 Yeah. All right. Well, it's 731. Let's start the meeting. We have a quorum. This is I am Christine dash for the chair of the elected finance committee. I want to thank you all for coming. It's exciting to have an in person meeting for the first time. We had an in person hybrid meeting in last June, but we really haven't had a full visual form of in person meeting for a couple of years. And again, I appreciate everyone coming out. You know, COVID is still circulating at that would be a good team building. Attempt to meet in person. And we have a lot of new people. So I think we should, I think this is the largest incoming class of new people, certainly since I've been on the committee. And I think that's exciting. So I think we should just go around the room or just, you know, identify ourselves by name and whether you're a new person or someone who's been on the committee for a while and also the precinct that you are representing. And I guess I'll start and we'll go towards my, my right. Yeah. I'm Christine. I've been on the committee for I think around 14 years. And my main function here is I do the spreadsheets and end up in a finance committee report. So like everything that we do comes to me. My name is Charlie Foskett. I represent precinct 10. And I'm on the committee for I think around 14 years. And I represent. Yeah. Jones have been on the committee for a long time. And my main function here is I do the spreadsheets and end up in a finance committee report. So like everything that we do comes to me. I'm Charlie Foskett. I represent precinct 10. And I've been here a while also. A while. She went down precinct two. I think this will be my fourth, fourth budget. My name is Jordan Remy precinct one and I'm new to the Vencom. Jennifer sees precinct three. Hi, I'm David Ken preaching 21. I feel like I've been on this committee since I was in how old. And I'm a former town employee. So familiar. So I'm an at-large member. So this year I'm representing precinct four. This is my second year. I'm Dean. I've been on the committee since 2006. I took a two year hiatus in the middle. Or later. My. Time off. Thank you. I'm Rebecca. I'm from precinct seven. And this is my first year. My name is John Burpin. This is my first year. And I'm an at-large member. So I'm any record. I believe I've been on the finance committee for four years, which is an upgrade from being on this lecture. That I work very hard to go from that lower position. And I represented precinct 13. Now. I'm Darryl Harmer from precinct 12. I've been on. This is 2016. I guess this is your seven. My name is Tofer Hyam. That's my first year. And I represent precinct 15. I'm Tara Bradley. I'm the executive secretary. And this is my second budget season. And we have as our guinea pig. Say hi, Al. Oh, hi, Al. No. I'm Al Tosti representing precinct 17. And I've been on for a number of years. This is what you're seeing here is a sharp upgrade from prior attempts to have hybrid meeting. So Al is our guinea pig. Thank you Al for helping us test out this equipment, which really looks exciting. So it's, it's good. Thank you Tara for helping to set it up and get it all up and running. Okay, no problem. Works rather well. That's good news. And Josh Lobel just came in. They were just finishing introductions, Josh. You just introduce yourself. I'm Josh Lobel. I've lived in Arlington for many, many years. I've lived in Arlington for many, many years. I'm on town meeting. I have a background in it. More recently kind of been working in the financial area of it. I'm excited to join. Welcome to all of you new people. Everyone, but the new people. I want to give a big shout out to. What became our training committee. And that would be Annie and Al and Darryl. I think Tara, you worked on it. Shane, did you work on the training? Yeah. It was, it was. That's good to hear. I, I, there was the, that group I just named for the love effort into what I thought was a really, really nice training program that we recorded. So it's available for future new members. And something we can build upon. And I think that was a really big step forward in, in sort of our organizational structure and operation. So I really appreciate that work. And I also want to give a shout out to the communications working group, which is Charlie and Shane. Who greatly assisted me in recruiting new members. I think, I think it's fair to say that. We have perhaps the most robust and extensive and inclusive. Recruiting campaign for new members that may have ever happened on the finance committee. And it was something again, something we can build on those contacts, those organizations that we reached out to will be helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. In future years. And I want to thank. Charlie and Shane for taking a big role in that. I really appreciate. Their efforts. So this is a good segue to. A couple of other things. When I was. Talking to members, members who stepped down and talking to members of the finance committee, I think it's fair to say that. When I was serving on the finance committee, it became apparent to me that in order to recruit and retain really good quality finance committee members, we have to be more mindful of. What we're asking of people in terms of their time commitments. And the reality is being on the finance committee is a huge challenge. And I think it's a huge challenge. However, I began to think whether we can at least try to be more efficient and productive in our time. To lessen the load on people. So I asked. Our policies and procedures working group, which is how Jones, any of the court, I think it's important to. Do an analysis of our operations and maybe come up with some ideas. To build in some efficiencies to them. And what they came up with, they worked very diligently throughout the summer and into the fall. And what they came up with was a report that I think you all received. And I think it's important to look at your recommendations and I at this point, I just like to ask that group. You know, to talk a little bit about what they did and, and so generally what you came up with. Who wants to go first. Gosh. So we really spent a little time brainstorming. And I think it's important to be clear to me feel like the bottlenecks in the process were in what we're doing. And also what made it difficult for someone to efficiently process the budget. And we came up with a handful of recommendations. And I'm not looking at the list right now, but one of those recommendations was that we. Provide you all with a little bit more guidance about the kinds of questions the committee is going to ask you when you come back. Present a budget so that everything is covered in the review with your department head so that you don't get surprised by questions we asked you when they have to do another round with the department head and delay the vote. Another thing that we suggested was that, you know, we developed a process last year of allowing the committee to review the budget advance and ask questions of one another and make sure that like if you have a particular question, you want to be sure to get answered. And we did that all together in person and we thought that might be a better offline exercise where everyone will receive a deadline. I believe it's in the memo of a deadline to have reviewed the budget. If you are not covering the department head, see what questions you might have and get it to the person who is reviewing it. So they can ask that question. And then similarly, we usually spend an evening doing a warrant review where we all walk through the warrant together. And we think that a subcommittee might be able to more effectively walk through the warrant. What we're looking for is are there any articles other than our standard boilerplate articles that we as a committee need to take a position on? That is, do they involve money either now or in the future and therefore should we put in our agenda to review it and invite someone for a unit? I think we actually recommended to Chris and maybe want to do that review and present us with the list. And then everybody will get an offline option to simply say, can you have this article as well? I personally think that we ought to review it. So we're hoping to push some of that kind of bureaucratic stuff off. What would the other things be like? We're going to be, as you might know, a lot of times departments come in, give presentations, handouts that they provide at the meeting. So no one has had a chance to even look at what they're presenting. So we were going to be requiring that any materials to give them to the FinCon at least 48 hours before the meeting. So we will have a chance to look through and answer the form of questions, but at least not be looking at the presentation for the first time when they're walking through it. I think sort of in a nutshell, we didn't find any sort of massive silver ball in the kind of things, but we're hoping that by sort of fine tuning some of our processes, that we can squeeze out some efficiency and maybe get the time a little more. Both the time of the meetings themselves and the time span over the weeks that we do meet, we can get a little more contained. So we'll see if any of this helps. But I believe the goal was to see if we can reduce the number of weeks that we're meeting, and therefore be very compact and concise about the questions we would be having. And one of the biggest things that I think everyone can need to help with that, is if you do not get up to the department and do it now, so that we don't have nights when we're asking whether or not anybody's got a letter to present in the answer, so there's no one that at least got one. And therefore we don't go out of business. Now we're done that, and we'll have to come back one more night in the middle of the season. So, I'm already taking liberty of contacting all of my departments, so I'm going to set a good example here, which is not like me. I think many of their recommendations are really very thoughtful and sound, and I want to test them out this year. If they improve the meetings and their operation grade, if they don't, then we can drop them. So one of the recommendations was to urge everyone, not just to look at their own budgets that have been assigned to them, but the entire town manager's proposed budget. And if you see, if you have questions, direct your questions to whoever is responsible for that budget. But early, like right now, within the next few days and next week, we take a look at the entire budget. We want the budget subcommittees to have all of the questions that they need to ask before they need their department. So if you have the question of, for example, what is that $15,000 line item called other purchased, other, what's it called, otherwise purchased items in the natural resources budget. You asked Shane and Jennifer and Jordan that before they meet with the, with the D.P.W. department heads so that they can get that information. So when they present that budget and you have that question, they have that answer for you. So I really urge you to do that as soon as possible. And as Annie says, I urge you to do that as soon as possible. So that we can really get these budgets done. And I have asked, I'll ask my vice chairs again, start nudging people, just reminding them, just figuring out when you'll be able to present your budgets, helping you if you have any questions. And that's the other thing too, is that the vice chairs are here to help. And so if you have a, if you have a question, if you have a problem, send them an email, give them a call, give me a call, send me an email rather than, rather than just wait and let it fester and then you presents and then we can't finish that budget. What we want to do is reduce the back and forth that used to happen sometimes where somebody would present a budget and we would have this list of questions that they couldn't answer. So they would have to go back to the department head to get those answers and then, then present it, find a place in our schedule to finalize that budget. So we want to avoid that. I also like the idea of a warrant review officer and I have asked Al Tosti to be that person. So what, what we're going to ask Alan to do is to prepare a list of those warrant articles that we should hear and report on to town meeting and come to the committee with that list. What we'll then debate is not, we'll debate if there are any other warrant articles that somebody wants to conduct a hearing on, or if someone feels like Alan has something in his list that we shouldn't, we'll only focus on that instead of going through the warrant. Like we used to do one article after another after another and somebody would say, yes, I want a hearing. And then we would debate that. So hopefully I think that will take a, say a chunk of our time doing that. I thought the questions that came up with were really spot on. And I think that would be helpful for not just new members, but for even older members who have been doing this to, to refresh types of information, questions that you should know about the budget. Any questions or comments about that. And I also will. Although I might ask, allow some leeway for the town manager or other town officials who come to us in terms of getting their materials 48 hours before. When it comes to warrant proponents, I'm really going to, to be strict about making sure that they get their materials to us within at least 48 hours before. So that as Annie says, and as Dale says, we get an opportunity to really look at it. And so we have thoughtful questions to ask. When it's time for them to present. And so we can vote on it right away rather than say, well, we still have to do some thinking about this. We have to review that. We had an opportunity to really get into this. So, but again, that puts the onus on us to do our homework before these meetings. So the goal is to maybe cut down on the number or length of meetings, but that puts the onus on you to do your home before the meetings. Any questions or comments and think about what we've been talking about. Other reports of our working groups. Anything else that the policies and procedures working group master report on. I think this was the big push. I think that was the big push. I think that was the big push. I think that was the big push. Communication. Charlie. Shane. You had some PR. Well, then I'll take a crack at it. Thanks, Christine. So pursuing is very modest. I think she's the most shoe leather. I think it's improving, but Charlie and I did our part. So, so our working group. Overall goal in addition to recruitment is just raise visibility of the committee in town. So. We're going to be working on the commission. So. So, we're going to be working on the commission. So. The communication is important group sort of left and larger obviously. Vacancies. Vacancies on the committee. So one of our first tasks was building a job posting. Which is actually still up on the website. Although now working with Tarah to refine it. So we're very excited that it's only one vacancy down from, I think. A lot more. So we're very proud of that. So in the second project that Charlie and I worked on with the commission. We're going to be working on the commission. So basically, so you're all in 10 for those of you who read your own 10.com. We developed a little op-ed just basically saying, Hey, here's who the finance committee is. Here's why we're, here's why we're an important little part of town government. And here's who makes up the town, the finance committee. So that's still up there. I think it's gotten some good, good views on it. If I do say so myself. So. And then sort of for, so for the future. And I'm just going to go through that. And I'm going to go through that. So I think it's really important to get the commission out. You know, whether we can. Do similar projects like that. Whether it's to wrong 10.com or other sort of local outlets, sort of again. They get into a little bit more of like, sort of the specific work. So. So that's our vision for the future. And also where we've been. So. We're a small, small, but mighty. So I'd all interested in it. Just let me know. If you're interested in working on communications. To talk to Charlie and Shane, as well as working on policies and procedures as well, or any other working groups we have. We have the IT working group, right? That's still active for. Yeah, we haven't done. Because we're all also on policies and procedures. We haven't done a whole lot of digging in, but I think that sort of next up for us is to look at, you know, how might we best preserve. Or create some longitude. For the committees. What is the. And over time. Maybe a little bit more detailed than just a one number. Things like that. It will help us to understand sort of where we've been, where we're going. The big picture of how the time has been. That's probably something that we won't tackle in the spring after we're done with the season. And then come back with some recommendations about what we think they ought to be looking at. That isn't to say that those data sources do exist. There's a lot of data on the town website. And on the state website, as we said, the training session. There's a lot of stuff available. We just don't feel like it's going to pull people together. I think just the other day, I saw an announcement from the DLS or BLS, whatever the local department of local services. They have a new. Order. I haven't seen it. But it's supposed to be easier to use. Yeah. If that's true. That would be. Right now you can look at your town, but you can't easily use it. I'm sure. I just, I think just the other day I saw an announcement from the. DLS or BLS, whatever the local department of local services. They have a new. Order. Comparing town. I haven't seen it. But it's supposed to be easier to use. Yeah. Right now you can look at your town. But you can't. They said you can look at wall 351 towns. Big. Also some deflation. But I didn't have time to get in. It's available. We could. You. Detail comparison of the 10 minutes as well. Which. When we did that. Please. Report. I did the comparison using the DLS data. And it was a pain. Download everything. And then. We got the stuff I didn't want. So. Really nice. Al. Al Tosti. You were. You were involved in the operations. You are involved in the operations working group. Correct. You did the solid waste analysis. Oh, right. Yes. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for the solid waste analysis. Oh, right. Yes. Who else is on that committee? Working group. Dave McKenna. Peter. Dean Carmen. And of course Peter was on it, but he's not there anymore. So the operations working group. I refer to as the deep dive working group. We started as Darrell mentioned. Two years ago. Police department. We did a deep dive of the police department. It's budget. It's operations. Essentially review to figure out. Were there any. Issues of a financial nature that we should know about. And we produced a report that I think is still on our website. I'm not sure. But it. It was a pretty thorough review. And after that, then Al and Dave and Peter did the solid waste analysis. Correct. And that was provided to town meeting last year, I think with our report. I don't know. Was there any discussion about another area to. To dive into. Al. Dave. You know, not, not that was that seemed, you know, in a imminently necessary. So it's, it's. It's hard to. Pull everything together over the summer and fall. We got absolutely no feedback. On the recycling. Trash disposal. Which is a bit disappointing. I suppose it was okay from an educational point of view. On. On that, but you know, we don't have anything on our plate right now. Well, we might. Reconstitute that group at some point. Maybe towards the end of the budget season and. And see if there are other areas you might want to dive into. So that's another opportunity for people to. Join. Some additional work for the committee. And we are joined today right now by Carolyn light. Carolyn. Carolyn was on the committee and I just stepped down from the committee. Now she's back on. Great. Great. A few other updates. The long range planning committee is been meeting. Annie Allen. Do you want to say anything about what's been going on in one way to plan for me? Well, the figure discussion long range planning committee. Aside from the general updates on the five year plan that we'll hear, you know, when the time manager is here is the encroaching need for an override of some size at some time. And the questions are always. How big should it be? How many years can we promise it'll last a two year override three year override, four year override or whatever. And then there's some new questions came up about sort of policies about. Where should, for example, in school salaries, you know, where should we be? What should our target be to be an average or above average or below average? That is another dimension. And some policies about how we go forward. Do we deal anything with the structural deficit? But the big questions from the select board are when do we ever override and how big shouldn't they be? Because we, you know, in some cases it may be too big to for anyone to swallow. In other cases it's too small to be effective. So I guess that's the major topics and long range planning. And there's no long range planning. Sort of is the time manager, the select board, the school superintendent and a number of representatives, the treasurer, the contour or get together sort of. Talk about the big picture of things and come up with guidance that goes into a five year plan, which is what drives us in the way. Yeah. And just to note, it's, it's select board of us, the school committee, all with representation that does not represent a form. So that those boards don't have to post this separately and read about votes and minutes for their own boards. So. It is publicly posted, but none of us have a forum at that meeting. Hence the fact that we have three finance committee members is that the whole committee. And there's a place in SharePoint where I try to copy all of the materials. Long range plan on some of the discussions. For anyone. Um, for what it's worth the debate about, timing is, is it this tournament or is it next. And the debate about the size is a question of how long do we commit for that or like a last. The years for years. Because that changes the number that you have to ask for. And then there's always a question of what's in and where of question of what's in and what's out of the commitments that we make. So we set ourselves some rules and say to the public, these are the things we're committing to. Budget foreign fees more than this. We won't come back to you for this many years, etc. And then also, are there other adjustments to the budget we need to make that would change the overwrite order? Do we increase the funding in any department to cover salary competitiveness for expenses that are increasing? So that's kind of a big day. And there are some unknowns. We don't know how much stating we're going to be getting. At the last meeting, the school committee throughout the need to for additional funds to or contract negotiations to pop up teacher salaries to be competitive with the town of manager 12 that led to a discussion about well, how what's that impact on addition on other salary negotiations for the town employees. And then all through all of that, I have yet to hear anyone talk about the solid waste issue that we'll have to deal with in two years one year. Madam chair, what's the town manager 12? I'm going to try to pick up stuff that like cultural knowledge that not everybody right now. Town manager 12 is the 12 communities that our town manager has typically compared us to and used us as a comparison. And I will buy a drink for anyone who can sit here right now and name all 12 of them. I can't name all 12, but I can tell you where you can find them. So you can find them by going to the financial information page and looking at the town manager's financial information. It's like a financial budget statement that is this fancy document that has all kinds of information about departments and so on and so forth. And he starts out with a lot of statistical charts at the beginning. One of those shows you do the 12 and does some raw comparisons of us on some areas of spending and taxation. In theory, there are peer communities by which we can judge how well we're doing. The reason that I say that 12 may change is that this was 12 chosen by former town manager at Jeff Lee and a new town manager may decide. So there is a question. We have a solid waste contract that we just entered earlier in the second year of a three-year contract. So we're going to have to if we're not already looking into new contract, which will be much more expensive than what we're paying right now. And maybe more limited in what services we're going to get. And like the last override, there was no consideration of the solid waste issue in the last override. It seems like that's going to be the case here, but I don't know how long we can keep that. I can't say a bomb waiting to go off soon for us. So it's an interesting time. I can't remember what the next long-range plan committee meeting is. Sometimes we're going to have to wait, sometimes we're going to have to wait, sometimes we're going to have to wait. February 17th. Oh, all right. In the middle of my day. We will report back to the full committee after the next long-range plan committee meeting on 17th. Next on reports is the capital planning committee. Daryl, anything you want to talk to us about? Daryl is our liaison finance committee, committee's liaison to the capital planning committee. Following, trying to follow in Charlie's footsteps alone. It's imprinted on the capital planning committee. Well, they're online. So there's a capital planning committee of about, I think it's about eight or nine members. The chair is going to team more. Yontar, who also happens to be run the capital planning program for the state. So we're very fortunate to have him. So we have a pool of about $89 million a year that's used primarily for purchase or significant improvement of significant assets. So this is things that are outside the standard operating budget. And it's things like building significant repairs, police cruisers, fire engines, public works, trucks, big investments, and obviously in high school and the DBW building. So as with everything to do with public funding, there's way more demand than there is available funds. So we go through a process that starts down in September and is about to wrap up to figure out how we can best take the capital resources we have to do the most good. So the capital planning committee will be coming before the FinCom on February 27th. Their presentation will take up most of the meeting and they'll walk through the plan pretty much in depth, explain far better than I have. Now how sources of capital funds, how they get used, how they get sort of husbandhood through the whole process over a multi, over a five-year, general five-year time period. And if you have any questions, I expect since we're reviewing the third draft of the report later this week, I expect it's pretty close to being finalized and we should be able to get it to the finance committee well before the 27th, I don't know exactly when. But if after you've had a chance to look through the report, have any questions contract them to me and obviously the presentation itself for your time. Thanks. The other reports Caroline. Can you reclass for last year for those who have to look at it? What's that? I can have us go over the reclassifications that happened last year for those who are in charge of departments that have a reclassification. Raise your hand if you have one of the following budgets, planning and community development, council on aging, facilities, EPW, HR, treasurer, IT, health and human services, including youth consulting center, and that's in libraries and recreation. So take, you know, take, you know who you are, take one and pass them along. I know this is old school, it's paper. You have three pages in front of you, or you will. Those of you who are new there, look along next to someone, they'll worry we'll go over this when this year's coming. Forget whether or not you're in a department, let me know. I'll tell you where they are again. Yeah. The three pages. So what happens in a town is that people get a job and have a classification. Classifications are in the very back of this year's budget. They start on page 201 and they're funding letters and numbers and you have questions figuring out what the letters and numbers stand for. You can see me because I've been doing this in the past. And what happens is if somebody's job they feel has changed significantly, then they can request a reclassification of their job numbers and letters. And they go through their manager and they present to HR and HR makes a decision. Last year, 17 people of five, nine were denied. Those nine, seven are healed. And when they are healed it involves an outside consulting firm that HR consulting group that does that. There are usually other HR town managers. And eight of those nine that are healed, none of them were approved. I mean, out of the seven that are healed, none of them were approved. So eight of the reclassifications from the 717 were accepted last year. And what happens is you get this crazy mash-up of by reclassifying the following positions and you'll see A through J. And sometimes there's a reclass that occurs without being asked. That's a whole nother topic. And you either are going to find that it's by adding a following position, which is the number two on the second page, or by the end, or by deleting the following position, which is on the third page. And what you should be able to do is any time you see your department name underneath one of the letters, then try to match that up with this year's budget on your HR page for your budget. And what you want to see is that the change did occur. That there isn't either an increase in salary and a change in number and often a change in title. If it hasn't happened, let me know because we need to let the Allen know and the town manager or the assistant town manager so that they can update the budget. And it'll also explain why somebody's salary may have gone up exponentially or even just substantially. If the FTE is .8771, like this recycling coordinator, it's because they don't quite work full time. But for the most part, you'll see an FTE of one. And email me or catch me at the next meeting and I can help you figure that stuff out. That's it for me. Any questions for now? It's okay. It's what I just said makes absolutely no sense. Take away, Carolyn. Hand it out. Look at your budgets. And then come back on Wednesday with questions. Thanks, Carolyn. Could you send that? Yes, everyone. Yeah, thank you. All right. Let's look at the minutes of June 22nd. I'll approve those. While I'm pulling that up, I just heard from the IT department that they're going to be upgrading us to Microsoft Outlook instead of the end payment system sometime in the next couple of weeks. So just a heads up for everyone. Okay. So really quick, I have the minutes up here. They were distributed by email. And I just wanted to ask before we review this, if anyone can confirm the name of the fund that we approved a motion to transfer from the reserve from to during the end of your transfers. Yes. We voted to move $200,000 to the fire department and $10,000 to the town managers. Okay. Okay. For a total of $210,000. Okay. Okay. Okay. You said to the fire department and then you said to the town manager, the town manager department. Thanks. Let me know if anyone wants to see a specific area here. And anybody have any questions, revisions, minutes of June 22nd, 2020, 2022, with revisions that the amendment that we just did. Do I have a motion to approve the minutes of June 22nd? So moved. Second. All right. All right. All in favor, say I. All right. Anybody opposed? All right. The minutes of June 22nd, 2022 have been approved in the minutes. Okay. Anybody have any budgets, Ruby? I was hoping. So small ones. Okay. This code to have in the library ready to go, Chris, but we have to go. All right. Anna, you will check with Minuteman and get. Yes. Let us know when. I can predict that we will have all the help and human services in the areas and record rank and all the, all that stuff by next Monday. And I am hoping your library is going to be soon enough to do it. And Darryl, you're still thinking that this is our one budget to be ready next week. Monday. We're meeting with fire and boys Wednesday. Great. David? I think we can do one budget tonight. Cool. 17. It's called the finance committee. But it's just a budget primarily stays the same with the exception of the salary. Our budget that takes care of stipends stipends and also the salary for the executive secretary and coverage expenses that you may incur. Anybody have any questions on the finance committee budget general question? Sure. So in the finance committee, especially in the first few columns, do you have FDA degree and then step and then step again? Two columns, the same step there. And what is the difference between step and longevity? No, I think it's a type of, yeah. No, it's a, I think it's, if you look on another department, it's for mid steps. Where's this full step? Yeah, it's called S step in another department. Some people step in a portfolio and some people step apart. Like some departments, S step and others, it's just step. What happens if you ever see any types that we're talking about? There are five just where there are two steps and they're two different numbers. Oh, because they would have been at one step part of the year and one step part of the year. I think that's what's on you. And this is Charlie. They could do the time difference exactly when the increase comes in. Charlie. On the finance committee budget, how do we do an expensive last year versus the budget? Exactly. Any other questions on the finance committee budget? David, are you making a motion? Yes. I'll make a motion that we accept as printed in the budget book. The finance committee for 11,088. Second. Moved and seconded. Any discussion, questions? All right. All in favor of approving the finance committee budget? Say aye. Anybody opposed? It's unanimous. Finance committee budget has been approved. Thank you for having the budget. One down. A couple of other things on my list. I think you all received the email from Sandy Silver that we now have a new WTown Manager from the Finance Director, Alex C.B. Skid News and the bad news is Phyllis Marshall, our treasurer. It will be a good question to ask the town manager what the plan is for replacing her. And speaking of the town manager people, we are meeting by a Zoom on Wednesday night and much of the meeting will be taken up by the town manager's presentation to us. So come with us with questions. One more thing I want to say and we say this every year regarding the upcoming town elections. Whether it's an override or not, we will have town elections and it's been the policy of the finance committee to stay out of any electioneering on behalf of any particular candidate for a town position. You can campaign on your life for statewide candidates or referendum but when it comes to local politics we really want to stay above the fray and keep, make any appearance of neutrality. And in terms of the override committee, the finance committee itself will take a vote whether to support or not an override so we will add on on our, Annie. With regards to the override, regardless of how it can be built, we are going to have to individually pick a position on that and work or not work on a campaign for it. Correct. We, the finance committee will take a position. Right. But it's an internal citizen's position. And the vote will be reported 24-0 against or hopefully not 11-4 and 10 against. Yeah. Hopefully there will be a consensus, strong consensus. Only someone will be treating those two. Could be, could be. But for obvious reasons, we really do want to make seem completely impartial when we stand up and give our recommendations and we really want them to see us as just having the town finances at heart and them or it's how many of them are. So, so just remember that as we go forward this spring. And that is pretty much all that I have. Again, we'll have the town manager meeting with us by Zoom on Wednesday. Maybe we'll have some more budgets done. I'm hoping, certainly we should get into the big swing of approving budgets the following week. And what, does anybody have anything else? Charlie? Yes, Christine. What's the plan on meetings in person versus Zoom or versus hybrid? Good question. My plan is for the rest of February to be moved meeting by Zoom that will, I think, accommodate the most number of people. There is still a concern about COVID as well and I, so that's what the decision I've made. I would have met in person on Wednesday, but we don't have a room available. I wanted to have the first two meetings in person, but that didn't happen. So we're meeting by Zoom throughout all of, at least most of February. I'm reserving the option to meet, start meeting again in person towards the end of February and hopefully in March will be my goal is that we'll all come back together. But we'll see what COVID, are we uncomfortable with that? Gordon? I have three quick things. So you're not doing, I noticed last year you were on activity and you're not doing that this year or did I do something? I'm trying to find it. They are actively recording us right now. Just recording. Okay. They weren't broadcasting last year. Okay, I didn't know that. The second thing was you might be interested to see the impact of the textile waste ban on the tonnage because that could be a substantial amount. And the last thing is this long range planning committee had agendas, and then it's because I don't see them online. There's a very broad, big agenda. We will be talking about the long range plan. And minutes I have not seen. Well, I just think the best of the pictures. So there's, there's, I believe there are no minutes because there are no votes. And it's possible that something should be considered. Thank you for the question regarding textiles. Does the DPW subcommittee have a question? Let's put that on your list. Pardon? That could be almost as much as a thousand times. So DPW. We're at it. Yep. So I wish that we weren't ending at 8.30. I want to do more productive, but there's absolutely nothing further for us to do at this point. So I think we'll just call it a night. And hopefully from here on, we'll be going straight until 10 o'clock every night to build out our budgets and get our work done. So Madam chairman, are we going to get copies of the five year plan before Wednesday? As opposed to something other than what the town manager has in his book? On, yeah, is any updates on it? I'll see if there's any updates. Okay. But it's basically what's in the budget. That's what I'm understanding. Okay. Thank you. So I just play a question. You mentioned a deadline for people to get on to each other. I'm very deadline to enter. What would that be? I'm sorry. Sorry, if we have questions, they come in for other people's budgets. Well, I would say that I am meeting with, or I'm meeting with Christine from Jordan on Thursday and with Joe Connelly for recommending Wednesday morning. So if you have questions about those budgets, you have a couple of days to review those budgets and get us any questions. We did notice a lot of things that are different in those budgets that I think have moving through some of these departments and some art positions and so on and so forth. Those are already down. I already are. But if you go through it, where the client is calling, you have anything you're concerned about, send me an email. My plan is to get some questions to both of them in advance tomorrow based on our records and the line notes that will be sort of general questions that I hope will send all the answers, but do something specific. So let me know, and even if I don't get it until Wednesday morning, I will leave it into the conversation. Does that help? Yeah. Well, the other thing is, when they present, you can ask as many questions as you want. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, you know, and yeah, the whole bar. We'll see, we'll see how well Rebecca and I guess, but lots of questions are that you would have to ask if you had time to look at the money. So we don't have to go back to Christine asking. And most important questions may be just, just generally, what, how is that program going with the library? Is that, is it, is it successful? Is it not successful? That money for that program is, how is that working? What's, is there a plan for this? Those are the type of questions that these, all of our subcommittees should be thinking about anyway, but just in case, if you really, if you're really interested, get those questions before or as soon as possible so that people can prepare. Like, where is the, where is the town in terms of its tree program? Is that, are we falling behind or are we, are we on, on par with the tree plan? Those are the type of questions that you have them, get them to the committee, subcommittees, so that they can talk to their department head and, and get the answers for you. It's also the opportunity to get answers to questions that may come up. They can do what they can find managers, but a statement that includes sort of, you know, the goals and accomplishments of the department and all that kind of stuff. There may be some questions that get sparked by that. I, I try to try to let them handle those questions because I don't want them to feel like I'm trying to manage them. But it is the one shot that we get to get some answers to that kind of thing. Helen, then the other thing that I've done in the past is you keep good notes about what they said they were going to do in the next year so that they can come back the following year and you can ask, how did that program go? Did you spend that money there and there have been times when it was like, wait, are you going to do what? And the most important thing is to do your budget. To really look at your budget, meet with your department head, ask the questions, understand your budget, and be able to explain what's happening in that budget to the rest of us so that we can hope to approve it or not. And again, if you have any questions, talk to me or Daryl or Ann or Allen. We're here to help. And of course Tara is the goddess of everything operationally in terms of email, SharePoints, getting, you know, make sure you have the Zoom invite, all things like that. She has the answers. All right, so is there a motion to adjourn? So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. So see you all by Zoom on Wednesday night.