welcome all to the 2026 budget meeting finance committee um as you can see we have an agenda in front of us um and we'll be touching on that shortly prior to doing that because we have to do we have to vote on both the chairperson and the vice chair which we have to do every year uh but prior to that we have a number of you know this is relative new
group now and uh we we should all you know give a little background as to uh who we are where we live in town and uh so I'll stop just as uh because I'm already talking so um so talking so my name is Paul Ana and I've uh right now I am the chair of this committee um I've been I live up on Weber Road West L we I um and we've
been here since 1983 they'll make me do the math but uh we've been here for a while and um I've been on this committee two separate times uh total years probably somewhere in the High Teens to low 20s so I don't want to do that math either um so um I've seen um a lot of issues come and go um across the board so
that's kind of U it's kind of me in a nutshell married my wife Moren and I we're there we have three children they're all out with three grandchildren and uh we're still having fun okay so who wants to go next I'm JD Ross I live uh stay Road weightly married two young children L the school system I'm a builder also on a planning organ okay I'm Ruth Ley I live on longan
road and I've been here since 1987 except the land that I'm on has been in the family since 1945 okay I'm a retired medical records director um have two associate degree business management and medical assisting I have four children five grandchildren and three great grandchildren you nice and uh this
is my first term on this committee I was on the Council of ping for a while until I felt that I wasn't progressing but we needed to be done so and I'm also a 40-year member of the range president 17 years as president all right thank you I'm Paul I live on Conway Road in West
wle and uh see this is my second year on finance committee I've been on the select board and school board and the energy committee and some other committees I'm sure track and uh have a degree in mechanical engineering and public policy among other things so to and I have two children one lives in Africa and one lives in Northampton I see the one in Northampton
moride and I have H one and a half grandchildren congratulations in the oven okay we're talking to how far west he is also we have to be worried about Paul's M he's kind of have kids I'm Jerry Lem I live on r o Lane up
the up the street been here for uh four years my wife want me to point out publicly that she was born and raised in Sunderland so she's really a native and I'm just a little bit of a transplant um my background is real estate uh Asset Management I did that about five years ago and then I started doing a little bit of Consulting for former clients in mine running bigger part of the communi
glad to be on the committee thank you Julia bman I my husband I moved here in 2001 uh prior to that I was in University Administration since I've been here I started friend the wle library and I'm was a found am a founding board member oh I have two girls
and full that counts um I neglected to say I was uh I am retired have been retired for 12 13 years now hard to believe it it it's unbelievable prior to that feels good oh well you know I get better all the time at being retired but I have less time I have less time all the time and that's so prior to that I worked in the pharmaceutical IND district and uh um 30
years U brought me here okay all right so the next uh item on the agenda is that as I said at the opening uh we have to um vote on a chairperson and a vice chairperson and we will process this first the chair will be first um and first we will take we have to have nominations
those individuals who are nominated will be asked if they would accept then we will vote and that will be done for both both the chair and the vice chair so I'm going to chair it over Peter so I will take any anyone wants to make a motion to nominate a fellow Finance Committee Member as chair this coming year I'll make a motion to nominate Paul
an as the chairman just because he has experience in Municipal Finance to make us grasp it right now I just don't think that I have thee for second I will accept other before we vote just out of curiosity is there anybody else that wants to make any other nominations okay then seeing none we'll take a roll call vote on the nomination for Paul as
chair okay yes yes Cherry yes yes yes yes it's unanimous congratulations thank you I feel honored retired and honor retired it's a good combo I'll now take a motion for nomination of the vice chair for the white committee for this calendar year I would like to nominate Paul nulan
CH I second that nomination how would you accept I suppose yes so eager well I can't say I'm eager but I I feel a civic duty that you I think your experience slightly much understanding of munal Finance okay we'll do a roll call then yes
yes yes yes yes yeah that's Sor remember we went to a uh we went to Historical Society meeting was you and I in all and used to be the anyway there were
three of us very okay so um we move now everybody yes Paul flal right um he's a great guy um so agender agenda on the second on the agenda we review and vote to approve meeting minutes from October 16th 2024
has everyone had a chance to um take a look at the minutes yes okay um I make a motion to appr second second okay we will then take a vote we will start with um Ruth you weren't here for that so you will have to abstain that um
JD yes yes okay yes yes yes yes okay is Dan just absent there when do we do the represent all the Comm you are prob we get step back what
otheres are there well we have the Personnel committee we got Dan that's on the um Capital planning committee um I don't know if there's another committee that c CBC CBC is that the community well I was surprised to see there wasn't anyone from the finance committee let me let me look at the membership before we decide that it
should happen here's the thing with the community preservation no they have their they don't fund is separate you know so um they don't even need us to review their their Finance so it's just personel CPC see yeah
are yeah we did that the last meeting because meeting already do [Music] we anybody want to make a nomination whether we want to well we did just do those in December right well at least Personnel do we need to do we want to take up cipc representation Dan's been doing it Dan was there for the first meeting we have another meeting next so we're already in
midle of it Dan's been doing it for a very long time so I think we should keep that place I have interest in that committee but when is done okay well just in the planning board we always at the end of our meeting we talk about what happens representes to other committees a quick more recap that okay so like however you do as the chair be like ask what what's what's
going so we know as there representes the rest board knows going I can add that as the standard agenda forward that we won't Grant does that over because I'm on the 35 committee and
any questions before we roll on to item three the quick background on this is we are part of the regional animal control program through the frankon county sheriff's office when the assessment was budgeted last spring um it was an estimate and when we enter the program
we essentially were entering in with a $65 deficit on what we had budgeted so uh this is a request to uh transfer $65 out of the reserve fund into the uh animal control officer item make up that Gap we do have just so you're aware we do have numbers for the next year of the program but thankfully if anything that one will go down it won't go high so well that's okay
we any questions regarding this transfer or comments could I ask a question absolutely um how much money is there in the reserve f i don't believe you've done F transfer we're going to at special town meeting but instead care from fre
standard what do we have in free cash right now be coming in that but almost a million n a good position could take a donation if anybody wants to
see that seven digits I think the next item will frude with that come back and edit that okay um let's do we have a motion I so move that we transfer $65 second all those in favor we have to go by person by person okay Ruth Ruth yes yes yes yes yes
yes at the end of the meeting I'll just ask everybody to sign it but otherwise all sign okay um four Rie discuss and vote on drafted fraud policy okay this came up during the audit process just ensuring that we have various policies and in place for our
finance uh for our financial management one that we had found we were we did not was an official fraud policy so this uh policy was put together based on I want to say deer field it's a nearby or it's a standard um structuring policy the finance committee certainly is welcome to discuss it today you don't have to vote on it today or if you've already reviewed it and you want to vote on it certainly we do that we do not
have to do an actual reading of the policy do we have any are there any financial implications for adopting poliy as in a cost no no this is just a way to ensure that we have proper checks and within our treasury that we sure that we know good yeah yeah most of this um contains to obviously H at fraud cash
purchasing all that but um there is in here um misrepresentation of information on documents intentional F on the first first page intentional failure to provide product or services that are a part of your job um I I think that's pretty wide the answer that's a kind of a broad um Spectrum um and my and the reason I
bring this up is because um the bylaws of the town where are they the CLI right y are they online yet we have to wait for the AG's approval on the cocation that we did that special town meeting until the AG approves of that we can't lead the cify by laws okay so I was just wondering if something should be in here regarding adherence To Town by was I
don't know if that's um well this is about fraud policy so unless the bylaws specifically did if someone isn't following bylaw of the town it's a fraudulent act against oh you're saying that thing in relation to this intentional failure provide product Services it's anybody that has the ability to sign off on our our expenses so boards certainly have the ability to
sign off on any expense out of their budg so yes staff for boards or um like our water department yeah it was just a comment and yeah I think it'd be a good idea to bring this back up at another meeting when everyone's had a chance to make digest what's in here and uh then we can move on from there yes just basically add impacted by Town
bylaws to the end of that sentence that would allow inclusion right as as required by Town bylaw or I had a question on number five section five the Town Administrator and select board shall discuss financial statements and audits on an annual basis and to me if you were wanting to really understand locate potential fraud through what's happening
with the financial statements Etc you meet on a more regular basis at least quarterly if not a monthly discussion and I think it would also be helpful to have some fincom participation in that process yeah it pleas oh one other question last page the mandatory annual vacation to all
employees at the to I'm not sure what that's doing inside a fraud document yeah I did one to that and I wondered if it's because to give people a break but how does it impact what or have any relevance to it it doesn't no well so the reason for vacations is because you as human being you need the break and if you don't have that break
you could be error PR so if you're error PR are you possibly going to make an an error in relation to our in that's kind of what I that me but also what happens with Town employees do they have to take that appication that year or can they build it up over seriously you can only roll over one week so depending on what your aot is if you if you don't take it you
lose it you over do they get paid for it if you l i mean I do think it's good for people to take that yeah agreed I just I couldn't make the connection but that's an interesting explanation yeah maybe there should be some clarification of that well that's why the the workers law the state law or fulltime employees
dictates time off whether that be La rates that based on state law so that's from the same underp there is a I thought this dtail with this um point is that there is a bylaw that says all Town employees shall have an annual review written annual review is that a bylaw or are you thinking a Personnel
policy yeah I think it's a bylaw I don't believe so we have it in our Personnel policy I'm not thought I was told it anyway I would think that would be in here but during that review process that um there be discussion with um with the employe regarding vacation regarding um General understanding of the fla policy
no I thought on something that I read somewhere don't ask me where that it said that the PO policy had to be discussed with all yeah because it was right there on the last
page right here okay so you have to all employees should be trained there's a lot of attention given to check fraud is that the only type of fraud that can occur in monetary transactions post to let say online electronic transfers no do they fall category you can have people steal
checks yeah like your tax bill comes in or your dog license somebody theoretically can find creative ways to take a personal check and use it for their own benefit maybe we do a lot of our things for services like that electronically for money going out for money coming in unay is that yes what's what's the deal with is there some sort of protection against
or are they responsible I know that um May uses unipay La any Trader yeah I don't know the ins and outs of that or if there's a a contract that we have with unip pay or something along the lines of that so that's something that we give most certainly it most likely is based on the service provider agreement that we have with the service provider whereas as the entity that cuts the checks were in control of that therefore we we have to have both in receipt and
checks we have to have the Poli because we're the ones handling we're not safegard I see why we should is buyer right because the servicer is providing service but also the liability covering liability is there any use of credit cards only through this online system actually
can we use credit cards on the online system yes yeah there's just that additional isay is there a petty cash account a big one one yours we have one the town treasur is there more than one I prob we only have one I I I'm not unsure I believe we used to have multiples but
Amy had a pull it that me and now we only have the one you have to go to the town Treasurer to get authorization to use that card okay who want that monitors it or makes sure that right or oh that's that's why Amy controls it so when you're going to use it you have to be given what you're going to be using it for if you have a budget that can cover it and then when she gets it she then um when she's paying the the credit card bill we have to she has to itemize it or this amount
is going to come out of X bank account or X bank account x uh fund no way simulating but who who watches her oh the account account does the same thing and then um although the warrant doesn't dictate does it dict does it show it does show where each um vendor invoice and what it's going to be coming out of the the select board does have and reviews those at every meeting
okay okay any further questions or comments right let's move on just real quick what happens with the suggestions and comments they yeah what's the what what do you mean what happens I I asked a question about the select board meetings right sounds like that might be reasonable does that bubbled up to somebody no no so let's I'll let me
handle this you guys threw out a bunch of suggestions nobody said yes let's definitively do that so what we'll do next meeting is I will provide an updated version where they in red text the discussion of the different ideas that were in there I'll put those in in red text we can during that meeting have a discussion and members can decide that edit let's keep with this edit let's go are we just giving a blessing on this yes you're giving a blessing on it it then goes to the select because it is a
policy of the select that's why it's the head y if as a committee we want to make that suggestion we can vote on it at that time what's that any of these suggestions that were made that were made yeah after the after we discuss them at the next meeting yeah if we decide to vote on it so that as a
committee that suggestion moves forward so do it at that time the only document that's going to move forward to the select board is the version that the pcom signs off on at the end okay I want your edits agree to first then that'll be finalized document you'll agree to that document that'll then run the board to find select board to definitively out thank
question no problem happy participate all right um next we shall move on to the U process process um presentation greatly Financial Trends very nice PowerPoint presentation
all right there are about 40 slides I'm going to generally go through these if you have any questions in detail let me know but um otherwise we'll move through these um just have would be interested you don't see I see it not all right so we're going to look at the
revenue and expenditure trends for the coming fiscal year and in order to do that we're going to look at past 10 years there we go all right so to start um we're going to the categories of Revenue we'll be looking at are the tax levy on real estate and personal property state aid local receipts reserves debt and other sources such as grants expenses we'll be looking at our operating expenses and capital expenses
as well as non- capital expenses all of those we control here with the community then there are the state and County charges prior year deficits and allowance for any updats or exemptions so to start let's look at what the revenue Transit been like so local tax if the local tax levy is the funds that are raised through taxation um it's
the largest source of our revenue for the town one of the next larger um sources is state aid this is um provided by the Commonwealth this primarily comes in with Chapter 70 education Aid school choice receiving tuition and unrestricted General government Aid local receipts are those receipts or that come in through such things as fees
BS forfeitures in any of our investments income motor vehicle excise tax rooms and needles taxes and other categories similar to that the Enterprise fund and the uh Community preservation fund are considered local receipts but are separate from the general fund so right now we're going to be just looking at the general fund and then otherwise the all other includes things um like inter account transfers free cash transfers like we we've done at special Town meetings any
receipts Reser reserved for Appropriations um just as as we go through this um it says in FYI the Enterprise fund essentially in this town is the water department so they are separate from our monies and similarly the CBC or the CPA um the community
preservation fund is funded separately as well it's at a 3% uh fee on the tax bills so it's it's not a tax it's a separate fee on top of the tax bills and that goes into similar to the Enterprise fund a very separate fund that has explicit and limited uh rights of use just like the Enterprise fund has very restrictive uses anticipated Revenue by source so again
this is only looking at the um general fund so for fy2 the current fiscal year you can see where the Appropriations or the money is coming from the majority is from the tax levy at 5.1 million just under 800,000 is state aid local receipts is just under 600,000 and then the all other is about 550,000 are these numbers from the audit or somebody projecting P these are all uh
based on the data that we provide to the Department of Labor um that's not right Department of Division of Labor Statistics local local Services yes all the data comes from Department local Services um and it's uh reported you there's a Gateway that you can sign into and you
can access all towns all the that's been submitted there is a few sheets in here as well that P from the DLS cherry sheet as well that's good good information yeah all right so little math here how do we get to the Tex we just the cherry sheet is I can't do it to be honest the cherry sheet what the definition of cherry is is a Char ISS yeah the money that comes
from the state right and you don't know about it until until they approve yeah they've passed their budget budget Which is far in the future after we've done everything the cherry sheet gives us tells us what our limal state aid is going to be state aid and also what we're going to have to pay as well such as like in the school for school choice how much we're going to get in for school choice foring or for sending okay and they're called Cher sheet because they were initially issued on pink paper
oh okay thank you job mrce I was curious the Cherry so how is the tax levy and the tax rate calculated essentially we start with in Step One the total expenses this it comes from our budget process um it's 7.5 million in the current fiscal year we then take from that any of the non-property tax revenue
estimates which was estimated at 2.4 so our tax levy is 5.1 billion you then take that tax levy and divide it by the total assessed value in the community which is 383 million just over that at a factor of 1,000 which will give us a tax rate or gave us a tax rate in the current fiscal year of $13.34 per $1,00 assess value so a
13314 um% TA rate what does that local tax value look like over the history like most things goes up certainly does you can see um there have been the Delta is provided here on this table um the changes over each year sometimes there were uh reductions in the tax levy generally it's been
increases essentially on our ability to how much we can Levy in tax um so over 2024 there was an increase of 4.43% of the tax Lev there's a tremendous amount of confusion about prop two and a half and its impact on Municipal Finance generally speaking prop two and a half limits the amount of new tax dollars that a municipality can raise from year to year so there are it's established in
two different types of ly limit Levy limits the first being that the community cannot Levy more than 2 and a half% of the total full and fair cash value of all taxable real estate and personal property in the community that's your ceiling the second is the community's levy is also then constrained in that it can only increase by a certain amount from year to year and that's your limit when we look at what what we the levy is
essentially the amount of the that the community can raise through its property tax that Levy can be any amount up to the levy limit but what's the levy limit the levy limit is the maximum that you can Levy in a given year that's based on the previous year's limit plus a certain allowable increase that ceiling then looks at that maximum ly limit that can be that that can and that ceiling will then equal 2 and
half% of the community's full unfair cash value so the levy limit can only increase up to the levy ceiling and the levy can only increase to the levy limit and those allowable increases are defined as what what do you mean certain allowable increases is there any least an now will increases if there's new
property that's a separate C is being way it's not it's new grow yeah New Growth yeah which is like where you're getting your instruction permit fees new hous that yeah oh old feeds more than more than new buildings being built and taxes from those buildings that's where the assessed value and the total value of real property comes in so what we're looking at uh here is at the L ceiling it looks at the
community's full and fair cash value that's based on the real estate valuation based on property improvements is whatnot but we consider New Growth are as dollars that are coming in that weren't anticipated um because it's based on like buits that are done for primarily building constuction so our tax rate keeps going down because the value of the property keeps going correct that's right so when my neighbor complains I just got reassessed I got my
tax bill 6% tax because evalu right but it's it's not that everybody's would go up 2 and a half% it's the fact that one property obviously had an increasing value where another one may have had a reduction in value and therefore the impact is
different but it's equalized over the entirety the whole Community some people are going to see bigger increases in other Bas value the property friends assess getting lit up right now yeah I bet also it to be pointed out I think the real property is the same as private property or or real estate real estate as opposed to personal property which is stuff you've got right worth something besides land in your house not calls
yeah ex so then did you have another question okay um in order to calculate the levy limit for this current FAL year um we looked at the levy limit from FY 2024 and that was just over 6 million there was no Amendment to the growth so
we then add that number or we multiply that by the 2 and a half% that gets us 151,000 a change we then add the New Growth from FY 25 which was 126,000 change any other New Growth adjustments there were not any adjustments we did not do an override so there's a zero value there that subtotal with the levy limit and that 2 and a half as well as the new growth allowance meant that the subtotal was 6.3 million
with the total Lev ceiling coming from where did that number come from it's a three million difference that's a sum of that's the valuation of the all the real yes on the next page on page 11 well let's finish here yeah but I do have a question because on the next page it says New Growth is
118,000 but it isn't on the ship amended new grow I think it's probably just a type of it might be a type out yeah yeah but then doesn't that make a difference to this sub to at the bottom no this total the table is correct that
graph don't confuse that that's the where the table is oh oh I we just make the line longer yeah between 120 and 130 so from that first calculation it was a $6.3 million Levy limit on the current fiscal year which now gives us the ability to calculate the levy limit for this coming fiscal year so we take that 6 6.3 million we look at and we do the
2.5% on top of that 6.3 which gets us 158,000 we did not estimate um New Growth or an override so that leaves us at a 6.5 million subtotal um and that will now give us the ability in the coming year to set the next L limit we have for the um rate the tax rate setting
so certified New Growth this is what has been certified by BLS so that might be where the the other there might be the discrepancy is one was in the estimation but this is a certified growth um as you can see the certified New Growth does get very cyclical um there over the previous what four years there was a reduction our new growth dollars were reducing and then we had a
sizable increase this in 2025 um what caused that it's so new growth is those like permits licenses a lot of the fees uh also registering we had a lot of Motor Vehicles get registered for some reason this past year which also new is also new property tax that I'm not talking about possible I
so good point it's gon new res GNA dwindle building Oh you mean the construction permits at Norse all building permit fees are grow fees yes so they would have yeah and there's there's still more at home yeah I'm on
the fccp rep for Town last week and it's County Coop inspection program that's oh yeah sure and it's it's trending right now that
we're slightly above we so continuing on with the prop two and a half um when can municipality assess taxes in excess of its Levy limit you can do it through an override um when an override is pass the levy limit for the year is calculated by including the amount of the override the override results a permanent increase in the ly limit of a community because remember when you're always looking at the ly for the next year it's based on the previous year's ly limit so if you do an override
you suddenly push the community ly limit and that stays permanent uh so that'll increase based on the 2 and a half% an override cannot exceed a community's lucky ceiling however uh the debt exclusion or debt outlay expenditure exclusion uh means that the community can assess taxes in excess of its Levy limit or the levy ceiling for payment for certain capital projects or for the payment of specified Debt Service cost so um if there's an additional amount
for their payment of Debt Service it's added to the levy limit or the levy cealing for the life of that debt only the additional amount of the payment of the capital project cost is added to the levy limit or the levy cealing only for the year in which the project is being undertaken so in those very specific capital or debt uh serviceing you can increase but it does not uh permanently this how paid for by DRS Municipal vehicles um you know this
is kind of the route that we take unlike I just that not part of the future years um this chart I don't where you this is 13 oh we're getting there oh sorry I thought we're so up here you can see what we're on yeah yeah so I don't understand those two columns what's the
column on the left column on the right okay so um to start with this is the local tax levy so it's looking at the excess Levy capacity versus the total value so on the left half hand side is your excess Levy capacity those are the values for the excess Levy capacity and they are the um the columns shown on it and then on the right hand side the value there is your total value and that's the line the Greek line so it
shows you a comparison of the excess Levy capacity against the total value um in the community also tell that by the table here the table here shows you accesses these smaller six digits whereas these are much larger numbers so I don't understand how you get this determine this excess to that that's the difference between the ly limit and the levy ceiling okay it's the
capacity way that you have in order to go and make those adjustments you can the canot essentially it's good to have it is very good to have when we look at this same value though for our the surrounding community so this uh uh this slide here shows you weightly in comparison to Conway Deerfield suland
Williamsburg field um weightly is weatley and Conway tend to have good solid excess Levy capacity um and that's been true for the past three years yeah yeah if you look at deer field you can see where they are there's well they have a lot of projects going on you know the um water filtration
a lot of stuff going on so so everything has to be an override correct that's whyi has done number of overs because they don't have the capacity we have a big shock absorber what the big shock of the sword that's what it's showing yeah exactly get the Mone so now look at that tax levy let's look specifically at the tax rate this
kind of what JD alluded to earlier you can see the graph here showing the changes in the tax rate in the community and over the past three years the tax rate has gone down but the reason why it's gone down is because the asss value is actually going up so it allows us to adjust the rate um in comparison to the valuation the Low Land and property so the tax rate is the same from private individual as it is for businesses correct we have a
plat jul that V on every year by the SL and they have a meeting to talk about if they're split the tax it's every December that's when you set the rate and whether you're going to yeah split it or keep it we recommend right for the select board yes we didn't this year we we didn't this year last year we did oh and we recommended that it would stay uh black only because only
because so many small businesses in town individuals live in town and the the the real dollars are for the larger corporations and and you can't split those two factors and so um you know why penalize the you know the business in town um trying to
access monies from the large corporations I didn't see much of a tradeoff yeah and um we have what new Pro and Yankee Candle and the brire gas tax yeah but to get a few extra dollars out of them hot all of the little companies stuck to it to get a few doar y candle it's not it's not a path to go
down way to make creds no well I also I think the other counts have Williamsburg I'm not positive possible but um because I I'm not sure this we're looking at the next room um this tax rate this is as reported from DLS but some of these could be the could have been averaged
but this this slide does show you what our tax what the tax rates are in comparison um between those six communities over the past three years um and you can see weight Lea for the most part is in the Middle Ground um we compare against the all six yeah I think you know between the two factors of you know what our capacity is and what our rate is um it's
very attractive um financial situation compar yeah the other Factor that's at play there is the operating expenses which we're about to do 26 that's a big piece then the non-property tax revenues and how much you might be able to where you might be able to increase that number in addition to get more
commercials JD start to for you know on AG 35 it all plays together so the next step that we like to look at is what has been the history of the average single family tax bill this a general a standard um metric that's used to really understand because of the fact that the majority of the property of the land in the town is either but as far asol land it
is so you can see here it has consistently increased again this is primarily due to the fact that the valuation has gone up although the tax rate goes down but it's directly reflective of as Jerry just mentioned it's all based off of the operating budget and as the operating budget increases it means that the amount that we have to raise appropriate through taxation yeah it would be interesting to know what the medium
tax are we missing pages or just number on the back there it's two-sided I know but like and there's two slides to a page that's why okay where page between 24 and 25 you went up less than 2% on average single family p bu it's pretty good it is pretty
good but it would be interesed know where the me is yeah is that possible to find that me was not provided or yeah was not provided by DLS DLS be average you can ask yeah if they have the data it's not in their dashboard essentially it's the average that the gave right so I'm sure retire um so the average single family
tax bill when you look at the surrounding communities weightly with those five of the communities you can see here again the weightly is basically in the middle um comparison uh Sunderland being traditionally on the lower end with um Williamsburg and yeah Williamsburg and Conway being on the high
another Revenue Source outside of taxing is state aid so this graph shows you how much weight Le has received in state aid over the past 10 years um it has pretty consistently though there were some dips during the pandemic um been increasing uh so in the past 3 years 23 to 25 has uh been increasing St and this current fiscal year the state aid was
$787,000 is that what was that to you to we had a new government right in3 yeah was it 23 24 no last year no it was before that yeah it was 22 but this number could be impacted for like today the billion liability of Employment Insurance brought it's now due back to the
feds Mari going to have to pay that tax so it'll be interesting to see how that kind this Peres also Julie I think people are paying a lot more to income tax because people are making a lot work yeah that's true that's right and this is mostly Chapter 70 mostly Chapter 70 educ education another source of State Aid or specific category of state aid is the unrestricted General government Aid um
this also hasely been increasing uh the estimate right now for the current dis year is 165,000 chapter 78 which is the largest portion of our state aid um has also been increasing there was a significant jump from 23 to 24 and then they had a slight increase again into
25 school choice tuition so that's where um when we have students come into our school district because of school choice you're receiving funds you're the community that's sending them into the the district has to pay but then when weightly residents go outside of the school district it's ascending cost so that here you can see the increases and decreases of receiving right now um when
we look at 2025 versus 2016 it is a little bit lower but we've had dips however it did recover after the pandemic um we did I mean most a lot of communities during the pandemic saw public enrollment drop and the students go out to Charter School so then they weren't receiving uh choice because they were outside of public school the public system in general is this the elementary
school or did Elementary Tech and the regional so if our students element it's Elementary but I we're not we're paying into the FR Regional separate from a school choice that that would be if weight Le thought was going to have that considered which you said General
um um back to the previous page um with the amount of do you see that that going down this year you think it's going to stay up I I think everybody doesn't know right now because all of the dollars are direct buing of federal funding so we could cut yeah I don't
know Peter you said um in the district so my son goes to school South Deerfield Elementary we sending funds to not as part of school choice now because you're a part of the frontier Regional District when move on to that level you're in the district so when we take a sundland kid in the weightly school system we're not receiving Monday money from sundland to educate that kid only if they were going into elementary elementary school yes then that's school
choice so my son went as he second grade if you went to Deerfield we would pay in the elementary level yes okay and then according to the school committee meeting last year Darius said that our enrollment is going down as population's going down that's why we're seeing these numbers go down well it's Al it's also um you know a a a factor of you know the
quality of the education too um where you have the differential between coming and kids coming in versus kids going out um you know if parents feel that quality of the education isn't what it should be then they're going to try to put their child in another school and uh you know in the end you pay for it so question about the uh make up of state A
that's primarily from income taxes Massachusetts correct State revenues are function most that be the source state income tax as opposed to Federal funding of any sort I'm sure we got the state funding yeah I can't I don't know the answer is school choice sending a child to the
Tactical school no because that's in our budget it's separate there a separate line item but we're budgeting for that we a kids go that budget is based on how many students we are putting based on the involvement year but it's not a school choice school choice is separate from that it's when you're sending the student outside of what we budget for and we are ass okay uh in that school choice sending you can see historically we've been
going down there are fewer students are being um resident weightly residents that are going outside of the the school district Charter School tuition again it's very similar it's how many students are in the charter school and you get reimburse for it versus how many students are being sent and we then have to pay into the charter school um so there's a very small amount um as far as reimbursement
I have a CH so must be within the district itself do you know how much it is per student so we don't know how many students are actually going to no um you can get that number you prob yeah um and at least again you can kind of see where it was the charter school sending was high during the pandemic but it has dropped off um
since kind of getting out of period actual local receipts so this is all income um that the town is receiving through fees and whatnot uh you can see here that it has been historically increasing with a sizable increase from 23 to 24 going from 686,000 to 94,000 and is that a one time event
something drove then not a one time it's just that was what we were talking about with the all the building permit fees the registration fees yeah for some reason just a good growth here but we didn't have one major project other than orse um nurse sorry other than nurse um there's no real other maor I guess that should be acknowledged that's probably major pretty major it is
pretty major and will be pretty major for a number of years the other thing that's not well it's facted in here but you know we always thought that the Cannabis um Outlets we're going to propop the town up but that's really hasn't they do make they are a portion of it and um it's in there but it's yeah it's not it's more of a there like one shop
that's of retail is that yeah but there's nobody growing oh no no we have but they that's that's like a wholesale yeah and we only get a percentage of I guess what they sell yeah I'm not sure what the percentage Yeah there is potential for a second retailer but we do actually have three conservators
orators this slide here breaks down exactly where those local receipts are coming from in this last fiscal year in 24 you can see a majority of that came from the motor vehicle excise taxes um then there were other excise tax penalties Pilots Solid Waste fees other fees licensing and permits findes and forfeitures the investment income from the town and then miscellaneous
nonrecurring though it's most of these are really non recurring fees but and is that investment income free cash sitting in a money market account where's that investiga I know it's um Amy that was one time and uh she can tell us again CU she'll be back in here
um and the schools will be in so you could ask any question you'd like you know enrollment um sending CH of kids what there discussion about presentation meeting that people are paying excise tax weight Le because they had the wrong oh the postal they progress we're not losing we we yeah we've been correcting those as
they get identified okay but it is it does create confusion but yeah that's why they want table right now yeah and all other Revenue um this you can see has been pretty stagnant other than in the 2018 year um and 2019 was still a sizable
amount I cannot give you detail exactly what's in all the r other than it's a pretty steady Source do people write do we have someone who's writing grants yes because there was someone and they left my have which grants does fall under all of the revenue that is one of the categories thank you for bringing that up
yes some of those grants just to make sure that we're all we understand some of them are grants where they're just receiving money and a lot of them are reimbursement Grant we'll get the money but we have to first um in the end though it's it is money that does help fund us um and we don't have to create appropriate in order to do it other sometimes there isn't B requirement but has to be yeah I just do those SPS coming back just go to
the general funds no we have a special um like the minits for the elementary school we going get rebate back oh that's different do that that's a rebate as opposed to a reimbursement okay the reimbursement is one thing that's the granter or sending us the money based on the receipt a rebate however has to go back into the original source and so it depends on where that Capital fund was appropriated so like the mini splits that were recently done
at the weightly elementary school that was funded through arpa so the rebate money had to go back into arpa had it been a capital request based on our operating budget would have gone into the general fund but we did not the many splits through we fund it through cap through AR had go back to ARA so you had to extend all those ARA funds by December 31st so we did so any monies that get reimbursed now the account that we can't spend reimbursed is different you're
talking rebate rebate rebate so we get a rebate from the power company for that it goes to the arpa account we already received our rebate we already re we received it in November we appropriated on one or two phase one we're not paying for phase two out of our okay phase two is being sought as a capital requested coming FES year okay but there is a very different very big difference between reimbursement and reate um we the rebates are based on primarily
utilities so next uh we're going to look at where our expenses are um the history of expenses re rebate is getting something for less than reimbursement that give it all no a reimbursement isue sorry what basically deferred revenue spend the money you're waiting you're waiting to actually for the way that we handle it is there's an article in every annual town meeting
warrant that allows us to have an account or a grant account that can go in the red with the intention of getting once get the calendar year doesn't work for fiscal year then I'm assuming there must be an accounting offset it offsets the free cash so that's where the certified free cash gets impacted if that account but thankfully we have dozens and dozens of reserved and revenue funds that the the negative on
that Grant line item is offset by the other ones so it doesn't have the impact on the brih that and we generally aren thead there because we do try to get those reimbursements expenditures by Source this one is looking at the expenditures that we did in uh the various departments in FY 2024 General government is the largest
at 650,000 police 3 384 excuse me how many police there are three full-time officers in five part time four parttime these questions will be best though during our budget reviews with the different department because I'm not going to have all the details on Department um but you certainly are welcome to ask the department head
during the department budgets fire is 93 um education is actually the largest what's the other Public Safety so other Public Safety is Public Public Health um like Board of Health types no public health is is that the ambulance service the yes Ambulance Service falls under other
Public Safety and animal control is also U other Public Safety good thank you um education does actually make up the primary at 54% um education historically in Massachusetts it will be between 50 and 60 something per so we're on average on the lower end which is good good um let's see the other largest cost here
is the fixed costs which what the fixed costs are I forget what the fix cost retirement or social security or something like that would that insurance yes Insurance yep and I think you are right I think it is benefit yeah though that possibly could come under
services but um so it's pretty H so it must Insurance yeah stuff Insurance oh gosh yeah wait wait till you see it black and white yeah it's going up another 20% whatever you can't do a thing about it no it's just what's the the gun any sense of that yeah it's we have a couple of vehicle
loans exor payment chipper not yet so what about the town H Deb that that should be paid off by now oh yeah I don't yeah so that is not in our line no that's oh Peter you mentioned the education under um was uh not too high not too low on the
low but the question really is is how good is the education for the money and is there are there any metrics that the department State Department of Education puts out it would allow us to compare the quality of our education versus Conway somewh yeah I think that'll be a great question to ask when we bring in the school to present the budget okay well I think part of that that would be an interesting be a lot of money or not enough yeah you know yeah yeah because
all we're showing and all I'm referring to here is the dollar amount in relation to our total expense not the value that [Music] you're so this graph shows you our total expenses but without considering any of the expenditures that come from CPA or the water Enterprise funds um still those total expenses expenditures have
historically been increasing other than we did see some reductions in 2018 and 19 but then it's been increasing again with uh the expenditures in 2024 being 6.1 and from that same number that we just had on the last about two and a qu% between the two years so it's pretty good too so what does the education expenditure look like this is all of our education not just Frontier but the the tech school as well uh so you can see
here that the again it's on typically on it upward trajectory however in 22 and in 24 there were uh dips slight dips so this last year we had less than a quarter of a percent reduction in the total education expense what could you tell me um which school is is it's the wle elementary school Frontier front the middle school
and the high school right and what's the tech school that oh and so that's part of our Network it's where our students can go yeah and we we pay into that it's in the county thank you Smith B has been however we haven't been sing students so it's not zero hour but that was in and I believe it is
still an option we just don't have students that are going yeah yeah because you got school and choice so yeah yeah student wanted to go there they could but apparently the offerings in Franklin is a little better I guess yeah you have to if there's a shop that Franklin Tech doeses not offer does go there but if you want to go through school choice postm try to send like kids try
to choice and to where would that would that Smith school choice a school choice yeah County Tech doesn't offer agriculture so agriculture Smith location doesn't offer
it this graph shows you the total education expenses expenditures for weightly elementary versus the total chapter 78 that we received so you can see the state 8 is the lower line with the expenditures at weightly being the upper line um essentially state aid has from the most part looking at this is pretty level um with there being a slight increase over the years on the
total expenditures for we Elementary fix costs um this also shows you upper trajectory on what we've been spending in fixed costs there was that slight dip in 22 and a dip in 17 but in essentially our fixed cost can we get a rise as uh currently or the last fiscal year it was at 770,000 so that salaries and
wages insurance no insurance not Insurance maybe Insurance uh utilities and no that's out of our operations okay so our general fund Debt Service this is the amount that we're paying for any of the debt costs that we have based on any
borrowing um you can see that typically Le keeps that to a very minimum other than 2017 and that was when we did the town hall um so right now the past two years uh we've had a Debt Service of just under $50,000 and you think that was because of the vehicles that the leases that we have or the loans that we have Vehicles that's the police and the and the highway department I believe those are
the two current vehicles that are in Ed yeah we have that those trucks are getting more more expensive yeah little fire truck yeah let's not talk fire um this slide shows you the history
of the free cash certification over the past 10 years um you can see here historically we've been in the 600,000 of few years in the 700 however this last year we were certified at just under a million dollars so there was that junk H again that's the difference between what we were expending or anticipating to expend and what was um we actually received in income so where does this free cash set
it's obviously in some kind of savings right and that's what we were saying based on the Investments that's where we get investment this is a new this is update correct y the current reash is not on top of anything correct so what are the key takeaways we continue to spend free cash
to reduce our tax lby um in the past few years we've been um question again on that comment on the free cash isn't the free cash last year's Free Cash Plus whatever the town doesn't make it's not a profit correct so that 611 is inside of that 9.99 yeah but the J point is not that we reive 999,000 on top of the previous one
it is the current New Balance thank um but historically um we have done 225 out of free cash in order to offset that tax levy or reduce the tax levy change which we could certainly increase or it's up to the finance committee um you guys recommend that PA what were the limits that you were to keep balance free
cash well last year threshold I mean we were happy with a half a million okay so this is you know far exceeds you know what what we've seen some time so we'll see what it is at the end what needs to be moved in order to you know keep that tax rate stable
departmental budgets are going up we have a littleit and we also want to put ourselves in Jeopardy yeah that's a super healthy position relative to your operating expenses yeah it's close to 20% that FL there's I mean that's the upside the downside of that is when the state looks at the town and looks at the
wealth of the Town it goes into all of their formulas for Aid and everything else so um you know it's a double Ed sort yeah meaning Deerfield could benefit because it doesn't have the pre cash they could yeah they're spending you know they're you know we like we're saving for that rainy day but
um there is a limit to what you can't have in there um there is a I don't know if it's a if it's a dollar limit or if it's a percentage probably percentage that um it's AR range that recommended what you should have in there okay and we used to have that yeah I went attended that training session that you sent around and asked
them this question and they were saying well five to 10% yeah is what they're looking for right okay yeah a lot healthier than 5% well you know when you think about it though that's you know that money those monies you know it's it's nice to have them in there in case you need them but it's also monies that could could be returns to the taxpayer correct in the form of tax
rate so as far as revenue is concerned for this upcoming fiscal year there's two areas that we need to look at um arpa we did receive 458,000 all of those funds have been obligated at by the end of this last fiscal year as required These funds have primarily went to fund many capital projects that otherwise would have been cost from the town budget but just understand this was
a one-time thing so it did help to offset that um we won't while we obligated those funds we don't have to spend them until the end of 26 but a lot of our are been completed and paid for um and then as far as future growth is concerned um JD kind of mentioned this earlier although um we've seen a lot of new growth the opportunities are slowing down based on available land as
well as rising cost for construction so um don't expect to see significant um development especially on the residential side um however the flip side to that is we do see an opportunity at Exit 35 with potential resoning um and that is currently being looked at uh with a study group and then we also are developing the comprehensive plan right now which is the town's master plan that helps to guide um where we want to focus
what we want to put our efforts in and money is protections as well have B I think yes depending on desire but yeah it does oper bring in ort dollar yeah that would be how many
have every every house will have the opport or have the right to it but it's whether they want to do it do they have the land to do it yeah what it's a dollar tomorrow that we didn't have today correct right but you're better play with the exit 35 yes to develop and get some commercial here yeah that would be nice since he started yeah I'm I'm
hoping to get um side tangent but technical assistance grant to help fund the resoning effort or the writing of it so that that way we will then call the study group back together right um FAL year 26 stabilization counts three casat so there are a number of stabilization funds that we have our general stabilization right now is at 388,000 Capital stabilization is 260,000 vehicle 65,000 Town building 95,000 and then the
certified free cash is that $999,000 these stabilization funds are in the monthly budget to actual reports that you are given that you receive and that are on the one drive location so feel free to look at them see all of them but these stabilization are that document and just uh so you do know where all the come from the DLS both the municipal
data bank and the reer finan very good dashboard nice all right thank you very much good job um okay has everyone seen the budget planning schedule did dates that we have so the schedule here anticipates
town meeting being April 29th by our bylaws we're supposed to do it on the last Tuesday of April the select for certainly can move that out further but this anticipates that so what i propos is the finance committee meeting every other week um so starting February 4th we would start having the select board join with the fincom during these the others and that's because we're primarily looking at the operating
budget requests for different departments we will need to decide which departments we should invite for each one I'm not sure if we want to do that as a group or Paul if we want to work with me we can look out what we did in the past and make that decision yeah um the real outlier is school the schools yes kind of have to wait to see go to their meeting last year what you had to go to their meeting last we went to their meeting and that's not going to happen this year okay I I just feel that
and I think if when you think about individuals or departments asking for tax money asking for monies that have come from the residents of the town they should be expected to come before the committee representing the town clearly agree with that uh to ask for those
monies and they should be ready to answer questions from the committee itself and and I just now last year they got now I'll tell you there have been years where we have received the um School budgets the day of our meeting with the schools no chance to review that's not good not no no chance to review it at
all because they are they have to have their budget done 60 days before the first town meeting of the four towns and that used to be Deerfield but Deerfield moved theirs moved their town meeting to I don't know the end of April beginning of May and that gave a little more time and we moved ours till
June can't do that again probably can't do that again but a hot that was a bad yeah the generally speaking the um the educational budgets the school budgets are um it's not a lot you can do with them um they tend not to be that transparent okay um so that's an issue
um but I think that they have to submit their budget and come in here and have a discussion um about the budget itself yeah well can we can can you contact the superintendent and ask that we have the budg by a certain date we have done that in the past and they have said that we
will try um and I know it's the the knee-jerk is to ask the superintendent but the superintendent reports to the school committee so to follow the line of reporting we should always ask the school committee to get to either the superintendent or the principles of the schols to make something happen and
um and because that the superintendent doesn't report to to us the principles of these schools don't report to us they report to the school committee and it's the school committee's responsibility to bring the budget forth to us just how it should be that's why why we elect them that's why we pay them and that's what they need to do so their accountability is only to the voters
that election right the school budget is a bit conc they're cled by un contracts and also the school busing last year was a big issue because the busing Contra up so much and it was competitive but that was expensive but also you have children coming in that need extensive services that you get discriminate for so you might have a school choice kid from an outb Town who sent their kids away Elementary because they've got some developmental disabilities or something
so we bring a kid in with Choice money but we have to have a water one profession for them they require other services that far away the cost of the child coming in and you can't discriminate for that so it all depends on the needs of all the bussiness scho generic student cost us much but another student might cost 10 times as much so are you saying that it's difficult them for them to know who's going to be coming in this is why they leave it so late the principal also knows years
ahead child's getting services at age two and age three they know down the pipeline hey in two years we're going to have a kid that this they should be for that they know this some of the stuff they can't reveal they also priv privacy oh Hipp yeah it's a great Elementary children go there education is excellent so I think we agreed the school district the school should be coming I know Franklin Tech does intend to come um and
they're just waiting for us to decide always yeah the one um that I will say that is asking that they do a regional review is South County South County has asked that the the towns three towns are in um that they come to one each of the community okay so just that might be one where we have to do a special just for that
okay um all right because essentially you know you finance committees are you know we're here because the law says we have to be here the law says we have to put the budget together um and there is no there is no finance committee unless we're all at at a meeting unless it's
been advertised and and so now for a couple people to go to South County meeting that's informational only and in some cases you know that's not what we have to do and that's what we have to do but um okay no I I let's just wait a little bit longer and see if the schools come up with some kind of a date okay okay plug them in first and then we'll plug the other departments in okay what I'll
do is I'll put together some suggestion on what departments for each of these dates and then I'll send it to you and then you can just know yeah um one question I have though is do you want them to or do you want these meetings to be at 5 o'clock or six o'clock six typically they've been at six five okay we can do six o'clock how two hourss keep our fingers CR BR Pizza we
do a good job 530 six 5:30 5:30 you do five well well JD is oh you're working plus the other individuals that we want to come in yeah they all work they all they're all working okay you know so six yeah well I think you should also say what the the finance committee is that we listen to all these departments and we make recommendations
the towns people towns meeting to decide how money is expended in oh oh oh absolutely yeah we don't decide here where someone get we only make yes yes but the uh but you're doing the investigation that's what we but the budget belongs to the finance committee um that's uh that's statute statute says the finance committee develops now we
have to develop it with you know obviously Peter and the select board and um everybody else but um but it again though it is the finance committee that's doing it the select board is there for information gathering but they're also going to have to make their own votes on recommending like so they're going to do separate but you're bin comment like we're don't we will vote separately from select board do we get the budgets from all these
departments before the me they were already do though a number of them I'll you guys a binder so I'll put everything nice binder for you and then as we go any um edit stuff we'll just thr that binder for you we'll hold on to the binders but yeah so one quick question we on school committee if they don't perform to the expectation that you have set can you just say hey you get last year's budget
no increas that's what we're going to did it before I mean was a long time ago but yeah we did it was very contentious meeting uh but you know I mean so the onus is on us to say to the town's people yeah this makes sense this is what we should do go for it and and
in order to do that you have to feel comfortable with that recommendation or you need to be honest with the towns people can town meeting and say we do not have the input that we need to make a valid decision so here's what we've elected to do right here's what's in this budget we had a meeting the people about 20 years 20 years I any was a long time ago and the um the U the school committee presented the budget and they had a
budget and then the superintendent had a budget the superintendent and the school committee didn't didn't agree the school committee thought we were going to go with them because we're all weightly well we didn't we went with the superintendent budget because it fit our dollars made sense yeah so anyway we'll see how that goes I will not be available for the 18th meeting of vacation Can I submit any questions to you sure you yeah
okay okay but based on the schedule we'll be essentially reviewing Department uh operating budget requests for the months of February and March um we will look at Capital project recommendations and any personel recommendations at the end of February and through March and then essentially the idea would be April 1st finance committee can vote on all of the operating budgets the capital
recommendations and any of the miscellaneous Financial warrant articles um like the following week make their own votes so govern can close the warrant on April 8 in time oril should that dat get pushed out say because we do need additional meetings uh to to nail down the Bud the daytown meeting htown meeting has to be based on publishing the war has to be a certain number of days out so we would have to
push that but April 8 I'm going to be away can I Vote intia or a or well April 8 is a when we got M bu do we see what the previous year's budget was so we can see it's on there yeah there's multiple years in there and you'll on what the
Delta what the is and what the Delta is who puts together that information so have you do yeah but it's based on the template where I asked the the Departments to fill in the data pulling that together they fill in the template based on documents that they have correct y does anybody verify that they numbers well we have last yeah you have
last year's num so you can look at the last year's total budget although I will tell you the the line items aren't problematic it's just ensuring that the salary and the general expenses were correct for that budget um how they then utilized it within the general gives us an idea of how we plan for it but we don't actually we off Town me does not vote on that you're only going to spend $300 in dues it's that you're going to spend $50,000 in general total
yeah okay thank you um do I have a all right second all those in favor