 The Thompson before we start tonight. We're going to show a video the Thompson school children Organized and had their own town meeting They came up with warrant articles they appointed I think they had select men and School committee people on a moderator and they voted on actual articles So we're going to Bill Hayner as the liaison has asked that we play this they videoed it edited it And so got a three or four minutes of video Then we're going to bring the magical singers out. So Dave if you would Bill and I planned this out a while ago and Laura McKell McKenney has been doing this with me for Over years she wanted she had with me that it was part of their curriculum and getting involved in this aspect of it and I liked history and As the teacher It's very spontaneous that the more excitement the children present the more excited that you get and the easier It is to do all the work So first mr. Hayner came in and explained The different elements of a warrant article and that we have to really think about different pieces He kind of prepares them for what would a warrant article look like And what kinds of issues are brought up in warrant articles? I asked them What types of things would you be think people should do in the towns? We put it up on the board we brainstorm and little by little I asked them Do you think how much money would this cost? Do we have enough money? What would you like not to have if we got rid of it? And little by little they understand they learn and understand that although there are great ideas and things It won't help everybody and it might cost too much money. They were extremely excited when we walked in We had parents set up at tables So the children all knew their precinct number and they had to go in and they had to Register at their precinct table and so they were checked off and then they came in got settled sat down You know, they're all in the middle of town hall So this is for some of them their first opportunity to see town hall into beautiful building and then bill started the process off I'm gonna ask you to raise your right hand and You're gonna repeat after me then sat down and I invited the first person to present their article and They did it. We declare that Arlington should have an animal shelter We the children of Arlington have seen animal that are hurt neglected and hungry We believe there should be a place in Arlington where these animals can be taken care of We believe Arlington should provide money for stuff and survive supplies and a building with several rooms and a yard for this animal shelter. Thank you And we went back and forth those for and those against my name is in one of our I'm from precinct And I think there shouldn't be an animal Shelter because my my dad was once hurt by a wild wolf and I suddenly did not like that. Thank you Also Chris and I live on precinct one and I think that we should have animal shelters because dogs need attention and they can need help crossing the streets because they Will get one over. Thank you When we finished I asked if there are any new information and when there wasn't any we had a voice vote first Which wasn't clear and we had tellers just like we have a town meeting I explained that and they counted the vote and the Tritical past Other years I felt like we had sat on opposite sides So it was kind of already decided what side you were on for each argument But the children really mixed in together which I thought was great because you could be sitting next to somebody who had a Completely different opinion than you or was from a different class and came up with a different idea And that was okay The thing that I've noticed with my kids is they have a lot of confidence in themselves with raising different issues and debating points With each other and that's grown. I think through this process in the beginning They were a little more reticent to share their opinions some of them and now they're they're all doing it because they realize that they can Disagree with somebody else in the class and they can do it in a respectful way Except for their age. I think every one of them could have qualified as a town meeting member Good job kids And bill haters almost did a good job as moderator No, not really I'd like you all to just take a look the teachers and the children from taunson school that participated in this Keep it up kids in a few years. You can be here All right. Thank you Okay, it's evening. We have the magical sink madrigal singers They're gonna sing the star spangled banner for us and one or two other selections. I believe Please rise Sorry, we just finished our pop's concert this past weekend and we thought we'd treat you to magic carpet ride by the gentlemen Shum the law by the ladies And then we'll close with a medley Enjoy Did You don't know what We can find so Come with me girl On a magic carpet ride. Well, you don't know what We can see so Come with me girl Hennessy will set you free. Just close All right, let the sound take you away Did You don't know what We can find a magic carpet ride. Well, you don't know what We can see so Hennessy will set you free. Just close sound take you away Last medley will feature michael reynolds Clara havia nate right and shannon hirsch as soloists Some nights I wake up Someone back there your new town meeting member repeat after me Raise your right hand name We'll participate fully and fairly evaluate and vote in the best interests of the town I support free speech we'll treat others with mutual respect And we'll conduct myself in a civil manner that is becoming of an elected town meeting member I do solemnly swear that I'll perform that I will faithfully and impartially perform the duties incumbent upon me Of the town of arlington. Thank you It walked right up front. Good job, david I'd like to you know, we had a fire down at um, brookside village yesterday and there was one One gentleman passed away if we can have a moment of silence for that gentleman The name hasn't been released by his family yet. So we're not You don't know who he is. Um, I recognize the chair of the board of select minister greeley Thank you, mr. Moderator As my town manager our town manager just pointed out how appropriate one of the lines we heard tonight from the magical singers Some nights I wish this all would end mr. Moderator It is moved that if all of the business of the meeting has set forth in the warrant for the annual town meeting Is not disposed of at this session when the meeting adjourns at adjourns to monday may 11th at 8 p.m All in favor Well then let's finish any announcements or resolutions sir Jason donnelly precinct five. I just want to draw your attention to a fundraiser celebration happening next saturday May 16th at tomson school for arlington eats In less than a year arlington eats has fed has provided more than 7500 meals to our children These are our kids in our community And so there are flyers in the back and I also have bigger ones if you want you can see me during the break You can hang them on telephone poles or signs That's up to you Please for now. Mr. Kleinman Stuart Kleinman precinct one is the moderator mentioned in our precinct. We had a major fire yesterday Um, there are many folks that are now are homeless There is a fund that has been set up But I especially want to thank The fire department and I want to thank the police When I got up in the morning and I was able to walk over and see the reaction Was incredible and the work that they did was incredible It is unfortunate what has happened to the folks that live there and so It's probably one of the worst that we've had in a while But we need to always remember that our public safety and our public safety departments are amazing. Thank you Thank you, sir Mr. Mark You beat john up. Okay. Go ahead. John. She beat you. Uh, pam hallets precinct 21 uh Housing corporation of arlington in conjunction with the town has set up a fundraiser for the arizona terrorist brookside condominium victims many of them are Very low income Having section 8 they have lost their security deposits. They may not be able to get their Rent back. They will need security deposits moving expenses furniture Clothes so we would prefer just money come in at this point So that we can at least get people housed with security deposits first months and last month's rent So, um, it's on the housing corporation website. Just go to the donate button When you go to that Page, excuse me. I'll put down fire so that we know that you were specifically donating to help victims of this fire Thank you. There are at least 15 families that desperately need Money to move on with their lives. Thank you Thank you. Mr. Maher now Thank you Thank you, mr. Butterway John Maher precinct 14 the sims nonprofit Committee administers about a million dollars of funds left over from the dissolution of the sims hospital We make grants each year about this time if it is for medical uses and that term is uh Very broadly applied For any kind of medical use in the greater Arlington community As I say, we have about a million dollars. We usually give around between 30 40 50 thousand dollars a year If anybody has any ideas with regard to that i'm very glad to hear from you It's administered by a three member committee myself child lions and former town of Board of Selectmen and Jackie kessinger former council on aging and gone nurse So, uh, glad to talk to anybody about that during the break Thank you, sir any other announcements Miss Howard Thank you, mr. Moderator jane howard from precinct 10 and also a member of The vision 2020 standing committee representing town meeting I have three announcements tonight and then of course Perhaps you've seen these on polls as well. The first announcement is that These are all vision 2020 sponsored or co-sponsored events that happen in may The first is elements art rock spypond park And it opens on saturday With a reception from three to five and all the artists for the installations and there are 12 of them Will explain their works It's it's an absolutely amazing exhibit. Perhaps you've some of you have seen it going up. It's taken quite a bit of work The second announcement is that the following saturday May 16th from 9 a.m. To 1 p.m. Will be the annual spypond trails day And we're looking for people to come and help finish the last Path down to the pond that will be made out of stone to Tick pick up trash. There's an awful lot left over from the winter especially a long route to and to prune And take out invasives. So that's the second one Then on the 30th There is a collaboration with several other organizations in town called spypond fun day And it will be from one to four on that saturday afternoon unless it rains heavily And then it will be on sunday at the same time the 31st And there will be music arts and crafts kayaks for you to use canoes The belmont and arlington crew will put on a demonstration and then people can learn Uh at least several people. I don't know how many we can accommodate in those hours for Learning how to row with them in their eights There will also be rides to elizabeth island The last announcement is i'm doing for david ardito Who is director of visual arts for the arlington public schools? And he called me to tell me that there is a wonderful exhibit that has been put up this afternoon On the second floor of the artwork of all the public schools in arlington all nine of them grades k through 12 No school is left out and it will be there for a while so he hopes that you will take advantage of that and and Go see it. Thank you Thank you any other Mr. Tosti Tosti Bob tozi precinct 20 This saturday may 9th is the u.s. Postal service food drive otherwise known as the step out hunger Um non-perishable food donations are asked to be left at your door We ask that you check the dates don't leave any expired food because That just takes away from our time and and adds more to our waste Examples could be peanut butter jelly canned fruits and vegetables and even toiletries anything to say the money in the food items Can be used towards other costs Um And if you miss this saturday or the time slips by and it's monday morning You remember you donate you along at the food boxes around town or directly at the food pantries On fridays from one to three at the church of isaavia on marathon street Or at the new satellite location on 117 broadway on the first and third thursdays from 9 30 to 11 30 Thank you all Thank you mr. Schlickman Paul Schlickman precinct nine our precinct will attempt to organize at the break over by the back table Thank you Any other announcements? Resolutions okay, we're going to do our test vote Every night we have to do want to make sure the system's functioning Tonight's test question is do you think we're going to finish town meeting monday? One is yes two is no Do you think we're going to finish town meeting on monday? Five nights ready All right, go ahead and vote one for yes two for no That's an affirmative vote just wait. Yes, sir Yeah, um Something's wrong with the projector Uh Little more higher Dave higher up up up Perfect. Thank you. Um We have any reports of committees any committee reports Your stamps Ed trembley and i're on susan stamps precinct three Ed trembley precinct 19 and we're going to give a bipartisan tree committee report Trying to set a good example for town meeting The only two tree committee committee met once a month throughout the year tasks performed. We're working with towns The only two tree committee met once a month throughout the year Tasks performed were working with the town to help identify new tree locations improving the tree stock Submitting recommendations to the town's master plan writing up a job description for the tree warden position Maintaining a booth of town day echo fest in the monotony rocks parks earth day celebration Members have worked hard on community outreach including updating the website submitting a monthly tree matters article to the advocate and efforts have also Uh been made to ensure that newly planted trees are watered and cared for i'm going to take a break from the report just for a second Um, i'm hoping that all of you town meeting members and anybody watching at home Will help the town help all of us preserve our investment in trees by giving any new tree that's Less than two or three years old A good long drink of water Enough to make the roots try to Try to get enough water to go down deep so the roots will go deep Once a week I'll put my committee here So uh while some members have retired from the tree committee new members have joined bringing new energy and ideas So in addition to the things that we've been doing uh this year Some of our goals for the next year are to Continue to work with the dpw to for more planting of trees And we've started exploring grant opportunities for even more trees than town meeting funds um and possibly with targeted projects throughout the town that Are really incredibly tree deficient if anybody here wants to contact the tree committee and Make a pitch for your neighborhood or a place you know of in arlington that badly needs Um more tree canopy just feel free to contact the tree committee through town hall and um Also, we there's a new um We helped the dpw fashion a new Setback tree planting program this year, which will continue to work with them And that's in places where the tree strip really isn't big enough or is non-existent So you really can't plant a tree in front of a house Under state law we uh fashion this program where within I think it's 20 feet Back into the property of the town can plant a tree and we've done it a few places and I think Mike Rademacher would say it's it's a good addition to their toolkit And finally The issue has come up a lot in the last year people throughout the town are concerned about removal of trees on private property During development and the tree committee is going to start looking into What the town might be able to do about that? And we wanted to thank mike rademacher For the great job that he's done without the help or much help from a tree ward In which we are trying to To fill a tree warden job He's done a great job with trees and he reports He comes to every tree committee meeting once a month and gives us a report on what he's been doing And we brainstorm different ideas. It's been really great. And finally People may not know that there's actually a fund that people can Write checks to it's called the trees. Please fund It is located at the dpw. I I don't think the contributions are tax deductible But we can always use more money for trees. So if you've got some extra cash laying around, please write a check to the trees Please fund and send it to the dpw. Thank you Thank you Any other reports or committees? Yep, ma'am Thank you. Mr. Moderator. I'm anley royer Right into the microphone. Sorry Anley Royer precinct 17 and I'm chair of the open space committee Our short report is in the town's printed Town annual report. So I didn't make copies or anything But I did want to let you all know that the committee this past year has completed a draft new Open space and recreation plan Covering the years 2015 to 2022 Seven years This is the fourth plan that our committee has prepared since 1996 when this committee was formed by town meeting Per the state statute We've submitted the plan to the division of conservation services and the executive office of environmental energy and environmental affairs and that's the agency statewide that approves Open space plans and so we're waiting for their final approval, but Um in the meantime, we've received Nice letters of support from various groups the board of selectmen the conservation commission park and recreation commission The redevelopment board as well as the metropolitan area planning council And we really want to thank them all for their support and their participation in this process and we look forward to Seven at least seven more years of collaborating with all these groups and many of the friends groups and others that are really concerned about protecting and enhancing and maintaining our valuable open spaces and natural resources and recreational facilities This draft plan is posted on the town website Under the open space committee page under boards and committees Once we get our final approval from the state, we will Make a few changes last minute changes and then the final report will be posted there But you can still look at it now and we encourage you to look at it online Um, it's a big report. So we're not going to be printing a lot of copies, but there will be some copies available um, and so we'll be working with the arb and the master plan which Corresponds a lot with a lot of the goals and Objectives that are in this open space plan. And so look forward to your continuing support in the future. Thank you Thank you, miss brazil Julie brazil precinct 12 and chair of the vision 2020 standing committee. I'd like to move receipt of the report of vision 2020 All favor Post it is so received Thank you. Um, I just want to highlight a couple things from the report which is on the back table tonight The annual survey is always a big project for vision 2020 this year. We had 6058 households respond Which is a 32 response rate The report contains the preliminary data The complete analysis will be completed sometime We hope in june and posted to the vision 2020 page on the town website But there are still some interesting tidbits just looking at the raw numbers In the report this evening The slide behind me shows the nine town goals, which are the task groups for vision 2020 um the five underlined goals indicate the active task groups and Obviously after the vote uh for article 12 will be reorganizing Recruiting for the standing committee to create that new structure. Um, so we'll be doing a lot of outreach But there's a lot going on with vision 2020 in general. And so I would like to um raise awareness about all of the goals and The potential for volunteers who are interested in some of the work we're doing uh, the diversity task group Held a commission a community discussion on unequal justice and organized a vigil to draw attention and support to the devastation in napal The governance task group co-sponsored candidate night assisted with precinct meetings around town and organized the orientation for new town meeting members The environment task group consists of three committees The spy pond committee delivered flyers to 3 000 households in the spy pond watershed To educate residents about the impact of fertilizers on the pond's water quality And uh, jane howard already mentioned the spy pond work days and events The wildlife habitat garden at the reservoir is pretty well established now So the committee is expanding its work to include planting in the um Island in the parking lot and along the path to herd field And they're coordinating with dpw to hand harvest water chestnuts from the reservoir again this summer So if you have a canoe keep an eye out for that announcement Sustainable arlington participated in ecofest in march and has started discussions with town leaders about what it takes to be Adaptable in the face of climate change. It is difficult to plan for unpredictable events. So climate resiliency will be a big theme For their research in the next few months and will be the theme for next year's ecofest The fiscal resources task group is meeting later this month with assessor chearny to discuss the intricacies of commercial property assessments And they'll be meeting next month with deputy town manager flanagan to review the entire financial plan And all related financial communication tools and processes And our linked in public art, which is a committee of the culture and recreation task group Will begin painting more transformer boxes very shortly Which according to all of the exclamation marks in this year's survey is a very popular project So if you know anyone who has ideas for other projects or would like to jump in on any of these We're always happy to talk with you. Thank you. Any other reports committees Seeing none. Mr. Tosti I move that article three be laid upon the table All in favor Post article three is upon the table That brings us to article 17 Mr. Moderator Uh, the finance committee Had a no report at this time on this issue We're waiting to see if anything would happen that we could possibly accept There's nothing that's happened. There's nothing on the horizon Uh, and therefore the finance committee moves no action on this article I recommend voting the wax about a finance committee all in favor. Please say yes The post is unanimous vote and I so declare it That brings us to article 18 endorsement of cbgb Applications Thank you, mr. Moderator. Kevin Greeley selectman This was put on the chairs. I believe on the first night and I asked town meeting to endorse The cdbg recommended funding as voted by the board of selectmen and the town manager CDBG funds are come to us through housing and urban development And the funds need to be used for low and moderate income areas low and moderate clientele Low and moderate housing Slums or blighted areas or what's called spot blight outside of blighted areas like historic preservation or rehabilitation This year we received requests for 1.8 million dollars And we had 1.04 million to hand out So unfortunately we couldn't fund all of the requests For those of you that may not be aware more than 25 These funds are made available to cities and towns across the united states with populations of at least 50,000 We dropped below that at least 25 years ago And because of the efforts of individuals like charlie lions don marquis at the time They went into tip o'neill and we were grandfathered in and can you imagine since then More than 25 million dollars were at the funds have been made available to us And this year we had a committee put together which were two selectmen mr. Dan don and mr. steven burn Along with carol kowalski our director of planning and development and working with the town manager's office They went through all the requests. We had two two public hearings Carol two public hearings Two meetings public hearing and then a meeting in terms of the approval of these And so this report indicates to you what was asked for under all of those categories I read to you and what has been voted by the town manager town manager and the board of selectmen. We seek your endorsement. Thank you Any questions on cd vg money Ah, mr. Oster Adam oster precinct three. Thank you, mr. Moderator. I just have two questions that I hope will be quick I notice in the description for The first item it mentions Developing brownfields and I'm wondering if there are specific sites that are being eyed and where they are Adam's going to answer it Adam chaplain town manager. Can you can you just point to me mr. Oster where you're referencing? I'm sorry on on On the enumeration of the Different things it's on page three the affordable housing program It says for possible brownfield site cleanup for redevelopment for affordable housing Oh, so is that just theoretical or are there actual I think today it's theoretical But it does stem from a project being considered by the housing corporation of arlington Which would involve them purchasing a piece of land that would require some brownfield cleanup And my second question is the next item describes a loan program to me that implies There'll be repayment of loan and how does that work? Will we have that money to use again or do I completely misunderstand what's happening here mr. Chapter lane Adam chapter lane town manager your understanding is correct It is a loan program that includes repayment Those monies come back into the cdbg program and a certain percentage of prior year's program income can be used to then fund The forward year's actual funding and there is a piece of program income included in this year's funding schedule Thank you, mr. Mowdery Any other questions on Mr. Warden I have John warden precinct eight a question about that same First item under rehabilitation housing doesn't say who's going to be spending this three hundred and thirty eight thousand dollars for Or developing more affordable housing Mr. Chapter lane Adam chapter lane town manager this particular request under affordable housing is Responding to a request for funding from the housing corporation of arlington. I'm sorry. Say again This is responding to a request for funding from the housing corporation of arlington housing corporation of arlington but so you're going so this this this This appropriation is actually for the housing corporation of arlington that is accurate. Um, but I have a question in that respect The the town meeting has twice gone on record as being opposed to 40 b and the um And the mu ghar 40 b Proposal is has attracted some little bit of attention in the past couple of weeks The housing corporation according to rumor Was proposing a 40 b A type project And I don't know if you know anything about that sir But it seems to me that in view of the town's general opinion On on that subject that we should not be We should make any funds Allocated to that Organization contingent on not Going against town policy and do it trying to do a 40 b in opposition to our zoning. Thank you. Thank you, sir Mr. Fuller Thank you, mr. Moderator peter fuller precinct 20 Just a comment on the rehabilitation housing Funding The two items together although both worthy seem to use up about 45 of all the cdbg money we can A lot and some other things are either underfunded or not funded I know the demands are greater than the amount, but i'm Hoping that as the community preservation act comes online that some community preservation funds can take up some of the Rehabilitation and housing needs and free up cdbg money for other things And I thank the cdbg committee for their hard work. Thank you. Thank you, sir Mr. Hainer Oh, I don't think he had a question Thank you, mr. Moderator bill hana precinct two The money going towards the For affordable housing is that is there a particular piece property being considered At this time mr. Chapter lane Adam chapter lane town manager My understanding from the housing corporation of arlington is currently they are pursuing several projects But the majority of these funds will go towards a proposal there or a project they're currently pursuing at 20 westminster The reason i'm asking this question is it's my understanding and i'll stand corrected that we are so close to reaching the magic Number to prevent any further 40b Housing and stuff Can you speculate if this will reach it if we if it goes forward? I don't care to speculate on that definitively. Okay. Thank you Mr. McCabe Mach McCabe precinct two i stand to terminate any debate on article 18 and in any matters there for it We have motion to terminate debate under article 18 and all matters there under have a second All in favor, please say yes Opposed my opinion. It's a two-thirds vote All right clickers ramp it up All right, we're gonna have a vote on clicker vote on it One is just terminate debate two is no Sir no I've never announced that since I became moderator i'm not gonna start now Oh, you have to all right go ahead and vote because um, he's gonna leave We're voting to terminate the debate one. Yes, two. No, he's gonna leave it. He's gonna reach Can you restart it? All right, we're gonna do it this way. I'm gonna the old fashion way when it reaches our six minutes and 40 seconds we're done voting ready go vote One is yes to terminate debate two is no Okay time up 107 to 90 it is not terminated the next on the list was mr. Schlickman Paul Schlickman precinct nine. I was going to make the same motion as the previous speaker, but I just want to point out that the Town meeting does not have discretion over this We are merely deciding whether to endorse this or not So yes is to accept the money. No is not to that's all it is. Thanks This moment. All right. It's arena amendment precinct 21. I wanted to know um Kevin Greeley uh, selectman Greeley mentioned that uh, 1.4 uh million dollars was already handed out, but I stand the budget. It's 1.273. I was wondering where's 130 or so Um, am I just missing the numbers? Dan mr. Dunn And done uh, selectman uh and a member of the subcommittee. It's 1.04 is the number that he said and so the Which so there's two Things that we've talked about already tonight that actually combined to make the 1.2 So first you have the 1.04 which is the grant money And then you have the loans that are being repaid which is what we call program income And so we the program income plus the grant is where the 1.2 comes from um, so that's not guaranteed the One of them is or are we counting on the grants or is that I mean are the grants already? Guaranteed so the the federal money has been awarded. Okay, the program income Is there's a conservative estimate that we're using. We don't know the exact number that we're going to get Okay, that's that's all I need to write. Thank you Mr. Harrington john steve. I mean I heard that the oh steven Harrington precinct 13 Um, I heard that um, someone asked what the project was that the hca the housing co-op Was doing and I thought I heard the town manager say that it was 22 west minister Mr. Moderator, is there someone who can tell us whether or not Um, a special permit was granted for that as a 40b development Mr. chapter lane Adam chapter lane town manager no special permits for that project have been granted yet, but the housing corporation is pursuing Permitting under the 40b statute for that project. Thank you very much Thank you Ms. Weaver Janice weaver precinct 21 on pages 16 and 17 The town hall rental. I was wondering why it doesn't seem to make very much money And it's rented all the time. I don't understand. I think you got the wrong budget Janice Oh, I thought this is on cbg. Oh, I'm sorry. What am I in? You're in um, oh, sorry Oh, sorry. Well, that's okay the next one never mind My hands up for 19 never mind Mr. Smith Okay, mr. McCabe second time It's five minutes this time Mark McCabe precinct two I stand to terminate any debate on article 18 and all matters before it Second All in favor, please say yes opposed It is a Two-thirds vote and I so declare it. We have before us the recommended A vote of the board of select women that we endorse their vote you ready? so Here we go and the clock is Up go ahead one is yes. Two is no Vote one for yes two for no to endorse 190 in the affirmative 14 in the negative. It's a positive vote and I so declare it that closes article 18 and moves us on to article 19 revolving funds That's where your choice was Weber weaver Sorry about that the eyesight it's going um So anyway back to page 16 and 8 and 17. I was just wondering why the receipts Why the balance of the town hall rental seems so low because it's rented constantly and it just seems The expenditures seem rather high to me and I just Wondering why? Um Thank you, mr. Moderator Andrew Flanagan deputy town manager Um with regard to town hall rental revenue or receipts in f y 14. Um, we had a down year. We were five to seven events Uh off what our average is and with some events they are charged Set up time and clean up time. So an event could be 8 10 12 hours. Sometimes they actually last over several days Uh, I'm pleased to report that in f y 15 We're set to have a ban a year with projected revenue to exceed 80 thousand dollars, which will mark Our hires here over the past three Thank you. Thank you. Let me answer your question, ma'am Okay, steven harrington Stephen harrington precinct 13. I had a question on the um, so I look at the revolving funds And I just go to the big ones right and there's only really two big ones here And the biggest by far is our life support services And for people who were on time meeting last year I pointed out that That this is actually has to do with our relationship with armstrong ambulance And armstrong ambulance actually services the town in two ways They provide ALS services events life support And the town usually covers with basic life support and um And the split in the contract is a 60 40 split And If you look at medicare You'll see that medicare has less than 60 of all calls Of for advanced life support what that means is that if An insurance company or medicare is going to reimburse You for the expense of a service. They only do it about 60 of the time for advanced life support Even if you had advanced life support there And so in addition to that Armstrong is also our billing agent at 3% And so if you take this number you look at the beginning and ending balances you subtract it out You put in the receipts and compare it to the expenses It works out to 63 percent And so what that says This is going to be a little bit hard to follow because it's not so easy to follow Is that we are paying On every call a reimbursement to armstrong ambulance for advanced life support And we're not getting reimbursed for it And we should care because you know conservative estimate. It's about $200,000 And so I have a question mr. Moderator sir Who negotiates that contract? Um, it's the chaplain. Is that mr. Flanagan Andrew Flanagan deputy town manager So we've had a relatively Long-standing relationship with armstrong ambulance With regard to both aspects that Were mentioned by mr. Harrington for both billing services, which Are 3% off the top of all of our revenue and then for ALS service Which is as he mentioned a 60 40 split in terms of the calls. So Um So with regard to how we've contracted historically with armstrong Ambulance services exempt from most procurement laws We have had the advantage a long standing advantage of having a very well Regarded ambulance company in our hometown Directly across the street from the community safety building on mystic street We've been very satisfied both With the quality of the service and Secondly With the quality service to our residents and with the revenue We've been able to generate as a result of that agreement For any more detail regarding Armstrong's performance through the moderator defer to chief jefferson So I didn't answer the question was um, who negotiates the contract the town the town manager's office with input from the expertise of Chief jefferson who oversees All ems responsibility. So mr. Moderator when is that contract up? When do we renew? We just re-upped the contract. So we're under agreement. I believe and correct me if i'm wrong for the next three So it's a bad deal. It's 200 000 dollars. It should go into The file apartment budget. I don't care that we have a great relationship with a vendor There's no way should you have a vendor be your billing agent too. Thank you Thank you, sir. Anybody else wish to discuss the revolving fund budgets Dave jefferson Bob jefferson fire chief. I just like to correct some of the information that mr. Harrington gave you that I believe to be incorrect um, he's correct about the splits and he's correct about, uh, armstrong being a billing agent and uh, that they do to our ALS When medicare only pays a certain percentage We only pay armstrong that certain percentage So as though mr. Harrington makes it sound as though we're only getting 63 of that run That's incorrect We only pay armstrong 60 of whatever we collect for an ALS and advanced life support run We pay them three percent For the overall building of all of our calls BLS and ALS That is well below the Standard or the other fee that's charged most other city in the town's most cities in the town's are paying over four percent We pay them 60 percent for a paramedic service that they provide to us That cost the town nothing else They have an a paramedic unit in town to serve the citizens of allington 24 seven and charge the town of allington nothing When they respawned and when we transport a patient They are entitled to compensation It is a very fear In normal arrangement. We have them for 60 to 40 percent We get 100 of the revenue when we do A BLS transport and when it's a BLS transport and medicare is paying Yeah, we get about 60 of what we may build because that's what medicare pays us There's nothing In this contract or in the service that the citizen of the town that allington are receiving That is unethical or not the best service you're ever going to get Thank you, sir. Mr. Siano Oh, here he is Thank you. Good job walking up front frank siano precinct 15. I've received Queries questions from people When if ever will we receive or get back our patriot's day parade? And I wonder if from this fund or another fund that could be funded in the future That would be under one of the other budgets, but I think it's going to be next year adam Maybe we need people to donate Adam chaplain town manager, uh, the committee has been reformed with the goal of Having the patriot's day parade come back next year. Thank you Thank you. Any other comments or questions under the revolving fund budgets Seeing none. We're ready for a vote Yeah, the recommended vote of the board of of the um Board of selectmen. I believe it's a two-thirds vote ready And vote one. Yes, two. No What was that noise? 199 the affirmative four in the negative it is a Two-third vote and I so to clear it a positive vote that ends article 19 and brings us to article 20 Is to miss a toasty Last monday. There was a sheet handed out with all the collective bargaining on it We are within one union of having an agreement with all of the town's unions Under the jurisdiction of the town manager, uh, the last one is meeting Tomorrow to see if they can wrap that up and get that set Therefore, um, I I think it's worthwhile waiting till monday so we can have them all done In set therefore, uh, I move that this article article 20 be tabled You have emotional table article 20 till monday may 11th I'll it's been seconded all in favor. Please say yes Opposed It is so tabled 511 That brings us to article 21 Position reclassification um We have the recommended vote of the finance committee to reclassify Old bunch of positions anybody have any questions about position reclassification Seeing none. We're ready for a vote I'll set Oh, there is a serena does have a question. Sorry. You can get it up ready anyways Miss momoan arena amendment priestess 21. I'm not sure sure what these new positions the meo 3. What does that stand for meo? Mr. chapter lane Can you decipher your indecipherable letters? Adam chapter lane town manager motor equipment operator. Okay. Cool. And those are new positions So a lot of those are others are similar. It looks like From the ones that are being deleted except they're being upgraded. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Any other questions on position reclassification Seeing none. Mr. Renault Okay, one is yes two is no and Go ahead and vote one for yes two for no We have 190 90 affirmative zero is negative it is unanimous vote and I so declare it That ends article 21. It brings us to article 22 appropriation town budgets Mr. Tosti Oh Do you want me to go through and do the holds first you want to say something? You want to introduce them Okay Okay, the town budgets are now are now before you There's going to be a couple of changes In the In the whole scope you'll see it in public works creating a new department Which the manager can talk to you a little bit more in detail We're also making some transitions in public safety that you'll see certain things Certain budgets will simply drop off the charts next year Contracts are up as at the end of this year Um, I think we had two years of zero contract raises and then in fiscal 14 We had 3% sorry fiscal 13 3% fiscal 14 275 and fiscal 15 275 So those are all built in The basic increases that you see are for steps for the most part and You'll see the the contract raises that we do later on monday You'll see those next year And the finance committee and department heads stand ready to answer any questions that you may have Okay, we're gonna All right, we're gonna do the budgets that we have and as we have in the past years I'm going to go through And Call off the names of the various departmental budgets if someone wishes to discuss that budget yell out hold If no one yells out hold and holds a budget then we're going to not discuss that later on So if you want to discuss one of the budgets say hold finance committee Board of selectmen town manager human resources Information technology comptroller Treasure collector postage board of assessors legal town clerk board of registrars Parking planning community development redevelopment board zoning board of appeals public works facilities community safety inspections education libraries health and human services retirement insurance reserve fund water and sewer I think these are now enterprise funds water and source of hold recreation Ed Burns arena council on aging transport youth services And that's it Okay, we're going to go back to the beginning the first budget that was held Was board of selectmen who wanted to hold that? Okay, the Harrington twins mr. Harrington steven first and Sean Stephen Harrington precinct 13 Um, so mr. Moderator the board of selectmen as a department. Um, who do they report to? you know the personnel and and who does the elections in town meeting Personnel services and expenses report through Mr. Greeley is going to address it, but the board of selectmen report to us the voters He's going to address for the rest of his department. Yes, sir. What was the rest of it? Mr. Harrington? So I'm the board of selectmen the the personnel and the expenses all report through the board of selecting on the chair The board. Yes, sir. Okay. Thank you. So, um, mr. Moderator I'd like to point out that um in other towns um, for instance Belmont and in winchester There actually isn't a separate line. I mean it's under the town manager or the town administrator Belmont's case And there's a reason for that. It's professional management. We saw the other night You know professional management matters and it's um, it's actually a pretty large part of the budget And nowhere could I find like that elections were under the board of selectmen And so in other towns and I didn't do a comprehensive list, but I looked, you know half a dozen And so if you look at like lexington Lexington does have a line item in their budgets For the board of selectmen it's two fte's On a budget much larger than ours And um, you know, it it sort of makes sense. That's, you know, it's the two people who work in the office But this is a, you know, just and this is a comment That I think that it would be best if we looked at these budgets and the departments Over the long term and we said to ourselves Why are we having so many different department level budgets? I mean I didn't put a hold on postage, but do we You know, what's why isn't that under like the town manager? Why isn't the board of selectmen Employees under professional management And I think that it would actually help a lot in driving efficiencies for the town As well as making a little bit easier job for everyone to know what the costs are of certain Services and it's general government. That's how most other towns seem to handle this is under a general government category And so, um, you know, it's it's It's hard to, you know, for me to understand that, you know, we have, um You know one two three four and a half people for Five elected officials pot on officials so You know and god bless them. I love them all. It's not that there's an issue with them I think mr. Grayley is going to tell you why our budgets are developed the way they are I didn't ask any question. I think there was a question there talk later Um, so I'd like to say that I think that and I'm not picking on this like I said postage You could go through this there's at least a half a dozen times, but the board of selectmen when it's it's Jesus it's bigger than almost any other Line item other than the big three It's bigger than education So in terms of just the detail and and the extent and I think it evolved that way and I think that you know Maybe it's through the town meeting procedures or maybe it's the finance committee I think that we owe it to ourselves to Go through and change the way these department level budgets Put together and I think we owe it to The employees of the town whenever we can To seek that they have professional management. Thank you, mr. Moderator Sean Harrington Thank you, mr. Moderator. Sean Harrington precinct 15. I'm assuming that this would be the department to talk about with Elections and what have you I was curious if the board of selectmen have looked at the possibility of changing Or the cost difference between changing elections from a saturday to a tuesday I have have you so examined that Is the toasty? Oh Anyone really it doesn't matter to me Yeah, I I think the uh The board of selectmen the elections has always been under the board of selectmen Working with the town clerk and the board of selectmen can change the uh The day uh and the date that they that we have the elections But has anyone looked at the feet at the possible Difference in cost and cost and savings by changing it. Mr. Greeley Yes, we have I can't tell you that we've done this this year But the problem with the tuesday elections has been that schools are in session at that time and So there's multiple problems with trying to hold it on a tuesday as well with the The number of police details and the rest of it, which is easier on a saturday And we felt it's more convenient for people, but I can't give you a cost comparison right could you Okay, yeah, it's primarily the schools are open Okay, well, I mean we have our november elections On tuesdays and a lot of towns and cities are seeming to move or towns specifically are moving to this My friend patrick reynolds a selectman down in north adalboro has been trying to move trying to move as he said elections toward the 21st century Also, is it my understanding that from what I understand also the town clerk's office Who I love I adore the town clerk's office and most of the people that work at town or all of them actually I don't want to get in trouble there Basically from what I gather after a certain period of time We're paying them overtime, especially on it's actually all day on saturday because They're not supposed to work that day. So we're paying them overtime all those hours If it was a regular work day, I'm imagining that we would be paying them only a smaller bit of that I don't know what the cost savings would be but it'd be nice if we actually looked at this and potentially move toward Move toward looking at this more and the feasibility and kind of moving our elections toward the 21st century. Thank you Thank you, sir. Mr. Greeley. You had you end up. Did you want to speak? Thank you, mr. Moderate. I just wanted to clarify this three and a half personnel in the board of selectmen And the amount of work that those three and a half Turn out on behalf of you the citizens of arlington Is astounding and it is in my opinion one of the lowest staffed offices throughout town hall But when you consider calling for example this warrenton having to get this warrant to all of the people in the town of arlington running each of the elections All of the parking issues throughout the town of arlington all of the licenses throughout the town of arlington So there's quite a bit of work They should be congratulated for what a great job they do. Thank you, sir Mr. Paluso Confused as to what this conversation is about It's what Oh, my name is ted paluso. I'm in precinct number six, but I am confused about this conversation I thought we were voting on a budget and Whether it seems to me Whether you're going to change departments Or whether you're going to consolidate departments Or whether you're going to change reporting routines That sounds like a warrant to me. That doesn't sound like a budget So I would like very much because I'm used to being in bed at eight o'clock I would like very much That you possibly consider Whether comments like that Are really out of order that has nothing to do with the budget. It has to who reports to who Now I should also point out one other thing which I found was astonishing. Okay This town has 10 less employees per capita than most of the towns This town also has It was from the master plan, uh, steven This town also has spends approximately 10 less Per capita than most of the towns. That's a quote From the individuals who prepared the master plan Now, obviously we can get into where we spend too much money and too little money But we should kind of keep in mind what the overall picture is Thank you, sir Mr. Schlickman Paul Schlickman Paul Schlickman chair of the school committee I just wanted to answer and respond to mr. Harrington's question Regarding the use of schools on tuesdays When we have a tuesday election for a national or state election on an even numbered year We traditionally have a professional development day and do not bring children into the building Because of safety concerns. This is common to many school districts In that uh, when you have a large number of voters coming into the building Sometimes they wander into places in the building which is not appropriate while children are there. So Um, you there is an expense to the school department or cost in terms of time to to hold elections Uh on a tuesday Thank you, sir Bear glue Mr. Deist John Deist precinct 13 I'm going to react to mr. Paluso's comment about uh questioning With regard to the budgets After sitting in town meeting for many many years I've come to the conclusion that it's sort of the one time When a town meeting member can actually Ask a question about a particular department Uh, there is sort of no other appropriate way that one can do that Um, and so I would respectfully suggest that the way we're doing it right now works pretty well and we shouldn't change it Thank you very much. Thank you Any other comments under the selectman's budget? Seeing none. We'll take up the next budget after the break. Thank you. See you in a few minutes Precinct nine by the back table, please Go ahead, sir Thank you, mr. Moderator steven revillac precinct one Um, I'm going to ask a question that I'm sure somebody asks every year, but this is my first year here So I'm going to ask it anyway The town manager section of the budget contains a line item called water sewer enterprise fund Um, what is that and how is the amount? Calculated mr. Tosti Please take your personal conversations outside Out in the front hall, please so we can hear the questions Go ahead mr. Tosti The water sewer is an enterprise fund Uh, and its job is to to raise enough revenue to cover all its expenses Most of the overwhelmingly most of the expenses are direct expenses But there's also indirect expenses because other departments provide services to those to the water and sewer enterprise funds So for example the treasure collector they send out the bills So they have a charge there And the controller keeps track of it. So there's a what enterprise there and obviously the manager has Responsibilities over a very large budget. So there's a charge there. So that's where it comes from Okay, and you'll see when you get to the water and sewer there will be indirect charges And all those together total that number. Okay. Thank you. And uh, the also there is a line item on a number of Sub budgets called long jet longevity Um, what is that? What is longevity and how is that calculated? Basically, it's an employee's survival reward So if if you manage to last, um, I think the first one is five years You know, there's a there's a longevity step and if you last 10 years and if you last 20 years There's a there's a step there. So that's what longevity is. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome It's a lot of Personal chatter going on near the back of the hall. I can hear it up here Please keep it down and take those check conversations outside. Mr. La Courte Annie La Courte precinct 15. Can we throw out my slide eve? So the slide that you're looking at you behind you Is a review of, um The projection of the stable override stabilization fund over the course of all the years since we passed the override in 2011 The first line is, um, what we promised the voters in 2011 You'll see that the green line is what happened when we were able to Um move our employees into the gic and gained a three-month million dollar reset on our health care costs And then you'll see the next years Because we had better experience on our health care costs than expected We continue to sort of bend the curve upward and outward Okay So this year, um, where we're now projecting that we will hit, um, the red as it were in 2021 Um, is due to the kind of adjustments that the finance committee declared at the beginning of the Um town meeting three percent changing the growth rate that we allow on the budget to three percent And adjusting the growth rate for health care Okay So you'll notice that on this slide I refer to the financial the five-year financial document that we use as a projection not a plan And that's because that's what it is. It is a financial projection Not a plan If you look at the town managers budget message And you read a section from a single department You will discover that in there there is a section for each department on their accomplishments in 2014 that was last year And their goals and objectives for 2016 Presumably there's a relationship between Their goals and objection objectives for 2016 and their budget so presumably when Chief Ryan says that he's going to fully implement comm stat. He's added to his budget Employee time cost of software possibly a consultant whatever it is he needs to do to do that implementation So that he can achieve that goal We don't have goals and objectives for 2017 18 19 20 or 21 If you look in the master plan, you'll discover that there is a section on public facilities and resources And you will see that there's a bunch of recommended steps in the master plan So for example, it's recommended that we perform a space needs analysis for all town-owned buildings That we establish a planned preventative maintenance program And that we assess the condition of private ways And that we study and develop a plan for addressing Arlington's long-term public works related needs We're about To change The limit the cost containment limit on our budget to three percent a year Without having done any of that planning I'm concerned that we're making a decision here to further constrain the budget in the absence of some critical information The five-year financial projection is a box We concern ourselves a great deal with the size of the box And spend too little time talking publicly about whether or not the box will hold The contents the residents want to see in it In order to understand whether or not the decision to reduce the growth rate is a good idea We need to understand the goals and objectives that underlie the five-year projection Presumably the town manager superintendent of schools and the department heads got together and went through a planning exercise To consider the challenges and opportunities and risks We may face As a community over the next five to seven years And assess the resources required to meet those challenges take advantages of the opportunities and mitigate the risks Before agreeing that a three percent growth rate is achievable This should have resulted in a written plan similar to the master plan that shows that the resources projected on the financial plan will be adequate Through you mr. Moderator to the town manager was such an exercise done And can the results in written form be shared with the town meeting and the residents of the town Mr. Chaplain Did you perform such analysis? Adam chaplain town manager So I suppose what I would say is When the override was passed in 2011 the the major promises at least for town services I'll speak to Was the maintenance of a level Of current service levels On top of that In terms of assertions about no forward planning Town meeting has already adopted a five-year forward thinking capital plan earlier in this session The town has adopted and is in the middle of implementing a three-year it strategic plan Focused on department by department innovations in terms of the implementation of technology And annually the board of selectmen meets with me in a goal setting session in which we set Goals and stretch goals for the next two years So I think we have a multi-layered goal setting approach That looks as far as five years and as near term as every two years when we meet annually So to the specific question of was an exercise done and documented in regards to whether or not three percent Three percent would maintain level services What I would say is in the town side of the operation More than two-thirds of the town budgets combined are personnel related So we take a focus when we begin collective bargaining with the unions To make sure that we execute contracts that can live within whatever the fiscal constraints are that the long-range plan has set forth And then within that Year over year we do plan to at the very least maintain services And if there is the ability to expand or adapt services, we do that That said, I think a trend we see nationwide that I certainly see here in Arlington Is a growing gap between service level expectation of residents and what is actually capable within the fiscal realities of not just Arlington But both localities and states across the nation So I I do think Going forward that there's certainly a benefit at looking what our current service levels are what we can afford Within the plan within the constraints that the plan puts forward and whether or not there needs to be a further conversation Conversation about changing those constraints Thank you So I don't have time for my last thought other than to say that I hope that the town manager will put this plan into writing And present it to the town meeting along with the budgets in the future And that the long-range planning committee will concentrate on what's in the box Not just the walls of the box. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Tosti Just a couple thoughts obviously The last speaker was concerned with the long-range plan that's in the finance committee book that I went through On the first night of town meeting On the on the budgets and how much they grow and such like that And you know, I was the one that pushed that we need to slow down the rate of growth Uh, if we're going to Be able to have a long-term solution To our town to our budgets uh into the to the citizens And the one thing, you know, first of all, we're looking at living in a two percent inflation period And we've been allowing three and a half percent Growth and I think we pushed that's got to come down a little bit Uh, and that's what the the plan that the manager put together and with the long-term planning committee And the budget revenue task force does I think it's very reasonable Secondly, it's not just the budgets We have got a rebuild of the high school in the wings both Arlington high school and possibly minute man high school So we've got some other major needs out there And the one entity that sometimes gets ignored in all of these discussions Is the taxpayer? We have to put together a budget and a series And and the revenues that support it that the taxpayer Can afford Uh, and and that's what I think all of the town leaders have been trying To do Because we're going to be hitting the taxpayer with those three items over the next five years and and we've got to be You know reasonable with how much how much they can afford. Thank you Thank you. Mr. Deist John Deist precinct 13 and member of the finance committee um I guess I want to point out The vagaries of life so to speak but we just to say one can create Plans out as many years as one likes And in most instances Nothing that you talk about in many of those plans or most of what you talk about in those plans simply does not happen Who would have predicted that we were going to have 2.2 million dollar Snow budget this year for example Who will be able to predict what what the evolution Of global warming is really going to be on this town in the future My point is that you can do planning over a short time But it's a waste of effort and money to do it for too long a time trying to plan out many many years Doesn't really make any sense and it wastes people time and money I think we have kind of the right balance right now between the the What mr. La Courte did not call a plan, but we all call a five-year plan And what is reality and what we can anticipate for the future. Thank you very much Mr. La Courte you had your hand up for a second time Annie La Courte precinct 15. I would just like to respond to what my good friends el tosti and john teist Just um said and rebuttal to my argument So the first thing that I would like to say is that the taxpayers are also the citizens receiving the package of services that we deliver Yes, we want to consider the taxpayer They're also the people who have children in our schools Who our ambulances respond to who play in our parks? Who need to get down our streets to their jobs? We also want to know what services they want And what they're willing to pay for them. That's why we hold overrides Prop two and a half is the best thing since sliced bread forgetting everybody to focus on what's going on with the budget And to allow the citizens to periodically vote for a reset We're about to do a reset without taking a vote. We don't know what the residents think We don't know if they want their property tax bill protected or they want services They're not receiving or they want a different mix of services because we haven't done the exercise of asking We've made an assumption In terms of mr. Deitz criticism of planning. Yes Almost never does a plan that starts in year one wind up exactly where you expected it to in year five But you have no idea where you are going if you don't have a plan and you have no way to correct a course If you don't have a course, it's never a waste of time and money to create a plan This is what in scenery reconstruction. We used to call Measure twice cut once So I would like to suggest that we need to undergo this planning exercise What we need to do is ensure that the planning exercise Is as lightly held as is implied by the distance out. Let me give you a specific example of what i'm talking about Right now the Arlington education foundation is raising $50,000 to put a digital art lab into the high school This is not in the budget Because five years ago nobody sat down and said what do we need to be teaching our students in 2015? What they said is how do we fit inside the box? We've been given We need to be able to think about where we need to be in some period of time Now I don't mind raising the money and all of you are welcome to hit the aef website and contribute Okay, but what I mind is that we needed a digital arts lab two years ago Not now There's a thousand ten thousand jobs going begging in silicon valley to use those skills and we're not training our students Manager's budget now Okay, but you understand my point Yeah, that if we're not thinking forward and we're not planning and all we're doing is creating constraints on our budget We are going to miss something and it could be something critical in the schools It might not be critical to our public safety, but certainly in community safety and dpw it will be Thank you. Mr. Vera glue Mr. Staff of our glue precinct 10 So first I'd like to second and I'm thankful that Dan Mahon came up twice This was a question I had when we had our Our uh precinct organization or our precinct sort of information meetings. I was surprised to hear that we were sure Trimming the rate of growth and I had questions about The idea that there should be tension on both sides of these things We definitely have attention from the money side And I would like to have attention from the idea of what the residents Want to expect for the money that they already spend and are they getting that or not? I don't really have a solution per se I My question I guess was what was you know, has that side been considered? um And then the other thing I would like to just point out in this um in the shrinking or the shrinking of the rate of growth We're still growing The town that has it been considered is the town ground demographic changing I mean we all see the people that we are most immediately connected to in life In my life right now is school age children. So I see new families moving in I mean, are we in a you know, maybe the town population is not growing very much The town population is growing but the housing stock is not growing But are the service needs different in the next 10 years? likely to be different in the next 10 years and are we going to grow in a direction or have demands in a direction That will be um fulfilled at this rate and You know, we all have constraints. There should be tension on both sides Do we have adequate tension from both sides? And I'm sorry I don't usually like to ask these sort of philosophical questions. Um, I like just like data but um, it does bother me that um, I don't Feel as much tension as I would like from the side of will the services that we may expect from my View of all I see of the people I interact with the most that I see growing dramatically Extrace class sizes for new families moving into town Will there be those services provided to them five years out at this rate of growth? At the level and the quality that we have currently and I think the one thought I do have that I want to share is um You know the worst thing to do is spend a lot of money and not get what you think you're getting Then you're really bitter about the quality of government You lose faith in the system if you feel you're spending good money for good value Whatever that measure is and if you have to spend more to get the value So you actually get something that's worth it That should be a discussion So people should decide that value that they want and what they're willing to spend for it Not sure there's a question in there, but good. Was that an actual question or statement? Okay, good. Perfect. Mr. Swilling Nathan Swilling for you think six I moved to but to terminate debate on budgets three through 16 Three through 16 We just have a hold on number three at this moment The other kid is a motion to terminate debate on three through 16 Several of which are held all in favor. Please say yes Oh, no one seconded Is there a second? No second. All right. No, it's no one seconded. Mr. Swilling. Sorry That is no one else who wishes to discuss some manager budget You want to discuss the manager budget? Okay That was really interesting and Ej Harris precinct five. I apologize um That was really interesting and I think Genuinely worth the consideration of the entire meeting The only thought I wanted to share is it turns out we do elect We do ask the town what they want every year because they elect us to answer that question when we vote on the budget And we dutifully do so If we actually aren't a body that Answers that question. I don't know why I'm here Thank you Anyone else in the manager's budget? Okay, that closes the debate on the manager budget the next budget was held was the treasurer Who wish to discuss the treasurer? to jameson On the manager budget. I let it go Off the budget because we have to have somewhere to discuss these issues Um, I was originally one of the original persons who got up asked me where they could discuss these issues And I said the manager because he's kind of in charge and if there was nowhere else to discuss it We wouldn't have had that conversation. I think it was a good conversation But on the rest of the budgets, let's keep it to the actual department. We're discussing if you please Thank you. Thank you, mr. Moderator and thank you the gordon jameson precinct 12 And thank you for informing us for future meetings when we might make those important discussions Yep manager because I can grill him So uh The other night when we were doing the capital plan there was an item for the treasurer's office. It was a new software package And so that's a was a couple hundred thousand dollars That was potentially going to be spent And there's I also talked to mr. Good and there's a software programmer that spends significant time Man it helping the current system Uh survive Immediately I thought of outsourcing Why buy this package? Why continue to have someone who has to program to keep the packages alive? And so my question to the treasurer's office is Are they considering outsourcing of this package the billing and receipts and things sorted things? And if not, why not? Okay, mr. Gilligan's in here, but his deputy treasurer is Where oh, you're over there hiding come on over. I'm looking at stevens chair Hi Michael morse deputy treasurer Um in regards to the outsourcing we do outsource some of it with lockbox currently That's a separate facility where some bill payments get processed I think he's referring to the software package itself the software that i'm it all ties in excuse me Okay, um microphone. We've looked at a number of Different software programs out there. We have a it consultant coming in to do a needs analysis from the office And we'll use that recommendation As we go forward with the It software budget that we have Yeah, that doesn't address my question about are you considering outsourcing the whole thing? This would seem to be a demarcation Um, uh, and so when next year comes wrong And if you have purchased the package versus outsourcing Um, I would I would expect the office to be able to respond to In detail why an outsourcing approach was not utilized versus keeping it in house I understand there's there's professional reasons within the office to keep it one place or else But I think we'd like to hear about the rationale for going one way or the other Well the it consultant that we do have coming in in the next few months We'll do a full needs analysis and he will go through the different Um opportunities and options that we have including outsourcing and all the other local Software vendors out there. Excellent. Thank you. Thank you. Anyone else we should discuss the treasurer's budget Seeing none The next budget that was held board of assessors Who wish to discuss board of assessors? Pass No one else Legal who wanted to discuss legal mr. Harrington Stephen Harrington precinct 13. Sorry. I'm going to go into actually expenses here So I have a question mr. Moderator We heard the other night that 50 000 dollars was spent On uh defending the town against a lawsuit and so I went to the open checkbook Which is a great tool you should look at it and um I look back and it has data back to june of 2011 just for year 212 and um I could find nothing that indicated that an outside law firm was paid For that legal expense that we were told about by another speaker. So my question mr. Moderator is Yes, it would be Where when did we spend that 50 000 and who was the vendor that we spent it on what was the legal firm That we spent that money on Mr. Heim Doug Heim town council So, uh, there are certain things uh while the town is for the most part self-insured There are certain things the town can't be self-insured. So we have what's called an officers liability policy So that money is a deductible on an insurance policy the insurance policy then takes Absorbs whatever it is the cost is whether we win or we lose and they hire the outside firm That's why you won't see it in open checkbook because we didn't hire a firm. We paid our insurance deductible So I should see that insurance deductible then right in the open checkbook You know, I'm not sure uh, that was that was some years ago. I'm not sure how the open checkbook handles something like an insurance deductible Um, I have to before that to somebody else Chaplain Adam chaplain town manager, uh, I believe council is uh means to say premium When he's saying deductible and those insurance premiums are covered under the insurance budget and so every year I believe it's uh delineated in the insurance budget public officials liability and that would be the insurance premium That's being referenced So um, bear with me Can we look at the insurance budget quickly since it seems to you know be a crossover from the legal budget Well, as long as we don't discuss it again under insurance. I don't believe anyone held insurance, sir Well, we never know So i'm looking at under insurance on page b 15 so about halfway down the chart you'll see group life and then liability insurance Right that liability insurance is what uh town council is referring to as uh public officials Liability insurance. Yeah, so it's it's steady since 2013. So that would have been steady since fiscal year 2013 Correct and so the um the person That they referred to and you'll see it's it's it's steady 50 50 55 There's no unusual expense that person was deposed in 2013 so I don't see it in there. I don't see that it was an increase Of a $50,000 cost of the town. I made no such claim Okay, I didn't say you did sir. Thank you Anyone else on legal seeing none Next was parking who wanted to discuss parking Richard Richard Langone precinct six I'm curious about overnight parking it seems to be um Certain areas that there are overnight parking certain areas there ain't Is there a policy for overnight parking? Mr. Greeley The slackman are in charge of parking. Mr. Greeley is going to tell you Kevin Greeley bought a slackman Actually, yes, there is a policy and it normally relates to Whether or not There is an ability for a driveway on the property or whatever and we listen We determine it on a case-by-case basis And i'm wondering if it's enforced throughout the whole town or is it The reason I ask is there's 80 roughly 80 people in the town that have overnight parking permits I noticed every time someone comes up for an overnight parking permit in the selectman's office They have to beg and plead and you know for every kind of reason to why they should have overnight parking and The fact of the matter is that when they had the ballot question in 2013 You know, they asked if the town agreed that there should be overnight parking Well, one-third of the town is private parking private ways But they wouldn't even know what overnight parking is So when the selectman always tell The people that come up and ask for a permit to overnight park They always say to them. Well, it was overwhelmingly voted against Well overwhelmingly what would one-third of the town that has private ways know about overnight parking? It doesn't apply to them They've exempt from it. They can park overnight all they want if guests can park overnight all they want So overnight parking is a gray area They enforce it on certain people And in the same time they're enforcing on certain people they allow 26 parking spots in front of the the high school for town employees Now i'm a tax payer and I have to pay To overnight park in front of my house, which I don't have a driveway for I live in the sun The son of is you know a tough area to live because there's a lot of business a lot of people going to be coming in and out and I can understand parking rules semi-enforcement gray areas But it's insulting to me that I have to pay to park overnight when town employees Well, I pay taxes To employ get a different privilege not only that they get to park in front of the high school, but students Who certain select people said I don't want to listen to the parents if they start ticketing around the high school But they got no problem ticketing a small street like swan place Who's beside the kickstand restaurant? Well personally the front of it looks beautiful, but the backside of it's a dump. There's dumps. There's trash all over the place personally It comes a point when you know our police department Should be Defending and protecting all the people and when they came up to swan place They were going on the orders of the select one which I filed a public meeting Request with the attorney general of violation the open meeting law complaint And I'm saying it today. That's what happened Back in 2012 our town and our select men and our police department. I saw up in our neighborhood I don't plan on coming back next year. So I'm getting that off my chest now. Thank you Anyone else on parking? Next was planning and community development Who wish to speak to that sir? Thank you, mr. Moderator david watson precinct five Uh, just had a Quite a couple of questions about line items under personnel and planning and commuting community development Uh, there it appears that for 2016 there's a new assistant director position being funded and a senior planner slash director of housing position being Defunded and my question was Uh, what's happening there? Is that just due to a personnel reorganization? kowalski Carol kowalski director of planning and community development. That's correct last year position was reclassified the senior planner Director of housing position was reclassified to assistant director Our personnel actually changing No, the there is an individual whose title changed. Thank you. You're welcome Thank you anyone else on planning and community development Seeing none recreation redevelopment board someone held that Who wanted to speak to redevelopment board? Nobody okay moving on public works Okay, there's a bunch of people so hold on a second Here first, um Yeah, go first I have a question for the head of the public works department I don't know if anyone else feels the same way. I do I don't feel know whether other people feel the same way I do But when I drive through the town of allington, I feel like I am driving over a washboard Every street I go down A the town of allington puts down a new street and two weeks later a contractor comes by and tears up a hole in the street And then the contractor repairs the hole by filling it in Two weeks later. There's a dip where that hole is I know there is a Policy that when a contractor or the tpw tears up a road They are responsible for putting it back into the condition it was in when they found it Well, right now they don't have to put in much of a condition because the condition they're finding the roads is rotten To say the least However, I'm wondering how the dpw holds the feet to the fire for these contractors to see that this work is done And if they call them back when two or three weeks later, there are holes where the Fillings were done Mr. Atamaka Mike ratamaka director of public works The public works does have a policy for any newly paved roads There is a moratorium on excavation But there are obviously times when Work is still necessary even in these roads in that case We put an extra requirement upon the contractor that they when they patch the road They have to do what's called an infrared patch where they actually kind of melt the pavement back in to make a smooth surface We don't require that to happen until a year after the work is done because you want some settlement to occur Then they're required to come back and make that final patch We do have a program where we Look at permits from years past to be sure that we're following up with this kind of work And that that's done on an annual basis and we do we do call contractors back in and have them perform this work Well, if anyone drives around the roads in allington, you wouldn't find the you've been calling them back very well Because to be honest with you I can I mean, I don't think there's a street in allington And I can drive down and I can't find a place where a contractor should have been called back because of the The washboard that is there. I mean our roads are in deplorable condition Thank you Gentlemen four rows back Right. Yep You Right next. Yeah, sir I'll learn everyone's name eventually Thank you, mr. Moderator david watson precinct five a couple of questions one Under uh Cemetery's There is a what looks like a significant increase uh under motor equipment operator Without an increase in personnel and uh, I was wondering what was behind that We're out of marker Mike we're out of marker director public works. There was a brilliant adjustment in The organization of the the department We had a half-time position in cemeteries and a full-time position in parks and those positions were swapped So there was an increase in cemeteries But a decrease in the parks department budget, okay, and my second question is Under a sanitation, uh solid field disposal Uh, I just wanted to know what is solid field disposal and why is it increasing by 21 percent solid field disposal is When we need to get material get rid of material such as pavement or concrete when we do a roadway or sidewalk And it varies depending on the amount of work we get done in a particular year Okay, thank you The trembling at trembling precinct 19. Uh, mr. Moderator. I was going to ask the annual question How much salt did we use? John I have you on the list. Don't worry Mike Rademacher director of public works this year. We used 9455 tons of salt It's not too bad was actually less than last year. Yeah, it's pretty good Um, is there any uh, are any plans to use uh, brine? Not not currently no Okay I was also wondering if if you had any Um indication of how much snowplow damage we got uh from running over curbs student bump outs or whatever I don't we don't have that was kind of records. I mean, um equipment gets damaged Uh during the course of an event over the course of the winter. Um, we don't necessarily keep tracks on If it was damaged because we hit one particular kind of curb or another we're Fixing it and getting back out there Is is there any uh, any particular thing that you're aware of that causes The majority of snowplow damage Uh, well, it's a various things roadway condition. Um is probably the number one and and uh, I would say that we we do have some difficulties with some of the private ways in town But we need to we'll be working to address that with the with the owners of those private ways All right. Thank you very much Mr. Fuller Thank you, mr. Moderator peter fuller precinct 20 uh Question on snow and ice I see that In the current year fiscal 15. We budgeted 771 thousand dollars Um on the back Summary page it shows we're filling Snow and ice deficit with 500 thousand dollars of new money. So that's about You know 1.3 million but according to open checkbook we spent 2.2 million so My question is where did the rest of the money come from to fill in that expense? Mr. Tosti so another 500,000 will come from the reserve fund maybe a little bit more Uh, and the rest of the money will come from transfers within within the other budgets Within the other public works budgets. Well within the other town budgets. Okay Um, is the increase to 846 thousand for 16? Suppose we have another really bad winter is it going to be possible to Put that jigsaw puzzle together again to fund a big overage if it happens Uh, that's what we've been trying to do. We've been trying to increase that as much as we can Each year The reserve fund has been increased to again substantially hold that and uh, I think we can I mean whatever has to be done We'll be done Well, we'll just hope we don't get another winter like that for a while. That would be nice Another question the state transportation bond bill that was passed a year or two ago Uh, you're marked a pretty considerable amount of money for the reconstruction of gray street I was wondering what the status of that might be and when that might actually happen Mr. Chapter lane Adam chapter lane town manager, uh, if may I mr. Moderator address one quick point about the snow and ice budgeting? Yeah We uh, the town manager's office has started discussions with the finance committee about trying to get up to the 10 year retrospective Average of snow and ice spending which is just over a million dollars when we look back 10 years So we're trying to get up towards that within the next several fiscal years in regards to that gray street bond authorization At this point, it's just that it's a bond authorization passed by the legislature, which would then need to be actually Executed or issued by the governor's office today We have no knowledge that the governor or dot mass dot would be looking to issue that but We somewhat frequently will will lobby our legislators to to put a push on that and If when the opportunities arise to have conversations with mass dot we certainly check in But there's nothing pending today That clears that up. I I hope it happens sooner or later. That's one of those washboard roads that a previous speaker referenced. Thank you The woman right in front of mr. Fuller Did you have to hand up? Oh over here you did. Okay, great Hi, mckayla may precinct 20 Um another snow question. I I remember there was a discussion, you know Uh in the community during the snow fiasco about Um removal of snow on properties that on sidewalks where they just sort of chronically weren't removed There was a there's a business on massab close to lexington border that habitually doesn't remove it such that you can't walk down the hill to starbucks There's a some, you know properties in town where Um, there is not snow removal throughout the um The season and I was wondering um, I I saw in the bylaws that the town has the power to remove snow Um on certain properties and I'm wondering if that is done private properties Mr. Radamak, could you shovel anyone's private properties? No, um I i'm not suggesting that you should i'm just saying uh You know and we've you know, there's there's been you know community discussions on how to address this problem because for A lot of people in the community it makes it so that they're stuck at home You know because they either they can't walk in their neighborhood or Um, you know if someone falls they can't go to work And for a lot of people, you know, it just creates a cascading effect. So Um, you know, I was just curious to know whether anything is that about if that was done Um because I know it's in the bylaws. Would it be public works that did it or would it be? Because I know the police enforce the tickets and I'm not saying the police actually Just to be clear Michael Radamak a director of public works. I believe the bylaw you're referring to Gives the town the authority to Have a sidewalk cleared if it's habitually not cleared But not necessarily by public work staff By outside contractor and then somehow that those the costs are then leaned against the property. I don't know the exact Process but I believe that's what the bylaw. Okay. So there are there outside contractors that are currently That hasn't that has not been Performed to my knowledge. Okay. Do you know if historically it's ever been done? I don't know Mr. Chaplain had some further information on that Adam chaplain town manager So I believe just bright prior to my tenure as town manager when I was here as deputy I know my predecessor I believe it was proposed maybe three four years ago the change to that bylaw It's sort of that clean and lean concept where come clean the sidewalk and then you're able to charge or lean the property My recollection is that when we went out to Solicit prices from contractors We we weren't able to get any sort of Consistent interest to be able to effectuate it through contractors and in the immediate aftermath of any kind of significant snow event We don't have The capacity with with public works employees to be able to clear private sidewalks as we're still focused on usually town Town on property. So I I would say it's absolutely something we're aware of I know it's something me and mr. Rademacher talked about throughout this winter and I think we need we need to try to develop A better way to get those sidewalks cleaned. So I don't I don't have a final answer, but I assure you it's on our radar. I appreciate that. Thank you Thank you. Sean Harrington Thank you, mr. Moderator. Sean Harrington precinct 15 Last year we moved the recycling coordinator position from part time to full time Because they were going to increase recycling by targeting apartment buildings and other places that don't recycle consistently Consistently Mr. Moderator, what was the result? Cost savings through increased recycling in 2015 and what was the expected cost decreased due to recycling in 2016 You have the answer mr. Rademacher No And these are the kind of questions you're supposed to ask in a mic Michael Rademacher director of public works. I don't have those values exactly But the reasons for increasing the time was not just for that purpose. There were other The facets of that position that we were hoping to expand upon we did do quite a bit of extra enforcement to Encourage or to require folks to recycle in order to have their trash picked up We did target other apartment buildings. We did have increased enforcement, but I don't have a value as to what that Changed so were there any planned savings though that you have or you know any return that we've gotten so far from the position That's a difficult to some degree to Answer initially when we went to the new contract the Recycling or the new trash contract where we did require recycling to have your trash picked up We went from we saved about It was 60 or somewhat thousand dollars a year This position essentially Manages that waste contract both answering calls from residents and also Coordinating work with the contractor. So not just the recycling part, but this position coordinates that whole contract Which did save the town significant funds? Okay, thank you Christopher Moore precinct 14 I moved to terminate debate on the public works budget Ocean terminate debate in public works budget. It's been seconded all in favor. Please say yes opposed My opinion that is a two third vote Okay, the next budget that was held Was facilities who wanted to talk about facilities Mr. Harrington Not mr. Harrington peter fury Peter fury precinct two This is beyond the scope because it's about public works I'd like to get a round of applause for public works for the heroic effort just to keep the roads open this winter That lady had her hand up next Four rows back the center Yes, now you shawn Sean Harrington precinct 15 Due to finals, I kind of have some tough times getting through all the departments trying to find this Make sure I look at everything. You know, this is a new department can Someone please explain a little bit what's going on here, you know a little bit more detail on it I I understand it's new. I'm just some more detail on I just haven't had a chance to really get a chance to look at it My apologies for not doing my town meeting homework before my college homework Adam chapter lane town manager so what you see here is The first step in what will be a two-year process in the creation of a joint town school facilities department Currently facilities is managed in a primarily dispersed fashion with Multiple department heads having responsibility for their individual facilities The majority of facilities staff custodians and building maintenance staff being located in the school budget, but still servicing town buildings And no real coordinated effort focused on facilities the facility superintendent Is a division supervisor or a division head with currently contained under the jurisdiction of the department of public works But budgetarily contained within the school department. So I think that gives a little bit of a quick snippet of the the disjointed nature of facilities so starting two years ago initiated by a proposal or a suggestion by barbara thorton I remember the capital planning committee and town meeting member to create a building maintenance committee Was adopted by the board of select men established this building maintenance committee They met for the better part of the last two years Analyzing the town's facilities and maintenance needs And coming up with a real robust set of recommendations that can be provided Two-town meeting via email. I believe it's available on the town website And the recommendation ultimately had a number of steps that contained collection of maintenance data Better maintenance planning both short mid and long term going forward as a nice Accompaniment to the capital plan and investments that are made in town facilities And then perhaps most importantly The creation of an actual standalone joint town school facilities department that would have a department head level supervisory position So what you see here? Is the 50 funding of a director facilities or the remainder of that position? Funded in the proposed school budget and then you see two positions that are actually currently budgeted within the dpw budget I'm it's current fiscal year fiscal 15 budgeted in dpw, but here moved into facilities Next year f y 17 what we would plan to bring before you is one actual large consolidated town school facilities department That would then move all of the currently school budgeted positions an expense budgets under the auspices of this one large facilities budget If that if we're successful in this two-year plan What would end up being the result is what I think would be after the school department police fire in dpw The next largest department in town in terms of both personnel and budget and certainly also In terms of complexity with the systems that need to be operated and maintained within our our various town facilities so I hope that answers your question in regards to what we're trying to achieve I just wanted to add one one thing is we've done a tremendous amount of rebuilding in this town We have rebuilt Almost all our elementary schools are junior or middle school our police station our fire stations And I think you know the the answer the question that Barbara Thornton. Well, are we going to maintain them? Well, this whole plan was to put together the structure To maintain those buildings So they can last as long as possible And we don't have to come back in 20 years and redo something because the building was not maintained So I think this is a a major step forward for the town and I work forward to its full implementation This court Annie lecourt precinct 15 To the town manager through the moderator if I may Would you say that Because we have created this facilities department and we've looked hard at maintenance That we will be able to stretch the life of the investments that we've made in new buildings and renovations Mr. Chapter lane Adam chapter lane town manager that is absolutely one of the goals of the creation of this department And would you say that you have in the process of doing the planning exercise that you did for this Found efficiencies that will save you on the operating budget So I would say that we have some areas where we think we could find efficiencies But there may be some areas where we find there might need to be a little bit of a beefing up of services Efficiencies certainly in the way we contract out to outside maintenance vendors The way that's currently managed Can certainly be improved and I think we can find some financial efficiencies there We do I want to be very clear once this is up and running and there's a facilities director hired In terms of in-house Building maintenance craftsmen carpenters plumbers I don't want to close out the possibility that after an analysis we realize that we need need more in-house staff Okay, and would you say that That in terms of those areas where you may find that you have services services You need to beef up. Would you call that what you would call a targeted investment? And worth spending money on in order to preserve the buildings that we have Invested so much of our capital money in I think that's fair to say Okay, and would you call this making a plan? Why didn't I have a feeling we were going somewhere? I would I would I would call it that yes, you should have known Thank you Stephen Harrington Stephen Harrington precinct 13 I rise to actually say that this is a great idea that they're consolidating facilities I think the town Um could do a great job with maintenance So I should do a better job with maintenance of what we you know build and um, this is exactly the type of thing That I was trying to get across earlier in this budget discussion That I think there's plenty of opportunities where they can consolidate and change around, you know, what we've been doing and um, you know With this facilities Combination between many different departments. That's exactly what I'd like to see Across the board. There's lots of opportunities to do improvements. So um out of character. I think it's a great job. Thank you Thank you Miss mayor Leslie mayor precinct 21 I I also think that um Combining the departments into a single facilities Uh department is a great idea. My question has to do with um I think this maintenance committee Is charge is looking at buildings Who's looking at the external facilities and the assets that we have Uh for our outdoor facilities does this department also consider our Parks playgrounds and other uh external resources Mr. Chapter lane Adam chapter lane town manager That issue was discussed by the committee and is something that's being looked at as a future phase But isn't currently in an implementation recommendation So it's outside of the scope of what this committee is looking at but it will be part of what we see A future committee or will the committee? Uh, I see how things are going with this and then I'm concerned because I just heard that we lost half a parks person Tonight that went over from a full-time Parks person Into a full-time cemeteries person. And so now we've we're down half a parks person and I'm hearing that this combined committee isn't taking into account the needs of our Assets that we spend an awful lot of money uh with capital improvements on but Have certainly a lot of needs when it comes to maintenance And so I'm I'm I'm trying to figure out where it's going to be addressed and how it's going to be addressed Well, I suppose I would say we'll have to determine if we want to Utilize the existing facilities maintenance committee and recharge them with taking a look at this or perhaps reconstitute I'm not sure what we'd call it. We could come up with a you know exterior facilities outdoor facilities parks and playgrounds Whatever we'd want to call it. Okay, but but I think there is there's absolutely a need for A group of people to take a look at that and make some make some recommendations. Okay. Thank you Yeah, we do want to make sure that the assets that we look at through the town Also include our outdoor assets and that they're not forgotten when we talk about facilities. It's not just buildings It's the other places that we value in the town Which are assets which are parks playgrounds playing fields because A lot of our citizens and Families people of all ages use those facilities and we need to Continue to maintain them. Thank you Thank you ma'am Barbara thornton precinct 16. I just want to respond to that very good question that was just asked as the Both as a citizen but also as the chairperson of the maintenance committee When we started the maintenance committee, it was very much to consider all the assets just as you suggested And I think it is within the purview Or has been within the purview of the maintenance committee to consider all the assets We have so many buildings and the the Roll out of a plan to initiate the maintenance process was so huge that we decided to try and cut it A little bit and phase it in so there is a as annie the court said there is a long-term plan hypothetical to think about of The the all of the assets of the town the the physical assets But we left off also automobiles and and moving equipment We left off the fields, etc Just to be able to focus on the buildings so that the facilities director and the department could get their feet on the ground Get it up and running and then begin to expand it under the town manager's Agreement, thank you Mark McCabe precinct 2. I stand to terminate debate On budget 18 and all matters before The motion to terminate debate on budget 18 and all matters before it's been seconded all in favor. Please say yes opposed It is a two-thirds vote and I so declare it that it closes 18 brings us on to the next budget that was held Mr. Tosti When you're looking at budget 19 here, I started debated we debated whether to put this in I think mr. Moderator if we can basically for discussion and voting ignore a In the total community safety and just go with b police services c fire services and Basically that's for public safety because all the others are being eliminated On it so b and c would be the main Oh, I see so the admin budgets are all old So there's no use discussing those okay Okay now who wanted who put a hold on public safety mr. Harrington And the other one even Harrington precinct 13 so one night. I'm looking at my Cell phone and I'm trying to get a signal And I notice that there's a network That says uh apd underscore n watch underscore node 096 now, you know I know the joke FBI surveillance fan to name your network that but I went around town. I found other ones and so my question Mr. Moderator To the the chief of police, I guess all to you through you you can direct it whoever you want is um, you know We notice is about a million dollars for community safety, you know million 52 I'd like to know the any electronic gathering devices such as automatic license plate readers cell phone tower emulators or any other electronic collection Devices that is currently in use by the Ellington police department And if so or even if not What type of policies we have uh to protect the privacy of residents? chief Good evening fredder grind chief of police Mr. Stevens there are no such devices and we we operate under a A very transparent law enforcement agency and if if there were any such devices We would have had conversations with the human rights commission and others. Thank you All right, I guess that answers the question. Thanks Sean Harrington pass Mr. Chappett Thank you, mr. Moderator Roland chappett precinct 12 This may be a bit of a naive question, but There was an item on b12 under the fire services Section it's called fire alarm system maintenance And it's been picked up this year because it came out of dpw Previous years and it was reduced for the last couple of years by about 10 000 dollars each year I guess my question is what is fire alarm systems? What is that? I mean nowadays we all have telephones and cell phones and so forth So if we have a problem with the fire system, we just call it apartment Where does this fit? Robert Jefferson fire chief to fire alarm How would you call it fire alarm system maintenance fire alarm system maintenance that that's the old fire alarm system Was used to always be carried in the public works budget. It's been reduced over the years It's the old pull blocks that are on the street that we removed. Yeah, but we still have Radio boxes to all the town all town buildings all schools and private businesses are able to buy fire alarm radio boxes Which are much more efficient than the old systems and that's what that's for to maintain that it also maintains all the fire and police Radio wires which still run underground and overhead from The station the center to the police stations to the highland to the pock circle and all that has to be maintained for damages and repairs So it's all maintained with radio frequencies Okay, thank you. Thank you. Mr. Court Annie la court precinct 15 a couple of quick questions about the police budget So I wanted to ask the police chief whether he has been able to fund a couple of Initiatives that were of concern to him when I was on the board of selectmen Give us your questions and I'll get them. The first question is about The ability to handle electronic crime our ability to assist residents who may have experienced identity theft or other kinds of electronic fraud And whether we are in a better position to do that now than we were a few years ago chief ryan Frederick ryan chief of police. Thank you. Mr. La Courte Yes, we have been able to do that through a number of regional partnerships And training of our detectives Who have been trained up by the attorney general's office and the district attorney's office. Okay. Thank you So don't sit down. No way you you ask the questions and I say who gets the answer them You're not gonna sit here and have a colleague colloquy. All right So another initiative that you had hoped to work on I know that we've established a resource officer at the high school In a diversion program, but you had talked at one point about the ability to also dedicate a resource officer to the junior high school Have you been able to resource that position at all or even part-time? Yeah, we've not been able to do that, but we have been very successful at Working with both the high school principal and the middle school principal to carve up the time of the school resource officer and And um, it's it's been effective. I think the superintendent would agree with that Okay, would you describe yourself as content with this solution? I'm sorry. Would you describe yourself as content with this solution? Yes, I would. Okay. And then one final question about the police overtime budget You've heard me ask this question before How many hours of overtime on average are your officers working? I don't know. Uh, I don't know. I don't know the answer to that Um, that's the kind of question you're supposed to ask them in advance so we can give you a real answer I I understand in the past. He's been able to do it on the fly So I apologize if you feel put on the spot. I just noticed that the budget is growing Um considerably and I know that there's a question of at what point does it become inefficient to do overtime and more efficient to hire an employee versus the efficiency of overtime Since we skip the benefits, right? You know, I think they're working a manageable amount of overtime and and fatigue is not compromising their ability to perform their duties And so when you do a cost benefit with a fully loaded police officer versus backfilling with overtime I think um that we are deploying our resources in a safe Uh, a safe and cost effective manner Okay, thank you in the past. I've suggested to you that um sending an officer to my house after 60 hours of overtime Um would not be the best idea because I would be worried about their level of fatigue I can tell you for a fact that the officers who come to my house are fresh and ready to do their job Yeah I'm glad to hear that Mr. Deist John Deist Mr. Deist John Deist John did you have a hand up? Pass okay Mr. Smith Scott Smith precinct five moved the question on this budget Officials terminate the bait on public service budget Um all in favor, please say yes Post My opinion is a two-third vote that closes budget 19. That brings us to um spectrum services. Who wanted to talk about inspections? Nobody okay education Mr. Harrington. All right. Wait a second. We've got to go a little slower here. Go ahead. Shawn Shawn Harrington precinct 15 originally I was actually going to put up a Try to amend the school budget, but instead I think I'll just try to talk this one through Um, get my right keep my notes um Walk Thank you I saw at the school school committee meeting at special ed costs are not budgeted Are not budgeted to go up seven percent this year and may not have gone up seven percent on average the last five years Is a town looking at whether this number is still the correct annual inflation? Numbered to budget for special ed. Should we decrease? This amount in the future basically you have an I know I asked a question about a little bit of a reply to that We budgeted seven percent for special ed, but there's only a 1.8 percent Increase in their budget the rest of that money went into the general ed budget Basically, my question is why is this okay? And why the money wasn't simply given back to the general fund rather than going Into the general Mr. Tosti and then mr. Hainer on baffa to school committee The plan Worked out with the long-term planning committee and the budget and revenue task force Was to look at a 10-year average And when you look at a 10-year average For special ed it is still approximately seven percent And every year We ask for the numbers and and see what the long-term Average is and at this point it's still seven percent The school system has done a very good job in bringing Bringing down their out of district tuition by improving the quality of the of the programs that are within the school And that cost money So that anyway, it's still within that 10-year average and Therefore still Recommended by the finance committee to be part of that Now for the school committee's opinion on that question Thank you, mr. Moderator bill heinous school committee for some reason last year. I didn't have to give my annual Answer i'll give it this year No one can predict the expense for special education any given year Some years like in the past year We've had a very light year on expenditures But all it takes is one child of needing very expensive services Which are mandated by the federal and state government which is not within our control that can blow a budget out We've taken the fiscal responsibility to Develop a contingency fund which a couple of years ago. We had it. We were able to use it We'll be in this is the important part. We cannot predict what is going to happen in the upcoming year That's why it's necessary going along with what mr With the former speaker just said thank you All right, I can understand that but a six close to six hundred thousand dollars that really how much we're expecting a special ed student to cost I mean, I guess i'm looking at this And i'm wondering why not just give the money back to the general General fund and then if you need it ask for it I mean because other than that it's just going directly to the general education fund Why not why not just give it back to them if you need it ask for it? I mean this was brought up during a fincom meeting too by one of the members who's not here tonight I just you know because That's what the money was supposed to be for and if you're not going to use it Why not just give it back and then if you need it ask for it. I think mr Chapter lane has a reason why he can't do that Adam chapter lane town manager just just from a practical point of view We would need to call another special town meeting to appropriate further funds To the school departments. I think that would cause both an efficiency and practicality problem All right, um like I said, I'm not against the idea of having a little bit more than what you're um I mean 1.8. I can imagine it being around like 2.8 or 3.8, but Set I mean that's 6 percent that's 600 thousand dollars. I could be going to another Department, I mean I can understand putting 200 thousand that putting it to another You know keeping it there just in case you need it But the rest of that could go somewhere else, you know, you can't just have growth for the sake of growth um in a sense Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell Sorry, but it's just a case You have to address that mr. Tosti Yeah, just one other element um special education Is not an optional thing in other words if If if a child comes in and needs a certain degree of services, you can't argue in court that we don't have the money So anytime special education Uh cost spike like mr. Heiner said that money has come that has to come back out of general education So somehow they will have to find the money if all of a sudden that's instead of going up one percent It goes up seven or ten percent. Uh, they'll have to find the money. So Sometimes they try to put it back and balance it over over a period of years Mr. Watson Thank you, mr. Moderator david watson precinct five Just a question about management services. It seems like since 2013 That we have here in the budget. It's been pretty variable and it's Going up by 79 percent projected for 2016 so Just a question of what is that and uh, why is it so variable and why is it going up so much for 2016? Dr. Bodie can you answer that? Kathleen Bodie superintendent of schools. Which page number are you referring to? Um, uh, this is uh, b13 Education This year we have We have our contracts on not settled yet And so what we have done is we have put an amount of money that is in the admin budget So I think what you're seeing is the effect of a contract year Yes, it's put it's it's put where we put that money that was set aside for collective bargaining is in the admin account I see and what uh Can you talk a little bit more about why it seems to be very variable from Year to year You want to speak to that Miss johnson diane johnson chief financial officer for the school department Um, when we go into a negotiation cycle We have to plan how much we're we think we're going to spend through settlement But we don't want to exactly show our hand by putting it out in excruciating detail So we we consolidated under administration as a convenience of budgeting because the timing of the negotiation cycle and the timing of the budget Doesn't line up as we would wish in a perfect world We'd settle the contracts and then do the budget, but since that's not possible they run concurrently We put the we put the funds that we're planning It may not be exact But we're planning to use in settling our contracts into admin And then there's two years where the contracts are settled. We know exactly how much we're spending for contracts It's placed where the budgets where the teachers are where the other staff are And then in the fourth year we go back into a negotiation cycle and the cycle repeats itself Thank you for clarifying that Tully One of the previous speakers asked about the 1.8 increase that is simply without any of our contracts settled And against to this point where we we consolidate the money. So it is it is not a 1.8 increase Mr. Tully Joe telly precinct 14. I had the same question as the previous speaker, but Um, I guess we got part of the answer But my question would be how much how do we know what we are actually paying for management services Mr. Schekman, can you answer on behalf of the committee? uh, paul schlickman chair of the school committee Uh, this, uh, finance committee document is merely a down and dirty summary You're voting the bottom line if you would like more details They are in the budget book that we provided you from the school department That would be this book and if you want even more details for that We've got line items galore on the on the district website. Can you Direct me to where? Where in this book it is? Ms. Johnson, can you direct mr. Tully as to where in the book that line item is? Diane Johnson CFO school department There are a couple of different places where you can see this the first is in this pie chart on page 32 Where you can see admin services and if you compare it to other years You'll notice that the piece of the pie has gotten much larger this year to look specifically um There are several departments if you look on page 34 by the cost centers There are several of the departments that are included in the Central administration and those would be school committee superintendent admin for curriculum and personnel business office payroll Elementary system wide and system wide So those are the those are the cost centers that are included in administration Now there are there are those are the central administrative costs There are also administrative costs in each of the school budgets So for example the high school there'd be an administration line in there to represent the principal and the deans But it's I guess so I would just make the observation. That's not apparent. I thank you for the explanation. It's not terribly transparent when I flip through this document as lengthy as it is to be able to determine that um I would also I guess also just by way of observation if we're if we're looking at the pie chart And we're going to take school-based administration and there is a number in there We simply have to subtract that from the other number that is in the finance committee report This the number that increased by 79 to get what the actual Cost of the the monies we're sort of trying to not tip our hand about is that No, I'm sorry Diane Johnson CFO school department That's not entirely clear. Um, one of the great confusions about the school budget relative to other town department budgets Is that we do not receive 100 of our funding from the town appropriation? If you look at page 31 This pie chart you'll see that there is a small but significant portion of funding that does not come from the town appropriation And so the amount of money you see in the finance committee budget is only looking at the town appropriation portion And the money you're seeing in the school budgets reflects not only the town appropriation But funding we receive from grants Revolving and other reimbursements If you look at the funding summary page, which is page 30. That would be this page You can see a breakout of how that works in terms of where the money is coming from When you look at any of the expense breakdowns either in this document or in our full budget on the website You can see all of the things that we're planning to spend money on or in previous years have spent money on In a great deal of detail, but it doesn't parse it out Amongst what is the town appropriation? What is grant and what is revolving? It's all together because we consider it holistically as we as we do our best for our students And so it does create confusion between the fincom budget and the school department budget Would it be fair to say that if someone had the wherewithal to understand? all of this they would be able to Divine the amount we're so-called not tipping our hand about They would see amount that we're guesstimating would be a fair settlement But probably will not be our final settlement number. All right. I this The point simply being is the first I've ever heard about sort of trying to hide money in this fashion And it may be customary. It may be that we've done it in past years I guess looking at the The numbers going back a couple fiscal years. It looks like it fluctuates up fluctuates down So we apparently have done it in the past, but it's it's new to me. It seems It seems somewhat Sort of not in the interest of fair play, but I understand we all have Our jobs we have to do so I will leave it at that With my remaining minute and 39 seconds. Is it Permissible to make a motion to adjourn mr. Moderator? Yep, you can make a motion anyone can make a motion to adjourn at any time it's an interruptible motion I so motion to adjourn it's been seconded I is um Five more budgets that are on hold, so I don't think we're going to finish it tonight all in favor of adjourning Please say yes We'll see you monday