 I'll call me in order at seven o'clock and the first item on the agenda that we don't have any minutes today. So first item is public comment. And if there's anyone in the audience who wishes to make any public comment, or on zoom, this is your opportunity. Seeing no hands raised in the room. Anyone on zoom that wishes to speak. Give him a moment. Terry, I just typed in the chat again. Scott, it's muted. There we go. Listen, listen to the game for public commentary. Nobody there. Okay, so move on then to the impact waiver, maybe a request. I believe Melinda, because the scouts is on zoom from the airplane housing trust and Matt Belange from the director of planning was here to both answer questions if we or anyone in the audience has any so Eric, just a brief overview of the request and then the new information that we have. Yep. And I just got Miranda connected on zoom. I'm Miranda. So, this is a continuation of the session. The board began at its last meeting on January 4, Champlain housing trust has submitted a request under the town's unified development by law for a waiver of education, recreation, impact fees for its project to convert town, place, suites hotel to 72 affordable housing. Units the development review board has approved she's permit application for the project at the last meeting, the select board requested the Champlain Valley school district be consulted regarding this request for any comment they had reached out to the chief operating officer and the superintendent last week and they responded via email and their emails in your in your board packet and in that communication is related district. So, any questions from the board from for Eric or from Miranda or, or Matt, well, I don't know if it's a question. It's more of a statement. And I just noticed and, you know, first of all, thank you everyone for putting this off for a week. I'm glad we asked the school district. I like their answer, but I also know that their answer is specific to this project and specific to studio and one bedroom apartments and my point is, is I support the waiver request. And I support it knowing that when we approve and a request like this that we're setting a precedent. And I just want to make kind of that comment, if you will, because I don't think we're going to go back to the school district. And then when the time of request comes in, or that wasn't my intent, my intent more was to get from them an opinion about in general, would they be okay with waving the fees associated when there's an affordable housing trust involved in the project. And so, I don't know that warrants any discussion. Did you answer that as far as the president goes. So, you know, the, the bylaw amendments that this body approved related to impact fee waivers certainly don't create any idea that, you know, select board practice on one decision would would guide its practice on future ones. It's quite open in terms of how the board might want to decide future requests. The other thing I'll bring up is that because impact fees in particular the school impact fee is related to paying down a bond that that funded an expansion of capacity. Over the life of that bond, the situation can involve in terms of how much revenue has been collected and where we are on that schedule and those are things that through the experience of asking this question I think staff learned we'd want to continue to monitor that and maybe bring some more information about exactly which impact fees we're talking about and what they're allocated for when when a waiver is requested. Okay. So, yeah, things can change even even among different requests but from year to year the situation may be different. Okay. Okay. One thing came to mind with the email that came back from in Johnson is that there really is no impact. To school system. And so, why would we want to. Put in impact fees on this particular project. Would you like an answer. Yeah. I mean, this a project like this could result in kids ending up in the school system. I would assume and that would be an impact. Yes, any, any residential project as we understand it could result in kids in the school system meaning, you know, additional demand for capacity that's met by the expansion project. However, you know, impact fees are, they're roughly proportional to impact. They're not perfectly proportional to impact. And so the division of fee. The way the fees are charged and the way they are charged differentially between single family and multifamily dwellings which is which is the only differentiation that's made in the current school impact fee. You know, it's based on a, on a best guess of what the distribution of new school age child generation will be between those two dwelling types. And, you know, of course we know that there are many kinds of multifamily housing. Generally multifamily housing that provides one bedrooms or studios is, is quite a bit less likely to generate school age children than multifamily housing with lots of, you know, two and three bedroom units in it. And our impact fee doesn't make that differentiation, but there could be a predicted difference in actual demand for capacity based on a project like this that's got, you know, very small units. Any further questions for Matt or more. There is a motion suggested. I'll move to grant a waiver of education and recreation impact fees in accordance with the provisions of the town's unified development bylaws sections 43.1 43.1.4 and 44.1.4 for the Champlain housing trust under zoning permit D P dash 21 dash 17 for the project known as Zephyr place located at 66 and 68 Zephyr road. Was there a second? Second. Any discussion on the motion? We're not almost in favor of the motion and say aye. Aye. The opposed. No abstention. So thank you Matt. Thank you Miranda for coming tonight and congratulations. Thank you very much. Moving on to budget deliberations and tonight we have an extensive memo from Eric. And I'll ask him to give us the details on his memo and then we can go forward and do some discussions. I'd like to break this into. Like three different parts. One is to talk about the $20,000 in savings that's being proposed. Second would be to make a decision on the energy plan or position and then thirdly to figure out what we're doing as far as. Information for next week to ask. Staff to give us information on any kind of a decision we make tonight. So Eric, it's yours. Thanks Terry. So on the first section here after the board's feedback last week, we looked at the budget for any possible reductions and we identified $20,000 in expense reductions primarily from the capital budget. We looked at $10,000 from parks improvements from the general fund. Reminder we fund this from the general fund and impact fees. This goes into a capital savings account. Then when we spend from the capital savings account, we have to do equal proportions from general fund and impact fees, what was put into that savings account. So in looking what the schedule is for FY 23 and how that savings account is set up, we stats competent. We have adequate funds in there that we can reduce this by $10,000 for this coming fiscal year. Same as to be said with the building contingency funds. We had budgeted $15,000 to start decrease that by $5,000 to $10,000. We would still be hitting our our target. We try to have about $30,000 in that savings account. The staff felt there was some room for a slight reduction there. And also in police traffic safety equipment, it's a slight reduction $2,500 but based on our purchase schedule and the capital savings account there, we we felt there's adequate funds in there to move ahead and 23 that would warrant that slight reduction. Then I didn't break everything out on the operating budget, but there's miscellaneous reductions in line and it was totally $2,500 so we can round it out to the 20,000 after looking through everything and trying to see if there's any additional large chunks of funding. We came up with with this solution to propose the board. So, I'll take a break from the rest of it for this is are there any objections on the board to include these savings in the budget. Okay, next. All right, part two. So I took the board's direction and looking at an energy planner position and what that impact would be on the FY 23 budget. And I guess I'll reference the table. First of all, at the bottom of the front page. So this table reflects those changes I just mentioned, in addition to the other possible changes that were on the on the sheet we distributed throughout the budget process to have an up to date bottom line. Without anything additionally added to it at this point. So, you'll see the increase is just a percentage fraction of percentage below 13% in this budget and the projected tax rate would be 0.3213 for an estimate there. And that equates to with putting some dollars to it. About 321. Sorry, the wrong number here, but looking at a median home increase of, I think, around $12 from. So, so to off of that number is where we looked at some different scenarios for the addition to boards looked at here. Oh, there is. I had those numbers in my notes on this other sheet. Yeah, 148 dollars per year that that last reflection on the table. So the energy planner position looking on the revenue side to add this position through additional taxes. We anticipated to be an additional 0.0035 cents on the tax rate that would put the rate up to 5.5.27 increase overall numbers wise, that's about $159 per year for a medium home or about 1326 per month. Looking at that on a part time structure, we use 24 hours per week. And the big threshold there is 30 hours per week is benefits. That is slightly lower increase on the rate 0.0024. 5.16 cents overall the numbers wise it's similar 156 per year or 12.99. So I can, I can stop there with we can look at these numbers more than any questions and I've got surely here as well. So looking for questions for Eric on the and surely on the energy planner position. Can I ask a really basic and possibly silly question, but is is the memo and what you just went over. The energy planner for a full time position would be 73,500 dollar estimate. Salary benefits and equipment. Are you saying that that would boost the average. Tax rate, the average average tax dollars. For Williston residents $13 and 26 cents a month. No, this would go from the. So the current budget amount as drafted is 1233 per month and that would increase that to 1326 per month. So that difference is just under a dollar or so. So it's a dollar a month. Thank you. That's not a question. I think it's more of a statement is, you know, I think looking at the tax rate is incredibly important when we're considering this, but there's other ways to look at it too. And one way is I'm trying to think that and you all know my opinion about the energy coordinator is. You have a budget that was presented to us and you know, this information is in the table on the 1st page of 13 million 750,000. $54 and adding the. Energy coordinator to that budget, the 73 500. If you look at it from that perspective, it's a very small, it's a big increase, but a very small. Increase in the budget. I shouldn't say very small. It's a small. So I think, you know, just keep in mind the various different ways to look at how. This position to the budget affects the budget. Other questions. I don't have any questions necessarily, although I do, I do feel like. The part time option is not, it does not feel as viable to me in that 1, the cost savings are. In the terms of tax rate and to the individual, very, very minimal. And, but, but kind of would tie the hands of the person in that position of it. I don't think that that they would be able to be. Their efforts would be utilized as well in a, in a part time role. And I think that when we're talking about, you know, the potential for savings and improvements and things like that around town. If they were able to be full time, we would really feel that the full benefit of that. And, and again, the difference between a part time and a full time person. The, the, how that would feel to an individual homeowner is so. Not insignificant, but it is, it is small. And I very much concur. I look at it kind of being penny wise, but pound foolish. You might be penny wise, but pound foolish in terms of. What this person could do with the amount of hours there are here. But also in terms of the potential candidate pool will be able to pull from a full time versus a part time position. I'm the last guy that would ever like vote for a tax increase that that's something that I always feel my own wallet, but I also feel like. I get the department for that for things this year and not, not just for equity, but just for the importance. And I think it's a, it's minimal when we look at the grand scheme of things and this seems like the right thing to do. I echo all that. I think the energy planners got to be a full time position. You know, there, there are plenty of examples in, in business and military and in life in general where. A half an effort will fail, but a full effort will give you more benefit than, than you put in more profit than, than you spend it in wages. And I think there's a decent chance that that's what's going to happen here. Even if it doesn't benefit to the town is probably, you know, I would say. It's an easy argument to make that, you know, if we're talking about a dollar a month for the average home. That is what we're imagining. It's like $300,000 in value. It's, it's, it's to me, it's obvious that we should do this as a full time position. So I was like, just do a straw to oppose to include the full time energy planner position in the, in the budget. And those in favor, just raise your hand. All five. So we will be including that and the figures that we'll get next week. So last piece we need to think about in the big one, how we pay for all this stuff. Yeah. So this is kind of the majority of the, the memo here trying to think about these kind of bigger policy questions as the board instead of finalizing and balancing the budget here for the town meeting proposal. So, as we were looking at this last week, the department of the treasury also released the final ARPA ARPA rule. So I'll, I'll speak on 1 piece of that tonight for the board to think about. And it's 1 possible avenue for ARPA funds, but it's the board's discretion whether it wants to look at this anymore in the revenue side of the budget or not. So under the final rule, it allows ARPA funds to be used for a municipality to increase its pre pandemic staffing level using a calculation. Surely completed that calculation for us last week. And our maximum would be to fund up to 3.75 full time equivalent positions. This comes with the with the big caveat with this money. It's 1 time money. So it's on ongoing sustainable revenue source for the town. It could be used to reduce the fiscal impact in FY 23 or or another year or 2 after that to smooth the impact over a couple of years. But eventually the general funds going to need to pick up those ARPA dollars. It's kind of kind of 1 time of softening the impact. So to remind the board, the town's receiving $3 million in ARPA funds to date. During this budget process, staff identified about $314,000 to be used for capital expenses. That's inclusive of FY 22 potential expenses for the adding fire staff or radios and turnout here for those new staff members. How to use the majority ARPA funding spend discussed a bit this fall budget season, and it's anticipated to be a future discussion from the board that's coming here of how to use these funds. But given where we are with this budget and having ARPA money available, it's something from the board to consider at least using parts of it at this point. So this is an option to think about as the board looks at balancing the budget tonight. The memo, I looked at using $210,000 of ARPA funds. This is equivalent to 1 cent on the tax rate. If the board want to use any of the ARPA funds for this purpose, the maximum by our calculation be 310,000. It could be any amount below that. 2, 10 is an illustration in the memo. So the ways this could be utilized would be to it's a revenue offset. So what we looked at was it could be offsetting tax revenue or the use of the town's fund balance as a as a revenue source here and deciding where the board wants to end up and how those revenue streams come together to balance the budget. Mind the board on the fund balance piece. Your policy calls for between 10 and 20% of the operating budget to remain in fund balance. Staff draft budget is our best estimate at the end of FY23 to have the fund balance at about 16.7%, which is about $2.2 million of the operating budget based upon this new proposed operating budget for the increase. It was about $775,000 within that within the draft budget as it currently stands to balance the budget. Every year when we do this, it's a best estimate of the fund balance. The fund balance is really driven by our local option tax receipts. We do our best estimate of where they're going to fall. Unfortunately, many years has come in higher than budget. It's possible to come in lower than budget as well. And the reason the policy has such a broad range for our town and how they recommended that way is due to the local option tax where it could cut that by a year to year. The other piece is on the expense side, if there's under spent line items, they follow this fund balance as well. We've experienced that the past few years as well with open positions throughout the year that increases the fund balance. So for a number of years, the town's budgeted about 500,000 from the fund balance as revenue to offset tax increases. And we've had a good experience with a combination of local option tax and the expense side of the budget. Not need to use that initially planned money and the fund balance continue to grow each year. We also use that for capital expenses as well to move those projects forward. And then looking at this year as we prepared the budget and we've updated the board along the way. We feel we're going to need to use some of that money as budgeted in FY 22. Exactly now we won't know to the end of the year, but this has kind of been a holder to offset the tax rate for a number of years. We're going to start needing to use that FY 24. I don't know what amount we'd come proposing to the board at that point, but just to be thinking that this isn't just kind of an ongoing pool of money to offset the revenue side of the budget on going here. So staff felt our. Our most our comfort level of that 16.7% based on those caveats, but certainly the way things are going. And a little bit beyond predictability there. If we were to have a budget where that was anticipated a little bit higher. The other piece of that with the tax rate is you're deciding what. Estimated projected rating creature you're comfortable with in this draft budget. That's where you could offset it a bit too. I think I can. Stop there. I think I hit most of my points on it to you. I know it's the most extensive so I can just open up for questions for Shirley and I. So questions for Eric and Shirley regarding this and then. We need to try to figure out the right which option we would like to do to take. Anybody else first. One thing I do want to start with a question under pathways to consider. And in it under item 1, you mentioned the memo mentions the 9 fte's in the fire department. I want to make sure I understand the new positions were considering in this budget. So be the 9 firefighters are empty firefighters. If I remember correctly, there's a new dispatch position. Yep, that that position was the board approved last summer for this budget year. So that by 23 will be the full budget year with that position. But this will be the first budget first year with that position in the budget, which is different than the energy coordinator position, which hasn't been filled. This is in a previous budget. If I remember correctly, not the energy coordinator, but of recreation position. Thank you. Yes, the recreation coordinator. So, what we've done tonight is we taken nine, what I can look at nine firefighter positions one dispatch position, making 10 and then added the energy coordinator. So I got that correct. Okay, at least that's not an incorrect way to look at it. I guess my point is this is, you know, the town's growing. We've had to add staff over time. And my guess is over time we've added between like one in between zero and two staff per year. You know, Ted and Terry, maybe you've got this year we're looking at 11. So that's a huge difference. But it's also, I think, a one time, you know, almost like a crisis that's fight, you know, that's facing us. So, even though it's a drastic increase. I'm willing to not willing to, but you know, it's something we just can't not do because of the public safety and other reasons for for it. So I guess what I'm getting at is as we start to talk about our dollars and and the fund balance. I'm very nervous about reducing the fund balance. That's the one that that's the one fund that we have total control over our dollars. Yes, we have flexibility and how we spend it but we don't have any flexibility and how much of it comes into us. So I guess my point is, is because of this anomaly of a year in which we're dealing with some very important almost crisis type issues. This is, you know, the ARPA dollars, you know, we should look to the ARPA dollars and use them. I don't know if the right word is as much as possible, but take maximum advantage of them. I think yes, we do need to take advantage of the ARPA dollars to some extent for sure this year and the ARPA dollars really have been set aside for one time things to do things that we wouldn't ordinarily ordinarily be able to do in this. You're right. The positions are one of the things that we need to do this year and set the cost of them as best we can. But still use the ARPA dollars over the next few years to do the things that we really haven't been able to do probably wouldn't be able to do without them. Other comments. I like the fund balance getting low, very much concerns me. You know, give me, give me a little editor there. I like the idea of the 50-50 split between, you know, putting some back into the fund balance and then also helping to reduce the tax rate a bit. You know, because this is a one-time pot of money, you know, I hesitate putting it all towards the tax rate because then there will just next year there's also there's that tax rate still going to be affected. It's just pushing it off a year. But if we can delay that a little bit for folks and ease that burden so it's not quite all at once, that's, that might be, you know, a bit more palatable. And it, you know, has been a tough year for everybody. So, and this would then put us in a slightly more comfortable place with the fund balance as well. So I would support a 50-50 split. You know, I'm probably leaning toward that, but the question that I have is if we do that, then we're really, we're just delaying when the tax increase is going to hit, right? I mean, well, it's going to hit in the next fiscal year. But it's also going to, it's going to hit harder the year after that. And there is, I mean, there, the other approach where it gets spread out over years. It could, you could do it proportionally over a number of years. We didn't run the numbers and as much detail there, but that's, that's an option as well. But yeah, certainly it's going to, it's going to hit. You can, you can delay it a little bit. You know, the thing I'm also watching is the fund balance. And, you know, if you have a year and say, okay, we budgeted offset reduced taxes, half a million dollars for a number of years. And hey, it's a year we don't feel like we can do that from the fund balance anymore. That's two and a half cents on the tax rate right there. Or a little over two cents. So the capital needs are going to be there each year. The revenue side with with taxes is it's going to be there and just trying to prepare the best to look at what those impacts might be as I know we're finishing 23, but I'm thinking about 24 and 25 is are going through this as well. And what I don't want to surprise you with anything that that comes to your, your play to your from now either. Is there any. Any thought about what the grand list is going to increase over the course of the next few years. Yeah, bill town assessor bill him in his conservative estimate is 3 quarters of percent for FY 23 feels that may go up to 1% or so, but we've seen the. The grand list kind of kind of be 1 to 2% a year. It's. You know, in terms of the kind of very healthy at over 2 billion with 1 cent on the tax rate generating $210,000 of revenue is a is a great position for the town to, you know, when you look at things like this for. For the race structure, but I wouldn't say a real significant increase of. Higher higher digits that that's bill him in this some more, but until the next repraisal would be complete for the town and whatever that horizon looks like in a couple of years and you'll have an update on that next week as well. Other questions. I'm just sitting here thinking and I, I, I see the. Benefit of these funds, but I have worried too about our general fund, but I know it's raining now. We've been raining for 2 years. What's next year bring, you know, we were, we were hoping to get out of this pandemic, you know, a few months back and, and. You know, I'm not saying it's going to get worse. I don't know. I don't have a crystal ball either, but I just. You know, I'm with Ted on this, the inevitable is going to happen. I mean, we're going to get hit with this at some point. It's just how, how do we lay it out? And that's I'm still at a crossroads right there. Eric, can I follow up on that by the numbers as I'm understanding it is if we went, if we went with a split of 5050. Then the estimated median. Homeowner's tax increase would be $144 and 5 cents. A year. And I'm understanding on page 4. Yep, yep, that back. You're a 10 in there and going back to. Going back to the memo earlier than that, if we with an energy planner being full time and the fire department and everything else. We're looking at a, I'm looking at page 2 now, but the. The estimated annual tax increase without using the funds would be $159 and 15 cents a year. Yep. Okay. And then meanwhile, if we. If we used it all at once, all at once. The tax increase would be an annual of $128 and 95. We used all along. Yep. And that's using 210,000 of our with our calculation. Your ceiling could be just over 300,000, but. Use that as a once and on rate for restoration. Okay. Just to clarification that ceiling of the 310 plus or minus thousand dollars of our compliance that could only be used once we can't do that. Per year just once. I'll look at surely if we get into that. The difficult thing about the schedule. Look at all of our uses and the discussion. And here's our. Whatever project you want to do that money. That we have now that we want to work with them that you may not be without the dollars. So, you know, if you were to give a direction on how much you wanted to use and we know what. Good. Yes. Yeah. So if we spread it out over 4 years though. The recommendation to be 75% of the. Arpa funds in FY 23, 50% and FY 24, 25% and. FY 25 and then leave us with 0 and FY 26. Which would, which would kind of ease the. Property tax increase in over 4 years is probably the wrong word. But. Slightly softened and spread out. Yeah. Yeah. And I think if we run that model, it's, it's going to be more than the 2 hard to 300. And we'd have to clarify that. I believe we can use it on. You know, an annual basis up through FY 24. I think. To your, to your point, Jeff, I think that's the amount we could use each year to offset it. I'd want to just double check if that's an approach the board wants to look at some more. Of the 3 million, then you start to use more of the 3 million. So it's a question of where. Where the outcomes the board wants, but. You know, to that too, with this operating change with increasing public safety staff by and other positions and formator. As well that, you know, that's a big accomplishment for the community as well on an operating side, but it's not a capital accomplishment. Either some other town goal accomplishments that the boards. Or can think about here. One of the. Public policy. Decisions I think that are issues anyway is that. If we assume that a majority of taxpayers and voters voters and will list and will approve our proposed budget. How would that majority want this increase to be spread out? And I don't know. And I think, I think the budget is is obviously I'm going to, you know, been working on it for a while and vote for it. So that would imply that I think it's a it's a good budget. But the question is, you know, within. If we can, if we can make the argument to the majority of taxpayers, what would they want? And for that matter, what would help us make the argument that these are actually needed vital. Services and that this is not a tax increase because we all decided to just do crazy stuff with the municipal budget. You know, this is fire department, entity coordinator, police and fire wages, etc. But the question is, what, you know, how do we how do we best make that argument within the context of. Spreading out the the increase that we're unfortunately going to be confronting and I don't know that I have an answer for that. I think, you know, maybe the 5050 is probably the best thing to do. Or maybe, you know, a second only to spread it out over 4 years. I don't think using all of it at once would be. Wise that that gets closer to the idea of. Spending for recurring annual fees with 1 time dollars, which. I seem to recall that our state government in trouble in the late 80s. Part of my point or not point, but. We know we're looking at a very large step. In the budget this year. And right now it's it's around somewhere between 15 and 18% in terms of what taxpayers will see. Next year. Although those same positions will be in the budget. The increase in the budget won't feel as large as it does this year. No, there's a difference between feel as large. But it will still be this year's budget, plus maybe a less amount. And this year's budget is a huge step or increase. And although there's, there's the reality of the budget, there's also the perception. And I guess my point is, is, is the step we're going to feel this year. Most people are going to perceive as a large step that we need that. That they could object to versus next year when maybe there won't be any new employees. I'm not guaranteeing that, but you know, that is, that is a possibility. I suspect all of us will look back on this year and go, geez, wouldn't it be nice if we could not add to new employee next year. I guess my point is, is we have the immediate crisis with a large budget increase and I really feel that needs to be our focus right now. And as we down the road or going to have to deal with whatever budget increases we have, maybe actually next will have a decrease. No idea, but as you know, I guess in a sense I'm saying, and not that I want to put it off, but I feel I need to focus on this large increase this year. So are you saying that you would you would mitigate that by doing what with the ARPA funds in terms of percentages. What do you consider using a maximum or a majority of that that we're allowed to use this year, which is somewhere, which is up to 310 of the ARPA funds to help offset the budget or the tax increase this year. So I've heard discussions that some people prefer the 5050. We had the phase in approach over four years. I'm the, I guess I fall into the, let's try to maximum or not try. Let's maximize what ARPA dollars we can use this year because of this huge increase we're seeing this year. So if, can I play with that? If that's, if that's, and I'm all ears to that's the case, then the total, the total tax annually for median home is $159.15 and these are all estimates. If we used as much ARPA as we could all at once, it would be, I don't think the 310 number was always based on using what they were the town staff did you did base it on. It would, it would shrink that from $159 tax increase to $128.95. Yeah. And then if the year after that, our budget does not increase much. Let's say it doesn't increase at all. Yeah. Then the year after that the tax increase annual tax increase for a median home of $300,000 with the 30 bucks. $159-128, $159 without our 128 with, if we keep the budget the same then the year after that the tax increase would be $30 per animal. Okay. I'm not sure I quite thought. Sorry. Well, if we don't use ARPA at all, it's $159 tax increase. Yeah. Okay. If we use 210 of it, it's $128 tax increase. So, if we went ahead and did all of it and taxes go up $128.95, then if we keep the budget the same. Yeah. To raise, raise the money without that. Well, actually, is that right? It's logically wrong on that. It would be 30 bucks tax from the $128.95. We should bring it up to the $159.15, but it would do it over two years. Yeah. One thing I was looking at it to 1 cent on the tax rate increase is about $10 per 100,000 of assessed value. So, so we get the 30, the median home 300,000 raising in a cent. Then you're getting that $30 there. That makes it makes your idea stronger. Maybe. I'm a little disappointed because you're, you're the engineer. I never said I was a finance guy. Just Matt. No, you got depreciation and net present worth and all that. And then you get the new accounting system you use in towns now, which totally throws me back through for Luke. Any time I've ever had to deal with the CPA, I come away thinking that was just food. So if we use, so we have the 310 available all these projections are with the 210. But if we use the maximum 310. Who would we then potentially split it up? So we're still putting some in the fund balance. 100,000 or whatever into the balance to get us to that 17%. And then also. But the tax rate lower and just. You know, get a little bit of both and the full benefit of that 310 feeling it this year. It's still accomplished what you're talking about. And then also. That fund balance again, because again, who knows if. You know, we're going to have what, what we're going to have coming in from. You know, other sources or, you know, there's a hard year coming up in other areas. Others. So. Have you looking for a proposal to do a strong. To ask that. Whatever we wish to do for next week. Here, here's one other way to look at it. One other variable to throw in and that would be. What are people's comfort level with the projected fund balance at the end of fiscal year 2023. One of the proposals or not the proposal, but. I got to go back and and find this in here. We were looking at a under the current under the current proposal. We would be looking at the fund balance dropping to and hopefully that's the right way to look at this to 16.7% from where it is right now at the end of. fiscal year 2023. And a piece of this has to be is how comfortable are we with that. It meets up it meets our policy. In fact, it's pretty much right in the middle of our policy between 10 and 20%. But then when I look at the numbers. You know, 2 million 2.2 million almost. It's a lot of money, but I can, you know, compared to, you know, a $13 million a year budget. I feel more comfortable having the fund balance on the higher end, I feel, but at least as Gordon point out, you know, it's raining right now. It's time to use it now might be the right time to use a rainy day fund because it's raining. And so for the past number of years, we've been uncomfortable because it's been over 20%. We've been trying to get it down. Have not been successful because isn't it amazing how quickly things turn. Some of this some of this is turned because of the needs of the town. It's not like they didn't turn because of the economy that 3 of us were on this board when the great recession happened that budget was, you know, we weren't cutting that blood on the floor. Oh, it was. Yeah, I remember. I want to cancel the firewoods. What's that I wanted to cancel the firewood. I lost that. But, you know, the hits the nail in the head is, I wish I felt comfortable with our economy and next year. But I guess I'm not feeling real comfortable with our economy next year. And to use the rain analogy, it's raining now I'm worried it's still going to be raining. Exactly. But if it is raining. Next year, we still have on balance 16.7% with what we've been talking about, right? But I will put the caveat there that that's our the local option tax for trying to project how it's going to perform this fiscal year and next fiscal year. Yeah, first quarter of this fiscal year. It was $180,000 over what we budgeted. So coming from wrong, surely we felt our return was going to be around $400,000 more than budgeted given the experience that first quarter without the holiday quarter coming in. We'll get that report next month from the state. Then, I guess, with your fund balance, you never know when you might need to use it for, I mean, for example, the muddy brook culvert project, you authorize some funds to pay down that. There's always options to borrow more money for the town and you pay interest over time, you could pay it off earlier, but that becomes the reserve for things that we can't anticipate what's going to happen six, eight months from now. Ideally, it's there. Things can come up. Also, if it's at that level, I don't know if the, the board have to decide is it comfortable using $500,000 from that 16.7% to reduce taxes the following year and put it down. Probably in the 13% range, it's hard to project right now, but I think there's a reality that that offsets not necessarily going to be there from the fund balance and you're that's going to be have to meet up somewhere else in the revenue side. The capital part of that's offsetting right now to the draft that reduced that using some ARPA one time money for these capital projects, but our capital needs are increasing. If you use the fund balance, I'll pay for them. You know, we're talking 500,000 six 700,000 of fund balance use for some of these items and it's towns very fortunate to use it but it's not going to be there every year. And Shirley and Eric, could you, is it accurate to say the two biggest drivers and how the fund balance either grows or shrinks or stays the same are the grand list and how much the grand list changes and the local options taxes. Would those be the two biggest factors that affect our fund balance. I would say definitely the local option tax, but looking at the grand list, not as much. I would say with this percentage this year. It's really equating to adding, I think around $30,000. Okay. I think that's a good question growth from tax revenue, just a grand list growth of part from our success of having such a robust grand list, but the big pieces under spending line items, mainly from open positions, that's where you get your most. Okay. Largest variance. We try to factor in the like the three open police officer positions. Yeah, our model has them being open through March or April. I think one through the first half of next fiscal year. And so the unfilled positions, which of course is going to be a bit of a, an unknown with nine EMT firefighters, how quickly they can be filled and, or if they can be filled. And on that we posted those to take applications. Our intent would be to interview folks. Given this is in the budget and then after this budget was approved on town meeting day, we could offer positions at the after town meeting. And then we chief and I are working on a plan to onboard folks and have them start before the end of the fiscal year to meet that need. That's that's addressed in these calculations of where the fund balance would be in that model. Okay, that was in the draft budget. Do you mind me asking what what is your model predict for the nine firefighters that they would be fully funded all year. Okay. So it's a very conservative estimate from that standpoint. Latest numbers. And the chiefs on tonight too if you have any questions for the chief, but I believe we're in the upper 20s and applications received right now. That's that's a very good sign. Yeah, yeah, there's no one tell the people are interviewed. Yeah, I know we are getting applications from even around the country and other agencies that are hiring Burlington are having a similar experience right now. I'm attracted to Wilson out of out of the state because we have such a great tax rate. I know see a lot of West. Yeah, but certainly Wilson should be number one. Can't be responsible if they don't do their homework. But the policy on the on the fund balance is between 10 and 20% of the operating budget. So that would be using using what we're thinking so far on balance of either 1.3 million or 2.6 million. And what we're saying is 2.179 so we're we're less than $500,000 off on that. It's nothing to sneeze at it, but it's, I think I'm probably a little more comfortable than some other folks here because it is, it is above the median the middle of what our room. What our policy is. And it is raining. So, to me, that's, that's, that's pretty good. Yeah, given given what we're facing. I actually think the economy is okay, but I'm not basing me my decisions on that. I think it's going to be. I don't think the economy next year is going to be that. And what's important for me is what I just learned, which is that the biggest factor affecting the fund balance is unfilled positions and they've been very, very conservative with their estimates. I eat all positions will be filled 12 months out of the year, meaning that would have the minimum additional revenue added not revenue additional increase in the fund balance. Jeff, just to make sure I was clear, the 1 position we didn't have for the full year was 1 of the police positions. Okay, not knowing where that's a hiring is going to be. Okay, we thought that might be realistic. So that's the only kind of other. That doesn't change my opinion that you've been very conservative and how you come up with the estimated fund balance at the end of 2023. Okay. I think I'm leaning toward Jeff's idea of using a lot of the ARPA funds right now. I'm comfortable with the $210,000 that staff put out there in their project in their estimates, but I probably would be comfortable with a higher number than that. That's, that's where I would lean. Yeah. And just as a rough, I mean, I know we have other office expenditures in the budget, but if it was 300,000, that's or 310, that's basically 10% of what we're expecting from ARPA, if I remember correctly. Yep. So, if we did the, the fund balance expenditures as are in the current projected budget. They would give us the balance at the end of the fiscal year 23 at 16.7%. And we put in ARPA funds to the tune of 300,000. Is that, is that something that the board can live with? Okay. Yep. Sounds like that is. If I could ask a question of that 300,000, how would you like to allocate it between fund balance and tax rate? Or is there any split there? And let me make sure I understand your question if you don't mind. And I'm asking because right now we're, what I just heard would be keeping the fund balance or the projected fund balance at the end of 2023 at the 16.8%. I'm sorry. 16.7 16.7%. They rounded wrong by the way. And, but using the 300,000 to reduce the tax rate to using the 300,000 ARPA dollars would reduce the tax rate. I'm looking at page for the towards the bottom where it talks about. Great. I've got that as it would bring down, it would bring the tax rate down to the point 3148. Is that correct? It would be a little lower than that. That's with 210. That's right. So take another half cents. So probably just over 31. We have to run the numbers, which will bring it around a 15% tax. So the answer is, yes, I'm, I'm good with that aspect of that. That's how I would mean for it to be applied. Everybody good with that? Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Where is this your first budget? It's my first budget. And I still want to come back from. So do we have enough to go on? Appreciate the discussion tonight. Oh, it's a lot. Thank you for the memo. Yeah. Very, very helpful. All right, we can go on to managers report. So what we'll do from, from here on out is we'll prepare a final draft budget for you. We'll use that direction from tonight to have that offset and those final numbers. And we'll also just double check this would be LCT as our, we feel pretty confident our read of the rule as it came out. But like to just make sure this is before we put in the final budget. We'll do, we'll do that this week. And then we'll have that before you next week along with the draft with the warning and other business items up here as we gets on the, the road ahead to town meeting day, which will be coming up in about six weeks or so. Believe it or not. Wanted to share some, some good news on our staffing front. We recently filled both open positions and public works that have been open for a while. And I'm glad that Edward Raymond's joining us in the highway division and Dwight Diamond in the water sewer divisions will both be starting this month and we're happy to have a public works department that's going to be fully, fully staffed again. Say that way for a while. And then I was wondering the board's attention. The legislature gabbled in last week and there's, there's a lot of bills and conversation taking part right away. And from that, that we're watching. One is house bill h 514. This was introduced in ways and means looking to repeal the current local option tax municipalities have and replace it with a statewide revenue sharing system. This was brought up at the end of the session last May briefly in discussion of ways and means. And now there's a bill that's been proposed. It's, it's on the wall and the committee room still has been taken up, but anticipate this will likely be discussed at some point. This would certainly be of great concern to us. The language is pretty broad in the draft bill, but taking away from our local control of the local option tax and then having a state shared revenue system that intends to make us some got their exact words. Substantially equivalent revenue. Those concern me a bit. Especially when we've had benefits for coming in over budgets with our local option tax for a number of years. So I've alerted our delegation to this bill and made him aware of possible concerns. As this goes along, if it progresses, if the select board wants to take a formal position on this, we can, we can certainly work on appropriate testimony and I'll plan to testify in ways and means should this progress to that level here. So we're keeping a close eye on it. And then just last, last piece on budget. I'm working on some outreach items in previous years. We've had the insert flyer and the observer and that's, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, you know, some of the concerns in previous years, we've had the insert flyer and the observer and that's logistically presenting some challenges for a couple of years and maybe even so this year. So I'm thinking about doing a full page ad on the backs, back of the paper I've reserved eventually some space for that and some design ideas with messaging for this this budget that night, just about. So I'm working on that and I sent the board today, If you can just send a note by next week, we'll get that moving to wrap that piece up. That's all I have for tonight. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry. Thank you for bringing up the piece about H, what is it, 514. That is. Those of us who remember back when x 60 and x 66 were put into effect and. You know, the concept between those and I very much supported was. To make sure that all communities in Vermont had equal. Ability to afford their, you know, good schools for their kids. And out of that came the concept of the local options tax, which was to give those communities that were financially hurt by acts. Maybe hurt isn't the right word, but financially impacted by act 1666. The ability to have some, some ability to mitigate that impact. And now it seems like they're saying, well, we want to take that ability to mitigate the impact away and I just kind of don't understand that. Because the impact is still there. If I remember correctly, Willis then sends more money into the, whatever that tax fund, then we actually get back to run our school district. So that local option tax is important to will stand and not understanding the logic necessarily behind it that says, we want to take it away. They're not taking it away. Well, they are in a second. There's good news and bad news bill and that the bad news that it's sponsored by the chair of ways and means. And one other presenter from St. John's brain. The good news is it's, if it passes ways and means it's got to go to appropriations. And it's got to go to the Senate to finance and to approach. So it's got to like that. And it's only got this year to do it. So that could be running out of time if it goes anywhere. All right. Well, you know, that process much better than I have spray things happen over there. However, yes. Other business number a few things the over the, the weekend, I got some paperwork. The law says that the town doesn't have a health officer, the chair of the select work becomes the health officer. So I'm now both the health officer and deputy health officer until we get a new health officer in place. s 172 was the bill that was just introduced the last week. We talked about it last week. And I think it's going to allow us to do a town meeting as we did last year. Just everything I was feeling about it. Just have an informational session session that passed both the house and the Senate on Friday and waiting for the governor to sign it, which I assume he will do. I sent everybody a notice about the Martin Luther King Day celebration and presentation. It'll be about 20 minute presentation at 7, 3 in the morning on the 17th of. January all by zoom, it was a number of speakers, including Crystal the excruciating present as well and a few others. The I received a telephone call on Sunday morning from Jimmy Lyons who wanted to inform me that Senator Chittenden is proposing to send a letter to the House Government Operations Committee regarding the Burlington charter changes. And there's a number of charter changes that are being proposed by Burlington voters. I think the bill numbers h 544. The current makeup of the airport commission is for members appointed by Burlington one by South Burlington. The proposal would be to increase Burlington's representation by one had one us to the members of the airport commission. Senator Chittenden is wondering what our position might be if he asked the committee to put Wilson in as a or have a representative on the airport commission. The information I got was he was going to send a letter to them today, but I have not received any copy of that as of today. So we may wish to take this up and get a position from us on whether we'd like to have representation on that or not in the near future. But the House Government Operations will be taking up the bill sometime and do something with it between now and the end of the session. And the last thing I have is the town report that I'm working on. I hope to have that out to you by the end of the week and with the turnaround of another, not more than a week to turn it around so we can get it to Sarah by the week of the 24th. So any other business we need to take care of tonight? If not, then we're adjourned.