 to order. I'll call the eastbound failure meeting to order and it is 705. I have this meeting is a discussion of the FY 2020 ambulance and emergency services budget request by the eastbound failure fire department. Is there any public comment or items on the agenda? Any changes or additions to the agenda? Okay. All right. So last Thursday night the eastbound failure select board and Cal select board met with the eastbound failure fire department board and all the years I don't know if they're all board members or not and they presented to us a budget which is up on the screen and I think this is the one that Bruce took and made it so it was easier to view. So maybe we should we could go through the budget and notice some highlights of the budget and I have a couple questions. I mean there's some things in the budget that are beyond the fire department's control like insurance and dispatching. Insurance go went from if I'm reading this right 35 to 61,000. So that's a 20. Or is it a combined total of the you're saying now what is it Bruce? It's like 1500 differences. 500 for ambulance and 1,000 for fire. Insurance line 5206. 5200 is I'm looking at. We'll get 5206. Yeah. Oh wait 520, no 5200. Yeah insurance it goes 37, 38, 61. Yeah what is the 61? Yeah take a good question actually. I don't understand what it is. It's combined FY 20. Remember that fire the right side is the combined of the two, two and four equal five. Okay I forgot to bring my calculator. Two and four. Oh I see. So what is the total of insurance? Two and four. And this adds up to this. Right. Yeah I see that. And this to this is the delta is 500 so it's a $1500 increase. So what are you adding up to get with him? Two and four. Two and three. So if you look at there's five columns. Yeah right. The first one is the 19 ambulance and the second one is the 20 ambulance which is a $500 increase roughly. Okay all right so the 38 is about a thousand increase. So I see a $1500 increase total. Yeah so two added together is the 61. Yeah that's right. Okay. Yeah it's the ambulance and the fire added together to make the 61. Proposed 20 is really what you should be looking at which is the fifth column, fourth column, fourth column. What is the column two is FY 20 ambulance? Proposed. Yeah. No column two is proposed FY 20 ambulance. Yeah. And then three and four are well four is FY 20 fire. Four is proposed FY 25. Okay so that's only, I would say that would be a much bigger increase than that. So two and four add together get 61. That's because of the insurance. Right and then dispatch they told us it was a 9% increase. Yeah it's $5,200 increase. Yeah. Rough numbers of course. Okay and then my other question had to do with. Heating oil? Heating oil station one. Station one is the old one right? Yeah. So why does it cost $5,000 to heat a building that only has housing trucks? Well it's housing trucks with water in them. But still. I mean you only have to keep it like what 50 degrees 40 degrees. Except John may know better, but the Bros may know better what the how hot how warm you have to keep the engines. Well it just seems like that's a lot of money to heat a building that's not used by people and it's $4,000 to heat the new station, which is a bigger building and yeah way bigger people. I just don't understand why it costs that much to heat. It might include the uh plugging in of trucks with electricity. No they've already got electricity. There's different lines. Oh yeah. Does it anybody else think that seems high? It does to me too. I mean it's a suit. Yeah it's not that bad. It's not that insulated. I've been up there lots of times. Yeah but we only have they only have one. Is it just one tanker in here now? Because we have one thing we're using. Who's in two bays? There's two vehicles in there. Yeah. There's the old engine and the tanker. The new tanker and the old engine. Right. And that's all that's in there. Well does the town store some stuff in there too? But but still they don't need it to be. And it's not that thing as John was saying it's it's a sip. They've very little insulation in it. It was not a very big building. Look at the history of it. It runs high. It always has. Yeah. It just it just jumped out to me. It does seem odd and it's a good question but it is really penny spread. We can ask but I wouldn't mind asking myself. Yeah. Yeah. Is it because that the line item 5160 is heating oil and the other two lines are well it could be. It could be but oil is not that bad. It could be and oil is going on here. That oil has gone up. Hi. You coming to the end of the meeting like the cows. I knew you two are a collusion. I knew you were a collusion. We did. So does everybody know. This is Katie. Hi. Would you like to hear your name coming? Sure. Thank you. Anybody else have anything to I mean this batch we have no control over really. You don't have much control over much much of it. Are you thinking you have control over the rest of it. Well not really. Okay. So you're going to say we have to approve their budget. I understand that but if you pick pick out any number in here is there a number that you think that you can work down. I don't know. That's what we're here to talk about right. Well I'm just asking you is there a number. Yeah. I mean the fact that when we were meeting with them and we asked if they could trim back their budget somewhat and very emphatically they said no. Their budgets have to be approved by these two boards. Understood. And I have to understand the impact that maybe not he's not clear so much but Cal is looking at a substantial increase in our school taxes as a result of taking on the debt of other terrors because of course. We have that's a real that's a reality for us. Well let's not talk about 46. I'm not. Our reality. Okay. The reality for the ambulance service fire department from my perspective is that it is expensive and it's going to go up but but also we don't control it very much. We think it's cheaper than the very town. Okay. So that's the question. That's why the question is this. Either you accept what's going to go on here which means the salary is going to keep going up because it's moving to a salary ambulance service and we have no control of that. We could say no and let them try to do a volunteer but the volunteer systems all over Vermont are dying. We know that. We know that. Volunteerism is on the decline in seven days. Okay. And we have dedicated people down there that are willing to work themselves to death but it's our responsibility. They are not going to they can't be allowed to do that. They'll keep the ambulance service going if we said no salaries. They would do that but I don't think that's responsible. I don't think we're saying that. Okay. No but what I'm saying is either we accept their budget which is reasonable because if you go through a line by line a lot of these things are not increased and the things that are increased are beyond their control. The salaries is the biggest thing that drives the increases. Well if you look at this sheet that Bruce I'm assuming Bruce you did this. It's a nice sheet too. Yeah it is very helpful. Yeah. Before you go Denise I'm sorry can we just hook back to the heating oil? Yeah. I thought something was ringing a bell. If you look at this is what they gave out last week. If you look at their audit it shows that their audit at FY 2018 and at station one was 5100 and something. So they're just trying to match up with what their current reality. That's why I went to 5000. Yeah. Yeah. It actually was at 5000. They dropped it to four. Yeah. Based on FY 17 and then the prices went up enough. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Okay. But I mean I don't disagree that their volunteerism is extraordinary and that they put in tons and tons of hours but like I said the reality is we have to look at the bottom line for our taxpayers. Understood. But I'm just saying that unfortunately the ambulance service is going to be more expensive. Even you know like when you said well the inflation people's wages only go up one percent two percent and this is up a lot more than that. It is. But this is going to match in the rate of inflation. It's going to go a faster than that and it's going to be expensive. That's the way it is. It's an expensive service and it's out of your control when you start talking about putting salaries in it. Well and they also said that they weren't willing to ask March for an increase because they don't even serving them for a year. Do we know what the salary is amount is per hour. Yeah. 18 to 20. It's 18 for the medics and 20 for per day. Which. So it's 50 hours an hour and then we're raising it by working. I have a different yes. Right. Okay. Okay. 18 to 20 dollars an hour does not that's only if you bring someone in there and do not pay them benefits. Okay. If you go to salaries and you have full time people that would include benefits which is even more. What happened to the company from out of state that they were going to try to get. Was that ambulance. Yeah. That was ambulance. Right. What was the name of that company. I don't know but they I think it was at our December meeting last year they talked about getting almost like you know like traveling nurses where you could get contracted people for like a three month stint and they mentioned that organization was from Connecticut and that they were going to get them but I don't know maybe they I forgot to ask the question. Is that a cheaper option. Is that. I don't know. I thought it might have been like a stop gap option. Yeah. You know. But they still going to pay. No. I don't think so. It was contracted so there wouldn't be benefits. Yeah. Yeah. Part of the issue. They would stay at the fire station or something. Yeah. Stay at the fire station. I'm just saying that this budget was based upon 18 to 20 dollars an hour that once you go to salaries you're going to have to start paying benefits. It's going to be even more. So I'm just saying that. So I'm confused. Are you saying they're going that heading in that direction. I'm saying it could if you go to salaries. That might be what we're presenting. They still have some room in the budget because they're not taking money out of the ambulance revenue to fund this budget which we have told them that they could do. So there is fluff in the budget as far as the ambulance revenue is going where ambulance revenue right now goes to mostly capital reserve and their and their contingency fund. But we've told them they could take money off the top and I can't remember the percentage they could go towards salaries as we agreed to it last year. It's actually not a percentage it was a flat number. It was a flat number. It was a vote to the 50,000. Right. But that was before they added Marshfield in. So essentially the number we were shooting for which was around 220. They went by by getting the Marshfield part and that 10,000 they moved in from the insurance line last year. I know you're talking about that. That's just a one try line. Should have gone to the meeting. So which verge I was last day. The $10,000 insurance thing was just it's just a bookkeeping thing. It's not going to happen again. It's just because they moved into payments for their insurance on the quarter. I'm glad instead of just paying a lump sum up fund. So the quarter wind up after the first year. So how did we benefit from them taking Marshfield? Does anybody know? 40,000 bucks. You asked a more subtle question. How did we benefit? We don't know. 40,000 off it is what you can see. Yeah, but you had this discussion before how much is actually a cost. They were already going there. They have a lot of fixed costs. That's right. 50% is more fuel. It's more wear and take. They already were going there. They go there because of mutual aid. They go there because they got called there whatever for whatever reason. Yeah. Because Cabot wasn't responding. Right. And either was anybody else. So that's a mutual aid response. But they went but they weren't getting paid that 40,000 bucks to go there. They got the call charge but they didn't get the 40,000. So I don't understand why there would be a problem when we're getting 40,000 more dollars. Great. They already were going there. So it isn't extra gas. They already were paying the gas. Yeah. And they did take two things out of the budget. The host testing and the ambulance fee. That $33,000. They said they were going to cover this. And they're already going there but with the ambulance they seek reimbursement, right? Right. So actually maybe in the ultimate best case could be 40,000 free bucks. If they make no calls. No, they've already got the $40,000 free bucks. The other thing that will happen, they'll get all the calls. No, they already have earned the insurance reimbursement. They get the insurance reimbursement in addition to the 40,000. Yeah. So any call that they make has a potential for putting more money into their coffers. Of course, one of the problems with serving a town like Marshfield is it's going to be a lot of Medicaid and Medicare, perhaps, and they don't pay very well. They only pay pennies on the dollars. But if they already were going there and now they're going to be getting the 40,000, that's a good thing. Yeah. I don't think anybody disputes that they do an amazing job and they're very frugal as much as they can be. But it is expensive. But it is expensive. It is a 4% overall. More than that. And it's, I'm not quite sure I understand Bruce's 7.45. It says 7.45 but then it says the total is 4.09. I don't understand how. That's the 7.45 is your town appropriation. Yeah. Is up that much. The 4.09 is their actual budget is up that much. But Plainfield and Marshfield are not increasing to the degree that we are. That we are. Well, and that 7.45 includes the adjustment back up from the bond. Right? No. No, that's on top of that. This is EMFD budgets. So I'm sure you went over all this at the meeting I missed. No, not necessarily. Plainfield and Marshfield, they're fixing their contribution at a lower number or the same number as last year. No, no. Marshfield, this is the first year in the 40,000. Oh, okay. They don't feel right about it. Plainfield will be the last year. Plainfield's going up. We're in a three-year agreement. Well, no, they're not going up. Yeah, they're going up. 3%. Okay. We just don't have the figures on what it was. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so presumably the number that was presented to Marshfield that I guess they're reviewing as well, that incorporated the increased costs that we're all seeing, right? So maybe the question could be, if you're thinking about spreading the costs more evenly, is why wouldn't they charge more to those towns that they're taking on than they are? Right. Would it be more equitable for Calas, East Montpelier, Plainfield and Marshfield to be paying a more equitable share? I think it would be. Well, when you look at dispatch. It's not a competitive situation. I already asked them. I said, is this competitive like Derrytown? They said no. So I don't know, you know, I don't know how it works in other towns. They're not using it for them, but I guarantee you, they're using nothing for them. They're using Population? Well, no, but the population's in the far right. I don't think they're using it. They were using a formula to come up with that original Plainfield cost. I thought that was competitive with Derrytown. That's what I mean. That's the formula. That was the formula, but that's not a formula. Well, it's a formula that created a number that had been playing on it. It created a number, and God bless them. That's how they came to a number, and that's okay. But thinking about spreading costs over population to make it more fair, would it be fair to come up with a different formula? Well, look, I mean, you can just look at Calisthenics and Marshfield and double the cost for essentially the same population. Well, do we have more calls than they do? That doesn't, let's not forget it. Let's forget the call. I know it all fixed costs too. But this is only, we're only talking ambulance for Marshfield and Plainfield. True. But look at the ambulance part of it. I'm looking at the ambulance. Right. So let's keep that in mind. Double. What's double? The ambulance costs, the residents of, the ambulance costs the Calis, 80,000. The ambulance costs the Plainfield, 50,000. And then 44 Marshfield. Right. Right. But that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be an equitable increase because the base, the basis reflects those differences. But what we're saying is that could we ask them to spread the cost of the ambulance more equitably among the 14? There must be some logic. What was your logic? I mean, these numbers are. I know the number that they came up with originally, according to Bruce and probably myself also, it was a competitive situation with Berrytown. And I'm assuming that Berrytown was charging more. So each month they want to get the kill. So they charge them 40 something. That was the Plainfield thing. Yeah. Plainfield. Right. I remember that. Right. And then I think the Marshfield number, I'll bet you they just came out of their hat because they're like, well, Plainfield's paying this much to charge us with the Marshfield. That's what Toby talked about. No, this is the, they're putting that into the salary. That Berrytown number that they put out, that's where they came up with that number. No, no, they didn't salary. No, no, they just put it into salary. They're not. That's not how they came up with 40,000. I think they told us last year that they were paying in cabbage somewhere in the 30s. Exactly. That's why I think they just rounded up. I know that's what they did. I'll bet you a five bucks. I'll bet you a six back at the room. Why don't we push back and revise this number? I'm not sure that's the right approach. Let's just put this out there. Is that a thought? We get something we have to consider. We want to get our number down to six. So we want to get them up. I mean, not the full amount. They're still coming out ahead and move our number down to six percent. Well, you're looking at the... Making up numbers here for discussion. Are you looking at the ambulance column, John? I'm looking at... Just look at the ambulance column. All right, six percent. Yeah, all right, five, three, eight. I'm sorry. Yay, it's done. Good suggestion. There we go. No, no. An escalate of cruise stars. Okay, no, let's think about this way. Let's think about an equitable number that would, would, would, based on population that could be a number, a formula that you could work with in the future. However, there is an incentive to get Marshfield on board. Absolutely. And then maybe have it working in the future. Oh, no, I, I agree. That's your iPhone. Don't you have one? I got an iPhone. But they have done it for a year with Marshfield. Only a year. Not even a year. No, not even a year. Not even a year, I don't think. No, they just started. And I think, didn't they say they were renegotiating the three-year contract? With Plainfield. Next year. No, now. With Marshfield. Plainfield. Plainfield. Plainfield. But not Marshfield. I suppose only you. Okay, so in any change like this, of course, you've got to make it incremental. Right. And you're not going to say, oh, we're going to stop it right now, and this is what you've got to do. You're going to make a suggestion, and you're going to come up with a formula that could work. Right. That's what I'm saying. Well, we could just add the populations up and see, and divide it evenly, and see how that changes their number. Right. Did you know the population in the town? Right here. Right here. Right here. Where you had these up. Right. Far right hand side. Yep. 69.34. 69.30. Poor Marshfield should be paying more than Plainfield from the side. What's the total if we add up? 5.19. Oh, just the ambulance? Just all the total cost of all the ambulance for everything. 3.33.2.20. Okay, I've got to store this baby. How do I do that on this calculator? I'll tell it to you after. Just put in 3.33.2.20, and I'll tell you 69.30. Okay. Afterwards. My brand. Have you figured out where it's in here? 3.33.2.20. 33 divided by 7. Divided by what's the number? 69.34. That's 5. That's 48 bucks a person. 50 bucks. 48. 50 bucks. So 50 bucks a person. No, do it by the way. Well, do 48. 48. Times. Let's see. What do we got for Marshfield? 15.01. That's 72 grand. Yeah. Okay. So. And then Plainfield? 48. 60,000. 72,000. 48 times. 72,000 or 7,200. 72,000 or 12. Thousand well, 60. 60,000, some thousand. Yeah, should be around 60. These farmers, they can do anything on the back of a haystack. Because we're used to losing money. We lose it every day. So we lose it every day on what's the list. No, it's because it can't keep paper and pencil. 6480. 6480. Yeah. So Plainfield is actually less than Marshfield because of the population. East Montpelier is 2576. Yep. 26 times 48. You're not going to like this. 123,648. No, it's not a good exercise. 123 what? 123,648. Oh, is East Montpelier taken into shorts? No. No, you betcha. You do. Okay. Yeah. Calus 15. We owe it. That's that's that's normal. That's all right. Okay, we'll just keep the same pattern. You're going to stay right at 80. Or maybe a little 78. 76. No, they're not. Hey, there's ice cream on our money savings here. Not much. 76,656. So they're right on. Almost. Well, they're right on according to this. Right. Well, that's what we're trying to call the program. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's not about us saving much, but everyone. Well, East Montpelier's was taking pants. No, we reduced. Yeah, we reduced. We were taking it. You were subsidizing us. Yes, us, I know. Because you care about that. We always happen. We care about you. That's why we're getting your school bill. You can tell you what. You guess what? We'll pay our fair share. Think about this. What's your school going to be doing in a couple of years? You're going to get into that discussion. What? What's your school going to need to be doing in the next few years? We're going to buying a bulldozer. Buying or two purposes. Highway grading in the spring and bulldozer school. Okay. Okay, guys. Can we get back to the sharing? Did you want to say something? No. I. Marshfield, boy. That's that. Seth. What? You're being rude and interrupting. Oh, I'm just, okay. Yes. I would, I, I like the idea of having an equitable method of producing each town's contribution, but I haven't been able to figure out where the numbers I jotted down the other night came from. But I'm a little stuck on the 7.45 increase, which somehow melts to an overall budget of 4% increase. I don't get that piece. I'm sure taking, taking, yeah, taking that, taking them, you know, trusting somebody's math that it's all in there and the numbers work. I'm not going to say makes sense. They work. The math works. I still think that five asking and we, we're going to ask every, not every, but nearly, nearly every group that's come in front of us is, is going to get, is going to get a haircut in terms of what they're requesting. They're requesting. And, and I think that, you know, 4%, 4% is, it's, it's not, I hear your, your points, but asking, it's not all or nothing. We could say not four, three, find $5,000, find, you know, find $5,000. And the math I was doing earlier is trying to figure out what makes sense in terms of finding $5,000 just from playing field and Marsh field. If we rejigger how we calculate, maybe it's some, somewhere, you know, those two pieces, those two ideas can come together. But, you know, bottom line is I don't want to go back, I don't want to go to the Cal taxpayers and ask them for more than 3%. And we're pretty much. We need to look at the numbers then drill down. And I'm, I'm, I'm trying that on the flag or figure out where we cut. The increases are tiny except for dispatch, of course dispatch. Right. But we don't have a lot to say of it. Well, and to Seth's point, we don't necessarily have a lot to say over any of it. But we know it's not our job to micromanage, except to say, we need to live within a 3% budget. You guys are the experts. We mentioned that the other night on Thursday night. Yes. And we were met with a very stern, emphatic no. And as I said in the beginning, they get to propose their budget to us. We decide if we agree with it. Well, I disagree with that whether we'll endorse it. Right. Because we have to be the ones to put this on our warnings and our line items, except to us, whether we do it. We could shift money from the revenues and the ambulance and subsidize down to 3%. So we already told them they could take it. Well, now we can demand that. And we can then come up with a formulary to reallocate ambulance costs in a recordable fashion, which doesn't affect their bottom line. So they should, if they have a problem with that, then that's a difference in a problem. It's not a financial problem. It's a political problem. Right? Like they said, you know, if you look at these line items, it's not, none stand out except for like the heating dispatch. Well, the equipment repair went up 4 grand on the percentage. That's pretty high against 4 grand. And when we were talking about that Thursday night, it's because the equipment's getting older. And it requires more repairs. And is it one of the ambulances that... Yeah, blew the motor on it's 4 grand. One of the ambulances that blew the motor. And this is what I'm saying. 2012. Yeah, exactly. Ford. Is it international? The diesel is the bad... No, it wasn't an international diesel, of course. I was thinking about it. So... It has a bad run with diesel. You know, the more... And what this is all I'm saying, the more wear and tear there is on the equipment because of the additional services provided, which is all well and fine. And it's good because we need to help our neighbors. But at the same time... You can buy a lot of motor for 40 grand. Times two. That's 80 grand. Yeah. You know, who's eating the cost of the additional repairs, fuel... Well, I don't know if we are eating. I don't just, from what I understand, I don't know if we're paying or we're incurring additional wear and tear from what I'm hearing that they were running down the road for free anyway. Right. So now we're getting compensated. That's what they said. Yes. Plus, I think the risk of your proposal of this formula, if we were to go to a 3% this year and have them just cut it out somewhere, then next year when we implement this formula that we're talking about, you folks are going to have more than a 6% increase because you're going to go... Oh, no, you're going to go down. Yeah. We're not even sure that we're going to do this for them. That would be just a suggestion. No, I mean, I think we're just talking about options right now. What do we want to do? Right. Right. But I'm saying that those options need to be considered in the long term with the second and third order effect. Yeah. This is not about gaining advantages. You presented our argument that it's equitable. It's hard. It's easy to defend. You know, I think it's going to be hard to, from our field and playing field, to push back against that in terms of the ambulance. And it's just... We got to be fair. Well, the question is... It's just as hard to earn a dollar over the hill over there as it's here. You want to say something, Rose? Yeah. John wasn't at the meeting on Thursday night, but Toby and Ty gave us this model scenario of what full staffing would be. And so it's very grand. Do you have that sheet? That's the one. Yeah, that's the one I was thinking of too. I'm moving. Yeah. And so... There's a lot more than... Yeah, like... Two-thirties in the budget. Two-hundred and thirty thousand is in their budget now for salary, but if they really were full staff on all the shifts, seven days a week, it would cost two-hundred and eighty-four thousand. That's without benefits. And that's without benefits. And so they talked about with the less and less volunteerism that over the next five years, we're going to have to add ten thousand dollars every year to make up to get to that full staffing money. And I'm just concerned too that because of the lack of volunteerism, and as Ty keeps saying and whatnot, that the people there, Larry Brown, Ty, some of these people who vote Toby, they're getting older, they already devote a lot of time. When is it going to become necessary to hire employees to run the fire department as well? And this was my concern way back when everything first started. So just so you don't, I think you know, but just to get back on your radar, I think one of the dilemma we have here is that we fund two fire departments. I think we're the only town in the state of Vermont. Right, I know, but nobody likes to hear that we fund... We fund two fire departments, and the one up the road, north of us, so the one that we actually are partners in, to the south of us, they're looking at building a million-dollar station, and they're talking $600,000 trucks, some kind of trucks that we're talking in these budgets, and so we're looking at that. I mean, I know in my mind, I'm looking at that in my mind's eye. That was a fire department that we used to subsidize back in the 60s because it was cheap. Bud Batch Elder got his welder out and welded a pump to the cell tanker truck. And Bud went around the corner too fast with that three-quarters fully, almost rolled it because all the water would... But that's Bud. But that's how they did things. No longer did they get the welder out, they'd buy big, chromed-out trucks, and they'd been doing that for 25 years. So I think we need to take a second look at that too. Right, well, they're coming to us with a $40,000 increase in their budget from Woodbury Fire Department. So this is what I'm saying, we're looking at increases there, we're looking at a huge increase in our school property tax rate, so we, as select board members, our responsibility to look at the big picture. Everybody's got their little niches that they want funded. Our job is to look at the big picture, think about all the taxpayers that are already scraping and struggling to pay their property taxes. What we could do is slash Eastmont Pavilion's cost to the bone and then sell our houses and move there. Then we all win. There you go. Oh, I know I'm kidding. I mean, it's a great picture. I mean, that's the reality for us, and I know sometimes you guys, it's like, you don't care. No, no, no, we care. Because we feel it too. The problem is that every little town has always been used to having its own school, its own emergency services, and they can't afford that anymore. That's right. That's the problem. That's why we, when our communities had, they had factories in these little towns, they had a lot of business going on. It was a whole different story. The communities were different. Now we have bedroom communities. The demands are higher. Right. Yeah. And the demands are higher. The state is requiring more. And we don't have the business activities, little bills. And the ambulance piece is significant because of the population aging. Absolutely true. Yeah. Right. So that's what I said, is this going to be more expensive? And that's unfortunate. Unfortunate, yes. But East Mount Peter Callis is serving as sort of a regional emergency service here. So that's why I was thinking of trying to come up with a more equitable form though, because it looks like if we're stuck with this, then moving forward, we've got to make it as palatable as possible. But I don't see any way around being more expensive. I just think it's going to be. You know, and when we look at the, when we assess the ambulance cost, we're not looking at the cost to the, where are we? The building and the bond. And that's the only way the ambulance gets that service. You're just kind of looking at that. In the building. In the picture of the building. That gets a free ride, right? Doesn't share that. That service does not share in the overhead. Right. It doesn't share. Right. And as far as upkeep and maintenance of the building. It's like free rent. So then when you think about it, to be equitable, you would want to allocate that, some of that overhead over the ambulance service and then allocate that across all those service, $6,900 or so much. So how do you do that? I thought some of that was. I'm asking a bit of a question mark. I'm pretty sure it is actually. Really? Maybe not. He's just talking about spreading the cost over the ambulance too. Well, I mean it's. Of the building? Yeah. Do you remember Toby has been very clear that the ambulance service isn't that on? Yeah. Right. Right. The building is under the fire service. Yeah. Right, right. It's nice. So I'm saying, right, that's our understanding. And so, but there, then they should have a rent allocation. It's just how you do it. If you want two little stores in downtown Montpelier, you have, you know, Sally's perfume shop and you have Billy's car part shop and Billy and Sally are married and they just put a sheeprock wall between them. You allocate across the rent. You don't say, oh Billy's my husband. He can have free rent and he gets all the pocket, all that money. You split the costs between Billy and Sally's businesses. They're one. They are one. The budgets come in as one. So that we should be allocating the costs for the whole enterprise across both. Both. Yeah. Programs. And then it should all work its way down through the budget. And then so maybe the, our callous ambulance costs wouldn't be 76,000. Maybe they'd be 85,000. But our fire department costs would drop commensurate. Well, that would have the advantage of allocating it. You know, some of those bad costs to Markfield and Plainfield. Well, this is what I've been saying that it's like the ambulance. There's no nothing that we get reimbursed for for maybe the use of the word ambulance itself is not right. But the use of that building and the heat and dispatch and all that stuff. Where is the revenue going that the ambulance generates? It goes to the capitol. Goes to the capitol red, right? So. And it also goes to the contingency fund. How much do we know how much is in there right now? So that's the rent. That's what I'm saying. That could be considered equivalent. But that goes to the purchase of. That's supposed to be go for. The capillaries are buys fire trucks, buys ambulances, buys. It's just not clean is what I'm saying. It may come out in the same way, but it's harder. It's become so such a web of complicated, unnecessary formula. Well, that's how you make it so that it's more fair. Spread out. You you you based on a percentage allocation. If the ambulance takes up 40% of the space, you know, all the space and and utilize a level of utilization is 40%. Then you allocate 40% of the sum total cost. They heat everything to the ambulance. You're proposing like the example of the dispatch is proportional for fire and ambulance. Yeah. That's how they should do every every cost should be that way. Yeah. And then it's clear. And then when Marshall and Plainfield say, hey, we think you're ripping us off. We say, no, it's just what we're all paying. What if we're all paying the same? There's no argument. What is the rationale? Ken Ward, Seth. What is the rationale for not? Oh, I don't know. Maybe they're accounting for not splitting the costs on what's needed. We're not allocating. Yeah. I mean, I can building two, it should say ambulance pays part of it and fire department. Yeah, exactly. I don't know what the rationale is. Is it well, yeah. Okay. So there could be one. It's just an accounting or a tax or a I don't know the rationale is exactly what we said at the beginning. Where's Nick? No, there is one. The ambulance service from the very beginning was treated as an add-on. So all the base costs were attributed to the fire department. Right. But it's always been a compensation. Well, as far as as far as anybody knows, that's all it is. If there's no secret reason that somebody, maybe Toby knows for why you. I think no, we've flushed that out. Well, this predates Toby, predates time. Okay. This isn't new. Yeah. So how much money does the ambulance take in that goes into the reserve fund? Can we change that? Kat, we already did. We said they could take 50,000 for now. What's the total amount that goes? What's the total revenue that the ambulance? Wasn't it 85 or 86? So why not change? We've got a lot of figures from 2018. Okay. So let me finish. So why could we not change the proportion of that money that goes into support the ambulance and reduce the cost? You could do the same thing you did three years ago, four years ago, whatever it was, and say we want you to take 15,000, not give them the option. Just say take 15,000 off the top. Right. And decrease the cost to East Montpellier. And then we come back to them and say next year we want to work on a formula that better and more fairly distributes the costs. And I don't know whatever happened to that committee that Jean was doing, some budget committee with the fire department. John Welch. And John Welch. Whatever happened to that? Because they were supposed to get invited to board meetings too. If you notice, the numbers actually are much better than last year. And the reason they were bringing the woman from Bobbyville, Seattle, was precisely because of that discussion. So that when you had questions at the quarterly meetings or whatever you could get your answers. So I think what I'd like to propose is that we ask them to take however many dollars out of this ambulance, whatever reserve fund, whatever the name of it is, to offset the increases this year and then put in writing now so that they know next year that we want to have input or they need to propose a formula to make the cost sharing more equitable across the four towns. And you're including the usage of the building, the maintenance of the building, heat, oil, all the electricity, all those things that are currently now in the fire department budget mainly, which gets the benefit of to the ambulance. And this is a different business model than three years ago. Right. Wherever they came up with this approach. It's different. We now have a four town ambulance service. So it's different. Right. So we should be approaching it differently. And you know, one day in Marshfield and Plainfield might say, we're paying an ambulance fee and we're subsidizing your fire trucks. They might. And we're paying for a fire department too. So we need to start cleaning and so we're not doing that. Right. And I think if we try to do that now, it's this far into the budget process, it's not going to happen. But we can ask them to take a substantial more amount out of that reserve fund. Wait, let me just clarify what you're saying. It would come out of the ambulance revenue. Right. It doesn't come out of the reserve fund because once it goes to reserve funds, they're already there. Yeah. It's already been out of the future revenue. So you're talking about taking out of revenue, but we already talked about this last year. Didn't we not bruise it? We talked about it, but we didn't demand that they do it. Right. We got them the options. And it was up to fifth. Remember the problem has been they like to talk about staffing. We like to talk about volunteerism going downhill. And we can't continue to put this kind of stress on Larry and Ty and stuff. They can't get the staffing. So even if we gave them $300,000, they can't spend it. They get it from Connecticut. That's where the Connecticut troops came from. But there was only so much of that. And they do do that. There's a limit. Oh, I don't know if there's a limit. How many people want to come up here and do that? The story told us that every guy with a snowboard, what was dreaming of coming to Vermont and hanging out in the fire station and on their off time, racing down the... Who said that? That's what they were saying. All these guys, they, Vermont's the mecca for snowboarders and skiers. And they're like, hey, I'm getting paid to go on a ski trip. That's what we were told. Okay, wait a minute. I want to get back to the money that we could take out of Amel's records. Was it $50,000? President, well, that's what we gave them the option of. Yes. The same discussion we had. Every penny you take out is a penny that doesn't go into the... I know. That was the next one. And what's the pot and what is the danger of that? Because then you don't want to... When they come back with that fire engine, that you know they're coming back for, that's coming out of your voters. So what they said, okay, let me just do some round numbers. If you have $100,000 of Amel's records, which is about what it is, if you take $50,000 and put it in salary, then you only have $50,000 to put into your capital reserve. Right. So that means that your future purchases are going to be impacted significantly when you don't have the $100,000 a year. So that's why they've been resistant about taking that land. I get it. So that is the true cost of buying trucks. But why... But when they come to us to buy an ambulance or a truck, we can push back and say, what would it cost to get a used one or a demo? They don't like that any more than when Dury likes it, we found out. But if they have to, they have to. I don't care about that. I'm just telling you why they have not taken money out of the ambulance revenue to put towards salaries is because they want to protect the capital reserve. I'm just saying that as a blanket statement. I get what's happening. Okay, so but if you say right now, or we say, well, you've got to take the money out of the ambulance revenues to cover your increased costs, then we can do that. We've already had a discussion. You can say, whatever the increase is, if we don't have any increase, we can say you've got to take $25,000 or $30,000 right out of your ambulance revenues to cover this increased cost. And they just won't have as much money in the capital reserve. What they're going to tell you is, well, we're not going to be able to buy that new truck, you know. Well, no, no, the way it happens is... They told us Monday night, Thursday night, just so you know, that this ambulance that needs to use repairs, they're going to need to replace it soon. So just so you know that. And you know how much those cost. Not as much as a fire truck, but a lot. The problem is you develop this capital reserve, you know, money's really worn out of the ambulance program, which is costs are elevated by that same amount. And so it's a way that, you know, it's a term they call it, it's escaping me, arbitrage. And that's where we're slip sliding money all over the place. But at the end of the day, it comes out of the same pockets. What happens is, when we go to the voters at town meeting, that $600,000 truck with the chrome bells, well, it's only going to cost because we're so responsible and fiscally prudent. No, we're not. But we've been able to save $300,000. That truck's only costing you $600,000 for $300,000. No, we're not. We're getting a $600,000 truck for $600,000. We just took the money out of the ambulance, you know. This is a shell game. I understand sinking funds and all that, but I don't like, if we're going to have a sinking fund, everything's got to be on the table here. Enough of the game. If we need to set aside a percentage of our budget toward sinking fund or whatever you call it, equipment fund, then let's do that. And it's a percentage. And then that's a line on them. But this taking from the ambulance, nobody really knows and moving it over here. I don't like that. I don't like it. And you know, one day, Marshall and Plankfield, when they become true partners, and they are going to scream bloody murder, and rightly so. And it's going to cause all that discord, and then we're going to fix it, and then it's going to be ugly. Right. I'm just trying to think of a way to make it so that it's more fair. The hit that everybody's trying that they want us to take isn't so bad. And yes, they're probably going to have to buy another ambulance next year or the year after, but they can buy a used one, as long as it's not like the one they bought from Montpelier that they bought. And then we had to get rid of it up right away. Well, I'm just telling you, the easy way to avoid increases in your budget is just mandate to take the increase out of your capital, out of your ambulance revenues. That's the easy way to do it. Let's do it this year. Okay, but the other thing, well, you can just do it. So it's only a 2% increase. But I want to take whatever you need out of off the top of the ambulance revenues to get to a 2% increase. If you feel that, that'd be easier to defend your voters. We're just going to a 2% because 2% is easier to defend. We're saying 3%. We said 3. Because our whole budget's based on 3%. Okay. 2.8, but we're saying 3. So that would work. But I want to make sure that going forward that the two boards are on the same page and one board isn't going to say one thing and one board isn't going to say another. But this has to be a united front. I wanted to say one thing about the shell game because you can play that another way. You could say and you could do the formula. What would it cost to the voters or the taxpayers in these two towns to hire the ambulance service from an outside source? I'm not, bitch. I think the ambulance service is awesome. I'm just telling you, if you want to do it, so it's a different cost. If it's great value, then you go with it. But if you want to find out another way of funding this, so it might cost less money to the taxpayers, is you still keep the fire department. You buy equipment because you won't have the ambulance revenue anymore. And you hire the ambulance service in. You could do away with the ambulance service. We're not going to get an ambulance cheaper than what we got. Okay, then you have it. Then that's what you have. It's just about the accounting for it. It's fine to do the accounting more accurately, but if you want to do something different and say, okay, we will buy the fire trucks, just like you just said. You said, let's make a percentage of our budget, go towards the equipment replacement of the fire department. Okay, so it's going to cost you $300,000 or $100,000 a year for money and a fund to replace the fire equipment. And then you hire the ambulance service in. It's going to cost you another $100,000, whatever it is. Then you have a comparison to what this is costing you and what that would cost you. Yeah, that's a lot of money. If you want to do that. We're not talking about that right. It doesn't have to be long-term. You can say, we'll do it next year. I'm just saying that I'm not advocating. Put everything on the table. I'm not advocating that because I think the ambulance service does a great job. My point was, with the ambulance service that we have right now, to do a great job, it's going to cost more money. That was my point originally. And I'll stick to that. But I'm just saying, if you want to compare something, you can say, we'll hire the ambulance service to come in and we'll just replace the trucks. Because our argument always is that these capital reserves that we build up with the ambulance revenues funds the equipment. Which it does. It does. Unless we keep taking it. Exactly. Unless we keep taking it for salaries. So, which is what we've done. We haven't done it. What we've potentially. Yes. We keep talking about 3% or 4%. I did the math again just to be sure that I was remembering from the other night. So it's about $5,000. And that's a 1% increase lost. But it's under 1% of the total budget. It's really very marginal. To say 3%, not 4%. Well, you can take that either way. But to go to the voters and say 3% and. I'd rather say 2%. We held it at the rate of inflation. I'd rather say 2 as well. Because a lot of other services are going to increase. You want to decrease the budget by $11,000. In order to get your 2%, is that what you're saying? Well, we're not talking about decreasing the budget. We're talking about decreasing the proposed rate of increase. You want to decrease the proposed budget by 11,000 to meet your 2%, is that what you're saying? That would be 2%. 3% to 11%. I mean, how many people in this room are getting a 3% raise? OK. And where is all the money? Then how are the taxpayers supposed to come up with these increases? Every year we meet, there are more and more taxpayers on a percentage basis on going to retirement and having or less their incomes. It's a big deal. We need to practice at this because five years from now, this is going to be a really, really big deal. If we want our neighbors to stay, our neighbors. And quite frankly, all the rich people from now, country to come in here and buy the places and push us all out of our places by elevating the cost a little bit further. I mean, that's reality, man. I mean, in a defense, well, it affects the people at the fire station just as much. They're mostly residents of East Montpelier or Callas. So it affects their tax bills as well. And it's not all about the money because we need the services and they provide an excellent service, both fire and ambulance. That's not, I don't want to take away from that. But I'm just trying to make the point that people cannot afford these increases. So which number are you trying to lower? And that's, that's one of the details here. Yes, right, right. So which of those percentages total? Which one? 7.45 or the 4.09. The 4.09 includes, remember, we made, the Callas and East Montpelier budgets are making up that $10,900 they shifted into this year's budget from the insurance under payment. So that's an immediate 11,000 that you've already picked up. And you've got to remember that when you're looking at those percentages. On the FY19, see where it says fund balance? That was, was that the insurance? Or is that the money out of the fund? No, that was the insurance. Then why do they call it fund balance if you say insurance? Because when it runs from one year to the next, it becomes part of your fund balance. Oh, that's right. Right, but it's hard to remember that that was the insurance. What line is that? Well, $55.02. Oh, there, $50.00. I'm looking at this sheet. Oh. Yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah, fund balance. Let's see. I mean, they're not going to like us coming to them for insurance. We're off to see, okay. Let's see what you're doing. If you're actually asking them to decrease the budget, they're not going to like it. You're just ordering them to take it off the top. It doesn't really decrease the budget. Right. It decreases your capital reserve fund, which you'll feel in three years instead of. Exactly, so I don't know why you're doing that. I don't know, you know, it's a tough call. It really is a tough call, yeah. But we have to do something at some point. Because it can't just be every year they come to us and flat out tell us, sorry, we can't make a, no, we're not going to make a change. We've talked about a couple of different things here. Going to allocating the money differently between the town. Right, but I mean, what really, I think, really was upsetting Thursday night was when we said, you know, just kind of off the top that, you know, we're talking about budget. What would you say if we asked you to do it 3% and they were not very nice about their response? True. And is that, they don't, it's supposed to be working. That kind of conversation when they came in looking for a $600,000 power choice. I was going to say, we're supposed to be working together the three entities. This is supposed to not be a battle of who has more power. This is about the budget of the three entities. Is it, is it our place to tell them where it has to come from? I mean, they could propose that it come from the same. We don't, we fund it according to something we're comfortable with and if they don't, we give them nothing. I mean, that's really where we're at. I mean, we do have the power. So, one of the things that I like to do is, I like to think about it as if I'm walking a mile in the other man's moccasins. So, if I'm Ty, or if I'm Toby, or if I'm Larry Brown. Hold on, guys, I'm sorry, don't be rude. She was looking for a copy of something. I'm allowed to say that you're not. Sorry. So, if I'm Ty, or Toby, or Larry Brown, and I'm, I've put effort into this and I'm working very hard and I'm tired and I'm physically depleted and I'm mentally spent and I go before a board and I say, here's my budget. I put a lot of work into this. This is minimalist. The only expansion you're going to see is this and I've compensated for it by this and the one thing that the board says is go to 3%. I'm going to throw out my hands and say, are you kidding? You come in here and work and don't get any sleep. We do this together. This happens to us as law enforcement boards all the time. We put all this work in, we go to town meeting and people pick line by line by line. It happens all the time but they have to face the reality. I appreciate what you're saying. You're absolutely right. I'm just trying to frame it in from the context from their point of view. Their point of view, right. They have to also look at things from our point of view. I don't think that happens as often as it should. There was a, for being, and it wasn't exactly the same truck they were looking for when they were looking for $600,000 truck but there was a lesson there. If you recall, one of the guys who pushed back and said over my dead body, you're going to buy a brand new truck without first looking around, scouting the territory and see what might be out there. They're like, well, nothing's out. There's no reason to look. So then we kind of give them the thumbs down. We got the ugly eyeball. And lo and behold, what happens is impossible. And it's happened now twice. What happened in Woodbury, well, they were lucky. That'll never happen again. And then it basically happened again. So I think when there's too much money in the reserve fund and it's too easy to buy a $600,000 truck, you're going to work a little less hard. And not that I want to put more burden on them. But we're getting to real numbers here, halves of millions of dollars and more. And I think it's important that taxpayers at some level understand the full cost, and we all understand full cost. And we don't hide what the costs are. Because at the end of the day, people are like, well, if you kept saving us all this money, we've got to turn that price. Why do my taxes higher? So at the end of the day, the tax bill is still the same. I mean, you guys don't hear this? Over and he's not clear. Why are my taxes going up? Oh, no, it's all over the place. So we haven't heard from Amy or Cliff. Did you guys have anything you wanted to say or? Well, I went back and looked. Both of the Marshfield and Plainfield contracts are up for negotiation right now, according to some of the notes that they gave us on the FY20 budget. So I would definitely advocate in terms of looking to reapportion the contributions of these two towns. I would also advocate, coming back to a point that John made, as this process rolls forward from year to year, Plainfield and Marshfield will continually be looking at increases. And at some point, John is absolutely right. They're going to say, wait a minute, we're just doing an ambulance portion. And it seems like a lot of that money is going to fund you guys' fire department. We need to shake up these columns and make sure that we can justify those increases that they're going to be questioning a year from now, two years from now, five years from now. Make it more fair so that we have an answer. We can say this is the reality. It's what Barry Town did to us. Remember what one principle reason we left Barry Town? Other than them showing up 45 minutes later. It's because we were funding the towns, as I remember, that town was paying zero for their ambulance because all the other towns remember towns were funding it. So we're not that bad, obviously. And all the money goes into the town of Califers and Barry Town. So five rows under all the trucks. It goes into the town of Califers. I don't love the idea of the shell game. And I thought that that was what you said about maybe having too much money in the capital fund is a disincentive to be frugal. I don't know. I mean, I'm sure people have studied extensively how much the capital fund should have in these instances. I don't. Does anybody not walk hand? No, they're not. Okay, so nobody's really done the grand formula as to what makes sense. I asked them about the cap reserve, and they said they'd try to get some stuff to us by Monday, which I guess they didn't. Because I was like, what are you going to eat in the cap reserve? That's always a big question, but they are not very good about making the plan for replacement fees. Oh, we're not going to have to replace that truck. And then as Denise said, oh, now they're going to talk about replacing the angles. Oh, yeah. So that's kind of what they do. They just, they don't stick to a plan really, a very organized plan. So they just want to get money in it. And there isn't very much money in it right now. No, hundreds. So all the way they're buying anything going forward is on time. Right. Now it is, remind me, we have two separate capital plans, one for fire, one for ambulance. No, no. Yeah, they should be. Well, not really. I mean, maybe. They should have a separate reserve fund for each because then you have a better understanding of how, we just did this with the Town Hall Town Office. We had one reserve fund for both. We just split it so we know how much money is available for work on the Town Hall, how much money is available for work on the Town Office. They shouldn't be combined into one. Well, then you have subsets within a certain fund of money. What's, what's the difference? Okay, what's the subject? Yeah. So your plan has splits, but your fund doesn't? The fund is just a pot of money and you just subset it out. Yeah, right. But I'm saying it should be, this is how much we've put aside for ambulance replacement. It can be in. Yeah, yeah, it can be in your subject. And it can all be in one account, but you should be able to account for it. Well, they've, they've tried to do that. Yeah, they've tried to do that. It's just that. I just don't remember seeing anything recently. I asked Toby about it, and he said he'd get something by the way. Because of course we need to know that that truck's going to need to be replaced, this one, that one, that one. And it's, and sometimes I feel like they, we trust them, you know, I mean, we trust them to do this work. And it's not easy. And they spend a lot of time doing it. And I mean, the amount of hours they put in to training a new person is unbelievable. And then they leave. Right. Because we talked about that Thursday night, is there's some way to make an incentive so somebody stays once the department's paid for the training? Does the department pay the full amount of the training? No. Not all of it. But sometimes they've helped. And then the person gets all trained, and then they leave. You guys are remarkable. So, you know, it's, it's really, I would not want to be in their shoes, as you, as you said. But we're in our shoes, and we have to be responsible, you know, and in supporting them, plus thinking about bottom lines. If your board would like to target 2%, and that equates to 11,000-ish dollars, there was an early discussion when we said 3%. And that would be 5,200, 5,500. I was saying 3. You were saying 3. And I think, Sherry, you started off saying 3. I started with 3 the other night. Yeah. Yeah. So how much money do we have? 5,500 is a lot less than 11,000. 11,000. I can please don't use that. No, you've got to start with that 10,9. You're replacing. Right. So you've got to add that to it. Add to it. Right. That's right. Say that again? Yeah. The 10,9 is just a one-shot deal that's added into this budget. Yeah. Oh. Right. And you've got to replace it. Right. So, anything that starts with that moves up. That was a short fall. A carry fall. Yeah. Yeah. It was the extra money that they had. Oh, it's extra money. Yeah. They just changed the timing of their insurance came up. But that was FY19, the 10, 8,000 one. That's carried over. It's not carried over. You see that number that says. Oh, you're saying a percentage increase should be based on backing that number out because that wasn't part of the budget, right? Do you see the 499 number? You see the 499 number? That is the total for the FY19 on the green and white one. Yeah. On the FY19 total number all the way across, it says 499, 456. Yes. That is $51,000 higher than what you guys were working with last year at this time. Their budget got amended way above what we were working with. That's right. So you've got to remember that that number last year, when we were looking at it, was really 448. Right. So it's now exploded from 448 up to 519 in one year. But that includes the $40,000 for Marshfield for the ambulance service staffing. Kind of offset the $50,000 you guys said they could pull out of the... This all kind of ties together. But you've got to remember this is a huge increase from what you were looking at at this time last year. We're just 448. Because of the 10, 8, 3, 1. And the $40,000 for Marshall. Which was $50,000. So it was $50,000. So that got added in, and then they put another $20,000 on that one. Okay, right. But the fund balance, that's just a time... That's actually a huge increase. That's $70,000. Oh. You know that? That's your $70,000. It's funny money. It's for the 448s. The 448s, not the real one. It's not the real one. But the 448 was this... Gotcha. Okay, so it's 10 after 8. What do you... So that's the reason I only raised the budget by that added small dollar increment. Because they already had the 40 plus the 10th and 10 or 11th. Yeah. Yeah. But they're not going to have... So next year... But in FY20, they're not going to have that 10. Nope. Right. Was that backed out for the 20? FY20? No. What you've got to remember is that 4% increase is a fake. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's closer. The real increase is closer to 7.5. And that's... That's why I couldn't figure out where you got the 4% from. Yeah. Well, 4% is real. If you play... Right. No. Apples to apples... The impact is 4%. But the reality is... 7.45. So... Wait a minute. Okay. The 7.45 is... That's above the 448. 44800? No. That's above what you budgeted last year. 448. No, no. Forget that number. Okay. Look at your online numbers. That's what you care about. You care about what you're paying more on. Okay. Lots of discussion. Year to year. Yes. Okay. That's the number. Right. Right, right, right, right. 152 to 161. Yeah. Okay. 76 to the 80 for you guys. All right. That's the number. And then fire is... That's our contributions. Right. You're saying... Yeah, of course. 113 to 124 and 56 to 62. Yes. All right. So, like I said, now it's almost quarter after eight. What would you like to do? I want to keep discussion going on this money because we're making progress. Okay. Okay. So, okay. So, Calis is looking at paying for fire service and other 6,000. Not quite. 5,500 or... Yeah, 5,500. And then for the ambulance, they're looking at paying another 6,500. No, no. 4,000. 4,500. That's right. 10,000. So, $10,000. $10,000 is what Calis would be paying... Over last year. To 7.45. That correct? Because last year it was 133. This year it's 143. So ours is a $10,000 increase. Yes. And to get that down to a number you would be comfortable with, what would that percentage increase... What do you want to happen? Well, what percentage increase because I don't have a calculator with me. 7% increase. So that's that 7.45. Yes, the 10,000. So, we were talking either 2 or 3. So you're talking roughly half. Right. 5,000. 5,000 is going to put you in the middle somewhere. Is that correct? Mm-hmm. Well, hang on. Let's do it. Is that correct? Well, let's do it clean. Yeah. Not 5,000. 3% times 1. Right, so... Just take those 2s. 6,000. That'd be... Whoops. 3, 8. It's half of what? 1, 3, 3, 1, 8, 3. 3.5%. No, it's 4%. That's what you have to get out of there. 3%. 3% of Callis's FY 2019 is 39.9551. That's 3, so that would... We would... So that's... 3%. 39.9551 is 3%. Over the 133, Sharon? Yes. Yes, 2% is 26.63. So you need $7,000 off the top for your... to get to your 3%. Right. Now, let's do East Montpelier. 6,000, but it's... You just have 6,000. Just double it. Yeah. Right. Yeah, it's double. That's true. Exactly. Exactly. That part is easy. Oh, gee. 1, 3, 2, 3. Right. You just have to pick a number that you want to have come off the top. Right. Well, they want to be... Wait here. They want to go to the bench. 2,000 total, 18,000 total. Do we want to go to a percentage or do we want to go to a fixed number? Life is a lot easier with a fixed number. Yeah. You can always round your percentage. It's all just tables. It's all just spreadsheets. So what if... So if we said 2,500 and you guys said 5,000 if we're doubling it, right? That's 7,500. That's in between 2 and 3. You're then asking them to take off the top between 2,000 and 23,000. That's starting to be real money at that point. Right. Yeah. No, if yours is... Bar's a 7,500. Trust me on this part. Excuse me. Okay, you're right. Got it together in my head real quick. Yeah. And again, they aren't going to feel any of this. You're just asking the Capital Reserve Fund to get shoved down the road. To get used to use some more of the money out of that fund. Yeah. So how do we want to... I guess we're going to need some kind of a letter coming from the two select boards saying this is what we're asking you to do. Well, that's at least one third of the reason. Right. But I'm just trying to see how we might proceed to put this in writing so that we all understand it. We're going to use a fixed dollar amount. Are we going to offer up that they can use money out of the Reserve Fund to make up the difference? Ambulance revenue. Ambulance revenue to make up the difference. And then in this letter, I think we should say going forward, we want to help you work out a more equitable way to spread out the cost of the ambulance between the four towns. So that we put it on the table that we're thinking about this for next year. Can I make a suggestion? Yes. For the budget, just tell them what numbers are in the motion. You just email them the motion. That will tell them what the bottom line is for the budget. Create a letter that you actually put some effort into that both boards have an opportunity to vet. And have that be separate from what you're asking them to do in this budget cycle. So let me ask you this. Two different things. Yeah, that's good. Are you, can Bruce, the movie's not players, approval do this letter for us both boards to vet? Yeah, we can work that out. We're kind of pushing our calluses. I'm not hearing it. I want to hear the number again. I want to hear where you're at. What number are we talking about? 2663 is 2%, which would reasonably round to what, 27? 100, if we wanted to say 2660. There's this double what ours is. And then our 3% is 39.95, which reasonably rounds to 4,000. And theirs would be double, so it'd be 21,000, as Bruce said. 8 plus 4 is 12,000, that's 3%. 12,000. So are we saying that? But they're going to have to take out of the capitol reserve 18. 3%, it's 18, give or take. For the 2%, it's 22.5, give or take. I'd say both are 3%. I don't think we should assume that it has to come from capitol reserves. I mean, no, I mean, it's revenue before the deposit. No, not so we can tell them to. No, but no, I think we can say this is what we'd like to see and they can come back to us and say, well, can we take it? Don't they have to ask us permission to use money on that fund? They're not taking it on the fund. The ambulance reserve, no, the ambulance reserve. No, they're not taking it on the reserve. They're going to take it out of revenue that comes in for this deposit. We can tell them to do that right now. In advance of it going in. Oh, so it wouldn't go in, it would get used before it goes in. That's right. Okay, gotcha. But why do we want to assume that that has to happen that way? Why wouldn't we assume that if they sharpen their pencils, they can find some other savings? Well, we don't. I think we just say this is the amount and then they might say, well, we can sharpen our pencils a little bit here and there and then. I don't see savings. Guys, I don't know what you're going to do. Let's not eat a building on a warm day. I don't know, but when I can't see them doing, you increase the revenue side either, and if it's not from us, then you go to Plainfield or Marshfield. And that's why I was suggesting we have a fairer allocation of costs. So then we can have an honest conversation, four-way conversation. I think they need to be partners because then when things get expensive, like diesel engines, they're going to be putting their shoulder into it too. That's why I don't think this year we can go and say, you need to use this formula for Plainfield and Marshfield. I think we have to do that going forward because there's not enough time right now to do that. Is there anybody here that would consider agreeing to this budget with the letter going forward saying we're going to increase on some formula? Because if you do those numbers, it accomplishes what we're talking about. If Plainfield goes to 60 and Marshfield goes to 72, that accomplishes what you're trying to obtain. There's a Marshfield right over there. Yeah, a Marshfield. And he's laughing at you, but that's all right. Okay, so this is the end of your session. You don't hear anything. I guess I'm going to make way for the time. You're actually discussing. I don't know. It's okay. You see her as an attorney. I don't understand what you're saying. Are you saying we should have closed their budget request this year? I'm saying is there anybody that's considering moving the budget for this year, as proposed, with a letter that says, hey, not going to happen next year. Here's your boundaries, left and right boundaries for next year. Let's come up with a formula. We'll write the letter that says, hey, going forward. Because I think I think you're right. There's not a lot of real wiggle room in here. I don't see it. No, but we're talking about using the future money from the ambulance service, which will then kick the can down the road further for capital. It's okay. So I want to say one thing. There is potential for taking, getting more money into the capital reserve or the ambulance revenue from the town of Marshfield, because they were only doing 50% of the calls before. They got me doing 100% of the calls now. So there is potential for taking in some money. They thought more ambulance revenue. So asking them to take $18,000 off the top is not a hardship. And it does reduce the town's contribution, which is, as you say, very aptly. It makes it more palatable for the voters. And that's a good point. So to keep it at 3%, which I think is fair, and taking $18,000 off the top and telling them to do that is nothing wrong with that. And I would think that they might be expecting that we're going to come back with something. We're not just going to say, okay, whatever you want, I think maybe they might have got that message Thursday night in some way, shape, or form. You know, food for thought. If you, you know, dispatch, we hate that dispatch costs. We're all partners in the dispatch program now. But if you remember how it started, it was Montpelier providing dispatch. And we, just like Plainfield and Marchfield, they were, we were giving them some money toward covering some of their costs. And then they finally got to where we're, we were moving toward. And they said, no, we've got to allocate this across everybody and come up with a formulary and make this all on paper equitable for all involved. And that's where we're at today for better and worse with dispatch. And I think if you were going to be in a partnership with Plainfield and Marchfield in the long term, this is not going to be a little contract. And the, and the fire department went in all fairness, they, they aren't happy about the dispatch costs either. And, you know, technically 9% apparently doesn't even really cover the increases. They're expecting it long term to keep going up and up and up percent. Okay. So, so are we on board with the 3% in the 18,000 out of the able travelers? Does everybody think that's a good idea? Yeah. Okay. Do you think that's a good idea? So essentially what you're going to do, if, if you approve that, I'll create a revised version. It'll take approximately 6,000 out of your ambulance contribution, 1,000 out of East Montpeliers. There'll be a new line right under the Marchfield line that will say Ambulance Revenue Usage. That'll be 18,000. So the numbers will stay the same except those three. Right. Okay. Okay. So I got one more thing to say. Good. If, if everyone's on board with that, then we can move the conversation to a possible state of allocating the cost difference, ambulance cost differently between the towns. I would never say we're going to do this. I would say we need to look at this. Of course. Obviously. And, and, and that's the way you start the conversation. Partnership and looking at it. Right. And there's no reason why we can't request a meeting outside of the usual meeting schedule to start talking about this. I think it behooves us to be the ones proposing and suggesting and trying to create an environment where, you know, they, we have a discussion about this. We could do it at a select board meeting in East Montpelier or here. It doesn't have to be at the fire station, but I think we need to start the discussion like right after town meeting because otherwise it'll go by and it'll be budget season again and we'll be right back where we started. Well, we need to, we, we need to put our heads together, create a letter that puts these ideas forth in a palatable way and look at this. Yeah. So that's, that's, that's number two. So number one is first 3% in the 18,000 out of the angles. Okay. Is that, are you making that as a motion? I'll make that a, well, I don't usually make motions, but I'm a chairman, but can make some motion. I'll make the motion. You can make motions. We can, but we don't usually. We don't usually. Now I try to avoid that. We try to lead everyone to the trough and then somebody will drink. Okay. And do we have a second? I'll second. Okay. How was the thing? I, okay. Would somebody on the callus board like to make a similar or same motion? I'll make the motion. Okay. Is there a second? Second. Is there any further discussion before the board's vote? I just want to say, you know, I have a long history with EMFD and my heart is kind of breaking here. So I just want to be honest about that. All right. All those in favor callus please say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Please come up here. Clear your vote. Very good. Oh, you're going to hear your vote. Okay. Um, so, so Rose, I am sensitive to your thoughts on that because you've been involved in so long time. Yeah. Well, I do respect what you have to say about it. Thank you. I feel that when Ty said what he said Thursday night, like, no, no, I can't. And you hit the nail on the head. He worked so hard and they all worked so hard putting that budget and they're spent and they're tired and they're exhausted and they took the hose testing out and they took the ambulance tax out and it was like they gave it their all. And it really, I know, and it really isn't. There's no easy balance because there's no way that we could really say how much we appreciate, you know, and I mean, you know, I just get so worried about them because how much longer can this go on? Those three guys cannot do it. And that's the thing is, and I think the idea that maybe Seth is one of the ideas of, you know, what would it take to contract that out might take a huge burden off them because like they, you know, they're not getting any younger. They all have families. They all spend so much time between both duties. It's really a huge burden. So at this point, though, we're not saying no to the budget. And we're not saying this. We're funding them, but we're just doing a little bit differently. Right. And I do understand the concern about the capital reserve, but $18,000 and they also have the potential to get some more money in. Right, right. I think it's a fair, it's still a meal row. Okay. And then the idea of trying to take in money, a little bit more money from the other towns to make this more equitable, I think that's fair. Yeah. So I appreciate what they're doing. And you got to hear what I said in the beginning, I do not want to nickel and dine this to death because they're going to salaries. It's going to cost more money to the towns and that's a given. As far as I'm concerned, it's a given and I'm not saying anything different. I don't want to give up on it. I just say it's going to cost more money. I think the biggest thing is we need to work on this together with them. This isn't them and an alum. Exactly. Yeah. You know, not to make it make them feel like. No, no, that's the problem. You don't want to make them feel like we're nickel and dining to death. We don't trust what they're doing because you got to feel that when they put this budget together, you're going to have to trust them. I'm not always trusting. I'm always trusting. But they've got to feel that. Yeah, right. Yeah, right. And they probably initially aren't going to feel that way when they get the letter and they see the motions. But I think that if they think about it, it's their two towns too. It's their towns. Right, right. And it's it's trying to have a vision for the future. I mean, that's right. It's not 1964 anymore. It's not welding a pump on the side of an oil taper. That's not legal anymore. No, yeah. But I think our letter can can be very nicely done. I'm sure, you know, we can get the message across. You know, it's everybody's problem, not just theirs. And it's true across the state and across the country. It's just so we all have to be thinking about this. Well, the point needs to be made right up front is that we realize that it's volunteers that work endless hours. Right. And that we need to shift some of the burden from them to salaried employees or that needs to be brought right up front. I think we yeah, we're not going to cut that right. We say that right up front is part of the letter. I think that opens the door for them to realize that we realize and see what is happening. I feel their pain. You know, I look at them when we go to meetings and they look exhausted. You know, so you can't always react. You know, you can't have a knee jerk reaction when Ty gets annoyed. Because we know Ty reacts a little bit that way anyway. But you can't react to that. You have to say, well, no, but they have to be open to communicating and having a discussion. They really do. And so on that note, who from your board and who from our board would be that line of communication? In other words, can we soften the blow of the letter, even though the letter is going to be nice and it's going to say Oh, we're going to use a line. Right. But after that letter is prepared, somebody should take the time to go and visit them and say, Hey, here's what's going to happen. Yep. And this is how it's going to happen. And we want to be partners in that process. Right. And I think if we say that we want to, I think I like to work partners to be put in the letter that we want to be partners in the process of making some change to help them going forward. But my point is, I know who the bodies, who's the person that's going to have the face to face? Well, let's do the, let's get the letter done. Right. And then both boards can decide who's going to be the man power or woman power behind going to be anything. I like women power. Even if I were a woman, I'd like women power. Okay, that's, you heard that. I'm trying to get out of work. You heard that here first, right, guys? Here we go. Oh, I'm okay with women power. I'm okay with getting to the business at hand. Yeah, me too. All right. So going forward, I guess we're ready to, are we done with this discussion or not? And if we want to get together again after the holidays and stuff to have further discussion and ideas, we can do that. We can come to each one of them for a meeting. Yeah, we'll take it into consideration. Okay, you do that. You want to come? It's the town, it's the appreciation party for the town employees. Well, we could make an exception. We don't like that to our appreciation. That's okay. Yeah, we can definitely do that. You know what it is, Friday night, five o'clock. Yeah. Oh, I know the other thing that came in. This is a letter. You're talking on Longtown? Wait a minute, wait a minute. Connor fixed the garage overhead doors for the cost of 24.62. Okay, that's that's how we did. There is trim between the bays that was failing. And they've known about it for a couple of years and they finally got bad enough they had to deal with it. Okay. And what Toby came to me a month ago and asked how we would like to pay for it. And we still have money? Yeah, there's still almost 20,000 left in the reserve fund. And this seemed like a perfect name for it. Okay, so that gets paid out of that money unless there is some rejection. We don't have to vote on it or anything. That's just the way it is. So I think we're done if you want to get out of here. I would like to make a motion for the Eastman Player School Court to adjourn. Second. Any further discussion? Anybody object? Okay. Thank you for coming and thank you. Thank you for being so remote. Thank you for coming to Calis. It's always nice to be in Calis. Maybe one day we will come to a party. I know what our roads are. That's a great idea. Why do we bring that to this? No, no. You can't, you don't have to. But you don't have to. It's just catered. You'll really enjoy it this year. Really? Yeah, it's gonna be so much better than last year. I gotta bring something. Norm, if you're a state worker, you know Norm's catering. Okay. The guy had a water burry. Oh, that's what she's doing? For a flea. Is she checking the price? Good. She want me to bring food. So you bring extra? She does. Okay. I'll take it. I'll take it. I'll take it. I'll take it. Norm. I'll take it. No, I guess not. I'll take it. I'll take it. You're gonna have a flask during my tuition. Yes, it's very nice. It's an Easter room. That's a good idea. Oh, thank you. Cookie, are you gonna have a cookie? You're gonna have a cookie? You're gonna have a cookie, right? Thank you. Thank you. It's okay if I sit here for a second. Can you sit down? Yeah, that's good to see you. That's good to see you. That's good to see you. That is a whole lot of cookies. Wow, that is stuff. Cookie? Yes, sir. As long as I don't have to go outside. I mean, I might have to go outside. But you will. But I have to go outside. It's not gonna take very long. We're not gonna live here overnight. Don't blame me. That won't take me five minutes. Let's see if you stop doing that. Do we have to go outside? Why? You don't want to go outside. You don't want to go outside. You don't want to go outside. You don't want to go outside. Have a little snack, please? Did it get the nice reception? Maybe. Okay. Okay, so we're going to be going into executive session after we do one item on our continued agenda and have a couple of updates. All right. We need to approve and discuss an expenditure from the technology fund. When Cliff and I met with the office staff repeatedly, they've said that there's a real need for a computer for people to use when they come in to do research because what happens is they have to kick Judy or Barbara or Sharon can attest to this from personal experience off of their computer. So we would like to take money out of the technology fund to do that. There's currently $2,434 in the technology fund and $974 in the budget computer budget fund. Do you have any idea how much a computer would cost? Close. Well, certainly we could do something for $2,434. We can do it for less. I think we understand the capacity that the computer would need to, I guess it's mainly the records that they need to be able to search right in the searchable database. Digitized. Right. So is it the COT system? Yeah. And then it's got to integrate into what are you using? Thank you. Do you have a computer that you use a laptop? I'm assuming you access some records from home. I know a lot of times you have to go into offices. What do you usually see? A laptop or is it a workstation desktop code setup? It's a, yeah, it's just a normal computer setup. And then you can send it to a printer. Well, Judy and those guys are, they were proposing a laptop so that it could be used in various locations around the office. Well, I have no idea. Realistically, I guess all we need is something that's equivalent to the computer that they are proposing for Judy. And Judy, so just so you know, we're holding off on $1,600. We're holding off on Judy's computer until we get some of this other stuff figured out, right? Good night. Good night. Thank you guys. Good night, everybody. Here on the screen. John. If Judy's computer is to be replaced in FY20 after we identify the next IT provider, we may want to add an additional amount to that FY20 computer expense line of $500. It's currently $1,600. So what they're saying is for $2,100, they can get Judy in the computer. So that goes to my point of $2,434 should be plenty to get a powerful enough computer to be used. But we're replacing Judy's and Judy's is coming out to be used publicly, right? Yeah, you lost me on that train of thought again. Okay, so they want to buy a public computer and buy a new one for Judy. Judy's wouldn't get replaced probably until FY20. So we're just buying a new one. Which is July 1st. Right. Which means we have to put it in the budget now. Well, right. Right. And they're proposing this for the FY20 budget to increase that one item of $1,600 to $500 to buy $500. So that's $21. So that's $21. That's to buy Judy computer in FY20. But we know if we got a public access computer that it would have to have equivalent power of Judy's to run these programs that they would need to use. So based on that logic, $2,100 could be used to buy a computer. And you've got $24. And they have $24 to use right now. So the question is, we need to have a motion to use the money out of the fund. We can't just willy-nilly do it. We have to have the board agree to do it. And then there's $24 in there. You might only use about $21. So how are we replenishing that technology line item? Technology replacement fund. Is that a separate line in the computer? I mean in the budget? Cliff, why not have a more immediate replacement of Judy and then take Judy's computer and put that out? Put it hand-me-down out for the occasion. We talked about that. I'm assuming there was a reason. Yeah, there's a reason because right now Judy's computer is working just fine. And there's a concern that if we muck around with some of that right now, she'll have problems like Sandra was having. Why don't we just vote on this and move this one through? This is not a controversial issue. No. Because we got a lot of time. We're in procedure. Well, it's $2,100. Let's just do it. I know. So moved. What was your motion? Please repeat that. That we approve that $2,100 for it to set up a computer terminal for public access to whatever databases are necessary for them to do the review of the records. Out of the technology fund. Out of the technology fund. Was there a second? Second. Further discussion? Questions? I would suggest that we might want to offer some wiggle room in there. Maybe go 22 other than 21. That's a friendly amendment. All right. Is there any further questions? Discussion? No, I just want to I appreciate understanding why we can't just do a hand me down. It's only $2,100 for 22 but we're saving. It would be a saving. So but there's a good reason not to. So thank you for that explanation. Yeah. And also I think the other aspect of that is we go with a new IT provider. They're going to have some different recommendations. And we may want to look at basically doing a captive plan for the office computers. And right now there's just Judy's fine working fine. Right now there's just a need. Yeah, there is. There's a need as you as you will test to that for this to happen like right now. And it will help with the office flow immensely. And there was also peripheral discussion that. If we start when we start updating all of the computers in that office there are other areas of the town we can utilize those computers like transferring some over the highway department or maybe the listeners can use the next one. Right. Yeah. So it's not going to work. We're going to leverage that savings. Right. Somewhere else. Perfect. Good. Okay. Are you further discussion? Are you ready to vote? All those in favor please say hi. Bye. Any opposed hearing none. Thank you very much folks. All right. Just for the record last meeting. And we have been talking about it. We appointed Barbara to fill the position of auditor. Not the professional audit but the auditor position to be in compliance with statute and charter. Then I had drafted a letter. I had Jim look at it and he's like no sorry I can't do that. That's a conflict. She cannot be assistant town clerk and auditor. At the same time because she in essence here Jim sit down at the table. We'll be auditing her own work because she takes in money. Did we actually appoint her? We did make a whole motion. We did. And we did. And I had I'm so glad I had to undo them. So basically she can't do it. So that's just to let you know. Now we got to go back to this. Now to the drawing board. Thanks for peeing in our readies. Yeah I'm sorry. So I just wanted to put that in the minute so that it's reflected out accurately. Sandra is home sick. And I told her we were going to have this long discussion with Eastmont Pillar which lasted even longer than I thought. So I put her off to next week. And she's going to come in with some insurance updates. Proposals about health insurance. We'll need to get our pencils out and start looking at the bottom line of the going line by line on the budget. Looking at the 3% or 2% of whatever we decide increasing. We should be ready to do that. Next week we're meeting on the 27th as well. I don't know if Katie was here when we talked about that or not. 27th. December. It's a Thursday. John's going to be out of the country but he's tried to work it out to see we. I'm going to be in Russia searching for a PP take. Oh okay. I've got to leave. For you. You can help me learn. All right. I can save you a trip just google it. I think it's under the mattress. So Jerome won't be able to start packing up until we make a motion to go into a executive session to discuss um legal matters. So move. Second. Time. Jerome second. All those in favor please say aye. 845. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye aye captain. With. General. Great.