 Next order of business actually be the election nomination and election of vice chair for the nominations Minutes of February 20th 2024 Page three an item number 10 it Artesian vapor and it should be argon's vapor minutes next public comment a Part of the meeting where anybody can make a comment that they wish on general issues It can be on something that is on the agenda. You don't have to wait for that agenda item But you anybody who wishes we're we're not going to be doing specific. It's not on the agenda to do specific things the basically the process of figuring out what to do about the budget is coming up, but that's going to be scheduled to Come up around 720. It's around 730. You can Say what you want now. Okay. Is there anybody online here? No, no one online next designee for examining and allowing claims So each year it's suggested the board doesn't one member and one alternate to sign warrants on behalf of the Warrants made available for informal review at regular board meetings and sent to the full board using email after signature of the board There's a resolution included in your packet This is open to board or considers each year if you want to designate a member charge with that task Then a backup. I would love to volunteer Okay, we have a volunteer person I can be the alternate So we need a formal All right, move that we went Junction the designated member Your second For the discussion on the motion All those in favor say aye. Hi all those made Congratulations in The Select board rules of transaction and meeting schedule This is another thing for your Reorganizational meeting how the board adopts rules of transaction about business throughout its I've included in your packet the rules of transaction as they were last year. I went through I didn't see any potential edits But certainly any board member has changes. They'd like to make And We also put together as attachment aid of that a schedule of select board meetings grant It's going to always be changed and amended throughout the year Typically the board meets the first and third Tuesday of the month that seven With the exception of the month of August. It's typically just the third Tuesday of the month Following what? Or in November this year election day is on the first Tuesday of the month So I've moved that select board meeting Wednesday of that week for now Participate the board will be asked for and then following the format We did last year for our budget overview putting that on a Saturday in December and not having the multiple meeting nights in December that Senses around that That outlines your schedule for the year so up to the board how you want your rules of transaction to read and We don't need to change it tonight, but maybe to think about Says public hearing notices shall be duly warned in the observer or the Burlington free press I was just thinking seven days might be a better solution better option than the pre-press that's it's free and Pre-press isn't getting delivered most it's getting Delivered on a delay these days. So like I said, I don't think we need to change it today But maybe something to consider for next year Is it really an or or is it an end? It was an or it came up a couple years ago Where we had a bond warning that had to appear three weeks in a row and there was an oversight by the observer to include it So we are able to remedy it by getting it into the free press at the end of that week because their publication was more frequent That's how that landed Like I said just something to consider Or even just the newspaper of general circulation. That's when you're doing a Service by publication in law. That's what the statute says Um, okay, so We're not making an amendment to that I move to adopt the select board rules of transaction and meeting schedule Gated March 19th 2024 for the term of the current select board ending in March 2025 Is there a second second For the discussion All those in favor say aye All those opposed may the ayes have it Next on the agenda is a public hearing. Um, but it's actually I think a warning for it is So 15 715 and we're Order over so um, I'll ask the the chair and mirror this What would you Um, I would actually uh, open it at From roughly 710 There'll be a presentation. I think then Make a few minutes and we'll be closer to 715. I think by the time We can actually open them to you to the public That sounds great. Unfortunately the person making the presentation is He's not in the room. I'm setting up a text right now. Can we do the liquor licenses? That's a good idea. Yeah, let's Eric can we can you address that? Sure. Yeah, we can jump to other business here. Um, So liquor and tobacco license renewals, um, there was a question from the board last time with Say a license renewed and its date wasn't up quite yet and there was a violation Town clerk consulted with the department of liquor control Basically if a violation occurs at any point, um, the town's notified the business is notified Because it's a renewals already happened. It won't jeopardize that process from happening um That was kind of the feedback they had for us So I don't think there's any risk with the board approving something when there might be a little bit of lag for the exact date that it needs to Come up again. I know when talking to sarah all the liquor licenses on this list have an april 29th renewal date It's that's going to kind of get pushed A day or so each year I further ahead So we talked about a motion to consider with these Um To consider approving the renewals for next license year as approved by dlc their system has a lot of different dates right now And it might just be a cleanest way for for that, so The board to consider, um, you know a motion to renew the liquor licenses as um As presented and a separate motion to renew the tobacco licenses as presented um Oh, do you need a motion or I can ask a question Nobody can tell you what to do Robert uh, I So we're there was a question last time about approving liquor licenses too far ahead of In case there's a violation in between that and their renewal date Did that just get addressed in what you said that I was yeah, yeah, that's that's what we got back from dlc As licenses are renewed and there's a violation. It's brought up and dealt with You know depending on the severity of it the frequency of it It's handled the same way So I don't think there's a risk for the board if that were to occur and you've renewed something It's It doesn't necessarily mean if there was a violation that the license would be revoked even Even if there was in this period But that was the best feedback we could get from the state on it I guess What I thought was the concern was that there's certainly if you have enough of a violation that you lose your license That's like one violation, but it could just be like The select board has a concern because there's been some minor violations, but too many of them So that that was I thought the concern We That was the most we could get from the state. I can follow up with them some more But that sarah tried to talk to four or five people. Well, I mean it sounds like it's really just the select board Well, they're not we're comfortable. Yeah, it's not That's their their position on it their position is The state's position is going to be if it's serious enough to lose their license doesn't matter when It's renewed or when you're renewing it's good. They're going to lose their license, but And this changed a couple years ago It used to always be an april 30th to may 1st renewal then they changed it for when a new business came It would be from the date that license was granted. So you get these kind of one or two offs in our whole Licenses that we offer in the town. So Brings up these different situations to think through but it's certainly it's the board's purview to To renew these the bliss you have before you tonight for I know alcohol is all in april 29 renewal Tobacco licenses that have to double check with sarah. She probably has it on she printed this out for me this afternoon But we you can wait on this telling for a second as well. There's nothing critical tonight that You know, I mean, I mean really don't think there's more information or anything. It's just Know what we were kind of discussing last time. I mean, I think the only You know the the reason that you know kind of got pinged for me was because there was One time we had someone who had had some minor violations and we had them The business owner come in and address kind of their remediation efforts and What they were doing to make sure that that didn't happen it going forward Which you know kind of eased our you know feelings in order to renew that license They could still come in and address the things for us. I mean the license would have already been approved, you know in that time, but so I guess I will move to Two separate versions Okay, I'll move to Uh Approve the liquor licenses for 2029 as presented 2024 That's presented Is there a second? Early discussion All those in favor say hi The eyes have it Okay, and I will also move to approve the tobacco licenses as presented Is there a second Further discussion All those in favor say hi. Hi Now we are closer to the time so I will convene the the public hearing the official Notice reading it into the record the Williston select board will hold a public hearing to receive comment on proposed changes to the existing Williston unified development by-law To amend the town-wide official map and the regulation plan and street specifications maps in the form-based code Appendix app closed parentheses Pursuant to 24 vsa section 4442 and the Williston unified development by-law public hearing will take place Tuesday march 19 2024 at 7 15 p.m In the Beckett McGuire meeting room at the Williston town hall located at 7900 Williston road The remote participation is also available So, um matt Great. Um, thanks for having me here tonight This is a relatively simple and isolated amendment to Williston's Summing It relates to the removal of future streets in other words streets that that don't exist But have been drawn on the official map the regulating plan map and the street specifications map That accompany Williston's form-based code, which is a zoning overlay in tap corners In the in the case in front of us the property owner of Vermont state university Through conversations with the town requested the town consider removing these streets They they don't align with any existing streets or the buildings on the site They were a sort of a speculative idea that resulted from a conversation between Vermont technical college and the form-based code consultant at the time And vtsu would like the the freedom to just sort of plan for the campus without any additional Uh burdens of zoning at this time So the amendment takes The streets that are on the inside of the flair circle as well as sort of an an entryway alley coming into the campus And and removes them from the map leaves a blank slate on the inside of the circle Should vtsu come to the town with a master plan in the future that lays out some interior streets in a different way These maps could be amended again to accommodate that or or things could just be left As they are that's the that's the amendment in front of you It is simply to delete those streets from the map. There are no Text changes to the zoning no changes to the development standards Questions from the board Even I can't come up with a new question Um This is a public hearing so is there anybody in the audience who wishes to make a comment on this issue or ask questions Seeing no one Eric is there anybody Nope If that is the case then a motion to close the public hearing would be in order I move to close the public hearing on proposed amendments to the zoning bylaw and official math Is there a second Second all those in favor further discussion all those in favor say aye all those opposed nay the ayes have it Okay, so next would be the actual zoning bylaw official map amendment so If there are questions from that or comments Hearing none A motion would be in order I'll move to adopt the amendments to the unified development by law and official map as presented Is there a second second further discussion All those in favor say aye all those opposed nay the ayes have it Thank you We're saving it all for later Your steps in my favorite So next the fiscal year 2025 budget Revote planning discussion if you could lead us off on that. Yep. I provided a board a memo this Discussion set up for to talk about just planning ahead and thinking about Public feedback and and process and timeline for getting a revote together for the budget First for the public feedback one thought I had for the board to consider you could At your next meeting thinking about holding a public hearing on the budget We could advertise that the next couple of weeks. We could put some time Aside the April 2nd meeting for that. I could also do some other outreach Online forms some drop-in chats to gather additional feedback that I could collate a report for the board as well as another idea The board's then going to need to determine an approach for the budget development You may want to consider setting some some targets for example an expense bottom line a tax rate A number increase Reminder our expense bottom line was about a nine point eight percent increase that was considered a town meeting day and just Under four cents per hundred dollars of assessed value on on the tax rate on that component of it The select board is going to need to decide which operational items to prioritize and staff can outline possible scenarios and Look at a number of different components of the operating budget as as you consider what you want to be worn for the budget And then thinking about timeline as well consult with the town attorney for a budget revote The warning must be at least seven days before the vote is going to be held You'd also hold up hold a public information hearing I think at least five days before So that's the minimum, you know pragmatically I'd suggest more time for public outreach and education on what's uh, what the budget revote components are going to be I'm sorry Eric. The public hearing has to be within five days Yeah, it has to be because our public hearing At least five days. Oh, at least five days after voters are notified. Oh Yeah So thinking about timing there then thinking about logistics, um You know, do you want to hold it at the at the army and kind of have a similar setup as you do on town meeting day Tabulated votes talk to the town clerk today that certainly makes it Makes it similar to what you have at town meeting day To out the ballot and spend as the machine You could also do a hand vote, but that takes longer the tally for the um, the board of civil authority at the end of the there So those things to think about also think about availability of space, you know in the armory making sure it's available We're gonna have the public information hearing in the school auditorium making sure that's available So those are more logistics, but they all play into this as well We we tend to reserve those spaces for town meeting day months in advance I you know the school district was able to get the armory for April 16th. So They had a quick turn around to get that scheduled anyway um And the board doesn't need to make a final decision on process this evening But depending on timeline and what you want to work within You can always add special select board meetings for budget review and work depending what you want to have for a target You might want to think about what your ideal date is to have that vote and we can work backwards from there for for meetings and components to work through it and public feedback and outreach So you certainly don't have you can make those decisions tonight. You don't have to You can um, but i'm thinking You know by april 2nd that meeting You may want to come to a consensus on what the timeline looks like because there's going to be certainly work to be done here And you can help me give staff direction and surely and I to do some more preparing the budget materials for you to review and make Decisions how you want to craft the budget bottom line is we need to have a successful unapproved budget by july 1 ideally There can be um I brought up with a town attorney briefly. Um, there's some other provisions with borrowing money for operations if needed in the short term, but I think, you know, ideally the budget's approved by then and with that we turn around It's tight. There's there's opportunity if there needed to be a multiple considerations, but I would say before Okay, so um Any questions and comments from the board and then I'd like to ask the people who were here to speak to give their input, but process questions April 16th is the CVSD. There's no way we can do it before that. I do not want us to do with that date I mean even if we could I don't want to and I don't think we can no If we're gonna Actually receive input right actually gonna present the thing that would be two weeks from the public You know if we're doing a public, you know form two weeks from now that would be two weeks from that and that feels too rushed too rushed Just a arbitrary date maybe may hurt, you know before may or before june Well, I think like the first or second week of may because you there's a school break where a lot of people Travel in april so you want people to get safely back from that yet early may generally by mid-may have it Yeah Well, I am I would really like to um hear from folks because Well, not because obviously when you're folks, but the We had pretty significant public safety pressures on the budget and I think there are some so clearly some things that that we could talk about Pushing off another year given The tremendous pressure on the property tax this year But then when it starts getting into do it cut policemen do it cut firemen that that I would think I would like to have some input on And not just make an assumption So yes, I would like to have a sort of a robust couple of weeks of of hearing from people Um And The bonds we have to talk about the bonds we put them back up again, right? Yes, oh, you can warn a bond twice in a year period So you you can think about that for for this special meeting. Um, could also think about November potentially if you want to have a special meeting with with one of those bonds or defer them there You know their projects have been identified in the town's capital budget for a number of years It's it's not critical to move forward them right away In terms of the parking lot we have applied for a $200,000 grant from the state for that project. We should hear about Next month That could that combined with the potential of 200,000 with ARPA funding you discussed previously could take the borrowing amount down to $500,000 With the state too it's likely If we were to get that grant we've we've we would need to have the project fully funded to receive the grant most likely Take one step at a time to see if we get that to revise scope But you have those options for the bonds you you can you can only have a bond failed twice in a calendar Or in a sorry in a 12 month period Really discussion. Otherwise, um folks Somebody you want to go first? My name is chris geffkin and uh, i'm a wilson resin. I would just encourage the uh the board to Get the date out as quickly as possible and share it with the public And educating us on what the changes are As well as consider getting the municipal tax rate back down to a flatter rate like 27 Point 27 as opposed to point threes keep going up Try to get back to a lower rate and um Just be considerate with the the spending and I don't think it was around police and fire reduction as much as it was around um additions to the to the uh like hr director the The the paving out back and and some of those numbers especially with like the ev chargers and some of the um, you know just consider some of the Extras that we're putting in the budget so that it's not impacting Us every year year after year compounding that extra spend That's about it Thanks. Thank you Um soup hours I kind of I came tonight just basically to hear what you folks are thinking about So that we can respond to that How you're feeling about where you're going to make Hopefully adjustments Um from what I was hearing the night of the town meeting A lot of the driving force and some of the increases in the budget is like health care costs increases different things like that And I think we need to be really aware in wilson. I've been here over 35 years. So There's a very aging population In wilson on fixed incomes now. They're retiring I don't think it's fair every year to think that they can make up those increases because Like this year. Okay. We had to pay more for medicare Part b. Do we have a say in that? No We have to come up with the extra and I think some of this have always well. We have to We have to meet these Increases because it can't come out of the employees and I think it can I think it comes a point where they have to make sacrifices. We do And they need to so But that I really want some public caring so we can decide what you guys are thinking about and You know, hopefully Come to some sort of healthy decision I'm very saddened tonight talking to a lot of older people In wilson that are scared They don't know if they're gonna stay in their homes anymore That they've raised their kids in hoping they could stay, you know, all these programs Age well and everything well stay at home people want to stay at home and age And be in a familiar loving environment They're not gonna be able to afford to if this continues Every year. Oh, it's only this so it's only that and it adds up it builds on so You know the taxes go up and up and I just feel bad for a lot of people. I can't afford it. They're thinking about having to sell So I don't think that's fair So that's my that's my feelings about it. Thank you. Thank you. You're welcome Other comments or input? I'm sherry arnold and I just I'll make it quick. I've already said quite a bit at the last meeting the town meeting One in three from honors or elderly by 2030. I'm sure if you guys read seven days or You looked it up yourself by 2030 The amount of elderly will be doubling the the staying amount of children And that we have in the state also Let me 66 by them. Will I be retiring my husband retiring? Probably not Um, I have concerns too with elderly since we have elderly parents and family members would like to stay in their home And so I don't want this to be a you know, me coming up here and I feel like I'm being bother or bickering or whatever But I think there are Um concerns that we have with taxes going up and with also with wanting to retain And have youth graduating from colleges or moving here and starting your own families I really like to see More of a revival of that young people coming and being able to afford a home out of my four children I have one here And she's thinking about going west she and her husband are both 25 and they're looking to buy something And a two bedroom two two bathroom home by Snyder's or wherever is Five six seven hundred thousand dollars or more if they're looking for something older Or something that they can afford my daughter works at the hospital as a nurse She has to think about going much further out And that doesn't make sense to be an hour away driving an hour in especially in the winter and back so we're looking at um There's a lot of costs going up and increases and I know that when my husband and I I like you folks and you're thinking about maintaining your own home This is the town the school fund not we're not talking about the school budget right now But town or school or whatever and you're thinking about maintaining and you've got eight or 10 or 12 things on the list You have to plan and save and execute whether you do the work yourself or you hire out It doesn't you have to make plans on what you can actually afford to do um And that's just You know, that's just what happens. And I think that also with the parking lot. Um, our church or mecca heart of mary is looking to Um possibly this year we do the parking lot, which is going to be 115,000 We are not going to have any eb chargers. We don't seem to need any eb chargers at this time There's talk of well, we'll put it in place and it will happen in the future Why don't we table that and wait? We don't know when or if that will even happen So those are kind of my two cents. That's all I wanted to say tonight. Thank you for listening Thank you Sure Eric, I think we Yeah, either department heads or town manager and the finance director we're we're well worse than that So there's no formal action um On the agenda for this tonight. Um, but is this something we're going to be taking up more on April 2nd or if we want to Have a public hearing on April 2nd Um, are we ready for a public hearing? What what would the public hearing consider? I mean Oh, I mean, I guess I would just like to hear from people as opposed to putting one together and hope and then checking to see if we got right but Everyone else was thinking If you got it right, so they bowed on it. Right. So Something presents them to for them to react. Oh, okay. I just wanted I was just going to hear from people what they thought but I guess I think we have to have specifics before we do that. Um and So Eric, what kind of timeline would we be talking about for specific proposals? Actually, I suppose that's putting the cart before the horse. We need to come up with goals of either tax rate or dollars or both Yeah, I think I think that would be helpful if that's the Approach you want to take just from from a standpoint where if there's a If there's a target then we can work to pull numbers to give you Options to reach that target to let you know what the reality is to reach those targets There's different layers of decision making depending on what the targets are going to be So I I think that may be a helpful approach. Um I'm just reminding a lot of the increase in in the spending expense side of the budget is tied the wages and benefits of Staff there certainly were already starting some additional sweeps of the budget and looking where we can Trim back, but payroll benefits make up a vast majority of the operating budget But we'll certainly work to see what the board's goals are for a target And we can we can give you options and different things to think about and considering how to reach those goals and staff can prepare that but You know depending what your timeline is we can we can do that work once you have that decision, but You could have an agenda item at your next meeting to talk about kind of what your goals are for the budget and get the staff Some more specific direction if you want if you're not Just kind of bring this up tonight for the first time since town meetings So I know there's a lot to think about so We could potentially have that discussion on April 2nd And then staff would come back on April 16th with more than nuts and bolts or if you want to have a special Depending on the timeline you want to work with then we we can make it RM but I think probably two weeks from there would be good just to give us a good amount of time to go through everything but then if we if we see it on the 16th and the public I mean I understand a public hearing where you're Presenting what we've decided But it wouldn't really be an opportunity for people to weigh in because we wouldn't have time to change it because we would have Already warned it. No, not necessarily. We can do the public hearing and then warn the vote They don't have to be Yeah, they're kind of similar to what you do in early january There's kind of an initial manager's budget Then you have a public hearing usually the first week in january to get feedback on it Then you finalize it and the warning later in january You could do that kind of in a truncated version approach like that come up with a A draft for the warning get public feedback on that draft and then make any changes after that feedback and then Think first to even warning it for that for that vote There's multiple steps if you want to keep on the two week meeting intervals I might push the vote probably to the layer some may so you might want to think about Adding a special meeting in thinking about like, I mean We're here now in this moment. I mean, I would love to personally provide some guidance to our staff to And just initially start thinking about like What that goal is like, you know, do we you know, it's at 9.84 percent right now Like is it a matter of a percentage? Do we want to you know Have a model where it's at five percent a model where it's at, you know Level funded. Do we you know or you know, it's it's there's there's no budget like what's our for me I would I would prefer to give them a goal Sooner rather than later so that one you all have as much time as possible to think about these different scenarios um, and then and then we can move this process along quicker, but Again while giving the public as much opportunity for feedback, so By having the department heads present at the public feedback with that help You know to explain the cost increases and what it's costing us to What the budget is Certainly up to the board. I'll say, you know, a lot of it ties into payroll and benefits that Shirley and I can speak to But if it's a department kind of operational item, um, department has to certainly speak to that Like we can structure this any way the board would like, you know, I'm certainly like you have in December here from the department has some proposals We can they can be available depending what how the board It's just important for the public to understand all the different operational constraints also I'd like for this idea of giving Some input tonight. Um, I'm just I'm tripping over the calendar in my head. So If if we see it for the first time on april 16th and we're voting Second week of may there's not a lot of there's a vacation week in there And unless we're all here, which I will be so we could that week But if we'd have to have another meeting in between or like if we look at we don't have to have to vote Well, we're running out of you say you didn't want to have it june 30th But uh, I'd rather push it back a little bit and Yeah, see what happens and then and you can Okay, so what would that look like? So In my head here. I think I don't have a calendar in front of me. Is there april like 30th is like a tuesday? Yeah, so thinking, you know, if the board has some initial direction tonight, you need to get in two weeks We we've started looking at the budget and we have a list of of things we've started We can prepare that and have a conversation at your next meeting and kind of see where Things are you get your initial feedback on what we're seeing with where the target is and what You may need to consider depending on what that number is and what our suite looks like You can give staff direction that night and then at your meeting on the 16th you could have a Staff could make any get direction that night you could look at it again on the 16th and You can invite the public to potentially comment on it at that point depending where the where the work goes on the Second you could add a special meeting on the ninth what might might be the way to go to Then come up with something that you want to be back on on the 16th of april Then that meeting on the 16th of april then then maybe potentially you you move forward with with Working at a warning finalize for you know the mid-may or so that we can the 13th or the 20th Morial day is May 27th, so you may want to avoid the end of the week leading up to memorial day There's maybe the week to make 13th or something You don't have to be 30 days out, but you probably want to be maybe at least three weeks or so so if the board was going to ask eric to Make a initial sweep with goals in mind, what would those goals be? I actually would like to see What it would look like for level funding the budget. I think that would be a very very difficult thing But I'd like to see it And then Anything I'm going to throw out is arbitrary Yeah, when I I just took half of I'm you know for at homeless town. I figured a half of that and you know Five percent and I mean maybe even like 7.5 percent. I mean, I know that's a lot of work to to figure out but um, you know, if there was several different Options presented just to look at that and what that would mean for services and continuity of services I can share I looked at it, you know to take a percentage point off on the expense side It would be a net reduction of $150,000 I don't know what net neutral means But it's just a lot of Yeah, I I said level funded to say the same thing, but I like net neutral So yeah, so we're just talking about it's here to prove so basically cutting down from where we are We cut down this percentage off What that would look like if we cut this percentage off and if we were at, you know, zero percent I can say just preliminarily You know, I think we can probably we can get the one percent off when you start getting Beyond One and a half two percent. You're really talking about cutting staff at that point you're talking about We haven't run the number yet, but for your unionized staff have collected bargaining agreements that are followed Your non unionized staff is that your discretion for their cost of living increase than their merit increase So you can you can have a disparity in those numbers, but that's certainly challenging for unionized staff getting a raise and non unionized staff Maybe not getting as much of a much of a cost of living or something like that might might provoke the non-union people to form a union So you have discretion there, but you know, there's these other factors to think about but I I can we we looked at capital a little bit too, but I Once you start getting beyond that probably one and a quarter one and a half percent It's really talking about reducing the size of the staff We can run those scenarios just I just want to be But I'd like to see that The level of funding would be cutting almost 1.5 million dollars Yep Yeah, I was I was focusing on like half the tax rate You know because I'm okay if we if you think we can be a little more aggressive on revenue, especially I've said like even if it's If there are things in the budget that If revenue comes in higher, we'll do them. You know, if it doesn't we don't do them Some of that I also wonder we've been so understaffed in Fire and police at different times, but we budget for everybody being there the whole year, right? So there might be some Ability to say well, you know, it's likely that we won't be fully staffed the whole year That's that's something that I would be okay with a risk assessment kind of budget reduction And I hate to say it, but I think that HR director is going to have to wait another year And I'm not can the detective I thought I was really clear what that position was when we added it to the budget the town meeting it was a little bit Softer a little squishier. So I'd probably like to revisit What that detective position was going to Do for the town So those two ads I'd like to see as well, but I was sort of aiming for a cut cut the tax rate now Cut the cut the cut the increase in half the increase in half to two cents. Okay You know a lot of people that own businesses And Just for instance Home Depot We're in there a lot Because we have we had a construction business Everything's locked up now. I know they're trying to stop the theft However, when you question like we were talked we've talked to people and Agway home depot look all these places and it's like We've seen people walk out with stuff and like aren't you Going to say something to them and they actually will Make gestures on the way out very obscene gestures like haha. I'm walking out with this And then the all the staff say The police won't come anyways Because they can't do anything about it. I've heard this from more than one and that Disturbs me and I think I'm going to meet with the police chief himself because why do we need an extra Sergeant or whoever is going to do investigating if they're not bothering to go on the calls And then I go and meet the block and the observer every week Under investigation under this moved along. Well, what does that mean moved along did they suffer any consequences for their behavior? So this I don't understand what this position is going to do if they're going to help enforce our laws Then fine, but I'm not sure I was over there for many years With animal control and other things and I just sometimes I think They're not as busy as they could be Let me just and I supported them all the way my name's on the front of that building for supporting that Building and being a part of the building committee, but there's some things where I think people again Need to make some sacrifices If they want if they get paid well, they have good benefits. There's a lot of people right now Losing their jobs. They have no benefits. I mean we're so I kind of think that it's time for people to Realize that taxpayers don't have bottomless pockets And they're not going to always be able to get you said a lot of people are losing their jobs I mean Vermont has a 2% we do but yeah, you talk to people and they're like they're not employed I don't think that I haven't talked to anybody like that. I hear that anecdote and I I do we have seen some But I'm wondering if it's more their choice. I don't know I you know, I don't want to sound like an old curmudgeon. Maybe I'm becoming one But with a 2% unemployment rate If anybody's complaining that they can't find work, then they're they're not I know I've suffered through recessions myself when I was looking for work and and I don't criticize people who are unemployed But you know, I just when you say people are losing their jobs. I don't see that I see I see we have trouble hiring people because the market I think it probably depends on your skill. Maybe I mean we never had trouble finding work But I think might depend on Your skill out of what you're up to But um, I don't know, but I just think that it's time to The apartment heads are here. We could just well, this wouldn't be the night for that. I mean anyway No, but I mean if you can schedule it. Yeah, we can talk about it amongst yourselves That's kind of what we're here to see how are you going to handle this? You know, it's just that type of thing And I'd like to see like I guess we can get the line by line expenditures Right from the department heads. I'm assuming when there's a club Also, so you can actually access all of that If you have the town report there, it's all in the town report Okay, because when I saw some of the um, there was like a lump sum for equipment a lump sum someone did like Oh the detail. Yep. Yeah, if you go in the town website and if I can also print out a copy I just wonder because I like I'm looking at we drive in There's seven vehicles out there. I'm not sure why we have six or seven cruisers Plus, there's some sitting on the other side of the garage sitting there, but those kind of things are things that taxpayers just single That doesn't make sense two bags. Usually it's two on duty 24 hours is that change now two on each shift Yeah, at least three overnight more during the day. But still I'm just curious why we have six cruisers and then Three more on the I'm not sure what those are doing over there. Are they Heading where you go to the Salvage yard or We have an unmarked, but we'd be happy to sit down with you in the police Well, those are the kind of things that people do see but they're afraid to ask questions about because they're not sure what they're Because it adds up it adds up, you know, 50,000 here 80,000 here and you know it starts to add up when you start Looking at the budget Thank you So I do think we need to move on the do you have the Just a instruction that you need Yeah, just looking back at my notes here. So kind of An illustration of what level funding of the budget would look like if we didn't make If we kept the same expense expense bottom line as we did last year, right looking at of Looking at like a five percent um increase And maybe looking at like a Seven and a half eight and a half something like that and then We have two two variables here There's there's always a spending side, but then there's the revenue side where the tax rate comes into play So we could there could be a bottom line on the spending side but To work on the revenue or revenue and expenses to get the tax rate increase And these two these two variables that play here that feed off of each other And You know it may be something where you have a goal on the expense side and a goal on the tax rate side They all feed into each other and how we design this I've got a list started we can add to that list and I I think I can run scenarios with what the reductions mean for percentages when we start getting into Cutting costs of living increase Cutting staff things like that just to illustrate it how that corresponds with service delivery Okay, deferring more capital as well Yep Get to work all right report back on the second. We're surprisingly on highlight of the evening at next fiscal fiscal year 2023 audit report presentation We're gonna have somebody coming in on zoom on rick brigham Yep, rick rick is on here. So I'll get him connected Jean Jean can't wait I can't wait Hey everybody, hey rick Is it good for me to start? Yep. Hello. Uh, yeah rick if you could uh, Introduce yourself and uh segue into your presentation Sounds good Thanks for having me here tonight everybody. Yeah, I'm rick brigham. I'm an audit partner with sullivan powers and company And we perform the audit for the town of wilson for june 30 2023 And so what I was hoping to do is give you a quick highlight of the report and the results And to take you through some of what I think are the key pieces of it quickly I'm not going to spend a lot of time obviously on numbers at this point because a lot of the data in this Is over, you know, nine months old at this point So I'm mostly going to focus on the process and the report and and uh, the findings related to the report Um, so there's a lot of information here if you look at this for the report in front of you It's 79 pages. There's and and I'm sure if you start reading through it you start looking at it and maybe going a little blurry I There's certainly a lot of things that go into making this report. Um The information that comes from management on this report is all based on things that have happened throughout the year Whether it's paying bills payroll uh policy Setting up, uh, you know Controls and and things like that to get to get to take in revenues. So there's a lot that goes into this Um, and the other part of this for the town of willis and I just want to point this out because I find it very important Is taking responsibility for these financial statements Really, this whole financial statement isn't really my product I have four pages of this of this audit report that it's really mine It really is the uh, the management and finance team that does all the transactions throughout the year and creates the report Um, and especially in willis then a lot of times I have to help my clients generate and and build these these annual reports audit reports But surely did all the preparation of this report and all we did was review it and help her Kind of do some some tweaks to it here and there and uh, I always like to tell her, you know That we appreciate that because we would prefer all our clients do that financials, but not many of them do so That's a big plus for the town of willis then for sure So I'd like to kind of just start a web managing through if you look through pages one through four That's the audit opinion We have basically three choices when we give an audit opinion This is really my charge in this whole document is giving you an opinion on the financial statements that are laid out in front of you We have three choices which can be an uh Adverse opinion, which means the financial statements aren't fairly stated a qualified opinion means they're fairly stated except for something In an unqualified opinion is the best you can have um, and once again the town of willis then has achieved an unqualified opinion and I always like to Congratulate my clients who achieve that because not all my clients do and all of them try to work hard and stuff but But um, you you guys have achieved that and I think it's important to point that out Kind of going through the some of the other important aspects of the financial statement If you're looking at nothing else pages five through 13 That is called the management's discussion and analysis If you looked at nothing else and you just focused on that that's a really good user friendly guide To a summary for what happened during the audit year Kind of talks a little bit about what's happening in future years tax rates stuff like that So there's a lot of great information in that so if you only focused on that you'd get a lot of great information about the audit If if we're going to skip over to pages 16 through 17 Those are what we call the uh, if we look at pages six page 16. These are your major funds general fund capital fund your arpa fund Um, so this is a balance sheet Basically a snapshot in time of all your assets and liabilities at june 30 2023 netting down to your fund balances for each of those funds for each of those major funds And if you turn to the next page you basically get your income statement of those three major funds And then the totals for the non-major funds as well So that that provides you with all the revenues you took in and all the expenses for those funds during the year Same kind of thing if you're looking at pages 19 through 20 Same thing. It's this is more the enterprise funds the water sewer and the stormwater fund Again a snapshot in time of the assets and liabilities at june 30 23 and also a snapshot of the revenues and expenses that went throughout the year for those three major funds If you're looking at pages 24 through 51 Again, this is more for a deep dive if you're looking for information about assets capital assets debt terms of debt collateralization of cash Uh fund balances and what the fund balances can be used for if you're looking for a deep dive into any of those kinds of facets of your financial report that these notes will give you a lot of great detailed information That you can Grummage through and kind of pick out the pieces and answer questions Pages 52 through 63. You've probably seen those all year long That is the budget actual for the general fund And I know that we didn't have many audit adjustments to that So what you were seeing throughout the year was consistent to the end of the year So there shouldn't have been any big surprises from the reports you were seeing throughout the year So those all uh came out came out really well and then At the end of the report if you're looking at pages 65 through 70 We already talked about the major funds the general the arpa Um, but these are the non major funds the other smaller funds related to recreation path reappraisal grant funds um all those other different fund Uh trial balances, they're all back here again Same thing balance sheet and income statement for the year for each of those funds showing the activity that occurred How we went from last year to this year and where the fund balances ended up on those As part of our process for performing an audit Obviously, we give our big the four page opinion Um, but also as as we go through the journey of the audit If we've run into anything where we believe there's material weaknesses or significant deficiencies That we found during the course of the audit. We are required to report those to management So in this meeting that would be my requirement We did not find any significant deficiencies or material weaknesses that needed to be reported There were a couple other recommendations of things related to some policies We think you should have that we put in our management letter, but those are other recommendations They're not required to be in writing. It's just our firm's policy to always put them in writing So they're out there if you want to, you know, talk to Shirley about those I know they're on her board and already being worked on so I think She's made really good progress on all that A couple other uh communication required communications Uh, we had encountered no difficulties in dealing with staff and management during the course of the audit We had no disagreements with staff for management during the course or audit No consultations with other auditors occurred during the audit And all entries that we proposed were posted by management. So there were no unposted entries to the audit report So that's my quick synopsis. I didn't know if there were any questions Questions from the board Yeah, I don't know if you Surely if you want to take this one or not, but um In the schedule of recommendations, there was a comment about procurement Procedures Did you want to elaborate on that at all? Sure, or would you mind elaborating on that? I should So, uh, one of our purposes is a first standard consortium that we're a member of So essentially when we don't like the one-person state contract We don't have to go back out and get those three quotes Right. So we did a the a consortium and that is not in our personnel policy So I mean personnel purchasing policy. So it's just one of those updates that Goes along with all the grant purchasing that needs to go into our purchasing policy I know that consortium purchasing is A little on the gray area. I think at the state level, but this is just like our own policy that we can follow Right because we're a consortium right it references the state contract, but not other consortium. Got it. Good. Thank you Other questions or comments I just want to say You know reiterate What a what a great job you all do and and um, you know internally here within the town and and It is is testament to how diligently you all work and how hard you all work You know that this audit has has come out this way again, you know year after year and that You know you earn praise from the auditors Absolutely Other questions or comments I don't know. We seem to be insinuating that we didn't all read every page We know you Know We all have our it's like the basketball team. We can't all be the point group Gene's inspection is good enough Just to echo Greta, you know, the Shirley's finance team is the lead on this work with our auditors and I I have a brief engagement interview with the auditors as part of this but I know Shirley and staff account and treasurer Mary grant the hours and hours of work and into this so You know, it's thanking them publicly for all their all their hard work the the town's financial management's in good hands Absolutely something to be proud of and clean out And and rick it's it's rare that your clients don't have Have this level of Passing grade is that well You know it kind of is all over the board and it kind of goes from year to year But this year, yeah, I'm having a lot of audits that are having more Findings or or material weaknesses Maybe unqualified opinion, but still might have a material weaknesses significant efficiency So but in this particular case having An unqualified opinion and no material weaknesses significant efficiencies is an excellent outcome I have a few I have a few clients that do that But again a lot of what I was feeling and what I talked with my partners about related to this job Was the fact that you guys in your finance team create the financials That's a huge impact and one one we'd like to see The rest of the clients throughout the state do because it really shows that they're taking charge of these financial statements and being responsible for them Anything else and if not, there is a proposed motion Gene I feel like you got to do it. I know And I actually found it this time too I move to accept the fiscal year 2023 audit report from the town auditing firm of Sullivan powers as presented Is there a second a second Further discussion on the motion All those in favor say hi The eyes have it. So thank you and actually thank thank you rick For the work that your company does for this as well Absolutely. Have a good rest of your meeting you too. Oh, thank you. Yeah, thank you Next agenda item energy efficiency and conservation block grant and we're going to be hearing from melinda Yeah, I just sent her a note. She's at the planning commission next door. So she's she should be in route Are there any other items we can take up from the manager got some catering permits They're back I have to go on the record of saying that my little my book that I compare everything organized only goes to item 15 So when you have too many things on the agenda like we do tonight it messes up my whole organization structure So The first is a catering permit for this weekend by bevo llc. It's at the sugar tree maple farm on bradley lane for Maple open house weekend. They're having a open house pancake breakfast So you might have to still have some spirits available. I've reached out to them today to get a little more information They need to put in a I don't think they're aware of this. They need to put a you know event permit So I told them get that into me tomorrow when we can approve at the staff level and said do this next year You need to get this in earlier But given it's maple open house weekend You know the board would consider approving this catering permit on the condition that staff approves the temporary event permit That's my suggestion to consider We're having liquor at a pancake breakfast Yeah, that that's how I read it. I know More pancakes I didn't hear back from them today, but I can I can get more information and pass it on to Do you want to wait on it or How can we wait? Yeah, so I mean, I assume if it well, I guess we're gonna approve it Yeah, there's no if there's no opposition that we'd be looking for a motion Move to approve subject to their Submitting a special events permit per second Discussion all those in favor say aye. Hi Yeah So let's circle back around Energy efficiency and conservation block grant melinda. Good evening Thank you for running over from the Sure. Yeah Thank you So, uh We brought this revised proposal back to you for the energy efficiency conservation block grant And so this proposal Has us purchasing one zero-turn mower for public works maintenance and grounds and one field line marker for the recreation department recreation department brought up this as a desired potential use of this grant just because they They're used currently using a gas power field line marker that requires a huge amount of labor to use it and this Robot would would really cut down on labor as well as on use of fuel. So That and that and also being able to purchase some hand electric tools as well And We have money left over for technical assistance from the department of energy That would be a separate application for a technical assistance voucher And that's where we actually we get technical assistance from a person that they assign to us for And they offer any number of Technical assistance areas we need to to choose an area We get assistance from them And Most importantly this new proposal Does not require the town to expend any of its own funds as match or anything There would be some leverage funding that would come from Green power rebates and A federal tax credit Which municipalities can now take advantage of through Questions from the board In terms of the technical assistance, we don't need to specify that in our proposal What we want to use that technical assistance for we're just generally applying for Well, we would I would specify but that that application is a separate application and I'm less concerned about Getting that out the door as I am concerned about just the the funding piece for the equipment So, yeah It's a voucher program with a deadline coming up in April Yeah, but in terms of that like so the the line item for this will just say technical assistance It's not going to be technical assistance for dot dot dot. Well, um, so there's two different applications One is for the equipment, which I which we could submit if we Know what we want to spend that on the other the technical assistance would be a separate application and we would submit it until we had You know a fairly good idea of what we want to spend that on and I think even so They're pretty flexible like we can you know propose something and then I think there's some flexibility to kind of tweak it and refine it and you know change the scope of work or you know develop the scope of work that suits our needs No, thanks for Reconsidering thanks for being quite small and come up with a new idea. I don't think we use a gas powered line marker though right now Right. It's just it's currently Noted used because it's All right, well, I mean it's 10 hours a week That's a quarter of a person if they really save that kind of time just put in the thinking banks But um, no, thanks for thanks for the for everyone involved with being a little flexible on our questions last time I'm just curious what the robot's gonna look like Need to get into that tonight. I forgot to print out the picture, but Todd's very excited about a cycle I hope it's a five It's interesting to look it up and it talks about only using needing 20 minutes to paint a field from initial Saves up to 50 percent paint Right and and I think the big savings is in the time it takes to lay out a field that initially It would take a person two or three hours to lay outside the field and take this thing and just like Just program it in and Says two minutes on the website. Yes gps and you load the field dimensions into it I think once you use it once it'll be a piece of cake So there's no formal Action required, but the staff is asking to if we have consensus on the proposed spending What is the board's thought Proposed grant spending, right? Yes Not I support this yeah, I would really appreciate that you all have been so thoughtful So win-win Sounds like we have consensus Okay Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Do you want to tag Matt? Come on He's probably watching do we have a more caring permits to do in the meantime? Oh, we do Now with this quick brain If the chair would entertain yeah, please We have another permit for april the 8th they on eclipse day for the red barn gardens From the sausage shack llc They have a temporary event permit submitted so same thing I would suggest for the board to approve this liquor application on condition of staff approval of the temporary event permit It doesn't meet the threshold for the select board to have to approve that It just made out 75 people does not meet the threshold for the select board having to approve it Just the component for the caterer for the alcohol service part of it Who's serving the alcohol? It would be the sausage shack llc I'll move to approve subject to a special events permit being Submitted and approved. Is there a second? Second any discussion All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed nay I feel like I'm missing out on something here Getting people inquiring I just go nope. Nope. Nope You want to get the last one? That's yeah, sure And this is at an ice and family barn. It's a wedding. I'm sorry not missing out on this one On august the 10th And it is with 802 cocktails No concerns from staff. Is there a motion? Move to approve Is there a second? Second Discussion All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed nay and one abstention One abstention Okay, thank you Welcome back I'll make I'll make you a Panelist mouth so you can share your process I do it but it really is my favorite So clear the room out Eric you can enable screen sharing I was freaking out there great Thanks for having me back again tonight I'm here to talk about the proposed Attachment a to willis and sewer allocation ordinance for fiscal year 2025 the year beginning On july 1 of this year I'm going to go through What I have in the memo that I prepared by following this slideshow which I hope will be a little more entertaining and interesting And talk about A couple things tonight What we're here to do to Determine how much wastewater capacity allocation will be made available for new users during the fiscal year of 2025 I want to talk about how we arrive at Knowing or thinking we know how much capacity we have available to sell to new users Talk about history of use and trends and sewer flow in williston part of what informs that decision around sales How that correlates to long-range planning and an outlook for the future And then I'll go through the recommended allocations for fiscal year 2025 The contents of the memo that came in your packet and and what's summarized by this presentation here We're presented to the planning commission at their meeting on march 5th. Um, and they voted to Make a few changes to the the memo I drafted for them, which are in the memo you have And to move it on to you for consideration Um, so First I just want to talk about the basics How do we determine? How much capacity the town of williston has remembering that we share our capacity at the plant with the village or sorry The city of sx junction and the town of sx So we look at how much we own There that's a easy number to find out We look at how much we're currently using And that's relatively easy to figure out because there's one pump station that carries all of williston sewerage From williston to the plant and it has a meter on it and public work staff takes a reading every single day And we come up with an average daily flow for the year by looking at those records We also look at any capacity that has been sold to projects, but not yet used So you you might sell capacity to a developer or a subdivision All at once and then they're going to use that as they come in and get permits for individual houses or buildings or or uses and The town's rules around being able to hold capacity have become stricter over the years You used to be able to hold capacity that you had purchased more or less indefinitely That's not true anymore. So generally this number Gets smaller most of the time So we don't we don't want to sell that again because we've we've already sold it So that's part of our calculation then we have a 7% reserve. That's just the amount that's recommended By our engineer that we don't sell or allocate to any particular use But it's just they are to deal with fluctuations and flow and things like that So we start with total we subtract all of those other things I talked about and we come up with how much capacity We have available to allocate. So that's this is what those numbers Look like for fiscal year 2025 We're going to own 1,110,000 gallons per day capacity I'm recommending that we use 717,658 gallons per day as our current usage That was our our actual average daily flow number for calendar year 2023. So ending in december We have just a hair over 38,000 gallons per day and committed capacity So this has been allocated to a project but not put to use under a permit yet And the 7% of the total capacity number is 77,700 gallons per day Arriving at that bottom number of 276,641 gallons per day capacity available in total to sell to new users in Williston Um, I mentioned that we will have 1,110,000 gallons per day at the plant for fiscal 25 And the reason I said will is because we're on a five-year cycle right now Purchasing 10,000 gallons per day additional capacity each year Of the next couple upcoming fiscal year. So this table just gives you a schedule of that purchase So I mentioned we're using that 717,000 gallon per day figure as our current flow And the reason for that is That's our that's our average daily flow for calendar year 2023. That's the blue line on this graph The orange line is the five-year rolling average flow So typically what the select board has done is looked at both of these numbers and used the higher one To express how much capacity is currently in use. So if we have a low year, but the average is still high Use the average. It's the more conservative strategy This year and last year the actual flow has been higher than the The five-year rolling average. So we're going to go with that higher number expressed by the blue line Why is the blue line as high as it is well One thing that we do see is a fairly significant relationship between how wet the year is and how much sewer flow we see That's because of what's called. I and I In migration infiltration sewer pipes leak in not out generally when it rains a lot our system leaks in The other thing that happens when it rains a lot is there are folks in town who have some pumps that are connected to our system They're not supposed to be public works eliminates them whenever they find them That's a great strategy for for getting capacity back But we do still have some out there the wetter the year generally The higher the sewer flow. So this graph takes a little bit of explaining But what i've done is looked at the flow for each year since 1997 And compared it to the five-year rolling average and then said how much more or less than the five-year average was the flow And then i've done the same thing for rainfall. So these are on on the same scale with each other and Sometimes it tracks pretty close. Sometimes it's a little far off. But but generally when there's more rain, there's more flow That's what this graph Is about and down below. I just noted 23 was 15 percent wetter in terms of inches of rain for the year Then the five-year average of of the five years before that And we saw four percent more flow in 2023 than our rolling five-year average So both went up. Matt, where do we measure? Flow for the sewer plant is that I know we I'm sure I assume we measure water going to into a house where to Is it a couple places around town or how do we so? The the flow is metered at the river co Pump station which pumps all of our sewerage to asex. So it's only that one place There may be meters on our other pump stations bruce would know Aldrich and elliott did a study of all of our pump stations And I would have to go back and look and see if they've actually metered flows through them A project I would love to do someday would be to take all of the water bills And map them against all of the locations in town and see where flows are going up and going down and There's some really interesting stuff you could do with that. It's just a big data merging project that We don't have the horsepower for right now and it's mostly my curiosity. I like how your eyes light up though I mean, there's there's you know, there's really interesting things you can do like How long has the family in this house lived there and what has happened to their flow over time? People tend to buy the three bedroom house. They have a family the flows are higher The kids go away to school The flows are lower eventually that house turns over to another family the flows are higher again And there's really are some interesting Predictive things you can start to do about what are we going to see as our neighborhoods change and grow? So you kind of need to be measuring it at the neighborhood level. Yeah super helpful Yeah, I mean we could do it at the address level with the water bills and then we could But we do also know like we have pump stations that primarily serve commercial and industrial users And we have pump stations that primarily serve residential users. So there is even something we could do there But for the purposes of tonight, we just look at everything because we're interested in how much we have available Is it primarily residential or commercial that are cheating on the sump pumps? I I'd have to talk to bruce whore about that. I think by the numbers we find more residential ones First off a lot more of our commercial property doesn't have a basement And you know, we have we have some pretty significant rules about things like floor drains and and what happens with flows around that so But we we'll get in migration We had the sewer line from the rest stops on i-89 that runs down to the line on oakill road I think bruce said there's six manhole covers, you know at the pavement level in i-89 And we had a lot of surface water flowing into those at one point Somebody can have an open clean out You know near their house that rain water flows into Those are all things I'll talk about a little later about what we do about the total capacity the town has That can actually be, you know, fairly efficient and valuable ways to get back capacity if you can reduce those inflows Um, I mentioned committed capacity. There's there's two kinds of long-term committed capacity The numbers there aren't the years the capacity was purchased. It's just the year the version of the ordinance. They were purchased under um most of this is Taft corners park I think a little bit might be cottonwood, but it's generally Long time developers and landowners in taft corners who bought capacity You know when they had big plans and big long-range plans and so This 38,000 gallons. We don't sell to anybody else because we we know there's someone who's going to Put it to use but they can't hold that we changed the ordinance on that You can no longer hold capacity for more than four years So today we might sell a chunk of capacity to a new residential project like the the snider project the annex purchased a lot of capacity in fy 24 They're going to need to use that Within four years as they as they fill so you don't want you don't want to hold it forever And if you if you don't use it you have to give it back These guys get to hold it because they're grandfathered in these are these are old vested Arrangements here and in the grand scheme of things if this was 380,000 I'd be worried if it's 38,000 it's Relatively speaking a fairly small number We get to keep the deposit We we do charge a holding fee So anybody who's holding capacity pays us I believe quarterly So to hold that and it's not an insignificant amount of money. Yep, so yes If they don't pay that fee they they don't get to hold So back to that bottom line available capacity number The town plan has this statement that we should really be planning for the use of our sewer over a long time frame a 20 year time frame and Typically when I've come to give this presentation to the select board, I've said well, you know, we can Divide it by 20. That's a 20 year time frame and and I've said something like well, can we keep selling it the way we've been selling it for 20 years And we've sold quite a bit more than That 30,832 gallon number in the last couple of years. No, we couldn't keep selling it like that But this is a really kind of incomplete Picture of how the sale and then assessment of what's actually happening in the system happens and I wanted to add that For you tonight, so what do we do every year? We're at the top circle right now the select boards Make a decision about making capacity available for the upcoming fiscal year Then over the next fiscal year Working clockwise the town is going to sell that capacity. We're going to track what we sold And then that capacity is going to be put to use that new development comes online And we are going to see what we sold as flow through the system We're going to see it at the river cope pump station meter. That's a picture of the pump station building right there Um, and then I'm going to come back next year And I'm going to tell you how much is flowing through the system And we're going to subtract that from how much we own and we're going to figure out how much we have left to sell um so So the key beat in the being that you're not doing it from I've sold this much I have this much left, but you got it using this much and when I have this much left And that's what this graph is all about. Um When I was picking a picture for this graph I originally had a shark because I call this jaws the jaws are opening up But I decided to use a building instead Um, so the red line here is the cumulative capacity sold for the last 20 years Since 2003. Um, so we're just adding every year goes up and up and up So we've sold, uh, just under 250 000 gallons per day Capacity since 2003 So what I mean by what we sold is somebody comes in and they say I want to build a Three bedroom house We have a number of gallons. They must purchase in order to build that three bedroom house um Those numbers are conserved. So part of the way we price sewer capacity is we make people buy more physical gallons than they're generally likely to use So those those rules are conservative Then they go use it and we see it as flow And so the blue line is what has happened Using 2003 as a baseline to flow. So there were some years at the beginning there Where there was actually less flow than 2003 even though we were selling more and more gallons But it did go up eventually and so since 2003 We've seen an increase of about 100 000 gallons per day Over those 20 years But the gallons I put it in air quotes that we've sold is 150 000 gallons per day more than that So when is a gallon not a gallon? There's the gallon you buy there's there's what you actually use and if you if you work this utilization into That number I showed you You know the 200 and something thousand gallons per day and say well if we sold 20 000 gallons next year But then we saw it as 15 000 gallons of flow and we basically rolled that 5 000 gallons back into what we have available to sell this capacity Lasts longer than 20 years or you can sell more of it every year for 20 years Then simply dividing the number by 20 expresses. So Sewer capacity remains Williston's most constrained resource and the one that is the most difficult and expensive to add to um but The way this works means We shouldn't be panicking we should be planning and we can come back and talk about this in the overall context of the 2025 town plan and Just in terms of how we how we plan for How much more capacity do we think we need against? build out or town vision things like that But what this graph says to me is don't just divide by 20 and then panic because You sold 25 or 30 000 gallons last year, but you can really only sell 13 000 a year because really you can sell more than that before you're going to run out A good part about this line is we sold the red line They're only using the blue line. We're only paying for the blue line True businessman So um typically during this process we talk about what should the town do to address The limitations we do have on capacity And you know, so I talked about quite a bit that's on this slide Just now, but what does it really look like to do it to take a 20-year outlook on sewer capacity? I think through the town plan and other efforts we should start thinking about how we prioritize and how we Categorize capacity The current sewer allocation ordinance does this by the type of use Given some things I've talked to you about the home act and required density where there's water and sewer provided and other things It might be time to bring back actually an old idea that was in the old sewer allocation ordinance, which is to think geographically Where are the places in town that the town would like to spend its limited capacity? And are there places in town where you know, the pipes are in the ground and the service is there But the town doesn't have as high a priority of bringing new users into those areas So we might think about the village versus the residential zoning district Or taft corners versus the gateway north Area up by the sx line or versus the area around exit 12. And if this is a limited resource Um Might the town want to consider How it spends that resource? On the map as opposed to what kind of user you're selling it to and I said that's an old idea that there was a there was a Geographic component in one of the older versions pre 2015 Of the ordinance and and all of that could be informed by the vision that will be expressed in that 2025 town plan You'll be helping us develop over the next year or so Um, also, I you know, whenever anybody asks me if there's capacity available to purchase should the town purchase it? My answer is yes Because it's limited and and if the opportunity arises, um, willistan's done well to take advantage of that um Another one to think about just with vision and goals is things like Um new users that you need in town or want in town. Do you want to prioritize that way? Or particular types of job creation? Um Do you want to think about capacity that way? So those are just some things to kind of file away And think about maybe someday when we talk about the allocation ordinance So a little bit about what um willistan has been doing for the last 10 years in terms of capacity sales um This is this is through the last full fiscal year f y 23 and i'll show you later f y 24 is a little higher than this but um You know as little as 3 000 and change gallons per day as much as 17 500 um The the business cycle and the residential development cycle are both pretty pretty volatile. They can track with the economy um There's business that can come to town that needs very little capacity like a mini storage And there's business that can come to town that needs a ton of capacity like kerry green mountain or burlington beer Um, so these numbers change a lot um year to year um And typically what's done in attachment a is the select board makes more capacity available than actually is sold So we've sold a mean of just over 15 000 gallons per day over the last 10 years But we've made 40 000 gallons per day total available to new use users over the last 10 years um And most of the new capacity that's made available by the select board under this process is new commercial and new residential so um 10 900 um Mean over the last 10 years for new commercial a little over 12 000 new residential Uh 10 000 set aside for encouraging specific development where someone has to come back here and ask your permission to buy from that pool We did that recently And then we have these other categories like public facilities affordable housing Uh residential additions and pollution abatement. So Those make up that reminder going back to the geographic component that would consider infrastructure upgrades possibly correct You might think about that you might think about um Where in the system do you expect? Lots of lots more users or do you want lots more users? And so in certain areas we want to kind of slow growth So you'd think about um, you'd think about it in terms of the way you divide it up What's available for sale, you know, who's going to get to connect to the system for how much There's also a whole other element which is system planning and actually planning for where you're going to put the infrastructure And if you've ever looked at our sewer map, there's kind of this nice big Really regular sort of rectangular shape of where we provide sewer in williston But when you map the actual service on there, you'll see that so much of that is force made that we don't allow people to connect to And so when you say to somebody sure you're in the sewer service area and you're in a place We'd like to see development. Let's pretend But that line in the street in front of you is a force main. You can't connect to it. You're going to need to pump your waste You know 2 000 feet up the hill or get it to our pump station In order for it to enter our system Who pays for that the developer does the develop so so there are times when development does not pencil out Because the infrastructure cost of getting into our system is is as high as it is Just physically it's a it's a long run There's also times when it someone can be in the district But it's not feasible for them to to do that We'll let them have a septic system, but that's only going to work for a smaller user So yeah, you know Planning for how you develop the system in line with where you do and don't want the growth or a certain type of growth is A really good strategy. I would think like, you know, light industrial growth if we had an area That's all awful industrial happening right now Pretty much Maybe there's no more room for growth over there. Maybe there is So that's something we can't make a plan on without knowing right Most of what's north of industrial avis on septic systems right now and therefore Folks who would be higher users of wastewater just don't locate there Same thing is true for williston road going toward the south burlington line Over where the windshield and vermont paint company are We had a big production bagel bakery manufacturer that wanted to go in there about five years ago And what ended up making it not happen was They couldn't come up with an economical way to either upgrade the septic or or connect to town services That can also impact their zoning You want to think about that so you want to think about what you're allowing and does your infrastructure support it There's always a little bit of a mismatch there, but yeah Thank you. Sure So I I want to roll right into the recommended attachment a for this year I'm showing you a couple years worth of Historic allocation here. So this is these numbers are the amount of gallons per day The select board has made available in these various categories over the years And really the whole story in the recommendation this year Is we're recommending myself planning commission and staff That what's available for new commercial be reduced from 15 000 gallons per day down to 10 000 gallons per day The only reason for that is we don't really Know of any large commercial uses that are that are in process that would be coming in and looking to purchase their capacity So our last big commercial user to purchase capacity was the hotel that's now under construction at finny crossing They they bought their capacity. They got their permit We don't see any more hotels on the horizon right now. We don't see any wastewater intensive industrial users so 10 000 is still quite a bit. It's it's more than has been made available in a few of our past years And if somebody came in with something bigger than that they could always come to the select board and ask to purchase under encouraging specific development The other part of the story is new residential Last year this was recommended and made available at an all-time high of 30 200 gallons per day That's because we have a A backlog of residential developments in the permitting pipeline But that have not moved forward to buy capacity and begin construction And we were anticipating the first of those the annex project on the former sx alliance church property coming in and getting going Which which they did they bought most of that 30 000 gallons to support that project We still have a couple of large residential projects Summer field on the catamount golf course the glazer project mishad and a few other smaller ones In the pipeline But that said we don't need to put quite as much in to support the first phases of those As was in there last year. So the recommendation here is to go down from 30 200 to 23 500 just backing that off a little bit given what we anticipate coming in We are still definitely in a backlog. We had we had a year. I don't recall I may not have yeah, I don't I'll go back to this. I don't have a slide Showing purchase of capacity it's in your memo, but you'll see a table in there Table three on page eight is the history of allocation sold And you'll note that in fiscal 22 we sold zero gallons per day to new residential users Um In the year before that in the year before that we sold just just over 5000 gallons per day So we had a real lull there for a while and we're we're catching up. So like I said The cycle's Volatile the other thing I'll note before I go to the any questions slide is just that the other part of your memo That I don't have slides for Goes into just a little more detail about the capacity recommendations for each of the use categories um And when we talk about New residential It just gives you a breakdown of one potential way that could support a certain number of of dwellings I did it with 91 bedrooms 92 bedrooms and 23 bedrooms and came up that that that total 23,500 gallons could support 240 total dwellings which would be a good a good chunk of The projects that are coming through it wouldn't it wouldn't be everything that's permitted It would be a first phase for most of what's permitted. So Uh, if I'll I'll stop there and answer any questions because we can we can delve into those numbers if anybody would like Is all you have several use categories are all use categories created equal as far as gallons No, the the big ones are always new residential and and new commercial The other ones just to support what's coming in A good example is Planned public facilities is a zero We we don't anticipate needing sewer to support the construction of any public facilities this coming fiscal year Um, if we knew we had a fiscal year that we were about to build a say a community center We would we would put a number in there, but we don't we don't put a placeholder in that category The other ones that are small like pollution abatement at 1500 or residential additions At 1500 gallons Over time those numbers have proved to be more than enough to meet the demand for those things So residential additions. That's the category you'd buy out of if you were adding a bedroom to your house And you were on town sewer You might have to buy, you know, 50 gallons or something So that's that's why the numbers are lower in some of those categories because we just don't need enough to support Need any more than that to support the demand Okay, I was also thinking about, you know solids in the waste So high strength waste is is a, um, another whole, um matter And we deal with high strength waste, uh, both in our relationship with the the tri town about what what comes from Williston and goes to the plant and whether there's any issues there And then we do have our users that we know produce high strength waste Where the ordinance allows us to require pretreatment, um and monitoring and things like that. So, um That's part of managing the demand that Williston puts on the system Just another thing that you have to keep an eye on I'm honored here I feel like my all the time question is Is there any possibility of that we know of right now purchasing purchasing additional capacity? Not that I know of right now, okay Um, and then the other would be I mean, we we've talked about this before that there, you know The possibility of an additional wastewater treatment facility At some point in the future, you know coming online, I think it I think it bears repeating, um So that, you know, folks know the possibility of like, you know, really help finding this capacity is Yeah, I I think, you know, one of the things I mentioned in one of my slides was just as a long term planning exercise starting to think about build out and What might Williston look like? 20 40 50 years from now and what might need to be In in place to support that I did a back of the envelope exercise thinking about the number You know the the total potential of tap corners under the form base code was something like 4 000 dwelling units if you If you really built everything to full height um The existing capacity if you took 250 000 gallons per day sold it and saw utilization like like I went through tonight You could support 23 2400 Of those dwelling units with with what the town has you would be spending almost all of it on new residential at that point But the answer is there's there is a big chunk of the planned build out and vision that is supportable with what the town has That said, I wouldn't discourage anybody from engaging in some long term thinking around More treatment I think the regional planning commission if I recall in the next couple years is going to study kind of wastewater capacity county countywide You know permitting any type of new plants on on the when you ski is challenging just with the phosphorus loads right now To but there may be some conversation in the future about expanding capacity at the sx junction plant that we own the one through the capacity um When we purchased the 50 000 gallons per day from sx junction a couple years ago I've indication at the time it's sx town sx junction are holding what they have left similar They're willing to sell us that much for that I'm not sure exactly, but I I know they they're monitoring it closely Had a conversation recently with someone from heinsberg the old I don't remember what they call now the old milk treatment plant. That's where they get their capacity Yeah, heinsberg has a small system. Um, they face some of the same uh limitations that everybody does and in fact Some of heinsberg's feedback to the legislature and the home act which said, you know, five units per acre residential density everywhere you have water and sewer What heinsberg asked for was the ability to identify some of their water and sewer service areas as not a priority Where they wouldn't be required to support that density So they could focus on their village. They didn't want to spend it all up the hill up cvu hill basically They wanted to focus it in their village and so That's another thing Totally different subject that but that williston could think about is right now Everywhere, there's water and sewer in williston Five dwelling units per acre must be allowed as a minimum residential density Williston probably could make an argument under the home act That it has limited capacity and would like to map a different boundary Of where that highest density is allowed and and de-prioritize some of the areas on the fringes I'll come back and talk to you about that some other time I was gonna say I love the idea of um of Changing or directing This limited capacity to where we want the growth and where we don't want the growth. Um, I love that idea. I assume it'll become It would be a reasonable growth of the new town plan, right? So we don't have to decide that tonight. Um Just uh What what is actually limited everyone's talking about how there's not enough housing and we have more housing Is is it being limited currently like now or the last five years the next five years by sewage capacity by By the the economy so no one's building or by growth management Are we doing it or is it Are we not doing it? I believe right now interest rates are doing it And I think a lot of what williston has done to set the table for affordable and abundant homes Has been done And now we're all kind of waiting to see what the fed does Or what the price of plywood or labor does? And there are there is kind of a there's a cycle there where if labor is really expensive But none of your laborers can find anywhere to live then labor gets really expensive, etc But I I really do think that right now It's external factors Development is hard even when it's easy it's risky even when it's a sure thing and Right now it's more it's harder and more risky than it usually is So dropping the new residential number is not Doing anything to slow The housing growth that we need I don't think it is we we do have some projects looking to get a start They may come to bruce's doorstep You know at at eight o'clock in the morning on july 1st You know money in hand looking to to buy a lot of capacity Or they may be on a longer track, you know a project like laser or summerfield hasn't put a shovel in the dirt yet They may have six to eight to ten months of building infrastructure before they're ready to buy permits for for homes But you want to have enough that someone can buy the capacity to get themselves started So they can go to their bank and say yes, I can build these houses So they can get their loan to build their road and drop their infrastructure in So it's it's a tricky balance. It's a tricky balance. I don't think this number Will cut anybody off We we looked at what's in the pipeline and tried to match into that other questions comments from at We're not We're not officially approving this tonight. The only thing before us is whether we're going to schedule the public hearing Darn it. I was already to vote I want to talk more about it You guys have a long agenda. I don't know I'll move to schedule a public hearing to receive comments on the proposed attachment a of the sewer allocation ordinance for fiscal year 2025 Is there a second? Further discussion All those in favor say aye. All those opposed nay the ayes have it So Well matt's here my manager's report mentioning something of Moving forward in in the house and senate right now. I matt could upgrade the board on that We really want to take a formal position. We want him to go when they come back. Yeah Melinda could come for a minute It's upstairs downstairs really um, okay, so um As you are probably aware from reading the news There's there's a whole bunch of legislation bubbling in both the house and senate right now related to Production of housing flood resilience environmental protection and land conservation Etc and it takes the shape of Following on from some studies that last year's session asked for about the effectiveness and process around act 250 the structure of the state designations program And the way some some things related to tax credits and flood mitigation work so there was Sorry, there was an act 250 study a designation study and a regional and statewide planning study And those have all converged into a couple of bills In the house it's h687 In the senate it's s311 s311 is what what is being called the be home act follow on to the home act s311 had a mirror bill in the house I believe it was 719. There was the big announcement of the tripartite Housing support that one stayed on the wall didn't go anywhere 687 which is mostly act 250 reform also picked up designations reform which had been in its Own bill at one point and that's where williston gets interested because we have two state designations in town We have the designated village center here in the village and we have the growth center at tap corners having a designation has typically Gotten applicants within that designation some permit relief some access to tax credits It gets the town Under certain grant programs and access to other financial incentives Including the ability to establish tax increment financing districts So The designations reform bill which came out of this study The goal that came out of their process was to simplify the designations program And make it more effective And so there's five kinds of designations in the state right now Instead of five kinds of designations the bill proposes two kinds of designations And one of them has three steps and the other one has no steps Downtowns villages and new town centers like city center south burlington become centers And there are three steps within being a center and at the highest step of being a center That's the gateway to tax increment financing now among other benefits Growth centers like williston's tap corners and neighborhood development areas, which is another designation become neighborhoods And there is no tiered set of benefits for neighborhoods and there is no tip And so the designations reform bill Actually provided access to tiff for this thing that centers are going to become But when that language was brought into age 60 87, which is the bill that's moving forward Access to tiff for designated centers went away So We've been Informally talking with our legislators a little bit about that In my role as a planner with the vermont planning association interfacing with the downtown board I brought it up with my counterpart in san alvin city chip soyer who's also on the downtown board Um, this may just be an omission But there is a general thrust towards focusing the resources of the state on those village centers in downtowns Somewhat to the downgrading of the experience of the growth centers. Um, so Like to I'd like to see that Corrected, um, I'd like to see growth centers like tap corners continue to have the opportunity to pursue Any and all of the tools that they might use To achieve their visions and play the important statewide and regional role that they have so Six 87 has been voted out of committee It's probably going to come off the house floor the way it is and go over to the senate the way it is That's likely where the opportunity for change will be we think that s3 11 and 6 87 will kind of come together and Terry you can correct me if I have a procedure wrong in some kind of a conference committee It'll all become one big thing and we'd like to to just um Make you aware of that issue and and ask about speaking up with our delegation about Seeing seeing if we can have access to that tool for wiliston Whether or not the select board decides and wants to study a tiff district at this point in time This would enable That option to just be on the table moving forward the way it's trapped right now in the house bill would take that Option away from wilson altogether and kind of constrain us to not have that tool even think about Our thought in chatting today was the board kind of take a you have consensus around advocating for that change We could draft a letter and have the chair sign it and we could transmit that to senate leadership That would be picking this up shortly Essentially, it's going to slow growth slow up building Well, it could um I think it I think it could take away what I think is one of the better ways that the town could direct growth So we talked about where we build infrastructure and where we don't where where we invest and where we don't and um To to me There are other ways for towns to do that other than then tax increment financing But it's it's one of the most effective ways that's available and I think having the ability to at least Right now just sort of think about it. Um would be good It also if it was included as a benefit for growth centers It would give the town more time to think about it Because what's going to happen is the existing designations are going to stay in effect with the benefits that they have including our ability to potentially apply for TIFF Until the regional planning commissions do their regional mapping and get these new maps that include designation boundaries in them done Or at the outside by the middle of 2029 But the the rpcs are supposed to get their maps done Like by the middle of 2026 So if the law went into effect the way it's currently drafted We might be looking at saying Well, gosh, if we ever want to do this now we need to Go faster to get something done and I wouldn't want the town to be in that position either They're currently like 11 TIFF districts in the state I think that's about right That's not going to affect any that are already in No, um and Most if not all of them are located with something that would become a center under the new Law, but it wouldn't affect them anyway because they're already there We're talking about drafting something just to address the TIFF thing in particular Yeah, some language add to the senate side of the bill that would cure this essentially to not Restrict that from gross centers like willis-tin so it leaves that off that tool on the table for us to think about in the future No commitment at all with it, but keeps that option open for listen advocating that we keep the possibility of using a TIFF In the future. Yeah doesn't commit us to actually doing it I don't see it down. So yeah, I support that We'll get a letter together. Matt has a good draft and already so we'll get that to you Ted Okay, great, great. We'll send Terry up there to straighten him out Keep your eyes peeled of last two weeks of the session I'm retired yet, Terry. I'm gonna give you a warm on it So that okay, so thank you, great. Thank you. Thank you, Matt. We're gonna be scheduling a public hearing Go back to planning now Now he wants wastewater. We'll call him back or something So next on the so I go home Next on the agenda reconsideration prior ARPA funds designation I would actually Ask what people's Thoughts are about taking a break. Should we just keep going? It's already late if we take a break. It's gonna make it even later on the other hand If people are getting a little foggy, maybe a five minute break I don't have a purpose one way Keep them moving So, um, yeah, okay. So eric, uh prior ARPA fund designation reconsideration So there's a series of emotions and steps to consider here. So I I thought what I would do This is a multiple step process. I alluded to a little bit last meeting. We've consulted with vlcts federal funds advisor Auditors on a process to consider here. I can surely I can walk the board through that process Ultimately what it does is it creates moving our ARPA funds into a new committed fund that would then remove the Um, the timeline for needing to obligate by the end of this year and spend by the end of 26 Go through this process. You get back to where you are today removing that those constraints. That's the the high level review of it Um, I can walk the board through what those steps are. There's a series of motions But I can walk through the process then the board can decide does it want to Go down that process to make those legislative changes or you can carry on how we've been doing it But we we do have those deadlines to keep Does that sound like a Approach for the board here. There's a lot of do the high level not the Yeah, yeah, motion by motion. Yeah. Yeah, all of this is really just to get rid of the deadlines essentially And and it's uh has the added benefit of being completely legal Yeah, we've vetted another a number of Vermont towns have taken this approach or Katie Buckley at the lcts of Her job is to consult on on this another federal funding and we ran this by our auditors at the end of last week to double check on our process So essentially we're talking about a four step process. Um The first would be prior allocations of ARPA funds in 23 and 24 Board made these allocations in january of each year as part of the capital budget process We need to reconsider those motions to kind of reset the table that those funds are available again to allocate Um A good thing what we'll look at is the table surely prepared in your materials Some of these we're suggesting remain in that ARPA category. We've reported it And we've spent those funds already. There's no need to reclassify those So that the numbers reflected in that motion reflect that that accounting that surely did There's a series of motions if you do reconsideration It needs to be the motion that needs to be made by someone who voted in the affirmative of that motion so the first one There's some board members who were on the board in 23 and then and then so forth in the 24 one If you do that to kind of reset the the deck there Then there is a resolution to consider that obligates and spends these remaining ARPA funds as part of the town's general fund in this fiscal year It's about 2.48 million ARPA needs to be obligated for a specific purpose and Staffs to find this as public safety wages in a resolution after we consult it with VLCT And this ties back to the ARPA category of municipal workforce retention So you would adopt that resolution to then book those funds for that expense bring them into the general fund at that point it's going to create um Um We'll free up general fund revenue that would otherwise paid for Those expenses this creates an added fund balance within the general fund brought that money It's increased your fund balance accordingly So then under your policy you can then assign that newly created fund balance And we'll recon by creating a community projects fund with a motion I included an updated listing of all possible ARPA projects Renaming them community projects funds at the suggestion of our auditor that allows that to be a reference points And then when we do the financial statements, we can carve out that fund separately from the fund balance in general fund That's not a set in stone list. It's it allows you to do exactly what we're doing today with updating it adding things and alligating Taking things from it. It establishes a connection there for for how that's structured Then finally you've um you've done that and you Assigned that new fund balance to this um to this fund you've created Then you would reallocate um from the spreadsheet those Priorly those ARPA funds you designated in 23 and 24 to get you back to where you started with everything And then we've updated what's left of this ARPA funds that you still need to allocate and it's about 1.4 million dollars So this new community projects fund allocates everything you did previously And it remains 1.4 million for to to go ahead and Decide how you want to designate those moving forward I think the other benefit here is the fact that we take no risk of losing any money and sending it back If we if you just say make this up Um through the old print church and we allocate 500,000 for ARPA and then we send 400 And reallocate that other hundred it goes back to the federal government. So this avoids all of that risk So is it your suggestion that we consider doing this tonight and making these motions That that's our suggestion. Just I know surely the ARPA recording period for this Closes at the end of march. So it makes it makes it cleaner. Um, but it's It's your decision So if we Do this proposal tonight it's before march 31st So when we do that sort of final offer of reporting live and have The reporting follow of our ARPA money You know, I went through this, you know, I think it's um thorough and um I can see all the moves I always get a little bit uncomfortable when something seems Whatever the opposite of transparent is um, you know It seems like we're just like shuffling money all over the place. But we end up at the end Exactly who we are now. It's just in a community fund instead of an ARPA fund. So it's you take out the Requirements for timing mostly, right? So pretty much all the only Yep, it's essentially. Yeah, but you summarized it well where we're back where we are today without those time constraints to I think The one to obligate by the end of the year You know that that's some pressure and then you know, certainly the spend money at 26 thinking about larger scale public works projects that might have some challenges with bidding and contracting it removes that pressure from How you ultimately need to decide how you want to prioritize those funds if you have time constraint that's going to play into to a waiting factor Now the only thing I am a little concerned about is that when we do the FY 24 Financial management board get audit and everything this will this money will show up as an expense, right? It is already it's not a separate It will show up as revenue But in the general it will now be a general fund or Not an expense it will flow through to the bottom line the expense is the wages that are already there We're just saying we're going to take these out in front and we're going to spend them against the wages We've already incurred when we have money in our budget for that. We want to Put into the equipment sinking funds. Isn't doesn't that show up as an expense? It does but this is different because we're just going to take all of this Our fund money that's sitting over here. We're now going to say it's revenue in the general fund That's just going to flow through your fund balance because all of those wages. We're saying we're spending it again Are already in the budget right so it flows to the jumps it flows to the fund balance And then we're going to take it out of the fund balance and put it into a fund Right, we're going to sign it and that does not show up as an expense No, no, okay It doesn't my books And by doing this we still have it It will still be a future discussion on allocating the funds Yep, I mean if something happens we need to Allocate them differently It puts you right back where you are today essentially it's It's every decision the board made to allocate these in the past It maintains those decisions and then it leaves that additional 1.4 million for you to allocate from your project list and just to pay Board may want may get back to that after budget discussions coming up I I really support, you know eliminating kind of these these deadlines because I think in some of the projects looking forward to you know, there's anticipated you know timelines for things but but As we know like, you know, if if a project's running long like, you know, or materials are You know available to get or you know, if we wanted to order a piece of equipment and it, you know Isn't going to be delivered until after the deadline like I mean So this this really opens back up the possibility of utilizing those funds in the best possible way for our town and Not having to you know, have those time constraints as a consideration for whether or not we should do a project I think somebody get a good job designation constraints too like the example you used with the old brick church if we put $500,000 toward That renovation But we only spend 400 Then we can't say cool when I reuse that 100,000 and do this benefit for the town The federal money instead the federal government said, okay, we're going to take that back because it costs less than you thought it would But this way we continue to have access to the money Yep It would be the transfer there, but when you think of the financial statements Solving this fund So if we do these motions So we need to do each motion vote on it move on to the next motion one by one by one So The first thing we do need to do is to Have the motion is reconsidered right on the first one. Yeah, then we would need a motion to amend Right, so we're we're we're doing the motion and then voting on it and then doing the next motion voting on it Back and okay, and then doing the motion Yeah for the amended motion, right? Yeah two different places. Yep I just I just didn't know if we need if it was like I could lump them together at any point But okay individually we do this right. It's going to be on youtube The first part is just for us to Do is couldn't make that motion So I'll do the first one and say I'll move to reconsider A motion approved on january 17th 2023 To allocate 176 thousand dollars of america rescue plan act funds For projects as identified in the fiscal year 2024 capital budget Is there a second to the motion to reconsider a second? For the discussion all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed nay the ayes have it So now I'll move to amend the january 17th 2023 motion to allocate a hundred and four thousand 112 dollars and 56 cents of american rescue Plan act funds for projects as identified in the spreadsheet dated march 19th 2024 Is there a second to the motion to amend second? For the discussion all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed nay the ayes have it Then I'll move to approve the amended motion as presided Is there a second of the motion to approve? I will second All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed nay the ayes have it Go and carry your role So then we'll have the second one And that I would move to reconsider a motion approved on january 16 2024 To allocate 696 thousand of america rescue plan act funds for projects as identified in the fiscal year 2025 capital budget Is there a second to the motion to reconsider a second? Further discussion all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed nay the ayes have it So now I'll move to amend the january 16th 2024 motion to not allocate 696 thousand dollars for american rescue plan act funds as identified in the fiscal year 2025 capital budget Is there a second to the motion to amend second? Further discussion All those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed nay the ayes have it Then I'll move to approve the amended motion as presented Is there a second to the motion to approve a second Further discussion all those in favor say aye. Aye. Those opposed nay the ayes have it Now when we get to the next block will be the resolution to approve Suggestion is to add to the end of the motion to uh, to simply say essentially that Appended to the resolution will be the approved meeting minutes Appended to the approved meeting minutes will be this resolution so it can be Are you saying that we need to change the wording and the proposed? Yeah, just to add at the end Fund Grant is all over it to 14 Yeah, yeah, and 14 thought I had this right in front of me. Sorry See what are I ran it by the lct You have it the actual language. Yeah, she suggested I'll move to adopt the resolution for american rescue plan act funds obligation and spending for fiscal year 2024 as presented And included as an attachment with the approved meeting minutes Is there a second to the motion? Second to recognize further discussion All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed nay the ayes have it Just one more. Yeah, so next is the action to That would create the community projects fund and Establishes this working list of projects And then it further moves to assign the funds that were just moved into the general fund with the with the resolution Goes on the page. Is there a motion? I move to create a community projects fund the projects and initiatives To support the community and to establish a working list of possible projects Gated march 19 2024 Our future assignments from this fund Which may be updated from time to time And further move to assign 2 million 400 485,589 dollars and 72 cents Of the unassigned fund balance to this newly established community projects fund Is there a second second Further discussion on the motion All those in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. All those opposed nay the ayes have it And the final move is then to Recommit these funds And this is for previously classified projects there you can see I'm running on that spreadsheet That's appended to the memo And then we'll be back where we started and have the remaining fund funds in this new fund to then allocate One last step to get us back to Right back. All right. I'll move to commit 331,650 dollars and 38 cents of the community projects fund For reclassified projects from fiscal year 2022 through fiscal year 2024 as listed on the spreadsheet dated march 19 2024 Is there a second second further discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed nay the ayes have it I will further move to commit 771,000 of the community project fund for projects in fiscal year 2024 through fiscal year 2025 As listed on the spreadsheet dated march 19 2024. Is there a second? Further discussion All those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed nay the ayes have it Well Let's start at the very beginning You come back Eric and say we forgot a comma. We gotta do it all over again We ran it by three different people We want to be sure That's worth the work a lot of work So next on the agenda personnel policy amendment and Aaron welcome. Thank you for waiting I'll jump right in because you've had a long meeting. Um, so as previewed in your materials We're proposing updated language for military leave in the town's personnel policy This language would entirely replace the existing language And reflects the following changes It would allow employees to be eligible to receive compensation for the difference between their regular and their military pay If any, um, it won't always apply For up to a total of 15 work shifts per calendar year And this really intends to help ease an employee's financial burden that may occur while deploying their military duties and to show our support for people who are serving for military Um, the benefit would be correlated for part-time employees and also would be correlated for new hires for their day of hire This could also attract with uh recruitment and retention of people That do serve in armed forces um The new language also refers to existing federal regulation and state regulations Rather than kind of summarizing those In the policy and that way we're just always current if those laws change You'll see less of it in front of you any time that the change takes place for those Um council agreed that that's best practice And council did work with us on this And have reviewed our proposed language um, and In relation to that we're also Proposing to eliminate current appendix i Sorry, it's been a long night. Um, which again it kind of summarizes the user language And I think the original intent for that appendix was uh for noticing But we actually notice it with a really extensive hr Poster that is updated anytime that a law changes because we subscribe for that that happens very regularly Um, and those are posted in each town building. So that satisfies the notice requirement and again, it eliminates You know any lag on updating the language if it changes Um, really that's the net of it if you have any questions or feedback or direction for us Questions for Aaron Sorry to disappoint. I have no question That's that's how good your presentation. That's right. So good that ever was totally laid it out If there are no questions, there is a proposed motion I move to amend the personnel policy section 5.7 addressing military leave as presented and eliminate appendix i Is there a second second for the discussion on the motion? All those in favor say I All those opposed may the eyes Aaron You really could have moved her up an agenda So moving into managers report I handed out this evening hot off the press about 4 30 today is the draft capital bill that is uh I've been asked to testify at 9 a.m. Tomorrow on. Um This is concerning the um state police barracks first right over to usall um So I think I was texting with representative brady. I think I think it was her and I will be able to be there in the morning I know they've had some back and forth since I testified last represent brady updated me on that I think the committee is trying to think how to proceed here with um Looking to give the town the first right refusal versus what the putting this on the open market would fetch Um, I got this. I've looked at it a little bit. I'm trying to understand exactly what it's saying I've ran it by terry who served on this committee for a number of years Kind of just looking for the board's direction here to help aid my testimony in the morning I'll just turn off the terry for this. So this is the the chair of the Corrections institutions committee has presented this language has been written by legislative council and it's really just a way to A touchy feeling way to do nothing in particular this year Except to give us give a some time and them some time to think about it between now and next year and since we're not thinking about moving into or doing anything with the police barracks until what 2026 This gives them time to think about the Uh problems that they have identified as it's a it's a valuable piece of property and The thought of some of the of the committee was that uh, well what happens if We don't We don't put forth a bid that matches somebody else So this gives them some time to think about it gives us some time as a town To think about what we really want to do with this and how much money we would be willing to put forward which can if we if Buildings general services has the bit the ability To accept any bid or reject any bid that they get so this gives us and Them some time and this is if I do the chair and I do This is her way of saying We just want to do something but not commit ourselves to it at this point I think she's got the votes on at least in the house committee to do it So they just say this basically we could possibly be able to buy this for Fair market value and whatever the highest bid is um, I will say just as a as a lawyer Shell that the actual language at the at the proposed in the last paragraph You know in in law the huge difference between shell and may Um, and uh, this says property shall be sold to the highest bidder And then it goes on to say that the commissioner may reject any of these bids So you must do it unless you And and this is It brings me Sorry to be a little bit of a nerd, but this brings me back to a one of the one of the best Moments in a daffy duck commercial Where somebody sells them something by saying and it's absolutely free for five dollars And this this is similar to that so anyway, but I yeah, I don't know what to tell you. Yeah, go So honor before december 15th bill come back with a plan to do something Is what the top part seems to say to give us a ride of a fusel or or or not or Set a price on it or whatever But it buys both of us time So there's not much My guidance is go down and you know Be presentable If I were to relay the select board is amenable to this language and appreciates the The consideration to continue this dialogue. Yeah, something like that. Perfect I know they uh, the committee has been asking what's wilson's plans for the property and you know, my position is the The town wants the opportunity to have that conversation, which is why we started this dialogue I shared a couple potential ideas I've shared We're going to be doing the community center potential site evaluation and we can look at this site, but we're just not there yet I don't think it's proven to spend town's funds to evaluate potential for a property if we don't know we're going to have control of it We need to have that question Live on youtube at 9 a.m tomorrow It's just quickly uh, I want to just recognize our new firefighters Alexander Lewis, Justin Soder and Nathan Libby Completed our rigorous eight re recruit academy. We're sworn in on march 1st. They've joined their shifts the Launching and graduation To attend our new four-way stop sign is up on holland and market streets. I know the public is happy about that It's important to study Um That is oh quickly you may recall on old creamery road. We have our radio infrastructure in a Small building we'll call it that building current had issues We believe with rodents who chewed through the wiring and we had to use a generator to keep it going overnight a couple weeks ago My electric co-op was gracious and came out and fixed it for us the other Another day, but we've also discovered mold in that building and the radio contractor will not go back in there So I've authorized an emergency purchase order to get something new in place That's all I have for this evening. Okay With a good rodent and mold story Is there other business we've done the catering permits we've covered all that. Okay. All right. Um, is there any other business for the um from the board? And if not final thoughts on agenda items from this meeting Do you need some new tabs just in case 16 tabs? No, no stop at 15 We should not be here this late This is a unique this is you could have put all of all the whole arpa thing on one. Yeah It's a rather unique agenda though Okay, um, and then there is a executive session that is Necessary I don't think it's going to take very long at all but We do have a proposed motion on page six of the manager's report I'll move to find that premature public knowledge regarding a labor relations agreement with employees would clearly place the town It's at a substantial disadvantage and further move that we enter executive sessions to discuss labor relations agreement with employees Under title one sections three one three a one b of the remont statutes and invite town manager eric wells to join Is there a second? Any discussion All those in favor say aye. I I'll dispose of the is having so we will not be coming back into public session after this so We'll now go into executive session