revenue so those are two areas where there is some conservatism of that but the growth of the deficit is certainly
concerned oh yeah that was my biggest concern yeah coming here do you know again expenses going up 4% 3% do we have a revenue problem an expense problem or both um yes uh we actually have about
seven problems in a trench coat this year all right um so so uh Becky mentioned briefly that we had a um a some litigation in uh the pellet Courts for housing that ended up causing us to have our valuation go down so that brings down the revenue side a chunk um
we also as has been mentioned a couple times had an issue with the capital stabilization override this year and a half ago um so we didn't collect $400,000 we were supposed to so that's another Revenue side issue um and then in addition to that we have our Frontier fiveyear
rolling thing as we heard two weeks ago um our numbers went up all other towns went down and so we're seeing a huge you know pull on that side so it's bad year for revenue for a number of reasons all kind of minor things but when you add them all together it adds up and then a bad year for the the budget side also
for the expenses side also for a number of reasons um each one of which just makes that Gap get bigger between the two of them um I mean some of the persistent challenges you know and some of the budgets we've seen so far especially around health insurance
retirement like you those are unsustainable increases and you know the the frontier number of students that can roll up and roll down you know over time uh but the other ones don't seem to be those are kind of one of my yeah it's a lot of this stuff has fluctuations like
like a stock market does and we just had a year where all those fluctuations all compounded in in a bad Direction um we've had years where and not in recent memory but we've had years where we got lucky in a lot of ways and we ended up having a very robust year and we were able to make big changes to town and and
have you know and also put money in stabilization and also put money into these different funds and I'm glad we did those things because now we're in a year where we're looking at the stabilization fund as as a driver um you know and and from a free cash perspective and to be clear this is only my third year
doing this but from the last two years in a preash perspective we don't look at so much as how much of the free cash how much dollar amount are we putting into the budget more of a trying to balance a percentage of free cash into these different Pockets so if one year our free cash is 500 what we put into the
budget what we put in stabilization what we put into what we leave for next year is going to be smaller than a year where our free cash was $800,000 and so some of the fluctuation we see on the money we're putting in there is because that year our free cash was much higher in fact I think it was last year or the year before we had a really sub stantial
chunk of free cash like $800,000 something dollars um and so we tried very hard to squirrel away as much as that we could into the stabilization funds which again I'm really glad we did because we're in a position now where these hits coming this year we at least have that buffer um but then also those
years we chose to put more money into the operating budget as well um yeah can ask one more clarifying question on this line I'm not familiar with only uh partway down on the revenue um less excess leing capacity I thought I
knew what that was but I see it bouncing around a lot and so that makes me wonder if I understand it I wouldn't have expected it to shift so much year to year it goes from yeah 400,000 to a th000 to 400,000 am I missing something um I'm I'm learning more about this
what's making this bounce is the capital stabilization okay um mechanism so so we ended up so what happened this year is we ended up going to town meeting getting a
approval to raise the revenue but we did not execute it on the recap correctly okay so we are now spending the revenue um I'm sorry we are now expending the amount the
49,000 those projects were almost completed when we discovered you didn't have the money to pay for them so we will be going to a special town meeting uh I hope I believe approved by the
select board for um fy2 ahead of the annual town meeting the same morning and we'll have to transfer 409,000 to this fy20 budget to balance it to pay for this
from where bance from stabilization funds we have 600,000 stabilization funds and we will be moving 2third of it to correct this problem no so we so we passed the capital
stabilization but then didn't it didn't find its way through to the tax bills so we didn't actually collect it correct correct it was not included in the tax bill and and we discovered it about 3 days after the tax bills went out but we couldn't do anything about
it um I have a n and Di question so can I finish the answer yeah so sorry we had 392,000 of excess leevy capacity because that override wasn't happening if that
override was happening that excess Levy capacity would have disappeared and we would have had to use the balance like the 15,000 from our local receipts you know raise one to get
15,000 because you can't have less than zero but it is odd behavior I hav't seen that before either does that question uh I'm starting my would be how to go from 400 to 1,000 to two years prior what we don't do that
today so you mentioned in the highway department that they were able to go to their level Services budget or drop it by 20,000 yes because they're getting this other money can they drop is there anything else they can drop CU what you told me they
were getting was more than they expected and was much larger they were going to down 20 but like up 80 or something yeah they're going up 120 so but I don't know I mean wages maybe they can't do but I wonder if like this highway snow ice expense is a line it's chap the 90 you
can only use on certain things and you can't touch your snow and the Road Machinery can't be one of those things because it still has 20,000 for Road Machinery that could be used for that right that's $20,000 I go talk to them some more
right I mean yeah we're talking you know we're going to lay off a police officer and not have you know what I mean like yeah if has other monies to get it yeah so that 21 so most of the things can't be used but that 21
could be I think so so it was 40 something and now it's 20 something and he could go another 20 potentially but it would tell evence you know it's nicer to work congeni he he will definitely know more than we will
about what can and can't be used without money um and his biggest concern is um this salary of his two employees because they are everyone around him is cherry-picking um right so he might be
able to say I'll cut the 21,000 off my road machine because I have this other thing I can use for it as long as I get the salary bump for my workers I feel like that's a deal we can make yeah because that person not going recommended it anyway yeah right mean that's yeah no that mean
that that's where we're at is is is going through these just to find to find the couple bus here in there 3,000 total that's right yeah I feel like we can say you know um yeah it's
280 yeah a p for each so so we give you give us 21,000 we give you 2,000 that sounds a good deal do 15 or 20 more times and we'll be all set yeah I'm just you know that's if he has you know that's a source of money
that can used for that if it can't be used for anything else great but if it can be used for the road machine then and and we're not we're not asking to claw back the entire amount that he's getting he's still getting if we if we're taking 40 back from him he's still getting 80,000 more overall than he
would be the previous year and his workers are getting AR raised and his workers are getting raised getting and so no I I I like that thinking remind us how much free cash we have this year we got that certified already 600 600 okay
126,000 I think and what are the available stabil different stabilization Fones in it's roughly um about 600 for also for 575 cap I'm sorry 575 for regular
stabilization and the capital stabilization so the capital stabilization has about two in it because we put we're supposed to put 409 in that didn't go in we budgeted 409 intentionally leaving the 200 there because we're trying to build up money for a new roof for elementary school and
so we do have 200 in that account and so one of the things that we're going to be discussing between now and special town meeting and particularly at special town meeting is do we put a 400 in there to get back to where that kind should be leaving the 200,000 for the future because I mean the reality is in a
couple years we're going to a roof for the school and it's going to be a million do or something close to that and so do we do we say take the L on this and and have the account go back down to zero and only put 209 and whatever in in order to to to get it to
zero or do we put the full 400 in get us to where we should be um that is sort of part of our question um or do we or or in the middle do we do we say okay we we'll put 300 in and you know cut plan to build 100 or so year to get to a
Million number years from now are are so what we for for a context the capital stabilization had originally been 125 or something like that we went to town meeting two years ago to ask for that increase to bring that up to $400,000 and that $400,000 number came out of a 10 year plan that the capital
stabilization committee looked at of all the projects in town was about $4 million over 10 years so we said $400,000 and that included the roof and so any given year the requests might be 100,000 or $ 600,000 or it might be a year where they ask for a million dollar roof what we're trying to do is
underspend for the next couple of years so that by the time the roof hits us we've got 600 in there we got the 400 coming in this year it's a million dollar roof we can actually do it not borrow if we can avoid it so the couple years since we started this are we checking are the projects that are being
approved each year part of that original 10year plan that new projects aren't falling in because then you only know so and and that's and that's part of where we were on the 10-e plan is is that we made it clear to town like this is us just just meeting the needs that we know about right and we we actually um can we
we hem and hot over whether to ask for more is is should we say six should we say that that really the number we should be aiming for is six because what we're probably going to see is $6 million over the next 10 years versus four and what we decided was it was better to ask for something that the town was going to be able to to say yes
to than and still be kind of short honestly over the next 10 years then ask for something that was going to get shot down we were going to end up being at zero rather than at 400 um so the short answer is cuz that was an override that was an override that we had to get past the town the short answer is
um hopefully every year we're putting 100 or two away for the the the roof um this obviously is a huge hand grenade thrown in that because we we not only are do we potentially losing the the the buffer we had but we're also having to dip into our other reserves to pay off
the the chunk we're missing um well that bad budget the first thing get cut is C that's towns are no different than anybody else there y um luckily there was very little requested this year was there good data around
sizing that four million like does the state share like for towns of this size or town budgets of this size this is how much you should be thinking about as a percent of your population a percent of your budget or percent of your something like do have good data to try to like level set you know is four low do we
think it's low is it definitely low Based on data how so I'd like to start by saying I'd love to see you join the capitalization subcommittee because we'd love to have the questions be asked um as far as I know um either that information is not available to us or we haven't availed
ourselves of it um we're largely looking at historical data and also part of our problem is is that a lot of the items that were were asked for like we'll find out in 2020 that we need a new a new fir truck or something like that and by the time we actually put it into effect in 2024 it's half again is more expensive
than it was when we calculating so and that was one of the other things that we said to the town is that all these prices are in 2023 prices we have no idea or we do have an idea and it's a bad idea of what's going to happen to these prices over the over the length of this of this estimation so really it was a shot in the dark but 400 is a hell a
lot better place than 125 was um and at the very least um we should be able to handle the the projects that are on our plate currently um and to be fair of that $4 million some of it was stuff that could be pushed out of the 10year window some of it is stuff that maybe we
even just outright say no to the Department's asking because it's just not reasonable um but not as much enough of it to to make a huge difference at least three and a half million of that is stuff that just we don't have a choice about it has to be done the next you need a roof you need a roof you can't push
that exactly out indefinitely the the roof on the elementary school is already pasted its effective lifespan um and that's not even to speak about the frontier roof which is also at it's lifespan as well um which is a whole other B wax but um it's past its
lifespan front or suland Elementary I believe last year we passed it was a 25 year roof and we're at 26 aren't we 2000 yeah 2002 2002 yeah wow yeah time my was Bor 2001
she 20 okay okay so 20 life yeah I retract my statement not quite not quite end of life but Lally we are we have we should have yeah but no you kind of just lose track a time I keep thinking that's not
even 20 years ago but yes it is it is I believe I was in elementary school when that was when that was going in so you know just to make you old yeah my kids were in elementary school when it happened too but um so did that answer your questions
about those part great thanks for you know engaging on that because I know you do a lot of work outside of Select board and the capital committee and capital planning is one of the hardest parts of any budget plan to be honest and really like I cannot sing the Praises of the people in town on board and the members
of town to have the foresight to pass that override the first time and then the the original 120 100 turned 125 plus the additional um because this process would be that much harder if we were having to say and also we have $400,000 worth of capital expenses that we don't
have a mechanism to for that has to go into the operating budget we we'd be $400,000 more in the ho right now um so really glad and that's what makes it tricky talking about using some of that Sav of money because that's not what that was originally intended for right yes um which is again why I really would
like to if we can put the full 400 in there because that's what the town voted on that's what the town said no this is what we expect to be there um but we didn't get the 400,000 we we didn't actually CL and and the reality is everybody in town got a tax break last year like it's lovely for everyone's
Pockets you know everyone got toting yeah and that's and that's sort of how much you say you I'm hoping we don't have to go to to real convincing of people in order to to to make this right but that's the argument I make is like the bottom line is that you guys agreed last year to be charged this much
you weren't we're not coming after you for you now cuz we can't but we're asking you to help us make it right by agreeing that like gu some money's going to have to move around and that kind of thing but it's also the you're asking for a transfer of funds that still won't cost them for this year yeah so they're
getting a year off from the capital expense we get B on the roof and it's more we have to do another Capital over possible although because this year we can go up two and a half you can go up two and a half every year so I think
it was 206 that the $100,000 override began uh they started talking about in4 14 but it hit the books in 2016 and then it was 20 23 I think
202 2022 they passed a $250,000 override 275 275 yeah 275 thank you so that was 275 and that worked well in 2024
y um and and really the in the end of the day what's going to end up happening is the hit is going to be felt most in the general stabilization fund if this didn't all happen if we collected the money appropriately most of our other conversations are going the same way as they did right now the main one is going
to be whether it's 200 300 or 400 some chunk of money is going to end having to be transferred out of our stabilization fund into this I don't love that longterm I like having $600,000 in that you know there's a reason it's there the other side of it is this is one of the reasons it's there is if there's a
mistake in town something happens we $400,000 unexpectedly short that's why you have stabilization funds is to stabilize trade situations right but at minimum we've got to do the 125 because that zero yeah a zero because that 125
should have been there before the override yeah I mean we have to put we have to put at least 209,000 or something along those lines just to just to be at zero in terms of balancing the books for the year we can't leave that account netive $200,000 at the end of the year that's why we
have to go to the special town meeting the question again is whether or not it's all of it or half or three quars or well that's right I guess the argument around just doing the 209 is as it worked out the town didn't in fact
approve 400 to go in and start building this that will happen the following year so it's really we're using free cash and do we want to use free cash to jump start that balance to 200 so maybe that's where and it's it's honestly it's it's a little it's a little bit more
complicated because the town did approve the money and that's the thing is like we didn't yeah it's already been spent wasn't ra it wasn't ra yeah turns out the last thing you're doing it counts as our Baseline for our taxes so the next year we can go from there yes yes um so
so so it's a dip but we're we're you know and so it makes sense to use it on capital projects it's less clear all you can still do it to create the $200,000 positive balance to start building I guess that's my point I I I I understand where you're
coming from um from where I'm coming from the town has approved there should be $600,000 for Capital with 400 spending to 200 saving that's what the town approved so we can either make right what the town approved or we can kind of claw back half of that and say
no we're only going to put in the much to get you to zero because we don't have it and again that may be the answer you know again when you want to start playing with numb it's really 275 because that would have been what we should have additionally collected 400
but but but no I mean yes but it's it's two chunks but both of the chunks weren't collected both of the chunks should have been on there both of the trunks were approved and so right but the 125 that have been going in since 2016 should still be going in I mean yes
but it didn't and the the 2255 also should have been going that should have went in because no none of it was put in to section 10 2 where it under other it it was collect the regular that we could have we didn't yeah we didn't
collect the 225 we didn't collect the 275 we didn't collect the 2 and half% increase for the last two years any of it okay yes it really was a tax break it wasn't just a increase it was a literal tax break and $400,000 on a tax roll
like ours is a substantial tax break yeah like substantial chunk of money um so and you know again great for the people of Sunderland you know congratulations you tax break this year but the reality is is that there might be some longer term consequences of that
happening um that we're trying our best to both mitigate in plan four and figure out how to shift you know pay Peter out of Paul pocket that kind of thing um so it seems like the first thing we need to do is um go back to the you know make sure all these budgets are the level service
budgets not the bigger one that's the starting and then we discuss them one by one saying if we have any wiggle room this is the three things we want not level services but we start with everybody with level Services right so and and on that note I of course want to
give everyone everything if I had to pick one item that I would like to see happen this year it's actually the library increase they've been asking for that for ever they don't ask for big inrees ever and it's not just that oh yeah we're going to provide a little more something it's going from a you a 4
Day to a 5 day week offering there's a tricky thing with that thing with the library too so they got approve for a grand that would pay for the position for one year so ironically if we put it in the budget this year there's Revenue to balance it but that but we don't the
library is pretty uncomfortable with increasing the budget one year and then closing the library again the next year yeah so would be a commitment that we $10,000 Grant and open the library on Thursdays and then close it again the next year because they you know so they'd rather have it to be funed through the town we don't like the grant
to be paying working I think that though becomes I'm just I'm just but I'm think sure that's the right decision but that's what but maybe it is a good thing because it lets you to take the Grant and do it for a year it lets you see
what the interest is it lets you see are you really getting right more coming into the library versus are we just still have the same
activity at the library it's just spread out over more days so Library Tres haven't talked about it yet because we just found out we Grant in between meetings so we don't talk about it till I mean that is an interesting idea well and and something of course the town can
never make any kind of promises to certain levels but have to close the library on Tuesdays from now we don't but but I would be much I would be very happy I I'd be a lot happier than I normally am to have the town pick up the tab off of a grant
knowing these are the circumstances they're under we already want to do that for them knowing that they're taking a year of Grant i' much happier next year being like yes we'll take that $7,000 on now the Grant's not there especially because and next year hopefully won't be this this perfect storm year where all
our budget of stuff is is falling apart in one this same way right but I think but we have to be careful because the senior center right also had a grant fund and we're like we're not why should we keep like maybe they can't keep finding that so it's a It's Complicated right but I I think there's some benefit
in funding that position or that additional day because it will actually give you real data does this increase our energy cost does this increase our cleaning cost does this increase our snow removal cost all these things that
right now you're one less day in that Library you add that day and you can see everything that it increases versus It's Tricky though you're right it will gather that data but the problem is or the challenge is that if we come
back in a year and they're like hey this is good for certain am some number of people whatever the data is that's great and if that number is greater than zero we'd help somebody but that can't be the threshold to determine budget allocation because is everything we're trying to do helps people right the the lit litness
test can't be does it help some people in the community like it should be does that help the community more than solving the part-time full-time police officer dilemma for example yeah right both of those things help the community so it can't just be is it good it's got to be is it better than the other thing
that we can't do if we do this well and it's also a bang for your buck kind of a situation as well which is partially why I'm actually pushing for this is because getting another that's you know what 50 days a year additional for $7,000 in the
library seems really cheap to me seems like we're getting a bargain on that and maybe part of it is what you're saying which is that there's hidden costs in there that we won't really know until we've spent a year with an extra day but if you came to me and said that for $7,000 we could open the library for 50 more days of the year that seems like a
really good bargain per day it does so that's exactly it it seems like a really good bargain good um oh and and so part of that is the hidden cost but also part of it is that we're still heating the library on on Thursdays whether the people in there or not we can't just turn the heat off on on Thursdays in the
middle of the winter the pipes would freeze so we're we're already heating the building yes maybe no lights are on but there's still a bunch of electricity uses there we're still paying for the lawn to be mowed as many times whether we're using it 4 days or 5 days we're we're still paying for the the snow removal when there's snow storms it's
not like we don't remove it because you know if it's not Thursday it's going to need be REM for Monday so you know I I I I would also like to see that information but I feel like in many ways we're we're we're getting more more out of the facilities that we're already paying for if we're using it for all the
days of the week as opposed to only partial days of the week um so anyway but yes I I would love to see data on that um so maybe that is something we asked the library to do is to use that Grant to give us a Year's worth of data so we have some from data for next year you know I'm you know the library like I
said hasn't had the conversation so um yeah but I I you know the concern is that if we open up on Thursdays and then the next year we close there's like a learning curve and people get you hear more squeaky Wheels when you take something away than when you add it right so it's it's tough like
when the light when the town hall closed on Fridays it was a nightmare and now people are used to it but that's a lot like it's a lot on the staff it's a lot on people coming on Thursday when mean you're not open banging on the door you know but in terms of people get used to the thing in term of the effect of that
that's kind of what we're saying though is if if it's wow this is going to be a huge huge decrease to the town if we take it away there's like lots of people who are interested in it then yes the the town will take that data and and next year choose to fund it because that's that's a valuable thing I think I'm just saying that concern is you know
like here's a here's a lollipop you they have it this year the next year you don't get a lollipop yeah um no you got diabetes now and again I can't speak for the board next year nor can I speak for a budget situation but my goal is to have this be a change that we make
permanently they've been asking for a bunch of years I think it's the right choice for the town to be open more days of the week for Library it's a great resource it gets used a lot um just so you know the hours that they want to open on Thursday are those special hours the autism hours yeah um and that's the Grant and that's honestly I haven't even
mentioned that but that's another piece of why I think it's a great idea because that's that those are services that are solely lacking in the valley and it's not Clos to everyone else it's just it's that only a week that the library is really quiet it's like old school
sh Community Center um but also because of the nature of what they're trying to do they're they're they're not going to try to fill that day full of events and stuff like that which will also hopefully if we did find ourselves in a position where next year we were having to say no would mean that at the very
least there isn't a thousand things planned that day it's a loss especially for the autistic people in town for sure but again that's a hard conversation year the library and and and full disclosure I have two kids who spend a lot of time in that Library so I am
also slightly slightly biased in that direction um I love our library and I want to see it open as much as possible all right there any other specific line items that the finance committee want to go over I know you have lots of information in front of you
and there's any this just be a gener conversation be nothing we can do right now but you know one of the big you know there's a few big line items we don't control a lot of the frontier sundland um you know the employee medical and life is I know we touched on you know I
think Maya versus the other group like are there any even bigger things we can think about doing or how we can change this even if it doesn't change next year but is to try to keep this from continuing to happen I don't have any answers so Becky has been looking at
ways to reduce that 19.9% increase on the the health insurance by possibly making some changes to the plan like a copay or that kind of thing um all of that fortunately or unfortunately look for it needs to go through the bargaining units in town because they
need to agree to make those changes um that being said they also pay a part of their insurance premiums and so they also I would assume would have an interest in finding ways to bring that dollar amount down because it what the percentage is employee pays versus
employer um most most employees pay 35% and the town plays 65 retirees are now paying 30 um and the town is paying 70 the insurance advisory committee had
recommended over time to increase um the town's portion 2 and a half% a year um to get to I don't know what the end goal maybe 75 yeah I think I with the end goal is 75 I mean at Frontier and it's
70 it was to get to that percentage so you know we have you know Frontier we the teachers have a higher percentage than SCS and in the town so it was to try to it was kind yeah so we want you know if we were able we wanted to be able to increase the percentage the town
paid and but that it's going up but are you interest the of like what a lot of the towns have as a percentage like de a good data point i' be interested to see what so there is there is a a spreadsheet out there that says what all the other towns pay for
percentages but unfortunately when we started looking a lot further into it it you couldn't really call it the same because Sunderland for example had
a PL has a plan with say super minimal co- payments but then you might look at someone else's plan and they've got a deductible and co-payments so okay they were really
tough to start comparing but we are we are um hopefully meeting next week I've been trying to get this group together for the last two weeks but hopefully we'll be meeting on Monday and Wednesday if we have to to
wrap it up um we've got a list of potential U plan design changes we can make that might add up to about 9.3 um what is that group is that a committee or is that a yes it's the insurance advisory committee it's made
up of employees just yeah because the uh Highway superintendent didn't want to continue on that committee and he was the one who was on he had no fun yes he was having yeah it's a it's a tough comparison
because every health insurance plan is different you I to do I do this in my job nonprofit side so um or you can help us I said too much um so I'm looking just I'm I'm Nichol
and dond here trying to figure what we can do um the I don't think we talked to anyone but the maintenance on the town R Fields doubled that's a necessity yeah I reason I'm sorry you mind if I get speak to
that one quickly um so the short answer is that prior to this year we've had a robust or a declining but still existent um Committee of of folks in town who run the baseball program um and so the law
the maintenance was being done by that program that program has since become defunct and no longer has members of town running it and so the responsibility of that maintenance that was originally being done by that group is falling into the town now and thus to Jim Ying his apartment so the work we're
asking to do is going up substantially you'll see an increase in Jim adding um five hours I think four four hours to his schedule in pay he was the original numberers that 14,000 there he he puts
in like 30 40 hours a week he's getting paid for 15 or 16 and getting $15 an hour so I trying to get that another piece of context for that also is that we had done a substantial cut in that around Co because the town
acknowledged that well we're not running all these recck programs during Co and so he was at this level we dropped him down and we're looking at getting him back up to sort of pre-co levels because he's do he's back to doing pre-co levels worth of work just not getting compensated for that and as far as I'm
concerned that's not right he's a great guy no that that's a very valid question um so good explanation um the South County Cedar Center we don't have a choice right so one another three towns right
and so if everyone else approves it we don't have a choice I have some questions about how that all works myself to be honest but there's you know it's a long-term challenge but it's not anything we can do for this budget well you could still pass whatever budget you
pass and then if you're overridden by the other two talents and so be it but is that how that works they they vote for it we have to go along with it they vote or we can pull ourselves out of the out of the South County Senior Center ball we vote a
lower budget see what the other towns do and then have to go back up to the I mean do we even know what the other towns have done wait yes I I mean the other towns are all passing that budget for South County yeah for the senior C I
believe I so I mean I guess I guess one of the questions is are they happy about doing so and should should there maybe be a conversation amongst those three towns about that and then either we all agree that Yep this is what it is or as a united front we go back and say no you
need to cut the money out of it cuz that was a 20% increase in you know that was a grant right from last year yeah well they want we had because they had a grant now they don't have the grant well and also you know we touched on this another presentation it's not just for me it's not just about the last year
it's about looking at the like 10year thing they're up like 400% over the last chunk of years and the question was okay like we get that you're you're ramping up stuff that you felt was but when does it end where is the end to this if every year ends
with that's a whole other that's a whole other Ballack there part of the I think discussion is like once you've built out budget and programming and things to justify building then how do you not the building so that's my concern yeah I would just I kind of want to push back
it to my people the old people like me no and and to be honest it was it was a slightly contentious meeting with with the director I just know if we had any rol if we can do anything about it Dan do you know I don't know the the way the the mechanism way that works if the
other two towns are for we have to go along I'm not certain and I guess I don't know the status of where they are and they're approval of that well and sou it's a little bit like we're a frontier like that's the deal like yeah Becky could you maybe future meeting yeah but I'm pretty
sure that that she asked your board for approval oh we yeah our board did no no the board of oversight the board of oversight you approved the board that oversees them has approve the budget so now we have to
approve it so they're government we don't notar true so when the board of all so same thing I'm on the board of oversight for South County EMS I'm just trying to figure how it works we're making a recommendation that this is the budget we want you to take budget right now the towns still need to accept it
the towns still need to accept it the board of oversight doesn't get that final set the other two towns do then we then we're not clear exactly what happens what happens though but again I waitley doesn't have their town meeting
until like June they moved it up oh did they it's April 29 oh wow I'm yeah I didn't know that cuz theirs is usually really late so then maybe weightly does have some cuz usually weightly everybody else has
approved it and then weight Le's kind of so far afterwards that I did not know that that's actually great that they're much more in a line and so was there any negative feedback from other towns that you know of well
not from the not from the oversight committee no I didn't I didn't get any bad and it seemed like Deerfield definitely was supporting the budget in the meetings we were at I was at yeah I think it's worth having a conversation maybe at the Town
Administrator level or at the S board level about like is everybody happy with this or are all of us grumpy about this but just assuming that the other towns are going along with it and if that's the case can we have a conversation about pushing back a little bit um again not that like a reasonable increase isn't warranted of course it is but yeah
and you know um South County EMS at early or not super early but at one point during the budget he was really interested in presenting his budget once to all three towns
together which could be a nightmare everybody but it could be an opportunity but it could be an opportunity to hear other towns questions you know if if so like if South County
EMS if South County Senior Center presented once and you know you just found a place where you could get all the select board and finance committees together and hear everybody's questions concerns I I said it could go either way
it could be horrible or it could be great for us I just don't know which way that would go because again that's that's category that they brought the budget in lower this year but could it have been even lower right still you know we don't
know um but the oversight committee when you review the budget would you you would have a chance to ask even more questions too or but that's the process is done yeah we asked questions and you know is there is this necessary or can
we have an ex you know a further explanation about this yeah because it looks like if we nickel and dime a few things away and then we add in our Personnel committee recommendations we're just back to too much we're just back to where we started and the other
big if we get a 9% reduction done in time to a health insurance it would free up about 58,000 50 2,000 they nowhere near 500,000 is that no we just need 10
more be closer to 400 after all that yeah sub 455 there's 50 potentially there um but then there's also the the new yeah yeah so so the the the newest
numbers before any of the cuts is 500 this was more today I said it it was I here this one is the most recent one if you want to pass that down to them at the bottom of that one it has a 507 um and that does not include the I got
the7 okay got um that's okay so yeah the 507 and that does not include the Personnel numbers which we're going to go over momentarily um so that's probably another 50 or so um but then off of that we already have about another 50 that we're looking at coming
down right between the um between George for the highway department and the well I already took georgees unless we do unless we do give up more okay we talked about additional 20 potentially from him yeah
um yeah um as far as local receipts you explained earlier very well the you can't just flip back and forth and just set it where you want it but you know this doesn't have the budget from year or what was the do we increase it some each year like what was the local rece
seen is been leveled it's been leveled for a number of years okay so without abandoning the conservative approach maybe there is some ability to move it some or we don't know we went up almost 40 right
actuals I'm asking FY 25 budget to FY 26 budget so if we went up 10% would they be okay with that is basically a question yeah like is there is there some path that's not level that that still maintains conservative IE we should do that you could track you could
track the increase ine and again it it it's yes idea soorry what you take again I miss that just track the actuals and bump it up by that much one way to go4 to 25 by 4,000 40,000 then maybe you know to maintain
the same cushion basically yeah no I don't I don't disagree with that approach um again the the only flip side to that is anything we on that end is going to end up hurting us the following year on free cash U which again not a bad thing necessarily if we want to you know try to pad this particular year I
just always hate doing something that's going to help this year but hurt next year because if somebody did that last year I'm dealing with it right now and so I try to avoid what possible all right so um if everyone's we have some more items in the thing
which are all kind of a big part of this but I'm going if everyone's good with that part of it we're going to move on to the next part um and that's going to be one question so this number is going to bounce around we're going to make some more things move around let's say it gets you know it's at 500 now let's say
it gets somewhere between 4 and 500 so maybe you make up some of it what is the goal here are we how much free cash are we looking to use at what threshold do we say we can't bridge the gap and there will be an override like how do you and I know it's
early but like how do you think about that so override is always the last step is always the like we try to avoid it as much as possible um for a number of reasons the number one is that our number one job here is to be fiscally responsible for the people in town and
the whole idea behind prop two and a half is to force the towns to be as Fally as possible possible I don't necessarily agree with the number they chose two and a half is not necessar realistic sense when there's a big inflationary here we could have a long discussion about why why I think necessarily it's the best way of doing it but that is our responsibility is to
find is that we we should be able to find a way to make that work in two and a half okay not again not we could discuss whether that's reasonable or not but that's what the that's what our job is to do so the overrides always s of the last thing the other main reason I try to avoid overrides is is that I hate uncertainty in my budget and you don't
know whether the override is going to pass until it goes to town and if it doesn't pass we're back to the what do you do you know with then we're still then we have to make Cuts but then we're making Cuts with less time and with less you know control and whatnot um so I would like to avoid that that being said
I mean I've only done this this is my third year but the last 2 years we had a similar although slightly less large um Gap at the beginning and through this process we find 20,000 here we found 50,000 there we go back to this
department go back to Department whle whle whle whle Whittle and we get it to a number where we say okay there's 300,000 left or there's $250,000 left we can take $150 from free cash maybe we move some from one stabilization accounts um something like that um one
of the other mechanisms we haven't mentioned which is sort of in the same vein of an override is also a debt exclusion is that if for example the the roof if we came if we end up if we end up cheating the capital stabilization Fund in this year we may end up finding ourselves 3 or four years having to go
for a debt exclusion override still override but a whole different kind of override at that point um so hopefully over the next couple of weeks we can find a way to do this without an override um and remind me when we would need to
know that we need an override by um by the end of the month yeah oh do we need to know by then well we make the vote to have override at the town meeting right but we have to but but it would be a an article on the town me warrant so we have to have a certain amount of lead
time to have that on there what are the warrant de like I don't remember exactly when it is though the warrant de it's uh I think it's only it's two weeks at the maximum ahead of town meeting okay I think the warrant deadline I think is coming up right now for you
know if the public wanted to yeah but for two and a half it could be two weeks yeah okay um okay so go at this point is still to try to find a way to get small enough to brige it with free cash and other stabilization funds if those efforts don't succeed then then then or
or we rather than talking about going from expanded to level we talk about going from level to some level of reduction um which is always a hard conversation and is certainly never the first place we want to go um
but it's our job to figure that out so perfect thank you for my additional oh yeah no absolutely um I'm you know I'm glad you ask the CIF any questions um and to be clear I don't have all the answers either so I will do my all right um we're going to move into the uh
Personnel Board recommendation for the cola uh which I believe I have in front of me yeah so I can do this if you want yes please thank you so what the Personnel Board is recommending is a 25%
Cola uh step adjustment for everyone and no I just want to point out that's the column about five to the right hourly Cola only yeah so that that's actually what we have typically called
steps yeah that's supposed to be called Step yeah the hourly Cola is proba a term no one's familiar with it this point because we've called them steps for so long and then we're asking for a market
adjustment for three employees that of basically a dollar an hour right for these three employees these are three employees that are when we look at
averages average pay you they've thrown out the high they've thrown out the low we've looked at the averages they're like $3 or more an hour behind um other people in town or not
other people in town other the average in Franklin County the average in Franklin County and this area um you know in two of these positions are our Highway laborers the other one's our Treasurer collector if you can go drive
10 more minutes to get to work every day for $3 to5 an hour more that that's not you know that's not far-fetched that we could be losing employees just due to their position
being quite a bit under and not just losing goody emplo es but then turning around and trying to find other people to replace them these rates you're not going to find to start R and then to start you know training them and everything else it's a loss so we can't
close that whole gap of $3 an hour overnight but we would like to you know our recommendation would be to start you know a dollar an hour on those positions and so the dollar amounts on
on it the cola 22% Cola would be an would be a $1 16,18 expense the step adjust the steps are $2,650 and then the dollar an hour wage adjustment for the three employees is an
additional 5,928 giving the um expense of um employee wages an increase of $ 34,42 so
that's kind of where that stands um there's a number of positions that are not on here are U not addressed by the Personnel Board um some that just have steps um not
steps some that are just stiens like the select board the moderator all of those positions and I've been hearing I know Nathaniel's been bringing up that those positions never get um any increase so
um I thought they might be what they were 10 years ago but when I look back I found that actually they were reduced $1,000 yes um so they've gone backwards not boards cuz and I understand select board sometimes you know if you're
trying to balance a budget you take money from the you know that place but um so I'm I I'd like to get an understanding from the board if um if you would like increases on the step on
the stiens like um if the dog officer were active um I think he has stien um I know it's the moderate the select board we've got the planning board we've got assessors Board of
Health well assessor yeah assessors Board of Health and then we have the fire chief and the fire department haven't been getting any increases either um and the fire chief was looking for at least you know he's looking for a
couple dollars per officer but I'm going to talk to him about trying to do that in the coming year and maybe just established the 2.5% increase this year I I'm not sure we'll have to talk with him yeah I mean from my
perspective you know at at the minimum the firefighters should be getting Cola from my perspective like I think that that that's that's a a grievous oversight that we haven't been giving them that step and especially because I understand what they get paid and it's
not much so giving them most steps should be a minimum well I think now they're getting paid $18 an hour yeah for but it's not for all their time I I think it's for the training no it must be for all their time the fire department budget included a race it did
he came in and asked for it um it number in I'm just telling you that those numbers have not traditionally been in there and that's why I before putting it in I want to make sure they it's supported the real question is do we want to roll these positions that don't
that aren't covered by the town's normal Cola into the pool of positions that are just sort of automatically covered by that Cola when it is applied and it'll go up and down depending on what the recommendation from the Personnel committee is um so I don't think that would
even have any just trying I don't think it would have anything to do with Personnel committee I think it would have to be outside of personnel committee that we would recommend increasing those because they're elected positions and Personnel committee does
not deal with elected positions so that's all s um so buer department is elected officers no I'm I'm talking the Board of Health assessors all that right right so it would be a separate
recommendation by the select board to increase or you know to do Calla based on what personnel committee yeah I I meant just that we would put in in place a
policy that would that would say whatever they recommend is what we automatically calculate into our ask for the following year for the boards um would have to go to the town at least for the select boards only because it'd be for yourselves and I I think this is
a good idea we yeah so we wouldn't so in the past we wouldn't recommend it it would just be an article item on there we could vote and so the people the town would see ours but they would be like they and me we could we could decide
that we want to put in our budget $100,000 for each of us and then the town would look at it and be like what the heck are you doing no and they would vote against us and it voted down so so yes the the town at town meeting each part of the budget is you know is brought up and is is available to be voted on if you're making a shift to add
a number of different elected or maybe also unelected positions to the col population does that itself have to go to town I don't believe so they're elected and appointed right like so it's not alled
yeah well now who's not who's appointed like Board of Health they're all elected they're elected planning board they're elected elected I think all the ones we're talking about with stiens are all elected onance committee doesn't get a sement so where
does conom conom two committees that do the most work hisorical personel committee or the person zba they get paid or the library trustees who are also elected so these not everybody has the overall quation I mean this makes a lot of sense especially Market adjustment of all of them that might be
the most sensible um from a timing standpoint does this have to be decided on now or would it be helpful to see how more of this broader budget conversation comes together not that this is a huge amount of money $35,000 but how do you know from a
timing standpoint in terms of the recommendations for the people currently covered under the the the committee um we kind of have to decide now okay and not that like this is a rubber stamp but largely there's a reason that these people spent a bunch of time negotiating
and figuring out what it's it's and so we could and sometimes this happened sometimes I think in Deerfield a couple years ago the the the recommendation was 3% and the town decided to go to half% we don't have to necessarily take that recommendation and and vote on it we can decide on something else but it makes it really
hard to do the rest of the budget budget stuff if we don't know what that number is if we can't plug the wages we can't plug the wages in we can't start to really get dive down to the numbers so yes we could say we're going to defer our vote on this until later leaving open the possibility of voting on a 2% instead of a 2 half% or something like
that um that being said at least from my perspective inflation's been so high over the last year that I think 2 2 and half% is very reasonable I would not argue against that per se um we also have the option of voting yes we want the 2 and a half% but we don't want to
step in the market adustment or yes we want two out of three or whatever like right we can yes so so we we could you well or we could again or we could just say half of all this you know or whatever we can do that kind of stuff um again in
general what comes out of the out of the Personnel committee is not unreasonable and I'm notos I'm on the personel committee finance representative y um but so yeah I mean I don't know we I guess we don't
have to vote on it today per se but no but I I do think we should plug those numbers into the budget yes yeah and if you have to change or L them then we adjust it yeah and you know I like in in a way I would argue that this is more
part of our level service budget this is what keeps the employ kind of well yeah it's level Services we're not we're not asking to increase anybody's hours we're not asking to give anybody well there's three kind of sorry
we paid you so low we're going to pay a little bit more right but that's still Level services that service isn't changed we're not increasing the number of hours they work we're not giving them additional vacation time we're not saying that you know they're eligible for
you know some pre lunch yeah anything it's it's level services and we're just trying to I I made the mistake between level services and level funding so many times my first year because I kept saying level funding and like is that what you're trying to say because level funding is a world difference level
funding means Cuts level funding does not mean the same thing you had last year right um and so yeah level Services um and I I just wanted to mention it's about 15,000 for the people on items that already are under contract
that have to get paid but aren't part of the Personnel Board it's about 11 15,000 but those are things that we've already calculated and and accounted for because we already knew what those were those are already contractually but that's just the two them in here you have okay so that's so that's for the
elected and appointed elected people that's for people who have contracts already like Becky and the chief of police and people who have contractual increases that are already happening but are outside of the outside of
the it's built in built in yeah yeah the fire so the contractual stuff is already in here no the eled people aren't in there the contractual not all the uh contractual is in there because we haven't finished the negotiations with
but it's in here for everybody but the police chief no it's not in so you take Becky Becky's agreement when she was hired what was Becky negotiated was she would take the same Cola as everybody else
Becky didn't come out and say I want 8% every year for the next three years of my contract she agreed to take whatever else the same Cola as everyone else the town clerk is another one who also said I just want the same I'll take the same
Cola as everybody else instead of negotiating her own pay so in order to know what Becky's increases the town clerk some of those we do have to sooner rather than
later decide which of these you know especially the cola so we could start getting those in so it makes the most sense to use these numbers for our planning but leave us the option if we get to a point where we have to make hard decisions to decide to make a that
yeah um okay any other questions on the recommendation or the colist all righty uh we already kind of started doing this review four year 26 budget request lists of changes wait do we have to vote do you guys have to vote on the
cola on the cola um not right now I don't think so no because it's just you put it into the budget we use those number if we vote we've accepted that that Cola and that's what it is and we don't have the option of of adjusting down the line that's our working Cola yeah that's our working Cola we're going
to get built into this as we go forward yeah get built into the budget okay yeah and then because then that then when we're sitting down trying to figure out we to find the extra $60,000 we need to make it work we still have that on the table along if we came up exactly $12,000
$650 short we're going to lose the steps we could say let's take the steps away and we balance our budget and life's great yeah well um not great but well yeah would have some disgruntled but again we need to at
least plug those numbers into but at least that preserves the the one hour for the I mean $1 for the highway and and a two and a half for everybody yeah yeah the co yep so there's going to be some hard conversations over the next couple of weeks um and we're leaving that as one
of the ones that we can still have for for now um all right so the review the 4-e 26 budget requests list of changes we've kind of already started doing that I don't think there's anything we need to really dive into specifically in that um and then the last item here is discuss ways to balance the budget which
again we've already been kind of doing so the the the new business is more of a a list of what we've been doing than an actual agenda today because we're kind of bouncing all over the place but um in a healthy conversation kind of way um that being said is everybody at this
point finan committee and select board comfortable with our discussion we've had today is there anything we haven't talked about that you want to bring up or are we at a place where all of us need to spend some time chugging over numbers and thinking and then two weeks from now we'll have some more
ideas yeah I think going through some of the numbers this is super helpful this brought a lot of things together and now we can like you say dive into certain areas and see what kind of things we can come up with and what's a gapway r great anything else from the select board on budget stuff to say no all right before
all of our brains melt because I am pretty I think we've all talked as much as our brains are going to allow us today on that so we don't have a another scheduled select board finance committee now so is this the point where the finance committee goes off and does their stuff or we come back together
what's the if we can I just didn't know if you wanted to schedule one in two weeks yeah I I would I would like to at at the very least one or possibly two or three more sessions to of join so yeah so if if so Monday March 24th I believe it
is 24th yeah is the next joint that would be joint so the the 17th which is next week is going to be just us and then we'll do a joint one on the 24th and Becky or others uh working backwards from town meeting like when of the deadlines like
when my first cycle your second your third you know how do we lock and Tackle this calendar between now and town meeting and stuff I think the 24th is a big important meeting we want to resolve as much on the 24th as possible and then
clean up in the early part of the first week of April because we've got to get the information out I me okay because you said two weeks prior to two weeks before time meting so the 10th
10 April 12th would be our our deadline to get them out there Saturday 11 function Friday yeah 10th 10th CU you won closed on Friday right yeah so the 10th yeah okay last so we will do our
best to have all of our last round of questions for on available on 24th um and hopefully everyone will come with some ideas of how we're going to balance this budget um if you have any ideas during this time period and you want to
bounce them off me please call T whatever so our goal is in general we'd like to see the level Services budget reflected where we can see how much it would go up like level Services F like we may add it back if somehow a
miracle happens right with the library it's very easy to see the level Services versus not the level services in the in the the police the on is going to be the one that we're going to need the most information on because it's hard to tell like the police we don't know you whatever we really kind of want to see that yeah and I got all the information
from the the hour their current hourlies and everything so I can really I feel like almost dissect that I feel like the other places did that already it's just that we just didn't have that we just didn't have both for fighter S one he explained what it was but he didn't show us both yeah there there was we had
asked for both from everybody and to my own shagrin we got that back from about half of our town departments um which is a question going into future budget Seasons um because we kind of need that information in order to have these
conversations um but anyways that aside um yes it's going to be important for us to know what that difference is for especially for the the police um but to a lesser degree other other ones also um and just a reminder to both both
committees um open meeting law prevents you from talking amongst yourselves outside of the meeting and US ourselves um but if you have a question for me or you have a question for a member of the committee as long as it's a member who's not in your committee you are allowed to talk to them outside of these meetings
if you have can talk to Becky but we can talk and all of us can talk to Becky and Becky does a great job and part of her role is being that intermediary between people so definitely leave her in on things um the finance committee could call a meeting in between if we wanted to have a discussion
absolutely yes y you can you can call a meeting as many as you want as long as you do it within the the time frames you need to and you post it properly and all that stuff as long as it's posted in all those rules yeah and we can talk about
meeting oh yeah can talk all day schedule schedule's easy it just can't be can't be about something that's actually matters all right um that's it for new business today uh we're going to try to go through old business real fast sort updates I have nothing I have nothing
nothing beautiful 10 minutes for updates Becky um we have all right beautiful love to hear it um all right correspondence we have nothing public comment um Peter do you have anything you wanted to Chris anything you want to tell us uh I might give you
a call tomorrow with some questions okay I'm sorry what's your name Chris Larry I'm with the repor we've spoken the phone time okay I didn't know your face yeah sorry I think it's the first time I've been to a meeting in person since you join the town it has been a while since you been a long time since you've
been here y we missed you has well thankfully yes um all right I don't hear any other public comments so that's it for public comment uh no executive session tonight um but just FY that we will be having one next meeting not not the next joint
meeting but the next meeting of just hours um so that will be on next week's agenda um all right before we adjourn just a quick important dates to remember our next regular scheduled meeting is next Monday the 17th that will be just the select board and then as we just discussed the following Monday March
24th will be the next joint meeting with the finance committee uh at this time I would entertain a motion to adjourn I motion we adjourn second all right we have a motion made and second to adjourn all those in favor I I I 3 nothing at 808 e
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