##VIDEO ID:C9lCxwv6_aQ## welcome everyone this is the finance committee meeting today is Tuesday January 14th 2025 it is 6:30 and I'd like to call the meeting to order with a pledge of allegiance I pledge allegiance to FL flag the United States of America thece under General Law chapter 30A section 20f this meeting is being recorded this meeting is being held remotely in accordance with the governor of Massachusetts March 12 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law GLC 30A section 20 and on March 29 2023 Governor Healey signed a supplemental 2023 budget Bill allowing for Mo remote and hybrid meetings options for public bodies through March 31st 2025 well thank you everyone for being here I am going to um first announce who our members finance committee members that are here tonight let me see if anybody else has com in so we have myself Karen Rouse Al Le Hugh Morton Cindy Brown Zack Leu Duncan law and Gary Carrero I do not see Christopher Thrasher and I do not see Michelle Orlando so we have a quorum so we're going to get started tonight um so welcome everyone we are continuing with our fiscal 26 budget meetings with our department heads and tonight we have got a very busy night so um we'll get started right away but we have tonight veteran services the library the assessor police and then uh the town hall Annex select board and Cemetery so uh the plan was to go in that order um so we're going to start off with unless anybody has an urgent need to come and go that's that's currently here uh but we're plan on starting with veteran services with Carol freedus so welcome Carol how are you I'm good thank you great I didn't know if you were gonna show my presentation or not um I was not if you wanted to share it you're welcome to oh okay you wanted to just talk us through some of the you're welcome to do thato so um my budget is pretty standard um the the big froze I was thinking she was leaning over for something but I think you're right I think you did freeze well maybe she'll dial back in she was but she stopped moving right it's pretty apparent now there we go okay now we now we have you um sorry I I joined by myone hold on yeah okay shut One microphone off there you go we we've been having problems with our uh network connectivity all day I was hoping that wouldn't happen um so as I was saying I decreased the veterans benefits budget by $25,000 to to 300,000 um as you all probably know that is this is a state mandated program uh so I'm I'm hesitant to lower it too much even though we haven't ex uh spent that much over the last four years or five years um but if we do add new people I would hate for us to not have enough money to cover the benefits so I just did the $25,000 decrease um and so the veterans benefits line is paid directly to the chapter 115 recipients um for their housing you know assistance with housing heating medical premium reimbursement uh prescriptions things like that the MedEx line which is a separate line and is oh I don't have it in my presentation uh in my notes because I thought I was going to show my presentation um it's I think $220,000 I'm sorry let me bring it up do you want me to try to share your presentation while you do that if you want okay I can do that um hang tight okay it's hard for me to chare the meeting and share do the presentation at the same time but let me see I can share it I just open you can share if you have the ability to that would be better um let me see then I can't see when people's hands are raised or anything so um okay let me see sorry it's not giving me oops wait a minute uh window PowerPoint there we go can you see it not yet not yet it here here it comes there you go okay all right so the MedEx line is $30,000 uh and I did not request a decrease in that even though this year I am significantly under that amount but again I'm hesitant to reduce that but that medx line is used to pay vendors directly so that could be dental procedures that could be eyeglasses that could be hearing aids the bigger ticket item in that is the burial benefit uh which is up to $4,000 per burial for a veteran or a veteran spouse if they do not have the the means to cover the funeral themselves and they don't have to be a chapter 115 recipient to get that benefit so that's why I I kind of don't want to lower that um because if we need it and I don't have the money then we have to find the money um and just as a reminder all of the benefits that I pay out in the veterans benefits and the Medics line are reimbursed 75% from the state um so let me see if I can change uh so that's just basically a um what I just discussed and then in my purchase of services in general lines I'm requesting just a total increase of $460 as a net increase so that is in the meetings in schools I'm requesting a $1,000 increase but that 600 of that is just moving from travel to meetings in schools because of how the money when I submit my bills how it's being allocated um it's coming out of meetings in schools now and not travel so it's really a net increase of $400 in the meetings and schools line and that's because hotel costs we do a annual conference every year for Vos so the hotel hotel hotel costs have increased uh the cost of the association meetings that I go to the registration fees has increased uh so it's a minimal increase to cover those higher expenses um and then in the dues and subscriptions line I'm requesting just a $60 increase and that is because I have a new membership now that is for VA accreditation um previously I was not VA accredited we did not none of the Vos were aware we needed to do that in order to assist veterans with VA claims and now we found out that in order to be compliant with federal law we have to be VA accredited which I am and so that membership is $50 a year that I was not paying before and then one of the associations that I belong to for vsos increased from 35 to 50 so it's just a $60 increase in my dues and subscriptions line um and so that's really what I'm requesting for an increase and then the $25,000 decrease um the one thing I did want to mention is my budget shows an increase of just the 3% for my department head salary but I am negotiating with um Tim and hopefully with the select board for an increase um I did a survey of 12 other vsos in the Southeastern part of the state I also looked at the gov HR our classification and compensation study and town salaries and based on all of that I am uh one of the lower paid vsos in the area right now so this um slide that you're seeing now is just some of the results of that survey where I'm right now getting 6,440 not there's an extra zero I apologize um and I am second to the lowest of those 12 Town 13 towns that were surveyed and when you factor in the hours per work hours per week that I am scheduled to work I have the lowest hourly rate of those 13 communities um and I didn't include any cities I didn't include any districts I didn't include areas that were closer to Boston because obviously the cost of living is higher there um so I'm just bringing this up I know that the finance committee cannot approve my salary or advocate for my salary but I'm bringing it up just so you're aware that I am in negotiations and the salary line uh hopefully will be substantially more than the 62253 that's in the budget that I submitted um so that's pretty much my presentation great thank you Carol wel um I have a quick question for you um you in your earlier line which was the veterans benefits you you decreased by 25,000 is that right and then I think you were saying and then you hope you'll have enough funds to be able to serve the benefits right so go I'm sorry go ahead no goad so I was just Cur I just wanted to clarify that and just understand if if 75% of the expenses are covered by that that that would mean somewhere else in V in our revenues we would have decreased our revenues if you decreased your expenses so the net impact to the budget is is minor and I'm just curious why you might why you would elect to decrease your expenses when revenues will decrease and then if that puts you at risk to not be able to provide the services you need to what what would be the rationale to do that so I don't think it's going to put me at risk um across the state our case load have gone down uh when I I think I had a high of 47 at one point since I've been in this job and now I'm down to 30 and and that's the trend across the state unfortunately our recipients are older they're either passing away or they're moving to assisted living or a nursing home and when they go into those facilities they're not eligible for this benefit uh and I really even if I add new people I think it will be offset by losing others and even at the 300 ,000 or even at the 325 say for this year I I still have $187,000 left over my budget through and I've paid seven months out um I've paid out about 135 and I still have SE uh only five months left with 187,000 so I still think I'll probably have about 40 to 50,000 left over at the end of this fiscal year which would certainly cover you know four or five more more possibly recipients if if we do have a substantial increase in case load okay great thank you very much for that um Hugh go ahead you've got your hand up yeah I just G to say I think that the reimbursement is of money's actually expended so that it wouldn't affect the revenue either way it's whatever gets paid out the as far as the balance I think that Carol's given a good explanation of why she thinks it's appropriate to reduce it because I was going to ask you this question directly that there is a declining pool of eligible people through the natural causes so it's reasonable to expect that's why we're in the situation unfortunate people are dying but good from a budgeting standpoint the the average age of our the 30 recip well it's really 35 people because five of them are married um but the average age of those recipients is 82 so here in Westport so so it stands to reason that you know some of them are going to pass away in the next few years great thank you Hugh I just wanted to clarify too my my in order to the funds would need to be appropriated in order to pay out the funds in order to get reimbursed so I just wanted to make sure your level you're were appropriated enough so that you can pay out everything so we can get reimbursed so that's that's all but good you um thank you for clarifying that um uh Al go ahead muted you're muted you're muted there was a lot of noise so I muted everybody so yeah there's many people including my wife that wish I had I had a mute button but so it it it's clear that the decline is because of the reduction in your your your population or or whatever you know the the the the veterans my question really is are we keeping up with the increase to those individuals that are left uh for electricity housing whatever whatever they may be asking for so that they're at least at a Level Playing Field from from past years so the amount that they get paid or the the amount of their benefit is based on a formula so uh it increases every year in July so okay you know next July the the um the state will increase the the allowances but will also increase starting in July will implement the increases in their social security so it will somewhat offset so it will keep up with with what you know what they're allowed to to get in the benefit um and the other thing I wanted to mentioned too another reason why I'm not um spending so much money in this budget line is um I've signed up a lot almost all of our or maybe all of our recipients into programs that for instance one of them reimburses the state reimburses their Medicare Part B and so the town is no longer reimbursing that so that's a substantial amount of money probably $440,000 a year that I'm no longer paying out excuse me in addition to that they get um extra help with their Medicare Part de copays um uh premiums and prescription co-pays so that's that's been a big decrease in the benefits that I'm paying out as well because I'm not paying as much in premiums and that cap on the co-pays is huge for instance we've had one veteran who was paying over $100 a month in eloquest and because he's enrolled in the extra help program now it's capped at about 11 so that's a big amount of money that I'm not reimbursing him okay thank you very much thanks you're welcome thank you does anyone have any other questions for Carol I don't see any well Carol um I think we're we're out of questions which is rare but but thank you for coming tonight and we appreciate it and so we'll uh we'll keep in touch with how your negotiations go I'm sure so we we'll keep up to date all right thank you for coming appreciate everything you do thank you you all right so our next um budget presentation is scheduled is the library is do we have someone Bon Bonnie strabel if I'm hopefully saying your name correct uh you are here so um hello we do not hear her no we do not and she's not muted unless she stepped away Bonnie can you hear us she's got video but not audio I don't see her on video I I see it oh you see her okay yeah I'm trying to see her I don't see [Music] her is she trying to speak Gary uh she tried but there's no audio we can see her okay I can see I don't know any else want see I can't but I think you work for it um Bonnie we can't see you or hear you can you hear us yeah she can hear us that's that's okay um maybe she can dial back in yeah yeah right so there's um we can't hear you so there's a call-in number on on that if you wanted to try to call in um and speak um we'll give you a couple of seconds and then we'll I'll I'll uh if we can't connect we'll move on to the next presentation and then you could go third uh because we don't want to hold up our night too much here check your microphone on your um is your microphone on on your computer like not just on Zoom but on your on your computer actual computer itself sometimes that's on mute too me call back do you have a phone Bonnie maybe maybe call back in K I don't know maybe she maybe she just dials a number that's provided great there's a number on the on on the presentation you can call in with your number or simply log out and log back in again without going to the phone sometimes that works all right give us a call she's gonna use her phone G I'm fasion your preferred that you can see you you have special talents it appears I can see her now too I can't see her the iron of the the library not being able to I was thinking and I wasn't gonna say it yeah it's not it's not a book and it's not the Dewey Decimal System so I guess it it can be tough looks like you just joined us with a phone number can you hear me now yeah great Google told me there were too many people on the call and they muted me ah all right well you're on okay sorry about that that's okay okay so welcome to um welcome to the uh I think this is the first time we're meeting you is that right yes yeah I it started in July okay well hello welcome um so we have your presentation so uh so everybody got it in advance since you did send it out so um it's up to you to kind of go through and talk about some of the highlights or some of the changes to the budget or if there's any significant increases or decreases that you would like to highlight for us that would be helpful or if you have a presentation and you want to share it um you're welcome to do that too okay thank you I'll just um go through quickly what I had sent you already um basically it's this pretty much the same as last year there's the 3% increase for the salary and wages that was already negotiated with the Union um we have a new employee who came from a different department so our career incentive and Longevity went up because he is also eligible for that uh basically for the expensive most of it is the same the uh which one is uniforms and the clothing allowance went up that was also through the Union contract that went up $125 for next year um for heat electricity stayed the same building repair and maintenance um we the 3500 covers kind of our yearly stuff we have been writing uh grants to fix all of our larger problems that are cropping up we got a um $72,000 from the M Foundation to replace our doors and to make our library more Ada Festival which is something it technically is okay but we wanted to do a little bit better with that and then we're also working on a grant uh from B state to get our carpeting replaced um let's see office supply postage things like that have all stay the scene uh the Professional Services line items are the $1,000 that is our sales network uh membership and the sales network is all of the public and some of the school libraries in Southeastern massachusett uh we all kind of um you know band together and share our resources it allows us to get um discount on things through the sales network so that's very important to us um so the town paid for this $11,000 so far and then the actual cost is around 17,000 which we use some of our state fundings for and then let's see and the other one um our books and periodical why item which is zero that is actually something we pay for with our friends in the library fundraising and some of our trust fund in order for us to qualify for State funding and to be certified by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners for sy25 we have to spend $51,000 on uh materials databases digital books things like that so that is a big chunk of our um donations that we get every year goes to that so that is basically a quick overview of the budget and then I'd also sent over a quick infogra graphic of what we've been up to in the past year at the library to give you an idea of what we're doing over there so that is basically it if there's any questions I'm happy to answer well if you want to just um read the highlights of your what you've been up to in the last year I think sometimes the general public would appreciate um knowing all the things that the library does and this is a a great two-minute opportunity to to do that so uh take a couple of minutes if if you okay so um this is basically only the things that are easily trackable for us we have a lot of people who come into the library who don't necessarily check out a book where we can stack uh you know track those statistics so the library itself is pretty much always busy with people studying people coming into work through meetings but of the things we can count and share with people we had over 62,000 people come through the doors of our library last year which averages over 5,000 visitors per month we have 4,912 active card holders but again that only counts the people who are actually borrowing items from the library a lot of our services don't require a card we don't make people get a card to use the computers or to print something out or anything like that so we had 200 I'm sorry 624 new people get library cards last year which is great and we're working this year we want to um breaks out 5,000 card holder number uh we had 67,000 actually ual items checked out so that's somebody coming in picking up a book or a DVD and taking it out last year and for digital items we had 23740 borrowed and the digital items or the ebooks and audio books that you can get we have two apps that we subscribes to Libby which is through the sales Library Network that we all chip into that because it's very cost prohibitive and then we also also hoopla to our patrons which is a separate one and those are dating populate every year but we still um you know it's over I think three times as many actual books so we do still have a lot of people coming in we have a lot of readers in we T it which is awesome um we had 677 meetings held in the man community room which is um we have bridge clubs mang clubs who meet every week There's a Girl Scout group who meets there we have book clubs through the library and things like that so that um steadily is going up every year and we don't charge anything obviously for people to come have me things there we had 140 library programs outside of that uh we have a children's play group on Tuesday Mornings we have Story Time on Wednesday mornings we have three library book clubs so we had over 3,100 people attend those you know some of the bigger we have a big Halloween program it's a little harder to count so that's kind of an average of what we think and we have over 45,000 items in our collection at the library for people to come in and use and borrow and we added 3,122 all right thank you that's a lot of Statistics so thank you um so I have a quick question for you uh or may maybe not quick but the the budget that you prepare and present is the expenses that the library is asking for the town's general fund to pay for right but the library has more expenses than than what's listed on the budget is that that correct and so there's other sources of f Revenue that pay for those expenses so in this presentation we don't see your other expenses and we don't see your other sources of revenue which are probably state grants or donations or the friends of the library and that sort right so without without having numbers in front of us I'm just curious the other sources do you see your other expenses that are that we don't see here because the expenses you've shown us are very very flat and stable and level service the other expenses that we're not seeing are you seeing a rise in those expenses and are you seeing a similar um Revenue support that is taking care of those expenses so or or are State funds diminishing or are donations going down or do you see any sense of any sort of exposure to those other expenses that that that may eventually be requested of the town to cover so that's sort of my question that's a lot of questions yeah it's kind of just one it's a goulash okay yes so just just in my nutshell so just you know we don't see we don't see the whole operations of the library uh and and we don't with a lot of budget so I'm not not criticizing your presentation at all but there's expenses outside I'm just curious how how comfortable are you feeling that your other expenses are supported and will continue to be supported so for the budget that I submitted to the town that is basically the it keeps the building running it's our electricity it's our heat air conditioning in the summer and things like that um every most of the kind of Library specific things our computer all of our programming our book budget anything like that is all paid for through other funding um westc is wonderful we have very great volunteers and we get a lot of donations and our friends of Library group work so hard they do their yearly book sale and that pays the friends of Library pay for about 80% of our books and and all of our programming that we have when we have special events uh we do get state aid also um we have to apply for that every year through the state so there's a lot of benchmarks we have to hit we have to be open a certain number of hours per week a certain number of days we have to be open six days a week and things like that to get our full funding which we um we are certified every year and we just got our notification that we're certified again for the next year and then we do have um you know people have left us really generous donations so as things are going up books are going up as everybody knows basically everything is going up right now um all of the extra things we pay for so thankfully we have had generous donations and we do have the FRS of Library working for us so right now um you know the town kind of keeps the basics running and we are able to um you know supplement that with other funding great thank you that's terrific thank you for answering it at that level so thank I wasn't uh thank you I know I asked a lot of questions in there but you answered exactly what I was hoping that you would uh Express so thank you um Al you have your hand up so go ahead Al thank you I want to I want to get out of the finance committee just for a couple of seconds and look at the as I see it the importance of the library for the Social and cultural fabric of the community we have we have had a public uh library system in this country since Benjamin Franklin and it has been a Gathering Place it has been a place where people meet where people gather where people uh talk about other ideas and whatnot outside of the finances and I know that there is a there has been pardon me I don't know whether it continues to be a a discussion of whether a public library in this digital age is necessary or relevant I want to argue right now that it is probably more relevant to have a public space than ever before so you know the numbers whether it's whether it's an increase of $500 on electric or whatever I don't really care about that at this point in time what I care about is the public Fabric and cultural fabric of of this community and a Gathering Place the Westport Historical Society for example has utilized the Manon uh room many many times had well over a hundred people sometimes overflowing and and it is it it it it's so relevant to this community in my opinion that we just cannot ignore it uh yes we have to be fiscally responsible but we also have to understand what this Library what what this this this department if you will brings to um our community overall so I I I just wanted to bring that up and um I will yield thank you Al um Hugh you have your hand up go ahead yeah I just want I thought in the past maybe I misr there's some Echo going on in here so I'm not sure one second um if everybody who's not speaking if you could mute if you could because there's some um okay try again L Hugh I'm sorry that's right just say I thought in the past at some point we'd had comp composite showing the off let's say off the books compensation I mean revenues and expenses I don't want to ask our lady to do extra work but I think it's probably already there the sense of those areas it would be helpful to know schedule a is the town contribution expenses Etc but schedule B is trust funds or Schedule C is donated and then you have a bottom line of total revenue expense I assume it's all there it be helpful to see the whole operation but I don't want to ask for a lot of extra work to be done that's second issue it was easy enough I would hope for next year we could do it that way thank you Hugh you definitely had a little feedback there so that was a little little tough to catch everything you said but um were you asking for the the I'm getting feedback now too it's the dial in number 1401 right she has she still has her her microphone on your computer so I think we're getting it double all right let's let's um let's mute the computer okay now we can't hear Bonnie anymore all right we seem to be having some feedback here okay oh we can hear you okay I have to leave the microphone on the computer for S come to okay we're definitely getting some feedback but um Hugh I think what you were asking for if if you if the library has the presentation of the whole picture of the library that would be helpful to see if it's available um if not maybe something next year I think that's what you speaking more next year this is fine for these purposes but I'm assuming that the those figures exist in the schedule because they know what came in they know what they spent not to I don't think it's needing to chase the figures and if my assumption is right then there simply could be separate schedules attached which shows those areas of Revenue and expense if I'm not right can still a new job then let's not put that put her to having to do that great that is required for our state a application so I do have those figures that I put everyone of you that'd be terrific thank you appreciate that um Cindy go ahead you've got your hand out well my my question was along the very same lines is that I was curious specifically what the uh state aid number is um for this past year how much we received so that if we ever became desertified um you know what what kind of dollars are we talking about um losing from from the state so um Bonnie perhaps if you could put together a list of just some highlevel Revenue numbers uh and and send it along to us uh Karen can put that in your folder and we could take a look at it I can tell you that um we just got our state announcement last month so it was 30 think $37,000 that we received um losing our certification is something I even want to contemplate if we do not get enough to get these State we have to have certain benchmarks for certain amount of money from the town budget and if we don't we are not certified that we lose we are not allowed to be part of the Sal Network and that allows us to share resources with every Li in um sou Eastern Massachusetts about 50 libraries at this point and we would lose add-on so much if we do not have access to them so it's not just moving the state aid money it's moving access to so many things that you know as on Library we wouldn't be able to provide okay good so it's about 39,000 dat but I'm happy to give you the thank you great terrific um any other questions for Bonnie I don't think we do for now so Bonnie it was great to meet you and thank you for everything you do and if you follow up and send us some some more information while we'll make sure that our members have that so okay thank you very much and I apologize for the microphone issues that's okay it happens all right thank you so much all right good night thank you all right we are right on schedule here uh so our so uh just I want to make a note Christopher Thrasher has joined the meeting he came in at 7:07 for the minutes and to let everyone know Christopher is here uh hi Christopher I think he's still here yes I am indeed yes my apologies I am driving at this moment got uh stuck at the work event a little late so but I am I'm certainly certainly here thank you all right thank you uh nice to see you all right so the next um the next budget we have tonight is the assessor and Ken I just want just want to make a not you may have seen in your screen that there's a couple of notations that went back and forth um as as um Carol had mentioned earlier Town Hall has had connection problems all day so uh I know Theo had jumped in and out it could have been because of that she's with us now but the police chief also had to drop off because he was having connection issues and I I guess Keith Novo is going to reset the system so if for what whatever reason we drop someone there there's some tech issues going on in the background for any of our presenters that are using town hall or town lines that they're not at home but they're using the town town uh computer so that that could be contributing to some of our uh video and audio problems all right thank you thank you for monitoring the chat because I I never notice it so thank you I know you you've got your hands fulled with other so thank you appreciate that um all right so Theo is Theo back yes hello hi I'm how are you good how you we've been having problems I do have my cell phone um just in case okay just in case this goes off again because it's been going off and on every day all day okay so um anyway I'll just go over my budgets absolutely just go right right over your budget give us the highlights or absolutely um the wages and salaries it's pretty much the 3% overall with with the exception of the longevity that went up about 9% for the longevity from ,00 to $1,200 um the expenses we saw a little bit of decrease overall um simply because I mean let let me start at the top like the postage we had a little increase because postage has in has had an increase in um stamps office supplies about 5% enough uh the software a computer software the reason for the decline the the difference of the 27% um less than last year is that we have been um looking into a new software um originally we had budgeted to um completely convert to a whole new cam system for the real estate however last summer this past you know 24 um we got a we were notified by a current C system which is PK software that they have done an upgrade they spent $1.7 million on upgrading the current system that we have it's going to be a cloud-based they did some enhancements um I took a ride to um Donna Cape where they are based and I actually looked at the at the new system for about half a day um very impressive um I suggested to the board that we should um just upgrade to the new system using the current PK um instead of doing a complete conversion so we had budgeted enough money there to run a dual system so therefore because we're just going to in we're just going to update to the um current camera system upgrade um we don't need we don't need the fee the annual fee um that would that would have be recommended if we were doing a complete conversion because you need to R dual dual systems when you're doing that until you final you have a final conversion um so that's where you see the uh 3,800 38,000 versus the 29,000 for this year for fiscal 26 so that was the large decrease um the meing schools I mean we've this all the staff have been you know they've been attending schools so I increased that by $200 which is about 20% increase our overall budget actually had a increase of about 2third of 1% um that's wraps up my whole budget if anybody has any questions it sure does wrap up your whole budget thank you um Hugh has a question has his hand awfully nice to see a decrease thanks uh Gary go ahead so um the what have we've been budgeting for uh well I guess what have we been realizing for New Growth New Growth like what have we been budgeting for growth yeah new growth for like the last couple fiscal years 4 I think it was 400,000 okay so that's the same thing we're using for 25 uh I believe we we budget a 400,000 um for the meeting for the town meeting yes for the budget so that I mean that's maybe a this maybe a question for Jim but um if that's the same number we're using for um 2 yeah yeah I believe so yes okay yep that we can um we can certainly talk to Jim when we do a a general budget discussion which we do have um coming up so we can definitely get more information on that I don't want to say off the top of my head but um yeah so we can do that um any other questions for Theo Theo you might have one of the easiest budgets that we've had so [Laughter] far uh I don't have any questions uh it doesn't look like anyone else does so uh we thank you for coming tonight and thank you for uh all you do at Town Hall and everything you do so thank you for coming tonight thank you good night all right good night thank you uh let's see our next uh presentation is the police chief but I think we're still um don't have him back on it was 708 when Jim sent that message Jim are you with us yes I am all right do we make maybe we can skip ahead and just do quickly the the department budgets that you're here for tonight which would be town hall and the annex select board and Cemetery do you want to give us a quick overview on that while we wait for the sure I can share my screen but I can't so we're here with three budgets tonight the select board budget the town hall Annex budget which is uh the maintenance budget and the cemetery budget um for all three of those budgets the only increases are in the salaries and those are the negotiated 3% increases um there's no new positions um currently I think almost all the positions of full are occupied right now so we're not anticipating any vacancies over the next year or so um our expense accounts for those three budgets um are all level funded so there's no increase in either in in any of those budgets um we did I think adjust a couple of the line items slightly but the no increase in the expense accounts um you know we can go through each one if you want but they're pretty basic um for each budget we have the salaries which are all negotiated or contractual and then um you know for each budget we have the mainly you know electricity heat um selectman have professional uh Services account account number 5311 which we've used for variety of things we used a portion of it last year for the wage study uh we've used it for in the past for or um hiring consultants for different hiring positions um and the rest of the budget is fairly fairly basic office supplies postage meeting School subscriptions and that's pretty similar with the town hall the town hall you notice the annex we have one maintenance staff person and that's uh salary and negotiated raises um in the expense account we kept level funded again this year we had bumped it up last year a bit um to cover some of the heating and electrical costs we're not noticing a little bit more in the maintenance costs these past couple of years um but other than that it's been uh pretty standard um maintenance includes a lot of different things in those buildings we put some AC in there last year in the annex um the elevator gets has some expenses related to it um yeah just general maintenance of lawn mall is uh heating Plumbing we've had some Plumbing issues in both the annex and at the Town Hall I see Gary has his hand up you got a question just one quick question Jim uh on the full-time clerk uh line item is that how many FTE is that is that one is that how many people is that so for the select board's budget that's two two full-time positions okay that would be Paul and Denise okay thanks and then the cemetery Department um we currently have a full staff we haven't had a full staff in a long time um so we're not expecting um any additional revenue or any turn backs this year from uh this budget um the expense accounts are pretty basic you know um they're heating electric equipment repair um you know they probably have five different lawnmowers a couple of tractors they have uh three different trucks um so vehicle and equipment repair we've noticed has been going up over the last couple of years um yeah gasoline and oil um last year we bumped that up to 8,000 and we're maintaining that at 8,000 again this year and then we just have some miscellaneous expenses um hoping we can keep the building expenses down this year last year with the help of diamond we redid the the garage completely we put in a septic system a new bathroom break room we upgraded the electrical we did all the siding on the outside uh the building was pretty much a disgrace before that it looks it looks presentable now um you know for people visiting the cemetery and people going in the office um so yeah those are those three budgets they're pretty pretty basic I wish there was uh something exciting about them but there really isn't so thank you Jim uh Christopher you have your hand up thank you madam chair and thank you m Mr Harden um I just had two quick questions regarding uh Staffing um I'm curious are there any uh or are you imagine that there currently positions that are that are budgeted but currently vacant I was just wondering if you had any idea uh numbers wise how many positions and um out of those positions are there any positions that have remained unfilled for more uh than a fiscal year at this time so in these three budgets no and maybe I said that wrong these these three budgets all the positions are currently filled we haven't had that in a while over the cemetery we've had some um illnesses we've had some um people that have left midy year um we really didn't have a full staff there up until um this past year so it's probably been almost a year since we've had the full staff in the cemetery um the maintenance the one person in the town hall Annex budget uh we were without a maintenance person for about three months last year but um you know we have a great employee right now Andy Andy does an excellent job hopefully he stays for for a long time and uh the selecting budget that is those positions are full is only three uh Paula's position Denise's position and so yeah currently these are all full excellent thank you thank you um Hugh you have your hand up go ahead you're on mute you you're muted Hugh thank you the Perpetual care fund I know that the statutory control as to what the Investments can be and I think it was though maybe this has changed and that's one of my questions only for bank accounts which we know for the past number of years produced nothing but that's changed a bit and so I wonder how that has played out in terms of investment return on those funds you know I deferred a Nicole or to sue on that but I I I do know we've tapped into the Perpetual care the interest that we get off the um you call it the stationary account we we have the two accounts we have one that's the principal and we kind of used the um the interest account for Cemetery expenses um we bought a track the last year we use some of it for some of the repairs to the building uh this year we're actually looking at a a new truck for the cemetery as well as um putting maybe $200,000 into the um next two sections that we're going to have to excavate and clear out hopefully with hopefully this next construction season um I was cu ious what side of Revenue it was running these days because I looked it up a few years ago and it's a statutory requirement at that point for bank accounts nothing more exotic Etc and during that period the bank accounts are paying zero almost literally it's changed a bit so I just curious whether there's a decent return now and maybe the law changed to permit something a little more fancier than just between bank accounts but I'm not sure that's the case I thought might yeah you I can answer that so um under the under Mass General law it used to be called the legal list so uh that's changed a little bit to allow to allow for prudent investment uh prudent person investment uh which the treasures of Massachusetts are allowed to do uh we're seeing rates of return around 4% you know typical CD rates uh so that yeah that has changed from the 0 per Market that we were in to 4% so I would assume that we've earned a little bit more interest than we did two three years ago thank you and that helps a lot I think I understand using that for things like a tractor or whatever but it's nice to have a little bit more Revenue coming in on top we've seen that in the local receipts the interest in our local receipts um they've gone from we had a few years when it was under 50,000 I think we're up over 500,000 this past year yeah and also the good news too is all that Opera money uh now the federal government has come in and said we can actually keep the interest on all that money which is you know unheard of nobody ever thought communities were allowed to do that so we thought we would have to turn back all that Opera money interest but the federal government has come in and said it can be we can keep it so onetime Revenue but at least it's [Music] ours great thank you anything else um if not Al has his hand raised go ahead Al pardon me it it's just very basic and it's it's not Department specific it is it is the board I think that when it comes to pardon me the um uh uh the basic expenses I think we're short changing ourselves to to to get a balanced budget no nothing against any any department head Jim or anybody else but I think it's it's it's not quite pardon me jeus too dry in my house apparently uh I don't think we can we can expect to have the same expenses whether it's heat electricity or office supplies last year versus this year and I it's not we're not talking huge dollars but I think we need to be realistic in in the fact that it is going to increase pardon me again so I I I just want to bring that up I don't think flat budgeting from last year or this year is realistic thanks Al appreciate that comment um go ahead Cindy you've got your hand up um unrelated to the budgets that you just uh presented but just and I know we can't discuss it tonight because it's not on the list but I just wanted to give Jim a heads up or ask him a question question I believe the building inspector was scheduled to come next week Jim have you have you looked at his budget yeah I have i' I've been invol can you present Ralph's budget when next week or some other week do you know when he's gonna be returning yeah he may not be here for a few weeks he may not be back for a while so yeah I can do his budget okay um all right so we'll we'll set that uh we'll set that up I just wanted to bring bring it up while I was uh while I was thinking about it all right thank you um any other questions on the three budgets that we are discussing tonight uh Town Hall Town Hall Annex select board Cemetery uh I don't see any so uh thank you Jim you're GNA hang tight because we do have a couple more General budget questions for you but I do see Chief Dunn has joined us uh we we jumped ahead a little bit since we lost you so we took a little out of order but we're uh you've got our full attention now so hello nice to see you nice to see you as well thank you for having us um first off I want to thank the finance committee for your continued support as well as support with the NDA transfer and myself at deputy chief really want to extend our gratitude to Hugh Morton um for his guidance his wisdom and his support um not only with this process this budget process which is our first but also with the N transfer so if it the P it's okay with you madam sh i' like to just do a brief PowerPoint presentation about what we've done in this year and then we can get into the uh the budget please do uh you're gonna you're gonna do the presentation right you've got control okay perfect so I'm going to try to do this as chronologically um as possible so first thing uh comes to Staffing um early in the fiscal year uh early late in the fiscal year uh Lieutenant Johnny Cuda retired which mean we went down to 25 officers out of a budgeted 31 so we later on in the year we we did a simultaneous process of both um full-time and lateral transfers which was a big push for us um we had two great candidates that are currently in the police academy um both Westport residents we anticipate their graduating at the end of the month they then have a 12we field training period where they'll be on their own um in may also during this time um with the support of uh cheres and Mr hartnet and the uh Westport Police Association a successive contract was able to be negotiated where we can officers can now live 15 miles outside of the border of Westport which is kind of the industry standard so that um Peak the interest of several outside candidates um three were from for PD um two one with extensive experience one with a few years experience and one fairly new so we're able to have those officers lateral into our department um two are currently on working the road on their own with the third um going to be on his own in um the end of the month so currently we're at 28 with the two um recruits we'll be at 30 come May and it's our goal to go in front of the board and request the 31st position um later this fiscal year um we currently reop opened another lateral and full-time process so that's kind of where we're at with Staffing I think we've done made great strides from where we're at we're at 25 to um now 28 and 30 in a couple months so community policing Outreach unit uh I think that's what you see NOP right here community outreach unit so this is something that's near and dear to debut Chief and I um we believe in fostering relationship between the offic of the community members over the past year our community outreach unit participate in 12 events uh this past year they're eag to expand this number um they're looking into some very interesting new programs to offer in town uh we don't want to elaborate at this time as we'd like them have them roll these out uh programs and have an opportunity to solidify their schedule for the year and not steal their Thunder um just know that there are some great things headed um this way and we're extremely excited about them we also have the commity uh Comfort dog officer Kyle Fernandes um he visited the uh schools the veterans and the senior center um that the senior center for the seniors and uh on two separate occasions um both myself Deputy Chief and officers visited the VFW and had coffee with veterans um as you can see in green on the bottom uh all participating officers donate 100% of their time at all events this is extremely rare in policing I hate that I'm I'm not surprised by the members of our department unfortunately there are other agencies where um community community outreach un get compensated for that so I'm extremely proud and privileged and honored to have our officers donate their time to give back to our community uh the Drone unit I'll take a moment and and defer to deputy chief reell who has a lot more um experience with this good evening everyone so I just wanted to thank you again for having us and uh just introduce the Drone program it's been ongoing now for a few years um with the end ofe transfer from last year's funds we were able to add an additional drone to our unit it's a uh mavic I'm sorry it's a matrice 30t which gives us thermal capabilities our old drone we lost the thermal capabilities with that um but now we have that back and it's a very robust drone it was utilized with Dartmouth PD in finding an individual that was suicidal that hurt himself on Route Six uh we were able to locate that individual and get him the resources that he needed to get some help if you look at the top the screen here that's what you would see through the uh drone if you're flying it on the controller we hook it up to a TV as well so that way people that are around us at the command center command post can see what's going on and not hovering over the Drone operator while he's trying to operate the Drone currently we have two members that are taking the part 107 test for the FAA uh they take an online course once they've completed that then they go to Plymouth airport take the test on a computer system there the pictures there are what you would see from the Drone so the color picture is the wide angle lens and then the black and white is actually the thermal lens that works both at night and at day so if we wanted to fly this at night we would just switch into the thermal mode and we'd be able to in essence see at night um it improves the safety we're able to gather information without putting people in dangerous situations we primarily use it for search and rescue operations it has been used in the past in tactical responses uh to get rid of the element of uh protecting our our office from getting involved in something that they don't need to be um it provides real-time data allows us to see what's going on at a moment's notice it's very fast to deploy and uh it's costeffective because we can cover a large area without having to deploy multiple units in that area I don't know if you've seen our Facebook post and the fire department's Facebook post I've met with uh deputy chief brisk and we've talked extensively about what that can be used for in the fire realm as well we just did some training or I just did some training on Monday with them over at Saudi Pond they were doing their cold water rescues and we deployed the Drone so that way they could see what was going on there like I said you can find pictures of that in the Facebook post both on the Westport police page and the fire department's page um I did do a demonstration for them at night and he had mentioned uh Debbie bris that is mentioned that he could use it at fires to check for fire extension or maybe some people that have wandered off into the woods and that's the same thing we would use it for in a search and rescue event where we can find people the summertime more difficult with the canopy cover uh the winter is a little easier um but regardless of what the temperature is outside the thermal does work very well as you can see in that picture that was a summertime picture and you can see very clearly um items that give off a heat signature if there's any questions okay you're on mute chief thank you Deputy appreciate it uh one thing we noticed with domestic violence is we noticed a reduction um in the incidence that we had this year and one thing we we contribute to is us working together with the wom Shelter by offering support in um uh to domestic violence victims um and we're also working closely with them so that's something we're very proud of the fact that we're able to reduce the amount of domestic violence incidents this year um just going over our crime stats for the past five years um we'll take a minute just so our accents have gone down which is which is great to hear um our arrests have gone down a little bit as well citations group a crimes which we went over last year um Group B crimes the amount of overall incidence we had meaning taking reports have gone up the licens to carry statistics have gone up significantly and restraining have have gone down a little bit calls for service within the 5ye population um in 2023 we had 23279 in 2024 we had 22801 so it's not a significant decrease and if we can just keep in mind that the amount of cost of service were roughly the same but we had less officers uh miles patrolled we actually went up this year by about 22,000 compared to last year the crime rate unfortunately has gone up just a teeny bit um I believe from last year we're kind of right around the same Mark as Somerset Swansea those are kind of comparable communities with us um again keep this in mind that uh this is subject to change due to varied reporting uh we went over the coap grant last year that's the opid grant that we are part of um which allows we know person um person overdoses an officer goes a report is taken they go they go to the hospital also then forwards the report to our detective who then provides follow-up services with a mental with a clinician this is standing now to mental health and we've definitely um embraced that as well so this is the data that we were able to collect and we're on the far right um you know one fatal is too many um in my opinion last year we had five this year we had one um I am on the opio task force so we're looking forward to working together with the various organizations in town um as you can see our Behavioral Health has gone up significantly that's because we weren't um documenting it in in 2023 where we document 2024 we administered nin uh 10 times with eight saves um this is just kind of more of a breakdown of the the data um and just keep in mind too with with this with this grant this is at no cost of the town and what I mean by that is when um our detective goes out to provy follow-up Services the overtime is compensated if for some reason um she's working and we need to call an officer in fill the shift that overtime is compensated as well um as for three to five years I know last year I brought up this uh new computer Aid design software and it was rightfully Associated I should go in front of cap Improvement we hoping to put that in the next few years and cap Improvement this is a significant increase I I understand though it's going to be an impact potential impact on our software line item it could be um I believe we're paying approximately 15,000 a year for our in-house um Main in-house data program or or report writing program that could go up three times the amount so we just want to kind of keep the finance committee aware of that and if anybody has any questions we'll be happy to to answer them if we don't have the answer right now we be sure to get the answer back to as quickly as we can she I think you might say a little more about the computer programs you just referred to a moment ago sure what would that be used for and why it's a good idea that kind of thing so right now we we I mentioned last year and um the system we have is is equi like Microsoft 97 for word that's kind of the analogy of it um what this what this does this is for our dispatch this is for um our report writing for arrests um it it help it pretty much it's all encompassing and what happens is this this this company it's called IMC was currently bought out by Central Square and it appears everybody starting to transition into um into moving into Central Square so pretty much this is what we need this is kind of the heart and soul of our our our computer system like if if we don't have it it goes down it's back to being on a typewriter in handwriting reports is what it boils down to thank you thank you go ahead Gary you've got your hand up yeah so Chief thanks uh for for coming tonight and doing the presentation um could you speak a little bit about you know these surrounding communities um are seeing an influx with homelessness and uh how that ties into maybe uh your ability to um you know these people that are now I mean obviously West was not immune to this they they here also uh is that affecting the um patrol or affecting uh the way the operation or the department is uh you know going forward do you see that as an issue um we always brought forecasting it could be a potential issue and right now it's not an issue however you you know we could be one day away where there's people you know the whole hotel of Hampton in or you know their sister over in up at whites is inundated I speak of the previous Chiefs theyve had issues in some other communities I know the town of Northfork had that issue um so it's something that we keep on our radar and um just have try to have uh ideas in mind in case that does happen but right now we're fortunate enough that do not have that issue yeah I mean the only comment I have is like you see forer for instance now finding uh folks for being out and you know the public having being intense so that's going to spread to out you know other communities dmouth being one of them Westport can see an influx so I think yeah you're right I think going forward is something that we have to monitor because um these people will go somewhere and and you know they'll go next door and um you know there maybe have to be some kind of uh either policy or how we address this in the future I think it has to you're right has to be monitored okay thank you y thanks thank you um Chief are you g to go into your budget presentation next is that where you were gonna look at the dollars so this was a terrific presentation if you wouldn't mind emailing it to us so this way we can have it so we can some of the numbers are a little small to look at tonight but we appreciate your you're showing it to us tonight absolutely I than so if I may I'm going to defer to deputy chief reell regarding the Personnel side we split the budget up this year um like I said it was both a learning experience for both of us so we wanted to kind of one of us do one aspect of the budget another do the aspect of the budget and kind of we you know teach each other educate each other on it so as I'm going through if if there's any questions just feel free to interrupt me um just starting off at the beginning I know it was brought to our attention the if you're looking at the fy2 24 actual and the fy2 approved uh for line item 511 and 5103 the department head and assistant department head the approved item that was from fy2 wasn't the actual number from fy2 so when you see the increase there going from FY 24 to 26 it looks like a significant increase however there was only a 3% increase from going from FY 24 to 25 then 25 to 26 um as you can see it coming up here moving on to the uh non-clerical custodian that was an incre that was an increase due to uh us having to pay an officer to uh cut the grass and maintain the facilities here also officer Simco who's now retired but does a lot of the facilities work here um goes above and beyond and the amount of in that line absolutely does not cover the amount of work that he does here um so that's where that line item comes from as far as the rest of them uh just skip down 51 12 14 15 16 those are all negotiated through um what you call it collective bargaining yeah the overtime Line Em 5130 that just reflects the increase due to the salary increase due to collective bargaining as well as the shift differential increase that was um arbitrated as well I'm sorry not arbitrated but um discussed at that meeting as well dispatch overtime again can I ask you one quick question before you go on absolutely your um just it's more your presentation is it in it is your presentation right now in Excel and do you have any ability to maybe hide the first four years of columns because then it could get a little bigger for us so we can see it a little easier I know we we you already provided it to us so we do have that separately but I don't know if you're able to hide those columns easily I don't want you to I don't want to put you under pressure under doing something in Excel to us to the chief has that in his office if I need to just for a sec I can go over there and do that no don't don't worry about it just keep on keep your presentation so don't don't worry about it so keep keep going so that that's fine okay so it's contractually um negotiated that was the overtime increase uh the dispatches overtime their Union negotiated an increase there as well uh Reserve officers there we go we lost the whole presentation we get it back now okay um so the increase you can see there and all those were just contractually or negotiated rather uh with the incentive with the increase in the rank and file we need increase that to take into consideration the 31 officers so that was increased as well that takes into consideration both the holiday incentive as well as the overtime incentive um the holiday line was increased as well to compensate for the 31 officers longevity is based on the staff that meet that requirement each year that changes every year shift differential was another thing that was discussed during contract negotiations an increase was added to that that's where that increase comes from the uh vacation buyback is a union thing based on what individuals we ask each individual um prior years if they're planning on participating in that um that portion of our budget so we can calculate for that um other than that that's that's that all right so I think we do have um thank you for that so we have uh Al you have your hand up so go ahead I do the one area that that that that I'm having trouble with is dispatchers yep I'm having trouble with you know the the actual in 24 was let me get my bifocals going correctly here 1375 plus or minus and in 25 it jumped $7,000 and the FY 26 jumped another 60 ,000 or 50,000 whatever the number is and I'm not sure what FY 26 ta wreck um means so could you just you know explain that to to us sure yeah thanks so the increase in 24 to 25 um was due to contractual obligation so they their Teamsters Union the way it was they were underfunded and the town did a a study that showed that they were underfunded so they took that information they went into contract negotiations and they were able to negotiate the e911 dispatcher moved up to the e911 lead dispatcher rate so that affected the four of the five people that were our dispatchers and then the e911 lead dispatcher moved up to the local inspector rate so all their rates increased to match where their new um designation was so that's why there's a significant increase there so then just moving on to the FY 26 just continues that contractual obligation just increases that contractual obligation to what they had negotiated during that time frame if you do the math out it was about a 10% raise um and that that was some get less some get more but just for ease of mathematics I just put in that it was a contractual 10% increase okay on average all right so so it it was an underfund for a few years and and we're just playing catch-up ball is that is that essentially what I'm hearing you're saying or or am I misrepresenting and then in they're moving from designations from dispatcher to lead dispatcher for four people to get up to that rate and then that one lead dispatcher going to a local inspector rate on their Matrix is what incurred such a large increase okay fair enough Al the TA wck is the Town Administrator that budget okay gotcha fair enough I'm good I just uh I just you know I wasn't clear on that one so thank you sure so I'm going to take over the expense line item of it and um Mr hartnet mentioned um contractual obligations for FY 26 and level fund on expenses and if not provide a justification that's the reason why um in the budget presentation we submitted um we gave a detailed present a reason as to why we need an increase in particular line items the first one is um 5242 Building Maintenance currently it was at 8,500 for this fiscal year um our I I believe our building was built for 8, 500,000 which is like a 0.00 1% um for it I we've gone over the past couple years again we bring up uh Dave Simco being our handyman he helps us out quite a bit and it helps increase the cost we've also explored grants um we able to secure Grant when we had an issue with one of our hbac systems um which we under able to uh cover under the uh dispatcher Grant the next one was 5308 tuition training um budgeted for $10,000 we have uh we have currently 28 full-time police officers we also have reserved police officers retired Reserve police officers that also need training I believe I did my research I contacted various communities we are underfunded in this line item the town of fa Haven has a budget of 36,000 the town of Swansea is in the low 20s um Somerset is at approximately 185 um you know so you know training costs have risen you know a week long training could be upwards of $900 over $1,000 um again we're being as Frugal as possible we were able to secure two grants through the FBI um through Maya to send um our new one one Lieutenant hopefully another Lieutenant um at the end of the month to send them to a weeklong training at no cost to the town the next one was uh 5311 Professional Services we do not have a janitorial service uh we contract clean so the initial bids that we received for the share we uh was a significant increase um but we were able to negotiate more favorable terms uh you know it's the utmost important in in in a right of our employees to work in a safe and environment friendly clean workspace uh the next one is 5341 which is telephone uh this is increased in linetime due to more computers and sim cards for our department um as you know computers have a vital role in policing and provides increased uh access to information the next one is 5320 accreditation this is something myself and deputy chief spoke highly about um we are now we just paid the bill to enter in the process for accreditation and certification currently um post and Massachusetts police accreditation commission are working hand in hand where police departments will have to at least be certified so that's our initial goal is to at least be certified and then from there move to onto accreditation there is no increased cost between being certified or accredited uh we do get an enhanced module of our onboarding system called Power DMS that's within our yearly uh fee to be a part of impac the next one's 5319 which is ammo and guns um and also includes electronic weapons such as tasers the Massachusetts police uh nptc massachusett police training Council has come down now with higher standards regarding uh taser deployments for training where we were only doing two deployments uh per year per officer they're now asking they're now mandating us to do four which means that's an increase in taser cartridges as well as ammunition and as you know in last year's end ofe transfer I requested a small transfer for ammo for our two recruits which just shows how tight this budget can be the next one is uh 5550 which is computer software uh we are our officers are are contraction mandated to wear body War Cruiser War cameras um this is increased I this is we have increased iCloud data storage where initially we had a server uh that that foled very quickly from there we had to transition to an iCloud service um the last one is 5730 which is membership and dues which is $1,000 um that's an increase in What's called the southeaster mass law enforcement Council or semlec it's a collaborative of communities within Plymouth and Bristol County so a scenario would be like deputy chief talked about the Drone if we have a lost hunter in the woods we activate the sem search and rescue which they in turn bring 30 or 40 officers from from from throughout these communities at no cost of the town so you know it's it's it's it's a benefit to us to be a part of this collaborative for for an extra thousand dollar um so the total increase we're requesting on the expense side is 78520 so I'll open up to any question if anyone has any questions J you might explain a little bit the value of the accreditation process so it by having us accredited or at least certified and then accredited uh it reduces lawsuits in uh Insurance costs and increase grant opportunities both state and federally um ensures accountability and transparency um and professionalism within the community um it's you know this is a path moving forward that we want to achieve um you know as stated up to date we want to be up to date with our current uh policies procedures rules and regulations and accepted practices um and reduces exposure to the staff the department and the town as a whole thank you thank you Chief um does anyone have any other questions for the chief Jack you've got your hand up go ahead yes Chief D how are you tonight oh you're on you're on mute there I keep doing that good yourself I'm good thanks so this makes your first year correct this is our first year yes this is our first how did it go it's uh it's going well it's very it's an a big learning experience and a big learning curve between myself and deputy chief but you know it's a collaborative effort and you know we're hoping to uh to maximize our budget with you know efficiency and transparency with with not only fincom but the select board and the town great and and how do you feel with where the budget's at and I guess kind of where it's heading um and I know it's only your first year in so just kind of you know Tes in the water see just see what your general consensus after your presentation the general consensus it's a lot um again we're excited we're we're excited where we're moving our department um both professionally you know both expense in Personnel side as well as uh giving back to the community with our with our community outreach unit um you know we myself and Deputy definitely embrac this um you know we're looking forward to not only this budget but you know also the next budget and learning what went well what what what you do differently what can we do better in the next budget cycle awesome and then just um a a particular question for the Central Square um there definitely appreciate you kind of forecasting an increase in cost coming up um it looked like it said three years can you just clarify is that is that in three years you expect you you foresee this cost coming up is it a threee cost and is that an annual increase that you see by taking on this new software so I think three years is very aggressive for us considering we wanted to go through accreditation certification we just kind of wanted to put on the finance committee's radar um there Dartmouth is one of the first communities along with New Bedford and Chelsea that are going to be moving to Central Square there's a lot of hurdles that they're doing right now with what's called sieges and making sure that everything operates smoothly between the communication between the department and the state so they're kind of the guinea pigs and signing up for it and it's a year it's a year turnaround from the time they they they enter into Central Square to pay it to they alive and by themselves so this is more or less saying hey this is something we're exploring this is something we're looking at I think again I think three years is aggressive it would be a one-time payment to under the capital Improvement it would probably be a couple hundred thousand but then from there the cost of our software light item was significantly increased and that's where I contacted the do police chief and I said you know obviously they're bigger than us so they're they're right now what we use is called IMC you know I asked them what they pay yearly for their IMC subscription and what they anticipate for Central Square and he anticipates three times the amount just for the yearly subscription fee for for for transition from IMC to Central Square okay so am I correct in saying it's kind of like three years from an aggressive standpoint that you could see as kind of looking into that but also we'll be able to see how Dartmouth you know kind of handles this program because they're in it right now correct um well they're they're in it they're in it to enter it and then enter so they still need that year correct that year yep I think everybody's kind of waiting on I think Chelsea's the initial Police Department so everybody's waiting to see how it goes with Chelsea and then from there other agencies will sign on doou being one of them okay that's all I had thank you Chief and thank you Deputy thank you thank you uh Christopher has his hand raised go ahead Christoper thank you madam chair and uh thank you uh Chief dun and deputy chief rello for uh everything you discussed on the the previous presentation as well as the budget presentation I appreciate appreciate your efforts uh this year and and moving forward um I did have just a a quick follow-up question on the the issue with the the body cam footage storage uh so I was curious you mentioned that at first they were it was on a server uh what was that um did that have anything to do with the with the town it uh or was that was that something separate and I'm just curious if uh if there are any other options other than the current service that you're using for the for the uh cloud storage going forward that you all have had a chance to to investigate depy do you mind taking this one please oh yeah absolutely so I initially wrote the grant for the body cameras we got all the equipment for nothing part of that Grant uh and speaking with at the time uh watch guard was the company they stated that we would have enough if we utilize a server inhouse um speaking with Keith Novo he set up the server to do that with what they thought would be enough storage space um we were on board for I think two and a half months and that server completely filled up um speaking with Keith Novo it's just not financially feasible to have it on site and it would be far too expensive to keep increasing uh server storage here on site it didn't have redundancy in the system either so if something were to happen to that server we would lose all body camera video um with the additional body cameras and the cruiser cameras each Cruiser has three cameras in it so it's capturing three recordings per Cruiser that show up on a scene if we have a crash where three to four Cruisers show up that's three times the amount of videos that are there there in addition the body cameras as well these are all high resolution videos which take a a significant amount of space so going through cloud storage which now we have unlimited storage so we're not necessarily having to worry about how often our officers are shutting cameras off and now we don't have now we have more transparency because our officers are not shutting those cameras off and we're able to record the entire scene for as long as we need to and we have unlimited storage at that point Dr Chief I'm under the impression the body cams at all are not optional is that right there it's in the contract that they have to wear them at this point in time um so yeah no they're currently not an option though thank thank you deputy chief thank you thank you Chief again thanks for all your uh all your efforts and that that is the only question I had thank you very much great thank you Cindy you've got your hand up go ahead um good evening uh Chief and deputy chief um I had a question about SRO of your full compliment of Staff uh when you have your uh school resource officers deployed at the school does is that included in your count of 31 yes it is okay and so how many how many uh officers are budgeted for the coming for the current year and the upcoming year we have two officers currently that are budgeted and assigned to the schools we have one that's assigned primarily to the high school and we have one that's assigned to both the mumber and West okay and that will be the same for this next budget as two two officers yes okay and that comes Solly out of your budget it does okay and that's by your request uh yes one is by my request yes okay yep and just so that the board is aware when you hear School res off officer as fincom is aware when you hear SCH res officers well out of session what do they do so we we augment we used to have um we used to pay officers during the week or Reserve police offic full-time police office during the week Patrol the beaches where they're writing parking citations at Town beaches they're investigating any kind of crashes any type of complaints they're handling puls of service which alleviates the car alleviates the burden to the car in that area the cruiser in that area so these officers the two officers SC officers are assigned to the beaches during the summer which means we are not filling over time or if we are it's like one shift or two shifts throughout the Summer where we make sure at least one screw resource officer is on throughout the summer and the other one you know obviously can take their vacation um and stuff like that thank you you're welcome wasn't sure if you had any other the questions in the all right thank you and does anyone else have any other questions I don't see any other hands up at the moment uh and Cindy I don't there I just looked there's nothing in chat right so well Chief uh deputed uh congratulations on your first year under your belt thank you um I think when you came to the do the presentation last year you weren't quite sworn in or just just just sworn in is that right right great I was just I made sure so I made sure I was in the last fincom presentation last year yeah at the end of the month and I was sworn in I believe on the 8th or the nth of January right okay I was yeah I was I'm still new but I was very new back then right well you've got one full year so congratulations and uh terrific presentation tonight from both of you so uh we appreciate all the detail that you provided um and I I don't think we have any other question so I thank you both have a nice night all right thank you so much all right have a good night thank you all right I think Jim is Jim hartnett's still with us yes I am and I'm sorry my camera is not working when I turn it on it freezes tell me something or what but it's one of those days uh well so the next item on our agenda was really um to kind of get a just a General budget update from you and um a few questions came up last last week at the meeting about asking for a little more information on free cash and the calculation and I know you had provided uh fincom a presentation back in November and I forwarded that presentation to everyone again um but we may have a couple of questions on on on free cash I think the question questions were um more in the lines of uh well I I can't answer what I I can't speak for what the questions are but um did you have a little presentation that you gonna do or you were just open up okay I do my screen isn't as I'll let you do that and then as well as I like like just point out um you know you sit back and you watch a couple of these presentations we are very fortunate here in Westport with the Departments and the department heads we have and we have people that really put the time in that work very hard for not a lot of money um not a lot of recognition um you know I think you had the veterans here this Carol was here she's she's outstanding uh you know just even the additional work she's doing on the website we're looking update our website she's been putting all that effort into it you don't realize how much time and effort goes into uh migrating data from one site to another and setting it up uh you know Theo's been outstanding in the assessor's office uh just the new growth that we've been getting the last few years a lot of that is attributed to her and her her finding additional things out there that normally have been Overlook um in the past and obviously Chief Don and Deputy reell have been great to work with and you know I'm not going to go through all the Departments but they were here tonight and I think it's just it's uh it helps me out quite a bit but let me share my screen we'll start with the free cash um this is uh this the chart going back to 2004 for westports free cash you know you can see some years you know most of the years going back in the early years were around anywhere from 200 up to maybe $900,000 we had a negative year in 2010 um and then we climbed up a bit and you know kind of fluctuated here and there but for the most part we've been in the range of one to $1.5 million the last couple of years uh we went from $2 million in uh 2020 these say 23 but it was the 22 year um they were certified in 23 U 20 the next year 24 was 2.3 and this year we're at just about 3.5 million and I just want to kind of compare that to some of the other communities in our area it sounds like a lot but we're just getting to the point where other communities have been for a long time you know this and this is going to be very difficult to read on your screen but I have dmouth which is a logic community so it's not a great comparison but it's it's close by so we wanted to add that seeon Somerset and Swansea um on this chart the dark red line on the right hand side is Westport so for every year with the exception of 2013 when we beat Swansea by a little bit we've had less free cash than every one of those Communities going in the way I look at it we should be in the range of somewhere between maybe 2.3 and $3.3 million a year for free cash um that is what we should be planning for we've been well below that over the years and um you know the free cash that we're showing now at 3.5 was for 2024 right so we bumped up our estimates in 2025 already to compensate for some of that and we'll probably bump them up a little bit more again in 26 um so some of that money has already been accounted for and go you know going forward I do want to show you where some of that free cash comes from and I know we all love the term fre fre cash it's certainly not free um but of the $3.5 million we had uh about 172 that we carried over from last year right so we didn't allocate all our free cash from last year we've with the fiveyear financial plan we are recommending that we um forward 10% of that each year to the following year just so that we have a balance going into the next year the the department turn backs we had $1.1 million um and this is interesting right so we've had some good years of Department turn backs um not so much as past year but the year before um a good part of it was the police department they were down five offices you know that's 400 some thousand dollars right there um we've had health insurance holidays meaning that um our insurance plan our group insurance plan has had excess funds either through Investments or um fees and um claimes that were less than anticipated so we had months when the town did not have to pay the health insurance so two years ago we had two um two months which was roughly $600,000 I think last year we had one month but I'm not sh on that but we have had some holidays in there so we've also with these Department turn backs we've had covid money over the last four years and while we haven't used Co money specifically um to plug budgets when we've needed like money for matching grants so we needed money to um offset a vehicle or to purchase a vehicle for the police fire or some other department even mid year we've been able to use that money so we haven't had to transfer money from a department budget to the expense account to purchase something so we've had a little bit more back in the turn turn backs than uh we traditionally have and then the uh local receipts estimate versus actual um there were a few years back in 1920 when we were budgeting close to 95 96% of um actual receips our estimates were about 95 96% of what the actual was for that year which is extremely um extremely aggressive um it doesn't take much you know one line item goes south and and we're going to be in the negatives and uh we brought that back down to 76% for FY 24 um which you know people say it's conservative it's more conservative I think we want to stay somewhere in between 70 and maybe 85% so we bump that up a bit to 80% for 2025 um and we'll probably go up a little bit higher for 26 state aid you know the numbers always get adjusted state aid and state assessment um from the budget numbers that we get when town meeting happens in April to the actual approved budget in July sometimes that goes up this been times when that's gone down um so we we picked up about $160,000 there and then the last number is just miscellaneous stuff um and part of its new growth I think we had probably close to $300,000 in New Growth um over what was budgeted we normally budget 400,000 and we've been fortunate the last few years to get anywhere between $600 and $800,000 in New Growth the logger number the 800 was because we changed the way we um calculated the um assessments which allowed us to pick up an additional six months for one year we went from a calendar year to a fiscal year or vice versa but anyway we were able to do it for an 18month cycle as opposed to a 12 so we got a little bit more that year but we're back to the um traditional cycle the free cash also gets impacted by different things and it's tough to determine that's why nobody really wants to give you a free cash number too early until it's certified because um they can reduce the free cash amount if we haven't sought reimbursements for Grants uh like chapter 90 which is the money we get for Street improvements where we do Street work in the summer and then we seek reimbursement if we have not requested that reimbursement by a specific date whatever it was three $400,000 that'll be charged to the free cash and could reduce the amount of free cash so um Nicole's been pretty aggressive this year getting departments to make sure that they have their reimbursement request in so that it wouldn't um go against the free cash so that that also kind of boosts it up a little bit this year but it'll reduce it next year um so it's it's give and take um on the turn backs I think we sent this yeah I'm sorry before you go there's three folks that have hand raised so maybe we want to cycle with them first so one second so thank you oh Hugh go ahead you're on mute H thank you I'm under the impression that a significant amount of money was chter 90 which is money we need Etc but it seems to me that potentially distorts the calculation because that's committed for a certain purpose rather than free cash when we think of as being available for whatever would you comment on that yes so when I when I mentioned the chapter 90 that was that actually hit last year um so we had not got the reimbursement in so I think we had $2.3 million in free cash if the chapter 90 wasn't there we would have had I say 2.5 million instead of the 2.3 so we just have to hold that aside until we get the [Music] reimbursement go ahead Cindy so uh kind of in a nutshell in and I know you were going to go through that I guess in the next slide in Department turn backs there are two two critical items that you mentioned that would have you taken quite a chunk of that uh that I guess are built into this number one being the understaffing of the police force you said you know back of the envelope 400,000 and then if you had just one month of the um Insurance holiday uh you said that's about 300,000 a month yeah we're about 280 285 okay so so we'll just so between the two of those at 700 so yeah is artificially inflated by about 700,000 in a normal year no I I miss I didn't miss speak that 700 was the previous year um this year the police department we did a transfer at the end of the year and we um used up most of the police department Surplus this this um oh okay um but I can go through those numbers a good portion when it's snow removal right we haven't had snow removal that can that can go that's fine when you go through the slide that's fine I just wanted to clarify that thank you right thank you go ahead Christopher you have your hand up yes uh thank you madam chair um Mr Harden I I the item that that I'm drawn to is actually the uh the estimated receipts local receipts and it seems to me that well I certainly agree that 98 96 98% uh is is extremely aggressive um I I am curious if The Sweet Spot uh is a little is above what you have suggested around 80 85% uh I am curious if you are aware of what percentage uh surrounding towns and also uh other uh comparable towns use in in their estimate in their estimates over the last few years so from what I hear from other communities 75% is is the goal I think realistically I think they're probably 80 to 85% some up as high as 90 um I haven't seen any and I haven't looked in great detail this is just general discussion um I haven't seen any over 90 I think at Swansea at one point was very low I think they were probably like 50 or 60% um but you know they also had quite a bit of free cash too so yeah it's uh I I would like to stay under 85% but you know in a given year if you had to go up a little bit more I I can show you the um my last slide shows some of the local receipts and the percentages and it might give you um a better idea where we stand interestingly enough I'm actually I am kind of curious of the the breakdown on on uh which particular receipts you might be able to be a tad more aggressive onit and which should should you should be more conservative on so I would be interested in that break down thank you okay and just just uh the biggest local receipt we have is the excise tax which is about 40 42% of the total local receipts and that has actually gone down the last three years um so it's yeah it doesn't take much to to really change that local receipt um calculation so Jim before you go I just I want to just comment to um I'm I'm in support of your range of that 75 um percent of of estimated revenues um you know doesn't matter whether it's a municipality or whether it's a corporation when you budget revenues and if you budget expend to that you're going to spend every penny of that Revenue if if something goes south on revenue and you probably won't know that until you're eight nine months into your fiscal year and if your revenues aren't going to be at that Trend that you hope for you've already been spending at that revenue and so your last two or three months would be a real drastic Cuts if something happened right so so part of that budgeting of that 75 to 85% of Revenue gives you that cushion so that you really should never get in that situation where you'd be in a turmoil situation where you would have to cut dramatically in your last few months of the fiscal year so I'm really in support of maintaining that 75 to 80% I think when you get up to 85 and 90 that really gets scary because the town if the town is facing Revenue shortage than they budgeted it doesn't have the ability to say okay we'll increase it somewhere else and make it up right there is no making it up in the revenue in Municipal finance and so I really am in support of that 75 to 85% where 85% starts to get me a little a little concerned so I just want to support your um your theory on that Jim thank you and this is again going to be difficult to see but this is just the turn backs and I did send that to the to the committee so if you wanted to look at it on your own you'll see where the turn backs came in from you know we had $77,000 from the reserve fund we put $100,000 in that a year we only used um 23,000 this past year um you know the we had some software for the accountant the collector's office which totaled um $55,000 that they didn't purchase yet they're still reviewing and um have not uh pulled the trigger on that yet so that got turned back in um you know property insurance was one where we had $51,000 but that's a large line item so 51,000 is only a small percentage um we were also concerned about the old high school whether or not that was going to be insured as a um vacant parel which would have bumped that up significantly uh Public Safety this is the first year like I said the police department um last few years they've been up 400 $500,000 on their turn backs they went down to 100 they uh did some purchases at the end of the year um much needed purchases at the end of the year but we still had $100,000 from from the police department on their turn backs um the highway department at the bottom there we had $124,000 turn back we had another close to 50,000 in snow and ice um we had um Cemetery $119,000 a good portion of that was salaries like I said we kind of had one vacant position on and off most of the Year transfer station 27,000 a portion of that was salaries but not all of it um as you get down to human um Services the veterans they had a turn back of about 113,000 they pretty much based on case load and we're required to pay that so um she actually reduced her budget a little bit this year to to compensate for that um and then we had health and life insurance we had $290,000 turn back um you know that's a $3 million budget so you're looking at about 7.6% of that being turned back um you know you get a half dozen employees that automatically you know sign up that weren't signed up the previous year and that can uh that can add up pretty quickly we're also looking at health and life insurance I had in the preliminary budget for this year and it's still early so I a little reluctant to get too excited about it but um they're looking at a 10 and a half percent increase we had a meeting this past week with the uh with the group and they they voted to allow another Community to join so that increase may actually bump up to 12% we'll try to reduce that with some of the Investments they had but um I was hoping for some excess money in there that you know maybe we could distribute as we get through the budget process but it doesn't look like we're g to have that and this is the local receipts and I know uh Mr Thrasher was asking about the local receipts this is a good sheet to look at it kind of goes back to 2019 and I have it going back further if you want um but it gives you an idea of what percentage right now I'm budgeting for um FY 26 over FY 24 numbers right so the the big one is the Top Line there which is the motor vehicle excise tax FY 24 we took in $3,440 and I'm budgeting at 92.4% which would be $2.8 million um this is the line item that's gone down the last two years it was 3.2 and fy22 um was was about $118,000 less than 23 and it was about she 150,000 Less in 24 so um previous to that that was that line item was going up a couple hundred thousand do a year the room tax has been going up steadily the last few years um you know we got the new hotel probably what five six years ago which helped and then I think the short-term rentals are also adding to that room tax uh meals tax is pretty holding steady um we're budgeting at those 82 5% of and these are 85% of fiscal 24 actual numbers so if you went to FAL 26 they'd probably be just slightly less than that U most of the other numbers are pretty pretty stationary um licenses and permits um actually went down in FY 24 they went down um $25,000 so we we're budgeting that slightly less and anticipating that that may go down a bit investment income this has been the I guess the shining star this past year that went up from um 300,000 up to 567,000 but if you go back a couple of years it was $36,000 so so that's kind of offset the um excise tax and a couple of the other ones the the ambulance has been pretty much holding steady in that range anywhere from 450 up to maybe 520 $25,000 it's actually gone up a little bit but we put another 20,000 into the revolving account last year um they use to purchase not only future ambulances but equipment for the ambulance so right now if we add up all the local receipts we're about 5 almost $6 million um we had 7 million just over 7 million in FY 24 so we're at about 85% and reality if local receipts continue to go up a couple hundred, a year we'll be at 79% when the actual numbers come in this gives us a little bit of a cushion we don't know where the State numbers are going to be coming in if the State numbers come in lower than we anticipate um you know we may have to bump this up a little bit just to keep us afloat um if you get up to 90% you don't have room to bump this up if something else happens so um it's still early in the process we're waiting for the State numbers we're waiting for the Chapter 70 numbers on the U the revenue side that's the big number and then uh on the assessment side from the state we're looking to see what the chat of school and school choice numbers will [Music] be looking uh you know the the only other big numbers that we're looking at is property insurance we have an idea on that I think we're in the preliminary budgets we've accounted for pretty sizable increase so we're hoping we can reduce that a little bit as we go forward and that's pretty much where we are um I think uh you know we have well everything looks bleak we've made progress over the last few years uh budget wise the Assessor's overlay account went from negative up to uh fairly healthy um positive there we may actually be able to pull some money out of that account to uh supplement some of the capital Improvement projects um so you know we've we've reduced uh local receipts um dependence on local receipts from 95 down to you know 80% 75 80% which is Big you know we but we've been tough we've been tough on the Departments the town departments and the school department have all had to make sacrifices to get us here thanks Jim and I you know I just want to reiterate too I think I've heard there's been some level of sentiment when the freecast number came in at over $3 million that it almost sounded like it was a bad thing um and you know it's not it's a really good thing um you know part of the Town expects to generate free cash just as you said Jim that the goal your goal is to generate 2.3 to 3 million per year in free cash the town needs to generate that free cash so it needs to have a budget Surplus either through a combination of turn backs or Revenue higher than budgeted um and it it and if it doesn't if those two things don't happen then then the budget is supported and we're not in a crisis situation but the goal would be to generate free cash because that free cash is needed to fund Capital purchases to fund a stabilization account to kind of build some reserves that the town just has not had in years and the town's really under underinvested does not have reserves and and it's the town hasn't been able to generate enough free cash to generate to to do those sort of things and this is you know the first couple of years that there's actually enough cash free cash that's generating that's actually supporting the fiscal responsibility of building a solid Financial basis here so it's not a bad thing that that three million in free cash get generated in my opinion but um thank you Jim uh Cindy go ahead uh I know Jim that you you have discussions with other Town administrators and when you go through this process of going through you know re local receipts and free cash and whatnot in your um your knowledge does any other Community use free cash regularly to fund their operating budget good question I I don't know for sure um most of them are using it for Capital expenses you know that it's it's made very clear to us through the state that you know you don't want to use it for your operating budget I think I haven't heard of too many communities using it on a regular basis for their operating budget it's been more of a plugging holes when needed for for future right for saving for future Investments yeah okay thank you Gary go ahead yeah I can just give you a little insight uh dth does not use free cash to um uh supplement uh reoccurring expense in its budget does not do it for for salaries uh utilizes the free cash that we do generate for Capital expense and capital items um and of recent we've done a a stabilization account for long-term capital buildings uh that need to be replaced later on down the road so um it's kind of like the same model I think that we're trying to do here uh we've done that for quite some time now um like the Opera money for instance that was that was handed on to communities um was not you supposed to be used for um you know one time onetime expense not for building in budgets putting in uh Personnel because that eventually goes away and free cash is a moving Target so it could be seven it could be 5 million this year next year could be two million we've had years where we've had negative free cash over the past so you know we build the budgets like Karen mentioned and and Jims put together the budgets um need to be within a conservative amount you know 3% and plus or minus that's what that's where the free cash is generated but to put it back in the operations is really not um you know recuit it and you know just a comment Jim Jim uh mentioned the Departments here and uh you know their efforts of turning back fre cash I'd just like to uh commend Jim for this for this presentation and and uh the work that he puts into it he's basically the finance director if you will for the town not only the Town Administrator so uh this is really since he's come on board I think that from what we've had in the past to what we have now it's a it's night and day and um I would just like to commend him as he commended the department heads for what they've done thank you it's a ABS absolutely agree thank you for saying that Gary thank you Jim y um does anyone else have any other questions on the free cash um does that answer questions that had come up last week I think hopefully that fill those gaps yeah I'm also available too so if anybody has more detailed questions they want to sit down we can sit down and we can go through them line item by line item if if need be so Jim in terms of the budget timing the state is going to what's the state's plan for the next um round of state aid to come out so the governor is supposed to have their budget out in January um normally it's around January 22nd 23rd so I'm hoping that week we'll have the State numbers and and those numbers can change quite a bit but normally the Chapter 70 the chter school and the school choice which are our big numbers um are pretty consistent throughout that whole budget process right because by the time by the time that the select board has to approve its budget to the finance committee there will not be another round from the state right so something there wouldn't be the next round after January 20th before February 20th right there wouldn't be something that quick yeah I think the uh house budget comes in just after that right so probably once once the January Governor's numbers come in that's kind of our basis of where you know as best of course things are going to continue to change and we'll have the ability up until town meeting to change something if needed but that's that's kind of the numbers we'll head into with right yeah I think we're pretty close there I'll have the insurance numbers I'll have um you know in just about that time we start getting the Regional School numbers too so diamond is the other big number right if remember last year the governor's budget was late I think she put it out in March um but uh MMA is in a couple of weeks and usually she don't announce any major um increases or decreases to the budget conference in Boston uh and also um as you mentioned uh house ra and means and then I think the Senate I think the house rais and means the last budget Senate will be after the governor's but usually the government's budget is always inflated and then house Ways and Means uh is really what the budget the final budget that the towns will use but that that happens sometimes it doesn't even happen in this risk of a year if it's late so we go with the best estimates yeah so so we found a lot some of the numbers we got to be careful of with with the governor's budget but the um there some that are formula based like Chapter 70 and CH and school choice that we can usually kind of that have been fairly consistent throughout the process right does anyone have have anything else for Jim then we can let him enjoy the rest of his short night guys are working hard thank you have a good night thanks Jim appreciate your coming as always thank you all right thanks Jim okay uh I think we're we can move quite along here um we have on the agenda any committee or lay us on updates but I don't know if there's any committee meetings that happened the last week that since our I think I think we lost I think we lost Al oh no there he is okay I couldn't see him and I thought we lost I thought we lost Al somewhere a longer way there he is oh okay okay here I am any L on or update me uh no okay it's we just met last week so not a lot happens in a week right so okay uh the next action item is to approve the minutes of January 7th 2025 if everyone's had a chance to review if we can take a motion to approved moved second thank you any discussion on those all right I'll do a roll call Al Al Le i q h Morton I Cindy Cindy Brown I Zach I'm gonna abstain from this one sure thing Christopher Christopher the rasher I Duncan Duncan I Gary obain wasn't at the meeting thank you and Karen Rose I thank you um all right so I have no correspondence to discuss uh so just our upcoming meetings just to let everyone know no so next week so we we made great progress through today we were very expedient and got through a lot of budgets today so that was fantastic uh so our next meeting is January 21st which is next Tuesday and we have scheduled the treasure collector and Debt Service with Sue Bron uh the recreation department the town accountant and Highway in snow and ice are that is for the 21st the 28th we tentatively have scheduled the building department but we will see if if uh he's available if not we'll ask Jim at some other point we we I don't see the need to ask Jim to come in specifically just to do one budget but we'll we'll work that out and then on February 11th we have the Westport Community School uh presentation and um that's our upcoming budgets um I am in the process of trying to I'm going to send an email to the select board and school committee with just a few dates to try to get our joint meeting we're really in a tight situation because I think Jim is not available until February 4th at the earliest and then the select board is scheduled to approve their version of the budget I think February 20th so we need to get a meeting in in the middle of those so I'm so I'm G to try to uh circulate some dates and just see what uh what we can what we can get so Karen as far as the um oh sorry go ahead s go ahead look go ahead uh as far as the um I know in the past we've invited Diamond but with no with no representation um have we invited yeah I I've been working on that with them uh Gary we're still trying to figure out the date because they don't have their budget number yeah so we were we were going to have them come in the same date as the school but um it would kind of get lost in the shuffle so we we we've got them on standby but we definitely want to have them come in we we do have a representative from from Diamond um that that's from Westport that represents Westport to the diamond board so that's who's going to come in yeah in the past we've invited them but sometimes they don't show up but I think yeah putting you know having a multi-million dollar project and and and having the town uh you know supplement a lot some of that I think that it's important that we get an update you know they they'll definitely come in uh this year yeah okay yes and we're trying to keep them outside of this tight schedule because yeah then whatever the number is is what we have to yeah the number it is what it is right it'd be more like an up defitely yeah right yeah okay probably in um March kind of okay my uh my question was do you know what date the warrant closes I do not know is that the end of January usually I do not know yeah okay I was just curious um Jim Jim had put together um I can we can find it Jim put together um he does a great job right at the beginning of budget season and puts a lot of dates uh right on there so it might be Nicole has her Nicole has her hand up she may know oh go ahead Nicole warrant articles are due to Denise by the 24th of January oh good okay okay then she'll start compiling from there all right thank you next week after that or so yeah great obviously includ the budget no no but at least at least we would have some idea if there's very many money articles in there so that's good that's good to know great thank you thanks Nicole um any other topics that for uh for the next week January 21st anyone else have any other topics they'd like to add to the agenda at this point no no okay if you get anything we've gotta we've got to do this agenda pretty quick because next Monday is a holiday so we've got a quicker posting this round so I'll probably get the agenda done tomorrow C just a little point of information um you know in dmouth we're uh obviously the governor signed this uh this um uh remote access until March I think it is I reached out I reached out to the governor's office last week uh just to ask you know do they intend on um extending it do they intend on making it permanent uh and I think there might be a sense of they're thinking about making it permanent but they haven't decided anything yet obviously the legislature has to meet real quick because March March will be here before you know it so I think that's maybe something to keep on our radar uh going forward you know we can follow that I'm sure it'll be it'll make some some kind of news that it's extended right yep nope it's definitely on our radar March 3 greated to but yeah absolutely thank you for that Gary um okay so I have no topics that came up within 48 Hours of today um so if we're all set motion to motion second all right I will roll call Al Al Lei Q Morton enthusiastic ey Cindy Cindy Brown I Zach Zack Brew I Christopher Christopher Thrasher i d Duncan law Gary yes thank you Kevin R good night everyone thank you everyone