 So 301 and the minutes for the 15th hour taking care of moving on into the minutes of November 29th, 2022. Is there a motion? Moved through for ending modification. Is there a second? Second. Page one. The only page. Hearing no corrections. Then all those in favor of approving the minutes of November 29th, 2022 say aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed? So we'll move on then on the agenda to public comment as fast as the time for anyone in the audience who are on Zoom tonight to make any comments on any issues they wish to anyone. Nobody in the room. How about anyone on Zoom? Just give them a moment here, Terry. I have one hand raised, Ryan Allen. Ryan, I'm going to connect you to the talk here just a moment. Okay. My name is Ryan Allen and I'm a Williston resident. I want to say about the Williston Observer article about the allegations against a select board member. I don't know. Just the hardest part is like we have so many positive and wonderful and loving men in Williston that it's a bummer to have the unfortunate talk about that like that stocking people is not okay and that it's very lucky that the officer that our Williston officer did their job appropriately and but in other situations it does lead to people being harmed. And I'm a white male. I would imagine that the fear of the situation is pre-spread for the wonderful people in my life. So I hope it sparks a conversation of where we can be better and Williston. Oh, yeah, it's pretty messed up. Thanks. Goodbye. Thank you. Anyone else on Zoom? No one on Zoom, sir. Moving on to the police dispatch co-location agreement with Essex and Eric, you're going to get a description of what we are talking about. Yep. So the town has spent the last several months evaluating police dispatch services, delivering needs and the best model in the coming years for these services. So for many years, the Vermont state police provided free dispatch services to the town primarily during overnight hours and on weekends. The sale of the town to not need to fully staff the dispatch center for 24-7 service and kept costs lower. Being in 2021, the capacity of the state police to deliver these services was affected during due to staffing pressures felt as a result of the pandemic. In July of 2021, the town added the third full-time dispatch position to our police department. This past summer, the state police informed the town the same level of service cannot be provided due to continued staffing capacity challenges. This created a void in our capacity to provide dispatch services with adequate staff for 24-7 depart. At that time, the Essex police department was approached by our staff. An agreement was made for Essex and dispatch for Williston primarily on overnight hours of Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, which are our lowest call volume historically of the week. Initial agreement was made through October of this year and then we extended that agreement through December. This fall, both departments examined police dispatch services in greater depth. A realization was arrived at that co-locating police dispatch services at Essex police station would be beneficial to address staffing needs for both communities. We stood up a working group to examine this in more depth, looking at technology needs, schedules and operations among other items. A co-location of dispatch center was deemed feasible by the working group of both communities. We prepared for consideration by the select board this evening in agreement to co-locate Williston and Essex police dispatch at the Essex police station beginning this January 1st next month. The initial term of this agreement is 30 months through June of 2025. The Essex select board approved the agreement at its meeting last night. Also, as you mentioned, the town as a member of the Chitton County Regional Public Safety Authority is an entity working to stand up regional dispatch in Chitton County. The CCPSA has taken great strides over the past year as working to determine a timeline to be able to start offering dispatch services to communities in the coming years. This co-location with Essex is intended to be a stable bridge for multiple years until the town can transition police dispatch to CCPSA. Before I turn this over to our police leadership to go over how this would work, I want to thank Chief Foley, Lieutenant Moore and our dispatch supervisor, Deborah Chamberlain for their work. It's part of the working committee that looked at this the past several months. I want to thank the town of Essex and its staff for be willing to explore and be creative on this partnership to deliver continued high quality service to the residents and community members in both our towns. I think it's a bunch of great partnership to work together on this effort. There's no initial questions from the board. I want to thank Foley and Lieutenant Moore to walk through the operational side of this proposal. I think we had most of our questions answered downstairs. Chief, Lieutenant. Good evening and thank you for this opportunity again. For the past really 30 days it was a fast track to try to get this operational. It was working well with them filling in the gaps that the state police normally covered us in but we found out that there were soon to be other issues we needed to address. We formed a subcommittee of both the tenants in both agencies, the lead dispatchers in both communities and developed scheduling. Overtime formats made sure that the bulk of the shifts will have two dispatchers on. Pretty much I would say 90% of the hours need to be covered and it will be a single dispatcher at times that we don't need two dispatchers. It provides us an opportunity to have security over the next 30 months as the CPSA gets operational but we don't have to worry about being put on the side of the road like we felt from the state police with no place to go. So this gives us security not only for the residents here in Williston but also the residents of Essex. We've had a long standing partnership with the community of Essex and Essex Junction. We provide mutual aid both to them and them to us both on the police side but also on the fire and EMS side. So it's a good partnership. We really feel confidence. The rangers we have currently right now where they're picking up the hours normally covered, we haven't had any issues. Our personnel really enjoy having somebody out there dispatching for us on those hours that we need to be covered. Lieutenant Maud worked with Lieutenant Kissinger to come up with a game plan on how we're going to be operational. We found that it was not a big cost to tie into over there. We used technology people from both agencies, Sergeant Derek Shepard and retired chief with Gary over there. So it's pretty much a mutual agreement where when you dial the calls you have to dial to get the police agency to be answered. And I think the people and the citizens of Williston should be really confident in the program that we have going forward. Yeah, so the big question is what difference is the community going to see? They're not going to see any difference. If you pick up the phone and call our local number it'll be answered by a dispatcher as it is today. For the police officers, the only real difference is not having the folks that you're normally working with in-house any longer. But other than that, the radio will be answered and we do actually have the stability now. So there's a lot of different operational things that occurred. We've been talking about it for several months. But we basically had about eight weeks once we finalized things to actually get it operational and figure out how it was going to look. So in about four weeks we accomplished pretty much everything. And as we sit here today, January 1 we'll be fine to move over. So it's a good start date. Technology-wise almost every single piece of equipment is installed and up and running. So that's kind of the gist of it. Very, very broadly talking. Staffing, scheduling. That was probably the most difficult thing, trying to bring two separate sets of employees into one facility and trying to figure out scheduling and being gentle when it comes to their current lifestyle outside of work and what their current work schedule was. I think we did a good job at doing that. As it sits today, each dispatcher, all seven of them, is only working one weekend a day. So there's nobody working full weekends. We were able to figure out a way to split it up evenly. The Chiefs gave us one criteria and that was to get as many hours covered with two dispatchers as physically possible. If you're able to do that by having at least two dispatchers in the facility till midnight every single day. The midnight hours are on days that are a little bit quieter. So the Sunday, Monday, Tuesday evening, early morning hours and then our busier end of the week with the weekends. We have dispatchers, two dispatchers in there till three o'clock in the morning. So for Essex, that's great because they're only running four full-time dispatchers to begin with so they only have one person in there at all times. They do have a little bit of overlap on certain days but you can remember they also do Essex Town Fire, Essex Junction Fire and Essex Rescue which Essex Rescue runs two ambulances during the daytime hours. So there's definitely a need for them to have an extra set of hands in there to help them out. So scheduling is all set. The technology piece, I won't bore you with too much of it but we were fortunate enough to be able to link our phone systems with theirs over there so it was a fairly easy move. As it stands today in our dispatch center if there's a dispatcher needs to reach the chief or anybody at their desk, they can hit an extension and it will go right to them. The way we set it up is it's going to work exactly the same for Essex. We were able to install a fiber connection between ourself and the Essex Police Department and that was extremely easy and it only came at a cost of just over $300 a month for us to do that. So what does that mean? Well in the last year and a half we did a complete camera install project over at the office so our office has completely new camera system installed that was all paid for through a federal grant and that actually was just completed last week. So now through that fiber connection all of our security cameras are now viewable at the Essex Police Department just as they are downstairs in our office today. So that's obviously a huge plus and it's a good thing because there can be a safety issue especially in the prisoner area of the office. So that's all done. I don't know if everybody remembers but last budgeting season we came looking for a capital increase for a door locking system that actually the phase one was just completed and then the phase two is in this for this capital this project here in this budget season but the good thing is is we are able to do the main doors in the office so we're able to then interlink our locking system with our camera system so the dispatchers now over in Essex they through the fiber connection they can just click on a screen on the camera system and it'll unlock doors for the officers or people coming into the front so we had a short period of time but actually the timing was perfect because of all these upgrades that we've been forward thinking about they're up and running so the transition is that much more better so there's that over time that's boring feeling of shifts but through the working group we were able to come up with some good ideas and some things that are in place it's just important to remember that our dispatchers are non-union employees versus Essex are union employees but like Chief was saying it's a good relationship we got with them and I think we were able to bridge that gap with the union as well and I think there's a lot of buy-in from those folks so operationally for the most part all I can say is January 1 it's set to go and everything's in line so I don't think we're going to see any issues internally next door like I said there is going to be a change the first person you see when you walk in our building is the dispatcher that no longer will be there but we have some things going on that we're working on in the next four weeks to make the process a little bit easier for folks coming into the building so they can see somebody at the front window and that's just going to be some realigning of some duties within the current staff our plan is to have somebody in the building Monday through Friday from 8 to 4.30 and then after that use the intercom system and the rest of you to call Essex and Essex we'll call back over here somebody's in the building see somebody in the lobby so at least the prime time Monday through Friday somebody will be in the dispatch area good thank you very much this would be an opportunity for members of the public if they have any questions to the Chief and the Lieutenant anybody on Zoom that has any questions no one here either alright thank you and maybe looking for a motion then I'd move to authorize the town manager to enter into an agreement with the town of Essex to co-locate police dispatch services at the Essex Police Station is there a second second is there any discussion on the motion hearing none those in favor of the motion say aye aye congratulations and we're ready to roll in January thank you and like we mentioned within six months of operation January 1, 2023 we'll convene another meeting to assess the first six months we've been operational look at the course any additional course that we might have not anticipated see how the relationship is going and if we have to make some adjustments we will thank you thank you very much so we'll move on then to the Green Mountain Transit annual update we do have John Moore the Director General Manager of the GMT and Amy Brewer our representative from the town Eric does you want to start out with a brief introduction sure as I mentioned John and Amy are here this evening this is something for the Board really to get an update for Green Mountain Transit on the work they've been completed last year what they're planning ahead and also look at the budget moving out here so John and Amy I'll just add that as your Commissioner to the Board I'm excited to bring John here so we can talk through any questions that you might have about budgeting for next year thanks for having us and I'll quickly recognize Chicken Canor Longtime GMT Board Member who's next door over the planning commission and they're talking about some other transit related activities so that's exciting so next slide Eric so just a quick summary of who we are CCTA the Chittenden County Transportation Authority was created in 1973 back in 2016 we actually expanded we merged with Green Mountain Transit Agency which covered the rural areas of Washington County and Franklin and Grand Isle Counties we have a total of 5 counties excuse me 6 counties 5 year round 1 Lamoille County in the seasonal winter time as we operate some service to the Stowe Mountain Road we're directed by a 13 member Board Amy represents Wilson is also the Vice Chair of the GMT Board in total we have 180 employees about 160 revenue vehicles in close to a thousand bus stops I won't read this but this is our mission this is what we try to achieve as an agency I've highlighted some key words we want to be safe convenient accessible innovative we'll talk about some projects we have ongoing around that and then really from a transit perspective in a community benefit we like to have a goal of reducing congestion and pollution and that's really important for even folks that don't use transit that we are benefiting even non-users a key highlight we like to share transit-orientated development you know we always advocate for smart land use planning making sure there's compact walkable development I know Wilson is working very hard to that and so we appreciate that and that really does maximize the investment in transit and then again we want to improve the quality of life for all and for our customers that's through direct service delivery for other members of the community that's reducing congestion pollution and then we want to make sure that we have a good economic development so we operate many types of service in Williston we have the fixed route service and we'll get into some details but two primary routes that serve the community here in Williston also provide multiple demand response services so number one is the Americans with disability act and so essentially three quarters of a mile buffer around those fixed route services they have the ability they can apply and if they're eligible for door-to-door service we contract that with the special services transportation agency similar to that there's the elders and disabled program and that functions pretty similar to the ADA program but for folks that live outside of that three quarter of a mile buffer so in Williston we do a lot of trips over in Williston Woods for example so there's demand for that door-to-door service for ADA just because of their geographic location but we still want to get them to doctor's appointments and other social outings and then lastly there's the Medicaid transportation so we operate that in our rural service areas SSTA provides that in Chittenden County under contract to the department of Vermont Health Access but there are folks that if they qualify for Medicaid they can also get that door-to-door medical transportation next slide Eric so just a real quick overview of our ridership so we provided just over two million rides system-wide last fiscal year which ended June 30 the good news is that was a 42% increase over fiscal year 21 the bad news is we're not quite back to pre-pandemic level so down about 24% over 2019 which is the last full fiscal year before the pandemic most of that ridership is on our commuter routes which is no surprise with the increase in telecommuting we have rebounded much quicker in our local routes which we'll see when we look at the Williston route next slide so just a quick financial snapshot so this was for last fiscal year FY22 about a 24 million dollar operating budget the vast majority of that about 17 million in our urban operations which is you can see from the chart the vast majority of our subsidies come from the federal government I actually can't see those numbers but about 75% that is a little skewed for FY22 just because of the COVID relief funds that we received in the fact that we operated our services without a fair pre-pandemic we received about 15% of our operating revenues from our Fairbox collection we have not been charging a fair since March 2020 so having some internal policy discussions with our board about what's going to happen July 1st for fiscal year 24 but we are heavily subsidized and about 20% of that comes from the local communities which Williston contributes and we'll get into those details so I just want to be up front and transparent on some organizational threats that we're experiencing and these probably are some of them at least are probably not too different than what the town is experiencing so there's general inflation we all know that's running high and that's just the reality we're living under fuel prices are very volatile right now and have increased significantly so these numbers reflect on our FY23 budget but we had to increase our fuel budget to about $4 a gallon that was about a $400,000 increase to our operating cost wages we had a 2.5% increase that covers three union contracts and our administrative staff we've had to increase those even further with some attention bonuses as we're operating in a red hot labor market still so that adds some cost pressure health insurance we've been fortunate to have a relatively limited health insurance cost increase of 6% but it still adds $160,000 in annual operating costs we talked about we are operating fair free currently that was possible through some legislative funding through the transportation bill but even that amount that we received through the transportation bill was based on our current ridership projections which from a fair standpoint is about $600,000 less than we were collecting before the pandemic so for the most part we restored our pre-pandemic service but we're operating with about $600,000 less than we were before so that certainly creates some budgetary challenges and then the last cost pressure we're seeing is in the ADA program naturally for two reasons number one they're seeing the same inflationary impacts that everybody are that's our contractor SSTA but number two as the population ages and Vermont's one of the oldest states in the country as we all know there's a higher demand for that door to door service so we're seeing so critical to get people where they need to go for medical appointments, social outings grocery shopping so it's critical service but the price per trip is obviously much higher than on a fixed route vehicle the other issue that we're working through is a lack of non-federal funds generally speaking the federal funding only covers 50% of eligible operating costs with the caveat that the COVID relief funds provided 100% eligibility but as we expand those COVID relief funds and we get to future budgetary years the federal funds are there for right now what we need is a non-federal funds to leverage those and that could come from the municipality contributions from the state and then some public-private partnerships that we're looking to expand and then lastly workforce development especially for our frontline staff the pandemic and an aging population has impacted our staffing and that's most critical in our CDL driver positions and our skill mechanic positions no secret that statewide they're just not enough of those positions to go around so we've certainly felt that impact very labor intensive business operating the amount of service we do and we've had to adjust for that we still have minimal amount of service reduction in place from pre-pandemic and our overtime rate is very high and that's financially impactful but also impacts our employees so we're recruiting as best as we can but it's a very difficult labor market for these positions so with the threats certainly some opportunities fuels a double-edge sword as it impacts our budget it also hopefully allows us to market our services and folks that are feeling the pressure in their own budgets can give transit a try especially as we're providing the free service microtransit is a pilot project that we currently have ongoing in Montpelier essentially door-to-door general public uber type service there's been some initial conversations at the town level I know of looking at what that could look like in the town of Williston which we would completely support climate action plan at the state level local as there's further awareness of climate impacts and how transit can help with some of that pollution especially in the transportation sector we certainly want to be part of that solution at the federal level there was the infrastructure and jobs act that has created some additional federal funds as I mentioned earlier the key to that is that we have the non-federal maps to draw those down and then lastly looking at public-private partnerships as businesses and institutions try to put additional green policies in place and limit parking which is a financial benefit to them especially in the downtown floor looking to partner with GMT on some innovative partnerships there that would help us create some of that non-federal match so getting into the FY24 budget and so our internal process will be presenting the initial budget next week to the full board we will then hold a public hearing sometime in early January based on the comments we received the public hearing will bring back a final budget proposal for our board to consider approval in January we did present some initial thoughts to our board knowing that the budgetary seasons upon us with our municipal partners so our board has seen these numbers that I'm presenting but these are projected numbers and you know could see our entire budgeting process but you know our board is certainly aware of some of the sensitivity around both timelines and just funding you know realities that our municipal partners have so for the fixed route we're proposing a 4% increase as well as increasing our local capital match from our municipal partners from $50,000 to $75,000 I think that was $3,000 or $4,000 for real estate so relatively so for a total of about 225,000 for fiscal year 24 fixed route assessment the fiscal year 24 ADA assessment and this is based on actual usage of the ADA system from town of Williston residence we're projecting about $31,000 in FY24 I will say that the ADA program because the assessment is based on usage that's much more volatility than the fixed route program we're working with our board on some policy analysis on if we can remove some of that volatility in that program so it's hard not to crack but we've put a lot of work into that and we'll continue to do that and work with our municipal partners on what that solution would be and then the E&D the others in disabled service match from Williston is roughly $23,000 that program is funded 80% by the federal government so that 23,000 is the 20% local match and again that provides that door-to-door service for people that live outside of the geographic ADA zone so just a real quick overview of the fixed route service from the town of Williston of two routes the number one Williston route from the downtown Burlington up main street to the University of Mollin continues out to Tafts Corners via Williston Road fiscal year 22 that's an average of just shy of 1,600 daily boardings and that route is essentially back to pre-pandemic levels it's about 99% of the pre-pandemic ridership so that is great to see the second route that serves Williston is our number 10 route and that connects Tafts Corners out to the Amtrak station in Essex Junction continues on to the Essex outlets in the Essex town area runs much less frequently 6 days a week instead of 7 and you can see that the ridership is significantly lower at about 27,000 boardings a day but for folks that want to travel in between Essex and Williston it sounds like you have a great partnership with the police department we want to provide that connection without having to go all the way to downtown Burlington and back out to Williston so it is a vital connection along route 2A and that route will be about 131 boardings per weekday next slide so quickly go over some initiatives that we have ongoing with the organization one that is not on here that I will quickly mention is that we are in the process of hiring for a permanent general manager I am acting in the interim role I will be staying on as the assistant general manager we actually had two interviews yesterday yeah hard to believe time flies so we are hopeful the next 2-3 months we will have a permanent general manager on board and again to help us with our strategic planning and really advancing some of these initiatives that we just need more staff resources to accomplish we are planning for the opening of the exit 12 Williston Park and Ride and how we will serve that with our link service so we definitely want to prioritize that and provide a connection both northbound to downtown Burlington and also southbound to Richmond Park well maybe not Richmond Park and Ride but Montpelier and Waterbury we are also advancing and advocating for a transit financing study as we talked about that lack of non-federal match is really probably our biggest threat and the way GMT sees our services is on a regional level but they are funded locally that causes a lot of equity issues a lot of planning issues that we can't make holistic changes assessments so this transit financing study which was actually authored under the Chittenden County Regional Planning Commission looks at a statewide funding source so the reliance on the property tax would be removed there would be a statewide revenue source identified and would fund transit statewide that would allow us to maintain service maintain fare free and better leverage those federal funds to hopefully expand service and increase ridership the slew of technology upgrades most of that is onboard internal data collection but we do have a relatively new passenger app so you can go on your smartphone and you can be at the bus stop or at your desk and see exactly when the bus will show up to the bus stop so that's been very helpful before the pandemic we implemented a mobile ticketing program so you don't need to have $1.50 you can preload money on your credit card on your app to show it to the driver so I think we'll definitely market that more if in one we return to the bus stop and we'll see what we can do in the next session fleet electrification this is something that we're very excited about you know better for the environment also better for our budget you know the buses are more expensive up front but believe the operating costs will be you know 100,000 or more less over the 12 year life of the bus so we have two in service and likely 18 to 24 months before the five buses are delivered but a lot of planning goes into that so we're excited general fleet replacement as I mentioned we're increasing proposing to increase our capital match from the municipalities by 25,000 we really have focused on a sustainable fleet replacement schedule so our buses are as new as possible that lowers operating cost and increases reliability and then microtransit as I mentioned that door-to-door Uber type service working or operating that in my pillar working on feasibility studies and Barry and St. Albans and I think that will largely be the way of the future for you know world a small town transportation and you know we'll gladly work with any of our partners to expand that where it makes sense so I think that's it and my contact information is here and happy to answer any questions you folks may have thank you very much this is a great service that you provide to the county especially for Williston so thank you any questions from the board very few very complete thank you the parking ride I'm just noticing I wanted to make sure you covered that long history in Williston getting the parking ride so you are anticipating providing a stop on the link service Burlington to a pillar on that parking right great news it mentions the Williston multimodal hub is that the same thing or is that something different so that's a different project I think the planning commission is actually discussing that as we speak now so that's on a I believe a town on parcel adjacent to the Shaw's supermarket where there's some planning for a multimodal hub with some potential transit improvements passenger the shelter that type of thing which if microtransit was implemented in Williston we would see that as kind of the hub the transfer point from the microtransit vehicles to the Williston route and that's a UPWP project the RPC is assisting planning department with the planning feasibility with it just was the way it was presented here sorry it wasn't clear to me whether it was you were thinking talking about one thing or two separate things the two separate things which is good news the other question or maybe it's more of a comment I have is from time to time it's not often but we receive comments about people who have difficulty primarily maybe from handicapped reasons or they need to get to a doctor's appointment that type of thing and the service is not convenient might be the best way to put it so my question is along the lines of is there more we we meaning GMT and the town of Williston could do to increase the service to those who are most unable to get to important things like medical appointments or grocery shopping that type of thing and is that microtransit a way in which folks let's say a disability could have increased mobility I think it definitely could be and the other thing I would mention is that there's other existing programs so folks are unsure if they qualify the college EMT so there's the ADA program there's the E&D program there's Medicaid so we can walk them through that it's pretty complicated it's just based on the federal regulations and the Medicaid regulations existing demand response programs that many people qualify for and may not know that so microtransit would be more of a general public encompassing folks with disabilities or folks that the fixed route schedule doesn't work for one reason or the other but in the interim I would highly recommend to have folks reach out to GMT and we can walk them through the existing programs which may already be in place so a good piece of that answering that question is getting that information out there which is kind of consistent with some of the things we've been talking about around equity diversity inclusivity to make sure everybody has information they need about how they can improve the quality of life because being able to get to medical appointments getting the grocery store or mental health type things by that I mean just getting out of their home and in places where other people are they can be with friends or whatever okay all right thank you is it possible to for me to volunteer to maybe put something in the observer kind of with John's help some of those reminders that this is available and you're talking to the wrong person when it comes with what's the best way to do that no no I'm offering to do that I feel like that moves the rate continues to have that conversation I was going to end that with anything is better than not doing you know than not doing something good thank you great point other questions thank you very much I always enjoy hearing the progress being made appreciate it have a great night thank you thank you we'll move on into the Talmudian TV annual update Megan will work the director of Talmudian TV will be joining us get your connection on zoom right now I'll see you in a moment hi folks my video is working great hi there hello there we can hear you yeah I wish I could be there with you all but I actually today was a sick day for me a student home and I'm not bringing one what I have anywhere so I'm glad to be able to join you virtually I apologize for sending the memo with the town of Essex information in it I'm sure the budget number is the same and I have updated the memo and sent that to Eric with updated information did you get a chance to see that updated memo folks yes we got it the big details the big overview is the same sort of from page three on down that's like a general report about what we've done at Talmudian TV this year the ask that we're doing again is for municipal contribution from the town of Williston and that's to support general operations of 13,230 that is a 5% increase over last year and we expect to continue doing that but we're still figuring out how to approach tackle the cable revenue decline you'll see there that we met the minimum of the 48 let me just pause for a minute and remind you that that municipal contribution is not to cover meeting coverage it's already covered it's paid for out of the cable contract revenue that the trustees create the contract that says three meetings per month for the town of Williston we've added in addition to that we try to look for other Williston related events we do election coverage we do legislative programming we do all the sort of big projects that town meeting TV does for the community we want to welcome Helen Morgan Perman who you appointed as the new trustee so we're excited to have her on board she's got a community media history as well and it's exciting to have her living in the town of Williston and working on your behalf she couldn't be here tonight with us because she is traveling and a big thank you to Ginny Lyons for having been the trustee for years and years and as I said to her to get a note recently I was covering meetings when she was on the select board as the select board chair remembered sort of cutting my teeth behind the camera seeing how local government worked at that point and sort of how I first became enamored with community access I'll point out three big things from that memo that goes on from page 3 on down and outlines some of the work that town meeting TV has undertaken this year under CCTV's wing our archives work we're really proud of some work that we did from a kind of grant through CCTV to work within national with these document conservation center and that was to make sure that we're headed in the right direction in storing our archival material that goes back into the 1980s and that's both CCTV archival material and then of course 1990 is when town meeting TV began and that includes archiving of all of the municipal content that we've been doing since 2015 we've been doing municipal content since the beginning but we've been archiving that in earnest since 2015 our internships we're really excited about the work that we've been doing with students both at the university Champlain, UVM, the high school and we've again with a grant from the Vermont community foundation are doing a neighborhood media internship we're working with students doing critical literacy civic engagement through media making and then the legislative work that we're doing with the Vermont access network and that is the big ask this year allocations from the legislature through the general fund and this is considered bridge funding as we work in the legislature to come up with ways to replace public access community access revenue that relies on cable subscribers so Van is asking this year for a million dollars from the governor's FY24 budget and that would be distributed to 24 access centers throughout the state so for time being TV that looks if I I think that's in the 24,000 dollar range when we divvy that up the that bridge funding is again part of this cable revenue decline it's not just cable revenue decline it's also increase in services, increase in the cost of doing business and it increase in the kind of technical needs the work has changed in the last two years pretty dramatically I'm here meeting with you in this way and that requires a different sort of skill set and a different technical infrastructure as you're well aware of and we thank you for letting us experiment with this project with you all because I was there and to see if there are any questions or things that stand out for you all thank you for the presentation anyone have questions no we're we're glad to have a new board for you I know that Jenny has served there for many years and has been an outstanding job for us so thank you we appreciate very much the service that you're providing for our our meetings every other week and now this next couple months almost every week so it'll be very good I think we're getting pretty good comments from citizens of Williston as well people who never watched before or never came here before now can see it and are very pleased with it that's great I'm glad to hear that I was excited to tell her I don't need change to get on the bus as soon as I need to as soon as they start collecting fares again I was really excited to hear that story from GMT I don't need change so that was interesting to listen to that presentation thank you are there any other questions from folks or that's not thank you very much we appreciate it thank you all have a good night thank you too so I'll move right on then to the TOFC license agreement renewal overview Eric you want to lead off and Simon Miles with our consummation planner is here to go over it as well yep I'll lead off and I think it's the first time the board's got to meet Simon Miles he's our conservation planner the role that Melinda Scott was formally in Simon started out as a planning technician for us and then it was a great in-house hire for the conservation planner role so we're happy to have Simon in his role here so where it seems time flies and I know the pandemic seemed to make time move in different ways but we are approaching the initial term of the license agreement with the Catamount Outdoor Family Center to operate coming up for renewal consideration in just under a year it was an initial five-year agreement that expires October 1st 2023 so that's a little ways away but it's really not that far when it comes to operational planning for the non-profit and into the town for the operation on our great community forest resource we began work over last summer to work with our advisory committees the Catamount Committee which Jeff Ayers is the representative to the select board on that committee and a conservation commission to begin to look at the license agreement and has discussions with the Catamount Outdoor Family Center board as well to look at the license agreement and what its next iteration may entail so Simon's included an overview memo and an initial draft red line version in your agenda to look at this evening he's going to walk through some of the major items for consideration we did receive some comments from the Catamount board of directors we're going to address them and clarify a few items with that board and the Catamount staff but I can say the majority of the draft items are going to be in alignment between groups goal for this evening is provide an initial walk-through and overview for the board and first of all get your consensus to proceed with a new license agreement with the initial draft presented staff would then take your comments direction to continue working through this with other parties here and I can report that the partnership and the work's gone very well with the Outdoor Family Center it's a great partnership with the town they have on this resource that's been there for many years and we're now fortunate to have it as the town's community for us so I think I will hand it off to Simon Great thanks for doing my introduction for me as Eric mentioned it was the initial license was signed in March 2019 that does grant the Outdoor Family Center the right to manage the recreational use of the property and manage the trails on the town's behalf the license does set out the permitted uses and then the rights and responsibilities of both the centre and the town in maintaining the property and managing those trails in that respect probably important to note that the license itself needs to comply with two important documents one of which is the conservation easement that applies to the property and the other of which is the forest management plan which expresses the sort of vision for the forest was adopted by the select board in 2018 so as Eric mentioned we have been working on this since the summer staff have reviewed it internally as well as several boards and those comments did feed into the draft updated license which has been sent to the Outdoor Family Center they sent back the comments so what I'm planning to do is just briefly run through the major changes and I was also going to indicate that the centre have made comments so probably one of the key changes is the term of the license has been increased from 5 years to 10 years this was out of the request of the family centre to provide them with greater stability help their planning help them attract staff and allow them to make capital improvements in the property as Eric mentioned we're the town of happy with how it's gone this relationship today at the Catamount community forest meeting the members there did express they had heard very few complaints which is a case of no no news is good news and I think we as staff have been very sort of complimentary about the way they've run it so I think everyone at staff and the committee was comfortable with 10 years the second point of that was a request made by the I think the suggestion of the board that we include a one year sort of notification from the Outdoor Family Centre if they don't intend to renew the expiry of the next term it's time to allow the town time to find our operator the second change is to include reference to the discretionary permit that has been granted in 2022 for the pre-existing use of the property's recreational centre quite an important sort of update in the permitting history of the property that we felt was important to include in the licence further change is that we have added in that both parties feel it's desirable for all users for the property to check in at the hub this was sort of inserted in response to a few comments that we got from the public feel that there should be more freedom to come and go without checking in but we do feel it's important the centre wants people to sign their waiver and the town feel that they understand how many people are using the property to help our planning for it so that's sort of been inserted into the licence we have included a new section to provide clarity for the town and the Outdoor Family Centre on the permitted uses of the property which must relate to the recreational educational and competition uses of the site sort of explicitly commercial uses are not permitted so those allowed uses are all reflected in the forest management plan that I mentioned earlier that was one of the comments we received back from the centre seeking to see whether we could broaden the range of uses to help them with their mission something that we're going to be discussing some of those we can look at some of those would require to the forest management plan to take forward in terms of event notification we've sought to streamline and provide more flexibility in the event notification procedure I won't bore you the details on that and we have sought to clarify when the the instances in which a temporary event permit will be required from the town for any operations at the centre as I mentioned earlier they do have a discretionary permit for their pre-existing use and we've sought to provide them with guidance to help staff at the centre and staff at the town to determine when a temporary event permit is and isn't required this essentially in the current draft is based on the requirements of the discretionary permit with some additional feedback from staff and the boards that is another area where the Outdoor Family Centre has requested that we work with them and we are going to sort of look at that to iron out the details to make sure that the requirements do allow them to conduct their day-to-day operations at the weekends and so forth without requiring permits that we can still retain control over those larger events a further requirement is just to reference the Fire Department's guidance on permits and campsfires that's going to be another element that we are going to discuss with the Outdoor Family Centre the next section is to change to section 11 which is a change to the trail closure requirements the existing licence doesn't actually permit the Outdoor Family Centre to close the trails so given that we are entrusting them to manage on our behalf we do feel there should be instances when they are permitted to do that specifically when the trails are denigrating either through abuse or the weather or when they need to close them or repairs the second to last change that I would like to bring to your attention is the town has a number of reserve rights in the licence one of those reserve rights is to conduct forest management we do have a forest management project coming up at the end of summer 2023 which is starting to take shape there was some language inserted there to ensure that both parties recognise that whilst we will seek to minimise disturbance there is going to be some trail closure and there is going to be some changes to the appearance of the forest as a result of the success all implementation I'll move close to the microphone perhaps so for the forest management section there is going to be changes to ensure that we recognise that there will be some disturbance for to successfully implement that project is going to require the closure of some trails and the trails will be repaired to a comparable standard we have received a few comments from the outdoor family centre on that mainly seeking to ensure that we recognise that the trails are an important resource to the town and that they have a say in how they are restored once the forestry management operation is concluded and then lastly a change to the requirements for the parking lot at the catamount community forest meeting there was a desire expressed that staff investigate the potential to keep the parking lot open at all times this was in response to a lot of people when the trails are closed do like to park there to recreate on Governor Chisholm Road staff has discussed this and we feel at this stage we can't resource taking on responsibility for plowing the parking lot or on a day to day basis making sure that that parking lot is safe so what we have done is through discussion with the outdoor family centre we have inserted language to ensure that no one closes the parking lot unnecessarily and also to clearly define when the outdoor family centre is permitted to close it which is if the parking lot is dangerous and unsafe for people to use or if the weather conditions dictate that there could be widespread trail damage from people using the trails what's important to note is that when the outdoor family centre do that they need to notify us and get our permission for that closure so that's a very brief summary of the changes that have been made to the licence I'm happy to answer any questions that the select board may have on where things stand and I look forward to receiving any feedback Good thank you very much Geoff you're part of the group that has been working on this I presume the management committee yes the select board representative it was a bit of a unknown having this licence agreement with an entity that had been using the land for a year on what was now a town owned community forest and my opinion is it's actually worked out quite well we have a very good relationship with catamount outdoor family centre I mean there's been a couple hiccups but they've been on very much on the minor side in terms of the agreement I look at it as pretty much the same it really is pretty much the same with some I would call them tweaks probably one of the most major ones is feeling comfortable enough to increase the term five year term to a ten year term that was a pretty important maybe somewhat controversial issue when we were negotiating the initial agreement and because of not sure how comfortable we would be and I think that comfort has increased Simon has been great staff resource I don't know what else I can add the only question I have is remind me sorry Simon is responsible for plowing the the parking lot the outdoor family centre is responsible for plowing the parking lot we are responsible for the sort of more long term maintenance so we don't have the town doesn't have any requirements to have it plowed by a certain time because that's when skiers or snow snowshoers might start showing up okay good thank you for remembering what I could other questions Collins? my only question it did jump out at me that it's a ten year term and that does seem like it's right at the edge of as long as I'd be comfortable with I think what mitigates that for me is there is a paragraph in there about termination that either the party can terminate if there is a substance it doesn't even say substantive breach it just fails to comply with the conditions and requirements which is kind of open-ended but that being said each party would have 30 days to try to fix whatever they breached so with that as a safety net I'm okay with the ten years but that was what jumped out at me if I could from perspective is it's hard for them to plan if they have only a five year window and you know capital improvements those types of things so I guess the committee felt comfortable not sort of along the lines of what you were just talking about that was it good thank you very much, yes Brian one question there was a plan to cut trees and cut trees so that is that is a forest management project it does involve cutting some trees it's part of well there's a number of things I'd say about that firstly it is not the outdoor family centre who are doing that it is the town under the guidance of the Chippin County Forester secondly it is there's a lot of detail about that within the sort of addendum to the forest management plan that's the like board adopted in 2020 if you're interested in it well I think this is a plan to cut 11 acres of trees in the forest as a project as an experiment to to see if we can enhance the forest by bringing in other species of trees that may grow faster and sequester more carbon in the future it's a plan to cut 11 acres of trees in the forest and sequester carbon in the future I think this is a well intentioned plan but I think that it's a little late in the game here we are looking as a planet we are looking to sequester carbon and cutting down 11 acres of trees is going in the wrong direction it's a plan that has maybe an experimental lifespan and we've got seven we've got 24 we have seven years to 2030 to cut our carbon emissions by 50% and by 2050 to cut our carbon emissions to zero and we're talking about a plan which has a 30 to 50 year lifespan it's no intention but it's it's just been something that we've done 50 years ago and not now we need to sequester carbon at a rate that we can't afford to cut down trees to cut down those those ash trees was appalling in that attempt those mature trees sequestering carbon we cut them all down because we thought it would be an efficient maintenance issue when we need to go in the other direction we need to save every tree we can and to plant more so I suggest that we take another look at this and put a halt to this plan that's my opinion thank you thank you Brian I think we are finished with this what's the process from here needs to be approved by the families at this point correct we'll take we've got a few issues to iron out with the outdoor family centre so staff will meet discuss those with the family centre and finalise the draft I think we'll get a tourney review of it and then presented to the select board again for approval good thank you before you go Simon and respond a little bit to Brian's comment would it be a good do you think it would be a good idea to have Ethan come in and explain to the select board the forest management plan so we are already thinking about that the intention Ethan Tapper the Chinden County forest has been developing this plan it will be presented to the select board for approval but it does need to go to the Catamount forest committee for recommendation first and I think we'll also be taking it to the conservation committee we do have some very knowledgeable residents on that committee and I'd like to get their perspective on the plan as well before we present it to the select board so there will be further opportunities to comment and Brian I'll definitely invite you to those meetings great sorry I guess I should have known it was on its way have the things in train thank you Roger Simon I appreciate the presentation have a good job thanks moving on to fiscal year 2024 operating and capital budget transmission and Eric and Shirley are the authors of this great document that we got in our boxes over the weekend and good reading and good nicely done so Eric I'll start off with you thank you Terry so we're it's that time of year so we're poised right after Thanksgiving to transmit the operating capital budgets for consideration under my duties as town manager for the select board to consider setting a budget proposal for the voters for town meeting day the process that begins roughly in actually July or August each year we start thinking ahead to the budget I transmit budget directions to department heads mid to late summer Shirley's hard at work starting to look at initial numbers projecting payroll benefits so this culminates in this document that we're pleased to transmit and provide an order to the select board this evening you'll see we've done our traditional budget reminders that are at your desk this evening and we also have a complete PDF that I'll finish it up today so I'll send it out tomorrow and post it on the town website some for the public watching at home as well we'll have that certainly posted tomorrow as the review meetings will begin next week for the select board so I like to share every year that the budgets the town's fiscal spending plan for the next year bringing in July developing this piece of public policy it takes a number of projections and we use the best information we can today to plan for the future and again I want to thank our staff especially Shirley our finance director for the many calculations and recalculations that go into putting this document together for its first draft and then as the board reviews and provides staff the direction to finalize it for town meeting day for the warning in January so I'll provide a brief presentation of the board which hits some highlights from my transmittal memo in your binders and I'll give you a brief overview of all the policy factors that we the major factors we identify and thinking about next year's budget on the expense and revenue sides here as we go through it so I'll provide some general themes assumptions and policy levers we'll get the general fund the capital fund fund balance local option tax ARPA funds next steps and policy decisions here this evening and it we'll provide a high level overview so I like to look at general themes in the budget this year and it should be no surprise that inflation is our major our major theme in the budget the cost to provide our current level of municipal services is increasing due to economic factors many beyond our local control we're experiencing a 30 year high in the rate of inflation in the country our northeast consumer price index which is a good measure of the inflation factors the 12 month average through October 7% we should get the through November numbers hopefully I think next week they'll be released by the Department of Labor nationally that number is 7.7% over the same period so we see the effect in our region and nationally and with supply chains we see both of those coming into play with provision of goods and services as part of doing municipal operations here we also look at the employee recruitment and retention factor looking to maintain a competitive structure in this very challenging job market which is continuing today we've had some open staff positions more it seems recently and we're having a challenge we're getting a very limited number of applicants for those positions still we've been fortunate to hire some great people but our pool is very small and it's we're being aware of along with our municipal colleagues throughout the state that I interact with and I also looked at and part of the planning department's report that I'll have a director Matt Boulanger walk you through again this year is we look at a growth projection and there's a number of variables at play here but I asked the planning department to look at our growth management system are permitting on the horizon because we're trying to project in the future what our service delivery needs will be for the community and some of those numbers are fluid right now their projection next five years is looking at a 2.3% population growth projection for Williston with a lot of caveats that's looking with the information we have on permitting trying to project health households they've added this year to commercial square footage growth projection and a vehicle trips projection as well that they'll go into more detail for the board on these are all factors that come into what our service delivery demand is going to be in the coming years to help us understand what variables that will affect operations moving forward so I pulled the visual here from the New York Times last month they update the inflation chart so you can you can see the 7.7% and through October looking at that 30 year high I think it was you'll see here in the early 90's was when it was over 6% last time so when putting this together we have to make some assumptions when you're trying to put a policy document like this together that has some things that you can't know in the absolute and some policy levers that the board will have under its consideration moving ahead here so one of these we'll be looking at COLA merit increase we've generally budgeted a 5.5% increase for staff 3.5% of that is a cost of living this is a ceiling identified in an active union contract we have right now for FY24 then as we've done in recent years for merit or step increases in contracts another item here is our grand list growth our town assessor projects a conservative very small grand list growth next year of a quarter of 1% this is about a 5 million dollar increase he projects at this point in time we generally take a conservative estimate here last year I think we predicted 3.5% if I realize about 1.5% growth when the grand list was finalized by the Listers last spring so that it certainly helps overall in the calculation for the tax levy but it's it's a small amount considering in this budget it's calculated another thing we look at is our local I should also mention for the grand list we're anticipating a reappraisal order will be issued next year you might recall our common level of assessment was 85.07% after the town's appeal last year anything that dips below 85% requires an order for reappraisal town assessor bill him in pretty definitive terms tells me we will likely get that order next year there's also likely over 100 communities in Vermont that will also get that reappraisal order bill has a plan for how to tackle that the next couple of years they'll help refew on our reappraisal fund is very well funded to go through that but we'll look at likely 2024 into 2025 a town like reappraisal based on the CLA that's required by the state that'll be pending and affecting a couple budgets into the future another item here is our local option tax receipts methodology historically the town's taking a rolling three year average by quarter of our 1% local option tax on eligible sales on the rooms meals and alcohol a couple years ago when the pandemic began we had to try to predict what this revenue mechanism was going to do throughout the year as we saw dips especially on the rooms and meals side looking at the last year and a half we're confident in going back to our methodology we used for a number of years three year rolling average we're omitting though the first half of 2020 because it's certainly an outlier to keep those numbers and then based on the performance we've increased it a little bit from there I think maybe an extra $40,000 it's still a very conservative estimate because this is a volatile revenue source if we don't hit this revenue we have to look at things like the town's fund balance to make it up so it's better to be conservative in how we predict this and then if we get a surplus on top of it it helps balance other items and potentially reduces use of reserves that are budgeted in the revenue side of the budget and then finally looking at the fund balance and ARPA funds are offsets to consider again in assisting to balance the budget the step down approach I'll go into more detail on for the board to consider here as you look at these different revenue factors so when we began this budget my direction to department heads was to produce a status quo budget for manager and finance directors review we asked that they submit budget proposals with this cost to provide the current level of service based on the inflation factors so we know what's our baseline from this current budget year to the next budget year to continue to provide the same level of service if the department wanted to offer a new or expanded service in their budget they were to submit a separate sheet explaining that service and justifications why they felt it should be added I reviewed I saw where we were working with Shirley on the status quo budget we had a few requests for new or expanded services we've included a limited number of those and those are primarily some additional hours to some existing staff positions based on increased need a couple in conjunction with a retirement and a need for a future of that position that in the library assistant director that you'll hear more from the library director and trustees about goal I had was to deliver the budget expense side any increase lower than the rate of inflation we've been able to do that based on the October numbers for the board our bottom line increases six and a half percent this is lower than the national and northeast inflation rates through October so that was a goal of mine in preparing us for the board this year as it's certainly a very challenging budget year looking at all these inflation factors at play which we certainly could not have predicted a couple years ago it's certainly been my third budget preparing for the board each one's been quite different I'll say so one of the many exhibits you have in your transmittal is looking at the expenditure by object I feel it's a good way to kind of look at how our budget is spread out amongst our operational costs so what we see here is wages and benefits are about 62 percent of our overall budget we talk about those increases within those cost centers and that certainly takes up of this over eight hundred thousand dollar expense size increase that that's certainly the vast majority there then I've also highlighted operational costs which are driven mainly by inflation these are contracted services insurance fuel for our vehicles heat and utilities maintenance those items so we'll dig into those in more detail but just from an object standpoint those are the primary drivers tied to inflation on the budget proposal right now so by the numbers here as I said bottom line six and a half percent increase I've tried to put an initial tax rate in the budget for the board to work from based on a few factors with variables for you to look at in this transmittal it looks at a tax increase of just over three cents what that means is for a median home owner a three hundred thousand dollar assessment that's about an eight dollar a month increase in the tax levy certainly something I know the board would want to look at as you look at revenue and how to balance the budget so it's a direction for staff so then just a visual here as we look by department it shows a breakdown of our spending certainly public safety which includes police, fire and public works is a good chunk of that pie and then I will highlight to our capital expenses just over ten percent our debt service ratio is about seven percent we're not proposing to add any new debt at this time it feels a good place to be on our debt we also have some long-term debt that's going to be maturing in the next couple of years of note our sidewalk bond will mature and our public safety buildings three series of bonds will start maturing in FY 27 so we'll certainly have some debt falling off the books in years to come I'm moving ahead and there's the revenue side to pretty close to where we see in other years property taxes around half of the revenue local option tax about a quarter of the revenue side so I look at measures of tax rates I've included in your transmittal as well I'm looking at Chittin County Wilson's current tax rate for FY23 is just above Charlottes for a lowest municipal side of the tax rate in the county right now so then taking a quick look at the capital budget which we'll go through in more detail as well with presentations just over $90,000 increase affecting the general fund in this proposal as I said no new debt proposed we've worked throughout to consider future planning with the town's energy goals in mind throughout the capital budget we look at this every year too the town's unassigned fund balance your select board policy calls for a 10-20% of the operating budget unassigned fund balance what Shirley works to do is take our estimate at the end of FY22 these are work from our pending audit which is in draft form right now we also look looking ahead what we may make in a surplus for local option tax revenue the rest of the year we see what we budgeted for use from reserves for tax reduction and reserves for capital try to come up with a conservative estimate for the fund balance at the end of this fiscal year and then we put in initial numbers in this draft budget towards use in FY24 we come out with where the fund balance may end the FY24 it's in that accessible range based on this initial proposal we prepared it would be approximately 17% within your accessible range at the end of FY24 there are many caveats with this it's to help guide the board's policymaking but this is certainly we're trying to predict a lot of variables into the future here I will share we've taken this looking at projected increase in local option tax revenue this doesn't account for the under-spending of line items by departments on the expense side which we typically realize that through things like open staff positions or periods of time under-spending on certain contracts and items within our budget so trying to project that is way too complicated for this exercise so we take the best knowledge that we can in giving you this piece I will share as I did last year the town's budgeted almost half million dollars for this to balance the budget for many years and I believe surely through FY22 we're not anticipating we needed to use it last year as well but there will become a time where the town will actually need to start we'll need to use some of this and it's not always going to be there to offset taxes so it's keeping in mind that my thought here is strategically trying to step it down for where the offset is for when the day comes and not be looking at it as much as a balancing mechanism you might recall last year we had it at $680,000 based on a number of factors in the budget we didn't likely need to use that to balance it but sorry that's this current year so we're trying to predict where that's going to fall we think we'll get more receipts from local option tax but trying to strategically step that down the next couple of years to not be relying that as much on a balancing mechanism to make what your comfort level is within your policy and how to present this part of the revenue side take a quick drink here so long as I mentioned with local option tax we're using the pre-pandemic methodology to calculate it we're budgeting about $180,000 increase in our local option tax revenue using that ruling average and increasing a little bit based on past performance that we feel is acceptable here we did get our quarter one receipts that the state delivers to us in mid-November which helps us try to predict the future here I checked this today our returns in the sales tax for quarter one of this fiscal year was just over $900,000 which I believe is the greatest quarter the town's ever had in its sales tax collection obviously inflation is driving that the cost of things are going up the tax levy yield is likely going to correlate with that to some extent so we'll take that into consideration here but again we don't want to just think this is a steady belter it's affected by lots of market forces lots of what are there will be a recession in the country when this budget is in effect in FY24 we take a conservative approach here to try to hedge against those factors for my time but I know 2008-2009 the town had to look at this factor too with the last significant recession the country faced and trying to be prepared for any potential recession in the future so one thing I like to look at too is the town's really benefited well from its foresight over 20 years ago to establish this tax if the local options tax receipts they would offset 16 cents on the FY24 property tax rate in the draft budget so one cents on the property tax rate we're looking at here produces about $213,000 in revenue so if we didn't have this tax in place conceivably the town went off the same level of services the likely other place to look would be in a higher property tax rate so this is the primary driver why will since property tax rate is the second lowest in Chittenden County it's the receipts from local option taxes in our overall revenue side of our operations here so a little about ARPA funds I have some use in the initial proposal I understand the board has a lot of thinking to do about ARPA giving the pressures of the budget this year and balancing the budget I included some initial funds for your discussion and consideration here as a reminder there's $3 million allocated to Williston in ARPA funds the Treasury Department and its final rulemaking last year allowed an exemption that the town took for lost revenue so this exemption allows general government expenses with a few exceptions for use of ARPA funds the select board is allocated just over $700,000 of these to date in the current budget year FY23 the board allocated $300,000 in general revenue to help offset our current operations in this budget proposal so we're looking at stepping down that use seeing how it's limited funds but we're trying to use that as a bit of a balancing factor still so we've stepped down that balancing factor to $125,000 and then we've also put in about $90,000 to address one time fees we have in this budget our expenses rather the police retention incentive is in its third year in this budget and our thoughts here was budget ARPA funds for that one time expense so if the board were to consider this type of model then the following budget year in FY25 you'd be stepping down the ARPA offsets for those limited funds and then you don't have a bigger gap to make up all at once so it could be a smoothing mechanism you could elect to not use ARPA at all you could look at other means for revenue likely need to also decrease expenses that as well but in proposing this felt it was a source for the board to consider you've got a few levers here to pull but it could certainly be a means for an extended conversation in the next couple of months so that's my segue to my policy consideration slide to say there's policy levers for you as the board to pull and direct staff and how you want to move ahead with your fiscal proposal that's our general fund expenses certainly the property tax that projected levy would be and as a reminder to folks watching at home the property tax rate is set in July after the grand list is finalized so we try to predict where the grand list is going to land and how much we yield from each sent on the rate to help understand our revenue and our overall spending plan how the board wants to use potential fund balance in its budget and then looking at ARPA for these operating budget needs and I've also identified that as impossible capital needs as well to consider with ARPA and certainly some of those proposals could be deferred as well in the future as we're getting starting here staff will seek director from the board on where to land on these budget items as we work to finalize the proposal for town meeting day moving ahead so our next steps the board has scheduled budget meetings where we'll go into more detail through all department line items a week from today on December 13 reminder we have that meeting scheduled to start at 6pm it's traditionally the longer budget meeting where we work through a majority of the budgets that night and then December 20th meeting start time a little earlier again at 6.30 for some general business for the first hour and then wrapping up I think we have fire and library budgets that evening we'll schedule the public hearing on the draft for January 3rd and the board will have time on its agenda budget deliberations and direction for staff that evening continues with an additional special meeting on January 10th and then you have a meeting on January 17th where you can consider finalizing the budget and the warning you also have availability of January 24th additional meeting if necessary to finalize any items for the warning and including the budget 10 meeting this year is a little bit later March 6th then Australian ballot March 7th hoping we may be able to go back to the school this year for an actual town meeting the board would like to move in that direction the town clerk has already looked into that so decision for you to make as well probably sooner rather than later so we can reserve the space and look at those details here that's my initial transmittal and surely did you have any other items you'd like to have I did not wow so next week we'll start the deep dive on this as Eric says we'll be starting at 6 o'clock and we'll go through several of the departments next week to go ahead and start on a list and take a testimony and ask questions and for the long haul so thank you Eric moving on to manager's report I'll highlight a few items from my written report this evening as I mentioned my budget transmittal our local option tax for the first quarter we received that report which I'm going to do in your report pack is certainly is good news to see those receipts coming in at that level initially here we were unfortunately informed regarding our ambulance billing service the town for many years is contracted with the city of Barry for that service we were informed I think just before Thanksgiving that the staff member in Barry who's performed that service for many years is leaving for a different opportunity the city did not have anyone else with the capacity to perform that service and they informed me that effective December 1st they would no longer be able to provide it for Billiston so we quickly have issued an RFQ for ambulance billing services thanks to Cheap Collector for his quick work on getting something together we've I think they're due this week I know we had a couple of week window so our hope would be to procure that contract quickly Barry's going to round out the month of November but we'll certainly need a service provider to start with our December billing coming up here so we'll work through that situation some staff news to share you know it's always bittersweet but we have three long time staff members who are retiring one Fire Lieutenant Sean Soper he completed his final shift last week and he retired after starting the department for 16 years and I hope to bring the board a resolution to consider recognizing his service here later this month he done great work for the department Lieutenant Soper and wish him well in his next chapter here long time assistant library director Debbie Rotterer has announced her retirement she's worked for the town will be over 36 years when she retires so that's planned for April next year and then administrative assistant in the assessor's office Debbie Greer plans to retire early in the new year but just over nine years of service and Debbie's done a great job as well in the assessor's office and we'll be helping us out with some transition in that department as well so to recognize those staff members at least initially now and they'll be more to come and this reminder the budget review schedule six o'clock next week right here that's all I have to say now thank you so we're up to that magic thing of other business is there any other business to bring forward tonight yes, I am I don't know if you were just made as much as I was at the failure of our world leaders in the top 27 to commit to what is needed to keep the heating of the planet below 1.5 degrees celsius it's on track to reach 2 degrees celsius by the end of the century which will have catastrophic and fatal consequences for mankind so the world leaders have punted on this the state is taking it very seriously we have a state energy plan and the global warming solutions act which by law requires us to meet certain guidelines to get us to the state's goals or their state is liable for lawsuits but unfortunately the state has not found a funding source for its plan for the global warming solutions act so I don't know where that's going and then I read our budget and hoping that at the local level we're willing to address it us who are the second lowest tax town in Chittenden County so concerned about keeping our taxes low that we're not addressing the pollution that Williston is responsible for is contributing to the crisis and I think it's appalling I think this select board as our town leaders should reject this budget and ask for a budget which is realistic a budget which addresses the elephant in the room we're refusing to do it we have the means to do it and we're certainly not doing it our fathers and grandfathers fought in World War II and died to protect this country and we're asked to put money that's all we're not asking to sacrifice our lives to go to war we're asked to to increase our taxes to pay for the things that are necessary that Williston is responsible for so we're saying that our children and our grandchildren is not worth to pull out of our pockets to pay for the things that are necessary to make Williston comply with the goals of the state I hope that you will take another look at this budget ask your department heads to look at it and find on your energy committee you have an energy coordinator you have a conservation commission put your heads together and come up with a plan of responsibility for this crisis thank you thank you Ryan any other business to be brought forward tonight if not then we adjourn