recording in progress not quite there we go okay good evening good evening this is to formally advise that as required by Massachusetts General Law
chapter 30A sections 18 to 25 and pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 and act relative to extending certain covid-19 measures adopted during the state of emergency signed into law on June 16 2021 as extended by chapter 2
of the acts of 2023 the yor select board will hold a public meeting on Tuesday February 25th 2025 at 6 p.m. in the hearing room yarm Town Hall 1146 Route 28 South yth Mass
02664 the public is welcome to attend either in person or via the alternative Public Access provided on the town website if you'd all like to join me in the Pledge of Allegiance please of the United States of America
the it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and jce Mary I see you at the podium you must have some announcements good evening Mary meski town clerk just a friendly reminder that with town meeting and town
election coming up uh first with town meeting the last day of register to vote for the annual town meeting will be April uh well if we are if our it will be April 19th sorry um which is a Saturday
we will be here for uh special voter registration from 9:00 to 5: that day and then the last day to register to vote for the May Town election will be Saturday May 10th again we will the town clerk's office will be here from 9:00 to 5: on Saturday to uh hold the special
voter registration uh session um just making a friendly reminder to anyone that wishes to run for office we have as you all know the two select board seats are on this town uh election ction ballot there is also one seat for the
Dennis yarma school committee and one seat for the Housing Authority nomination papers are available anybody interested in uh actually seeking office can come to the town clerk's office during regular business hours which is 8:30 to 4:30 and we'll be happy to uh
issue them for you uh the last day to pull nomination papers for this town election is March 28th and that is all I have for you this evening I thank you Mary we appreciate that okay any other announcements for
tonight yes oh Madam chair thank you uh this is an announcement from the Capel compact you may remember six months ago we were celebrating that they got that rural electricity funding for residential solar um and that's moving
along briskly um this year's allotment after which we can apply and in theory get more money is expected to be to run out at the end of March or the beginning of April and because we don't know that
that money will come to us given the U the national situation I'd suggest that anyone who was interested might want to get an application in um you can go to the uh Capel compact. org website the
staff member in charge of it is Dan shell s c l l and you will want to have had a a home energy audit in in the last few years to qualify um it's for homeowners um it's for homeowners who
can get a a bank loan but it's very favorable interest rates because it's B down by that rural electricity fund thank you thank you Joyce do we have any other announcements today one additional announcement we have a a meeting to
announce that will be held tomorrow evening February 26 2025 it's a a route 6 Village Center Traffic Safety and Improvement uh meeting and that's again on February 26 6 PM I'm right here in this room and
there's also it's a hybrid meeting so on the town's website there's Zoom instructions as well as um detailed proposals for the improvements out on Route 6A so we encourage everyone to pay close attention to that one thank you thank you Bob public comments do we have
anyone for public comments good evening my name is Jim Seymour um I'm a resident of the town of Yarmouth and I'm also the executive director of Capen Islands veterans Outreach and I just wanted to offer a couple of observations
and comments about the hero act that was passed back in August the one thing it was done it was passed back in August an implementation of it is now evolving and there's a lot of pieces to it a lot of components to it I believe there's either 28 or 29 different pieces to it
and one of them is a property tax abatement uh I'm in possession of a a note from uh the town finance director and a curious um on a couple things she states some pretty robust round numbers I'd love to know what the breakdown is
by veteran because this is a staggered property tax abatement based on on some different categories I also think as a taxpayer you try to put this through in one Fell Swoop the amount of volume to the budget will probably be its demise um I've talked to the executive
office don't get me wrong I'd love to see you pass the whole thing it would make me look really good in the veterans community but more importantly I've talked to the Executive Office of Veterans Services uh throughout the day and this evening and right now there's about a half a dozen communities that have passed this at 100% And they're
Boston Quin e Springfield larger cities so um some of the other ones I think Lexington was also mentioned as a community that is passing year one 100% of the increase not the not the Coler one and I I would
urge uh the board to look at it I think it belongs on the warrant this year honestly but how that looks remains to be determined whether we did an E A graduated phased in approach over a few years maybe more tolerable and palatable to to the community I don't know and
then the cola beyond that I think it's a mistake just to try to do the Cola in the first year I don't think that's the spirit of what the legislature were looking to do to give some rebate and relief to Veterans but uh it remains to be seen you know um how it will
ultimately play out um but I think if we had a better sense of how many veterans we were we were assisting I think that might be a useful number to come up with and perhaps if we can't see our way through to the full implementation of this maybe we
look at a three-year 50% 25 25 a third a third a third and then add the Coler beyond that it may it may get through um town meeting more successfully just an observation and a comment um for your consideration thank you madam chair can I ask the individual could you repeat
your name and your your title ma'am so my name is Jim Seymour s y m o r I'm at 32 lafield Road in Yarmouth I am a taxpayer but I'm also the executive director of the cap and Islands veterans Outreach Center thank you you probably are familiar with our work we built the
house in Dennis on 134 and we run 14 food pantries across the cap and Islands every month for veterans we've been around for 42 years and uh our role is to provide services as well as advocacy for these veterans events thank you
Jim do we have anyone else present tonight that has come on up good evening Jay Gardner and I'm the health director in Yarmouth and I'm here uh with the mix of reflection and
gratitude early this month I uh early February I gave Bob a letter stating my intention to resign as the health director for the town and for the past month we've been in the process of identifying the successor a skilled candidate that is
going to transition well and and lead the uh the health office but I'm here to uh I'm here to say thank you thank you for the to the select board for your support uh your collaboration the relationships not just in public health
but but what the commitment that you give to the town um so much of the the challenges and the the thoughtful decision making that you have to do isn't even seen and recognized by the community but it's all with the thought of trying to improve Yarmouth in making
sure that the residents are are well protected and well served and I recognize that and and I and I applaud your passion additionally I want to thank Bob and Bill not here tonight but you know so many times the health office
is that office down the hall that nobody wants to hear from because it's a problem right not the ca not the case here Bob has been consistently support he'll stop down his door is open that is unique I can tell you you as a as an administrator and for municipality that
is a wonder that shows wonderful leadership and and a commitment and I thank you Bob for that I also want to extend a thanks to the uh to the Board of Health committed professionals they have been longstanding many of them 10-year commitment uh to the town
they've been wonderful and and then fully expect that will that will continue the health staff has committed professionals and you are well Yarmouth is well served by that I have the Good Fortune as health office to connect with so many other
departments through in this building made friends and connected with them but also outside of and some of them are here certainly police and fire I see the school department um DPW DNR Recreation golf all of them they work
cohesively and all committed professionals you I have a an ongoing conversation with Sarah O'Reilly in HR and we talk about trying to be 1% better every day and that's really what we look to do not only and Bob Bob shows that leadership as well he's included in that
to say we try to be 1% better every day um I just I I want you to know that I'm not going very far I'm moving over to the county so I will be back in barible County as the Director of health and environment the reason I was I was drawn
towards that is they're doing some strategic planning they're looking to to increase the size and strength and the stature of of barnable County and that's something that I want to be part of certainly Michael Dutton the new administrator is looking to build that brand and to help the communities across
the cake well in public health we have that same struggle and I I'm so looking forward to being part of that so I fully expect I will be back in in a different capacity but also to help Yarmouth in in a role with with the county and and to
support in that way but more than anything appreciation to to you as a select board appreciation is a wonderful thing because it it what it what it says is I'm able to share in the Excellence that I see in you so I want to thank you
so very much for for all that you do thank you so much it's been a pleasure hey thank you we're going to miss you you've been a you've been a wonderful asset to us in the health department and certainly this past year there have been some challenges along the way and you
met them admirably and thank you we will miss you but we wish you the best of luck going to the county with Mr Forest down there she those kind words um no one does it alone right everyone it's a team that does this but certainly the the
select board has been a wonderful partnership but the Town Administrator you have a unique talent here and I'm I'm sincerely appreciative that I I could have been part of the journey that that you've been just playing for the town so thank you Bob and thank you select board thank you Jay appreciate it
okay do we have anyone else for um Jo Glen yeah I know I was just wanted to make sure anyone else in the room nope okay Joe what can we what can we do for you tonight I why did I feel that I had a selective eye roll when Tracy said that
um uh thank you madam chair Joe Glenn from uh with the parade coming up from salty Yarmouth and uh I wanted to Echo both previous speakers um Mr Gardner I had
uh sorry I just got unmuted can you still hear me yes yes okay um um I had a brief short period of a few months before I got sick um with the Yack uh and Mr Gardner answered all my questions
all the time uh perfectly um and and he's going to be a great asset to the county but uh asset for us to uh here still here in Yarmouth um and um Mr Seymour um I'd be remiss I don't know if he's still in the room but um
I'd be remiss if I didn't point out first to you that I like seeing the massachusett state flag there but as Jim Seymour knows and other veterans know that I uh am a stickler on flag protocol so as you look at the flag right now
the state flag should be uh us FL if you look at it the nothing should be to the the United States flag own right okay so it should just be flip-flopped around uh
to the audience um so if the audience has looked at it the American Flagship he to the left um and and the only other point I wanted to make um I was uh in attendance or I was uh watching the um
uh mck housing uh committee and there was some misinformation I wanted to try to correct it I raised my hand but um um they didn't get to me and my concern is that we're not having uh we did you know I complimented that committee um for the
number of people that were involved and and the uh the great professionalism and and the type of people we had um and their participation um it was significantly less now that might have just been um scheduling errors and you
know they didn't have a Corum at the beginning um but they ended up getting a quorum for for one of the Committees but um I think it was the housing trust but um I I just want to make sure from the housing authority and I'm not speaking for the Housing Authority but these are
just facts our RFP and our parameters for RFP went out over two years ago um the RFP was Set uh sent up and I apprised you of it um right after it happened uh that we we made it public um
to the state uh what happens after that who knows rfps are tricky things and as Mary wagan said um you don't know what's going to happen with the RFP but what I don't want to happen is miscommunications about the uh
parameters we did did those parameters over two years ago um and I there's there was some miscommunication on what those parameters were and what the Housing Authority the consultant said to them that they were
um uh that the Housing Authority is is uh for seniors um and that's not the case and and the parameters for Forest Road uh are not but I want to keep that line of communication open um I often think that um it's intentionally um
closed off but I'm open the Housing Authority will come in there but rfps are rfps and we send them out and uh but we will look forward to talking to the select board and uh and any information that's already public knowledge we can
get that to you so thank you very much have a great meeting and uh uh have a great rest of the week thank you thank you Joe you Joe I see Christopher Garen hear me hello hi yes we can hello oh hi thanks thank you so much I quickly yeah
I just want to thank the board last at the last meeting you mentioned about planning to meet with the barnable Town Council about a number of issues which are um facing both towns and specifically about the um roundabout
there at Route 28 and East Main stre Street I think uh the Department of Transportation Representatives kind of missed the point it's not so much maybe about the roundabout itself it's the traffic
between the proposed roundabout and East Main Street heading into hyas they uh Representatives said at a prior meeting that their jurisdiction is Yarmouth it ends at the at the line of you know of hyanis and
so they're I don't think they're looking at what's going on with the development in hyanis and they're not they aren't listening to directly the well prepared and respectful residents and the uh
observations that uh the board made so I just think that's one point um to make that when you do meet with the um Town Council it just sounds like the residents see that that you know short bit of distance is
just um is not going to work because the roundabout itself may work like the representative that from the Transportation said but it won't work if it directs traffic into a dead end and basically traffic there especially in the summer and with the ambulance
traffic to the hospital it just becomes a dead end and it's just going to back up onto 28 so again I just wanted to thank the board for um making plans to meet with uh the town of barille uh
Council because so many other development you mentioned the the the airport potentially developing and and the water issues and the um the chemical storage tank that they're planning to build by exit 6 is just threatening the
water along with the um p and everything so anyways I just wanted to make that point but thank you so much thank you very much Christopher do we have anyone else um on Zoom that would like to speak today I don't see any
other hands I'd ask right now Joe and uh Christopher if you could both mute your um mute your contact we'd appreciate it thank you very much okay moving on to our next item on the agenda we have retirement
recognition I have a citation here um from the town of Yarmouth select board official citation be it known that the town of Yarmouth hereby recognizes Barbara Austin on her retirement as principal office assistant effective February 25th 2025 and for dedicated
service to the town of Yarmouth and be it further known that the town of Yarmouth extends its sincerest thanks and appreciation for multiple years of dedicated employment within the Barnstable County system with her final years of service at the Yarmouth Police Department
this citation has been approved by the armor select board on this 25th day of February in the year of Our Lord 2025 Barbara thank you so much for your service we'll be sure that she gets that she's probably out celebrating since
this was her last day today okay uh next item on the agenda is our uh sec all of a sudden I can't open my page here okay is our hearing for the proposed 2025 annual golf field fees and I'm going to read the notice into the
record legal notice town of Yarmouth public hearing 2025 annual golf fees a fee hearing will be held by the select board on Tuesday February 4th and February 25th at 6 pm at Yarmouth Town Hall 1146 Route 28 South Yarmouth Mass
02664 for 2025 proposed annual golf fees written comments will be accepted at selectman Yarmouth mass. us until February 24 verbal comments will be accepted at the hearing the board
meeting will begin at 6: PM uh the uh types of fees uh Community Services annual fees the annual pass will be going from the existing fee of $1,365 to
$1,425 the senior senior annual pass will go from $840 to $875 Link's annual pass after noon time $360 going to $375 under 35 annual pass under 35 years
of age will be going from $865 to a proposed $900 young adult annual pass under 23 years of age from $370 to $385 Junior annual pass under 19 years
of age $125 to $130 and Twilight annual pass after 2 pm from $800 to $840 the Daily fees the director of golf operations will have authority to adjust
these daily fees downward as market conditions dictate or there is intent to offer certain specials to increase facility service utilization the greens fee will go from 121 excuse me $122 51 to $1
12863 golf cart 18 holes per person passholder will go from $787 to $1.76 golf c car nine holes per person passholder will go from
$108 to $11.40 golf car 18 holes per person non-p passholder will go from $28.7 to $29 47 and golf car nine holes per person
nonp passholder will go from $18.52 to $19.44 range fees small will go from $892 to 936 medium will go from $12.72 to $13.35
large will go from $531 to $167 club rental for nine holes is uh currently at $356 it will go to $368 18 holes will go from
$56.15 to $58.95 premium set $867 to $91 111 premium set I'm sorry handicap maintenance from $ 6366 to $
6684 and welcome if you like to introduce yourselves thank you for that uh Scott Gilmer director of golf Dennis Hoy head golf professional uh we also have I believe Ted deel the vice chairman of the golf committee here and a few staff
more members of any questions do uh or need to be answered um I'll just highlight some of the stuff we went over last time like to move there we go uh just to recap we are
celebrating our 125th anniversary we are very excited about that and we will share more information as We Gather the big anniversary celebration event but keep in mind July 2nd we are in a big big event there uh we do have two uh big
tournaments going on um one at bat serer one at Bayberry uh both in Partnership from Mass golf we did um just quick recap um 2024 we did just about 1300 memberships
88,000 rounds and put in about a million dollars in Revenue in into our retain earnings uh we are coming off our big time $3 million project at the links course we are very excited to have that open from April on this year and we got
a lot of great reviews from it last year um just showing you we've been investing pretty extensively into the courses um through all the Capital Improvements um Madam chair not to interrupt I want to make sure you get
out all the good things that you want to say about the golf course for the public um but as this is our second hearing and we haven't received any comment um I would move that we approve I know you have to take public comment but I would like to move that we approve the the
fees as presented second okay um do I have any comment from the public do I have any comment from anyone on Zoom then on hearing close public hearing
second okay all those in favor of closing the public hearing I I moving on to the second motion that we have from from um his post uh any further discussion all those in favor say I I I opposed you have a
unanimous vote thank you very much thank you appreciate your hard work thank you very much they obviously worked hard because there were no comments from the public so you you did your due diligence thank you very much for
that our next next item on the agenda is the quarterly community and economic Redevelopment committee update cpf sure I think you missed I'm sorry I missed one appointment confirmation of Steve Reynolds as director of
recreation Bob I'll turn to you on this one so we're making the the recommendation is for um the appointment of Steve Reynolds who's currently our assistant Recreation director to the position of
recreation director and just a little bit how this process works under the town's Charter uh the Town Administrator makes an appointment in this case and then we bring it in front of the select board now the select board
um unless they have a four fifths vote of the members of the board to reject the appointment um after 15 days the appointment takes effect and in this case uh the 15th day would be on March 11 so there's um the time frame for your
meetings there's this meeting um and um your next meeting as well and um you know first I I want to say we were very sad to see Mr Anthony Bennett um leave uh you know he really did a great job and um I I just I guess he made himself
famous and he got a big promotion to one of the really large Southshore uh Recreation uh private companies and so he's going to be continuing to spread the joy of recreation through more thousands of people so we're really saded to see Anthony go but um we really
had our eye on Steve Reynolds uh for quite some time you know he's in in working as our assistant director these past couple of years um he really has made a huge impact and we had a um it's not just coming into to a point him
because he's the assistant we actually did a full recruitment process and um he wound up on the top of that and just a a few words that I I wanted to make is that even before coming to the town of Yarmouth um Steve was the program
director over at Shay's youth basketball where he had over a 100 seasonal employees and um had very successful programs so his experience um is extensive in terms of running Youth Sports and during his tenure in Yarmouth
um he's overseen our program at a time when we were very aggressive and we continue to be very aggressive on the numbers to um encourage more and more youth to participate in our recreational programming and in the past two years where he's been in charge of the programs we've had 25% increase in
participation 29% increase in participation and so he really gets it those are the numbers he's a very handson um leader he's worked real hard with the school vacation camps um the camps here in town are huge it's a big part of our Recreation thing and he he
gets that as well and um he's also had a direct role um and has developed a lot of expertise in the whole um we we've had the presentations in front of this board where um Steve has told you how he's expanded our recruitment for for the lifeguards um he's done with the
interviewing and the training um we increased 13 new lifeguards at a time when communities on the cape cannot get lifeguides and I think it was a lot of um Steve's Innovative work that helped um make that happen and um he's also
been involved and and Bill um unfortunately is um ill tonight he wanted to be here um to talk about this as well he was very proud of Steve's efforts on the capital and budget process especially that CIP program um
and the the work we have a full Fields analysis program that has been funded through Capital that um he worked to develop um along with Bill and Anthony and um he's going to be leading in that as well as the mad at Keys utilization
committee process there a lot of recreational resources that are out there and you know through Steve's leadership we've managed to keep Recreation on sort of the top of the list in terms of what's going on with that facility so um all of these issues together um you know in his growth that
we've seen in the last couple of years I feel very confident that Steve is highly capable and he's in a good position to help us move forward and so um he has my full recommendation and support and also um Bill had a very nice letter in there
as well um and and Human Resources I I know feels the same way as well as well so um congratulations to Steve thank you I see Debbie Clark here from the Recreation Commission Debbie do you want to have say anything on behalf of the Recreation Commission about this
appointment this is we went from good to better he the kids love him they really do he he's interacting with them all the time he lives at the basketball court you know
so you know if you see him with a pillow and blanket just beep at him but uh other than that he's he's a good guy I'm glad he's gonna lead us on thank you thank you are there any questions from any of the
board I don't I don't have any questions no I think um it's obvious that the U the wreck program has become incredibly busy lately and uh uh you've had an active hand in that and and I can say that's very much appreciated thank you
all right so Madam chair I'd like to move in that we as board endorse this appointment by the Town Administrator second any further discussion all in favor I I welcome aboard thank
Youk you're coming into your really busy time you're in for it now let me tell youate it from all of you thank you very much Steve okay our next item on the agenda is the quarterly community and economic Redevelopment committee um also known as
cedc update trpf round two public Improvement cedc updates I see Courtney hello everyone it's good to see you all thank you for having us um yeah so we've talked about having these quarterly check-ins and I'm excited to be in front
of you tonight for the first one of 2025 um the past few months we've been working on a lot of things as a committee um and one of the biggest ones that I want to touch about um is some of our physical Improv ments that we've been funding um including um several
requests that we received from town departments in the past month that we've approved um so I think you have a memo in your packet um and I can kind of just go through those quickly but um uh I'm going to start with the town departments and then go to packet Landing um so the Yarmouth Senior Center has requested $20,000 for beautification of the
grounds we funded that in full the historic commission as you know the Revolutionary War Monument is a huge project that we're very proud to support um and I know that they're uh reviewing rfps um and bids right now for that design and construction so um that was $50,000 that we committed um we also
committed $3,000 for signs at conservation lands and those signs will basically just let people know this is a town of Yarmouth conservation parcel please take care um and be courteous while you're on this property um and so uh we're working with Britney in DNR on that um they also requested funding for
a kiosk um for $3,700 we did not fund that because we didn't Fielder was a direct tie to a plan um in terms of wayfinding in the town and we wanted to make sure that it was part of a bigger more cohesive plan for kiosks and wayf finding um and something that we're interested in
helping with um and then chasebrook Park very excited for this new park and very excited to see it finally reaching these beautiful stages um we supported $ 37,7 120 for signs and benches for that so people will know where they are be able to indicate certain species of habitat
and Wildlife um and the view that looking at and also enjoy a nice seat and the scenery to relax um so going back to packet Landing um in 2024 we voted to expend $52,000 to support a project at packet Landing focused on making it more accessible and usable as
a place to live uh to work and learn um it's the idea of one of our members who um thought that maybe it'd be a really cool like outdoor working space um if people wanted to grab a cup of coffee or a bite to eat and then go down to packet landing and work on their laptops at the
beautiful view um so we did apply for a grant with the town um that Grant was not successful but we the cedc has committed the $52,000 for this project um I know that this member uh Joe Manning is working with Bill benetti on this and seeing how it lines up with the current project he has there um but our
big focus is working with staff um on this project as their current workload can provide that we know that staff right now are very um dedicated to a lot of different projects and are working on many things and so um we want to help this move forward but as long as it ties into other work plans and their current
workload we are fully behind um the money we supported to help reconfigure the existing seating provide additional seating and install solar power workstations um at packet Landing for charging your laptop and your phone and things like that um so those are the fiscal improvements that we've been working on um we have one more
additional request from the schools that we'll be reviewing um at our meeting in March um and that's for an update to the playground um so next is the special events funding which you all are pretty familiar with I think at this point but um we did open up the second round of
applications because we um only received a few in the first round and we wanted to give people another chance and we actually had three new applications which was really exciting for us um so for the first application was the cultural center of Cape Cod um they do
amazing events over there there's always something happening at the cultural center if you're familiar with the parking lot it's nearly always full um always busy um and Molly does a really great job marketing those events to bring people off Cape from um out of state from all over um so we helped them
with $40,000 for marketing those events the next event is really exciting it's the second summer cycle so if you are familiar with that it's a bike uh race that has started about three years ago it came after the last gasp which was a Cape Cod chamber event um historically they've held it with three starting
points in uh Mash P Orleans and um I believe Dennis and this year they're starting and ending in Yarmouth at at smuggers beach they um are going to be coming to you for a couple different approvals and permits but their plan is to start at smuggers Beach and have um a loop basically go from Yarmouth up to
East ham and back um hitting the South Side the north side and then for their longer committed Riders who are really Hardy and want to get out there and get as many miles as they can they're going to go up to mash P sandwich and come back down um but it all start and end at Smuggler Beach um it'll be really
exciting to have that area um populated and full of families and friends and support ERS um so we were able to commit 35,000 for marketing for that um as it's a new location new place they have a really great relationship with the Boston Globe and WCVB 5 so they have
plenty of marketing to be done um outside of Cape Cod which is great um another new application for us was the Massachusetts Chamber of Commerce Executives um as you might know Mary vont is the president this year of that organization representing Yarmouth um
and so they're having a conference in April um for their group at the red jacket um Mary had asked us for $4,000 $2,000 for marketing which we approved um and that marketing includes some giveaways for those folks with the Yarmouth brand so they can take it back to you know chiap
and everywhere else that they're coming from to kind of let us let people know that Yarmouth is a great place to visit um we did deny the request for $2,000 for the sand sculpture um it was only going to be for that weekend and then be destroyed and we just didn't see the tie in to how that promoted Yarmouth and en
hand um enhanced the marketing for the sand sculpture Trail so um that was that application and finally we had the Edward gory house um they're doing a puppet show um and they've requested $10,000 but we still need a little bit more information from them so we're
hoping they'll come to us in March and we can finalize that request um so it was really great to see some new applicants and new faces um and we're very excited for the second summer cycle um we're hoping that that's a really great event for the town and the community um and they give all of the money to ch ities five of which are
based in Yarmouth so it's a really good give back to the town um and then for marketing going back to the sand sculptures um the chamber worked with us to kind of move around some of their marketing funds to be able to support the sand sculpture Trail this year um that that project is about $40,000 um
and they had 177,000 in their current line item and we redirected 23,000 of other funds to put towards that so that it could be completed and um those will be up before we know it I mean they're going to start coming in and getting ready to build those and design those very shortly um next is economic
development um we're involved in the Muk process we had our first Muk meeting last night for the cedc and it was it was great we had um about a dozen or so people from the audience there Mr Forest was there so thank you for joining us um we had public comment and it it was I thought it was a great meeting it was
great to hear um some of the ideas that people have um we are working with the chamber on this as well they had their own Muk one meeting um on February 12th um and we have paid for a facilitator for both of our meetings so Alexis from Barrett Planning Group facilitated the
chambers meeting and our meeting and um we're coming in together for our joint meetings for numbers two and three um at the end of March and April and Alexis will work with us to facilitate those as well and kind of help us bring all of our ideas together um so we're very excited for that um and then going
forward we're going to be continue to be heavily involved in this mes utilization project um you know several of our board members are trying attend as many meetings as we can um just to make sure that our voice is heard everywhere and that we are a friendly face to all of our fellow committee members um it's
nice to kind of get to meet some of these people now I was just up at a meeting with open space and so I'd never met some of those folks before and it was good to see them um and then our biggest project this year will be um the marketing contract renewal we've had this contract with the chamber for a while and we're due for a new RFP and so
our committee is looking at what will that look like in the future and um what is our current marketing contract what are we getting what are we what do we want to get and moving forward on that um so those are kind of everything that we're working on I will say one of the special events that we funded that I talked to you about last time I was here
the Cape Community Orchestra is having an event um on March 8th at 10:30 at the new middle school and it's a free concert it's called um a morning at the movies and so music from Aladdin to Star Wars to Wicked everything in between uh
it's free for ages 2 to 102 um so uh hopefully some of our members will be bouncing between that and the parade to kind of get it's a busy day in y with March 8th so we're excited to be a part of all of it um so thank you for that little debrief I'm happy to answer questions if there's any from all of you
but thank you for having me okay I'm actually going to start with Liz oh okay um can you explain the solar power workstations where is the solar collector so I don't have any of that details just yet okay yeah it's very
preliminary stages right now as um the memo we did commit the funds but we have not gotten to the point of like actual site plan and design yet just because um like I said we're trying to work with staff and the capacity that they have okay and then um oh you answered my
question about the second summer cycle uh so no that was my my question I look forward to all of these these events what excellent thank you Joyce yes I look forward to them as well it sounds very thorough and I'd just like to
express my sadness that the weather Gods weren't kind to Winter Carnival weekend uh gosh the chamber worked so hard you worked so hard and uh that we're going to get good weather next year we're going to bribe the weather Gods yes yeah
yeah we gave we provided the money for the tent this year and unfortunately that snow decided to come anyway and no tent was going to be enough so we're sorry that they had to cancel the Sunday but it was still a great success everything that we've heard about it was um really rave reviews so we're very happy it still continued oh good thanks for all you do thank you
Tracy thank you thank you for your presentation um all the events are great I went looking for your minutes and the minutes on the website are about a year behind March is the last that's posted so um it would be great if we could get
that updated because um I don't want to get into all the details of every all of my questions here but I would like to read the minutes and the votes and how many people are expected at some of these um and and and I'm still not that it's related to this but personally um
as far as the community and economic development committee I'm I feel like our charge has been um so much of what you do your focus now is on the tourism um and funding and personally I would
love to see that split into two separate committees I've said it before and I'm going to say it again because there's a lot of real Economic Development um things in our community that need to be focused on that I feel that we need a committee just to move those items for
it it's a lot on your plate with this so I don't know if if you guys have had that conversation um but from my perspective I think this is all great stuff it's just time consuming and and uh there's just so much that we need in terms of um
Economic Development and um I'd like to see the committee get back to more of that yeah thank you for that Tracy we certainly have considered that um not so much to splitting two committees but certainly like what I think that's a great point and a great idea I've I've been reaching
out to other towns um to see how they kind of handle the tourism part and working with their Chambers and how do how do other towns do this you know we're super unique in the fact that we have this tourism Revenue preservation fund and so I think you're right like we need to find the best way to make the most use of those funds um and we're certainly focused on looking at more
Economic Development projects you know there's a lot going on town that needs attention and um we have the money to support projects focus on these things and we want to do that so thank you for your they're both important I'm not minimizing anything it's just there's so much work to be done that um you know I
was on the cedc many many years ago and that was before you know right when this started and now it just seems like it consumes too much of your time so maybe not even a a second committee but an ad hoc Committee of that brings the recommendations through but I would
really love to see this cedc work a lot on on our Economic Development needs but thank you for all you do thank you Mark yeah I think um I want to just follow up on Tracy's Point um I do think our challenge has been not having an
economic development director because that position helps carry some of the load I've been to a lot of your meetings um if there's a frustration that the committee members themselves have it's that they're not able to spend as as much time as they would like focusing on
economic development what they're doing is they're focused on the things that they really need to prioritize which is the management of the fund and when you add up all of the work that they do um it it's it's almost all consuming so I
think if if we're going to find a way to help this committee do Economic Development uh we could certainly try to clone them uh that might provide an answer um I also think addressing the staff question um is going to be an important component of it and I think
that could help go a long way in providing support and as we all know that's been a bit of a challenge uh for the town so I I do think that um this is something that the I think the committee would like to figure out a way to do as well so I think Tracy hits on a very
important Point having sat through a number of meetings and have heard this discussion firsthand by committee members it's um again you're focused on the things that are your principal char and that is to manage this fund and make sure that those funds are used in in the most appropriate ways and the challenge
unfortunately is is that takes up a lot of time yeah it eats up a significant amount of time and I know for some members it's frustrating but I just want you to know I very much appreciate all the time and the energy and the effort that you all put in it's a very difficult balancing act so hopefully we can figure out a way to clone your group
yeah and we can figure out a way to help get that position filled um you know maybe at some point during the town manager's update and presentation we can get an update on on how we're doing on that score um the the other point I I
just wanted to make is is that um is that you folks are incredibly busy I've tried to follow your meetings I watch I've been giving a hard time to staff to keep up on all the videos but I've tried to follow a lot of your meetings you folks are are keeping up an
incredibly brisk Pace in terms of your work and I thought you did an outstanding job in terms of facilitating a dial with the community um with the Muk um the thing that I'm learning from the muuk process and it came up it was quite evident at your meeting is that it
reminds me a little bit of the I mean I don't want to overdo it in terms of a metaphor or an example but you know when this country went ahead and did a moon shot you know when we put a man on the moon or a person on the moon um there were a lot of interesting things that
came out of that exercise and the thing that I learned at your meeting is is that there's a lot of interesting stuff coming up in these meetings a lot of very interesting ideas you had some incredibly creative and very thoughtful suggestions that came up but from
stakeholders and members of the public and my hope is is that we can try to capture as many of these ideas because I was I was taking notes I heard some very interesting suggestions and recommendations from a number of people in your meeting and like I said I think
um yes there'll be a a set of recommendations and those will be presented on but in the meantime there's a lot of good stuff that's coming up at your meetings so I I appreciate the way you're running it I appreciate the way you're doing it I appreciate the openness and the welcomeness to everyone um that's participating and coming and
attending these meetings sometimes you can feel like when you come to a committee meeting that it's like a club it's kind of a closed conversation but no I think I thought you did a great job and trying to get get the the audience and others in the Comm Community involved in it so I I appreciate that
that means a lot I really I'm very proud to serve the town of Yarmouth this is a big point of pride in my life um anybody who knows me personally knows I'm like a local government geek I love municipal government I love serving my community um and so for me to be able to participate in this mck process was a huge point of Pride and I really wanted
to make sure everybody's voice was heard so thank you for that recognition it means a lot you're welcome that's it Madam chair Courtney thank you very much you and your committee have been um absolutely fabulous on on all that you had accomplished and I know there's a
lot more out there to do but I know that you're you're doing your absolute best to see that happen and I I appreciate the update really interesting to see and I look forward to seeing you for the next update thank you I'll see you thenk you thanks okay coming up next we have the
Dennis yarma school department budget presentation and update on school feasibility study and joining us today we have Dr Mark Smith uh while this is being set up Dr Smith I'd just like to thank you for your
openness and uh working with both towns of Dennis and Yarmouth on this budget uh inviting us in early on in the uh process um it was very interesting very beneficial I think for all concerns so course thank you very
much this is going to control it here B yeah yeah we're on Mouse duty tonight yeah no hey I I get it uh so I'll start by saying so normally I'm joined up here by uh assistant superintendent for finance uh David Flynn but unfortunately
for us uh David took another job in another District closer to home so uh we do have an interim position in place somebody who's working part-time to help us uh get through until we're we complete an executive Search and have somebody start with us hopefully at the start of the next fiscal year um so I am
trying to do a little bit of double duty here and I've been doing as much D due diligence as I can to make sure if there are any specific questions that I'll be able to answer the specific Financial questions um but I am without my right right hand Financial arm um as I come to
give this presentation so uh just I ask for a little Grace um as we enter into this discussion uh and we wish David all the best I know it's uh for him he uh he shorten his commute from well over an hour to about less than 15
minutes all right so you know uh last year sitting in front of uh all the groups that uh I was fortunate enough to meet with we really just in largely in crisis mode um in the budgeting process uh I was also brand
new didn't have an opportunity to have developed a strategic plan uh didn't have anything really to ground the budget in other than we had this really big number um that was too big for any for us to swallow for both the towns to swallow and we were trying to figure out
how to get to a place that um we could we could move forward as a school district maintain the health of the school district but also have a budget that um was uh fiscally manageable by both towns this year um is we're enter able to enter into a budgeting process
that's well one we have a strategic plan a new newly launched strategic plan and we're able to use that forever going forward to both Drive our actions but also if you're going to drive your actions you know it should drive your budgeting process so you know we have three our strategic plan is much more
detailed in this but I also this isn't a presentation about the Strategic plan we have three big objectives that drive our plan uh first is around eliminating disparities um and it's largely focused around um student achievement I actually was in this room for a different purpose
I don't remember exactly why I was here and there was a public comment it was shortly after uh a story in the paper around our mcast scores which was not a great story um about the Dy mcast scores and quite frankly I've I've used that as a a rallying cry inside the district uh
you can't move forward until you really have a good honest look at where you are and so this this as you drill into this particular uh initiative this initiative or this objective rather is all about moving our student achievement forward
as a district and then because as as you we have to rise you know the rising tide uh lifts all boats we have to move our overall achievement up but then as you dig into our achievement you'll find that there's particular groups of students that are um further underachieving so this looks at both of
those raising the over achievement in the district as well as focusing on particular groups of students that have not um done that we've underserved over time second piece uh is around uh all the systems as a district sort of the
way I've been trying to summarize this is uh the the the business side of school you know uh I we are roughly 630 employees as a district uh I use as a comparison Cape Cod 5 is 577 employees n
anet Airlines 700 employees we're somewhere in between those two organizations as an organizational size there's a lot of things that I learned through my first year that we could be doing a lot better in the way that we run our business from standard operating procedures to efficiencies and
Effectiveness um and so this strategic objective among things also on the educational side so there's both sides of it um that we need to be a lot more consistent and efficient and effective about so that's that second objective is largely focused on those things and how they all come back to support um a more
effective school system um that can support students staff and so and so staff can support students more effectively and then the third one is around the district has just like every you know or I guess the way I'd phrase it that we're responsible for 150 I
think it's 152 Acres of taxpayer property plus somewhere between 6 and 700,000 square fet of facilities um and we need to have a long-term plan for how to maintain those facilities uh and so this uh last strategic objective is
around making sure that we have a plan and not only a plan for what the needs are over the next 10 years but then also how are we going to work to maintain those facilities both working with Partners in the town plus thinking about how we're going to use some of our funding streams uh as a district to
support those all right so this is just where we are in our process the school committee is sated to take their vote um at the next meeting but technically we have all the way until the 14th for the school committee to take their final vote um in order to stay in line with the regional
agreement uh as uh the chair mentioned earlier we started a process much earlier lesson learned from last year about really engaging the towns in the budgeting process very early uh the biggest factor for us is we we had a pretty good sense of what our expenses
or forecast expenses into this year what is the biggest challenge for us is so or significant portion you'll see that as we get a little bit later into the slides a significant portion of uh what we don't know is our Revenue picture and we don't get that until the the what
ends up being it's the third Wednesday in January which this third January happened to be the 22nd when the governor's information comes out that starts to set our Revenue picture and you can see that's a significant amount of money that's what it ultimately ended up being this year the slides were blank
up until we got until we got that information um but and so traditionally we wouldn't really come to start having conversations until we got that information but we've really tried to change that process and include the towns in the budgeting process much earlier even though we were operating
without this another piece which is really important which doesn't come until the governor's information is the minimum required contribution which I'll talk a little bit about a little bit later so there are factors that influence the budget I already mentioned the Strategic priorities and then we
have contractual obligations just like you all do on the town side fortunately all of our collective bargaining Agreements are settled going into next year so we don't have any unknowns there we knew exactly what those were for all of our three major bargaining units all of our service contracts so like we're not renewing our Transportation uh
contract that's settled same for our uh uh custodial Services Etc so all those we already knew what those were same largely for contracted Services um one driving factor which I have a slide which I'll show you about is the increase um out of District special education um service costs and
the transportation costs associated with that um and then as always we make our decisions based upon student need I have some slides to address that um and then we have at the building level level funded uh each of the schools um and their supply lines so looking at
Staffing so this is the Staffing Trends over the last 10 uh plus years um and you can see if you look at last year you know we're down we were down 35 and where we reduced 35 and a half staff to get uh to where we landed on the budget last year um so that's where we maintain
this year and this slide because I often we'll you know I get it on both sides quite frankly I get some people who say we're overstaffed and I get some people who say we're underst staffed I get it um from both directions so what this is showing is the the state runs uh a tool or has a tool that they call is Dart um
uh don't just uh I used to know what DART stands for there's too many acronyms for me to keep track of but um it allows you to compare your District on a whole bunch of different metrics including Staffing uh to other districts across the state uh as well as the state
average and then you can look at districts based upon two different factors so one is a Dem districts with similar demographics and another is what they call relative wealth relative wealth is made up of two factors it's made up of uh basically local property
values as well as an average income value um so it's and who knows how they weight them they don't give you that secret sauce formula but it's awaiting somehow of those two things my guess is it leans heavier towards property value based upon sort of what you see as the comparative districts up up there so you
get about 10 um uh comparative districts so I didn't throw all 20 districts on this slide it just would have been too noisy what I did was then found the districts that are of similar enrollment to Dy so you have here districts that are comparable to us both in either
demographics or um relative wealth so for example Marblehead is not by demographic it's by it's by um relative wealth um where Randol um is by demographic um not by relative wealth and you can see I put a star next to the
Dennis Yarmouth so it's easier to find but then this is Staffing um uh uh one uh staff per 100 students so it's a it's a ratio and you can see you know in some districts we have a little more some
districts we have a little less but pretty much we are in line with everybody else we're not out of whack it's not like you look and you see oh my gosh Dy has way more staff than everybody else or oh my gosh Dy has way less staff than every any other and this is by different groups you see teachers
on the top left parent Educators leadership student support and clerical um and support staff good um and again students Drive everything that we do so um I've and I started talking about this last year and I'll continue to talk
about it until it changes um so we had a trend um and actually saw another one that went back even further somebody had some data that went back 20 years uh or even a little bit further so the the there was a declining enrollment trend for sure in Dy um for a while but the
last 5 years it is definitely heading in the other direction um we're up again about 100 students this year the enrollment number right before we head it into break it was 1,120 kids and it stayed pretty stable you can see when I made this data point it was
1,115 so we hover right around that number so far all year all year this year this in school or is that uh Foundation this is the kids who are walking in the door and I you will notice like because somebody pointed it out to me though if you go on the department of Ed website they're upd
dated currently based upon our October 1 numbers and you'll see a slightly different number than this it's it's like I don't know 7-ish kids less and the disparity you get there is because the department at Ed counts a preschool child as half a child because they only
come for half a day um spatially yeah yeah it's based upon the FTE that they attend the school so like if we used when in the I don't I don't know how many I don't know if anybody still runs a half day kindergarten but like if you had run in a half day
kindergarten they would also count those kids as half to me they're whole human bodies that show up every day um that we are responsible for so I count them as whole kids um so that's where you see though there is like a 70 because we have roughly
135 preschoolers in the district so the department egg counts them as 60 whatever half 135 is 67 um and um and I think they round up at least I think they give us the benefit of the Roundup um and then this is the high needs
percentage as you can see it's grown this number doesn't this by itself doesn't mean much because well what is high needs well High needs is a sort of a I don't say it's a madeup statistic but it's a statistic that you have to then further dig into because it's one a category that the department Ed made up
or created and it's made up of these four groups of uh uh students now a student can belong in any one or in more than one of these groups right so a student could be the top line is
economically disadvantaged the yellow line is first language not English the red line is special education and the light blue line the one that starts on the very bottom and creeps its way up is an active English language learner so you could be economically disadvantaged
and um receive your learning through an IEP um and your first language cannot be English right so you can multiple things and so when the state combines all those that's where you get the high needs number and this is important because this does actually
drive some of our Chapter 70 money um and it also drives a service need what you can see is as a as a district um some numbers have stayed pretty really one number has stayed pretty stable special education stayed pretty consistent as a district over the what
is it's like about a 11e span but the percentage of students that are economically disadvantaged has definitely gone up it's spiked uh right after covid to 60% and it's lab it's it's stabilized at around 55% as a
district um but the populations that we've seen the largest increase in are first language not English we're up to uh roughly 30% of our students uh as of this year are first language not English and then students who are receiving active English language learner
instruction uh is 18% so about one out of every five kids wow and that's important when you see some of our priority um items in a coming slide and I mentioned out of District uh tuition and transportation so this is a
new um cost that we're paying a little closer attention to this year again the more I get my feet grounded the more I'm paying attention to different things uh so you have three different bits of data on this one slide so the uh the green
data point are the number number of students and it it fluctuates throughout the course of the year so what we picked was the end of the year as the data point so the number of students enrolled in added District placements at the end of the year so in add a district placement We There are some students
that we cannot educate in Dy um because of there particular special needs and have to go to another school so one of those schools might be the cape Cog collaborative um which is currently uh leas in the old mccarther building um or sometimes it's a facility over the
bridge um closest next closest one's in Plymouth and then they go further and further from there so there's two costs the blue is the cost of the tuition what it costs the district to send the child um you know whatever the costs are
associated with the child going to that particular place the Orange is the cost to get the child there and back um and you see both the tuition costs have increased there was uh 14% % tuition increase between the 22 and the 23
school year um the state regulates that number there's a board uh that regulates uh the costs and nobody saw that increase coming that was a big one that hit school districts across across the state um and then what you also see is
the transportation costs continued to rise it's a double Factor one um and there's actually a a senator I believe out of Plymouth who's trying to um put like a price gouging bill on the floor but essentially the the there is no
mechanism regulating the transportation cost so um it's a supply and demand market and the challenge is the supply currently outweighs the demand um especially on the cape we have several
students or there's and I say this half tongue and cheek and half seriously because it would help the school district in a major way and anybody who's looking for a side job please buy a couple of um minivans and start a transportation company and base it here on the cape uh because we currently have
several uh Transportation vendors Who start off Cape start New Bedford that's where they're housed out of drive on Cape pick up one of our students to drive them to an off Cape um school placement and they're charging us the
whole way and then they do the same thing in Reverse um at the end of the day uh and then you compound that with we're also responsible for mckenny vento transportation so a student who is um
unhoused uh in his so let's say a student uh was living in Yarmouth and lost their housing now finds is either doubled up um in an in a house in let's say Bourne or um finds some type of
transitional housing in Bourne but it's not is still considered unhoused um because it's a temporary housing facility maybe they're living in a hotel there's all sorts of different scenarios um the family has the right under mckenny vento to have their child
continue to um go to their school of origin so in that case it would have been whatever school they were attending in our district and it gets even more complicated let's say it's a family with multiple children so let's say there was an elementary age child and a Middle
School eache child most school districts has two different start times two different end times so we now have to work to provide transportation for that child to go come from I what did I say born come from born back to Dy in the morning potentially two different if
it's if a family with two different kids at two different levels two different start times and then do the same in Reverse every day now you split the cost with the sending District but we currently have 172 kids that are on housed is it reimbursed by the state so what you see
is the green is the cost and you see that that's 21 22 23 and that's what we've currently expended in 25 so you see how much the costs have been escalating on us as a district and the reimbursement is sporadic at best
right um that's the light blue color uh and it's not even in the same fiscal year no no it's not in the same fiscal year it lags by a year and it's essentially for essentially the the state sets aside a certain amount of money and then they take the total number of claims and then they just
disperse them dispers whatever amount they have against the total amount of claims um so in the governor's budget this year she has a certain we'll see where it all shakes out she has a certain amount set aside but based upon a bunch of other stuff
that's going on in the state the I I I I don't think we're the only District that's seeing this increased number of um Transportation because of some other decisions the state has made around students and then again every time they close uh particular places and move
students to other places those students have the right to stay at the school district that they were at so these costs are being felt all across the length of time that they need to be there to actually consider it your your home District uh a day so it's basically
their choice yeah you have to have been enrolled right so enrolled in the school of origin yeah so you can't like move into a town as an unhoused person and claim that as your school of origin you have to have actually been enrolled there before you became unhoused but
yeah can I just ask you Dr Smith what what happened to um a child who was unhoused from the start of his or her education would they never have a home District well so when they wherever they first enroll so if let's say um
uh you had somebody who has doubled up in a in a uh space in Yarmouth um or or in Dennis because it applies the same right um or I know there's a a uh a uh transitional housing space being
developed or renovated in Dennis as a as an example that um once those so if a student if a family is living there and and a child let's say is four years old and then register for kindergarten they're still not in permanent
housing um so that student's going to start with us if they move into another permanent housing spot then they have to re then they have to um register in wherever they're permanently housed but if they move to another transitional housing then they'll have right to
because their school of origin would have been Dy okay thank you you're welcome any other questions on that before I zip along all right so we do have a couple of prioritized requests in the budget that we that you
know that as the leadership team that we put in front of the school committee for the school committee to take final vote on uh again they're they're slated to take their final vote on Monday so we didn't have a prioritization process last year because
last year we were in cutting mode we just got all the way down to the uh tried to minimize the impacts on the district and this year we have a couple of uh things that we're looking to add into the overall operations of the district try to improve the district and as you might imagine I'm sure the the
town has a similar process right you get a request from all your different departments and then how do you prioritize those requests so we had a prioritization process um of four sort of top priority is either emergent need a contract
obligation um safety hazard Etc down to three which was uh something that supported our strategic plan um or maybe it was a deferred maintenance or a safety issue I'm not going to address twos in ones because twos in ones didn't make it into the um into the
budget um so what you have here are the fours and threes uh so the the fours were the robotics was we have a strong robotics program at the high school it's been there for a really long time every year um some of those that equipment needs to
be replaced and every year we scrape money from from other places other than actually having a line item um so every year we pay for supplies but we don't actually budget for the supplies so this is just budgeting for money that we're always spending the next two are uh positions they're stien in positions
that anybody who's I know it was like the first thing that was um one of the first things that I was introduced to when I became a superintendent in Dy was like the amazing marching band and we also have a winter percussion part which is sort of a subset of the marching band um so this is uh esta ling a stipend for
the person who directs that band it was it was contract it was negotiated with our Union um so those are again contractual obligations game officials the rates are set by the MIAA um we got noticed that they're going to be going up by I think it was 5% so this is
accounting for that and then last year we established um Staffing ratios across our district U we've had increased enrollment in a in what is now second grade at um me small that has pushed us over those um class size ratios so we're
not adding a teacher this year but when those students then move up to third grade in order to get back to our staffing ratio um we'll need to add a teacher for one year to third grade to get the Staffing ratios back to or the student to staff ratio back in line with the rest of the
district and then so for priorities so those were all um contractual and then for priority three these meet our um strategic uh objectives so the el director it's English language uh learner program so this is a director
level position so somebody work at the central office to support I do not have anybody leading my English language learner program um as you saw it is uh roughly 20% of my student body 18% of my
student body 30% of my student body is first language not English um I keep using the same analogy it would be like you all starting a Wastewater System Program without a Wastewater supervisor or having all the golf programs like you have without a golf director um I do not
have anybody in charge of this particular Department of my district and it's roughly 600 kids uh no sorry it's roughly 900 kids um that make up our district um and there are a slew of statutory requirements um and um
instructional needs that are needed for these students and then for all the staff that support them from a professional development standpoint from a supervision standpoint Etc the second piece is thought exchange thought exchange is a a tool that we started implementing this year um to engage our
staff to engage the public to engage the community it's a survey and um data mining tool that allows us um we've used it on multiple occasions the most recent one was a Communications survey out to all of our stakeholders to understand
how are we um how can we better uh engage um through all the different mechanisms that we use right now like what's effective what's not effective um so that we can use that um as part of enhancing our communication
profile uh the two we had to Staffing to try to address that earlier slide around um some of the out of District placements we are tweaking and developing some more internal programs to try to keep more students internally
we're still going to do that um we just looked a little more closely and we have um we have another program that's phasing out so we're going to shift the FTE from that program so while those two positions or that new program will be
created we don't need to add Staffing in order to do it we can redeploy Staffing in order to make that happen so that from the original presentation to by the time we got to the last presentation of school committee we were able to make that shift which the budget down um by
whatever that that difference is 140,000 is um and then the last ones on the right hand side uh foreign language textbooks we've been working um you know uh in last year we did Spanish this year it's French or I might have those the other way around but the um textbooks
are 20 years old at the high school and need to be replaced in that department and then um arked is a platform we'll be entering into negotiations over the next three years next year starts with our teachers AR that allows um when we meet
with our bargaining units um oftentimes the MTA is very well organized um I sure if anybody's been involved in negotiations um with the MTA they have a bunch of comparative data etc etc this allows this uh retired superintendent a
few years ago organized a group that does the same thing for municipalities and Regional School Districts that gives you all the comparatives as well so that you know going in um you know what has been the percentage increases by your like districts what
type of contract language has been negotiated recently so you are armed with similar information going in um it's sort of been a something that school districts haven't unless they've gone out and done all their own leg work and tried to collect it from everybody's individual contract it isn't something
that we've ever really had access to going into negotiations um and then the rest are all just moves that are happening that are contract those last three bullets Are all uh budget neutral they're decisions that principles are making to make some shifts in their programs that
align with a strategic plan but don't again they're shifting FTE they're not adding any FTE and then these are the requests that were priorities twos and ones but didn't you'll see the bottom right pay attention in the bottom right hand corner they did not make it into the
budget um but they were things that were asked for but did not uh I ultimately did not recommend them to the school committee so then this is the sum total of what that and then the committee should have I sent over like a much more
detailed version of this but this is what it all rolls up into so it should look something like sorry the board not the committee this one um to change my parament um so this gives all the detail
behind um that but these are the um the rolled up um function codes for each of the major categories that we report to the the department of Ed and the sum total is a 4.49% budget
increase um for our operating budget um and then that's just how each one of the function codes shows out on a on a pie chart um largely showing that big part of what we do is obviously on the instruction side more than half of our
budget um then when you add things like um benefits and insurance um and our transportation costs um you start to eat up a huge chunk of our our our budget tuition to other schools makes up another 10% of our budget
um and then we get down to the assessment so first you know before ever assessing the towns what do we have from our a revenue side our biggest contributor from revenue is what comes directly to us from the state uh so this is a trend
over the last several years as you can see um the light blue shows the implementation of the student Opportunity Act which has been very good to DIY not every district has seen this and it goes all the way back to those slides that I showed you around student uh some of the shifts in the student
demographic population those influence which districts get more money than other districts from the student opportunity deck every District's getting a little bit more Chapter 70 but some districts are getting a lot more Chapter 70 Dy has been fortunate to have gotten a lot more Chapter 70 over the
last four years and it's been inconsistent right you can see like the first year FY 23 there's a big bump 24 that was a big bump last year it was less than we anti anticipated which didn't help everything else we were dealing with last year but then this year we saw much bigger bump as again um
we don't know exactly how this is going to continue to play out and and S SOA is a six-year rollout implementation so what happens after the six year you know do do we continue to see increases like this do we get the minimum like everybody else I think it is something I
know when we've met in the smaller groups is something that I want us to be planning for and thinking about um as a because it is it it you'll see as I get to some of the conversations around the assessment it um is helping definitely
support our um support support the School District's budget um so this is the uh Foundation enrollment which I know uh Miss post mentioned earlier so Foundation enrollment again different than who's actually walking through the door um about for us th uh this year
it's about a 100 kid difference maybe 150 kid difference um and again Foundation enrollment is every kid that we're responsible for so even if they attend Charter School even if they attend upper Cape Tech even if they attend private school it's every student who resides resides in the town of
Dennis or resides in the town of Yarmouth who could potentially come to the Two Towns that's what set or the public school sets the foundation enrollment and that's what's used as part of the assessment calculation and then you can just sort of this is the trend over time you can
see it's been slowly moving towards um it's been the gap's been widening with a heavier percentage going towards Yarmouth we're almost or really really close to it being a 7030 split um it's like 69 in one second
69 33 yeah so uh to 30. 668 so we're getting very close to a 7030 split um and you know I know the high school's debt I was just looking at the high school debt um and that was set at a particular moment in time like 20 years
ago and it was 3565 then right so you can it's been creeping over that time all right uh so the assessment calculation so to get to what each Town um is assessed so we first start with the revenue offset so we start with
state aid that's a big chunk there um then our local receipts so this year the district's contributing $250,000 in end as part of the conversations that we had last year um and distally the district has revenues
from uh our earned interest and built into the budget from um uh circuit breaker built into the budget uh so those are all come off the top before we ever do assessment calculations then the next is minimum required contribution
which I'm going to slow down um a little bit here um largely for the public because I think this is the part that folks glaze skip over but it's the biggest impact on the assessment and I'm going to I have another that was the other um piece of paper that I want to
use as an example um and then we do the foundation enrollment but the minimum required contribution is the biggest impact on the assessment all right so here's my example uh so this year uh and this is how it played out this year so this year
though uh Mr ritten I said this multiple times and he is right 100% both towns pay above well well above the minimum so why does the minimum matter well the minimum matters because the minimum is is the base of the pyramid it's the
bottom of the Seesaw it is the first thing that gets assessed based upon the regional agreement so if both minimum required contributions went up proportionately it wouldn't matter a bit
if both towns had a minimum required contribution increase that was proportionately the same it wouldn't matter but that's not what I don't think historic has almost ever happened it's always almost always out of whack one
way or the other so this year Dennis uh so while yarmouth's minimum required contribution went up more it went up 1.6 million versus Dennis's 1.5 or 1 million what it was relative to their
previous minimum required contribution it was only a 6 point only quote unquote a 6.1% increase to the minimum required contribution for Yarmouth it was 6.125 where for uh Dennis it was an
8.42 something uh four 445 uh perc increase for uh for Dennis so at the very bottom the first thing that gets taken out one town had a
bigger amount than the previous year taken off at the first step then what's left gets split by the we'll call it 7030 it's not exactly 7030 but get split
by that 7030 split but already the first step was out of whack because a larger chunk got taken proportionately from one town than the other town so what's then gets left um gets the remaining 6030
split um is a smaller that that amount gets taken off and then what you get is an overall difference where one town sees it at 4.57 5.57 increase and yarm is a 3.1 so what I have for you in a in the uh which
I believe you all have a copy of is well because I was curious well what would have happened if the scenarios had been a little bit different so this document here so what you look down in the green is everything that there right and
that's essentially this in numeric right so we start with the budget we take the state aid take the local receipts off the top and that gets you to the amount to be assessed which is at the top 72 or 62,700 739 th000 and a little bit of
change and then we start with well what was the assessment uh increase um uh the minimum required contribution increase for um Yarmouth it was 1.6 or almost 1.7
million um what was that total so there's the new totals based upon the the the minimum required contribution right so and then that leaves a the remaining amount to be assessed at1 19 m358 th000 then the 7030
is applied and you get down to the total assessments and you get down to the total increases which is where we land right now so the other two columns are well I ran two different scenarios what
if both had seen a 6.1% increase and the other scenario is what if it had been the inverse what if Yarmouth had seen an 8.44 five increase and Dennis had seen a 6.125 increase and so you run the
numbers all the way down and what you see is if uh both towns have seen a proportionate increase increase the percentage increase to the assessment for Dennis would have been a 3.46% increase and for Yarmouth it would have
been a 3.7% increase and you can see the numbers there on what it would have meant in dollars and if it had been the inverse it would have been a 2.46% budget increase or assessment increase rather for Dennis and a 4.17 assessment
percent assessment increase for Yarmouth same budget the only difference is the minimum required contribution which Dennis Yarmouth Regional School District has absolutely no control over comes from
the state and we don't set it we do nothing about it it it is all predetermined by the state and then the regional agreement establishes that's the first thing that we have to take and so depending upon wherever the minimum required contribution so I I get it
folks are like well it doesn't matter because we pay above the minimum but it does matter because it's the first chunk of money that comes off so depending upon whether or not you're in balance or out of balance and then this is how it's changed over time so Yarmouth is in
green Dennis is in blue and this is the percentage increases relative to each other in those years so you can see last year when not only were we all dealing with a difficult school budget challenge but Yarmouth felt the impact act more
than dentist did because in 2025 you all as a town saw a larger increase to your minimum required contribution so while the budget went up a certain amount that base shift was
more towards Yarmouth so is it going to lead to maybe a little bit of a riskier conversation which is I understand the board has a has a policy that the school district anything over a 2.5% increase is based
on override or goes to a town for an override I am concerned that that policy sets the school district up to look like we can't run our budget when you can see it's a huge I'm not saying we can't
we're all we should always be working to be fiscally responsible but whether or not like a swing this year would have moved the town of armou from a three .1% assessment increase to a 4.1% assessment increase if the minimum
required contribution had just been the inverse than what it is and you can see we we've been there I mean you can see from the the history here there's been a lot of times that we've been in that situation over the past many years it's got nothing to do with budgeting on our
side so then the last bit is The Debt Service um and this is the total debt service um and I needed to do some digging I wanted to get the slide deck to you in time and I needed again this is sort of where I was I mentioned I'm
fighting a little bit with one hand tie behind my back but I did get the information for Yarmouth and it's in one of these pieces of paper so if you just give me a second to find it um here it is um oh actually no I put it on my notes um so the total assessments for or
the debt assessments for Yarmouth for this year year are so there's the high school bond this is the last year of the high school bond um so the Yarmouth portion of this is $253,600 and then there's two Bonds on the middle
school project the Intermediate Middle School project the armest portion of that this year is so combined together is 1,838 391 and and then we have a bond anticipation note um because that
project still is not closed out with msba um and that yarmis portion of that so that's the last number there is $550,000 and I know that was a lot um I appreciate your patience it doesn't seem like enough debt for the new building
one 1 million eight plus the 500 whatever that second number was I 550 550 that's our total debt can't be so we're still waiting we still have to do a final bond for the project but we're
still we haven't closed out that's the 550 ban that's the ban right now okay okay excellent Tracy I have tons of questions I I guess I don't know are we asking them now or are we wait we're not doing this in our
public hearing just ask what we have now I know we have to have a public hearing so yeah if you have questions now I I think this is a to have the superintendent I guess I'm just um when you look at the and I I've had the ability of to see this budget a
few a few times and it keeps getting um honed in um so between your foundation budget and your overall budget it's 10 I wrote it down it's 146 kids and
your tuition to other schools is $8 million so if you divide that by 146 for out of out of um District basically education we're paying over almost like $56,000 a student on
average uh yeah I if you do the math that way so it depends like some students you know it's as low as if a student school choicing to another District right that's 5,000 bucks but uh there are some expensive um special education placements yes well and that
doesn't even include the transportation piece correct and you said that that is um now uh reviewed those costs are reviewed now by the state is that something fairly new so the cost of the tuitions
for um I can get back to you on the name of the board yeah know I'm glad to hear it because there was a point in time I know years ago where you know they could just name a number and it was like a student would come into the district and we were having a a a a situation many years ago
where um you know parents were coming from other states because they could pick where they wanted to go and it was like in the middle of the school year you would have a $200,000 Bill all of a sudden that wasn't anticipated and there was no there was
no control on that yeah and so you may you may still have something similar to that right if a student moves into your town who is already placed in a placement um and there are rules about like when the child moves in who's
responsible for what um there's a move in date and I I'd have to check with my Special Education team and know exactly when that is I want to say it's around April 1st and then about who's responsible for which portion of the payment um so you know but that's
for a student who's already placed in a particular placement and you don't have any control over the that placement decision because that placement decision was made you know by another school district and the parent has State put rights so the child but the family let's you know uh uh I don't know let's say
they were living in I don't know Beverly and decided they wanted to move to the cape because the weather's nicer here that's a bad example but whatever um they came to the cape for a job opportunity whatever it is right um and that now reside in Yarmouth yes we would
have to eventually again depending on the timing we'd eventually have to own the cost of that child's placement um so that that hasn't changed but the there is a group that regulates and again I
have to get the name of it but there's a board glad there is there's a board that regulates the increasing of the costs so like the rate at which they can increase not the foundation number specifically correct okay yeah um I do think that
there needs to be some you know Medicare has you know certain reimbursements I think some of these private schools um you know they put out $ 250,000 number and it's there's it's not checked you know um but anyway I again I don't blame
a parent for doing what they feels best for their student and um you talked a little bit about about one of my big concerns is the student Opportunity Act and how structurally with the budget you're going to what what the plan is to make
up I mean $1 million is a lot of money I mean could you possibly imagine if we lost that overnight what what that means to us yeah so it won't go away it's more about the increases right so if I go
back to so we won't be reduced from that number no it's more about so we saw like this year I don't have the number off the top of my head but it's a one1 point something million dollar increase from last year um and uh and roughly on
average it's been somewhere between A1 and a $1.3 million increase in state aid which helps offset so like this year if you go back to the piece where our budget um or I gave you the scenario is if the the minimum required contributions had been
proportional the assessments to the Two Towns would have been lower the increase of the assessments would have been lower than the increase of our overall budget because part of that is being offset by by three things it's being offset more more by state aid than anything else but being offset by aid aid state aid being
set offset by uh the District's contribution of um end and then some by our additional local receipts but a big chunk of that is because the state's helping because they they're giving us a boost of funds um so the you know again
that I forget uh I got too many pieces of paper in front of me but whatever the whatever the it was it was like a 37 and a 31 and our budgets um four four 449 I think if I remember off the top of my head so the increases to assessments had
it all been proportional would have been less than the budget increase and that's because a big chunk of revenue from the state has gone up that much so the question is more about will it continue to go up we won't lose they're not going
to take away the Chapter 70 but we've seen these big jumps in the Chapter 70 which have helped stable have allowed the district to remain healthy and see you know if anywhere from a last year was an outlier but anywhere from a three
and a half to a 4 and a half% budget increase and what happens when and and part of that I need to get some I need to do some homework and get some clarity from the state on what's the long-term plan that's part of it working with the legislators on trying to understand the
end of the implementation of student Opportunity Act so I just have to say to you that I really have appreciated watching um how you have developed uh strategic plan um when we look at this budget year after year and see the
increase in that number of outgoing students it's problematic right I mean people should feel like they want to keep their kids here and stay educated here and I think that you're hitting it headon and you know
acknowledging um where we have some shortcomings and and and addressing them um is is going to be significant in the long run and I think it's been years um you know we were you know with the mcast we were level three at madak keys for
you know for years and we lost a lot of students because of it and um you know I I do think shining a light on it is is really the way that we're going to fix it so having said that I think that you know um some of your budget priorities
are really important um I just can you I have a lot of questions but what is your what what is your total end um and what did you certify this year that's one question and then the other thing is is in terms of your um
budgeting process I see a lot of one-time expenses in here textbooks robot you know the 10,000 for robotics which I think is a great program um the onetime expenses why we're utilizing that in the budget that increases every year instead of
utilizing that from a different source so the so the end um I'm sorry go uh I'll take your second question first and then I'll go back to your first question so the um so the robotics will be a reoccurring so there's the and I um we
have purchased that much every year in supplies we just have never budgeted for it so it's really establishing a budget line for something that has occurred as a reoccurring cost the the the pro between the competition robotics program uh and the course that runs at the high
school there's uh that many that much in just Supply breakage and and need um as and as you might imagine robots are not cheap um so the the parts and the parts are not it's not we're not buying new robots it's really just all the parts
and the replacement of the parts uh and so every year we Cobble together stuff from different places so this is really just saying that our robotics program needs to have its own supply line uh so that was that piece and then the textbooks um
um yeah I I guess we could from that standpoint the reality is next year there'll probably be another place you know it'll be the history textbooks or it'll be um you know English textbooks there's there's almost always going to be a need and maybe that's just my bias as a former curriculum person that we
need to stay keep our curriculum materials um updated you know stuff that's 20 years old is probably 10 years older than it should be um at least um in certain subject areas um so I see that need being there and if we can get it into the budget as a line item then
it stays there as something and it moves from World Language to somewhere else sorry in um all right so uh we serve if I have that number
here was like 1.4 uh what we what we certified for this year uh it was yes um the total the total is like three currently it is
3.2 million in end it's the excess and deficiency fund it's like it's like a free cash that they yeah so it was through uh 1.38 from this year from from fy2 24 1.38 and some change okay like $95 if
you want the exact number are you utilizing any end in in this year's budget at all 250,000 for now plus I have another recommendation for the school committee not on the operating side but I haven't addressed it with them yet so I don't want to talk about it here 15K okay
right so that's going to still leave you just about $3 million yes so that is oh and that's sorry just just for context this this the fin Finance subcommittee has already discussed a transfer of end into the
capital stabilization to support the long-term capital plan um and then I do have the breakdown on where because I was actually quite frankly I was a little surprised by the end number for this year so I did some digging into where and I anticipated some questions
into where that was from this past year so the major drivers for 24 it was more than the override I know that yeah tax rate still went down on the town um so the
uh transportation state aid was 536,000 um so there's an increase in transportation state aid that we didn't anticipate right they give us a number and David talked about this before they give you a number then they get to the end of the year if they have any extra
money they dist distribute it across the and so there was a uh there was an extra 536,000 in transportation state aid um are just like everybody the bank were good to us last year better than we had budgeted for so we had $773,000 in
interest that wasn't was more than what we had budgeted um and then this next was solar in that we budgeted a certain amount but and um maybe you can help us with this but because last year we had like a really good solar year like
$200,000 more than any of the previous years and I'm not really sure why um that income that that offsets cuz that's one of my other questions uh you went you know your utility line item in 2024 is 600 and now you're it's up to 1.1 million yeah so that is um the finance
committee caught that as well so we did some digging into that as well um so that particular line item is not an offset that is because mainly because of the middle the Intermediate Middle School so for all of FY 23 and all the way up until March of
FY 24 we did not get a bill for the the Intermediate Middle School um we believe the contractor was paying the bill um so we only paid fy2 24 you electricity for
March April May June and and June and FY 24 uh so the actuals in 24 are suppressed because we didn't have what is that nine months eight months of utility bills for that new building mhm
I mean it's still I mean even from 2023 or 582 it looks like a normal increase 582 to 600 yeah and now we're 1.12 but you're saying you get offset income from the solar that's in a different yeah it's a it's it's a revenue which is
built into the budget but we it it was an addition it was $200,000 more than it has historically been um that's those that so when you add those up um and then our Charter School tuition was so that those make up
1.5 million um so that's more than what the end was but then our Charter School tuition was more than we Bud budgeted for um so um when you net those two out you get to the 1.3 million okay well I
mean I I could go on and ask for points on some of the really big increases but the one decrease is the school resource officer that I'm sad about because I really wish that you would support that um again I I've publicly said I believe a school resource officer should be in
every one of our schools I definitely think the town should partner with you on that um but to see a decrease in the budget is um is really sad because in today's day and age we should be increasing it not decreasing
it I'll stop for now sorry y That's okay um mark I'm G to pass right now I'll yield my time to the other members pleas yeah um I'm glad that Tracy brought up the um the new school hitting your your
operations maintenance and utilities and um so I would hope that well while we may or may not get an energy manager we'll know soon um I think that needs to be looked into and
um and I know that when we talked about the energy manager possibility you noted that the Intermediate School is is was built in preparation for some solar and um so I I think that that that needs to
be go we need to go forward with that to bring that million bill down for sure and as we've discussed we want to make sure that that battery that's sitting there isn't also incurring cost whereas it should be giving you savings so those
are items that need to be looked into by either an energy manager or somebody we did look at current run times for what we have so far and it you know it looks to be again based upon what we have so far for 25
data you know I had the interim business manager look at um because again the finance I met with the finance committee chairs as well and they pointed to that number as well I mean it's it's a big number difference um and Bas upon where
we are right now it runs we're actually running uh under budget on heat and right about on budget on for these projections anyways for electricity but um you know we did were not comfortable in dropping that number and then being
under under budgeted for next year the the new building and this is a um I don't know a what's the word I'm looking for like I know in congruent in that it doesn't it should make different
sense than what it makes but that building runs all the time so while it's more efficient in the sense that what you're getting from it for the amount of time it runs it's more efficient but it also runs all the time where're like an
old building they shut off and they don't run for lots of periods of times and that building like the amount of systems in that building the amount of electricity that that building draws is pretty that's what I I figure but I'm hoping that we can also Implement some
some shutdown as with a a sophisticated engineering look at that yeah yeah and I know you know for um for future budgeting conversations um I one thing well it's a different agenda sort
of the other half of the reason why I'm here you know if we're fortunate enough to get all the way through an msba project project with me small that'll be another building right that's much more sophisticated and I've used this this analogy when talking with other folks that I I love to Tinker with things like
I I love to do work in my own house I love to I used to love to work on cars but anybody who's bought a car in the last like five to 10 years knows like there's maybe a couple of things you can still do on a car without like a sophisticated degree and a computer um
because they're all run on computers now um like I can't even change the brakes in my wife's car anymore because you need a computer to release the emergency brake in the back um so that building
that beautiful building is no really no different like there's about a bazillion computers that run the inside of every system of that building there's sensors everywhere there's UV lights in the um heat exchange because it was built during covid and everybody was worried
about the Co Air you know air mov moving through the system like there's there's more sophisticated systems in that thing than I even fully understand and we're going to have another building that's going to be like that so this is a longwinded way to me saying you know and I've started to have this conversation
with my maintenance team like we need to think about sort of analogous to the conversation you were just having around um the the I forget the name of the group that was presenting before me but you know do we have yeah do we do we have the right structure in our facility
like I have a great fix it guy right now but is that the staff that we need for the type of buildings we're going to have right in five years from now um seven years from now you know if we get all the way through that we have two potentially two very sophisticated
buildings do I still need the staff structure that we currently have or do we need a different somebody who's more of a you know building manager technician type of a person who really understands all these things CU right now we have to pay somebody else to come in and fix the computer systems when
they're all going H wonky and this system isn't talking to that system and um so it's um carburator back right exactly exactly and we have the actually the same issue with the DPW building according to Roby White House is that so
that needs to be addressed with that new building too so get the grant any other questions l no I thought it was a terrific presentation even without David Flynn it was very clear and um there's a lot on your plate thank
you thanks Jo I especially appreciated the alternative scenarios where you showed us how things could be different with just you know a small change over which the district has no control um I certainly appreciate that level funding
of anything is an actual decrease in the funding given to the school district and especially while we're in such inflationary times um I'm very interested in the whole question of student retention I mean I think a lot
of us just love that new building which strangely is always active um but uh do you feel that there will be an increase in student retention for the high school when people when when little people uh
Middle School people and Intermediate School people have gone through the years in the wonderful new school will they be more likely to stick to station a as their destination I know it's too early to tell yeah so I would say two
things to that one we've already seen a slight um decrease into the number of students who were choicing out um so and that's been a a was a trend that started before I got there so I can't take a lot of credit for that for for that um and
uh to miss post's earlier uh comment I believe like a lot of it's just is driven by like the building definitely is a is a draw but it's going to be more about what we do as a district in our main charge which is Ed educating kids
right so if we continue to work on the things that we're focused on in our strategic plan which is ultimately to improve the overall education experience for students that will um address any flight I mean you're always going to have some families that
make decisions for a wide variety of reasons to go to different places um and as and as long as school choice is a thing you're that's always going to be a thing but um but the we lose way more than we bring in which is I'm uncomfortable with and the only way
we're going to do that is to work on our program I can't focus on what anybody else is doing we need to ensure that our program is the best program program it can be that's how we're going to keep kids in the district then a follow-up question on
the whole school choice um I think I used to naively assume that if um hundred kids went to other districts with school choice from Dy and a 100 kids came in from other school districts
partly because people and consumerism they they love their choices that that DIY would break even but there is a Delta right we actually lose money because the the money that we get from the other districts to educate the students
they've sent isn't really adequate per student spending so so there's two different um ways to look at that puzzle so one is we lose more students than we bring in um last time I looked it was somewhere between three and a half to
four to one the number of students that school Choice out versus in um I haven't looked um but that that was the and that was an average over about 10 years um so some years it's more and some years is less but that was so that just in the
the raw math right um but then as and and and I can't speak to policy or it's not really policy it's practice the school district the school committee sets the policy um my job is to implement a practice so the practice in
Dy is from since I've been there is we don't create um spaces we don't hire teachers to uh to to make space for school choice
so in that way it's not it's it's really only a co uh um an ad and it's a benefit added so for example if our class size uh average at the K to3 uh
space is 18 plus or minus two so if I have a classroom at station a elementary school or a couple classrooms at Kate station a elementary school in the second grade that are only at 16 at a given year then that let's say it's
three classrooms then that's two to three seats per classroom that we can open up because those teachers are already hired I can't there I can't cut a teacher or we're going to be over the class
size um and um but I'm not going to because if you try to create a classroom around school choice you lose money because to your point you don't bring in enough by the time you do the um salary the benefits and all the other costs
that are associated with educating a CH all those children the Delta is not however if you just fill empty seats with school choice you're going to have to educate you know you're going to have to have a teacher there anyways you have to have a nurse there anyways you have to have a principal there anyways you
have to have all the things that make the school run anyways the heat the utility all the stuff is there anyways and so that's part of the per pupil average and then now you're just bringing in extra income as you're filling empty seats that would be sitting there empty anyways so on the
margins it's helpful to have students come in you know I mean I know you can't eat Prestige it's it's nice to be a draw but on the margins it it might be fiscally helpful yeah there's a Tipping Point right when you have too many um like again if you're trying to create a
space if you if you have so and that's why we sit every year and we look at what's the projected roll up enrollment first we do it for a budgeting standpoint you know do we need are there any spaces and so you saw some like transfers as an example so we had some
things that we wanted to do and one is um an enrollment uh there's a shift I can't remember it off the top of my head I know there's a there's a retirement in fourth grade and we're transferring that position to another that FTE to another position um that's because the upcoming
third grade is small enough that we don't need that fourth grade position right um a bad strategy would be to say let's fill that fourth grade position with school open it up to 25 school
choice seats um and potentially have them for the rest of their education lose Monday yeah you should see nset that I mean nset building the new school they have how many school choice students so the towns right where the debt is spread by the number of students
that they have right they have hundreds of school choice students so they built a school big enough for those school choice students that was not paid for by the students coming in it was paid for by the towns by the percent by the by the percentage of their students that
they're sending and they you know they had an issue with it because I mean the sending school is getting off cheap because they're only paying $5,000 but the town who built that school big enough had to pay for the
Deb well it sounds to me like Dr Smith is not interested in Empire building so I think we're safe on that and the reality is if every school choice student who is out of Dy right now came back tomorrow I don't know where I put them all
so it's got to be a slow process anyways yeah okay well thank you that was very helpful Mark fine thank you okay um you've been talking about local Aid and uh state aid but one that you haven't
talked about is federal aid what is the impact of that on the schools so um so largely the it comes to us in well one it comes through the state anyways but it is there Federal there's four or
excuse me five main federal grants um they're they they our direct agent is the um is the state but they it's a Federal grant like through the state I don't it's it's it's a Nuance but it's an important one um so there's the es
Essa grants and there's four of them so Title One title two title three and title four the biggest one that um most school districts receive is Title One um so that you don't see in the budget because it um it doesn't hit the general fund um and it offsets largely some
salaries um at the elementary levels for some it that Grant is largely focused at districts um title one was put into place to support um uh students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and is largely meant to be a supplement to your
education program and provide additional instruction to students um who um who require it and so we use it largely for intervention so students who need something beyond what the classroom um teacher can provide um who are lagging
in math or reading that's where our areas of focus so Title One largely funds those positions um not all of them but some of them because doesn't it's not big enough to cover the position so we have some in the general fund and then some that are supported um through
Title One title 2 pays for some of the professional development we don't carry a ton of professional development money in our budget title 2 pays um for some of our professional development money title three is focused on it's a small Grant it's focused on English language
um the learner population but in specific it's a very very um restrictive Grant and the way that you can use the money I used to manage these four grants in my last District um title three um so we use to um provide
um uh uh support some of our family liaison salaries um which are families that or staff members that work with um our English language learner families and helping them integrate into the school system also to provide translation services and some other
pieces and then title four is kind of a little bit of a hodgepodge it's a very small amount of money um and it supports um uh uh either can go some of it can go towards enhancing instructional technology but not like direct purchase
of materials it's more you can use it for professional development in that area or you can use it for um like wellness programs and again it's like for um professional development in those areas and then the other big bucket of money money comes from idea which is the
um individuals disabilities Education Act and that um again supplements some um special education staff um costs in the budget um and and then some of our preschool um costs are supplemented
their integrated preschool costs are supplemented by that Grant not transportation for special education uh some of the transportation costs for um um can be yes but not a we mostly use it for the industri transportation like the small little um
Vans um some of those costs okay um well thank you very much the next item we have is of course the school feasibility yeah um so I think the uh the board also has a letter that I sent
to the to the Muk um and um I was joking with somebody that uh I think it was with the school committee that um we have the mess involved in the muck um uh
so the uh the the yeah um yep um unfortunately I don't have it in paper I only have it on my laptop here uh it's it's a memo to the muck and it it really outlines the steps the major steps uh that we have to um well those two
purposes but in the middle of there are the major steps that we have to as a school district participate in uh now that we've been invited into the eligibility period so the first thing to note is that the eligibility period hasn't started yet the eligibility period starts on April
1st uh so well we had the the the meeting with msba and um got all the congratulations technically still not we're still in this sort of limbo period nothing has actually even started yet it starts on on April 1st and then there's a 270-day window from when that starts
to um when your eligibility when uh period ends where the eligibility period is 27 days and in that eligibility period there's a whole series of things that largely will be responsible for as a school district and getting information
to msba but there are some things that we're going to need to partner with you all on um so uh and one one of the first things that we're going to need to do uh is form a school building committee uh we'll need some represent
representatives from uh from the like town office is town of Yarmouth and then also I'd love we'll require to have some community members um and the more community support and input we can have in this process the better um and then then there's some things that we're
going to have to submit again they're all outlined there um but we have to we have to provide like an educational profile we have to provide some enrollment data to msba um and then the other big piece is that we're going to have to work with
you all on determining uh the initial uh funding ask for the community it's not the whole ask but it's the ask for the feasibility study the OPM and the schematic design so it's like it's not just the feasibility study it's all
three of those parts um and working with the town on uh you know what's the best way to approach that as far as like the funding source and um you know do we want to do it through borrowing again that those it's a different conversation for a different day but
um uh and then um and then secure that through town meeting um and through a vote have that secured before we get to the end of the eligibility period because then once we have all those pieces in place then we have to go back
in front of msba essentially you know we have stuff we have to submit to them all the way along including you know the town yes approved this next bit of funding and then we essentially get invited into the next phase which is the feasibility phase um the feasibility
study phase so um I don't have much to update other than well we should U mention that the projections and um also I want to thank Dr Smith we've met and sort of discussed the timelines and laid the these out so um we have projected a
town meeting for November 2025 for the funding of the feasibility study the OPM and the initial schematic design so that's we're working towards answering All Those Questions by by that's our our time frame and so then the so then the
feasibility study would commence at that point right so wor you know I know there was um some initial conversations in that initial meeting about you know do we start the feasibility study now and really get ahead of the whole um um
process the the the risk with that um and and it would not be my recommendation uh because if we were to go down the feasibility study path ourselves before we get invited into the feasibility study process by msba the
entire feasibility study process is not reimbursable um but if we wait and we're patient and we get to um go through the process um then when and get invited in by msba then the feasibility and the
cost associated with the feasibility uh study all become part of the total reimbursement um for the project the percentage of reimbursement when is that determined because the last time we went through it I think it was like I think we got 75% of that back yeah so I don't
have that exact date yet I'm trying to work with msba to get a what the number is and and what um when we're going to get it when we're going to get it and then what it is and I have yet to get confirmation on that and on the forming the school building
committee that would be coming under your purview or the uh school committee's purview or who would be handing that under the school committee but my plan is to work um through the communication Department here um uh in
the town to cast a wide net um to get as many folks um who are interested in the process as well okay cuz talking about m we had a very detailed proposal for what types of people should be on that
committee and then the a detailed charge for them of what they were doing so yeah the msba has a um like a base set of like requirements for who has to be on it the certain positions that need to need to participate and then you can
expand it beyond that but there sort of a base um a template for lack of a better word for these are the key positions that need to be a part of your building committee and then you're um I don't know if allowed or encouraged maybe a
little bit of both some word in between there to uh expand the committee however your community sees fit okay any other questions mark nope Liz no I just I
noticed that part of the request the letter is that as part of the Muk Pro process a portion of the U property is is um pulled aside and held even if it does if Elementary School doesn't go
there so that is interesting too yeah I mean our concern is just the from a school district standpoint is that because the process is like staggered behind where the mck process is um our
one worry is that if the whole that whole process gets designed without thinking about where the school might potentially fit in there um that we would lose an option in town um and again where that committee goes and
ultimately decides no that school isn't going to fit there then that's ultimately the mck decision that was just sort of the school um because we don't have any from a school p district perspective we don't have any other need for that space other
than potentially a site for a school so um that was really and in in talking with Bill about how do we participate in this when our process is so far different from and I don't want to jeopardize the msba
process so really in talking with Bill Scott around how do we um let the larger committee understand what our potential need might be this is sort of what we decided um I could outline letting folks know what our timeline was and what our potential need might be okay well I
would just I support that plan wholeheartedly okay joce I think I'm good thank you Dr Smith we appreciate you being here today thank you so much and also before Dr Smith leaves I I do want to just make a brief statement to to thank
Him and acknowledge um his efforts both last fiscal year and this fiscal year to uh involve local officials including select board members finance committee Town officials um Finance directors we
had discussions earlier in the process and in much more detail and um you know we all know last year was a very sensitive year with um increases that were very difficult to to find the funds and raise and we know the voters
supported us but um those efforts I think are um extraordinarily helpful both in terms of the Town fully acknowledging some of the needs on the school side school officials earlier in the process acknowledging what some of the funding limitations in different
directions and and I and I thought in both fiscal years uh we developed some strategies that that really worked in setting the budget framework and solving a lot of sensitive problems and and I I think you deserve a lot of credit for that so thank you thank you it takes two
to well in this case three to tango three to I don't know what the dance is with three but um I've had good partners so like if there weren't other people willing to engage in the engage in the conversation then it would have been fruitless so um I've I've all I did was
invite folks and everybody else decided to show up so Massachusetts line dance yeah there you go yeah well thank you very much Dr Smith we appreciate it okay our next item on the um agenda
is the uh possible town meeting article for the hero act see some resettling of folks hi oh great Jennifer it's nice to see you're feeling better thank you I guess I'll I wrote The M down
or at least not contagious that's good yeah okay should I uh lead off go ahead tell us who you are okay yeah okay uh I'm not sure who was going to go first uh uh my name's Greg quilty i'm the district director for the Department of Veteran services for the
barnville district which of course includes Yarmouth uh we are yarmouth's uh Department of Veteran services uh we represent U the veterans in 15 towns U from weham all the way to Province Town the only one that's not in
our district is Falmouth um but all the other towns are part of our Municipal veterans District uh we are a um a municipal government entity um uh and uh Massachusetts the
only town in the uh the only state in the country that demands that a veteran service office officers serve every town in the Commonwealth all 351 towns towns that geographically touch are allowed to form Municipal veterans district and that's what the cape has done we are the
largest in the Commonwealth by population served um uh we serve more veterans than the city of Boston has wow so uh we also have the highest elderly veteran population uh in the common wealth here on the cape so uh we're busy
um I was asked to come tonight to uh speak about the hero act and not everything that we do uh in our office um uh in the interest of time and to um uh maybe give some context to it as far
as uh what veterans uh benefit from the hero act and uh what it means to Yarmouth veterans um and uh uh what that population is like because there's a lot of uh items in the hero Act uh Chief
among them I know for the towns is the real estate uh the veterans real estate exemption the uh that has garnered I can tell you I sit on the executive board for the Massachusetts veteran services officer Association and uh that is the
hot button issue across the Commonwealth uh of the hero Act is that that portion of the hero act which covers a lot of items um and and um uh for obvious reasons that I think you've um uh
examined uh previous uh to tonight um uh and so uh while the hero act our office and our veteran service officers that serve the cape here and and and serve Yarmouth uh we of course we're in favor of all veterans uh
benefits that get expanded uh why wouldn't we that's our job is to advocate for our veterans so uh so we're um uh we're very happy with the hero Act um it uh but we do understand uh for instance the uh the expansion of time
that a veteran who might join your uh your town as an employee now has more time to opt into the veteran buyback for their retirement those those kind of things are wonderful um uh that gives
them that opportunity um the V the hero act has also uh which can have an effect on Town and maybe Town finances as well is the expansion of the definition of a veteran in the hero act um
without um making comments for or against the hero act has uh in essence expanded that definition for instance uh I'll talk a little bit about chapter 115 benefits the uh that go to your lowest
income veterans in the town of Yarmouth and and widows uh in the town of Yarmouth uh prior to the hero act uh you had to be an honorably discharged veteran um or discharged under honorable
conditions in order to be eligible for those benefits the hero act has expanded that so that other than honorable veterans can now be eligible so those kind of changes are in
here there's lots of changes in here um uh but I know probably the reason I'm here is that real estate uh exemption so um like I said I was asked to give some context uh to who is helped uh by it um
and so uh I think most of you are aware that it hinges on VA disability um in the town of Yarmouth uh last year our um we assisted veterans and Yarmouth veterans
received 9 million 685,000 in VA disability benefits so 9.6 million if we want to just be simple about it uh so our office
assists with doing those VA disability claims Yarmouth last year uh gave out checks from the town of Yarmouth through our office through your town finance and treasures Department um
$10,600 in chapter 115 benefits now chapter 115 benefits are what makes Massachusetts unique in the country no other state in the country
gives out checks from their towns every month to their lowincome veterans and widows we're the only state in the Union that does that so that's something we all can be proud of I think and there's no federal money
involved the town of Yarmouth pays 25% of that and the Commonwealth shares in that and pays 75% which you know lends itself to some of the discussion about the hero act when it comes to the real estate
exemptions as well the new ones uh so um the average recipient in Yarmouth uh if you averaged all money that goes out to the recipients in Yarmouth for chapter 115 it comes out to about 61 bucks a month um some get as much as
1,200 or 13 and others only get 100 or 200 it depends on their financial situation it's completely need based and our office we always want to make sure that when we're talking about veterans
benefits that we always remember who the veterans are that are hurting the most in our towns and chapter 115 recipients by definition are those uh unfortunate veterans and their dependents many we
have many widows on the benefits as well on chapter 115 benefits that get a check from your town um uh so um the uh town of
Yarmouth uh as far as we did uh over 100 million Cape Wide in uh VA benefits last year um over 100 million was received in tax-free
benefits to our uh veterans who have VA disabilities Yarmouth uh yarmouth's Port portion I already mentioned the amount uh there were 497
veterans and a small number of Widow are in that number in Yarmouth that receive VA compensation that might trigger if they own their home the ability to receive a veteran's
exemption so that's how many you're talking that are receiving benefits obviously all of those aren't homeowners so if they're not a homeowner then obviously they don't get the benefit of a of a homeowner's exe of a veteran's homeowner's exemption
um who receives exemptions uh as I said and I think as you know those who receive the VA disability and that can be anything from 10% on up to what we call 100% and unfortunately VA math is not
linear uh that way um it's kind of complex and uh I'll let you know here I'll give you some real examples I pull out the right thing here but in general um a 100% veteran a veteran
receiving 100% VA compensation if they're married they'll be getting about $ 4400 a month taxfree wow okay so that then triggers their exemption of current
exemption of $1,000 off their real estate taxes it also triggers only for the 100 percenters a Statewide annuity a state annuity veterans annuity that the hero act increased by 25% that's not a cost that's borne by
the by the town but that annuity only goes to those who are 100% uh disabled or the widows and it could be a widower but on the cape so far we have all widows okay so that's why I say widows and not
widows or widowers all the time uh because at least on the cape right now uh we only have widows that have been um uh the spouses of veterans who have died of um service connected disease or
injury so uh and it could be the widows too and obviously if it's a widow and her uh veteran spouse passed away from a service connected disease or injury that can trigger no real estate taxes for that
widow um but the 100% living veteran gets the Thousand right now if the 90% or below they get the 400 so 10 to 90 gets 400 the 100% veteran gets a th000 off
their real estate taxes currently current current ly and it triggers other benefits that 100% uh mark it triggers uh the annuity that only goes
to them from the state the 2000 the 2500 uh 10 to 90% veterans do not uh get a state annuity that's a one time uh it's 2 it was $2,000 now it's $2,500 and it's one once they only get
2500 for the whole year that's not a month so so a married veteran could be getting 4,400 taxfree plus the 2500 one time uh a month uh a year from the state uh the 100% veteran uh like I said I was
asked to give some context to this uh the 100% veteran um gets free dental uh the 90% and Below do not um so if you're just 10% off uh you don't get that um and so there and
there's a variety of other benefits education for children that the 90% veteran might not get that the 100% does uh so uh that's what happens when you hit that 100% Mark uh if you're a disabled
veteran um so uh you contrast that in the hero act with our chap what we call our chapter 115 veterans and widows and unfortunately the hero act did very little if anything for
them that's what a service officers uh we see how they're struggling and we wish there was something in the hero act more for them that maybe uh the in the um it's roughly $2,500 a month is all a
single veteran can earn or have coming in total income from all sources in order to qualify for chapter 115 benef benefits it's about 3500 and some change um 3407
actually for a married couple to to qualify for those chapter 115 benefits assets if you're single to qualify for chapter 115 you can only have $8,400
Savings in the bank IAS all totaled if you're married it's 16,600 so that's why I said by definition who's hurting the most in your town it's those ones that you're giving the checks to every month um they're the ones that are
really suffering and we wish the hero act up those income and asset limits okay um because we it's so hard when you have a a sing veteran come in and his total monthly income is $2,700 and he doesn't qualify for anything and then if
they're at that even that limit they're going to be one of those ones I talked about down the bottom of the rung on 115 getting $200 $300 maybe 400 um uh because the ones getting the $1,200 I told you
about are way way way below $2500 or $3,500 if they're married they're they're how they get by um I mean you all know how it goes it might be the family home that been in the uh family for Generations they could never
afford to live here now but they can't afford to go anywhere else um and it it uh hurts us as veteran service officers when we see how they're struggling um versus the ones that are fortunate enough to be at the Pinnacle
of veterans benefits um and uh uh so that's kind of the humanizing uh who it is that are getting benefits uh as veterans uh on the cape
as veterans we're very very fortunate the VA is very generous uh in our opinion um uh and the benefits we get I think our country takes pretty good care of us um in Massachusetts uh again uh
the chapter 115 program begin in 1861 Civil War and of course it's morphed and been codified and improved over time uh and it's what makes us unique and uh we want to thank your uh town finance and treasuries uh Treasury
Department um because they don't get to see the veterans and widows that we take care of every month when we hand out those checks and we do it face to face because you must be a Massachusetts resident and you must be in the state to get it um with we don't mail them out uh
you know to Florida or or any place and we get to see we have that benefit and that reward in our office but uh your department and the other departments across the uh Cape are part of the engine our engine that makes that happen
and those checks are town of Yarmouth checks um that that come to them and um uh so we want to thank uh your treasure and finance department and in terms of
real estate exemptions I've said it before uh I might get in trouble with some of the other towns but it's true uh the Yarmouth the cessor office has been the most ProActive at finding veterans that are eligible for your real estate
exemptions than any other one uh always calling me um whether it's Tara Andy or Marge Springer or whoever it is uh we think this might be a veteran getting disability benefits or this this spouse her husband was a uh this Widow uh her
husband was a veteran uh do they qualify and uh always calling us and so we love that they're proactive we ask that everybody be Outreach workers for us because we need more we're not the VA we don't have Federal money and uh in a Big Marketing arm but um uh yeah the um and
there's a big drop off uh uh when you get to that 100% level um in terms of compensation the 10% veteran gets $175 a month um if you multiplied that times 10
that doesn't equal what a 100% veteran gets in compensation given the numbers I just gave you um it's it's it's not a like I said it's not a linear scale yeah uh and uh that doesn't diminish um uh anything or say those veterans
don't deserve a bigger real estate exemption that we don't deserve that uh your veteran service officers by the way have to be veterans to have this job by law so all the veteran service officers there are four others that we have in the office that serve the cape and uh
they have to be veterans we're fortunate in uh my office we have uh a couple of great admin folks that work directly with your Finance departments and our four veteran service officers and myself excuse me we have um
over 90 years of active duty experience in in the office and we think that's the most in the common wealth as well so um so we are very obviously Pro veteran because we are veterans uh and we've been around the world uh so um thank you
any questions well yeah I have questions related specifically to your uh thoughts on on um the memo that that uh was provided to us in terms of the recommendations um with the two
Provisions specific that we're looking at Clauses 22i and 22j um and how that you you so the 497 that's just veterans receiving
disability money they're not necessarily homeowners some are right and so some of our people are already at the 100% right correct so this would just increase so when we talk about
22j they'd still get um we would just raise the I guess I'm I'm un the exemption that currently that doubl that would double their th000 to 2,000 and double
the 10 to 90 percenters from 400 to 800 10 10 to 94 to 8 yeah all everyone who's 10% to 90% is who's a homeowner and qualifies so I guess that's my question about the memo when we it was specific
to the 100% are you recommending that we do a a phased in for the 10 to 90% um I my I really didn't make a I
made a recommendation for I be only because it's so late in the budget process and it's expensive so I was just giving options that's really what my memo was was giving you options and letting you know that if if you adopted the 100% that would be $150,000 that we didn't plan for in the
budget this year if you adopted 50% it would be 75,000 it's really up to the board that my my question is I I understand that but is that dollar amount just for the 100% or is that also doubling the 10 to 90 in addition it's
doubling all of them all of them okay okay thank you I'm sorry Jennifer I just was trying that's okay and and we understand too in our office that every town is different um uh I know there are some other towns that are not considering doing
anything um and some that want to do both um I andj and double and ataca uh so uh every time town has different challenges and different uh things that need to be done in the town financially
so our office uh we we just um uh we wish everybody had enough money to to do it all of course but we understand and we're we're also a little disappointed that when when the hero Act was announced with great Fanfare uh at at
the um state house uh back in a August and there was the big uh news release and the uh uh the signing and all of that um our veterans were you know that they felt like this was
automatic that it was going to be automatic a lot of them felt the the real estate exemption they didn't know it would all passed through the towns what they didn't know um uh was that while it was you know brought to
the public with great fanfare I don't recall the governor saying that guess what I'm not paying for any of this as far which is which is really to be blunt the way the real estate that exemption is totally on the town
unreimbursed so uh if the T if the state was sharing in the costs I would feel that would be a little more fair but they're not unfortunately and so that's why some towns aren't and others are exactly
yeah any other questions Tracy um no um I think you know based on everything that you've said our town has always um been very supportive um in full disclosure my husband's a disabled veteran we've never taken advantage of any of the um of the items that have
been put forth but um I agree the 115 benefits are for those most needed the difference with this is um the difference with this is you don't really financially know the need in this exemption however we have millionaires getting 100% And we have poppers that's
the way we say it we have poppers to millionaires it's it's need blind VA disability money is need blind well I would hope that they wouldn't apply for the exemption um but you know it's there for them um they did do their service and um yes you know we're forever
grateful so right right I I support um bringing this to town meeting and um doing what we can this year in knowing that it's expensive and knowing that we probably need to phase it in but I think it's a good start Mark appreciate that
yeah I I agree with uh with Tracy I think we certainly need to do something I think what we need to do is hear more I mean we're we're all learning about this and how it works and so this has been a very good education so um I think what we need to do is bring this back to
the board after we've had a chance to reflect on the presentation reflect on the rec recommendations from from uh the administration and then have some more discussion as a board on it I think I think more deliberation more discussion is helpful um what I what I would also
like to point out and I think this is just for the public at large is that you know Greg is very quick to give kudos to a lot of other people um that do great work on behalf of our veterans but Greg I just have to say that you have been an
incredible asset to our veterans community and we are truly blessed to have you in the role that you are in I've worked with our veteran service officers um for over 30 40 years and um this department this
program that you run has been an incredible godsend to the people that have served in our community and I can't thank you enough for all that you have done you have been probably one of the best advocates for our veterans when sometimes we have frustration at the
federal level and getting federal assistance to our veterans you folks your team your people are there to go to bat to help our veterans sort of navigate what can be an incredibly frustrating and um tiresome process you're always there to go to bat for
them and um I'm just in awe of your dedication and uh your commitment to serving our community and our veterans so on behalf of a lot of people let me just say thank you well thank you I have a good team thanks you do you have a great team thank you madam chair Liz
well thanks Greg um I reached out to Greg when this was first um mentioned by one of our in public comment and um it was such a wonderful um opportunity to get to know him and to get to understand
what the town of Yarmouth is doing for veterans and I I feel very very proud once again of this town and um thank you Greg really thank you for spending so much time with me and then coming here tonight and spending it again thank you
my pleasure Joys oh well thank you for all you do um I was just thinking that there's a small thing that the state could do if they uh are going to take all the credit for these things um couldn't they they make um the veterans
plates free for all veterans oh that would that would be great that would be a nice thing I don't think the veterans would complain part of the bill that was taken out and it was I I we looked into that and it was taken out because the um the
VA the organization that gets the funds for that that help that ultimately helps veterans um protested and they didn't want that which is to me mindboggling but they lobbied against it and it got pulled out of the
bill well to be continued yes yeah no there's uh no we have um there is an excise tax exemption that um that exists still uh for one one vehicle at part of the hero act um but not for all
veterans um uh so thank you I really appreciate your coming today as you've heard from all the board members thank you very much it's been very enlightening I think to have an opportunity to see what it is as
a town that we're doing doing for the veterans is great and it also gives us a place to start from figuring out what we're going to do from here and as Mark says I think it's going to take not a decision tonight but something we need to think a little more about right how
we handle it I wish the state was sharing in the cost don't we all yeah don't we all all right well thank you very much so we'll be adding this onto the agenda
March 4 we'll be back absolutely got some interesting things to look at with the costs related to it yeah and how we could phase it in okay State revolving fund intended use
plan proposed cap am I turning it over to you Mark or to Bob I'm I'm happy to chime in I've been pretty charged up over this issue seriously um do you want me to start Bob and you and you and Jeff can fill in
first of all Jeff's here looky Jeff why don't you come on up to the front table he's done so much work on this srf it's incredible yeah on these kinds of things I tend to wear the black hat and I I let Jeff wear the white hat I like the white right you like that
like the way I put that um not too long ago we received um information uh about the most recent intend what what we call it's the uh an an intended use plan so it's basically a list of projects that the
state intends to fund Wastewater projects and over the past few years Cape Cod has done very well in terms of getting a significant number of Wastewater projects included on the intended use plan um the process that
the state has is they have a draft and that's what's out right now for public comment and so there's a draft that's out and in the draft intended use plan is language putting limits or more strings on uh the funds that are available and
made available to communities under what is called the state revolving fund so the intended use plan is goal is to sort of map out how State revolving fund dollars are to be used and as you can
recall Bob and our team including Jeff made an application last year and we got on last year's plan we were number one we were the number one ranked project on the intended use plan last year Statewide
Statewide so um it's fair to say that the demand for these dollars is growing there's clearly significant interest in it and so on the draft plan there are limitations the strings that we're talking about involve capping projects that come in and are approved for
funding at 50 million and then there are restrictions in terms of carrying over towns will not be able to carry over funds um and uh as you're probably aware
I represent this board on the cap and Islands water protection fund so I tend to sort of bird dog that fund because projects that are qualified for the cap and Islands water protection fund this is the allocation of money from the the
Airbnb tax um this is money that's available to us and the projects that get funded under this program are those that are qualified under the state intended use plan so um there's there's there's clearly a cross connection you
want to be on the you know if you for Yarmouth going forward um you know our hope is to be able to apply on many more occasions for funds under the state revolving uh fund program and our hope is that we will not
be capped at 50 million and we will have the ability to carry over funds in subsequent years um the consensus from um board members on the cap and Islands water protection fund is that this these
changes if they are adopted would be devast ating for communities uh particularly here on Cape Cod and as you recall it wasn't that long ago that the state of Massachusetts adopted new title 5 regulations requiring septic systems
all septic systems to be upgraded however communities could be Exempted from these new title 5 requirements if they had adopted and moveed forward with a comprehensive Wastewater management plan uh in addition the towns would have to file permit applications to get
Watershed permits for each of the watersheds in their Community but nonetheless we felt that in the aftermath of the title 5 regulations that uh we had a s i mean there's this there's now added pressure an incentive
to move forward aggressively because if we didn't then our homeowners could be penalized with or having let's put it this way having to deal with the cost of spending anywhere from 20 to $40,000 for a new septic system one of these
Innovative alternative septic systems and then paying for the cost of uh uh monitoring and doing other kinds of Maintenance associated with these projects they're very expensive undertakings and I think we all realize that it was far better for the residents
of Yarmouth as is the case in residents throughout the cape to move forward with the with our CommunityWide comprehensive Wastewater management plan in program so um as we we all know we had a town meeting two years ago um the voters of
Yarmouth showed up in huge numbers at our town meeting and uh they voted overwhelmingly unanimously um for approving our phase one program at 27 million so what is particularly concerning to me and you
know many other Municipal officials is that we're talking about changing the rules now in the mid in the middle of our implementing our first phase and this proposal was brought up without any discussion without any advanced notice
um as some of you know we have had uh we have H Yarmouth uh you know the Town Administrator and I have hosted series of discussions uh with the liutenant governor in the administration and other officials within the executive office of energy and environmental Affairs to talk
about our Wastewater issues our Wastewater challenges and I have to say that the this Administration has been very supportive when we have knocked on their door and asked for help and Expediting the permitting process or helping us get decisions on contracts uh
at the EP they've been incredibly helpful and very supportive so um what we need to do collectively and that's not just here in Yarmouth but every town on Cape Cod needs to basically write a letter to the D um and you have before you two letters
one is a letter to the DP and the other other letter is the letter to the governor and we need to let them know how how strongly we oppose this proposal this language and we're asking for you know
we're we're the letter to D is required I mean it's we have a March 3rd deadline to submit comments and so you have before you the letter to make a motion we approve to send both letters presented before us to both uh the D and
the governor second discussion I would I would wonder I know that there there was pointed out a typo was that corrected because I I still have my copies from yes thank you Bob was in fact that one typo I
corrected it I think three times it just neglected to properly save it but we fin God I hate when that Happ taken its heart no I think they're they're um the letters are well written and to the point they're in my opin not strong enough I would agree with Tracy I think
I personally think you know that it's uh it's it's a very concerning issue that's not a small issue um that will really impact us and like you said they're changing the rules in the middle they're pulling the carpet out from underneath
us is what they're doing you know we sell to the public one thing and um you know now they're going to change the rules it's not acceptable not acceptable well we make that abundantly clear in this letter um and the reality is is I I
I I I look at this proposal is it's kind of like a three alarm Blaze for Wastewater on Cap Cod this is something that should have everyone's attention should be a priority for every Board of Selectmen every town manager um I've
been certainly spreading the word and uh I've also alerted our legislators they're aware of it we're expecting to have some followup discussions with them um but this is you know we've been down this path before not too long ago we had a very similar discussion as a board about uh the last set of problems and
challenges that we were confronted with by the Commonwealth but the reality is we came together as a board we came together with our legislators and I think uh with all the pressure that we and others on Cape Cod our allies so to speak our stakeholders and partners
together we we had some success in getting our points across so I have no doubt that we will be able to pull together a pretty aggressive campaign capewide uh in support of getting these Provisions taken out of the intended use plan I think what we want to be able to
do is we want to be able to sit down with the governor the administration and come up with a workable plan long term for financing clean water this is something that I've insisted on for a long time uh more more money not less more money not less in fact I think it says that in one of our letters we need
more money not not l so that's what we have to do so we've got to get rid of these provisions and then sit down with the state to figure out how we can bring more funding to Cape Cod to address our clean water needs again we need more money not loss so I find this very concerning that you know we went to our
our um folks here in town and made a presentation and based on thate presentation they made their they uh voted and now suddenly the state is changing what those rules are you know when we were talking about where some of the financing would come
from so I fully support the idea of sending these letters and and like Tracy I wouldn't mind throwing in a something WTF yeah well I can I can tell you that the uh the the verbal conversations are a little yeah the
verbal conversations with with with our elected officials are a little bit more spicy and a little bit more salty uh if that makes anybody feel any better they're they're much more direct yeah I I have I have used the term WTF
on more than one occasion so any other comments oh I just I'm I'm appalled this seems like the second time that the rug is being pulled out from under something that we've agreed to it's appalling well I think what it what it speaks to is the importance of
being just Vigilant and following and monitoring so you know I'm not going to be a selectman for you know I mean for a long time my much more you know my my time is coming so whoever mentioned cloning earlier we might think of that for you no but the point I'm getting at
is is this seat the Capen Islands water protection fund seat whoever represents this board on that seat I'm I'm happy to be the you know the the The Advocate and the pain in someone's side um but it's an important position for this board in
this town and for the taxpayers because it's the perch that I utilize to bird dog all of this funding for Wastewater and we have to be vigilant um you know unfortunately the word got out on this during February vacation so a lot of
people are just sort of gradually uh waking up to this and waking up to my March 3rd deadline and there's a March 3rd deadline right so we have to scramble now um you know the County Commissioners are taking this up first thing tomorrow morning EXC uh they are going to uh they've they're convening a
meeting and bringing in some officials to come talk about it they'll be weighing in and there'll be a host of other that'll be weighing in over the next several days I've been re reaching out to uh Town managers and select board members around the cape so um you know we've got to pick up pick up the the
noise all those in favor I opposed no nobody oh unanimous put that down I miss anything Jeff no that's it I think you you said it very well this has the effect of slowing down Wastewater construction on Cape Cod if it goes through the way it's
proposed wouldn't it halted I mean if the funds aren't there they're not completely dried up but they're saying you can apply and get a very small chunk of change maybe one project done and then you can reapply next year go off another small guaranteed I think
what happens is it it it undermines any kind of stability in your overall program if it goes through um you're looking at projects having to get completely redone these are multi-year contracts I mean they're not a one-year contract it doesn't work
we're talking about spending $27 million and now all of a sudden we're going to have to go back to the drawing board and figure out how do we Finance the rest of this yeah right and that's not only not only the not only the inconvenience but the added cost I mean we're we're going to be now on the hook potentially for
tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of this overall program so um I think what it does is it basically um I mean it kills our overall water program I I don't think the voters are going to be in a position on the
taxpayers to be able to handle uh the added cost that's going to be put on upon them right no um and cly 157 million having to go back and ask for more money because the state you know um I mean it's great that they can take a bow at the State House when they're
trying to find ways to help veterans and put those costs on us but this is another cost that they're they're putting on us it's just outrageous so okay so thank you madam chair I asked this be brought up so we can weigh in so thank you I is of the
essence okay Jeff right thank you thanks Jeff thank you Jeff moving on to our next item we have review of the draft annual town meeting warrant Bob we're on draft two now so things are getting um much improved very clear I'll jump right
in and go through the Articles there's not a lot of um changes well I mean there's changes but there's no new articles um um primary among the changes I just want to call out article one um we've gone as far as writing the words snow and ice as
a potential but but we don't have a a final amount yet and we hope to um have that wrapped up hopefully by next week or so but that is the only potential budget adjustment that we're aware of
article two you'll see in the Omnibus Municipal budget all of the numbers are entered in there accurate it and um we're still getting the you know final recommendations in but we've got that taking care of article three is the fire department override uh with the revised
numbers we're just still working on the explanation on that article and then we go into article four is the golf Enterprise those have all of the um numbers that are correct Article Five water division budget with the updated
numbers article six is the septage Enterprise budget article 7 Wastewater Enterprise which goes on to page 14 with the updated numbers article8 cable television
Communications budget and um article nine is the denth Dennis Yarmouth Regional School District budget um which these are the numbers that have been presented by the school obviously um they need to be finalized but we've got
those numbers in article 10 Cape Cod Regional Technical High School article 11 is the GF Capital expense article 12 is the equalization tank at the septage facility Article 13 Water Division
Capital expenses all updated article 14 is the Wells number 10 and 11 prefos treatment system and Article 15 is the addition costs of the water mains on Route 28 that's a supplemental
appropriation and we've tightened I want to thank Jeff and um his team too on on all of the infrastructure those explanations have been tightened up as was discussed by the board uh last week article 16 is the police cruiser
financing article 17 is fire department Capital expense can I stop just for a second I'm sorry sure so I'm I'm pretty sure it'll come up that is a those are um the police cruiser financing they're hybrids
no yes those are hybrid vehicles should they should that be in there we don't put G because someone's likely to ask it to meeting if it's not in there seems like that's always a question we don't put gas in there we don't no but it's there didn't used to be options now there's
options I don't know I it's a question it's not a request the you yeah then you're making sure you tie tie their hands that that's what they have to do nope I still I still don't understand how you encumber future years I've never
understood that because years ago we could never encumber you couldn't we couldn't do a lease program because you couldn't encumber a future town meeting to commit to that and and it's not committing to it what what it is it's it's presenting what the um current the
total cost is right so the current year is appropriated and the future costs are laid out but they're subject to Future appropriation oh right so um they don't have to be voted but um we we lay out the the key thing now is that this type
of a lease it's a lease to own so it's considered financing um so you have to approve it like a borrowing authorization um and but but it is different is that you don't have to come up with the money in 2029 but you would have to give the car back right the
leases are they have their own separate rules it's interesting so that brings us to article 17 is the fire department Capital expense and article 18 is the that new hybrid pumper truck in by hybrid I mean
it's a hybrid between a ladder and a pumper um they're they're um Diesel and Article 19 is the Omnibus capital for the various departments I had some questions on that but I don't know that I should take the time with
this board maybe um they're coming in NE next week There's a the capital for because I'd rather I asking them pardon it probably would be held then to talk with them when they come in to uh see us oh these people are coming in next week
yes the C we have a public hearing on the capital so what we wanted was get all the Articles get all the information and then um you can make final decisions and ask the questions on individual items when we get the folks in front of us and they can go write down their detail because I recall causing trouble
at town meeting personally in the past over this one so but that's where all of the Omnibus capital is found in Article 19 and um article 20 is the eversource
electrical easements for the um water resource recovery facility on Buck Island Road and um article 21 is for collective bargaining adjustments um that are still ongoing uh collective
bargaining and um article 22 is stabilization financing and um we have had to change in this article um a a little bit to um take the 2 million from the free cash and put um it was
initially going to be 2 million into the Wastewater stabiliz ation um but um you know we we got together and we've been having meetings on this and we decided that um and this was a recommendation from our finance director Jen Mullen
which I just thought was a great idea because it's some of the discussions we've had at this board level with last time we had capital in we split out to put put a million from free cash in the Wastewater stabilization and put a million into the capital stabilization
and what that will hopefully do is that's going to create seed money to um spur that Capital stabilization for times in the future when we may not have as much free cash uh we want to build a capital stabilization that we can use to
supplement the capital needs of the town and not just rely um overly on the free cash so uh that's article 22 and think though that you have you didn't address it in the explanation that you split it or that there is you know it just talks about Wastewater
oh the explanation doesn't reflect the change let me look let me look at the explanation make it and make sure that it's clear and you also correct article three three yeah sorry I was just reading it it's the that what it's
written for dollar amount and what the number is are two different things ah that could be a problem it says to raise an appropriate 600 and and the thing it says 800 so I'm not sure what which which number is
correct yeah it's the number in the parentheses so so that is thanks for mentioning we read these things a million times so that's article 22 and we're
going to um just double check that explanation we're going over a bunch of the explanations now as well and um article 23 gets into the community preservation and that's the estimated Revenue piece that's in article 23
article 24 gets into the affordable housing projects article 25 is the recreation projects for CPA article 26 is the historical preservation projects
and article 27 is the CPA open space projects and that's just um creating their reserve and in Article 28 they are transferring 33,000 that had been um
placed into a legal expense fund back into the open space Reserve fund because they no longer need that so it's Article 28 article 29 is the tourism Revenue reservation fund article 30 is the town common
feasibility study and um article 31 is the zero Oak Bluffs Road land disposition and um we were able to go back we discussed the madis building
maintenance cost and um we have that set for 200,000 for the ensuing fiscal year and that's article 32 those are all of the articles that are in there are two other articles that we've had discussion about um the first one is the heroes act
article that we're going to be taking up next week and um I do have some drafts and things but I think I'll hang on to that right now and we'll have a packet for you and be able to talk about that and the um next one is I was asked to um
we had kind of a late filed item for the um request to have group four retirement for the U division of Department of Natural Resources and um I was asked to do a little more research on that to try
to uh nail it down and get the information and I have been able to do that I've had some meetings with I know Bill's here and Dave um but um bill has been working with his um legal team over
in the SEIU um national headquarters there and um so we have the the updated information I I we were able to confirm and that was kind of the big question does this
require a local initiative petition and the answer to that question is yes this is a local initiative petition and so um in your packet is a copy this is what the article would look like so what the ask is for is an article that would pass
a a a local initiative petition relative to the Yarmouth division of Natural Resources um employees and um so that's been done and and we also uh the team went back to the um agency
doing the Actuarial analysis and got a clearer understanding of the annual costs um to the town of Yarmouth which um according if it was adopted immediately medely um would be
372 in um FY 26 which essentially would be the first year because uh it might not be adopted that quickly and then it is between three and 4,000 um all the way through to
2038 and um so um with that information I don't have any uh addition questions I I you know did suspect that you know we we needed potentially to
have some legislative approval although um it wasn't really clear but I think we've cleared that up and we talked about the overall reasoning is um you know we have a fairly unique DNR here in the town of Yarmouth in that um all of
our officers are certified by the police officer saf and training Council as police officers and they all are required and have completed the full not
an intermittent but the full Police Academy training and we also operate under a memorandum of agreement with the Yarmouth Police Department that places all of the firearms training and certification requirements under the police department so that is in addition
to all of their other duties so um there's not I I I think there's only a very small handful of dnrs in Massachusetts that operate in that fashion and um those have also sought um
to have special legislation I know Plymouth did we sort of piggybacked on on their format so that's just a report um but um still have to decide whether the article is going to go on the town meeting or not so this would then become
article 33 yeah I make a motion we put on on the town meeting warrant at least as a placeholder um if the board wants to have more of a discussion on it I I mean for I support it
second any more discussion all those in favor I I opposed unanimous I had a question regarding particular would be very interested and can we can I also make a motion to to just put a
placeholder for the hero act yeah um while we decide what you know we may not right that'll be number 34 second all in favor I I opposed before we move off of this um I
know at one point we had the um non-binding initiative um that oh the nucle pardon nuclear yeah I was going to ask about petitioned articles so um it's a question it's a botot question it's
not a town meeting question okay so that would be on the when we vote when we elect okay do we have any petition articles no okay thank you very much and moving on we have the board and
committee actions to turn this over to Joyce thank you madam chair um i' like to move for appointment to the old King's Highway committee uh Paula Morrison to serve uh through the end of uh of
December of this year in place of an elected representative who resigned and let me just say um this sounds like a fresh appointment but Madam chair point point of order um I would like to just take a moment we have
two people that are leaving here this evening and um I I want to make sure that we as a board recognize Bill benetti um we have his retirement letter uh we don't like the fact that you're
leaving us but we understand that you have other fish to fry other things to do in life and I just think you know there'll be plenty of times to share Kudos with you Bill for all the great service that you've provided for the town but but you you've been here all night and uh I just think I would think
it would be it would be awful for you to leave here without us saying thank you for everything that you have done um losing you is is going to be really tough but I know you've been you've been grooming someone to um yeah if he wasn't so ready I would
feel bad but you're not going to know the difference but I can't thank the board and Bob enough for all the support you would you mind coming up to the mic for just a second because the folks at home don't hear it all right thought you'd get
away good we don't want you getting away easy here all right um no I really I say um I really hope and I I appreciate the board um at least putting as a placeholder this um article for group
four retirement I wholeheartedly believe it's the right thing to do for this division maybe it will impact in the future maybe not but I I wholeheartedly believe it's the right thing to do and um for me personally and professionally i' it's it's a good time to leave when
Carl uh left I I knew I needed to step in as at least a a gap fill but as I've been learning this position Dave's been learning it right alongside of me and and the department
couldn't be more ready to to move on um you know I I was able to um benefit from the hero act and buy back military time which changed things a little for me right now which put me in a little better position um but you know as I said for a lot of
reasons uh I feel it's a good time right now to we've got some really talented motivated skilled staff here that um that really deserve to advance in my
opinion um that's going to be the path forward for our division so um but again thank you all so much thank you thank you Bill you we'll miss you yes where were you sorry about that no
that's fine I didn't realize who was leaving soize was leaving um I just want to mention a bit of background on Paula morison it looks like a new appointment but she in fact was elected and served for four years she's also before that served as an alternate so she's an oldh
handed Old King you made a motion did you get a second second okay there you go okay okay is there any discussion all those in favor I I I the next one is there we go okay kind of
embarrassing um I I ask that uh we reappoint Joyce Flynn um to the capik compact governing board all I can say is that this Joyce Flynn seems to work hard do I have a second on that
second discussion all those in favor I I okay then we move down to Constable appointments um as requested by the police department um I move that we nominate Paul Rooney at reappointment um
to serve through uh December 31st 2025 as Constable second John circum yep second all those in favor I I and then finally I move that we reappoint John circum um
as cable uh to serve through 12312 still moved second all those in favor I I good thank you Joyce moving on we have meeting minutes
now this one gets kind of interesting because yeah the only one that was at the meeting is Mr Forest I unfortunately was absent from this meting this is February 6 2024 the rule of necessity the rule of necessity uh enables those
who weren't there to vote in favor of this so we can invoke that rule so I make a motion that minutes why are we so behind on our minutes I ask why they were complex and
needed great perusal I don't know we're actually more caught up than we've been in many years so I'll make a motion to move approval I move that we approve the minutes of February 6 2024 second okay
all those in favor I I opposed okay I move that we approve the minutes of February 27th 2024 second okay tomor all last year last year 2024 sir all those in favor
I okay pass thank you upcoming agenda review one of the items Madam chair that I want to make sure that we get on the uh future agenda review it this tends to sort of become an oversight but we should put on it the um the town man
administrator's evaluation we should make sure that we are so right you know we put that in there we don't I just don't want to lose track of it we need to do it before the election okay so we should figure out it needs to be done before we change potentially change
members okay so that would be by the April 15th meeting really yeah because then we have town you have the annual town meeting and then isn't the election like when is it
Liz oh the election is the 20th the 20th oh I'm sorry okay so we do have May May 6 and on 13 time I just want to make sure that we get it on there somewhere so we don't lose track of it okay let's plug it in on the sixth just to say we have it there okay may6th M oh
it is there it is there it is there yeah okay I completely missed it it's like Bob's typos you know they yeah I think they're gone there's a couple of new items that we um added to the list on on March 4 I
want to call to your attention um the first one is the cape coton chamber has contacted us and they they want to make a presentation that sort of been long delayed on the their tourism marketing
District which has evolved significantly um you know it's kind of downward over time and so um we'd like to get them in and and make sure you know what what they're looking at trying to do and um there's another item that I think is kind of a tentative if we can set it up
but um this was discussed with the um the board trying to um move forward with that posos non-drinking water supply um in fact um I did just have a meeting with the hyanis area past team and
kleinfelder who's our new consultant and we've reviewed some of the new test results so we want to try to get that information in front of the board um as soon as possible and um the task force on the plastic band I
don't think that's ready for March 4 but I want to bring that up under my um Town Administrator update because I need a little help with that where was the hero act supposed to be returned to March 4th so that goes there too
okay yes so March 4 we have the hero act I had a couple of items to go on the bottom of the list you want to wait on that can we just stop for a second on the task force for the plastic ban uh with with Jay's uh resignation
do we have a point person that would be going forward with that um yeah maybe we could talk about that under the um we're going to have one okay so we're working on we're working on that um but um I don't feel you'd be ready for that on
March 4 should we move it to the 18th no what what i' I'd like to do is um there's a memo in your packet that I included um under my um Town Administrator update
that Jay and I have been working on and it's his a January 15 memo on the plastic reduction working group and they haven't held any meetings yet but um Jay's been working he's promised before he goes
we're going to get this team having meetings and and working and there's a list of um the people that we want to have on that and one of them is a select board representative and if board would be so
inclined if anyone would like to participate on that um it would be great to have a select board member just to kind of ride shotgun on that whole thing so that I don't think they want me on it I'd over I'd overturn the band if it was my choice a plastic water bottle side a
bottle if if no one else wants it I drink out of cans I could do it do you want to do it Joyce being honest no one actually wants this s but I'll I'll do it I I actively want it sure I think it's really important but I don't need
yeah so if you want it but go for it but and I would on I think yes would we have is it gonna be Liz or Joyce go ahead Joyce Joyce okay so moved seconded okay so what I'd
like to to do is is have a chance to work with Jay get this team working figure out who's going to be the point person get a a little bit of progress and then come back in and update the whole board okay may I ask a question Bob is is this closed the list or there
is another person who's been uh who was part of the Care Cape Cod Care Group who worked with Mary vilon who's been asking about it and she might be a great candidate it's Jill talad maybe you could forward me um her
contact which um I I used to have because she was on she on our aswak isn't she on she used to be used to be yeah I don't know but she was all information I ask a question about these upcoming agendas because we um the items seem to
just disappear yeah where's our list um we had talked before about potentially discussing uh changes to the regional agreement that should go down the them CU that's something that we we talked in our in our goal setting thing about the
potential of having a discussion on electronic voting that's gone from there now all the all the items that we had in our in our goal setting meeting are now not even there anymore were there oh Mark's items are all all up there
mine I just need to point that out again do that no you didn't delete them but some they're gone now so we just need to add all the items that let me let me reconcile those two lists and that'd be great wasn't a a cabal that no I I feel
like it maybe was no but there we talked like two we meetings ago about potential uh Regional agreement changes and it's not nothing imperative but I don't want to see it go away no well what I'd like what I when we bring that up what what I
would like to here Tracy are your thoughts about the agreement and the things that you think need to be changed because I think that's where I think we should start this conversation is is what are some of the outstanding and I think um I think that
would help everyone because um uh there's a lot of history on the agreement and you have a unique perspective that I think would be helpful to to hear because I don't I don't come to this conversation with a specific list of my own and I'm not sure anybody else does but can I just point
you toward April 1st because if you look at the proposed items April 1st is um review the Regional School agreement with poal updates okay I stand corrected good I'll have we'll have something ready for that I felt so
poorly too what's that I felt so poorly about things get deleted just one example Bob what about we'll have we'll I we'll do this on April Fool's go through there you go Bingo good day for it no and I don't think it's just us
there's things in in that people of Dennis have mentioned that the problem right now is we don't have the ability to bring it forward and that's one of the main one of the main things that need to be addressed does it has to be has to be the school
committee as it stands now they're the ones that can do it all right well let's just go back again to March 4th um we've got kind of heavy dock at we're adding the hero act um we've now taken care of um the home rule haven't we we don't um
for the N natural resource officers that doesn't we taken care of that one so that's taken where is that it's we already voted that so it's I'm not Crossing anything off okay no no
you're just adding the hero act yeah okay we got a full plate there we go and Mark you're still on track for our housek housing Workshop implementation on the 18th 18th is that the date we're shooting for that's where you are on the agenda okay that's great
then I'll work on getting that done okay perfect do we have to do we have the final recommendations on the warrant articles for the 18th but they're not listed at all on the 4th just just in case there's anything T the hero Act is going to be talked
about anyway so yep perfect may I ask a few uh future agenda items did we were we going to return to the anerobic digestor I thought that that was um a
nonstarter because um and I was very disappointed but um the uh first set of financial Arrangements fell through and now the second person who was going to Second company that was going to be part
of the uh public private partnership um was not answering uh oh this is when you're in California no wonder you looking blank at blankly at me well I did watch the meeting so oh okay um Jennifer said not not returning any um
any messages it reminded me of little solarized yarm so it died a nonstarter that we can resubmit something different we can't we it turns out we can't really use that space and just say pretty
please can we put this in instead but the deadline for the um next round of Grants is April 7th and there's some interest in um H fet the senior center although it's kind of up in the air and that's on our uh budget it's it's one of
the items in on the list that I was going to go over um the one that's all of the capital items yeah that's on the agenda for next week right so if it's going to
be a grant do we take it off that list I'm I I'm just not sure how we it's on it might be on two lists oh don't know but it might be better for us to continue it just in
case we don't get the grant correct okay we just went through procedure question right all right all right um oh I have two more I'm so sorry um um there was a a question that Julian
sirar brought forward about would we like to discuss and through home rule a transfer fee for property for Real Estate transac action over 1 million or over 2 million with with um exemptions
perhaps for first time buyers exemptions to be determined but I guess Orleans is in the process of bringing something like that forward and Julian's thinks that it might be a great way again for similar to the the Roman meals tax to
get some funding um that is built on the back of uh some of the challenges we face with the with the homes market so you're suggesting putting it on the a future agenda agenda to talk about yeah
I don't have any objection no and then the other one um we you had mentioned Dorcas to put on the agenda to review all fees structures I um I've been discussing that with Bob we're trying to get a
lineup of the when the department heads would be feeling comfortable to come and give us that presentation okay okay so it's on the on the list that's been worked on to to look at the fee structure and in particular um for instance our our parking at the beaches
in our town we charge $20 other towns are charging 30 I mean you do some quick math on that one alone that's over $300,000 potentially so yes we're going to be looking at all of those we
were on on the on the housing can we just revisit that real quick the housing transfer tax proposal is that something that he's asked I guess what I'm trying to find
out is is what's the ask in that are we to put something on town meeting or we put something on what does he want us to do specifically he was recommending that we um implement it we can't Implement anything indeed but he's saying home through home rule this is I guess how or
and I you know I'm I'm no home rule the home rule process just so that you know means us going to town meeting with a very specific legislative proposal asking the voters to endorse it and submit it to uh our legislative
delegation right and then um and then we go the process of you know having a bill filed uh on our behalf and I don't think he's talking about this town meeting but he that's what I'm getting at cuz I'm I'm the point still fit it I guess he he wanted me to bring it up for instance
for this discussion that we're now having are we interested in discussing it further well I think we again you have to understand yeah it's all about the timing of it exactly it's going to require a home Ru petition for us to initiate that process means that we have
to have an article for town meeting do we want to have an are we thinking that soon in the Pro that it would that's what I'm asking you oh I I would defer to the uh board here I don't know I mean we we have to it's something we would have to analyze we would have to figure
out what the benefits in the my thinking is that we don't know enough that's why I was saying put it on the bottom of the agenda list something yeah I I put it on the list of things to consider but you should just be aware there's a whole sequence of things that would have to happen before we even getting we get to
a point as as was said we need to study it what does it mean what is the impact and so forth who would be affected what kind of Revenue would generate I mean there a whole host of questions questions that would emerge from uh this and we got to find someone to help do the proper study and Analysis with with
Town staff so immersed in Muk and all these other initiatives and proposals um I I find it hard to find just even the time uh from my point of view if there's a housing issue that I would love to get some better Direction on from the legislature the delegation is you know
why is Yarmouth not a seasonal community and what does it take for I mean a whole host of benefits from that designation and we got just dropped off on the list now it's ridiculous I mean he could also have filed a bill that we could have
opted into or opted out of but he didn't so yeah so I mean there's there's a lot to this conversation on housing well this was more I mean this was specific but I I'm happy to go back to him and say why are we dropped off the seasonal Community list well you should just keep
that in the back I think we as a board that's I would put that on on the list of things to talk about ahead of the uh sure the transfer tax proposal okay and you know you should be thinking about the time that's going to be involved in studying it and coming up with answers to the questions that the voters are
going to have right and uh that's at least another annual town meeting away I know they're trying to Jin things up for now but I think that's 12 months down the road no I totally agree I I wasn't thinking F that's why I was asking the
question like what are we talking about here because to get this thing going requires you know oh yeah a vote at town meeting I I'm happy to do some research I I certainly know enough people in Orleans to do some research and find out I think there's a mechanism there for us
to charge attacks at this point the mechanism does not exist correct it requires us to file a home roll petition the language of the petition of the proposed legislation needs to be submitted to town meeting the voters have to endorse it and then it gets
filed as legislation as a home R petition on behalf of the town of Yarmouth right well do you want me to come back with that information sounds like let what would you like me to do no you put it on the bottom of the list all I'm saying is that there's a fair amount of I'm trying to understand what it
what's the time frame we're talking about because there's a fair amount of work that goes into this I'm not proposing any the staff I think right now until we get through this town meeting is pretty much out strain probably the bot after town meeting we'll put elements on the list
before you know it'll be summer you know I mean this this this letter that we said today uh you know stir up a hornet's nest no I mean these are all pieces that I think you know I mean what are we going to do if that provision
stays with what they're doing the state revolving fund yeah um you know we are going to be putting different things on the table that we don't want to do but we're going to be forced to so yeah I want you to think for example just keep in the back of your mind I'm going to follow up and Tracy's Point
here the town of arable what they're doing to meet their Wastewater financing goals is they're doing a residential property tax exemption in forcing higher taxes on the mcmansions all right so you
have to ask yourself as Tracy said with all these moving Parts um are we going to be forced into the same situation because we're our options for raising local Revenue to do this are somewhat limited uh there's only so much we will
be able to do right and then there's the short there's some towns that are doing the shortterm rental tax too um you know right I think I think I think for a future discussion is going to be um
financing options for Wastewater because I think what's going to happen is somehow we're going to get squeezed I just think we should be prepared for having a plan being and plan C for financing and it may very well be that the Airbnb tax we I would rather file a
home roll petition for a bump on the Airbnb tax that comes to Yarmouth for Wastewater that would be a home rule petition that I think we may need to think about all right um not only for the Wastewater piece of it but for the the year round rental housing situation
that's happening with it too right right so that's the other thing we're doing a short-term rental study right we're trying to figure out house how much of a problem or how much of a uh a negative is the short-term rentals on the year round housing
Supply um there is a segment of the community that's out there that believes that our biggest threat to affordable yearound housing is the short-term rentals oh yeah there are way too many short-term rentals and it's also very disruptive in terms of you know the
traditional residential Community I hear that a lot not so much in Yarmouth but I hear that in other communities it's going to be coming our way exactly bless you well we're studying it now so we'll have data on that exactly you are studying that now yes that the
affordable housing trust has initiated a study with the UMass Collins Center um and it is to carry on similar methodology that's been done in other Cape communities and we're going to be developing a detailed analysis of the
short-term rental market in yarma so okay good that's a future do you have any idea when we might have the findings from that I I think it's it's probably a year-long study I would say yeah and we're doing it largely
because this question is out there to what degree are the short-term rentals contributing and creating a problem and if we're going to have to tighten up regulations on it we need to have a better handle on what those regulations should look like right just seemed like
there might be be something in that report when it does come through that might help us with the seasonal Community designation well I think what that report is going to have to do is document this the seasonal
housing units many of those the numbers are often underestimated yes and so you're right so the work that is done in this study should help us qualify if we want to apply for that designation my beef is the fact that we should have
been part of that designation from day one for us to be not included in it is with the last town as you as you march from Province Town West we're the last town or the first town not included as a seasonal Community is that true because
Dennis is a seasonal Community according to them what the heck yeah just odd okay thank you any other individual items anyone wants to bring up yes I'm going to get shot on the way
out um the the um water issue with the with the uh after we treat the septic um the waste water that we've collected and we know we have an issue with this the de and the gallons that are going to have to go somewhere even in in phase
one they're uh I guess back at the the drafting table looking at engineering terms of where the more water that we really will have can be put but as we go into the other phases the question has been raised by people that I've talked to would it be smart to be laying a
secondary pipe that is a return pipe for um some of the bigger commercial properties for the parks that we are in the process of constructing and trying to figure out how we might be maintaining them and even for perhaps Route 28 with the landscaping that's
going in since the roads are being torn up now um is it s ible knowing that if the project goes forward um would we what doesn't make sense and to lay and this is a discussion item to be laying some return
pipe that's not connected to anything perhaps now but at least while the roads are open and dug up you you've got the piping so you can bring that that that um waste the water that's been treated that we don't know where to put it can
go back at least to the side of Yarmouth for instance where you want to bring this what this gray water um it I'm I'm trying to think outside of the box I mean that we have now two parks that are going to need some um some some maintenance water we have bigger
commercial properties that may need they may have some Landscaping I think one of the things that might be helpful is to get when it's time we're going to get an update on the discharge studies that are being done we we're looking at a variety of sites including golf courses right and what from what I heard and this is a
discussion is that the um D had said oh you'll be fine with the 50 I'm going to say thousand gallons but then it was it was recognized that no it's going to be a million gallons and that's only phase one so um I think the ultimate issue and
I guess I'm this is not an an unusual plan with these projects apparently in California that is what they do is they they treat the water but they always have the return pipes so that you can do something with the water that after it's been treated
so that's what I'm I'm bringing up for a discussion item is as we go forward should we think about that now that we've recognized we we're going to have an issue with um treated water and not being able to put it back in one place
because it will overwhelm that's that's why we're doing these studies right to look at multiple discharge points oh all right well I didn't realize that okay so yeah when we went to town me the last was in the last town meeting we got funding to do right it was the last one
yeah I mean it's an issue it's it's come up before and we've had a lot of discussion and where it stood on on phase one um if if you recall I I think you were here Mark um I and I think you
were here Tracy as as well it the the cost of the extra line exceeded what we had for phase one and so it was a tough call you know there were people that spoke eloquently about it and about what they do in some of the western states
that you know don't have a water table like ours um they reuse all of the water I mean they don't have enough water and so the decision was made for phase one to leave it out because um I mean there was a pretty hefty price tag we also didn't know at that
time uh what D was going to you know we didn't have our our gallons so to speak from DP at that time when we made that decision but what's interesting though is since that time um although we don't
have the second pipe the town has made a massive commitment to the ReUse of that treated water that so that a lot of the the engineering that's going on right now is to enhance the use of that water
for irrigation um you know with the bberry hills so it's it's not taking it back to everyone's house um but it is finding a place to take it back to that needs it that can reuse it so um I I think there's a lot of room for
discussion on how best to reuse the water how best to do the discharge but um have to wait for the study so it's it's it's all you know we can put that those issues on when I think we have an upcoming Wastewater update for for that
and we can talk about the the ReUse of the water and it and it may not be that the best thing to do is to that double pipe because I mean that ship has sailed for phase one exactly yeah but the when
you talk about the other phases the ReUse of that water not just simply putting it in in this location is to find beneficial reuses for it yes and and the ones that we can afford I mean I think you hit on a real key thing there that and because that's the direction
that we're going with Bayberry Hills um and Bass River and and maybe there's other sites that it's not a thing that you want to distribute it to everybody's house you take your water back no no but it's but it's maybe there's a couple of key nodes
in the town that we could use water not just dump the water but use it yeah yeah I think the next generation of treatment plants are probably going to be much better at producing an effluent that's
close to being drinkable okay we're not I mean you're not gonna you're not going to find me I I just think that if you did a survey right now if you went door too and said would you like to be have our Wastewater come to your house would you you know I mean but I
would never propose this for a home I'm talking about what parks Parks or commercial par that's already being looked at it's landscaping that's already being looked at yeah so when the studies I get the message yeah good Mark she's trying to keep your Yarmouth common yeah yeah there you go the common
okay thank you for consent agenda do I have a motion to accept the consent agenda moved second second all in favor hi Town Administrator updates my two big items we we kind of went over you know the first was I wanted to update the
board on the hyenas area posos group it's really a great group and they've got people a lot of people from the hyenas Park civic association but also um there's some hyenas folks and the Sierra Club and and um I know they're working with Tom cber they received some
additional State funding the the bottom line is that um the testing that's producing results right now on this nonwater Supply rated PE f um is uh
substantially exceeding the estimated uh limits of the plume from the Cap Cod Gateway airport and that's a critical concern for us because that area um is in the vicinity of mil Creek um
you know heading towards the Bay View boxs that whole that whole area and so there's new data we have we should have known that years ago they never should have stopped doing their perimeter testing like they were supposed to have been doing for p so I I I think the the
point is we want to be prepared with this data and then have the ability to use the data in the correct format to hopefully engage D in um you know there it I mean does this even th this could very well trigger the immediate response
action plan that's included in the current regulations um so so there's a lot to discuss there's a lot to look at no question about it do it sooner rather than later because in the meantime um yeah affecting our water and we don't want to get to a drinking water
absolutely and so so that was a a big one and um in in addition to that we talked about the um I wanted to bring up the plastic reduction task force and thank you very much Joyce for that and we're going to get a meeting scheduled
of that group and then try to get some traction and get right back into the select board for an update and um move that forward so that's all I have for tonight I know it's getting kind of late great thank you madam chair I'd like to move to a journ second all in
favor thank you you we not at 10:00 and are you ready for the quiz