 okay welcome to the first meeting of the finance committee for 2015 glad you can all make it through the through the snow the two cut expenses each of you will get a snow shovel on the way out so we could get massive clear we have two new members on the finance committee this year Jonathan Wallach if you want to like raise your hand or something and row hit row heat divide I thought we could just go around the the room so they can start getting a feel of who everybody is they'll be a test tomorrow on all this so Charlie Charlie Foskett precinct date Allen Holmes precinct 14 Erin Larkin 21 Fedsett precinct 12 Geekvane precinct 15 okay well I'm glad everybody was here we got a good attendance and I'd like to remind everybody that there's this ethics conflict of interest thing we have to do every two years so I think Gloria sent out all the papers to everybody if you did not get it from Gloria please you know touch bases whether and she could send them out again my understanding is that you've got one certificate which says you've got the summary of the conflict of interest and don't just sign that actually go through it so you can understand it and then there's another certificate says that you went online and you completed the course all of this paperwork should be gotten back to me if you've sent it to somebody else at least CC me and I'm gonna you can send it hard copy and I'll keep a file or send it to me electronically and I'll put it in a file also I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with it but I'll at least have it and it's supposed to be due by April 3rd so you have until April 3rd but try to get it out of the way so it's not hanging over okay we have a reserve fund transfer was the first item for collection software Stephen Gilligan is on his way down here so I'll put that off until he gets here we have the tell you what why don't we do the snow and ice deficit and get that vote out of the way so let me turn it over to the manager to tell you where we are right now hi good evening thank you mr. chairman so if we had been meeting about three weeks ago we would have told you the snow and ice budget was going great and we were probably going to come in under budget this year but the past two weeks happened so we provided you a memo from the DPW director to me that's outlining costs to date for snow and ice removal and then some of the expected costs we have over the next week or so not counting any further snowfall so very quickly you can see that we've had about 17 snow and ice events 53 plus or minus 53 inches of total snowfall our total appropriation for FY 15 is 771,000 what we have spent so far total is that amount you see expended to date 903,725 dollars broken out in the different different categories you see below beginning tonight we're going to begin to remove snow for Mass Ave at the Cambridge border over the next four nights up to the Lexington line to widen travel lanes we expect that the cost in the vicinity of 75,000 to 100,000 as you see outlined here and we also we've been in an interim basis snoring storing snow in the reservoir parking lot however our commitment to the neighborhood as to not have that you know sort of be seen as a consistent dumping area is to regularly truck that out so you see an estimated $25,000 cost to move the snow that's there out so what we're asking for tonight is approval from the finance committee about a vote of the finance committee to authorize us to deficit spend up to 750,000 dollars more in snow and ice so that would in effect based on the figures you've seen here on this memo give us about another half a million dollars of limit to spend on snow and ice so where would we pay for that would be the next question there is a million dollar reserve fund I believe we've only taken a limited amount out so far this year and there's also in the budget every year we include a hold on $500,000 to carry a deficit so we have means of paying for this but we need this voted authority to actually deficit spend to allow the control to have us spend the money decide how much to take from the from the deficit in other words that we've got built into the long-range plan which the manager will be going and how much to take out of the reserve fund but this allows them to continue to spend for the job and then we'll we'll figure out the final numbers in late March early April on that so what they're doing is before they get deficit spend it's the only budget that could legally be done that they have to have the approval of the finance committee and the select matter just the finance committee okay just finance committee so are there any questions from the committee for the manager Christine so this year we have several contracts we put out so we sort of tiered a couple contracts based on availability so it's between Bill Ricker or a site in Cambridge private sites have we thought about ice melters so we have Mike Rademacher's done actually quite a bit of research on it the problem becomes we don't we don't have a snow farm now we don't have a dumping site now to have real and an adequate or efficient melting site system you need to have a place to bring it and then melt it so that you have larger storage so we really don't have that kind of space and then from a cost benefit point of view talking to some communities that have them and with Mike Rademacher speaking to some vendors even the vendors admit they break down extremely extremely regularly you can't really use them in every snow situation this would certainly be a situation where you'd use them but you know if you're getting your I guess I'd say more normal winter doesn't necessarily avail itself to that use so if it sits for a while they don't they're not they're not good at doing that and you're gonna pump a lot of fuel into them so they're very costly to operate so that our assessment's been that it's not a good investment for our needs so we have given a consideration okay so what the statute is for a vote of the finance committee to expend another 750,000 that doesn't mean you've seen the budget that doesn't mean they'll spend all that but it doesn't want to have to come back to us every week to do that so do I have a motion so okay moved and seconded to allow for the expenditure of an additional $750,000 is also right by section 31d of chapter 44 the general law so any further discussion all those in favor please say I posed okay unanimous 1 2 3 4 7 8 9 10 11 12 17 0 that takes care of that okay let me let me just go through a little bit of other business Alan you had something you wanted to ask the finance committee just wanted to mention that the local news team from Arlington Cable is just beginning to produce an educational series on the budget cycle and sort of starting tonight will be at the budget revenue task force you take it all the way through one time meeting as part of that though they'd like to interview people you know with various aspects about the budget so this is just sort of a heads up that there may be a time when you might get it out on working with them to coordinate that so you may be getting an email from me sometime asking to set up an interview with Sarah at the studio or somewhere else to explain you know you're part of your specialty in the budget and things like that so at some point they'll be going together they'll take clips from these recordings that they're doing now it should be pretty good okay stepping further budget transparency yes okay so just to let you know Alan could be getting a hold of you of course it's up to you whether you want to do it or not but it sounds like your overall budget revenue task force do we have a new date okay that's six o'clock the lion's hearing okay again we have several representatives on it but everybody it's an open meeting and a lot of school committee and other select matter there I invite you to come and watch I mean we'll be focusing on the long-term plan and also our reps and senators usually are there in local aid is usually a topic of discussion so you all are invited we'll confirm that definite confirmation okay sure okay one issue that I was going to bring up is obviously last Monday because of the weather generally speaking if there is a parking ban there's no place for us to park and so we don't have a meeting so that that's sort of a quick determinant on that if we lose you know one or two more days then things start to get a little concerning one thing we could do is meet on Washington's birthday I don't know if there's any particular prohibition against that the other thing we could do what we used to do in the old days is meet on a Saturday so if we pick the second or third or something like that Saturday in March Gloria brings lots of coffee and muffins from Dunkin Donuts and we get cranking at eight o'clock and work until one or two and she'll bring in some lunch and we get a lot of work done you know just sitting down and getting it done so what I'd like you to do is sort of think about it look at your mark schedule and to see if something like that you know might work for you and then we could discuss it at a at a future meeting okay Steven come on up yeah plenty of time two seconds right here okay now this was originally scheduled again for Monday and I sent the memo from Steven out to everybody requesting a reserve fund transfer of $20,000 to initiate RFP for an ID consultant on the collection software in the treasurer's office so with that Steven anybody else wants to chime in you know that'd be good but why don't you give a brief overview of the purpose of this and what you hope to accomplish all right what was a long-term strategy is now becoming short-term and closer by the month we intend to move forward with looking at replacing the town's integrated collection system which is a combination of our collection system for all our tax and utility bills as well as a cash management system there are have been sitting down with quite a number of people town manager in particular chairman of the capital planning committee as well as a host of others the chief technology officer for the town we all have our own particular interests we all have our own biases one way or another the goal of hiring a consultant is to have a level playing field to make sure that nothing falls through the cracks that we do a scope of work study to make sure that we're doing a good needs analysis a draft scope of work has been done and it's already been been shared with the town manager as well as three consultants who are in this kind of work the goal is that by having a review and analysis of our current operation as well as looking at the needs of the town as a whole and in doing our best to employ best practices we believe that having a consultant with an expense of $20,000 will enable us to sort of step off the line when we issue an RFP for a new collection system and that's really what the purpose of this is is to make sure that we've done our needs analysis and we've lined up our ducks properly by getting the transfer now if this the finance committee moves to grant the transfer that will give us a leg up on what could be an extended 18 month process without the transfer if we would wait for a budgetary vote in the spring if we were wait for a capital planning vote in the spring we know that with the way that warrant articles approved the way the budget takes form we would lose July and August we would not be able to begin the process until sometime in the fall and that just pushes the whole scenario out my goal and I think it's Adams as well is to move the process along as expeditiously as possible not we want to do it once we want to do it right I'll share with you you know some anecdotal comments from other treasurers that I've talked to over the last several months several towns have made changes and immediately stopped what they were doing reverted back to older software and applications because they didn't take the proper steps up front to make sure that their needs were met or that implementation issues were discussed well in advance that's what the purpose of this $20,000 is is to set ourselves up in a good place so that as we move forward to replace the collection system we do it right I want to emphasize that our collection system is not broken it works fine but my intent specifically is to mitigate risk it is using an operating system that is having support from IBM Wayne we want to be able to preclude having an issue should there be some problems with the operating system or the background databases support going forward will continue to become more strenuous and we want to avoid that is any questions I'll be happy to answer they're actually Adam if you'd like to add anything please do we've talked about this okay questions they might be to be what no this well I can't answer the question definitively that's something that we'll have to investigate and take a look at there are pros and cons with a cloud-based system you know you can say it's not housed internally there could be liability issues they could be security issues sitting here now I would prefer a system that's managed in-house but again we have to look and see who the vendors are who the service providers are and how they provide that service we're not only looking at we not only need to take a look at the methods of operation but the support the logistics and the cost no does not this is in addition right we did not request this in our budget so this is this is in addition yes we've always anticipated wanting to do this we've had these discussions going on for over a year and we're trying to find the best way to get it done as expeditiously and as effectively as possible 20,000 dollars actually doesn't go very far so what I'm encouraging is that this consultant will act the way the master plan consultant say to help organize focus a group of you know this town is filled with IT experts who are willing to get a good time to do that so I can see a consultant coming in to reach out to the community get get the people really know what they're doing to put together a much larger plan really it's a really value it's a really efficient way to spend consulting money is to use the resources we have in the town and I think other groups have done that very effectively this is an encouragement to get questions like a plan well to be blunt we had wanted to ask for more than 20,000 dollars we settled on the 20,000 dollars and in talking with some consultants it's actually a $30,000 a minimum of $30,000 project but in talking with three various consultants that we know are in the business we said look we're going to help define the scope of work and focus on the parameters of the work to be done we're always looking for valuable input but we're not doing this with a goal of creating a volunteer committee but I'm not saying we wouldn't look at expertise in the community to help us along that line but for example ITAC exists and they should certainly be part of the process there's some very very smart people right absolutely don't disagree with you at all okay are there any other questions for the treasurer Paul ultimately that would be my decision however please keep in mind that the chief technology office of the town the IT director is involved with this town manager's office is involved with this we have to as I said earlier we have to look at what are the technical requirements what's in the best interest of the town operationally what's the cost and what's what's the impact going to be we also have to worry about how to implement this we also have to look at what our ongoing support is so we're certainly not the treasurer's office is certainly not looking at that in a closed environment yes there there will be a capital budget item to replace it and it is in the capital plan now in fact unless mr. Fosk it wishes to correct me the timeline has been moved up a year sooner to that point I think it's important to mention that the comptroller and the assessor's office will also play a large role in this because integrating whatever is chosen with the existing systems that the assessor's use and that the comptroller is going to be critical to the success of this as well okay is there anybody else Allen okay just addressing that point cloud-based services typically are more by subscription which become you know predominantly operating budget license purges tend to be more capital budget so I think you know depending on which way it goes to determine whether it's really a capital or whether it's okay anybody else have anything you want to add okay do I have a motion so second okay motion has been moved and seconded for $20,000 to the treasurer's budget any further discussion I will say I do want to say that I hold on to this we've talked about this often on as a committee for years I think one of the challenges it's easy to sit in a room as a volunteer finance community member and sort of have a high in mighty including myself have a high in mighty opinion of what people have to show up and work 40-50 hours a week to do the job every week have to do to keep the system working you know it's not just about the process isn't about shutting down the existing system not having a treasurer's operation for three months and then standing up a new one this is about standing up a new one while continuing the existing financial structure and beyond that I think anybody that's ever implemented a financial system always is hurt the line you know measure twice the top ones you know because like Steve said the worst thing you can do is put in one of these systems and you realize that you should have done a workflow diagram to truly understand how the work moves around departments when you say oh shoot this is the wrong idea so I do commend the treasurer for endeavoring down this we've talked about this for a while I wholly supported I know he definitely feels it's the right time to go for I think he feels this I mean I know we have one discussion I know he feels like his staff is the right place he's got the right team one thing I think a lot of us forget about it's easy to forget about it we didn't have an assistant treasurer for like a couple years it's not that easy to do some things I think it's the right time I do fully support this is a reserve fund transfer and I hope you all support as well thank you okay all those in favor of the 20,000 reserve fund transfer please say aye opposed okay thank you very much I thank the committee very much I appreciate your support and I will keep you all posted thank you thank you all very much okay long-range financial plan right in your end all right okay so take your so let me first say I want to commend the two new members for not getting up and leaving when the chairman said you might have to work Saturdays I'm pretty sure that wasn't in the post it was the moment yeah all right so last time we met I believe was back in September which at that point we focused on this long-range financial projection since then the long-range planning committee met four times about four times since then focusing on the plan focusing on making the plan more accurate as a predictor in some areas trying to squeeze down expenditures in other areas while also trying to balance the really the the needs and expectations of the residents and citizens from what they'd get from town and school services so very quickly let me just start a little differently than I normally do so the top of the sheet across just about a third of the way down is revenue then you'll see appropriations or expenses go down just about the bottom third we then carry reserve fund balances which has free cash long-term stabilization override stabilization the zeroed out tip fee stabilization in our municipal building trust fund and then at the very bottom you can see the numbers that we're using year over year and then cumulatively based on the school department's projections for enrollment growth and I think it's important to point that out at the outset because there's several numbers in both the revenues and the expenses that are driven by those enrollment projections at the bottom so any questions about the sections all right so starting at the top we look at revenue we start with state aid nothing's changed about state aid since we last spoke other than updating the school enrollment assumption so we assume 1% on unrestricted general government aid and then we assume that we're going to get $1,500 increase in chapter 70 per new student based on the enrollment growth and that's where you get a different thing for sending to growth year over year across the budget now in FY 16 I think you've probably all heard the governor came in to a very large budget deficit in FY 15 he offered a plan just today to close that actually late yesterday and also that that foreshadows challenges in FY 16 however he's come out very strongly having no hesitancy about not cutting local aid in FY 15 and the new secretary of administration and finance was comfortable at last week or the week before his MMA annual meeting stating that assuming at least level funding for unrestricted general general government aid would be a safe assumption so sitting here today given the tenor that the governor has struck I didn't feel compelled to change that number today that budget should be out by March 4th so really within a month's time we'll know better what to do in that area moving down from there you see school construction aid I believe Andrew talked about the last time we came together we realized that in 2006 the MSBA shorted us and money they owed us so the treasurer Andrew and the MSBA sort of together figured that out this year so this particular year we're receiving more than we were budgeted for prior then the next two years we receive that same 2.4 million dollar amount and then it starts to fall off you can see going down to 1.6 and then 476 and that corresponds with the debt service rolling off basically the MSBA every year matches their portion of the debt service for the elementary schools that we built and as that debt rolls off their reimbursements roll off so that's how you see that number begin to diminish over the course of the plan moving down to there from there you see local receipts one thing that's happened since we last met is we set a tax rate and when we set a tax rate we go through what's called the recap process and actually that's why you see the top of that column is FY 15 recap that numbers are changed or some of the numbers are changed during recap as the budget is finalized so one thing you can do if certain things in terms of new growth come in more beneficial than your budget you can reduce the amount of local receipts you expect so for the recap in FY 15 you can see that local receipts is 8.5 million we had previously budgeted 8.8 actually 8.85 so we reduced that any collections over that will automatically roll into the available free cash balance for next year then going forward you can see that we bump it back up to 8896 and then year over year a $75,000 increase there's a few things happening there for one we lowered it for the recap but we still have our assumptions of what a stable budget will be for local receipts so for FY 16 we project back up adding a $75,000 increment to what last year's budget would have been before the recap for local receipts and the reason we went up to 75,000 you may recall it used to be a $50,000 increment on local receipts our revenue working group which consists of myself the deputy town manager chairman of the finance committee the treasurer and the assessor met we really took a close look at local receipts saw that we had a certain degree of confidence based on our prior year's collection that we could bump up our expectations the lion's share of local receipts is motor vehicle excise tax that's a very sensitive to economic shifts so if we had a down economy we could substantially lose motor vehicle excise so we weren't comfortable bumping up that increment each year much more than 75,000 or more at all than 75,000 but that does represent an increase in projected revenue from the last time we sat down and took a look at this plan as the finance committee moving from there you can see free cash the policy since I've been here has been to appropriate 50% of the prior year's certified free cash as an operating revenue so you can see an FY 15 that $3 million figure was half of what was certified last year and then FY 16 we're projecting to use 3.4 million which is half of if you go back down to that reserve balance portion of the sheet I mentioned half of the $6.8 million certified number in FY 15 now one thing that came out of the long-range planning discussions was increasing how we project free cash beyond FY 16 we decided that using a 10-year historical average of certified free cash as our estimated free cash on the bottom of the sheet would be a more accurate predictor of what free cash might be so you can see along the bottom we're carrying a figure of 3.9 that's the today's retrospective 10-year average free cash figure so up above FY 17 and beyond you see 50% of that going forward below that we have the overlay reserve surplus that's money that the Board of Assessors declare surplus after they go through their abatements and see what's available from prior year overlay that set aside in FY 15 they declared $250,000 surplus in the past we'd been projecting $200,000 a year we don't have a new projected surplus number from them today so we will continue to carry 200 when they give us a new number if it is a new number will adjust accordingly below that you have really the lion's share of the revenue in property tax contained in property tax is two and a half percent increase in the levy an estimated $450,000 in new growth and there's also the MWRI debt shift contained in there as well as debt exclusions that are being raised one important key thing to mention is in FY 15 we had budgeted 450,000 for new growth but the number came in at approximately 1.2 million we yet we also took a pretty close look at new growth and whether or not we should be upping our estimates for new growth on a go forward basis but the 10-year retrospective average for new growth was $650,000 and we didn't feel compelled based on that number and based on the volatility of new growth to bump the 450 we've tried through the long-range planning discussions and through that revenue working group to maintain some conservatism in our estimates while also trying to make certain lines more accurate based on past performance so do you want to stop at revenues and see if there's any questions 10-year certified amounts with the amount that the Department of Revenue certified whatever we're adding it to what was budgeted from the previous year is that sort of six of one half the other well for instance just looking at the difference between FY what you have for free cash for FY 15 and FY 16 you're going to be starting with free cash of $3.4 million and you're saying well we're only going to add $500,000 to that this year and then effectively in the future years you're adding you're saying there's going to be you know 1.9 million dollars added to it each year so what you predicted for this coming year is significantly different than what you're predicting for the outgoing years so the past approach was just throw a dart at a board and pick a number and estimate it at the bottom so we used to carry when I first started working in Arlington we carried 1.5 million then we bumped at the 2 million then we bumped it I think from 2 million to 3 million with really no analysis at all the discussions the long-range planning committee which frankly I am not an initial supporter of even going to this 10-year average because I think there is risk involved with that I think does add a new layer of analysis we've not performed before for free cash that that's my feeling I think the we've taken some of the conservatism out of this that's probably one of the things that's left a little bit if you get a recession and the treasure would be the first one to tell you what happened to motor vehicle excise what happens to investment income and so it's based on an analysis yet it's still maybe a little bit conservative compared to what happened the last couple of years maybe not before Dean the only thing I would pause some questions on free cash the only two things I would I guess suggest looking at is first I understand you're taking a 10-year average but you're taking a 10-year average on a budget that has two factors going on one it gets bigger every year and two we work on this budget model where we have this big override with a surplus and we sort of build up the reserve and then we we go down right so I think the only concern I would have with doing a 10-year average or the third out of it doing a 10-year average is first question I would ask is have we looked at if we didn't maybe we should as look at free cash as a percentage of the overall budget so the budget's going up as you know we might say that hey you know this number gets bigger and bigger but is it getting bigger as a percentage of the budget so are we always returning and I'm just making this up but we always returning 2% of the budget back that might be sort of I think a worthwhile data board financially second question I would have this would be the more concerning part of it is I've never really looked at how free cash works as we build up a surplus and then the budget gets tighter as we spend because the other concern I would have is the 10-year average just could have totally smoothed out volatility so in year one after an override you might have a decent free cash number it could be 3% of the overall operating budget could be a big number because we get through you know go back to 06 year two three four five that night number could be tightened and so what we do when we model it out like this is in the early years the actual number might come in conceivably under that sort of thought process that early numbers could come in which oh we're beating expectations look we you know put 1.9 we got 2.5 great you know see perfect then you get to the out year when the budget starts tightening and you put 1.9 and you get 1.2 and you say oh believe that's a problem that would my that would be my bigger concern is if we're not looking at the actual correlation over the different years just taking an average on those two factors you don't really get caught in 2016 you get caught up in 2018 or 19 you're run out of money much quicker than you expected so you're more articulately making the argument that I've tried to make in the past as to why we shouldn't increase the amount of free cash that we budget at the bottom but I will say what we are doing here I think we'll actually still achieve the outcome that you're looking for we're gonna we will with with barring an economic downturn very soon we will do better than those estimates at the bottom I'm fairly confident that we will and we may not do better than those estimates at the bottom as the plan goes out but the smoothing effect in the estimate I think also have the smoothing effect in the revenue impacts over the course of the plan okay is there any other questions on the revenues Alan Charlie I don't know what Dean said I think this this sort of flat projection that's there's no there's no growth in here but it's grow is certainly much more conservative than a straight line approximation that considers the average change of the lens changes I think there's that conservatism building to this which I think is a good thing Charlie where is the community preservation so we've not collected so you know I think that that's a discussion yet to happen as to how we're going to include that in the long range plan if we're going to but don't we have to raise that so it's not shown on here yeah no yeah it's a fair question yeah we'll have to look at it the challenging part will be community preservation taxes raised aren't expend every year the community preservation committee isn't going to have to recommend the full expenditure so yeah I'm sorry so that the community preservation taxes aren't they're collected every year but they're not automatically expended every year so we'll have to decide how we want to represent you know perhaps perhaps it's well they can be appropriate like good fun yeah yeah yeah but but the but the point is taxes are going to be collected yeah I agree and they're not on here I mean of course depends on how many more of wise you want to add to this well I suppose you could include all under e that total and then someplace down under J. K. L. M. could be community preservation fund or something like that yeah you know my concern would be it's sort of an objectives question of what what what are we what are we trying to do with this document if we are trying to just encompass in that line the total tax dollars collected then you're right but if we're just trying to get at the long-term structural deficit in the year over year general fund balancing I'm not sure if we're achieving that objective by including the CPA figures I feel I can see both sides of it so you can make the same comment about about the exempt that that's financing those examples taxes are they hit the taxpayer and they serve as debt but they're not you know part of the general yeah yeah but that is a fair point so I just think we have to treat everything consistently and I and I would hate to have somebody like the chairman of the finance committee or the town manager asked the town meeting why the taxes are one and a half percent lower than they actually are that would be not a good question to have yes that's a fair fair consideration Allen I think there's another major uncertainty in how to manage the CPA in that if you one way to slice the CPA revenues is this is money that would be spent on what's already in the budget and there's another pile of money that be spent on things that are not already in the budget and how you know where that line falls is sort of dependent on the results of the community preservation committee that recommends use of those funds so if if all of the new money was not included in these expenditures then you have the same number on both sides and it's a wash there was if all of the CPA revenues were spent on things that aren't in the budget now then it's sort of off the off the table if there's some dividing line that's not zero hundred then some would be merged in here but until we know that proportion it's really into the model except you can put it in front you know we've got things like offset aid you know basically money come in under state aid but goes to a separate item so you know we could take the property tax simply add in the CPA projected amount and then fit it in them for CPA fund and so you built it in yeah and the taxes will go up instead of 2.72 goes up now when does the CPA take effect is it is it July one it's for the new July one it'll an officially be set with the FY 16 tax rate yeah but it would be estimated okay and that money will go into a fund because nothing will be spent until the following July one is there any other questions one so I appreciate all the changes you've made and two comments one is that the partner the reason the free cash we're seeing such a high pre-cash is because the plan is conservative so we're seeing lower medical rates and higher local receipts and higher higher new growth all of that is flowing into free cash probably have seven million or more this year as a result of all those things going on so as those as the plan becomes slightly less conservative free cash might go down a little bit but you're right I think that ten years it will be okay the one question I did have again that we've talked about this is local receipts and normally at some point you do sort of recap that with what actually has occurred not just the 75 over in the budget last year but taking a real look at what the local receipts that came in last year what we not only were you know where we're halfway to fiscal year 15 we have probably the idea of what the real yes local receipts are so is there a plan to take a look at that and touch up the number that's much lower than reality so I still feel like so we monitor it monthly we monitor every single possible area that you can call local receipts monthly I still feel that as part of the overall plan pumping that number up to high given the volatility of motor vehicle exercise tax is risky that that's how I that's how I look at it you know rough numbers I don't have the sheet in front of me but at the last dip I think we went from about four million collected in motor vehicle exercise down to almost 3.5 in one year that's a pretty significant percentage dip in collections so I wouldn't want to leave that occurred two or three years after the start of the recession probably to yeah so yeah I think we can I think we can be a little more aggressive there and still if there's another recession and car sales suddenly dry up make the adjustments in the long-range plan accordingly well you can make them accordingly but then the bottom line number you have in that last year I just I get very uncomfortable presenting things can change no matter how much we shape and smooth this I get very uncomfortable putting us in a position where I think we are going to have to promise less than we put out to the board we've been collectively very successful in keeping that bar going out further and further I'm very sensitive to putting us in a situation where that bar starts slipping back yeah I think my I just read my preference my preference would be to see a more realistic local receipts number and a lower free cash number anybody else Charlie yes Adam the just eyeballing this chart and you know I missed the list it looks like that the tax rate is going up two and a half percent a year now apart from my question you know close to two and a half yeah part from my question about the CPA tax if you look at the town your report the town man you know that nice book you put out annual report without a financial plan both of them we have some common data award-winning award-winning book that's the one with the nice defensive cover the lid in your own report the last five years the taxes have gone up on the average 4.7 percent a year the Boston Globe with some numbers of the state reported that they went up a little bit over 5% can't remember if it was the same exact same overlap in years so I don't understand how we can be forecasting two and a half percent tax increase every year when in fact the taxes have been gone up I've gone up five percent a year what chart is it's in your you know the page where you show the single-family tax rates yeah yeah yeah I mean there's a lot of different places you can extract it but it's gone up more than two and a half percent a year and and the reason you know one of the reasons that I think it's gone up is because the you know we put we both at Thompson school for example which is exempt taxes yeah there may be other things like that I'm not sure so we are going to rebuild the stratum and that's gonna some of that is gonna hit the exam tax rate is that that probably is not in here that is that is not so I'm just suggesting that we would we're projecting here is essentially a drop in the rate of tax growth that we haven't experienced for more than five years I'm perplexed I get we're gonna I gotta show me which one is it did you look at it and do the math out the five percent or where should I like that I did math Boston Globe did the math so it's gonna be based on the override that's the that's gonna be the number so that that is it probably into the over it's probably the override up here and then does that year would have grown up 12 and a half percent whatever in any case there's a five over a five-year period five percent well so I bristle a little that sort of pointing this out as being inaccurate it is going up well I mean it's two and a half percent a year going forward that's not I don't think it's sort of misleading no no I'm just saying it's misleading I'm just saying that I'm just trying to understand what the what the difference is you know if you've looked at the history yeah we're going and one thing that jumps out of me is there's going to be some impact from the strats there may be some impact from a high school yeah maybe for many and we should be considering yeah yeah yeah I so I'll take a look at I'd be fairly certain that that percentage that you're driven by the override could be the shrapin figure should be included in all you know sort of historically we've been sit we continue to caveat high school minimum high school minimum unknown timing unknown amount unknown have to know it's gonna have an impact on yeah we have modeled the impact of those projects based on yes assumptions okay there are any other questions on revenues expenditures all right so one of the key focuses of the long-term planning committee's discussions was looking at what we could do to curb year-over-year growth primarily in town and school operating budgets but also in some of the other some of the other operating budgets as well so we we probably ran 20 to 30 versions of this plan with the long-range planning committee taking different cuts at different approaches to see where we get some of those cuts looked at different free cash options as we already talked about and for education for our town and school we talked about the three and a half and seven for general ed and special and then three and a half for town growth and seeing what it would look like if we went to three and a quarter percent three percent two and a half percent and looked at what impacts that had on the life of this long-range plan after a great deal of back and forth on by members of the of the long-range planning committee I came back with the recommendation that is what you saw in the budget I submitted as well as here for FY 16 what we're proposing for the school department is retaining three and a half percent for FY 16 for general ed the seven percent for special education flatline continuing the flatline that kindergarten fee offset that you see here as well as continuing the computation of the enrollment growth factor which just like the state aid correlates to the projected enrollment growth at the bottom of the sheet except in that instance we multiply it by 25% of the ESC's per pupil expenditure so for FY 16 that would be the number of students multiplied by three thousand one hundred thirty six dollars and fifty cents however going into FY 17 we proposed that the three point five for general ed goes down to three and a quarter and then an FY 18 beyond go from three and a quarter down to three percent and now we've not found an easy accurate convenient way to demonstrate three and a half three and a quarter three three three because of the compounding effect of the growth factor in the way that this spreadsheet demonstrates the total budget but you can see well I guess if you compare it to the last version of the plan you would see a reduction in overall projected school spending year-over-year based on that three and a half three and a quarter three here on out and moving down from school you see a minute man this minute man line is actually the only line that's changed since we sent out these books a couple weeks ago we got an updated estimated appropriation for a minute man went down by just about a hundred thousand dollars so you see this year we're looking at that's my line just to just below a six percent increase in minute man's projected assessment and then we continue to assume three and a half percent growth in minute man's assessment over time going down below that if you look at net town budget so the proposal that I put before the long-range planning committee was that an FY 16 the town's rate of expenditure go down to three and a quarter and then an FY 17 beyond the town's rate of expenditure growth go down to three percent and so the budget we submitted came in at 2.9 2.95 percent growth and then you can see it carried as an estimate as three percent below that line you can see we carry the MWI debt shift that's the money I mentioned earlier that's raised tax rate directly to the water and sewer enterprise fund to offset water sewer bills below that we have the capital budget from FY 16 to FY 20 we have what is contained in the capital planning committee's expected recommendation to town meeting there may be some small changes between now and then and then FY 21 we have an estimation of what probably a conservatively low estimation of what the capital budget could look like in FY 21 moving down from their pensions this is a change since we last met myself mr. Foskett met with the retirement board as along with Carolyn White as well asking that they consider reducing their rate of growth which had been percent a year down to five and a half percent ultimately we came to an agreement on that what you can see going to FY 16 is a five point seven five percent growth that's based on the way we calculate offsets they gave us an appropriation number that was only five and a half percent higher we calculate offsets and sort of came out at five point seven five percent it will regulate in years going forward so that we have a year over year five and a half percent growth in pensions insurance when this is another change since we last met as the plan had been before we carried an assumption that insurance would go up by seven percent a year what we did through discussing with the long-range planning committee is we took a law look at the ten-year historical average of premium increases for the GIC and saw that the historical ten-year average is five point two five percent so what we have for insurance is an estimate that rates will go up by five and a quarter percent and then an assumption that we will be hiring some number of new teachers based on that enrollment growth factor we then factor them in to the insurance based on a number of contracts or assume new contracts split between individual family plans and then we estimate going forward that's what that's why you see the number go up by a different amount each year which is slightly higher than the five and a quarter percent now one thing I want to mention is two days after after this budget was submitted I received first word from the GIC that they were looking at some trouble for FY 16 in terms of setting rates so then I went to a GIC municipal forum last week and they're looking at some options they're looking at if they do nothing else other than change premiums they would be increasing premiums by a weighted average of nine and a half percent if they change their PPO offering their Harvard and Tufts PPO offerings the POS plans it changes the manner in which you need to get a referral if you were in one of those plans basically they'd be able to bring down that premium increase eight and a half percent they're also considering making some plan design changes increases in co-pays for prescription drugs increases in the employee deductibles increases in specialist co-pays increases in the inpatient hospitalization co-pay as well as the outpatient outpatient surgery co-pay none of that is decided upon yet if they did those plan design changes it would bring weighted average weighted average premium growth down to five and a half percent five and a half to six and a half percent projection on February 14th the Commission the actual group insurance Commission will be voting on what to do for plan design changes and whether or not the ship that PPO to a POS plan and then on March 4th they'll actually be issuing what their expected FY 16 premium rates are so they held a public hearing today I'm not sure sitting here now how that public hearing went on all of those changes that I just mentioned so they have some decisions to make I have asked for a balanced approach I think reasonable plan design changes couple of reasonable premium growth is an acceptable approach for them they will get some substantial pushback from union members on any changes to plan design I think with the HRA the health reimbursement arrangement that we put in place three years ago when we first went into the GIC which is still adequately funded we can protect the employees against a significant amount of those proposed design changes that I mentioned but there's still some further discussions and information to learn about what our health insurance rates will be in FY 16 so I haven't changed that number for tonight's presentation because I didn't think I could in an educated manner do so but sometime between now and early March those numbers will most likely be updated and Adam that increase there'll be an increase what percentage of that increase we passed on to the employees so it depends on the plan you know what plan you're in so HMOs we pay 20% PBOs we pay 15% indemnity plans I'm sorry that employees pay 20% for HMOs 50% for PBOs 20% for PBOs 15% for HMOs 25% so that would be their percentage share of a premium increase so we're still stuck with the line share of it that's here the town thank you unfortunate well we can't we can't change that for retirees because the legislature in their wisdom last year that when they put in the plan three years ago which was which was great I think the legislature drew a lot of credits for doing that but they put a three-year freeze on the ability of the board of select one to change the percentages for retirees in this last year they put in another three-year freeze extension so they've curtailed our ability to change some of that on that Karen do you know when the last time the GIC increase was more than with seven percent or more year over the year it looks like FY 10 FY 11 the weighted premium increase was 8.3 then you get to go back to FY 6 FY 7 it was 7.3 it's typical of insurance it's about every four years you see a big bump that's the peak and then you'll see it drop again it doesn't mean it won't happen again next year but I'm not surprised it's about four years yeah you know the the executive director of the GIC has set a goal for zero zero negative two negative two which I think she very sincerely thinks is what it should be in actuality with what the providers are charging and the agreements between the carriers and the providers that's not happening but the GIC is certainly very focused on containing the cost as much as possible because it impacts all the local governments that are in the GIC but it impacts the state government's budget in it you know obviously an incredibly significant way based on you know how many state employees are in the GIC okay any other questions from now one thing that bothers me and I'm not sure how we should be addressing it but the town's actuary put out a report about two months ago on the unfunded health insurance liability and you know this is the this is the case where if you're putting some money into it it's one level and if you have to discount it at seven percent or eight percent if you don't put any money in it you have to discount it it costs the funds and I think he as I recall he might have picked a low number but not not all the way down to the cost of funds for our calculation and the unfunded actuary liability if that's what it's called I can't remember it's it's isn't a hundred ninety four million dollars you know so we're not carrying that in the health insurance budget but it's a we are but go ahead well we're not we're carrying the normal portion we're not advertising the unfunded liability and so that's a that's a what do they call it generational equity equity issue right and you know we're taking the benefit of the lower GIC costs but we're leaving that liability hanging out there for the next generation of taxpayers to take care of and I'm wondering if that's the right thing to do in the context of the long-range plan so I would say I agree with you you know the OPEB issue so Charlie's talking about retiree health insurance which is often referred to as OPEB other post employment benefits which I think is some of the worst branding anybody's ever done because as soon as you say OPEB picture talking about oil producing nations or something so so it's sort of the the practical impact is about 50% just about 50% is that right of that number of the insurance number is retiree health insurance so what what ends up happening is we pay for it every year so it's that pay-go approach that you probably heard the actually talking about but if you go if you push it out year over year every year it eats up a little bit more of what you can use to deliver services to residents so even if we didn't fund that liability eventually just eats up more and more and more until you squeeze where you can no longer provide the services you want to provide without charging a heck of a lot more money because they were because retiree population keeps growing yes exactly and the cost of health care and of course of health care from where I sit I don't think there is any way we can fund our way out of this problem I think the state has to take action on some form of the recommendations that the OPEB Commission came out with I think two years ago now it would really significantly change how public employees accrue their health insurance benefits and in retirement and not to go into any great detail but really what the crux of the recommendations that commission was earn your health insurance benefits like you earn your pension benefits so I can't I couldn't retire tomorrow with full pension benefits but my age I could retire but with my service I can retire with full health care benefits that doesn't make sense if you think about it financially so what they've talked about is grandfathering certain criteria people in based on their tenure and then basically you could have 30 years in to get your full max health insurance benefit and you start accruing it at 20 years you invest at 20 years and so let's say the town's benefit four years retiree was 80% at 20 years you get 40% at 25 years you get 60% and then at 30 years that's how you actually get to your 80% actually early those have dramatic impacts on what the untrended liability is so I think without without actions like that we're all not just aren't like the state and local government is in a big it's in big trouble in terms of funding services so it's down in a later line item you know we do put money towards it every year we have about $8 million in an OPEP trust fund but it is a mere pittance compared to what what the unfunded liability is so what if we were actually budgeting the health insurance budget at 7% and put that difference into the unfunded liability count in other words I guess what I'm trying to say is we're in a sense we're treating the health insurance benefit from the GIC as a sort of a virtual tax increase or revenue increase for the town definitely are and but it's not it's not really at the expense of the employees and set the expense of futures future taxpayers no I think that's fair I mean it definitely becomes a choice between the more money you deferred somewhere else out of this plan the sooner than an overwrite has to be considered it's not necessarily my role to say when the overwrite should I just I just pointed a big number $193 million and it's a real number that's greater than our pension absolutely it's 50% greater than our pension liability and we have a defined schedule to retire the pension liability we have no schedule to retire the retiree premium liability and out of his right you know the state makes some changes it'll benefit us but you know Beacon Hill is a very political place and who knows what can happen yeah and the caution would be not to sound like I'm on both sides of it if they've made those big changes they would certainly at least in some years following consider making us commit to a schedule like we have for our pension so we would save our saving our liability but then would have to really hammer down on some financial planning in terms of making you know a real payment every year towards that liability but we're going to have this liability anyway that's correct it sort of becomes where it when does the real hard choice and there's a certain amount of sentiment out there right now that you know any benefit that's happened because of Obamacare has happened and now we're going to get higher health insurance costs so all of these things and retirees are going to live longer we hope yeah so it's all hidden in the wrong direction I can't disagree that's what the issue I mentioned before it was prior to this the board of select men had themselves control over the squid between the town and retirees the select one could if they wanted to go to 50-50 but the legislature unfortunately has taken that authority away for another three years and I don't know if we need to go to 50-50 but maybe we should bring everybody at least down to 75-25 a little bit more reasonable than 85-15 well I will say one promising thing that I just learned this afternoon there's been a long-standing court case between Somerville and one of their unions about whether or not you were actually required by law to collectively bargain retiree health care percentages and court ruling just came in today that upheld Somerville's position that they did not have to collectively bargain retiree health percentages so from a manager point of view that was a very very big picture any other questions on the insurance or pensions just that we don't know we've talked about this on the number of years I've been here and consistently I've heard we don't want to put more money into okay because we don't know what the changes will be going forward and if they are they will probably be to our benefit that has been the conversation we've had the last three years when we've gotten to the point of deciding whether or not to raise the amount of money we've put into that fund everything that's been said is true and important and we do need to keep that in mind going forward whenever we're talking about retiree benefits that at the moment we're not funding their health insurance to what it'll need to be but you know your point about any money put into this fund is money that can't be spent on current operating needs within the town yeah whether it be in the fund or paying for retiree health insurance I mean it's it's a cost of the operation but it's not directly going to service delivery okay everybody else right so below insurance we have state assessments that is what shows up on the second page of the cherry sheet we received from the state basically they give us money in state aid and then take money back from us and former state assessments the Lions share of that is our contribution to the MBTA what we assume is every year that will go up by two and a half percent I believe it's actually legally capped at two and a half percent with some caveats based on proposition two and a half below that also contained on the cherry sheet is offset aid that's aid we received directly goes to library expenditures and school lunch expenditures what we've done is we take the number that's on the most recent cherry sheet and then we carry that forward it has a slight degree of variation year to year but it's been methodology we've used below that we have overlay reserve that's the money the board of assessors will put aside every year in preparation for abatements in setting the recap we were able to do two things based on that higher new growth number I mentioned one was lower local receipts which we discussed the other was increase what was put aside in overlay reserve going forward every third year we fund overlay reserve at 800,000 and the intervening two years we funded at 600,000 so FY 16 is one of those third years and the reason we do it in that third year is because that's a revaluation year we're higher a higher level of abatements are expected so you see that cycle starting in 16 8 6 6 8 6 6 going across going across the plan below that we have aligned fixed costs reserve fund and elections that is simply as it's labeled it's one million dollars in the operating reserve fund and then the estimated cost of operating town elections every year we made the decision last year to pull that out of the operating budget because it based on the number of state elections it goes up and down every year so rather than having the town budget be the beneficiary then panel take a penalty and then be the beneficiary and then take a penalty sort of in year over year we put it as a fixed cost under that we have other other amounts to be raised court judgments deficit and Sims so there's really three things in there what we have in there at first and foremost is the exact amount of the Sims debt to be paid so that's being raised up top as what that Sims properties paying in taxes and then what we actually owe in debt service goes into the urban renewal fund to pay that debt service that's represented in that line next we have half a million dollars for a potential snow and ice deficit so I mentioned that earlier when we were talking about snow and ice deficit spending that's one of the ways we protect against a deficit and then we have a hundred thousand dollars for potential court judgments against the town that would come after the budget process and then we just carry that number we carry those the 500 and the 100 across and then if the actual debt service payment going across you can see that is what creates the variation of the figures below that we have warned articles that's the various articles boards committees commissions water bodies fund under other miscellaneous word articles the lion's share of that though is our contribution to the OPEP trust fund one difference this year in past years what we've contributed to the OPEP trust fund has been the difference between 500 thousand dollars and what the actual non-contributory pension allocation is this year that's about 400,000 plus 155,000 dollars which is an amount that was locked in some five six years ago now I would guess based on retiree health savings that were achieved based on a shift in contributions and then this year we took the difference between three and a quarter percent which was going to be what the town's budget growth was based on the proposal I put before the long-range planning committee but we came in at 2.95 percent so the difference between 2.95 and 3.25 we put into what the proposed OPEP contribution would be for FY 16 and then the last line in the plan is the override stabilization fund for appropriations that is contributions to the override stabilization fund I didn't reference it in revenues and I should have beginning at FY 17 we project to stop making deposits into the override stabilization fund and rather start making withdrawals so you can see you can either follow at the top with the withdrawals or you can look at the balance at the bottom and watch how the balance goes up and then begins to slowly go down and then you can see we finally exhaust those override stabilization funds in FY 21 we use the last 839,000 based on this projection in that budget year based on everything we've talked about we'd be facing a 10.6 million deficit to cover that year so that's that's the revenue picture and that's this is really the picture with only Minuteman being changed since the budget was submitted on January 15th so I guess this revenue questions overall questions whatever is appropriate okay any further questions on the long-term plan Charlie where do you have the the assessor's assessment inspect you know they're other actual reval cost that's a little more that's assumed in the war it's just still in the war because they were talking about putting that into their budget like a set amount every year to do a little bit is that yeah some some sort of a budget but you have it still in the war yeah that number may clutch with it well for the future I suggest you can take off the line for tip the stabilization fun I think it's I think it's time okay I'm missing that oh right oh when this is oh I say yeah right no room for CBA light show this is a more question for the committee to perhaps consider another meeting but you know based on events in 2008 in the previous override stabilization fund we asked town meeting for a policy that the stabilization fund only be deposited in CD type investments no stocks but right now we have 15 million by the mid-year 18 million sitting around in CDs paying you know 0.1% I wonder given that we don't need the bulk of that money for five years I wonder whether we should consider the possibility maybe form a committee to look at possible alternative investments to juice up the return on the bed I believe and I could go pull out the 10-page document I wrote when we as a finance committee put that before town meeting we were any fall mood over investment losses and our to be quite honest our might of demanding that was simply echoing state law which says you can't invest general fund money in anything that's outside of that and I think it was our sort of nicer way of saying right we need to get back in line with state law which we weren't in line with I'd love to see that report I mean because I do believe there's bond and other investments yeah they the municipal finance laws are very I can send it to you the municipal finance laws are very clear and it says general fund money can only be expended and can only be put into these highly liquid certain type of instruments yeah this type of fun could be in this instrument in this type of could be that and we had a that yeah I can pull it up if I think that was sort of our lost right at the moment and a lot of times in the past people wonder whether stabilization fund was really truly a trust fund or whether it was really just a variation of general fund and I think do you are correct me if I'm wrong I said you know really is a general fund and if you look in our audits it's it's considered in the general fund now not as a trust funds yes so so those would be fairly conservative I and after all these years of good times you know you forget the really bad ones no one thing I just raised no particular decision we've been increasing the stabilization fund by a hundred thousand a year and that just keeps going up and up and I think you know maybe at some time we need to say well what's the goal of that fund are we trying to get 2% of our total expenditures are we trying to say get the $3 million and leave it at that or I have no answer to what I'm just throwing it out to I would say the goal when we started making that hundred thousand dollar contribution I think what would have been in 12 I guess at the start of this override plan was to get us out of position where we'd be at I think it was five and a half percent of operating revenues as a reserve position even when we were out of override stabilization so that is something we look at I know in terms of the the rating agencies that was an important commitment to I agree it's something that every year we should take a close look at to see if it's the appropriate thing to do okay there are any other questions on the long-term plan I mean this is sort of the heart and soul of our financial decision-making and going so everybody here here is to really understand it I'm sure that Adam and Andrew are both available if you think of something in the middle of the night write it down and call them tomorrow Alan and then try the question just to make sure everybody's up to speed and especially the home audience could you explain the growth factor in the school budget where the enrollment numbers come from how that how that impacts the school order yeah sure so it might exist yeah so it that really came to be in the FY 15 last year during long-range planning committee discussions and then budget revenue task force and finance committee discussions the school department presented what was a real substantial growth in the total enrollment of the school department and we eventually came to an agreement that the override and the spending caps in the initial override didn't anticipate a substantial increase in the amount of enrollment in the school department so if you look at the bottom of the sheet we have FY 14-15 in that first area so in FY 15 we took the combination of enrollment growth from 14 and 15 which was 281 students and multiplied it by that 25% of per pupil costs and through the long-range planning committee discussions we just agreed you know it's not a hundred percent of per pupil cost because the schools are built the rooms are being heated you know there's a great degree of fixed cost so we drew a line on the sand at 25% of per pupil cost by DESC it's a third-party number that's set it's easy to find it's easy to authenticate and it's an easy number for us to sort of understand the math about to build into the budget so then what we started doing was taking that multiplication including it as a separate factor in the budget so in FY 15 it was $885,000 now in FY 16 and going forward the school department does enrollment projections based primarily on live births data and they project out how many students they think would be in the district and that's what's carried across the bottom of the plan and then that math is done for every year we do the math based on this year's 25% number but that 25% of per pupil costs figure will change you know a little bit went down this year but will change a little bit year over year so that has ended up you know changing the total school budget growth from what had been about I think it was about four and a half 4.7% up to you know upwards of 5% almost every year in the plan to sort of acknowledge that need of enrollment growth and it can work both ways if sometime in the future there's a decrease in enrollment we would reduce by that proportion correct so forgive me I'm not trying to be negative but I have a question in fiscal year 2021 yes we're looking at a 10.6 million dollar deficit so and the and the tax revenue the tax base is a hundred twenty three million in that year that right so if we were to have a override that was going to stabilize the town for three years and this is without Minuteman or high school or anything like that we would need something on the order of 35 million dollars is that right no when you add an override in you put it in there and then it's there and raised every year so it wouldn't have to be 35 million we haven't run that number for years out it would probably have to be 10 or 12% based on that figure would probably have to be well 14 million dollars to get through three years right okay it would be because you reset the base to that high it would be it would be two and a half percent more each year so it would be seven and a half million dollars plus the 10 so be 17 that could be the number that we got yeah but that's a big number right that's very much about six percent of the total no it's more than 10 percent 17 million dollars of the deficit no it would be it would be it would be 15 percent on the tax rate so I'm just wondering if that's that's politically attainable number and the reason I'm asking the question because everything that's built into the plan on the way out there is leading in extra belief to that point yeah yeah I mean I tend to think that the politically I don't like to ever assume that there has to be an override but there are certain pieces of math are what they are and we we do everything we can to push and push and push mathematically it probably works better if there's a smaller deficit in the year where you're asking for it and then that next year there's that big deficit that represents itself so that you can get through at least a three-year period with a number that may be politically palatable I think you know the big issue for us all to grapple with is and you've hit on this already a little bit tonight 2011 we passed a six point four million dollar override assumed it would last three years and then one of the big impacts was we went into the GIC and so we're gonna end up if everything here stays remotely accurate we're gonna end up with almost a decade without asking for an operating and I don't see anything else to the magnitude of the GIC happening again so any expectations we've created that you could promise three and get four or five six are not really realistic at all so the next time we ask for three probably gonna get three or three and a half you know whatever it would be so I I feel like figuring out over the next three four or five years how we work to set citizen expectations is a big challenge yeah I think there's an understanding amongst some of the structural deficit and what that what that means for maintaining services but it's still I think it is a constant reminder of education to get to that point where people would vote for something well it may be more than a patient it may be having a more conservative spending plan you know as the governor said today with respect to the deficit we're going to demonstrate that the government can live with its means I'm just saying okay some of them think about yeah I mean this is the same governor who said that it's unacceptable that the t-trains weren't working and then cut their budget by $49 so sort of balancing service expectations the budgeting becomes very challenging Tom property said we went yes that is a part of the local receipts that's in the local you see okay I hope you have some historical numbers and don't have to try to remember this but the reduction phased reduction from three and a half percent growth to 3% growth you remember what impact that had on 2021 what in other words what would be 10 million 677 B if we hadn't had the reduction of three and a half to three I was trying to put up if we had the result of a half a percent change we had not done it we've not done it what's the result of a half a percent change over this time span sorry I want to I want to say it was a several million dollar in fact addressing this the balance that you're talking about you know what do you have to do to make big changes out here we can share that sheet with the committee it's a summary sheet that you can sort of see what all those different you had about 12 scenarios a couple of the things obviously then trying to reduce the expenditures and so you know with a lot of pushback from from certain appointing authorities as far as not doing that but you know I call the manager for taking the charge of going to three and a quarter and then three you know for his budgets and getting everybody else on board the other issue is state aid you know it's you know it's 250,000 we're plugging in here going back to the battle to caucus days we were getting six seven hundred thousand dollars a year in new local aid and even during the latter part of the 90s we were getting five six seven hundred thousand in new local aid each year it's really only been the last 10 14 years the whole state commitment to making prop two and a half work which is more local aid has fallen apart yeah I'm hopeful the with the new governor who was tended to be much more of a favorable towards local aid that he'll actually be able to produce what was in his campaign website which is a straight regular increase in local aid each year but of course that will depend on a good economy so that and both of those issues will be part of the budget revenue task force next meeting so okay anybody else fun and the other solution to this problem I mean guess we have to live within our means but under two and a half the means are determined by the voters if we let them the other solution is to do an override earlier people understand the structural deficit issue get ahead of it it'd be a much smaller amount that we'd have to do we could raise six or seven ten million dollars in fx-19 and last us for a five-year plan starting in 19 rather than waiting for the crisis in 2021 so as we go forward this is still a long way off that's something that we can discuss and see how the numbers are going and get ahead of it rather than waiting for a crisis okay um any other questions so okay if you have you know like you said if you wake up in the middle of the night write it down call them tomorrow I guess I Charlie brought it up and I didn't even thought about it I thought it didn't exist anymore how much much exempt that unissued exempt that do we have but you mentioned that the Stratton school would have exempt that used for it a lot I would defer to your analysis of the initial vote this is the point which I should ask to have the salt past while I eat the crow somebody when I was in the middle of the discussion of the CPA quote cut several months back somebody brought to my attention that and in the state law a debt exclusion vote does not include a number whereas an override vote includes a number so the debt exclusion voted that the two or three debt exclusion books we've taken include including the last one in 2000 in the year 2000 basically said shall a town exclude the expenses to rebuild the Thompson Stratton Pearson and from from their limits of proposition to an amp without attaching a number now the the proponents and the the pro debt exclusion campaign of which I was co-chair at the time we had presented a number to the finance committee and to the school committee and to the board of lectern for what that total cost would be and there's essentially this broad leeway in that based on the way the law is written and it's very similar in philosophy to the way we had to treat the Thompson when we when we got when the MSBA came back to us and said they're gonna find the Thompson they said they're gonna give us ten million dollars but if you remember a town meeting you still had to vote 20 million dollars to rebuild the school on the principle that if for whatever reason the state cut the budget or whatever you can't have commitments out there to vendors and to people or whatever and then suddenly not have the ability to raise those funds and I think that's the same spirit in the legislation on on a debt exclusion so in from that view I think that and there are some there are some different communications from the DOR to the town on that and in one of them the DOR soundly rejected our early number our early financial limitation and in one following it wasn't quite so strongly rejected but I think there's an argument to be made that this that we can use some of this some of this remaining debt exclusion authority to fund the strike and I'm making it so it is until the DOR says no well and I only bring it up because it's in well I mean that's what the capital the capital we with the capital plan together for this year which will present a finance committee in probably a month or so yeah I mean I only bring it up because it's interesting when we talk about transparency I think if you asked a hundred voters how our residents of the town the lag time between an operating override vote and hitting the bill that get that get right I think if you ask people the lag time on a debt exclusion most people would be clueless that's right because I think most people have this understanding and I think I've seen it you've seen in the past right which is you vote for it and let's say year X let's say the year 2000 well right hit I mean that operating over it hits in 2001 2002 right away debt exclusions they don't hit sometimes for five six seven years depending like on the school rebuild right I just you know you just sort of the other the other argument the other argument is when the voters voted we could you can make the argument that the voters voted for the $34 million but when they went into the voting booth the $34 million wasn't on the boat and they actually voted to rebuild those buildings they didn't vote for the $34 million right so there's arguments on both sides of the fence but in any event the capital planning committee will be proposing to the finance committee in town meeting that we use some debt exclusion funds along with selling some assets in the town and using non exempt funds from within the regular capital budget to fund the $10 million so okay okay the I want to give the town manager a little bit of a few minutes to just mention some budget highlights for next year for school 16 yeah sure so really there's a big highlights are because the big highlight would be the proposal to create a joint town school facilities department which in this budget would have the funding of a new facilities director position so the year one proposal would be on that position 50 percent town 50 percent school begin the coordinated department year to actually start to move budgets that are contained within some town departments the budgets that are contained in school departments into one independent operating facilities department I'd like the opportunity for myself to come back to talk more about that at a future meeting but I would say that's really that that's the the big significant change in the FY 16 budget proposal some other changes last year I had sent the memo to the finance committee about a new trash disposal contract that the town sign so that pretty significantly reduced what we estimated our disposal costs would be for trash that allowed us to pump up the snow and ice budget by another increment of $75,000 we did fund some extended or funded some weekend hours in the library that hadn't been funded by the town in the past they've been funded by private donations which were starting to weaken the views of the library yeah that would that would be the other big veterans benefits have really significantly increased over the past couple of years so we have budgeted an increase of just about $70,000 anticipated new or additional veterans benefits compared to last year so that's a big change I think part of it has to do with our new veterans director he's getting a lot of people off the roles that were inappropriately receiving benefits but he's also doing a great deal of outreach to people in the community that were eligible for the benefits that are enabled by the state that weren't aware of that and not collected so it's been a you know I think he's doing a very good job but it's producing higher cost for other veterans besides from that it really is outside of that really that facilities piece it's a level-serviced budget that was put you know put together within the confines of the of the percentages that we talked anybody have any questions to the manager on the budget so I mean we'll get him back at some point oh yes have just to review that but just at this point Charlie yes Adam I happen to be a selectness meeting one night when I caught a presentation I think that you were doing or somebody in the town was doing on a solar contract yes and I really didn't absorb all of it other than I heard the number 20 year contract and I had a little spasm so I'm working on before I sign anything I'm working on a memo for this committee before I select when the school committee that sort of lays out all of it so I'll probably be back in a maybe just even a week or two okay to talk about um if you'll have warn articles we weren't able to get the warrant and I really gotta talk to the select one how they keep moving the warrant back and we're not getting a finished warrant for a while which really disturbs the things we have to do let me just run through the five or six articles I have here and any preliminary if you think there's a financial impact from your initial so here's one zoning bylaw and regulation to see if the town will vote to amend the bylaws to offer and regulate the posting of appropriate signage for notices of certain types events and either public or private including not limited town events non-profit events personal yard sales lost pets etc. Do you have any I think it's a it's a good idea to regulate something that happens now without regulation I don't think there's any funding significant financial impact at all okay so you think this would probably basically be either a redevelopment or a select one I think it was going to require a vote from both so you don't see any kind of significant financial impact probably none okay second one is proposed zoning review see if the town will vote to amend the by a zoning bylaw to require that all applications for building permits special permits and variances under board review for compliance with the zoning bylaw by the inspector buildings the results of such be reviews be documented and kept on file by the inspector and the document reviews be provided to the armington redevelopment board zoning board of appeals before they take any actions except significant financial impact so probably the expansion of one to two administrative staff to be able to meet the needs that are requested in that way so I mean any time there is a building permit given out isn't there some kind of a written record or document or something on that yeah but I believe this is asking for a written report anytime there's any kind of zoning decision made which there is not okay so Gloria need them to come in Chris already okay board assessor change to see if the town vote to implement the okay so this is making the board of the chief assessor and appointee by the manager and the board of assessors appointed I hear that so it was in the report here you know most of the focus was on the treasure collectors but the assessors were there and I think everybody's followed the advocate or the spring's website or Arlington was done on stuff like that there's no creation asked him it's not like anybody's okay so it's select one article uh Paul Schwick he owes us interesting things petition for insertion of article he wants to shorten the amount of time that people can speak on things that aren't a warrant article that are not a warrant like resolutions or committee reports no financial but significant knockout a half hour at the beginning of town meeting so okay human rights Commission by law change see if the town vote to take any action human human rights Commission for complaints against town departments and agencies so is this spreading it out I believe I haven't read the actual authorities of the Human Rights Commission is my understanding that I don't think that can itself direct financial good result but I don't think that the next one would to see if the town will vote to take any action to appropriate funds for the position of executive director of Human Rights Commission I'm trying to yes that we need to hear that yeah Gloria why don't you ask on Mr. Harrington to come in and speak to both articles I haven't looked at that Commission for a while we we appropriate a X dollars I think we increased it a bit and how was the how is that handled administrative point of view so there's it's in the past it had been shared duty or another shared duty it was one administrative person had multiple duties for various things in health and human services including the Human Rights Commission that person that left the position and I think it's currently still posted for a very small part-time position to administratively staffers okay so if you could go ahead and schedule those I think that's all you guys in for you're welcome to stay for the rest of the meeting but you're also welcome if you'd like to head home but thank you very much I appreciate your time thank you now that's not going to take up a whole night we could really use some budgets to review on Monday is anybody here have any budgets that they could review on Monday for us well you should follow the process how about Wednesday okay is anybody have a shot at getting some budgets ready for Wednesday see this is the problem we don't have a warrant you know because usually we'd be filling these up with warrant articles okay Gloria could you please talk to them and see if they could we could switch it to Wednesday John I hate to have you come in for a half-hour's work we've been a month's we just tell them the Senate they aren't going to have which Greg over you know yeah okay um why don't we we're going to cancel Monday do you want me to try to get Chris Loretty and Steve Harrington although this probably if the weathermen are right it's probably not going to be a meeting it's going to start snowing Saturday and it's not going to stop until Tuesday morning they might not be a meeting Wednesday okay what why don't we do this explain to them that that literally that's the only thing we have okay ask if if if Rich Greco could come in on Wednesday try to schedule all those people in on Wednesday get to all the get to all the commissions and committees what do you got Harrington Stephen Harrington Chris Loretty try to get them in on Wednesday and and then I really ask you know for people even if we can get small budgets out of the way and see if we can get those done try to get a yes or no on the committees and commissions we could vote on that so as of now Monday's meeting is cancelled and Wednesday's meeting is scheduled for the 745 and we'll discuss the posting actually probably Friday because our problem was town meeting was the town hall was not open on Monday fortunately Adam was in the office and was able to post tonight's meeting directly so why if these things really become a problem and and see if there's any other articles we need to look at in the warrant from from Marie or the fran or Mary on okay so warrants Monday meeting is there any other any other business before the committee okay committee's adjourned