 All right. Recording. Yeah, I'm going to call the finance committee meeting of September 6, 2022. Order noting that we do have a form of the committee present. And pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 extended by chapter 22 of the acts of 2022. This meeting. It's being conducted by a wire remote means. And with that, I want to make sure that all of the. Members of the committee can confirm that they are hearing me and that we can hear them. So I'll just go through. Lynn. Present. I'm here. Just so everybody knows. I just want to make sure that all of the members of the committee. Is not always not going to be. With us today. Bernie. Michelle Miller. Here. Thank you. Shane. Here. And Alicia Walker. Here. Okay. So we have a. And there are two major items for discussion today. And so I want to. Kind of get the committee's agreement is to the order that we're going to take them in. And I am going to propose that we do the library, but project. And do that item first and then do. The regional school. Method guardrail discussion second. But I wanted to make sure that. Any members of the committee. Who would prefer that we not go in that order. Can make that. So. Please raise your hand. You. I would object to that order. So seeing none, what I would also like to do is. I'd said that I would, any members of. The trustees who are present. As long as we didn't get to a quorum of the. Trustees. That we would bring them into the room. I think that Sharon is already. She's a staff member. As I look at the list that is. Up him and. The Edwards. I don't think that. I know that there's. Two people who are identified only by phone numbers. So. Anybody that I've missed. Who's a member of the trustees. Is present, but I haven't recognized the name raised. Please raise your hand. Just so I know. And if not, I would ask that whoever's controlling. Yes, Michelle before. But could you just say how folks who are coming in by phone can raise their hand, please. In case there is a trustee that's coming in by phone. Is it star or something or other. I think it's a star nine. I kind of remember. So it is star nine. Okay. So we have one more. So, Andy, you want, you want us to, you want me to bring them into the room? Yeah, I have one question. It is my understanding of the open meeting law and that this is probably another Athena question. That a quorum of a body is when you get to. A majority. It's a six member. Board of trustees and. So three would not cost to a. If that's wrong, then we have a problem because it was not posted as a meeting of the trustees. Right. But do we know, I mean, if we don't know that there's not going to be four, then. It'd be difficult to start and then stop. If it is. If it is. Lee Bob and persons raised their hand who can't identify. I would think we're okay. All right. So do you want me to bring them into the room? Yes. And let's see if the person who can identify. Who is your handling can identify themselves once they're in. So. I think I do. How do I bring a phone number into the room? Athena, it's not giving me the option when I am. You can't, you can, you can allow them to talk, but you can't bring them in as a panelist and most they join using a panelist. Okay. So just. Click allow to talk. Yes. Okay. So the phone number, could you raise your hand again one more time? If you're a trustee. Star nine. Okay. So we have Bob. Okay. Whoever is four, one, three, six, five, eight, eight, three, one, two. Could you identify yourself? Hi. And I'm trying to let Lee in. But she's got to accept it in order to come in. Okay. So Lee is present. So. Sharon, do you know if Austin is planning to join? No, okay. Yeah, I think he was teaching today. So he was available. So if one more. Member of the trustees shows up, then we do have a problem because this was not posted. As a trustees meeting. So going then to the next step. I'm going to be very. I hear the three things that we want to accomplish today. And then I'm going to, I see that Bob Lee of hands up. So, but let's, let's let me just explain what's going on. The first, I want, we want to do because we have members of the council. And the committee who are not members of the council and the committee in 2021 when we took the original vote. So I wanted to spend a couple of minutes just explaining the original. Decision that was made by the council. And. So that everybody can understand what, what the original decision was and how we came to that decision. And then the second part. I certainly will be calling on other members. Of the committee who were. Members of the involved in that decision to help out with that discussion and see if there are questions from. Counselors who are not members of that original group of counselors who wish to ask questions about that. So that's one. Two is that we, that Sean is then going to make a presentation to start us off on the discussion about what has changed. Since then, which I think we've all been hearing about reading about and was part of the presentation that Sean made. The previous finance committee meeting, but he's going to make a little bit more. Presentation as to how it has factored in. And the third is then recognizing that today is an informational meeting. We are not going to be taking any. Votes or recommending anything to the council. At this meeting, this is really a learning opportunity for the committee. We want to identify information that the finance committee will need for later meetings. And that we think that the council will need in order to make decisions that it may make in the future. And. Lynn had. Begun to work on a list of questions that could be posed that would identify that information. And so for that third part of the meeting. She is going to. Leave us through discussion of the current draft of the questions. To see if there are additional questions that. We as a finance committee would like to see. Added to that list. So that's. What I envision as the three parts of today's meeting. So we're not going to be actually. Having the discussion about what are the next steps that the council may need to make. Because that's down the line. And if you saw Lynn's email about. Which he visions for the council. The next step is. For the council to have a similar informational discussion that probably will not be. As complete as we're able to do in a committee meeting. So Lynn, do I. Do you think that I have stated it correctly as far as what you envisioned for today? Yes. And by the way, Lee Edwards seems to be back in the audience. You're all letters. Staff take care of it. So I'm going to just. Very briefly. Begin. By setting by pointing out. One thing if, if I'm able. To share my screen. I'm going to do so. And let's see if I. Let's see if I can get to what I want on the screen. Which in what I'm going to try and put up. Is very simply. This the order that was passed. The order that was passed. By the last council. And I'm not going to go through the whole, trying to go through the whole thing in part, but as you can see that. It was the town appropriate. An amount of money that is listed. Here's 35,000,000. $279,700. For the purpose of the expansion renovations. The key part of it that I wanted to point out. Is in the bottom section. That's in this box. And that is the anticipated funding sources. Because. This is where the. Council. Really comes into it. That. The amount is. Broken into essentially four parts. But. One of them is. The. Is actually excluded. From the 35,000,000. 279, because that's a million dollars. That is the community preservation act funding, which was a separate. Vote at the same council meeting. The amount of 30. That is actually being borrowed is then. That is the. Amount that was at the beginning of 35,000,000. 279. 700 is broken into three pieces. The MVLC, the mess. This is a board of library commissioners grant. The amount that the Jones library trustees were committing to raise in funds through donations. And then the town local share. Which is 15. 751. 810. And that becomes important. Because what the. What we realized at the time was that. There were substantial. Work that needed to be done on the Jones library because. A lot of maintenance had not been pursued. For several years. Because we were intending to. That this project was going to be coming. To us. And. The. Library. Got obtained the help of Coon Riddle. Architectural firm. To look at how. To most effectively. Complete the renovation. That we'd need. If we were not pursuing a library project that needed to. Address the critical needs of the library. And the amounts and they ended up coming up with two approaches to take. In order to do that. And one. And there were options one and two. In the two options. Total the cost of $16.8 million. Or $14.4 million. And. It depended upon. How many stages. The work was divided on. And. So what we were looking at was. An amount of money. That would ultimately have to come from the town. Any way to assist. The process. That is done through the joint capital planning committee. That was approximately equal to. The. Local share. And, you know, the. Council. Looked at that. Comparison. And that was the large. That was a part of the decision. And I think that. That's why we decided that. It was important that we. Not have that. That we make the decision that we made. So that I'm going to stop sharing the screen. And. I see a Kathy as I already raised her hand. But. What I'd like to do is focus for a couple of minutes on. Other members of the committee who are present at the time. We made the decision about. Why. The committee made the. And the council made the decision. The decision that we made. So that I'm going to stop sharing the screen. And the council made the decision. To recommend and to adopt this plan. The original plan. And questions from other counselors about it. And then that will complete step one. So Kathy. Just a quick comment, Andy. I thought what you just did was. I just wanted to say. I just wanted to say. What you call it option B. But it was the, what if we just. Repair. And today. I just wanted the new counselors to know that. When we talked about town chair. We never. Noted that it might be possible to get CPA money too. So when you looked at the one that was the renovation and. Expand. One million from CPA CPA was a zero on the. The just repair options. So just on the same grid. So when you said 14 million. There wasn't another million from CPA. If there had been, it would have been 13 million. So it's just, it's just a comment on. That because that option wasn't as fully developed. I mean, we clearly didn't have a CPA grant in hand. They had applied. It was just a comment on what was an alternative to that led to the other decision. That's it. Yeah, I wanna step back for a moment and make sure that as you look at the presentation that I sent to you just yesterday and I apologize for that, I was waiting to confer with Andy that the history of getting to where we are today goes back many years. It goes back to a preliminary grant that was applied for to the Mass Board of Library Commissioners that was a planning grant. It then went to saying, okay, let's see what the full proposal would look like. And that was submitted. Both of those were voted on by town meeting. And then in the process it came to the council because we transitioned to the council form of government. And so as Andy mentioned, there were three votes that night on April 4th, 2021. One was the CPA money, but it's conditional upon getting the grant. The second was the actual authorization to borrow, which is the one Andy put up on the screen. And the third one regards the memo between the town and the Board of Library Commissioners with regard to fundraising and making the fundraising whole by the end of the project. So as we look at this, I wanted to just make sure people understood this didn't just come up in 2021. I believe it goes back to 2015 or 16. That's all in the slides we sent to you earlier. That's all. Thank you. Yeah, thank you, Lynn, for pointing out the wealth of materials that you provided in that email to the entire council to try and set the factual background of the entire project. As we continue to complete this first part of the discussion is to the original decision and how we came to it. If there's anything that Sharon or a trustee who's president went to add, please raise your hand too, because you guys were involved with it or a lot more involved with it than we were. And then I also, if there are questions from counselors about the original decision the information that you would like, please raise your hand too, because I want this to be an open discussion. If not, if people are comfortable with the basic understanding of how we got to where we are, then yes, Michelle. Just making sure that the phone number that's in the room, that their hand raised function works. The same way that ours does. And maybe if we could just ask that person, if it's Alex, right? If Alex was right. Yeah. I have a feeling that it may not be working. Go ahead. Sorry. Andy, can you hear me? This is Alex. Yes, I can. Okay, sorry. I'm trying to raise my hand, but I'm on my phone and I'm Zoom deficient on a phone. So I apologize. I just wanted to clarify two things that I heard. So one, as Kathy rightly pointed out, the repair options that were pursued don't reflect CPA funding. They don't reflect any possible funding. And the reason for that is those estimates were requested by the Joint Capital Planning Committee. And what was requested was not an option D in the sense that if the project doesn't go forward, we have a plan. What was requested was what are the urgent items that need repairing in order for the library to continue to operate and to operate safely. And so those numbers were gotten from Western Builders, which then triggered an accessibility threshold for the ADA, which is what June Riddle did. So we're unable to find out if there's CPAC funding or any other funding because that's literally just if you were to call a contractor and say, how much is it to replace my stove? But I still know I have to remodel my entire kitchen. So those numbers were a baseline for things that need fixing. If the project were not to proceed, we would actually have to go back and we would have to have design work done around, let's say we only fix the HVAC system. We would have to hire an engineer to look at that system, to redesign the system. So the number is likely a higher number. Those were just sort of baseline. So we couldn't go to CPAC or to anyone else to find out what additional funding might be available because that's not really a plan. It's just a starting point based on what was requested from JCPC. Bob? Just a couple of points to be clear on the timeframe. I think it's almost 10 years since we originally started talking about this. I think we were approved by the Board of Library Commissioners in 2017. What we didn't know when they approved us was that we would be number nine on the list and it would take three years or four years before we would actually get to the top of it. So had we known then what we know now, it might have been different, but in any case, if we had been at the top of the list, by now it would have been done and over. So it's just further information about the sequences. Yeah, thank you. Any other questions or comments about the original decision and which is sort of the first step? Because if not, then I would ask Sean to take over for a moment because he has given some thought about how to present where we are now. And Sean? Sure, I'm gonna share my screen. And if you could just let me know when you see my screen. I see your screen. Okay, thank you. All right, so sorry, too fast. Just a few terms before we look at a couple of charts. So in the chart you'll see approved budget. So all that means is the amount of funding that the council has approved so far. Again, the council approved, between two different debt authorizations, they approved the whole budget between the CPA authorization and then the other one. You'll see reconciled cost estimate. So the library has a cost estimator, FENACY, and the town has a cost estimator, RLB. They each did independent cost estimates and then came to, and those cost estimates were of hard costs, which you'll see a definition of in a second, but it's basically construction costs. Those two estimates were reconciled, which essentially was taking the midpoint of each of them. One was higher, one was lower, and they took the midpoint to get to a sort of reconciled hard cost estimate. We then added in sort of a placeholder for soft costs, which you'll see the definition of in a second, to get to a total reconciled cost estimate for the full project. Project is comprised of hard costs and soft costs. So hard costs are basically construction and any related work, such as site work, things that would be part of the bid when we open up construction bids. Soft costs include things like furniture and fixtures, technology equipment, our fees for project management and designers, any estimates or surveys that are being done, the commissioning and testing that would have to happen afterwards, includes contingencies, permits and things like that. And also with this project, it includes relocation and temporary space costs. Any questions on terminology before I show the charts? Cause it's, I wanna make sure it's not confusing before we look at them. Okay, I don't see any hands. So this first chart is looking at project costs. So our proof budget was 36.3 million. That was comprised of 26.9 million of hard costs and 9.4 million of soft costs. Roughly, soft costs were roughly 35% of the hard costs. And then with the reconciled cost estimate, when we add in, we use that same percentage. And so just so people know there could be some give there, we haven't had an independent estimate of soft costs. We've only had the independent cost estimates of hard costs. But if we take that same percentage of 35% and apply it to the new estimates that we have for hard costs, you get a reconciled cost estimate of about 51 million. And then we have included scope productions at the joint labor or not the joint labor, the Jones library building committee has been reviewing. There's about 1.7 million of scope productions or value engineering type productions that the committee has looked at already. So those are included. And to get to that $49.3 million number. So again, that's a combination of hard costs and soft costs. And it also includes some value engineering reductions that the committee has looked at. And we'll say that those aren't necessarily all the way approved yet, but we did want to be included them for this discussion. And then the last slide, keeping it simple is the funding side of that. So as Andy mentioned, you'll see the approved budget was made up of a CPA grant for a million dollars, an NBLC grant for 13.9 million. The town share was 15.8. And the leftover for the trustees and fundraising was 5.6. So if we roll this forward now with the new total project budget with CPA staying the same, the NBLC grants staying the same, the town share staying the same, that increases the trustees share to 18.6. And that's it, very simple. That's where we are. Okay, so I guess the questions about what you've seen for the chance presented and then where we go is the next step beyond that. Kathy. Just a quick, it's kind of a question and Sharon and others might remember on the original budget, the first column when we were trying to get a grasp of the total since as Bob said, when you were approved, you were thinking when you first projected it that we were gonna be building it in 2019 and then you had to escalate the cost to 2021. But my memory is to get to the 36, you had to cut the furnishing by about half. I can go back and check my notes. So the soft costs had already cut furnishing by quite a bit. Is that true? I'm just looking when I now look at the soft costs in the new one that we'd already cut back. These are my memories that you cut the contingency fee quite a bit. You cut the OPM fee, the architect fee and the furniture allocation. And that allowed you to come to a 36 million price tag that was pretty much where it had been when you, because inflation had happened. So the actual building of the building had gone up and you were trying to stay within the total. So I'm really just focused on the furniture right now. We'd already cut a big chunk out of it. And I just wanna make sure that's an accurate statement. There were definitely cuts, but I don't remember what we actually cut. I'd have to go and look. Okay. You know, as I said, we had it because you had a nice line which showed where you got the pieces of money from on the furnishing. Because we were worried we were gonna open a new expanded library with no furniture. And you said, there's some left. But, you know, so thanks. Yeah, Michelle. If this is the right time, Andy, would it be possible to get an approximate update on the fundraising so far? Some estimated amounts? I think that I'm gonna see what... Lynn, did you wanna put that off till the next meeting or? Yeah. I think what we need to focus on today, Michelle, is asking all of the questions that we want answers to. And then we need to establish another finance committee, meaning if possible this coming week, which gives the trustees time to us and sharing time to assemble those, even though Kent Farber is in the audience and he's clearly been part of that fundraising. Okay. So I have a question related to fundraising, but I'll hold it until you take questions at the end. Okay. Okay, I'm looking to see from the, trying to figure out what to do with council members. I know, because I noticed that Dorothy has her end up too, but I'll come back to do it for a second. Gaffey? Andy, if you wanna recognize councilors, then you should be open a period of public time. Yeah. Okay. That's a good, we can do that. But Gaffey, do you have your... Yeah, so it's a question, it's actually what I've read in the newspapers or what I read in maybe one of the committee reports that we're at a point where to get to the point where you would go out and actually have contractors bidding on it, we would have to spend a million and a half to two million more on the schematic design and the detail work. So is that number correct? So I just wanted to get a sense of that. And then what's the time, what's the timing of that? And the one thing I saw was all of the spring, so you'd have that done for maybe bidding in May or June. And I'm just asking for the two because I'm, I think as people know, I'm chair of the Yale Elementary School Building Project and we're on, we weren't on the same timelines but we're now on similar timelines in terms of numbers. So we're not at that point yet where we would actually get contractors bidding on it is my question. And then we have to spend what I read, I think was a million and a half to two million more before we would get to that, which at that point, we may be at the numbers we've just seen Sean put up on the board. And is it okay if I take a first? Grab your back. Yeah, so that estimate is right. We have to pay the designer and the OPM to bring us through design development, which is the phase, our next phase that we would head into and then after that we would have to go through the construction document phase where they would put the bid ready documents together. And then we'd have to go out to bid. And so there's costs associated with each of those phases and however much worth they do in each of those phases we would be liable for. And Sharon, unless you've seen something different my understanding is yeah, the summer of 2023 is when the bidding would happen. And Sean, was I right on the million and a half to two million in that? Yeah, yep, yep. Okay. I believe the estimate was a million four but there's some play in all of those numbers. Okay, so I can do a different low end Bob. More than a million to as much as. See questions from Lisha and Michelle, so Lisha. Thank you. I have the same question as Michelle in regards to where we are with the fundraising but also just a little bit further as to what the plan for the rest of the fundraising is if there is one for the trustees. And then I have a question that maybe Andy or Sean might know if we don't reach the fundraising goals then what would be the course of action then? Linda's partly in the current memorandum of understanding and so you've been able to speak to that but I think that also we are getting into a very important part which you're gonna lead us through in a few minutes which is getting to the questions that we wanna pose so that the library, trustees and staff have an opportunity to provide the information in an organized fashion to enable us to continue this discussion in our next meeting. I would suggest that Paul or Sean would be the most appropriate people to discuss the present MOU and any changes. Paul? Yeah, so previously the fundraising commitment by the trustees was backstopped by the trustees endowment that they had said and so that was the guarantee for the town in terms of what the commitment by the trustees was with this new number that's the part of the discussion we have to engage in now and in terms of it does the entire amount of the increased expected cost come from the trustees and fundraising. I mean it could be the council wants to put more money into the project. It could be the number of different variables that we can try to outline in the future for you in terms of how we meet this new challenge of the $49 million budget. I'm sorry, Michelle, please help. Just a follow-up on a previous question. So as it stands right now, who is responsible for that cost of one to 1.6 million to get us to bid? Which would be the next step that we would be pursuing who is responsible for that cost right now? Paul? So that would be the town being responsible for that if we choose to move forward but our habit is that we make sure that we have a strong funding plan before we take the next significant step. And that's why we're having this conversation and why Andy is seeking questions and that we can seek additional clarification on from the trustees and from the fundraisers. So we know where we are in that whole sort of funding strategy. Okay. Yeah, I've done, if it seems a little bit confusing in the process, I think that what we were trying to realizing is that I was thinking through this meeting and talking with others about it is that this is an extraordinarily complex issue. I think much more complex than we've dealt with in any previous discussion. And it was therefore it seemed appropriate to break this over two meetings and not to try and accomplish it in one meeting. And that's why I had come up with this proposal as to how to proceed. And so we are moving towards that, trying to make sure that we are prepared for the next meeting. So, you know, with that in mind, let's continue Bernie. Just a question about the grant where we stand with the grant, if there's been any, I've sort of, I meant, I've lost track of it. There's been any award made to the town, there's been any disbursement from the grant to date. I just noticed that in terms of the schematic design cost analysis, there's a note here that 2.7 million would have to be returned from grant disbursement number one. Yeah, it's okay, Andy, if I respond, start and Sharon, if you want to add anything. So we have received the first payment. There's different milestones that as you hit them, you get paid a fifth essentially of it. The first one I think was just signed a contract. So we have received the first one that's been put into an interest bearing account as required by the NBLC. And so it's, you know, it's accumulated interest that can be put towards the project. But as the note says, that assumes a successful project. So if the project doesn't move forward, that money plus interest would have to be repaid. Sean, how much was that first payment? I think it was about 2.8. I can get you an exact number. I don't want to guess. Well, the number that's in the end, it was 2.7 million. Okay. And you all can just mention that, yeah, we'd have to return any interest if we weren't on that. Lucia? What is our timeline with this decision in terms of, because I think Paul said that we would want to make this decision before we put the design out to bid. And so what is that date? So there is no fixed date, but time is of the essence because the longer we wait, construction costs continue to escalate at a significant level. So the longer we wait, the more expensive this continues to grow. So we want to be, have a decision made expeditiously and in the next few weeks. I don't leave your hand up earlier. No, I'm dead. You're good? Yeah. Okay, so Lynn? Yeah, I want to address one other question that keeps coming up, because unlike the Mass School Building Authority, the Mass Board of Library Commissioners does not seek bids every year. It seeks bids every five or 10 years. And then it makes a decision about who it's going to award that, award money to from the list of approved projects that they've placed in priority, which as somebody mentioned earlier, we were ninth in the list. So when they approve your project, they're approving it on the grant application and the dollars that you submitted at that time. So part of the conundrum we're in is first of all, we were nine on the list, then we delayed for another year because of the pandemic. And meantime, MBLC has not increased the amount that they will give us. Now, politically, there is some effort to try to see if that could happen. But right now we have to assume that they won't. And they are not through the list. They still have to finish off the existing list, which will take another two or three more years before they even go out to solicit a next round of bids. So I just want people to understand the cycle that MBLC uses versus the cycle the Mass School Building Authority uses. Thank you. Kathy? I think this could be easily answered by Sean or else we'll put it on the list. So when you said, Bernie was asking about how much has been dispersed from us at the grant. If we got to 2.7 and we have spent a half million of it, do we have to send the whole two seven back or do we send the unspent part of it back? All of it back. It all goes back. Yeah. So that would come out of the town's debt authorization basically at that point. Okay. Any costs incurred? Okay. Lee? Yes. Can you hear me? Yes. So my understanding and correct me if I'm wrong is that any cost incurred between now and the bid will be borne by the library. And you're trying to confirm that understanding? That's my understanding. Bob is here. I don't know if anybody else is here from the library, but that is my understanding. I'm not seeing your hand. I don't believe there is any such agreement. Right. So the agreement that we have in place only contemplates a successful project. So if the project moves forward, then we would follow the existing agreement we have. If there was for any reason the project didn't move forward, the current agreement we have doesn't really address that, which again is part of the reason why we're having this conversation. So right now it's the town that would be on the hook for the next two or three phases. So what I think that I would like to do then if we're getting to the right point is turn this over to Lynn to put up the questions of information that she has initially developed and as far as what we will want for our next discussion and start working on that document. And then I think that during that discussion I'll probably want to open it up to attendees to allow attendees to participate because the attendees are suggesting things that we need to know to make a decision which is really what this is about. That's a good time to have public comment on the subject. But before we go there, let's see, there are a couple of hands up from current participants. Lee's still have your hand up in Bob Hagner. So Lee, is there anything else that you wanted to ask her? Lee? You can unmute. So it would be helpful if the trustees voted to say that the trustees would carry the costs to the bid process. Am I hearing this correctly? Yeah, so I think if the trustees choose to do that they would need to do that at a publicly posted meeting. Indeed. Yeah, and I think that that's an option for the trustees to offer that. Indeed it is. Thank you. Thank you. That's all I wanted to know. I like clarity. Thank you so much. Yeah, I didn't know whether this was the right time or not, but I've been looking through the agenda item and the spreadsheet and the PowerPoint that Lynn circulated earlier. And there's a spreadsheet in there that has a schematic design and a description of potential scope reductions. And then it's got a three columns, well, two columns possible or rejected. There are some that appear to be potential scope increases which is called alternate. And then in later on in the PowerPoint it talks about cost reduction. Some are plausible, some are not plausible. I'm wondering like who's making, who makes, who came up with these things and who made the decision that they were plausible or not plausible or that we might have even a scope addition if I'm reading this correctly. If somebody could just walk through that, I'd appreciate it. I can start again, Sharon or Alex or Paul pop in if you want to. So that's a document that the building committee is reviewing with the owner's project manager and the designer. They've helped put it together. My understanding is there's a sub design subcommittee of the building committee that is looking at these and helping identify whether they're plausible or not plausible. There's some things that were, there was sort of a brainstorming done. There was a value engineering process that was done with the cost estimators. And again, our designer and OPM to kind of list possible modifications to the scope. And then each of those had to be gone through to determine is it something we could actually do. So for example, there might have been one that would have reduced the energy efficiency of the building. Could it reduce the scope? Yes, but was it deemed plausible? Maybe not because it doesn't align the goals of the project. So that's an ongoing process with the building committee right now. Okay. For those who are wondering, that's in the Jones Library Building Committee packet for August 23rd, I think it was the date. And it was one of the items that was included in the material that was put together for the council for next week's meeting. So that if you're looking for what Bob was just describing, that's where you find it. And I'll just add that I, the conversation has at the committee level has definitely shifted from considering the alternates to more focused on the scope reduction. Some of those alternates were on there from the beginning. I would say there's not as much focus on that now, but we've kept them on that list just to document everything that's been considered. Okay. Thank you. Bernie, are you muted? You're muted. Bernie. Nope. Still muted, Bernie. You're still muted. You're still muted. Okay, there we go. Press the button. That's the document that Bob is referring to is also where I got the 2.7 million grant disbursement. And I do want to just kind of reinforce what I believe Alex said earlier. The repair costs have been escalated in that document. And I guess I would guess that what happened is they just simply got escalated by the percentage that the total construction costs got escalated. So I would just kind of reiterate that those repair cost estimates are probably unreliable. When you're working under existing conditions, there's a lot of other costs to come into play. So I think that we might want to focus on how those two costs were escalated and see what the methodology was. That's all. Thanks. Thank you, Sean. You had cost escalations in your presentation before. Yeah, so the ones that Bernie's speaking to, I think we're put together by the owner of Project Manager. Sharon, is that right? So I can't speak to that. I don't know if he just used the same cost escalation that was being used for the cost estimates for the construction project, the full project. But we can find out the answer to that. So can we shift to the discussion about additional information that this committee thinks is important for our next meeting when we take the next step of taking the information and processing it? If that's agreeable, then I turn it over to Lynn. As we started preparing for this meeting, questions arose in my usual style. I tried to group them into similar questions about the same broad area. And so there are five categories. I'm sorry, there are four categories. There are five categories. I need to do some spacing here. The first is about the endowment. The second is regarding construction costs. And I think I wanna just specifically say to others that this is one of those areas where if you wanted to ask a question about the document that was used at the Board of Library Trustees meeting a week ago, this would be a place to put those. The next area is regarding fundraising. The fourth area is regarding historic tax credits. And the fifth area is regarding repair versus renovation and addition. I just want to say upfront, as with any document that I labeled as draft, I'm not offended if people feel like they needed to change wording, but we're not here to wordsmith there. We're here to see what additional questions we wanna make sure the trustees asked. This was in your packet and it was sent to all counselors, including those that are in the audience prior to, it was sent yesterday. Now here's the problem. I can't see raised hands. So Andy, you're gonna have to handle that. Okay. I will do that, but before I do that, could somebody check to see if Felicia's got, it was accidentally moved to the audience and if she needs to be brought back in. And Kathy, recognize you well, somebody else's. Yeah. She's not in the audience, Andy. She's back. Okay. Thanks. So I'll look at the construction costs. One document Bob was looking at, Lynn, but I wanna ask it interactively with the historic tax credits. So it may be an additional question. One of the things on the list of a potential cut that I think everyone decided against was slate roof on historic Jones versus not slate roof. So to my understanding of, to the extent I understand the historic tax credits at all. So let's preface it with that is that the idea is that you're renovating a historic building and doing as much restoration. So are there cuts that we might be considering that would put the historic tax credit at risk at all? So that's why I said it's an interactive, because I'm not sure what part of the inside of Jones we were talking about moving around. So that, and then the last, the other one with that, Lynn, is my memory from the last time around is that it says final determination coming at the end of the project. And I think Bob as treasurer, one of the things that putting the endowment at risk was that we might not get those tax credits, you know, in year one, when the library opens, but we thought we'd get them in year two or three. So just, do we get them after it's finished? So someone looks at what we actually did and what's the lag on them. So you have it accumulated when the final determined end of project. So I just wanna know is that like building is built and two years later, someone decides whether we've got these credits because we have to earn them and then someone has to buy them from the bank. So we get them. So I just, and this interacts in my mind with the security of the endowment, that we thought when it was the $36 million project we could take a short-term hit of a couple of million dollars. So we never envisioned taking an eight million dollar or an eight and a half million dollar hit. So I'm just, so I just want that interaction with historic credits, with anything being careful on construction, cost savings that we don't jeopardize those credits. And then when, when might we receive them? Okay, Andy, this is Alex, I'm sorry. I can't raise my hand and I can't see anything. So my hand is up and then you can call on me whenever you want. Okay, yeah, I'm sorry that you can only do what you're doing. I've been in this situation too with participating by phone. But in any event, so speak up, we are trying to this point focus on the questions of what information that should be provided to the committee and the council for our next discussion. And so that's where I'm looking for right now. I don't know if you have anything you want to put into that discussion now. I was just going to answer Kathy's questions. Well, I think at this point we're trying to avoid getting into the answers to the questions now and focus just on what the questions are because this isn't the only meeting. So in the questions, the questions are answered in the original finance document that so many of those questions were answered previously and exist, but we can certainly do it again. I think Alex, the issue that we're dealing with is there's a lot of paper associated with the project and we're aware that some of these questions have been answered previously, but because we have six new counselors out of 13, it's important that we help bring all of that information forward on this one. Thanks. Great, okay. Okay, Lynn, I'll let you take back over, but just so you know, Bob, anybody named Bob, Tim and Bob Hagner both have their hands up over there. My picture's higher, so I'm willing to wait if Bob wants to speak. Okay, I understand that you're trying to avoid answering questions at this moment, but it is worth recognizing that in the first area, which is really my area of the endowment and the budget, when you ask what are we going to have for our budget for the next five years, that is predicting the future. We can tell you what our policies are. We can tell you what it has been for the last five years. We can tell you what we would like it to be, but the reality is that the amount that we can draw from the endowment depends upon what the market does. And for example, all of the numbers that you have seen recently are based upon the value of the endowment as of July 31st. That was $8.6 million as of September 2nd, it's $8.2 million. It changes from month to month, it changes from year to year. And so making the prediction you would like over the next five years is hard. I wish we lit the other Bob high. Yeah, okay. I wasn't sure I was, I want to phrase this question. I was suggesting we add it to the construction costs. And I want to phrase it carefully because I don't want people to misinterpret it, but I understand that the energy efficiency goals for the project are to reduce the EOI down to like 29 or something like that. The current library is somewhere in the 40 or 50 range. And my experience has been that it usually costs a lot more to get the last 10% or the last 20% than it does to get the first 80%. So I'm wondering how much could costs be reduced if we change the target? Instead of the target being 29, maybe 35, maybe, I don't know what the right number would be, but it just seems, I think it would be important information to have to know how much does it cost to get us 80% of the way to the target versus 100%. And then within that, how much of that is something that could be addressed over time? In other words, we may not be able to change windows or maybe we could change windows or could we change insulation? I mean, it just seems to me that it would be important to know we have to do in order to get to the EOI target and then back off from there and see what we're trading off in terms of 29 versus 35 versus 40 or something like that. So I just think it's an important piece of information for the council to know. Andy, if I might just offer one comment to Rob's comments. Yes, but remember, we are focusing on trying to follow up the questions, but go ahead. Yeah, I'm just trying to help with the crafting of the question that's being asked. So the project was given an EOI of an, I don't have anything in front of me. Let's say it's 34 or 36. And then there were additional conservation measures that got us to 29. So that differential is an easy number to be provided, but anything beyond that, we actually paid, again, I don't have the number in front of me, but I want to say like $34,000 to, you actually have to have somebody go in, design a plan and do the energy modeling. So it would be easy to answer the question of sort of the cost of the additional energy measures from the base building, but to go beyond that, we'd have to pay somebody to do that. So I just want to offer up that information in case people want to phrase the question differently or just know that. You muted, Bob. I think, I'm sorry. I think that would be helpful. And since you already have that information, I don't want to cause another $40,000 costs. But I think that would just be useful information for people to have. Yeah, I'm doing the same thing because Lynn, since she's sharing her screen, can't see whose hands are up. Lynn, Kathy, Alicia and Michelle have their hands up for a moment. So mine is just quick building on Bob's, Lynn in the same area and Alex can confirm this. They have a, going to all electric, they have an electricity cost of the building. If, you know, that's linked with the EUI. So if you look at the higher EUI, does the operating cost of the building go up? So it's a separate, it's a linked question lens. You know, so if we, I don't want to save $50,000 and spend 20 or, you know, I just, because now we've got a building that's leaking heat or leaking air conditioning. So it just, I just wanted to qualify that a little bit because I know in the school building, we're looking at the interaction of the two. We're making a building that's going to be much less expensive to operate because we're insulating it so well. You know, forget on the way we're running it. It's, yeah. Thank you. I guess Alicia's next. Thank you. So my first question was actually very similar to Kathy. So I will skip that one. My other question was if, so like earlier in July, we had a presentation on the capital projects that Sean presented to us. And I was wondering if there has been an updated analysis on the impact of these changes to our whole capital plan and then on the town like budget and operating budget or anything that it may impact as well. So should I go ahead and call on Michelle? Do you want to have her wait a second? Oh, sorry. Could you all not hear me? No, we did. I'm typing. Oh, okay. Sorry, I wasn't sure. I actually just put it down in its own separate category because it's really not a question that the library trustees would ask, but it's a question that Sean and Paul would have to answer. Okay. Thank you. The other words Alicia had was operating. So it's the capital plan and operating budget. So, you know, if, yes, you know, so for example, if the endowment wasn't available for the operating budget, what does that do to the town? What to, so you've got it. Thanks. Yeah, exactly. Thank you, Kathy. Yep, got it. So. So I don't know if, Andy, if you can create a separate time for us to do this or if I can just go ahead with it now, but I have some process questions. Slash concerns. Is this a time that I might be able to address those? I definitely think we should move with that, Andy. You want to create a section of process questions. So, I did forward. Ask, tell us what the questions are. Oh, all right. Is that, are you ready for that? I am. Just want to make sure I'm in the right segment here. All right. So, one of the concerns that I'm feeling as we're working through this discussion is making decisions that are piecemeal and separate. So I think this is like a big puzzle. It's very complex, as Andy said. And for example, when I'm thinking through if for whatever reasons this project doesn't move forward, there are still necessary and immediate repairs that need to be made. So who would be responsible for the cost of those repairs? How quickly would those repairs be able to be made? And so for me, I can't make decisions without really understanding the full scope of all of the impacts. And I also wouldn't want to make decisions separate from the trustees necessarily. So from a process perspective, I would appreciate that as many of the meetings as we have around this that we're opening them up as meetings of the full council and with the trustees as much as we can within the confines of open meeting law. I'm also concerned about the communication with the public with respect to the process. I'm seeing all sorts of stuff flying around in all sorts of locations. And I think it would be good on us to somehow find a way to express to the public clearly what this process is, Lynn, when I received your email, it was extremely helpful as always. But how can we get that information out to the public and ask for patience as we work through this process so that there's not someone picking up one little nugget of something and then that becomes the full narrative. And then there are a lot of experts in the room and I'm also wondering if there's anyone else that we should be seeking professional input from in making this very complex decision and understanding really the impacts that all of these decisions have on our budget and on our community. Thank you. Hey, I'm not seeing any further hands up from people who are currently panelists in the meeting. And I guess Bob's hand is up and I'll complete what I'm about to say and then see what, and then recognize Bob. But I had said that when we got to this stage that I would find the point in that I'm getting close to it where public comment about the library discussion would be in order. We did, we do post public comment at all meetings. And I wanted to get public comment and after we had some discussion to inform the public comment, but I recognize that the public may raise questions that then the committee would not wanna add to the list. And so I will be going to the attendees in a moment for to see who would like to participate and speak on the library. So, but Mr. Pam. Bob, you have to unmute. Sorry to speak again. It seems to me that it is worth at least talking through what the decision points are. It is conceivable that after thinking about this over the next 30 to 60 days, a decision will be made. If that is so, and it is in favor of proceeding, then that is fine. If the decision is not to go forward, then that would be a point at which we need to really have an answer to the question that I think Michelle asked, which is, is the town willing to specify anything about the scope and timing of needed repairs in the event that the project does not proceed? If that is not the point that occurs, then really the next decision point is in a year's time at which point a full design will exist. Bids will have been solicited and bids will come back. That will then allow two things to be known. One is what will the project actually cost? And two, what kind of money has been raised? If the answer to those are favorable, then presumably the town would go forward. If those answers are not favorable, then presumably the town will then make whatever decision is appropriate. So really we're talking about two decision points. One is immediate and one is a year from now. And that is important to think about in terms of what is the process here. In terms of other questions, one of the things that has been raised as a possibility is that the Commonwealth itself will in the face of the kind of construction inflation, which has occurred, rethink its policy with respect not only to libraries, but to schools and whatever other construction projects are involved. And it would be worthwhile to keep track of where that is. I don't think any decisions are gonna be made on that immediately. The legislature is not in session, but there's clearly going to be efforts in that direction. And that is something that we ought to be at least tracking and paying attention to. There is another point which is, and it was raised, but not specific. And that is that in order to produce a affordable project, there are items which are no longer in the scope and you should know what items have been dropped from the scope. And then finally, there is the question of timing. The way the resolution is written by the council, it basically says that the council has authorized the town to spend the money with the understanding that dollars will come back from the MVLC and from the library and portions will come through CPA. The reality of it in terms of the construction is that that will mean advancing substantial sums of money during the course of construction to be refunded at the conclusion of construction when the last one or two payments, sorry, my voice is gone. Last one or two payments from the MVLC occurs and when the historic tax credits have been finalized and can then be sold, all of which occurs after completion. So somebody is putting up the money in between and you just have to be reasonably clear about how much that is. Thank you. Do you need any clarifications or? Nope. Okay. I see no one else from the committee of the trustees who's currently a panelist who's asked to just pay. So what I'm going to do is go to the attendees. This is- So Andy, what I would like to do is take this down while we do that and then come back to it if we need to. Okay, that's fine. Because what we're gonna, what public comment is is it's, while it may inform the questions that we have posed, it is not necessarily tied to it. So public comment can really, doesn't just need to be on information to be gathered. But it is, but what I would like to do is have just public comment right now on the question of the library because I'll do a second public comment later in the meeting when we are getting onto the regional schools and any other issues that people wish to bring to the finance committee. Dorothy Pan's hand is up. I don't know if there are anybody else who wishes to speak on the library, but Dorothy, I guess somebody needs to bring you in so that you can make your comment before I ask your question. Okay, I just want to say, I appreciate the material that was sent, but today was my first class of the semester and I have barely had a chance to read them and I certainly haven't had a chance to read any of the mail that has come in on this topic. But you're asking about questions. I have questions that aren't ever even brought up and I'm getting frustrated about it. So number one, from the beginning has the catchment area for the project always been the, and this is approximate the 51,000 and not the number of actual year time, year round residents for the town of Amherst, which is I think maybe 38,000 or although I've heard it was like 19,000. So I'm not sure, but I know there's two numbers. Has it always been that big? And number two, are you planning to ask the MVLC to reduce that number so that we can then reduce the footprint and the program because currently they will not allow us or anyone else who receives their money to do so. And what would happen and would we be worse off if we returned the 13 million, which no longer given the new price increases, it no longer looks like that much money. And it's like a tight corset holding us in and not allowing us to make changes that could make this a good project. Is that gonna be, would be able to just give that money back and then go ahead and see what I realized the cost we have for the repair is probably not an accurate cost. I think that's been made today. And so we wanna know what would be the accurate cost of a thorough repair and upgrade of the existing building. Certainly, you know, there's a great outpouring of support for the library, but there's a fear of pledging the endowment and I don't, I'm not a financial person. I don't follow the ins and outs, but I know that if the endowment is not there to use as a swing space fund when the money comes in and the money doesn't come in. And if it's not there for the, to earn money, to produce the money that is used to help spend most of the operating costs of the library, then we're in deep trouble. So I know that that is upsetting. So my question really has, can we, has the number waste in that big? Can we reduce that number? Can the MVLC give permission to, if they won't give more money and I tell you, I think that's pie in the sky. Everybody wants more money and the costs keep going up. I think the state would be, if they give more money, it'll be just a little dibble dab here, a couple of million here and there. We're not talking about a couple of million more that we need. So will they be open to negotiate at some point? And if not, would we be worse off if we returned that money and made a realistic estimate, which I realized will be money. It will cost to fix and repair the library to the state that it should be in. Those are my questions. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else from the attendees who wishes shall we just bring her in? Just, we should probably, as this happens because Anna's hand is up, we should remove the people we brought in. Otherwise, Lynn will suddenly be at quorum. Yes, I think that's a good point. Thank you. Shall we? Yes, hi. I think my first question is, seeing the graph that Sean presented to us, it looked like the town's amount of contribution is not increasing. And so is this a question then for the town manager or maybe this is a very obvious answer, but somehow if this is not involved, increasing the amount, then is this a decision that the town manager needs to make or is this a decision that the town council needs to make? That's number one. And I ask that also just because of the timing is of essence and the reason we're having this decision is because in the past, the project has been pushed forward. And my fear is in having these meetings, which I understand is important, but at the same time, we are continuing to add to the costs. So that's number one. And the second question, I believe Michelle has mentioned that, I'll just emphasize again, that if the council is gonna engage in this conversation, then it is important to also then discuss what is the plan if you don't go ahead in terms of the plan for returning the payment with the interest and the plan for hiring the design consultant for the repairs, the HVHVAC and everything else, like what is gonna happen that? And of course, I'm again concerned the deeper we go into these discussions, the more we are delaying. So again, process, which again, Michelle mentioned, I think is of essence. Can we streamline this and be very effective in our decision, in a deliberation? What are the questions we're asking? And staying focused on what is important right now is the costs and the fundraising. My again, also to people who are watching and we've already discussed this project has been going on for so many years. And when last round the council voted and then the questions went out to the residents, which two thirds of the residents who voted supported it. A lot of the initial questions that are coming up now have been addressed or at least answered. And I think the focus now has to be on the increase costs and the fundraising and other alternatives that we're hearing about like grants and the legislative support and all of that. That need to be the focus. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm a, I'm a. Andy, I was stuck in the ether. Did you call on me? Yes. Sorry. Hi, everybody. How's it going? Happy Elect Primary Day. So two quick things. First is, and these are both, I recognize partly questions for the folks leading the fundraising efforts, but I wanted to bring them to the table as well here because I believe these, the people in this room right now would be deeply involved to some extent. I'd like to know what other state and federal funding opportunities have been pursued for this project and especially revisited if they were pursued before as we've gotten increased numbers. I know that this is the fundraising question, but I assume or I'd like to ensure that these are pursued to every extent possible. And then the second part of that question that dovetails it is that I'd like to know how we can, or I'd like to talk through how we can work with our state legislators to pressure the MBLC to allocate additional funds to existing projects, either instead of adding new, new awards in future years, given that I know we're not alone in our project cost rising. And I believe that the MBLC needs to be paying attention to that and be tuned into those conversations and consider how they can ensure that the projects they deemed worthy get done. I think that they have some responsibility there and we need to make sure that we are creating some accountability for them in that process. Those are my questions. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Lynn, are you getting this down to- I am, but I also want to just mention that as outlined in the too long emails sent on Sunday, this is the first discussion for the finance committee and the council will have a similar opportunity on Monday the 12th. And then we will work to get some answers either that because they exist already or we need to try to find them or frankly getting the cost of getting those answers is prohibitive. And I think in a couple of instances we have that but I just want to make sure that this is not the only time for the public or counselors to ask questions. Thank you. Okay, and Jaffee. Thanks. This is just to embellish Lynn on some of the questions we already have on. And I think Anna was, we may want to rearrange the order but we're similarly going to federal and state on the elementary school budget trying to see what we can relieve. To what extent are we going to the same pool? If we as a council as a town need to make tough choices and we're trying to dip into the same, get a piece in or they're really different some potentially different funding streams that we wouldn't be on asking for the same when we do that. And then on the Bob's decision points and Michelle's of if we didn't move forward I'd like some, I'm going to use the wrong term but and I know how painful it would be for people who've worked on this project can we as a town and the trustees kind of turn on a dime saying let's get a really good number on the repair and fix the library because there's a slot in our budget already for 16 million in capital. So I'm not saying it's the same money but not let the building fall apart. And could we get a proposal back to us in what are we in September? Could we have any chance of getting a proposal back in the spring of 2023? Just soon rather than wait a year so that we could be on a similar construction path to move forward what Alex said we didn't have a full plan B, we had a partial plan B and we had some designer fees in that 14 million we had some but there wasn't a plan. So it's that timeline issue of what are we on a collision course with at state, federal and our own budgets. So Lynn you've got all those questions but I'm not sure it comes across when we're looking at DPW. I think you're the one who told me we are at risk we can't repair the roof because the walls can't hold a roof and so the building is in such bad shape that we have one that's actually potentially gonna fall apart. So we've got two other big projects. So we're on a, we have to as a council kind of step up and look at the whole thing because these we only have so many tax dollars. So I just, I wanna just put that in some framework there's not a lot of little isolated questions but there's some biggies that we the council have to be thinking about. Thank you. And yes, Andy, I am taking notes. Okay, because I think I wanna we spend a lot of time in the library and I want to draw too close so we can get to our one other major topic for today. Even though it will not take as long as this one did by any means. So Lynn, do you feel comfortable with the list of questions you have? I don't think you need to bring it back to the show us now. Yes, I very much appreciate it and do not send emails to all counselors with your questions but you can send them to me. Thank you. You do not wanna be in a email debate. Okay. So I don't know Sharon or any of the trustees if you have any final comments before we because I think we're at this point today closing out the discussion and we'll return to it with the next finance committee meeting to hopefully scheduled very soon. Yeah, no, I just wanted to thank you all and as many of you said, this is really complex not only for the library making that decision but also for the town and the trustees and I absolutely understand this beast of a puzzle and I just really appreciate it's a boat load of work and we all thought we had been over this bridge but here we are again. So thank you all. Thanks. Thank you. So I wanna again thank you and the trustees who took the time this afternoon to join us because it is a complicated issue and as Lynn pointed out, we have close to have the council that was not involved in the prior discussion and that we'll be involved in the next discussion. We needed to have this opportunity to start bringing everybody onto the same place and so your help in doing that is very valuable and very much appreciated. Thank you. So anything else? Otherwise I think that we will thank our library trustees and staff for being here and move on and Sean is gonna briefly talk about and explain what happened at the meeting of the regional school organized around what was called guardrails but it was really bigger than guardrails and then answer questions about that. I don't think we have any decisions that need to be made today but it was the most recent meeting and so it's important to get a report on that. We will do one final round of public comment if there is any, try and set a next meeting date. We are not gonna do minutes at this meeting and Athena is working with us to get the minutes ready so that we can actually have them to all of you in advance of the next meeting and clean up the minutes at the next meeting. So with that Sean. Thanks, Andy. I'll try to be relatively brief. So we met, I think it was last Monday with different members of each member town to review this guardrail concept. So what we're talking about is the regional assessment method and how the regional school district allocates its budget to each of the four member towns. And so the concept they wanted to look at would be to put a 4% guardrail which is basically a cap or a floor on assessment increases for individual towns and they expressed that they wanted to look at that because they heard some feedback from, I'm not sure exactly who but some at four town meetings that maybe were worried about really large increases and assessments. So again, what this basically does is it would limit any towns increase in a given year to 4% and likewise if that town was gonna see a savings in their assessment, it would limit the savings to 4%. So on the high side, it would protect the town but it would limit any of the assessment method called for a higher percentage increase that difference would come out of the region budget. They basically would reduce how much revenue they brought in. And on the flip side, if a town was gonna save 6%, instead of saving 6%, they'd only save four and that difference would be an increase to the regional budget. So kind of works on both sides. The school finance director, Dr. Slaughter showed us some different models of what it would look like using historical data. The method we're on now is a mixture of a five-year average of enrollment and a five-year average of minimum contributions which is a complicated concept the state uses to determine the wealth of a community. So we're using sort of dual five-year averages. And so he looked back and mapped out what it would look like for each town if we were on this model using the guardrails. Lynn or Andy or Lynn jump in if you feel like I'm characterizing this wrong but I think my takeaway is that sort of the initial feedback was to the concept was mixed. I think we kind of conveyed that 4% guardrail wouldn't really work for the town of Amherst because our budget guidance is usually between two and 3% usually around two and a half. And so 4% would be really difficult to achieve without making major reductions somewhere else. And also when we looked at the data that was sort of mapped out Amherst was never at a 4% increase or decrease. So we weren't sure how those guardrails would actually work in conjunction with Amherst. And then at least one official from another town express some concern around the guardrails and that he'd want to look at it closer. Kind of the same thing that if a town's assessment should go down 6% that town actually benefit from that. So I think the major takeaway was that all four towns will go back and talk to their respective finance committees and select boards and town councils and kind of get feedback to report back to the region. The bigger concern that I think we saw from the numbers that Andy sort of alluded to is that in the chart that Dr. Slaughter provided in the out years of assessments Amherst was the largest assessment increase and not in terms of dollars, but in terms of percentage and dollars, but more importantly in terms of percentage we were seeing assessment increases ranging from about 2.6% to 3.38. Again, these are all hypotheticals so I wouldn't get stuck on those, but just the relative nature of how the towns are sort of organized. We were the high increase where all the other towns were lower, many were seeing decreases in those years. And that's just a difficult dynamic. It's obviously one of the things I dealt with when I worked for the regional schools is that one town goes up, if other towns go down it actually impacts how much overall money goes to the region and it poses some awkward just dynamics to how the assessment method works. So I think that's something that again is Amherst officials we're gonna have to keep an eye on during this budget process, how this new method which we've only been on for one year what we see this coming year, this will be the second year where we can compare what is our assessment increase but also what are the other towns assessment increases and does that sort of meet the needs of Amherst and also the regional schools. So in terms of next steps, again, I think our mission is to get feedback from you all and report back to the region at some point at another working group meeting. And we'll probably, we have a BCG meeting scheduled for two or three weeks from now where we might discuss the other issue about just the assessment method that we're on and what impacts we foresee for this budget cycle coming up and that report over. Who will determine that the answer is correct? Yeah, let me just mention that Mandy Johannikey, myself, Paul, Sean and Anna who was in the audience attended this meeting. Sean, I think you did an excellent job of summarizing it and as much as they kept saying, well Amherst will pay what it can pay that's not what the chart says. And so it continues to concern us that somehow or another, they think we could either, we could move as high as 4% increase in any budget year and that just is not supported by our history. So we were very clear during the conversation that for Amherst this was, we were diplomatic about it but we were clear that this was not a method that works for us. Okay. Since Paul's not having a, you know, Kathy? Yeah, I just have a question and if it's in materials and you can point me where to look, you framed it around 4%, did you look at 3%? So was there a, did Doug produce charts with a different guardrail or was everything framed in four? I only saw 4%, I think it was, that was the concept that they're proposing based on the data that they put together. Okay. So you answered my question. So I just, my mind went, so what's the alternative, you know, if we, you know, do to cap it and then the other piece, are any of the towns and the regional agreement at the total limit of two and a half? So are they capped out? Nobody's, nobody's capped out. Okay. No, thanks. No, all the tax, we looked at this somewhat recently, all the tax rates are in the, you know, between 20 and 22, I think for the current year. Michelle? Does anyone know if the meeting was recorded and if it was, would somebody be so kind as to send it? I'd like to take, I'd like to watch it. Yeah, we can ask, we can ask that it was on the region's platform, Google Hangout or something like that, yeah. So we can ask them if they have a recording that can be shared. Anything else? I guess, I'm sorry, Andrew, I should raise your hand. Yeah, go ahead. I think if anything, we just have to continue to drive home the fact that history does not support Amherst being able to exceed the guidelines that we give to all of their departments. And that has to continue to be our message. And I do wanna emphasize from, as Sean pointed out, there was actually one of the smaller towns who said they're not sure they really liked this method either. So. Yeah, I mean, I had a concern looking at the spreadsheets that the amount that was being factored in for annual increases for, that was being factored in for annual increases for the regional school assessments, whether it was large enough to take care of the expected increase just to maintain level services or whether it would require additional cuts or put pressure on towns to increase and in particular, whether it would put pressure on Amherst to increase. And Sean and I talked about that a little bit, but that's sort of the piece that I'm looking at. Also is how this factors in for the schools and whether it could come back to put pressure on us to do more than we can afford to do. This is very difficult times. So I don't know if there's anything else to be said on it at this point, but I did want to at least have a couple of minutes to get a brief report and see if there were questions. Seeing none, knowing that it's 10 minutes to five and that we try and get in. If there are other members of the public who are in the attendee group who would like to speak on any issue, now that's before the finance committee, I had limited it to libraries before, but I want to open it up for any other issues that members of the public, please raise your hand and let us know so that we can bring you in and allow you to make public comment consistent with our policy and best practices. Seeing no requests for public comment, that leaves us with one question which is trying to schedule a next meeting for this committee. And I think that what I would like to do is at least see if there are any periods which are not available and then maybe we need to do this by some kind of doodle poll rather than to try and do it right at this instant. But we do need to get a meeting probably within the next 10 days but on the outer score that Lynn. I just want to mention that Alicia cannot meet until three o'clock on any workday. Okay. Yeah, that is, thank you for sharing that since I'm not sure that she's in the meeting at the moment. So are there any particular days or times that people are unavailable that we need to avoid and then beyond that, I think we're going to get to a doodle poll quickly so that we can hear from everybody. Andy, can I just ask, is there a reason we wouldn't just meet next Tuesday at three? I mean, maybe you need to do a doodle poll but I, in my calendar, I tend to always protect Tuesday afternoons. So I don't know whether that, I had kind of, that's when finance meets in my mind all the way through Christmas or New Year's or whatever. That's my, I don't know what weeks we're meeting but that's my slot. So I don't know whether other people feel that way about it but it's kind of a protective time slot. I don't mind a doodle poll I should say but I'm just... Is there anybody who objects to at least freezing in Tuesday at three o'clock? Because then we're getting down to a much narrower question which is next Tuesday, which would be the day after the council meeting or a week later. It'll be probably then have to be one of those two dates. The biggest problem we have is we don't have another council meeting until October. We have one on the 19th and then we don't have another one until October 3rd. And that I, as much as this is a huge decision, it's also one that the more we put it off, the more it costs. So we really, I mean, what I said either next week the 13th or the 20th or the two dates we're talking about. So does anybody have the problem with either of those dates? Yup. Lynn, do you have a preference between the 13th and the 20th? I prefer the 13th. The only thing I would raise is if there's any additional requests for information that come up on the 12th that we would just be mindful that it might be difficult to have it ready for the 13th if we wanted to have all those answers together for that finance committee meeting. Paul. Yeah, I prefer the 13th with the caveat that Sean said that we won't have answers from the night before, but from my schedule, the 13th works better. Okay. Sounds like the 13th is what the consensus is. So we will listen. I just had a thought that if we had questions and they were really critical we could meet again on the 20th maybe. Yeah. I mean, we could meet on the 13th, but we could have a second meeting on the 20th if there were questions that came up on the 12th that were critical drivers. Great. And I mean, I'm gonna try to be as regularly in touch with the library trustees to get the answers to these questions. They already have seen the preliminary draft and as we know several were with us today. So I think where we are is the plan right now is that we will notice meeting for the 13th. So we'll be noticing it fairly quickly. The predominant discussion will be on this topic of continuing the library discussion. Lynn, are you gonna let Sharon and company know what the schedule is? We will try and get the minutes straightened out for the next, so that they're available quickly or as many of them are possible available quickly and then we can approve a bunch of minutes at the next meeting and do that very efficiently, hopefully. Is there anything else that people would like to raise at this point? Anything that was not anticipated? Okay, well, thank you. It's been a productive, difficult meeting but I think we really did a lot of progress and I will try and do some sort of report for the council just to let them know how we proceeded today and it will focus really on the process. It's not gonna be talking about any recommendation because we don't have any. We have not met far yet the process. So I thank you and I guess at this point we're adjourned.