welcome everyone today is Tuesday February 25th 2025 it is 6:30 pm I'd like to call this meeting to order with a pledge of allegiance I pledge allegiance to the flagis under Mass G chapter 30 section
38 section 20f this meeting is being recorded this meeting is being held remotely in accordance with the governor Massachusetts March 12 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law GLC 30A section 20 and on March 29th 2023 Governor Healey
signed a supplemental 2023 budget Bill allowing remote and hybrid meeting options for public bodies through March 31st 2025 well welcome everyone so want to let everyone know uh the finance Comm
committee members that are present on this meeting so we have Aly Hugh Morton Duncan law Zack Le Bru Cindy Brown and myself Karen Rouse so we have a
quorum U so hello everyone so um we've invited Jim hartnet here I see that Jim's here so um hi Jim thanks for coming so we're gonna start off tonight if you um if we'll we'll have you up first Jim
since you've got all the important stuff for us to talk about um there's one budget that we didn't talk about which was the building department because uh the building inspector has been uh I believe has been out do you do you mind
giving us a quick synopsis of that budget before we get into the fiscal budget share my screen here some reason it doesn't let me go full screen when I go full screen it bounces it to my other video so um can you see
that yeah all right I see Town Hall anyway all right so so the building department budget is pretty straightforward um very few changes the expense accounts are um essentially the same they've gone up
just uh about $1,000 um about $900 I guess um the salary account there is one change we've added $52,000 for the part-time clerk this position has been funded with the revolving account um and it's it's been there for a couple of
years part-time it went full-time this past year um really doesn't make much of a difference because any excess in the revolving account goes back into the operating budget so so I think it's just cleaner and more transparent if we actually fund it through the operating budget it doesn't have any impact on the
overall budget because funds are there one way or the other um they've also gone online they started today just uh we're doing online permitting which is we had a grant to do that the building department is the first Department that is is going online and
they went live today so I'm sure there'll be some growing chains but it's a it's a big step forward for for all the development departments uh they'll be first and be looking at the Board of Health conservation planning eventually licensing a few of the other departments as well fire department I think is
another one I I've circled the assistant building inspector we've had that in the budget the last two years we've posted that position a number of times and we've had no applicants it's a union position which makes a little little complicated but um I think eventually
we're going to have to upgrade that salary amount to get anybody interested in the position that's pretty much it if you have any specific questions happy to may I may I just jump in real quick just sure Al
um what's what's the differential do you think between what's currently posted salary-wise and what we need to do to bring uh you know a qualified person in so so the Building Commissioner the current Building Commissioner right now
has paid about $84,000 a year here okay for the assistant you're probably looking in the range of I'd say minimum 70 um probably closer to 80,000 um I've been looking at some of the commissioner rates in surrounding
towns and they're getting up $95 to $100,000 and that's not just that the building department office a lot of these um department heads there there's just not a um there's not a strong backup team out there anymore they used to always be people that would develop through the
Departments over the course of you know 20 30 years and they would move the department head position but you don't see that much anymore so that um I think we're seeing it with all the department heads um they're going to be difficult to fill once somebody leaves
okay no I'm not yeah the answer to the question wasn't how how low we can go it's how how we need to you know to to to make a difference so in this I I think to answer your question a little more directly in the revolving account for the building
inspector's office there is a little bit of flexibility um so if we had a qualified candidate and we could work it out with the Union at least on a temporary basis for a year or so we could use um funds from the revolving account to kind of supplement that
position um the other thing is if you know if we hired somebody in September or October as opposed to July 1st there'd be sufficient funds in that salary to offer a little bit more but is a union position um Union's been Cooperative but
it's still a challenge to get things through yeah but if if you end up you know slicing off 12 months into nine months and and upping it the next year it'll be the 12 months right yes yep
absolutely yeah yeah okay no that answers it thank you very much thank you Jim uh Cindy's got her hand up go ahead Cindy as as usual kind of along the same lines that uh Al was was mentioning it
always um it always saddens me a little bit when we we are in a position and I'm not and I'm not saying it's anyone's fault but it does sadden me a little bit when we have to make the statement that when this person leaves we're gonna have to pay someone else a lot more why can't
we pay the people that are in the current position the amount of money that's really the value of the position if someone leaves today the next person coming in is going to get a much better salary and the person who's served in
the in that job for five 10 20 30 years who's been loyal to the position kind of gets you know put it mildly screwed I mean they get screwed in their pension they get screwed in their monthly wages and someone new walks in it's like well this is what the
going rate is why can't we pay people now the going rate I mean we're talking about a difference of you know adding an increased salary to the assistant in addition to bumping up the building
inspector I don't have a copy of the uh wage study in in front of me so yeah maybe I'm putting my Personnel Board hat on a little bit here I don't have that here in front of me I'm not I'm not at home and I've got limited resources but
you know if if it if it if we bumped you know Ralph up pen and bump the other one up to 80 all right so if we're talking 25 $30,000 more a year you know I go back to the thing we've got over $50
million budget and why can't we pay for the services that we need at the rate that they should be paid we're not talking about $300,000 here we're talking we're there is money there there is
money there look yes there is money it to be part moment the all the money is sucked out by the school budget and all the other Essentials what you say that's be right I'm I have no quels with what you're saying but the trouble is we can't
afford the uptake with that so we try to make it work because we have to to get the person out but as Jim just said it's a revolving account much of that that money comes in through the added services that the building department so
up the building fees a little bit if we added $ five more to every building fee that that we charge particularly on the commercial fees $ five to anyone individual permit is not going to break somebody and say well I'm not going to
do it or I'm going to try to do it you know under under under the cover you know under cover yeah maybe I'm venting a little bit about this but we're not talking about a lot of money here and we already know that if for whatever reason if
Ralph put his hand up tomorrow and said I can't do this anymore for whatever reason we're gonna have to showout out the money anyway so why don't we get you know a good assistant in why don't we pay Ralph what he's worth in in the
position that he's held for for all these years and come up with 25 $30,000 and Juice this up out of the revolving account yeah but I bet you could do that across the board and there many other places as well I don't what you're saying rol I
just don't think we can do it they don't have revolving accounts they don't bring in the money revolving account is is would be a patchwork it might work for a year or two but it's not a solution okay I mean you that and that that's your position I respect that I
feel far differently about this because I get tired of not paying people what they're worth and then somebody new comes in and they get paid a lot more and it frustrates me cers I agree with you completely I'm saying I just don't think we have the money to do it even
though it'll be the right thing to do all right um thank you both for that um does anyone else have any other questions at this time on the building building budget yeah I just like to say I totally with Cindy thank
you yeah I I I I support what Cindy's saying too and I think as we let's let's hold off and look at the budget as a whole and see where we're at um and then we can have those discussions uh as well so um it sounds like we have definitely
have identified that there's a potential need there that uh it's we we might want to think about funding uh helping support funds so um so Jim do you want to up to somebody I'm I'm sorry I would just say
that I also agree with it it it it's high time that U you know we I know we have have it a limited amount of of of money coming in whatever that limit happens to be but people have to be paid
what they are worth and what they're what they're um you know the people locally in in their position need to be paid and to to to to Short change somebody and and then not um and then have to pay up for the
next person is is it's it it's just not right it's it it just is not right okay appreciate it so um thank you for for those so let's let's move on to the fiscal budget rollup and then we can
uh certainly come up with our lists of uh additions or subtractions or whatever whatever we uh elect to uh to to recommend all right Jim okay so so I can give you kind of a
watered down version of what U we presented to the select board select board approved a recommended budget at last night's meeting um there a budget memo that I sent over to the finance committee and a proposed budget fiscal year 2026 member the kind of highlights
and identifies a few things but in general um we have seen some improvements I think to the overall budget or the overall I guess fiscal I want to say stability but maybe that's the wood we want to use of the Town we've actually seen free cash which is
compartible to other communities in our area we've been accustomed to very low free cash over the years and um I think people are used to that this seems like a shock the amount that we had this year but it's it's actually consistent with other communities of our size uh
stabilization accounts we've you know the town finance committee select board town meeting have actually put some money into the stabilization accounts the last couple of years the state recommends that we have about 5% of our overall budget in these
stabilization accounts and we'll if the free cash gets appropriated as recommended by the select board will be up to about 4.88% so I think by next year we will reach that 5% goal the ess's overlay which was in the negatives
about four years ago actually has a healthy healthy Surplus and um this tal Improvement planning committee has recommended and the select board agreed that um we take $450,000 out of that account and put it towards a new fire engine along with the
capital the free cash money um challenges we still have like every Community we still have the challenges the federal stimulus the OPA funds and the Essa funds are are no longer available to us um those have dried up we haven't used those I think at least
the town hasn't in school very limited use those for salaries we have not on the town side it's mostly one-time expenses Capital Improvements you know equipment and so forth but um they've also been used to supplement some of the
matching Grant funds and some other items that will now have to be supplemented with the operating budget we continue to rely on our free cash for the operating budget we need to stop working our way or weaning ourselves away from that free
cash it's going to come back to haunt us it's gonna it's going to hurt and in the upcoming years maybe next year maybe three years down the line and maybe five years but eventually it's going to catch up to us and when you have to make the cuts um at that time it's going to be more drastic than it would if we do it
sooner we're also dealing with you know we've had years of uh low inflation where we've had raises for Town employees at roughly 2% um the last contracts that were negotiated and signed were up around 3% some a little closer to 4% with incentives and so
forth so that has put a strain on the budget as well we don't have a lot of opportunity to generate Revenue here in town um it's very limited the budget proposed is a standard 2 and a half% increase in the property tax we're looking at new growth
at about $400,000 that's estimated in 24 we had 736 th000 but I think 990,000 of that was related to one solar project and there was a fairly size sizable building that was built as
well so um you know this number has been coming in over 500,000 the last few years and we expect it to be the same but it gives us a little bit of flexibility state aid we've seen a modest increase in the state aid I think it was roughly
2.2% which is doesn't keep up with with our meetings um the Chapter 70 we've had two good years of Chapter 70 the previous last year was down a bit but the year before was up over $500,000 increase in Chapter 70 last year I think was I want
to say 300 some change and this year we're back down to like 116,000 that's been offset a little bit and you I got to give the the school some credit for um kind of attracting more of their students to stay in District the chter school numbers have uh leveled off and
the school choice numbers have uh declined a little bit so that the assessments that the state assesses have actually decreased um and leveled off over the last few years local receipts we have a minimal increase in there our free cash is based
on the FY 24 budget um we've already bumped up those free cash estimates for the FY 25 budget which we're currently operating now and they've bumped up a little bit more for the FY 26 budget we've seen um you know over a 7%
increase in the pension costs health insurance um we sh a 6.6% increase in the budget but the actual increase for the health insurance right now is it about 12% we have a meeting this week with our um a local group
southeaster Mass the group of it's probably about five or six towns that participate in this health insurance program and we may have some Investments that they can use to uh s from the blow and bring that increase down to about 9% that'll be voted on this week but we're
seeing that across the board not just in Westport and with our group but a lot of these insurances for some of these communities are going up 15 20% um it's been fairly stable for a number of years but this year for some reason it seems to be a Bigg jump jump and we got notice
from the insurance that the the OIC is really um that equates to about a 4% increase in the health insurance just from that one drug property insurance they've estimated or they've recommended that we increase our budget by about 10% for property insurance I mentioned the property the employee contracts going up
three to 4% as opposed to 2% in previous years in the Regional Schools we still don't have yet um but I've had some preliminary discussions with diamond and that may actually come in a little bit less than uh what has been budgeted we should have those numbers in a couple of
weeks when we talk about Revenue sources we really don't have many options to increase our Revenue um we do have a local room tax option that we can we can increase currently we we have 4% of our room tax we can increase that to 6% if F
meeting approves that and that would be about a $200,000 increase inrease in Revenue if that's done and then the other the other source of maybe some revenue is uh the fire department has been looking at the Medicaid reimbursement ambulance
certified public expenditure program don't ask me exactly what that is but um my understanding is it's a way that we can get reimbursements for some of the billing that we do that is uncollected or that um is not exceeds
the uh estimated amounts um fire chief estimates that you know he could bring in anywhere from 50 to $100,000 a year through this program um and he is committed to signing up to the program it may take uh some time before it
actually gets instituted and um gets going but we're anticipating right now that he should be able to bring in maybe $50,000 this year these numbers are not included in the budget that's presented to the select board so these would be additional revenues if if they did come in
the department budgets um these are changes that were made are changes that should be noted the select board salary increase in the line items of the line item salary increase of about $50,000 we're going to have a retirement of an executive secretary here in the department and it would give us an
opportunity to um change that position maybe make it a little bit more administrative as opposed to um I don't want to say secretarial but to give some more functions to that position maybe take over some of the human resource responsibility procurement
responsibilities um they will still need that position will still need to do a lot of the of the tasks um property insurance when we say property insurance is also Vehicles we handle all the vehicles in this department throughout the town um this you would know there's
a lot that goes through that parking tickets uh the um water the water department or the water water lineup along rad six or the building goes to that department as well so um it's it's a busy busy office and I think it gives
us an opportunity to bring a different type of job description to that position the reserve fund will continue to funded $100,000 legal council we're looking to increase that by 15 elections registrations we can decrease that
department by 30,000 this year we bumped it up quite a bit last year because of the elections the state elections I think we had or five elections last year um with the mailings and um the additional work um we had bumped that budget up last year we can decrease that a bit the old high school will continue
to put in funds to help operate that of $150,000 and I'll note that that does not cover all the expenses at the high school the expenses for the high school go anywhere from Two and a quarter up to about 350,000 a year um and those include property tax which is about
$86,000 and then addition expenses that um we have covered in an old warn article that uh can cover expenses so going forward as that warrant article gets drawn down if we continue to operate the way we are with deal with
high school that line item will need to be increased in the upcoming years uh the property insurance we increased by 80,000 that was a 10% increase I mentioned earlier the police department and we talk about free cash you know over the last four or five years is we haven't
had a full complement in the police department there were about five positions vacant um but they were fully funded so those positions that funding was kind of rolled over into the free cash which you know equates to probably about $500,000 when you take into consideration over time incentives so
forth so we will not see that in next year's free cash um they've increased an expense account uh by about $51,000 they actually requested more and we reduced it by 28,000 the fire department they actually came
in with a level funded expense account they are requesting they increase their ambulance revolving account by 5,000 but they've also requested one additional firefighter paramedic and um he's justifying that position not only the need that um based on the
number of runs that the ambulance is doing here in town but he feels that he can cover the funding for that position with the um additional billing that he's looking to Institute this year Jim I think you said taxes were the
old high school but it's a town building so is there a clip of the tongue or I'm sorry what's that I think you mentioned taxes in connection with the old high school but since it's a town home building that's left hand and right hand maybe they're just slip of the tongue if
I did it was um we're paying out property insurance which is about $80,000 what you meant okay yeah our building department we showed we're funding the clerk out of the operating budget instead of the revolving account and again that really doesn't impact the the budget because any additional extra
R revolving account gets rolled over into the budget um Animal control officer you know I've had conversations with the director and um at the time he had other priorities and he was not be able he was
not able to fill a position um at the current rate for the PO time so that has been cut I know that's been a position that others have looked at um and it is an issue um when when the current Animal control officer is out there's nobody to cover for him
but we have that with most of our positions here in town the highway department they've had three unfilled positions this year um so we're looking to eliminate one the select board just uh voted to post two positions the uh
dri's position the heavy duty driver and also labor position the heavy duty driving position we have not been able to fill um all year we just haven't had qualified applicants so if we don't get that position we would fill the labor position to uh just help hopefully with
the grass cutting here in town to get back to The Cutting for the fight of on with police Parx and landings um not guaranteed but that's the intent of filling that position the engineer position remains in the budget and reduce their EXP expense or
requested expenses by 27,500 but it's still uh their expense account still does increase over last years the transfer station U and these are discussions that we had preliminary discussions with the department so some of these Cuts you have not seen when the
budgets actually got to you for presentation but they were discussed and we worked on some of these prior to them getting to that point uh Professional Services they reduced that by 21,800 uh the Board of Health was using that to to um supplement the cost of
delivering the containers to the disposal sites um we've increased we modified the position in the at the transfer station to make it a work inform foran and we increase the salary and um we're able to hire
somebody for that position that has the current licenses and um and make the deliveries themselves so we don't necessarily need those funds uh in that Professional Services account veterans budget there's a slight decrease of about 8,480 and that's just based on the
number of clients they have in oped we currently funded at 175,000 but uh as we went through the budget we select board and recommended that we reduce that by 75,000 so Jim before you go on I just want to confirm maybe I heard it
backwards or so I think of and I appreciate everything that you highlighted there for all the kind of the major changes I think most of those you had already incorporated into the budget by the time we got the budget so
not changes after we got the budget it they were already Incorporated in so I think the only exception that I can think of might be the the select board budget up increasing by 50,000 so I think at that time that change had not been in but I think every other one them
we've already vetted and seen as part of our budgets is that that's correct right that's correct yeah okay thank you I just wanted to make sure everyone understood that these are not changes since we've met with everyone so every year we go through
this exercise of Revenue sharing what we have for new Revenue we're about $2.2 million which is a little bit higher than we we had predicted and out of that 2 .2 we we
deduct or we add um shared expenses with the schools Debt Service pension assessment health and life insurance Regional School assessments and state assessments which is about $500,000 which brings our net new Revenue that we will share with the town
side and the school side down to about 1.7 million uh leaving about 927 for the school and about 790 for the town um the town budget does fall with than that uh $790,000 new Revenue number um the
school request is um higher than that on the Le hand side here you can see the fy2 budget we started out last year at about $22
million um finance committee recommended $500,000 free cash brought it up to about 225 and then a town meeting uh the voters approved an additional 152,000 so their total budget last year was
22,651 on the right side if we start from scratch again uh we start with the 21999 number which is the budget without the free cash the 54% for the new revenue of
927 th000 that brings us to about 22.92 million um they've requested $24 million so we're about a 1.1 million dollar short from their
request um looking at their budget and discussing the budget with them they they have you know for the most part fixed costs I say fixed costs most of their budget is salaries just they NE get negotiated raises bring it up over $700,000 um additional Transportation I
believe was over $100,000 um my feeling is in what I suggest to the select board is that you know we need to bring up the base of the school department at some point um and how we do that is is up for
discussion but um eventually it's gonna I don't see how it cannot happen without um serious or devastating cuts to the school department what the select board agreed to last night as a recommendation was to
reduce the oped and channel that full 75 towards the school department and then we have one more payment left on the campground um which is $141
$791 um and recommended $400,000 in free cash that brings them up to about 23 almost $55 million still about $500,000 short of what they asked um about a 3.9% increase overall from what
they received last year that's yeah I'm not sure how else how else to do that right you know I I would suggest that it it might be helpful if you know in the past we've kind of had a subgroup that kind of met with the school representative of the school
department s board and finance committee to kind of work through the numbers a little bit more in detail and see if there is more flexibility um it's difficult to do it in this format to actually get down to the nuts and bolts of allowed stuff so that might be
something that I would recommend to this committee and and also the school committee that's I think it's a good exercise and it might be something we doing it's a good idea Jim so just I just want to point out and I'm not agreeing or disagreeing or making any
comment on it so I just want to make the observation that the the combination of the free cash the campground payoff and the debt so that's just over $600,000 right of of beyond the normal 54% split right so that's adding 600,000
to it so when you when you base it the when you presented the way that you have 400,000 in free cash and then the other two 200,000 plus that actually changes the revenue sharing from 54% to 59% is
what that's doing and so just making an observation we'll you know we can talk about that later but um that's just an I just wanted to point out the observation of what what that is agreed I know if you wanted to do the
cipc as well or does anyone have before we go on to that does anyone have any um questions on any on the budget part of what jimes presented so far Cindy go ahead uh Karen based on what your sorry if there's a blowing noise behind me the
blower in the room is on um based on your comment that you just made that the addition of free cash and those other two items would equal 59% what would it be not including free cash just the two
items that are coming out of the operating budget so oh good thank you so just by including oped and the campground payoff what what percentage does that change it to rather than 54 to
59 that is the piece that changes the revenue sharing from 54 to 59% so the free cash just those two yep just those two would change that okay so that did not include the Free Cash correct yeah okay all right good I got it and just to
just to and just to comment on that so you know we we'll talk about it as a committee too but there's alternatives to making it all free cash and not changing the revenue sharing so this way you stay uh transparent with that
additional um you know the additional amount that's funding the school beyond the normal thing so it can still be worked in the same way um that Jim's presented by providing the school the 600,000 that it needs but just recar it
in a different way so it's all still workable but without necessarily changing the revenue sharing just want to make sure I understood how you did the math okay thanks sure so my only comment to that it does make there is some benefit I
think depends how you look at it right but I think there's some benefit overall to show that we're reducing our Reliance on free cash um you know it puts the town in a better fiscal position um or Outlook um if somebody is actually
looking at our at our overall it's the schools it's the schools Reliance on free cash not the T not the town's Reliance on free cash yeah I think you know I get yeah and and what happens by doing it this
way then that does get added permanently to the base right so which then makes it difficult next year if the town needs to fund OPB again that money is already gone and characterized and and on you know in the base and so by keeping it as
free cash it kind of It kind of isolates what the what the full number is where this way it really it really will go into the base for next year there's just no even if if you characterize it Jim that this is a temporary this year only
kind of funding it's going to go into the base that starts for next year so it becomes more problematic so so I agree right I think it needs to get into the base um I think we need to build up their base a little bit more so that we're not relying on the free cash
every year you know to come down well that's the other argument I had I'll leave that up to the finance committee NOP we get it I will say um and I just saw this on
Facebook tonight and I think it's worth looking at um if you go to the school Committees of the Westport Community Schools website on the front page the uh acting commissioner came down this week um and they have a little video and it's
it's it's very impressive um and the commission was um spoke very highly at the school system and and the programs are being offered over there it's it's only a two-minute video but it's it's definitely worth looking at well thank you for that we'll let
check it down thank you it's Karen yes L goad I just I just wanted to weigh on on one particular thing I think it was pretty sure it was it was Jim and Susan Brighton uh couple of meetings ago that that we should also recognize is that
when we go up for Grants it is matching grants so somehow we need to uh you know figure out how to pull money out of something what wherever it is um so that we can qualify for the matching grants
which which is not necessarily cooked into the books right now great thank you Al so um Jim before you go on to the um the next piece of the presentation so I want to thank you for a phenomenal job that you do with this budget I mean you start you start
this process I think in October right and so you've been four months of or five months right trying trying to work through this budget and come up with as best you can and and shave everywhere so um you do a terrific job so uh it is amazing that we're even as close as we
are um to do so it's really presentation and semantics that I'm talking about but you've done a fantastic job so I want to just thank you and compliment you for everything you do in the gray hairs you must have got this year I appreciate that you know we got some good people
there too and people have put a lot of time and effort in these departments um and it's showing right you know our latest audit report that's coming out uh shows improvements in almost every category we've had no material weaknesses the financial team's doing a
great job and you know going online with permitting just these are all baby steps but we're moving in the right direction I think overall we're we're moving forward which is good great thank you we had more money we could do a lot more I know right
all right so um no other questions so you can move right on to the capital Improvement so the this is the cipc recommendation um we met probably four or five times we viewed all the requests that came in
from the various departments uh this was recommended to the select board and the select board agreed to this recommendation uh Cemetery expansion and this is this is just what's coming out of the free cash um Cemetery expansion $200,000 Information Technology a server
cluster $85,000 and what that is is is it provides a um not a backup but redundancy on our existing system so if our existing system comes down this this uh cluster will automatically jump in and take its place however that works um
Council on Aging um she's applied for Grant and uh Bev Bish believes that she can get the Grant and this would be 20,000 would be the matching portion of the grant for the for the B elevator repair she currently has I want to say either 60 or $80,000 in an older warrant article and this would be
the additional funds to actually get the work done to update that elevator Police Department three cruises the fire department a Cascade system um again I don't know all the details of this but they were actually looking for two one of each fire station but um after
speaking with the chief he said the one at the Bri station big Road fire station was in serious need of getting replaced so that's to 75,000 for that um school have requested security upgrades in their buildings $235,000 and they last for a number of
years for upgrades to the mumber playground for 325 and the fire engine uh is actually about $950,000 500 would come from free cash 450 would come from the assesses overlay
account we did make one modification to that um at last night's meeting Cemetery um in order to do the three new sections that they're proposing to do we were looking at estimates somewhere around 5 to 600 and it actually came in at $920,000 the
estimate there's a slight possibility that the highway department could maybe assist with this work um but again we realize they're short staff and this is one of those things where you know we save a little money by not having a lot of people but it cost us in the long run um so they've recommended an additional
300,000 be put towards the um Cemetery project which would be a total of 500 from free cash and uh we looking to get 450 from the Perpetual care account um in addition to the free cash
for the cipc and the additional for the cemetery um we have a warn article um we we budgeted 400,000 free cash for the operating budget um and 141,000 to pay off the campground 15,000 for Board of
Health hazardous waste day they have some remaining funds in an old warrant article they would combine the two to do that uh we were going to carry the free cash about 350,000 over in the stabilization accounts special education account and capital stabilization
account looking to put 5% of the free cash into those accounts and that's where we are I see you has his hand up yep go ahead Hugh the campground is that a required payment if so we're just
pushing in next year I take it is that's what's going on this is the last payment for the campground um coming it was due this year yeah and we have do we have the option to postpone it or is it a contractual obligation for this year so
we're required to pay this is what we'd be paying in FY 50 uh 26 141,000 and that would be the final payment of the campground right now it's it's in our operating budget to pay that I think I Now understand when when
you saw adding that money into money going to the schools I thought it was being unpaid it's you're moving out of the operating budget into free cash yes still getting paid but just different Source different Source thank
you right and and this is the same that happened last year so again we as we talk about it my suggestion would be to use the operating budget to pay off the debt and then use the free cash to fund
the school so just flip it but anyway we can go through that later uh did someone have their hand up and down no um I've got one comment Jim on the free cash so I know our I know the
policy that that you set forth um is to is to try to to keep 10% of free cash as a carryover I wonder this year uh with such
uncertainty that we're having at the federal level and the state level and what might happen um in terms of losing a Federal Grant or or who knows what uh might might happen
that if we if we leave the money in free cash in as of June 30th if it's not appropriated it gets frozen until free cash gets certified next year so if there was some sort of urgent kind of
thing that were to happen in the year based on losing some funding or something going on and maybe we'd need to have a special town meeting we wouldn't be able to access that free cash because it's frozen and so my question is I wonder if we should think
about instead of leaving it as a carryover actually putting it in appropriating it into maybe the stabilization fund so if we did have an emergency during the year we could hold a special town meeting and we could then
access the funds that's my only thought on on on that piece oh go ahead Cindy or even in the reserve account so you know we've seen so we've seen just this winter alone there's been a lot more icy roads on the
weekends we don't know what the bill is going to be if we run out of funds in the reserve fund which is only $100,000 where do we go from there what's our backup to the reserve [Music] fund so I would say you know if there
are any funds left over uh or what the estimated balance is in free cash it go to the reserve fund I know that it's voted on as part of the budget but if we know in advance roughly uh how much you know so if that got bumped up to 125 or
140 um that might be a little bit you know it's for emergency purposes exactly what you were talking about I mean right uh you know the schools for example use you know title two or title six I can't remember what the for some reading teachers if they find out in May they're
not going to get the final installment and their short we'll say $20,000 uh for that teacher or some other grant that doesn't come through or it's frozen then you know I I think that those would be qualified uses for the
reserve fund if it happened because they were unforeseen yeah yep I agree it's just that's all my thought is that if if we leave it the free cash carryover then it does get Frozen and then um in a normal year that's fine but I'm I'm just
worried that if we if the town does need access that um not to let it get Frozen um Hugh go ahead my thought would be that rather than stabilization though I agree with the theory of what you're talking about the reserve fund remember
the reserve Fund in the past was 50,000 we haven't used it for a couple years has grown to 100 maybe 150 whatever the figure here is because that's something that can be accessed without having to have a two-thirds vote and without having to have a town meeting you have
to persuade people it's a real we don't have to persuade people persuade ourselves that it's a real crisis that we need to dip into but it does give us more flexibility I think it's almost a certainty given the stance that the state has been taking here and there the
federal money is going to dry up very quickly and it's just as transparent I mean we're very transparent about what what things are um are used out of the reserve fund right well I think on the basis of it
usually it's unexpected Etc unanticipated but we're talking about a crisis which clearly was not anticipated so it would fit into the category pretty easily agree all right what else you got Jim I'm just
I'm just trying to think that one out so if if it goes into the if you put say 300 into the reserve account bump that up to $400,000 and we expend 50,000 in FY 26 that money would have to get
certified as free cash the following year and would tie that up to you're kind of delaying the tying the money up retire we would have access to it sooner though you would have access this year over FY 26 but as FY 26 closes
out any remaining funds in that account would have to get certified as free cash the following year but free cash comes out but the reserve fund comes out of operating funds so you would have July 1 right
away you would have a new Reserve account we're only talking about emergencies right and so we were talking about we weren't talking about bumping it up to 300 but to take the you know this balance of 40 instead of making the
reserve fund 100,000 say make it 140 and instead of leaving that 41,000 to go into stabilization or some other account that has more difficulty uh to have access after June 30th um we'd have to wait six months for that
where we would have access to it right away yeah I think it's the I mean we got to think it through a gym but I think it's the same effect where it would go if you left it in the carryover it would get Frozen similarly if it goes in the operating budget then doesn't get used
they would both free themselves up at the same time that's correct right when you do the next certifications but it's a good good point but I I think I think it all works out the same just gives us access if we needed it of course if if you know if there was
ever a crisis there is always debt is is is an option too so um you know so it's not like we're totally fro the town's totally frozen but it's good that there's free cash to be even thinking about so this is this is
helpful so I think that's all I have all right all right no other questions on that uh thank you Jim so just um real quick so you gave us a draft of the warrant article articles um so is this
is it are there any other articles that would be added to the warrant at this point or is it done I I believe it's I believe it's done unless you know something very odd comes up in the next week or two um warant closes we we're required to get
it to you by March 10th so that's our next meeting I'm not anticipating anything new but um you know I don't never say never right right so there's there's not that many articles really of significant
financial impact I think we can isolate those pretty pretty quickly so yeah I think overall the war is pretty straightforward y un likee last year we're gonna we're gonna have a new moderator it's some you
know right right um okay well does anyone have anything else for Jim before we let him part I think you're free Jim thank you again tonight appreciate it thank you have a good night thank you all right
thank you in the that Ro do we have any idea who was likely to be the new moderator the candidates or more than one or whatever it was only one candidate so I think we have our winner and that
is what's his name oh um he's an attorney from Horseneck Road um I'll look up his name I'll I'll get his name okay just curious that's all yeah um so in terms of in terms of the
budget just following up so I'll um I'll put Jim the select board's budget in the the what we call the thcom format and and and I'll send it off to you which is an easier presentation for me to to
really kind of look at and I'll um I'll make some suggestions um um so we can at least look at it kind of Rec in my opinion recharacterizing the debt payoff instead of it being free cash have it um you know have it free cash supporting
the school and not free cash supporting a debt payoff um and then we can talk through so you can see how the mechan it'll work to the same if if the finance committee feels that the 600,000 is we're supportive of then we
can still make it work in the same way just recharacterizing it what's what's everyone's thoughts on on on that on the school uh the the the extra 600,000 to the school what's
what's everyone's thoughts I'm Vol saying I I don't like the free cash but I don't see another choice so yeah I don't have I mean given that it it is $500,000 shaving off of
what they feel is their you know premium budget or I shouldn't say premium budget what they feel they need to serve adequately in in the in their view which is fine uh given that that's already a significant reduction from
that I don't have a problem with the 600,000 um but I would prefer that it all come from free cash I really I think 59% is really floating very close to 60 and you know that I love my you know pie
chart thing with 60% for that 20% for Public Safety and now you're down to you know the the Bare Bones minimum of other payments and there's just a little bit left for everything else so at some
point and I'm not against the school budget I'm not against the schools we just there's only so much that this town can afford to support and uh given the other needs we have uh
nearly 50% of the residents of the Town taxpaying residents of the town are senior citizens and you know we have a you know $250,000 budget for the Council on Aging so uh schools are very important I support the programs they
they have I did see the video that they had posted and it certainly is a uh a great um uh view of Westport and what been able to achieve uh but we're not Weston we are not Welsley we are not one
of the other W towns that have a lot of resources Financial Resources to be able to to do uh to continue that format in the way that they would like to I support it I think it's great but we have to balance how much financially we
can support it right I'll I'll I'll just I'll just Echo what what what I've just heard it's a it's a fine balance and it's a fine uh way way to
consider and and and to be but we we also we also have other needs in the town so yeah thanks Al Duncan were you GNA say something yeah yeah I I I think I made
my opinion pretty clear at the last meeting and you know I I don't think we can afford not to but I understand that at this point in our budget process uh you know it is what it is but you know at some point we got to deal with the
elephant in the room that we've denied 16 out of 18 overrides and and our kids are paying a price and that's just not right no we we've all said the same thing in years past Duncan we're all we're all on the same page on that um we
just don't have a solution but um we're all in support of this not being uh ideal Zach do you have anything you want to add to what your thoughts are I don't have anything specific to add honestly I I
second the opinions um of a lot of the members here I would say I agree um with the route we discussed on not adding it to the base and having it come from free cash and kind of just how that's represented isn't is important um
for everyone to understand great thank you thanks and I I too agree I think you know the 600,000 I think it's it's necessary to do for the school I'd like to see it re recharacterized as free
cash and not as a revenue split um so we can continue to to identify identify it and so um you know I'm in support of that too so yeah I don't think I'm saying anything different anybody else and Al
that and we are faced with the realities I guess Duncan really touched on it but overrides are fine in theory they haven't happened and those are always re think they will happen so we have to face the reality of what we have is what we've
got yeah yeah and you know as we you know as as we look at the budget ourselves and maybe make a few tweaks here and there like I think some of the things that we need to consider are some a couple of the little things and whether that's the Animal control officer you know the position was
eliminated from the budget because they couldn't find somebody at that amount well maybe we need to add another 10,000 and not take it away entirely and and and then you've got the assistant Builder and maybe that's another 30,000 that we need to put in there and so like
again you're not talking a lot of dollars that can have big impacts to the town so you know we need to kind of figure out how we can Factor those in uh Karen when when would you when would you expect we would have that
discussion for the the two items you you just mentioned um well we can have it now um if anyone has thoughts on those sort of things and then I'd be happy to kind of of try to incorporate it into the budget to present to everyone um
well I mean just you know the the Town Administrator was able to work that uh work those numbers by decreasing the uh opep payment which um being a member of the audit committee and then listening
also to the select board last night our current uh balance in uh our opep account were funded at about 20 % uh which is almost double the state average okay so the state average of communities uh is a funding rate of
about 11% uh and the state doesn't really have a very strong view on uh minimum certainly our regular pension account that's different but they don't have a strong view on where
we should be uh Min you know at a minimum basis our opep account is well funded uh I certainly support that we continue to fund it but if the town administrator's budget reflected a
$175,000 decrease if we took even just 75 of that so if we do this the switch and Karen follow my math I'm doing this off the top of my head so if we if we use free cash for the schools and put
that money that the the uh camp ground payment back into the operating budget and if they were going to eliminate the payment for OPB if we just took 75 off the opep and used that 75 and sprinkled it
between the uh animal control officer and building I mean if we added you know 10 to um animal control and added 40 which would be a lot to building or even if you added 30 to building um I think
the math would still work and we would still be able to put at least 100 towards opep so the the select board budget has in Pre the previous in last year's budget the oped
was 175,000 so in Jims in the select board budget that was approved he reduced it from 175 to 100 and took the 75 decrease and gave it to the school I thought that
that sheet said 175 no it he it he decre I think he wrote it at the end so he de he he took the 175 already to 100 and gave the 75 so so 7 we can recharacterize that so
we can use we can use another 75 from free cash and then take this bring and then use the 75,000 savings spread that around so we'd use a little more free cash right than than planned but the or we could or we could stay with the
reduction of of the opep right right right so we can stay so the the the the the debt payoff is an easy one so let the debt payoff come out of the operating budget and then fund that
money with free cash that's just a swap the 75 is a little more tricky but yeah so that's why I was saying I'm doing it in my head I know that you're you're good with how you work it out in total but that was the theory that the 75 gets tricky so if we say well we don't want
to give the whole 75 in savings to the school but we want to split that um then we could do that and so you know 40 would go to the school 30 would go to the town but then we'd have to subsidize the school with a little more free cash
so we can we can make that still work we might use a little more free cash that would either come out of and then we'd have to figure out what bucket we want to pull it out of but we can still make that work so in essence if we wanted to fund the ACO
position and the building the building say 40 50,000 between the two that would be a free cash thing so in in whatever whatever method it would be more free cash to be used and so let we' not put as much to the
stabilization or the special EDS stabilization so we'd have to pull it out of somewhere does everyone understand what it's sometimes hard to see without for me without being able to present it to you in the in the numbers to so you
can see how it works but I'm generally favorably inclined that we also have a know sort of a reverse uh situation this is
adding for assistants that may or may not be hired because we to go out and test the market and see so the money's in the budget we've allocated it we haven't spent it if we can't find our and catch our rabbit as it were it's going to
bounce back again if we do that's fine we've got Personnel that we want but if it isn't sufficient it's not going to disappear it's going to come back in free cash exactly right so our our our our mission
would be to appropriate the funds and assuming the town meaning ultimately appropriates it doesn't mean that it gets spent right so it could go back into free cash next year so if we were to add for example the ACO so the animal control has been totally removed from the budget so I
think there was so we'd have to add the 30 and then add another 10 to for so that would be 40 and then if we said the building is another 30 so that would be 70,000 in free cash though yeah and in a
funny way I think the animal control is a higher priority than it seems to be people sort of think of that as as lost dogs or cats whatever I think I'm right in saying we had 57 deer strikes last
year and that is a combination effort the highway department has heavier equipment which the enal control doesn't have the police may get involved for traffic and this and that I mean a lot do people get involved
and if you don't have the Animal control officer who's the the the core of the thing I think it makes a lot of trouble for a lot of people so all the more reason to try to to expand the Personnel available we have the highest deer
strikes in the state I believe that's right yeah I think you do get to keep the deer but it doesn't help your car any right you know when I well you know I'm I'm sorry to to chip
in but but I think he was exactly right that you know the Animal Control Officers are are really good at what they do and they're responsive and whatnot but when it comes to an animal larger than a cat or a dog it really
Falls onto the uh onto the highway department deer whatever you know so my impression is everybody pitches in so but the Animal control officer is the the initiator is the center of the operation
I think so all the more reason what we're talking about and I would agree I mean I've had a couple of incidences within the last six months and you're absolutely right they were fabulous you know the animal
control officer you know was was respond iive and whatever but when when you're talking about the deer for example that is you know right you know God forbid we're the number one state or town in
the in the State uh that deals with this they can only deal with a certain size animal so where does the money come from right so does anyone have you know through I know in my own mind the animal control
definitely was something that stood out for me does anyone have any anything else on any of the other budgets that that stood out to you is maybe we should add or or maybe we it's there's to should be cut and anything else does
anyone have anything else um yeah I I I think we ought to make sure that we upgrade those uh the building department for Ralph and his assistant so that we get those positions paid and hired right
okay okay well we I would I would agree go ahead go ahead L sorry no I'm I'm I'm I'm sorry it this is kind of convoluted but I I would agree with Duncan that uh the building
department is I I I would think a top priority outside of the uh the school department okay well we're certainly not approving a budget tonight so um you know if anybody through your notes or review of anything comes up with
anything else then um we can certainly factor that in oh go ahead Cindy I just I just wanted to go back to what you were saying about the Animal control officer I would check with the Board of Health again uh this is just me reading between the L
I got the impression that the existing Animal control officer prefers the overtime rather than having the assistant in off hours but that that's me that's reading between the
lines they have not fought for this assistant uh animal control officer they don't seem to have the interest that we do um for that uh for that role um they've given it up easily we put it
in the budget last year it got eliminated uh we're putting it back in the budget again this year um I would check with the Board of Health to see how much and if they truly really want this position added to their to their
staff yep that's a good point I will um I don't want to read between the lines either but um yeah and that's not based on anything anyone has said to me or anything that's just the impression that I got yeah I i' I've had some con
conversations kind of a little bit of the opposite that the person is dying for some help um but you know because one person can only as much as someone may want overtime but there's only so much you
can do 247 and it becomes a burden that you know you want to live your life too and not be on call or working all the time so um overtime is nice but having a quality of life is also nice um okay well we'll uh we're not
certainly not approving the budget tonight as Jim had mentioned there's a couple more numbers that are still straggling in and so um I'll I'll put something together after I speak with the uh chair of the Board of Health and
um I'll put we'll I'll put some placeholders then we can discuss it further so we've got time okay uh if nothing else on that we can move on to our next topic would be any any lay assign or or committee uh
discussions does anyone have anything to add the only thing I'd add which is nothing of any importance you all may have gotten a copy of invoices from clous or Kurt or somebody or other that was has been paid apparently Motorola at
several different places you have to contact I talk to Chris Don he said basically it's not it's been done it's not a problem it was they didn't know where to send whatever they send thank you I thought it was spam so I was totally ignoring it not opening up any attachment or anything thought it
was to but I said I asked about it said he identified it and said it's okay all right thank you been paid Nicole we check with Nicole gotcha perfect Cindy go ahead uh so just on the liaison uh front
um the audit report was just received uh yesterday today uh the audit committee will be meeting um hopefully next Monday we're still circulating the memo to see if we can get a quorum of the audit committee for Monday of next week to go
uh over it I have not even opened up the front page yet so uh I'm quite confident that it's uh still very positive and that we're still on the right track for lots of things so uh possibly our next meeting or the meeting after that I'll
be able to report on the um on the audit committee uh since uh Mr Thrasher I don't believe is with us tonight I will also report that there is a meeting of the long-term building committee for next Tuesday I think it's no no no no no not
next Tuesday this Thursday this Thursday uh there's a meeting of the long-term building committee with the group of Architects that have um taken on the task of doing a deep dive of all the town buildings uh and they wanted to
have a meeting to uh discuss some of the Avenues that they will be taking to fill that fill that role and to share the information so once again the next meeting either myself or um Christopher should have something to to uh report
for that great thank you all right so no other uh committee updates well I'll just weigh in very very quickly had a wonderful uh wonderful meetings with the with the fire department uh you know they're they're
right on time and task and uh uh the request at cipc for new new fire truck is in my opinion well overdue 31-year truck uh that was a hand me down
to Westport is it you know is you know needs to be done I would I would also just like to say that I excuse me got a u um you know an email or a text from
Chris gonzal you know begging for a the the uh a truck uh $160,000 through cipc I'm not sure that that's going to work this year but it should work next
year and um uh so anyway that that was about it the the rest of it Treasurer and assessors and whatever they're they're pretty self-contained and and doing a great job with the budget that they have
great thank you thank you for that all right so we will move on to the next item on the agenda was to approve the minutes I'd like to hold on those and this is my fault because the January seventh minutes I wanted to update a little bit um and I never got to those
um I think um and they're very nicely detailed and I my concern is they're just a a little too conversational and I'd like to just tone them down just a little bit um the minutes you know don't necessarily need to discuss everything
that we discuss and especially we're there's so many numbers that are discussed in there that um I was getting confused myself reading the the paragraph so I'd like to kind of scale that down so if we can hold on approving the minutes and I hope to next time um
make my comments on those Kon I agree one of my favorite passages in minutes is discussion ensu yeah exactly right so exactly we need to you know you need to give a a a concept of the discussion but
not a word for word discussion and you can say see attached you know a budget is attached kind of thing right so not not necessarily thank you one of one one of my grandfather's favorite lines was he was never sorry for something he did
not say exactly and you know the we're being recorded So them you know if anybody wants anything this is this is you know a public uh recording too so the minutes aren't Karen Al Al will will kind of
attest to this as well on the Historical Society we have been trying out um the uh AI using uh for minute taking so when you have a zoom meeting like this it will identify every person by their tag
you know on their um on their ID on on zoom and if you hit record with AI it will spit out a summary and a full verbatim detail oh yeah of of the whole
meeting and it will give you a action and it's sorry Cindy but an action report which I think is fabulous right at the end it will summarize what needs to be done next and what the you know what the committee has has agreed to and
so we're we're kind of testing it on the Historical Society to see um you know see how well it's a little bit difficult when you have a hybrid meeting because it it doesn't know people that are not in the room you know so if you're
speaking through someone else's ID um you know it will show up a little bit differently but that's where a human body comes in and is able to adjust those it doesn't eliminate the need to have still you know a human person uh
monitoring it and taking notes but it's a good way to take care of a lot of the the heavy lifting if you will and and then a human can go in and finesse it and make sure that it's done the way you kind of want it to be done I'm not
suggesting that we would necessarily use it for for this format but it's something we're using in the um historical society and maybe as it gets refined a little bit it may become more and more useful yeah that's great that's great I look forward to seeing how that
works for you oh it's fabulous it really is and and I I'll give a shout out to Cindy's husband because he was the one that that uh that initially uh you know identified it me
mentioned it yeah he uses it for his Bo he's on the board of um public radio station and they use it for that purpose and but he still goes in and you know but fixes it up and you know polishes it but it uh it's a real
timesaver that you don't have to worry oh did I miss that everybody zones out right everybody zones out in a meeting and go oh what just happened and you know we have recordings but anyway that was a few minutes of non-finance that's a great I mean it's
great to have the complete complete history it's easier to just remove paragraphs than having to write them so that's a lot easier yeah thank you for that so we'll um so that's so I again we'll hold on the minutes and then I'll try to kind of help just soften
them just a little bit and then we'll approve them next round um the next item on the agenda was just um just an update to the members where we should have all received uh our annual Massachusetts conflict of
interest training so I just want to make sure that everyone's getting those because every year we have to do something right so every year it's either the full training or it's the summary one so um just want to make sure everyone's getting it I I did my my
training I forwarded it to Denise who's the admin for it so she's got it for my record so I just wanted to just make sure we're all on track and doing that and if you haven't please do that's all I had to say on that um um I
have no correspondence to discuss um topics for next meeting I think that will be the budget in the warrant articles uh if anybody has anything else we can let me know when does everyone like to meet
next do you want to take next week off and meet in two weeks what's what's the pleasure of of the committee well the warrant won't be closed and we won't get official warrant closing until March 10th
right right so um that's two weeks from now right well we certainly the the warrant as it stands now is semifinal right um something else too many there aren't too
many Financial articles in there there's really nothing right nothing that's going be any of any significant consequence certainly for us right right so we're um so we'd be able to as long as we can get presentation scheduled we
in theory could do it in one in one meeting for us if we could get everyone on the same page but you're right there's not there's not a lot of complex Financial articles at all we already talked about the first one the capital Improvement one tonight so we've already
hit that one the the scheduling but I'm have other commitments on the 18th won be available but otherwise so maybe we should have our regular I'm going to pull up my calendar here so today's the 25th so we could
skip the fourth and do the 11th yeah I think Z was gonna say something oh go ahead Zach no I was just saying I'm in part for for either one of those dates okay how about the 11th I think the 11th
is good for me because that gives us a lot of things will firm up between now and then we and then I can try to get any warrant article scheduled for the 11th so any other presentations I could try to start to line up so yeah 11th is fine with me okay
great yeah yeah that works for me um but by the way uh Jim had mentioned this in theel the select board meeting last night and that was that diamond has still not submitted their uh budget request for
next year but he's under the impression that it it may be flat to up just a little bit so they're not anticipating any significant so I I I don't recall what's in his budget but I don't think it's a very big
increase and he doesn't expect it to go up from what he's budgeting Cindy I remember Jim saying that he thought maybe the estim was a little ey right so um so does that um do we not want the
representative from Diamond to come in this year Duncan can you mute your yeah mute your line please got a l thank you um do we do we not want the representative from uh Diamond to come
in I'm sorry what was that Al I said do does it really matter no I mean it doesn't really matter it is what it is right okay I haven't scheduled them so that
that's fine okay that's it for me thank you okay so next meeting is March 11th I have nothing else uh does anyone have anything else to add no if not byebye oh motion motion to
adjourn all right and we get a second on that I'm sure second yes we do terrific all right Hugh here more than I Le L Al Le is I Zack Zack Leu I Duncan Duncan lot I
Cindy Cindy Brown I and Karen r i good night everyone thank you so much