 Now open the meeting, it is six, three, four. And what do we have for addition to the agenda? And none from the TA? Carl, you don't have any? It's not really an addition to the agenda, no, but in the context of either the town meeting or the discussion about managing COVID-19, we've been alerted by VLCT that there's a bill working through the legislature to really give us the power to do this year, what we were empowered to do the last couple of years, having town meeting by Australian ballot only. And I see some outlying towns like Marshfield, and I think some of the neighboring towns, I should say, have asked for their folks to weigh in on that and are waiting to get feedback before making their final decisions. So I think in one of those two places, we should take it up. Probably the town meeting warning. I could see us asking for feedback and then we can talk about the details. Right, but okay, we'll just make sure we talk about that. That's not an additional. Right, got it. Review events, January 3rd. I have one suggested revision. And that's good. Very good in general, as usual. Page three, the town administrator report. The two paragraphs above meeting schedule, Mr. and I are pointed out. The final second, I did not intend to give any admonitions to residents about reporting. But rather the language I'd like to see and I've got an email to you, the editor that send it off is he added that wet relies on people reporting outages and their automated system means that reporting doesn't take a lot of staff time. That's what you said. Right. That's why I was suddenly asking that. I mean, you said it. I've said this a number of times, but I remember the exact wording that I used in the meeting, but that's what I intended. I do remember you saying that their smart grid isn't particularly reliable. So residents should call in their outages. Yeah. Okay. So you're okay with adding in some. Yes. It doesn't really matter. The grand scheme of things. Carl is definitely feeling that. Okay. Perfect. Anybody else have any corrections, addictions to the minutes. Notice I said additions also. Not just corrections. Nothing else. They look good to me. Yeah. You can dance the conversation a little. That was a good idea. Right. No, some people love particular. So, you know, you have to find, find line names, you know, blah, blah. Okay. Okay. Oh, the table, please. Hi. Hi. You guys have it. The minutes are approved. Okay. Next thing on the agenda is public comment. Yeah. Public comment. That public town at the bottom. Hi. Laura and Tim. They don't know where they're. That may be for some of it. Yeah. It's for cemetery. Oh, the cemetery. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, I guess we don't have a public. What's that? Oh, yeah. Yeah. The customer town with cemetery committee to review FY 2024 budget request. We're about to talk about cemetery. Yeah, we're a couple of minutes ahead of schedule. Yeah. So are you here to discuss. Good evening. Are you here to discuss the budget. For the cemetery committee. I guess so. Wow. I thought Emily was going to be here. You said you'd come. I said I'd come. Okay. All right. Is that, is that Tim on there? Is that Tim Lanson? Yeah. Okay. Is he going to talk? I don't see much. I don't see much coming out of his mouth at the moment. This is actually. Can I talk? Yes. We can hear you. Okay. This is actually Tim's wife, Flora. Okay. Hi. Hi. Are you going to present something? No, I don't have anything to present. Okay. All right. We'll let earlier present them. You presenting the budget. I wasn't planning on that. Oh, okay. We can have to do this. I had those pictures and you went out the door and said, oh, and he says Emily will have them. Yeah. Do you have a copy of that? Yeah. You can explain it all out. If I see it, I can probably explain it. Yeah. Cemetery budget. Okay. payroll. Well, it looks fairly self-explanatory, but it's quite. Yeah. You got to increase. You got to put some posts in more posts. Yeah. We have most of the posts in the village done. Yeah. And we need to do 12 more. The little cemetery on the road to. Adam and. I noticed that they're pretty rotten. Yeah. And even though I hate to do anything, my view is just regular posts. I think if we pay and buy posts, we should be getting pressure tree. Yeah. Because it's so expensive to do these. Yeah. Do you concrete around the post when you put them in? Or how's that working? Or you just sit them in the ground. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We just set them in. Yeah. And they stay pretty good too. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we have. Have to. Be by. Francis up. Yeah. And some of them. I guess it was my idea to use plastic. Change. Right. It's. It isn't cheap either. But it lasts forever. Well, that's what you're using on Dottie. Is. Yeah. Yeah. We bought. Then it all switched. That was like. 25 years ago. Yeah. It costs $11,000. Right. But they last. So any more. No. So. The fences. Have been quite a. Large part of the budget. That's cutting down now. Have you talked about the importance of having the fences. There. Well, I can tell you why there are fences around cemeteries. Yeah, please. There's a story. Back when the legislature was all former legislators. Which isn't now. They made a rule. They all. Cemetery shall be their skin. Okay. Reason. They were all farmers. They didn't want animals. Houses running around on their graves. Yeah. That's why way back then. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I think that's the rubber cross poem or guys pointing out that. Hey, this fence between us makes sense when there are cows, but you don't have cows. My apple trees are not going to come over and eat your pine trees. Okay. Some white. We're cutlery cemetery used to have a. Steel fence all along the front. Yeah. That's why there is no fence. So is it still a lot and they didn't have to have a fence around the cemetery that still is in existence. I think it still is. We don't. They too much attention. Yeah. But it's still people like to see. Some coming. So. So we do the fences. Corner markers. We spent quite a bit of money. You do have to mark the corners of everybody's. So that you can find it. And it's. Quite a bit of expense. Because we. Ordered. Granite markers. Six inches by six inches by about 12 inches. And. I had done all of that. Digging a hole for the man. Making sure they're lined up. John Bush. Came up the last meeting with. Their metal. Small. Small. Small. Small. Small. Small. Small. Small. They're sportft. Small. Small. Small. Willers. There metal. Small. And we have a slight. Uses. No. These things. Well, it's taken. We get more of them that night. Thanks. Three, four? And. Caes. How much was it? set it forward. Yeah. And so we have decided to use the ones you're just driving through the ground. The metal ones? The metal ones. How long do they last? Forever. Oh, yeah. Well, we grant that once we're all two. If somebody wants a granted one, it's just the every spot that they'll be ready. Oh, I see. Yeah. Then you combine. So, you only have 150 bucks in for corner markers. We just said they're 250 before. And then on your stony pairs, you've got 3,000 bucks. Is that right? The stone repaired. We have quite a few stones in the old cemeteries that have broken. Yeah. Fallen over. Yeah. And we try each year to fix as many as we can. Are you putting foundations under those? Under those ones are tilted? Only one. Oh, so you're just sticking back in the ground street? Yeah. Okay. And there is a way to repair them. Matt, we have him looking the whole thing over and see what should be done. As far as the repairs go or foundations go? Repairs and law foundations. Yeah. Foundations are expensive though. They're about 1200 bucks. But yeah. Yeah. The old cemeteries. There's nobody we can find to get after to pay for it. Right. A cemetery like the Doni, I can find for most every grade, I can find somebody that can go after the paint for it. Right. But the old ones, people pass away. There's nobody. Nobody. So, if I see one that's broken, it's Yeah. We will fix it. But you're mostly going to stick it back in the ground street. Yeah. You've got no money really to put into a foundation. For somebody that passed away a hundred years ago. You hesitate to stick the pad in the ground that has names on it. Yeah. Right. But yeah. Sometimes you have to. Yeah. Yeah. No, I get it. I'm just curious to see. So, the three thousand dollars for stone repairs, it says new. Are you talking corner markers? I'm not quite sure. The 150. I think the new means it's a new budget item. That wasn't something that was presented previously. Okay. And the 150 for corner markers must be assuming just metal ones because they're a lot cheaper. I guess so. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Because the old grand ones would be a lot more. Yeah. Okay. Any other questions? The surveying and mapping. Oh, well, we plan to have somebody survey the back of the Donny's cemetery. Yeah. It's been an awful scare. It's saying I've told him a lot for years and years. Yes. Now, uh, John Boche will take that over. Yeah. He knows more about it than I do. Well, he came in to ask us about it. Yeah. A couple of meetings ago. I have not said I'm just turning my back on him. Yeah. I'm still late. Yeah. Because if they need to know the answers to some questions, well, they do more. Right. Exactly. Pass it along. Yeah. So anyone that it would help. Yeah. But we're surveying, um, I think you appropriate 10,000. They were talking about our last meeting of five thousand. Yeah. Yeah. We talked about it. He came in and talked about it. It sounds like a good idea. So I think it is. Yeah. But only Don's job a lot easier. Right. That's a one time expense. Yeah. Yeah. Right. We, we did the front of the body of years and you had to call it was weather and, uh, they put, uh, metal stakes in the ground, but you can't see them directly into the ground. Yeah. Supposedly you could use the metal detector to find them. Right. I tried at least three metal detector. I've never counted. Really? Except when I used to be digging a grave, sometimes I dig in the ground. Oh, so they're outside the town right away or what? I mean, that they must be outside the town right away on the road there, the corners of the cemetery, or they go up to the town right away. It's not really that kind of a survey. No, it's not. Oh, it's just for the grave. Is to go through and see where you could dig a grave. Right. Where there's, uh, ledges where you couldn't dig. Oh, so it's the same on the back. It's not going to be delineating the property line. It's all it's doing is find out where the grave is. Find out where we could dig. And so then you'll have a map for every single grave. Well, we'll be on map. Okay. Yeah. All right. So how do you do that? How do you figure out whether there's ledge? They have some, uh, uh, I guess in all, it's an electronic thing that, uh, feels the ground. Okay. Yeah. They can supposedly tell where there's a body. Okay. Oh, good. That would be fun to do. Well, one thing in the, uh, the only cemeteries that find interesting, especially to me, is that that was a cemetery back in the 1700s. And apparently, if there were any markers, how much took them to build fences? Yeah. Uh, then they found a, he got forgotten that cemetery. They forgot about it until the town found out in about 1970 that the town owned that cemetery. So, um, we could be digging a grave anyway at hand. Yeah. We could find bones of a prior historian. Yeah. Uh, if I ever found anything like that, nobody but me would know because. Right. I can quickly tell at the end. Yeah. All right. So, but. End of a school, the graves, like in 1700 race, would it literally be just a pile of bones growing it, throwing the ground? Yeah. Oh, wow. It would sort of be like a green burial. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Probably there's some flesh on the bone. No. No. That's just gone by now. No, no. She was talking about groaning the ground. Yeah. Oh, they threw an exam as a bot. Yes. Not as dismembered. Yeah. I have known that in an old, very old cemetery. I don't know how I came up with it, but I have that. A lot of people back then didn't have money or time to even mark the grave. So, uh, a lot of them say if there's an old cemetery with 20 graves with markers, there might be 50 or 60 that are not marked at all. Wow. And if they marked it, it might have been with wood. Right. Yeah. Right. That would be gone by now. Yeah. Okay. So, I think we're good. I could tell you're lots of things. But you're amazing. Well, we have other items to take care of, unfortunately. But this is the most interesting one. Yeah. Well, we don't know that for sure. Yeah. It's a possibility. But we'll keep you informed. Yeah. I'm about to get the equipment checked over. Yeah. I do all of them on, except Tim and his son do the premium. Yeah. I can't do that. Yeah. So, I try to keep the equipment right. And we have two very nice mowers and we have two many years on. Yeah. That sounds good. Sounds good to me. Anybody else have any more questions for Elliot or to Laura? Laura and Tim. Laura. Laura. Oh, Laura. Right. Thank you for having us. No, thank you. Thank you for all the explanations. Yeah. Now, I got one other question actually. What happened to the cemetery beyond your place on the right where I've I've found the gravestones in there? Did they get all out of there? We found the stones in a pile. Yeah. Well, I found the stones. Yeah. I went up there and found them there on that pushed off the field. You and we all agreed on a place to put the cemetery so it would never be disturbed. Yeah. And we did. Yeah. It's a nice looking. Is that off the side where the stones were? Yes, it is. Yeah. Okay. Down over the bank. Yeah. And we think that was possibly where some of the original cemetery was. Yeah. It's just stones. The bodies aren't there. They kind of got lost in the shuffle. No, what happened was the old guy had a bulldozer. Was it Sparrow? Yeah, it was Harman. He had a bulldozer and he liked bulldozing. So, he went over there and pushed off the cemetery to do something. Maybe he was having fun, you know? He liked to push stuff around. So, he took the cemetery out and he pushed the stones off in the bushes. This is what happened. Yeah. Then they built a mound system. Yeah. And somebody found that. Well, they were building the mound system and all of a sudden it's like, oh, this piece of a gravestone. This is now a house. Yeah. Yeah. And golds. And so, you know, we tracked around and found pieces of gravestone and then we went down in the bushes and found the gravestones all in windows and piles. We have a path going to it. Yeah. There's a fence around it. Oh, nice. It's open. Nice. You can go and look around. Now, what was that one of the descendants, let's see, was in the revolution. That was there. Gold. Gold, right. Gold. We built the gold. Gold, right. Right. Nice. A second time, sir, that nation, that's noteworthy, right? Even the winter. We'll just go there and back. Yes. Well, there's no reason why it can't be there forever. Yeah. Good. Well, thank you, Elliott. Welcome. Lots of good information. I'm still with the cemetery, even though I'm too old. Never too old. I'm not giving up. Yeah. Don't think that way. Think that you can always do it. And then you'll keep doing it. Even if you think you're too old, you'll be all right. It's when you give up and you say I'm too old. That's the bad thing. I don't give up. Don't give up, right? All right. Well, we appreciate that. And we probably ought to get to the next item, whatever that is. Six fifty-five, right on time. Discussion finalization of FY 2024 budget development. So, I see that we've got a bunch of things that were highlighted as far as budgets increases looks like. Yeah, these are tweaks from the last meeting. Yeah. Nothing overly significant. The most significant being what we just discussed, the cemetery expect. Some of the rest of it was really just some fine-tuning or additional information that came in like Washington County Court expense. We received their budget. So, is this where we take up the issue that Deb and Drew are going to do? Yes. That was a cemetery. Oh, no. I mean. Deb, I was able to print those pages. Throw that page out. Bush's page that we just got. So, Deb, I think it's putting in town reports. Sorry. If you're looking at the page that I just sent you, the fire department numbers weren't looking right to me. So, I added them up and I discovered that although they're showing an increase of a thousand forty-four dollars and they're saying it's point five five percent, they added three lines at the bottom. The salary stipend, the payroll stipend and the payroll fee stipend and those three numbers did not get into their formula. So, when you add those, it's really an increase of eleven thousand one hundred eighty-three dollars and it's a five point nine three percent increase. So, I guess the question you guys is, are you going to approve the number or, you know, and not change your budget or are you going to have to change your budget? I guess if you do the math, I don't know, it's up to you guys, obviously, but they don't match. They don't work. Thank you. So, what's the number are we 207? No, no, no, don't even look at the 207. The last column, what they're talking about for FY 24. Yeah, 199 692. 199 is what that column actually adds up to, but they gave you 189 553. That's their number. That's what you voted on. Yeah. It appeared to be a small increase of about a thousand dollars or point five five percent, but that's because they didn't capture that ten thousand one hundred and thirty nine dollars. That's in those three numbers they added this year for the payroll. Yes. I don't think we voted on anything here. Have we? Well, I think she means when we were at the fire department, we reviewed this budget but we were speaking total numbers. We didn't. So, the the budget that was approved by the we didn't prove anything. It wasn't even a meeting. Yeah, right. Yeah, it was their meeting. I've been looking at a file that's called fire board approved fire department board approved. I figured the board was you guys. They've got to improve it. They're bored. They're bored. It was presented and we looked at it. Well, so it seems to me that you're in a position. You're in a position to either say we budgeted for 189. They're going to have to find the ten thousand dollars in their cash reserves or you need to work a new number into your budget, which is going to ripple down through a couple of places in your budget here, which I just discovered this before the meeting started. So, I haven't actually changed your budget, Gina, to find out what the bottom line would be or how it would affect things. But I mean, clearly, you've got to add ten thousand one hundred and thirty nine dollars to your bottom line. If you're going to cover it. We have to add ten thousand, I think. No, no, it's abortion. Because you can see if you do the math at the top. Yeah. Right. So, Calis needs to know about this. So, that's yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, you're going to only be two-thirds of that, correct? For us. Yes, six thousand. Is there time to chat with the fire department before we have to finalize? But we don't have to finalize them. Wait a minute. We have to finalize what's going to town reports. Right. But you know, you're doing this a little earlier than usual and I am usually further along in the town report and I check every single number and every column of numbers. I don't care where I get it from, if it's from the Trails Committee, I make sure the math works. So, I was just, you know, going through looking at this fire department thing and thinking, oh, I'll add up the numbers. I always do. And that's how I discovered it. But if you don't approve this tonight, then you'll have the benefit of my having checked all the rest of the numbers in the book before I do approve it. I did find a couple, I found a couple of other problems in your actual budget spreadsheet, but I haven't done a thorough review of all the numbers that are going into the book. But we haven't approved a final budget yet. I know. Okay. But we do have to approve what goes in the town report because that deadline's coming right up at some point. Yeah. Well, it's the 20th or something. What goes in the town report? Deb is the person who sets that deadline. Yeah, I know that, but I know it soon. Right. But I mean, if you can't finalize this tonight because of this being an unknown and you don't know if Callis is going to agree to pay an extra third of, you know, $10,000 divided by three, whatever, you know, I can lay out the pages and do all the formatting I have to do and just know that there's a number hanging out there that has to come in at the last minute. I mean, I also can't get the ballot until the last minute because we have to wait for the petitions to come in. So, you know, I hate to say let's do it again in two more weeks, but oftentimes that's when we do finalize it actually because there's always some little thing like this hanging out there. Yep. Yep. And if you are looking to finalize it tonight and have a couple of other little things that need to be fixed on the spreadsheet that you're looking at for the budget, they're not going to affect your bottom line. Well, actually, one might. Do you want to hear them now? Yeah, might as well. Okay. I assume you're looking at a printout of the thing right now. What is the thing? The budget. The budget, okay. Town of each of our town budgets. Have you talked about 24? Are you talking about the one that's on the website? I'm assuming that's the one that you sent me today, Gina. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. When I, you know, when I look at stuff like this, I just reflexively start checking things or, you know, first thing I do is eyeball it. If something just stands out, it doesn't look right. Like the first thing I stood out that didn't look right was under revenues. What page? The first page under revenues. The total fees, the first, you know, the first category is fees, the total fees. Yeah. It said the increase decrease was 50%. Clearly, that was not correct. That was just picked up from the previous line. It's actually 6.6%. It went up, you know, it went up $2,000. That's not 50%. Right. So it's 6.6. It works out too. And there's a couple of, you know, they're really small things, but I would change them in the book. And I guess if I'm going to change them, you should be approving what actually goes in the book. Under reimbursements, total reimbursements went down $1,500. That's minus 0.5%. And since they're being technical, under total non-tax receipts, yeah, it went up $462. That's 0.1%. Actually 0.12%. So I'm rounding it down, not even up. Okay. And I'm assuming that it was just a little formatting glitch that the total taxes and the total cash receipts, the percentages there went to two digits. So I would just change those to be consistent, unless you want them to be two digits. Just, you know, round off 8.96% to 9.0 and 7.18 to just, you know, 7.2. It says 7.18. And then the only one that would, the only one that would affect your bottom line. Oh, so just so you know, I've gone through, for the purpose of putting in the book, I've deleted about a dozen lines because they were blank all the way across. They were just a bunch of zeros. I mean, I can tell you what the lines are, but you know, they're obviously not germane in this year's budget. They're things like better roads, grants, COVID-19 grants, green up principle on delinquent taxes. We don't show that we haven't for a while. So I took it out. Stabilization fabric, garage facility renovations. These are all the things that were just blank this year. Land conservation fund, not just this year, but I mean a blank all the way across in all of the columns, because we haven't raised any money for the land conservation fund in years. The RCT was listed here and I took it out because it's got its own warrant article now. So I'm use, I'm trying to use that space to include the comments because in your last meeting you said you liked the comments that were off in the right hand side there. They can be, they can be incorporated into the town reports. And one way I'm getting some spaces by eliminating these blank lines. And so I was looking at this isn't really a blank line but somewhere here there's a background check line and it says there's one, but the comment was it's one, there's one budgeted for FY24 but there's no dollar amount listed there at all. Seems like if you, if you're budgeting it you should probably put some dollar amount there. It's under personnel fees. I was actually going to get rid of that line because it's zero all the way across. But then I realized there was a note there that said there's actually one budgeted for FY24. So instead of eliminating the line seems like there should be an amount there. What page is that on? It's under municipal operations. And I think it's the fourth page four. Backline is not, I don't even see it. It would be under advertising, right? On that next page. Under personnel fees, it's not even blank only across section there's stuff in there for personnel fees. Background check is over on the right. I think I added in and then I pulled on page four. Page four, like the fourth line. So you have to look at the notes column? Four. Oh yeah, I see it. Right, under personnel fees. Right. So I mean if you're going to have a note that says there's one budgeted it seems like there ought to be amount of money in that column for what you're budgeting it. What amount are you budgeting? People say FY24 which is why I checked that out. Yeah, no I get it. It's like it's a very unusual we're going to have another one this year. So right, yeah, that sticks. So I would rather leave it out. That's why I took it out. Yeah, I was trying to find anything I could say. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I'm saying I should delete the line entirely. Well, you're going to have an actual there for the current year. So I don't think you can delete the line completely. No, I'm not including my column. The actual for 2020 that's an FY23. I show the actual FY22. I thought your report typically shows actual for fiscal would show the actual for fiscal 23. Look at the town. Look at fiscal 23. No, 6-1-23. All right. But her report can't include that because we aren't at the end of the fiscal year yet. Right. All right. All I show is 2022, the first three columns I show, the 2022s, which includes the actuals and the over-under. And then for 2023, all I show is what was budgeted. And then I show the time for 2020. Yeah, so you could eliminate it. I won't, but you could eliminate it. Exactly. I mean, that's what I was about to do. And then I realized, wait a minute, there's a comment there and it says there's something budgeted. So I didn't want to just eliminate the line before I checked. Okay, so I'll get rid of that line. Yeah. And then we get down to the fire department. That's obviously going to affect your bottom line. Yeah. One way or the other, unless you decide, you know, you're just going to just go with what you've, they gave you. It seems like you better communicate to the fire department. Yeah. As soon as possible and say they made a mistake. Normally, I would have sent it, normally I would have sent it back to Toby because I got it from Toby and said, your math is off. And then he would have probably had to come to you when he realized that you guys didn't have the correct total. But there wasn't time. I just noticed that tonight, I realized you were about to approve the budget tonight. So I'm jumping over Toby and coming right to you directly, but clearly you're going to have to talk to those guys. Yeah, you got to talk to those guys and then we'll have to, I mean, we can vote on the new, new numbers, right? Because it sounds like that's the number that's going to be. At least you're two thirds of it. Yeah, they had sent us the PDF. Yeah, we can prove it. I took the PDF and I converted it into an Excel spreadsheet because the numbers didn't look right to me and I wasn't going to see if there was an adding machine. So I turned it into an Excel spreadsheet and edited it that way. So I know my numbers are good. I think I would just want to confirm that the intent wasn't to include those three lines. Yeah, you know, that it wasn't right. inadvertent, whatever, something. Yeah, I'll be sure. Yeah, that's right. So I'm not seeing how the numbers on the feet, either as you amended it, Deb, or as it originally stood, correspond to the lines in our budget on page five for the fire department. So I'm wondering if someone can explain this to me. This is for the fire department as a whole, is that correct? This is for the fire department. So the 126.369 that they show that they're not. That's right. Yeah, that's right. For the 126.369 that we have our budget for April 24th. It's the same number right here. Got it. Okay. So that number will be amended. Got it. Another $6,500. Got it. Thank you. It's actually $6,759 would be your share. That'd be added to the 126.369. Yes, correct. I guess we're better like everyone said, I guess we're better practical first before we do it. Sounds like. Yeah, clearly they've made a mistake with their spreadsheet because the exact amount that's missing is those three numbers they added at the bottom. Yeah. I have a question for you while we're talking about the fire department. They have changed the order of their columns. I don't prefer this order. And I was about to put it back into the order that we have always run it, which is to put the 2022 actuals first and then have the three lines with the three budgets, the three columns. Oh, 23, 23, 24. Yeah, I mean, because this is confusing when you show the actual next to the new budget. It looks like they're they're lowering the numbers when they really, they're raising them from what was budgeted. Right. Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to change it back to the way it was. I mean, when I say the way it was, not the way they gave it to us, but the way that we've always run it in the book. Right. That's that's a good catch because it's like, what the heck is this? Why is that higher? Oh, that's right. I mean, that's what that's what alerted me that something was up because I was comparing the FY 24 to the FY 22 actuals and saying, wait, this doesn't make sense. And then I realized that it was the wrong column to be looking at. And then I put it in terms of the order of the columns. So once I did that, I didn't work. Yep. Yep. All right. Um, I think that's it for the budget from me. I mean, I didn't even add up the total, but I assume you got the right total there because you're going to plug it into your warning next. And the only way you can approve the only way you can approve the warning is if you know what number to plug into article three. So this is going to hold up your warning too. Yeah. Yeah. But again, a lot of the work I do has to do formatting and making a fit in the page and squeezing in those comments. I assume you want all of the comments that are out there? Why not? Okay. There's a couple of places where there's maybe three or four lines in a row that say the same thing. And I can just make that a comment for the whole section and just make it one line instead of eight lines. You'll, you'll see. There'll be a proof you can see next time. Yeah. I think that any challenge person reading the report would like those planetary lines. Yeah. Right. And we have included some in the past, just not all of them. Yeah. You know, when, when it struck me that they should be included, I've asked if I can include them. And you know, there wasn't any state secret about it. So sure we did. Yeah. Okay. Oh, so anyway, what I'm saying is I can format the warning. I can format the budget and know that there are a couple of numbers that might change. Article three will change when we have a final number and the fire department line will change and the bottom line will change and a couple of numbers in between where you have subtotals. But you know, that's better than me holding off on doing the whole thing. Yeah. Okay. So given that we still have some discussion about the budget, when do you need a final budget from us to integrate it into your report, Deb? I'm going to integrate everything I have for the warning and the budget after tonight's meeting. And I will just have a big note on my page like a big posted that says this isn't final until I have the final number to plug into article three and I'll have a final fire department number to plug in any subtotal that it affects and the final number but everything else will be done and ready to be proved. And you know, so that means I can have those numbers to plug in at the very end. Like next time you meet, when do you meet? Well, we need to talk about that. No, it's going to be two weeks from today or no. It's the 30th, two weeks from yesterday. Yeah, 30th. Well, I guess. Did we set that? No, that's not the first Monday of the month. No, no, right. So we have a special meeting next week, next Monday and we usually do. You usually do meet that last Monday in January because that's the last chance you have to get this kind of stuff to me and also I'm waiting for the ballot from the town clerk because she's got to wait for the petitions to come in to put the names on the ballot. So those are the last two that, you know, go in place but everything else should be done and ready to go to the printer by then. Sounds like they're having a meeting on 30th. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I'm afraid you can't finalize the warning in the budget tonight. So you're going to need to at some point. We'll do it at 30th. Okay. Yeah. But that does not mean the 30th is a deadline for anything else because if everything comes in on the 30th, I can't get it to the printer the next day. Right. Right. Okay. Thanks. Well, that's... And you guys are doing pretty good. There are a lot of other outstanding pieces that I'm going to have to start rattling cages to get. Yeah, not from us though. No. No. Right. The 30th is a deadline for the petition for the town official to be voted on by us currently in town but then something needs to be fixed in those petitions. There's a few days after that for that. Well, the ballot goes in the town report. Right. I mean, it's page three. The ballot goes on the town report. Okay. Doesn't the town report have the people who are running for the offices? I guess it doesn't. No. No. Okay. All we've done before is... That's a good point. At town forum, we have people stand up and introduce themselves. Yep. Okay. Okay. All right. Where are we? So, we should discuss the other things that Gina has on her TA report. It's like for Nemo. Those... Is there something you want to talk about, Gina, on those changes? They're relatively minor. Oh, yeah. No. No, that's not wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it looked like that was going to increase our budget by 9.5 percent, resulting in a 9 percent, 6th and increase in actually... Yeah. It's like everyone's seen the article in the paper about the school board and the CLA you mentioned last time goes down and school needs more money and CLA because the town that state gives us less money so that we have to make up a difference. So, it looks like it's either four to eight percent that the school board budget is going to be going up. And that's going to add... What did they say? What was it? Four cents? What was it? Eight cents? Six cents? Six cents. Six cents, yeah. So, six, add it to our six. That's 12 cents. Ouch. Ouch. So, there doesn't seem to be much we can do. I mean, she brought up a point about the land conservation fund. We're not putting any more money in that because I know that's been something that we've been able to take away or put in according to how our tax rate was looking but it looks like we're not putting money into this here. There is some money in the fund anyway. So, that's not going to be anything that we can fool with. Is there any other numbers that we could take out from a budget point of view? Funds that we're funding or anything that you can think of? Not that I can think of. Yeah, I mean, the salary line is our biggest thing. That's really out of our control. Insurance, health insurance, the huge driver. And, of course, the annual service and then we're flatlining the capital fund. And I don't think we're increasing that, which we did just because of the increase in taxes on all our other expenses going on. I was just wondering if there's anything we could do. I'm not, I'm not hearing anything. What's the fire? The fire department increase is about 6%. That's what I said here. They had bought themselves relatively flat. Yeah. But it appears as though that was not, it's still that. What's that? Even with the change, it's not that big of an increase. No, it's not. Well, okay. So, what are we going to do? Are we going to finalize all the figures step to the fire department? I mean, we aren't voting on anything today, right? No, I mean, it's just the general feeling. In terms of what she can unhighlight. Exactly, what we need to discuss. I'm fine with that. Yeah. So, it's mostly that final figure then. And the typos then. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, we can't finalize that on that item. The next item is finalization of 2023 Town Meeting Warning. This is where Tara wanted to bring in the fact that it looks like who's voting on it's a legislation. So, VLCT has sent out an email which Rosie grew our attention to and sent out a Gina. She passed it on to me. So, we had laws in place earlier in the pandemic to allow us to have some flexibility about remote meetings and Australian ballot votes. And VLCT has worked with leadership, they say, to get legislation introduced that will address both of those ideas. The other ones sent that in 2022. And they said last week that next week, so this week, they were hopefully going to be testifying on it. So, leadership is pushing it through early in the session. So, it's possible that it will be available to us as a tool to do something with if we don't want to go back to pre-COVID protocols. I'm ready to go back to pre-COVID protocols. I just emailed Chris Rack and LA today and said, hey, if you guys want to put on a potluck lunch, I'm happy to participate. That would be great. But at least one other town in the area has been going up to residents saying, please give us some feedback on what you'd like to do. And I think it's appropriate to ask people in town, okay, what would you like to do? Okay, so one question on that. Are they just doing this as a one year? The idea from the legislation that DLCT is pushing is that towns would have this as a suite of tool to use in the future. So, that's what we discussed last year. We were hoping that they would do that and make this a tool that we could use in the future. But they didn't. It was just for the last year. So, now this will be something that we could use in the future for whatever reason. Yeah, I mean, I haven't seen the language. I would like to see it tied to some sort of public health finding that it doesn't lead to just, we won't be doing town meeting anymore, what the heck. But that's just me. Yeah, exactly. We talked about Google. But anyway, so are you suggesting that we put this out to the townspeople, whether they would have an Australian ballot for all the things to town meeting and not have town meeting in person? This year, yeah, that's given where we are in the pandemic. Again, that doesn't give us a lot of time because, you know, when do we have to get the warning out? Yeah, but this would be something we consider at the meeting that I think we just decided to have on the third year. Yeah, but it doesn't give us much time to put it out to the townspeople. That's right, yeah. Yeah, I mean, we can. We can get it on front porch for tomorrow. Yeah, and see what responses we get. That just if we were to shake this right now, the warning anticipates that we're going to be in person and have certain items, articles by Australian ballot. So that'll be another change that we need to make. That's right. Yeah. What is the request for residents to submit their, I'd rather not dialogue be limited. I'd rather people email me as opposed to be compiling it for multiple sources. What is your, what are your thoughts on that? Because I'm keeping a spreadsheet now about County Road because of the emails I'm receiving for that. So I would add another, but I'm not tracking what's happening on front porch for with that. I'm only tracking I've received emails from people directly about the topic. So this would fall in line with that in my mind. So I have a guess or no of additional spreadsheet I'm tracking on County Road. Doesn't give us much time, does she? No. Yeah. I mean, that's the situation we were in with the last year where we didn't have much time either. But last year we'd already decided that a bad idea to have it just because of the pandemic was right at the level that was at this year because things have subsided to some extent and kind of gone forward with having County Meeting because kind of feeling that everybody in town probably like, well, a few people that go would like to have Town Meeting. What do board members think? Yeah, well, whether maybe this is something we think about for future Town Meeting and it's trying to get to outreach and response within the next week. Yeah, I'm kind of with this proceed, go see. Because even in two weeks, I don't think we're going to get an accurate view on the townspeople without more tools to canvass them. You know, front porch one, okay, you'll have a few people that respond, but you're not really getting the flavor of everybody in town. That's kind of what we're looking for. Yeah. We're looking for town consensus on kind of the important issue. Do we want it as an article of Town Meeting? That's, you know, that'll be a good thing for discussion item. You're always looking for those. We are. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What do you think, Mr. Monterey? I was fine. Here's a member of the public. Yeah. And a moderate. And a moderate. Yeah, but it's a vested interest. So, I mean, I do a vested interest. Moderate or sour. Yeah, yeah. Well, there's a conflict of interest going on. The glory. The glory. That's fine. There's the desire to stand in front of some people. Some people. Who made me say that. Yeah. You know, I'm too clueless by feeling like the world is passing by. So, I would rather have the in-person town meeting, but, you know, I might just be through old fashioned. Even though I don't think I'm in fashion. So, on the other hand, Chris Rack and Ellie set something out about an internal survey about lunch. And I thought, well, I thought, you know, and then all of a sudden in the news, there's another variant. And this other variant apparently is very contagious. And all of a sudden people I know who always wear masks and are very cautious about going places have gotten COVID. Totally COVID. The inside in a small place, but if we're sitting around they were all kind of separated from each other, that's probably fine. But then we're all going to be sitting together for lunch. You know what I mean? So, it's hard to get a sense of it. The COVID number seems to be getting under control for various reasons. One of the various reasons is people are wearing masks and not being in crowded places. So, I don't know. I would prefer to have an in-person town meeting just because I like 200 year old traditions, you know. Right. But the world may be passing me by. Well, you know, democracy evolves and we've had the conversation before. We've had the conversation before and you look what happened two years ago in the United States and then they wait on it. Maybe we've got something here that's worth hanging on to based on what happened two years ago. I think you're referring to January 6th, 2021. But we're not suggesting that we ban town meeting. No, no, no. We're trying to be sensitive to the fact there's still some health concerns with COVID. Yeah. Should we move ahead with in-person town meeting? Should we talk to as many townspeople as possible to find out how they feel? Yeah. You know, that's kind of where we're at. That's a very informal survey on an unofficial website, you know. And I got back to Chris and said, I've changed my mind on the lunch. I think we ought to have an open town meeting. Maybe we should just forgo lunch this year. It's just a little risky perhaps. So, I went from the ask column on lunch to the no call. Just to kind of take one step at a time kind of, but I might, you know, people might decide they want to do that. So, that's my long-winded answer to your question. That seems actually like a really good compromise though. I mean, I don't think it's that feasible to just kind of stop our tracks now and just have no common meaning, but the lunch does kind of, I mean, that could be COVID soup. I mean, that's very close and hot. You're crossing each other. Yeah. And you're siding the table. Oh, you're my husband. Whereas at the meeting, if people could set themselves, you know, we're all ready. And not that many people are. We would like more people, but yeah, you know, and there's reasons for that long and complex, but I will go back to the January 6 situation and it's sort of struggling about what we have. Do we, so that raises another question. Are we okay with Chris Raffinelli and the potluck people making the decision on the lunch or do we want, as a select board, want to be steering that decision anyway? Given the health implications. I mean, that seems to be a separate activity. And usually we're not, we're not part of that. The people that are preparing the food and on the front lines are usually the people that are making that final decision. People can decide to go or not to go to the lunch. Right. Yeah. Without meeting, missing any town meeting. Yeah. But they want to go through all the trouble and they also have a budget too to buy food. Well, a lot of people don't need, you know, I always don't need food. Yeah. But they buy the costcoals and stuff like that. Yeah. Right. So are we getting back to the original question? Shall we reach out and see how people feel about having town meetings? They've got two weeks to do it. Yeah. And what's the opinion? I'm not hearing a lot of stuff. Well, I'm just thinking about it myself. Yeah. Is there a situation that we can just do it, just reach out and just see what happens? Or should we just plow ahead and leave that decision? It would be really awful if, you know, you went ahead and had it and five people showed up. You know, I mean, could that happen? But I don't know if you're going to gauge it just two weeks ahead of time by sending out an informal survey either. Yeah, I know. That's the thing. Yeah. I think we should just go ahead and do it. I think we should go ahead and do it. I think we should discourage lunch, but that's a very good point. I mean, I don't know. I'm not feeling we should discourage lunch. Okay. I mean, I don't think it started forward, but yeah, I mean, maybe, I mean, I think we'll just see. Do you want, does somebody want, I mean, I can call Sue and kind of tell her what we talked about as far as lunch goes and just kind of gauge what she thinks in general. Sure. Do you want me to do that tomorrow? Yeah, I guess. You may have seen Chris's note that the survey monkey that he used only allowed him to get back like 10 was fun, I think. So I don't know what he has gathered as informal and unofficial as it is. Well, we can read it out. Checking out. I'll read tomorrow's email you guys and tell you what yeah, that feeling generally was. Okay. You are not conveying the suckboards feeling to her. Oh, no, I'm just going to. Got it. Do you think that, well, I mean, this is all public anyway. Do you think that maybe I should probably just say, hey, we were just kind of on the fence about this? I mean, I think that's okay to say this is all on the camera anyway. I'm not going to tell her that because I don't think we have like a unified feeling anyway. I don't think we do have a unified feeling as far as proceeding ahead with the town. Let me ask the question this way. Is there anyone who's gotten any feedback from townspeople saying, boy, I think it's too early to go back to in-person town meeting. No, I got a zero. No, me either. Okay, yeah. Rosie, I haven't mentioned anything to be you. Yeah, okay. Yeah, here's the final comment. I don't know if it's my efficiency or what, however, the last couple of town meetings, we've come pretty close to adjourning the town meeting right around noon time, which I think is a good thing. So it might be, you know, we might be done and if people wanted to have lunch and not feel like they're going to miss something, you know what I mean, or not part of it or whatever, that's just something to think about. So there's no school board meeting? No, they decided they want their own things. Okay. They got them. Because that's always been the thing. So school board meeting we have to launch. So school board meetings in the morning. No, it's not that anymore. They don't. Okay. We no longer have an each month failure of town school. Yeah, I guess not. That makes sense. Okay. There's not a doubt. All right. So I think we should proceed ahead with the town meeting. And then once we'll forward after this. Forwarding. Okay. All right. So we're going to finalize the warning that we don't have the final figure for the budget. And should we add something in for a point of discussion about future town meetings? Yeah. We can think between now and next time about language to use for we don't have to. Yeah. And we'll also know whether or not something passed. That's right. That's right. That will inform our language. Good point. Can I take something about the warning before you move off the warning? Sure. This is Deb. I would love to see the article about the Twin Valley Senior Center moved up next to the article about the Montpelier Senior Activity Center. They are related to each other. I put them on facing pages in the book. And just the way you've got the rural community transportation next to Green Mountain Transit. And then I put those two pages next to each other in the book. And I often try to keep the order of the pages pretty much just the order of the articles. So it's easy to follow when you're sitting and meeting and you're talking about the articles. And it just seems crazy to have you know the home health and hospice and the senior center next to each other. And then go through talking about two buses and then come back to a senior center again. And it might affect how much money people want to give to one senior center if they have to discuss it back to back with another senior center too. In a way because you want people to vote affirmatively for both. And if they're thinking they're giving too much to the senior center then they won't give so much to that. But whatever. Maybe I would first of all. I think it was right is that the mind gears towards one senior center then a little while later we work on another one and people aren't going to be so frugal with them. Tax dollars and say oh we don't want to give any to Twin Valley. But even on the floor Twin Valley has been amended for more money. Yeah. Right. So whatever it's probably a move point at this point. Okay well I'm still going to leave the two pages side by side in the book left and right. So article 10 which now be the Twin Valley and article 11 would be the home health and hospice. That's right. I mean you could put Twin Valley first or I'm not pill your first but the two of them should be next to each other's you know from my point of view just because I'm putting them next to each other in the book as facing pages. But if you decide there's a rationale for not doing it that's fine I'm just mentioning it. It doesn't matter. Could maybe even alternate their order from year to year. We might be quiddly about nothing. Well you know that's an interesting point Carl. Are people going to be more frugal the second time they're asked to give to a senior center as opposed to the first time I don't know. If that matters. Earlier earlier up article 7 we skipped over something else I wanted to mention in article 7. I don't know if it's called Eastmont we're giving $12,000 to Eastmont Pillar Signpost or Eastmont Pillar Signpost Inc. Is it is it incorporated? I know it's a 501c3 doesn't that mean it's got to be an Inc. And that if we're giving it to the magazine then at some point it should be italicized. If not the first mention of it then it's certainly the second because in the second one you're talking about six issues of the Eastmont Pillar Signpost which should be italicized there. But in the first instance it might be Eastmont Pillar Signpost Inc. I'm not sure because we say Twin Valley Seniors Inc. And the trails Eastmont Pillar Trails Inc. These 501c3s I think are all Incs but I can't swear to it. But if not then let's at least use the itel when we're talking about a magazine. For the second time it's mentioned because it's actually just not the first time is the organization which is not italicized the second time is the publication which is. Oh yeah. Yeah that's what it seems like to me too and that's why I thought maybe we're supposed to be adding the word Inc. there to kind of help distinguish them but it doesn't really matter. And then one more thing with the warning from me or actually two more things on the page where we talk about the town forum the last page there. The language I got picked up says that we're going to be discussing the Australian ballot articles. But that's not true we're going to be discussing all of the articles. It used to be that you could only discuss Australian ballot articles on the floor or you couldn't remember whatever the heck it was but now you can discuss all of them. And our wording has been discuss the Australian ballot and other warned articles but it seems like you could just simplify and say to discuss the articles on the town meeting warning and just take out Australian ballot. Yeah. Yeah. Just those two words could go. But wait a minute we have some articles that are public they're all in the morning. But nothing discussed out of forum and they can discuss it. Yeah. So that thing is almost an even voting by Australian ballot but we'll just discuss all of them. Yeah. I mean this this wording implies that we're we can't talk about anything we're going to vote on on the floor at the forum but that's not true. Yeah. And then one more small thing article 15 which is the tax exemption for the gully jumpers. Get rid of the open friends and the word now. Those are left over from the old wording. It was worded that way 20 years ago when first time we voted on because they had just become into ownership of it but now they've owned it for 20 years and that parentheses didn't even have a close parentheses and it's just get rid of the open parentheses and the word now and it would be much better. Looking at article 14 funding request study many recommendation or appropriations to worthy organizations. That's not how the article the preface to the article we do we need worthy in here or to identify the recommendations? Are you looking in that form? Yeah. I'm just going to form under these article 14. Oh yeah. Yeah. I think that worthy makes sense. I think it goes through that. I thought it was a little perky but again it was earlier. So right. It sounds like you're making a joke or something. Yeah. Yeah. I thought I was making myself but I mean these are summaries of the articles that we're seeing in the forum warning. But worthy. But worthy is in the line but it does have several implications. One is these are organizations that have been vetted by the study. So that does have some connotations that are not negative. You know because you're trying to set these organizations apart from people that may have applied that you did not approve. But but you're harmony. All the organizations that applied were approved. So. Yeah. They were this year. Yeah. It's not always been the case. But. Yeah. Do you want to put non-cruddy? The funding requests to many of them sign the funding request to many of them is local non-profit organizations. Identified organizations that have certain organizations. We're the Yeah. No. It's not a very precise or accurate. What's that? It doesn't quite accurately prescribed. Yeah. Recommended organization. Recommended or that would even be better if you have to have anything. I think just Yeah. Two organizations would be fine. Yeah. This is more. I would probably just take out worthy and not put anything there. That'd be my vote. I'm fine with that. That's not it. You could you could say non-profit. Hards. Non-profit. I don't want to go out on a fence. I agree. Yeah. Go out on a limb. I don't want to be straddling events. Okay. Anything else? If we're having a parenthetical in Oracle 15, we need to close the parenthetical. No, but we're getting rid of the parenthesis and the word now. You're right. Apologies. We're getting rid of what? Now. The entire parent. Yeah, there you go. Oh, okay. Just four characters are leaving. The open parents and N-O-W. That's it. Yeah. That's what I'm suggesting. And a space. And if you decide to move the Twin Valley seniors up near the Montpelier Senior Center, obviously fix it on this page, too. But it sounds like you're not intending to do that, correct? I made a note to do that. I thought we're going to do it. I made a note to do it. Okay. We'll then do it on this page, too, obviously to the correspondence. I have arrows drawn in both locations. Okay. Well, thank you. Yeah. Are we putting in any kind of signposts? I'd have to find out if they are. I'm not sure if they're worth the trouble. Okay. So I think we're done with the warning. I think so. Yeah. Oh, we have to look at the select board report. That's the next item. So then we will likely finalize at the next meeting as well because the budget is in here. And if that changes, it will change that paragraph. The only other change since the last time you saw this was that the municipal assistant position is once again open. So I still have reference that Jessica joined us. Yeah. Jessica's leaving us. Yeah. Yeah. We are seeking. Long of Jessica. Another new system. Yeah. So we'll have to add that in. Yes. So that is those of you amended. Did you need to have a space between the seven paragraph on the second page? The town was able to move forward. Oh, yeah. Look at that one. Probably broke across the pages. Yeah. Previously. Yeah. You may turn it on. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Just so you know, when I put this into the page in the book, there's a little bit of room for a photograph. So if you decide there's something more you need to say, there is space. One option could be a picture of the new town office. The new town. I like that. Yeah. I haven't mentioned that yet. I did think that. So. Good idea. If you have any pictures. No. We could take one. All right. Look, I have a picture of Rosie in a hydrogen gas because Kerry Allen takes nice pictures. Yeah. You do it. Yeah. Yeah. Here's really nice pictures. Okay. So I guess we're done with the report for the moment. Town Treasury report. Nothing. Thank you, Michael. Thank you, Michael. Thank you. Michelle was able to finish the November report. She did find the issue she had that she mentioned at the last meeting with the bank reconciliation. And she also completed the December. I mean, nothing. Really extraordinary note. Yeah. I'll be checks going that. Paychecks or whatever. They are still coming in. What sort of rate? I'm not sure how many were today. But over the last few. They're daily. But a handful. We don't have any one today because someone, it was a full on hand written check. This still sometimes show me the more comical ones. But, well, just a complete lack of effort to even attempt to steal by not even type the check. This person actually had them. It was from them to them too. It was very interesting. Town and he's not here. It was not even all involved. Our numbers are at the bottom. So that's the bank. But no, it's still continuing. So, but not dozens a day. I have to look at any. I mean, I think last week, it's probably a good four to five at least. The only way out of this place, the only way out of this one is for the bank account to close. Yeah. And a new one. No, I think so. But so when is that on your radar to talk about the bank? Once we get a new person hired and get through. Yeah. Get through all this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sound good. Can I just mention as regards to the bank reconciliation. The auditors specifically Ed Deegan reviewed all of the bank reconciliations monthly for the fiscal year 2022. We did that in order to fix the material weakness that we were seeing by the external auditors last year. And then we were kind of waved off because we were told that the personnel was changing who had checked signing and stuff like that. And it was going to be taken care of in-house. But apparently that wasn't happening. And so Michelle has asked us to step back in again. So Ed is going to meet with Michelle and do the reconciliations for 2023 as well. Unless we hear otherwise. I mean we have to do. We look at them anyway at the end of the year but now we're doing the monthly in order to again stay on top of that material weakness thing. Yeah. The material weakness came about because the external auditors assumed that the internal auditors were reviewing the bank. Essentially it has to do with check signing. The people reviewing the bank reconciliation all were signers on the account. Exactly. Which is a problem. So we no longer have the municipal assistant as a signer on the account. However. And not yet. Michelle was just about to start changing dress. Now we're starting over with that for just to review those. So Michelle asked if the internal auditors could do that. But again that material weakness was because that was not being done until the end of the year which is not an appropriate from a control perspective. Right. So that Michelle reached out to ask if the town auditors would review them. And then the intent is when the new municipal assistants and we're actually trying to get someone with some financial experience. We actually have an interview tomorrow with someone that does have some accounting experience. The who probably could take that on pretty quickly. So that then we would we prefer to keep it in house because we don't really want to rely on the town auditors to do it. So we're not chasing them down to to review those. Yeah. We know it's just happening every month. Yeah. It's done. Yeah. Yeah. So I wish I had seen this when Elliot was here. But I don't know if you have any insight as to why the cemetery commission hasn't asked for any of the money that's appropriated for it yet. Halfway through the fiscal year. I'm not sure what that process is. So I would have to find out how that has happened. Well, it is a little bit of I'm not going to say an issue but because we do the payroll there isn't all the money that you think that there. Yeah. Because we're doing we're doing 15 thousand dollars that's what's available. So even though it said $20,000 isn't the budget nothing's been expanded yet then some budget really have expanded. It is. It's a different fund. It's not a general fund. This is something Michelle and I there's just that it's very hard to sometimes piece these puzzles together. So she and I actually did discuss this. I think just last week wondering how this process works. So but a lot of times that's her digging into the general ledger to try to determine how journal entries were done in the past. So we don't really have anything that. I'm trying to process. It was done simply because it was a commission. In the past. Then we made it to MIDI. Yeah. And we were giving him a chunk of money. But I remember how the payroll was being done because I always remember doing the payroll. Okay. So payroll is I believe it is going to there's a separate fund in the general ledger that is accumulating the cost for. Yes. The cemetery. Right. What I don't know is how the general fund funds that fund. So these are some of the nuances that we just we don't have anything to go on. So we have to try to put the puzzle together ourselves. So I asked her if she knew how this worked and she did not. So isn't it just an accounting thing? It would just be a journal entry. Yeah. So yeah. That's what I think. I'm going to guess it was done. But I think that's for the one. Yeah. You were recorded expense of the general fund. That kind of gives you an answer though. The reason all that money there. No. It's sort of it was something. Yeah. Good. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you asked your question in the town trade report have we done it? I am. Okay. I'll do it. So couldn't get a highly highway mileage. That is basically. Year ending February 10th 2023. That is the way they send. Yeah. That is the form that was sent by the state. So we could. So did no change. Okay. Yeah. And I did check those with Guthrie appropriate. Yeah. Basically past two roads, past three roads, state highway road. The length of the road is the same at four legal trail. And we need a motion. I don't remember that we do. I don't believe you had a motion last year. I mean, you all signed it. Yeah. So you have a stack. It's not what you're doing at all. You're signatures. Okay. So we just got a pass when I signed it. Is that the one we're sending? I don't know. You can sign it. I can sign it. No. Okay. I'll sign it right here. You'll be signing the next one. Here you go. Oh. Confess for reimbursement. So in the process of doing the grant information, I told Seth I wasn't going to look at this probably until after we come through Town Report. However, in the process of doing the grant report for the Town Report, I dug into all the detail for County Road, worked with the state to determine what we needed to do. These are two of the total of four grants related to County Road. This is the North's over replacement and the paving. This is about 300,000. We have another just over 80,000 in grants. However, I need to work with the external auditors before I submit those reimbursement requests because I need to check with them on the accounting. We have two grants funding that fund part of the North of Barnes Road culvert replacement. I need to work with the external auditors on the accounting for that before I can finalize this grant reimbursement because it's all accounting, but how we record everything in the general ledger, I need to make sure aligns with how we request for the reimbursement so that we don't have to reclassify a whole bunch of stuff in the external audit system. So I've already emailed the external auditor. He emailed me back and said, very good question. Yes, we need to talk about this. Because it affects where we're matching our revenues and our expenses. So just so you know, that's why there's two more grants out there. However, this is the lion share of our funding for County Road. So I would like to get these submitted as soon as possible so that we can get our almost $300,000. So we got a signed map. It's awesome. Yes. You have, if you would like to see the full packages, you do have the full packages in there with the center or the front stack that you have there set. If you want to see the invoice copies and whatnot, you have the full packages there that actually show the invoice copies as well. But if you want to show the sign? It doesn't really matter. I mean, it's the same document. Oh, okay. I'm going to scan the one you all signed. So and attach it. But if you would like to see the invoice copies and all of the detail that will go to the state, it is there. Yeah. So this says that we swear to the correctness the standard language in Vermont to swear or affirm so I'm just adding that to this. Okay. So we're not signing the meeting warning. No. It's not quite done. And we've already passed around to the fifth-gen of highway mileage. Yeah. And then that is the same point. If you want to see the invoice copies, they're there from Pike as it relates to the paving. And then a number of the voices as it relates to the coal replacement. But primarily the largest funds would to glue that and excavating. Okay. So that's the invoices. So I'm going to look at that one. We've already signed the cover of the copy. And this is the paving. Paving was easy. Sorry, I just need this. Do you have a question? Yes, you. I wonder why it says barehaven cash. Why does it say that? Customers have to reach out to their project barehaven cash. Because the copy didn't, didn't, I don't know, were completely amended. Okay. I would guess. Yeah. Some things like that. Nothing else? Or you have anything? Okay. All right. So. So. So then we're done with consideration of candle brand reimbursement request. That's what they are. And okay. Now we get to. You're not thinking good. If you want to see the copy. Okay. Yeah. So we don't. So we don't. I think you just want to sign. I only have to sign this. Yeah, I realize that now. But I pass it around to unless if I might want to know what he's talking about. Well, just in case you want to see that, that includes, I didn't, I like to put my name. I didn't want to copy all of that. Right. So, but if you wanted to see, there are copies of the employees. Thank you. Um, discussion time and like COVID-19, the next agenda item. Um, I think we've had a lot of discussion already. But that's now stopped in the past. Um, But you're silent on the subject at the moment. At this meeting, at this meeting already, we've had a lot of discussion. Yeah, I was sad. Okay. So the next thing is. Okay. So we're going to start with our, our. Once. Which I'm looking at right now. And then the town administrative report. If you want to get a vision, you can start. Talking. If you want to wait in silence while we sign. I'll let you. For TA report. Unfortunately, we will be over in our computer equipment costs for the current year because I need to replace my laptop. Yeah. So, um, It's a silent and died around 10 o'clock this morning. Well, it works a little bit. You can only do one thing at a time on it. So that's not very efficient for someone that likes the multi task. And had a lot of things open at once. So, um, Really in the end it's not new thing. I mean, if it were, it would still be under warranty. Um, but it's, um, also really was, it's a very basic machine that was purchased for the purposes of replacement for many reasons, one, because it appears to be a harder failure somewhere inside the machine and two, because it really wasn't meant for, it wasn't purchased for the purposes of everyday use. It was meant to run new meetings. Um, so it's not a very powerful machine. Which is probably why. Um, The next thing is February 20th is the, well, it will, it's the next regular or not the next. Second February regular meeting time that it's president's day. So in light of our moving this meeting for Martin Luther King to your day, I thought I would ask to select or if you would like to keep that meeting on February 20th or shift that. To Tuesday of that. For. Well, it seems like we can move it. Yeah. So if that, if that, I'm sorry, this part of the conversation, is that an office holiday? Oh yeah. Yeah. But the other, um, for the meeting that we would have would be this. Thanks. We still have the six idea. I'm not proposing any change in that. No, no. We have the six. Then we would have the, the 30th, the six. And then I would be the 21st. Yeah. Right. That's one. Yeah. Because I don't think the DRV is. They wouldn't be meeting at that time anyway. They're on the first Tuesday. And it's pretty slow. I mean, if you all wanted to have it on Monday, it's fine with me. No, no. We. Questions on the, on the bar. What's that? What's wrong? I might just. Jordan equipment. $550 and 72 cents for a shoe. Much. Okay. And then the other thing was. Yeah. That's so weird. Yeah. I don't think people are making fun of me to make the things like that. But if you're going to the invoice. And what we can't get that. And the credit card payment, right? Why do we have charges for credit card processing? That is, um, that is the way the bill. I think we have the right one. Oh, where we pay that bill. Oh yeah. That is where M and T that is the name of the vendor. That is the name of the credit card for the town credit cards. Okay. That is, that is M and T. That's the payment of the credit card bill. Oh, the payment. Yeah. That's not me. It's a very weird. That's the name of the vendor. That's the name of their. Thank you. The way they want to check it. Yes. That's a good question. Yeah. That's not like the 1% that they tack up. Oh, no, no, no. That's actually the, that's actually the bill. Yes. Um, I really need to know what it's too much. I mean, I'm curious. Yeah. I'm curious too. What's the shoe? What's your shoe? Is it? Have you found it out? You've got the invoice. It's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, very, it's very, it's very, it's very, it's very, very full as close to a customer. Until. Jordan will unlike the company description. heavy as TW H2 destroy. When true 3BI filter. For instance, both six inches on the center. Is that helps us esses? Would like them. Debra Guerin. So basically it sounds like a shoe shape of a shoe that goes on the bottom of a piece of equipment and what the shoe does is it protects the equipment from wearing out. So you bolt this thing on with balls, and then you replace it when it gets worn down. So I suspect it's a shape, it's a mushroom shape, on the bottom of a town vow, or some piece of equipment like that. Because that's what a shoe is, a shoe is protected device on any piece of equipment and wears any replacement. So I, you know, I was just assuming the shape. Okay. Because it's bolted on, six pieces on center, and I know the shoes are like that. So what are the payments for Kevin Smith sports or reversible defaults or the recreation. That's a record. And next on the TA report, if you're all aware that Jessica's last day is Thursday, January 19. The job is posted we are seeking applications. I put it on front porch forum it's on indeed. We were pretty successful with these format. We do have the honor to be with a candidate that came through the. We're going ahead, as we get qualified applicants, we're going to go ahead and reach out and start interviewing the woman, one of the first ones did not actually be first one that came in so and it's very well qualified so we're meeting for tomorrow. So, and I think a couple more came in today that I have not yet looked at. And then Denise Sparrow is going to come in on Thursday and she's going to help us with some special projects while we're without someone. Which will actually be quite helpful because there are things with Denise's departure that now Michelle and I know a little bit more so there are some things we'd like to ask her about some processes that were a little fuzzy on as well so we'll be actually quite helpful so she will be in on Thursday. Next I have, I would like to identify a meeting where we will discuss the county road, the request to close county road for future events in 2023. I am getting there has been chatter on front porch forum which has resulted in me receiving emails which I'm actually thankful for with residents providing feedback, primarily on the negative to this idea, at least from what I'm receiving. I have one yes, seven noes and three that were kind of more conditional or comments, or the select board select board to consider. I would just like to identify when we would like to have this discussion because I would like to just put something off our porch forum, well in advance, so that people can continue emailing me if that word is not out so that we can get good feedback about this idea, and I am communicating with BLCT as well, who have yes pointed out that there may be some liability consideration from the town needs to address because unlike this is something I thought of something for you all to think about is when other events occur in town there are organizations that are insured that are hosting those events this would not be that. So the insurance responsibility may potentially fall back to the town. If something were to happen so I'm still working with the LCP on that. I honestly emailed them yesterday to start the dialogue because I didn't have this high on my radar but when I was getting quite a few emails on it I decided to go ahead and reach out to them and I responded so someone responded to me today I responded back, providing their request and any additional clarity, and so I will bring that to you as well. I think that the word on our porch firm is then I haven't seen anybody in favor of this. Yeah, there have been a couple have there, there have been a couple that were in favor but I've only had one email and I would really prefer people to email and that's the reason because I'm going to pitch through that I mean I could overlook one I don't yeah I don't really like that being our official means of communication so that's why I want to ask people to please email me because that's how or call me that's fine too. But I'm jive started a spreadsheet of the names that have communicated with me what kind of their vote is and then of course I some of them have been actual letters address to the select board so some of them are very short and sweet. I'll do it again. Literally, some of the emails are. So, but some of them are more and some of them are include some other ideas or considerations for you to take into account. So, I just wanted to look at some future meetings and decide whether whether it's the February 21, February 6. I'm really pretty slow, like agenda wise anyway. The other possibility is for us to make our decision in March and add this is another discussion item for town meeting. And that would motivate more people to come to town meeting perhaps. Although the point could be voted. You know I don't think that we want to ensure that I mean wouldn't that do you yeah I don't know he the response. I'm assuming he was one of the attorneys because I'm going to guess this went to the attorney side. Yes said that just type he was aware of the previous event and said that yes I mean it. You know, and he pointed out exactly that what I thought which is it's not being run by an organization that holds insurance therefore, we probably wouldn't want to assume that as a town, I wouldn't think so I don't know if we would probably want to bring it to people about the 21st 21st. Yeah. I guess I don't understand your logic there. If you talk about it, people are all gone. Yeah, I think we should totally have it that we can't do it anyway because we probably don't as a town want to assume the liability. Well then we, I mean, you have to go back and tell them like, we can't do it anyway. Just, yeah. Yeah, I mean, that's a possibility. And then the point is to get whether we do it only at a select board meeting or at a select board meeting and accounting is that we're just getting input from people in the town. We have to make the decision based on all the factors that are available to us. If they came back to us and said, yeah, you're totally on the hook liability wise, which it kind of sounds like it, like you would still say, well, that's an input, but we still might do it. If 100 people said, yeah, we absolutely want to do this and nobody said no, then, yeah, I mean, people are saying that that's what the town wants to do, because we're liable for all sorts of things right now. No, that's true. Wow. My recommendation is that we have a meeting and we discuss it at the 21st. I just want to get some input from you. Hi, everybody. Yeah, I just want to get there. Come to me. Well, I mean, I should. I mean, yeah. But we'll have more information from BLCT at that point. We should. Yeah, I mean I got a. Email. Yeah, so we came in about midday today. So they, and I responded this evening. So, I'm hopeful to have additional information. Yeah, let's do it. And for what it's worth. When I had Larry and my radio show last week to talk about it, then we got three falls. Two of them, I believe were from East Montpelier residents saying, yeah, go for it. And one was from a playing field resident saying, boy, I wish people in playing field would do this. Well, it's the opposite from what I'm getting. So I've only had one positive. And I've gotten another thing too. Since I did this. So that would be nine nose. Small samples. Yeah. Okay. Sounds a little shaky to me at this point. Reliability sounds a little nerdy. Yeah, I was, I was. So not surprised, but. Yeah. So please find out what that means. Well, it's because it's because like when Mamba host said, a bike event. They're an insured organization. So that was his point. You so he asked me, are you. Yeah. You know, the group wanting to put this on an insured organization. Right. So that's the thing. I don't know that we have any other circumstance with the town. Like agrees for somebody to use a trail that is not an organization like that. This is just, so I think that that was one of the clear defining differences that he mentioned in his email to me. Was that we were not working with an organization. So just. I was just going to say that when I was running rally day, we weren't any kind of organization, but the town basically covered us. They took us under their umbrella. So it is possible to do it that way. And. Yeah. Really. Okay. Well, kind of. Yeah. We didn't really close the road that there was that little rain in front of the school. Well, from the intersection down to the school. We kind of took over the road. Yeah. We got traffic. We didn't officially close it, but we did stop traffic. So, but. Yeah. So. What does it mean if the town assumes liability? Yeah, I don't know. In terms of our insurance. I would probably have to reach out to them. The LCT on the insurance side. I know what. And if, if. I don't even know how it would. If it would even fall under the insurance. I'm not sure that could be outside of our parameters. Our policy. So I don't, I don't know. The answer. So what if. Just to put it out there. What if Larry Gilbert and friends. Or no organization and then got insurance to cover. The liability aspect. Is that possible? I mean, I don't really know. I'm just looking for. That could probably work if they wanted to go to all that trouble. But I think that. A lot of people are saying that. I mean, just people I've talked to and stuff like the six times thing, but that's not even special anymore. That's just excessive, you know, like you did it once with price, like once in the spring and once in the fall or something. That's what you really need, but. Right. Six times. Right. A regular event in a town road. Right. I think it's important to get that information from the LCT. What could it do to our. It's all important. All factors we have to take in consideration. Yeah. Okay. It's all important. All factors we have to take in consideration. I think that too. Yeah. Okay. Other business. Just a meeting schedule. You've heard it a bunch of times that it's not in the. Yeah. I don't know if we have a report, but we are meeting on February 6th as well. January 30th and February 20th becomes February 21. Yeah. So there isn't. That's. Yeah. I don't know. And it's not different. It was, it was a morning. And the 21st is a new post. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. John is. I'm not saying. Why? I just did say. Turn up the hearing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All of the. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi.