 All right, seven o'clock, the select board meeting for January 11th, 2021. First order of business is to approve the agenda unless there's any changes. With that. Can I get a motion to approve the agenda. Make a motion to approve the agenda as presented. Second. Any further discussion. All those in favor please say aye. Hi. General public anyone discuss anything before we get into the regular agenda items. Yes, Mark. Skip Flanders here and I have one item I'd like to talk to the board about. This is we all know that one of the Waterbury's long time residents Everett coffee passed away in December 19th and he was a long time resident and a faithful, you know, participant page. And then community activities and government affairs very interested in public safety and the long time member on the trustees and in talking with Bill and things. We felt that it was. The community should do something in expressing our sympathy to his family and things for Everett's, you know, participation in the community last year we gave him the Wallace Award and with Bill's help here I put together a resolution of sympathy. And I'm going to try my second attempt at stream share here and put this resolution of sympathy that I put together up on the screen. Everyone see it. Well, yes. And what I thought, see if the select board was interested in passing this resolution of sympathy and Mark would sign it and then when we have our I would for our utility district meeting Wednesday we would take it up as well and I would sign it and Carla would apply the town seal and Mark and I would contact the family and maybe presented to him out in the parking lot or something. Seeing our sympathy. I don't know. Can most of you read it on the screen or Skip, why don't you, why don't you read it? It might be some people that are just calling in. Okay. Resolution of sympathy. The community of Waterbury was deeply saddened by the death of Everett W coffee on Saturday, December 19, 2020. And whereas Everett made his home in Waterbury since October 1962. And whereas Everett became an active community member working with fellow citizens in all aspects for the betterment of community life. And whereas Everett spent a major part of his life dedicated to assisting and protecting the public safety, health and welfare of his fellow citizens. And whereas Everett served as fellow citizens in numerous capacities over his lifetime, holding numerous elected and appointed positions in local and state government. And whereas Everett was presented with a 2019 Wallace Community Service Award by the citizens of Waterbury and recognition and appreciation for his lifetime of service for the betterment of his community and assistance of his fellow residents. And as his passing will be surely shortly felt by his wife, Annie family members and as many friends and the entire community. Now, therefore, therefore be it resolved by the town of Waterbury select board and the Everett for our utility district commissioners that we hereby express our sincere sympathy to his family, including his wife, Annie, Donald and David, daughter Sally and Mary Ellen grandchildren and great grandchildren. Be it further resolved that this resolution be spread upon the permanent records of the town of Waterbury and a copy of this resolution be presented to his family as a token of our sympathy. Mark W. Friar and P Howard Flanders. Well, help me edit that and put it together and when I was elected a water commissioner in 1988, my mother had passed away in December of that year and Everett was on the trustees at that time and did a commission of sympathy for, for me for that so we'd like to select board to consider it and would not so. Yeah, skip thank you for putting this together and bill as well. I think it's great and I would be in support of this and I also thank Everett for everything he's done for the town and the time he spent in public service. So a vessel of motion to approve the resolution of sympathy. The motions and made in second and any further discussion. All those in favor please say hi. Hi. We'll miss Everett. I'll drop it off with Carla in the office and you can stop in and sign it sometime Mark or how do you want to do that. Yeah, I can stop in this week. Okay, we'll have it there for Carla tomorrow and we can apply the seal and when it's signed we'll contact the family there so thank you folks. Thank you. All right, any additional discussion for the from the public. All right, we'll move on to the Waterbury area senior center. I was just going to say thank you very much for the resolution and we appreciate the condolences we've received from from the community and glad that everyone is appreciated that the public service of both my father and my mother. Waterbury area senior center discussion. Okay. So, Justin Blackman is here Justin is, I think the president of Waterbury senior center. The senior center is a long time recipient of funding. It's been a number of years since the anyone from the senior center has actually come to a select board meeting to talk about their mission and what they're trying to accomplish. Obviously with COVID-19 things changed everywhere including the senior center back last spring. They're continuing to operate. So, there's been a little bit of chatter in the community about what's going on with the senior center and I received several emails and a couple of telephone calls back in September October time frame. That was a couple of their board members before the new members had been elected so that was before Justin was elected. They shared with me the financial statement that I sent out to the board over the weekend, but I thought it would be helpful. I'm assuming the senior center is asking for an appropriation this year. And I just thought it would be helpful to invite Justin to come in and speak to us and answer any questions. Read it, but evidently there was an article in the weekends, what are we talking about. So, I guess this is something I wasn't aware of that was happening until just the other day and Justin was ready to go a couple of weeks ago. So, thank you Justin and why don't you take it from there. Thank you very much. Thank you for the opportunity to come and talk to you guys this evening. Hopefully you can hear me okay and hopefully you can see my shed screen at the moment. Is that an affirmative. Thank you very much. So, a very quick something about myself. Justin Blackman 17 years in the area to the first two of those living in Waterbury 15 of those up to that in Duxbury. You might know me from scooping ice cream at one of the concerts in the park, or possibly on the fourth of July, leading a troop of lawn tractors. Yes, I have a British accent, but don't worry, I've been a citizen for almost two years. I've been on the board of the senior center since October of last year, and I was very soon voted in as chairman or chairperson in November of last year. I'm also on the call this evening representing the senior center. Roger Tubby, who is our Treasurer, and Ron Gulles, who is our latest board member and is our vice chair. So, let's get right into a quick mission statement for you. I'll break this down. I have already highlighted what I believe is the most important line here to enrich the lives of older persons. So, some people will think the senior center is just delivering food to our seniors. They'll just think that's what we do. But there's so much more than just delivering the food. For some of our recipients, that delivery person might be the only human contact that person is getting that day. And that very brief welfare visit, as we call them, is so important, and especially so during these COVID times. So, with the current restrictions in place, we are not able to offer our normal congregate meals, host bingo nights, or have movie nights, anything like that. We are restricted from that at the moment. But nevertheless, we are kept busy. There are calls to the center every single day with some kind of question from our members in the community. Some of those we can answer ourselves. Some of those we can refer to other agencies. But rest assured, the folks at the senior center are being kept busy every day trying to complete that mission statement of enriching the lives of our older persons. Just as a very quick side note, I hope everybody knows that the senior center has a fantastic selection of medical aids. If anyone needs a short term wheelchair or anything like that, talk to the folks at the senior center in the basement. We've got a fantastic selection of whatever you need, crutches, wheelchairs, anything like that. So, let's take a little look. I know everyone's always interested at a little look at some financials. I know you have a copy in front of you. On the first page of those, I highlighted a few areas of particular interest. So, we have. So we've finished last year, basically on par with a few notable lines on the budget to look at. So the first one we can look at we are dramatically down on our donations we have been receiving. And I think some of that is just a sign of the times for all sorts of reasons, it is a very difficult place at the moment to be fundraising for, especially when we are unable to use our space to host events that we would be fundraising from. So as a second point, you will notice we also received some, what I will call some windfall money, some extra money from the CV COA. So that extra money from the CV COA and those are the folks who provide a way of getting federal money for meals on wheels to help funders. Justin, Justin. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to interrupt. Yes. Did you say that donations were down? This is saying they're up by 150%. This is actual your budget is 67.5. You received 101 928, which is 34 for 28 over budget, not under budget. And the 151 received on the, which line where you look at, if you look at income at the very top of the page, yes, the ring. And then it says. Okay, donations this line or the, which line is donations, all of these down here, I guess, I'm sorry. I am. I apologize for interrupting. I thought that the screen is a little bit blurry. So it's, I thought it said missions. So I apologize if the screen isn't as good on your paper copy. Yeah, so. You're right. So just proceed the way that you were. Okay, okay, so we were lucky to have some extra monies from the CV COA. That is for partially for two reasons. One is because we have provided more meals on wheels than was on our original contract to do so with the CV COA. The CV COA have also provided extra funds, because they realize it is harder to provide the meals on wheels. As an example, in the last few years, the senior center had worked to provide special reusable trays that the food was provided on that could then come back and be cleaned and reused. And that was all good for trying to be recycling friendly. But now all of a sudden, we're not allowed to do that. So we have to use more recyclable and disposable containers. So we have received some extra monies through those federal channels to help us do that. And that's where the extra monies come from. So we'll move on to the second page on the on the financials. So there's a few things to look at here. Many of these administrative costs are things that are more constant, even in a time of COVID. So our administration costs were able to be kept under control and our payroll came in very, very close to budget. I would also point out that we have a very good result in cost saving for our foods. And our kitchen manager Kim has done great work in coming 15% lower than we've had for food costs in the past. So that's a really, really grand work there. We also see just of interest, the mileage costs that that we are used to reimbursing our volunteer drivers is much lower than than we thought. And you'd wonder why that is when I've mentioned we are delivering more, more meals are we somehow doing less miles, but not at all. It's actually a fabulous volunteer drivers who very often will choose not to put in a financial claim for their miles. So they are not only donating their time, they're also putting their own gas money into this endeavor. So those are some really amazing volunteers we have out there. Let's move on to the third page, the short summary from that year. Coming in with in the black for around about $17,000, a little under 17. Okay. So moving on to the next page. We'll have a little look at where we stand with a balance sheet. So I'm certainly no accountant, but I know enough to look for the big numbers and for the line for the section totals. So we're showing 23,000 in the bank. We're still expecting 20,000 in from various towns that are expected and promised amounts. And that ends up giving us a total of around about 45,000 as assets. We'll take a look at where we stand for liabilities. So hopefully on that fifth page there. Again, we're looking out for the big numbers and I'm sure people will have noticed there is a 40,000 on appearing under a line saying areas payroll tax. And that relates to a period of time when a payroll tax form had not been filed correctly. And we have contracted with an outside accounts firm who has helped us to get everything up to date and everything filed correctly. And we currently have filed an abatement form with the IRS in a hope of getting the interest and penalties written off for that. So I know that's one area that people have had some questions about in the past. So let's move on from there. I'm sorry, I know we don't have too much time this evening, just trying to cover everything. So to look at a little bit of data. I can tell you that pre pandemic, we were serving 55 recipients normally, and we are now up to 66 recipients and my basic math is telling me that's a 20% increase. And there's a brief breakdown of how many recipients from each town. And just a percentage of what percentage of our recipients come from each town so we see that yes waterbury does have an overwhelming monopoly on the number of meals on wheels recipients, and we'd expect that being right there on our doorstep. So we end up with a whopping 17,628 meals per year. Now, I certainly think that's quite a feat for two people to put out of the senior center kitchen. I think that's quite a quite a big number. So let's take a little look at the breakdown from that so to break that down 17,628 meals with an overall running cost for everything senior center 225,000 gives us a cost per meal $12 76. And that is absolutely everything that's paying the rent light heat absolutely everything included in that cost. I mentioned CVC OA and their contract. So we receive from the from the federal government $3 and 76 cents per meal. There's a certain number of meals that we are contracted to provide the CVC OA, as well as funneling federal monies to us. They also provide excellent support. We get involved in the menus which we set, for instance, every month, we will put together a suggested menu, send it to the CVC OA, and they have trained dieticians check over our menu and make sure that what we are proposing meets all of their recommendations for the amounts of sugar the amounts of salt can't have too much carbohydrates only allowed, I can't remember, but three ounces of protein. So we are kept in check by the folks at the CVC OA, but the results of that leaves us with looking to try and raise monies to cover $9 for each one of those meals. Okay, we'll move on from there. So a brief rundown of where we try and get funding from. So we have an annual fundraising letter that hopefully everybody got last week, hopefully some nods, everybody saw that. Hopefully everybody wrote a big check and put it in an envelope for us as well. So we also have donations from our meals on wheels recipients. I don't need to read all of these out for you but we can see. I think I actually move on to the next one I've highlighted two areas in particular that are going to be very tough for us to manage this year. So normally, we are able to rent out the space for instance parties, or some business meetings, including the Rotary Club, who would traditionally meet in the space. There is also many people know if if there's a funeral or a party that the senior center is a great place to go to have catering provided for that event. And all of that comes under this $32,000. And that is something that in the current COVID situation, we are not able to to do so we are not really expecting anything from that line item. We would normally also offer a congregate meal several times a week, and that would normally bring in a $5,000 in donations from people enjoying that meal. And again, we can't provide that meal we can't use the space at the moment. So when we end up, our bottom line is potentially we are looking at a $37,500 in monies that we at the moment don't quite expect is going to come in. Okay. So what are we doing about that? Well, internally, the senior center board has set up a new committee, a fundraising committee. That committee is made up of four members from the community. Some people may have seen on front porch forum recently, I put out a request for people. And yes, we've got a good response for people from the community, and also for people from the senior center board and management are joining that committee. We are actively looking at these four ideas right now. And not exactly sure how much we'll be able to to raise from an online auction sponsored walk slash run we'll see how that goes. Road Rally and the 5050 raffle, but maybe 20,000 maybe it's a it's tough out there at the moment for anyone nonprofit fundraising. So, let's have a look at where our towns come into into this question of helping to fund the senior center. We looked at the number of recipient recipient 66 we looked at. And I can show you the numbers here for what are all of our towns are donating right now. So you can see that. What can we see here that we're seeing Bolton, and yeah we're we're seeing that. Yeah, so we're seeing middle sex coming in well over their percentage of people we're seeing Bolton and more town. Basically on par, and that's Brian waterbury, a little bit below par. That's a golfing term so we'll call it a bogey, shall we. So, if we look forward a little bit and see what would happen. If we tried to get some of those numbers to match the percentage of recipients. We'll be looking for increases, potentially from a few of the towns. And we will be well we are actively in the process of sharing exactly this data and these numbers we've seen today with all of the towns, and looking to see if there is any way that some small increases might be able to be made. So, in conclusion, I see it I see we're up there on time. 2021, it's not going to be easy for anyone. Our staff will keep on working very hard to enrich the lives of the older persons are volunteers in the same way are going to continue working hard giving up that time and the gas money. The fundraising committee is going to see if we can get all of these four events to happen and see if we can get near that $20,000 chunk of change to help us. The board at the senior center is also going to do whatever it can to continue looking after after the financial oversight and well being of the center. And also to provide guidance for our members of staff there as well. And most importantly, with support from our communities, towns. We will continue to thrive as a senior center. So, with that, I don't know how much time you've got for questions but willing to answer whatever I can. Thank you for your presentation. I did read that article in the recent water very reader. And I found out some things I never know I technically I haven't been down to the senior center. So this is very informational for me. Kind of an awkward question but question I do have nonetheless. Does it seem like there's a lot of turnover in the in the senior center like staffing wise. That's just a general question I have. I mean, some turnover after what was a very stable time. People are very fond of talking back of, of a time when Carol Smith was director, and Gail, the dough was was in the kitchen, and people did like the stability of those two working together. Times do change and personnel does have to change. And no, we, we at the moment are very happy that we have a kitchen manager and cook who is very competent. And again, in our, in our director with with Vicki, again, we have someone that knows what they're doing and is very hard working. Thank you. Thank you for all that you do down there. I haven't had a chance to do much yet. I've only been doing the job a short time. I apologize my was running off my cell phone and died so now I'm on my terrible internet. Yeah, I think it's COVID made it very difficult for a lot of businesses to figure out how to fund themselves so I feel for you guys. Trying to figure out and I know you're trying to make any efforts to figure out how to just like any of us to cover expenses to try to figure out how to to get through this. I'm in support of this to ask for additional funds is that you see that as a ongoing request or is that more of 2021 get us through and then we can revisit. I don't see our costs, particularly changing. I would hope that in future years when we don't have COVID restrictions on using our space. We wouldn't feel in quite so much of a pinch. But in light of the. I think the in what we were looking at here in potential help. It would be nice if we could look towards trying to year on year to match the changing percentage of recipients to somehow fit in with the donation request. But it might happen that in future years, the water breed numbers of recipients are lower. And, and likewise, it would follow that we quite possibly wouldn't be asking for for quite as much. Um, any other select board members have any questions and then, I guess I turn to Bill to ask about his thoughts on any concerns he has an additional budget and what we need to do to change it for the upcoming vote. I have a bunch of questions. One, first of all, I do appreciate what the senior center does and I think your mission is noble, but I am concerned with some of the financials and what's happening with financial management and I'll ask a few direct questions. Account receivables of $20,000 for organization this size seems to be a lot. Why is why is account receivable so high. Okay, I am I am not an accountant. I, I don't know the answer for that I would be happy to look into that and come back to you guys with a written answer. Okay, I would have to do a little bit of checking myself. I'm just looking up on that and, you know, that goes in terms of, you know, the mistake with the payroll taxes. What kind of financial expertise does staff and or board members have I'm I'm quite not a little concerned I'm quite concerned about that. Okay. We don't have board members who would call themselves CPAs or accountants or anything like that. If you know anyone that would like to join. Please, please, please come talk to us. We'd love to to have some added assistance there. What, what we have done to try and mitigate any, any problems and any future problems. We have contracted with an outside firm to help us do that and they help us reconcile and they help us every month. They, they help to make sure we have things properly on the books, and they also help us with our filing of any, any IRS and tax related issues as well. So you so you don't I assume by that statement you're not getting an audit of your organization. I believe the answer is we, we do not have an audit done an outside firm to come and check us there. I believe I'm right in saying that that is because we are under the under the limits that that would require that to be done. And it has a very big price tag normally involved in having an outside audit done. What is your executive directors financial experiences. Is it more geared to like the food service side, or does she have any significant financial background for for, you know, running an organization is complex. I know my wife's involved in food service but you know her financial background is not not huge. And I think, you know, the executive director has to have a pretty good handle on the numbers and I'm just I'm being honest I'm just concerned about where the organization is going number wise. Sure. From my understanding, our executive director Vicki Brooker does does not have a financial qualification background. And again, I revert back to what what the board has instigated to help us through this time is contracting with this outside company. To make sure everything is being done right. Right. That's where I guess I'm a little bit concerned that I don't know if I'm bills going to go in that direction are the amount of assistance as much as I truly do believe in what your mission is, but the amount of requests has escalated over a number of years and I guess I get concerned over the viability of the senior center without some, you know, strong, strong financial leadership which I guess I'm seeing a little bit of a question of. Okay, I understand your, your thoughts there. Again, at the moment, I cannot answer that anymore than we're doing what we can at the moment with the people we have. Yeah, so. So, Justin, I appreciate your comments about the audit and they are absolutely expensive. And if you haven't hit that threshold, maybe that's reason enough. I think the fact that you have a lot of people helping with your I-9s or whatever they are, the not-for-profit filings that have to be done. Some days at least working a little bit at your books. And audit would be a great thing. And I think once in a while, you know, maybe you should budget it. You don't have to do it every year, but I do think that, you know, one time, kind of pulling it up for that expense is probably worth it. I think you should learn quite a bit from an audit and that might be helpful. But going back to Mark's question and then Justin's, so the, as I told you at the beginning, I, that's an e-mails back in the early fall about what was going on at the senior center. And the expression was, you know, we're paying the senior center $30,000 a year, and there ought to be some accountability, which I think we all agree with. I did a little research, and I couldn't remember, but I went back when I responded to that person who wrote me and a little research and found out that in 1999 removed from $5,000 appropriation to 10. And it stayed $10,000 from 1999 to 2007. And then in 2007 it went to $30,000. So it's been 14 or 15 years, 14 years at $30,000. So there's not much else out there that the expense to the town hasn't increased in a 14-year period. So this $32,500 is a modest increase. I'm not really saying that, oh, who cares, let's just give it to them. But this year, because we're going to put everything on special articles on the warning, the senior citizen's budget right now we fund in two different ways. We put $10,000 of general appropriation, because back in 2007 when we went from 10,000 to 30,000, somebody like Justin back 14 years ago came in and said, you know, this is a one-time deal, we just need this extra $20,000 once. Never went away. But we put $10,000 in the budget, and then we have a $20,000 special article. If you get to the board, you can continue with a $10,000 budget and ask for a $22,500 special article. You can put, you know, $12,500 in the budget and ask for a $20,000 special article. The real question is, are you willing to have a budget put together between an appropriation and a special article where it's $32,500 as opposed to $30,000? And that's really a good decision to make tonight or before January 28. I'm very much looking at, as much as, as I said, I'm so supportive of the mission of the senior center, but during COVID, a lot of businesses have been affected. Can there not be some cost savings and belt tightening measures? You know, I'm really not that much in favor of increasing the appropriation. As a matter of fact, I think there's some ways that, you know, can't keep on looking at the taxpayers to fund this mission. And I think, as Bill said, you know, it's been kind of, you know, we've propped up the senior center for quite some time. You know, I know this is a tough year, but maybe there's going to have to be some cost reductions in certain areas. And can you not, you know, I wish you well, I hope you have some good creative fundraising that you can do in this year of COVID. I know I'm involved with a number of, you know, nonprofit organizations and they're all looking for ways to raise money, but I'm very much in favor of, you know, looking at at least no more of a cost increase to the taxpayers. And looking for the right some ways internally to meet your budget, just my opinion. Yeah, and not to argue with you, Mike, but just to make sure. You know, I think Justin said that the program from soup to nuts rent and everything else was, what was it 220,000 dollars or something like that 225. So the 54,000 that comes from the, from these pounds, five pounds is, is about 25% of the budget. It's not, it's not coming all from the taxpayers. Right. And I'm looking at when I'm looking at the cost, the cost per meals seem to be, you know, I'm not a food service person, you know, maybe Mark being in the industry, but you know, for meals on wheels program. I'm curious how their cost per meal relates to other meals on wheels program. Well, the cost per meal though that Justin showed and Justin correct me if I'm wrong that was taking the total budget of 225,000 and dividing that by the number of meals. Right. So it's, it's, it came out to whatever $12 a meal. But if you look at the food budget and everything else, it's far less than that. Justin was just trying to give you an example that this is kind of the major mission that they have to do. And it costs everything to do that, you know, salaries rent utilities. So the cost per meal isn't $12 a meal. I'm looking at the overall overall cost, maybe there are some ways to bring food costs down as, but I think there's maybe some ways to bring down administrative costs, you know, we're, we are Michael we're already doing, doing things we feel we can at the moment, for instance, we've already cut what was our Comcast cable and Internet setup right now we don't need TV when we when when seniors don't need to watch TV so for instance we've cut that back to Internet only so we are already looking at things we can do in that in that realm. But we've still got those big, those big chunks we've got our free fantastic staff members, and we've got heat like rent insurance all of those things that don't go away. Justin, you said there was an increase in Waterbury recipients from meals and wheels from 20, or at least over whatever period of time you were reviewing. Yes. What was that increase. It was from 55. I think the number is, yeah, 55 to 66. In terms of Waterbury, I would have to go back and check my data on that I don't have that at hand I'm sorry. I think I'll take a different stance that then Mike and I understand my concerns and of course, you know, it's never good to hear any business say they were not keeping track of their expenses to the point where potentially they have a big oh that they didn't budget for. I think the labor is going up on a yearly basis so I think for us to think as a town if we're going to continue to support the senior center which I hope we do. I think there's going to be an expectation that you know this cost could go up over time and the hope would be that it keeps in line with grand list growth and, you know, it's, we continue to support an organization that ultimately is helping our seniors and feeding our seniors. I appreciate that the focus is on the meals and we on wheels component. I think it's a nice way for us to gauge how we try to budget Waterbury's assistance to the senior center. I have a $100 increase for for what I will say would be a single year and then we review it and present something similar next year and we check back in and see where you landed is where I would be. I think it's reasonable. It's a reasonable ask and I sympathize for your organization trying to figure this out and I understand fundraising is extremely difficult. During these times, I would definitely say the more the better I think there are a lot of people that are willing to give right now it's just you got to set up the opportunity to do it so maybe some of it maybe isn't just as a vent base is just giving people the idea and maybe talking to the local businesses including mine to see if we can assist in some of that public outreach. But I would be of the favorite favor of changing the budget item to 12500 and letting the town vote for the additional 20,000 as a special article. Katie not your opinions. I'm kind of on the line I'm seeing both of your perspectives just another question. Have you asked any of these other towns about their stance on increases. We are in the process, presenting the same numbers, some towns have different processes to make the requests. I would say, for instance, you can't make a request unless you've got an additional raised amount from last year, unless you have a certain number of signatures things like that that make life extra difficult at the moment. So we hope that some of the towns will look at this exact same data and see it in the light that yes, that some of their costs have not gone up for years. And we hope that some of these small additions to their lines will be accepted. Last, last kind of esoteric statistic for me. I didn't go all the way back to 2007 because I don't have it readily available but I did go back to 2014. Our town budget was $4 million $4 million 23,385 and the $30,000 then divided into that was 0.00745 and last year our budget was 5.5 million. And when you divide that $30,000 into 5.5 it's 0.00544. So if you multiply the point 00745 that we were paying the budget in 2014 times last year's budget. Keeping everything equal, we would have been paying $41,000 a year ago. So, my point is this has an increase from $30,000 since 2007 and 2,500 on a $30,000 budget, you know that's 8% in one year. And divided by, you know, 14 years, it's less, it's not, it's not even 6 tenths of 1% a year and inflation has been, you know, running in the, you know, one and a half to two and a half percent range anyway so I'm not trying to push the budget up but this seems like a very modest request right now and we clearly have not kept anywhere close to the face of inflation. This is Roger Tubby just joined the board as a treasurer and also as a CBCOA data type person. The also to take into account is that the federal allocation for meals has not increased anywhere close to the amount that it costs to produce a meal. The onus is on the local communities to pick up the charges. So, you know, just just to take that back a little bit and say, you know, we appreciate whatever we can get from the local communities. Yeah, I would echo what Mark was saying about it being a rather modest increase. Hearing all that data from bill is very helpful. I think that Community Center provides a absolutely wonderful service to our community and to our absolutely most vulnerable citizens whose population is growing every day. I'd be in favor of this and, you know, obviously, we revisit in a year and, you know, maybe things will change in a year. Maybe the federal government will step up and start paying more for meal. That would be lovely. We're taking 45 minutes on $2,500 and we've got about, you know, $8 million more to go. Yeah, I mean, that's that's my feeling on this $2,500. I mean, depending on the tax rate is 50 something thousand. I mean, we're talking about 70,000. I mean, like to me, I feel like every year we have to build a fine $70,000, not 2,500. I do feel that bill can find this in the budget without much pressure. So to me, the request is reasonable and I personally would like now if we do decide to vote. Is this a vote bill or how do we approach this? I don't think you need to vote. I've heard, you know, if you want to vote you can, but the ultimate vote will happen in a couple weeks when we put everything together and you know, well, we obviously have to tell Justin and everybody else. It's all subject to what, you know, if we get to the end, and we're at a 55 cent tax rate, you really want to be a 51. Well, maybe we've got to take this out. So, for now, what I heard you suggest Mike was $12,500 appropriation with the $20,000 special item calling it the rest of the board is willing, at least for tonight to let that go forward and see what this ends up looking like with this in there. That's a way out. Bill on the special articles this year within the process we're going to do are they going to be line item or is it going to be all one chunk. I think we talked about it having it individual I really you know, one would be easiest and you know it's going to be counted by a voting machine so it's not like it's going to be you know people have to hand out these and one thing it all in as one really kind of gives people little opportunity to say no because they're saying no to anything. So, I think it's going to be one item. I'd be a little more supportive of this and I would be supportive of the $2,500 with the caveat that they're that maybe give a message to the board of there has to be some more fiscal management I'm really concerned about the mispayroll taxes, you know that's $40,000 is a is a big line item. So, you know if if there's some, you know, recognition that the board, you know really needs to look at their financial stability, you know, I'd be in favor of that increase. And again, not to be the, the apologist for the senior center but that all happened under the underwatch of a different board and frankly different executive directors and different employees and I think part of the turnover that Katie talked about is just related to this kind of stuff trying to get their house in order. Well, it sounds like we don't need to make it a vote on it tonight. I would hope that the board would support the increase within the budget, changing $10,000 to $12,500 but sounds like maybe Justin there's a couple requests that Mike had that you could go get back to the board, and we'll continue to discuss it. I look forward to our vote on the budget and you'll, I'm sure Bill will be in touch with you. Absolutely. Thanks again for the opportunity and sign off and let you get to the big money thing. Thank you, Justin. Hold on, Carlos. Quick question for Justin. I guess I'll be looking for a report to include in our annual report, probably from Vicki. Yes, I'll make sure that happens for you. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks. Perfect. Thanks. Justin, you're going to take your stuff off our screen. You don't want to keep it there? Okay. In queue the cat again. Are you on the cat bar back again? Thank you for a good presentation, Justin. Thanks again and I'll leave you in peace outside now. Thank you. Thanks again. All right, moving on to manager's item. Thanks to everyone for their patience fire department budget. Gary. So Gary's here. You can see his face. I'm going to put the fire budget up. I'm going to share my screen. And let Gary talk. And my guest is Gary doesn't have to talk as long as the citizens. So Gary, go ahead. I mean, I made a few minor changes to this. I think I included them in the notes when I sent it to you the other day. You don't hear you, Gary. That mute button. Sorry. There we go. So there were things that we cut back on at Bill's request this past year. Quite honestly, they were because it was such a difficult year. It was fairly easy to do. We essentially eliminated our training budget because we really couldn't do much for outside training, bring people in, send people places that are training. A lot of it was done remotely. Either we'd send people, you know, videos that they needed to watch and get back to us to ensure that they are getting some training. We had people do pre-plans, pre-incent plans at different buildings around the town. So we were able to do it, but that also saved us some money. And in this year's budget, the only big thing in Bill made a recommendation on the building maintenance line item. That I can talk about in just a moment. I'm going to talk about some of the things that really went up in our budget that we have any control over. Is our new equipment, which went up. $1400. Out of that. Now it's going to be 77, 400. If it's approved as it is. And communications and that went up 500. And that I foresee. We've been using a portable radio that we have enjoyed. It's been a relatively inexpensive portable radio. But they're not making it. And we've had to actually, our radio vendors kind of shopped around to find the last ones that he could get. So we have to switch brands. And, you know, we're just not getting the, the cheaper radios any longer. So getting two portables this coming year is going to be a little over $3,000, which we can absorb. And as I just got the quote from the vendor. They're expensive. But when we have 40 plus portable radios. You know, some of them are 10 and 15 years old. They start dying off. So, but we're also trying to understand that. You know, there's not a bottomless pit of money. We get that. That's why you won't see. That's why we're trying to understand that. And that's why we're trying to understand that. And that's why we're trying to understand that. Any large increases from us. The biggest increase as I indicated is building maintenance. And the maple street station, the design of that station. The outside is. And that you certainly will have the correct terminology. I would not. It's that kind of. Cement border. For lack of a better phrase, I guess. So every, every few years, you know, every year, we have a couple of different types of, you know, we've got the same kind of. Flaking out of the grooves and it hasn't been done. Or. More than a few years. And it's really. Coming apart. We've got a local. Contractor that is willing to do it. He gave us the price on it, which was actually better than. Well, one of our firefighters thought it might be. But he talked to him and he said, he's doing everything. re-seal all those gaps in between the boards and then repaint the entire building. So that's really the budget that I have for you. It's pretty much, there's even a couple minor drops, but overall it's pretty much level funding from last year. Eric, can you remind me, can you remind me, do you have a, is call volume pick up in the winter and have you maybe experienced the decrease in volume calls due to more people being in their homes or is that increased when people are in their homes? What have you seen for call volume and expectations through the winter? So the winter really, the only big impact is cars that fall off the road, crashes. A lot of them, and we have really cut back on how quickly we respond on the interstate when the report is that a car went into the median. If there's a trooper around, we hold at the station until a trooper gets on scene, if they're relatively close. If they're, you know, down close to the the line south on 89, you know, they could be 30, 40 minutes, so we'll respond. We're not big on going on the interstate, we're not big on going to any real calls, but we're not big on going to the interstate if we can avoid it. We have crashed two trucks a number of years ago, Bill certainly likely remembers that, and that those crashes were within a couple weeks of each other. Nobody got hurt, but when you go around the circles in a fire engine and hit the Jersey barrier, you know, it's jarring, and especially when you're only going 10 or 15 miles an hour, and then the next truck got crashed by a tractor trailer that was going too fast, lost control, and almost hit one of our members, but hit the truck first, where we set up a crash scene. So the call volume this past year is dropped slightly, but it has dropped. It's picked back up at the end of the calendar year, but it was really low throughout the bigger part of the pandemic. People were reluctant to call us, and that was the same for most other departments around us and in the mutual aid system. People's call volumes dropped, stows dropped, and then it picked back up and they're on a record-breaking year. We are not. We're still going to be down our call volume from the previous year, which has been a trend for the last three or four years. You can see that in the pay line, five-time pay line is down. Gary, do you have much problem with chimney fires anymore? I know back when I first came here, there was a chimney fire every few weeks. There was. One of the things that we used to have chimney fire, seemed like you're right, Bill, every week or two. So we made a big push to go out and we cleaned chimneys. We do that in the fall. We do it by donation, but it's really the donation is not the issue. The issue is getting people's chimneys clean, and we have had two. Actually, one of them really wasn't a chimney fire. It was a plug stove. So we've gone to that type of call so far this year. We don't go much more than half a dozen in a year anymore. Being proactive and going out and cleaning people's chimneys, we do it on training nights or other special chimney cleaning nights. It staves us from going out at three in the morning, or after somebody didn't want to call us because they thought they could handle it, and then they've got a fire in a wall. So the chimney fires is really under control, and that's not one of our big numbers. A lot of it is smoke detectors or carbon monoxide detectors, and crashes are what people perceive to be a crash. Yeah. Duxbury's meeting tonight. They're considering the fire contract that you approved back in December and the $115,000 range. So remember that that comes off the top in terms of what our tax requirement is. I went over there a year ago, and they had some of the standard questions, why can't you just charge us per call? We don't know why that doesn't work. But they're bigger. They're the question that they kind of push back on more than anything from my answer was dispatching. And there's no question that $85,000 a year is a lot of money to be spent. But when we think that we get 24, 7, 365 days a year for that, if we had to do that ourselves, it would be well over $200,000 just for the dispatching itself. So that's a pretty big increase. But remember, there's a $2,500 payment in there. I can't exactly remember what that was for, Gary, but we talked about a couple of months ago. So rather, yeah, it's to upgrade the all of capital fire, which is what we're part of, the radio system. So when if we get a call, the entire mutual aid system will hear that, but we can also communicate better. And rather than everybody getting one lump sum bill, which would be thousands, this seem to be a more feasible option is pay it over 10 years. So it's $2,500 a year. And there's dispatching included in that. And then there's a couple of supplemental things to like a $1,500 charge every year, $1,700 charge. That's for some of the equipment out there. And we're also for the ambulance portion of that as well. It's still a deal. Yeah, we do pay for all the ambulance portion of dispatching through this. And just as Gary said, I want to make sure everybody understands, at the very bottom, the two capital fund of $172 is what we paid last year. I bumped it up right now by $20,000. And deciding that Gary was talking about was a $5,000 expense. And he had it up here at the building maintenance line. We really haven't set any money aside. We have this fire station CIP that we used to send money there and then pay the debt service out of that. And I put it back, I put the debt service back in the fire budget just so it was easier for Ducksburg to see. So they would make sure that they understood that they were paying part of that and we understand that. But I did some work a year ago and I said, well, even if we were putting $3,000 a year aside, since the building was built for future maintenance, you know, we'd have about $27,000 in there now if we had started that when the building was first opened. So with this $20,000 going over this year, if we spend $5,000, that'll be $15,000. And then we can catch up. I'm hoping that, you know, by the end of like 2022 we'll have $30,000, $25,000, $30,000 in the reserve fund for the buildings, both the Main Street and the Maple Street station. And, you know, it's hard to believe, but they're 10 years old this year, right? We opened them, we opened them a month before the flood or the Main Street station anyway, we opened the month before the flood in July of 2011. Yeah, and the stations certainly have served us well. They've been fairly low maintenance. We've got Honeywell that's now on contract that has done a, you know, it's done a really good job. There's a contract price, yes, but we also, all the filters get changed, all the carbon monoxide and diesel exhaust filters get changed out on a regular basis, more regular basis than what we were able to do it. We used to have to hunt them down. And then, you know, it's getting members to do all this stuff. So they take care of that. I've got a person that has taken on a couple other little roles on the department as something extra, you know, light bulbs. There's a tremendous amount of light bulbs, seems crazy, but these bulbs have to be replaced. And so, you know, the buildings have served us well. I am absolutely confident if the Main Street station had not been replaced, we'd have had to figure out what to do because the old building certainly would have come down. So they've served us very well and we're very happy with them. So I think that said, everybody okay with the fire budget as it looks. And I didn't even look at the schedule, Gary, I assume after, you know, a million dollars worth of bumpers in the past two years, we don't need any equipment this year. I would not dare come to the board and ask for a new truck. There is, you know, there's plans on the road, obviously. Well, we put money aside. We've got the money, but nothing this year, right? Absolutely nothing this year. No. Okay. Thank you, Gary, for not making that request. Somebody asked if on the department, if we're looking at it, I said, I don't think the plan is and I certainly wouldn't do it and not still be the fire chief because I just didn't want to make that trip. Gary, do you get a cut on plumbing and heating for those two facilities? You would think, but no, no, nothing for me. I am overpaid as a department head as it is. You don't want to tell us that during budget season. Take a look at how much you're paying me. Thanks, Gary. Appreciate it. Yeah, no problem. Bill, I know it's a real minor thing, but I was just scratching my head. Why is the public works director in the fire department budget? Well, if you look at all the budgets, Mike, you'll see the public works directors in a lot of different places. I know. So the public works director is the costs. So Bill Woodruff is the public works director and Alex Tuscany is the municipal engineer. They're both water department employees, but they do work for both EFUD and they do work for basically every department that we have. So what what they do is every year they put together a list. You can't really read it, but it looks like this and they they keep track of what they've done on a week by week basis. So I take their total cost, their pay and their benefits for both of them. And then I look at, okay, they worked this many hours in the in the highway department. So of Alex pay, you know, $6,845 last year was for the highway department. And it was actually Alec worked $70 worth for the fire department and Bill Woodruff had $895 hours worth. So basically that line item Mike is used to pay the EFUD water department because that they're carrying the full cost of it. So that's what it is. Gotcha. Thanks. Any other questions? All right, we can move on. I find my agenda. Yeah, I think budget. DIP, Paving Infrastructure, Highway Vehicles. Yep. Bill Woodruff's still on? Yep. Yes, I am. Okay, good. So I sent this out yesterday afternoon and then I sent a amended one out later today. And in the narrative that I sent yesterday, when we were talking about the paving budget, the first thing I said was, before we agreed to spend, you know, over $800,000, which would include this $5,600 worth of debt. So it was well over $740,000 worth of paving. I wanted to make sure we had staff capacity to do it. And that would seal you, Bill, this afternoon and or this morning and we don't. So these two columns, you can see at the right here it says proposed 21 and then it says proposed with no grant. The state provides... Bill, do you want to screen share again? Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't do that. Hang on. All right. I think I just closed it down when I did that. So let me get it back up to you right now. I'm sorry. All right, let me try this again. Screen share. There we go. All right. So you see these two columns, proposed 21 and then proposed with no grant. The state provides a class two paving grant. I think it's an 80-20 split. And I thought that 200 was the max, but what he told me this morning that 175 is the maximum grant. So this budget shows us receiving a grant from the state $475,000 towards this $305,000 paving project. This would be Stowe Street. We need to do Stowe Street from Main Street to the drive bridge. And that is our first priority. It's kind of part of the Main Street project, except it's not fully incorporated into the Main Street project. So they've done lighting. They've done sidewalk work, but we need to do the street. And it's really imperative to get that done. But this 305 would take care of Stowe Street from Main Street all the way up to Lincoln Street. And if we get this $175,000 grant, we would do Stowe Street. And then this $175,000 here would be a couple of other streets that look at. And I didn't put up Bill's other memo here. So if we don't get the grant, and we probably won't know about the grant until May at the earliest, this $175,000, what did I say this was going to be Bill? North Street? We would do some of North Street or all of North Street, I should say, Swayze Court. Swayze Court. And then simply $5,000 just for other things that we might need a little cleanup on. So that was that. So Stowe Street, North Street, and Swayze Court, they're basically all in the same place. Swayze Court's right opposite the school. North Street's the little half moving street up at the top of Stowe Street just before you get to Lincoln Street. So that would be in that $175,000. If we don't get the grant, then we would do the $90,000 here for Stowe Street from the Drive Bridge to Main Street. And then this $430 would basically be North Street and Blush Hill and Lonesome Trail. So that's really what the proposal is. And you can see when we entered this year, we had a negative fund balance of $232,000. That was what we were thinking that we were going to end the year with. We really ended it a little bit better off, negative 202. If we get the grant and do this, this will be almost evenly funded for the fund balance at the end of the year. If we don't get the grant, we'll be a similar fund balance as we went into this year. But remember, just so you don't get too freaked out about a $200,000 deficit, what we really consider is down here, this consolidated balance for the CIP. This is, I should say, no higher. It's consolidated balances for the CIP were right here. And we expected, we actually ended the year with a consolidated fund balance of $375. That's because we did that borrowing. So we were in much better shape. So if we get the payment grant and we do everything else in these CIPs, we'll have about $415,000 in our CIP. If we don't get the payment grant, we'll still end the year with about $200,000. So the loan that we've taken puts ourselves in a much better position. Any questions about paving? Infrastructure, that's the next one here. This number here is what we've spent this year on the Main Street project. This number will go down before we put this budget to bed because when the water department and the sewer department from EFUD pay their share, it will go against this expense. So what happens when VTRANS pays J. McDonald and then VTRANS sends a lot of variable for 2% of the costs for the eligible costs. And that's what that 181 represents. There's a little bit of ineligible costs in there, but essentially that's Waterbury's 2% share of the total Main Street project. But some of that 2% share is going into the ground in water and sewer mains. And rather than EFUD pay the state directly, the town pays VTRANS directly and then EFUD reimburses the town. So this number will go down. This number here for 2021, I'm carrying right now the same number that I've spent for this year, but I think I heard Bob Farr today say that there's only about $2 million of Main Street construction left to go as far as the eligible costs. And if that's the case, 2% of $2 million is about $40,000. So when we get to the end of the budget process, this number will probably be a little bit lower than it is right now. As I said, it does include some, there are some expenses related to Main Street that are not eligible and we have to pay the full freight on those things. So the 160 is probably high, but it likely won't go down as low as 40 either. Bill, you want to talk about the sidewalks that we've talked about, a couple of different ones there, and then the bridge stuff. I think you've got that information, Andy. Okay. So a couple of the sidewalks that we had planned on replacing this year, the senior center side of Stow Street. We replaced the water main on Stow Street, lower Stow Street last year. Last season, the plan is to do the sewer on Stow Street this season. Along with that is the money Bill said we would spend for paving and rebuilding a little bit of that road. So the sidewalks on the senior center side, we would hope to be able to do those this season. That would include granite curbing in new concrete sidewalks, extending from the dry bridge down to Main Street. And Bill, the sidewalks on the KC bagel side of the street on the DV side, that was paid for by the Main Street project? That's correct. They originally, the conduit going through there, they agreed to pay the concrete sidewalk costs for in front of DV and KC bagels. They also agreed after a little push to add the granite curbing on that side. So we've got the granite curbing kind of thrown in as a bonus on that side. So we're going to try to duplicate that work over on the senior center side. So all of lower Stow Street would essentially look like Main Street when we're done this season, this kind of construction season. Also on the sidewalk side, we have a plan to do about 700 feet of sidewalk on Winnowski Street. We did the other side a couple years ago now. This would be replacing the four foot sidewalk on Winnowski Street with five foot sidewalk extending from the Main Street project down to about the cemetery. So those are the two big sidewalk improvements we have planned for this season. Would you like to go ahead, Bill? I was just going to say on the bridges. Yep. All right. So the bridge projects we have proposed for this year. During last year in the summertime, we've noticed on the dry bridge on Stow Street there were some odd shaped potholes that had developed in the travel portion, mainly in the lane heading northbound, but some in the southbound lane as well. After some investigation by some Stantec engineers and bridge experts, we removed some of the asphalt on the bridge deck. I've got to look at the membrane, which is under the asphalt that covers and protects the concrete bridge deck and determine probably a good course of action on that bridge would be to remove the asphalt, remove the membrane that's on there and reapply a membrane and asphalt on the bridge deck itself as well as the approach slabs for a portion of those. The bridge is built in 205, 206, somewhere in that range. It's a little early to do some of that work, but if we do it now, the concrete and the rebar and everything in the bridge is still structurally sound and applying that membrane back in a good layer of asphalt on it will really help protect the whole deck. So that's the big bridge item we have. We also have a little bit of bridge work planned for Guple Road, what we call I think it's bridge number three, which is right by Krispienza's house. That bridge needs a little bit of concrete repair work done on the upper fascia beam. Somewhere down the line it will need the asphalt to be milled off the deck. It's a very real work, but we really like to just tackle the fascia beam repair right now and probably save the remainder of that bridge work to happen in advance of Guple Road resurfacing. So we're trying to have the same level there when we come up through. Those are the big bridge ones we have planned right now. There's a couple others that could go, but I think those are the urgent needs. The dry bridge is really the most critical. Yeah, we really have to do that. I think in terms of what he has, Alec, do a lot of the bridge inventorying work and working with inspectors and the like and the bridge at Dr. Murray's is really kind of more critical than the one over by the ends between the ends and the Zimbabwe, but because of needing to do the dry bridge and really needing to concentrate on finishing up in the downtown so we don't have to come back into the downtown in and assume that Bridget Dr. Murray's is just too expensive to fit into the program this year, so we'll have to come back there. The COVID improvements we talked about, you know, one of the potential paving projects was Bush Hill Road. That would be from just above, almost up to crossroads that Bush Hill is a Class II road from 100 up to not quite the WVV towers and we paid that several years ago now, but that's pretty good shape. But from that point up, it's a Class II road and it's really in rough shape. This $12,000 will replace culverts, you know, 18 inch culverts, two foot culverts, all on Bush Hill from that point up to the top and then on Lonesome Trail. We will do this culvert work, whether we do paving on Bush Hill or not, we'll get it done this year. If we don't do Bush Hill this year because we get the grant, at least the culverts, they will be done ready to go. Just on Bush Hill, what do you want to explain probably what we're going to have to do over near Wendell Lonesome with that culvert, just in case we have to do that project so the board knows. Yep, so in advance of almost all of our paving projects, we take a look at the infrastructure that lies beneath the road, all the culverts. As Bill mentioned, that $12,000 will cover a lot of the small diameter culverts on Lonesome Trail and Blush Hill Road. But as you work further up past Lonesome Trail on Blush Hill Road in the dip of the road, there's a 36 inch culvert that picks up a stream right there that's in rough shape. And per the codes and standards that we sign off on every year with V-trans, any culvert that's 36 inch diameter or larger, when you're replacing it, best practices is to conduct a hydraulic study of the drainage area to determine if that's 36 inch culvert or whatever is under the road is adequately sized. We've done this on Hubbard Farm Road, Perry Hill Road, some other areas on some large diameter culverts. So that culvert in question right there is awaiting a hydraulic sizing study from the state of Vermont. They will most likely tell us that that 36 inch culvert is not adequate to cover the flow that comes down through there. And so what normally happens in a case like that, we will take whatever size they tell us we need to put in, whether it's a squash pipe, you know, four foot by seven foot or what have you. But it's a little bit more of a job than what our folks can handle, usually requires a little bit of engineering, some head wall work, etc. So should we go on the path of paving Blush Hill this season, we may choose to stop short of that culvert location and either stop short of it and pick back up beyond it and put the paving or what have you, as we're under the assumption that probably would not be ready to have that installed or even paid for if it was going to be able to take the culvert job. So and also one of the tangents as far as that hydraulic study is that you end up with those kind of projects needing a stream alteration permit. And the wildlife is much more in the focus of the regulators now. So these projects can can become pretty expensive because they don't know Mike you'll understand they don't want culverts that you know are elevated three or four feet above the stream bed because no, you know, the aquatic wildlife can't go through that culvert. So when we did this project on Hubbard Farm Road like Bill suggested, you know, what what size is that pipe though and then we had to fill it allows it to get filled with gravel, right? Yeah, so what normally happens is when they give you the size of the pipe you want let's say it's they say the stream needs a six foot diameter culvert. What you do is you put the six foot diameter culvert in and then immediately fill two and a half to three feet at the bottom of the culvert with stone and gravel stream bed material which somewhat obviously limits the carrying capacity of the culvert. But that is done for the aquatic or aquatic organism passage and etc. So it's a little counterintuitive they tell you you need a much larger pipe costing much more you do that then you immediately fill about a third of it in but that's the world we're in now. So anyway the bottom line is there's no way we're going to have the information this year to even know what we need to do never mind being able to to actually do the work. So we won't be paving that culvert this year if we do well if we do Blashill we'll decide later on whether we you know do the whole hill the whole road all the way up to the gravel and then come back next year the year after and do a 200 foot section where the pipe is or if we just go up to the pipe but anyway we just wanted to make sure that you're aware of that. The building improvements here in this CIT you see we had $46,000 last year that $8,400 that we spent last year was for a lift in the highway garage you know mechanical a lift so the mechanic could work on vehicles. The remaining money was supposed to do some roof patching and then some siding work on the greater bottom I believe Bill and since we already have done the lift I just put $45,000 in there and hopefully that will take care of what we need to do on those two highway buildings. Did I get that right Bill? Am I remembering correctly? Yeah that's correct. Okay and then so any other questions on infrastructure? Bill just a quick question. You mentioned in the on the Main Street project that $160,000 may get reduced because of the size of the contract and you said if there are some outside projects we would have to fund them what would those be? Bill probably knows better than I but there are things like they call them wayfinding projects so kiosks that are put up to help people figure out where they are you know there might be some historical interpretation on them. Kind of like the highway. Some of the things like the banner poles and planters and things like that. Bench is anything else Bill that I'm missing that were the non-participating? No on the highway side that's that's most of the non-participating stuff. Really a small small percentage. Yeah so I think that $160,000. Did I hear by right Bill that she said about $2 million she's always left for the project? Yeah we the total projects it's spent so far over $19 million and it's a $21 million project. So if there's 2 million left 2% of that is $40,000 the water and sewer will have a small percentage of that. The water and sewer is all done now the only thing they'll be paying going forward is their kind of share of the administration and the share of you know I made Bill at the beginning of the project do some calculations to say you know the highway shouldn't have to pay for eight foot deep excavation to get down to a water and sewer line so some of the roadway work refactored the water and sewer in there so they'll have some of it but that $160,000 if there's only 2 million left that's way too much for this year so that's a good thing and hopefully we'll have that adjusted by next week. Great thanks okay um highway vehicles again I'm glad Bill's here because he met with Celia this morning and just kind of had to sometimes fall on a bouncing ball so this tandem truck um that's a double axle truck that you know it's the biggest highway truck that we have we we put it in the budget and agreed to go ahead and buy it in 2020. We have paid 129,456 for the cabin chassis that has been delivered to Clark's truck center where we ordered it from they had to pay for it so we had to pay for it but the body and who does the body know it's flanking or what I believe that's a biking on that one yeah yeah so anyway the the body and the snow fighting equipment is all made in Canada and because of COVID and shutting down of plants and difficulties with transportation we don't have the tandem truck yet so we're sitting here waiting for $25,000 you know that I can't remember what the truck the total cost was but this 148 was a net cost that was what we were going to have to pay in cash plus the trading of the vehicle that we had gets us a new truck so we paid 129,456 we've got somewhere between 20 and $25,000 more to pay this year um and we'll have to trade the truck in so far Clark has said they'll honor the trade in price that they offered us when we signed the contract almost a year ago well actually it was more than a year ago now December of 19 we signed the contract um hopefully something shakes loose and we get the truck sooner rather than later so that's what this $25,000 is for we need to replace one of the lawn mowers we've got two gravely moors that we mow the wreck fields in the cemeteries with I think you know they're on kind of a three-year cycle so we didn't have to buy anything for mower last year we've got one this year we probably will have one next year and then we're going to gear up and then the high gross cedar and trailer again I'm going to turn this over to Bill I know what it is I think we want it because of the general permit and all of the higher regulation that we have from the state with regard to stormwater but is that right that's correct um what the municipal road general permit says nowadays is any ditch work that we do um really we should not be leaving any exposed soil after five days or something like that so essentially they want to see growth back in the ditches and on the banks almost immediately and some of the slopes that we have for ditch work and it's difficult to get grass growing on those a hydro cedar with the right tack and the right seed mixtures etc you can really get some good growth growing in less than 10 days it really is supposed to do the job on preventing sediment in your ditches and what have you got so I think it's a it'd be a huge addition and really something now that you need and you know it's it's 20 000 dollars and it's something that we don't have now there's always a little bit of maintenance I think it probably will last 10 years anyways so you know it's not a huge expense over time but the first time you buy it but I think these regulations with regard to this general permit and stormwater management overall is getting more and more stringent every year we have a whole map now that shows us what they call hydrologically connected roads or roads that are connected to hydrologically connected streams it's not 100 of our roads but we have a fair amount of them that we have to take special precautions with so that's what this is all about Bill and Ben will just just one question do we currently contract with anyone to provide hydro receiving service we do not this past year we did some work that would have benefited from a hydrocedar I did receive a price from a contractor to come do that it was a little more than the budget could could hold for the work that we had but yeah I did reach out to a couple contractors who do that I also looked in to see if there was a rental available there was not and so that's kind of what led us down this path remember the you remember the contractors price bill I'll talk to your head I don't but I probably have an email and that my desk I might be able to find that it was for the we've done the maple street paving project and as you can imagine there's two or three feet of shoulder on each side that a lot of the homeowners kind of wanted to see some grass growth there and it was kind of late in the season and the way the season was going route wise if we had planted it any with conventional seed I'm not so sure we would have got any growth and let's see the price to hydro seed up on maple street was almost $5,000 that was about $5,000 for one one project and you know we can buy the $20,000 and even if it lasts only you know five years it's it's $4,000 a year so it seems like to me if that's going to be a if that's going to be a something that we're going to be held to as a standard and you know that that's just another tool in the arsenal yeah yeah and those hydro seeders I mean they with the right conditions that stuff grows like crazy yeah and then what Celia asked us if we would do is if you would give me the authority to go ahead and order a truck now that we will not be paying for in 2021 and probably you know we'll be lucky the way things are going right now to get delivery by the start of the winter next year and when I say next year I mean you know not a not not this Christmas the Christmas after and it's not a huge expense but it's probably with the trade and and everything else it'll be less than a hundred thousand dollars we did that a year ago when we when we ordered this tandem truck and we had hoped by ordering it in December of 19 that we would have it by October of 20 and it's now January of 21 and we don't have it yet so I'm asking if you would just allow us to order that truck now for delivery in 2022 Bill what type of truck are you looking at it's uh it's um it's a not a tandem truck one of those the standard dump trucks that okay dump truck right now not not a pickup no no okay I figured this has to be more like a regular dump truck yeah it will replace the truck that Randy Guyette is driving now if you ever see that so it's just one of our standard bus sick one get a little bit smaller model because it's for the village but essentially the truck that we have now is what we're talking about replacing but it's not a tandem Bill how this is the other Bill Woodruff how did the uh roadside mower work out this year oh I think it worked fabulous um yeah we were able to keep ahead of a lot of the invasive species which we had difficult doing before um not an issue with the machine itself it ran flawlessly um with the right operator and it did a great job um I think it's it's a huge addition to the fleet really good how many bottles did it hit it made a mess of a few things um yeah but not overall not too bad if they're not on Gupto they're on Ripley and if they're on Ripley they're everywhere else I guess yeah it does bring the garbage to the forefront that's for sure and in in 2022 we've got that truck that I just talked to you about we're going to have to do something with the excavator that we currently have and um it was supposed to be this loader up here for 150,000 was supposed to be next year but given you know just trying to balance things out it makes more sense to move this purchase of the loader up this year so we don't have a you know a modest a really low price this year then you know go up uh exponentially next year then back down so I'd like to include this $150,000 motor um here and uh you know this will be the problem the net price the prices of the load and I'm hoping that this is a a conservatively high price that the price of the loader is probably $180,000 range I'm hoping that maybe we'll get a little bit more for the trade than this shows but um you know I want to have enough money so that's what the wider motor is on this year what is the price of heavy equipment going this year with the pandemic is it higher well I you know this is the last price that we've received Mike I you know Celia does most of that shopping if you will and uh we'll bill about it we are concerned that you know certainly on the lumber side of the world as Matt knows you know there's huge price increases there so we just don't know yet this is the best information we have at the moment okay thanks okay um and then no fire vehicles uh and I talked about this $20,000 going into the fire station CIT and this $5,000 being spent for the siding on the Maple Street station we talked about the rec CIT we got the check for $10,000 from Shaw's today was deposited in the bank so that check came and you know here's the van that were I mean the van down here that we're hoping to buy so we talked about this last year the last thing that I just want to mention to you let me uh get rid of this um one hey Woody I'm all set if you want to get going I don't think unless the board has any other questions I'm all set with you okay thank you thank you milk uh let me get one other CIT by the up here hang on okay so I'm gonna go back the screen share so this is this is what I sent you yesterday I guess it was and we don't have to make this decision now uh Mark you may remember this conversation back before we bought the fire truck Matt you were on the board then too weren't you so we we borrowed um a month or so ago we borrowed a $1,366,000 from the bank and we're borrowing that right now to note that you authorize me to sign we're borrowing that at one and at 1.55% for five years so we've got to pay this 136 1,366 often five years and I think with interest um it's about $290,000 a year of debt service throughout this CIT I have here this is for the um let's go up the infrastructure so in the infrastructure fund of that 1.366 million we posted 145,880 here and this debt service of 417 and 2750 for interest this amount 12,500 is what we're paying ourselves back we have to raise it to 41700 if we're going to pay the infrastructure share of that $1.2 million loan at 145 down here in the highway um we posted $260,000 of that loan here and in order to pay that $260,000 back in five years instead of something like this for debt service and probably being a $35,000 range we're at you know about 88,89,000 here down here in the fire department where we posted $950,000 we're going to have to pay you know $230,000 of debt service as opposed to probably 75,000 so we don't have to decide today but my recommendation to to the select board is going to be you should authorize me or you should approve what's called refunding a note and Mike might know about this from his former work but what the refunding legislation allows the legislature has passed a law which allows select boards and city councils on their own motion to evaluate the debt service they have and if they determine that it's in the best interest of the community to turn that note into a bond you can do it and you can bond out to 20 years now some of these things the fire truck certainly bonding normally we bond for a fire truck for 20 years um for the roadside mower though which is part of what we bought here in this tandem truck you know that wouldn't be 20 years it might be 10 maybe 15 the same thing up here for the cip stuff the main street project certainly we could bond that out for 20 years but what i'm thinking that we might be able to you know do some kind of um melding of philosophies i know chris isn't on the call tonight but you know chris likes to pay debt off as fast as we can so rather than maybe refunding this note and turning it into a 20-year bond we could turn it into a 15-year bond we'd have these fire trucks for 20 years and you know it's pretty low interest but um still trying to pay $280,000 worth of principal in so that 1,366,880 that we borrowed 1,366,880 if you simply divide that by five it's about $273,000 if you take the 1,366,880 and spread it over 15 years the principal payment drops to about $90,000 so i really think not today we'll put the budget together with these numbers in it this is the worst case scenario we'll have to make a decision about refunding in the early spring sometime but i think that's really the way to go i don't think we should try to pay this off in five years so with that i'm done with the presentation tonight and the last thing i said i'm done but what i i said in my email today so you can see the highway fund is planning to send $447,000 to the paving fund the highway fund is planning to spend or send $252,000 into the infrastructure cip the highway fund is planning to send um 100 almost 150 into the the vehicle cip the fire department will be sending into the fire department vehicle cip $172,000 and then $20,000 down here and then the rec department will be sending uh $37,800 so if we get to do all this just as it is we end up with this consolidated deal well it's the other one because this one doesn't have the updated stuff on payment but somewhere between $240,000 and $30,000 of a fund balance if we cut back on this uh this principal payment that fund balance will be even that much higher but if we have to make cuts in our budget to get our 51 cent tax rate we've got a lot of transfers going into this fund that we could reduce and and live with a little bit lower fund balances in the cip fund so I think that if we have to cut money right now in order to meet our 51 cent tax rate I would cut these transfers because if we convert the note to a bond that will give us a lot more cushion and I think that's the way I would handle it if we need to if we need to uh uh be drastic about getting down to that 51 cents I agree with your analysis bill we're like minds I think we're in such a good interest rate environment it just makes sense anybody else can you make a special meeting to come in and talk to me yeah let's do that and also can you look over my finances as well bell I'll do it for a fake yeah I guess bill the one thing I and and maybe you alluded to and I missed it um it's just understanding what maybe we should be trying to project as a annual fund balance just to make sure that we're doing what they're ultimately supposed to do which is making sure we're protecting ourselves against a large expense of coming in if you have a feeling of where you'd like to see that balance on a yearly basis and I don't know if it's a percentage of budget or what yeah I let me think about that mark it's a that's a good question I feel a lot better where we are now you know when I look back into the last year's annual report and I looked at the consolidated balance which doesn't show up you know we we uh we budgeted to go into 2019 we were hoping to end with a $30,000 fund balance and for a variety of reasons we were underwater by about 260,000 but that's because we bought a fire truck that we didn't think that we were going to have to buy that year and we weren't able to fund it then but um that the last spreadsheet that I head off that I'm not going to put up now that you know $200,000 to $400,000 range without a lot of thought the $200,000 fund balance and the aggregate CIPs sounds like a pretty good place to be so if we can if we can maintain that and still keep the 51 cent tax rate this year I think that would be a real win okay thank you all right um is there anything else sir I think maybe we can there's no uh there's no motions that need to be made right now um well I guess I would like you to make the motion just to authorize me to order that that highway truck that we're not going to get until 2022 could you make a motion just so that way if the truck dealer says do you have the authority to do this I can show them the minutes I I make a motion to approve the town manager uh to order a dump truck uh price to be termined uh in fiscal year 2021 22 second any further discussion although some favor please say aye hi I think that's it for the agenda anything else or we can sorry I'm hopeful that when we meet next week on the 18th that I'll have a really good idea of how we ended 2020 um you know we we've got some bills to pay and we'll get some straggling revenue that will be posted back like when we get that checked from e5 for their shared main street so I'm hopeful that between knowing how 2020 ended and what we've talked about with all these budgets we've really done everything except you folks talking about the library budget um I had a meeting with them tonight and uh you know I'm finalizing the work with them so I'm hopeful that at this time next week we'll have a really good idea whether we just need to do a little bit of fine tuning on the 25th or if I have to really work out between the 18th and the 25th to find you know hundreds of thousands of dollars to get a standard 51 satisfaction thanks Bill okay I'll take a turn motion to adjourn okay have a good night