##VIDEO ID:D0MSBQOSeQw## good evening recording in progress this is to formally advise that is required by Massachusetts general laws chapter 30A sections 18 to 25 and pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 an act relative to extend in certain covid-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency signed into law on June 16th 2021 as extended by chapter two of the acts of 2023 the Arma select board will hold a public meeting at on Tuesday January 7th 2025 at 5:30 p.m. beginning with an executive session and then opening to the public no sooner than 6: pm. in the hearing room Yarmouth Town Hall 1146 Route 28 South Yarmouth Mass 02 2664 the public is welcome to attend either in person or via the alternate Public Access provided on the town website the armor select board will consider entering into executive session pursuant to Massachusetts General Law chapter 3A section 21 A6 to consider the purchase exchange lease or value of real property at 316e 28 Wastewater easements if the chair declares that an open meeting may have a detrimental effect on the negotiating position of the public body and I so do uh declare may I have a vote to go into executive session need a motion in a second I'm sorry may we have a motion to go into an executive session moved so moved and a second second okay uh Voice vote uh Mark Forest I Tracy Post I Liz yes I sorry that's okay and Dorcas mcgar and I we are now in executive session and we'll return at the conclusion of this um section in the meeting e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e Pledge of Allegiance flag of the United States of America and to the rep stand naisy and justice for all before I start the meeting this evening I would like to share with you all some very sad news unfortunately this week we have lost Gary Ellis uh he uh passed away this week and uh our thoughts and prayers are with his family he was a dedicated volunteer in this town I had the pleasure of working with him for many years on the community preservation committee uh he was originally the the he was actually the original member representing uh conservation on community preservation and when Kurt Sears stepped down as chair of that committee he took on that uh role his wit his uh amazing knowledge of the Town um the properties um there there's so much I could say about Gary Ellis he was a good man he was a very good man and we will miss him dearly and I'd like you all please to take a moment of silence thank you our thoughts and prayers of course are with his family do we have any announcements today Bob yeah i' just like to make one announcement that the armouth historical commission uh tomorrow night 5:00 P p.m Wednesday January 8 2025 at the fire station 2 meeting room at 340 Route 6A yarmouthport mass will have uh an information session for public comment on the American Revolutionary War Monument uh that is proposed for the yarmouthport playground also known as Thatcher Park um and there's two possible sites that have been identified and they're um going to be discussed and shown so if any folks are interested we're very anxious having them come out and um make some public comments on that gra I was just gonna say Joyce is online so they should Elevate her ah we see that Joyce Flyn has joined us from Sunny LA California uh and we'll be here Joyce can you hear us Joyce I think you have to unmute your uh side of things going to get you a little assistance see if we can bring you on board in the interim do we have any other announcements no okay okay I just have one quick announcement in terms of Licensing it's for information only but when our license establishments are closed they notify the town so um just for way of reference Department Italian Table will be closed Sunday January 5th for repairs yes Joyce thank you we can hear you now um welcome to the meeting okay public comment do I have anyone in the room that would like to make a public comment today okay I see uh Tom Sullivan you have your hand up Tom Sullivan can you hear me yes I can can you hear me yes I can I see Madam chair I see on the U the doget tonight you're going to be discussing the heroes uh Bill uh Hero's act uh I'm hoping that that the board will look favorably with this uh and what it basically so those that are listening watching um this is a major change to chapter 59 on real estate exemptions for disabled veterans and I have to clarify it is for disabled veterans so when you discuss this later I'll probably watch online in case you do have questions uh because um some people have questioned whether or not it should be for all veterans but this came out it did come out for veterans it was changed it is for disabled veterans those who have a 10% disability to 100% so um with that I'll let you go back to your meeting thank you Tom Norm I see your hand is up Norm hul can you hear me Norm climbing slowly but the wind still there to make it feel all right are we there yes you are all right great uh thank you um I have uh two or three comments uh I'm looked at the agenda uh this afternoon and I noticed uh um first of all there was no followup with regard to the uh town meeting the special town meeting that occurred and I know the ruling of the Town Council was that the vote that was passed was inconsequential to the town and I'll relate to you um when I was in Vermont and I was on the select board in Vermont um we occasionally had um uh meetings of that type and Our Town Administrator uh Town manager always met with the people and coached them on how best to form uh their article so that it would be effective and would be valid uh for all purposes and I'm disappointed to see that we haven't done that um uh in in Vermont it was uh the admin Town manager he'd been there for 30 some odd years just believed that everybody um deserved uh uh full attention and help in in um uh being most effective with town meeting he didn't want to waste Town meetings time on articles that were poorly drafted and that could not be adopted and and in this particular case um I would think that um uh a zoning change with regard to um uh allowing uh pump stations to be not to be located within 200 feet of agricultural land might have been a good way to approach that but instead uh the whole article essentially got thrown out and I think that's very unfortunate but I want to turn uh to the budget uh because I think there's some some biggies in the budget that you're considering um first of all I'm disappointed to see that there's a an override again this will be at least two years in a row um being proposed half 600,000 or some somewhere in that neighborhood um and I would encourage you as um the um uh fiscal Watchdogs and fiduciaries if our chair has is correct a fiduciary for the town that you look at the balance sheet as well as the projections of Revenue and expenses it's significant and and our our town uh select board should be looking at the balance sheet of the town to understand what our assets and liabilities are it might might lead you to ask how much money do we have available for investment on a monthly basis because um I note that in I think it's 2023 or 2024 U and Mr row could um correct me on on what what year that is but I think for fiscal 2024 our investment income is $1.7 million that's that's fantastic I'm wondering how it was generated and uh if the select board might look at the the assets on a monthly basis they might conclude that maybe even more money could be derived from Investments but the point I want to make is investment income was 1.7 million and what's in the budget for 2026 400 and some odd thousand so there's 1 $3 million drop in investment income in the 2026 budget that would more than fund more than fund the uh deficit and the um override and and you ought to look at the other other revenues non- tax uh non-property tax revenues because it seems to me it's three or4 million in total being budgeted less than what uh actually was in uh received in 2024 so there are there are huge uh reductions in revenues being projected in 2026 I don't know why that is doesn't seem reasonable um so you know I I think proposing an override without some real close look at the finan iial Affairs of the uh of the town uh would not be behaving like true fiduciaries um last comment I'll make is about the proposal by the fire department um this issue of Staffing in the fire department is not new it's been um problem over many many years and it continuously seems to to come up because of uh primarily because of um uh ambulance calls not not fires but ambulance calls and um you know I know that uh we want to make sure that we've got enough people um available to handle those calls and in in view of the increasing number of them but I think it's really important to take a look at um when those services are needed and by time of day by by month by week by day whatever but look at the details and don't trust anybody uh uh to to do that without some real scrutiny of the details of the need for services if all we do is throw people at a at a total number then we're not behaving um um uh very responsibly in management the key to um uh controlling uh expenses but also to maximizing customer service is making sure that you have the people uh employees available when the services are being demanded you don't want to have um uh people showing up at 6 in the morning for work when most of your services are demanded at 6:00 at night and that's the kind of analysis that you folks should be demanding to see uh and the finance committee should should uh be the ones to look into that I would think and come back to the board the select board with their thoughts about uh how the Staffing should be related to the demand for services so that's the last thing I'll say about it but but but I think that in summary I mean there's a whole host of things I could say about the budget but I and about the plan for budgeting but I think the Board needs to take a very close look at um revenue forecast and expense forecast compared to the actual results um which are available through 2024 thank you thank you Norm I see choke that you have your hand up Joe can you hear me yes Madam chair can you hear me yes I can toe uh good evening um I just wanted to Echo uh and I won't take uh much of your time which uh obviously um you guys usually expect that I go on um but uh in honor of Gary Ellis and to Echo to what you said about Mr Ellis I just wanted to say uh only that um he was not only involved with the cape cart baseball league and I used to see him with um my kids when I was going there quite often um but uh as a custodian uh and when I think of the CPC I think of Gary Ellis and I think I always will um because the good things that the CPC does um and there are number of them um I also thought of him as a great custodian and Steward of the taxpayer money and whenever Gary put his stamp on something um I was confident that it had been thoroughly looked into with common sense um and as you said he was simply a a good guy so in honor of him uh I just wanted to Echo those sentiments and uh God bless him and and as you said U uh comfort and condolences to his family thank you thank you Joe do we have anyone else that would like to make a public comment at this time okay seeing none I will move on to our next agenda item which is review of the final draft of Station Avenue Corridor study report have Colleen mados here from the commission so we have mados from the Cape Cod Commission welcome Colleen good evening good evening everyone uh Colleen mados I'm the transportation program manager at the Cape Cod Commission and I'm happy to be here tonight to give you an update um as we conclude the station AV quarter study we've been working on um so just a reminder of where we've been and where we started uh this was included as part of our annual work program um Federal fisc year 2023 um to do a quarter study for station AV and it uh started the study area includes uh the route 6 interchange ramps all the way down to Wood Road um so by the time January 2023 rolled around we were uh already on the road getting site visits conducted we also uh conducted our first public meeting in this room at that time to go over uh existing data uh including traffic volumes speeds um and crashes uh we collected uh traffic extensive amount of traffic volume count data during the prior summer uh that year as well then we went back uh in the office and started taking a look after the feedback we got on some issues areas and locations of concerns of what might be needed uh in the future for this area and specific intersections um and then we came back in December of 2023 uh with another public meeting to review potential Alternatives um and right now we we've con uh concluded with a draft report that's been submitted to town staff and we're working with Town staff to to consider their comments and we appreciate any other feedback tonight so just a few highlights as I mentioned we've collected extensive amount of data um we did collect traffic volumes um and you'll see here um carries about 15,000 cars um on an annual average basis uh along the corridor um and then the summer it's about a 10% increase or so so um we did look at the crash history about 162 Corridor wide um and we did note that there were um several of the intersections that had some particular problems uh such as The Interchange ramps and then the whites path traffic signal area uh as well uh one other item we did hear um as part earlier on the studies about the problematic Wood Road intersection so that was um given a closer look at as part of this study wasn't an you know initially anticipated but we we heard loud and cleared um so we did do a TR 12-hour traffic count which uh determines if a signal is allowable to be installed based on traffic volume so we did do that as as well and it was determined that a traffic signal the volumes are not high enough to Warrant a traffic signal um but we we have made other recommendations in L of that so again uh we had a first public meeting in January of 23 um in this room a good amount of attendees both online and in person which was great and as I mentioned we reviewed a lot of the existing conditions um and we did receive almost 70 comments uh as part of that meeting or or following the meeting and all of this is on our website by the way way um we it's on our website they have recordings and the Powerpoints as well if anyone wanted to catch up on this an overview of some of the comments we heard um definitely some concerns about the the ramp Route Six ramps uh knowing how congested and busy that area is um left turns are difficult maybe considered traffic signals we definitely have heard loud and clear we all experience the busy uh business Commercial area as well um so looking at some of of those keys intersections within that area is also that Center turn lane as well feedback on um confusion with that and we also know that the rail trail is in there as well so you know maybe some better connections potentially there also heard loud and clear about the school area you know that's part not only commercial is a a major draw but also for the Regional Schools as well um so noting that this there's need for traffic circulation but also improvements for multimodal um so made some great improvements with there's now a shared use Path U with the new uh intermediate school but knowing that there could be additional improvements potentially um and then we also heard as I mentioned Wood Road um and just knowing some sidewalk areas and just again simple things we heard some you know big picture ideas maybe a traffic signal but even just simpler ideas as cleaning up sidewalks making them more accessible for all so we want to document short-term uh potential improvements to long-term infrastructure needs low cost and high cost um as well also during this time frame uh we performed a road safety audit in the fall 2023 this is an indepth uh crash analysis for the station a at whites path intersection and um we prepared this as a collision diagram so it lays out all of the patterns um of crashes that have occurred we then do a field audit in a meeting with a multidisciplinary team to included various Town staff as well as U Mass do officials were invited down um with expertise and safety and operations um so we had a um a great meeting and that's all documented in a separate report which is um on our website and the town also has a copy they were involved Town DBW um was in attendance um so that lays out some very specific opportunities to improve safety for that specific intersection we also coordinated uh with the state has a program called safe roots to school through the Mass Department of Transportation We performed a walk audit for Dy high school knowing that we heard a lot of uh concerns about congestion um there so we perform that during uh drop off during during the morning and we had um representatives from that program from the state there as well as our staff and that is uh documented and included will be included in the appendix to our draft report and this is an area you know I think there could be continued partnership um that the town could take advantage of if there are additional concerns um and opportunities to look at not just the high school but the um all of the schools and then finally I wanted to note that we also have recently completed a separate study that studied every interchange ramp intersection in our region um that just concluded this past fall um but I also the findings from that report also highlight concerns for the station avenue Route 6 ramps uh where the intersect intersect Station Avenue so just highlighting again another analysis pointing to um area of concerns uh for that these ramps and again right here the route 6 eastbound off ramp had 39 crashes in a uh that's a fiveyear period so uh here's a quick highlight of the second public meeting we uh held and it was the review of potential Alternatives U so we have uh actual Graphics that were laid out uh and reviewed for potential Concepts to improve safety and operations at the uh study are intersections we also developed um this here is a matrix that's included in the draft report uh we'll go over benefits and potential detriments um for different alternatives for the the town to consider if they should move forward with any of these improvements but generally most improvements that are uh in this Matrix are feasible um and uh sh great benefits um so I'll go over some of these in the next few slides but again you've heard me talk about the route six ramps um so both of those ramps we did do extensive traffic counts they both meet warrants for traffic signals um and that would have to be coordinated with with the state as they own um the off ramps um and when you're looking at traffic signals uh an alternative means is also roundabout and that would have to be considered uh as part of the state's process as well um so we did analyze both and we uh provided conceptual layouts they both work um from an operation standpoint and there is um right a way to accommodate either so both of the these are feasible opportunities and uh concepts for the town and the state to consider to improve safety at these intersections and they would also incorporate um multimodal accommodations as well you can see that orange is a sidewalk or a path similarly um so this is the westbound ramp as I mentioned both both of those ramp intersections would be a similar recommendation either a traffic light or a roundabout potentially in the future and then we moved South along the corridor we come to the whites path intersection uh we did look at a roundabout uh at the whites path intersection knowing that uh there is some tight property lines there so we didn't think a roundabout was the most um the preferred uh method to improve that intersection it could be accommodated but there would likely be a lot of rightaway takings and that have to be further investigated so we're recommending uh some some signal and Lane re allocation um opportunities for for the whites path intersection to improve safety um as well there is also some short-term recommendations from that road safety audit that could be done in the interim uh and then we focused on the center turning lane uh that is heading south in the commercial area um we know that that can be problematic um and it can invite um higher speeds and people misusing it it so an alternative that could be for consideration is to make formal left turn lane Pockets instead of just a um shared turn lane as well um so that's a concept that we've developed um on that graphic there and then another area again was the schools um so here we uh showed an opportunity to make a dedicated left turn lane into the high school property knowing that that that severely backs up in the morning so that might be an opportunity um but I think there might need to be a bigger picture look at the school properties in general anyways um to look at might be feasible with within the property to improve circulation whereas our study mainly focused on the public right away there's a quick zoom in um and you know there were some other intersections in there as well old townhouse Road um I didn't highlight all of them but there was no major major changes there recommended um maybe some Lane reallocation and but those that one's not a high crash intersection as well and then as I mentioned Wood Road doesn't meet the warrants for traffic signal but it would um potentially work as a always stop that we recommended maybe the town look at cuz right now it's just um stop controlled on the minor approaches so you could look at an always stop for all four approaches and that's um something Mass do is also recommending based on um they're starting to look at always stop interventions to improve safety um so where we are um so the draft report's been prepared it's under review with Town staff we've taken um in some feedback and we'll be tweaking some potential Concepts um edits and then once that is finalized we'll be available to post it on the website and share with you all and then we would like to continue to work and serve the town as needed if they would like to move any of these Concepts forward you know to coordinate with the state um talking about the route six ramps in particular that will take some coordination um as well and again I'm potentially taking advantage of looking at schools uh continuing that discussion uh seeking assistance with mass. safeer schools an opportunity as well um and then we'll be wrapping it wrapping up with the final report on our website and I think that's oh that's the last slide David no one couldn't be here tonight so um but you can reach either of us um via email or on our website uh capecod commission.org stav thank you um let me just see if any of the select board have some questions for you mark Colleen thank you um my my question um is more for us in terms of process and we may want to discuss this now or may we may want to discuss it later but I think um this this topic is a big topic I I think it gets us part the part of the way down the road but there's still more work that we have to do and obviously I think on the board we're going to be very interested in hearing what our own town Town officials Our Town departments and staff have to say so I think for tonight it this is sort of a good sort of intro an initial orientation but I'm glad you acknowledge that there's some additional work that needs to be done um clearly there public safety improvements uh that are necessary and we also are still wrestling with the question uh related to the school traffic uh there's some school traffic issues that uh we need to have on our radar screen and figure out how we wrestle with if there's a need for a more detailed study to find ways to address that I think I'm interested in hearing more about that again not tonight but maybe maybe at a future meeting we can get into that um I'm very cognizant that tonight we have uh a lot of town department heads here and budget stuff here and so um you know my my interest is in in having some initial awareness which we got tonight and then we can have some more follow up concentrated cont conversation amongst ourselves and with our own Administration and our department heads about some of the next steps because there's no question we need more studies we also need to really assess the the question that the the state is sort of forcing us to look at is that uh with the new school to replace the margarit small school there's one proposal that's on the table at least that the state's going to insist on that uh some uh a new school addition or uh most of those kids end up uh you know somewhere um at one of the facilities on station AV that there be a modification to the station AV school and I'm really concerned about us uh wrestling with that question without having more information in terms of what the additional traffic impacts will have on station AV um station AV I think for for me and what I hear from folks in town is increasingly uh becoming a real frustration point for Yarmouth resident um it's the main Corridor north and south and there are times in the day where it's just total gridlock and um so the idea of adding another school population doing more things without having an overall blueprint uh in terms of uh improving traffic flow and improving Public Safety is a real problem for me um so um I think there's a lot more work that still needs to be done this is a great start I appreciate the commit Mission staff and your team looking at this Colleen um but it's sort of the beginning of a a fairly long and involved process so I'm I'm glad we had a chance to at least get briefed on what the draft report is recommending but I look I look forward to the board having discussion maybe at a subsequent meeting in terms of where we go from here and get some recommendations from our own from our own town staff as well so thank you thank you Mark Tracy yeah I agree with Mark there's a lot of really great information here and it's deserving of its own full meeting to be honest there's a lot of discussion that needs to happen when you look at all the pieces of this um but what Mark spoke about with you know the more I guess acute information that we need relating to the school situation and what we potentially might do with that um is very important but you know looking at at your study of um accidents the accidents don't really seem to be related to the school issue I mean the majority of the accents that are here are rear ends um I'm not sure how you change a road to fix that personally but um you just got to pay attention so that's um I don't know I get I get a little bit confused to say that the traffic pattern's bad when you see the rear ends because it's literally just people not paying attention you can put a roundabout there it's I'm not sure it's going to change change much um so when you talked about a 10% increase in the summer do you have any data about the trips in certain times of the day so I guess what I'm trying to figure out is before the school we had an issue that was coming anyway before it happened and I'm wondering how much of it's related to certain times of the day if you've had any tracking with that with drop off and pickup times yeah we certainly the traffic hours we put put out are tubes in the road that you drive over so they count 247 so we have uh time stamps uh throughout the day and um I believe we also might have uh throughout the diff the year as well so hopefully I think we might have a summer uh traffic count but also an off peak that where schools would be in session um I believe that's included in the draft report and include I didn't include the table tonight but uh it's you know within 10% is not a big difference really when you look at variations on a regular basis it's not like a huge jump so right well we have school not in session but and then you have our pink tourist time so yeah there's somewhat of a balance but I'd be interested in looking at the specific data to to related to time yep definely again I'd like to I I agree with Mark I I'd like to hear from Jeff on on this in terms of um the short and long-term uh recommendations which I very much appreciate you're putting in there and where it fits into our overall plan um so hopefully we can have a discussion again soon after staff makes their recommendations and comments appreciate your help thank you Tracy Liz yeah I had a lot of thoughts about it and I I feel like I should have been at the the public sessions but I wasn't there and I don't want to um take time with the board and it sounds like we're going to return to this so but I was surprised that there was nothing done about Long Pond Road and trying to get on onto Station Avenue from Long Pond Road but apparently not but would I if I have thoughts would I go to Jeff then I'm looking for guidance from maybe from Bob as to how to help um speed this up a little bit well any input that you have would be excellent to just jot it down we're going to funnel all of this information through the Department of Public Works and um try to inventory the issues and concerns and decide what you know the most important issues I'll bring my comments to Jeff I also thought the um it would be interesting to see what your solution as a as the the planner for the Eastbound and Westbound ramp left turns but you certainly are going to have two roundabouts one after another so I I would love to see your thoughts in terms of solving that problem but what's the com combination look like yeah that would have to be definitely further studied and engineered but this time two roundabouts could be feasible it does exist in the rest of the country um but there's a we'd have to take into account a roundabout at the eastbound ramp because of the proximity to the whites path signal is probably a tighter concern to make sure that those two don't back up um and that would have to have a little bit more extensive modeling um for preliminary from a high level point of view signal and roundabouts are feasible um to proove safety and operations I'll bring this to Jeff thank you sure I just have one more comment I can't stand the Middle Lane on station a it's a it's it's awful so to the extent that you have very dedicated turns on there I think that that will be helpful it's um it's something that people just use as a as a throughway and it's it's dangerous especially when people are pulling out of different parking lots so that is one thing that I think will be an improvement Joyce oh hello um as a resident of Long Pond Drive I can tell everyone that uh that L pan drive has been especially congested lately in mornings we expect that with all the traffic going to the high school but now there's uh there's traffic that continues through the morning and I've actually wondered if it wasn't related to uh um the route 28 um sewer disturbance of the road so that might be a temporary thing um but um we're patient people on Long Pond Drive um there also has been past discussion on numerous occasions of putting a traffic light on the corner of Long Pond Drive and station AV and I can just offer this little nugget of information the uh the neighbor at the corner of station a in Long Pond Drive who would make it his life's mission to oppose a traffic light suggestion every time it came up moved away two years ago so you got some wiggle okay Joyce any other comments um no I I mean I really appreciate um the the work that the Cap Cod Commission and and Colleen in particular are putting into this because it it really does um seem that station AV has gotten busier and busier um but some of that is economic development and some of that of course is the schools and I would I would agree with the concerns expressed by colleagues that um we need to think about how uh future School planning um might be a part of that um on the corner of Long Pond Drive in station AV there's always at least one accident every summer and usually more than that but as Tracy said they're they're fender benders so they're sort of driver fault rather than Road fault so I'm done thank you Joyce um I agree with my fellow board members that uh thank you very much it's a very comprehensive report uh but there is much more that we need to discuss on this and as Mark has pointed out we've got the future of a potential another school coming into that situation um as Tracy's pointed out the that Middle Lane is quite frankly a nightmare I mean you you almost have to like close your eyes and go in um don't do that no I know don't do that not a good idea not a good idea but uh it it it seems as if people are just kind of using that as their own personal throughway um and I definitely warn I think are getting together with our our with Jeff and and um our other folks here in town and try to figure out some strategies for what we're going to do going forward so we will be putting this on the agenda thank you very much great we appreciate you work thank you thanks [Music] Colleen surprised to see a 40 m hour it's kind fast next on the agenda of this evening we have the mes utilization committee update is that legal okay seat's a little low thanks welcome thank you Hi how are you all good good to see you Sharon good to be here and let me just start off by saying thank you for undertaking the chair of this committee well it'll be an interesting process so I'm looking forward to it and afraid of it too but um I think with the expertise of both of our administrators um and the due diligence they've already given given it they should be thanked because the process that you've developed um is a very intriguing one and uh but I I'm optimistic about it and I'm very hopeful about the different ideas that are going to be presented so looking forward to it I just want to introduce myself I'm a member of the mes utilization committee my name is Sharon wymer and I am serving as the chair um all of the members are not here but there are some other members I'd like to introduce uce the other members of the mes utilization committee which is also known as Muk I want to thank you for the name thank Bill Bill yeah well he has sort of a devilish little humor I've discovered about Bill so um Andrew leard uh is our vice chair Lindsay Petro is our secretary John Anderson Ian Kelly Barbara leav Joe POA and our alternate Robbie White House are our other members so they're um all terrific we've had a couple meetings today and um they're all excited about the possibility of what can be developed here at the 70 Acre Site of madis school and the me small school um I'd like to um also just tell you just a little bit I'm a member I've been a member of the Yarmouth Community since 1978 um I've participated in many different um Community efforts um too numerous to mention uh but my main focus is terms of work has been um real estate and I have worked for a number of different um firms within the town and then I also became a principal and owner of my own company uh for 20 years um so my EXP experience tells me that we must look for the highest and best use of the madaky property so um I'd like to we also know Bill and I also know that the the agenda is really full tonight so we're going to be as brief as we can in terms of this first presentation so I'd like to start by reading um the uh charge that you've given us and then I'm going to turn it over to Bill who would like to go through the different processes so um and the reason I want to do the charge is because you're going to see and you know it uh because you created it with Bill and Bob um the extensive need for the process that we've developed I shouldn't say we Bill and Bob so the select board charges to create an effective reuse plan in a manner that considers multiple alternatives toward achieving a proposal for the ReUse of the site the selectman appointed study committee shall take specific steps such as those outlined by the scope of work to ensure inclusion of the many interests in the property in an impartial Manner and combine that input with technical support to determine alternative scenarios that will contribute to but are not limited to one of the many following areas economic cultural recreational tourism social housing Parks community centers or educational development of the town of Yarmouth the outcome shall provide plans profiles and renderings with costs associated with its engineering permitting design construction implementation funding and operations with an understanding of impacts on the community both as a whole and nearby to the site there have been discussions as you've just referred to as to the possibility of the adjacent emys small Elementary School moving and as a result that possibility is considered in the analysis the scope of the project attached here too in commerate with the F filing of the Town warrant will be upd updated and approved by the board and bill is going to briefly Touch This uh Bill Scott assistant Town Administrator uh what I'll do is go through the presentation which is essentially the scope and it is the scope that uh has changed somewhat since the original uh scope and the reason for that is as we went through the selection process for committee members there's a realization that a lot of people wanted to have a voice in this and those voices were around those topics that you saw Economic Development housing and things like that so there were multiple layers of opportunities multiple organizations interested in this and multiple approaches that we could use to do that so we needed to create something that brought in all these different ideas and uh but before we start I just want to show you what we've done uh we've got two meetings we've got the vice chair the chair secretary all appointed we've adopted this seven phase scope we've uh sent out instructional memos to project teams which I'll explain later uh establish Liaisons for those teams uh created a web page with background information that's going to update uh we've got the RFP out for the consultant uh and we're working with the Communications Department on a video because this is going to be a difficult site to visit we want to be able to get uh people to understand uh you know what the site condition is at least in the building and then also we have a uh another consultant updating the 10-year-old study of the site uh in terms of the feasibility not the feasibility but its condition and the cost associated with that if I could just in introduce a thought in terms of our committee uh page and the project page has probably 11 or 12 items that we've already listed on the web page and and they talk about what bill was referring to is that there are very probably four or five old building sites that were done by Architects within the school and so some of that is going to be updated but I also wanted to mention uh your very talented uh staff member that is Kathy Williams who is the town planner and she has put together a great zoning analysis of the present site and if anybody wants to look as to how thorough your staff is you just have to look at that product um to know what a great asset Kathy Williams is and I think that's a good point what we're doing is collecting information from staff and committies so we're not really spending money on Consultants right up front we're getting all the information we can together before we we go there uh right now we have phases and uh each phase uh will be about 3 months and then we will give a update to the board of Selectmen and hold public meetings so uh the site conditions uh for the building we about two weeks off schedule on that we sent notifications to the teams and we'll working with them as you can imagine uh many committees and teams that we're working with have other committees so the sort of Matrix of trying to get three meetings over three months out of six different groups is is is going to be daunting the RFP has been interrupt you again sure go ahead it's my one rare moment that I get to interrupt so um um the the whole uh um conversation that bill was just having in terms of uh we would love your support in the anytime you have an opportunity to speak with any of the Departments uh we would love to get our dates fixed so that we can make sure that our layers on to those committees um can participate and we get it all down and so if you have any uh ability to say oh by the way did you provide Muk with your dates for future Zoom meetings um we'd love that so see Bill I'm trying to help you okay thank you uh but to that point uh having all those three months schedule means that the public can start choosing and we can start avoiding conflicts where two teams are meeting on the same date and then residential try to decide do I go to Economic Development go to I go to housing uh so these are the teams and some of them are the uh representative of existing committees so housing is a Housing Trust a committee and everything's there open space and water supply education will work with the school department CDC Chamber of Commerce staff and Municipal uh social service will be essentially a staff like what Municipal facilities could go here and sort of running scenarios to that the key to this is we don't want to be a year or six months to a year down the road and then have somebody say did you think about X and because that's when you start cycling back and starting over again so uh so it's important to get all the information from the various topics so here is the sort of diagram that explains it and we're relying on each of these teams to provide proposals and within those uh sort of topical areas so would you like to talk about yesterday too oh yeah why don't you why don't you leave one of one of the bubbles or the project areas is housing and so yesterday uh Mary wagan another competent staff member uh put together um a two committee um committee housing committee and the affordable housing trust led by Bob uh to be a joint meeting and there were also the layer zones that are the housing layer zones from the mck committee were were there as well um I know Mark was there as being part of the aord affordable trust and it was a great informational meeting it wasn't the first run a Muk meeting it was the informational meeting so that everybody could understand what the process is because that's difficult to get everybody on the same page so it was um I think the first time that those two committees have ever been together I may be wrong on that but I I think that's the case so it was great so having these committees come in and provide the separate components uh means that eventually and I'll show you the three-phase process uh you're putting together the puzzle the muck is with the consultant so weing uh I mean just finished a housing production plan an open space and Recreation plan so there's a lot of knowledge and value and understanding in these committees that we can't find elsewhere and having them involved in the process and and the way the process works is that uh you know where asking them in a sort of synonymous method across them through questionaires whatever the same questions so that we can compare apples to apples as they return their information so the groups would work with outside groups and then uh madaky's utilization committee would work with the board of Selectmen and the public these groups are still posting their meetings and having them separately so they can invite the public as they see fit uh but obviously as public meeting requirements see fit so you can see the amount of transparency that can go happen with individual meetings on a topic uh and then also coming to the board on a regular basis so the knowledge base and I don't want to really go over this is you know let's start with the people who are already doing the work in these topical areas and ask them uh What uh some of the components are for the site let's use the knowledge that they derived in their planning process hiring their consultants and then move it forward so in February to April the consultant is selected and the land use teams meetings begin and there's three meetings there's the we call it mukaram which is everybody thinks of everything everything is on the table in the first meeting and so no idea is left off the table and people are free to think outside the box it doesn't mean that every single thing is going to come to fruition the next meeting after that in the following month is going to be uh they get their ideas down to three ideas it may be that two or three of the ideas in the first meeting combined to be one uh and then the last meeting they have in the following month is that they're getting one idea one at a elevated State and one at a moderate State essentially higher or low lower density or more of each and what that does is again we don't have somebody stand up and say have you ever thought about X well that's what we should have thought of in the first meeting and then discounted it maybe potentially in the other meetings so that three meeting process eventually leads to uh n RFP mck is sending an RFP to each of these groups or request for proposals and and then the consultant is helping them pull their proposal together so you can see if the board wants three Alternatives you've got six groups coming in with multiple ideas it's going to be easy to find three Alternatives by mixing and matching them and as you're doing this the public is saying well I like this part of the plan but not necessarily this part of the plan and we can go backwards and forwards in the process to accomplish that so uh there's a benchmarking list that we do so as they're coming up with the ideas we're also looking at how else has somebody handled this particular Topic in a Redevelopment and then their proposals are due in Late July early on in this process after the uh assessment of the building we're also going to have the consultant determine on a tabular basis how much would it cost to put residential here versus um office versus other uses because residen itial is a very expensive in a building like this because you have to run all the utilities to all the separate units versus an office might be cheaper so a lot of people might think how can we reuse the building we're not going to do a lot of drawings we're just going to run a cost per square foot and say here are the obstacles to do this use versus that use so it helps you understand whether the building or at least portion of it should survive based on the land uses you proposed and also based on the study I mean to the public works Department's credit they are you know keeping that building you know from uh and constantly watching the building and managing it so time is not on our side so we want to move this thing quickly so that we're not carrying that building so the land use uh team's proposals are presented uh Consultants review the proposals and then mck review with the consultant so you can see you're getting all all this great knowledge and ideas from people they're getting it from you know the public and bringing it all together into sort of that puzzle and then you extensively uh the consultant is put together your utilization plan the all the finite detail is not there but there's enough to say you've accomplished what you need you're not we don't want to get into a situation where uh we go into a lot of engineering uh before we get out of does the public like the way we're proposing the use so this is really the finish line for the study uh to the extent that we're saying here's the mix of uses here's generally their impacts and then you would go back to Tom meeting to get an implementation plan with more finite engineering we don't want to spend a lot of money on engineering to find out people don't like the plan so uh going back and forth is what's probably going to happen here with that utilization plan and then you can see you're going from the utilization plan to formalize cost estimates and the cost benefit that is how much does it cost a town to sustain whatever is on the site that we might have responsibility for uh maybe it's all private sector you formalize of Permitting in official Town actions in terms of division of the property sale of property art PS and then you begin the implementation plan so you're basically saying here's the steps we need to take at the various Town meetings grants we need to apply for uh and that's really after the utilization plan and you can see still select board updates are happening at the end of these processes because the process is getting more detailed uh there is less work done other than one Topic in each area so your final reports and schedule developed uh the one thing that we need to do is somehow as we move forward make sure we're aligning it with the time meeting process uh so if we need to hit a milestone you know uh is there a time meeting coming up and so that's one thing that we might do either pushing it out or pulling it back in to do that and there are grants for you know building demolition and things like that if we decide with the board and others that part of the building comes down do we pursue that Grant while we're still doing the study we don't want to miss opportunities as we're moving forward so some of the keys uh to this and this is what uh I had heard from the board is timing and what I've heard from the finance committee is we need to overcome the carrying cost of uh this building so we can't spend four or more years doing this and also the carrying cost of the engineering once we get the utilization plan done then we're going in and saying here's a specific set of funds we need for implementation the next is existing knowledge and I don't know Sharon if you want to offer I me the advantages of that you know and well certainly uh we don't uh we we talked about saving money by not using consultant early uh we will need it for technical help later on as I indicated in our scope we're looking for plans and uh financial analysis Etc but right now there's already in existence a group of committees that actually have plans for housing let's say if there was housing Recreation is in the middle of a field uh study so there are a lot of uh people doing things I I do want to also say about the housing she went and secured a grant uh that was available so she's seeking a help to run the whole conversation with that which is wonderful there's no money we're expending on that behalf she got it as a grant so there's some great opportunities for saving money by doing it this way and um we think there are committees that are very capable um of providing great ideas and we're looking forward to the first one to see uh of each group to see what kind of ideas might might come out we're also um we've we've had discussions in our committee meeting about making sure that we get Yarmouth Town residents as well with their ideas so we're trying to think of ways and I guess that would be a second ask of you that if there are people that come because you're so used to getting public comment that if we can start to get um our word out that there are ideas we're looking for um and they come to you we would love it if you'd pass it on to our committee because then we're going to have have a discussion at our next meeting about that process so we're we're really eager to hear from the town of Yarmouth folks and I know that Kathy is planning the meeting for her followup for her vision planning thing on the 29th I believe and so um there was mentioned that she would try to create some dialogue too about the mass uh the mes project so there's some great opportunities and if we can all work together which is something the town of Yarmouth I'm sure would love that we all kind of work together to uh find the best use for the property which would include money I'm sure um but in terms of all that the town of armouth is going through with the Wastewater expenses Etc so and the last step is really the implementation plan so once the utilization plan gets developed it's we don't want to leave it there uh we want to say okay is this part of the site going to go to a private devel Vel ER and is there an RFP and what do we have to do at town meeting to make that happen I think the important thing is as you meld all the different uh ideas together committees can meet with the public and you know people interest in Economic Development can attend that meeting and then it is going to be up to the utilization committee and their consultant and sort of Representatives of those teams to s sort of say well maybe if we do a little less of X you can fit a little more of what you're thinking of whether it be ball fields housing you know Economic Development activities things like that so it's going to be a negotiation uh near the end of the process of all these different plans and then you will be left to select what's the best options that are brought to you so Jo from way out there in California do you have any questions I don't think I do um it does seem that the what we do with those Higgin scroll sites is uh is kind of crucial to everything even up by my neighborhood so I'll be very curious to see how public comment and the committee's work combined to give us good things thank you Joyce Mark um thank you Sharon and thank you you to all of your fellow committee members for uh getting roped into this assignment uh we very much appreciate um all the energy and enthusiasm that you're bringing to this um and congratulations on figuring out a creative way to interrupt Bill I know periodically it's a it's been a challenge but but I'm working on it so yeah I think we're all ready for the quiz now um this is obviously a very very challenging Enterprise um there's a tremendous amount of Interest as you know in this whole project um I think your biggest challenge is going to be how do we keep the public engaged in this public participation is incredibly important and um I think this is something that we're just going to have to continually assess and look for ways to keep the public aware and up the speed to some degree on what's going on also to get input from the public um you know I think we've learned a lot um from the uh from our the the exercise on the drive-in property um and you mentioned Kathy Williams Kathy did I think did a great job in helping us develop a survey and other ways to get public input on that site because it was pretty clear that as we came to we got to a point where we had a pretty good idea of what the town wanted and what the town was comfortable with and that took a lot of work so I think it would be nice to be able to when we get to the end of this project to not only get a sense of what makes sense but I know that in in in our deliberations we have a pretty good idea of what the public wants uh and where the public uh what the public is interested and the surve the surveys that were done for the drive-in site were very helpful they were very thoughtful well laid out and I I honestly believe that what we're creating there is indeed a project that reflects the will of the people of this community and that's been reflected in the in the various votes at at at Town meetings so um I would continue to encourage you to pick Kathy's brains and and others on the staff in terms of figuring out creative ways to engage public input because um um it's it's often easy to say that and to invite public meetings but it's another thing at the end of the day to come up with a set of recommendations that you know uh Embrace what the public wants and like I said I think we did that with that project I think we did a great job uh the town staff was crucial in terms of com bringing that together um I like just the overall approach to this I think um it's at times it can be tough to follow but the reality is is that there is some method to the madness and you've got an ambitious time frame let's face it there's a lot of work that has to be done within the year we've given ourselves a year time frame I think that's something that people uh in this community are going to be thrilled to hear to know that we're going to work at a at a very brisk pace and then bring about a set of recommend ations at the end of the year um the risk in all this again is losing the public so I think the public participation component is is going to be a work in progress but we've got good people to support you so that you guys can uh get that done and do it well well I appreciate your comments mark because that is going to be a discussion we're talking about our agenda for the 13th meeting that the mck committee has and part of that has been um how do we involve and get ideas so my bringing it up in in front of you is my hope that hey you know if you're bored and you want to ask somebody a question I know you don't normally but hey what do you think about the medes you know whatever you can do from your position would greatly enhance our desire to touch base with Yarmouth residents to get their ideas and I think your survey ideas something that we'll add to our agenda in terms of is this something we should be doing too so I appreciate the comments you're welcome thank you I'm sorry Bill just just to the public comment I think the important thing is getting the entire schedule out there so we have those three meetings and then the RP so that the publicans say here's how I can attend these different topical areas and be a participant uh because we really don't want to give them a heads up two weeks out and find out that they can't attend or they didn't know what happened so key to this is getting all those teams schedules together and then uh having PE giving people the option and then we are asking any of those meetings to be zoomed so in a in a location that can handle that and I let me just respond by saying I think that's all great y it's all good y it's it's it should be part of the DNA and the mo standard operating procedures or whatnot but I think what we've learned from our own experience is that sometimes s you literally have to like get into people's homes or get to them directly and like I said before the surveys that were done on the drive-in site were very very helpful and we didn't capture everybody but we at least were able to give every individual resident in town an opportunity to basically have a say in terms of what's going on and I think quite frankly you're going to get a lot of interest in this town residents wanting to have a say this is as you know this is a community that likes to get engaged in things like this so I think I I would take advantage of it yep thank you thank you Mark Tracy I agree and I think we need to take advantage of it early so when you talk about throwing everything on the table um I think doing that early instead of later on after you've already kind of maybe went down a particular path might be a little bit difficult but you know one of the things that typically happens in situations like that you'll start to see a pattern and you know collaboration and um consensus is so important because like Mark said I think those surveys um showed a lot of similarities you can kind of start to form something and when it does come to the point of having to uh raise an appropriate funds for it it's um it's certainly helpful very helpful to have the consensus there so I think um the way that you've outlined what you're going to be doing is a heavy lift I'm very appreciative um the timeline is quick but um carrying that building the way that it is is extremely expensive I don't know if the public understands how very how very expensive it is if you know to ensure a vacant building of that size so um not that that should be your sole uh Focus but it's uh the longer these buildings sit the more they deteriorate and whether or not the building stays or not is a whole another is a whole another argument or consideration but I believe that when you're done with your work and you come to us um you'll make it easy for us because if you've really um Listen to Everybody along the way it's going to take a life of its own and there's just so many opportunities right now that that's probably hard to see but I feel like we will get to a point where there will be consensus that you can see and um we'll move forward so I appreciate everything I appreciate your presentation very good thank you billk you thank you to everybody who stepped up to be on the committee and I look forward to the next step thank you Tracy Liz um I um would also encourage you to go to the feasibility study that was conducted by the library planning committee yeah um because that was calling out elements that are absent in terms of meeting spaces and um so that's that's a a a good document right there to pull off of um the other thing that I think your your probably your consultant is going to pick up on and if not then I would encourage you to reach out and fil help with this that solar system is very valuable and it's far from um its retirement age um it's something that the cape and Vineyard Electric Cooperative own but it's coming into its buyout options and um it and it would be uh reached its its buyout end of contract life in in 2033 which very well could be coincidental with getting anywhere and um I think one of the aspects that maybe I don't know how it fits into the the teams but one of the things that Yarmouth doesn't have that's becoming more Bob and and the and Bill are working towards um the the idea that we have emergency Sheltering and a grid free um place to go when the grid is down and we have storms and floods and so on um and that so that's with that solar system right there there's the distinct possibility that you could have a really terrific opportunity to shelter people people um in in Grid down situations and talk about grants grants for for creating U sustainability and um and shelter is is very high on the list right now in terms of Municipal vulnerability in that in that case so um I've also heard Rumblings that the the that the Barnstable the town of barille no longer has its convention center and G wouldn't Yarmouth do well for a to have a convention center and up the commercial um tax base but who knows where that fits but at any rate those were my comments and wonderful work I look forward to participating wherever I can thank you Liz you both have done a superb job as have all your committee and you've got a tough job that silent majority how do we get them to start talking and writing uh that's going to be the key um well it may be as simple is having some wonderful ideas that people haven't thought about or are totally against I mean there is that whole dynamic of what's going to happen in terms of maybe uh The Economic Council may come with certain ideas but housing comes with others Recreation with others and how do you pull all those together will be a fascinating time in the committee uh so I didn't mean to interrupt you no no no go right ahead uh well we also uh have great help available for us for communication with Lori being on board Lori Sullivan um and I think I like the fact that you're going to be back here quarterly giving us updates so it's something that is staying on the agenda something we want people to have at the front of their minds uh and I um just think we have to start asking them what would you like to see muck doing I love I love the name muck let them run a let them run a muck in this town and figure out I'm not sure I was proud to say to my children oh I'm going to be the chair of the mck committee but you know they weren't quite understanding what that was about but but um certainly and when we start discussing um which uh is coming up shortly on the agenda our goals you'll see that that it's right there and on the goals for us uh so whatever we can do to help you um we appreciate you're taking the time and effort it's a hot seat we've put you into and we appreciate you looking forward to it actually so we're we're looking forward to it I think I'll leave it at that and so well thank you very much thank you for letting us come tonight we know you have a busy schedule so we will leave got it Madam chair I've got a point of order um I'd like to suggest I'm just looking at the this outstanding group group of talent that we have here in the room tonight and I'd like to see if it might make sense if we just um move uh our select board goals until move that slip that down a couple of items and the town meeting article discussion on the hero act and bring up the capital Improvement plan presentation and bring up the budget workshop with the finance committee because um just about everybody here in this room is here for those two items and I would recommend that we we we we we move those up on the agenda and uh put the uh the other two items that I mentioned to bring them up after I take in your suggestions and given the time and when we were looking at uh coming up with these items we're really at that time so at the moment we will um move our uh town meeting article on the herrow Act and the uh review of the select go board goals till uh after the budget Workshop so if we could have our Capital Improvement plan presentation please thank you got Clicker thank you we appreciate that suggestion so we're back again um I'd like to introduce my committee um I we have Ken Smith he's from the planning board he's the representative from the planning board Lindsay Petro um she's also on the mck committee um I'm not sure I don't think anyone else is here but we have George Perkins from the finance committee um Joe Jamal he couldn't be here tonight because he was sick and myself Sandy F I am the chair I'd also like to thank all the department heads um we couldn't do this without all their hard work and especially to thank bill um but we also want to thank and recognize the efforts of a prior Committee Member who who actually um was on the committee for 10 years um she had great ideas she really um gave it her all Judy Connor Taver who's no longer with us um and we we will miss her talents but um we know that she's very active in the town so we'll see her in another place but um so we want we wanted to recognize her efforts so I can figure this out all right bill is that the same one I have here oh sorry I should have brought that up for begin so the purpose of our presentation tonight basically is to hand off a document we've already met with the finance committee um and this is our initial document it's a preliminary report um it is our plan to meet again in January and as as needed during the warrant process and finalize our numbers so we're just providing tonight an overview of the document and a discussion for our initial recommendations so the capital budget committee is charged of reviewing all the requests basically requests come in that are $110,000 or greater and have a useful life of five years um examples would be buildings or Vehicles computer equipment roadways sidewalks um hopefully not reoccurring expenses the committee uh recommendation take the form of a five-year Capital plan and a 10-year facility plan according to the Charter um these items are budgeted for and are presented at town meeting as the capital budget the capital budget as you know is separate from the town's operating budget which we're going to hear more about tonight so this is our third year of a cloud-based system for entry um it's really helped us greatly in our process um the Departments enter their information and and they give us so much supporting documentation um that we're able to view online so we don't have to print anything um but it's always available it's at our fingertips um so first the items go to the Town Administrator he reviews the projects and he sends those um via the portal to us um the system facilitates a much more rapid movement and we're also able to capture with the system things that we missed before fall town meeting items are now in the portal and we're able to review those and rate those also before the fall town meeting so it's really helped us in tracking and um and we you know we really appreciate all Bill's efforts and putting this forward and um as I said this is our third year and the Departments have really embraced it all so as well as the school so this is our basic schedule we start in September um as soon as the items go through the Town Administrator they come to us we meet weekly um we meet every week usually on Mondays um and then we present to the finance committee which as I said we did a few weeks ago so I won't read each one of these but this is basically uh for the public sake for the schedule um according to the Charter we're required to um deliver our recommendations by December 1st so it's really tight it's very tight our schedule's very tight um which is an an issue but I'm not really sure how we can um change it um given that the Departments don't um do their thing until September so so how the process works and we talked and I won't read this whole slide to because I've already kind of explained how the Town Administrator makes his recommendations but we also use a liaison approach each one of our members is assigned a department sometimes multiple departments um so they they reach out to the Departments and they set up um meetings with the Departments to review the um requests the either the equipment or the sites and just listen to the Departments and get more information and then bring it back to the committee um this approach we've been using for several years and it does work really well we also o ask each department though to appear before us by Zoom um and go over each one of their proposals and at the same time we have access to the portal so we have access to all the information that we need to make our decisions so these meetings have worked out really well the last few years having the committee members be leaon also helps the new members meet the department heads you know God bless you so our process basically has a rating criteria that we give um basically two scores one for significance and one for Readiness um it's a weighted score where significance gets 70% and Readiness gets 30% um in our final report which is also available on the website you can read more information on on um our rating criteria um but basically for significance we have four groups which is essential desirable acceptable and defer um this next slide tells you exactly um what we look at if we were going to rate something of four um it would be something that has a dangerous condition or a critically needed program Poss possibility of losing funding or it might be be mandated and then um if it's a three it may would be none of the above but might benefit the community um there could be timing issues mandated within the next five years Etc so each item is looked at by each member they go in and they put in their scores and it comes up with a um an overall score for each item just so this year um we have not recommended any item that did not score 3.0 or or above so these next few slides um basically talk about funding sources um as I said we we do a 10e fiveyear plan and a 10year plan so these next two slides give funding sources over the first five years and then um the next one is over the next five years and one thing I want to note on this is if you look at the totals sometimes um I'll go back one um the total sometimes um go down we in the current year we might have um a greater amount than we do in out years and we'll talk a little bit more about that as we go through our recommendations so we'd like to see departments pursue more state and federal grants um we um um when we do we have a um concerned with free cash that we're going to talk about when we get to another slide this next slide basically is a graph of the 10-year plan you can see this um a spike in 2029 which is Wastewater um and currently we have some application of debt for logger project in our recommendations but we'd like to see more application of debt to smooth out um the the plan over the 10 years instead of seeing the big spikes um in in some of the years this is just a graph graphic look at funding sources over the next 10 years with free cash being over 11% of all our um funding sources as I said we looking to put and departments do a really good job looking for state and federal grants but the more they can um if they can pursue more grants that would be very helpful now we'll get into our recommendations for this current year this is a list of our recommendations and the scores that they received um it's based it's done in um this list is from free cash so to free cash total for 2026 is $3.5 million um and I said we did not recommend anything that did not score 3.0 or higher um 2025 is that column is strictly the fall toown meeting this this particular slide um is from other funding sources I'm not going to read each one of them as I said this is all available for the public on our on our website but we do have some um rais in appropriate as far as the um tax levy is for roadways which we're happy that's back under a tax levy um so this is our grand total um we're recommending 16 million $674,900 of all our funding sources buildings also is very low um and we will be making some recommendations on those too infrastructure because of waste water is 58% moving forward um we've noted this last year that we would like to look at the charter um it the time the sequence of of our whole goes from September to and we have to have everything done by De 7 December there's really no big discussion on long range planning would' like to see more of a focus on that um we've also noted the last couple years about Market fluctuation with the supply chain and often when someone asks for a vehicle um they don't get that vehicle for a year a year and a half sometimes even longer if it's a um if it's for a fire department free cash we've always said that we should not be used for annual repeat items but we also feel that at this point free cash is being used too much um we'd like to um have a discussion with you or with with Administration um to Pro possibly cap how much free cash we're going to actually use um for cap Capital because we it may not be there and right um $3.5 Million last year was just as High um we have come up with a guidance document which we will be bringing forward to the board to adopt um the main it basically outlines everything that we do what time frames we do um it's very helpful for um a new department head or or a new member to understand the process but one of the main issues that we will be talking to about when we come in is we're recommending a base amount increase from 10,000 to $25,000 spend 10,000 for many many years you don't get very much for 10,000 anymore um so that's one of our recommendation is to um increase that threshold that so moving forward we would like to recommend a devel Vel mment of a rolling stop plan this will be similar to the capital portal where we'll be able to track um and schedule Rolling Stock create standards for vehicles um this is something that bill is looking into so it would be an online process also um we're also looking to create a 10-year Capital maintenance plan utilizing the uh facilities assessment that's that was recently done and then by doing this we'd be able to um plan building projects that and they wouldn't rather than emergency work um we'd like to seek alternate funding sources with the CIP projects over multiple years um so next step we're going to as I said this is a preliminary plan um we're going to finalize on numbers as the town meeting warrant gets um finalized excuse me and we have in come in in March when we do our final presentation um so with that would like to thank thank the as I said the town staff and everyone were here to answer any questions that you may have thank you for that uh presentation Mark do you have any questions um sure F first of all thank you um you know each year we do this these presentations get better and better and better I mean it's just well thanks to everybody I mean this is a this is a it's a collaboration and a lot of time and energy gets gets put into this so thank you for all your hard work um I would I would like to talk about some of the things that you've highlighted okay uh for for further deliberation and further consideration uh you mentioned free cash I think it's worth having a conversation about particularly with some of the statements at recent Town meetings it might be some helpful it might be helpful not just for us to revisit it but also to help explain to the public and others the purpose of free cash and what what is you know what what what are the best practices um we might want to review our own Financial policies because free cash is a is an item in our financial policy so we should look it in the context of you know a review and update of this in terms of our financial policy but also kind of assess what's the best practice uh Yarmouth has been working hard to try to get to a AAA Bond rating and um I think I would look at it as an opportunity is there a way to improve our free cash policy that makes us more likely to get a better Bond rating I know there are other factors that tend to fall into play but it's certainly worth a conversation it's also worth a conversation and a discussion about best practices if if we have too much then the question is going to be what are the options to bring it down or is there a way to put some of the perceived excess into a portion of the budget in an area of reserves or stabilization that strengthens our overall financial position okay so I think those are the kinds of things that warrant some real discussion and deliberation so um um but and I and and I I would put that on Madame chair as a as a future agenda item um but these other points that you've raised I think I I would agree with them as well they need to be looked at and and adjusted so I have no no qualms with that by the way the uh recommendations by category that pie chart that was up on the screen I think is incredibly helpful for people to understand it's it's a very it's a very important image and graphic that helps explain where are where the money's going right um and infrastructure obviously of the 58% bill go ahead uh just as an anomaly in there the library is in in there under buildings as a lump sum and not as debt so there's a lot less money in buildings than show up on that chart it's not 20% okay so that's helpful yeah I'm I'm sure the the library folks would be interested to making sure that that's an accurate uh portrayal given given their interest in uh in in in their buildings um I also want to applaud you for pitching the idea of a capital maintenance plan across municipal buildings um that's a that's a huge issue very very important and uh I I endorse that thoroughly um and I don't know if any of these recommendations that you've highlighted need a vote for vote from the board or whatever but um um I'm I'm totally on board with all of the items that you flagged for us to change and revise um I don't want to get into the details on any specific recommendations but I think just overall I think you've done a great job uh your committee serves the town very very well and uh I very much appreciate all your hard work thank you thank you Mark Tracy thank you um Mark said a lot of what I um thought so the free cash concerns me mostly I think we do need to look at our budgeting I think it's hard and difficult to go back to the taxpayers for overrides when we have this kind of money at the end of the year so that's something that's hard because um we watch it with the school department you know the last couple of years the money that they went for an override they had their end fund at the end of the year so I it's hard to project and and um to plan and we don't want to be caught short but at the same time um that's a lot of money I've kind of chuckled to myself um thinking about the iterations of uh different ways we've done this since you've been doing this Sandy and the the rating system the committee but um well you've been you've been here I think a a little bit longer so uh there's been there's been some improvement in terms of you know technology helping you guys but it's still a huge undertaking and you know as to not get into the specifics because I would like to go through personally every one of these items because I do have questions we won't do that tonight I know we have a very long night and this again is another another item that could take a whole meeting in itself well you will be reviewing them by article on the meeting warrant so we can be here to answer any questions on on each item that night so we had been we had done in the past similar to what you're talking about for a planning purposes for building maintenance we did that with vehicles and I'm just wondering how that is going and how if you saw any benefits from from that at all when when you were utilizing it I don't see it on here I'm not sure I understand your question I know you you appropriated extra money for vehicle maintenance um in a special article which it didn't really come before our committee because it was maintenance um right well but now you're talking about it for building maintenance so I'm wondering what happened to to the plan a few years ago I guess about you know we were looking at Big dollar items for we we kicked the can down the road essentially you know we weren't doing the maintenance that we needed to do and you know we all kind of sat and looked at the requirements for Replacements and we thought you know maybe if we set aside some maintenance uh dollars then that would that would help because the Departments you know like when you talk about raising it from 10 to 25,000 you're right everything's more expensive but they still don't have the money in their budget unfortunately to get the $10,000 item so you know they have so limited options in terms of what what's available to them and having maintenance for their vehicles you know if they have to do it out in their own budget it's not going to happen which is I think a disservice to to the taxpayers because if we put that maintenance off then we end up having to get new vehicles faster so I'm happy to see that we're thinking about that for buildings but we need to do it for buildings and equipment right but I think for building we're looking so we don't run into a situation where the roof is falling in where we hadn't seen anything in come before capital in the last say five years um so if they can come up with a plan to keep their buildings maintained I agree totally but what I'm saying is we can't we get this influx we have this idea this one year and we do it and then we don't we don't stay consistent with it so I would love to see a plan for both vehicle maintenance and for building maintenance as you know that increases and stays with with us every year we have not yet seen the facilities assessment study that was done yeah to s's Point uh uh public works department has been proactively going building by building and doing an assessment of all their all the assets and the building the condition and a roof and everything else that then formulates sort of the sense of urgency plan to say we should Target this to be repaired so it becomes your Capital plan for for maintenance the issue was having that base of knowledge across all the assets and now they're pulling that together to then come back with sort of that list uh each and every year and in terms of uh Rolling Stock U Sandy had mentioned earlier we're going to probably having a Rolling Stock portal that you just take all the vehicles that are on the insurance list and then you start programming them out as a vehicle to be replaced maintained things like that so there's software out there that can help us keep track of that yep yeah definitely and we've like I said we we've been talking about this for many years and it's the same thing with buildings right you have X amount of square foot of of buildings we know that there's going to be regardless of a study we we know x amount of dollars based on historic iCal data of what we we spend or should be spending or you know requests that get put in that get put off um there's got to be an average something that we set aside every year so that way um it's consistent and we don't kick the can down the road because when we do that it ends up you know being a building that needs to be replaced so those are my only and I'm I'm looking forward to having uh conversations about your recommendations but I appreciate all your work thank you thank you thank you Tracy Liz I'm delighted to hear what Bill's talking about because it sounds like that is the groundwork for a building plan um and I wondered now that we're been given the hazard mitigation plan that was developed in 2017 that we're now to work on again do they interact at all I'm wondering it doesn't need to be answered but it would seem that that they would um we're trying to in the hazard m study determine where we might have some um buildings that could be susceptible to to flooding and so on with the um climate change issues so that would seem to affect Capital planning and the same thing with Rolling Stock uh in a different sense I know that we we're going more and more with hybrids and even in the heavy trucks there's more electric vehicle adoption and the big bonus to that besides the relief on gas costs is maintenance but I don't know and I think it we we it's going to be a different life span for those types of um electric vehicles too so but that would def those those they're not the future anymore they're here so I I'm curious as to how that hopefully it's a better it's going to show better on the capital Improvement plan bottom line so yes yeah I think we've done a lot of catch up on replacing vehicles in all the Departments with the free cash over the last couple years so I think we're going to see um probably a little less moving forward a little less replacement replacement moving forward sounds we've done a lot of catchup good so it's it's exciting and I'm excited that about what Bill's talking about with the to look at all the buildings to be a baseline thank you thank you Liz Joy oh thank you madam chair um I just wanted to thank the capital budget committee for um being such thoroughgoing stewards of public money I mean I'm impressed with the scoring system and the way things are carefully looked at things that have come up other years might you know move higher or they might stay you know dormant but I'm like to follow up on a point that Mark made which is the whole question of U moving uh upwards to the AAA Bond rating would someone in the room CU I I could picture that you're all there um perhaps like Jennifer Mullen or Bob Britt hour be willing to give us all and especially the public at home sort of a thre minute version of uh what a triaa bond rating would usually um would usually have as requirements maybe when we get into the Jo when we get into the overall budget I I think I'd like to get over the capital piece and then maybe I think this is a perfect setup for some of the um issues that get right into that point once we jump into the the budget discussion so you can hold that thought um we can cover that a little for you okay thank you Joyce um free cashes is the item that is very important to me as well and um it is something that we will be bringing up as an agenda item to the Future um and it's something that's beginning to have a lot of conversation within the town about it as well so but thank you all for your hard work we really appreciate it and uh you've really come a long way in in this whole process thank you for your time tonight thank you just uh one plug the the capital budget committee has a great website and their plan uh to date and also all the profiles that are all online for each of the projects that are coming to Tom meeting awesome well Bob's getting set up for the budget um overview uh we uh I had a conversation with our chair of the finance committee about the fact that um it's kind of important for us to get working on all of this as sooner rather than later and he very kindly agreed that um we really should be doing just that and so that you see in the agenda tonight that we have a joint finance committee uh selectman uh board select board uh meeting regarding the budget Richard is there anything that you'd like to say good evening I'm Richard Simon chair of the finance committee um as you've correctly noted we are uh just about to kick off our annual budget cycle review starting tomorrow uh and this is a deep dive of every single Department's budget uh and again we are very thankful and you see the product of Jennifer mullen's work incredible product gives us a head start so we're hoping to we're going to listen tonight uh we have many members of our committee here tonight Nate ladley is here John Anderson Bob aring myself I don't know if we got some other people online uh because we are going to be able to Short Circuit uh typically the kickoff session that we would typically have tomorrow and go directly into budget reviews so we thank uh Jennifer and Bob for all their hard work and we're looking forward to getting into the meet thank you very much could I ask Richard a quick question certainly following up on that uh we had one of our public comments um ask us about um looking at when employees are scheduled and so on and being strategic about hiring so that um we're spending less money and spending our money wisely is that the kind of thing you'll be looking looking into uh that is a little bit beyond our scope so if you think about uh the role of this committee uh we are you set policy the Town Administrator and his very capable team actually decide how to make that work uh we are just we are part of the recommendation process we're going to make sure that every dollar that they have proposed is the right set of dollars now when it comes to a conversation that we're probably going to have with the police chief that will be part of the conversation but again we are not going we do not second guess uh the experts thank you understood and I I also would like to um note that the department heads are all here with us tonight I know that you've been working very diligently with both Bob and uh Jennifer to get us to this point here and um I welcome you I thank you for your hard work and your continu hard work in the town Bob thank you very much um i' like to Jump Right In with um for some some general comments and and I'm hopeful that that we can discuss in one fashion or another every single one of the um items that's come up uh it's great to see the interest in the town's finances the first thing that I want to say is um great job to the capital team and and to Bill Scott um that been a major point of emphasis when um we sat here it was four years ago um you know we really had a lot of improvements to make in the capital planning and if you see with those sources of funds out 10 years with the projects the amount of planning and it really goes out to the department heads as well um it is a highly sophisticated Capital plan um at this point and uh the trajectory has just been tremendous and it really helps us with the planning moving forward and I'm glad the capital folks are still here because you're going to see the interplay between the operating and the capitalist they're not separate items by any stretch of the imagination and it's all a component parts of the town's finances U with respect to the operating budget this year the first thing I need to say that I am particularly proud um very much so of the new budget format that you have in front of you for fiscal year 2026 that's reflected in the the new budget books uh this budget presentation has been designed to incorporate some additional narrative analysis and a much clearer presentation of all of the budget information which starts directly with a detailed analysis of the revenues that um the operations are based on these are where a lot of the questions come up and it's critical to start with the revenues and then move into what the spending is going to happen and you see how the whole system works together and when you take various disperate elements and and pluck them out of it and and try to talk it it just removes the context from the whole argument and it U just sends you off in the wrong direction and this budget format that we've presented this year um it goes hand inand also with the new document that you've just seen this evening which replaces the annual independent audit which was just um a listing of of all of the financial statements that are very difficult for for people to to understand and go through and we've adopted our first annual comprehensive financial report of this year which is a presentation of the town's financial information in a way that first of all it's completely retooled um to provide more information that is usable information and help give us transparency to the town's finances all of the um financial performance of the Town um and the whole idea behind um having that transparency more information um more information about uh narratives explaining things more statistics of of the town and its operations more Revenue what we're trying to do is to make the town's finances easier to understand demystify them to help communicate this financial information both internally and externally to the residents um of the town to help people participate more not just the sophisticated folks that might be accountants or stuff but um normal residents to have greater participation in in a review of the town's finances and and the first thing I want to say right off the the bat these improvements are new budget book format and the ACT F we call it now the annual comprehensive financial report um are both the direct work of our Town's Finance director Jennifer Mullen who has made a tremendous contribution toward um demystifying a lot of the town's financial information she's got a great deal of experience in presenting this information to people um and with the organization and communication of this information uh in very meaningful ways there's been a lot of improvements that we're making now that we're going to continue to make and and I think it sets a good stage to talk about all of the issues U that people are bringing up that are out there and Jennifer has collaborated extremely closely with me uh throughout the entire budget process so it's great to have the teamwork here and and I welcome Jennifer to the U desk here and and I know she's gonna have a few comments to make um also included in your budget packet we have a full 10 year trend of all revenues and expenditures I don't know if you've ever even seen that but um it offers a great look into our budget history where we're going and I think it explains a lot of of the trends of how things fit together um in going over this budget I I really do want to thank all of our department heads and division heads that are here with us um the work that they do in preparing these budgets defending these budgets coming up with the individual programs of services some very complicated information that um they work very hard on uh and and I do want to thank them for all of their work being out here tonight um and and and every night with the work that they do um it is um a lot and I'm very thankful for for all of that um I also want to recognize I do believe our town accountant Maria ruseva is with us this evening the work that she does on the financial details um in keeping the town running implementation of all of these budgets um very valuable resource for the town and I want to give her some public acknowledgement um it's a unbelievable work that gets done through the the finance department and finally I would be remiss if I didn't mention the hard work of Mary Alice Florio and this year also Tara Monroe from assessing for all the logistical support in pulling the disparate pieces of information out and helping us present them in kind of a cogent way and keeping the process moving forward uh it's very very valuable now jumping in to a a general overview I want to say that fiscal year 20126 um has shaped up to be a particularly challenging year in Municipal Finance for the town of yth but also uh towns throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and and and really Across the Nation that um we're attempting to deal with the upward pressures of inflation that are really hitting us for the first time in this post pandemic economy that uh we haven't seen uh in over 20 years easily this type of uh pressure in terms of inflation that that hits the the municipal finances now what we're going to see as we go through some of these details our Revenue growth has really remained quite steady in terms of the historical Trends we haven't seen great uh increases uh in in Revenue um but while the revenues remain fairly steady in their growth largely as a result we'll see a proposition two and a half and its impact on Town revenues inflation impacts specifically the biggest problem is the wages and Personnel related costs that we face that we're confronting um right now much higher levels again than we've seen in previous years um while wages do dominate because they're overall uh you know the largest part 75% or more of the town's budgets the purchasing power in the expense budgets has also been diminished because of these Rising costs now these are the challenges that we're facing today having uh revenues not growing commensurate with the growth in in the costs with the inflation um it it creates you know a lot of tension in the budget um and and consequently this overall budget for fiscal year 26 that we're going to look at it reflects that struggle that we have to use the new revenues to keep up with Rising costs on our existing programs and for this P particular year it has really been an obstacle to adopting new programs to being able to um address the Staffing shortages in the fire department where uh in terms of when people are on and when the calls are that detailed information has been gone through with a fine tooth com and um can be presented has been done in the um strategic planning of the fire department has been presented widely and we discussed it here and the um fire department is is also you know cap of of getting into the detail of those Frontline um discussions on having the specific person this minute for this call and what happens when there's three calls at once and and making that all work together and and we've we've looked at those items as well but um what what we're going to see you know obviously we don't have additional funds inside of that prop two and a half environment to address those concerns although um we were able in the past year right the the overall strategic Plan called for eight new firefighters and four of them we were able to include under the prop 2 and a half Levy but we um stated last year and um delivered this year that the the second round to get us where we need for the minimum Staffing um is going to require some additional um revenues and and that is part of that struggle and and what we're going to see um using these new revenues to keep up with uh you know the pressures from inflation and growth to keep the existing Services going um there is not a lot of room for implementing new programs there's a not not a lot of um growth in terms of doing uh new things and uh so the the budget it's a level service budget it's a very tight budget it has some critical things is really governed towards uh implement ing the goals of the select board and and I think the best thing um we can do at at this point is is I'd like to First jump into a couple of the trends and see how that relates to where the revenues go because again it is the key piece before we even get into the operations and then I want to hear a little bit um from Jennifer's viewpoint on some of these exact things that we're talking about because her perspective I think is one that is is really backed up by a lot of experience let's jump in I I just want to show people U start from very basic of where the money comes from um that goes into the operating budget and and clearly you see the the property tax at um 69% of the total um that's a critical piece and um it it is you know by far the the largest piece of our revenue and one we're trying to be detective of and when we see um we've been successful in utilizing surplus funds and free cash which we've programmed to be able to have to avoid the necessity to increase um property taxes to fund some of the recurring Capital items and and I think that's a critical piece it's it's excellent to say that well it' be nice if we had a dedicated Revenue stream but we've resisted and I think the key part of policy moving forward is to what extent um additional property tax revenue will be restricted for meeting Capital needs um I do not favor at this point uh doing that what we're trying to do is be conservative in our fiscal Outlook which starts with the property tax and uh try not to have it overburdened because with our Revenue situation it's already overburdened and a big part of the problem is out here on Cape Cod I'm embarrassed to say when we look at this chart of the revenues with all of the money that is collected by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in income taxes less than 1% comes in Revenue sharing to our municipality to fund Town Services now that you know is a is an unfair situation and it's based on the Misa renson that we're an affluent Community Based solely on the value of the property not the income in our community and it's a major policy uh problem that we have in the Commonwealth and and what it serves to do is it places too much pressure on that uh property tax that if if we had uh 25 or 30% in state revenue sharing that would enable us to lower the property tax but that's not how finances are structured in Massachusetts um the other key piece we see the non-property tax local revenues a lot of people look to that as well why can't we take everything out of that it's 23% only of the total mix so um we're going to talk um a lot about those non-property tax local revenues that's where areas such as the investment income come to play and um we're we're going to talk about what role that sector of our revenues have in protecting the overall piece we're uh very fortunate that we've adopted the Enterprise funds in those departments that are capable of raising their own funds that's 7% of the overall budget and um you know with a budget of 116 million that's quite a substantial sum and we manage those very closely the uh manager of the Enterprise funds um have done a great job and what we focused on for the past four years is the sustainability of this overall piece and how everything fits in together and I I'll give you some examples of of how that works it and and I think that this is very helpful at least it shows a few things is that I mentioned that we've got the 10year analysis of where revenues have been where they're going and again you get to the state aid piece at at less than uh 1% of the budget it really doesn't matter where these numbers go but we can see that over the past 10 years um we've had a tremendous amount of um instability in state aid uh it really I think is a disservice to the Commonwealth that you know we had a spike and then you could see that uh you it looks like the Big Dipper where the pandemic hit the state aid just went completely to nothing and um what's interesting for our forecast thing uh in the 22 to 23 that's the last 1 2 3 4 years it's a very flat line right so these uh particular Trends in the state aid uh I I I think at this point now for FY 26 it's the same Trend that we've seen for the last four years it's stable it's predictable I I think it's U pretty accurate of where we'll see the state aid coming in but it's still um much lower than than we need to to to see that at let's take a look at the the local estimated receipts and and I think um you know it's interesting to see these receipts as well because you have a a an interesting anomaly in the pandemic years you have a trend that was established in 2017 that was at a a pric trajectory that was slowed down in that 2021 time frame and then a when we were climbing out of the pandemic 2022 to 2023 rose up again rapidly but then continued right is leveling off now back to the historical trend of before we had the pandemic in that same trajectory so this is I I think a critical point to start talking about the impact some of these revenues and and how they fit into the mix um what we're seeing here is the return to a historical trend of not a tremendous amount of growth in the local estimated receipts I think people have been maybe um lulled into a false sense of security in 2022 2023 that we had a blip of a fast growth in in some of the revenues that is slowing down now and a key point on these local estimated receipts again at 23% of the town's revenues um one of the the big mistakes that that people make in and earlier in this Century in this community as well um is budgeting too close to what your estimate that you're actually going to collect is once you get to a situation that you have estimated um higher than you collect on any of these receipts that creates havoc in your budget by uh putting you into a deficit situation that you not only have to cover the deficit but you have to cut like double so that the next year you don't have um another deficit and in this situation uh minimum you need to have 10% as a cushion over what you expect to collect and it's very similar when we get to a situation with free cash in the the town's budget that earlier in the century this community many other similarly situated communities were operating at a very unsustainable um method with uh Reserve levels that were one 2 3% of the town's operating budget and over the past four years one of the major things that we did to build sustainability and stability into the town's finances is to recognize that an operation the size of ours requires a minimum 10% in reserves undesignated fund balance shown up in your annual comprehensive financial report first of all to get any type of bond rating one of the biggest with that we heard is that why we couldn't get a bond rating that was higher is that we had insignificant um reserves for the town and so in addition to being the the number one thing that prevents the bond rating from going up it destabilizes the town's finances it makes it so that you have one bad year with say for instance the school department not to pick on the school department and and it sends you reeling into a situation where firefighters police have to be laid off so that another Department's bill can be paid at a time when you don't even have enough firefighters to meet the demand for the calls that are that are coming in so um it is a misnomer this idea that you should not have free cash that free cash is a sign of waste the um amount that we have in undes designated fund balance at all times should never go below 10% and um we've been fortunate that we've been able to build up that 10% we've also used the capital Improvement program as an extremely valuable tool to moderate those amounts to make up for not having um any cars that were running um and all you know the purple Altimas and things that were broken down out back um we've been able to update the Rolling Stock we've been able to implement green communities we've been able to uh start to get a better handle on the infrastructure maintenance and at least develop that plan and um we've been able to use uh portions of the free cash so that we don't have free cash that's over the amount that we have as a Target but we've been able to do these Capital Improvements without going to the property taxes which other communities are forced to do so in the long run um I I truly believe that it's it's true we are not going to have the luxury of having um enough undesignated fund balance to maintain that 10% that we need for reserves to keep the bond rating up and to keep our town sustainable and put three million into into capital and and we need to plan for other resources to do that but we've been very successful over the past I'd say three to four years in in getting that accomplished and it's extremely important that that we do that and I I want to mention also the issue of you know we look at investment income and um you know first of all I I the the types of um questions and engagement I I it really I think charges me up a little bit I'm I'm happy to see that so we're trying to get townwide is that people to understand and be able to talk about all of these forces and and I I think it's an example of you can't take one single um piece out of the mix of these local estimated receipts and say we're going to jack this up you know a million dollars uh because if you take a look at the 10-year analysis of investment income what you find for the last you know two years we popped right above a million and then we popped above a million five but before that was a couple hundred thousand so the minute you take that investment income that you earned last year right as your all-time high in the history of your organization and you program that to pay for salaries right in your Public Safety departments that is the time where you've signed the death now for your community because those funds are not sustainable what we do is we the overall mix of all of these revenues taken together and then um we try to keep that at 90% or or less just under there of of what the collections are in order to be sustainable so that we don't risk under collecting and that we have the ability to at least have a reasonable um 10% uh undesignated fund balance at at the end of the year and in 26 with the inflation pressures we're pushing 90% on these estimated receipts including the investment income at the levels that we had last year so the idea that you're going to take those out of there right that investment income out of there and you know what you have done now is you've destabilized your entire local operation based on the the non-property tax receipts and created a situation where it's going to put pressure where you're going to either have to drastically cut services or put the pressure back on the property tax that's not conservative Financial philosophy that's not what we're trying to do what we're trying to do is build a sustainable system so that every year we're not buffeted you know like a a drunk staggering from light pole to light pole U the the idea is to keep it sustainable and and I hope that brings in the bond rating that brings in the issue of the local estimated receipts that brings in um free cash the town's U stabilization now ideas to sequester some of that free cash into stabilization funds that can be not spent in the current year but set aside so that in future years right will be available to meet these Capital needs without appropriating from Free Cash Direct that's the direction we need to go in not to Simply destabilize the town government by eliminating free cash it's to create the stabilization funds so that we can move forward but not one bad year and all of a sudden we're in crisis um that's what we're trying to avoid that's what this whole system is designed to do and and honestly I think our financial performance um has been tremendous and and I consider the amounts that we have in the reserves and the free cash to be at this point minimums not maximums so I want to make that clear and that's a debate that's an issue that we should talk about in the community people need to understand that and then that's how um you know you can be informed in the policy and and if you take a look at the property tax levy again 10 years worth I think what this shows is very prudent stewardship um it is extremely slow goinging and the level of increase is steady year after year um it it goes up with you know the value of the dollar is a big piece of that um there have not been a ton of overrides the uh the revenues that we derive from property taxes are um modest overall the average tax bill in our community is low by state standards by New England standards it is um something that I think overall and I know the select board is very prideful of that we do not take the property tax lightly the um the impact on local residents that don't have the income to support it is huge um we have made it in our operating budget only in times of distinct need like we have now with the the public safety Staffing have gone to the property tax levy um I know for educational purposes it's been a bone of contention um you know the the educational system uh you know has not been able to function within the prop proposition to and a half constraints now that's a bigger question I I think and it and it deals with uh you know the status of Education in in our area in in our state the costs are very high I I don't mean to say education should be under 2 and a half% but I'm saying it's it's a fact that um you know we work closely with the school officials we we talk about all of their issues and and I know with the finance committee um they're going to be working closely with school officials we we're not exactly sure where that final budget is is going to arrive at but um we'll go over where we've programmed them but um in terms of where we've gone on the property tax levy for the operating budget exclusive of schools um it is and any department head can tell you um we view that as a very much a last resort and and we don't want to see those overrides if possible and that's why all of those other pieces fit in there to sustainably control this Beast which is 69% of the budget which we're trying to keep down so again I hope that gives you context this is the type of discussion that that we wanted to have um maybe before we go any further Jen I I wanted to give you a chance to at least say hi to folks in thank you Bob can everybody hear me okay there we go um no thank you um it's been what first and foremost it's been such a pleasure to work with Bob um on you know the fiscal stability of the town of Yarmouth and the budget and policies and all that and in the finance committee and working closely with um with um Rich um I just I just drew a blank Simon yes I'm sorry about that it's late I'm usually in bed at this time so anyways it's been great and I you know we wouldn't be able to do all this great work with without the support of um you know just such a great finance department um um Tara was really very very helpful putting this budget together um you know we have the numbers but it's the you know the way it looks and trying to get it so everybody can look at it and understand it and Maria ruseva who's just been phenomenal in the accounting office and you know amarie also who has you know we have to thank amarie for that highin interest income because she's done a great job with the Investments so I just wanted to um say that and just a couple things um to play off of um what Bob was saying is that you know I do look at finances simp I try to look at them very simply and one of them is just reoccurring revenue for reoccurring expenses right so your property tax levy your estimated receipts um you know the four major Revenue sources we want to make sure that they're reoccurring to support the services for the town of Yarmouth and that is a very very difficult task um and New Growth um New Growth is down um last year we had projected around 400,000 this year it's 300,000 um we do carve out a part for the diff um one of the things that Yarmouth has done is they've started they have in the past carved out Revenue sources and put them aside with the whiff in the diff and what that does it does take away from the general fund I'm not saying it's not good for what it needs to you know the purposes that we need it for but it does take around away from the general fund and reoccurring in funding those reoccurring expenses um I can completely agree um with what Bob was saying particularly with um investment income so now if you remember in 2008 and 2009 the interest rates really dropped and if you were really dependent on that reoccurring Revenue to fund your budget you were running back to town meeting to cut your budget and when you cut your budget where do you cut you cut positions and nobody ever wants to be in that position um also with free cash the way I look at free cash free cash is a one-time Revenue Source because free cash can go down you know you have a declining economy your free cash is going to go down so that will fund onetime EXP expenses and I look at the capital plan mostly is one-time expenses and so you don't have your Capital fighting for your operating budget you don't want to be on town meeting floor do we cut a cruiser or do we cut a police officer right um so I look at it that way um it's easier to fluctuate with your Capital plan if you needed to play catchup on your Capital plan a lot of communities get into that because our available revenue is just so slim with proposition two and a half so you know I I do want to say that and you want to be conservative with your estimated receipts to fund your budget you know the EXs does fund free cash I don't believe the town of Yarmouth has a high-f free cash number I think it's very I think they have a good and and it's really derived like Bob said from you undesignated fund balances and I do look um forward to having a discussion regarding the policies maybe tighten them up you know put some percentages in there um for you know the next review of of the bond rating and they do and the bond rating does look at reserves they look at you know strong fiscal management um standard and pores we've just um um we are working with the new financial adviser and standard of pors just did revamp the criteria for a bond rating and I will tell you they are becoming very very strict with any upgrades right now they've actually taken away a couple of the aaa's from some communities um so I just want to mention that um so but we always want to you know maintain and do the best we can you know we need to be be able to be flexible enough in this economy and wherever the econom is going um in order to fund our budget and one thing I do want to mention um and I compare to other communities that I've worked with is that Yarmouth has a unique opportunity um and in your bylaw you can transfer money with the vote um with the select board chair signature and a vote of the finance committee and not taking the money from the reserve fund but just moving money sometimes from a capital a line item that might have been exhausted or within budgets you know from your salaries to expenses and I've had um discussions you know through our budget meetings this year is we want to take advantage of that more because when we can manage the budget as a whole we are in a much better position than trying to manage the budget this one line item we have to you know keep it at this one line item because things do come up perfect example is the um the generator for the police station and you know that has you know we had to fund that we had to transfer some money around we went back to T meeting a couple times but you need a generator for the police station you can't do without it so we want to take advantage of that budget flexibility I think that will be helpful moving forward as you look at this budget you will see that um it is tight we've had to um we have you'll probably see the most increases are in the wages um people that were stepped out um you know with contract negotiations because we want to be able ble to maintain and we need to stay afloat with market we've been able to push that back so they will get you know steps you know and a cola we want to be able to maintain you know the great heal um you know the employees that we have here you have a phenomenal bunch of employees and so you will see that and within doing that we had to reach in a little bit we had a little bit of buffer in Pro property and liability and health insurance um we did if you remember last year we up the health insurance from 50 to 60% to retain I think yth was one of the last communities that paid 50% health insurance so when you're looking at hiring and trying to um you know be competitive with other communities and in other communities paying 70 80% in health insurance and yth is paying 50 and I ran into that when I came here you know that was something that that you look at um so you want to be competitive and so we've been able to do that we've been able to I believe address those issues um and they're not easy issues to address again operating budget is so much more difficult to put together because of the constraints of proposition 2 and A2 um and the also also I just want to remind is that you know we are you know still um in the very beginning stages of the sore project and you know we had a financial plan that we need to to stay with when we put the sore projects it's $27 million bond issue and that's expensive and so part of that is the prefunding so we've been using the free cash to pre fund that change the investment policy so we can invest it more for the longterm gain more money on that when we go to start paying off our debt service um but we do have S reoccurring sore costs that we have to address as well so you know we want to look to the future but you know when I look at the budget and I look at funding we want to be able to fund what we have here and we want to be able to continue to do that and that is something that you know we you know we voted at T meeting we're well on our way with the sore project now I'm you know managing we we're managing paying for that you know um the betterments aren't going to start coming in until that wastewater treatment plan is operating um so there's there's a lot of challenges but there aren't challenges that we can't you know deal with and um I think that was really all I wanted to say but thank you thank you Jennifer and thanks for for all of your work and for calming me down as as well to tell you how much I appreciated your passion couple of of highlights on the budget first of all your total recommended budget inclusive of of everyone is 116 m237 169 that's in with all of the Enterprise funds um now that is up 31% from the previous year U which is um probably the slowest growth that we've seen in in some of the recent years uh and the capital spending we've been able to primarily um use a lot of the free cash for the annual spending but I do want to point out that we have the roadway Mains in excess of 1 million it's like 1.1 million comes under the levy budget so we've um resered that under the the property taxes for the road maintenance but we've got um a lot of the Rolling Stock and and other things is um from free cash this year the um recommended educational operating budget for the Dennis Yarmouth Regional School District we have in this recommendation as a [Music] 3.1% increase now what what that does is it provides uh the proportional share of what new revenues that we have um to the school department and also implements what we agreed to last year as the um two step down of the Surplus funding from the school district's so-called excess and deficiency account which is their sort of Reserve or equivalent to a free cash um we agreed they used 500,000 um of that that we agreed that we would supplement with Town funds $250,000 this year so that puts the school budget at 3.1% now I would say um you know thanks to Dr Smith uh and his team you know they organiz we we sat down uh back in November for a preliminary discussion of the Budget prior to even starting the budget process which is the first time I think we've done that so that at least is an important step forward um unfortunately at that preliminary time before all of the analysis was completed uh they indicated that they were approximately $794,000 off from that 3.1 estimate we're very hopeful that that budget we're very hopeful that that shortfall is is able to be uh addressed at least to a large degree but um there's additional discussions that are going to be required on that and in terms of um most of our budgets provide level services with um adjustments addressing primarily labor increases within prop two and a half and there is a proposed override to increase the fire department Staffing and um a couple things that um are highlights of this budget um as we go through the detail um there is a very strong focus on the implementation of the goals of the select board especially some of the issues um involved with staff retention um and other things it's a very important guiding tool for us the um existing labor contracts are fully funded and um Jennifer mentioned that U we have um an implementation this year especially for um a lot of the you know the office and administrative staff of the cost of living increase plus new steps that we've initiated through collective bargaining U because we had you know the problem of wages being stagnant in a high inflation environment with a lot of employees up at the top end of the classification system so as an interim step we've um implemented uh additional steps while we continue to complete the wage and classification plan to determine where all of those steps should should lie but um there are increases you know beyond just the regular 2 and a half% to address wages and we've also expanded this year the health insurance contribution U to 60 40% for the HMO programs to um all of the other units last year we implemented it for selected units and this year it's taking effect um for um basically all of the units and uh we mentioned before the capital um Improvement roadway maintenance is inside the property tax levy um the proposed proposition 2 and a half override uh in the fire department is for the amount of $67,200 funds the addition of four firefighter paramedic SL EMTs and their benefits and also a second deputy chief position which will serve to increase the minimum Staffing closer to the recommended levels um and also improve the departmental management to help move forward some of the culture changes management improvements that we've been seeking to make for several years and um I I thank the um the fire department and chief Aras for um all of their work on on putting that together and trying to keep it at a reasonable rate um in the Department of Public Works uh there's an initiative linked to the selectman's goals for recreation expansion that expands Park maintenance and uh We've added um through the leadership of the DPW $43,500 for a maintenance plan for the new Parker River Boardwalk Park which um is going to be coming online this year and it will be maintained it will not be developed and let to um disintegrate it's it's going to be a a real showpiece for the town and it's going to be taken care of um again I I talked a little bit about um where we sat for the Dennis armouth Regional educational spend spending um has the the 3.01 which is not just the two and a half it includes an additional 250 ,000 um to hopefully um continue I I think we've had a lot of strong cooperation with the school department to try to do everything we can uh it's you know been very difficult for um our community to address it within the revenues that we have and we're going to continue to um work very closely to try to bring that bring that together um luckily um one positive note um is that some of the overhead items are taking a slightly less share of the overall growth in our budget and and some of this is as a result of a little extra funding um that we anticipated we would need for health insurance that we didn't completely um need so the health insurance uh growth this year um we've estimated it only 1.78% um because we had a little in that account that we could um use towards FY 26 expenses the town Insurance U similarly we think we can fund that and keep our same coverages in place the uh retirement is up 4.25% we've seen that as high as 6 to 7% so um that is is welcome news and the Medicare is up their normal 2.63% that's really no change um and um for U folks concerned with the property tax too we're happy to report that the total exempt debt service is down about 1% um so that doesn't give any extra money to spend on anything else but uh again the exempt debt goes right against the property tax rate so that you'll see um a 1% decrease in the amount going towards the property tax from from exe exempt debt and with that I I think that um if if you have time we could take a a quick run through your budget books and and take a look and and the tabs I are really great and the narratives are are great I won't spend time on all of them but um I want to call to your attention the revenue chapter um is a is a new feature and and I think that that's extraordinarily helpful and then um we go right into the the tab for General government which starts off laying out the goals of the select board and we're hoping that people can get um oriented toward those I know we'll discuss those a little bit and when we get into the general government the select board Town Administrator um starts off um I'll just run through the the items and and I think if anyone has any questions on any item we should stop right there and just see what the question is but and you know um some of these departments we're going to set separate here hearings to go through some of the details like I know fire um is is going to be but some of them we won't need to the select board and moderator salaries um those are all level funded um we've maintained uh the level funding in the operations which does include the $50,000 that um supports the special event um which is the parade for St Patrick's Day and that takes we discussed last meeting I think on the 17th of December it takes the pressure off the tourism fund to fund other public events um and we weren't able to grow that this year but uh we maintain that in your budget and then um you see the regular salaries um in at 876,00 it's up about 4% which reflects some of the um Cola and steps we talked about and then from there the oper 's [Applause] budget total up less than 3% so we're trying to level fund most of those things um you've got um all that's move on excuse me on what is um the is employment increment now employment increment that is a an interesting budget and you see uh there's quite a jump in there it's a jump of $25,000 only looks like a big percentage and um what what that is is for some of the department heads that um a lot of people uh you know they've been up against the top of their grade and they haven't had steps so we' maintain it low this is um Step increases for department heads and they're required to have um performance written performance evaluations and then um there's a scale for what their um increase this what you talked about exactly and that's where one of the one of the areas where you see that is is under those um increments and you know we're we're very happy at you know with working with like I say some of these folks when you hit the top of your grade um all you get is like the two and a half percent and you know it's been tough for folks when inflation is up much higher than that but that's part of the process can I ask a question because um after reviewing this seeing the percentages I just want to make sure I understand and I appreciate that we did that because we are having a problem keeping people and we're not keeping up at the rate with especially with housing and everything else that our employees are dealing with but we undertook a study is this the completion of the work of the study or is there still yet to come are we still doing a a a a salary analysis or is this the fix of the problem no this is not the final solution this is an interim step and the evaluation of the wage and classification plan is ongoing now it's important to note that um our original schedule was to have data right around this time um from the um consultant in terms of their evaluation and and that data is dribbling in um it's a process that is going to take um you know longer I think than we initially anticipated due to the collective bargaining process going to have to go through for each and every potential increase um and I I think suffice to say that uh it it will only probably be during fiscal year 26 partially um completed but uh the steps that we took are you know to be considered partial implementation of this like for instance if um we've added steps what we've done is expanded range that these positions are in so when we get the new data we're not behind the eightball the adjustments that we have to make will be far less and it you know in all likelihood won't be a situation where uh the results of the wag and classification plan means that you had need a 20% increase in all your salaries what um there may be some positions that are not compensated in keeping with what the classification should be for that position position but largely I I I think that the the wag and classification plan addresses some of the same problems that we're having now where everyone is slammed up against the top of it so I think that we've bought ourselves additional um you know time by increasing those levels and we may um as a result of the wage and classification plan take those top levels and move them out even more but it it doesn't work that every position uh wherever you're at you just jump up you know it I I think in most cases will'll provide additional growth so that um you know folks aren't stagnant in their wages and there will be some positions if you are below what the average is for your position you'll have to to see an adjustment but um this keeps us working and um but like I say you know we've started the process working with the different units on it it's been a little rocky there's a lot of questions people have a lot of questions on you know the job descriptions and how that works and so we've committed to working with the labor groups um collectively bargaining every aspect of it whether if anyone has any changes um on job descriptions if there's changes in the in the wages we want it to be accurate and folks have expressed a strong desire to make sure it's accurate so we've committed to that so this this is not um implementing the program this program will be working throughout the next several months and trying to um get the numbers accurate get job descriptions that are accurate make sure every point is addressed and then we'll be back in front of the select board and the way I see it we'll be able to make adjustments I don't view it as something that's going to be uh this you know giant price tag of a million dollars that you know that we have to address so it's it's just it's interesting looking at it because you know finance department went up 11% while the wages in Highway went up 1.92% so that's telling me you're you're taking into consideration with that 1.92% contractual obligations in addition to reigning steps and came up to 1.92% and there's just a huge difference in some of the percentages so either we had already done that in some of the Departments or they were where market rate is and there's no contractual obligations I'm just having a hard time following it holistically and I understand there per cases the steps that you you did was that something who did that was that the Personnel Department no that was in your collective bargaining agreement um for example with we had uh this just this past year we settled SEIU a and SEIU and um we had you know that issue with with both of them and um we we talked with them you know openly uh about the wage and classification plan we're working on that and you know we needed time to get that data together but you know in the meantime everyone had those problems so we took interim steps while we did the full study of the wage and classification plan to implement new steps now in the case of the the finance department like versus the DPW you got to get into the detail of each individual position Finance is a small Department with a handful of Staff members and I think you get one uh reclassification there and that the percentage is skewed for FTE so that brings me to the next question where are we at you you said originally this was a level service budget but then the um the money for the Parker River the 43,000 for Parker river is that in wages no not W that is is not new people to do that it is um under the contracted services and how is that being funded that is being funded it's one of the few that's why I called it out um one of the few initiatives and you know here we have a new park coming on um we needed a maintenance plan for that new park uh we evaluated that the dpw's been evaluating that we've been talking about it for six months now is that a reoccurring stream or is that from free cash that is not from free cash it's re it's recurring it's underneath our budget but um I guess my point was uh you know the struggles with our budget didn't mean we can't do anything it it meant that we're very limited in the things that we could do so that's why um there was not not a handful of new things but the taking care of that Park was one of the items we had been asked um repeatedly we had meetings throughout the year where's the um where's the management plan for that new park and we've had the discussions here and and and and here's the manage this the management plan for that new park right I guess just overall My Hope was that we were going to go to the taxpayers once it sounds to me like the potential if once we get this classification we still have the potential that we're going to need an override next year to make up the difference I know we're trying to inclement do it so it's less but you know um go into them for the firefighters this year and then to make us whole in terms of um I I I guess I thought it was going to be ready this year and that's what that's what these numbers reflected but um you know I think it's problematic going for an override every year right and I was hopeful that we would be ready and uh implementing it all at the same time so we could go to the taxpayers one time and say you know here's here's what we need you know um you know we need the firefighters there's no no doubt about it but we need we need other things too so I guess we're just not ready yet and that's unfortunate but I think appearance-wise it just I have a hard time supporting overrides anyway because there's a lot of people struggling and um I understand the need for it but doing it every year is just you know we do it with the school and you see the frustration with people so I don't want to I don't want to bring that frustration on on to people ourselves and um I think we're setting oursel up to do that well I hope not because I just want you to know that um what we're trying to do is avoid that um I mean that's the idea is that we we can't march forward with the wage and classification plan unilaterally as much as might we might want to I mean it's a uh it's a collective bargaining environment um we've collectively bargained these agreements that we're under now and we need to collectively bargain any increases um that that we have even if they're well-meaning and they are increases not decreases and the um the units are highly engaged and we've committed to them that we're going to work with them and um I I think if you know you view it from the standpoint of you know there's there's increases in this budget for a lot of the the wage line items and if you're implementing this plan over you know this year next year um the idea is is that we hope to be able to do that without an additional prop two and a half override um and and it's not anticipated that we're going to sit here and say that we need one this year and one next year this is what we're trying to do is get our staffing together and then take care of inside a prop two and a half take care of the increases that we need to keep it to keep it rolling and things are tight but um that's the game plan and um you know if you try to Short Circuit it uh you you just can't we've already we've met with the units enough to know that you know they told us that they want to be at the table every step of the way every look at every penny every piece of data and so uh we sort of committed to that um you know I I thought you know maybe it might be something when we started this project that we just get the data in we'll share it with everyone and we'll come up for the number and put it on town meeting but it's not going to work like that it's going to be something that you know people are very very interested in and we're going to um look at the data show it to them and and come up with an implementation plan but I don't I don't um hope that we're we're not going to see a situation that we're going to have an override for that good okay hopefully we can do it within the budget and then um after the administration operations you jump into the um it budget which is again very modestly um up three% now the the wages are going up but again that's a small staff we've got the full-time equivalence I hope you notice here too for all of these thank you Jen for um including that um that's primarily a reclassification plus the um of one person plus steps in um in colas but but you know you're going to see this throughout it's not the wages aren't it's not just two and a half people aren't being stagnant that that there are uh you know some movement to keep things moving forward and then after that you get into the finance department again you see the um full-time salaries before you move on can I ask in in in it why are we we don't have any maintenance or repairs anymore we do have maintenance you want to jump on that one sure we've been um working with the hi we've been working uh closely with the IT department because they have so many different expenses and um some of that money was to be used they have it in their Capital with the replacement of PCS so we want to realloc yeah we're reallocating great thank you you're welcome and so you'll see in the capital we're continuing with the um the the big thing with the repairs and maintenance is to keep the servers right and the um you know the the PCS and the laptops all working and up to date and and sometimes it's repair and maintenance and sometimes it's replacement you know these days is much much more that got Mike all right Paul's Paul's good m your mic your mic oh my mic again yeah okay I thought I was yelling no I actually thought he was going to say what are you nuts I the IT guy no computer for [Laughter] you okay and then so we get into the the finance department and um again with a similar situation that there is some um movement on the wages piece and the the operations there they've been able to keep um level funded under assessing accounting um similar situation with the four FTE and um next is treasure collector and and you start to see the same um you know pattern throughout and um then in the the town clerk budget and one thing that we've been able to do thankfully and um you know Mary needs to get up and and take a bow the past few years have been Breakneck with the between the presidential cycles and the state elections we've had it seems more elections and uh it looks like FY 26 we're going to get somewhat of a resit um there's no federal elections or anything like that so um they've actually saved money right but that takes some of the pressure off the elections budget for the coming year in um so that's almost like a 5% decrease there you go and from there we jump into the Community Development Department which is again exactly the same as um as you seen in in the other budgets they've done a great job on the operations side despite all the inflation um being able to kind of control things there um and then um we get into the next one is under Community Services we start the next tab over under natural resources um again a situation where there is uh some movement in the salaries and um the operations are largely level funded exactly level funded in in the the DNR case Senior Services um again total salaries up um slightly and the expense budget up very little total budget growth 7% on on on them and then into libraries the um full-time salary growth is um a little bit uh less coming in at just under 1% and the their operations up 2.76 uh and there's 10 full-time equivalents in the libraries and we want to um definitely point out that this funding maintains their certification uh as a library and so it's very important that we maintain Town certification um so we meet all of those requirements under Recreation um we're we're going up um you know 5 and a half% i i I do want to say that there's one of the items we left last year we made a major increase in the Lifeguard spending and we could do that again this year in fact we want to do it again um it was just one of those items we we couldn't carry um in the um in the revenue stream and I I think that there may wind up Happ to be some kind of a fundamental reassessment of our beach sticker system um I I do not feel that we have an unsafe level of lifeguards it's just not as High um and and with all of the side beaches covered and the ponds and everything so we have uh we we've made major strides in in lifeguards and we have more to go so um we're hoping that throughout this year we can have that discussion to talk and see um you know we didn't want to just say that you know the fees are going up this much but um you know we're going to have to find new funds somewhere if we run going to keep the Lifeguard number of lifeguards growing there won't be lifeguards needed down on Parker River down on that beach or anything no Jeff say if anybody falls off the boardwalk he's going to go get him you're not allowed to swim and then when we move into the police department it's um not dissimilar um at all that the primary growth is in the um you know the full-time wages in the overtime but um you know with a big department like that it's you know it's a lot of funds but there's an existing collective bargaining agreement that does provide we did our own classification Plan update for police services and and this is in I think the second year of implementation of that program what's the school resource officer situation in this budget we had Mr Chief here well we have the funding right now the extra the money to put Alex zaros back in the school for the FY 26 budget if we are back up the full Staffing I should be able to cover that position at the school okay so what we did at special town meeting covered the 2026 we covered 2020 we covered the balance of 2025 2025 so but so what we're looking at for next year next year we're looking at the you look at the revenue has been decrease by 100 by a little over $100,000 which is one of the positions that the school was not funding and then going into going into FY 26 we are covering Shan Brewer salary which we were doing anyway and then if we are fully staffed I can probably work it with the the other money that I have to put Alex back in the school but that's going to be dependent on what we get from the school and where I am for Staffing because right now we're still down several officers we have three in the Plymouth Academy we have one scheduled to go into the East fouth Academy that starts next week we have one on the in the onboarding process already given a conditional offer from the town the onboarding process for the Plymouth Academy that starts in March but I have three potential retirements coming up between April and July so everyone you bring in that's why we've been uh aggressively working with the Town Administrator on a new plan for uh incentivizing lateral transfers because as I said in the last presentation if we put somebody through the academy round numbers it's about $90,000 if we hire a lateral and we get them in it cost us about 35,000 so we have a great plan in place the patrol Union just signed off on anou to allow us to bring people people in at a higher step rate a little more vacation time than they normally would coming in the door and the first step of longevity to hopefully incentivize some seasoned officers from other organizations to come over to Yarmouth which will in a long run save us money okay good thank you you're welcome give him a plank and next we have fire department which um incorporates the additional positions and um the additional positions decrease their I see their overtimes at the same rate it's not increased but doesn't typically the new positions decrease our overtime um I I think that you know what I would say and and I I would have the chief answer this probably more directly but I I I think in the past it's been used as um a way to uh justify these funding programs that were highly complicated to add a new firefighter but in the long run it does not increase the overtime it leads to the overtime being underfunded um by by saying well we're going to decrease the overtime by adding this new person and then you and then the overtime goes up so um but but our analysis shows that adding these new positions will not significantly decrease the overtime okay fire department then we move into the the building department can you just let us know what on the fire dep Department EMS repair and maintenance has gone up so much certainly maybe we'll have chap stand up for that before guys come out all night uh which one was that I'm sorry on it's on the flip page it's so repair and maintenance under EMS operations yeah that it's uh it's a little misleading um only because uh obviously it was budgeted at 10,000 in uh 2025 yeah uh we actually made some budget transfers uh like Jennifer alluded to earlier out of uh old articles to to actually fund what we needed this year uh so the increase uh is actually about 177,000 uh because that's what's going to be made up and it's for uh stretcher and uh lifee are uh life Peg monitor maintenance contract it's just kind of not lining up right okay yeah it just looks looks worse than it is than you sure glad I could get you up sure thank you Chief from there we jump into the building department which again follows the the similar thing that we've um increase the steps for that department and um they've done a great job limiting the um operations increases and um similarly with the health department um we see some movement in the full-time wages and um level funding and other departments moving things around just a little bit was there a reason for the the repairs and maintenance on their part again is it just because um things were reclassified so that the percentage is out of whack is it the same kind of on repairs and maintenance it's a similar situation those are like needs that were met from other areas in the past or forgive me so a lot of what we're trying to do and and again I I think uh between Jennifer and Maria their value in this process of analyzing the previous spending patterns and making sure that it's sort of a truth and lending we're trying to get the budgets more accurate right understood thanks having said that what are we doing with the opap line items now there was a point in time where we were putting them into the Departments and now it shows that we're not sure yeah um yes the ones in the general fund budget we fund o um last November we funded oped to over a million dollars so traditionally you don't see it in the general fund budget you'll see it in the Enterprise funds because they're self-supporting so they've essentially already been funded probably more than they should be so we took them out of the operating budgets no need to fund it in the fall and then go and fund it again in the operating budget so for the Enterprise because they get income we're charging them and we're not charging the Departments anymore right and and the department were never really charged it was shoved in a couple of them to um justify like and things like that but but it was in one not in the other it was a inconsistent sort of mess so we kind of cleaned it up and and you know we left if there's Revenue that is a full cost accounting that needs to uh you know be brought in but but the municipal the Health Board is not is not a an Enterprise department and their revenue is not designed to to support their operations um so you know if you're going to if you're going to have a an accounting system where you take every single employee and you allocate their oped and then you charge it off to that department um you know that's one thing for comparative purposes but you still have to have a source of funds but to put it in the Board of Health and not in the library or something like that it it it it doesn't make for a comparison it just makes for a um a calculation that you do when you you know when you're analyzing if they make a percentage of their budget through their rates or something like that plus it makes it difficult if you're comparing budgets over time or between municipalities because other municipalities don't do it that way correct so if you're trying to sort of look at and analyze your budgets it's it makes it more much more complicated because then what you're doing is you're to make an accurate comparison you're taking it out of your own figures so um do we use it as do do we have a general overhead rate that we charge on grants or other agreements have we established anything like that Jen um we do usually I think the standard percentage if I remember correctly is usually around 35 38% and so depending on how the grant award is written we can charge administrative cost and when we can we do but some grants aren't written that way understood thank you you're welcome and then we have the the veterans budget in at 1.45% those numbers going to change very slightly we're working on the veterans budget to approve it uh this Thursday um and so it's going to go down slightly from here but not very materially and then we get into the the public works department um which you know the whole Public Works Team all of the division Heads This a very big Department a very complicated Mission um we go right through the facilities program um you can see uh wages up slightly and the um operations flat and you know we we hope again this another example of working closely with the capital program and the facilities um analysis that in the future this is the department that we've identified for a need to grow um to fully implement the facility's needs but during this budget cycle we really don't have the the wherewithal to do that but but we have our eyes very closely on the facilities and the the team that's working there works very hard I I will say that and they're highly skilled um it's just one of those departments that I see in in the future is going to need um you know more resources to really themselves out brings up the question of the um the hotline uh Ombudsman might be able to help with the face of the SE sewering right and and there um in the Wastewater department and and I Jeff and I I guess we had a meeting on that just this this weekend that's moving forward so there's money for it yes there is and it's not in the facilities budget it's it's going to come from the Water waste water yeah Bob you got to talk louder put this right in front of me I've never had this never had this the first meeting where we've had that complaint I I think it's great the audience I think it's great okay um so from facilities we move into Administration and Engineering um with the similar pattern that that you've seen um everywhere no surprises and then um in the highway department um very modest increases across the board up 1.5% total and snow and ice we've um level funded that uh it is um probably less than than we'll need but there there is a a law associated with the snow and ice budget that says that you're allowed to deficit spend as long as you appropriate the amount that you appropriated in the previous year so we gener generally appropriate this amount and if we need to deficit spend that we do um so um hopefully they won't be too busy although there's a storm coming next week yeah quiet there said take his mic away doesn't to speak anymore and then we move into Waste Management where we've worked very hard in recent years to um this is another one of those truth and lending departments that we had traditionally underfunded all of the Demolition and construction accounts and um we hope that this is what we're going to need but we're going to monitor it very closely um a lot of thanks to Roby White House on that budget and then we have the parks department um up by Modest amounts with uh the you can see the professional technical under Parks represent the maintenance program and um after Parks we jump into the cemetery jump to the Grave yep we play and then know and um as we discussed under the um educational system we have the Dennis Yarmouth Regional School District in for 3.1% operating budget and their debt is the actual debt amount that's up 2% um from the from the previous year and Cape Cod Tech um we don't have the their final budget in um but that's has an overall estimate of 1.74 with the debt and operating and we're going to get that final number in and make whatever adjustments we need to make and from there we jump into the Enterprise funds and um folks know that every one of these Enterprise funds is completely self-funded there are no um funds from outside uh property tax or otherwise that support any of the Enterprise funds so kudos to the managers of those funds they've all been very successful in in terms of providing quality services but um keeping their revenues um you know in place and so we we have a detail with the Enterprise funds of the revenues that are associated with each of those and so this looks like a estimated 6% growth on the golf side um they've been extraordinarily successful continue to be in Gulf um they have the same situation with their salaries and um managing the classifications that they're they're up a little in salary it's one of those positions that the competition with the private sector is the most Keen um so um they're facing challenges with with that as well and the overall operations budget is up 7.4% um then we get into septage where we show what the host fees are the hauler fees um up 2.32% with also the operations costs up 2.3% um waste water were you know a little concerned with that that now that you know we've got our um budsman and everybody ask about golf just for a second sure our town uh health insurance increases up 1.78% and on their line item they're going up an estimated 30% yeah that's really just an estimate it's probably a little bit High it depends on who they hired you know they might have had a hire that had health insurance where previously they didn't the way the system has been set up here is that we it the accounting system usually you would have all your health insurance in the general fund and you would just transfer it from the Enterprise fund but here when they sign up or they have um they're getting paid from a certain Department like the golf Department their health insurance will automatically be charged to that department so it is a little bit hard to estimate you know we kind of estimate overall health insurance probably a little bit high but um that just will go back to the retained earnings math on that column's bad too okay it's not negative it's positive yeah it's that debit and credit thing sometimes it shows a positive as a negative and so we did septage and and I I guess the issue on on the Wastewater just be mindful um you know we have our prefunding program and and we've got costs now out of Wastewater and um we hope to get that thing up and running before we spend all the money so um it'll be it'll be great to to get that done no pressure Jeff but um no this I mean it's all programmed in that that we're still doing our prefunding and and these funds come from the funds that we've used for prefunding for Wastewater that part of that prefunding were these costs that we estimated going in so there's no change in our plan um and then the water special Revenue fund is highlighted separately it's not an Enterprise fund but it operates like an Enterprise fund it's housed in the general fund um but it is kept separate for accounting purposes but I I mention that because it sometimes you know when you look at those non-property tax receipts it's not a it doesn't show up in Enterprise it shows up in non-property tax receipts and we've had a lot of water projects so we've increased the rates and that Revenue has gone up to meet some of the projects and it looks like that's all investment income but it's not it's it's water um so you need to like it's one of the reasons why you have to keep everything in context and so they're up 5% and then the cable special Revenue fund is um in for 538 it's about a 5% increase and that covers the um communication program plus all of the cable television costs and after that there's a nice detail on the Municipal debt it lists every single outstanding long-term debt project um and also the short-term debt projects so be aware of those uh the water mains on Route 28 Golf Course improvements water facility improvements the past treatment um and and also some of the Wastewater collection those are all things that are in short-term borrowing that you're going to see as bonds and that's the total budget Madam chair yes um first of all I would like to uh commend the uh administrator and the team our finance director and all our department heads for putting together an outstanding budget uh and and the document itself is very well laid out very readable and uh I appreciate all the time and energy that's been put into this document and I I think it's terrific that we have an annual comprehensive financial report I think um I think tonight we've we've seen a tremendous amount of work a lot of time and energy uh that's been put into um yarmouth's uh finances um and I think it just goes to show that that this town is incredibly well-managed uh in terms of its finances I know sometimes it's easy to get defensive about free cash or investment income but by and large um I've seen huge improvements in this town over the last several years and I I want to commend everybody for pitching in uh and helping uh put Yarmouth in a very strong financial position um I I can recall the days serving on the board with Tracy when we didn't have any free cash hardly at all and we would have these meetings talking about how we're going to do anything on the capital budget um and free cash doesn't show up it takes a lot of work to build um you know your free cash and to build reserves and to put funds in stabilization and in and to do so having to wrestle with Co and some of the other challenges is not an easy situation and um in looking at the budget tonight it's clear that we have a lot of challenges but we're not unlike other communities as well um we get the short end of the stick when it comes to state aid uh we're over reliant on the property taxes like a lot of communities on the cape with a large number of residents on fixed income the the property tax really hurts even when it goes up a modest amount and what's often very frustrating is is that when you know Beacon Hill the politicians up there look at our finances they think we're just a a wealthy affluent Community when in fact we have a lot of people here just basically hanging on and struggling to get by day by day so um in this kind of environment you talked about looking at everything in context in the context of all the challenges that we're facing um this is this is a this is a very well done budget it's a very well done plan um there are things that we need to zero in on and work on and talk about further which we've discussed but I think overall I think I I think everyone here has done a great job I really appreciate all the department heads and all the staff being here tonight to hang in here with us and I don't want to leave out the finance committee the finance committee we know puts in a lot of time and uh we appreciate all of their work but I I just want to make it clear that for for me this selectman is is incredibly impressed um and very appreciative of of all the work that you all have done in putting this together so thank you yeah i' very much appreciate all the information and Bob talked about not being in a position to be able to react to the downturn and unfortunately you know I've been here long enough unfortunately that we had to do that and at one point in time and lay off staff and it's not a position we want to be in so all the work that has been done the the uh policies that have been put in place and the and even you know it's forever changing so you know I wasn't here for a year or two things have changed things have improved this is a an amazing document um we're definitely better off financially than we were so for that I think uh we all we owe everybody that I know it's not easy because you know what the public doesn't see we went through it in a very overview but there's what what was requested and what was recommended aren't the same numbers so there's still shortfalls for our departments almost every expense item um where the cost of everything is going up basically was a 0% increase so um you know if you want to bring you know you send your kids off to school sadly and we have to bring them supplies and tissues if you want to do that for your town staff it's a sad thing but honestly um they're doing a lot with very little and we continue to improve and uh improve customer service and um it's just it's remarkable we have a very talented group and um while the numbers go up and people will look at it we've you know we're over 3% Which is less than last year and we were still able to um um give those steps which I retention in this town for staff is extremely important we have lost some very talented individuals to other communities that have more to offer and they were amazing employees um you know I said it before with the cost of housing and groceries and everything else it's it's tough to to maintain so I'm glad we were able to do that to the extent that we have been but I think the you know the public does know that we're not where we need to be yet and hopefully through this year our employees will stick with us and um we'll be able to retain new Public Safety people with with um our program and incentives but we need to do that not just with Public Safety you know that needs to be a program that we we keep our eye on for every Department in town so we can attract the best of the best because that's what we deserve so I appreciate all the hard work that you put into this thank you Liz oh I'm so glad you did this so that I could figure out what we're supposed to do this is amazing I get it I'm so glad that I didn't have to go through budget season before you had it all together thank you thank you all for staying and I think you are amazing this is an incredible group of people out here thank you Joyce thank you uh I'd like to uh second what Tracy was saying that uh we have an amazing staff that does Loaves and Fishes Miracles with finite resources I'd also like to thank um Bob ritow because I found the executive summary really helpful before I hit the numbers I really understood the numbers much better for having that and uh I think narrative and context always help us understand the the large picture you know chronologically and across categories so thank you everybody from long distance thank you I I also thank all of you I thank you for putting in the time I I thank you for your dedication to the job your professionalism you you actually are an amazing Town staff and I thank you from the bottom of my heart and we're not going to keep saying thank you and all of that to you because I know you all want to go home but um know that know that we very much appreciate everything that you've done and uh now we're going to start to get into the nitty-gritty to the finance committee thank you for your commitment coming tonight um we're going to be moving together I think more the more that we can open up that communication door the better it's going to be so that by the time it comes be directly to the to the uh folks living here in town they'll know exactly what they're getting and um all the work and effort that went into it thank you all very much is this document online we're going to put it online we wanted to share it with the select board and the finance committee first but we'll put it online this week you're dismissed thank you thank you thank you all very much ask you okay um we have the next item on the agenda is going to be the hero act let's just give the moment for the room to clear the town assessor leaving I think Andy's gonna stay I hope Andy stays no he's not he's not going anywhere Andy and terara I think are here yeah Andy oh good just make sure yeah he's not going anywhere he inter good kind of important right okay Andy and Tara why don't you come on join us up front as we talk about our next item on the agenda the hero Act Bob I'm going to turn this over to you okay the um we don't have the entire uh Massachusetts veterans hero act here with us it's a comprehensive piece of legislation but there was um one particular uh part of it that was forwarded to us by Mr Sullivan thank you very much I know he's on listening to us I was very helpful under the um veterans real estate uh tax exemption for disabled veterans uh there's currently uh $400 exemption of a disability rating under 100% and those considered 100% disabled uh receive ,000 reduction in their taxes and by adopting this act it would double those benefits to 800 for under 100% disability and in $2,000 um if you are 100% disabled and that's the provision that U is in in front of the town to to consider and I know our experts here know a lot more about it can I just add something it can go up to 100% you don't you can choose any percentage that you that you so I've been looking online it seems like some municipalities have um adopted it so to speak but there's some flexibility in terms of what you go up to um I'm just wondering if you had a chance to look at any of the what some of the other communties has done and done any type of analysis for us as to what that means dollarwise we're actually do you want we're actually meeting tomorrow we have a board of assessors meeting in the morning and we are going to be meeting with the director of assessing in hartch hartch is also doing something like this she sent us a packet today so we're going to kind of go through that in um much deeper detail tomorrow she happens to be the director of assessing in Ho but she sits on the board of assessors in Yarmouth oh good she's a Yarmouth resident like yes great so I I don't know what the expectation is basically what this what this in essence what we what we want to let you know is that um for the veterans exemptions we we estimated that roughly we exempt about $150,000 in real estate taxes right now we get reimbursed uh about a third of that correct from the state um when this is adopted we can go up to the the amount so it would in effect double the exemption to roughly $300,000 and we'd still be getting reimburse the same $50,000 so there so there is a cost involved in it just to make sure that everyone's aware of that so the state doesn't increase its match by any percentage so it's it's solely the um exemption is on the municipality nice of them the way they did that correct they let us do it but they also let us absorb the increase as well they don't they don't give any uh additional funding and you don't have your meeting until tomorrow so correct you really don't have any information that you could share with us today well information as far as how the exemption Works absolutely um as far as what specifically you would be looking for um you know it it would cost you approximately $150,000 if you were to double the exemptions as stated um and and also the one thing that we we can't really quantify just yet is that it's that's the one thing is to double the exemption but it's also to um index it to the Consumer Price Index so it would it would go up additionally each year that's the second Clause the Clause 22i the Clause we were just talking about now was the Clause 22j the I if adopted would and annually increase based on what the consumer pricing index is for that year the percentage so we could vote to to do the exemption and the clause or or not but we have that option so you wouldn't have to come back we would have to act on it every year or it would just say a flat number it's going to go up annually on the CPI on the Clause 22j if you adopt that okay yes but do you have to adopt the J or does one adoption cover the you can choose which one you would like to adopt e right either or um and just on that note Tracy to Bob's point when Bob was mentioning the $400 exemption we'll just we'll use that figure because it's simpler um for instance if the CPI am I yelling at you no you're doing fine that wasn't very subtle so so um basically on that $400 what we would be able to do is let's say the CPI were 5% so the exemption that year goes up to 420 if you don't adopt the ey that's that's how we're going to use this example the following year based on whatever that consumer pricing index the percentage is that 420 will then go up again so that's how the increase so it's going with the rate of of CPI yeah okay Madam chair are you done Trac but not really but go ahead I have a lot of questions about it because I I spoke to a great quilty today and I um he's the director of Department of Veteran services for Barnsville County yeah he's our representative yeah so I thought it would it would make sense to ask him a few questions so I did and I could just read what he wrote and maybe to answer some of your questions but of course they're going to be the experts well my question I I understand I mean I've read I've read the law and and understand it my question more is how how how the dollars and what our options are how it relates to to Yarmouth so because from 10% you you could you could do it for any percentage of disability or we could do it for just 100% so we have those we have a lot of options right but but but I think to to to to clarify it I think by adopting 22j it doubles all the the all the percentages so from whatever their exemption is nowar it goes when you come back to us can you give us the the um I know we had just recently raised our dollar amount or was that for the elderly that wased it might have been not for that was in 20177 or 18 I said just okay sorry no I know time goes fast um I would just like to I would just like to look at it as a picture so we could make a informed decision um with with that the dollars what it means and what our options are sure and we don't need to decide right now for a town meeting article do we no no okay no we don't we've got time so if I could just add what what um I gleaned from Greg and he is as he you point out some of he writes some of our towns have chosen not to increase the benefit others are simply using a cola to raise the existing benefit each year and some an actual flat increase so I guess there's every kind of dealing with this but if I can also take just a minute to note um that Greg writes that while our our veterans department is very happy with the hero act in general we're saddened that it does not help the veterans and widows that are most suffering the most financially and he goes on to note that the has the hero act has a variety of new and increased benefit benefits but it is the real estate exemption that seems to Garner the most vocal attention of our local veterans and it's what he's pointing out is that the people who are um struggling the most will not benefit from this and he but just as an Accolade the town of Yarmouth has issued checks totaling over $57,000 to our struggling chapter 115 veterans in the first six months or so of this fiscal year and then he um goes on to thank Yarmouth for the town finance and treasures Department working to get the checks out to these struggling Yarmouth veterans every month on time as they would not be able to survive without their help and your Assessor's department is the best we have worked with in terms of being the most proactive in finding veterans and widows that can Avail themselves of the current veterans real estate exemptions Kudos he's an amazing man thank you thank you so should we put you on the agenda then for uh February 25th you'll have some uh information and recommendations for us then yeah absolutely um the information that I was referencing as far as coming tomorrow would be just information on how harwish is doing it and what what exactly they are doing um I also I mean you have the Springfield article um but we will be discussing this with some other community ities as well so we can give you a little bit more information to maybe help you make a decision maybe we could we could look at a couple of options long meow and see some affordability because it it does seem that simply adopting this at the max takes $150,000 out of your prop two and a half Levy limit which uh if you did that in this budget we just talked about that would really hurt so they maybe there's some options we could look at that would help you know the disabled veterans but not be just a big shot like that well if we if we limited it to I guess you can't you said it's doubles so if we we couldn't just do for the 100% disabled you're saying whatever we choose will goes percentages all of them okay thank you very much any other questions for there is someone who would like to speak if that's Tom Tom sullan Hi how are you good um on the information in regards to the U real estate exemptions you have three options not two three you have the option of going to 2,000 that's number one that's a flat rate every year and that would be it two you can adjust it with the Consumer Price Index that's the second option or you can adopt both under the law I read the law just as we're waiting here and I happen to see that that's what they said and the other thing is widows or veterans get the exemption our family members who are presently getting the exemption in their hometowns because they said chapter 59 same thing as we have here here so widows are uh getting their real estate exemptions on that that's under the law if they have EST the other thing they've added under this new law is on the veterans plates which a lot of people don't realize it disable veterans plates they finally added and I agreed with purple hot veterans we're also you can get the disabled veterans plates now it wasn't in there before that's something I've been put pushing for a long time now I got one more thing to push is Braun staff but anyways um those are some of the benefits it also increases annuity for veterans uh disabled veterans who are 100% get an annuity presently it's twice a year that's going to change for the upcoming year the the annuity for February will be 1250 the anity for August will be 2500 and from now on the annuity will give out once a year at $2,500 instead of twice a year these will some of the major changes for the disabled vets at 100% at 100% yeah okay that's just some information for you thank you Tom well thank you very much appreciate it we have review of our select board goals Bob has put them into our packet any discussion I'm happy Madam chair if board is up to maybe just deferring a discussion on this uh it's been a long night we're approaching 10:00 and we still have more work to do so um I I would like to recommend that we put it on our next meeting agenda I agree second okay we'll move it on to a future meeting that'd be great thanks and and which get next we have the board and committee actions up coming agenda review I noticed that in the month of February we only have two meetings scheduled and given that what we're talking about with budgets and so forth I see that we're really going to need at least three meetings in in February I want to open that up for discussion see how people feel about that so we can really get give time to I think I'm always more in favor of meeting more than um having agendas like we had tonight because it's just it's tough to really get into them like some of these things deserve discussion we just don't have the time to do it so well there's the 11th is that a possible date the 11th or the 18th of the two possibili the 18th is a the holiday week yeah that could be difficult for some people so let's say the 11th yeah I think we should just t ly designate that day as a possible Board of selectman's meeting dat Joyce do you have any difficulty with February 11th nope that sounds good okay then let's just put that down as a an agenda and maybe we can move the goals to that because um or shift it around because it looks like there's already a lot on the next one well maybe it's we also shouldn't talk about the goals when we're tired we need to be ambitious and visionary we better make that meeting about 6:00 a.m. for me then I about to say Choice you're you're are you on California time now wake up like a ball of fire right now not I am but I got up so early that I'm sort of floating in between time zones okay so do we have any board and action items because I didn't see any in my backet um that's that's not on tonight's um uh agenda because um there there aren't any but there will be some two weeks from now so we're we're doing an agenda review then right I don't have anything to suggest that was it that was it we just did it okay so we're putting on February 11th and our agenda is um we're putting not adding on the um board um goals but we do already have budget discussion on for um our next meeting on the 21st that's going to be ongoing we can kind of expand upon that one alrighty then moving on we have Town Administrator updates I did have a a couple of things I wanted to mention U we talked about this a little bit with the the madis and I I think we're up to a great start and and I did want to just let everyone know that um we had our joint community housing and affordable housing trust meeting yesterday to support that M utilization initiative um and um I wanted to acknowledge a barnable County through a grant that they gave using um some of their arpa funds they designated some um planning technical consultant assistance hours to each of the communities um and they Barett planning company they had an RFP and um selected them and so they assigned them to us and we're going to be using those free Consulting hours to facilitate our brainstorming and Community consensus building around affordable housing initiatives potentially for the um mades property and I do want to invite the public we're going to be communicating this very broadly in the community that um we're going to hold a brainstorming session we're going to have the Barrett Consulting Group helping facilitate that it is going to be at 3 p.m. right here on Jan uary 21 and the public is invited so um we'll get that word out and if any you know board members want to sit in and and hear that or or have some some ideas I I think that'll be that's like the first key step we're going to brainstorm not evaluate and then we're going to as Bill had indicated before we're going to try to get um as many proposals and ideas out there that meet with all of our plans and then narrow it down for there to to try to determine uh what's the most appropriate and so teams if you will would be part of that brainstorm that we have the um joint Community we have the joint community housing committee we have the affordable housing trust and we have um all of our the you know planning staff and housing staff and we also have all of the various housing agencies that operate in the community um there's about three or four of them and um we also want to invite the housing authority to show up and um you know maybe we're hoping we can build enough of a relationship there to really frankly discuss uh you know the overall planning issues related to the Housing Authority as well because I think you know they may be a lot of um overlap there so there's a number of groups and I know um like the even the hartch uh ecumenical council does a lot of housing support in Yarmouth it's not just a harage thing and so they're going to be here as well okay and um um also I want to let the board know that this is kind of important that this Friday at 10:30 yeah I saw that there's a meeting to review the um SBA eligibility determination just the preliminary steps and I know we've discussed this many times uh with this board and it's going to be at the Dy Regional School Administration building and um our our Representatives I I know both Dorcas and Tracy are invited and they invited me so that's three of us um you know if you're available I I think we should go and and at this point I I think it's really you know we're we're building that relationship and sharing information and and I I hope to see it go forward with not you know the school over here the town over here but but we're together with with the school officials because I I I think that there's a lot of overlap in our thinking and we need to make it that way way sure are you going I cannot I am going I was hoping it was going to be Zoom but I don't think so yeah um what time is it so either it's 10:30 where 10:30 a.m. at the admin which is not really a great place for Tech stuff but I can ask if if they can accommodate that um that would be great if Trac could go by have three of us there though right no you'd have to post it so I'll I'll sit back and let's we'll make sure that we keep the dialogue going and and one of the things that we talked about um was that we wanted to make sure that that the school officials you know whether we came to their meetings or they came to our meetings that we had enough dialogue with the school to to make sure that you know comell high water that we're sort of singing the same tune because that's the last thing we can have is to have um this feasibility study with different sides no I'm glad we're talking about it I mean you know when when we talk about the the the traffic study and the in station EV and the congestion I mean I I I almost you am against the idea of a my knee-jerk reaction is to be against a new school on that site because we we just unless we can get all the parents to put their kids on buses you know I mean the reality is is that so many of the kids that go to school are being transported by cars and it clogs up the road for a significant portion of the day and I'm not just singling that out there are other things that are going on there's other development there's other activity it's just it's an incredibly congested Road and um you know I think there's a need to really you know I'm concerned that the state is so focused on trying to do something there uh that they're just going to end up giving us more problems if if if that's the way we end up going it's going to be uh a real real problem line term so I I do think that in any study there has to be an honest assessment of options and I'm very focused on money first of all in utilizing existing buildings and then secondly um another factor to consider is minimizing traffic so I just want everyone to know where I'm and maybe we need to have a an agenda item to discuss this but um I think with all of the all of the costs the Wastewater cost and the other costs I think anything that we can do to reduce the cost of that project or bring it keep it down safety too Mark I'm I'm not thrilled with the idea of having more kids on that property with in the event of an emergency and trying to Wrangle I think I think that they would do better separated yeah what worries me is about a study is that if the state's already telegraphing what they're interested in seeing happen then I think um we need to push back on that just as much as they I mean we need to push back and hopefully there'll be some support you know with within the within the school department remember now the superintendent when he first came to us he doesn't want it on that property no well when he first came to us he thought it made sense to have something out um you know something in West Yarmouth you know in the current site or nearby so and I thought his arguments uh you know made sense um you know maybe I'm naive but there was a time when we did elementary schools we like to keep them near the places where the kids lived exactly remember those days where we built elementary schools where kids Liv school they yeah and people and the kids could walk the school or it was easy getting there that's when we had six kids to a home what's that that's when we had six kids to a home when we had six kids to a home oh boy okay no I mean guys call me old f so my hope is that in any study they look at where the kids are coming from right you know so and upset on that but money has to definitely play a role for us in this whole thing well again we have the MacArthur School the leases coming up I think that deserves a very a very clear look I think we'd be derelict in our duties if we don't force some analysis of that site and um I think I think everyone realizes that the I mean it's great to have the cap cut collaborative there but you know maybe they need to be factored in the whole madaky utilization study you know I mean they probably want to stay in Yarmouth um I think our parents that have kids in the collaborative would love to have them stay but you know it may make sense to do a school in elementary school at the maatha school we don't want to leave the collaborative out in the cold so maybe we need to be having the collaborative in your mck brainstorming we'll put them in the education group there you go something that's think of them and maybe Bridgewater too just again you know all of these parts tend to connect with one another are those taxable though or are those taxable yeah probably not no no no they're not see understood by the way on on the madaki school I did have a conversation today with cap cut Hospital on some other labor issues and they're genuinely interested in being part of any brain storming as well on the housing they're genuinely interested on the housing side on the housing side okay they have they I think they want to speak to the need particularly for you know for their for their employees but it wouldn't be a public thing this is I think they've been involved in other projects and where the the housing development is on the is on the tax roles right right Bob did you have anything else that you needed to talk to us about today no that was it for tonight motion to adjourn second all those in favor I I Joyce do you agree on a motion to adjourn thank you have a great trip oh