 So we'll call the Monday, December 20th, regularly scheduled select board meeting quarter. Got Flo Smith, Dave Sawyer, Bracktown, myself, Jeff Lawrence, for the board present. John Quinn is joining us now. Ford, additions and changes to the agenda. We're gonna put the listers errors and emissions before the fire department budget presentation. Anything else? Okay. Public comment, hearing none. Subdivision road name request with Ellen Moody. So, yeah, I thought this is, again, it's in your package. It's just a request. We've run the name through the state board and the nine-month law to see for any conflicts and it's come back with no conflicts as well, so. Okay. So the subdivision's all approved. The subdivision is all set. Now we're just looking for the approval on the private road name. That's it. Move to approve the naming of the private road structure in the lane. Second. Any discussion? Both in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Thank you. Thank you. Well, thank you. Thanks for being here. We have on the agenda, Jerry D. Matides for appointment as alternate delegate to CV Fiber Governing Board. Now, Jerry. I've moved the approval of Jerry D. Matides to the CV Fiber Board. Second. Any discussion? Those in favor, say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Capital City GMC Volkswagen Mazda Development Improvements on Marvin and Goodenow Roads. That's the steps that's in your back there, the gravel road. And, yeah. Well, my name is Jeff Olesky. I'm a consultant engineer. Civil engineer for the project. Yep. And happy to give a brief presentation at the places of the board about what we're looking to do here. Don't think you would hurt it. I think that would be great. Does everybody have a copy of 10 of them? I do have a full size set here. I've got a whole set as well, if I need it. You know, long or short, this has been a ways of making, but this was site development and redevelopment for new Volkswagen Mazda Car Abolition to be located directly across from the existing Capital City GMC facility. The development review board approved this just about a year ago, actually. And it was put on hold, meaning we do COVID for a while from permitting standpoint of the state and whatnot. And just late summer fall, we are getting a permit process off the ramping again in the throes of the state permitting. And one of the conditions of the area, who will have already said, you get the roadway improvements from what it's done for here. So what we're really talking about is two sections of road. One, the primary section being Marvin Road from the intersection of Route 2 to the intersection of Goodnow Road. That's an existing gravel drive that kind of has an awkward intersection with Route 2 right now. It's kind of a steep incline off to Route 2 and it's also kind of a cute angle kind of forks in right now. So the improvements to Marvin Road would include changing both the alignment of the intersection of how Marvin Road is teased into Route 2 to provide a better approach and site distance directions in either direction on Route 2. As well as getting, we're gonna be filling quite a bit of the approach to Marvin Road. Some areas come up, I think three or four feet. There's some profile and elevations and road profiles in the design plan set. So essentially it wouldn't be such a steep incline. They'd be fed it out over a couple hundred feet. And then we're also widening the road to a full 24 feet wide and paving it. And then in addition, and that could be pretty much just past the intersection of Marvin Road and Goodnow Road. So Goodnow Road teased into Marvin Road just kind of past the site development. And then the second component is we're actually also improving and widening and paving a small section of Goodnow Road as well, essentially from the intersection of Marvin Road to just past the curb cutter access to a remote parking lot that is designed and permitted for the support of this development. We came in maybe a week or two ago and I saw it with Tom, Vince, as well as Tim Davis, I believe. He just kind of overviewed the project, get it fresh in everybody's minds. I think Tim was generally in favor of the project. He had a couple of questions that will culvert there. Upgrading, improving the three culverts that cross two, that cross Marvin Road, and one that crosses Goodnow Road, just as A, to increase the size and capacity of them and improve them before they get paid lower, obviously. But the whole project will obviously be paid for privately as part of the speed development project here. We think there's quite a few benefits from a safety standpoint, from a travel-support standpoint. And I think the only thing I'll mention is in addition to the local pool, we also do have a preliminary pool for the agency of transportation on the roadway improvements as far as data, such as route two and anything that we're looking to do within the state right away. So I guess I'll put that over to the board for any questions. I just said one, was there anything with wetlands? Because it seemed that spot off of Goodnow to the right of Goodnow was kind of wet down in there. Yeah, so there's a significant class to wetland, essentially to the northwest of the two remote parking lots that you see there on the plan. There's some minor impacts, the removal of wastewater systems currently in the parker, but the wetlands were delineated, there was a state wetland permit applied for and approved. That's all kind of been resolved with the state as far as that's concerned. Now one other thing that I'm just thinking about too, one other improvement we're making is right now there's really no intersection control as Goodnow road tees in the Marvin Road. It's part of the project we're proposing that stop sign to be placed at as good an approach to tease into Marvin Road. So that'll stop any potential conflicts and give the Marvin Road right away, so to speak. Now what will the impact be on the residents up in that area, when that construction is taking place? Yeah, and that was obviously something that we spent quite a bit of time with. There was quite a bit of neighborhood involvement when we went to the ERB review process. There were some, some of these improvements were actually came from some of the discussions with the neighbors. There's some additional security measures that are being put in place to kind of prevent additional traffic. So as an example, I think everybody was comfortable with the, and again, the layout's kind of easy. So there's a building right now in the existing parking lot across from Capital City DMC so that darker shaded box will be the proposed building. The two slightly kind of awkward gray shaded areas off of Marvin Road, Goodman Road, are just parking lots, inventory parking lots. And there was some concern about traffic just back and forth through there and whatnot. And so ultimately the concession was the remote parking lot on Goodman Road to be accessed off of Goodman Road is not only inventory only, but it's actually a gated secure facility so that clients or customers can't keep driving up and down Goodman Road or pulling in that parking lot. Only staff of the facility would be able to in and out of there and pull inventory out as they need. So that was really the amount of traffic that we generated in any day that was pretty minimal once the lot was stopped. You know, there weren't two cars, they weren't someone who wants to touch drive or something, they'll pull out but it's not gonna be a high volume thing. Most of the real traffic would be cars going in and out of the facility directly off of Route 2, there's a per cut directly out of Route 2 as well as far as service customers and clients. Are there any concerns about this remote lot that you have here in the shotgun clubs? I know they got a screen but I don't think it goes that far over. Yeah, I mean it's, the shotgun club is still quite a few hundred yards away I think but at the least of the minimum. You know, the RHDL has owned both of these properties, the 40 Goodman Road and 12 Martin Road lot for quite a few years now I think. Maybe we've got a temporary pool of cars in this Goodman Road area in the field historically over the last couple years already so I think they're comfortable with having an employee there. Okay, just because I know that that screen that they put up when they get the skeet shoot it doesn't cover that lot over there. That's why I just, as long as you guys have addressed that. Yeah, and they're aware of it. I mean certainly if it's going to become the issue I'm sure they'll have to do something either in terms of our site to resolve it or work with a gun club to come up with a remedy but I think the tech part is there at least during the summer lines for the last few years and I don't think I've had any issues with that, so. Does the board have any other questions? I don't. You're bad. Anybody? All right, thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. Dodge Charm Road review and update. Okay, so we've got a pretty full package there. Have a good night, Jeff. Thank you. This was developed from the acceptance and reclassification highway policy that we did just previously, earlier this year. So we used Dodge Charm Road kind of as an example as well. Tim and I went up and walked it with Reverend Ms. Haskins and compared that to this report, this acceptance policy, excuse me, and made notes that you'll see on the first page in red there of the findings. So there are a few things and they were aware and we walked through it and talked through it, some of the culvert cleaning and some of the grading and things like that. So there's pictures in there of each of the issues that we had found during that. So this kind of walks you through it and documents it and in addition to that, you'll also find where it meets the town requirements based on the Channette Associates Report that's also attached in there for information for the construction of the road and their recent review of that as well is included in the report for information as part of that. And in fairness to Ms. Haskins, they haven't seen this report yet. Do you want to present it to the board first for any comments or questions? I'm sure she'll have one when she leaves tonight. So where are we, I mean. So basically I'll quickly walk you through this, right? The stuff in blue, there's really no comment, no requirements, anything in red is either to be determined or discussed. For example, is there a fee for taking over the road? That's not in our highway policy yet. It hasn't been determined. So that's something that'll need to be determined. Performance bonds at this point, they're not constructing anything. So that would be NA in this particular case. The inspection, the final inspection would still be required after the preliminary, after the work is done obviously completed that needs to bring it up to the standards, right? We're at a completion deadline. Again, they haven't had a chance to see what's required yet. So we haven't even talked about a date for that yet. So that would still need to be determined. Everything else is pretty straightforward, with regards to referencing a policy for acceptance and conveyance. That's all pretty clear. The right-of-way and traveled way with is defined and in line with things. On section 16, there's one location from a visibility standpoint where there's some trees. On that corner radius about halfway up, we may have to, Tim will probably end up having to take a measurement to see because there is a 50-foot requirement there for that. So we don't know that dimension yet. So that has to be measured. Great. Section 22, this will be a probably a point of discussion whether or not the town is going to ask for the road to be paved. Based on the policy that we've set in place, the requirements are if it is a joining, a paved road, which it is, it would be required to be paved. And from the conversations we've had with Tim, if it's not paved, it can be caused. There will be more maintenance, more maintenance and more radiant gravel and so on. And it has been determined under section 25 that additional culvert work will be required? Yeah, we looked at that through the walkthrough as well. And that's detailed in here where that is. There's photos in there that show the areas that they're referred to as well. And 29, that safety visibility is a duplicate item, really, of the... 16. The 16 for the tree needs to be looked at for 50 feet. We haven't had a genuine opportunity to view this, obviously. I don't know if I'm going to take a quick look to see if you have any questions, depending on if it's in the line. Well, you're sitting here. I have your money copy. Okay. I have your name written on it over here. You don't need to say anything. Just kind of mention my name. Um, this is a racer. The racer is a owner as of today, number 11. I guess one of the questions I had was, we started this process about a year ago and it was on the table on the front board and they worked with the board to what had to be done. And at that time, the painting department wasn't part of the conversation. And I don't know if it's that part of the real policy or if it's a part of the existing policy or if it's going to be about the original policy. And I would just like us to be given a consideration to possibly be grandfathered in because we started this process a year ago and we did everything we were asked to do right up until this point. I'd like that to be considered. Okay. So as far as the policy, we just adopted. Definitely take a look at that. We had, in our developments in the previous, I believe we had required paving always. Yeah. But I don't know about the formal policy. So we can have a discussion on that in absolute way. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Thank you for bringing that to us. Berda, was anything about that in the subdivision, that property up through there, about the roads? In the subdivision, it just states that the homeowners are, it talks about maintenance, by the homeowners and how it's, I don't know if it's going to be responsible. Yeah, okay. But nothing about requiring that subdivision to be paid. No. Okay. Not at all. The next time they're on the agenda, we'll have, we'll have that policy in front of us. Yep. We'll come back with other questions and we will also, policies actually in there as well, towards the back. And they'll copy that as well in the same package. Okay. But yeah, I can put it on the agenda again. Yeah, they're going to have to wait a little bit. I don't know if we'll come back with questions and we'll turn on the guidelines and we'll ultimately, we'll have to make a decision. And so obviously it'll be determined about having those questions, but we'll, for some point, just know what we're going to have in the areas. Do you have any additional questions? I don't know. I don't. Okay. Think what, we'll have you come, we'll get you back on the agenda. You can take a moment, go through the packet, the board. We'll also go through a look at the policy, look at potential grandfathering, like you had requested. And the next time we get together, I would suppose we'd be able to get some sort of closure on this, I would hope. At least as far as direction and what the board's position is on how to move forward. And then from there, we'll be able to ask your questions as well. It's been going on for a year so it would be good to, I think we finally have enough information in front of us to make a decision. Justin, I have a couple of thoughts and a question. Normally I'm opposed to taking over private roads. Usually it's just a shift to the greater taxpayer, but there are a lot of properties here that we're talking about. I think, Roberta, is there nine total properties here? Yes, there are eight existing and one to be built in 2022, so it will be a total of nine. Right, but, okay, and that's total, right? There's no more, not after that, right? Correct, all the, all the lots of properties. Okay, okay. My general thought is, this is a fairly good sized subdivision and they've, I've been here for the year that Roberta's been coming in and talking about this and it seems like a good thing for the time to take over. I'm not sure that, given the road that it's the best idea to pave that road, some roads are better off left to be dirt. It's not necessarily a maintenance savings to pave the road long-term. And I think that's one of the things that the board needs to think about whether or not, just because it's paved right now doesn't mean it won't break up three or four years from now, depending on a number of things, right? So it's just something for the board to think about, not all roads are meant to be paved or not all roads should be paved. Right. Anything else? Very good start. That's it, thank you. Thank you, John. Thank you. Thank you. So when do we think this will be on again? Probably get out of second meeting in January. What's that? Delight. Second meeting in January. Okay, okay, thank you. Have a great evening. Happy holidays. Happy holidays. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just walk right through. Yeah, I'm on. Good to see you. Thank you. Thank you. Have a good evening. I will. Thank you. Thank you. List airs, air, and emissions presentation. Hey. Hi. Hi, good evening. Hi. I think you have, I think you have my summary in front of you. Every year at this time, the state requires that we present to the select board any errors and emissions that were made in the grand list during the course of the year. These do not involve grievances. It's just simply errors that happen for one reason or another. So, and we are permitted to fix them before the end of the year. So, I categorize these into two pages. The first page are personal property changes. And Diane handles these. And what happens on occasion is that a company closes, and I don't know that, I'm sending them a bill based on what they reported a year before. And that's the majority piece. But then there was another one with auto zone, and I just misread their report, okay. So, you know, what's the calculation on that? So those are the changes. Like I say, the majority of them are companies who are no longer in Greenland. And I just didn't know that. Because a lot of these companies might have a presence at Walmart or other stores, so we're not familiar with the names. The second page is the changes that involve our not personal property, but real estate. And I'll have an explanation. I can go through it briefly. The capital city, Grange, when the bill went out in July, both the municipal and school taxes were exempted. And that was in error. Because the town meeting vote in March had only exempted the municipal tax. So therefore we had to send a bill out to the revised bill, which then included the school tax. The second one is the Berlin Mall, that actually the new senior facility that's next to the mall. And when we sent the tax bills out, there was a stabilization agreement which had not been finalized on the property. So in October, the agreement was signed. So we had to reduce the municipal tax. The first year, they're being taxed at 10% of the value of the improvements. And then each year it goes up. There'll be tax, I don't know the exact amount, it'll be 20 and 40 and 60 over the course of five years. So because this, it was to take effect this year, we had to reduce that municipal tax on the improvements. And the calculation is there that both Diane and I have to find our way. So that's just, that's in tax dollars. The remaining two are the areas of emissions represent assessment issues. For effectile residential, back in 2008, when they did the rebound, they set up a parcel which included the value on all the approvals they had on the condos. There were 12 approvals that were just there. There was no buildings, they were just approved. And there was a parcel set up to capture the value of these approvals. And they were between probably $25,000 and $30,000 each. So after 2008, nothing really happened there for 10 years. The property transferred from HENI to FEPTO. And then Jim FEPTO started building the units. And we, Tom and I in the office now, we were not aware of this parcel that had been set up in 2008, which included the approval assessments. So for, Jim started selling the units I think in 2018, 19 and 20, over that period of time they were sold. As of this year, he has no approvals left for the project. He has built them all out. And they're all assessed separately. The last few are not complete, but they still have separate assessments on them. So as a result, he should have no, he should not have a tax bill this year on this parcel because he, going forward, he has no more approvals to build. And it was just an oversight, because we didn't know the parcel was sitting there from 2008 and over the 10 year period, you know, it just was overlooked. So they hadn't, had they been paying taxes or not? Yes. Yeah, okay. They've been paying taxes all along, but this year, Jim Fecto came in and he suddenly realized the parcel was there. So we sat down and went over everything. And like I said, as of this year, there are no approvals left. So he should not be getting a tax bill. And then there was a significant decrease in the auto zone property. I guess the personal property, just 82,000, you know, that's a total. There'll be the grand list totally by that by 100. What they did is when they reported, they're supposed to report the net depreciated value, they gave me the whole cost. And I didn't know it at the time. So then we sent the tax bill out and I said, well, wait a minute, why didn't you give me the net depreciated value as we were supposed to give that to me? And they had none. So again, the Fecto is an assessment. So that, again, will be divided by a hundred. It's not the exact, it's not the exact number. And the last one is, it's some acreage. And what we had down is an old mobile home as of April 1st. The property sold in July, the new owner informed us that the mobile home was gone. So we drove up onto Murray Road, which was not an easy drive. And we found the site where the mobile home was. And it obviously had been gone for a while because the weeds had grown up on the site. And there's still water and sewer there. So that will remain on the assessment. But the mobile home was only assessed at 2,700. So we took that off for this year. So I can answer any questions if anybody has any questions. Anybody? I don't have any, but thank you. The detail is great. Well, it's just for you to see that how the time makes it a little easier. Absolutely. We just talk in here and having a little bit of back up for you. Thank you. Thank you so much. All right, fire department budget presentation. You guys want to come up closer so we can hear you. You good? I can hear you. All right, good. So I don't know if you want to go through the whole thing or I can pull out the highlights. All right, you just tell us whatever it is you want to share. All right. So what we're looking at right now is a $40,000 increase to the budget of last year. Well, that is coming from is we are going to implement a weekend shift, paid shift, both Saturday and Sunday. That's going to put people in the station for a period of time able to do the maintenance, some of the admin work, training, and respond to calls. We're also increasing the stipend program by $10,000. Let me go back to the weekend shifts. That's $25,000. That's going to be 16 hours for people for the weekend. The stipend program is being increased by $10,000. That right there is going to be for your Tuesday night trainings, work sessions, and all your fire calls is where the stipend program is used. We then also increased the capital replacement. And that's trucks, buildings, anything to do with, well, capital replacement. That could be anything. We typically think about that line item as trucks, big ticket items. We increase that by $10,000. We are also looking at this year coming for an audit. And that's another $3,000 on the accounting line item. So just those alone is $48,000. So we have taken $8,000 and shaved it off the rest of our line items. So instead of $48,000, you're looking at $40,000. Now, if you want to talk about the weekend shifts and the increases of which, short of the accounting, the survey that was put out, regardless of the number of the people that responded, there were certain things that they felt was important. One was trained personnel, good equipment, and being able to respond, have a quicker response. Now, I believe that these line items that we increased is addressing those. The capital replacement is not where it probably should be. But that is, it was still increased to something that I think is not as hard of a hit to the community. And as far as the weekend duty shifts, you're going to have two people. You're going to have the ability to have one-on-one training. I don't care if that is maintenance to trucks where some of the older folks can train the younger guys on what they should be doing and looking for while maintaining these trucks. I have some questions. Go ahead, John. What's the stipend for the weekend? Or what's the hourly wage? The hourly wage is $20 before taxes. And so that $25,000 is also encompassing some of the taxes and the extra in the workers' comp. How many people per shift on the weekend? You're going to have 16 hours for people. It's 16 man hours each weekend. How many calls did we miss on the weekend? We don't miss calls. OK. How many calls had an average then slower response time? Meaning like, everyone wants a faster response time when their house is burning, right? Like it's only fair to think that, right? At what point? I mean, what it sounds like is you're working towards a full-time fire department slowly. So right now, does your duty officer on the weekends get paid? No. How many times a month do you meet before? Is that right? Unless you've got five Tuesdays in a month. Yes. Right. And so the stipend increase, I'm assuming that's for recruitment? That is to the active volunteers of which we have. Yeah. It's retention. You think they do it for the money? No, initially. It's not a derogatory thing or the other. It's a question. You know, some people, you know, it's a great crowd to have that extra money. You know, throughout the Christmas, there's a number of reasons why you do it. I'm just wondering, like, are these really going to make a difference, right? Like, they're nice to have, but they must have in order to run your fire department effectively. And I'm not sure anything that leaves me to believe that these things are going to change anything that's going on except for spending a little bit more money. OK, so some of the things I think might take away on what we learned from our weekends is how much time and effort and the maintenance, as well as the administrative end of it. And yes, so if we move to a different model and there might be, at some point, a paid position or one and a half, whatever that is to be determined, we've got to track to see how many hours that might actually be to determine that position and the hours required. So that's a takeaway, as well, from this. What are the advantages to having people paid into station for basically four hours a day, two of them four hours a day on the weekends is it will enable us to have more maintenance time on the equipment by those people and free up time, maintenance and other work times and so on and so forth. And it will enable us to free up time on those Tuesday nights where we can increase our training level, which is one of the goals that the community survey identified. So the community survey didn't identify really what you did for training. So me as Joe Citizen doesn't have any idea what you do for training. It's always great to have more training. It's always great to have a faster response time. I won't debate with you about either one of those things. But your survey didn't really get to the meat of educating people on what it is that actually happens and how many hours you're actually training a year. How many hours does each individual get? So you meet four times a month unless there's a fifth Tuesday, right? So two of those are business meetings. Two of those are trainings. Is that correct? We have a business meeting, a work session, a training, and equipment maintenance. We could double the amount of training by taking the equipment maintenance and putting it on weekends. Right. How many calls a year do you get? Right now the department is averaging 250 to 300 fire calls a year and a light number of EMS. So that could be off a little bit. But Norfield does about 150 calls for a fire department a year, and they train once a month, right? So you guys are training way more than they are. Yeah, more than double, about double their calls. I'm just not sold on the reasoning here yet, guys. Yes, it frees up time for more training, right? What are you going to do besides pump water? Like, what are the training activities? Educate us on what it is that you do in a training from week to week. Like, how many weeks is it just pumping water and testing equipment and going through the normal process? And how many weeks are you smoking up a trailer and crawling through it? I think what he's asking for is what just to carry us is what their actual training path is. Yeah, no, so more training is great. But if it's just pumping water, right, there's only so much you can get out of that. And I'm just looking at it like, what are we getting here? You guys must have a training path, right? We have a training schedule, yes, that goes through the year. There's an initial fire training that's put on by the State of Vermont Fire Service Academy, which is Firefighter 1, Firefighter 2 level training, which, Janet, you're more recent on the numbers for the number of hours than that. But guys, those aren't your Tuesday night meetings. I've done the Firefighter 1. I've done that 100 in whatever hours, 85 hours. Those aren't the hours you're talking about. So I'm just trying to understand what it is on the Tuesday night that you, how it is that you guys train. Like, what is it that we're getting for this additional cost? Once you have that qualification level of Firefighter 1, Firefighter 2, you have to meet a certain number of hours in a certain range of training to maintain your qualification. The different categories include first aid CPR, hazardous materials training, or minimum requirements. And then you have to have a certain number of hours, which we include, as you said, was building rescue type training, water movement, fire streams, water supply. Then there's also training for vehicle rescue and extrication. We have other stuff, such as fire alarms in town, significant number. They require training so that people know what they're doing on the fire alarms. Does it require my Firefighter 1? You need to cover pretty much everything there is in Firefighter 1 or Firefighter 2. And you need to hit those subjects that are in Firefighter 1, Firefighter 2 each year. The hazmat, you have to have a refresher every year. The CPR, you have to qualify every year and have a first aid every year. And then the rest you need to cover with the grade down that the department determines is necessary. So I just want to compare apples to apples, right? This is no different than East Montpelier, Northfield, Williamstown, Randolph, or their Firefighter 1, the classes that they have to do, right? State 1. It's a state 1. And I get they're packing more and more into it. And they're requiring more and more out of our volunteers. I'm not trying to degrade what's going on or anything like that. But I guess my point in the end is these departments, for the most part, are meeting once a month and meeting those qualifications. We're meeting a lot more than that. And you guys are asking for an extra $35,000 if I wrote it down, right? $25,000 for the weekends and $10,000 for the stipends to not? The reason why I know if John actually meets weekly, not just monthly. Northfield meets weekly? What I understand. No. The train once a month. But there is the other road. Go ahead, John. So currently, John, we train once a month. Part of it is the other. It's heard. So if that's true, that's great. And I'm really, I'm not understanding. I guess that's my point is I'm not understanding. You guys meet every week. But you're only training once a month. So that's new to me because I thought you were training at least twice a month. And this is meetings the other two weeks. Well, there's a night set aside for maintenance. There's a night set aside for truck and equipment. So that leaves one night in the month to do the actual training. Now, what really drives people, your responders, if you want to keep them in retention, it's about training. Digging out drains for a work session is not going to keep people excited. Now, throwing ladders, flowing water, cutting cars, first aid, all that. That keeps people excited. That keeps, you know, that's part of retention in the fire service. Yes. I just want to say something here, just because I'm looking at these numbers and I'm looking and I'm hearing what you're saying and what John's saying as well. And if in this budget, and maybe I'm reading things around here, but it looks to me like this stipend increase is about a 33% increase over prior years with less manpower volunteers than what we had. And if you're looking for this $25,000 for a weekend thing and I'm hearing on this demand station, you're not going to be out on calls that whole period of time. So if they were doing truck maintenance and stuff like that, that's going to open the opportunity for two trainings a month without increasing this stipend at 33%. Because personally, I'm looking at a total increase of about 11% and 33% on stipends and other 33% on capital replacement. I would more intend to go for the 33% on capital replacement because we don't want to be getting hit with a big bill for equipment down the road and stuff like that so I could see budget in for that. I'm having a hard time swallowing this number added at 33% for stipends when your volunteers are down. And that's just me personally. What are your opinions? One of the things we did over the past couple of years is last year, the select board asked us if we could cut the budget by a significant amount. The goal to cut the budget was the 10% cut last year. We managed a 8.4% cut in our budget from 2020 to 2021. If you look at it over a longer term, over a couple of years, this is not a 10% increase. It's more in line with a 5% increase if you're going over the two-year period. Yeah, I can't look at it like that. I got to look at a budget that was approved last year and then you're telling me you're looking for 11% more this year. I always hate to talk about this type of stuff because it penalizes the people that do good work. And I want to recognize the Berlin Fire Department for coming up with a good cut last year. But what I see is a bunch of nice-to-haves and an 8% or $8,000 reduction, which means so if you just took away the nice-to-haves, you found an extra 8K on your budget. I don't know what percentage that is in front of me that you were able to cut out of this year's budget. So if you just took the 8K away, you didn't do stipend increases or weekend shifts. You increased your capital budget and the audit that you need to have because you're not part of the town. You're looking at not much of an increase at all there, if any. And it leads me to believe what you did truthfully was right-size. And I appreciate that. And I think all the taxpayers will appreciate that. But you guys didn't slash and burn last year. That's my feeling. Go ahead, Jerry. I attend quite a few of the meetings and I've worked on the budget for a number of years here as the town delegate to the board for the fire department. And what they're trying to do here is a little bit different than has been done in previous budgets because the fire department took almost a two-year effort now to try to address retention problems and try to focus on the future of the fire department, actually having a fire department that is volunteer or some form of hybrid. And it's extremely difficult to maintain volunteers at the level that you need to do in order to be a firefighter. It's this, the model that this department came up on is this old design. And there's been quite a lot of changes in what happens in families and in homes to allow volunteers at that level. And it's extremely difficult. And this is a first step, almost an experiment, if you will, to see if doing some paid shift work will increase retention and actually get additional work done that needs to be done for the fire department. So I realize that, yes, it's paying more money than was paid last year, but it's also trying to address a trend that hasn't been addressed in that. And that is the difficulty of getting volunteers at the level that you need. Our response times and the number of respondents are well below standards for rural towns of our size. And that's a problem. How much more can you slip? So this was meant to address that in a small step to see if it will work and, of course, to see if it meets the pleasure of the board. No question. I think ultimately one of the questions that John may be getting to or asking or that is kind of up in the air that we'd like to have answered is, I mean, it is. What would the taxpayers get for this investment, so to speak, in the fire department? Because I don't think anybody can argue that you guys do a fantastic job. I know this is more of an attempt to kind of bring it up to the level of another standard or another level of protection for the community. And I think some of the questions that are in mind, for me, are what would we exactly be getting for this sort of investment from the taxpayers? And that's kind of an unknown and not guaranteed. So have you guys, when I asked previously about a training or a development model, or what exactly that extra funding looks like and how it impacts the department, are you prepared to speak to that at all? Like, would you have an actual training track that we would know that this is where your requirements are? This is where this is the level that our responders are gonna be performing to. This is where they're gonna be. I mean, because it's great, we can put this in there and say, because of this, we can do better training or because of this, we're gonna have a better caliber, our quality firefighter on our team. But the reality is, if we've been running a system where we haven't had a high level of accountability or there's an attracting method to it, then how are we gonna measure the results that we're getting from that investment as a municipality? And unless you guys have something like that in place, I think that there's always gonna be some of these unanswered questions and concerns from everybody, not only the select board member, but maybe some of the residents as well. So I don't know if you can speak to that Keith. I don't have a pronounce of it tonight, but we track our training per personnel, per event, per personnel, have been, ever since I've been on this department, it is kept on a computer tracking program that's combined with everything else. I don't have printouts of the... So what is your training? I mean, you must have a standard training track, right? We analyze what we need for training annually. Quinn, do you have a question? It's not so much as a question. I think, and I can't hear that well from the people in the audience. I think it was Jerry speaking about, was it, was it Jerry? Yes. Yes. Okay. Most likely. So, you know, I can, I can certainly appreciate that, you know, wanting to try new things to get new people or to try to get to figure out some way to retain and recruit people, having, having done the same thing that you guys are doing for, you know, 13 or 14 years. It was never, it was never about, you know, how many, how many times can I, you know, go into the station to train as, as much as it was, as the excitement of going on the calls, right? I think, I think for all the firefighters overall, you know, serving the community and, you know, being able to respond and do those things is, you know, a worthwhile thing that, you know, anyone can appreciate that what I found, and this is just, you know, my own personal story was I didn't have time to train four times a month. I would have, you know, loved to have joined Berlin, for example, there's no way I can get, there's no way I could give up every Tuesday, right? There's no way I can train X number of hours outside. And therefore I don't respond or I don't, you know, join. And I think that's the way a lot of the community members are. There is a ton of people that I think would love to join and help their communities, but the state of Vermont, the fire services put so much on them to continue to train all the time that it's become such a burden. People are, you know, burned out and they just don't have the time to do it. So with that in mind, I'm not sure that I believe in my mind and I could be wrong. I could be very well wrong. And my personal story could be way off that these things won't fix the problem, unfortunately. So to me, you've actually just made a case to help out with putting some paid people in the building on the weekends, John, because that's an incentive to get you in there to do that training. And that's, you know, what's nationally everybody's seeing a decline in volunteerism and it doesn't matter if it's the fire service or the ELPs or anything. How do you get them out? I agree, but I don't think are your paid volunteers are gonna be the, are your paid weekend staff gonna be the ones that are the ones that you got to pay to get in there or they're gonna be the people that are dedicated? I mean, you've certainly made a case for that. I don't, can't imagine you're gonna incentivize the people that wouldn't normally show up by paying them to show up, right? Some of the best firefighters that I worked with hated the trainings, meaning not the training like the once a month, you know, you know, work on your equipment, you know, run water, do all those types of things, but spending a weekend away from your family, you know, we would be required throughout the year to do those types of things. And it would get to the end of the year and you'd have a ton of people go all at the same time because no one wanted to do them throughout the year. It could be different community, could be different. It was a long time ago, but you know, it's just, again, just making conversation and giving you my thoughts. Let me ask you this to the board, not just you, John, obviously, but, so the fire department's here and Flo, maybe you wanna speak to us a little too. The fire department's here to propose the budget and then part of what happens if we like the budget and we wanna proceed, we can authorize it to go on to the ballot without having to require any of the signatures. And so I think that's obviously a discussion. Is there, I mean, what does it take in the budget to, or what does it look like if it was, is there any way, John, you would be able to support this budget the way it is without requiring the signatures? Is there some sort of track or some sort of model or anything at all? I am gonna speak to it because I think Justin touched on it and I am the liaison to the board for the fire department. And I am in huge agreement to this. I think now more than ever, the fire department needs our help. They're reaching out for it. They kept their budget down last year when we asked them to. And I don't think a 10.9% increase is so significant that we couldn't go forward with this. I think they've been very diligent in proposal and they have a plan in place. And just as Keith said, there's many articles out there. And the articles are saying that the fire department's all across not just Vermont, but Maine, other locations, et cetera, they're hurting. And we need to invest in our people and our resources. And I believe the time is now. I think they can answer questions that we have tonight. And I think we should put all of our questions forward and then make an informed decision. Yes. Tori, you have your hand up? Yes, evening. I listened to the discussions all night. As a citizen of the town, I have absolutely no idea. The highway department has the same exact challenges. Our police department has the same exact challenges. Every department that we have has the same exact challenges. At what, you know, I just want to caution us on a public policy here or a public direction where, you know, we're looking at that type of increase, because the fire department out, the way next, it's police department next, it's so-and-so next, right? And even with the cost of inflation, I don't know that the taxpayers can afford it. Again, it's just for the conversation of, you know, how do we build a good budget here? And I understand what you're saying, John, and you are absolutely right that, you know, many entities will ask us for this, that, or the other thing. And we are there for that purpose. But in terms of what we're discussing right now, I think we should discuss it fully and ask all questions and come to a decision. Tor, go ahead, John. Tor was trying to say something. I'm sorry, I apologize. Thank you, Mr. Chair. As, you know, Mr. Town knows, I'm definitely in favor of cutting the budget anywhere I can. But as a resident of the town, I have absolutely no heartburn with the proposed increase in the fire department budget. Every year they try to present a, you know, pencil-thin budget. I think the increase in the stipend and the weekend staffing is reasonable and ran overdue. And, you know, I agree with everything that Flynn has said regarding this. Thank you. I couldn't have said it better. Thank you, Tor. I'm gonna just say this. I personally can't get behind this budget, not the way I'm looking at it here. I think that personally I can get behind the weekend stipends, the weekend paid, the increase on the stipends with the force that you now have. I can't, me personally, I can't back it up because it hasn't increased enough. If you have more volunteers, I'd probably say okay. But personally, I think that, I think it probably needs to be looked at a little better. Well, there's that. The other option might be to have the ability to break it out and put it to another, like two pieces on the ballot for the stipend for the fire department for. Justin, just for clarification, is this being presented as part of the town budget or separate as part of the fire department? The fire department budget. I'm just curious, because ultimately we wanna do what's right for the fire department and the town. And for clarity, if I'm just trying, I'm just thinking out loud. It was two separate things. I don't know if that's the answer or not, but if it was two separate things on the ballot, it would give the option, the stipend, or would the fire department wanna have it just be kind of all or nothing? And I hear David's concerns. And at the same time, I see that the fire department is looking toward the future succession planning, and they are bringing on additional volunteers. And all that comes with time. It doesn't happen overnight. I think this is a good step in that direction. And I believe that we should support it. I can see where it makes sense. I'd just like to know what exactly the training track would be. And I can see where it would be justified if I potentially, if I knew what the town was getting for that investment exactly. I mean, we've talked a lot about what we could be getting, what we might be getting, but I know from my time over there, sometimes there's questions of accountability potentially here and there and holding people to a standard. And if that you're gonna be able to hold people to that standard. And if not, what exactly is gonna happen? What exactly a training program would look like? And how that, I mean, to me, if we do some sort of investment like this, maybe it does save money down the road on maintenance, you know, things like that. I don't know, how does, have you, I'm not sure. Brad, do you have any comments? Well, okay. Ultimately, it's gonna be up to the voters. Right. This isn't gonna be part of the town, but it's gonna be a separate standalone item. Yep. And I think the town, the voters will take and probably support this. It's going to be hard to take and keep the volunteers here. And it's gonna be hard to keep, well, it's hard to keep anybody here really. And if this will, if the management of the pirate corporation thing is gonna help, then I'm willing to support it. I also know that they are diligently looking at ways to save as well. I've been very impressed in their meetings. They're always open to new ideas. And ultimately that helps the town as well and all residents. Joey, you wanna say, Joey? Well, I don't know if this is really going to address it. And I believe I said it earlier is, you know, we will be tracking, you know, hours of maintenance and administrative and training, which is gonna be added to this. And so in hopes of, at some point, when we make that leap, if we're going to become a different model than what we currently are, we'll have a better idea of what those duties will be and the requirements that are gonna be needed of the individual who might hold that position. I have just one more question, Justin. Yeah, go ahead. Okay, Keith, if you have a new member that joins the fire department and can't commit to four trainings a month or four meetings a month and can't do all this training you want them to do, do you kick them off the department? If they can't meet our minimum training of, we have a packet, kind of what we call a probie packet for you to start being able to respond calls. If they can't even meet that right there, then we don't even let them start to respond in the first place. If you're not making, if you're making three out of the four a month, should be no problem. If you're making two out of the four a month, that's starting to get iffy. After that, we work them up gradually through as fast as they can, but gradually through training, we highly encourage them. We can't, at this moment, we don't absolutely require them to go to the Fire 1 school, because it is a major commitment. It's a six, seven month long commitment of one, usually about six meetings a month outside in addition to the department. So we're not saying you have to be Fire 1 in order to respond, but what we're saying is we highly encourage it. And that minimum probie packet, if you can't meet that, you're not even going to be responding on a call. How many hours are these training sessions? Which ones? The four times a month. The Fire 1? Or whatever it is. Yeah, just your. Ours, 6.30 to 9.30 is our times. On a different note, we see in here is got a facility rentals. That shows an increase in your budget this year, or an increase in revenue. How's that going? I know we had some discussion previously, I just curious, with very town EMS. How's that going? So very town EMS, I think has come to a meeting and there was a discussion on the rental agreement. They have had the rental agreement in their hands for 13 months. I have not had, and it should have been signed on July 1st. They have been invoiced, nor have they, but yet they have not paid their first quarter. Their second quarter is coming up. And with that second quarter, they will be getting a 90 day late notice if you want to call it with the first quarter as well. So. Is there a fee associated to? There is no fee written into the rental agreement. A little shortcoming on our side. So what you're saying is very town EMS hasn't paid any rent? They have not paid rent. They tend to reach out to you and discuss why they haven't paid? I have reached out to them. Is frustrating and disappointing, I'm sure. So, yes. They'll stay there without paying rent? Well, I don't think the state of Vermont allows you to kick people out on the street this time of year. They don't, I think they do. They're not a resident. They're a business. They're a business. Have they given any indication why they haven't paid, Joe? No. Both Carl and Chris Lamanda. Carl Rogers and Chris Lamanda is well aware of this. John, you like to give advice. You got any advice for this situation? On camera. Fair enough. Fair enough. It was good that you didn't have any more discussion. Are we looking to say we're behind this? What do you want out of us tonight for this budget? What would you like us to do? I'm looking for support from the select board on this budget as it stands. And I think cutting it up and making two articles is a mistake and I cannot get behind it, I said. I think presenting it as one, I'm in full support of it. I'm behind it. I think we can put it forward as one. And I do believe the town residents will be behind it as well. That's my own take. The motions are, the motion will have to move on. I make the motion that we approve the Berlin Volunteer Fire Department proposed FY23 budget with the 10.96% increase as presented this evening. And discussed. You're not really approving the budget which you're doing as you're allowing to put it on in the morning. Yes, you're right. Would you like to rephrase it? You're doing great. So moved. Yeah. But I do believe it should be put on as one and not as two separate. Would you like to waive the rest signature requirement? Yes. Second. Thank you. Any discussion? I would just say that I agree that it should go on the town warning and that the residents should be able to vote on this the way that the fire department wants it. I do not support it in its current form. With that being said, I do support the fire department and understand the conditions they're under and hope the very best for them. And if they do get it, I hope that it works. I would like to concur the same. Any additional discussion? Those in favor indicate by saying aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Well, that's yeah. The motion was to put it on the, I just want to make sure the motion was to put it on. It was to put it on the ballot to let the voters decide. Correct. Well, I think stands the way it was presented by the fire department. Okay. Thank you. Yep. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you all so much. I'm pretty proud of you. Potential mask mandate enforcement by municipality discussion. Package in there. You've also got a letter from a business. Yeah. Vermont retail grocers association. Yeah. And you've got samples from what it was to do. We have samples from the leading cities and towns and the garage to Justin. Yes. Based on the number of calls that I've received every one of them being against the mandate, I would make a motion to table the mandate discussion until a time where we feel it's necessary to have. I had second that motion. Any discussion? Sounds good to me. Those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Table. EMD decision. Okay. So can we put this out? We've had a couple of people express interest. Their information is in that package. It was Mr. Romay and our chief has expressed interest. In addition, the chief's been pursuing some certifications and training along these lines and those courses that he's taken and also in the package to reflect that. So, our chief. That gentleman right there. Keith had also expressed interest, right? Well, Keith, correct me if I'm wrong. You expressed interest if no one else. Is this for a town emergency management director? Yes. Okay, I am not interested in emergency management director. Okay. Just quick. Thank you for clarifying. So in this packet, I see that there's a letter from Mr. Romay. Did he attach any qualifications? He did. They should be in there, right? No, but did he miss them? He's wrong. He is here. He is in attendance as well. Go ahead, John. I would say I've received no prompting from anyone on this subject. And I can't see the audience. So I don't know who's there, but I'll just speak to what I know. I know that our fire chief is a qualified and good candidate for the position. And I know that Matt, Matt, who is the chief of the Capitol Police Department is also a good candidate. What I know, in addition to that, is that Matt Romay has spent countless hours as emergency command in the Capitol complex. And I've seen some of the stuff and some of the planning that they've done. And it's phenomenal, the stuff that they're doing and the things that they're thinking about. And so I just wanted to put that forward, that I didn't see the qualifications of Matt, but I know him to be extremely capable and certainly up to the job. So I think it was Chief Pompry was the other person interested, just so you know. Oh, okay, sorry. I thought it was Keith. I just wanted to clarify. Thank you. Looks like you've done a lot. Stands to training. Yeah, that hasn't been fun. At the very least, I would buy a seat at the table. So that's what it's critical that the police department be involved in any kind of emergency management. And that was my reason for approaching things to begin with. So I think that there's probably two valuable perspectives with between Matt and yours, honestly. And I think you both probably have excellent, like combined, it would be amazing. And I don't know, is that a thing you can do or do a role on? That's your role? Yeah. I don't know how it works, I don't know honestly. Is it something where you can have, I know that obviously you have to appoint one individual, but is there an alternate? Is there a way that you can have that shared? I don't know how the structure of it all plays out in a situation, but obviously you probably need to delegate authority to somebody. It does say in here that the local emergency management director does a knee in one representative from each town and city in the region shall serve as the voting members of the committee. So I take that to mean it needs to be one. The second member must be a local EMF. We have the local EMF community. I think you guys have authority to appoint the EMD and then the EMD is the one that works with who's the team and who's doing what role. Who puts others in place. The others in touch. Yeah, that makes sense. Matt, I see you're on. Do you want to talk a little bit about why you think it'd be good to have you as the EMD? Well, I think it would be a horrible idea, but. And I'll say. You know, Chief Fabriano and I, I mean, we work well together now as counterparts and local emergency services. I tossed an offer in there mainly to make sure that the role went, the role didn't go unfilled. And you know, really, there's two kind of divergent things y'all are being asked to do right now. One of them is to appoint a local emergency management director, which you don't have to do. But if you don't appoint the local emergency management director, it's on you. That means it's on the board and specifically on the chair of the board. If you know, if you're, if you don't appoint one. As far as membership in the regional emergency planning committee, Chief Van Eyderstein, I know it would express an interest in that. That's two positions. One is the EMD or delegate of the EMD. And the other position is, is asked to come from local emergency services. So that could be a police, fire, EMS, you know, what have you. But the biggest question is where you want emergency management to go for the town of Berlin. Berlin's got a lot of high hazard occupancies, hospitals, nursing homes, nursing homes, nursing homes, if I didn't mention it, nursing homes. You know, you've got the green mountain power generating station down by the Dog River. There's a lot going on in this little town. And, you know, having that, that comprehensive emergency management planning cycle that just, just it goes round and around and around in circles every year. That's what makes the town and the department's eligible and being able to put in for Homeland Security grant opportunities, those, those kind of things. But whatever decision you make tonight, then, you know, the next step would be to come back and, you know, create a delegation of authority for the local EMD, if that's what you choose to do. And that's really where the meat gets, that's where the sausage gets made. What does the select board want that local emergency management director to do? It could be everything, you know, from just making that local emergency management plan to, you know, really, you know, having a delegation of authority to make decisions and implement actions. I am happy to help out whether I'm in a position or not with the town, it doesn't matter to me. I'm still gonna be there. And, you know, whatever the select board decides to do for the good of the town is fine with me. How can I help? To cover basic shifts. Yeah, I guess I could be wrong and I don't have any of the stuff in front of me. So bear with me. But in 2020, we had the same kind of shortages, didn't we? And we weren't really allowed to pull people. I don't wanna say we weren't allowed, but we were very cautious about who we pulled over and when we pulled them over because COVID was fairly new, right? In the FY20 budget. Yep. And it came in above revenue projections. So, given that this fiscal year doesn't start till July, I get there's a bunch of unknowns, but are you really projecting more than a 50% cut in number of people we pull over based on what you're seeing now? I'm just trying to be conservative, not knowing where things are gonna go. I can speak to that, John, okay? Because I am looking that we budgeted $12,000. To date, I've received $670. That's it. And by this time of year, I should be at 6,000. I've received $670. Right. But we're in FY22, right? That's what I'm talking about. Yeah. And part of that, maybe, I'm seeing the courts are five or six months behind in dealing with traffic violations. We're just now getting court hearings scheduled for tickets that were written in June and July. So it's safe to assume people know that. Yeah, everybody's been contesting tickets. I've never seen this level of contesting of straightforward black-and-white tickets. Right. Just because they know they can put off. I assume that's the reason, yeah. So what your point was, John, was that in 2020, in fiscal year 2020, we received $13,755, and you think that it's a little premature to assume? No, no, I'm just trying to fully understand where the chief's thinking and Diane's thinking was with that number, because in my mind, and I always get the fiscal years messed up, even though I deal with them all the time, like from February on, so we had February, March, April, May, June. I think the chief has said that. The officer count, as well as some other factors are coming into play. So I'd much rather be under than over. I'm just trying to, you know, make sure I understand where we are. Okay. Any other questions on the revenue side? Okay. Let's go to page 22. We did touch on this a little bit at the last meeting, but one of the big items was the, what did the workers call? It's called, yeah. Took a big hit there. And this is actual, this is an actual bill from workers comps. I know what it's going to be. Okay. And then the health insurance side of this, is this? And that's, a lot of it is because most of the people that we have, the officers we have right now are on family plan. And we've never had that many on family plan. It's normally been like two person or singles, but. Right, but that's not, I mean, that's not us. It's just that the fees, the premium's obviously a lot more for family than ever since. Do you know off the end what that workers comp number comes out to per a hundred and payroll, just out of curiosity? It's got to be up there. Hopefully resolved. Either it's still going to be another few years before, it's like a three year cycle. The next year's going to be the worst. We have one really bad, you know what I mean? Can you help me out for a minute? We're in FY21 now, right? We're in FY22 right now. All right, FY22. Okay, so do I have an old budget here because I'm looking at FY21 proposed budget. I'm looking at, it just doesn't line here for me. You're looking at. Are you looking at page 22? This actually did the report. John, the report that you're looking at, the grade areas are information that was there prior. That's why they're shaded out. They're just kind of a reference. And really they were a reference for me. Obviously my first budget go around. So, quick. I don't have grade areas out so much. I have all, you know, black and white except for FY21 proposed in full green. And everything in black. Everything left here. Fiscal year 21 proposed to the left should be shaded out. I don't know why that didn't show up. It should be shaded out. It's not on mine, okay. That one's on me. No problem. I just want to make sure I'm reading it correctly. Yeah. And you should also have an addendum report in the back of that as well. I can look at the cover here and tell you which one it is. For year to date, expenditures for fiscal year 22 as of November, mid-November. Okay. So one more time, just to make sure I'm reading this correctly, I apologize. FY21 proposed budget. Police salaries full-time line. It says 356-253. And then in 2022, it's 326083, which in my mind sounds like about a $30,000 reduction. But when I go all the way to the right, there's a number outside the box that says 13592. What does that number represent? Because that's usually the plus or minus. That number represents the increase right now from fiscal year 2022, which we're currently in, and the proposed budget for 2023. Okay. These colors, okay. And I think I remember, if you look at the night shift wages below it for FY21, you'll see that that was 196,942. And then for FY22, it was 261. I got it here. I think that was the- We shifted them. We shifted it around there and that's why I'm seeing that. It's the color scheme that was turning me up. I'm just crossing everything from that. Thank you. I'll make a note of that for the next one. It's okay. I'm just crossing it out in my bed. We're good. Okay. So ultimately we're looking at right around between 24 and $25,000 increase on the budget for wages. Yeah. And I'm just basing it because of you. Based on 3%. But of course, James is in there. He's at 2%. Now, not specific to the police department, but why would we, this seems like an employee retention thing to me. Why would with union employees a higher percentage increase than our non-union employees? Well, as a non-union employee, I'd love to get through this. Well, it just seems to be like it would create some animosity between the staff. So John, let me try to answer that one. For the purposes of the budget, we used 3% for the police force because we're in the middle of negotiations. And we really don't know where it's gonna go at this particular point in time. So we thought 3% was kind of middle of the road, at least for budgeting purposes. For the staff themselves, it was just a flat 2% that we used for budgeting purposes. That's how those numbers came to be. I think what Vince is saying is that based on your suggestion, we could look at all of those. Yeah. I guess based on what I'm trying to say is that I wanna make sure we're not creating a problem among our own workforce here. Right. So we didn't have anybody doing the health insurance buyback previously? No, we didn't. And right now we've got one and he's gonna be coming off next January. Well, we're budgeting for, is that Pete? He's going on. So did I have the buyback in here? Yeah, $5,200. I did because at the time that I did this, I was anticipating that that person would stay on. Okay, so how will that impact the health insurance line item? You know, I don't think it's going to because I put it in both places. Not knowing, you know, I thought, well, because granted, we're still down a police officer. Right, right. So this is, so I've based it on the health insurance based on, you know, having a full staff and I put in that $5,200 thinking. On top of the staff. Yeah, on top, on top, yeah. And you just made the comment that we're down a police officer. We're down. But the first time we met up the lead, we're down two other police officers, right? We're down. Well, yeah. The officer that was on extended medical leave is no longer employed with us. So we're down two positions. Okay. And then we still have one out on medical leave for another three weeks. And that's where he, that's why we're down to five. No, he's using up his sick time. Okay. So our full-time staffing is seven. Our full-time staffing is six. But then you would be with seven. Yeah, with seven, then including me. Okay. And I'm basing the health insurance on a full staff. So that $5,200 you think could come out of us potentially? Probably it would. But since I don't know, I'd rather be lower in the health insurance and at least have that there. But that's really something you just can't guess. Right, yeah, you don't really know. Yeah, it is what it is. I'm going to get that percentage of the increase. It's about seven, is that what it is? Seven and a half percent, seven and a half. And I'm basing it on seven percent, basically. That's an increase. And last year, the increase was five percent. So we actually, we're better off. And that concrete thinks we'll take part of that. That's most of it. That's the biggest part of it. And you're saying there's one more year of that? Was that attributed to a year that was pretty bad with comp? Two years in a row. Two years in a row. Yeah, because I got that figured out. It's like crazy. I think I figured it around 80, 80 per hundred or something like that. Is it 80 per hundred payroll? No, it's not quite that high. It's up there. Is there an increase or something? All right. So any more, any questions on the police budget? I mean, we do have the unknown with the contracts, too. Obviously, contracting negotiations. Because that would, that would do, you know, that would affect the night rate. That would affect the on-call. She's going to dictate. Yeah, longevity. Everything. Yeah, everything. As far as payroll costs, yeah. Yep. And then I did also, I think I told you the last time, the dealers, their rate is going up. So right now we're at 6.25 and the biggest line up is 6.5 or something near that. So it is definitely growing up on the employer end and the employee end. Right. And that was what you factored that in already. Yes, I did. Okay. So what, what other do you want to, want, Tim? I can bring Tim in for the next meeting. And then... We can do the office stuff. Yep. That was pretty quick. Yeah, let's do that. Okay. Do you have any more questions on the police budget? Not going to me. Everybody, not just you. Come on. Just make a shirt. No, I'm good. Okay. What page does the office begin on? Vince. Are you talking about general expenses? Yeah, because we want to start talking about them. Go back to the table here, we're going to do it on like a few verses. Page 21 is general expenses. Page 21. Page 21. What are you talking about administration? I don't think we can go ahead with your vote, right? Well, no, wait a second. I think we want to go and talk about zoning and DRB and all those others. You want to go to the beginning, though. Okay. So we'll go to that one. 16, 15, 14. 14. Assessing. Right? Do you want to go to assessing? All 11. Is it 11? Okay. Or administration right at the very end? I'm 10. Okay. I don't think we have those pages. Okay. You should have one page left. No, mine pops over. Mine goes from. Okay. So 10. Does everybody else have anything? Yeah, I've got them. Okay. I'll keep looking. Maybe it's just got out of order. Okay. Because on that one, do you have page 10 done? I don't know, but that's okay. I'll look on with Brad. All right. Let's start. Okay. So like I said, you did base the wages on a 2% increase. Prevents. And then like I told you before, we factored in that we'd have maybe a full-time person to back up myself and Vince. So that's extra in there. And now last year, it's, you know, when we had the budget for last year, after the budget had been approved, and that's when you had upped the amount for the down clerk and put Carinta full-time. So that was not reflected in 2022 budget. So in 2023, it looks like it's a higher increase, but actually it's only 2% of what they were actually given. Okay. That makes total sense, yeah. So the only significant increase in this is the extra office. Extra person, and I'm assuming, you know, I'm going with 40,000. I don't know if we can get somebody for 40,000 or not. It just seems like a half-way decent amount. And then just on a discussion item for that, we've been tracking times and all that. So we should have a good idea of how we can utilize that in a virtual and helpful. Absolutely, yeah. I'd go and give them a month. But the hard part with me is every month, my job changes significantly. And my job, like every February, probably the same, every March is probably the same. But that given month, that, you know, that's, so I'm not doing absolutely everything that I do all the time. It's just that events does have what I've done that particular month. And I did increase the postage for all departments because I do think that postage is going up. And on top of that, I didn't know if maybe we were going to require to mail out ballots, which is expensive. Has there been any more discussion on the ballots and the need for mailing? The last discussion that I had was with the chairman of the school board. Mm-hmm. And she was asking for contact information to the board members to reach out. I haven't had any feedback if she's reached out or not to discuss that. I haven't heard. But that's why I increased the postage. Okay. How are we going to have that? Are we set with page 10 or are we going to page 11? Jasmine? Yes. Go ahead. I wanted to point out that it kind of tags on to what John had said when discussing the police budget as far as increases, as far as they're, I think everybody, I mean, when I say everybody, all businesses, all organizations are really needing to look harder at how to retain employees. We've had problems as far as police, you know, way before the pandemic. But just now with, I believe I heard the other day that with 8,000 people on unemployment, there are still 20,000 job openings in the state. And people are making offers of having bonuses, you know, just for coming on. And we really need to look hard at making sure we're doing the best we can for all employees. And when John said about, didn't want any animosity between, you know, departments and all on the whole team, I have to say, last year when you guys were very much appreciated, made me full time. It wasn't with an increase in pay. I mean, it was a 2%, but yet somehow you guys also made the decision to, shall we say, right size rosemary at like a 14.4% increase. And that doesn't go over really well as far as, you know, willing to right size one employee and you're not necessarily looking at the others. I don't know if Diane would advocate for herself, but she's had a boatload put on her and you know, it was rarely gone today. And yet it doesn't seem like she has had her salary right sized or a bonus or anything to reflect all that she's done. And as I say, very appreciative that I was made full time and I think that's worked out really well as far as coverage. But last year when I gave you guys a sheet that showed what various town clerks and assistant town clerks are making, I was long in on the totem pole and I was basically told, oh well you're getting more money now, well no, I'm earning more money for working more hours. But I'm still the long man on the totem pole in these Vermont, Vega city and town numbers. I mean, any way you compare at anything comparable to either population size or hospital towns or whatever, there's a big difference in what others are making and what I'm making. So I just have to take the time to put in a plug and make sure you guys are considering it. If you're gonna have all that information from the Vermont Vega city and towns, I should hope you're looking at it and considering it. So. That is a dendym for in the package that she referred to as well. Which they're not all comparable. I mean, there's a wide variety and their bottom line number isn't right as far as they figured in people's stipend money and so it makes it look like people make a huge amount. Well, they don't, but. Yep. Yep, I think we're just in our initial stages but I think that's gonna be a topic of conversation as far as like John brought up about at the point. Yeah, it's not just what the hourly wage is. It's our, you know, what are the benefits? I mean, health benefits are good but are there any other perks or anything that can be done? And again, to really work on keeping people and I mean everybody, you know, whether it's highway, we've seen other towns desperate and you know, are they gonna offer something that's gonna take away any of our guys? You know, to get them to another town, police officers, the rest of us? I mean, it's really, you gotta be thinking about everywhere. And it's not even the road crew going to another town. It's some of these excavation businesses and these guys can operate trucks. I just talked to somebody today that what they started paying a dump truck driver, boy, I'm glad I kept my CDL because I might consider it. It's crazy what's going on out there. And another girl I talked to today walked into a local business. They gave her five weeks paid vacation from day one. Five weeks. Exactly, that means from day one. The knowledge base that any of us have from being here for at least a year or two, just that face means a lot. If you've been here longer, it's even greater. So sure, you might be able to find somebody else to fill the role, but you're not gonna fill the knowledge that takes time to train up on. You guys are doing a fantastic job. I really appreciate it. And you're extremely respected and valued. It really takes a whole team, it's a team of people and it puts more workload on whoever's left if you lose somebody. That's what we went through last year as far as when we lost a time administrator and having that role vacant for months made a huge difference on other people. Thank you. Thank you for speaking up to your concerns. Other questions on that page? Sort of, not really, but the assistant town administrator, I see that's in there and there's obviously multiple sources for the income that that. Yes. So I wanna get a good handle on that. Okay, I didn't give that to you, I thought I had. I think you did it, but I'm looking at it. I wanted the more to have a good understanding as we go through. Yeah, because you're not gonna, you're gonna see the assistant town administrator portion here, but the utilities commission gives him money for water and sewer and they're the ones that vote on that rate, okay? Right. Okay. But I can give you another breakdown, I thought I had, but I'll give it to you again. Thank you, David, I just, I probably just placed it. Okay, well I'll give it to you again. Thank you. I can get that for you very quickly, thank you. But that, and where does that come into play in the budget? Okay, so those two other pieces you're not gonna see because that's a budget that they calculate on their own. Right, well it goes in with our budget, so we'll see it somewhere. But it doesn't go in with our budget because when I do the payroll, his portion, which includes overtime, okay, so his portion and the overtime that he puts in, I put against the general fund. And then the sewer and water, I put to those particular departments. So if you were to look at like when I do the payroll, there's a certain section. Right. So his is split up every pay period. Right, and it's split up, because I think I have to ask some questions about if we're accurately recording which we're working on with the time card stuff, right? Yeah, okay. So that's... Yeah, see what's happening with the sewer and water, I'm going by a certain amount. So in other words, he's a lot of, let's say, $5,000 for sewer. I'm just dividing that up by 26. The same thing with water. Lower out with better handle on that. We'll go for that. Okay. All right, I think we can go to the next page. So the assessing department, I don't, do you want me to speak to these things? Jen? That's fine. Okay. Because, you know, the contract assessor, I put them for a larger amount in 2022, they have not been increasing their amounts that the contract we have has not been increasing. So I'm assuming at some point it will increase. What's the length of their contract? What was the length of their contract? Ah, you know, that's a good question because I think it might be three years has probably gone beyond that. But the contract is just for a certain amount and then they have the ability to put the cost of living in there and they've just not done that to us. Okay. They've just been going at the same rate. There was no renewable, I mean, extensions on that contract. What was there? So I think we need to probably get in some, look at that again and maybe re-bid it. Okay. And there's supplies, I think I've. And we provide their computer? We do, we have two computers in that lab and a printer. And of course, all of the software that they need for the computer. And I did put in for computer expense because we were talking about replacing all of the desktops or laptops. And right now, I'm the only one that has the laptop that I'm using. We took off my desktop. We could look up. It was really old. It wasn't working right. And I had the laptop that we'd gotten from the elderly. And so we plugged that in. Everything is working fine on that. So, you know, I don't know if the others are gonna want to have laptops, but it certainly is working for me. And laptop, I believe, is the less expensive alternative. And you don't have to have the UPS, which is expensive when that goes at 400 bucks. And you don't have to have the server box. And you do have a docking station set up? And the plan is to standardize it across the staff. Oh yeah, I don't know if the system maintenance is easier. Solving it is a little bit easier. And this way, if we want to bring it home, we could too. That's a lot more efficient. And we also... Yep, that's what it's all about though. And so is there any questions on the assessing? That really isn't a big deal. Next? Do you have a question? No, there's a meeting. Page 12 is meetings and elections. Now, this year we're gonna have an election in August and, because it isn't there for a primary and then in November. It's obviously not presidential, but still. There will be more meetings this year than in the last. So I think I increased that. Yeah, I mean, that's pretty self-explanatory. Insurance is, which we've already sorted this out. Well, we have, now, this is the portion of the insurances for the, you know, for the town offices. So ours are, you know, ours are very low, fortunately. Yeah. The health insurance, that has increased just because I'm talking, we're talking about me be putting out another person, a family plan. And then when Karim went full-time, you know, she's on the insurance. So obviously when we plan the 2022 budget, I did not anticipate that. So the 2023, I think, is real. Right, so we're looking at a $33,000 increase. If you were to have a family, you know, another person on family plan. And then, like I say, we have a couple of us on a single plan, and I think Benz is on two person. How much does the family plan cost the town? I think it's $28,000 a year, or right around that. So pretty much all of the $5,000 in that increase of the 33 is based on a family plan. Okay. And of course, by-cut expenses are going up because we're adding one to the payroll. And a few to pseudo-expense, that's actually gone up. This is the unemployment that municipalities have to pay. And we get that through the Lisa cities and towns, and they have gone up in rates because so many towns were using them. So all of our fees went up this year. I mean, not substantially, but they all went up. A few to pseudo, that looks like a small decrease. Yeah, and still, yeah, because last year, I guess last year, it anticipated something else. If you go to a few to pseudo, some of the other departments, they went up. Oh, okay. Okay. Disability insurance, we are on a new insurance plan out for our disability and life insurance. And the disability portion went up with the life insurance portion went down, so. But we are with a different place, and still to the Lisa cities and towns. But of course, in this scenario, I'm showing it higher because I'm talking about adding another person. Same with the pension line, I don't. Yep. And gym fees, because everybody would be, that's a benefit. So if I, and I'm anticipating, everybody's going to gym, and reality, none of us are going right now. None of us are going to the gym. Right. Okay. And the general insurance did go down a little bit, but I'm not sure why, but it did. Zoning's the same, DRB's the same. And the health insurance buyback that stays pretty regular, pretty consistent. That is Rosemary's own. Okay. Town clerk is on that one. Okay, yep. Very well. Yep, I think zoning always gets exactly the same. Mm-hmm. So planning commissions ask for a $20,000 increase for the planning itself. They have, part of that I think was for they wanted to put that gym thing that you could put outside in the mall, I remember that. That's for the consultant, the $20,000? Yeah, there's $20,000, but then there's additional $20,000. I think I put $40,000 in there. Yeah, I put $40,000 in 2023, and $20,000 that was for consulting for the town center. The other $20,000 I thought they wanted to use, they were talking about the- There was a grant that we applied for, right? So the grant would come in as a revenue, and then now there's an expense, is that? It would, although we'd have to have a match. I mean, we still have to have substantial amount of money. So that's what they asked for. So I put in whatever anybody asked for, yep. Yep, the rec board, $6,500. Yeah, I remember, um... You talk. Ah, then we talked about that. I think Tim is on. Tim Shea. Tim, Tim, are you on from the rec board? You're on mute, if you can hear us, Tim. No, he's S-H-E-A, that's S-H-A-N-I. So I don't know if it's- I remember, I think that there was $1,500 that would be swim lessons, and then $5,000 was, ah, shoot. Well, we did a portion for the... You know, actually, I think that- We talked about some of that. I think that $5,000, yeah, I think he wants to do it in 2022, and not 2023. I think we talked about that. No, we did talk about it being, because we asked what they would do during now and then, and once we hit June of next year, we talked about 2023, right? I guess I didn't hear that part of it. As I recall, because I asked, when we talked about the nets for the hockey, right? Yep. We also, I had asked about when they planned on spending the money, and I said, do you plan on spending it really before July or whatever, you know, and that, so that it would fall into our time frame. Okay, I guess I just didn't hear that part of it. Wasn't that there was some money still available? There is, they have a reserve of like $60,000. Yeah, there was money, there was still available, get them through to that timeframe, and then we're gonna put that, and then we had also had a discussion a little bit briefly, I think, because we had had the concept, was it the Conservation Commission and the REC Board? We're kind of operating under the same budget, currently, because, and how? No, the REC Board does have it, it is separate. No, but well, it was, but they had a concept. Yeah, as far as the committees, yeah. Yeah, they're in line, they're just clever, yeah. Right, but there's two just extinguished pots of money all the time, but we say them when they were together. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Right, and we put no money into it last year, so that pot away didn't grow. But it's nice to see that they're actual, it's nice to see that they're doing some stuff. It's really good to get them. The cemeteries change. Yeah, it's mostly mowing, but at some point, I think that some of the cemeteries need some work. I mean, we've got cemeteries more than I do. And we got an update from Berlin Corner Cemetery committee lately, remember when they came into the board and talked about it? Not recent. And, oh, Jeff had come back at all and talked about it, but they had talked a while back, and I don't know. They said that they felt like it might have been unsustainable, but then they started getting the appropriation funds. And I was curious how that was going forward. You'd like me to reach out and ask him? Yeah. Come in and give you an update? I think that would be great. Yeah, because that was a potential down the road where he said he might have to ask the town to take it over, as you recall. And that would be something that would be a bit of an expense we'd like to have a heads up on. OK. And they're probably going to want to come in anyway if they want to go on the right. Yeah? Oh, they don't need appropriation. They don't have to. They don't need to. They can get signature. If you've been approved and the amount doesn't change, you don't need to stay right on it. All you have to do is put in a letter to request it. Oh, I didn't know that. You're very nice. Yeah. That's super nice. But several organizations have been bringing in petitions because they wanted to increase the amount. OK. That's the legend. They heard how generous we're all in it. Extremely. So nice. All right. Taxes and assessments. And as far as the ambulance service, I'm basing that on the contract. Right. And that was a $16,000 increase? Because it goes per capita. And you want per capita. Your three-year contract. Each year it goes up. It was where we stand on that letter and increase that he was requested after nothing more said. The others are very close to what they were. I guess I'm a little confused or not one. Also on the ambulance bill, because we got a letter after the three-year contract. That was where the increase was. It was the new contract. But that had an increase based on rent increase. And then so. No, that had an increase based on per capita. And then they came back to us based on the rent increase after, didn't they? No. It was in that contract. I remember. That's what I'm saying. That this is not a debt issue as far as I'm concerned. Because weren't they supposed to? They haven't come back. You heard the chief, right? Because they haven't come back with a new contract yet. It's my understanding. That's my understanding as well. To the fire department or us. Well, he was referring to the lease contract. OK. I'm still confused. Well, I thought it was good. So if we're not under contract. I'll go back and look at the meeting. I thought it was pretty clear that if the board had said they weren't going to entertain any increase. Correct. I thought that was based. That's my understanding. This number here is an increased number, I believe. I'm just, I'm unclear on it. But I'm thinking it is based on, you know, I don't think that was a debt. Right. Well, look at the contract. You know, a solved issue. Right. Yep. That's my point. Very good point, David. All right. Well, I know we're going to have, I'm going to get through a little bit of this, and then I know we're going to have an executive session to get Scott waiting, so we've got the problem of waiting. Get to the next, what do we got? Town office, expenses, and then we'll call it, call it a night on this and go. I don't think the town office is, it's, I don't think the expenses are up except for the web page. And we know that because we know we're having a new, a new host, web page hosts. Yes. Okay. There we go. We've gone from the old one that we had, that we couldn't have access, and we'll control over to a new one called Squarespace that we're developing right now with the intern and in-house. We really hope to continue the intern, another intern for the next semester. Our original intent was to try to have it up and running by Christmas, but we're not going to make it. Shortly after the new year, we're going to start rolling out that new website. Great. And then we have equipment contracts, which took a substantial increase. Yes, because we get the polymorphic as part of that. That's included in the, okay. Yep, that is. And the maintenance, we did increase because we really would like to do some repairs here, some painting or something. Mm-hmm. But it really needed. To do that. Probably 2,000 is fine enough. Yeah, mm-hmm. Do we want to go to general assistance and then be done with it? Yeah, yeah. And I did increase the legal services because I just think that with the union contract and stuff too, and some of the other things are going on. Well, we do. Yeah, that's the whole thing. The more things are going on, the more it costs us. Mm-hmm. CPA services, I did bring that up. Number one, we're going to have to put an RFP out on that because I think our three-year term is up. However, in the next two to three years, I am going to continuously be in a single audit, which costs more money. That's cost like $1,000, $1,500 more. Because of all the grants we're getting, we'll be doing that for the next two to three years anyways. We did run this last year and that will continue for quite a long time because if you have more than $750,000 in grants that's the grants. You get a single audit. Right, so we'll have you go audit, we'll have the money we got this year, we'll have the money we're dealing next year, probably one more the year after. Yeah, and that's just, you know, we'll have a regular audit, but then there's that single audit we just got. They just need a problem out of information. Can I take a lot of your time? Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to make this, trying to make that. Yeah. Could I ask three questions? Sure. In this thinking of something back on the assessment, is there money being put aside for a new town library assessment? If that's the different place. That's a different place. Is there money? It is very appraisal. Yeah, we're still getting it from the state but we're not putting any in from the town. We're not. And as a matter of fact, I think the next time around I will talk about that because very town recently did a re-appraisal. They put it in their newsletter just think the information is very pertinent to us. Because I think right now we've got like I think $200,000 in that, if I'm correct. Yeah. And I don't know what town-wide assessment would be. However, we would not be having the mobile homes in there. We've already done that. I do think we're gonna be... I think the last time we did it was 120, 230,000. And I think very town which has more houses and stuff than us. And I think there's like 250 or something. Yeah. But I will bring in that newsletter because it just gives us a good idea of what we're gonna be. We're gonna be five minutes away from the re-appraisal. One other question I was wondering in looking through this, other than that $40,000 for a new position, I was thinking I don't really see anything that speaks to the conversations that you've had at the special board meetings recently. And so I didn't know if that's a conversation that's still gonna happen as far as when you're looking at priorities and growth and buildings and so forth. Is there a planned conversation to have before this becomes finalized? Before this budget becomes finalized? Yeah. Well, at this point in time, we've had some of the conversations we're kind of, I think, picking off things with little pieces at a time. So we've done some sort of tracking was a big thing for staffing and all that, which Vince is working on, gathering up the rest of the data, but we realize that there's a shortage here and there and we need to get that. So that's why we added that piece in as far as the structures, the structures that we're talking about. I think we have some more work to do on that. I don't know, but that's something that we'll need to be able to go after. Just tied in with that, I was wondering if there was talk about whether or not there'd be a question regarding the fire department on the at-town meeting, but my question is, will there be anything about buildings, whether it's giving people a choice, which may not exist, as far as do you wanna see a building over at the town center? Do you want to see this one added on to? But like I said, maybe that's not really a choice from what I understand with the downtown designation. I don't really know how that all works, but. I think we have to have something over there to commit my bubble. And I think it makes sense for us to eventually have something over there, if it is kind of a hub, so. But so then does it there need to be some kind of question to the taxpayers because you can't do really anything like that without taxpayer approval, right? Right, but I don't think right now is the time where we can even address that because I don't know what we would even do over there, quite honestly. So I think it's something that would more or less be tailored at the moment. Is there gonna ask? Yeah. You know I might stop coming to these meetings again. Hmm. It's better for my health. All right. Approval of license permits, vouchers, and applications. I make the motion to approve payroll warrant 22-12 for payroll from December 5th, 2021 to December 18th, 2021, paid on December 22nd, 2021 in the amount of $55,869.96. Also payable warrant 22G10 to checks 21-642 to 21-675 in the amount of $379,487.18. Also November general journal entries, November budget status report, trial balance report and delinquent tax notice report. Second. Any discussion? Those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. Approval of minutes for meeting October 18th and December 6th. I make the motion to approve the minutes of October 18th, 2021, as presented. Any discussion? Those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion carries. I make the motion to approve the Monday, December 6th, 2021 minutes as presented with one exception on page three. Second section down for ice break goals. Just a change in verbiage there. But other than that, just that one change. Second. Any discussion? Those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Motion carries. Roundtable. Looks like Ben says the packet for us right here. Those are my two items. The first one is the central law solid lease management districts that are required to remind the budget information and update to select boards each year. This is their update for the board. So just for information for you. The second one is just an update. There's just information on the security system for the building here and the police that we talked about a couple of weeks ago. The quote came in for what that would look like. I had him break it down into different, I think there's four pages here. We'll show each area separately as well. Make it a little more clear. So there's specific things for the police department and there's a combination for the department and the town office and also for the town garage in there. So is there a way to put that out? We got a good idea but we'd have to put this out on an HD if we were to do it. No. How much is it? Total is a little over 14, 15,000. Yeah. Then we had a $5,000 threshold. Yeah. So how many companies do you have kind of stuff? You'd be able to find three? We need for the walk. That's not all for our security system. Security system. The video camera is it, so the Wi-Fi. Well, that would be better if we'd be able to do it. Yeah, there's more than three here. You'd be able to find three. And we're not that far out, but it would be cool. So can we try to get a couple more of them? Yeah, I think we'll have to R&B with it if you like. You got one right at the bottom of the hill in Montpair to take over the old Spooner's building. I have a layer of complexity system that we have. What's that? It's a lot of layer of complexity, so I'm pretty, that's a, no, I can do it. We're kind of happy. Yeah? No, I think it's okay. Anybody, any round table, anybody, John? Brad? I just wanted to thank Diane for her overview on the budget and the time you extended. Thank you. Thank you. Were you saying something for round table, John? Well, I just had one quick question, and I'm just, I'm looking through the budget, I just can't find the number. Diane, what is the overall percentage up in the budget as proposed right now, or as drafted? I think it's like 7.8% or 7.4, I think, John. Yeah. Okay, we're off. Thank you. Anything, Dave? No. Entertain a motion to enter executive session for contract discussion. So long. Second. Okay, discussion is all in favor. Say aye. Aye.