 Okay, so let me just. 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. Check with members of the committee to make sure that everybody can hear and be heard. Across my screen for order Bob Hegner. Can hear you. Yes. Yeah. And Kathy Shane. Yes. Oh, Bernie, you're here now. Yep. And I'm here. Sharon. I'm here, Andy. I don't know when you got my email. You 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 is to. Whether their time constraints that indicate that we should take reverse our order on the agenda slightly and. I'm going to ask to see if there are questions about the proposed purchase of the. Fire. The ambulance equipment. All right. Shall we just do that as a courtesy to our two staff people. Yep. Okay. 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. For 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. They're 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 funds, 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. And 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. You're remaining in the ambulance fund. For other purposes, either for operating budget or per capital. I'll look to Sonya. She's, she's got more of the history on the fund. 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 Sonya, do you want to weigh in on sort of the history of that balance? Yeah. 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 COVID happening. But at the beginning of the year when we were looking at this for the ambulance, there was a, 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 when 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. Okay. The order is for the ambulance fund. I'm going to bring the order up now. Right. 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. It seems appropriate to come out of the ambulance fund. So I, I think it. 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 then we'll. Get to the more specifics from. And that's the chief. Make his presentation then see if there are questions from committee. The. John, you'll 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 just put 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 still want to be conservative as we kind of come out of the pandemic and we, 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. When you say. That's at the end of September. That's at the end of September. And when you were giving a number for which we were hoping to get to. We're looking to take use $2.3 million this year for. Two 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. We used 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 Olmstead can talk about this a little bit during the presentation, but we did increase rates. In the last year or so, right, Jeff? Yes, we did. Okay. So we, 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 Sonia can explain that probably, you know, in more detail. So there are other questions of Sean right now, or can we turn the ask chief Nelson to. Presentation that he's. Yeah, no, I think it's a start over to chief Nelson. Chief. Good afternoon. Howdy. How are you doing? So, you know, this is pretty, pretty straight straight to four. Now we're trying, we want, we need to replace that 2000 11. And we're probably a year or so behind on our, on our replacement schedule and when we defer, we deferred 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 up 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. Closer to the three. Yeah. So we had to stop parking because it had a serious, serious, serious oil leaks in the only way to fix it was a 33,000 dollar. And the engine replace, replace places, which is just that, that, that just doesn't work. So, so that, so it's, it's, it's, it's a case where, you know, we needed, we needed, we need to replace it. We, we are a four. Probably just in for ambulance service service. And with that, you need, you need, you have to have five. If, if you're going, going to run for it. Because there's always one, one down for one reason or another. You know, so this is, and this will get us back to where we need to be. One of the interesting things is that we were able to work with Stephanie. Stephanie. On getting, on attaining, attaining a grant that'll help pay, pay for a zero. It's, it's called to zero or RPM. What, what is this when you, I don't, when you, when you stopped, I, I don't, whether we're on, we're on scene or at the hospital, it'll shut the shut the engine down. You still have, you use of all the equipment. And then periodically, it'll start, if you're, if you're there, if you're stopped stuff for long, long enough, it'll start, start itself back, back up, up again to re re re recharge the batteries. So, you know, it's, you know, it's clean, it's cleaner, it's greener, it'll, and it cuts, cuts down, down on emissions. So, and again, it's, it's kind of, it's going to be similar to what our, our, our, our, our three, the three of them, and the ambulances that we have now, we, we switched some time, time ago before, and we found that they've, they've, they've treated, treated us a lot, a lot better than we were getting good, good, good, good work and good, good life out of, out of those. But they, but that's, they, they, they use basically, and it's, it's, it's our, our fifth and the ambulance has been parked, beached or whatever because it died. So, and we do, and, and, and if you need, need every place that we're bound to, and we're, we're, we're seeing a slow, but steady increase in our, our, our call, call, our call, call, call, call, call. It took us a severe hit when, when the pandemic hit. But we, we see that, that it's, it's, it's, it's going, going, going to, to, to increase, we say it, it'll increase quite, quite, quite a bit once the vaccine is out and available, available across. And with that, I mean, you know, any questions, questions, feel free. 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'm going to defer to Lindsay on that one a little bit. I think, you know, he can just grab a little bit. Some of the management system that comes with these trucks and, and maybe more detail. Yeah. 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. Yeah. So to answer your question, Linda, first of all, when we buy a 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 that is built into it. Things like a heart monitor is an example. That's portable equipment and that's bought separately and rotated and replaced on a separate schedule. Because that stuff does 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 would 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 seat 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. The other thing that 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 beat, you know, they're going back and forth to the hospitals, very rough service. So just the vehicle becomes clunky as well as the maintenance headache. And in this case, as the chief mentioned, one thing is the 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 has 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, some things take 10, 20 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. But the fuel savings are, 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. Correct. Our ambulances, if you look at mileage versus engine hours, they're way out of proportion to most vehicles, because it doesn't take us that long to drive somewhere, but we can sit literally on scene for 20, 30 or more minutes out of patients, 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. Offer ambulances. Yep. So this ambulance typically, and we would do it again, but it's not going to be, because into the busiest slot in the department, which is the first out and don't set 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. They're a little bit more. Fire trucks, but that is going to shoot at central stations. Yeah. Okay. 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, we're going 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? Okay. I'll take that question again. To the best of my knowledge, no, there is nothing else out there. We've heard the question for 10 years plus now from JCPC about fire trucks and ambulances. Can they be 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. I've heard of an all electric fire truck out on the West coast. The jury's still out on that. It's incredibly expensive. It's a prototype. It's not mass marketed right now. So to the best of my knowledge, no. You can 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. Yeah. Thank you very much. Yeah. Do you want to try again? I'm back on. Yes. We can hear you now. Okay. It was a reboot. I hope I'm not repeating what Dorothy asked, but Lynn was asking about the. You talked about the mileage versus the engine hours, and that at a certain number of miles, the whole machine dies. Does this idling system. 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 does 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, we'll mile miles because of less wear on the engine. Sure. Yeah, 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. It's going to help with the life of the engine. And it's 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, unless it needs to come back on for heater 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. So it's going to help with the life of the engine. And it's going to help with the life of the engine as well. 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 effect. I know you also can't answer this, but if. Route nine gets repaved and this roundabout actually works as opposed to snarling traffic. Is that a, or is it also just the Amherst roads that beat, beat up the engine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jesse. I, I was actually, I was going to tag, tag, tag, tag on to that. It's just, it's just roads. It's road miles and there, you know, we're, it. We have, we have to go at least 10, 10, 10, 10 miles to. We did further than that for Frank, Frank Franklin. Further further than that for Bay State. And it's just the miles that pile up day after day after day. Sure. And so the, the, the improved, improved, you know, with the, the round, the round, 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 goes on, it just builds up and build them and it just beats the heck out of them. Out of them and in any of you. You know, I'm just going to jump in here a little bit, you know, we're, we're, 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 grate because the suspension shot. And it hurts. Like you're driving a truck. It is not like driving a truck. 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. 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. Then the brand new ones. Yeah, Bernie. Yeah, I, you know, I, you know, these 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, needs only just for trucks. And I think it'll be a good addition for the ambulance. And I really do appreciate the care and caution that the fire department takes and bringing this forward. I know from my previous service in 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 of approval. And I think it's, I think it's a good addition for the ambulance. And I really do appreciate the care and, you know, it deserves a whole heart of approval committee. I like to add, add one, one, one thing of small, but assistant chief John is strong, strong, strong. And mentioned that, you know, that this, this, this has been out for two or three years, you know, the, the, the technology. We, we met a kind of con, a con conscientious decision to wait a bit because it's, because it's brand new. You don't, I mean, sure. It's, it's on, it's on, it's on the cusp and all that, but you really don't want, want, want, want to be a beta test, but some, some, something this important and, and, and, and, and, and expensive after, after two, 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? I'll answer that in terms of where it goes. Any of the specialized components of our ambulances have to go back to the dealer, which is in North Attleboro. I say the specialized components, if an ambulance needs a break job, that would go to the Ford dealership in Holyoke. Anything to do with the ambulance itself, it goes to the dealer, zero RPM, which 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. I don't know what the cost would be just to replace the, 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 questions. I'm ready to do anything else. The committee or I, because I might come back to a couple of things. I do have one other question. How much is the total cost? How much is the grant worth? The grant is for. Do 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. So does that make the purchase price? 325 or 300. We're asking for the 300,000 for the vehicle and the other components that would have to go in at new, like the radios and new stretcher and new power loader. No. It was the, um, yeah. 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. We're the 300,000 is all that has to be approved here because the other 25 is coming from the sustainability grant. So let me just lay out my understanding and. Lindsey, let me know if this is correct. Um, so I believe the ambulance itself is 275. Or around 275. And the additional upcharge for the idling. Is around 25,000. So the total cost of the ambulance itself with the idling equipment is 300,000. So the authorization in front of you is for that full amount, but you'll notice that the total cost of the idling equipment is 275,000. 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. My other question. I wouldn't do anything else. Otherwise I'm going to go back. Dorothy. No. Fine. Okay. Yes, we hear you. Okay. So I just was wondering if what kind of a. Insurance policy you had when you get a new ambulance. Is it. A year manufactured protection against any defects or. Is the power stream. I mean, what some of it should be covered. So even though it's relatively new, you'd have some protection. I mean, I don't think it's going to be the same. I mean, I don't think it's going to be the same. Again, I can answer that some of that. When we buy, it is in the contract that we get. And it varies quite a bit. So something like the power train, the motor transmission. Typically as your, what you would buy, if you bought a new vehicle, about a one year, some things like the paint. Up to five years on electrical. I mean, I 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. That's what 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. I'm going to go ahead and get back to the question. Yeah. I'm just going to ask you, the assistant 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 it the state bid. So the fire chiefs association of Massachusetts as one of many collective bids with the state. So it's 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, we don't have to go through the bid process. We don't have to go through the bid process. We 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 means all the collective bar. Bidding issues in the state. So it's fairly straightforward. We don't have to go out to bid for it. We don't have to go through the bid process. So what we're going 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. Now we still won't see it till the spring, which is all we don't want to wait till July of next year to push this forward. Dorothy, did you have something or. You're muted though, Dorothy. No, he answered my question. I'm fine. Okay. 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. But assuming that high side. Then that gives us. 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. To make sure that we don't end up the end of 22. With no balance in the fund. Am I missing something in that? 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. That's what we're looking at. We're looking at that. We're looking at that. With with Holly Bowser to try it. That's 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 you mass as well. And those bills were sent out. And that's. That's a looking back. That's what we're looking at. That's what we're looking at. Most of last year was sort of a normal call, call volume level when it comes to you mass, except for 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, a fully depopulated you mass until next year. Context a little, we normally take in about. Well, previously the 29 to 20. We took in about 2.7 million a year. Last year we took in two, 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. And then beyond that, it's a question of what's available. To then use for 23. For both capital and for operating. So whatever we collect in 22 gets used for 23. That's how it works. The money has to be in the fund. Okay. So I have one other question for chief Nelson or anyone. I have one other question. Someone from the department of dance. It was my understanding that we hired some additional staff who were from the call force from the student call force. That were able to provide some additional staffing assistance during the crisis. Was that paid for out of cares act fund? the projection of the ability to have that additional staffing or need to have the additional staffing going forward? Well, they were hired as a result of the card. And the intent will be to have CARES and the money cover their costs because they were hired strictly because of that, because of the pandemic. And right now, those funds last until December 31st of this year. So right now, that's as far as we can keep them. So they've been a great asset because at the same time, we do have some folks out injured. But they don't want it right now. It only looks like it's going to be very early first of the next of the next month. Okay. Other questions from the committee? Another question. It's not related to the truck coming to the ambulance, but it's related to fire department. I'm just curious how many of your people are taking advantage of the testing at UMass for first responders? About 95% of our people are doing it just about. And what they're doing, they're just doing it generally. They're for first day back. So, but folks have been taking advantage of that. Okay. Because that also ends at the end of December. Right. Okay. So if there'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 FY2105P as recommended. So moved, Angela. 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 want to put in the record? Seeing, since there are no additional comments to be made. Bob Hagner just put his hand up. Yeah, I just wanted to say that 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 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 Dangelis. Yes. And Dorothy Pam? Yes. Kathy Shane? Yes. Loune Griezmann? Absolutely. And I voting yes. So it's five to zero. So thank you, Chief Nelson, and thank you, Chief Trumpkin. Chief Olmsted, we really appreciate you being here to help out the committee. And we'll go on to the next agenda item. You're welcome to continue, but I know you have other things to do. So thank you for being with us. Thank you. 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, 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, the report has already answered them. Not that I think the council is going to ask the same set of questions, but I, you know, 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. I was taking 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 if then we'll be able to talk a little bit about the process for developing budget guidelines and what we're going to do on developing budget guidelines. So I see questions from Kathy and Dorothy. So go ahead. And if you want anything from the presentation last night, such as the two-page piece that has all of the detailed numbers, put that on the screen if you wish. Okay. 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, Sean, I started one of them last night. Are you putting it on the screen or am I? I don't have it. No, Sean, are you putting it on the screen? It's muted at the moment, so. Lynn, why don't you, I don't have it on my laptop, right? I'll grab it and get it for you. If you can't get it. No, that's fine. Go ahead with the meeting, Andy. Okay. All right. So the budgets, the suggested budgets for the guidelines are basically 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, so I haven't really looked at it carefully. But I'm wondering in the school budget, they got a certain amount of money from UMass. They were also able to forward pay some costs, so it didn't appear on this year's budget, the current year's budget. So 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. And I'm wondering into my questions, how much of those are not going to be available for FY22? So that's the basic question. And I know they did a little bit on the staffing side because they didn't fill a vacancy. They had someone on the equivalent of a sabbatical, someone wanted to go to port time. So they picked up some FTE money without furloughing anyone or laying anyone off. So that's that question. Then underneath, I'll just rattle them off, because it'll be also the library budget then. Last year, the FY21 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. And this 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 the questions are, if the salary base goes up at all, and the health 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 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. So what's the anticipation within these? And the Jones library dipped into its reserves, its endowment, to even stay whole. And it's held a lot of positions vacant. Our North Amherst library isn't open, and they didn't fill a librarian position. Someone had retired. So just Jones's 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 FY 21 budget and will those strategies be available for FY 22? It's possible they will be. I'll just say generally, if you level fund something, it will usually result in reductions to your services unless you have something in your budget that you can reduce. Now, 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. So 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 union contracts. Generally, there will be reductions. 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 might have just done it. That first quarter budget report will 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 budgetary picture is at this point until they complete the first quarter budget report. But it's possible they may be able to do some of those strategies. 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 All right, I think I touched on that a little bit. Services may need to be reduced 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. Those things are charter tuition is a big one that it dropped pretty significantly for FY 21. And we want to see or 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 up. There's state aid more information on general state aid we want to see. There's the PBTA 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 PBTA 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 possibly visit these projections and see if we can make some improvements. Does that help Kathy? Yeah it does help. 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 eight percent 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 but this is I'll phrase it 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? No 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 wouldn't begin 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. We have just okay I I I do not have children in 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 COVID there have to be changes major changes of a type which have not been happening and I'm going to use as 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 um 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 do 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 a lot of time ahead of us and I'm I'm afraid that so I'm very confused that we haven't asked for more money I want I would be happy as could 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 I mean but we're just not hearing any of that so um I just feel kind of like we're just running along on 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 you know scrap it what's going to happen but so I'm going to say right now my focus is on children and schools and I I see them not being served well and I'm afraid we're just going to keep chugging along and doing things and we will have really hurt them so that's my concern and 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 we you know there were walls constructed and those open classrooms you know we've heard for years about those open classrooms and finally unfortunately it 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 I know there were lots of air filtration systems that were purchased sort of portable air filtration systems we've 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 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 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 that was you know there 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 yes 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 some tents and they have I'm 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 tents to help it with that yeah and Dorothy I feel concerned that you're that you're I know you're concerned with all students overall but the families that can leave are very uh to go to private schools great for them but what happens to the children who are left and we're not I think I agree with you that we're not completely addressing that yeah I think that's a different discussion than what we need to have here right now no but I'm 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 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 we 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 um and 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 comments about that and then I want to get to um I'll get on the Bob Hagner um what is it you've touched on I think in this conversation the obvious distinction between decisions that are made by the school committee in 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 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 well I have to come to us in some ways and and say that we have not heard that as being a factor part largely because at least in this first year CARES Act really has covered a lot of additional expenses and I don't know if Sean has anything else we can 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 we're operating right now in the present so those are my observations I don't know if Sean you want to add to that or say anything I'll highlight a point that you you just made which is CARES Act does end on December 30th 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 monies needed just for some of these basic basic things that we're doing at some point during the year not you know for the schools and possibly other departments in town as well so I wouldn't rule that out you know especially if the CARES Act does and right on December 30th and there's no replacement thank you yeah I just wanted to make a couple of observations or express some concerns one is the declining enrollment if 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 a new school along with that the all the renovations that have occurred you know with the CARES money I mean I think we're gonna 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 and the other thing 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 okay anything else on the subject that we 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 our investment income number if you look at FY 20 revenues we brought in about 277 thousand dollars 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 and I do that 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 want to acknowledge you know how good that year was and and that a lot of that is due to the hard work of Sherry that was based on 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 we did increase it from what we normally do we it's usually around 35 thousand 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 then the receipt side the piece that I'm 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 FY21 you'll see we budgeted 450 it's not certified yet but we believe that number when it will be certified relatively soon we believe the 450 is going to be closer to 700ish 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 and I did check 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 we should but beyond FY22 I think you're right I think beyond next year's budget that's where we start to look at what's what's in the hopper and what's going on in town to 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 and if we don't 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 participant list which is disappeared from my screen to see if anyone no one has their hands raised right now so I think that the question that we then have to do is how to proceed with the process of framing the guidelines and whether they're initial thoughts I think that there was one question that was brought up just now about concerns about education and whether in the other programs beyond education really as to whether there's stresses 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 but in 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 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 the way of proposed policy directives on the use of any portions of those 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 though 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 offer any preliminary thoughts right now Kathy yeah um 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 um that could be worse 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 on the report and the little bit of wiggle room in this budget but it's not um a lot of wiggle room giving how much we deferred is going back up to eight percent on capital um 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 um but we 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 um um as as we get more into this year and more information about next year you know because some of those the hotel receipts coming back up um 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 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 this 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 um 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 um we we hopefully will have a new president um come January 1st 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 too so the as as much as last year I think we're in a world of pretty uncertainty over the next six to seven months on what all this is going to look like that's it um thank you uh let me follow up on that and see if you have anything to add there if Sean has anything to add but what I understood from the presentation last night and was Sean's comment that um if the state aid does not come through that we'd be prepared to go into reserves 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 it seemed to tie in to some extent to what the legislature's going to be able to decide to do for FY 22 exactly yep 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 as 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 update on CARES 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 um ridiculous that it hasn't you know there's been no guidance as to what's going to happen after December 30th um you know because obviously the pandemic is not gone as of January 1st so um 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 so 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 in reserves and I just wanted to clarify that we didn't build back the reserves back up we actually added to them we added at least a million dollars back from last year so and just to reiterate that when we we started this whole four 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 the 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 I'll 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 achieve that leveling the payments that you were just referencing so that's uh 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 and and yes you know I agree with that and just also you know focusing on the critical years where uh 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've got a fifth which is the community fields but I know that's not a 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 percent 9 percent 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 we do feel it's important to get it back up to that 9 or 10 percent 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 we know the departments need it so anything else I'm looking to see if there are 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 to comment at this point there any thoughts on giving Sean or Sonia to actually going above 10 percent for capital sorry did she just left did she just go not this year I'm the one that's been saying all along that's going to be almost impossible to maintain 10 percent going every year that we're going to be able to keep it at 10 percent I mean stuff happens obviously I think Kathy has recommended adjusted 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 operating budgets with less in that year 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 budgets 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 I apologize for the fact that I had to take a phone call so I missed the discussion on capital and but I'll catch up with somebody later okay so I think that what I want to do is change 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 also have to tell you that I'm having problems with my computer too 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 um but um Lynn you want to put that on the screen the uh in the yeah Sean you have to show tell tell her what you would like to have shown and you can leave it on this first page hold on a little bit more um so I won't go through all just you can read this um but I guess the highlights are we have CARES 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 dollars allocated to it and it can be used on town and schools and um anything sort within the town umbrella there are a number of other CARES programs out there that departments have received I know the fire department I believe you can see the piece of it um Board of Health has received their much smaller grant um the schools have actually received a couple sizable grants they've received some reopening money um directly and another CARES related piece so I think they've received somewhere around four or five hundred thousand dollars um of that amount directly not that's not including this 3.4 million um 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 it was and or maybe it was the end of March but if sometime in March it could not be budgeted it had to be related to the public health crisis caused by COVID and it had to be spent between March and December 30th so those were sort of the high level guideline that an expense had to be in order to be eligible um and certain categories it has designated we have to apply to FEMA um CARES said in order for them to reimburse us we have to pass that we will apply to FEMA um and see if we'll get reimbursed so there's certain categories when we get to the next page that we only receive 25 percent reimbursement and CARES for now is assuming that the other 75 percent will come from FEMA we don't know if that'll happen we don't know what they're gonna 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 in the world um now they've received probably you know these requests from every city and 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 um but we have submitted most of our costs through September 15th to them and we're going to submit another batch to them at some point in the future um 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 um the rental assistance program we have around 200,000 that we allocated to it from CARES that can be used to provide rental assistance for people who are struggling economically as a result of maybe they're being laid off because of CARES or not um you know the something was closed and they can't go to work so um 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 COVID if somebody had a quarantine and needed 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 everybody knows about the ambassador program that's a pretty high publicity one because you've seen I think they wear the yellow shirts I haven't seen them around too I don't live in Amherst so I haven't seen them out and about but I um I think I see them wearing the yellow shirts um Zoom support we so this is one of the few areas where the CARES program said that we could repurpose existing staff who were 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 um leisure services um I think maybe wanted to DPW for part of their day they 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 uh shelter costs we've had to do a lot of um sort of adapting to provide shelter for the homeless when I spent you know when there's when they their existing quarters were not suitable for social distancing we've made alternative arrangements and so CARES has 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 um as we talked about earlier additional EMS staffing there have been four or five additional EMS um 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 um who's Lynn are you running the the slide yep you go to the next page and again these all these the 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 um 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 um based on again on like an Amherst percentage of for their cost because the region's had a lot a lot of the similar costs that the elementary schools have had you can see these different categories and you can see the ones that the state has designated um yes or no as to whether it's whether we have to apply to FEMA and I'll just call out um if you see that 4.3 at the bottom 4.3 million so that's roughly how how much we've had in cost 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 um 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 30th uh we're anticipating CARES we'll have another 2.8 million that green box at the bottom and so there's lots of categories here if 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 um you know you'll see there were some questions earlier about the schools and you'll see a few big school categories in here um 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 bensam areas where we have spent quite a bit of money um and again this is just from the town's CARES allocation not the the funds that the schools receive 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 to answer them okay so let me get is there anybody who has questions you'd like to um ask uh I'm trying to get my participant list back up Kathy your hand is up is that newer from before I'm I'm unmuting um yeah no this is a new hand it's my left hand or my right hand so Sean in in eligible categories going back to the Dorothy's plea for can't we get the 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 um the common school has a lot of play areas uh benches places to sit could you use CARES Act for populating playgrounds in a way that they were outdoor classrooms um 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 um 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 um so that sounds like it could fall under school distance learning um or uh yeah I guess that's probably the category it would fall under because the social distancing measures are in public buildings um so it could potentially fall in their school distance learning but we would have to get approval we have done things like the tents that I mentioned earlier um 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 uh Dr. Slaughter would be able to 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 um 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 our north immerse is not open right now for book pick up and drop off but if you could you so that one's already a no we've asked that one so 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 um the request was could be set up a kiosk outside the library um for sort of a book exchange um 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 um increasingly as we've gone on and so they've really um 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 and if if we um high vac systems or cleaner air circulation I mean that requires you have a system you want to replace um or that you can augment so if we have buildings we can do that too people have already looked into that um 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 um so they they could in a smaller space they could get air flow I think I've purchased some of those I've 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 and I believe we have bought some of we've definitely bought some UV light systems I know in particular for the 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 a sort of an air filtration system but we um the schools have spent a lot on air filtration that is a high priority for them okay thank you just a little questions seeing if anybody else has I mean my my concern about care is is that we've done a lot of really important things some of which were as was discussed earlier buying PPEs 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 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 with that point yeah I know I think that's the right question and I've been talking to Mr. Backelman 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 1st 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 are we going to not have that program and unfortunately 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 with the federal government that you know whenever we get these surveys or requests about it that we we do need that funding to be extended and more funding frankly that because we haven't known if it's going to be extended we are trying to use up all our money as you know as wisely as possible but we also don't want to knock so yeah I mean we didn't ask this question of the fire chief but the extra EMS funding did that 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 mean I think that's probably more of a question but I think what we're seeing so far is that call volumes have been down quite a bit with with just your people in town now if EMS brings back 7,000 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 billings for ambulance runs that are not made that's and again there was 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 so we've been monitoring those things I mean we again as part of this CARES Act reporting we're seeing you know how many people are going out on leave or head of the quarantine and things of that nature so we we're certainly keeping our eye on that and I know Sonia'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 gate 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 we're not assuming best case scenario by by any means okay are being conservative with those numbers that's interesting good thank you so if there's nothing else then what I would like to do is turn to see if there's anybody from public who wishes to make comment and offer us comments and then that'll leave us a few minutes to talk about the inventory piece and I've been doing some thinking about that and would like to at least share it with you so the 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 and 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 a fat attendee 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 would offer it so seeing nothing no request then what I'm going to keep an eye on it for just a minute longer we had some discussions and I'm going to actually do 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 kind of encapsulates our discussions at the prior meetings and gives us a sense of where we're at and I'm just needing to find the right place in my screen to see if I can do that or not easily the moment I'm not seeing screen share is an option on my it's way down in the bottom Andy the green box and I just checked all participants could share screen yeah okay let's see if I can make your exit full screen maybe you'll see it then yeah no I think I got it now I think 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 the what should be considered and possible criteria to be used because we can't inventory 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 cutoff 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 inventoryed 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 we've had two meetings where we've talked about this one is September 30th and I went through my notes that I made and I actually had relistened 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 then the red the next discussion that we had of it was on October 6 and Shawn 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 brought he meant by the strisks and the asterisks were things that would be easier to do that is not everything is quite as easy and then the same thing comes up on the vehicles and movable equipment and the same division color 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 water sewer stormwater and roads is mentioned in the as possible great sections for 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 now I can't see the list but if anybody just wants to speak up they should Kathy I see your hand up um Andy one of the other words you you know you flagged that it had water in the others but uh the the charter uses the word significant and I think we could use significant um to figure that we're eliminating um every computer every piece of office equipment we could make a recommendation that we're not going to go down to that level of inventory I know universities do inventory that um when I left UMass 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 um I know the schools quite easily told us what 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 um but uh 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 stormwater um 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 alerted to um 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 um roads um a road inventory would be pretty interesting if we wanted to put a value on our roads you know our repair needs um 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 um we will have to face that if we do close one of our elementary schools and build a new one we'll have to figure out what we're doing with the other one you know so I just you know this Sean's got it no empty buildings we can do an empty building you know a building that's not being used period um 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 uh your opinion level Bernie has his hand up Bernie some of this stuff can be done by technology if our computers if all of our computers are networks um there's programs that'll let you you know let each computer self self report what they are where they are um the piece about water sewer storm water the 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 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 a key piece and throughout this strategic you can do if you can do you can you can hire an engineering firm to do a road survey a road inventory the question is do you want to I was going to comment on the road because we've been through this on its luck board level and I've heard from Guilford on it we need to hear from Guilford um there has been a company that um 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 um that's where the dollar amount of what is the unmet road maintenance repair 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 and I think that we're kind of stuck because inventory um is uh such a broad word and I think that's why it has become so considered confusing discussion should uh I suggest and I um Sean speak up if uh 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 um she had to something to contribute Dorothy um I know that 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 uh if if you and Sean are going to do this list together Andy um 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 needed or for parts then maybe they get rid of that vehicle or just have a rough number uh 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 um then just say you know 100 cars in in the the car pound leave it at that um but I think I mean from from what I gather all of those are not used so it 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 um just a common sense suggestion well Sean didn't you tell us that uh 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 the vehicle the time of the vehicles will be if we add some things to it like um miles per gallon which again going forward when we get new vehicles we can certainly capture that information really easily at the time we buy them um 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 um 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 um 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 to the end result if we don't start doing yes the other thing to look at is the green communities reports because your vehicles are going to be there the age of the vehicle mileage that may already be reporting that for green communities this time by Stephanie chikarallo yeah have you asked i guess if not we can ask Stephanie if you have i know she definitely she definitely has some of that info it's just what form and and can we pull it together easily but i know at the school side she would ask us for that pretty regularly so okay um hey andy this is bob i just i was burning and andy this is bob i have once sorry yeah raise my hand here there okay um yeah i just i just think that you know i think it's more important to get something pulled together than 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 be perfect here let's do the best job we can get something out and then let let it evolve over time i think that's what john and i would probably be approaching and what i was suggesting is that we put together a list of things that are attainable within this next round and um 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 and 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 um the one question that i had was on the um meeting dates for november 7 december 8 and december 22nd i'm assuming unless you tell me otherwise that that is an acceptable um inducible um schedule so can you give me those again indy um november they were um december excuse me um november 17 december 8 and december 22 and on november 17 i think that what we want to do is um really concentrate on um sort of an outline of what it is that we're going to propose for a council guidelines budget guidelines and the second piece is if shon and i are able to come back which we will see um to follow up on the inventory question you see trying to bring the budget guidelines to the council on the 21st um or to at least have a discussion about them uh we wanted to try and see if i can find that um item the schedule that we had talked about unless somebody else has it more quickly um because it'd take me a moment if 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 was that um if the council was comfortable with the draft we gave them that we would then if they and god 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 and make provisions and then it would come back to the council for the first january meeting which is whether around the fourth or something like that we just put together a proposed calendar today january fourth is the next is the proposed meeting andy i have that paper um in my hand if you want me to tell you was uh november 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 um the december 8th consider public forum comments revise and approve draft guidelines for council the 21st the council leading adopt guidelines that refer back to finance committee in 22nd if requested by council consider discussion of first draft and develop second draft leading to the january fourth council meeting adopt budget guidelines okay thank you very much Dorothy and uh so um in uh because that is what i just was saying but it builds it out a little bit more i think that the idea is that in addition to hearing from the um 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 uh as well as uh any comments that are received at the forum so um with that is uh 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 right all right so um i will consider the we have adjourned at five minutes after four we've done a lot of good work in two hours um and um so thank you all and um shon and i will uh have some time to work together great thank you okay thank you