 Okay, we're recording. Okay. I would like to call a meeting to order of the finance committee meeting for January 20, 23. And it's now, I think 1003 AM. We have a quorum of the committee present. We're going to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 is extended. This meeting will be conducted by remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so I assume by, or by telephone. No in person attendance of members of the public will be permitted but every effort being made to ensure that the public can adequately access the meeting. So I'm going to go through the proceedings real time. What a technological means. And I need to announce and want to remind everybody. That this meeting is being recorded. And so that everybody is aware of that. So I'm going to go through the committee to just make sure that everybody is aware of what we heard. And going alphabetically. We'll start with. President. President. President. President. President. Michelle Miller. President. I'm here. I'm here. And I'm here. And. And Lisha Walker. Present. Okay, so. Thank everybody. Let's see. I see that Sean is here and Amy is here. So what I'd like to do is. First of all, see if there's anybody. In the. Public who would. In today's meeting, and if so, ask that they raise their hand. Seeing none. Then, I think we can go on. I might ask for public comment to get later if there are significant members of the public who appear. And I think it's okay. At this point, if you want to bring councilor Hanna key into the meeting from the attendee group. And so whoever can do that. I sent a prompt, but Okay. So with that said, the, what we're going to do in the order of the agenda is start with water and sewer regulations. And then go to the special act on residential property transfer fees. Because one of the co-sponsors counselor. Devlin got here is not going to be able to be present and we want to respect. She's not going to be present. She's not going to be present at these times and she's with us to pursue that right away. So, Sean, would you like to make any introductory comments about what your proposal is. And explain the memo that you sent out and for just the record, I also want to point out that. The packet that is available to the public has been expanded to include this item and all items that we're going to be discussing today. Sean, is there anything that you'd like to say in the introduction. Lynn, were you going to say something first. Yeah, would you like me to put the memo up. Yeah, so we put together this memo in response to this discussion at the finance committee at the last meeting to try to lay out. The impact of the release the estimated impact of the regulations and the shift in line ownership. In, you know, going through that process and thinking about it more we decided to recommend against. And then the regulations at this time, we do want to move forward with the rest of the regulations but we think the, the magnitude of the financial impact of that shift is worth us exploring for a longer period of time before we adopt it. So this memo lays out sort of just the background. You can go to the next slide one. So this chart provides the information I think was requested by Kathy which is to show sort of the rates and the trajectory of costs without the impact of the regulations and then to show what it looks like with the impact of the regulations. And so what you can see here is the top chart is the water enterprise fund and the bottom chart is the sewer enterprise fund, both have rising operating expenses related to salaries and utilities and all the costs that go into the those operations. And both are seeing rising debt in the future related to capital projects in water we have the centennial project which is a large one even with the grant we have through the state clean water revolving fund. We're still going to have a large impact, a large increase in our debt obligation and the water enterprise fund. And in the sewer fund we have the gravity belt project, which is reflected in the proposed debt section. So we're seeing costs rise anyway. And then the other thing that we want to monitor because we're not quite sure where it's going to go in the future is the projected consumption. So the projecting consumption levels drive the rates pretty directly right if the consumption is lower the rates have to go higher in order to generate the same amount of revenue. So our rates dropped off quite a bit during COVID, we were hoping to see them bounce all the way back to sort of pre COVID levels. We still haven't seen that yet. So we're showing projected consumption, sort of conservatively at where it is now. And for water you can see it's even a little bit lower than what we budgeted for FY 23. So you can see the in the light green, the estimated rates with and without the impact of the estimated impact of the draft regulations. The other piece if you go to the next page Lynn. So we're looking into, based on the conversation at the last meeting was insurance and whether there is a program that could reduce the cost of the impact and the enterprise funds and therefore reduce the projected rates. So we did talk with home serve USA I believe it is, which is a pretty large company that does this type of insurance, our initial conversation, they were. They had sort of conveyed that they did think that there would be a program that would cover the sort of preventative type replacement of water and sewer lines that the ones we're talking about when we would repay roads. Once they dug into the numbers a little bit more, they came back and said they can offer that program. So really the only insurance that we could get through them would be coverage for unanticipated repair replacement of broken lines, and the cost and the water fund would be about $150,000 per year they charge based on the number of lines, monthly premium per line. And then in the sewer fund it would be 310,000 per year, but again that would just be for the unanticipated repairs and replacements. It wouldn't cover any of the proactive when we repay the road and want to address all the lines that are underneath that road. So we think that the cost of insurance at this time, likely not be. It may be something we still want to consider when we go down this road, but it might, we don't think it's going to reduce the cost overall. So, again, in light of all that the rising costs uncertainty around consumption rising financing rates. We think it's better to hold off at this time. In regards to that specific piece of the regulations, and to do a little bit more exploration of that try to get a better sense of how many lines and need to be repaired and replaced over the next couple years and then we'll also have better information on our consumption levels going forward. And Amy can speak to some other elements or some other things that are in the works around drought regulations that might impact our consumption numbers and some other things coming down from the state. Okay, Amy. Did you have a follow up because actually what Sean just said was exactly what my question was, whether the rate, whether the consumption numbers might decrease as we implement state regulations regarding encouraging conservation of water use. Yeah, and partly I know. It's, we've kind of been saying for years hey when we get our new water permit, we know it's going to have some restrictions in there for water, not essential water use during the summer. We actually just last week the state pushed forward regulations that is going to make that a reality much sooner than that potentially even this summer. And so, and they are, they're putting pretty strict guidance on what counts as essential water usage in these times and what doesn't count. What this means for us is just that, you know, during the summer, more likely than not, most of the time we're going to be saying people can't water their lawns except for maybe one day a week, and only outside of the hours of nine o'clock in the morning to five o'clock at night. And, you know, so a lot of those usages a lot of the summer usage that we get. That's going to be down in the future. I don't know if you were shown when to comment on how that might affect rates in addition to what's on the chart on page two. Yeah, so go ahead. No, I was just going to say like, I don't know that we know the exact number that it's going to come down. I think it's just as we're looking at projected consumption, even over the last several years, even taking COVID out of it. We've seen this decrease as people have been more and more conscious about how much water they use. I don't know that we know the number but I do think that that projection consumption number is going to be a little lower, knowing that we have water use restrictions during many months, especially in the summer. I've been talking with Amy and Guilford Amherst is a little bit unique. We say that a lot, but a little bit unique in that the summer isn't necessarily where our greatest water consumption is. Obviously the university and the colleges sort of depopulate over that time. So, so it's just another wrinkle that we have to consider is that the summer months may not be our busiest time for consumption but we're still going to have to deal with these regulations. Yeah, I'm going to start calling on other members of the committee now that my concern is, is that since we know that from prior presentations that you've made that the fixed portion of the budget the cap, just the equipment and capital and salaries is what drives it and not the consumption goes down. I assume the rates have to go up. Yeah, the water and sewer fund I mean it's sort of like, you know when we talk about the schools in classrooms right so the things that really drive the cost and the water and sewer fund or how many sources of water you're managing all the equipment that goes along with that. And so, you know, the ways to make a dramatic change in the cost of in the waterfront for example would be to have less water sources but we're very, we're very cautious about anything that would reduce our water sources because it's going, you know, we all consider that a pretty precious resource, even if the state regulations say we can't use it that's the problem. But, but those are the ways you make dramatic changes in the cost structures of the water and the waterfront in particular is the number of sources that we maintain and the equipment that goes along with it. And the staffing that goes along with it. So I'm going to start recognizing other members of committee with questions and you may have Bernie. Thanks Andy. I'm in general I'm in favor of postponing any decision about the water main repair replacement repair because I think it's more important than we get those regulations other regulations in place. One question that I have is do the proposed rates cover any prospective capital improvements. So looking out when we do these proposed rates, are we building in a percentage in the rate that would go into a fund into the enterprise funds for the purpose of replacing those things at some point, because, you know, if we if we can we're going to have to do something like that it makes sense to me to start setting funds aside for it now in a maybe a modest additional increase in the in the rates with the intent of setting that aside can be helpful over the over the future. I mean one of the things that every town does is they know that this is coming they don't plan forward or they don't act on it. And, you know, five years ago we started setting money aside, we'd be way ahead and we may be a couple of years away from making any changes so maybe we should start setting again a modest money aside for this purpose. Yeah, so it's a good question so under our current system yeah so if you look at this chart. If it's a large capital project that we're going to borrow for it shows up in the debt or current or proposed section. But if it's sort of the year to year capital type expenditures we have that capital row, which covers things like water system improvements and, and those types of things. And so the chart we've shown here is what if we put aside, you know $500,000 per year but we could adjust this to show if we wanted to start to build up some type of reserve now. You know we could obviously modify this table to show what it would look like to do a smaller amount and then grow it slowly over time. Okay, Bernie anything else. No, thank you. Okay, Kathy. And thank you very much for this memo in the table. I have one question just to follow up on Bernie. And I don't need the answer right now but you shown you started to answer it with that capital line my understanding is, and we've seen it in the budget that we've, we've got a reserve, and it's, you know that we're carrying reserve in each of these enterprise funds, Bernie is drawing on some of it so I think that's correct. So that's just a question. Yeah enterprise funds have retained earnings which is similar to a reserve so just like the, the general fund budget. We have sort of guidelines for with where we want that reserve to be because it's used in a similar fashion if there's some sort of emergency need. So if our revenues to revenues don't come in, you know as expected, you know it hits that retained earnings account so but we do have a retained earnings and every enterprise fund that we have. So it just in the, in the future when we're looking at rates it would be good to just see that table, you know I have it from earlier times. Another question is just purely a question the cost of the draft regulations. Is that just the, if we did the repair have you in the top band there's some things we have to do anyway and Amy said you have, you had said that had some impact. So is the 3.4% increase the first bank. Does it include the everything else, and then we're seeing separately the cost if we started taking on the repairs ourselves. It's just purely a question on how. Yeah. So, so the other thing outside of the line ownership and Amy correct me if I'm wrong, but the other thing outside the line ownership that will have a cost that I that we're not proposing. We delay is the ownership of the water meters for the larger users. And I believe the way we're going to propose addressing that is through some changes to the fee structure. The flat fee for the meter fee, and Amy has done an analysis of what we would have to modify that to to cover the additional costs of replacing those meters over time so that we're not proposing a delay to we would, we would keep that in the the regulations. So is that included in the 3.4. I'll just say on the water line so when I want to, it's not included here yet but it wouldn't. It wouldn't affect everybody because it would be just for certain meter types. Okay. Thank you for that. And then my last one is around the meter size we. I feel like I, I say this each time but we talked about should we, should we or could we and what would the impact be charge on those quarterly rates on meters could we go up on the larger meters, the, the, the big user meters like UMass embers college whatever, as a way of regularly recouping some capital costs so I don't need that now but that analysis was one of the things we were going to look at to protect us against the insulated a little bit more on the fluctuation on use. I'm trying to avoid hitting the households, you know the, the, the people who have the small meters, the small, I'm using not very good technical terms but little, little ones. Thank you. I can, I mean I can, I can address that a little bit and I guess that's it's a bigger conversation you know obviously you, you guys guide, you know like we can give recommendations and you guys tell us what you want to do. What I was proposing for the meter rates was essentially looking at the meter size, how often it has to be replaced and any additional annual maintenance and then just breaking down, here's the cost per year for that meter. Now with our current rates, because the town only owns below a certain size, those quarterly rates make sense with you know this thing gets replaced every 40 years and here's the cost for a replacement and there's kind of no additional maintenance with the larger diameter because the town hasn't owned it. They have a higher replacement cost, you know we do annual calibration on them because if they're off you want them to be on and then there's typically a little bit of repairs and so that's where that cost has gone. It's looking to recoup the cost but we were purely looking at how do we break even on the meter so what the town is going to incur in costs of this change get passed along to the owners of those meters. They're still paying for it they're just paying us to maintain it rather than us relying on them to maintain it or replace it so that that is you guys can certainly go beyond that if you know if you want to change the cost structure there. Thank you. I noticed you your hand up a minute ago do you did you have anything to add at this point. Now any got it that the meter, the meter rate or meter rental charges just to replace meters and has nothing to do with trying to balance payments for the big users versus the small users. I think partly Kathy what you're getting at is like the thought of looking at rate structures in general. Whether it's a tiered rate structure whether you know business rates versus residential rates and I think that's a conversation that I know you've been pushing for for a while and you know, separate but equally important I think you know, because there's a lot of different ways to do it. There's a lot of different ways of suggesting a lot of different ways to kind of make you know split who pays what so that we still recoup what we need. Okay, and Bob and then I wanted to see if a if Lynn had questions because she can't raise her hands while she's showing, but Bob. I just had a couple of questions. The first is, you know you US three different scenarios on the top page three is the town covering the costs for two and three now, or does the town charge the owner of the lines for these replacements for two and three. Amy correct me if I'm wrong to we don't, we're not proactively doing that right now. When we surface roads so there may be if they I'm sure if they come across broken ones they probably replace those are reported to the owner. But it's not a significant cost right now under our current system and Amy maybe you can weigh in on number three. Yeah, well and I'll say even to like, yeah, most of the time we're not doing that there are obviously exceptions where where we do replace, but typically it's only if we're replacing the waterline, then what attaches to the waterline may be replaced when we're doing construction. Number three, these are new regulations that don't impact us now but are going to impact us in the next few years and so you know right now we aren't proactively replacing any service lines that are known are suspected lead containing, but there are going to be regulations in the near future that that are going to force us to do a little, a little more on that. The second question I have and Sean maybe you can answer this I don't know but in your conversations with the insurance companies did you get any rates for the actual homeowner what they might have to pay in order to ensure their water lines and their sewer lines. So, I didn't get, they can certainly provide that to us, they provided us two types of rates they provided us from the main to the right of way, and then they provided us a rate, if we wanted to cover it all the way to the house. So we did get, you know, the additional increment if we wanted to cover the whole thing. I'm not sure if I can take that increment say this is what it would be for an individual homeowner Paul you may have gotten the rates because you had a separate conversation but but we could get that information, Bob and we will, I think that's part of our plan is to communicate that information out to to residents so they could opt to do that. I can jump in on that so yeah so they they're this is a company that offers this program to municipalities, what we do is that they ask us to mark help them market it to their to the customers. And then, for some I don't have the number for me but like 100 bucks a year or something like that. They'll do the waters line sewer line they'll even offer you coverage for all your indoor plumbing, if you'd like, they can ensure anything obviously, but this is a standard program that the National League of Cities and brands and then they operate this company officer Danny City or town. What they do is they contract with local contractors to do the repairs if it happens. And that's the sort of setup. I can get those numbers for you though I have this. I think it would help be helpful for residents to know, you know what what would it cost to protect themselves against these unanticipated. So I think it is something that was raised actually by one of the counselors before and we got the numbers and I think we can. Is this, I think, given this conversation it was something we would sign up for and get that into everybody's mailboxes basically. Great. Thank you. So, you have anything. Yes. So, I just, I want to make sure I'm stepping back from this and saying, based on everything we're now seeing the recommendation is that we go in ahead and pass the regulations and the bylaws. And, but we not change ownership of lines, meaning from the main line to the property line as we've been discussing, would somebody just confirm that I'm understanding that. Yeah, so that's what the, what we're proposing. It's not, you know, and talking with Amy, she'll have to go through and, and if this is what the finance committee wants to recommend, she'll have to go through and, and modify the draft regulations to show what it would mean because it's not a, it's not a one sentence change there's some ripples throughout the regulations that she'll have she would have to update. And again, she can do that. I think she's already started taking a look at it if that's what the finance committee wants to recommend. Okay, my second point. And then I want to go to just a third thing. My second point is my assumption is that with all of the noise out there about aging infrastructures. We're going to be seeing some federal and state programs that we may benefit from regarding sewer and water. That's just a statement you we don't know for sure but as Bernie said earlier on, this is something it's, it's one of the hidden problems in every municipality that has these services and so I want to just go back and read and say, I totally agree with Bernie. I think a modest rate raise to start having more reserves for the big projects that we could be seeing would be useful. And the time to do it might be this year starting this year, because we're not going to be doing. If we follow the recommendation, we're not going to be doing the big, if you will, the big jump this year. Beyond that though, what I think this has been the most useful about I know we have spent enormous amounts of time on water and sewer is we now have regulations that we're going to propose. We now know a lot more about what our water and sewer funds look like. And we've started to have that discussion about the critical nature of this hidden infrastructure that is aging. I just want to thank DPW Amy. I want to go back and thank Anna because of all the work she did with TSO on this. And Sean, you just continue to impress me with how you jump into any subject and understand the finances behind it so this is this is all Amy here so I support your thanking Amy for all the work she's done on this. Yeah. I just addressed one, one comment that you made Lynn. It about all that money out there I know there's a lot of federal funds that are coming on stuff and, at least my understanding right now is how the state of Massachusetts has decided every state is allowed to allocate it differently, and the state of Massachusetts allocated all through their SRF program. The state revolving fund program and so it just means that it's at least in Massachusetts as compared to other states it's it's it's going to be a little harder to get our hands on that because you have to go through this competitive application process, and it does have to be discrete projects. There's a point ranking system and stuff like that and so it's just not going to be as accessible for some of the, you know, little maintenance projects everywhere. That's just how the states deciding to funnel the money. So just kind of FYI, so far. That's useful Amy and especially to know that we probably shouldn't count on that. One other one question and one other just observation on process. The one question is how much of our water and sewer money annually is paid for by our higher higher ed institutions. Is it 30% is it 50% I can. So they, so they pay the same rate as everybody else. So it really just comes down to what percentage of our consumption they are which I can get you that in a second. The reason I feel like they're between 25 and third, you know, between a quarter and a third is UMass and then I don't, I don't think I have the, the kind of rough numbers for Amherst College in Hampshire. So, and the reason I bring that up is because anything we do to these rates means our higher ed institutions are also contributing to our infrastructure. And I just want to make sure that we appreciate that, but also recognize that the cost to residents gets, you know, it's yes it increases as well but the higher ed institutions also bear that same price cost. And the other thing that I want to just mention is that TSO has made a recommendation that would differ from the finance committee. So this will have to go back to TSO. And Len on your question so in the past the university and colleges were much larger percentage of our consumption. A lot of our declining. A lot of what we're seeing in declining consumption is related to the university and colleges I think just putting in more efficient systems as they put on new buildings. I think it's actually north of 40% and FY 20, which is sort of pre COVID, they were about 30%. So they are still a significant portion of our of the revenue but it's but it's getting smaller. Okay, thank you. I've been going. But actually Athena you had your hand up so I wanted to. Yeah, let me just mention that it would go back to TSO my understanding of the process would be that the recommendations from each committee go to the council and the council makes a decision there and committees would review. That's what we had discussed in the past. Okay, thank you. Yeah, I was going to say the same thing. A little bit later as the one person who's a member of both finance and TSO. I probably will report this at the next TSO meeting for information purposes, and if they decide to revisit their recommendation as a result that has to be a decision I think of the majority of the commit that committee. Also was this, did GOL finish? They've done though, they've done the water regulations but not the sewer regulations yet and they haven't done the bylaws yet. Okay, thank you. Okay I have another question but I'm going to save it because I want to honor other people Bernie. Well, one of my favorite observations is deferred maintenance means broken. My thanks to Amy and to Guilford and to Sean, our master of the spreadsheets here for focusing in on this and keeping at it. And I think Amy's observation is correct that is the federal money trickles down into the state. And this is considered small stuff. And they're not likely to not likely to fund this so as we look at what we can get for the big stuff. We should continually look to see how we can offset funds or offset expenses to put against the put it put against this replacement. Thanks. I think I'm about to say, I don't want to repeat what Bernie just said but I didn't neglect it to say I'm totally in support of the recommendations in this memo. And I thank you for putting it together. I would just like to be able when we push, bring it back to the council to add what Bob is asked for that there. There is an insurance fund and residents can do it so we're not just sweeping it under the carpet. And then my only other observation Bernie on your that the federal money trickles down to the state or that comes to the state and then it trickles down to us or whichever. I'm, I know, none of us really know what's in Ira, in terms of what water sewer infrastructure stuff could be built but I think we all we just need to be on the lookout whether some of the bigger stuff. There might be other sources of money to this giant thing that doesn't yet have regulations written to it so just to keep it on a radar screen. That's that's a comment rather than asking anyone to do anything. Paul, you're muted. Just to go back to the question about how much the cost is. External water line. It's $6 and 75 cents a month for external sewer line $7 and 75 cents a month for in home plumbing is $9 and 99 cents a month. And there's a limit $8500 per call. So, how much is your framework for how much those insurance programs cost. So, there was one other thing that I had thought about. I don't know if it's feasible or not. I just wanted to ask and that is part of the problem that homeowners who suddenly have a huge expense because they suddenly have to do a major replacement to their line is, you know, the, they have to absorb it in is an unexpected expense in the budget. Is there any thought that's ever been given there any examples of other municipalities that have allowed people to pay that additional increment over time without interest to obliterate the effect on the individual homeowner who's bearing that expense. Do you mean Andy if the town were to pay for it and then finance it for the homeowner. Yeah. And add to the bill over time as opposed to But having them just pay it. I'm not, I'm not familiar with any system like that but Amy or go for it have you heard of that. I mean something we could certainly again look into as we go forward if there's a, you know, we don't want to necessarily be in the collection business on in a new area but something we could explore. So there are other questions that anyone has from the committee at this point. If not, is there anybody who wants to make a motion. Kathy, go ahead. I'm trying to figure out how to word it Andy but thank you. We have this memo so I make, I guess my motion is that that to approve the recommendation that we move ahead with all the other regulations but not the town taking over the, and then I need wording on what that is. So in other words, we want to recommend to the council. Yes. No change in ownership of the water and sewer lines or something like that. Yes, we want to recommend to the council not to change the ownership in water and sewer lines at this time at this time. Yes, people. Yes, it does. Okay, okay. So I second. Thank you. Kathy's made the motion and Linda seconded. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I would like to recommend to the council that the council adopt the byline regulations, except for the sections that change ownership of the line from the main to the property line. And I think what we said in our last. Committee report on the subject to the council. Is that it is possible to adopt the bulk of the byline regulations and to postpone consideration of a section, which I think is essentially what the recommendation is to put it off for two years and then come back to it and revisit. Amy, you know the regulations inside and out. Can can you just not adopt a section or is it better to adopt the regulations, just without the change in ownership. I mean, you, you, I, I, I don't know that you'd want the right. It's not as easy as just we're not going to adopt this section because like I said there's trickle down effects other places. We need to take a path like I basically we need to take a pass at the regs and update language. So I might need to just be a different, a different version. I don't know if that like process wise if that's the way to go but it's not as easy as just adopting or not adopting a section because there's, there's, there's modifications elsewhere not just in the ownership section that will be impacted. But to be, I think you want the regulations to be clear about where the ownership, you want to have the ownership in the regulation so I think it would be probably better to say to adopt the regulations without the change in ownership and to be provided by Department of Public Works they can provide that version. That's it. Thanks, Andy. I was just going to suggest that the council have an initial conversation to because they're going to be conflicting recommendations from the two committees. So it might be helpful to have an initial conversation about where the council council wants to go before Amy does the work of, of all of that so that everyone kind of is an agreement before Amy goes through with all of those changes and then we can present kind of a clean version. Once there is agreement. That would be my suggestion. Thinking about doing, and I think we're maybe working into a solution along some of the lines is that I was going to talk to the chair of the committee who's currently in ECA and another member of the committee who worked closely with Amy, with his honor. And tell them about today's meeting and what's where the finance committee is and then see what they would, what their suggestion is on the TSO side. Because, you know, this is just new information that was not available to TSO. We don't know what TSO would have done with the information had they had it. But I think that the motion is clear enough that it expresses where the finance committee is based upon information that we have as committee that was not available to TSO when it was considering. I agree that that works too and I'll speak with Anika this afternoon about the next TSO agenda I can bring that up with her as well. Okay, because I don't know where we stand with meeting this week. I think his decision has to be made today. So we have a motion on the floor. Is everybody clear on what the motion is, or do we need to read back by the minute take to make sure that he has it the way that we think it should be. Bill. Yeah, can you hear me? Yeah, what do you have? Yes, I do. Can you read back exactly what you have written down for the minutes and then I want the maker of the motion Kathy and seconder Lynn to just say that yes, that's right and then we're going to proceed to above. I think it's a shame moved and grease and were seconded to recommend to the town council that they approve the recommendations that there be no change in the ownership of water sewer lines at this time. Yes. I agree with his consent. So, thank you. So, that is the motion that's on the floor. And if any other discussion, I'll look for hands for about 10 seconds. And if not, I'm going to call for a vote. Seeing no hands. I go again alphabetically as I have been. Hi. Hi. Matt. I'm going to abstain. Bernie. Concur. So it's a support. Michelle. Abstain. Kathy. Yes. I'm a yes, Alicia. She and Alicia muted, but I didn't think we heard anything. Alicia. Give a vote on the motion on the floor. She can raise her hand twice for yes, once for no. And three times for abstain. That's an abstain. Okay. I don't know if that actually counts as a bonus. I was joking. Yeah. Alicia, are you able to confirm her. I'm going to ask a question right now. Is I have the vote. The thing that I think that Kathy and I and Lynn voted yes, so that's three votes and two abstentions from the voting members so that the motion passes and then the support of two of the members who are non voting. So I think that that means that the motion has passed. Yes. Okay. So. Is there anything else that people from the committee that the committee wants to ask of. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if you heard her Amy. At this point is that. Let them get onto their other work. Can I also just Alicia was having trouble with her sound. You might need to go to the far left. And I know if it's not muted, but push the arrow. And make sure that you're using the microphone. I'm not the technology person, but that's the best I can do. Yeah, it's, it's same as your system is the thing you want to click. Is, is the easiest land. Okay. But either goes if you're still on the one from last night, we switched. We left the computer audio. So. Anyway. So Alicia is, we see her unmuting, but there's no sound coming out. So, right. And she's doesn't know why. We can't hear her. Yeah. I think if you go, there's a. Most of our. Zoom programs next to the microphone, there's a. Small arrow on the left, lower left. And I think when you. Click on that arrow, you get to the microphone selections. So. Now she's, she's going out and maybe coming back in. Okay. So in any event, I think that the basic question was. Whether there's any additional questions of Amy or Guilford. And I have seen none. So I want to. I just wanted to see if you all could hear me now. Yes. Okay. I'm not sure what just happened. But I'm hoping that my vote counted. You all got it right. So I appreciate your patience here. We voted abstain. Correct. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yes. That is how it is recorded. So the last question was. Whether there are any additional questions that members of the committee have of Guilford or Amy. Otherwise we're going to let them get on to other things. And we're going to move. To our second agenda item. A big thanks to all of you. Thank you. Guilford name. I appreciate it. Well, and I'll. I'll just say, like, you know, two things. First, Andy, if. If you guys need me at TSA, like I'm happy to continue to be as involved as I need to be to keep moving this forward. We all know this is my baby. So just let me know. And the other thing, like, even if I do have to say, rejigger the regs to change the ownership thing, knowing that this is going to be a conversation, all that effort to make the regs say this isn't going to be lost. Because I have a feeling we're going to come back. And the fact that we had this set up this way, you know, it'll make it easier, you know. If, if, you know, ultimately that decision has changed. So I don't want anybody being too overly concerned about how much work because it's not lost work in this process. I don't think. So. Okay. Well, thank you. Of course I can't predict what. TSO is good. And I think you're likely if to hear, if you hear from somebody on the committee, it'll be on a. Okay. Yes. Thank you. If you posted on the, on the TSO agenda. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. So we're ready. To move on to our other items. We definitely need to make sure, let me go back and look at the. Listing of attendees now. Could you bring in on and Mandy. Because they need to be. Part of this meeting now. Okay. Mandy, can you hear us? Can you confirm your. I'm present. And I'm not. Good morning, everyone. Nice to see you. Okay. I'll talk. I can talk to you later because it's an unrelated subject, but I don't know if you caught what was going on with the last portion of the meeting. I came in right at the end. So I was planning to, to call you after and catch up. Yes, please do so. Thank you. Yeah. That'll be easier. Okay. So we're now going to. Switch to the second subject. Of the, of the two main items. Which is the proposed special act on residential property transfer fees. And the first part of the discussion, I would like to, I think, is the just general questions that came up and I sent to you. The list of questions. Which I had. Provided also. To the two co-sponsors. And I think that Sean, you had looked at it and concluded that there were only two. Of the questions that. Had any bearing on staff ability to respond to. And the. Yeah. Why don't you talk about the answer. Just say what you need to say about those two. Sure. So the. So the question number two, can the assessor's office incorporate expected revenue from a property when making an evaluation? The short answer is. Yes, but there are some, you know, there's a lot more context to that response. And that's going to be the discussion. On Thursday with a CRC. That has also been scheduled as a finance committee meeting starting at 530, I believe. So, so the full response to that question will be Thursday at 530. And the assessor will. Have a presentation on that. And then the second part was. The piece about the homestead. The question about how many properties in the Amherst are owner occupied without a homestead exemption. So I just asked the assessor. Two seconds ago. If we have that information and the town does not. So we would have to request, submit a request to the registry of deeds to find out a, to find out, can they provide that information for every home in. In Amherst. And then we would have to sort of go through a process to figure out which ones are owner occupied or not owner occupied. So the answer to that question is we don't have a quick way of doing it. We would have to do some research and work with the registry of deeds. Okay. And though the other one that I had mentioned was. Question nine. I didn't. What I said in my response. Went to. Sean, when he brought it up was his possibility that. Paul may have additional comments about the relationship with our legislators. And that. Therefore they might. But otherwise. Maybe I'll see if. Mandy or. I have. Any responses to other questions. And how you would like to proceed. To. Respond to those questions. I guess our question would be, do you want us to just go down the questions? Or. Have committee members ask specific ones that they're still curious about, because we can just go down and answer some of them. If that's how you want us to proceed. Unless. Unless I see a hand go up from member of the committee with. If I see a hand go up from member of the committee. If I ask to do something different. We should just go through the questions. In order. Because they were provided by committee members. And it was. A matter of trying to. Get the information. Get the questions to you in advance and to the staff in advance. And then if there are additional questions. If there are additional questions. Okay. Do you want me to just sort of go through and then you can add anything I miss. Yeah, that'd be great. I'm in the car. So I don't have the document up. Excellent. Okay. So question number one. Question number one was whether we could seek legislation that would enable the council to adopt a bylaw that may vary from specific language of that legislation. So. Our belief is that no, we can't, if the legislation passes, if the special act passes any bylaw, we enact has to conform to that legislation, just like any bylaw we enact has to conform to any state law. We can't contradict it. And it's one of the reasons though, that we are seeking a special act that is. As general as possible. So that it gives us as much leeway as possible in any future bylaw. We were to adopt. So that we have. You know, as, as much flexibility as we can, any mandatory exemption we put in a special act must be in a bylaw. Can't be changed unless we go back to the legislature. So we only want to put any exemptions in the special act that we are sure we would never want to change. Or that we think are necessary for the special act to pass. Would be another way to say it also similar to similarly any distribution that we put in a special act can't be changed. So if there's some way we would want to just distribute it that maybe in the future we want to change. We want it general in the special act and specific in the bylaw. Are there any questions on that before I move on? Seeing none. Sean answered question number two about the assessor's office. We'll talk about that at CRC on Thursday. Question number three was about. When tax changes. That there's studies out there that when tax changes. Increase. Well, when tax rates increase. Rents tend to rise. To absorb 80 to 90% of those tax payments. And the question then was what mechanisms are put in place to avoid landlords passing the transfer fee on to renters. And so again, that's a bylaw issue. That's not necessarily the special act issue. But. And so we would say. That needs more study or potential more research at the time of bylaw would be enacted instead of right now. But. Property tax changes or yearly changes. Is one response we would have. Whereas, you know, when our property tax rises every year on our own homes. Or on the rental properties in town, that rise. In costs. Is every year. A yearly expense. Like a mortgage or like that property tax, but the fee we are proposing under the special act is a one time fee. It's similar to a fee you might pay in closing costs to, you know, the, the, to, to, you know, to. I think I had fees to pay for the oil in my tank. I had fees to pay for the registration of the deed. I had fees to pay the attorney. Those were one time fees. And so we are not sure that one time fees. Would be annually put into a rental payment. Versus that mortgage payment. Over 30 years is figured out a way to put in over 30 years. Mortgage, well, mortgage is a yearly expense, but, but a one time expense can be distributed over 30 or 40 years or absorbed. And we just don't know what would happen with that. Similarly is that's our similar answer to the number four question, which is about commercial rents. Is there any evidence that tax increases on rental properties affect rents on those properties? So yearly tax increase. Is that our expenses incurred year after year. The assumption is that they do, but a one time fee. Like we are proposing in the special act may or may not be absorbed. By the landlord or may or may not be passed on. That's a lot harder to determine. So those are answers basically to questions three and four. Andy. Yeah. The only thing I want to point out is that. When I looked at the two studies, the. MIT study, which was from another member of the committee had sent that in. It. Was focusing on. The commercial. Rents. So that's where the, that. Those numbers came. From a study that was focusing in that direction. Then I looked at the. To see if there were other studies that had to do with residential. Which is where the case state. Study. The one that's. The second. Listed link. Has to do with. The subject of residential. But I think what you're saying. In combination. After that clarification. Is still lit. Both of them were talking about. Not real estate taxes. But one. Time transfer fees. And that applies to both. Bernie. You muted the. Yeah. Right. I mean the, the MIT study. Was. The answer to the MIT study is, is actually maybe. Because any landlord who's in a competitive. Or in a strong enough position is going to try to get it net. At least where. All the property tax increases are absorbed by the, by the renter. And again, this is related to a commercial property. And if you have a net, at least in the commercial property, you can get preferable. Rates. Borrowing. It doesn't. It doesn't. Again, it doesn't impact a one time fee on a limited range of residential. The second study, the Kansas one. Was kind of interesting because it sort of proves that it's cloudy when it rains. When you raise real estate taxes, you're going to raise, you're going to raise rates. And again, this is a one time fee. And what it overlooks is, you know, this is a study of a number of communities in the Midwest. College, towns have a somewhat different. I just lost my notes here on my screen. College towns have a little bit of a different economy to them. Property, residential properties in college towns. Typically, typically carries about a 10% premium. Over non-college towns. In college towns with lots of conservation property. Have. Another premium. So. It really doesn't address the Amherst market. And again, this is not an ongoing expense. It's a one time fee. So these were nice finds, but not relevant. Thank you. Some of this will come back up in the third discussion on Thursday. When we meet together with CRC. The. Whole question. Has come up because of, you know, the one. Suggestion that we look at this. And. You know, it's really. It goes a little bit beyond. Just the transfer fee discussion. So going back to Mandy. We're on question five, I believe. Question five. And question five was about whether this is double taxation because Massachusetts has a real estate transfer tax. Or known as a deed recording tax in some. Instances paid to. Well paid at the time of sale. I'm not sure exactly. I think it's paid to the registrar registry. But it goes to the state. And so, you know, our response to that is it's not double taxation. From the point of view of. You know, not allowable double taxation in the sense that we have meals taxes. Lodging taxes. Cannabis low taxes that all have both state taxes. And local taxes on them. And so if this were to be considered a tax, we would respond that it operates in the same manner that meals, lodging and cannabis taxes do where the state authorizes the town to adopt a local option tax. And that's what essentially our special act is asking for. Asking the state to allow us to opt into a local. Transfer fee. Call it a fee, call it a tax, but it would be allowed by the state. In the same manner that the other local taxes we've opted into. Have been. Which takes me to number six, which the question was. Should the voters need to vote on this? So that's what we're asking for. Should the voters need to vote on this? So those local option taxes are adopted by the town legislature. I think in a town meeting form, they might have actually been adopted by the select board, not even the legislature, but nowadays they're adopted by the town council. The town council adopted, I believe, the cannabis local option tax. We would adopt the local option meals and lodging. If there were any changes to that, there are other proposed local option taxes at the state level right now that if they passed, it would be up to the town council to adopt or not adopt them. As the town's legislature. And so our response to question six is that. This special act would be treating the transfer fee the very same way. State laws treat local option taxes on how they're adopted and how they're not adopted. And then frankly, how other fees in town are adopted. It's the town council that adopts most fees in town, including you guys were just discussing the water and sewer rates fees in some sense. You know, and without necessarily a vote by the voters. So. Any questions on our responses to items five and six. Seeing none, I'll move on to number seven, which is the bill. And then they move out and then create a rental for a number of years. And there was a question about, is there a grace period during which that rental property is treated as an owner occupied property. So our special. Special act for the transfer fee would apply only upon transfers. So if the property is never sold. The fee is never paid. Whether or not the bylaw that would have been eventually be actually transferred the property, there is no fee. So a, if I have my home and I move out and I begin renting it. I don't pay a fee. There's no grace period because there's no fee due because I haven't changed the ownership of the property. If after seven or eight years. Of it being a rental, I decide to sell it. Depending on how the bylaws written depends on whether. It depends on whether that a fee would be due at that point. And whether it would be the full fee or half of a fee. Because of my side versus the buyer side, it would all depend on how the bylaws written, but there would be no fee upon change of use because change of use is not. The criteria for determining. The fee and the payment of the fee. It's change of ownership. I don't have any questions on that one. I'll move on to eight, which was the homestead exemption. Sean answered that there's no quick way of doing it. We said we don't know, but we did think about some examples where there may not be a homestead exemption by an owner occupied. Property. And the example we would give is my neighbor who owns the property and occupies it about seven or eight weeks a year. Because it's a second home. And once every six to eight weeks, the owner comes in and visits and then leaves and no one occupies at the rest of the year. And it's still owner occupied, but since it's a second home, it probably does not have a homestead exemption. I don't know whether it does, but our guess would be that that's an example of owner occupied homes that do not have homestead exemptions, second homes. That's the best we could do with number eight. And with that, I'll move on to number nine, which is a question about Senator Comaford and Representative Dom, knowing that we as a, that this proposed special act retains the option not to enact the bylaw, should the legislation be enacted? And the answer to that is they are aware of that. We are not the only community whose special act proposal operates that way instead of operating with an automatic institution of the transfer fee upon adoption or upon third, most of them, if they do it at that without that option, they do it effective 60 days or 120 days, or after the special act passes and is signed by the governor. But that's only a subset of the number of special acts. We are in the other subset that have the acts effective immediately, but require further council action or town meeting action to actually institute the fee, because the fee is up to a certain amount and is determined by future bylaw. Any questions to follow up on what's been presented in response to the questions we assembled in advance? If not, are there other questions that members of the committee have or comments that members of the committee have at this point? Kathy. Let me just try and figure out how to frame it, Mandy. I appreciate that the, this is as general as we can be to get approval for this. Do you anticipate a pushback from we have not put in that we would exempt any property under X, you know, this would only apply to transfers of properties over X or Y or whatever the threshold because one of the things you said that are in the places that have done this, they had that feature. So I don't know whether there's a way to get a reading. I think that's a good idea. So I'm not advocating putting it in. And I certainly think when we talk about it at the council level or public level, we should say that's the intent in the bylaw to do that as you, as you have. So it's really a question of what we haven't put in the bylaw. Will we, will we be challenged? So for example, that people don't want the transfer fee to apply to, you know, not that we're selling any properties in Amherst with houses on them of $200,000 or $150,000, you know, that they want some minimum threshold that it wouldn't apply to. So, so that's a question. And then, you know, I don't know where farms come in, you know, all of this. So is the way this is framed. You know, they, but would, would our bylaw protect farmers if one farm wants to change to another ownership? I know this language said if it's a son, daughter, a cousin's inheriting the farm, that would be fine. So those are just two separate places that if we don't have to be specific in this, that's fine. But if we get asked about impact in Amherst, I want to be able to have the answers to. I think Mandy, if I can jump in really quickly, I think something on your first question, you know, Joe, Mindy, Mandy and myself, God, that's a hard sense is we've been in regular contact regarding this. And I know Mindy specifically is speaking to some of the legislators who have brought this forward for other towns. So, you know, they've been very well appraised of our process and our progress. And I think that if things come up that they, they want the home rolls that we want to pass to pass, right. And so I think that if something comes up in their conversations with other legislators that they're going to tell us, hey, take this into consideration, we will, we will bring that back to the council, right, before it's passed. And so we'll definitely bring that forward to them in terms of whether or not we're going to be able to do that. Do you see a problem with the way that we're doing this? Not having a minimum in there. It's specified in the special act. But thus far it hasn't been an issue. The second part of your question. Ooh, anybody else struggling with that five hours of sleep saying the second part of your question. Oh, farms. So the, the farm question, I mean, that could be something that we specify in the bylight could be either by zoning or by the agricultural restriction. I think that there are opportunities in the bylaw to exempt farms if that's something that the council ultimately believes should be part of that bylaw. Mandy, did I miss anything? No, I was going to say the same thing about farms. I think that would depend on how they're categorized as, as Anna was saying and something we could deal with in the bylaw. But I wanted to say. So there are a couple of special acts are, there's a special act that does not put in exemptions say over certain thresholds is not unusual for the special acts in, in the state house that were in the state house last session. We're in the process of refiling, right? Many people are refiling if they have to refile the special acts, but, but for example, Brookline has, you know, they do have a first 500,000 would be exempted from the fee. But when you look at Arlington Arlington's is there's a range of, you know, a range that transfers for less than 50% to 150% of the state medium sale as determined, you know, are exempt. So there's ranges in some of these, right? And so not every special act. Has a specific range. Provincetown from what I can briefly, I'm trying to go through some of these quickly has no range. So they do have a range of, they do have a range of transfer of any real property interest in any property situated in the town of P town, and then they do some exemptions. But their basic first sentence is the same as our first sentence in our special act. So it's, it's not an unusual thing to not put in something because some do it. Some special acts are there for. To try and impose a transfer fee over a certain threshold. And like, you know, in so 200% of AMI or something like that, but other transfer fee special acts have been put in not to impose a transfer fee for properties that cost or sell, sell for over a certain threshold, they've put it in for properties that are not owned or occupied, no matter the threshold. So it really just depends on what each individual town's goal has been. And Anna's and I's goal is to sort of do a combination of those two, the non occupies at any threshold and owner occupies or any, any residential above a certain threshold. And so that's why we've left it so general, but it just depends on what each town has been doing. And that's the bylaw side of it. Not that. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Andy. These are maybe questions for down the road, but they come up from different circumstances. I've observed in section two, you talk about exempting of transfers to or from. The federal government, the Commonwealth, the town or entities and so forth. In the town of Amherst, I'm aware of at least one property. I don't know what its value is that was given to the university. Now, that's a gift. But it was, you know, a very worthwhile gift and it took it off the tax rolls. And, you know, it sits there. I'm also aware of another property that the people who live there intend upon their demand. To also give it to the university. And at what point do these properties. That may have seriously high value. You know, it sounds as if they would be exempt. And yet not only are they being transferred. To a nonprofit and being taken off the tax rolls. But they're high value properties that we will therefore. Not get this fee for at all. So that's my first question. So I'll, I'll try to tackle that one. Good one. We did not come across a single special act that was proposed that did not have this full out exemption in about transfers to or from the federal government or the Commonwealth. Let alone municipalities and all. And so it is our belief that without that exemption in there, our special act would have absolutely no chance of passing. Because, you know, the state's the state, right? They don't want to pay fees to municipalities, no matter. Why? Yeah. It's, it's an interesting. I'm going to say it loophole. Okay. I'm curious what other measures separate from this might be approached, but I think that like Mandy said, it needs to be separate from the special acts because I, I don't think that we're, I mean, this is already a tough one at the state level, right? We're fighting a lot. So it's, I think keeping that in there for now is going to be necessary. And the second question, which goes directly. I mean, it's straightforward. Our son has a special needs trust. Upon our demise or the sale of our home. The proceeds of that will go to the special needs trust. I don't normally. I don't. Discuss my estate issues with people, but I have no idea whether our house at this point or in the future will fall under this law. But what you basically are saying to me is. Since it's not going to transfer him to him directly. Because the property won't remain in the trust. That I'm, we're going to have to deduct from that. What we're going to transfer to the trust. Is that correct? I'm trying to find the section that I think Mandy is looking for at the same time. And she's not on her phone. It's under six. It gets into real property. Definitely. I should pause just for a second. My intent was this, but we got past general questions. That we would. Need to pull up the. Proposed. Specialization. And actually put it on the screen. And discuss it section by section. So because if we're going to recommend it, I think that the committee has to focus on it. It's only two pages. For that. Right. Just really quickly. I'm going to jump on now that I'm home on my computer. So Sean, I'll be back in a second. Will you let me in from the audience again. And what I would say to you, Lynn is that's an exemption that's in the, you know, I wouldn't even call it an exemption. By law, a sample by law. And you are right. It's in the sample by law. It's under do one. Six. I'm not sure why our numbering is kind of weird like that. It's not something that's dealt with in the special act. So it's something that could probably be. Again, discussed in more detail. You know, the way I read six, I don't actually know the answer to it because I'm not a trust in a state lawyer, but I would actually say number six might cover your situation. Potentially. Right. You know, sort of already in there for thoughts like that, but we'd have to delve into the actual language that is. Potentially already being considered as part of this sample that we put forward of intention. To answer that, but that's the by law side. That's not the special act side. I mean, in many ways this builds on. An issue that Bob has raised from the beginning, you know, I bought a home many years ago. It's basically my major asset. I now need to sell that home because I'm. Moving into Applewood or whatever the case may be. And but you know, it's in that category. Thank you. And I know that that's a, that's a tough one. And I think that, you know, there's so many different soap boxes. We could go down about how that exact problem is. Totally screwing up our whole real estate market nationwide, but I think that it, that is the reality. And it's still, I would, my argument would be that the vast majority of people, you know, that would be my argument. And I think that's the reality. And it's still, I would, my argument would be that the vast majority of sales that would fall under this are still significant assets for their. Sellers despite a one or two percent fee. That would be, that would be my argument. And it, but I recognize that that is a, that is a tough part for, of this for people. I want to make sure I have the right. Yeah. I think that is the revised one. And I can, you can tell if you look at section. Three. Yep. It's the correct one. That is the correct one. It is because section three has the change that the housing trust. Which is a topic that I want to discuss and. Focus on when we get there, but. Why don't we go back up to the top. If we're getting, if we're making this shift. And see if there's any questions about. Introductory to paragraphs or. Section one. And we'll just. Give a moment for. Committee members to. Review it again. And then. I'll look for hands. Happy. So I. I don't really have. Questions on the special act. And, you know, I braced them. I think. The explaining any of this to. Our hammers. Residents. Has much more to do with. What the possible bias is. And so I think that. The. Residents. Has much more to do with. What the possible by-law might be. So even, you know, the question Lynn just raised. If I look at your special act section two. Last little Roman numeral five is transfers between family members, as maybe defined by by-law, you know, that if you're. You're trying to make sure your kids get your house. They are going to live in the house or just sell the house then. But I think these are the kind of questions we're going to be getting in terms of. How much am I protected or not protected? And I actually do agree with you, Anna, that the. The percent we're talking about. Is not going to so dilute the value of that asset that it stops from being protected. So I, I. So I'll stop there. So it's the special act. And my understanding is we have to move soon on the special act. And we can. Go on forever on the contents of the by-law, which may well happen in terms of reaching any agreement on what the contents are. So it's. Because that's where people are going to really be pushing for a certain amount of money. And I'm not sure whether we come in at half a percent, you know, all of all of all of the above. So I'm just going to stop there because I think this. I agree at the general, the generalness of the way this is written. And as all of you know, I think the town needs money. So the allocating this directly piece of it to the affordable property. This is trying to make housing more affordable in Amherst. He's good. So I'll stop. I'm in favor of this as written. So I'm going to go on to credit to section. Three. Somebody has a question about what it got before three. Yeah. I wanted to actually talk about section two and number. First of all, I don't understand why that's there because it's. One hundred dollars or less or. Less than one hundred dollars a transfer. Doesn't that, isn't that excluded in general? And secondly. Why one hundred dollars? I mean, I did a transfer for exactly $100. We could have done it for $99, but we did it for 100. So I don't understand why that's even in there. So the list of exemptions in section 2 is basically the exact list that is in every special act we looked at. So all eight or nine of them and they all had $100. So we went with what everyone else had. I will say I had the same thought as you, Bob. Most of the sort of transfers for putting it into a trust, changing the trust, things like that are all $100, but they all, every single special act had the consideration under $100. I believe the idea is that it covers the type of property transfers that are considered gifts. So when people do it for a dollar or $99, like you said, I agree that 100 does feel like a pretty arbitrary number. And I suppose that I don't have any problem with being flexible on that particular number. We can make it 101, but I do believe that the intention there is to cover property transfers that are considered more of gifts. So I mean, if you look at our property transfer records, you'll see a number that were sold for a dollar. Not that many, but a few. Yeah, just so, yeah. That's what we did years ago. And then when we did it recently, it was $100. So it's a little arbitrary anyway. It is a little arbitrary. I think this is, the idea was that this covered most of what people typically would utilize when they were gifting property. But again, if you transfer for $100, you're not subject to any tax, right? So I think that the idea here is that, well, I suppose if you were transferring to be a rental, this would exempt you because the way that we wrote our sample by-law hypothetically, it's on the full purchase price. So this could exempt folks who sell a rental property to another landlord for under $100. That would be the small gap that this creates. I think what this also does is shows the legislature that regardless of where we set our limit, we are exempting gifts of property under a certain amount. I'm calling them gifts because I feel like that's my understanding of why someone would do this. But I think this is to say, because we're allowing ourselves regulation by-law, we're still going to allow people to gift property. So why not increase it to some nominal amount? Well, what I was gonna say is we could leave the $100 in here because it's the standard language of every special act we've looked at. But it does not prohibit us in the by-law from turning that number from 100 to 200. We can't lower it from 100 to 99. But the by-law could increase it from 100 to 200 or from up to 500 or some number that tracks some sort of inflation as things. As Bob said, it used to be, a lot of times they were a dollar and now they seem to be standardized at 100 for some reason, right? And so it could track that in the by-law, it would never be able to go less than 100. So whatever number is put in here, it can never go less than that. But it could always go higher than that in a by-law. Bob, do you have a number in mind that you think would, that's coming? I'm curious if 100 feels too low, if there's something that you think- It just doesn't make any sense. It would not be subjected. You're saying that the sale price is $100. It makes no sense. It's like, it's throwing something in there that's completely irrelevant. Yeah, I think it's a reassurance to the legislature to be on. That's my understanding because they aren't seeing our by-law, but I do understand how it could be perceived as not relevant. I mean, you're just gonna change everybody gifting to $99 rather than $100. I mean, it's just an arbitrary number and it makes no sense. That's all. I understand your issue with how it's worded with the state and that's fine, but just make sure everybody understands this. So, I mean, what would happen if you had a gift for $100? Would you tax the entire price? It would be a $2 tax if it didn't get exempted from some other reason in the by-law. Watch out, Sean, that capital improvement fund. It's gonna get hit with $2 everywhere. But yeah, that's correct. But if it were, if most likely, like you said, it would be exempted elsewhere. It would have to fit that specific niche in order to apply. So the other question is, what is the cost in staff time and other expenses in the finance department to collect a $2 fee? I think that, you know, my estimate is that the likelihood of folks selling what is a revenue generator for them in a rental property to someone else who is going to utilize it as a revenue generator for under $100 will happen very infrequently. And so, you know, I mean, I think we can, I think it's a really interesting hypothetical, but I think the reality is that this will not happen often. And so I don't actually think that the staff time for collecting those specific fees who have managed to not be exempted anyway will be that great. Andy, on this issue, Bernie may also. So what I'm gathering is this section two, the way you've written it is very similar to what you've seen in other municipalities. And so in some ways it's like, we're coming into the legislature with basically sections of this that we think are gonna be common across all of them. It takes away that negotiation piece and leaves open possibly other negotiation pieces. Which, and I don't wanna discount the importance of that when, you know, this type of home role is, I mean, there's no easy home role. We've seen that, right? But I think showing that there are commonalities and that it's important that each community has slightly different needs is really important. So having a general foundation and underpinning that legislators have seen before that they're familiar with, it helps. And that's my opinion, but I believe it helps, will help. And I would just say, as I said, we can't, if you look at the last paragraph of section we can't eliminate or reduce these exemptions, but we can increase them so that 100 can, when we're looking at a bylaw to actually enact and pose the fee, it could be turned to, as Andy said, 10,000 because of costs to implement a fee that's under 10,000, right? And again, it goes to the bylaw. Okay. Ernie. I want to start by saying I got my law education from Google University, and I'm not a lawyer, so poor salt on this, but I believe the answer to this question is somewhere in general law, chapter 64D, which governs paying transfer taxes. So if, you know, the, if the people want to go ahead and check that or talk to someone who does a lot of property law, that would be helpful. So if it doesn't make any sense, it's probably because it's buried in the general laws. And if you want something, you need to pay attention to the general laws. You can't violate those in any special act. So my guess is if, if we're, we've got the $100 there, it's because it nods to chapter 64D. They're really good point, Bernie. I don't know that. Off the top of your head, we went to the same law school. So I will, I'll confirm that though. I didn't move on to second to section three and we keep referring to other communities that have these and still haven't sent the document that you were going to send. Are there towns, cities or towns that already have special legislation and have enacted a program for real estate transfer fee, or is it still all pending legislation, special act requests? I believe that the successful one has been Nantucket, but it was a slightly different one where they created a transfer fee that goes to a land bank. So it's much more for conservation versus housing. That's my understanding. I believe this is still very much the good fight at the state level. Mandy, do you have a different understanding? That's my understanding too. So nobody, no towns we can really talk to about their experience in administering a program. Section three. Hang on, sorry, just, just if I can briefly, Andy. Oh my gosh, sorry. My computer has been so glitchy. Well, there are no necessarily within none, within Massachusetts. If folks are interested, this is something that's very common around the country. And so there are areas that there are cities across the US that have done this and could be, oh, sorry, I look like an old TV show could be spoken to. And I can try to, I can try to pull some if you, if you'd really like me to, but this is not something that is unique to Massachusetts. And in fact, in other states, it's very, in some other states, it's very commonplace. Okay, that's helpful. I don't know. I think at this point, I would care more about that when we get to the bylaw stage. If we have the permission to get to the bylaw stage. And the goal right now is to see if we can come to agreement on special legislation, the file that would get us there. So I don't think that it's an issue that needs to come up right away. Section three, I have. I guess strong disagreement with the, with the affordable housing trust has suggested. Because I think it is important for us to recognize that Kathy has been saying all along about the gen, the extent of the problems that exist within the town. In not having revenue growth that in the consequences, which affect all that we do, including affordable housing, but everything else that we do. And including education, for example. And so I feel like we've already in the special act. By allocating a portion that is named. But I just don't like the idea of having it included in the section for additional funds. I think that is always available to the council. And the council can, can, can make any appropriate appropriation. But I don't know that. Calling it out. Is fair to all of the other needs within the community and it's, you know, an advocate group that is speaking from a particular. Perspective, but, you know, there are lots of others that could make that request and do it validly. Like our schools. So I just want to say that I am concerned about that. Yeah, I, I hear that concern, Andy. I think. My most recent conversations specifically with Mindy about this really are emphasizing the need to keep it in. We are one of, I believe, if only a few that are including allocations outside of the trust. So many of the special acts that have been filed have the entirety of the revenue going automatically to the housing trust. I agree with you that we have much stronger. We have much stronger. We have other pressing needs in Amherst where this revenue would be very necessary. But my concern is actually just in keeping those in there at all and having the legislature be okay with it. And so my, I think that having the housing trust be one of the three that it could be. And again, we by by law determine that split. Which is important to note. I think that there's a really strong reason why general funds could be strongly these have been tied to housing because they have to do with housing. So while I understand where you're coming from, especially, you know, I think that. There's no reason why general funds couldn't go to housing. I think that there's, there's a really strong case for keeping it in there. In terms of demonstrating that this is. I think that there's a strong reason why general funds could be strongly based on the fact that housing is, is stabilizing and increasing affordable opportunities. Yeah. I guess I don't like the idea of it being done by by law. I think it should be done by annual appropriation. And, but let's go on and have a broader conversation. Matt. Thanks, Andy. And yeah, this is a very broad question. And. Others I really appreciate all the work that's gone into this. And I think it is, you know, potentially a really great revenue stream. And, and I'm just going to give my, and I, I really just, I don't have a great understanding of the entire. By law. So. Special legislation and by law, but, but I want to just make sure that I'm understanding the, the core argument, which is. You know, that there is that concern about the. The cost being passed on to renters. And I want to make sure I understand that the core argument is that this is not a regressive. Fee or tax because, because most of our affordable housing. We see the renters who are most directly affected by this as not being renters who are accessing affordable housing, but folks who are accessing rental properties for other reasons. So I guess I'm kind of making an assumption here, but I'm just making an assumption here, but I'm just making an assumption here, but I'm just making an assumption here, because in some of those questions that, that, you know, this fee does get passed through into the rent. And so it does raise the rent on, on most rental property in town. You know, outside of the affordable housing zone. And so I guess I would ask, you know, first. If that, if that's accurate, that's how, you know, we're characterizing this. And then second, you know, I guess. You know, ultimately this is raising the rent on. And so, you know, what are some of the downstream implications of that, you know, have we talked to folks in the university who work on housing matters, you know, I don't know what, what are some of the implications there in terms of our ongoing partnership with the universities. Those are probably broad and probably have more assumptions baked into them than, you know, anybody's comfortable with, but I just wanted to kind of put that out there as my, that's kind of where my pondering sit right now. Matt, I think it's interesting to your first point, I believe that the way we have drafted or the draft of our, I'm looking quickly. So, so we number two in section two Roman numeral two transfers of real property subject to an affordable housing restriction would be exempted from this. So yes, affordable. Anything that holds an affordable housing restriction would not be subjected to any sort of fee. The second question is interesting, I think one, it does make the assumption and I, I challenge this assumption that this would lead to a rise in rents in, in over the course of, or across town. And so I think, you know, when we look at that, like Mandy said earlier, 30 year, or a one time fee over a 30 year mortgage looks a lot different than an annual increase or an annual fee for the life of that mortgage. So I also think, you know, we, to be realistic, I think that this is a being a being having a rental property is, is a business in a lot of ways, right? It's a revenue generator for an individual or a few individuals. And so they're going to charge what they can charge, regardless of what we do in a lot of senses. And so I think that a one time fee, while it may, while it may impact, I think that that impact would be less, a lot less than if this were an annual, because if you look at a 1% or a 2% fee of the, of a purchase price and spread it over 30 years, it's, it's very different than if you were looking at a 2% increase every year. That was a little rambly, but I hope it, I hope it helps respond. Yeah, I agree with your honor. Though I do want to point out that the finance committee may want to come back to this issue. When we get into the question of fee proposals rated related to rental registration, because that will be an ongoing fee as opposed to a one time. And how landlords react to ongoing expenses as opposed to one time expenses is likely to be very different. I can't say it was certainty because I'm not in the business myself. No evidence of it, but that is something that we will need to reconsider and return to at that point. Yeah, I agree with that. Bernie, I see your hand up. Thanks, Andy. I want to concur with Andy's concerns. This being done by, by by law, rather than by annual act of the, the, the council. I also want to raise concerns that. Well, it's, it's all well and good to be focused on affordable housing. In terms of the housing situation in town, there isn't a explicit lack of affordable middle class housing. It's very difficult for us. Young families to, of reasonable means to relocate into Amherst. And, and, and stay. We can see that in terms of our dropping our dropping school enrollments. So to refer back to the paper from the university of Kansas that was. Included in the questions. That paper suggests that one of the ways that you can make property more affordable is by. Not privileging certain types of property and raising, using that to raise revenues that will then go to cover other expenses and in effect, lower taxes. So money that isn't that this is collected here that's going to go offset offset capital needs will help. Stabilizer maybe even. Miracles happen, lower tax rates, which would also benefit the, the renters. I also think that we shouldn't assume that. Because someone is renting that they're necessarily a low, a person of low income. So I think that that could well be that, you know, not everybody. Not everybody feels compelled to own property. For one, and for two, there's a difference, I think, between someone who settled into Amherst for the long term. And is renting because they can't afford to buy into housing. Against someone who's transient who's here for three or four years and it's going to move on. So it's, it'll get, I'll get off my soapbox and thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I just responded to that real quick. I certainly didn't. And I apologize if I miss. If I came across the wrong way, I certainly did not mean to make any implication about what a renter is or is not in terms of their income level. I was pointing out what on a healthly clarified, which is, you know, that, that this is. This explicitly sidesteps, you know, impacting affordable housing rent costs. That's the goal. One of the many goals. Yeah, so I just wanted to respond to Andy and. And Bernie. With, you know, I think this is one of the sections that Anna and I, and Anna will surely correct me if she doesn't believe the same thing. Have said needs discussed and needs agreed upon. We put it in the, we put the allocation originally between the stabilization fund and the general fund. We put it in a bylaw allocation so that that number could be. Modified and didn't have to always be say an even split or didn't always have to be 25, 75 of remaining or something, because once it's in the special act, it's stuck. Because we're just assuming if we get this special act passed through the legislature and the governor, it's never changing. Is the assumption we're operating on. And so. That's why we put it there as a bylaw allocation. The AMH team made some decent arguments as to why they should potentially have some potential share of that. Their goal would be a one-third share. I don't believe Anna and I ever agreed to that. We said that's a discussion for when a bylaw comes through. And so that's a discussion for when a bylaw comes through. What I would say is if finance wants something different or once it out of the bylaw and into the special act, that is something that could be done and the language could be found. You know, that's it. If finance wants that finance recommends it out, right? That way. I will say of the 10 communities. That. Have filed special acts. One, two, three, four, five of them give it a hundred percent to the housing trust. One gives it a hundred percent to a housing fund for the purpose of creating and preserving affordable and or attainable housing in the town, which is up to 200% under their definition in the special act. In the town, the town says 250,000 to the capital improvement stabilization fund with the remains to the general fund. So again, not and Brookline is quote projects related to affordable housing. Well fleet is 50,000 to the capital improvement stabilization fund remains to the housing trust. And then there's Boston. So of eight, eight of the 10. Projects related to affordable housing. They don't need to change any of their allocations. They've put it in the special act specifically. With no ability to change. Brookline's got this projects related to affordable housing. Without where it goes other than that. And then there's Boston, which puts it all into the neighborhood trust unless by ordinance. And then there's random wording that basically says unless by ordinance. So they're projects designed to address housing disparities and they've got a whole list. So Boston also does it by ordinance potentially. That's the angle we took. If finance doesn't like it. We could finance could recommend a different way. But it would need to decide what the split is within the special act between the various. The first $250,000 is. Has been in the proposed special life for a while. Automatically going to the affordable housing trust. You know, I think the question then obviously comes to the balance above 250. In any given year. Frankly, I think it should go to the general fund. For. Allocation by the council through the budget process. It is deemed appropriate. Which can include the. Affordable housing trust destabilization. Fund or other purpose. Is there a reason why we couldn't put in the bylaw that that would be revisited annually by the council, but that allocation. Would be revisited on an annual basis. The 250,000 or. No, the, you, we had talked. Yeah. I mean, yes. And the general split. We had talked about it being regulated by bylaw, but you, Andy, you had said that, you know, your concern would be that it would be set by bylaw and then set. And I think if we could. Write something in any future bylaw that. Lynn's got thoughts. Bylaw, of course, is whatever you put in an allocation of bylaw. To change a bylaws or complex process. And a, and a division of a fee. Sorry. I don't know. Kathy and Lynn, I think both have thoughts on this. Yeah. John has his hand. This is a easy one. And I'm just checking to see if there's interest. Would it be helpful to know if the. The fee could be deposited in the community preservation act fund instead of. The affordable housing. I don't know the answer to it and I can find out if anyone is interested in that as an alternative to the housing trust. Obviously if it went into the CPA fund and that's, that's a way that it's not available. That has the option to go to the housing trust at that point still, or it could be used for other CPA eligible purposes, but it would still go through a, it would still put it within a council, make it an annual decision as opposed to being an automatic type thing. I would really caution the committee for moving more away from affordable housing. I think that the. The more that we push this away from funding, going to affordable housing, I think that's a good question. I'm just going to say that the budget of the fund is dropping its chances in the legislator. That's my understanding. But I appreciate that creative thinking, Sean. So I would say right now the sample by law. Has, you know, because it's a sample, the remaining funds collected each fiscal year shall be deposited in equal amounts into the town of Amherst capital improvement stabilization fund and general fund. As Anna was saying, some, some sample by law or some future by law. I think that's a good question. I think that's a good question. I think that could, could figure out, or maybe the special act could say, you know, there's probably a way to say. You know, something shall be deposited in the capital improvement. These, these funds. In accordance with a council's. Annual budget or some wording like that could probably go into the by law instead of. The way it says right now in the sample by law. With the sample by law go to the legislature as part of this process. I would have thought not. Not, not in the intent right now. Just the special act would. So the sample by law would have to deal with all three. If we leave the AMHT in the second half of it. But Andy just real quick on that same topic. I mean, there's no shortage of capital needs, right? We know there's going to be lots of capital needs in the future. And the council, if, if it felt that the capital stabilization fund was building up too high because of this. Fee. It could always just decrease how much is available for capital. In the, from. For cash capital. So there's, there's other mechanisms where the council, if they felt like we had plenty in the, in the capital stabilization fund, which I don't think you ever will. But if you ever did feel like there was plenty there. The offset would be to look at how much we're putting into capital on the cash capital side through the capital improvement program. Yeah. Sean said most of what I was just going to say that I, if we can, Mandy, if we can fix these draft by law language to leave some flexibility on this, on annual. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. I think that's a good idea. That's a good idea. Yeah. And I think that's a good approach to leave some flexibility on this on annual. I think similarly. The way I think of the affordable housing trust, seeing that it comes to CPA every year, asking for 500,000. You know, if it was getting funded. It allows more CPA money for other needs. So this year it was cut. actually more fungible than this makes it look I think this is a good selling point that we're trying to fund if this is a about housing and Andy on the you know the allocation if they can write the bylaw that way since every year we're figuring out whether it's eight percent nine percent ten percent of general revenues is going to capital if there was another source that was funding capital then the general fund gets a breather on this I think we've got a lot of discretion because that's an annual decision we haven't prejudged um in perpetuity ten percent ten point five so I feel like as long as the bylaw doesn't tie the hands may the actual bylaw you know doesn't say you know x percent x percent x percent allows as determined annually by the council I think that would be a much better way of going that the bylaw enables the flexibility so that that's just my view because I think it is a selling point potentially even to the broader public that we're trying to stabilize housing in airmers we're not trying to make it more expensive so we'll stop there. Andy I have my hand up. Yes go ahead. What I'm hearing I keep focusing on the special legislation and I realize that I haven't focused enough on the bylaw but the reality is it's the special legislation that we need to move forward on and in fact I just I need to go back and check with Mindy but they even want a placeholder filed as early as the 20th of this month. You said it's okay if we can get it to council ideally on the 23rd or the following meeting if there is no deadline for home rolls specifically. Okay the main thing is that I'm hearing from Mandy Joe and Anna and that is that to be in the game of the discussion at the state level this affordable housing stuff still needs to be present that but I think I'm actually very much in agreement with Andy's point of view about wanting the greatest flexibility each year to decide where things go but that's a bylaw. I I think the question really that we need to focus on is the sample legislation and what puts what will put us at the table at the state level that will allow us to be negotiating with our eastern mass municipalities who are going to control the conversation and the cape obviously it's the eastern mass and the cape. And the biggest element of that Lynn I'm sorry if I can just respond the most important element there is that it's not a hard number that we're looking above right that's the biggest most important piece. Right but we want to be able to be at the table so we want to get the legislation our our our sample legislation filed so we can be at that table. Bernie? Yeah Andy's sorry but I saw your hand up. I'm sorry we're going to have a long time to talk about the bylaw if this is because this is special legislation and this will go on for for more time than we all care to think about and I think Lynn's point is is right on target that we need to be we need to have something in the game and as long as we and we all understand that there's a room for flexibility in bylaw and as a honest point that there's no hard in fact fast percentages here is a good one so we we should we should really move forward with yeah I agree and I've said that all along actually I have a suggestion as I keep looking at this and hearing the conversation and that is just to change one word instead of saying as allocated by bylaw at the very end saying as determined by bylaw and that gives the arguable flexibility in developing the bylaw to not just do an allocation so much to each group but actually to make a decision as to how that will keep the that can be done on an annual basis and how it's done on an annual basis it's a little bit more flexible but it still keeps the ability to have the housing trust listed in that second portion since the feeling is that it will help sell the bylaw Mandy I'm fine with that change and I'm looking at the word and between Town of Amherst General Fund and the Amherst Municipal affordable housing trust and wondering if it should probably say trust fund but if the and should be and slash or which would give even more flexibility so you want and and or the Amherst Municipal Housing Trust Fund we forgot the word fund when we typed I also just put an and slash or and again I forgot the word municipal up at the top three lines the third line is section three Amherst Municipal affordable housing trust fund so if there's a see Matt's hand this up yet and I just wanted to ask if we are if we have a defined end time for this meeting and if we're going to move to a vote because I won't be able to stay much longer my goal is actually to get to a vote and I think that I don't have questions about the rest of it let me just have it up on the screen for a second see if there are other issues with the language or suggestions because if not I think we can move to a vote and then dispose of other issues as appropriate so seeing none then it would seem that the what we're really need at this point is a motion to recommend that the town council propose a special act to the legislature as presented by the finance committee which would be the version that is now edited or we could word it otherwise but Lynn I'm fine with that so moved is there a second change seconds okay bill yeah can you just give me that wording again Andy um but the finance committee recommends to the town council that it request the adoption of a special of special legislation as presented by the committee in its report okay so I think we can go ahead unless there's any other discussion that needs to happen I'll put for hands for just the second while I get my list of members Bob yeah I just wanted to if you can scroll down a little bit where we talk about the Hampshire county registrar of deeds is prohibited from recording I can we do that that Hampshire register this is the end of section five can we tell the Hampshire registrar dudes what they can or can't do well the legislature would be telling the Hampshire deeds uh Mandy or Anna is that a common language in other proposed special legislation it is I think if we put it in our bylaw then we'd have a problem but it's in the special act so it's from the state so it's fishing Bob that's fine I just just wanted to make sure um so uh let's go to a vote and I'll do I'll reverse the order this time and uh start with Alicia I'm staying okay going up from then I'm next and I go yes Kathy yes Michelle still with Michelle Michelle's in the meeting anymore I don't know when she left okay I'm in a mark is an absent for the vote Bernie yes support Matt support Bob I'm staying and Lynn hi so the vote is three yes one abstain one absent from the voting members and support of three members so that the motion carries thank you thank you thank you all I abstained I did not bother staying abstained Andy oh Bob abstained okay let's make sure that we get that correct but I'm gonna need to change okay so um with that noted um I'm gonna just uh go to the there is no public presence so we're I don't have to return to public comment no skip approval of minutes today because we're already past time um next committee meeting we know about Thursday and uh hope that all can attend if not certainly it's going to be available for you to look at at a later time if you have questions in advance of the meeting and you're not going to be able to attend please send them to um Sean and to me as I indicated in the prior email to the committee and I think that our next meeting is the day after the next council meeting as we've currently going going and it will be back to our afternoon hours I think next council meeting I believe is the 23rd and so it's the 24th would be the date for the next meeting is there any other business that people would like to request that it was not anticipated in advance uh just a quick note Andy that um Lynn will have appointed members to the finance committee on the by the 23rd and then the first order of business on the 24th would be the election of the uh chair and vice chair thank you for the reminder so uh to our resident members thank you very much for being here we may or may not be with you depending upon who the president appoints to the committee but we won't put pressure on your name to indicate anything and um so I don't think we have any other business and uh unless since I see no hands up about unanticipated business requests thank you very much uh hope to see most of you or all of you on thursday and uh we have been um have a good day thank you we're adjourned thanks