 Please come to order. Somebody's lost a fit bit, some little pedometer, that's yours, here you go. Mr. Leonard has the floor, Mr. Leonard has the floor. Thank you, Mr. Moderator, John Leonard, precinct 17. I want to shut the door so we can hear him. Some people may not want to, Mr. Moderator. Mr. Moderator, on page eight of the regional agreement. I think it's on the procedure. One of the things that was mentioned was it would take now a two-thirds majority for a community district or whatever to get out of this agreement. One of the things that I don't think was mentioned was in order to do that. If I read this right, the process must start three years in advance. I think that's an interesting point to bring out that you just, it's not something that's going to happen overnight. Again, I think it's on the fourth line, it takes three years. Well, maybe it doesn't take three years, but the process has to be started three years before. Three years is a long time. Now, one of the things I find interesting about this is that as elected officials, we come up here as town meeting members and we try to vote the way the town would think. But yet, in an article in the Globe, April 17th of this year, and it has been mentioned earlier this evening, under the agreement that the town rejects the proposal, that it may and could hold a district-wide election in which the aggregate vote would decide the outcome. The problem I'm having with that, Mr. Moderator, is that it's almost like telling me, hey town meeting, go ahead and vote. But I'll tell you what, if you say no, we're going to have an election. So we're still going to try and get our job done that way. To me, it's not a slap in the face, but it's almost like basically saying you can do whatever you want town meeting, but we're not through with it because, like I say, we're going to take it a step further. So some of the questions I have, why, I don't mean to say this sarcastically, but isn't this taking away some of what town meeting does that if we turn around and we vote, we debate, we decide, we discuss, and then we find out that on certain issues, people, districts, organizations, or whatever, can say, go right ahead, but we're going to do something else that's going to overrule, override you. I'm interested in how often this comes into play that no matter what town meeting says on a certain thing. Certain things can happen that can override what town meeting does. I think Mr. Fosker wants to answer your question. Mr. Fosker? Thank you, Mr. Governor. Charles Fosker, precinct eight. We've missed a subtle point here, perhaps because we're trying to keep this a discussion at a certain level, but the process of a town vetoing an action for, for example, for a bonding in the district is governed by state law. It's not just the agreement. And it's 16D and 16N of the section, I don't know, what is it, section, thank you, 71 of the state law. And 16D, this is existing state law, this is law that covers the current agreement. 16D says that a town can veto, has a veto over a debt proposal by the district. But 16N, as it exists today, without the revised agreement, says that the school committee can call a district-wide referendum, and if it passes, all the towns are obligated to pay that debt. Now, what's the difference with the revised agreement? The difference is, if the school committee does that and the district, let's say 15 towns pass it, but one town like Belmont or Arlington says no, we have an option to petition to get out of the agreement. And if the, if a majority of the towns oppose our leaving the agreement and demand that we stay in, then we don't have to pay the debt service on that debt. That is a major and dramatic change from the existing agreement. So this is, this is very complicated, but fundamentally, it moves us to a new place, to a fairer place, both from a governance viewpoint and from a financial viewpoint. Thank you. Last question, Mr. Moderator. If this election, district-wide election, is held by Minuteman due to the fact of not enough people, areas, whatever voting for it, who pays for that election? Mr. Heim? Mr. Volkvillian is going to tell us. The Minuteman School District assumes all costs associated with a district-wide ballot. Thank you. Thank you. There's a gentleman over here. Yes. Nope, behind you first, then you. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Bob Valeri, precinct one. Most of the points have already been discussed since I raised my hand. I do have a couple of questions. Yes, sir. We sent 38% of the student enrollment to Minuteman. It just seems a little unfair why we only have 19% voting power. How did this change occur? Because it was proposed originally at 38%. How did this change occur? Dr. Volkvillian? When we did some testing on the actual percentages associated with the original-weighted voting, we found that Arlington had nearly 100 times the power of the smallest community and almost 30 times the power of the average. Finally, we felt as we met and talked with some of the members of the regional amendment agreement subcommittee that that was never the original intent to isolate some of the smaller communities so drastically. I think the word oligarchy was used. The more practical answer to your question is that the smaller communities would reject the new agreement if that weighted voting stood as it was. Second question. Do we know what the capacity for enrollment is at the new proposed building? Mr. Moderator? Yes, Mr. Volkvillian, please. That's a great question and one that would probably move into another evening. But the simple answer is the Mass School Building Authority asked us to look at two enrollments, one for 435, which reflected only the member district historical enrollment and 800, which represented the 25- or 30-year history of out-of-district enrollment at Minuteman. I can tell you that my school administration, myself, and my conversations with some out-of-district potential members as well as members of the Minuteman School Committee, I'm going to introduce some information to my school committee on May 20th to have them consider a smaller school somewhere in the neighborhood of 640 students. We'd have fewer programs, but we'd have new programs, more robust programs. We believe that we would be able to fill most of a 640-member school with member district enrollment. And then we would also have the opportunity for out-of-district enrollment. But if I may just expand on my answer a little bit, the out-of-district enrollment, the commissioner has currently proposed new regulation for Chapter 74 under Chapter 74. That's the body of law that governs vocational technical education. He presented it to the State Board of Ed, and I testified on behalf of his proposal on March 25th. He is proposing that all non-member tuition rates include an additional capital fee for every non-resident student attending a receiving district that's part of an MSBA project. This is a major sea change, a paradigm shift of the last 10 years in how non-resident tuition contributes to a capital project because right now we're unable to do that. His final draft regulations, which I'm president of the Mass Association of Vocational Administrators, eight of us met with his staff last week, revised the actual language. I've seen the draft of the language. The final draft is coming out in June for public comment in July and August. He'll present it to the State Board of Ed for review in October and hopefully a vote in November. And that would be in effect on July 1, 2015. I apologize for that long answer, but it was a very important piece that I was reminded that I needed to let you know about. Thank you. And final question, this should be quicker. If a community decided to leave the district, would they still be able to send students to Minuteman? Mr. Moderator? Yes, Mr. Dr. McClellan? Another great question. The answer is yes. Up until the commissioners proposed change in regulations, yes, but they have to be under an intergovernmental agreement between the Minuteman School Committee and the School Committee of, let's say, Watertown. And that intergovernmental agreement would require a capital fee be paid in addition to the tuition that the commissioner sets. One town that is considering withdrawing is Weston. They've sent us over the last 20 years maybe three to five students a year. They already want an intergovernmental agreement that would give them five slots a year. And they have agreed to pay the capital cost, but they just feel that this serves their students and enrollment better. So, yes, they can, but they have to pay the full freight. Thank you, superintendent. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Thank you, sir. Yeah. Len Carden, precinct 20, motion to terminate debate on article 21 in all matters before us. Mr. Flynn, are you all set? Okay. We're going to vote on the motion to terminate the debate. We're all set to go. One is yes. Two is no. Three is abstain. Go ahead and vote. Okay. Times up. 164 in the affirmative. 38 in the negative. The motion passes. The debate is terminated. That brings us up to the actual vote. Mr. Flynn, when you're ready, first we're going to vote on Mr. Foskitt substitute motion, which adds a time sunset provision on to the end of it. Okay. Let's go ahead and vote on Mr. Foskitt substitute motion. While in favor, please vote one. I'll vote two. Okay. Times up. 168 in the affirmative. 13 in the negative. 185Mm-hmm. I think she's here. The substitute motion does substitute. We now have recommended the board of select minutes by Mr. Foskitt. Please say yes. Yes. Oppose say no? No. It's a near unanimous vote and I so declare it. Okay, that terminates article 21 and brings us to article, what's the next one, Al, 34? We're going to do both, we're going to do both, Minuteman. This budget, this article was on the Minuteman budget and assessment that we usually take. And I'd like to introduce Steve DeCorsi to give the few points on the finance committee's motion. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Steve DeCorsi, precinct two. I am going to be introducing Dr. Bokwell in to present the budget and also to make a few comments about Smarlington students who are attending Minuteman. So I'd like to request three additional minutes if I could. Three additional minutes. Gentlemen request three additional minutes. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed, say no. You have your three minutes, sir. Okay, thank you. The recommended vote in the Fincom report is for an appropriation of 3,788,615. And for those new members, by voting the appropriation, you're actually voting approval of the budget. The budget is summarized in the handout that Dr. Bokwell and brought the other night to town meeting. It's approximately $19.6 million. That's an increase of 5.9% overall. Our assessment, however, is up about 13.5% because the relative number of students, as we've heard during the previous discussion, were about 38% of the in-member district students. Our number has gone up by 27 students. There are 165 full-time equivalents as of last October as opposed to 138 the year before. So our number relative to the other towns in the district has raised significantly. Another point, and this probably, maybe it goes to the length of the discussion tonight. In order for the budget to pass 11 communities have to approve the budget, 11 out of 16. I thought we were going to be number 11 tonight, or potentially number 11, originally we thought there was 10 communities. 11 communities have passed the budget already. So regardless, that the budget's going to be approved in Minuteman. But it's certainly worthy with the size appropriation that we're asking you for to have the presentation. So I'll turn it over to Dr. Bokwell. Dr. Bokwell, I guess I'll go here. Does this work this far? I just want to introduce a few students to you that are from Arlington. This is based on the suggestion from a number of town meeting members. I would have had the students here, but it's probably past their bedtime now. But we have some incredibly talented students that I just wanted to introduce. And I'm going to have to turn my back to you for a moment so I can tell you about them. Kerry Warford, she studies biotechnology, she's a senior. She came to us from Audison. She also just won the gold medal at the state level for the pathway showcase event. She plans to attend UMass Amherst after graduation. And she will be going to Kansas City with about 12 of our students who won gold medals to compete in the national competition. Doug Kiczenka, he's the carpentry student at Minuteman. He went to Stratton Elementary in Audison Middle School. He received the gold medal and the state level in carpentry last weekend and plans to enter his trade after graduation. A silver state medalist, Kaylee, is also in biotechnology after attending Stratton and Audison. She placed the silver medal in the OSHA and plans to attend the Mass College of Art after graduation. Two of our students from Arlington won the bronze medal. Adrienne won in biotechnology as well. He went to Dalen Elementary in Audison. We won the career pathways showcase in business management. We have him for two more years, which we're grateful for and expecting great things. And Brendan, who's also in biotechnology after being at Dalen and Audison, was on the team with Adrienne that won the bronze medal in the showcase. He's currently a sophomore. Nicole, she's in our health occupations. You'll notice at the top there, she was also our outstanding vocational student of the year and attended a dinner where we brought all of her family and teachers to Worcester with 60 other vocational technical schools. Where she was honored with her colleagues from other schools. She's just an incredible student. She's co-president of the National Honor Society. She does a lot of volunteer work. She's a recipient of the John and Abigail Adams Scholarship and the Elmira College Key Award. She's been selected as the good citizen of Minnaman High School as part of the DA, Daughters of American Revolution. She plans to study nursing at Regis. She's also doing some co-op work and volunteer work. She hopes to end up working at Children's Hospital in Boston. So I just wanted to introduce your students to you and tell you how proud I am of them. So you see a different side of me. Our budget this year, just some overall budget writers. I'm going to have to do this again this way. Our budget is up 5.9%, which I'll give you some of the reasons why that is. But our increase to member towns went up 3.8%. And if you took the last five years and average our increase to member assessments, member towns assessments, it's averaged about 1% per year. We're expecting another increase in enrollment. We've experienced about a 24% increase in enrollment over the last four years. That brings with it special ed costs. As you know, Minnaman has a large number of students needing accommodations. About 47% of our total student body is on an IEP. This requires additional direct support. We call them unfunded mandates, although I spoke nicely about the commissioner. I'll just speak nicely about them some other time. But we have some things that we have to do that we have to pay for. The evaluation system as Arlington is dealing with and all of our colleagues across the state is being implemented now. We have a collective bargaining agreement that's currently under negotiations. Our health insurance is up quite a bit. We have looked at self funding. We're part of a health care trust. That number may go down a little bit as we get some more bids in and we're asking the providers to go back and sharpen their pencils. And then we have a number of capital projects that we call bridge projects. A bridge to a full renovation or a new school. This is a look at the overall budget by state function code. Our revenue plan, if you can take a look at this, I just wanted to point out that we're assuming a small increase in chapter 78, a small increase in transportation aid. And then our tuition that we're collecting from non-resident students in this current year is there before you under the row prior year tuition. We'll be collecting almost $6 million of tuition. We're committing 5.9 of that for next year's budget. So the 382,000 we collect next year we're going to apply to next year's budget. You can see that our utilization of current year tuition is going down. That was based upon a vote of the school committee so that we know for certain how much money we collect in tuition and can apply almost 100% of that to reducing member town assessments. This is just an overview of some capital bridge projects that we need to take care of next year in terms of the building and grounds. Some maintenance in regards to safety and health issues. Replacing one of our vehicles, our teachers drive buses during the day to take students off site to work sites. And some equipment in terms of the operating of the school. You can see the growth of out-of-district tuition over the last four years, fairly significant. You can see our assessments to member towns after a drop in FY11 were back up about $300,000 above what we were five years ago. This is what we refer to as right sizing. We've been adding staff where enrollment warrants and we've been making adjustments as different program areas have closed and expanded. The Arlington assessment is based on the FTE count of 165 students of 3.78 million as was mentioned. And if you look at the per pupil high school average cost not counting transportation and capital, that's comparable to what the commissioner sets for tuition, which last year was 19,300 per pupil. This year it was reduced to 18,300 per pupil. Next year it's going to be held at about 18,400 per pupil. This is just an overall quick look at enrollment. You can see member town enrollment is about 440. This includes post graduates as well as high school students. This is our enrollment increase since 2009. We didn't include our projection for next year in this. You can see freshman enrollment from our member towns. This year is about 119 students, which is the highest it's been in almost 10 years. Arlington enrollment after a decline has been peaking lately. And if you refer to the regional agreement, which I appreciate your passing, a four-year rolling average this year would have reduced that increase in the assessment to something much more manageable or understandable. This is our budgeted per pupil expenditure counting everything. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Carmen? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Dean Carmen, precinct 20, a member of the finance committee. I always say I'm never going to stand up twice during town meeting in one night, so if you want to beat me up, I'll be going out that door tonight. As some of you know, I'm probably the most unabashed supporter and cheerleader for the Minuteman superintendent, Dr. Ed Buchanan. When Dr. Buchanan took over Minuteman, he inherited a school that was a mess. His predecessors had mismanaged a school by refusing to make the tough decisions regarding programs offered, spending priorities, addressed declining enrollment, and listened to the concerns of its member communities about a regional agreement that was not working for all of its members, especially its largest member, Arlington. The result was the most expensive school in the state that was not fulfilling its mission to the best it could. When Dr. Buchanan arrived at Minuteman, he took quick and decisive action by ending programs that, while nostalgic, were outdated, reducing costs, working towards sustainable enrollment, and finally engaging member communities over the regional agreement. Now, putting away my pom-poms for a moment, the Minuteman budget is beginning to concern me. The FY 2015 budget calls for a 5.9% increase in expenses to support a 6.3% increase in enrollment. While on its face this might seem like a reasonable increase, the detail shows some areas of concern. The budget rates down between three major sections, which, if you go to page three of the handout and look at the top slide is what I'm referring to. Operating account codes 1,000 to 6,000 plus 9,000, capital code 7,000, and debt service code 8,000. Of these three sections, only the operating budget is directly tied to school enrollment. If you do the math, the operating budgets are planned to increase 7.5% this year, driven by a 28% increase in administration, $400,000, and a 7.8% increase in instructional services, $710,000. These imporptions of the increases are driven by new spending on administrative and professional staff positions that appear to outpace enrollment growth. Now, just stopping what I wrote for a minute, I understand that the superintendent pointed out the mandates and things like that, but if Dr. Bode ever said that up here, I think we wouldn't just go along with that as an acceptable answer. This year over year increased concerns me that cost containment fatigue could be setting in, and then after years of excellent educational and financial stewardship, the school committee and executive management of the school may be starting to relax their focus on cost control. Clearly this cannot happen, which is why I'm pointing it out to you tonight. And while I continue to support the school and its superintendent wholeheartedly with my virtual pom-poms held high, and I urge you to vote affirmative action on this budget, I feel it's important to point out this rate of increase and respectfully request before this meeting that the Minuteman School Committee and its superintendent renew their efforts to contain costs of Minuteman. And so is a recap. I ask you, my fellow town meeting members, to support this budget. To support the superintendent, who has done a great job of turning the school around and repositioning it. But to remain the vigilant watchdogs of town finances, demanding that vital services to our children be maintained in a cost-effective manner. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Mr. Jamison. Thank you, Mr. Moderator Gordon Jamison, precinct 12. I move the question and all matters before us. We have a motion to terminate debate on article 34. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed? No. I don't even know how to do it anymore. That is a two-third vote in my opinion. So debate is terminated. We now have the force recommend to vote on the finance committee for funding Minuteman vocational tech, $3,788,615. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed? No. It's a near unanimous vote and so declare it. That closes article 34. Mr. Tosti. I move that we take off the table articles 22 through 33. We have a motion to take articles 22 through 33 off the table. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed? We are back to article 22. We are in the midst of the CPA debate. Debated this for quite a while. We have a lot of people left on the list. We're going to pick up where we left off. More people want to get on the list. Okay. The list is like 50 people long. We'll go back to where we ended. Mr. Jameson was the next person on the list. Yep. You're on the list, Carl. Thank you, Mr. moderator. Gordon Jameson, precinct 12. First, I want to say a couple of words about the level of debate we've had on this argument and the previous arguments tonight, motions tonight. I just really think we're doing a really good job of having concrete and solid debate, whether you agree or disagree. I urge you to vote yes on the Community Preservation Act article. I think this has a lot to do with the character and the quality of life in the town of Arlington. And I think those are very high priorities for the residents and my constituents and my precinct. To recap, a few things we heard the other night, and I support the Board of Selectments endorsement of this article. We operate under very strict constraints by the state under Proposition 2.5 and to not utilize this to augment and leverage our property taxes. I think it's like choosing to operate with one arm in this regard tied behind our back. There was a, I'm sorry, transitioning back into this from thinking about all this other stuff we talked about tonight. There was an exhibit in the back of the Board of Selectments report showing that between our contribution of 1.2 million and the historical, recent historical portion from the state of 400,000, that we would get that 1.6 that a previous speaker talked about at length the other night. So that's $8 million if I have my math right over five years of which 2 million would be the states. But that could be 50% like it was this year, so it could be substantially more. It could be 3 or 4 million of a couple million more than that. Some people say that that's enough, not enough. If you had a 3% surcharge, you could get up to 100% in years past. Now that you only get 25 to maybe 50 sometimes, averaging 35 something, people say that's not a good deal. The point of the fact that we're quite happy getting 20% from the state for every dollar we pay in our normal property taxes, even though we'd like that to be more. So we pull in not excluding the MWRI debt shift portion of our bill, about $100 million in property taxes, and we only get about 20 from the state. We're not going to say no to that 20. I don't think we should say no to this 25 to 50% leveraging of our money. So going forward, if we don't approve this, I think we leave money on the table. I looked at this in retrospectively, and the manager's office provided some information in that regard, and an equal amount of money would have been, has been left on the table in years gone past, because this has not been something that we've adopted previously. That includes not only things like that are on the list and comparable to the list in the back of the select list report, but as I understand it, the res dam, the exteriors of the Highland Center, fire stationery build, and the repairs that were done recently to the central stationery build. All of those things, and we're constantly doing something to the library, the historic part of the library, and that library wall took us, I don't know, how many years to accrue the money out of CBDG funds to get that accomplished. Now, I look at this as very complimentary to the CBDG funds and the existing CAT plan. And I think that the people who, the members of this body and the members of the boards that will be appointed, or exist in that regard, all work as we all do for the betterment of the town of Arlington. And I think they're going to be able to figure out a way to work together in the same sandbox and move these projects forward. And I think that's especially true because we get to vote on all of those. Granted, the CBDG funds, if we say no, the select one can still spend them, but we are the final arbiter of whether these funds, whether it's the traditional CAT plan, the CPA based CAT plan, or the CBDG funds, we get to say yes or no on all of those items every year. Some have commented that these budgets are getting done. I want to go back to what Mr. Chappitz said the other night about. I butt to Robins Farm Park. When I first got here, I worked heavily. Mr. Klein and I programmed the volunteers for the build part of the community build of the playground in Robins Farm Park. That was completed in 2003. I took office here on the floor of town meeting 10 years ago in 2004. I ran and was elected. I went back and looked at the CAT plan for the annual town meeting of 2004. So we had completed in 2003 the first part of the Robins Farm Park rebuilt. At that time, the second part, some five or $600,000 was programmed to be completed in the year, physical year 2008. The current CAT plan has about 25% of that completed over several years and only 25% of it done by 2020. I find that unacceptable. I've spoken to that before on the floor of town meeting. The thing that gets kicked down the road repeatedly are the parks and playgrounds. Yes, I understand that fire stations are important, that having fire trucks and ambulances are important, police cars and internal school projects and things like those. But this is unacceptable. I think the CPA provides a nice solution to the problem because it was going to give a seat at the table to recreation-based projects that I know contribute a lot to the things I mentioned at the top, the character and the quality of life in the town of Arlington that we all care so deeply about. So just briefly, in conclusion, yes, we have significant challenges. We always have significant challenges financially. It's the world we live in. Every year we have that issue before us and we have to consider them carefully. But they are not sufficient in my mind to forego strong leverage from the state for projects that I think deeply impact the quality of life in the town of Arlington. I strongly recommend that you vote yes and to remind you that all this does is put it in the voter's hands and let them decide. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Anne Fitzgerald. Here we go. Thank you, Mr. Moderata. My name is Anne Fitzgerald. I come from Precinct 17, 162 Summer Street, Unit 1. I am a retiring council on aging board member, a member of the legal women voters, a retired public health nurse, and also one of the 9,300 plus seniors who reside here in Arlington. We comprise about 22 to 23% of the Arlington population. And as a taxpayer and a consumer in this town, I strongly support this act of the Community Preservation Act. There was a picture of the central school with the COA van in front of it. The central school, and I am going to just address the historic portion of the Community Preservation Act, was built in 1895 and last renovated in 1985. And it houses, amongst other, the senior center, the council on aging and the ASA. I noted in the capital planning budget, and no offense to Mr. Foskett, Mr. Tosti, that $12,000 is listed for assessment and redesign of the central school. But that, then the renovation, if approved, would not be taking place for, I don't know how many years, perhaps five years plus. I believe, I strongly believe that the needs of the seniors are being overshadowed by the schools and the, and of course we're here tonight, Minuteman Tech, and understand the need to educate the young and how it improves our town. But the senior population is going to increase every year as the boomers retire. The young boomers are pretty healthy, but the older 85 plus are in need of services. And one of the core functions of the government, of the town government, was the health and security of its citizens, seniors particularly. Under the Affordable Care Act, the whole process of health care deliverance is going to change, and the emphasis will be on aging in place. So how we want to keep seniors in the community, because we pay the taxes, we use the restaurants, we use the supermarkets, we use the utilities, and we usually don't need that many things. But the demand for services that the COA is undergoing is increasing exponentially, particularly social services, which are very much needed. The needs of the seniors, because they usually are confidential, are not broadcast, and so they're very quietly dealt with. And if you have a telephone, you know that the scammers have been enormously busy trying to separate seniors from their retirement funds. I ask you to vote for this Community Preservation Act to conserve and redesign the senior center as a community center, because it is now used in the evenings for many, many community needs. The seniors have a wonderful director in the COA. She's very dynamic, has brought enormous amounts of programs for addressing the needs of people staying healthy, better bones, better brains, better hats, how to keep from falling, how to train your muscles to stay strong. These programs are in the monthly newsletter, but this is the reason why we need more space at the senior center. And thank you. I just want to say that this is a valuable, the senior center is a valuable resource to this town. Thank you for your consideration. Thank you, Mayor. Mr. Goff, reading all the areas. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Phil Goff, precinct 7. Rising in support of Article 22, it's no brainer for me, but I don't want to repeat the arguments that have already been made by many on behalf of the CPA. The primary point that I really want to make is while the benefits certainly are quite significant and many people have already spoken to that, especially with the state match, I think the cost to each of us individually is extremely small. I think folks on both sides have referenced the 1.5% as either a surcharge or a tax, depending on their perspective. I look at the numbers a little differently. Based on the value of my home, my condo in East Arlington, after the exemptions, I'm looking at an annual tax increase of about $75. For others with larger homes, perhaps it'll be $100, maybe a little bit more. The tax increase that some here in the body are so indignant about amounts to less than two-one-hundredths of 1% of the value of a home every year. I've seen another way that's about, for me, about one-six-thousandth of the value of my home I'll be paying every year for what I perceive as some real significant benefits that come through the CPA. Some have expressed concern that we, I think these are good arguments, but some have expressed the concern that we're poisoning the well, that if we vote to tax ourselves this year, it'll be far more difficult to raise revenue in the two to five, maybe six-year period when we need larger revenues for critical items, larger items like the rebuild of the new high school, or rebuild of the high school, whether it's new or renovation, we don't know. I have faith in my fellow Arlingtonians, however. I believe the scale of what we will be voting on this year, both as a town meeting body and potentially as a community later on in the fall, it pales in comparisons to the other potential override votes for massive, massive projects like the high school rebuild. I believe people will weigh their future override vote on the merits of what's being proposed then, not necessarily on what we decide to do this year related to the CPA and the very small amount of tax that would come with it. I personally am happy to pay one-six-thousandth of my home's value to protect our remaining open space, prove our parks, the minimum bike path, expand affordable housing, and maintain our historic buildings. Thanks so much. Thank you, sir. Steve Smith. Mr. Smith. Oh, there he is. Okay. People moved a little bit from the other day. Scott Smith. Scott Smith, printing five, move the question, and all matters. Thank you. Okay. If the motion to terminate debate on all matters before the article, we'll use our clickers. This is the thing when you're ready. Okay. So we're making a motion to terminate debate on the article, and all matters before it. One for yes, two for no. Let's start the, oops. Darn it. Start. There we go. Vote one for yes to terminate debate, two for no. Yeah. Make sure you have a vote received on your machine. This is to terminate debate. Yes. To terminate debate. Okay. So everybody voted. 170 in the affirmative to terminate debate, 36. It does pass. But it is terminated. Okay. That brings before us. Why don't you get your computer all ready again over there? We are now going to vote on the actual article itself. We have the recommended vote of the Board of Selectment to accept the CPA as we've been debating. You ready? Already. All right. So go ahead and vote yes, one for yes, two for no. Okay. That's it. 128 in the affirmative, 77 in the negative. It does pass. That terminates article 22. We're now on to article 23. Except it's a local option taxes. No report at this time. Mr. Tosti. This is an article the finance finance committee inserts every year in case all of a sudden the legislature gives us some authority to do this or do that, that we can react immediately. After a lot of conversations with various people, there is nothing on the table that would give us any additional authority to raise money, fee, anything like that. So the finance committee at this point recommends no action. However, I will move to reconsider just in case something happens. But our motion right now is no action. We have a recommended vote of no action on article 23. All in favor please say yes. Yes. It is a unanimous vote of no action on article 23. That terminates article 23, moves us on to article 24. Endorsement CDBG application money. Mr. Byrne. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Stephen Byrne, chairman, board of selectmen. So Arlington is pretty fortunate to receive this federal funding. And as has been discussed earlier in our meetings, this funding is decreasing. But I think every year we do try to allocate it in the most fairest manner possible in a manner that will best serve our community. So we do consider a few things when allocating this funding. One is that we look for the potential applicants or the applicants to do their best to leverage this funding through potential, you know, most likely through the state. And we've had some great success with some of our applicants. And we understand that they all do have worthy causes. And we do wish we could fund them all. But that just simply isn't possible with the amount of requests we receive and the amount we receive from the federal government. But anyway, we hope that you will join us in supporting this article. Thank you. Does anybody wish to address the CBBG? Seeing none, all in favor of the recommended vote of Board of Selectments, please say yes. Yes. Opposed? The unanimous vote and I so declare it. Terminates article 24, brings us to article 25. Revolving funds. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Stephen Byrne, chairman of the Board of Selectments. So this is our annual warrant regarding the town's revolving funds. In the past, more information has been requested by town meeting on our revolving funds. And I urge you to give a look at page 22 in the Selectments report for that information. And we hope that you will join us in supporting this article as well. Thank you. Mr. Harrington, if you wish to speak to the article. Stephen Harrington, precinct 13. If you look at the revolving funds on page 22 of the Selectments report, you'll see that half of it really goes into one account. I guess it's the life services. So it's the ambulances. It's reimbursements for ambulances. And for ALS and BLS services provided to residents. And it's a lot. It's $600,000 or so, right? And I was curious, when I looked through the rest of the budget, I saw that $150,000 was used to offset the salary expense in the fire department. But where does the other $450,000 go? What's that spent on, Mr. Margarita? Sir? Andrew? I know. Andrew Flanagan, deputy town manager. As Mr. Harrington stated, the town provides both ALS advanced life support and BLS basic life support. And pursuant to our agreement with Armstrong ambulance, who's our ALS provider, all the revenue for advanced life support comes into the revolving fund. And then we split that revenue, meaning 60% goes to Armstrong for providing the service. 40% stays with the town. And then there's an additional 3% surcharge assessed by Armstrong, who is responsible for billing all of our ambulance response. So that comes to a total of $408,493. When I look in the manager's report, the finance report, it looks like the ALS services and the BLS services roughly split, like 1,000 versus 800 or so. And I know you get reimbursed more for ALS and less for BLS. And there was talk about having an ALS ambulance, like a $200,000 expense in the 2014 budget from last year. So you're saying that 450 out of the 600 goes to Armstrong? So of what we pay Armstrong, $408,000. And that is for them providing paramedic service to the town and for them processing all our billing for BLS and ALS. All right, thank you. Thank you. Mr. Chappett. Thank you, Mr. moderator, Roland Chappett, precinct 12. I'll be very brief. Go to page 22, if you will, please, town meeting members. And down on the lower right, there's an article called Gibbs School Energy. I'm not so concerned about the money. Is what is Gibbs School Energy? And how come that particular school has pointed out what happened to the rest of the schools? Andrew. Andrew Flanagan, deputy town manager. We have several tenants within the Gibbs School. Where we operate this revolving fund is we receive the bills from both the gas and electric utilities. We then divide it up based on how much square footage each tenant has, then they reimburse us. And it all flows through this account. OK, I see. I understand. Thank you. Anybody else have questions on the revolving funds? Allen Jones, precinct 14. Two quick questions on white goods recycling. Is that, does this still have a purpose? And I see it's dropping down. Is there a intent to eliminate that eventually? Mr. Flanagan. Andrew Flanagan, deputy town manager. So based on our most recently negotiated contract with JRM, who's our solid waste provider, they take responsibility for most of the white goods, which is why you see that fund steadily declining. What we basically use it now for is some expenses associated with community collection day, and then revenue from the disposal of scrap metals and other things processed by the VPW. OK, so that will continue to decline? In all likelihood. OK. And the other one is town hall rentals. There's a fairly substantial loss there. Is that because of one-time expenses, or is that a normal operating loss? So we did assume one significant capital expense, and that was the repair of the clock at the top of the building. That was just a little bit under $15,000. And that came out of the running town hall? It came out of the running town hall. OK, thank you. Anyone else wish to discuss revolving funds? Seeing none, all in favor of the recommended vote of the board of select when on revolving funds, please say yes. Yes. Opposed to say no. That's a majority vote. I think I heard a little low back there. That closes article 25. Brings it to article 26. Collective bargaining. Finance 3D has a recommended vote of no action on the article. All in favor of no action on 26, please say yes. Yes. Opposed to say no. In the end of this vote of no action, so declare. That brings us to article 27. Position reclassification. The recommended vote of the finance 3D on position reclassification. Anyone want to discuss position reclassification? OK. No one does. Seeing none, all in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed to say no. Seeing the end of this vote, and I so declare it. That closes article 27. Brings us to article 28. Appropriation budgets. Oh, good. We have a good 20 minutes. Yep. Mr. Tosti is going to address budgets for us. Or tell us something. I'd just like to make a recommendation. We're fully prepared to start on the budgets, but considering it's a quarter of 11, and yet I hate to lose 15 minutes that we can get some work done, I would move that we postpone article 28 until Monday and start fresh on that. OK, we've motioned to postpone article 28 the budgets until Monday. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed? OK, we are postponed until Monday. That brings us to article 29. Appropriation reevaluation of real and personal property. Recommend a vote of the voter selecting, excuse me, of the... Oh, sorry. Let me move it. There we go. We have article 29. Appropriation reevaluation of real and personal property. Recommend a vote of the finance committee of $10,000 to do so. Mr. Jamison. Thank you, Mr. President. Gordon Jamison, precinct 12. There's some discussion that says additional funds will be required in the future. Can we have an idea what those funds might amount to? Some from the assessor's office, perhaps, might speak to this. Yes. None of the assessors apparently here. I went too fast. If the assessors are not here, then I move the table this until the assessors show up. Mr. Byrne was going to ask the same exact thing, but we'll... Let's table this until the assessors can see fit. Hold on a second. Get out of here. Mr. Byrne, when are they going to be here? Sorry about that. Be me to the racers. Gordon, I'm sorry. Mr. Jamison. Yes, Mr. Jamison. Dr. I move that we postpone article 29 until Monday. The chair of the assessors is recovering from a surgery. Okay. So Monday will be here on Monday to talk about it. Motion to postpone article 29 to the 12th. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed? It is postponed to the 12th. That brings us to 30 capital budgets. You want to do the same thing, Mr. Tosti? We could run several articles after this, but this is a big article to start moving postpone that until Monday. Okay. So we have a motion to postpone until Monday to 12th. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed? We're going to have a lot... Second. No, we're not going to adjourn yet. We have 15 minutes. All in favor of adjourn, please say yes. Yes. Opposed say no. No. We are not adjourned. Here we go. Disposed to be motioned. Article 31. Excuse me? No. Get out of here. We're wasting our time. Resin borrowing authorization for prior years. Article 31. Recommend a vote of the finance committee to rescind certain borrowing authorization. In other words, you want to take it away. Anyone wish to discuss that? None. That is article 31. All in favor of article 31 requires a two-thirds vote. Please say yes. Yes. Opposed? No. Dude, now we have to vote. All right. Mr. Flynn, do you have... Oh, wait a second. I can declare a two-third vote and I... I declare a two-thirds vote. Ms. Rulke-Raley, do you certify there are at least two... 85 Tom Mediae members present voting the affirmative? Yes, she does. Okay. It passes by a two-third vote. Two-thirds. No, it's not. It's into bylaws. Article... Section... Wait a second. Bylaw. Article 1, section 1, section 7, I believe, or 10. If you'll look at our bylaws, you would know that. Article 32, appropriation, finance, construction, water, sores. $1.2 million. One of the... One of you guys want to address this? No. Okay. Anyone wish to discuss it? Excuse me? I'm looking at article 32, $1,200,000. None of my vote. You gave me the wrong one? Hold on. It's a purple-orange one. Please vote for me for one second. Oh, all right. $850,000. Mr. Harrington. You got me all mixed up. $850,000. I see what you did. $32,000. Which is $750,000. You've got old numbers. Al, which is it? $800,000? All right. Mr. Harrington. Stephen Harrington, precinct 13. You know, I wanted to make a point about the Water Institute budget, but we thought we were going to go through the town budgets first because in the town budgets, under personnel expense, you'll see that there's a lot of offsets. There's a couple million dollars' worth of offsets in the personnel expense. And I don't think that this town meeting's really focused on what those offsets mean. And out of those two million of offsets, a million and a half of them come out of the water and sewer budget. And so this is a capital expense here of about $2 million over the next two articles. And so I have a question, Mr. Moderator. Yes, sir. Are we actually doing a capital expense of $2 million in appropriation for water and sewer? And then in the town budgets on the offsets, taking a million and a half dollars out of the water and sewer enterprise fund to pay for operating expenses? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Mr. Tosti, can you answer that question for him? These two articles are the same articles that have been there for many years. The MassWater Resource Authority loans us and gives us an interest-free loan to do certain things that are spelled out in the article, and then we pay them back over a period of time. So that's what these two articles are for. The operating budget of the water and sewer, which will be before you on Monday, has offsets to pay for their enterprise funds. And so a lot of other departments help the water and sewer, support the water and sewer and the things they do. For example, the treasurer collector sends out all the water and sewer bills and collects the money. He has an offset for that. The controller does all the accounting for the enterprise fund. There's an offset for that. So that's what the offsets are about. But this is straight borrowing to do these projects from an interest-free loan from the MassWater Resource Authority. Mr. Moderator. Yes, sir. Could I ask a question? Is that I heard about the controller and I understand the treasurer billing. But by far and away, the largest use of the offsets out of the Water and Enterprise Sewage Fund is to the DPW salary expense. And so it's significant. And it looks to me as... Yeah, that's really, I think they're right. These are to borrow money from the MWRA for water and sewer projects. We can bring this argument you're making up under the water and sewer budget and the offsets there. Well, that's what I'm questioning. I'm wondering that in one hand we're taking out a capital expense. We're appropriating a capital expense of $2 million. And then if we had done this in order the way it was in the warrant, we would have seen that under the operating budget we are taking a million and a half dollars every year out of the water and sewer fund. And so to me it looks as though this is just an elaborate challenge. So yes, it's well within scope. I don't think so. Okay, thank you. All right. Anyone else? Mr. Carmen, we should discuss this article. Dean Carmen, precinct 20. No, really, I drive a Gray Civic. This is the third time I'm off. If you want to beat me up, go ahead. So, you know, the interesting thing about municipal finances, sometimes it's clear as mud even though it aims to be transparent. So we have these weird funds that things operate under. The water and sewer department is what we call an enterprise fund. It sits within this proprietary fund group. It's a business within the government. Oh, Mr. Gilligan, I'm about to ask you this question. Don't worry. I don't believe I think the answer Mr. Harrington is trying to get at is I don't think an enterprise fund has the authority to borrow money. And so I think what Mr. Harrington has pointed out is actually quite a valid point, which is the general fund, which is the thing we general talk about or the capital borrowing fund actually, I think to be more specific, borrows the money and then gives it to the enterprise fund. So that's sort of the transfer that Mr. Harrington has noticed in his question. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Gilligan, do you wish to address these two in this article? Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Steven Gilligan, town treasurer, in answer to Mr. Carmen's question, he's correct enterprise funds don't have the authority to borrow money. I just want town meeting to understand that to confirm what Mr. Tostey said, these are zero interest loans from the MWRA and we take five years to pay them back. So even though the appropriation is for over a million dollars, we will not be spending that money in a single fiscal year that will be spread out. So we will be keeping that and earning whatever interest we can on it while it's in the bank. Thank you, Mr. Moderator. Anyone else wish to discuss these zero interest loans? Sir. Peter Fuller, precinct 20. How does the $800,000 being proposed to borrow in this article relate to the $1,300,000 for the same purpose in the capital plan? Is this additional to that or part of that? Mr. Fosk, can you address that please? Excuse me, I'm just trying to find that line item. Part two, line 10. No, line eight, excuse me. Yes. Okay, so this is water sewer rehabilitation which allows the... This is in the other category and it allows the town to spend money to improve the sewer system and the amount on article... Adam, do you want to address this? Do you have the answer? So this is $750,000 and $800,000. These two are requests for loans and the amount in the capital budget is an expenditure from the enterprise fund. So they're not identical. So you're saying we're spending the sum of $1.3 million and the $800,000? I believe that's correct. Is that correct? Yeah, go ahead, Mr. Chapter Lane. Adam Chapter Lane, town manager. So the 1.3 is one in the same. $800,000 is to be borrowed. $500,000 is a direct cash appropriation. The debt service for the $800,000 is supported by water and sewer rates and the $500,000 immediately in FY 15 is supported by water sewer rates. Yes. Okay, thank you. My curiosity is satisfied. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Harrington, Sean? Sean Harrington, precinct 15. I move the question. All matters before it. Motion to terminate the debate. On the matter and all motions before it. All in favor, please say yes. Yes. Opposed, say no. Okay, this is a debate is terminated. We have now before us the recommended vote of the board of select. This is a bonding issue. So we're going to use the clickers. Okay, someone says no. You ready? All right. So yes is in favor. And we are voting in the recommended vote in article 32. Yes is in favor. No is to oppose. Please vote now. Okay, time's up. It is 176 in the affirmative. Nine in the negative. It passes. Motion adjourned. Are you ready, Mr. Flynn? Are there any motions for reconsideration on any of the articles? Ready? Ed, you have it. You can say all right. Whoever wants to adjourn, please vote yes. Yes. Here's your clicker. All right. We have Ed. Do you want reconsideration which article? CZGB. Please return. Put your clickers in the boxes on the way out. Okay. Thank you. We are adjourned. Motion to 20.