 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise Vs and generous donations from viewers like you. So I'm going to call the meeting of the Finance Committee to order. It is November 10, 2020, and the time is five minutes after 2pm. And this meeting is being held virtually pursuant to the governor's order that allows for meetings to be held in a remote fashion because of the COVID crisis. I'm going to check with members of the committee to make sure that everybody can hear and be heard across my screen for order Bob Hegner. Can I hear you? Yes. Pat Dangelis. Yep. And Kathy Shane. Yes. Oh, Bernie, you're here now. Yep. I'm here. Sharon Povinelli. I'm here, Andy. I don't know when you got my email. You're going to have to leave. Sorry. And Dorothy Pam. Yeah. I think that's it for the committee. So what I want to do is find out from the. Fire Chief, Chief Nelson, as to whether the time constraints that indicate that we should take reverse our order on the agenda slightly and. See if there are questions about the proposed purchase of the. Fire. The ambulance equipment. Sorry. Shall we just do that as a courtesy to our two staff people? Yep. Okay, so. So we're going to do that. I'm going to ask. Sean to quickly summarize the request. So you don't have to go into detail because the town manager. Provided us information yesterday, which was packet for the council members. And I think I forwarded hopefully to members of the other members of the committee who don't get the council packets so. Sean, do you have anything that you want to say is an introduction before we turn it over to Chief Nelson. Yeah, I'll just, I'll just add briefly to what Paul already wrote in the memo is that when we were developing the capital plan this year, the ambulance was actually on there. And that was a replacement. And as you know, we, we reduced capital and we created a reserve. And we had reached out to department heads to find out what their capital needs are that could become urgent during the year. And this was one that Chief Nelson had raised very early on that this ambulance was sort of on its last leg so it wasn't a surprise that it that it broke and so you know we do obviously support the replacement of it. And would the purchase come from the ambulance fund except for the amount of the grant that pays for that special equipment which we discussed last night. Yeah, so that's when we looked at the ambulance fund last time there are sufficient funds to purchase to pay for the ambulance out of that fund less whatever grant proceeds we can use. The last question that I'm going to ask in the preliminary to you is whether there's any concern that you have about the balance that you're remaining in the ambulance fund for other purposes either for operating budget or capital. I'll look to Sonya she's she's got more of the history on the fun I think when we looked at it. We brought in a little bit more money than we were expecting at the end of last year. And so that boosted our balance up enough where we felt comfortable going paying for the ambulance fund, as opposed to the capital reserve. But and Sonya do you want to weigh in on sort of the history of that balance. Well, the balance in that has been declining, mainly because of losing Hadley for a year and a half or two years ago, and then covered happening. But at the beginning of the year when we're looking at this for the ambulance there was, we carried over a balance of $800,000. And I think we're using about what 2 million for the 22. So, that leaves us a little under a million to collect through the end of the fiscal year and I think we're going to be fine with that, but it's COVID. This has been a year from hell I don't know what 21 is going to look like. So, what I'm looking here right now I think we're good. And if we were not able to I can't raise my hand, because I'm now co host, if we were not able to raise the money, then we would just have to go to general operating, or capital reserves to pick it up. Yeah, we would probably look to the capital reserve at that point we would come back and look at to that point. Yeah, we dropped it. The order is for the ambulance fund. I'm going to bring the order up now. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. The way I look at it is we are paying for this either way, whether it's general fund or it's the ambulance fund. So, okay, it's the right way to go I don't quite know how to explain it. And I guess I'll do the last question and we'll get to the more specifics from the chief, because presentation then see if there are questions from committee. I will have you can maybe answer this later too but I don't recall now all the details as to whether you had put an amount in the budget for the ambulance fund for operating purposes, or to support the budget as a whole. Yeah, we had cut it down significantly for FY 21 down to about $1.8 million of support for the for the budget. And for FY 22, we brought that up a little bit up to 2 million. So we do have an estimate in there for now. We'd obviously like to keep that number going up, but we will still want to be conservative as we kind of come out of the pandemic and we keep track of the the revenues being generated by the ambulance. So once again, Sonya, I should have taken the notes on this, the current balance and the ambulance fund and the amount you're hoping by the end of the year. The current balance right now is about 1.2 million. And when you say September. That's at the end of September. And when you were giving a number for which you're hoping to get to. We're looking to take use $2.3 million this year for 2 million for 22 and the 300,000 right now for the ambulance. So that gives us an indication of what it is that we would be looking for and coming revenue. Right for 21 we use 1.86 million for fiscal year 21. So we've just increased that a little and the 22 projections are just that they're just projections we don't know where we are yet. And maybe assistant chief Olmsted can talk about this a little bit during the presentation but we did increase rates. In the last year or so right Jeff. We did. Okay, so we are anticipating just higher levels of revenue in general just from the rate changes that we've made. I think those you'll see an offset of the fact we increased the rates even though we will have less overall cause there's going to be some balancing between those two and and Sonya can explain that probably, you know, and more detail. So there are other questions of Sean right now or can we turn the ask chief Nelson to presentation that he was just. Yeah, I think it's a start over to chief Nelson. Chief. Afternoon. Howdy, how you doing. So, you know, this is pretty, pretty straight straight to forward. Now we're trying we want we need to replace that 2011. And we're probably a year so behind on our, on our replacement, placement schedule and when we defer for it. The last the last time we said that it's, it's going to die. And, you know, and it's getting it's become coming on main maintenance. Park, if you will, and that's exactly what happened. We parked parked it. Jeez, Jeff, what we parked parked about two months ago, I guess, probably. Yeah, close. Close to the three. Yeah. So we had to park park park because it had a serious serious oil oil leaks and the only only way to fix it was a $33,000. And the engine replay replays places which is just that that that just doesn't work. So, so that so it's, it's, it's a case case where, you know, we needed we need to need to replace it. We, we are a four. Probably just in for am a ambulance service service and with that you need you need you have to have five. If you're going going to run for because there's always one one down for one reason or another, you know, so this is and then this will get get us back to where we need to be. And the interesting things is that we were able to work with stuff. Stephanie said, check her out on getting on a tamed and containing a grant that'll help pay pay for a zero. It's called zero or RPM. What what it is when you I don't. When you when you stopped I don't know whether we're on we're on scene or at the house hospital. It'll shut the shut the engine and engine down, but you still have you use all the equipment, and then periodically it'll start if you're right if you're there, if you're stopped stuff for long long enough it'll start start itself back back up and again to re recharge the batteries. So, you know, it's, you know, it's clean cleaner is greener it'll cut cuts down down on emissions. So, and again it's it's kind of it's going to be similar to what our are the three and a m m m that we have now we switched sometime time ago before chat chat chat. And we found that they've treated us a lot, a lot better than we've been getting good work and good life out of those. But that's basically it. It's our fifth and Ambus has been parked, beached, whatever, because it died. And it's in need of replacement. We're bound to, and we're seeing a slow but steady increase in our call. Now, it took a severe hit when the pandemic hit, but we see that it's going to increase. We say it'll increase quite a bit once the vaccine is out and available across. And with that, I mean, any questions? Hearing none. Okay, we're done. I totally support this. I just have a couple of questions. Sure. First of all, how much does the technology inside of in terms of being able to, you know, have better equipment and stuff like how much does that change over say a period of five years. Jeff. I'll refer to Lindsay on that one a little bit. I think, you know, he can just grab a little bit some of the management system comes with these trucks and and maybe more detail. Well, he then he's, he's, he's out of another meeting, but I'll tell you. He is. Oh, really? I don't see him. Okay, great. There you go. So to answer your question, Lynn, first of all, when we buy new ambulance, in terms of equipment that is not physically part of the vehicle, we don't get any new equipment. So the price you're seeing in front of you is purely for the vehicle and whatever is built into it. Like a heart monitor as an example, that's portable equipment and that's bought separately and rotated and replaced on a separate schedule. Because that stuff doesn't need to be updated much more often. In terms of the technology actually built into the ambulance from a patient care standpoint, not a whole lot changes to be honest in five years, what actually changes a lot is safety components like any vehicle. So it's safety for our people. Nowadays, these vehicles have, as an example, airbags, not just in the front like you in your car, but they actually have airbags if you can believe it all around the patient compartment to protect the EMTs who typically are not see belted in because they can't be while they're taking care of a patient. So it's a lot of safety features like that that you're going to see change. And what we see is after you get up to over 150,000 miles, which is what we see after about six, seven years. These vehicles are just be, you know, they're going back and forth hospitals, very rough service. So just the vehicle becomes clunky as well as the maintenance. In this case, as the chief mentioned one thing is ambulance would have would be the hybrid system to help push us into the, you know, green communities. End of thing and just to talk quickly on that a little bit more. It's not just doing the right thing, although this is not been out that long. It's supposedly in the type of service we'd be using it in an ambulance have a very short payback, compared to a lot of sustainability systems, you know, that just take 1020 years to pay back. Supposedly between fuel savings and maintenance savings. This has a three to five year dollar payback in our type of service so we're fairly encouraged by what we're hearing about it. The fuel savings or I have a couple of questions, if you don't mind, but the fuel savings basically are are because you're not having to run the engine while you're idling. Our ambulances if you look at mileage versus engine hours that are way out of proportion to most vehicles, because doesn't take us that long to drive somewhere but we can sit literally on scene for 2030 or more minutes at a patient's you know house car accident whatever. So we put on a lot of engine hours relative to mileage, and this hybrid system is shutting down the motor as the chief said when it's parked on scene and going to a battery backup. So you're saving fuel and you're saving wear and tear on the diesel motor. Right. And I'm assuming that when you get a new engine the oldest engine becomes kind of the back the fifth, the fifth vehicle the backup. The second ambulance is yep. So this ambulance typically and we would do it again because into the busiest slot in the department which is the first out ambulance at a central station. And it's just the domino effect that the others get moved around to the second third fourth and backup position. How many mirrors do you have to buy to over the years. There are a little bit more than the fire trucks, but that is still an issue at central stations. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. You're muted Kathy, I can't hear you. Get the you're not showing us muted but we're not hearing you. If you need to sign in again. Dorothy has her hand. Yeah, I'll go to Dorothy and then come back to Kathy. So the question is, this sounds like definitely an improvement. Just out of curiosity. Is there any cleaner greener ambulance in the market, or is this the most advanced that we have at this time. I'll take that question again to the best of my knowledge know there is nothing else out there we've heard the question for 10 years plus now from JCPC about fire trucks and ambulances. Is there any hybrid are there other alternatives and until this year we said no to the hybrid question. This was only released about two to three years ago this hybrid system. It really isn't they are experimenting I've heard of an all electric fire truck out on the west coast. The jury still out on that it's incredibly expensive. It's a prototype it's not mass marketed right now. So the best knowledge know. We have the discussion about gasoline versus diesel but from a fuel consumption standpoint there's really no difference there. So this truly, I think is the, it's a huge step from where we were to be able to go to this hybrid system finally in an ambulance. And by the way it is available for fire trucks too so that's something we can look at down the road. Thank you very much. I'm going to try again. I back on. Yes, we can hear you now. Okay, it was a reboot. Um, I, I hope I'm not repeating what Dorothy asked but Lynn was asking about the, the end, you talked about the mileage versus the engine hours and that at a certain number of miles the whole engine dies. Does this idling system to do a longer life for the ambulance. Do we know or is it too new to know it that it's, you know it's turned off for larger parts of time so this engine oil other kinds of things that are breaking down you said one of them is just leaking oil. Is there any sense that this new technology might go for more mile wheel mile miles because of less wear on the engine. Um, yeah, I'll, I'll give you two answers to that one is theoretically yes. The other side of it is it's still pretty new in the market so it's hard to answer. My speculation is it's definitely going to help with the life of the engine, because as you said it is shutting down when you're on scene most of the time it also needs to come back on for heat or AC or power boost. So yes you're putting less wear and tear on the engine that's where you're saving on everything maintenance costs fuel costs and theoretically that would give a longer life to the engine. You have to keep in mind though that the rest of the ambulance is still putting the same mileage on. And it's the mileage that beats on the physical vehicle the chassis and the wear and tear on everything else so at some point that just the vehicle itself reaches the end of its life, but from the motor this actually should have a significant impact. And I know you also can't answer this but if root nine gets repaved and this roundabout actually works as opposed to snarling traffic is that, or is it also just the Amherst roads that beat beat up the engine beat up the chassis. I was actually, I was going to tag, tag, tag on to that. It's just, it's just road it's road miles and there, you know, we're, we have to go at least 101010 miles to like for further than the net for Frank Franklin, further than that for Bay State. And it's just the miles that pile up day after day after day. So, the, the, the improve, improve, you know, the, the, the round around roundabout or rotary that that's going, going, going, going to help. But in, in, in the grand scheme in the long, long run, we still have to go all, all those miles out and all those miles back and go and as time go goes on, it just builds up and build them and it just beats the heck out of it out of it and in any of you know, especially, especially, especially, especially ours, especially, especially the, and, and, and, and ambulance. You know, I'm just going to jump in here a little bit, you know, where, where I see it historically, as far as the old age ambulances is some way that you can appreciate who has back pain, who has a broken bone. And they start to great because the suspension shot, and it hurts, like you're driving a truck, it is not like driving a car and at that time when the age gets to it. Even though you try to keep the maintenance up on it, and you do the best you can with it the truck can only provide you so much when it gets old enough. And it's kind of like all of us, you know, start to hurt a little bit and, but if you have somebody who has those kind of injuries. They feel it more in that that that ambulance I promise you they do than the brand new ones. Yeah, Bernie. Yeah, I am. EMDs were helping my neighbor out the other night. So this is kind of near and dear to me. I think the technology that's being talked about has been tried plenty of times right now on these engines for trucks, and I think it'll be a good addition for the ambulance. And I really do appreciate the care and and caution that the fire department takes and, and bringing this forward, I know from my previous service on the finance committee we kept pushing back and pushing back on on equipment purchases. So I really do think this is a, this is a, this is necessary. And, you know, it deserves a whole heart approval committee. I'd like to add one, one, one thing of small but since she's trying to strong strong strong and mention that you know that this this this has been out for two or three years you know that the technology. We met a kind of conscious decision to wait a bit, because it's because it's brand new. You don't I mean sure it's on it's on it's on the cusp and all that but you really don't want to want to want to be a beta test, but some some something important and and and and and and expensive after after two to three years, most, most of the bugs are going to be worked out. So that's so that's that was a kind of consciousness. So that answered one of my major questions is how long but another one is, where do you have to go for maintenance on the parts of this, not that are, you know the new the energy saving is that close by. And what are the cost replacements for issues related to the new systems that save energy. To answer that in terms of where it goes. And any of the specialized components of our ambulances have to go back to the dealer, which is a north outer world. I say the specialized components if an ambulance needs a break job that would go to the for dealership in Holyoke. So everything to do with the ambulance itself it goes to the dealer zero RPS is the company that makes the hybrid components, the technicians at the dealer are trained on that now so that's where I would have to go for the work on it. In terms of the cost, I don't have an answer to that question it's kind of like when you buy, you know an electric car the batteries the big part of it. If you ever have to replace that it's a huge expense. The cost would be just to replace the batteries out of this total system on the plus side we've had our Ford escape hybrid now for nine almost 10 years. And we have not had to deal with that and it's still running strong so our one step into the hybrid market has been very positive so far that's our fire prevention officers car. Thank you for all your question answer able to answer all the questions. I'm ready to do anything else. The committee or because I might come back to a couple of things. I do have one other question. The total cost. How much is the grant worth. The grant is for the same answer that if I if I'm hearing you correctly, the hybrid system is a $25,000 upcharge to the ambulance and the grant the sustainability grant that Stephanie was able to secure for us is for that full amount. Okay, thank you. Does that make the purchase price 325 or 300. We're asking for the 300,000 for the vehicle and the other components would have to go in at new like the radios and new stretcher and new power loader. No, it was the, yeah. Go ahead. For the additional equipment for allowing you to cut off the motor during idling. We, we are Sean just correct me if I'm wrong, where the 300,000 is all that has to be approved here because the other 25 is coming from the sustainability grant. So, so let me just lay out my understanding and Lindsay, let me know if this is correct. So I believe the ambulance itself is 275 or around 275 and the additional charge for the idling is around 25,000 so the total cost of the ambulance itself with the idling is 300,000. So the authorization in front of you is for that full amount, but you'll notice that there's wording in that authorization or that order that allows for the acceptance of grants that we would use to reduce it. Okay, that's what it's my other other question. I wouldn't do anything else otherwise I'm going to go back to Dorothy. No, fine. Okay, am I on you now. Yes, we hear you. Okay, so I just was wondering if what kind of insurance policy you had when you get a new ambulance. Is it a year manufactured protection against any defects or is it is the power stream I mean what some of it should be covered so even though it's relatively new, you have some protection against their problem with them breakdown. I can answer that some of that. When we buy it is in the contract that we get. It's quite a bit so something like the powertrain the motor transmission, typically as your what you would buy a few bought a new vehicle about a one year, some things like the paint up to five years an electrical can be somewhere in that range to, I honestly can't tell you the specific warranty on the hybrid system the zero RPM, if that's separate from the rest of the electrical I would have to go look that up. I was interested in because, I mean this sounds like this is a good thing to do and then, and obviously we're going to do it. But when you're dealing with something that's kind of new it's nice if there is some kind of warranty coverage on it. So I was just curious about that. And chief strong grand assistant chief strong grand. Maybe you can just quickly talk about where we're buying this from this comes from a state contract. Yeah, correct. Fortunately, MAPC is us. We call the state bid. So the fire chiefs Association of Massachusetts has one of many collective bids with the state. So something like buying the sand dunes we do not have to go out to bid for it. Go through that legal process and that delay. Basically, although it's a custom vehicle I can't say it's off the shelf. Order what we want. We already know what the cost is right now that's why we're putting the price before you. That's what it's going to cost. And we don't have to go through the bid process basically it's just a contract. It does go through town council of course but it's just a contract that we sign. It meets all the collective bar bidding issues in the state. And it's fairly straightforward. We don't have to go out to bid for we just ordered as is the only downside and it's nothing to do with it being on bid is to get a custom ambulance is six to nine months turnaround time, no matter how you do it, which is why we're kind of anxious to get moving on this because if we approve it. We still won't see it till the spring which is why we don't want to wait till July of next year to push this forward. Dorothy did you have something or you're muted Dorothy. Yeah, no he answered my question I'm fine. Okay, so I guess that I'm just trying to still get my head around the numbers and that. So if we have $1.2 million currently in the ambulance fund, and we're anticipating using $2 million for FY 22 and $300,000 for the ambulance purchase though it could be reduced by the grant to some extent. So if we have that high side, then that gives us a requirement to assume that we're going to be able to have ambulance be income revenue of 1.1 million. And in addition, we would need to hopefully do better so that we don't end up the end of 22 with no balance in the fund. Is there anything in that show understanding. No, I think that's right I mean that's what we monitor, you know throughout the year as the ins and outs and what we've obligated at the ambulance fund so we think in between the higher fees that are the fees that were adjusted. I know recently assistant chief all instead was looking at a grant with with Holly Bowser to try to basically, I think it's a component of the cares act fund that's supposed to help offset some of the decreased call volume. We're not sure if we're going to get anything from that but we're looking at that, but we monitor this fund pretty closely throughout the year. And this is also a fun that we get revenue in from UMass as well and those bills were sent out and that's, that's a looking back Sonya correct me if I'm wrong that looks back a year. So, most of last year was sort of a normal call call volume level when it comes to UMass, except maybe the last three months that that dip down. So in terms of that piece of it which is a large piece of the billing, we won't feel the impact of sort of a fully depopulated UMass until next year. context a little we normally taken about. Well, previously to 20 to 20. 20 we took in about 2.7 million a year. Last year we took in to 2.4. So I think we're going to right now we need to collect another 930 with this ambulance and and for fiscal year 22. So I'm confident that we're going to collect that. Beyond that, that's a question of what's available to then use for 23 for both capital and for operating. Whatever we collect in 22 gets used for 23. That's how it works and have the money has to be in the fund. Okay, so I have one other question for chief Nelson or anyone from the apartment. I think one of the most interesting answers was my understanding that we hired some additional staff who are from the call force from the student call force that we're able to provide some additional staffing assistance during the crisis. We're out of cares act funds and it or was that paid for in other ways and what is the projection of the ability to have that additional staffing or need to have the additional staffing going forward. We're hired as a result of the current prices and the intent will be to have care care money cover their costs because they were hired strictly because of that because of the pandemic. Right now that those funds last until December 31st of this this year so right now that is far far far as we can keep keep them so they they've been a great great great asset was because at the same same time we have we do have have some folks folks out in Andrew itself. But they don't want to right now it only looks like. Next, next month. Okay. Other questions from the committee. It's not related to the truck. I mean to the ambulance, but it's related fire department. Just curious how many of your people are taking advantage of the testing that you mess for first responders. About 95% of our people are doing it just just about. And what they're doing it. The shifts are doing it generally, they're there for first day back. So, but folks folks have been taking advantage of that. Okay, because that also ends at the end of December. Right. So, if it's no further questions or discussion. What I would like to do is see if somebody wants to make a motion to recommend to the council that the council approve appropriation and transfer order FY 21, oh five P as recommended. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay, so there's been motion that's been made by Pat and seconded by Lynn. I think we've had substantial discussion. Is there anything else to say. On the subject. And in particular, are there any comments that the members of the committee who will not be voting. I want to put in the record. Seeing, since there are no additional comments to be made. Of Hagner just put his hand up. Yeah, I just, I just wanted to say that I, you know, I think this is a very wise investment. I mean, we're talking about public safety here. And we're talking about an investment in some technology that may actually help to extend the life of the ambulance and, you know, obviously is good for the environment. So, I, the only question that I had was whether we should pay for this out of, you know, the capital reserve. Just to preserve the ambulance fund, but it, you know, it sounds like the ambulance fund is healthy enough to support this. So I think it's, it's fine. Anything else. Because otherwise I'm going to go through a roll call for the council members to get a vote on this and I'll start with Pat Daniels. Yes. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Shane. Yes. Lune Griezmann. Absolutely. And I voting yes so it's five to zero. So, thank you, Chief Nelson and Thank you, Chief Trump. Chief Olmsted we really appreciate your being here to help out the committee. We'll go on to the next agenda item. To continue but now you have other things to do. So thank you for being with us. Thank you for appreciate it. Okay, Kathy, do you have your hand up before. Yeah, I just had a suggestion, Andy, I know because you always write the report so well, capturing some of this conversation so that the larger council on the agenda. We're drawing the money from reserve, the total cost of the ambulance, the offset, just some of it. So that if we get these questions later at the report has already answered them. Not that I think the council is going to ask the same set of questions but I just, but it'll be all recorded so it'll be easy to come back to it and Sean can make sure the numbers are right. Making notes and writing numbers down as I was going with that in mind and so we can get through. So, I think that what we're going to do for the next is to go back to see if there are questions that you have for Sean regarding last night's presentation of the financial trends and the projections for next year. And then we'll be able to talk a little bit about the process for developing budget guidelines and what we're going to do in developing budget guidelines. So, I see questions from Kathy and Dorothy. Go ahead and if, if you want anything from the presentation last night such as the, the two page piece that has all of the numbers. You can put that on the screen if you wish. Okay, that that might be helpful, particularly if Bob and Sharon and Bernie didn't get a chance to look at it on the screen. So my questions, I'm Sean I started. Are you putting around the screen or am I. I, I don't have it. Are you putting it on the screen. It's muted at the moment so. I'm Lynn why don't you I don't have it on my laptop. Right. I'll grab it and get it for you. Also, if you can't get it. No, that's fine. Go ahead with the meeting. Okay. The budget, the suggested budgets for the guidelines are basically flat flat dollar amounts. So, last night I asked about the cares act and to what extent we could pull in some of those funds and I know Sean you just sent us something this morning's so I haven't really looked at it carefully, but I'm wondering in the school budget. They, they got a certain amount of money from UMass, they were also able to forward pay some some costs, so it didn't appear on this year's budget, you know the current year's budget. So my sense, my questions are around, particularly the school budget. I think it was the elementary school budget that did that. Because there were a lot of things that allowed them to come in at a flat budget without doing deep staffing cuts. I'm wondering into my questions how much of those are not going to be available for FY 22. So that's the, that's the basic question. And I know they, they did a little bit on the staffing side because they didn't fill a vacancy. They had someone on a equivalent of a sabbatical someone want to go to port time so they picked up some FTE money without furlough anyone or laying anyone off. So that's that question, then underneath, I'll just rattle them off because it is, it'll be also the library budget them. Last year, the FY 21 budget. We were looking at budgets that had a two and a half percent salary increase baked in because of collective bargaining agreements from steps. Last year, we were told last night that the collective bargaining agreements particularly for the schools will are open. And last year we had health insurance come in at a much lower than normal and this year you're projecting at 5%. So I'm, I'm the questions are, you know, if the salary base goes up at all. If the insurance base which is a big chunk of the total is going up by 5%. How much are we up against layoffs or furloughs or or some kind of reduction in force to live within this and it's not to say that I don't think these are good guidelines but just to So, so what's the anticipation within these and the Jones library dipped into its re its reserves its endowment to even stay whole and it's held a lot of positions vacant our North Amherst library isn't open. They didn't fill a librarian position someone who retired. So just Jones is flat. And last year, they barely squeaked by with a flat budget. So it's particularly schools and the library that I was focused on. Okay, so let me kind of walk through some of those. So I think the first question was about the schools and some of the strategies they used to balance their up by 21 budget and will those strategies be available for F way 22. It's possible they will be. Generally, if you level fund something it will usually result in reductions to your services unless you have something, you know, in your budget that you can reduce now that you know they did talk about enrollment going down and I'm not sure what their situation is around the number of classrooms they have. That's all stuff the schools will have to work out. But generally if you level fund something. We know that there's inflation there's rising health insurance there's rising pension costs. Obviously wages tend to go up there's always steps baked in every year even if there wasn't a COLA there's always steps for for union contracts. You know, generally there will be so so we do understand that when we start with this level of projection of a flat operating budget that that could result in reductions. So back to the school. It's a little too early to know if those strategies will be available to them. Don't think they've done the first quarter budget report yet if they did I think they may have just done it. That first quarter budget report will sort of inform a little bit of what might happen for this year and then really the second quarter budget report is really the one that will tell more of the story. But I'm not sure of what their sort of their budgetary picture is at this point until they complete the first quarter budget report. If possible they may, they may be able to do some of those strategies like I think the thing you were speaking about is prepay and special ed tuition, you're allowed to pay so many months of the following year if you have the funds available. And so I believe that was one of the strategies they use which would be available to them again if they had the money. Your second question about the library. I think I touched on that a little bit yeah services may need to be reduced if, if by the end of this we're still at level funding. We noted a few things that we're going to find out over the next month or so that may bring us back to this where we will may revise these operating projections up a little bit. Our charter tuition is a big one that it dropped pretty significantly for FY 20. And we want to see the estimate dropped pretty significantly for FY 21 and we want to see if that is real. And we won't find out if that drop in charter tuition is real until December because that's when the the rosters go out. There's state aid more information on general state aid we want to see. There's the PVTA assessment that I mentioned earlier we want to get the our assessment for this year so we can start to gauge how the pandemic has impacted the PVTA assessment. And then the last big thing is new growth so we're in the process of measuring and certifying the new growth in town which is again is an addition on top of the property tax levy. And so we know we budgeted pretty low for that for FY 21. Anything we come in above that in terms of the actual new growth will help next year's budget. So, those are a few things that we will find out in the next, you know, four to six weeks that could that should you know we visit these projections and see if we can make some improvements. Does that help Kathy. Yeah, it does help. Um, you know, and I, the last thing I didn't it's clear from this set of numbers that you're, you're, you're hoping with these guidelines that we can get back to 8% for capital where we were at nine. And because we're paying off all, we're paying off all debt service we're getting back to cash capital available that looks like two years ago, rather, it's nearly double. So, we, we don't need, this is a phrase as a question. Depending on what decision we make about the library does the library debt that we would take on would not show up in 22 would it not show up in terms of an expense would it show up in 23. That's a good question that we, we've run some different models on that and it's possible may not even show up until later than that but we don't expect any debt from any of the building projects to show up in FY 22, even if we move as fast as possible on any of them. It would just, they would all require temporary borrowings and so actual debt payments when it began until after that. Okay, thank you. Dorothy. Okay, well, I'm going to say that I am, I am confused because I'm confused about the financial picture in town. And first, I'm going to say I'm confused that we have not been asked for lots of money for schools. I just, okay, I, I, I do not have children the Amherst public schools, but I'm hearing great, great unhappiness that school is not going. And for school to be able to go in the time of coven, there have to be changes major changes of a type, which have not been happening. This is an illustration my grandson was in Sunderland was doing online school, very good student, well behaved boy, getting quieter and quieter and quieter. My daughter got very concerned he is now at the common school which is where they're outside most of the day, his mood is exuberant he is a happy boy, he comes in, he's reading more everything is wonderful. So, watching that, and I'm thinking of all the children who are not in the Amherst public schools right now. I'm not just talking about kids with special needs. I'm talking about kids like my grandson, just kids, kids who are not even. They're not even plan to go in for a long time and I thought there's so many experimental things that could have been done that haven't been done. You could pair older teachers younger teachers and older teachers, the online younger ones would do the in person, you'd build all kinds of outdoor structures. You would use other facilities that hasn't been done. And we've got a huge lot of time ahead of us. And I'm afraid that, so I'm very confused that we haven't asked for more money, I want, I would be happy as can be to give lots and lots of money to our school system to find ways of bringing children safely to schools without killing the teachers. But we're just not hearing any of that so I just feel kind of like we're just running along on on old ideas. And then we're going to have to make a commitment on the library. Before we have any true sense of our financial status, and of where are the new school building do we still need the new school building, or do are we going to scrap it, what's going to happen but so I'm going to say right now my focus is on schools and schools, and I see them not being served well and I'm afraid we're just going to keep tugging along and doing things. And we will have really hurt them so that that's my concern. And Sean I'm glad you really have your deep background here, because I think you can answer this better than anybody else. Yeah, I mean, so some of this you'll have to, you know, it may make sense to talk more with Dr slaughter and Dr Morris about the things they've been doing. There, they'll be the experts on that. I will say we have spent quite a bit of money additional money on schools from the cares funds. You know, there were walls constructed in those open classrooms, you know, we've heard for years about those open classrooms. And finally, unfortunately took a pandemic, but there are walls now in those classrooms as my understanding or at least they've been put into two classrooms as opposed to four classrooms. There's been a lot of work done on the ventilation systems to make sure that the ventilation is adequate. Lots of air filtration systems that were purchased sort of portable air filtration systems. We spent lots and lots on PPE and cleaning disinfectant materials for for all and this is, you know, all these things apply to all departments but they also include the elementary schools and they also include the regional schools. And we can talk about some of those things a little bit more during the cares update but we have spent. I mean, I don't know what your definition is of lots of money but we court my definition we have spent lots of money on all the departments to help them get, you know, managed through the pandemic. The children aren't in school. And that was, you know, they, there was an agreement, a collective bargaining agreement with a certain threshold that's playing into this and my, I think that is people are trying to reopen that agreement Dorothy so it's, I know. Yeah, so yeah, I know people who have pulled out to go into the common school because the common school was open and I know someone else who pulled out to go to the Montessori school because the Montessori school is open so people are reacting particularly with young kids on wanting them to have an in person experience. But I mean we haven't used, we haven't used the outdoors to the extent that we could have I mean that that is what the private schools are being able to do is to say okay, let's be like in Denmark and and make sure the kids have the right clothes. And Dr Morris can speak to that a little bit more I know we did purchase intense and they have not sure to what extent they've been used but they have looked at that a little bit to your point about the outdoors they have looked at tense to help with that. And I feel concerned that you're that you're, I know you're concerned with all students overall, but this the families that can leave our very to go to private schools great for them. What happens to the children who are left, and I think I agree with you that we're not completely addressing that. Yeah, that's a different discussion than what we need to have here right now. No, I am concerned about the children whose parents can't take them out I'm concerned that we're not providing a public school education. And I'm that's what I'm concerned about I am what I'm trying to say is, most people cannot do not have that choice. Public school is their school, and we have not been providing it, and I don't think I forget I don't think we've been imaginative enough. And I had expected that we would be asked to make sacrifices that the town would be asked to come up with more money to help the schools open so we could serve the children. So, I guess part of me finds a hard time thinking about capital projects, when the school's not functioning. Yeah, I mean, I, I guess I have a couple of comments about that and then I want to get to, I get on the Bob Hagner. One is that you've touched on, I think, in this conversation, the obvious distinction between decisions that are made by the school committee and can in consultation with the collective bargaining units that represent school employees and the administrative staff regarding the decisions that they're making on an educational and health balance in what they're trying to do and what they feel that they're able to do. Whether we agree or disagree that is not our decision that is the school committee decision. And then the other question is the budget is to whether they're making decisions that are in part budget driven will I have to come to us in some ways and say that we have not heard that as being a factor part largely because at least in this first year really has covered a lot of additional expenses and I don't know if shown as anything else can add add to that but you know our side is the budget. If there was in the large additional budget request that would come from any part of government whether it be schools libraries or police fire whatever because of saying that their costs have increased as a result of COVID and it could be a bigger problem next year if cares act is not available. Then we have to figure out where do you get it from and it's not cut it's not affecting the capital projects because the capital projects as we just heard. The earliest we've been talking about is 23 or 24 and you know we're operating right now in the present. So, those are my observations I don't know if Sean you and add to that or say. I want to highlight a point that you just made which is cares act does end on December 30 PPE needs cleaning disinfectant supply needs those types of things will likely persist beyond that point. And so it is possible that there may be additional money is needed just for some of these base basic things that we're doing. And at some point during the year, you know for the schools and possibly other departments in town as well. So I wouldn't rule that out. You know, especially at the cares act does and right on December 30 and there's no replacement. Yeah, I just wanted to make a couple of observations or express some concerns. One is the the declining enrollment. That is, that could be something that's just kind of a temporary thing as people are moving to the common school and the Montessori school, etc. But if it persists, it'll have a significant impact on budget needs going forward and on, you know, whatever capital capital needs there are for new school. And along with that the all the renovations that have occurred, you know, with the cares money, I mean I think we're going to we may have to reset in some respects, in terms of what we're looking at, in terms of needs for additional buildings and additional facilities going forward and I know it's not right away but it could have an impact. I mean I could also have a large impact on the budgets, it are the collective bargaining agreements that wind up being negotiated. And so I think we, I mean again most of this is out of the purview of this committee but I think the council and certainly the school committee need to be on top of these things and need to be communicating with the council on what the budget implications are as they work through these issues and and get more information. So, you know, again it's more of a concern, but I don't want to just not, I think we need to pay attention to it and and and be aware of what's going on. I'll just say real quickly to your point about enrollment. So, we're in the MSBA process right now and one of the first things that you do is you do enrollment projections. And that drives a lot of the work and so that that work is going on right now and at some point there will be enrollment projection here with everybody. You know that the MSBA has reviewed and has approved as well. Anything else on the subject that we've just done or anything else people want to raise about yesterday's presentation the budget that was presented to us. I just wanted to note one more thing because I forgot to do it last night. I didn't forget to do it. I felt like we were running short on time I wish I had done it last night. On the revenue side I wanted to point out one number and it's more to acknowledge somebody who didn't get to speak last night. The investment income number if you look at FY 20 revenues we brought in about $277,000 of investment income. And I wanted to point that out because one that's really good if it's either one of the highest years we've ever had if not, if not the highest. I want to acknowledge Sherry Boucher who is our treasurer. She's been with the town a long time. And when I first came here, you know she gave me a crash course and to how they manage how she manages all the bank accounts and the use of CDs and different investment vehicles to really bring in as much investment income as she can. And we have an investment policy obviously that she follows and so I just wanted to acknowledge, you know how good that year was and, and that a lot of that is due to the hard work of Sherry. You're doing the projections though based upon where you think the next year will be. Yeah, so we don't always, we can't count on that much investment income on a year to year basis especially now because unfortunately since 2020 rates have dropped pretty significantly for a lot of the investment vehicles that we can use. So we did increase it from what we normally do we it's usually around 35,000 is what we budget so we did increase it. Somewhat but yeah we don't want to rely too much on that because it's obviously things can change very significantly when it comes to rates and some of that is also driven because we've been building our reserves. We've had more and more money that we can get a return on. Yeah, I think in the receipt side the piece that I would concerned about is the new growth projection. Because there was also a comment made last night about construction fall off. Yeah, that's a good question so for FY 21 you see you'll see we budgeted 450. We're not certified yet but we believe that number when will be certified relatively soon. We believe the 450 is going to be closer to 700 ish maybe a little bit higher. We were hesitant to include it yet because it hasn't been certified and hasn't been finalized so when that number is finalized and certified we will update this. We're back with our assessor and our building commissioner about some of the projects that we have and we do have a number of projects that are sort of a percentage complete that will contribute to our new growth for next year. So we feel pretty comfortable with the $500,000 number that we've got enough already going on that that will be okay with that. But beyond FY 22 I think you're right I think beyond next year's budget that's where we start to look at what's in the hopper and what's going on in town to keep generating the new growth. And I think it's important to just remember for all of us that the two and a half percent is in a low inflation year just keeping up with the cost of doing business. We've been fortunate that we have not had great inflation years, but two and a half percent doesn't give you the ability to do anything new it just keeps you the ability to run in place. And it's only the new growth that gives you any ability to add to what the town can do. So if we have a fall off in the growth in a significant amount that's going to have a consequence down the line in a couple of years. So, I need to get back to my participants which is disappeared from my screen to see if anyone has their hands raised right now so I think that the question that we're then have to do is how to proceed with the process of naming the guidelines and whether their initial thoughts I think that those one question that was brought up just now about concerns about education and whether and other programs beyond education really as to whether there's any stress on the budget that we haven't been able to factor in because of the amount of unknowns that we're living with right now. And at the end, the sort of the core question always is when you go to the expense side of this particular budget once you're, which is the next page once you feel like you're comfortable with the revenue, whether you or whether we as a committee are recommending to the council that division of funds in the major bucket categories, and whether we have anything that we want to add in a way of proposed policy directives on the use of any portions of funds within, for example, the municipal budget, which is the one that we usually spend most, most focus on whether there any, and how that ties into other council goals. That's where we're going to have to be and that's going to be I think the hard discussion at our next meeting but I didn't know if anyone wants to just offer any preliminary thoughts right now Kathy. We've already touched on it but it came up last night in the council meeting I think we need to have a section on collective bargaining that that those contracts are really going to matter, and they're open. If we're going for flat budgets so in addition to education, and Andy you mentioned you know the new growth, but if I'm looking at local receipts. This local receipt it's, it's hoping that we recover, we're clearly not recovering back to FY 20. So I think we should be saying that in the report you know on the revenue side. And then, then Dorothy's. So these are just random thoughts on the report and the little bit of wiggle room in this budget but it's not a lot of wiggle room giving how much we deferred is going back up to 8% on capital. If we didn't go back to eight if we went back to seven and a half or something less. There is more room if, or do we go into reserves, so not, I'm not making do this versus that. But we did succeed in building reserves back up and the reserves are in this chart set so we're back to healthy and I know we're trying to preserve them for the larger buildings. So just trying to somehow in the report capture where there's some flexibility. As, as we get more into this year and more information about next year. So some of those the hotel receipts coming back up. There is somewhere in one of these is how much total reserves we have the dollar amounts. I mean we have a healthy reserve account. So I just, I'm thinking the report needs to talk about, you know, key things that are going to matter for even being able to get close to if enrollments down in the schools, the schools may be able to live with a flat budget because they have fewer kids, but it has implications about staff. And if the schools reopen without and have kids in and don't have cares money, what do we need to invest to make sure everybody's safe so those are pieces to put in a report where they're all going to be question marks because we don't know the answer. So we, we hopefully will have a new president. Come January 1, so we don't know whether Congress might look at all of this and say cares act needs to be extended, or a new version of cares act particularly for schools, because other states are going to be facing this to so the as as much as I think we're in a world of pretty uncertain tea over the next six to seven months on what all this is going to look like. That's it. Let me follow up on that and see if you have anything to add there. Sean has anything to add but what I understand from the presentation last night and was Sean's comment that if the state aid does not come through that we'd be prepared to go into terms at that point to make up for the state aid so that we can count on a on a number now as we project the budget going forward so that there's already one piece of uncertainty out there and what you just said about the cares act that seemed to tie into some extent to what the legislature is going to be able to decide to do at 22 exactly. Yeah, so it's on two levels that we could be affected by that. Yep. And so, so on the, on our side in terms of preparing again we're preparing is if there will not be any additional money if there is, and hopefully there is soon we'll you know we'll be able to factor that into our planning but you know we thought we would hear by now, some updates on care so it's, and I think the state thought by now we would hear some update on cares about about it, even just being extended, I think it's kind of ridiculous that it hasn't, you know there's been no guidance as to what's going to happen after December 30th. You know, because obviously the pandemic is not gone as of January 1. So, so again we are operating under the assumption for our projections that we will not have any additional federal money and if we do then that will improve the situation. I think you used something that you wanted to say. Yeah, I just wanted to go back to the reserves balance that we have we have 17 point about 17.5 million reserves. And I just wanted to clarify that we didn't build back the reserves backup we actually added to them. We added at least a million dollars back from last year. So, and just to reiterate that when we started this whole for capital project plan and building our reserves, we were building our reserves to offset any peaks in debt service. When it went over the 10% or if we couldn't maintain the 10% of a levy for capital. That's what the plan was for the reserves and I just wanted to bring that back forward to the committee. We have not had to use reserves for fiscal year 21 yet and I don't think we're going to have to so also throw that out there. Yeah, at some point. We need to get back to the projections for the major buildings and assume that we're what a plan is and going forward and what the need is for reserves in order to maintain the payments that you were just referencing. So that's, I don't think we can delay too much longer on getting back to a model and start with a model of assume we're doing it all and then see if what the consequence of that is. And yes, you know I agree with that and just also, you know, focusing on the critical years where when we think school will come in because of the time timeline on schools and when we're going to have to make some kind of decision on library, and then the other buildings and I, I've got a fifth which is the community but I know that's not a build building we've got these larger ticket items but a few are in a five year period. They'll hit at the same time so when Sonya is talking about peaks, we're going to have a peak and then another peak depending on what decisions they interact with each other. And I'll just add quickly, you know that's another, all this discussion is the reason why we feel it's really important to get our capital spending our cash capital back up to around that 10%, 9% level, because all the models we've looked at, you know are based on that and so if we're not even there by the time we start doing these projects, then you know all those models have to be adjusted down, essentially, or adjusted up in terms of how much reserves we would have to use so. So we do feel it's important to get it back up to that nine or 10% level, sometime in the next year or two, and that's why in this projection we've made a pretty big investment back towards capital and and we know the departments need it so. Anything else I'm looking to see if there any other hands going up. Kathy you still have your hand up is that. No, that's just I didn't do a hand down sorry. Okay. Yeah, because I'm not hearing from others seeing from other members of the committee asking the comment at this point. You thought then given Sean or Sonia to actually going above 10% for capital. Sorry. Did she just left. She just go. Not this year. I think Kathy has been saying all along that's going to be almost impossible to maintain 10% going every year that we're going to be able to keep it at 10%. I mean, stuff happens, obviously. I think Kathy is recommended us to that in the past. And we have looked at it. A lot of that depends on what our economic situation is whether we can do that and if you know there's a year where if we're going to do that it means mostly about operating budgets with less than that which might be difficult to do now that we've had two years in our well at least one year and we'll see what this year looks like of flat increases for operating budget so we have looked at it and it's easy to plug into that model and see what it would mean. But we still have a lot of information we need to get in terms of what these buildings will cost what their timelines are. So but it is something. Okay. Thank you for the fact that I had to take a phone call. So I miss the discussion on capital. And but I'll catch up with somebody later. Okay, so I think that what I want to do is go to the cares act presentation and then go to public comment to see if the members of the public who are watching wish to offer comment to the committee. Because that is part of the agenda today. I just said tell you that I'm having problems with my computer to and if I disappear because of a computer problem. Then Kathy's going to need to take over while I go and boot up another computer that I can use and is a substitute because I'm not sure what my problem is here. But, Lynn, you want to put that on the screen the Yes, you should tell tell her what you would like to have shown. Leave it on this. You can leave it on this first page, not a little bit more. So I won't go through this you can read this, but I guess the highlights are. There's money. There's lots of different buckets of cares money so the one that we're talking about here is the municipal cares program. That's the one that the town of Amherst has about $3.4 million allocated to it. And it can be used on town and schools and anything sort within the town umbrella. There are a number of other years programs out there that departments have received. I believe the piece of it Board of Health has received their much smaller grant. The schools have actually received a couple sizable grants they've received some reopening money directly and another cares related piece I think they've received somewhere around $400 or $500,000 of that amount directly. That's not included in this 3.4 million. So all that's to say that there's a lot of buckets of cares, a lot has been out. The requirements of cares are that it could not be budgeted as of March 1st, I believe was and or maybe it was the end of March but it was sometime in March it could not be budgeted. It could be related to the public health crisis caused by COVID, and it had to be spent between March and December 30. So those were sort of the high level guideline that an expense had to be in order to be eligible. In the end, certain categories has designated. We have to apply to FEMA care setting or them to reimburse us we have to pass that we will apply to FEMA and see if we'll get reimbursed so there's certain categories when we get to the next page, that we only receive 25% reimbursement and cares from now is assuming that the other 75% will come from FEMA. We don't know if that'll happen we don't know what they're going to approve what they're not going to approve FEMA process takes a long time. And that's when there's you know one or two emergencies and how they've received probably you know these requests from every city in town in the country. So we don't really have any idea of the timeline in terms of when we'll find out what's eligible what's not eligible. We have submitted most of our costs through September 15 to them, and we're going to submit another batch to them at some point in the future. So this here I'll just go through quickly these are some of the sort of maybe more notable programs that we've that have been out there that have been funded by cares on the rental assistance program we have around 200,000 that we allocated to it from cares that can be used provide rental assistance for people who are struggling economically as a result of maybe they're being laid off because of cares or not. You know the something was closed and they can't go to work so that was cares funded. We just started a social work program which is sort of a person who will help with some of the everyday living things related to cove it as somebody had a quarantine and needed to at least support with a variety of different things we we were getting some calls in town and we weren't really sure the best way to help help these individuals in town. And so we partnered with outreach of Amherst to create this social work program for the next couple months. So this is about the ambassador program. That's a pretty high publicity one because you've seen, I think they were the yellow shirts I haven't seen them around to I don't live in Amherst I haven't seen them out and about but I think I see them wearing the yellow shirts. So this is one of the few areas where the cares program said that we could repurpose existing staff who are already budgeted for, and that we could repurpose them for for something completely different and use cares money to pay for it. And so we've had a few people in town who have been repurposed from either leisure services. I think maybe one of the DPW for part of their day they've been trained how to provide zoom support and so that's actually one area where we are actually get a little relief in our budget because we can use cares money for that portion of time. Shelter costs we've had to do a lot of sort of adapting to provide shelter for the homeless. When I spent you know when there's area when they their existing quarters were not suitable for social distancing we've made alternative arrangements. And so cares is paid for that. There was a cooling station put up during the summer, because public buildings weren't open. And so cares paid for that. I mentioned earlier the HVAC improvements at Fort River so the big one which sort of the most expensive one was putting walls up in the quads at Fort River. We talked about earlier additional EMS staffing there have been four or five additional EMS since I think April or May, and that seems to have been working well, and then the testing program that was discussed earlier is also cares funded. So those are some of the high level ones. Who's Lynn are you running the slide. Yeah, you go to the next page. And again these all these things that you'll see on this next page these are a sum of, and maybe if you could zoom in a little bit, and maybe one more yeah. All these expenses are some of what's been spent at the town, the elementary schools the library, and we have also reimbursed the region sort of based on again on like an Amherst percentage of for their costs because the region's had a lot of the similar costs that the elementary schools have had. So these different categories, and you can see the ones that the state has designated yes or no as to whether it's whether we have to apply to FEMA, and I'll just call out. If you see that 4.3 at the bottom 4.3 million. So that's roughly how how much we've had in costs so far, at least through the second round. And that's obviously higher than our allocation of 3.4 but that's because a lot of it is anticipated to be reimbursed by FEMA. And then the net amount that we are anticipating and that number again is through the this report is through what we anticipate through the end of December, December 30. We're anticipating cares will have another 2.8 million that green box at the bottom. There's lots of categories here people have any questions on, you know what we did out of each of these categories I'm happy to answer them most of them are sort of self explanatory but not all of them. You know you'll see there are some questions earlier about the schools and you'll see a few big school categories in here about around the middle of the page you'll see school distance learning planning and development. School distance learning incremental cost of special education and those are then some areas where we have spent quite a bit of money. And again this is just from the town's cares allocation, not the funds that the schools received directly. So I think I'll stop there and if there's any questions on any specific category or anything cares related I'm happy to answer them. Okay, so let me get. Is there anybody who has questions he's like to ask. Trying to get my participant list back up. Kathy your hand is up. Newer from before. I'm unmuting yet no this is a new hand. It's my left hand or my right hand. Sean and eligible categories going back to the Dorothy's plea for can't we get the school kids back in school and can we use the outdoors more I mean it's going to be clearly hard when we hit November December, but the common school has a lot of play areas benches places to sit. Could you use cares act for populating playgrounds in a way that they were outdoor classrooms. And would that be, would that be a legitimate expense so it's a question of, could you say you know normally we don't teach outside but we could teach differently. So it's maybe so the cares program they set up a hotline where people can, if it's not something explicitly on this list, we have to get approval for it. So that sounds like it could fall under school distance learning, or, yep, I guess that's probably the category it would fall under because the social distancing measures are in public buildings. So it could potentially fall under school distance learning but we'd have to get approval. We have done things like the tents that I mentioned earlier. And I know that the money that was given directly to schools I think was a little broader and what it could be used for in terms of the reopening of school so I'm not sure that Dr slaughter would provide more information on what those funds could be used for, but it's a possibility, we would just have to seek approval. And along the same in terms of just, I know if it dries up we, these are not even reasonable questions, but you know if we wanted a mobile mobile library bookmobile that would are North Amherst is not open right now for book pickup and drop off but if you could you that one's already a no we've asked that one. So that one doesn't fit that one doesn't fit library director, you know, had a list that I reached out to the state a while ago and one of them. I mean it wasn't the exact thing but it was very similar. The request was could be set up a kiosk outside the library for sort of a book exchange. And they said no to that there I think they're trying to the, my impression of the state they start out very broad with what this could be used for, and then everybody went out and started spending their money and then they've narrowed it down increasingly as we've gone on and so they've really, they've really tried to stick to what's on this list and if it's not explicitly on this list it's been, it's been harder and harder to get it approved. And if, if we have high back systems or cleaner air and air circulation, I mean that requires you have a system you want to replace, or that you can augment so if we have buildings we can do that to people have already looked into that. You know, I'm asking this partly I was in a dental office where they had a type of mini split that they could easily add an ultraviolet extra thing to it that it was purifying the air and circulating the air. So they, they could, in a smaller space they could get airflow. I've purchased some of those I had a look at every single invoice as part of the, as part of the reporting of this and there have been a lot of invoices. I think we have bought some of, we've definitely bought some light systems I know, in particular for our ambulances they bought some UV light systems to quickly disinfect the ambulances. And I believe some of the, either the schools or one of the town departments also bought them as sort of an air filtration system but we, the schools have spent a lot on air filtration. High priority for them. Okay, thank you. Thank you so much for your questions. Seeing if anybody else has. I mean, my, my concern about cares is that we've done a lot of really important things. Some of which were, as was discussed earlier, buying PPs and other kinds of things that have an ongoing purchase cost because you're buying something. And there was also the question of additional staffing like the EMS. And if the cares does not continue. What are we going to do and what is the finance, what are the choices that the town is going to have to make that point. I think that's the right question. And I've been talking to Mr. Bachman about, you know, we really have to get a, we have to start thinking about what are the programs we have in place and are they ending as of January 1. The one I look to a lot is the ambassador program. You know, by all accounts it seems to have been working pretty well. And so, you know, in the spring, when more students come back. We might not have that program and it seems like we might not have that program if there's no cares money to pay for it. So, we are advocating strongly with the state and the federal government that, you know, whenever we get these surveys or about it, that we, we do need that funding to be extended and more funding, frankly, because we haven't known if it's going to be extended we are trying to use up all our money is, you know, as wisely as possible, but we also don't want to back. Yeah, I mean, is. We didn't ask this question of the fire chief, but the extra EMS funding to enable them to bring in some student call force people if those positions can continue. What is the effect going to be on the operations of the department. Yeah, I think that's probably more of a question. I think what we've seen so far is that call volumes have been down quite a bit with with just your people in town. Now if you mass brings back 7000 students or whatever it is that it could change. But so far I think that's helped a lot is that the call volume has been down. But we've also lost revenue because we don't get buildings for ambulance runs that are not made. And again, there was a there's a grant program out there that we've been pursuing that is not going to make us completely whole but if we can show that we lost revenue and it's due to call volumes going down related to COVID. There's some additional revenues that we can that we're trying to seek so. Okay, Dorothy to your end up. So this is to Sean. Do you have a worst case scenario budget that you've drawn up that assumes that COVID hits the town really really bad. And we have a massive increase in ambulance calls. And we have a lot of staff out sick. I mean has anyone drawn that kind of doomsday budget to see how that would affect what we're doing. We don't want to train those things. I mean we again as part of this cares after reporting we're seeing you know how many people are going out on leave or had to be quarantined and things of that nature. So we certainly keep an eye on that and I know Sonya's work on the first quarter report. And when we do our budget projections that's obviously something that we look at the, you know, like the projection gave for FY 22 is not a, it's not a worst case scenario but we are very conservative in the numbers that we put out there for FY 22. I mean best case scenario by, by any means are being conservative with those numbers. That's interesting. Good. Thank you. So if there's nothing else than what I would like to do is turn to see if there's anybody from publicly wishes to make comment and offer us comments and then that leave us a few minutes to talk about the inventory. And I've been doing some thinking about that and would like to at least share it with you so that we because we do need to keep that moving forward. Get it back to the council and Sean and I have had several conversations about it. And, you know, he wants guidance because he wants to move forward with the inventory. He wants to work that with the staff at the time that they're doing other capital things. So, we have, I think, one attendee at the moment and if that tend the wishes to offer comment that should raise their hand and I'll ask Lynn to bring you into the room so that you can because we'd love to hear from you. And that is what public comment is all about anything within the purview of the finance committee. We want to offer it so seeing nothing, no request. And what I'm going to keep an eye on it for just a minute longer. We have discussions and I'm going to actually do a shake a screen share to show you sort of an outline that what I developed this morning in consultation a little bit with Sean, and it was a little bit of a discussion and that's what I'm going to do. It just sort of isolates our discussions at the prior meetings and gives us a sense of where we're at and just meeting to find the right place in my screen to see if I can do that or not easily. At the moment I'm not seeing screen share is an option on my. It's way down in the bottom Andy green box, and I just checked all participants can share screen. Yeah, okay, let's see if I can. Exit full screen maybe you'll see it then. Yeah, I think I got it now. Let me know if it's not working it but it shows in mind that it is. So what I did was the first block that you're seeing is just section from the charter and then. So the next section is, we have to make a decision as to what we want to recommend on what should be considered and possible criteria to be used because we can't the Tory everything. And so I thought about various ways of defining this and one is what can be purchased from what's been purchased from the capital plan or from operating budget is that a cut off on what should be done. That doesn't seem to make sense because there's a lot of things in the capital plan that are smaller items that would be harder, hard to ask for inventory on everything that's purchased from the capital plan is minimum purchase cost is the fact that it's separately listed for insurance. Is that a factor that we should be considering is something inventory for audit or other purposes, those last two things are criteria which I identified, which are a little bit easier. Then as I go down into the next sections for buildings. What I did was the ones that are in black on your screen, the first four lines are from the section in the charter that is where we started at the top of the page and started with this process. I had two meetings where we've talked about this one is September 30. And I went through my notes that I made. And I actually had re listened to that meeting because I reviewed the minutes on that meeting. And that's what the blue is were the pieces that I picked out from that. And the red, the next discussion that we had of it was on October 6. And Sean took notes there and he made a list of things that he heard us talk about and wanted to list and I asked him and he meant by the stress and the asterisks were things that would be easier to do. The is not everything is quite as easy. And then the same thing comes up on the vehicles and movable equipment and the same division. And the coding applies to that. And we really have not had significant discussion about the last two sections. One of which is mentioned in the charter, the words infrastructure for waters sewer stormwater and roads is mentioned in the as possible great sections. So we have a lot of consideration that are called out in the charter itself. But the other thing is that there's that whole lot of other equipment we own, and whether we could really feasibly inventory all of those items because we need to come up with a list that is reasonable for the staff to be able to accomplish for this next round of inventory. So, I can send this to you later if you think that this would be helpful but it was sort of this breakout that I did. So with that, I go back to the participant list and see if there's any, and I know I can't see the list, but if anybody just wants to speak up they should Kathy I see your hand up. Andy one of the other words you you know you flag that it had water and the others but the charter uses the word significant and I think we could use significant that we're eliminating every computer every piece of office equipment and we could make a recommendation that we're not going to go down to that level of inventory, I know universities do inventory that. When I left you mass I had to give back my computer, but what we might use the word significant to decide to what extent are we going to do that. Schools quite easily told us when we're coming for capital requests, how many computers they had and how many more they needed and how often they would replace them so it may be that computers are easier than some of the other things. You know the death chairs, you know, you know I don't think we're going down to that level and I have no idea on infrastructure for water sewer storm water. What the purpose of it would be other than a section in a report saying this thing. Yeah, are we likely to have anything fail us in the next five years you know this you know like what's what's out there that we should be you know that we've got a well that's going to run dry or we knew about Centennial you know it's down but literally to inventory it's useful life it's dollar value rather than alert us roads. A road inventory would be pretty interesting if we wanted to put a value on our roads, you know, or repair needs. So I think we just have to make some cuts that the, the charter didn't mean to make this take endless hours of staff time and I think the focus was probably always on buildings and vehicles, including buildings were not using or buildings that could be reused. We will have to face that, if we do close one of our elementary schools and build a new one will have to figure out what we're doing with the other one. You know so I just think you know this and Sean's got it no empty buildings we can do an empty building you know a building that's not being used period. So, so I would just make my personal thing would be make some cuts that eliminate lots of small things. And if it's really hard to do first time around don't do it. That's your opinion level. Bernie has his hand up. Some of this stuff can be done by technology if our computers if all of our computers are networks. There's programs that'll let you, you know, let each computer self self report, but they are where they are. The piece about water store store storm water. The key piece there is age and size, because that will bear on whether or not we're going to have to, we're going to end up with problems and replacements but I think overall, the idea that you can define strategic is a good one and a critical one. And that should be a key piece and throughout this strategic you can do you can do you can hire an engineering firm to do a road survey, a road inventory. And I think one of the questions do you want to do. I was going to comment on the road, because we've been through this and select board level and I've heard from Guilford on it. We need to hear from Guilford. There has been a company that comes and does sweeps of roads and actually has equipment that they can look under the road to get the condition. And he uses that in order to come up with a list of the different type of road work that made me need to be done. And that's where the dollar amount of what is the unmet road maintenance repair. And I think that he's come forward in prior and meetings and if we really want to understand that we have to hear from him on that, but it is a rather global statement. I think that we're kind of stuck because inventory is such a broad word. And I think that's why it has become so considered confusing discussion should. I suggest and I'm Sean speak up of, you know, willing to go this direction is that Sean and I just work together on trying to put together a proposed reasonable list and bring it back to the committee. Dorothy has our hand up. She was shared to something to contribute. Dorothy. When we talked about this sometime in the past, Kathy brought up all the old vehicles. And when you look at the list of vehicles, it's kind of astounding. So, I think that you can, if you and Sean are going to do this list together Andy side on several one of several common sense approaches one is if it takes too much time to fill out the inventory on a vehicle that's just kind of hanging around in case you're looking for parts, then maybe they get rid of that vehicle, or just have a rough number. If you're not, if a vehicle really doesn't have a major part but is there because sometime it might be useful or helpful. And then just say, you know, 100 cars in the car pound, leave it at that. But I think, I mean, from from what I gather, all of those are not used. So it creates a false picture. If you treat them and inventory them just like a vehicle which has a more active life. But I do understand why people don't want to get rid of those vehicles. Sean, didn't you tell us that the vehicles that were on the inventory list were ones that came that are listed in the insurance policy. Yeah, yeah, the vehicles aren't too bad I mean the vehicle, the time of the vehicles will be if we add some things to it like miles per gallon which again going forward and we get new vehicles. We can certainly capture that information really easily at the time we buy them. The time would be going back and trying to and going back to the older vehicles and you know probably with Google searches you probably can figure that stuff out relatively quickly or at least get a ballpark for some of those things. So but yeah, we can get our full vehicle list pretty easily from our insurance policy and same thing for buildings buildings and vehicles, in terms of getting the list is easy it's just then filling out the different categories that are decided here. So is that a reasonable approach that try and come back with a more specific proposed doable list and then get comments from that. Because we're, we're never going to get to the end result, if we don't start doing. Yes. The other thing to look at is the green communities reports is your vehicles are going to be there. The edge of the vehicle mileage that may already be reporting that for green communities. Is somebody Stephanie Chikarallo. Yeah. Have you asked, I guess, if not we can ask Stephanie if you have. Definitely, she definitely has some of that info just what form and, and can we pull it together easily but I know at the school side she asked us for that pretty regularly so. Okay. Thank you. Andy this is Bob I just have a good suggestion for me and Andy this is Bob I have once in. Sorry. Yeah, raise my hand here. There. Okay. Yeah, I just, I just think that, you know, if you pull together, then for it to be perfect, you know, I think we start with what we can do now, and in a reasonable amount of time, and over time, it'll get updated and improved, you know, and, you know, we're not going to get the final version of this in the next, you know, two weeks, you know, it's going to take a year or more until we get to the point where everybody thinks this is very helpful. So, that's my suggestion is let's not try to, you know, be perfect here let's do the best job we can get something out and then let let it evolve over time. So John and I would probably be approaching what I was suggesting is that we put together a list of things that are attainable within this next round and come back with that list for the committee to look at and then you can look at it and say, Well, gee I wanted this why isn't it on the list and at least that that'll highlight the discussion a little bit better than the approach that we've been taking. So, I think we'll go ahead and do that since there seems to be general agreement that we should. I will see if I can stop sharing at this point because this isn't helpful any longer. And I think that we're pretty much at the point with the agenda that we've concluded everything that we had planned to talk about. One question that I had was on the meeting dates for November 7 December 8 and December 22nd I'm assuming, unless you tell me otherwise that that is an acceptable and doable schedule. So, can you give me those again and November. They were December. Excuse me. November 17 December 8 and December 22. November 17 I think that what we want to do is really concentrate on sort of an outline of what it is that we're going to propose for a budget guidelines, budget guidelines, and the second piece is if Sean and I are able to come back, which we will see to follow up on the inventory question. You see trying to bring the budget guidelines to the council on the 21st. Or to at least have a discussion about them. I wanted to try and see if I can find that item, the schedule that we had talked about unless somebody else has it more quickly. Because it take me a moment. I should have had that on my screen. But I think that's right. Because the idea was, we were going to bring them for discussion on the 21st. And then the reason that we have a tentative meeting for the 22nd. If the council was comfortable with the draft we gave them that we would then do they and got was able to approve guidelines that night. We would know we didn't have to meet on the 22nd, but that if the council had a discussion and wanted us to do additional work, we would then have the meeting on the 22nd. Make provisions and then it would come back to the council for the first January meeting, which is around the fourth or something like that. We just put together proposed calendar today, January 4th is the next is the proposed meeting. Andy, I have that paper in my hand if you want me to tell you was. On the 10th, it was further questions about November 9th presentation for town manager and finance director initial discussion about guidelines draft 17th further consideration of guideline draft. And then the December 8th, consider public forum comments revised and approved draft guidelines for council. The 21st, the council leading adopt guidelines refer back to finance committee. On the 22nd, if requested by council, consider discussion of first draft and develop second draft, leading to the January 4th council meeting, adopt budget guidelines. Okay, thank you very much Dorothy and so in because that is what I just was saying but it builds it out a little bit more. The idea is that in addition to hearing from the, what was said at the forum, if there are any public comments we want to consider. At that point, I hope we would actually have an actual draft and that we would be able to be commenting on the action on a hard draft, as well as any comments that are received at the forum. So, that is, I think that we pretty well, is there anything else that people wish to raise that was not anticipated. So I think otherwise we can probably move towards adjournment. All right, so I will consider that we have adjourned at five minutes after forward to a lot of good work in two hours. And thank you all and Sean and I will have some time to work together. Thank you. Okay, thank you.