let's have a uh let's open up this meeting of the Wley Finance Committee and let's open the meeting with the Wly Select Board okay we're all together we're here and tonight we have an agenda
where we will have the South County Senior Center the Highway Department Police Department and Water Department so without further ado I see that we have some county here jd are you ready i'm good yeah I was
waiting for JD i'm good second have a second okay all those in favor jd hi okay i I He wasn't here he shall abstain i I I
Okay and the select board I move that we approve the meeting minutes all those in favor i I Okay so now let's get into the agenda south County up you don't have Same same
idea i know i know we really should it's okay all the other towns have one but I don't bring over the podium oh no i don't need to stamp today i'm I'm happy sitting it was a very busy day um hello
this is my board's board uh budget meeting in front of all of you folks and like you like I have data as always um one of the uh one of your finance committee members was at our community forum and you asked a really good question pertaining to percentages and
things like that so one of the things that I wanted to share with you as you're looking at our budget and hopefully I know I sent it last minute just handed it to everyone the budget uh or the memo in support of my budget
um just gives you some statistical data as to where we were a couple years ago to where we are now um when we had our community forum we talked about active members where Weightley up until
February of this year um has 59 active members we have about 80 total members but only 59 are truly active regularly coming to center 80 from Wheatly or excuse me 5 there's a total of 80 members from Weightley but about 59 are
truly active um since July 1st of uh 2024 through February 5th of 2025 i did it based on that data there um we've also at the senior center um in the past three years that I've been the
director we went from having about 262 active members to 671 active members now um new members over the last three years we went from 105 individuals over three years to 2019 to 2021 to now uh new um
from 2022 to 25 438 um new members during that time frame 150 of those members live in Sunderland 342 live infield 59 live in Wheatley and 120 live
in surrounding communities um so uh Mr baron had asked a good question about getting monies returned from the other towns for those who participate however our seniors also go senior center hopping so that would kind of be
um ineffective because then they'd be asking for money from us for our seniors going to other centers can I ask a clarifying question sure because my original question was based on the fact that Wheatley has 9% of its population or seniors 9% of
the membership is weighty we're being charged 25% sunderland has 25% of its population or seniors and they have a 25% fee deerfield
has 20% 20 no 50% all the number sounds low n is more than 9% 59 no uh 10% of the weight seniors there are
544 out of 3,027 so 544 of those who reside in weight are older adults 60 and over that was one of the statistics I gave you before but just to let you know for uh for usage
for weight of your members who are active um 447 for current fiscal year 25 out of 39 members who regularly attend they've been 1,243 times
my my question was if I could finish please sure and I understand there's a cost sharing agreement between the three towns and I think Bren has an interesting point should be going out to the other communities but at a minimum I would think you'd spread the burden because
right now if only has 90% of the active members but it's paying for 25% of the cost and this will be really important when we get to the potential loan concept why not reaportion between three towns so that the Deerfield people
pay a little more the Sunderland people pay a little more and and the Wheatly people don't have to pay as much the intermunicipal agreement that was uh formed was created in 2010 uh the board of oversight and myself have been working as to what we're going
to do moving forward so if that concern is your concern you need to share it with your select board because they're the ones who would determine how that would move forward well I'm raising the question for the finance committee but the other question or the other response I have to that is um talking about usage
in comparison to the other the other towns so you have uh for fiscal year 2024 for example you had 36 um active seniors from you know from Wheatley come
1,650 times where the other town um sorry I'm just getting to the information here for the other town's usage there's um you know
sorry for for staff deer or for Deerfield out of they had 246 people come 5,885 times so you could break it down based on usage moving forward however when the IMA was established in 2010
that was not the intent at the time it was to because I'm going to ask you a question you know coming back to a portion percentage-wise for usage does weightly have the separate funding to open their own senior center and offer all the services that we do offer because prior to my coming on board in
2022 um all the towns had a total of active membership of only 242 people um in fiscal 23 we had 17 new members come in from Weight League fiscal 24 new
members and fiscal 25 um 13 i think the more important question and bear with me for just a moment is that Wheatley is subsidizing the surrounding communities relative to
its percentage of active members if that's what the town wants to do that's appropriate can can I address that i'm the um select board member who's on the board of oversight um started a couple of years back um and we inherited this
memorandum of understanding and that's where the 252550 came from it was intended to be simple and it was actually closer to the percentages at that time and so we've been discussing um different changes that we might either make to theou or ultimately to the structure of how the
senior center is should it be should it be its own district should it be a consortium there's some other structures that we're considering that might um might help us moving forward if we were to try to get a loan to try and build a senior center that sort of thing um but
that is one of the things that um I have consistently brought up that what we need to do is something more like the way uh Frontier does it look at a five-year average of membership now the data we have is really only since Jen has been on board one more year and we
will be having fiveyear running averages that we have reliable data for so um this was made the original 50 2525 was made in the absence of better data makes sense and so that yeah it is something that the board of oversight has been
discussing and we're working that into the discussion of how do we change our to get to where we want to be right and I realize it may be some time out but what really caught my attention with that was the presentation on the loan
for the new senior center which is let's call it multi-million dollar yes and 25% means that's a4 million y haircut to your available funds for the town couldn't be more because I don't think
the the loan payment of 3% didn't really make sense to me um so the calc million is probably insufficient before you before you absorb a half a million dollar increase i just putting it out there and it also assumes construction
cost at current level correct which may not be I don't know not a good summary we're not going to touch on but I couldn't find a better form to express my thoughts just to clarify that million dollars is that annual payment over the 20 years annual payment over 20 years
yeah based on the percentages 1 million per year or 1 million per year the appropriate assessment is um for the total amount was around 10 million total not just the way the percentage for Deerfield was over 10
million the proportions percentage based on the current IMA standards would be 25% for Sunderland and for weight so it was three or it was um the $3.75 million or somewhere around there totaling that amount the three the different columns
were the tax assessment based on what that particular detail was on that sheet you folks don't have it it was at the community forum all of that information is going to be up online um I just got back from being on medical leave for six weeks so my apologies that it hasn't
been done sooner but our staff's been doing a great job without me right now so um but I do hear your concerns but I also think that it's a broader discussion and it's it's way above me it's you know all three town select boards getting together and having that
discussion i'm just raising the point yep yeah but 25% of a million dollar per year tab is too point taken and and and probably been discussed a lot in forums that you haven't been Joyce has brought that up many times thank you for giving me the consideration to ask that
question um I also want to share um in addition to what Weightley puts in in Sunderland and Deerfield the Commonwealth of Massachusetts provides us an appropriation or a stipend annual stipent of $15 per
older adult that comes in and totals $45,45 it's based on older adults in each population so we get it based on the statistical data that we shared before there's 3,027 older adults based on the federal census data of 2020 that doesn't get
analyzed again until 2030 because unfortunately everything's based on the federal census not based on your annual town census that gets sent out um so that's in addition to this but that also funds as you may notice um for our
program assistant and our outreach coordinator their full salaries are not listed because the other sheriff's got put out to grants and if you look at the budget uh supporting memo that I handed out before you'll see that I've brought in over $573,000 in grant funds in about three
years um so we've been able to Thank you we've been able to provide digital access to our older adults in all three towns um so the biggest change on the annual budget for 26 is that we're
reallocating the funding uh that had been put aside for the space at the um the church at the um Holy Family Church which was allocated at $14,400 we're reallocating that to supplement
our uh program coordinator's position because we were able to with the grant funding we were able to increase his hours to help support our hybrid programming uh programs to help our older adults who are homebound and those who weren't able to attend in person for
whatever reason if they were traveling or otherwise um so we were able to provide you know funding for him to go from 19 hours a week to 35 hours a week that was done through the approval of the board of oversight which Joyce is the chair of as well as approval for the
Deerfield Select Board just quick question yep how many homebound members do you have right now we had uh 34 older adults participate in the hybrid programming and they are homebound folks they don't drive unless we were to go
and pick them up um but yes so we have 34 and what number would be from Whitney um that I do not know off the top of my head is the hybrid programming we just wrapped up that program the end of day yesterday so that statistical information will be available um within
the next few weeks i'm happy to send that over through Peter if you would like it through that um but our homebound folks you know uh I know there are a few from uh there are there's one couple from uh from Weightley who
doesn't drive anymore a few people from Sunderland i know there's a few people from Deerfield as to more folks in Weightley who participated I'm not 100% sure on the data but I know at least two who did okay thank you you're welcome
um so reallocating that funding in addition um we have exhausted all of our grant opportunities to provide movement classes with the um needs assessment that was conducted in 2021 through 2022 through UMass we found that the majority
of older adults who reside in the three towns were interested in movement classes exercise things along those natures um the grand total of all of our movement classes is a little over $15,000
we added a line item for $3,000 to go towards movement classes because as you know with the economy or federal funding changes currently going on title three grant opportunities um do not look like they're going to be poss possible to
pass fiscal 25 um and we've exhausted all of our grants that we have except for massive motion um and a couple small ones right now as of my most recent correspondent with Rachel Stler this afternoon through Burkcom who
facilitates the mass in motion that right now at this time does not look like it will be affected so we're able to pay for seated dance um drumming with Tara and Tai Chi from those class from those because they're
once a week but the enhanced fitness chair yoga and balance in motion are now going towards a pay per class fund or you know model and we will be charging those outside of the three towns a higher fee than those who reside in the three towns however at this time those
who participate actively in those three classes are just from the three towns that's how we've been keeping it because there is a weight list so we don't um allow those who live outside of the three towns to participate if there is an active weight list we let those who
live in the three towns you know get seniority um so that was added in addition with all of our new members we have increased the cost of our newsletter um it has pretty much almost doubled what we're trying to do to offset that
cost um you know on the on the communities is to ask people to make a donation if they would like their newsletter mailed to them um as you know postage has increased we did do um some costsaving measures by going to mailing
out the newsletter every other month so we do it two months at a time and that's you know we reduce the cost although we do expand the page numbers because we're sending out two months worth of information um the other added cost is
the uh retirement benefit towards um our other two employees and myself my salary is fully covered under this um operations budget and the other half of the other two salaries are provided by
our uh funding the formula fund through the commonwealth as well as our outreach coordinator is also our transportation coordinator driver um so his eight hours a week from his salary gets funded by the a grant that we have co-existing
with the PBTA so um we have funding and There are also going to be um for fiscal 26 the board of oversight will hear about this this Thursday at our meeting uh we got approval through our another grant with MASDOT in the PBTA um to
provide uh support to us uh the PBTA is going to provide us another van to provide transportation for medical appointments and then grant funds will pay for the salary for our for Chris our outreach coordinator to do additional
four hours a week or so estimated for medical appointments to those who can't get over that invisible barrier line um you know to go north or to go south depending on which RTA is covering didn't we buy a gran last year we did that will be delivered in July okay um
unfortunately it may be um mid to end so it's after the fiscal year but that's because of the timeline for they they build it for us and then it's delivered so that money was already appropriated i've been working with with Peter to keep him a prize um so that way but when
we have that we will be having a big celebration so because last year we went up in vehicle maintenance because we had an older van we're doing a lot to but we're going up again because we'll have we'll have we currently still have the 2011 van we're still using we're still
using the vehicle until it gives out on us okay um but the additional $1,000 is to go towards having two vehicles um but the grant that we're getting with the PBTA partnership that's funded in there for maintenance for um detailing and
things like that for that vehicle we will now have three vans but um the 2011 you know it's it's 2025 i think that may have a gone past its usage but we're doing the best with what we have um if
if the mass dod grant is available again in the future we have the option to trade that in to get a new vehicle so then we would have two brand new and then one used from the PBTA how many drivers do you have we have one and then our our program coordinator does drive
and I also drive okay but in the future if we end up getting or going to scale you know with um more advanced more drivers things along those lines then you know we would look at the problem at potentially hiring part-time people but
we're not there yet and um we're hoping that the mass dot programs will still exist um but we you know we're we're keeping the board of oversight apprised of that um and we're considering a volunteer
drivers program but there are pros and cons to that as well they're under 59 yes it's a 14 passenger because otherwise you need a CDL correct y that's this is total to Can you go into a little background on
the increase in the retirement line yes retirement is because our program coordinator is now retiring or it's now getting that benefit that started in July of 2024 he went up to uh sorry I'm
trying to remember what year we're in after Tom was here for six months uh because of the hybrid programming grant we were able to obtain um that additional hours through the approval of the VU and the the Deerfield select board so with that came the increase of
the retirement as well as uh Chris our program our outreach coordinator you know also increased um his hours I believe after a year so in 2023 which would have been um the tail
end of calendar year 23 moving into fiscal 24 so 24 for fiscal 24 the retirement benefit went up slightly because of Chris um the outreach coordinators increase in hours and then for this year it's because um our program coordinator is up to 35 as well
yeah well it doubled from 24 to 25 and then went up 50% again 25 to 26 yeah that's the information that I got um from our town accountant for Deerfield's town accountant um I got the information
from her that makes sense and that's something I believe that the retirement of program sets what sites do you pay for snow removal landscaping sorry what sites do you pay for snow removal landscaping if you
lease space and Yep uh so our leased space in South in in uh Sunderland they provide lawn service but they do not provide plowing so plowing is what we pay for at that space in Sunderland this year we actually used most of our budget
for the month of February because of all the ice um and and that so um the previous year we didn't use as much this year we used slightly more but $1,200 give or take because of how we've been going climate wise it's been a
little warmer but the concern that we have is the ice piece so um they plow but the staff including myself shovels the ramp and shovels the uh the front stairs okay it's It just seems odd to me that we're leasing space the landlord
said "Well the landlord I can pub." That was our agreement they're actually renting it to us under a market rate okay so can I ask a question about food yes um with the pending cuts to various food
programs at the federal level including um SNAP I've been talking to folks at Food Bank of Western folks at the Survival Center about what they're looking at going forward improving security in our area what are you projecting thank you um so
because we partner with the food bank of Western Mass and we also partner with the uh Franklin Area Survival Center who gets their food distribution from the food bank yeah um we're actually looking to see an increase in usage but a decrease in items available we already
started seeing it um earlier this year because certain certain items were no longer becoming available in the past when they've gotten towards the end of their funding year categories um we no longer have like actual meat products they you know put like a meat
substitute where they'll do more of tuna fish if they have that or they'll do more towards beans and things like that which our um our population of older adults that we serve don't usually use we don't offer congregate meals because we don't have a space to do it um we
will utilize like the Polish club for our holiday program our Friendsgiving and we recently we had our St patrick's Day event there um but we're capped at around 100 110 people who go we get a lot more people who are interested in congregate meals who we turn away
regularly um we do offer the grab and go through life path um at our site but you know just like the food bank of western mass and the survival center um it's possible that the funding for um for meals on wheels which is part of the
graband-go program could uh could be reduced or eliminated depending on what the administration on the federal level is doing right so um you know we see an increased need for food support so what we what we may do if we are unable to
obtain items from the food we bank directly we may start you know putting things out to the community um Chief Savine did a stuff the stuff the cruiser event with the elementary school for Thanksgiving the other year and um you know so we had we obtained a lot of
items so we're you know those are things that we could look at expanding on in the future um with Frontier as well but the food need is is going through everyone in our community not just our older adults yeah absolutely um I'd be interested in speaking with you at some
other point about community why it's important sure that would be wonderful because I know that we have an average of 34 to 50 households monthly that we support between the back brown bag program which is the free bag of
groceries that's income guideline based through the food bank of Western Mass it's apply for monthly or they you know they do the income requirements there it's distributed on the first Thursday of every month but then we do food our food popup through the survival Franklin area survival center but that's also a
partnership with the uh the food bank of Western Mass so if they see a decline in availability we're going to be feeling that as well and we're going to see it across schools meals the and the you know but but I want to share with you that um I'm really trying to be forward
thinking looking at where we are not just partnering with the police department and the schools and things like that trying to get you know food drives in but for future planning with whatever space we end up with you know one of the things I really want to focus on is growing our own uh food so that
because we have a lot of gardeners who'd love to volunteer and you know having that ability to utilize um that in our daily food planning but also to provide any extra to those in our community who are in need thank you great little speaking very good thank you um no one
would question the amount of program that wonderful that um that you offer um just so we have the numbers straight and you are requesting from Weekly $53,216
okay let me just Yes I am requesting that amount that So that's an increase of $8,67 per percentage increase of 17.87 yes sir correct if anyone at home who's listening who was unsure those are the
numbers that we're looking at regarding South County Senior Center and those numbers are relative to utilization and as you said we have you have 59 of our
residents attending this center for ongoing usage yes okay thank you you're welcome very much do we have any other questions uh regarding South County i just have
one on the longer spreadsheet sure just trying to understand it um the layout the total appropriated is at half the rate of the total cost and I'm not sure what that why that would be could you tell me what column or which which one
look at 2026 by example it says total appropriated at the bottom is 106k yes 106432 because that's this particular form is Deerfield's form so unfortunately um this is what I use so that 106,000 would be what Deerfield
would be appropriate that might be the answer i wasn't sure no it's it's a good question um I would love to have my own spreadsheet but you know I I don't want to recreate the wheel so I just use it i do use your time to continue that great
program thank you very good okay thank you thank you if anyone has any other questions or wants more information data please don't hesitate to reach out that's the website uh so our we actually have a separate website southcount senior
center.org and we will be putting up the community forum information within the next week that will have the um the breakdown on the cost calculation that your uh here next to you has i'm sorry I don't remember your name his
name is Jerry jerry so u the information Jerry has from the community forum with the breakdown of the cost analysis based on tax ramifications etc so feel free to reach out anytime very good thank you again thank you okay moving right along we
have 6:25 over 10 minutes not bad um we have the highway department and um we have Mr codwell in the room keith how you doing
good for the last time for the last time are you teasing are you teasing us it's not [Laughter] a Okay I got to find this hang on doing
a paper show where 10 10 gotcha okay so um when we look at the uh total needs
of the highway department I'm going to let you go okay um tell us what's going on i will I'll go over down through the sections and I'll touch on the the increases
okay um at this point in time certainly in the the personnel there's nothing then entered there because we're that information is still being worked out with the personnel committee once we have that
information and once once the finance committee and the select board come to an acceptance of what the personnel committee recommend just like in the past that will get plug plugged in at a later time okay so under general
highways there's a small increase of $140 on the uniform and that's based on the the contract the state contract price for the company that provides it
catchbas and cleaning is um a $1,000 increase um which is up from a a request from eight has been 8,000 and I'm requesting 9,000 yeah if you look back to the 23 and 24 lines we've been
spending over 9,000 what's just continues to happen is the hourly expense it's a this this service is provided through our Franklin Regional Council government bid program so the um
county has the same contract price with a company that provides the catch basin cleaning and it's currently at $265 an hour so in a matter of week working five days I'm over $10,000 so I
don't get a lot done um in in that $9,000 one of the things that has been beneficial in reducing the amount of solids that we see is some years ago when the town stopped
using sand on our paved roads we saw a tremendous benefit in that aspect that the catch basins weren't full of sand on a yearly basis so it has allowed us to not have that number even higher if we were still using sand
but that's that um you spray that liquid salt on it this the salt is treated with with a an additive as well mhm yes on other one that is done a big jump
is line painting um same thing in last in 2024 I spent over $13,000 um what's happening there is and I don't know if even if anybody's just gone and
looked at a gallon of paint in a hardware store it's expensive pigment has gone out of this world as far as pricing goes y um so that's the same thing that we deal with painting it's it's had such a major increase in the
last few years um other things that I'm would love to do more of um especially as everybody gets more newer vehicles that have lane departure features in them when we have roads that don't have
fog lines the the white lines on the side and your vehicle starts to stray off the side of the road your lane departure is not going to help you one bit um so we I'd love to be able to do more fog lines than I have in the past but again
um just to give you an idea to do the entire town of our pavement roads our main our main roads which is only 23 miles approximately that we would paint because I don't paint roads like um for
instance Pine Plane Estates where where someone's not traveling at high speeds and and not likely to to run off the road so a lot of our other ones that might be like Clabbert is what they're secondary or or Dickinson Masterson there's a lot of
roads that that are not more like thorough roads that so anyways just to do the the main roads at 23 miles with the center line and the fog line I'd be spending about 39 to 40,000 a year to do
that um which is just a huge amount of money so we try to do the center lines on a on a every other year basis um and trying to keep the cost down and that's why we're still you know asking for the
13,000 for that um and those are the only increases for all of the general highways expenses same thing on page two the the personnel section for winter roads um there be nothing new added there at
this time until that gets taken care of as far as the the general expenses um salt I feel we're good at at 45,000 right now in this current fiscal year I'm sitting at around 41,000 spent to
date and we have a fair fairly good supply that will be carried forward into next year so I'm I don't feel we need to worry about anything there um plow blades I've taken a little bit off um
and the one thing that is really throwing it out of proportion so to speak is at a re at a request of our town um wanting to see The shoveling
contracts for the town buildings in the highway went to roads account previously they were coming out of town town um maintenance town building account so that's skewing that number there a little bit is that also the
reason for the plowing of a town watch that 4K what was that up above there is a plowing town watch yes yes aster is noted that that's because their people are pulled over from
the budget last year's budget they were in a different category yeah got it so again that's use the number it's it was never in in that account before
um and again this is something that our town of county is requesting and I see no reason why one of the things about um this aspect is the the way the contracts are written those contractors
that supply the service are report in question i I'm the one that oversees that for the highway superintendent so that's why she wanted it in that in that budget okay yep on the road
machinery everything is remain the same on to general expenses for the drive maintenance account um the phone was budgeted in the last couple years has not been hitting that
what was appropriated in that section so I've reduced that a little bit moving on to the the tree tree department portion of it um the one thing that I will just make a note of and until the town knows what's
going to happen with the high the tree warden in the future um there is no there has been no salary aspect to this department because it's been incorporated in the highway department
so that may be something that needs to be addressed in the future so that's a when you say it's incorporated and it's not doesn't show on the line item you mean that those expenses were just
absorbed by the department correct the the highway department has been providing all of the labor for tree removal since the last time we had a separate tree warden which has been quite a few years
since there's been a separate tree warden going forward if person who replaces me is not the tree warden and is doing something on their own and they go out that person goes out
marks trees does the hearings cuts trees they're going to be looking for compensation for their hourly timeline unless we build that into the contract well again it's a separate um it is it's a separate appointment
it's not it is not just a I superintendent it's a separate appointment that it's part of is that required by the state yes oh it is okay yeah you It's not an automatic it has to be It has to be a separate appointment that that person has to accept well we
haven't had one for all this time so you've been acting i I accept the position as tree warden as a separate appointment by the select okay can I ask a question in the job description for the new
highway department supervisor is that is that going to be because the tree warden is a separate so it's separate from he going to be asked if he would be willing to take on that oh we can we can certainly ask that yeah but it is a
separate role so he's not into the job description I'm still hoping we can twist his arm to stay on board for the Number three let's see this the the issue with where it was what led up to the fire
department assuming myself becoming the tree warden was at one point in time we had a separate tree warden and when work needed to be done because the highway department had the dump trucks the highway department had the equipment to pick things up and load things and move
things they'd come to us and say "Uh I need to do some work when can you help us out when can you help me out and it ended up basically being a separate tree warden working with the rest of the highway department to do the work and so
there was a time where there was a there was a turnover and that's when I assumed that position but as Pete just said it's a separate decision if we don't know what's going to happen going forward so just be prep I'm saying you have to somewhat be
prepared that it might require a little bit of labor but at the end of the day whether we have a tree warden or we don't have a tree warden when a tree has to come down the tree warden doesn't have a separate
um access to all this equipment it's the town highway department's equipment yes so that tree warden will in effect ask now whether you're here or noting will ask the highway department take that
tree down please right and they can still work with a with an outside contractor to do come in with a big bucket truck like like we're still doing now and that's on here equipment outside contracting is the biggest part $7,500 that's that's already still being done
at the contract basis so that that money the tree warden would have access to right they would go to the highway department and say "I'd like to spend some of that money." And this part you know when when you actually look on the the the expenditure report that the town
accountant has this is a separate account number i bet you okay so it's not it's not even though it's I'm presenting it yep it's a separate account number from all of the other highway department accounts keep that
outside contracting with the furcock that bids it is they they do bid it but so far we've been able to do better than what they Yes that is an option that the town does look at i I I'm on it to keep
an eye on but so you essentially for the town if a tree needs to come down you can make that assessment and say that tree has to come down correct yeah okay
road this is very road actually on the beam property there is a tree that has been trimmed tuned it can't be trimmed anymore it's a big oak tree and it comes out it comes out it's an
ashtree it's an asht tree okay well see that's why we have There you go so is that coming down the last day that we had a contractor in that was the end of the day the next time I bring in a contractor in which
will be before June 30th that'll be the first place we start okay so it was a scenario where at a time you know we a day a day ended and it didn't wasn't able to finish it so that's where it all
okay so for forgive Paul not knowing his quote from sash well good point so I'm going to get back to line painting for a second uh this is getting more and more expensive increasingly more expensive
right so do we share that burden with other towns because it seems like buying paint it's everything this is a again this is a contract that is done by the Franklin Regional Council of Governments so the contractors that that operate
usually in eastern Mass it's we're not buying any equipment to share they come they come into our town spray the lines and they're gone and the next do a great job they it's a
you know that amount of money only goes about four hours worth of painting when it's done it's amazing so there's no really way of there's no sharing it's it's all in cost per foot
it's already a very collective procurement which helps get that down keith while you're here prior to your replacement next year how many miles of
road do you maintain 31 31 3 about you know about four plus or minus gravel some partic I want to commend the highway
department for their keeping up with the pothole unlike some towns near will not be named but I think we can name very many potholes and they don't just go over to 30
it's all it's all on how you maintain them hold on you know regardless of uh whether you were here or not I would say I live on the west side and I have have to go to Conway and I have to go to
Bergie and all that um our roads are great i think she did a great job this way absolutely many years of proper drainage and building roads and fixing roads that's why we did a lot of a lot of work
in your Okay are you done i wanted to discuss capital if Oh you want to okay but before you get that are there any questions regarding the line items to keep i have nothing more to offer unless
you have questions for me to answer i do not anyone else years of service years of service we'll see you at the end stop by the end okay um All right all right so we're going to move on to capital
[Music] i take I take pride okay we're looking at Okay Keith go ahead um the one thing that is I remember correctly
was recommended by the capital improvement committee as a a highest priority was the window removal at the town hall storm windows yeah that basically
is um if you all remember the windows that were originally in the town hall after it was rehabilitated was
um the windows had a UV coating film put on them and the film did not last it has streaking and a lot it basically gives it a purple hue and when you stand there and look at it it looks like somebody sprayed the windows with stuff and it
just they just do not look very pretty they the company when the first windows started to deteriorate color changed the contractor came in and removed those windows and replaced them at their
expense under warranty and they still are continuing to fail and the way it was left Brian Domino was still the town administrator and we negotiated with the company that they
will re they will replace all the windows one last time but they will not stand behind them under any warranty ever again going forward so and at the same time they said they would only do
that if the town was would be responsible to have them removed get them on the ground and then when they come back the town will be responsible to have them reinstalled in talking even further with
um other glass companies what we determined to be the best bet is to just get the company to replace the windows without this color without this UV laminate on there because they're not
sealed they're they're exposed to the environment and they will just discolor again um so this expenditure is a was a estimate from Greenfield CLA Glass to come in with a lift truck remove the
windows get them down on the ground and then the other company which is Allied Window and True Light is the manufacturer will then come take them away and bring them back and that then we would call Greenfield Glass again and
they would come put them back So that's what this is all about um we really have if we're if we're going to accept their proposal in getting them replaced so that they don't look like they do now
um this is our only option is unless we are to do something else litigation wise where we attempt to take them to court to force them to do that i don't think um and I I remember Brian feeling that
this is probably would be our best bet because legal expenses would exceed what we're up against so exactly that is why it is ranked as a a priority because it's pretty much something we have to to do
also if I can is also because in case the company decides no we're not going to replace the windows either we we want to get it done there's an urgency here right because they may just back out entirely and take us to court yeah okay
any questions regarding this process well the UV film is to prevent discoloration of fabric well it was supposed to help reflect heat the heat sunlight and keep the heat in the building and the and the cold out you
know I don't know J Deacon make it more entry official structure right they tried to do with the sele double just I think fewer radiative losses that
okay very good so that's that the other aspect of the capital is the painting of the building Um and I believe the ranking on that was a B r you know not as high of priority um it is you know
something that when you look at the building you can see that it's um needs to be done there are some aspects of the building on the north side down the first four feet where um it has already
been touched up by the town has already had done some work on that already um the estimate that we have provided um is is applying a matte dog primer which is a very high
quality primer and followed by Benjamin Moore latex white paint which would be what would be used for a top coat um as far as where the building is and
what's causing it to peel things of that nature um the building has as you all know been there for hundreds of years it has many coats of paint on it the paint and the product that's on it isn't
what's failing it's it's the older areas where the paint that was on there for hundreds of years is what's failing so when it was when it gets scraped the areas that get scraped down clean um the primer and the paint those are not the
spots that are peeling and failing at this point it's the other areas that are hard heavier thicker um there is definitely lead they there's not going to be any assumption that there is no lead there is no need to test because they assume there is so they have to
they'll put down the the carving and everything will have to be collected and taken away in that aspect so that there's no um no lead chips left are they going to do any sanding in addition to scrape it'll be a
scrape scrape all the all the areas followed by the primary so no sand great um as far as the other aspects um I feel it's something again I'm presenting it
um I don't think it would be the worst thing in the world if it's at for another year um it's just appearance um gets um but depending on where the town feels they are financially this
year versus next year that would be something that you as the finance committee can can put forth um I certainly feel that the only thing that would most likely happen going forward is the cost will continue to go up um
one other thing that after I had submitted this and reviewed it again is I did not I do not see that it makes me vention be prevailing wage this will be a prevailing wage job that might as it
is when I added up the the estimate and I went with the high sides on everything comes up to $28,070 to do everything and I had submitted for 30,000 so it might still be safe um it may be best without me
going back and double-checking before i could definitely go back and figure this out within a week's time to see if prevailing would skew that number to to the point where 30,000 was not enough but um
okay so how would uh how would the um how would the coordination happen between the painting and the windows i mean you pose a good question that if at all possible it would be great to have the windows
removed while the painting is being done um I'd have to see you know whether number one it's not going to be the same company you know dealing with two different companies whether that can get
coordinated i guess I would suggest and I know that's what you're suggesting that that they try to coord that it be coordinated and save on that expense to having to to bring a lift in on on a second time now maybe the c the painting
company could start to do some work you know on a lower level where they don't need the lift right away i don't know without asking Greenfield class how many hours they need it if it's something where they can come in fairly
quick we certainly I I if I still have any invol involvement in it I would certainly try to coordinate that yes okay and this number is for the entire building it's just the north side
um no that was to do all of the only other the option option one was the rear wall the rest of them are all the other the three sides so when you add up option one which is
the rear which is um the area that's not that the the best part of the building right now is the new addition right because it's but when you look at the west when you stand on the east side of
the building and look to the west when you look above you know the the addition so like the second floor you can see that banded Um my feeling is it should be all done
all at once not try to come back and forth every other because the same thing that's going to happen going forward the next time it needs it you don't want to be trying to piece it together because the big one of biggest expenses is to bring the
equipment in to paint it absolutely paul again just a note the building was not repainted when it was renovated right right it was painted a few years before I want to say maybe five years beforehand because it was really bad and I remember
that and it just it couldn't wait any longer the town finally I just want to make clear that Yeah this isn't a repainting this is this is almost like from scratch almost sort of but again you mentioned um when you mentioned that
there that the areas that were peeling were in more than likely due to old paint that was underneath that paint and it didn't adhere is that inaccurate no it's breaking that paint is breaking away from the wood
that paint's breaking away correct so to Jerry's point will you be the the clavs will not be sanded i believe that creates a an issue with the lead it's grape only okay that's why I was asking question all right so you
don't want to go airborne i met Keith out there look at this okay i brought this up with the municipal building committee when I was on about that structure the architects tightened up that building this is going to be exacerbated and I brought that up and April shut me down but it's just going
to get worse what's happening is New England we have depending on the season with the two point in the middle of the wall so your glass of water in July has got water on the outside of it so depending the temp the temperature difference between the inside and the
outside depending you have water on the against the sheathing or against the plaster in the inside right and as you tighten up the building that water's going to want to get pushed to the outside and without a ventilated rain screen behind it doing it how we build houses now it's forcing that moisture
through the wall it's forcing it through all that old wood and all the areas where you had old lead based paint and oil based paint that's inflexible that's losing its adhesion coming off where you're down to bare wood the bad knife primer it's the last icing really really
well right so until all that other stuff comes up appealing until all that old stuff falls off excellent you'll be there at annual town meeting right a professional doesn't resourc
okay um can I ask a clarifying question i feel like I heard something on conflict i just thought that's what I heard wrong um but this is for the I mean the quote looks like it's for three sides not four sides so you said you want to do the whole thing it's front
and two sides is on the top but that's not four because front when you look at option wall it says rear walls the fourth wall it's like 30 28 so it is four walls correct okay that's a good that totals when I
took the high end of their materials yeah that gets up to $28,70 And then I just cushion okay any further questions of anything
what's causing the mold and are you planning to replace the bottom labboard on the south side and the north side there's no there's only a few places where if they're cracked but there's no there does not appear to be any rock in
it um and as far as mold I think what you're seeing I don't think is mold it's the mildew that you get on a building mold inboard milk works for a food source and water source into the north side of the building so you can't get rid of it it's out there it's just a
place to hire and in fact I mean even when you see houses with vinyl siding the north sides of those houses vinyl siding the mildew digs right in and turns it starts turning
it's it's it attacks every surface are there scutters on the north and south side no and the reason there's no gutters it's a slate roof okay um and when the snow slide slides if there's if you have your little bit of ice coming
over the edge into the gutters and then it decides to slide your gutters going with it but what about if you don't have the gutter with all the rain that sheathing on the north and the south side is any of that splashback causing any of the the It certainly doesn't help
that splash yeah on the on this um certainly doesn't help but there really isn't much more we can do based on the fact that the building level if if it had like a higher foundation wall that would be a
lot we'd be better off in that aspect but they're just that's not the way the building is peter new construction if there's no gutters we put stone apron around it so yeah immediately gets absorbed yeah and
I take it that's not an option here or it would be a costly there's there's concrete there and again it's also because if you remove the concrete you'd have to do something else to prevent any water
from migrating back towards the building because it would then rotting the wet fill in there so um we don't really have much option based on the elevation that the building's at
question what's the situation with the bridge on Christian Lane the bridge on Christian Lane um the the state of Massachusetts has a program it's called the bridge bridge replacement program bridge repair program and they rank all of the bridges
in the state of Massachusetts and um just like many of the other bridges throughout the last 30 years that have been replaced in weight um which extends to
about I think nine bridges we've had replaced under that program um when it gets to the point that it it deteriorates enough it will get to the top of the list
unfortunately when the on the the way that bridge is built underneath it is what's called um piling they're nothing more than than looking like a utility bull if you walk down underneath and look that you'll see that
there's rows of of nothing more than utility poles that were pounded into the ground to help support the the load of the the weight what's happened is the the south side many of the those utility poles
piles have rotted and deteriorated to the point where they're all literally you can take and pull them apart or take a chipping hammer and poke holes in them and so the the north side is still
okay and that's why mass dot said through the bridge inspection said that the bridge can remain open doesn't need to be closed in fact they never change the rating so the the veh when we had to
make it a one lane vehic one lane bridge the same vehicle that could drive over it before can still drive over it so it didn't really gain any ground so to speak in deterioration because if if an oil truck could drive over it before
they still can now it didn't deteriorate rating wise if they had said "Okay now only thing that can drive over it is a car." Then that would have shot us up tremendously higher on the list or if they had this to close it other things
that factor in there's a lot of things but one of the other factors on that bridge that don't help us out is the fact that if and when it needs to be closed it is not a huge detour to get from one side to the other there are
other communities that when you close a road or that one bridge you're talking 15 20 minutes or even maybe more to get from one side to the other side the only thing that we have working for us is its classification on the roadwise is called
a major collector meaning you know that that thoroughway from Haydenville Road Chestnut Plane Christian Lane down to Route 5 gives it a higher classification from a from the amount of
vehicles that travel on it so um the state certainly knows we we want it replaced as quick as possible the only other option Wely has is to site it be for us to come to the finance committee and ask for millions of dollars to do it
ourselves and it was last inspected in November it's it's now being inspected um every year yeah we just got the report it was in November it was last inspected and approved for for continued use so that's
what's going on thank you okay thank you all right I'm gonna speak to the capital request one planning study 22K different problem that yeah but that's also one that's been recommended for not
right not moving forward or not taking action because he is looking at other funding Thanks quick question um is there any enforcement on weight limits on bridges and does that fall on weightly or is that uh state police or
do truck team be attempting to get Trump team member to respond and witness it and would bring up the language um single axle is
like 13 thou 13 ton I think 13 for a single um 31 maybe for a trailer pipe I don't remember I mean I grew up in West the log trucks at 80,000 that every
freaking day it's you're you're right um the one thing that I can tell you when you're dealing with the way they rate them is originally that that rating was based on assuming that there'd be two vehicles on
the bridge at one time yeah um so that that kind of factors in um but that's why um it's you know you're right that they do drive overweight but yet it's not I don't feel
it's that detrimental um but you'll also see it also causes a lot more heavy traffic on on Swamp Road by the fact that [Music]
that's good you good we're good are you good we're all set thank you very much thank you thank you for your all your Thank you all right following um the highway
department we have the police department and all behold the chief is in and uh we are this will be much less complex and the last
got right here we go so um is this up to date Chief um I don't know what you're looking at but what I'm looking at is should be the same thing an increase of
$2,950 8.4 41% yes that's correct okay so your total request for 2026 is $38,029 no no that's next oh okay yeah we got%
reduction there you go you got all excited smoking mirrors again he almost said yes when I originally did this it was only one page that's not my all of you paying
attention at home uh the request of our police department is 277,641 an increase of $2,950 and a $1.07% increase with payroll level funding
right without the payroll okay go ahead so tell us about the highs and the lows so if I could just take a couple of minutes because I know there's some some new members just to give a brief overview of the police department so everybody's on the same page i've gotten
a lot of questions how many shifts or how many cars we have what is this what is that so just a just a little bit i won't get too much into the into the history of it but um our department consists of 10 10 police officers there's three full-time police officers
me included so myself and two others that are full-time and we have seven part-time officers uh we cover at minimum two shifts a day seven days per week so we don't have an overnight shift i want to tell everybody to go ahead and
speed it till the morning but um so we we cover up until midnight two shifts a day seven days a week um we currently have this is a this is another big question that people are concerned not concerned but just um
curious about is currently we have four cruisers so if you drive by the police station and all the cars are there you're going to see four cars so they're numbered one through four the number one car is the car that's the unmarked car that's the car that I drive
primarily so that comes home with me transport back and forth so that's the one car the two car and the three car are two frontline cars so those two cars get split evenly between the rest of the shifts for the week for other two full-time officers plus the part-time
shifts so those at this point those are getting used equally um amongst the other officers the fourth car that's always the oldest car in the fleet that's always the one that that isn't in the greatest of shape that's
the one with the highest miles that car becomes our detail car what we call the detail car a detail is when say Verizon or Eversource or Tree Company or any any vendor that works out on the road or next to the road calls us and says "We
have to trim trees or we have to put up a new pole." They'll call us request a detail a police officer will go there on a detail sometimes they request the use of a cruiser um what we've been trying to do lately just because it's 5 and 10
and it's busier is if there's a detail on five and 10 we'll make sure that we have a cruiser there as well if they're out on five and 10 so when that fourth car gets used we charge a $10 per hour fee to the vendor for the use of that
car so there are no maintenance expenses for that car we don't buy tires out of the budget we don't maintain that car out of the police budget that comes out of the cruiser detail account which is funded by the vendors which goes into
the general fund no that goes to a specific account within the police department revolving fund okay yeah it's a revolving fund revolving fund within the police specifically for the police department to be used to maintain that detail car if something happens to it if
we need work on it needs tires or so so the only the only thing that that doesn't get used or that that doesn't get paid for out of that account would be fuel fuel for the use of that car um but again when we do a detail there's also an administrative fee a 10%
administrative fee that gets charged to the vendor that comes back to the town that administrative fee goes back into the general fund um I'm trying to think off the top of my head i want to say it's for administrative fees i think we're up to
aboutund $130,000 worth of details so we're looking at 78 $9,000 for administrative fees that come back to the town um more details we do the more comes in
through the detail the only ones that don't pay the detail for the administrative fee is mass dot and it's weightly if if we do a weightly detail so the state won't pay us for doing work on town town or or I'm sorry state bros they won't pay us a 10% administrative
fee and we don't charge the town for that either so that's the that's the structure kind of the structure of the police department the number of officers that we have and uh the cruisers just to touch a little bit on the
training because it's kind of part of the budget from a training perspective all of our officers have to undergo the same amount of training every year full-time part-time doesn't matter they they all have the same minimum 40 hours of required inservice training every
everybody has to take the same same classes um on top of that we have officers that take other specialized classes throughout the year um that gets that some of that gets paid out of the training account as well but u just so
you know at least 40 hours of that training is the same training that all officers have to go through um that changed five six years ago with police reform where we're now required everybody's required to do the same amount of training same qualifications
if we started somebody tomorrow that wanted to work part-time that's never been trained as a police officer we have to send them to the full-time academy we have to send them for a psychological exam physical assessments the whole the whole nine yard it's the same as a
regular full-time police officer would have to go through so that's kind of a just so you know future we've been talking about this for the last few years four years or so um but this is gonna we're going to see some changes going forward because a lot of these
part-time police officers that went to the part-time academy years back we've trained them up to the standard where they they meet the the one state standard now so a lot of part-time employees are now taking full-time
positions in other departments so as departments get full-time positions before they spend $15,000 to send somebody to the academy they put it out and they say "Hey is there any any former part-time officers that are now trained up to the full-time standard
let's take them before we take before we send somebody to the academy." So it's going to be an issue because we're going to lose we're going to be losing part-time officers we'll always still have at least some um but we're going to lose some because of that and it's harder and harder to find part-time
officers nobody wants to go to the six-month academy spend however many thousands of dollars lose pay all that stuff just to work one shift a month or two shifts a month so that's that's going to be kind of a budgetary thing and it's one of the reasons why um last
year two years yeah two fiscal years ago so we're in the second fiscal year of hiring the third full-time officer so we always had two now we we hired three and we reduced the number of part-time shifts from five shifts a week to three shifts a week so we reduced that numbers
and took some of that money and put it towards the the full-time position i don't know if anybody has any questions as far as the structure or the police department or how we function or how things work i always kind of say we're the the necessary evil because we
we don't build a lot of revenue we're not a revenue building you know entity you know we we have a job we respond to the calls when they come in we enforce motor vehicle laws you know we we do our our job as law enforcement but that's not always making everybody happy and
it's not always bringing in bringing in money so Jim I have a question sure um on the personnel side how do our officers how is their pay comparable to surrounding communities per hour they make um so that's a much
larger topic right now okay um that's part of the salary study that we're looking at um depending on how they if we if we look at the the current system the that we're looking at the salary study um there would be kind of a a step
system the starting point you know the minimum maximum um where they would fall in between depends on where they get graded so there's we're looking at grades and how each employee is going to be graded so if they're graded at a level four versus grade five or grade
six that's going to be a difference in pay as to where they're where they're starting yeah the job are we bleeding officers to come work um so so currently we're at the low end of of the pay some some
departments are looking at $30 an hour rates and we're we're paying 23 and and change so so it is it is kind of low with the step system that's hopefully going to correct some of that if the positions get graded in the appropriate categories and then depending on you
know years of service and that kind of thing so there's a lot of factors that go into play with that but if we're just looking at current numbers without the salary study I think I think we're a little bit lower than we should be historically the police department has
always been either at or below the median as far as the the towns that we look at for studies so we frequently have to you know do a 2% increase or a one and a half% increase or 3% increase just to get officers to the minimum for
that that median level so we've never from I've been here 25 years chief has 21 years and I've never really seen it where oh our our police officer getting paid too much let's bump them down never seen that or we're always below you know
looking at our full-time officers and and my position currently I think we're in the double digits 17 to 22% below those median levels when you were looking at the pound of the county so we're we're pretty low as far as as far
as the pain goes but it allows you that upward movement don't because if you're high you going to go yes you always got that hope of getting getting more it only take it 10 years to get there but the uh the whole point of the
compensation study is to rightize all those positions that are under and the police department one that was identified i'm of the opinion that it's employees are not really employees are not paid enough it's just like the
as a small businessman I can't get someone to show up for $20 an hour and they can barely sweep a floor and then now you have an officer with lots of training making under $25 an hour is insane to me 2312 now 25 25 for full
time no oh yeah you're right 2312 they can't even afford a shopping trip to feed their family for a week at the grocery store i don't think Yeah it's it's definitely a concern definitely an issue y
How's the revenue how's the revenue on um moving violations do you know that that I don't know that number i'm not asking you exactly i've never looked at that number it comes in on the cherry sheet and I don't know if it's And even if you knew it you wouldn't say it so
yeah I'm glad but do we know it i'm I don't have it off the top of my head well it shows up as fines and forefeures i think I know it's but then it's inclusive of
very very hard to pinpoint because it's just but it is but it would be it would be um It would be a good view that Paul said
what that cost to know what typically is offset by and not only that but going year after year how do you compare the activity he can say all he wants he's got shifts and you know 24 hours or two
12 hours shift doesn't matter when you look at the number of tickets written that shows activity and you to me something that I would want to know absolutely the the other point to
that that I would speak to is we're just because we issue a citation doesn't mean it gets paid okay so we may issue $60,000 worth of citations and only 20,000 I think gets paid because it's up to the court to decide if these people contest it it's up to the court to
decide whether they feel they're responsible or not responsible sometimes and it's they're not responsible this is all universal offense and but we do know the number of citations yes so we can you can measure the number of citations one year versus the next looking at a
5-year average and see what the activity is like of our police force while they are in the cruise just a thought i I would also note though there is a philosophical debate there where police officers are not income driving they're
not there to go and pull people over and give them tickets the actual preferential is depending on the guidance that's given is to actually have that conversation with the driver if it is their first offense you don't give the citation you give a verbal warning that's that is still activity
but it shouldn't necessarily be represented in a ticket because we shouldn't be using the police department as a means to bind you want to create a de you want to deter without impeding and causing yeah I I I think that Well I
think that's true and you're your traffic enforcement and everything you go on one side and say "Oh if the guy's out working he should generate a certain amount of revenue whatever." But also when it's a Saturday and there's all the kids on Hurley Park and there's people everywhere and you guys are actively in
that area you're protecting all those kids keeping safe when you're on Long Plane Road during rush hour and the kids going to school you're not writing any tickets but you're protecting all those kids absolutely that's more important to me than right speed tickets but that doesn't change year after year those
kind of scenarios tend to continue and no one's asking that the police department become a uh a revenue source uh the point of the matter is there is revenue um we are here we are taxpayers
and we should have an idea of what the activity is in the field by the police force that we have to pay 200 almost we're heading towards $300,000 um so I think it's a I think
it's a viable question and it's not one that you know we want to put into a position where we try to build on it or take away from it it's just a fact what are the facts and I do include some of that that that data in the annual town
report how many calls we have 6,000 calls a year how many citations or how many motor vehicle stops we have i don't put in the numbers of you know citations versus written warnings versus verbal warnings versus who pays what i don't put that in just you know we stop thousands of cars a year i'd like to say
that it's making an impact but again I've been doing this job for almost 28 years and I haven't seen an impact yet it gets worse the more you stop people the worse it gets i wish I wish it was going the other direction but it doesn't as cars get faster as they can handle
better people just drive faster go through stop signs those big red octagons oh it is actually a stop yeah I'll just have one question i'm not sure I followed the explanation of the number
of cars versus officers at work so we have two shifts so there's one officer per shift each of officer has a car so when shift A stops shift B starts with the other car
okay but there's a third car where where is that going so it's not as simple as A and D i I had to wait that way for my Yeah I get it so during during the week I work the day shift along with another officer so we
overlap three days during the week so two of those cars car one and car two are being used every day at least one day a week most of the time two days a week we also have a clinician a mental health clinician that patrols with an
officer co-responder with an officer outside of the regular patrol shift so there's at least two days a week where we have all three cars running during the day and then the evening officer comes in and he works they overlap with
the clinician till 8:00 at night so two cars are being run three cars being run during the day two cars are being run at least till 8:00 at night we've had I can't tell you how many calls where all three of our cars have been there and the clinician's been there and we've had
everybody with every car that we've got the calls okay so it's it's not just two shifts it's two shifts overlapping plus the one shift that comes in at night plus that that clinician shift that clinicianship is usually using the the
detail car most of the time um just because it's not one of the frontline cars so we just have them use that because somebody else is usually using the front line car thanks for explaining absolutely any other questions we've got
more so as far as the budget goes it's pretty pretty simple three increases one reducing supplies $500 um in the past our copier maintenance
agreement which is roughly $500 a year was paid out of town building accounts last couple years I think we've been trying to go towards like we have a separate building so we want to know how much it costs to run that building so we want to know how much it costs to run the police department building so we're
trying to get away from including things in town building accounts and stuff so we're now paying that maintenance agreement which is an additional $500 a year so that's why the that's why that went up that line went up for building maintenance office supplies that's
that's what that is being paid out so that's a $500 increase um I think everybody in the room probably knows electricity costs have gone up just added a little bit of a little bit of funding for the because we've been
going over last year we went over a couple hundred I think I don't have my glass think we have $300 that went over so I we made it 2200 $2,200 for for electricity and then
the the larger line item there the 2250 for uniforms so again talking about our 10 officers that we have three of those officers have a clothing allowance of $750 currently
$750 everybody else all the other part-time officers have a clothing allowance or uniform allowance as of $250 so right now if I went to the uniform supply store to buy a uniform I could get one long sleeve shirt one short
sleeve shirt and one pair of pants is going to cost more than $250 if I were to equip an officer coming into the department tomorrow I couldn't do it for less than $1,000 so looking at that that uniform
allowance it's not just the shirt pants and the long sleeve shirt short sleeve shirt and pants it's also t-shirt it's also gloves for the winter it's also hats it's rain jackets patrol jackets duty belt everything you know if they break a holster a holster is $250 for a
holster what about bulletproof vests bulletproof well they're not really bulletproof but they're ballistic vests those run about $1,000 just for just line item does everyone have their own with the share um so what we what we did in the past is we actually seeded an
account so we put money into an account because we were getting reimbursement half of the reimbursement came from the state half came from the federal government so we were able to buy a vest submit for reimbursement and then we would get that money reimbured so the the account always kept the money in
there there was maybe a two three year period which just happened to coincide with um a good portion of our officers that needed to get best replaced it's every five years um they needed to get best replaced the state didn't reimburse
for their portion of it so we only got reimbured for half of it and then that happened the second year we had two other officers I think it was for the the second time around so it ended up bringing that seated account down to zero so we don't have any money left in
that seated account we are due for purchasing vests and I was going to talk with with Pete and Darren and see if that's if the if the state and the federal government are offering those refunds or the reimbursement can we deficit spend for that year or do we
have to preede that account that's kind of what what I'm looking at right now but we've got a there's a couple of us that are up for replacements so there's nothing in the budget here for that no there isn't nothing in the the uniform allowance covers for that
but the vest itself is actually just two panels a front and a back panel then there's the vest carrier which you can wear a carrier underneath a shirt or what you see a lot now is the external carriers where we have the
external carrier which is the vest and then you have more equipment on it taser handcuffs and things like that that are on the carrier so officers have been using their some of their clothing laws to purchase items for the for the carrier because it's a different
magazine puller different hand case or whatever it might be so you don't or do you have a number to fully equip clothe a single officer in the field
um right now yes because they already have their uniforms so they have a replacement but if I if I were to bring somebody in tomorrow I don't have a line in the budget then I could spend $1,000 to buy them all new equipment and a vest and
the uniforms it just I mean so that's what you're saying it's $1,000 it'd be two with the blueprint with the vest yeah the vest to be $2,000 to equip an officer in the door do they wear the vest full time yes okay it's
It's part of our policy it's mandatory you got to wear the good thing with the external carriers is if we're in the station working on a report or something it's like a jacket take it off set it to the side do your report and then put it back on before you go on the road it's a little bit harder with the ones that you wear under a shirt because you got to
take your duty belt off you take your shirt off take the vest off put everything back on so the external carriers are more popular because especially in the summer when it's 9,000 degrees and inside your vest you just take it off and cool off a little bit while you're at the station
okay so so the just to give you the details of that so that this number the 2250 number gets our part-time officers from $250 worth of the uniform allowance to $500 okay and it gets our full-time
officers from 750 to a,000 per year and obviously full-time officers have more uniforms you're wearing one uniform every day all year pretty bright
yeah worn out ballistic vest if you how will you fund a ballistic vest um so again having to talk with the the accountant talking with Pete to see if we can deficit spend
in order to get the best and then when the reimbursement comes in it'll balance it back out so they really share the reimbursement with what we do for our reimburseable grants we have a special revenue account that goes into the red knowing that we will get a reimbursement it's just about
when we know if we can get the reimbursement before the beginning of September that way we can bring it back into the black before we have to certify for cash and this is this is right around the time of the year it's usually like late January beginning of February
when they say whether or not they're going to fund the reimbursements whether there's money in the state and federal budgets to do the reimbursements so we're kind of looking at more than halfway through the fiscal year before we fund it so you want a revolving cycle
to get them replaced that would be nice but that was the whole point of like having the seed in town so we always have money to be able to just do that uh even even if he ran into a situation where we didn't get the reimbursement at least we'd have some money to divide that one one random vest
that we needed to but that unfortunately didn't work out how you doing we're uh we're running a wee bit over it's not my fault mr kosski has fallen asleep twice
i got I got He's back up he's back up bw which all falls on him how come you don't have a water bill the police station i do it's not your thing $200 a year it's part of the building maintenance so the library pays 100 and this building pays 750 this one's going to
need this one's got sprinkling okay well we have a lot of water i'm still I'm still arguing the point that we don't spend $200 worth of water no filling up our little
750 is the town hall and the town hall we got building okay let's go there right away okay so we're fully protected if we fully fund the That's what they want to know at
home okay anything else is is this the time to discuss next week okay next week that's it then thank you very much before you go how's the dog sheamus is great okay sheamus is with me every day
bricks dog sheamus Sheamus is un unfortunately he's great at the police department but when it comes to strangers you don't like he's a therapy dog i know but I can't seem he's my therapy dog
he's a therapy dog that needs a therapy dog we're still working out okay perfect thank you Je all right have a great night have a great evening thank you all right so last but not least oh my gosh
you've been so patient okay hey let me tell you um girl is looking really good i see you down there working all the time looking good okay where are Okay we're
at the very end tab 15 tap 15 enterprise fund okay so um we have some new individuals here we're familiar with the enterprise fund
and what an enterprise fund is especially in relation to the water department in essence the users of the water department pay for that department completely through whatever
they're charged we serve as an oversight for those individuals relative to um the finances so you know we're asking
um Wayne sorry um okay so we're asking the same kind of questions we would ask anyone uh in regards to the numbers so is there something you'd like to share with us on regarding the numbers yes yeah it's a
big Well not I guess you call it a huge increase in the overall budget almost everything went up a couple things went down it's mainly because we needed a year there's a lot of stuff we should have did this year
but we didn't do because we needed that year of the new rates to go in effect oh now that the new we got a new year's worth of that now we know how much money there is coming in from that so now we can go back and do all these things and
that increase was what from what had been for 20 years up to it's was there like 11 no so it it went from just charging how do you want to call it or a
thousand gallons of water mhm and huh yeah from just the only thing the town the water permit used to charge was X amount for the water use now they're more in line with or we or whatever you
want to call it with every other department around where there's more than you get charged more than just the water use okay so in other words what it does is like all the additional charges so the
water use covers the budget the additional charges covers the capital expenses and the upkeep maintenance to the system okay okay thank you um right so moving forward uh we have no more debt that's
gone no we still 25 grand yeah every year we got that for we're in Okay let's see it's five years i think we have another 15 years of that i think we're five years into the
20 years that's not going no not um so in essence um looking at this is that in your book no pass then maybe I won't have to go line by line your own material
well I mean I can go line by line but that's the plan for the budget this year once you just hit the increases and just speak to them it's like every line well there's a whole bunch of zeros following yeah general expense If you
did that's really your home area right which if you look at that really go line by no
increase decrease i just want to know that your projected expenses are going to be covered by your projected income well that's the next step yes no that would be No that's that's just a general statement yeah that's our
budget we're asking for that's what we're projecting to bring in that's what'll go into I can't remember what it's called that's savings account huh next reporting revenue yeah yeah looks like
about stabilization fund have you talked to Dar about what to call it no I haven't seen her yet it's covered by the brand there's a $4,000 surplus surplus
that goes toward capital yeah I can go line by line if you want and explain it but each pro what egypt that's one of our first capital things that we have oh I don't know i don't
know this year think maybe next year because no matter what it's going to cut if we can't find the 800 or a million dollars to do it you know I mean it's going to it's going to mean taking the loan out again okay does anybody have any questions
they would like to bring up at this point in time doesn't look like it's increase and um No I think it's a good $4,000 surplus to put towards capital and maintenance yeah
whatever that absolutely hasn't been there before correct so we were shooting with when we redid when we did the rates and made the rates we're shooting for $50,000 to put away y which we're close
it's going to be like 44 45 very good close all right paul one question I had is this overhead portion do we it it it's showing using the same
numbers as last year but that's not accurate because it should actually be based on a percentage of those different budgets right do we yeartoear always do 2% on select board 3% on buildings or does that get adjusted
how how is that different that's an excellent question and uh I'm unclear how we I don't know they just always give me a number what he needs what's that i used to Brian used to just put a number in oh
okay yeah Brian he really didn't deal with that and you there was never any discussion of making any adjustments to the percent not that I'm recommending it no there may be a reason why you determined 4.4 4 on Medicare but 8% on property liability so
is that of the total operating budget for that account yeah so essentially what we do is um water subsidizes or for lack of a better word a portion of each of those buckets but I'm I'm guessing that somebody had
like it's 8% maybe because of the like it's covered by the tenth policy and at some point someone figured out that it was 8% of the the cost of the cost was due to the Yeah i mean I just that wherever that number came from it originally at least had some basis in
but currently it's all level funded well that's all going to have to be revised they they will all be revised for cola and the cola number and they're going to be revised because they're not actually referencing the current each of those buckets right now the previous that was on a different different section but
that means it will erode the 40k buffer or the 40k buffer stays and the rate goes up even higher so it will likely erode it yes that would be a good thing no the buffer no it won't touch none of the leftover because the overhead numbers are low
right now because they're based on last year's budget total not the current budget total so right but there's an extra because I didn't know that number there's an extra $10,000 in the budget from us no it's under What did we end up
calling it yeah they're capital projects for things that we need to know oh over here on this sheet yes okay point is the 40k buffer will reduce by
whatever allocation of these percentages yeah if those if those numbers go up then it'll be more than the 313 expenses will go up so demand yeah so essentially if we have a a general budget increase
of 3% let's say then the overhead will get it represent I get the overall budget that's be dimminimous anyway 60 grand it's going to be that and the budget numbers
are projections anyway and some will fall short and We will we will wait for cola and then bring it all back in anything else any other questions
we're good thank you very much um the water is delicious as always very tasty he would not get all right the rest of the agenda for the finance committee will be um
metriculated to another date in time well there is the discussion on the um the financial warrant articles in both the special and the annual town meeting if the board would like to now we can
still do those okay if you need it now then we'll do it earlier the special meeting was earlier yeah so we just need to do we could do what yeah we could just do special if you want to do that one and
then we can vote on the annual one yeah let's just do let's just do the special we want to meet first or we've already called our meeting so it looks like we're to adjourn oh okay if you wanted to you don't have to i just It's on the
next set it says to review and discuss miscellaneous down below tonight sorry what do we need to approve the special meeting tonight you're not doing that we're not doing that tonight you're
doing that just next week is when you're you finalize and close the special um I will just note for the for the site board but also for comic you're only going to vote on special company articles there was a request or a recommendation from the CPC to move the
capital project requests from the annual to the special just because they already have the funds allocated they already have them appropriate and they just want those projects started before July 1 so if we could move those two articles which was the library
um and the doc um so those two articles could move on here we'd get three articles on special oh my gosh like what's that those are articles 15 and 16 of the annual to move to special correct okay
um Pete do you need the finance committee to move China on anything only the article one because articles 15 and 16 I believe um the capital the
CPA ones the fin does not vote on yeah you don't vote on the CPA uses you just would vote on the article one of the special committee which is approving the use of free cash to pay these two um
bills okay um for a total of $1,34568 you want to just give a quick little sir explanation um the Dons plumbing bill was for work done at the
town hall um that work was done in May and June of last year which was in the prior fiscal year we did not receive an invoice until November I think it was um it was dated and it was dated wrong it
was dated early the work was actually in the prior year dary said there was no way for us to do it other than as a prior year bill um and then the other one from KP Law was an invoice that you can see that is not a typograph typo it
was a bill from 2023 that they never submitted to the channel they found it in their records it's a small dollar amount um so they're just trying to get us caught up wow i know right don't go to them yeah really
okay got any questions about either one of these okay so do we have a motion to approve the $1,34568 for two prior bills from Dons Plumbing and KP Law PC do I have second second all those in
favor we'll stop we got to go hi Jim hi hi i'm Hi hi i I Okay we're good miss the select voting on these at another meeting you'll do those next week okay motion to adjourn move to adjourn the
select all those in favor we to the finance committee all those in favor what I think