 Okay, thank you. Okay, I'm calling the meeting of the finance committee together at 2.04 p.m. Pursuant to a number of different acts of this of the state legislature. This meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so via zoom or by telephone. And we will not allow any in person attendance of the members, attendance of the members of the public. But every effort will be made to ensure that the public can can adequately access the proceedings in real time via technological meetings. So confirm, I will just want to go around the room and confirm members of the. The committee can be heard and seen. Andy. Yes. Councilor Heneke. Kathy. Yep, I'm here. Bernie president. And Matt is not going to be here and Alicia is not present at this time. Let me just check the audience. See if she's in the audience. Okay, so we have a pretty short agenda today. So hopefully. We're just going to go over some things we've we've gone over before. I want to approve the minutes. I only only have the minutes of the February 6 meeting so we can't approve. We don't have minutes of the 20th meeting yet. Then we want to call for public comment. Then we'll go through the Amherst Pelham regional school committee recession and replacement of the debt authorization for the high school track and field. And then the draft surplus property disposition. And then some new topics that. That Andy has requested. He talk about so. Has everyone anyone had it? Has everyone had a chance to take a look at the meetings of February 6. I did. Okay. And I thought they looked fine. Yeah, I just caught one typo on page two. It's the third. Paragraph full paragraph. In the first sentence, it says, or our toe. A sentence or toe, which it should be T w T w O not T o w other than that. I didn't have any issues. So. Yeah, I found two others. I'm trying to see if I can find where I have the document. There are other type of graphical type things. They weren't significant. But there were enough that I at least noted them here. I have it now. So I just to let you know what they are. One was the one that you had the toad. See if I can move some having problems with my computer. That's why it's. So slow to do, which should be very quick. Oh, and the under item number for the draft surplus property disposition policy. Third paragraph. The sentence with that goes in Park Shane suggests that a committee review to review the building and land. Right. So it should just be to knock out the to review. So it reads that a committee review the. So that was one of the two. And if I can find if there was a third. I think that was it. So I'm sorry. There was only those two. Okay. Okay. So, is there a motion to prove those with the corrections, the type of graphic corrections. So moved Shane. Okay. Okay. Let's go around. I'm just going to go by what the screen says. Andy. Yes. I'm a yes. Councilor Hanneke. Hi. Kathy. Yes. Bernie. Concur. Right. So we're, we've approved those meetings notes. Athena, do you want me to meet with you or have you, did you catch those corrections? I can make those changes. Thank you. Okay. Thanks. Great. Okay. So next on the agenda is public comment. If there's anyone in the public that wishes to. Make a comment. Now's the time. Please raise your hand. And we'll get you into give a comment. Time limit for comment is three minutes. And the comments must be limited to matters within the jurisdiction of the committee. But they don't have to be focused on the today's agenda. I don't see anyone, any hands raised. So. I think we can. Close public comments. Moving on to the. Regional school permission, recession and replacement. So we looked at this. Couple of meetings ago. And hopefully people have had a chance to think about this. Are there any. Further comments or questions about, we gave Doug some questions and. He answered a lot of the questions the last time we talked. So. There's any further comment or questions of these. Let me know, Kathy. Yeah, I just wanted to indicate. That I would like to make a motion that we have the council approve this. So I know we had three options. One, which was just let it sit for a while. And there's a pocket approval. There's a turn it down or make. I think it would be good to take a positive action. I like the way it's worded. And I know. If you look at the council Hanukkah raised concerns. It's worded with a lot of flexibility, but it makes it clear that the 1.5. At a minimum is going to do the track. And I, I, I think we need to allow that flexibility. Because the looking at the high, the cost estimates from three or four years ago, which haven't been updated today. So even if we did simple 4% a year. We're going to be. We're going to be squeak by if we get the extra council money, the, from free cash and the CPA money, we're going to be lucky to be able to do an enlarge track with a field with or without rotation. The rotation was interesting. In the original cost estimates, because I had thought that that added a lot, but it only once you've gone to a five lane track and put an enlarge field in it, which was one B. The difference between that and two was only a couple, I shouldn't say only a couple of hundred thousand, but it wasn't another million. You know, so. So it was in, it were in the ballpark with the Amherst to supplementals. And if a few other towns also do their CPA. Doing more than just attract, but I think it's important to have this on the table to be able to allow at least the track to proceed. If when it comes to November, we're waving our hands because I think we otherwise delayed this too much. So, so that was my comment on it. I mean, I don't have anything specific more. I did think that in our report and we can talk about this secondly, that the wording that the school will have to go back to CPA to go broader than option three because of their, it wasn't the way the financial order was written, but the paragraph that preceded it that anchored it in three. And that was protective when CPA voted on it. They didn't want their money to go just to the track. So they had to anchor in in a larger project. And the one that was being proposed was three. When the council voted the extra money out of the pre cash allocation, we did option two or three where it's possible. We might end up doing one B. So if two, three, it's flexible enough to allow us to go down to one B. If not, we're going to have to have the school ask us to change that. But I'm my understanding from Doug is we didn't need to do that now that they, you know, when we're further along. So if they come back to us with option two, it's worded perfectly. All right. So, so that was my first thought was to positively report this out with a recommended approve. And the second was to talk about these two other pieces on all stop. Kathy, is that a motion to recommend the council approve the debt authors? Yes. So I didn't, Athena, I didn't know whether we want, that is my motion. So what I didn't know whether we first wanted to have a discussion and then a motion, I'm glad to put, I'm happy to put the motion on the table. So I would, I would, I'll make a motion that we recommend to the council that we approve the proposed. What do we call it? Recision and replacement. As, as presented to us. That's my motion. And I'll second that motion so we can have a pre-discussion after we've. Finish the questions we have. Okay. Councilor Haneke. Yeah, I have a clarification question for the superintendent acting superintendent. And then obviously I'm going to have some comments on the motion, but I'd like to get my questions clarified first. There was a chart provided last meeting regarding the funding already quote authorized or pledged. And then there was an asterisk to that chart that said an additional 240, 620,000 in CPA funds may be available from Pelham, Schützberry and Leverett, but only for glass, grass options. And we were asking for a lot of clarification. As to timing of needing. In the financial order. Essentially all of the funding. And the timing of the intended contracting and all, and I just want to clarify. A couple of things. It was my understanding. Last meeting that the superintendent indicated that the contracts. Wanted to be out for bid by like, no, December or January, December, 2024, January, 2025. And then sign. That the CPA, that there are no outstanding requests to Pelham, Schützberry and Leverett for CPA money. But that in order to. Fully sign a contract, all funding would need to already be authorized. Therefore, it's my understanding that. This potential $240,620. That is in this document that said, well, it might be there is actually not at all. Available for this project based on the timeframe that the superintendent gave us last week, because the contracts for bids and projects. And the decision to go forward knowing that there's money available would. Have to be done before any application to CPA next spring. To those towns could be made. And so I just want to make sure that my understanding of that is correct. That there's. This, you know, this, this comment that this money may be available, but in actuality. It's not at all available, even if the application goes out because the contract would already be signed. And the funding already has to be authorized before that contract is signed. And this funding cannot be authorized before that contract is signed. Is my understanding of this timeline. Correct. Is it fine if I answer that? Simple answer is yes. The more complicated answer is if, if the four communities might consider an off cycle appropriation, which would require them to call a town meeting for the fall. But, you know, barring that, which is a pretty big ask for one. CPA item. You're correct. Thank you for that clarification. Cathy. Doug, I just, I was going to actually say the same thing that you just said that it's possible they could act. And the only way it would be impossible for them to act is if they've already. Voted to allocate 100% of the money they have for the fiscal year. So that was, it's just an additional question on Mandy's. They may or may not have done that depending on the cycle of their town meeting. They may have a package coming that could still be amended. So my second part question on the CPAs that aren't Amherst. If. So we're talking about FY. You know, we, the Amherst approval was an open ended to end at some point. If the schools don't use the money, you know, it wasn't used by this date or forever hold your peace. But if the contract is going out and they're in the next year cycle, the three towns, and the three cities, and the three cities, and the three cities, and the three cities, and the three cities, and the three cities, and the three cities, and the three cities, and all the three towns, and their intention, if they met early in the fall, talking about FY, the next FY. The construction, there's the design phase and then the construction phase, would they be too late to put the money in? What is, it's just, it's a timing question. So Mandy's was, if they don't act in the spring or summer of this year, but mine is, if they act when the next round of CPA is right away. I'm thinking, I know my framework is an elementary school building project, which is not the same as what we have here, but certain parts of it aren't all happening at the same time. So money coming in and including the way we bond finance it, we don't necessarily, we can do an initial package and then the bigger package. So it's just, is that feasible, or is 240, if not acted on the spring or summer, not real? So should we just delete it as a possible source? And it's we, meaning the town, but also the regional school committee? Yeah, I think it's a difficult, I think it's an extraordinarily difficult likelihood that that would be available. I think the only way it could would be if we did some sort of stage construction where we had a second piece that was dependent upon CPA funding. But I think that that's going to be hard to figure at this point, and I don't know what we'd have that would be eligible. So the thing I think about is, oh, well, maybe do bleachers as a second phase and we'll ask the towns for that chunk to do bleachers it. But I don't know if that's an eligible expense for CPA for one thing. I doubt if it is. So I think it's it's it's best to consider that 240 not available. You know, and obviously, if if there's a, you know, an energy or a activity in the in those three towns to take up CPA off cycle, say at a fall town meeting, then it becomes more possible. But but I think we're going to have some decision points around direction to our designers that they're going to dictate us making decisions without that money available. OK, that answers it. Thank you, Councilor Hennike. So I don't have any other questions. I'm going to put out my initial thoughts on the motion that's on the floor, which is that I will oppose it. And that's with a heavy heart, because I really do believe that our schools need a new rotated track that is eight lanes large. But I at this point do not believe I can recommend the council pass a borrowing when we don't have updated cost figures to even know that that borrowing would cover a non-rotated, non-expanded track. I don't believe we should recommend approving a borrowing when there are too many options on the table that have funding plans that are unrealistic, given that we've been told that 240 won't be there, but the school committee thinks it will be. And all of that, I don't, you know, I don't believe we should recommend a borrowing when the original plan for cost sharing is still the plan. Yet we've just heard from the superintendent that that is not a cost sharing plan we should rely on. I'm not comfortable approving a borrowing or recommending approving a borrowing in these instances. And I guess it's with a heavy heart that I would vote against this with a strong, strong recommendation to if this does not pass back to the regional school committee that says, revolt the borrowing when you've got updated costs. I think it's it's irresponsible to approve borrowing without an actual estimate that's not three years old. Kathy. Um, well, given what Mandy just said, I'm going to come back stronger. I was at the town council meeting when the one point five first came to us. And councillor Haneke only wanted option three and didn't want to vote just the one point five because we might just get a track. I've always been OK if we just got a track. I think I think not having a track is is something that we shouldn't live with. The track is totally unusable. So from what I can see is the track is feasible. And yes, we don't have a cost estimate. We didn't really have a cost estimate last time. But but the track number looked looked feasible. So I don't want to take this off the books for a whole bunch of reasons. It's on the books in the town with the regional capital allocation out of JCPC coming and it's on the book for the schools. If we remove it, it may quickly be replaced with other capital needs. And then the chance of the track goes out the window. So I think it's important that that we move this forward. And so I I'm not just a yes, but I'm a strong yes recommending moving it forward. Last time we almost had some nose because people wanted to challenge the it was only linked to option three and wanted to have a flexibility of grass. And so there were some potential nose and people said, but we need the track. And so even the nose went for the old wording. But this time, we don't have to make that decision right now, which is great. So I think the wording because it's flexible and without this authorization, Doug's going to have a hard time getting getting somebody to come up with cost estimates for us. So it is this it's sitting with there's some earnest money behind all of this that we want to do this that he's got. He's using I believe you're using that early allocation of sea CPAC money from the town to get a new design for us, right, Doug? So and there are a few bells and whistles. They're not big bells and whistles like lights. I don't want to give up on irrigations. So there might be some things that that can be taken out and still given us give us a really good track. So I just I don't want to do no. So I'm a strong yes, and I will stop talking. Andy, I'll add one additional piece. And then I wanted to move on to other people. The additional pieces that we have to also understand that the other three members of the region are towns that have town meetings is the only time that they can react to borrowing requests. And that well, there's always the option that a select board can call a special town meeting. They don't like to do that. And I think for obvious reasons and that would they goal of the schools for good reasons has been to try and make requests at this time of the year. So that if the select board makes that decision to take to put it on the war and that it comes at the annual town meeting, which has scheduled with certainty and with is good in attendance since they're going to receive. So I think that we're placing a big burden on the process and chanceing a significant delay that could actually increase costs. And just urge that everybody consider that as one factor as we go forward. Ernie. Yeah, I just like to make a point that there is no good reason why the three communities can't pull appropriations from CPA and get them through town meeting. There's plenty of opportunity to do that. The only reason being they wouldn't be able to do that is that I had no money left in CPA. But we know that we're all independent from free thinking, free standing, free people, people's republics here in 351 of them in Massachusetts. And God forbid that we should hold together and fix things that would be really unusual. Like Councilor Hannake, I would appreciate having precise or more precise plans and estimates, but that ain't going to happen for a variety of reasons. I think it's unfortunate that once again, we have with the school committee the prospect of the the good being overcome by the perfect. We had a plan, we had funding, we could have been started. But no, I want to joke that if we can't play on artificial turf, we should play only under natural light and rainfall to water the thing. All my sarcasm inside, I'm going to concur and I'm going to support this. I think that the superintendent needs to be able to move forward. I have a great deal of trust in the school administration to come up with a plan on this. And we do have a construction estimate. It's 1.5 billion. So the question is, how much can we get for that 1.5 million? And I will step off my soapbox now. Thank you. Thanks, Bernie. Councilor Hannake. A couple of additional things in some responses. That construction estimate was three years ago. Without it's not even been inflated up to today's dollars, let alone construction for next year's dollars. I can't trust that the 1.5 million would even build 1A. And that's part of my concern for authorizing 1.5 million is because it's not even, we don't even have numbers that it would be enough for 1A. And Kathy is correct. I don't want 1A. And one of the reasons I don't want 1A is this town, Amherst, paid for a downtown fields master plan. And 1A would throw that plan out the window. And I think it's irresponsible of us to pay for a plan, support a plan. We've got CPA money in front of us right now that would execute, that is asking to execute a portion of that plan. And yet here we are saying we might recommend a project that would throw that plan out the window. I don't think that's responsible. And as far as Andy's point on town meetings, this regional school committee voted this borrowing that needs acted upon in 60 days in January when there were no town meetings scheduled. And there are none scheduled right now. And so they are the ones that took it out of cycle, not us. And if we send a strong statement to the regional school committee by not recommending this and saying put this back on cycle, they have until March 18th or 20th or whenever it is to revote another borrowing authorization that would put it on cycle so that all of the town meetings could weigh in on it without calling a special town meeting. Yet the regional school committee chose not to do that to basically say, we want this pocket approved. And I don't think that's the right way to operate. And we could send, and if we delayed this and not recommended it now and told the regional school committee to bring another one back within the typical cycle, like immediately, we would have those updated numbers to know if one and a half million is there. The superintendent two weeks ago told us they'd have it in about two to three months. That would likely be within the 60 days if they voted a new authorization to send back to us with a 60 day timeline. Then we might have more information. I'm just extremely uncomfortable approving a borrowing when we have so little authorization. I feel like we would never recommend this if the town manager came to us and said, I want $2 million, but I'm not gonna give you updated cost estimates. I'm not gonna inflate those estimates and I'm not gonna tell you which of three different plans you're going to get. You just give me the money and then I'll do it all three months from now. I don't think we'd ever recommend that. And I'm not sure why we wouldn't hold the school committee to the same standard. Thank you, Kathy. You know, we're such a small group. I hate to call a question, but I think we may be ready to vote, but Bob, you're the only one who hasn't weighed in on this. So here we have one strong no, and we can write the reasons why. And I've already indicated my reasons yes. I have to say that, you know, going back to when this first came up, when I was on the finance committee, I was very skeptical because for the same reasons that Councilor Hanicky said, I mean, we don't really have the funding in place to do maybe even the simplest replacement of the current track. And yet we've got this grand plan to fix everything and change everything and no funding for it. And I was concerned that we would be in this position when we first discussed this, that we would find out that we go down a path and then we want option three, but we can only afford option one A. So what do we do? Well, I don't know. So on the other hand, I do to hear what Kathy and Andy said in that if we don't do this, we could, you know, this 1.5 million that's already there could go away. It could get put somewhere else. So we have that risk as well. So I'm torn to be honest with you. I'm not sure what the right way to go is on this, to be honest with you. Any other thoughts? Well, my suggestion would be to vote on the motion and in the report, make sure we capture the concerns. However, the vote turns out. We don't have to vote a majority. We can be split. So, you know, so that's my view, you know, and I see Andy's up. So I was just seeing whether we could move to a vote. Yeah. You're up, Andy. Andy? Yeah, I mean, we're gonna have to get to a vote at some point, I just want to acknowledge that Mandy's correct that if something came back in March or even very beginning of April from the school committee, it would at least reach each select board prior to its establishing a final warrant for its town meeting. So there could still be done with an annual town meeting. However, I don't see it as likely that there will be more cost information available to really update it. It would be only if there was a rewording that provided for some additional heavy odds or provisions to go into the revised vote. And I think we would owe it to the school committee at least to make our suggestions of what they might be. So, you know, I think it is a tough vote and I want to hear the rest of the discussion and then I'll have to make up my mind as we all will if it ends up being a tie vote then the motion will fail. Bernie? Yeah, just to dispose of the notion that the other three towns have only the annual town meeting or the annual town budget to vote this money, they don't. I mean, you can have a special before the annual, it's all different kinds of things you can do with that. I know because I've done it. And it's, again, it's not impractical. It may be a little more difficult and they have to do a little extra work but that's part of the parcel of local government. I would like, I believe me, I share the concerns that folks have raised here about there being no solid plan and I mean, my point, I think to be brutally frank, I dealt with the school committee can act inside. You know, I have no faith that this will happen. What I'm trying to do, what I'd like to do is give the superintendent some room to move here and to move this forward. And if it fails, you know, because we can't get the extra, the extra money doesn't show up or any kind of new preliminary design comes in with unnecessarily high or undesirable and that's what happens. And I do share that fear that if this $1.5 million goes somewhere else, it'll get there. There's always more demand than there's supply. The money will get used up on other things. And then in a year or two, I won't be able to find it. It's gonna do it a year or two. People will be coming back and saying, oh, well, we need $3 million for this track. So I'd like to have this move forward. I'd like to kind of break this log jam a little bit. And we'll see, I'm gonna try to be careful here about the support for the motion. I think there's all kinds of risk here in all kinds of challenges, but I want to give the superintendent the opportunity to add some room to move in the new year. Okay, anybody else have anything? Okay, so we have a motion and a second. I guess I'll call vote on this. I'll go first and I'm gonna reluctantly vote yes, because I do, I agree with the sentiment that we want to keep this thing moving and to delay will only wind up costing us money. And I don't think we're committing anything until we get a final plan. So I would vote yes to this. So Councilor Hanakki? No. Okay, Kathy? Yes. Andy? I think for reasons says Bob has stated, I'm gonna vote yes. And Bernie? Support the motion. Okay, Alicia's I think still absent. Let me check. Yeah, she's. Yep. So we have my countless three yes, one no, one support, one support absent and one councilor absent. That's correct. Okay, so the motion does pass, but I do think that, you know, Athena, we will, when we put a report together, we should definitely make sure that we put the richness of the concerns that have been expressed today. I think they're valid concerns. Okay. So now the next item is the surplus property policy. Should we thank Doug? Yes, Doug and thanks for being here. Thanks, Doug. Yeah, you don't need to. Thank you all, I appreciate the conversation and it's helpful context for me. So as we kind of move ahead here in the short term with the design and new data, I'll make sure to convey that to you all so you have that information. Thank you. Thanks, Doug. Okay, so moving on, we have the surplus property policy. This has been updated by Dave and Athena per our previous conversation. I looked through it. I saw the first, the purpose is one sentence. It's way too long. So I think we should put a comment in there in the middle of the last line there that says, let's be served by disposition of the property comma and to provide an opportunity for public input regarding disposition results because it's one big long sentence. So that was the sort of the typo things I looked at and I saw it is, anyone have any comments or discussion on the final policy or on the draft, Kathy? I agree with you, Bob. I also, I don't like, it's a four line sentence. And it does have two thoughts in it. So to break it into the two thoughts that there's a outline and there's an opportunity. I thought this was generally very responsive to our discussion. And my question, and this is, it's not a question that requires a change in the way this is written, is number six, on little tiny pieces, a piece of land, one small old house, if we have one of those, seems like a pretty doable thing. The analysis of alternative uses for the property, including public benefits and drawbacks, development potential, environmental impact and financial impact for each alternative seems to me to be a fairly major task if we're talking about a major piece of property. So during our discussion, and when reading the minutes, I wanted to make sure we had had this, it was behind the scenes, if a big piece of property was being considered. There needs to be a lot of work to come to that conclusion. And there might need to be a committee set up with counselors, with other people on it to think that through. Otherwise, we sit and we hold a piece of property for a really, really long time because no one has time to think through the pieces. So that's sort of the intention of this. Otherwise, I understand it is to get to the point where we declare it surplus. I'm just saying that packed into six is a lot of work. Which is not a bad thing. I just want to be assured by the town manager or something that we would put in that work. And my last time through, I actually prepared a memo and I'd like to go in the finance committee records, Athena, since I spoke to it, that gave hot links to what another town had done, not to say we should do the same thing, but just to think about what a process might be like. So I had provided that and I can redo it to be less critical of the memo itself and more talking about this. So that was the only thing I am, and Lisa just wrote that she's not gonna be able to make it today. So she's not tardy, she's absent. So that's my only comment. I thought this was very responsive and as I said, for small pieces, it works well. For larger pieces, to me, it doesn't work as well because there should be a lot of work. Bernie? I think the policy is well done. It can go the way it is. I'm no longer an ICMA member, but when I was, I would get all kinds of stuff from communities across the country who were doing some pretty innovative aspects of public property reuse and public private planning and the like that sort of makes East Hampton's stuff look pale. So I think what happens here is in paragraph six, is this really falls to the administrator or to the manager and his staff. In this case, to go into the council and say, yeah, we're gonna look at reuse of Hildwood. And to do that, we wanna bring in these experts and these planners and these people beyond what we have here up now. So I think it covers a lot of bases. And I don't see the need to have any major further discussion about the policy. I think we should just load it up and put it in place. Athena, did you have a comment? Yeah, I hope you can hear me okay. It's raining. I spoke with town manager and about this, I don't know if Paul's listening very hard right now, but if there were to be a larger property that came into the town's control, that it would be highly likely that the town manager would convene a reuse committee to look at all of those concerns that you raised, Kathy, before just sending it on to the council for a surplus. So I think that would be the intention. It's just not written into this policy since it's, oh, Dave, I'll let him speak to Paul. Okay, Dave, go ahead, David. Thanks, Bob. First off, I wanna give Athena the lion's share of the credit for reworking this policy. She really did amazing work on this in short order, so kudos to her. Yeah, I've been listening to the conversation. I don't disagree and I think I saw some earlier writing from Kathy that generally, you know, agreed with about larger pieces of property or more complex properties that may have, say, a school on them or other town-owned building. But I missed, I think, your last discussion on this, but I just do wanna, you know, I'm staring at the purpose and I just wanna remind the group that it's really when the town manager decides that disposition is the direction that he wants, he or she, future town managers want to go in that this policy would be enacted and moved on. So if there were a piece of property and I can think of a couple right now that we are in control of, that town staff may go to Paul and say, Paul, we don't think this should be disposed of. We think there should be an analysis and number six, many of the elements of number six would probably be, would be analyzed and pulled together in a report to support why town staff think that a piece of property should not be surplused. It should be, there should be a committee formed or we should go in this direction and move it toward affordable housing or some other town municipal use. So all of all of points you've raised before but just wanted to chime in on those. Thanks. Councilor Hanneke. An interesting discussion on number six. It makes me rethink how much of number six we need once disposition is recommended and sale is recommended, but I'm not ready to get rid of it yet. I actually raised my hand for another spelling error or grammar error and number one, the first comment in the paragraph after the word it's is probably not greatly there. But yeah, I don't know. I don't know what I think of number six anymore. It's a lot to ask for. And from what David just said, I guess I'd ask if town staff said, we think it's okay to dispose of this, how much of number six would be done before that decision was made or versus doing that in deciding for reuse, how much of number six is sort of done in making a decision to dispose versus reuse. Kathy? Mandy, I think that's right, but I'm comfortable with it. In other words, as what Dave said, if it's actually just dispose, it's an interesting word. In hospitals, people said, maybe instead of discharge, we should call it a transition because discharge implies why. And in fact, you need follow-up care. So we're not really disposing of properties necessarily when it comes to bigger ones. We're thinking the town doesn't have a use for it as it sits, but maybe we have a mixed use for it and it should be prone privately owned or something else. But that would be when it's surplus. If we decided to keep a really long-term lease and just get someone to build on our land, I guess the answer is then we don't ever declare it surplus, but apparently some of the housing that we've built on town land can be taxed. So part of mine is that I'm comfortable that for a larger property, if it actually was being proposed for disposal, there should have been a fair amount of analysis done before reaching that decision. And you might, in fact, on number 10, the recommended action, well, nine and 10, we're out of that analysis, some restrictions that might be placed on the property. We wanna keep some piece of it or we want X, Y, or Z and a recommended minimum to be paid for it. That's part of six, what restrictions you would put on it. So I think this is quite well done and I just, Bob again, it's our report and I can write a paragraph if you need for the report. I just want to capture that behind the scenes, what town manager just attested to, we capture that in our report to the full council, that in event it was a large property, highly likely that the town manager would convene a reuse committee, just to get that wording in because Dave, the concern is that the staff make all the decisions and suddenly the property is housing or the property is named something else. Or we sit on way back when when we bought Hickory Ridge. I understand why we've sat on the developable land there because we keep talking about potential alternative uses of it and we've never gravitated, but we just sit on it. So we're not disposing it. So I'm ready to vote on this out, but I just want the report to reflect that on larger properties, there's a lot of work behind the scenes and that would help inform the public and that the public could be part of that when you say form a committee. So I thank you for volunteering that wording, Athena and I see Paul's picture is here, but it's the town manager would be highly likely. So I'd like that wording to be in. So thank you. Hey, Bernie. Yeah, this is all a package and this will get assembled and brought to the council. So I would think if there is a large or significant piece of property that with this proposal coming to the council where the manager has not provided an adequate analysis of an adequate input, that the manager would find this being handed back to him or her with instructions to do a better job. So I'm not sure that we need to add anything anywhere. It's, you know, the misplaced comment here and there and I understand misplaced comments can be important, but I'm neither an attorney nor a grammarian. So I would just like to move forward with this without further ado. And Bernie, just so you know, I wasn't proposing adding the sentence to this. I was just saying in our report capturing some of this discussion, but I'm fine with it as worded with the typos fixed and the long sentence broken up into two. Dave. Yeah, thanks, Bob. I'm probably just from a staff standpoint and a lot of this I think would fall to myself and my staff. I'm very comfortable with number six being in there. I think it's, I agree with Kathy. I agree with other comments today that I think it would be important to have that in there and it really supports nine and 10 in the overall policy. So I don't think it's onerous to do that work. I did, Kathy, I just wanted to maybe push back a little bit to say I certainly would not characterize the town or town staff kind of sitting on Hickory Ridge. To me, that's a little bit of a mischaracterization there. We certainly are very active on Hickory Ridge. I think I'm giving a presentation to the council in two or three meetings on that, but we haven't owned it for very long and there's a lot of moving parts down there. And we are looking at it still in relation to whether we need it for a South Amherst fire station or affordable housing or other municipal uses. So I just wanted to be a little careful with our characterization there, but we have many other properties, I mean, including the former South Amherst school down on the common and some other properties that we'll be looking at that likely would serve a municipal function in one category and other. So thanks, I like the policy. Andy? I think it's time for a motion and I move that the finance committee recommend to the town council adoption of the town council surplus real property disposition policy as presented. Is there a second? As amended. Yeah, I would say with the typos amended. Yeah. As amended after the finance committee meeting of March 5th, 2024. Okay, so there's a motion and has been seconded. So let's vote, Kathy? Start with you. Yes. Bernie? Concurb. Andy? Yes. This, I'll vote yes. Councilor Haddocky? Aye. Okay, so the vote is four, yes, one support, one member absent and one resident member absent. So I think that takes us through everything except topics not reasonably anticipated and Andy, you did request to talk about some people. But Bernie, go ahead. Yeah, just real quick, I don't know how many people saw the article that appeared a couple of weeks ago in the New York Times on rewilded golf courses. I sent a link over to David. When you read through that and you look at all the work that's going on at Hickory Ridge, there's really been a remarkable event work done on Hickory Ridge. Yeah, I did. No, no, I just want to, because my thing has always been the town staff don't get enough prompts or enough points for the work that they do. And so it's not just David, it's the people who work for him and the people who work with him. I think they're doing some really, really good stuff. And the problem is it doesn't show up right away. So, you know, but there's a lot, and I know from my involvement with the Fort River Group that there's just been a huge amount of work done and great stuff being laid. So just to acknowledge that for those folks watching at home, yeah, stuff is happening. Andy, you wanted to talk about it? Yeah, I just want to briefly report on three different things that happened last week all relating to the same subject, which is very much of interest to this committee and concluded with a recommendation that members of this committee consider signing up for a webinar that the MMA has scheduled for I believe March 20th about chapter 70. As you know, chapter 70 is the main source of funding from the legislature to local school districts, both town school districts and regional school districts. And it's a extraordinarily complex formula always has been and has only gotten more complex since the Student Opportunity Act. But basically what goes on with it and you would find out a lot more about this by attending the meeting that the MMA is putting together. I know that MMA staff have worked hard in preparation and found somebody really good to conduct it. But what happens is that the state desi element Department of Elementary and Secondary Education forms, calculates what's known as a foundation budget, which is the basic budget that all schools are expected to have. And then the foundation budget is used as a core piece of the calculation. But first starting with the foundation budget is problem one, that there are certain gaps, the certain categories of the costs that go into administering a school that have a cap to them and what the amount of inflation from year to year can be. And in years when there is extraordinary inflation this or what was a couple of years ago, the inflation actually incides the inflation cap. So instead of using actual inflation, it uses the cap and there had been previously a provision that has been eliminated that allowed desi to essentially do catch up with those inflation costs in subsequent years. And this was pointed out at the Houseways and Means hearing, then what happens is that there is a calculate, each community makes its decision on what its school budget is and of course, most municipalities, if they can, will provide assistance that is above the foundation budget that there's nothing that says to the community can't do that with where the foundation budget plays in, that there's an assumption made that 82 and a half percent of the foundation budget is assumed to be the local district's responsibility, the local community or the regional district and that the amount of the calculation of chapter 70 is then 12 and a half percent because it's the amount that's above that 87 and a half percent. And then there's a third factor that has come into play since the Student Opportunity Act, which is that because of trying to fund the schools with the largest gaps that other districts have a limit of $30 per student, which is particularly onerous on districts with falling enrollments, but it's really inadequate to fund all districts. So you've got that additional factor that comes into play because of the Student Opportunity Act and a number of districts that come in that are rated as minimum aid communities has actually been increasing, not decreasing. So you get all of these complicated factors running together, the discussion that has been taking place a little bit with various people who are, I would term our friends in the legislature who are thinking about this from the Western Massachusetts perspective and were falling enrollment as a larger factor. And we discussed at the last MMA Financial Policy Committee meeting and was discussed at the breakfast that was held in Greenfield last week was that the best resolution to solving at least that last portion of the problem is to work on adjusting the differential, the cap that is placed, or the target figure, I guess it really is, that is the amount of the foundation budget that is the local town's responsibility and that that is what needs to be reexamined. And I'm working on that within the Financial Policy Committee, but I think that we should, at least as a finance committee, try and get as much of an understanding of this as possible and that we should consider at some point whether the council wants to suggest that we take a formal position on change. I wouldn't recommend doing that now. It's not gonna be able to be implemented for the FY25 budget. I think it's running too far down the line already to make a difference, but it is something that we should be considering so that by the time we're a year from now that there'd be a pretty strongly stated policy, which is what I'm hoping that I can get the MMA to consider. So I wanted to just report that to you a little bit to give you a flavor of what the issues are, both for those of you who are planning to go on Friday of this week to the legislative breakfast and might want to see what you pick up there and to encourage you to attend the MMA webinar on March 20th, which I think Lynn has reminded everybody about. So that's what my thoughts are in it. I don't know if all is anything else to add on the subject or not, but anyway, that's my report. Thank you, Andy. Anyone else? Kathy? I have an unrelated comment since Andy brought this up and it's just to suggest I'm willing to work on this. I'm willing to work on this. When we, one of the things that undermines our schools in terms of their budget is the way the charter formula is set for the schools. And last year we got a summary and it's a net outflow of over $3.3 million. So we're not talking about small amounts of money. So a change and that's for 167 students in the two school systems, elementary and regional. I think we at the council, and maybe if someone else wants to work with me, should put together a analysis of this with a strong suggestion of ways to change it. And that would require a legislative change. It's particularly hurts Amherst because of the high proportion of special needs kids and we've got declining enrollment. So that when we lose a kid, we don't lose $23,000 worth of expenses, but we send that out. And I, when we send a child to another public school, someone goes to Belcher town or we send $5,000. So the contrast is pretty stark. So I just think something short and I'm willing to take a lead on it. There's a person from another town and I know this isn't a this year change but it would make an enormous difference. And it's been something behind the scenes that's been an eroding factor for quite some time. So that's a comment rather than a what to do about it. Andy? Yeah, I thank you, Kathy, for bringing up the charter school formula. We should talk about it again. I don't know if Leverett was the town you were referring to. So I think I know who we're talking about. I just, I'm willing to put in some extra time on it. It's not, it should, it would normally come from the schools, but I don't think there's the bandwidth over there to do this. And I've identified where all the information is. So I was just going to try to take a stab at it. And then where that comes through financial just goes directly to the council as something we want to be on record for was my, where I thought this could go. Not just an op-ed piece somewhere. Yeah, let me know because if there's anything that I should add to the financial policy committee discussion at the MMA about it, because I try and use the opportunity to flag issues that the committee should consider. Thanks. Yeah, the other piece of this that I believe is true is that charter schools do not take special needs students as in the same percentage that the public schools do. So that's another part that enters into it, I think. Right, and it's, you know, and then that's the thing that's hard to tease out of the numbers because they may have a child but they don't have the wheelchair bound for other things wrong with it. Because there's a program that they're running and they don't have the staff to support those children. So it's a double whammy because our number is high because of the mix, it's not adjusted for the mix. You know, it used to be, well, I won't say anymore, we used to mispay the Medicare Advantage plans because they took only low-risk people and we gave them an average of everybody. They didn't take any 85-year-olds, they didn't take anyone with six. You know, so we were constantly overpaying them because we were using an average. We also have the meme, if you will, we'll call it that, that folks who have special needs kids are finding their way into the Amherst school system because of the quality of the services. I don't know if that's true. I've worked for 28 years with folks with disabilities, kind of new disabilities, and I've seen all kinds of things happen in special ed programs and elsewhere. We do have about, what, 21% of our student body has IEPs as opposed to about 19% statewide. So that translates into somewhere between a 10 and 15% difference, which is significant. But the charter school issue has been and needs to be addressed because it's inherently unfair the way the money is taken out of the schools. This is ostensibly to get public schools to compete and the charter schools were originally developed so that they could be models of learning that could then, the new technologies and the new approaches could then be turned out, handed down to the public schools. That hasn't happened, it simply hasn't happened. It's just become a way to allow certain people the privilege to escape when they don't like or don't want to be part of the public education system. It's my humble opinion. So focusing on the charter school formula and the, you know, is certainly an important thing to do. And I thank you, Kathy, for raising that, and Andy, thank you for bringing it, reminding the MMA as if they needed to. And it's an important piece. Okay, anyone else? All right, well, thanks, everybody. 315, the finance committee is adjourned. Thank you, Bob. Thank you.