 Welcome to another exciting select board meeting for the town of Waterbury. I'll call a meeting to order on Monday, August 6th. Unless there's any changes or additions to the agenda. We have one addition. Okay. The listers have sent the letter with regard to some necessary changes to the grant list. There was an omission. Sorry. So we need to get that on the agenda. Is it something relatively short or do we want to put it down in a manager's item? Put it down in a manager's item. Okay. I'll make a motion to approve the agenda with the change. I'll second that. No further discussion there. All right. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Consent agenda items. There is a minute for the July 30th meeting. I'll make a motion that we approve the consent agenda items as listed. I'll second that. Okay. And moving on quickly. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Public? Anybody here that wishes to speak at this time? Okay. Seeing none. We'll move right on to the 708. Submission of the planning grant and feasibility study for community center. And that has to be barbed fire. In France. In France. Okay. So this is a redo of a planning grant for the feasibility study for the community center that we got turned down on back in the end of June when they made their decision. And Steve Law speech went to the board meeting where they discussed all the applications that were in. They had over $4 million worth of requests and only over a little bit over $2 million worth of funding for both implementation grants and planning grants. So because ours was not time sensitive, they put it on the back burner and notified us that we did not get it in that round, but they suggested strongly that we reapply with the same grant application for this next round. So the only things that need to be done for this is just a read commitment on your behalf and signing a resolution. But yes, we're resubmitting the grant application and to reconfirm that the match is still the same as it was under the other conditions. So we've also met, you know, Nick, who's dead followers replacement. And Karen Nevin is also, we're all working together on this with the senior center, the recreation department and Meals on Wheels and the children's room because all of those organizations are cramped for space. And that's why we were, they're all looking at putting together a feasibility study to figure out, you know, what kind of space can be best utilized by everybody going forward. Does the board have anything to discuss? So basically it's the same thing as just. It's exactly the same application. We just needed to get a reconformation from you to move forward. I'll make a motion to resubmit the planning grant. I'll second that. Okay. Any further discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor say aye. Aye. All against? Nay. I'll stick to my guns. Okay. Thank you. Carla has the original resolution and she needs to motorize it after you sign it. So thank you for that. Thank you, Barb. Yep. Okay. While you guys are signing that, I guess we can move forward with the next item, which is update on the railroad bridge, our work and road closure during installation. Karen. I really apologize. I'm so swamped that I realized I hadn't written a letter. So I drafted it at home. It has no letterhead on it, but at least I've got a couple of copies, which I'll share with you. But it's been busy. So you are aware, I hope, of the Waterway Rail Art Project and the sculpture that I commissioned to put on the railroad bridge down here. Barb, myself and Teresa are the project leaders. And this project's been going on this point a year and a half, maybe 18 months. Initial conversations probably two years. And we're ready to install the sculpture. It is ready to be installed on Sunday, August 26th. Our goal is to install it in the morning. We're trying to figure out when is the least impact to traffic. And this letter I just prepared for you is a request to close the road, Route 100, from basically the rotary, you can get around the rotary, to the other side of the bridge, to Dacro, where we would have, we will hire traffic control and we will reroute traffic from the rotary up Union Street. So southbound traffic would go up Union Street and down Stowe Street. And northbound traffic, we probably have some signs up Stowe Street and then they come down Union or keep going. We don't know how long it will go. I've asked from 7 p.m. and that's wrong, 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. My guess is we'll start about 8 o'clock. The artist needs to rent a lift. And the only physical way to put this up is to park that lift in the middle of the traffic. We have signed a railroad license agreement with the New England Central Railroad to perform this work. We have acquired all of the insurances that they require to have in order to do this work. We are responsible for traffic control on the road. They actually will provide flaggers for the railroad. The artist will rent the lift. He has two volunteers that are working with him. RW has purchased medical and accident insurance to cover all three of them during the installation. He's required to have railroad worker training. We have personal protective equipment. We have quite literally dotted our teeth, crossed our teeth and dotted our eyes to make sure this project is, we're doing it in a responsible manner. The only thing that could slip us up is if it was to be a seriously rainy day and we haven't really thought, we just don't plan on it. But if it does, we would delay the project, the installation to another Sunday morning. We would not do it on Labor Day. That would just not be fair. But we figured everything's in place to do the project on the 26th. And I'm asking you permission to close the road. We've got, what was that? We plan on a celebration, but it will not be the day of installation. So the celebration will not necessarily happen at the location. It may be having a dark row where people might be able to walk and see it. We haven't planned that celebration, but we're very cognizant that this is literally a major intersection in traffic. And we don't want to affect that. So, anybody have any questions? And I also, in my letter, says I'd be happy to provide a copy of the license agreement with the railroad to the select border or to Bill so that you have a copy of that material for yourself. So I have to ask, because I was off in some other land area, are you closing off Union Street as well? You're not okay. So they'll be able to scoot through. That's exactly it. It's being installed on the bridge facing the railroad, facing the roundabout. So it's literally just the area underneath the bridge that we need access to. And the best thing to do is anyone would just drive up Union Street. And be in a Sunday? Sunday morning, my hope is that's the lowest traffic. I think that's what our assumption was. We would, and doing it first thing in the morning, instead of later in the afternoon, we're just trying to choose the best time to do this. Friday afternoons, 4.30. Oh, yeah, that's what I wanted to do. Oh, no. For a second, I thought you were sitting there. No. You already mentioned it. Does AOT have to be involved at all? No. They don't have, I don't believe they have to be involved. Are they involved when you close, so you don't close Main Street? For the Arts Fest, I'm just trying to think. That's a good question. You know, I plan on, we will hire sheriffs and we'll talk to the police officers in town. I'll check. You want to check on the beach? Yep. You don't have that answer, Mr. Woodruff? I don't, but I would say that if you choose to go over a group of shutting Main Street down, Union Street to allow two-way traffic, you can park legally and it can be a one-lane on Union Street. So beforehand, some car people would have to be instructed and there would have to be some cronos so people can't park certain areas of Union Street because, as I said, legally parking is one lane. Yeah, I think you really should try to have signs that indicate if you're trying to go over 100 North, continue up Snow Street and only send people northbound on Union Street that are trying to get to, even people trying to get to the interstate can go up Snow Street and get on the interstate. Yes. So interstate and group 100 North. At the traffic light intersection is the best bet. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. I mean, at Union Street, I guess you're going to have to direct people up Snow Street anyway, but at Union Street, you should say Route 2 West or around about up Union Street and then Route 100 North or the interstate go up Snow Street. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you'll have to have some type of signage or something off Wenuski Street as well, right? Because you don't want them to turn in there. Yes. Yes. And then right top of Bank Hill. Yeah, that's good. Wenuski Street. The installation date was decided like on Thursday afternoon and so we just went into full gear to figure this out. So I appreciate Wenuski turn right. Yeah. We'll work on the signage. Maybe the AOT can help us with some of that. And well, being a Sunday recreation field, the access to that is if you prevent coming this way from Wenuski Street unless somebody's going to the ball field. They can get in the back way. No, if you had somebody if you were going to the ball field you got to go up Union Street and back down Main Street. Yeah. I mean we wouldn't restrict people from coming down North Main in order to get to homes or businesses or anything. Right. Well you're just going to have to plan so you're going to have a flag person there who can intercept people and talk to people and I'm trying to get to the ball field. Yes. Because there is another access. Yeah. But also when we close down the Stow Street bridge up there for two hours to do our little concrete work all of a sudden an oversized truck comes his permit tells him he has to travel Stow Street to get to coffee roasters. And I know when they did the Main Street bridge repair they had to keep an 11 foot wide lane or 12 foot wide lane for oversized trucks that were not allowed to travel various other routes. Do they come down on Sunday mornings? I don't know. We didn't, yeah. It was our luck that the two hours we had the bridge closed the bag. We gave him a better route to get there and he said, my permit says I must travel this route. Oh my goodness. This is the route I'm traveling. No kidding. Okay. Well, what I'm happy to, we have another committee meeting coming up and we can, we will work out all the logistics and I'm happy to share them with Bill so you know exactly how we've decided to resolve this situation. Yeah. I think the board should approve that conditioned upon the logistics being worked out with everyone that we have to work out with. Yeah. It looks like a member of the public would like to speak. I'm accusing myself on asking comments. I don't think this thing turned off. Further, the businesses downtown, at least the restaurants, August is the busiest month for us. So Sunday morning, anyone who's open for lunch, since you're going to three, that's actually a really busy time this time here. So my question is why did you choose to do it in August and not in a slower time of season, especially when this is our bread and butter season? Well, honestly, we were hoping to get it done in July and the project took longer than we expected. It's a grant deadline. It has a deadline. What's the deadline? December 31st. So we could put it off. Our artist is, cannot store the sculpture. And so we were aiming for, you know, as soon as we can. I picked the 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. as a outside limit. I think this will be done probably within three to four hours. That's what he's projecting. So my hope is that we'll be done. You know, as complicated as this project has been, the hanging system is actually pretty logistically easy and he just needs to lift each piece up and hook them together and screw some bolts in and cross our fingers. So I don't think it's going to take the amount of time I've listed here. I've just asked for a wide swath of time in order to just be safe. I could. We could do it. We knew Labor Day was not a good idea and then going into September, I think we just start landing into fall foliage and I was really worried about that time. And then after Columbus Day and then it starts getting colder and there's cold and weather dependent. So our goal is to get this up as soon as we could. And at the moment, we can't do it the weekend before the 26th because we're still finalizing the license agreement with the railroad. Yeah, I think the only thing I would ask is just making sure there's a very clear signage on how to find the downtown for all the businesses that rely on that. You know how much we care about that. So we'll make sure. I wouldn't ask whether there's going to be light adjustments at Stow Street and Bless Hill, whether the traffic lights need to be adjusted if we're putting all the volume heading north that way. And I don't know the answer. We could hire a sheriff to manage that. The good news is the project has the funds to pay for what we need to make sure this goes really smoothly. I guess I would have the question about how heavy the traffic flow is really on Sunday morning. And if in fact they can get in that four hour-ish window and everything, the potential of having it done by noon is probably pretty good. Almost any other day though, Monday through Friday, there's just so much traffic. And Saturday is probably one of those heavy traffic times as well. And we just really shouldn't do it late afternoon or evening. You know, if the sculpture will be lit, ultimately it's going to be really quite spectacular. But I just thought the Sunday morning was our best option because of impact. And the, you know, just to answer Mark's other question about why we wanted it done, we also quite honestly felt early on in this project that Main Street Reconstruction was going to start on August, September. We wanted this up before the Main Street Reconstruction. That kind of put away. Cut off. But that was the other deadline in our minds of making sure this was done before that project. So we always sort of had August 31st as a deadline in our mind. Yeah, I guess my one comment is there is, there's after Labor Day before foliage is a window that's quite a bit slower than August. And then after foliage, I know it's cold, but it's not typically snowing, then that's pretty slow season for any of the businesses downtown. So in terms of impact, it would be significantly less impact, but I'll probably be nice to cut this up before foliage. It's going to be spectacular. Okay. So taking Bill's cue, I would make a motion that we approve this request contingent upon the more detailed planning on the traffic control aspect of it. Mr. Fish. I'll second that. Okay. Is there any further discussion? All the board members sitting up front, all in favor, say aye. Aye. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Back a couple of points ago, we had some visitors who brought to the board's attention concerns about speeding up the Library Center, a couple of roads in particular, mainly between the Green and the Post Office, maybe Dr. Grenders. There was some discussion at that meeting by the Select Board about different things that we might be able to do. Around the same time, we reported to you that we had the opportunity to work with the state on what is it a rural road? High-risk rural road. High-risk rural road. Study that had been done with some recommendations. In this study, basically encompasses the length of Gupto Road from Route 100 up to the Green and Library Center. And there was talk at that meeting about potentially some flashing speed signs. So we backed off a little bit on the rural road study and involved the folks from the state with your questions. And one of the things that they told us was that these feedback, flashing speed signs that display how faster going could be part of the project, but there needed to be a speed study done. So we had the Regional Planning Commission put some tube counters up there and Bill was here to share with us the results of that and make some recommendations. Steve Votsky was also involved in this, but Steve's on vacation this week, so Bill's coming. Alright, so as Bill mentioned between May 25th and June 8th, Central Regional Planning put the tube counters right basically at the post office in Monteverry Center. The purpose being, as Bill said to see whether these radar flashing speed signs would be eligible as part of this high-risk rural road project. So I have the data that came from that report and the most valuable thing is the summary of what happened up there. As you may or may not know the speed limit is 25 miles per hour in that section right there and we can play Jeopardy and I can ask you what you think the average speed was up there. It was a little over 25. Over 25. Yeah, so what they usually go for a lot of these speed studies is the 85th percentile for the speed and we're talking in that area up there, we're talking you know, 38 miles an hour 37 miles an hour depending on northbound or southbound. You know, a mean average speed of 32 miles an hour so again, well over the 25 which I don't think is surprising to anybody who's traveled the road. The average traffic count up there both northbound and southbound is over 2,200 cars a day. So there's a lot of traffic. But that was during 100 construction too, wasn't it? It was, but we're not talking school time either, so yeah, I would probably just ramp up a little bit. So as I said the speed in car counter gave us data which I think is pretty difficult of what happens up there on the upper road. The engineer for the speed trans said because the speed is more than 3 miles per hour over the 25 that this radar speed sign would be eligible as part of this high risk rural road. So the steps we went through with regional planning getting that in there it makes it look like this if you would choose to have one of those there it would be the project cost would be covered by the federal government. Each direction? I believe each direction. Yeah. Sweet. Some of the other recommendations you know the signage and all that that goes with the rural program I think are all pretty straightforward and they approve the they clean up some of the old signs the truck entering the horse or people on horseback some of that stuff makes the road a little safer. We get some arrows chevrons on corners and various things like that. Is it so hard work? I was just wondering my recollection from our earlier conversation was that this had the potential to be a 2 plus year project to get any of this to happen. Do we have a better sense of timing? No, I would say that's probably accurate. I will say I think the most important thing that I was up there today that Mrs. Gayette's Henry had a Gayette's house right there our trooper was sitting there so I think that's probably doing as much if not more than what these signs are going to amount to I'm going to say did he have any luck? He's been good I've never really seen anybody sitting Mrs. Gayette's driveway there but that's where he was and I won't throw names out but yeah a woman who's been known to go fast down through there was going at least a little and I've seen him on further down up the road so I think the trooper is doing the job but it's a two year before these would be installed because we approved that spend and the public's expecting us to put something in place I can push it on but you know it's probably going to be next year I don't think it's two years from now I don't think it's necessarily going to be 2019 I would think so I know that we said put them in I think Bill's point about the state trooper being out there is a reasonable one there's a lot of you know if we can get those in as part of this project I think it's it's a reasonable thing the public I hope will appreciate the fact that taking some initiative we heard their concerns we had this railroad project kind of ready to go and we were able to you know work with the state and get them to delay a little bit to allow us to get this study done so I would recommend that we wait as opposed to spend I mean I don't remember remember how much the ones on Stowe Street cost $7,000 I was going to say I thought it was around $7,000 yeah I would echo Bill's I think I mean the state guys and after us decide this agreement which I think we've had on the table for a while I'll be waiting on the speech setting you know and there's no telling but I would guess next year and next year we're looking at the prospect of paving up through there too is that well not sure yet we're hoping to do a boomer's hill next year we'll be doing some call works this year and some bridge work up through there it's closer to being paved than not being paved just wondering about the timing with stuff so I may have missed that there when you said wait on signing the agreement or no we waited on signing the agreement until we got this speed study done so we could incorporate so I would like the board to authorize me to sign this tonight and I would also I understand what Mark is saying but I think waiting until you know next year sometime to put up these feedback signs and saving the $7,000 I think that's the way we should do it the project paid for the signs well the other piece and Bill mentioned it is now we actually have a police presence in the area like yeah to that effect my comment is once he signs her up they may not the problem may already be solved I think these will help the signs definitely do work yeah yeah and there seems to be no real maintenance we haven't had any maintenance issues with the Stowe Street ones so a solar radar feedback sign I think waiting for it to happen would be a good idea in the interim I had someone who lives along Guptell Road suggested with respect to the 40 mile an hour zone through there the only signage for 40 when you turn off from 100 is the one right there by the Route 100 intersection and there is no 40 mile an hour sign either direction when you come off from Nealon Flats and just having that additional signage I think it's included in this package yeah I think yeah as you come off Nealon there will be one north one south yeah yeah do you have the ability to move this flashing sign if we feel like up by the townshed it's or is it going to stay there if up by the townshed if we feel that it could be used down the Guptell Road further I mean I'm assuming we'll mount it reasonably into a sleeve but maybe having the ability to move it might not be a bad option since it will be solar although I think the requirement says I think we're going to have to put it where they okay so it's a fixed unit then it's because Stell as you go out of Stell they've got the one that's and notice that that moved I think the requirement yeah so they have the ability to the requirement from the fed says we will maintain it according to the plan and I think I also think that's the critical place the 40 mile an hour zone if they end up going from 46 through there I'm not saying it's a good thing but it's nowhere near as heavily congested and nowhere near as many kids and then we have the trooper and you know hopefully they give a few tickets where it gets out but I believe that we have to when I sign this agreement it's saying that you're going to maintain the signs where they've called exactly what it says and also it's I think it's worthwhile to wait for the signs that you put in by then because they will make sure that they're all compatible with the NUTCD whatever it is and they'll be properly reflective and they'll be the right size and what's the time period that these signs are in there in perpetuity or yeah okay but the package that was really designed to improve the safety on higher risk rural roads and there are a number around that are like that lack adequate signage difficult to enforce this will provide a standardized package which not only provides better awareness it also improves the ability to enforce any of the violations there back to the state police question for you Mark if they're patrolling like up there by Mrs. Guyette's place and somebody's doing 8 miles over is there a has the town set a kind of a limit as to what the truth is the select board the select board can only you know you're supposed to post speed limits in accordance with a speed study that has been done we've done that years ago the ordinance that we that you adopted references that study and that's really the extent of the town's ability to do anything and then it's up to the enforcement officers and I don't know if the station commander gives a limit but in my experience at least with the municipal department police officers typically had their own kind of you know I'm going to give people this amount of that amount and sometimes it would depend on what the speed limit is because I used to I remember talking to the village police saying you know if somebody's going 10 miles an hour and it's a 25 mile an hour limit they're going 30% faster than the speed limit 10 miles an hour over on the interstate it's only one sixth over you know so I didn't know if there was a set no overage based on either the amount of the ticket fine or I was always under the understanding that the state police wouldn't pick you up unless you were X amount of miles over because it wasn't worth it financially for them to pull you over but that's just it's officer discretion and usually there's some of that that factors in and the other piece is if you're sitting there as Bill mentioned and somebody goes by and they get pulled over and stopped and you know whether they get a ticket or not everybody that's going by is seeing that they're stopped so it has an educational benefit to it sometimes a ticket depends on the attitude my last one was 16 miles per hour over and I got off with my daughter I just have one quick question on so and Chris you might be interested in this once we put in expensive infrastructure like this it's going to have a life span so these once they've approved this say we have an issue with it or it just literally hits the end of life is there another is there ability to continue to get these paid for do we just get it one time and then in the future we have to decide whether or not we want to replace it pretty much it's pretty much as a one-time you know when we would get grants for radar guns for grants for police officers or even back in the day when we got money to actually hire an officer after this three year period was up it was your responsibility to pay for that these have fairly long life expectancies the visual equipment for the most part is not really any moving parts it's just the readout I think they can be repaired by plugging something out and plugging something else in and I think that in the grand scheme of things while we someday might have to pay for a complete replacement the several thousand dollars that it will cost will not be a budget breaker and we can incorporate it into our planning process do you want a motion for your signature I would appreciate that and the motion is to sign the what is it high-risk rural road project for town highway number one so moved high-risk rural road project for town highway number one you've got to say that three times last Mark seconded it I'll just for further discussion the one comment is I hope we can really try to get this in for next year just because you have some concerns and I do agree that the police department is a big help but I'd like to say we'll work with them and we'll lobby the best we can in essence this has got a 2015 date on it is when the project started so I think just awaiting bill signature hopefully gets it moving along that's the final piece was that one for stow street yes I have to check you showed both of them to both bodies previously so but I don't I don't recall I don't recall there were no issues on stow street there a lot of just moving of signs if you don't mind rather than have to come back and present again it was really there was nothing on stow street that I really remember a lot of those wording changes different signs as in whether it's a school zone now it's a picture of a person and a child we're going to change the flashing signs to something different yeah yeah do we need to modify the motion for stow street and gupto you can make a separate motion okay if you're comfortable doing that if not we can yeah no I'll make the motion that we authorize you to approve the stow street signage package second I don't think we said yes to the first one though I don't know we haven't moved right ahead well first I thought you were going to incorporate them together but it doesn't look like that so we'll finish up the first one the motion has been made and seconded to approve the flashing signage for gupto road all those in favor say aye it's more than that it's the signing for the package for the yep okay all those in favor say aye aye okay now onto the stow street and made and seconded to also approve that package when it's completed all those in favor say aye okay thank you thank you alrighty so I guess we're going to have a little discussion on whether or not to change to a fiscal year and also talk about quarterly tax billing yeah so this is on the agenda the request of Mark Mateo he brought this up right after meeting as something that was in his mind to talk about he also mentioned a potential charter for the town at that time but he called last week and asked that we put this on the agenda so I'm going to defer to Mark at this point and then answer any questions so Carla can comment as the contractor as well okay thank you when we had talked earlier this was part of the dream list stuff we had at the beginning of our terms here and this is an item that Bill mentioned does not require a charter change it's simply a matter of having something proposed to the voters and then having the voters approve I guess as a community we've got the latitude to do that so I'm looking for just a temperature check on this I don't lose any sleep one way or the other with it I think there are some advantages to it the biggest thing for me is just one being able to vote on your budget before it's actually underway and approve what it is you're spending on Bill has mentioned there are some advantages to being in the calendar year with respect to being able to close out and knowing what you've actually expended so it's a six a one half dozen another with respect to the quarterly tax billing it's just a matter of handing out the cash flow for the community so we don't find ourselves in a position needing to borrow money in order to meet our bills during the course of the year the other advantage that I can see with it is that as much as all of us enjoy paying our tax bills instead of having two big ones you've got it broken down into quarters so you pay more frequently but you pay less but it all adds up so like I said it's not something that I've lost a whole lot of sleep over but I wanted to see as a board if there were feelings one way or the other for this and if there was then it becomes the technical question of approaching this as perhaps a survey question in conjunction with the general election process to offer us some guidance from the voters with respect to what they may want to see and then addressing it as an item town meeting but others here have more experience in that than I do so I guess my first question is what does that do to town meeting Bill and as far as the budgeting and approval of all that well as Mark said it really just changes the time frame the frame of reference in terms of what you're approving town meeting would stay the first Tuesday in March just like it is now but as opposed to approving a budget for the calendar year January 1st 2019 let's say through December 31st 2019 it would be approving a budget from July 1st of 19th through June 30th of the following year so it's a it's a couple of step process to get there first of all Mark's idea about a non-binding referendum if you will that can be held in conjunction with the general election let Carla speak to that whether that feels good to her or not you don't have to do that the town would have to warn it either at a special or the annual town meeting and except for the special town meeting that we had in January of this year to talk about the police most special town meetings are rather ill-attended so I think having it questioned at town meeting would be the time to do it so if you voted in March of 2019 to go to a July 1st fiscal year it wouldn't start until July 1st 2020 would be as early as you could incorporate it and probably what you would do at town meeting 2020 is approve an 18 month budget you'd approve a budget from January 1st 2020 through June 30th of 2021 so that first budget is a little bit that's the biggest kind of stretch of time that you'd have to go through but the town would have to vote to do it and if they voted to do it the next budget year would be the first time it could be put into place so this could not happen unless you had a special you could have a special town meeting in a month and do it for next July but again I think you would not have a very broad cross-section of people at that meeting so sticking on the budget for a minute the pros and cons of that the biggest pro the biggest advantage is as Mark said you're approving a budget that's going to start in the future so when we're at town meeting we've already been through 8 or 9 weeks of a budget before we approve a budget so it would be nice to be able to approve a budget before it started but as a corollary to that you can't have tax collections on a quarterly basis or a monthly basis unless you move to a fiscal year of July 1st or unless you changed your charter and had some other fiscal year because the grand list doesn't get set until June and you set the tax rate in July and that would all be the same and now we have to collect our taxes between July 1st and December 31st we've got to collect our taxes in the year that they're due unless they're going to be delinquent so if you move the fiscal year to July 1st the Listers would still get you the grand list in June like they do now so in the state the first week of July they'd tell us the school tax which is the school tax from July 1st to June 30th and then we would set the municipal tax rate and would send tax bills and the earliest you could collect taxes would be about a month after July so in early to mid-August would be the first due date just like it is now or monthly billings if you wanted to the biggest downside that I see to moving to a fiscal year is that a couple of your biggest budget items are calendar year budget items so personnel is our biggest expense and one of the bigger expenses part of the personnel budget is health insurance health insurance runs January 1st to December 31st you can work with an insurance company if you're large enough and go out if you had over 100 employees you could go to blue crops and you could and ask them to quote you insurance on a July 1st to June 30th basis you have the ability to do that we're a small enough municipality that we have to go through the exchange and that's a January 1st budget so if we move to a June July 1st fiscal year in that budget year we would know in November let's move forward in November of 2019 we would know what our costs are going to be through December of the next year but we don't know what they're going to be from that January to the end of June so is there going to be a 5% increase 25% increase you don't know that the same thing happens with our property and casualty unemployment work as compensation that's all through the LCT that's all through the LCT and those are all on a calendar year basis as well so those two pretty significant budget items you'd know you'd have a good handle on half a year's worth and you wouldn't know you'd have to estimate the second year's worth whereas now we get that renewal in late November or early December and I just plug it in we know what that cost is going to be same thing with health insurance you have to project out further with the July 1st fiscal year right now we by the time the select board is approving a budget we go to town meeting we know what we spent for fuel for instance for the highway department we kind of know what's happening and we only have to project from January to December whereas if we go to a fiscal year you know what it is now but again you've got to project out 18 months almost before the end of your budget year because it would still be together in January and you'd have to be projecting expenses in May and June of a year later so it can be done a lot of times do it I would say probably I don't know this but my guess is there's probably 60-70% of Vermont towns have moved to July 1st fiscal year all the schools do it because they are in lockstep with the state budget which is the state budget is July 1st year nobody's in step with the federal government they have October 1st fiscal year so anyway it can be done and probably of the medium to large size towns my guess is that the percentage of towns our size is pretty much higher percentage of them have those July 1st fiscal year budgets so it's a little less exact we know as Mark said right now we don't have an audit finished by the time we go to town meeting but we have a pretty good hand along whether we have a deficit or a positive fund balance that we can bring forward or have to make up for in the current budget year so I think the numbers in terms of the budget are much more they're much closer you know they're closer to reality than projecting out 18 months but as I said other towns do so how would you acquire the taxes for the 18 month budget and still based on current tax dates we have right now if we didn't switch through this process to something like quarterlies or whatever we would have to collect the money in two payments basically now for the first 18 months yeah we'd have we'd have an 18 month budget there's some towns adopt a 6 month budget and then a 12 month budget I don't know how they do that because I don't know how they can send their tax bills within their 6 month period if we had an 18 month budget I think what we would end up doing is just collecting that 18 months worth of taxes in the 12 month period from July 1st of the first year it stacks to the June 30th of that second year you're combined at all and you just collect it in a year so your taxes that first year are going to be higher than they would be going forward you hope half again is you would hope that you would have that there might be some Tennessee for the public to fall off the wagon with that you know staring them in the face I haven't thought about all that completely but I think that's what we would end up doing you'd have a budget that goes from January 1st 2020 to June 30th of 2021 which set the grand list and set the tax rate in July of 2020 and then you'd collect it you'd have that one year you'd have taxes that would have a premium I could see that as a hardship on somebody with a fixed income you know as just an unexpected extra bill so switch into quarter lease you know kind of jump ahead of here a little bit we switch to quarter lease can I ask one question before we move on to that well in terms of say 1 to 10 how important your opinion is to consider doing this change in fiscal year where do you land on that I think I look to you almost as it sounds like it's just kind of creating more headache than maybe it's worth I understand the pros you know I've been working on the January 1st cycle my whole career I've never worked for a town that was on a July 1st fiscal year so starting about Thanksgiving right through the end of January then through the budget times you know that we meet every week that would still have to happen we still have to be ready for March for me I think because of the ability to project more accurately I feel more comfortable that our budget is what we needed to be as opposed to well I know what 6 months of the health insurance is going to be but I don't know what the last 6 months are going to be you've got to fudge that a little bit so from my perspective if it were left to me alone I would just keep it as is it's been a number of years and Mark wasn't on the board but maybe he was at some town meetings where people get up and complain about you know we've got 2 tax due dates one is in August and the other one is in November and those are often closed together and taxes are getting higher I'd like to spread it out a little bit my response has always been well we can't have anything other than what we do now we could have monthly bills between July and December if you wanted to but that's still you're still paying your forward years worth of taxes in a 6 month period we can't do anything other than that unless we change the fiscal year but I've also told people that we'll take your taxes any time you want if it's easier for you to pay your taxes quarterly or monthly if you want to bring them in and you know come in in April and pay what you think is 25% you come in June and pay 25% then we'll send you a bill and then you can balance it between August and November you're welcome to do that every year we get a few people that pay their taxes in advance last year because of the federal tax law change there was a lot of people that did it so we're more than happy to accommodate people we put people on payment plans all the time if they're in a rears but most people don't like to pay in advance unless they know what their bill is so I think from staff's perspective doing it the way we do it is preferable maybe Carla can speak a little bit to the collection efforts because that happens out here I'm involved to a small degree but my involvement is pretty much checking the balance sheet a couple of pounds a month just to make sure that we have enough money in the bank to pay our bills but maybe we can speak to you both the plunge of water utility billing and tax income is very labor intensive so water we send out around a thousand bills four times a year and we do collections four times a year and pretty much with both utility and taxes it's all hands on board for both the billing and the collection taxes of course is one billing in July two collections one collection in August and one in November so staff concern is that because it's a labor intensive if you go to quarterly tax billing double the effort basically and it really kind of impinges to take family time or vacation because you have to be here all boards really need to be here when all these billing and collections are happening you know we could we could the water and sewer which is for our utility districts business like board doesn't have anything to do with water and sewer billing you know those those buildings are based on meter readings the water department staff goes out four times a year reads the meters brings that in Karen Kingen puts it into the system generates a bill so we actually generate four bills a year and mail four bills a year and then have four collection dates and it is very labor intensive on the tax side we could do what we do now we could bill once a year and instead of sending two stubs we could send four stubs so it doesn't have to be you know four billings for the taxes but Karla is right in terms of the collecting of taxes I mean you'd be amazed and it seems in direct proportion you know the older that are tax payers are the closer to the billing date they pay their tax bill you know nobody wants to die owing the town any money so we send out those bills in July and they're here the next week and they're paying it you know whereas other folks like us are waiting until the very end the escrow companies wait until three days before so I mean I think for for there's no question that staff prefers to leave it as is but we also understand that we're here to to do the public's bidding and if the public really feels that quarterly billing would be much more palatable then you know we would do what we have to do and you know everybody understands that the public makes the decisions but it is a little bit challenging and you know when the tax bill there's one time a year where the taxes and the water bill but they're pretty close right August November October this month so the question just follow on with that because I know you've been able to do the borrowing between the different governmental entities and haven't had to borrow commercially for covering the payments but when you do what sort of processes involved with that and what kind of interest do we incur with that yeah we we've for good matter and different since Irene we haven't had to borrow in anticipation of taxes to any great degree and I think it's not because of Irene but I think what happened was around the same time as Irene was hitting our reserve funds were were maturing when I first came here you know the town had fund balances at the end of the year you know it might be $30,000 and that was a big balance and we we didn't have $4 million budgets at the time we had you know a million and a half or $2 million budgets but we could not make it through the year without having to borrow because 95% of our revenue is tax revenue and we don't get it until 8 months into the year almost 9 months into the year it's you know middle of August before we had that money start to roll in and in those days it was advantageous to actually borrow all the money up front and you know the earlier you could borrow it and the later you could pay it made most sense and we were able to work it out some years that we were borrowing money and anticipation of taxes as early as the middle of January the middle of December and we did that then because we were borrowing for 4% but we were able to put it in the bank at 5.5% and you couldn't make money after 1986 before 1986 it was actually make money through average price but you know you were able to use your earnings to offset your borrowing expenses and you have to you know when you're going to do that you have to go through a process and you've basically got to estimate your expenses every month and you have to estimate your income every month and what they would do the bank would look at your largest cumulative deficit and then add the next month's expenses to that and that's how much you could borrow and then in the mid 90's we started to set money aside into capital improvement funds and because that money was kind of cycling through we didn't really invest that we weren't investing that for long term we were just investing it in money markets or maybe CDs and at the same time in the 90's we got the money from the tax stabilization fund when they got into the school and a portion of that was always kept in cash so as time has gone on we have developed more reserve funds a year or two after Irene the Laundry Center Cemetery Association went away and they turned over $100,000 to us we invested most of it but we keep so many in cash two years ago we got the Hope Cemetery money it's in trust for the cemeteries but it's in our single training camp so now we have these reserve funds built up which provides us an ample amount of cash and when we've had to borrow it's been minimal $50,000 a year $25,000 there and because the village has a fair amount of cash on hand rather than pay the people's united bank we pay the village keep the money local so we haven't had to do a lot of tax anticipation borrowing because of those two facts we have much more money in reserve than we did before it used to cost us up to $30,000 a year that's 15-20 years ago that we were paying interest for tax anticipation borrowing I think the last couple years I've budgeted $5,000 and I don't think we've used it so so that's so I guess to summarize it from my point of view the quarterly payments Karla explained the reason that I knew that it wouldn't be favorable Bill just explained to us there's enough defense mechanisms in place to cover our butts on having to borrow on tax anticipation and then there's I guess my feeling about the current budget system that we have in place and the fact that we figure our budget we don't really have a budget from January to December but we don't have an actual approval of the budget till town meeting and I'll be honest with you in my head I think to myself because I've heard mention a few times that I know from the highways department there's a reluctance to spend until there's a budget approval and I'm not saying that that's necessarily a good thing I mean we do what we have to do to cover our butts and spend what we have to spend but there's a reluctance I think part of the departments to hold off until town meeting and I think that that has some fiscal benefit to it you know what's that Yeah I mean it's just like anybody that's fiscally responsible you'd like to buy something but until you get the paycheck in your pocket you're going to hold off and I think that has helped us overall in the years cycle kind of keep our budgets a little bit tighter and I kind of wish I could have had my wife come down here tonight because obviously being the bookkeeper for 35 years I can tell you her response to this has been no way in hell in fact that's one of the reasons that she decided to jump ship for fear of that because there's other things that are involved in changing over that she knows about that she didn't want any part of so to Mark's point I guess I mean I'm happy the way things are the only the only question for me is whether or not you feel it's anything you want to get input from the voters on that's as simple as I can be with it I don't have a particular axe to grind with it I've heard discussions I've been part of communities where this process has taken place and it's it's a it's a hiccup for a little bit of time but then it smooths out and the bigger issue was was really the expense that communities were running into having to borrow in anticipation of taxes and right now things are fine and maybe now is not the best time but again the question for me is whether or not we want to ask the voters what their input is which is what we talked about earlier the non-binding referendum of one sort or another just to get a temperature check on that but even with that I mean that's extra work I'll stick to the same I'm not hearing enough concern or request for that I think it's confusing to a lot of people that don't sit on these boards especially the fiscal year change it seems like it's been working I mean the only the one little thing that I might comment on is that Bill's been here a long time a lot of the staff has too so they understand how to run it how we're doing it one day Bill's going to move on and I don't know if that's a risk that we take if similar size towns we're going to have to replace Bill and potentially the person coming in isn't used to that and is that something that we should be thinking about and concerned with especially if there's a two-year delay on something like this so that's the only thing I can really think of that potentially might trigger this in my mind other than that I really don't like the quarterly tax thing but the fiscal year change I get why you would do it but I really don't feel like it's come to a head enough to really make that change and I think that in terms of taking the public's temperature I'm a little concerned about the non-binding referendum people are going to come in to vote in November they're going to be given something that they really don't know anything about if they don't read the newspaper or whatever they're going to maybe be asking questions that you know will take up time I think that it would be if you want to take the public's temperature it's better to do it as a simple question the town meeting warning and I know that you don't get as many people as you're going to have voting in the general election in the fall but I think it's a much more informed discussion people can ask questions you can answer the questions so if you want to talk about it I would talk about it at town meeting with the understanding that this is just advisory we're not asking you to really do this if you want us to consider doing it sort of like in the old days we used to put on there shall the voters direct the select board to appoint a merger committee to talk about merger and they would always say yes let's have a community to talk about merger and appoint people and people would do a lot of work and they would always say no anyway I agree with both Chris comments and I think a lot of I think a lot of people are just barely hanging on in this town right now and I think any any reason for them to think that their tax burden is going to change even if it's just a timing thing would be enough to send them into a panic I know Dr. Berry went through it here just a couple years ago because we got caught up and my wife and I we got property over there but they were on the hook for 18 month bill you know I mean they made it through it but they don't have I'm sure there's probably some properties over there that carry a pretty good tax burden but I'd have to think there's more in this town of that size we could talk about whether or not we wanted to ask the question at town meeting at a later date okay okay last item of the years and emissions issue yeah so Dan Sweet has written the select quarter letter and he apologizes that he wasn't able to really write it until today the Listers met and there were there's three properties where they're recommending that you agree that the Grand List should be changed they will all lower the Grand List and thereby lower the amount of tax revenue that we take in if everybody paid all at once but in the grand scheme of things they're very minimal there's two properties one Cobb Hill Holdings and Cobb Hill LLC which was a mobile home on land owned by Waterbury Equity Partners and that was up on Shills Street by 3 and then the other one Gary Sweitzer same land same area the first mobile home would what he did those mobile homes were removed a year ago and Dan forgot to remove them from his working Grand List so when he adopted the Grand List this year the Grand List that he works on all the time contained them bills went out and the properties don't even exist there so those are kind of no-brainers the first one reduces the Grand List by $6,500 the second one reduces the Grand List by $3,600 so about $10,000 between the two of them and the tax impact is minimal Waterbury Commons LLC this is Paul Arnaud's land up on Perry Hill and Dan realized that the common land the land owned by the Homeowners Association was not taxed so he went to the Grand List and taxed it $43,000 for that common land Mr. Arnaud appealed to the Listers and when Dan did a little research he realized that none of the other properties that have common land to it Harvey Farm metal crest that common land is taxed so in order to be fair to the folks that live in Arnaud's development he's recommending to remove the $4,300 that he added this year but then the Listers will look at the common land in all of these other developments for next year to see if they should be taxed so this is could be a one year retreat to him or it leaves Arnaud and the people at One Way Commons on the same footing that everybody else one question with this you first said $43,000 and then you said $4,300 $4,300 that's the appraised value yeah so they had listed the value the Listers have determined that the common land should be assessed in tax but the assessment should occur across all properties that incorporate such land and not target to one land owner the original assessment was $343,000 this change removes the common land assessment of $43,000 from the grand list so how does that work on a piece of common land is it still I don't know so I think what he did was that in this case because of all the lots haven't been sold up there I think Arnaud is still the title holder to the common land until all the lots get sold and then when they're all sold then they all become owners of that common land and I assume they get divided on a pro-rata basis but right now we haven't been sold to anybody so my question was on a piece of common land is it a series of pieces of everybody's lot that makes up the common land or is it just a separate no it's a separate part completely separate piece that the homeowners association owns yes and buys insurance on and maintains also in like current use or there's no in some scenarios is the common land part of the permit to build non-developable at that point I think it's not available so if it's got a valuable value of it down to right so the value is not going to be as high as it would be you know just 23 how many acres? 23 yeah it's 23 acres and it's available then you know the value would be they even sell it they could sell it like could the association sell it I don't know how this wow I suppose I don't know it depends on how the deed reads you know about it I mean you would think that they could sell it to an adjacent land owner who with restrictions or something right the bottom line for now is that he wants to treat this property right sure as every place else is treated and then he and the listeners are going to look at it to see whether common land should be taxed and if so take into consideration all these questions and we may get to this point next year and they say well he may say well there's a good reason Tom Vickery never assessed any value to it because it really doesn't have much value it works out that it doesn't get taxed because it's in common land I got some land put in common land that's a question right so it almost would suggest that if you were to split a parcel and do a project like this you would make the lot smaller with the idea that you pay tax on a small footprint but you get use of a significant amount of land without getting taxed on it which is and I think this is as Carlos said these are all the angles that they want to because we want to treat everyone fairly and everyone should pay their fair share so for right now so right now the select board I would recommend make a motion to approve the reductions to the grand list as suggested in the report of errors and omissions on the 2018 grand list submitted by the Water Review Board of Listers so moved I'll second that and if yep so with further discussion and comment originally countryside I think that was the first PUD planned human development and I was on the planning commission board at the time so the deal was that in the PUD there are setbacks from the property that you cannot build on that's one thing the other was for an example a homeowner had two acres on which to build but he owned that other 18 acres so that initially technically he had 20 acres but of that 18 was common plan now how do you want to figure out how to tax it you know I think he has to look at the covenants because our covenants say on our common land even on your own property you can't cut anything down that's smaller than three inches or something I don't know there's all kinds of restrictions on that that's within the covenant of the homeowners association but it's not necessarily what the zoning well maybe when we get to that point of evaluating those maybe Dan could come in and explain it to us why not so we got a better understanding so emotion has been made and seconded and I'll see you in your anybody want any further discussion all those in favor then let's say aye aye okay motion to adjourn you all need to sign that so moved for your adjourn for your adjourn I asked last week whether you were going to meet if you wanted to I'm not going to be here I'm going to be on the rotation so I did not want to keep it up but alright that's what I'm going to suggest much in general right now there's nothing so the meeting would be on the third the next one it would be the Tuesday after oh the fourth yeah unless anything major comes up so why don't we say the next meeting schedule for our Tuesday, September quarter and if something comes up we need to be more likeable okay alrighty I'll make a motion to adjourn one second one second okay