 This program is brought to you by Cable Franchise V's and generous donations from viewers like you. I'm calling the Finance Committee meeting of March 30, 2021, daughter at four minutes after two. And I want to welcome everybody. Pursuant to Governor Baker's March 12, 2020 order suspending certain provisions of the open meeting law. General law chapter 30 a section 18. This meeting of the finance committee is being conducted via remote participation. And I need to go to members of the committee and make sure that they can acknowledge that they can hear and be heard which will serve as a method of. Also introducing to everybody members of the committee that I wanted to go around to the other people who are present and asked for them to introduce themselves also. And the other thing that I would like to know from all of our guests who are here and I very much appreciate everybody being here is whether you have any special time constraints. For your participation, because I want to note that and then make sure that we get the final order of the meeting. To accommodate kind of those special requests. So comment on what I had thought about is the order of the meeting. It's the next step so but the first thing is to go around and make sure that everybody can hear me and be heard for starting with for the committee members so that Daniels. Yes. Dorothy Pam. Yes. Kathy Shane. Yes. Yes. And. See Bob Hegner. Yes. And Bernie could be at present. And. See if we're looking to see if. Jane Shufflers. Yeah, she's here. Her pictures here, Andy. Hi Jane. Hello. If I missed any members of the committee, I don't think so. So, let's get. Now know who the members of the committee are. Five of us are counselors. And three are members of the committee who are resident members of the. Community. And three are members of the committee who are members of the community. Which is provided in our town. Charter. So, I don't know Sharon. Do you want to go and introduce the people who are here from the trustees. And from the library and then ask them the question as to whether they have any special. Let me, let me look around my screen, Bob Pam. Hello. Do you have any time constraints? I get to bed by midnight. Very well, Bob is our treasurer. And as I keep going along, Alex the fave, she is our clerk. Alex, do you have any time constraints? I do not. Thank you. I see Kent Ferber, who is the chair of our capital campaign committee. Kent, do you have any time constraints? No, he's good to go. And as I keep going, can guy yet. I'm assuming you want me to do more than just trustees Andy. So can guy is our OPM. Ken, do you have any time constraints? I do not. Thank you very much. And I see George Barnes, who is the other half of our, our OPM team. George, do you have any time constraints? I do not. Thank you very much. I think that's everybody, Andy. Okay. Wait, wait, one more. I'm sorry, Jim, Jim Alexander. He's from final find gold Alexander. He's our architect Jim. Do you have any time constraints? No, I'm fine. Thank you as well. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So I think. Sharon, it's Doug Kelleher with that. And if I could be released by 330, that would be great. Who this is. I'm sorry. Okay. So. And I understand that there are a couple of people who will be joining later. And so what we, what I've thought about. And I need to shuffle. We need to shuffle us again. Possibly because of what Doug just said. But I thought we should start by talking about issues including fundraising historic tax credits. The endowment. Community preservation act. And. Budget questions. And anything having to end. The MOU and then later get into the building and. But I think that if we're going to have. We may have to do a little bit of the building questions earlier. So. Mr. Keller can't. Remain with us. So. Let me just get rid of this. So does anybody have any comments? Do you have any further comments on the order that we had discussed earlier? No, except that we've already had quite a discussion about the. A design. And we, and the benefit of having. Jim with us last time two weeks ago and the same is true for colliers. Both Ken. And George from two weeks ago. So. I think I would suggest we start with the historic tax credits. Okay. So I'm not going to try and go through questions. I really want to turn to the committee. To see what questions come. There are about. Various topics as we go through and we all have seen the document. I really appreciate the amount of effort that has gone in from everybody's part. On putting together the. Information that has been requested. And this has been circulated, not just to the finance committee, but also to the commission. As a document. And we will make an effort if there's additional information to be added at the conclusion of this meeting. To make sure that it gets added and circulated, but. I'm really. Now feeling that we have created a process and gone through a discussion that's going to take place next Monday when. We anticipate getting to decision. So. If we want to start with that. There have been substantial information on historic tax credits provided in previous meetings and. In the document, but I want to open it up. To see if there are additional questions. On historic tax credits and Dorothy, I see your hand up. Is that what it's about? Or do you have another. It is. I want to say that I really followed the discussion. It's true. I get confused as to what meeting that I heard what, but there was a very detailed discussion. I entered the meeting. Very skeptical of historic tax credits. But it was explained in great detail and very thoroughly. So that I'm satisfied. I, the one part that is. Like loose is that you'd never quite know how much is going to be accepted at any one time, but that you just keep going on. And bit by bit by bit. You should in fact get the amount that you have budgeted in. So I don't have any more questions about that, which I think is unusual. So that's it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. As Joyce said, we've had these explained pretty well on my, I think my question and I saw. A partial answer. As I understand it, once you apply, you often apply more than once to get the total amount. And I wanted to sense if the building number one, I think I heard that the building has to be completed. So what is the typical time lag? Is it when you're successful? Is it two years later, three years later? So in that repeated, and I saw how many times a year you can apply. So just, you've had an experience on a, usually by the second year or by the third year or what, that's all I'm looking for. What is the lag and you've given the range of estimates and you pegged it in the middle. So the time lag is, I understand on could be as high as this could be as low as this. And you've given us a middle. So the time lag. So the time lag as far as from the completion of the project, when the credits become available for use. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, I know when we think the project is going to end and we get the last payment, you know, I know what that is. So whatever that date is, and then. You're working to apply and to reapply. So it's when you have the money in your hand. Right. So we'll be applying throughout construction. And then basically at the completion of the project, once the, once the project is completed. And essentially a certificate of occupancy is issued. We then submit the part three application. And then from the time the part three application is, is submitted to the time you get the certificate, which is basically the item that is then sold. That is typically, you know, anywhere from 30 to 60 days from submitting the part three application. So relatively quick turnaround. So you get the certificate. So that triggers the second question. Then someone out there has to be willing to buy it. So then you're making, you're doing the deal making and what, what kind of lag has been that experience. So typically that, that whole process plays out while you're applying for credits. In other words, you identify your investor, the investor comes forward with an offer of, you know, whatever the amount is, you know, per credit, whether it be 80 cents on the dollar, 85 cents on the dollar, 90 cents on the dollar. But that agreement is worked out and put into place. Prior to submittal of the part three application. So once you have your certificate, you can then close on the sale of the credits essentially immediately. Okay. Thank you. That's that answers completely answers my question. Great. So there are other questions from other members of the committee. I think what I'm trying to just make sure is we piece this together and get into our final discussion about the MOU. And I think one of the things that I think is the, since it is an important part of the fundraising package. That we make sure that we have the timing sequence. As you've described it coinciding with what our goals are. As we established in the memorandum of understanding that we're thinking about having between the town and the library. Yeah, I know. I don't believe that the consultants have necessarily seen the MOU. And so I'm not sure they can answer it in relationship to that. I think the way that Kathy asked the question. I think what we're hearing is find out we hear what we're hearing is that you keep applying for credits as the project goes through different stages. And then once you have the certificate of occupancy. Is when you actually then move to what we just heard was this third application. And that's what actually triggers the certificate, which can then lead to the sale. So it sounds to me like you're building up. Throughout the process of building. But once you have your certificate of occupancy, then you can actually move to the sale of the credits. I'm more than willing to be corrected on that. It sounded like up to two months. So the 30 to 60 days. Yeah. Right, Doug. Correct. Yes. Your understanding is absolutely correct. Right. I didn't assume. I was not assuming Lynn that anybody out that everybody on the call. It seemed the memorandum of understanding, but I was just trying to make sure since we have both representatives of the library and trustees present. As well as representatives of the town that. We leave this conversation with the comfort level that it all fits together with what we have drafted. And the trustees acted on this morning. And where we're going. I think the answer is yes. Alex has a. Yeah, Alex. So if you're looking to hear, yes, I mean the. The MOU is the last payment of the MVLC is one year after the certificate of occupancy. So in theory, we should be getting the historic tax credits within the first couple of months. So there's still that cushion of one year. If for some reason it goes longer than 30 to 60 days. So from my perspective, I, it all dubs tails nicely. So. Thank you, Alex. Other questions from anyone present regarding. Subject to the historic tax credits. Bob Higner. Yeah, my, my, my question is just, is it, I understand that the, the $1.6 million is an estimate. And there's a range associated with that estimate. And I'm not. Wasn't clear to me what happens if. The actual is below the 1.6 million. And what happens if the actual. Is above the 1.6 million. Where does the money come from in the first place? And where does the money go to. In the second place. Andy. Try. Yeah. You want to try it or can't. Yes. Maybe I should try to answer that. The 6.6 million dollar commitment. Of the trustees is composed of a number of parts. All of which are essentially estimates. But they were composed in amounts. That are sufficiently flexible that if one part falls short. The other parts can make it up. So that the commitment of the trustees is the 6.6 million. Does that answer your question? And, and if the historic tax credits come to more than the 6.6 million, then we have to raise less in the other parts, although. You know, I, I can't speak for the trustees. But if the money is raised in the capital campaign for the construction of the building. And that's where the money should go. And I can. Can't, I can expect. Speak to that experience. From the campaign that I ran. And that is that there was a remainder of about 200,000. And it was put into a. Investment fund. And that investment fund can be tapped. So that's where the money should go. And that's where the money should go. And that's where the money should go. And that's where something needs to be done. That was part of what would be considered. The construction of the building. And so, for example, a roof repair. Or we had to repair a shower in this case. So it usually, when those funds are given for a purpose. They have to be reserved and designated and then spent for that purpose. Okay. The important point is that. That's where the money should go. And that's where the money should go. Six million. And where exactly that comes from is. At this point can only be. Estimated and estimated based upon. Plausible. Estimates and the best estimate for a start tax credit. That's the 1.6. If it's short. We have enough. Possibilities. To cover whatever shortage there is. So that's where the money should go. And that's where the money should go. And then there's something else. Yeah. I actually have a question for Doug. And that is, Are the applications along the way. Lugged to milestones in construction. To. Applications for payment from MBLC. How you said there, you apply as you're going along. So I'm kind of a little curious about. What that means. Right. Yeah. Excuse me. Many projects apply for credits. Even before they get started. In other words, while they're still going through the final design and permitting. The project. And then once the project goes into construction, then you continue to apply. And basically, you know, you can apply. There's no set milestones for the applications. You know, you just. Follow the state's application deadlines. And if you have a project that. Has a long construction period, then that allows you greater application rounds in which you can apply. But basically once the project is completed. And the building is placed into service, then you're no longer eligible to, to apply. Thank you. So let me just open it up for any additional questions from. Committee or others about. Fundraising the whole fundraising package. Or do we feel. Questions of inadequately answered. Substantial discussion that Pat. Your hands up. Thank you, Andy. I'm moving to the. Million dollars in CPA money. Which is part of the fundraising package. And I have gotten asked this question. By residents. After resident. And that when I was reading, it says. The CPA money was not incorporated into the repair options. As it has not been determined if they are eligible. So my question wouldn't knowing eligibility of the funds affect where we place that money in a. Renovation. So I'm not sure why the trustees haven't determined eligibility. And then apply if, if the funds are eligible, apply that to what residents can see about the renovation. As opposed to the re, you know, the whole. Smuggy. And I also, the other part of that question from residents is. That's taxpayer money. How can you say that it's fundraising? Why doesn't it affect the town share of the project? And I don't have adequate answers for those questions. And your hand is up to you. So. The determination of what kind of CPA funds might be. Available for the repair option. Is really not possible without having a detailed. Much more detailed sense of what would be done in the repair option. We know, for example, that. Nothing under at least that I know of the repair option possibilities. Improves the space for special collections. So the whole purpose of the grant that we've already been recommended. Disappears. What else might represent. Historic preservation of the 1928 building. Or even improvements for special collections. Remains to be seen. But in addition, and this is something I think really needs to get out on the table is that. Anybody who's worked in the foundation knows that qualification doesn't necessarily mean grants. Free money is wanted by everybody. You get five pieces of mail in your mailbox every day. So. When something qualifies, that doesn't mean that it effectively competes. Or scares fun. There's always more applications than. There's money to give. So. I think this was true for the CPA process this year and all the prior years and would be true for the CPA process. If a application was made for some of the repair work. So that makes it all the more harder to determine. What might in fact end up being granted. In the way of CPA funds for a repair option. That answer at least part of your first question. Yes, part of it. Yes. Go ahead. Well, and then as to the quote counting of the CPA funds. That's a. Well, that starts from the premise that it's all town funds. And in fact, that's not true. Some of the CPA money is a state match. It's state funds and the state has attached conditions to those. Among which. Are that it can't be used to replace operating funds. And. If the purpose of. Using the money to pay down the. Pound bottom funds. Is to reduce the operating funds necessary to do that. That begins to look like a replacement. And money is not as, you know, completely fungible. This CPA money is restricted to certain purposes. And. If there's a question in my mind, it's wrong question in my mind about whether when you. Establish a fund. To encourage people to engage in some sort of activity. And then they do it. You take it away from them. You know, only for good reason. And. So the fact that the library is doing a project that has historic preservation and other town objectives. So it gets money from two sources. It doesn't justify taking it away from one in order to pay for the other. Finally. And so. The $6.6 million goal. Was established after really careful consideration. It was the maximum that. The trustees and the friends. Thought. Plausible reasonable. And so if you raise that to 7.6 million. Which is what happens to the math. And the town's shares reduced to 148 million. If you're concerned about jeopardizing the endowment. With this commitment. That should really concern you. My own view is that. 7.6 million is. Is a real stretch. And I'm not sure the friends. Would be willing to undertake. Thank you. Kathy. Thank you. Sonia. You had your hand up and I took it down. I didn't know your back. Do you have something to add to the response before you go to the. Well, I. CPA funding. I think I hope I can do that. Well, enough for everyone to understand CPA funding is, is going to stand alone. There's a special account that's created. For this. So I'm going to go back and hand it over to the library for the fundraising or anything. It has to be connected to the special collections room. And. When you see that council order that goes out, you will see that the total cost of the. Construction project will be less that $1 million from CPA, because that's a separate. Council order. So that money is kept separate. It is tax, it is tax funding. It is a surcharge on people's properties. So you, you can add it to your fundraising in theory. Or you can, if you want it to be tax funding, you can take your choice, but it does stand alone. Gotcha. Yeah. Was that clear? I hope. No, that was very clear. I'm holding my tongue. I think I know you. I'm holding my tongue. I know about something. Thank you. Sonya, as always. Cathy. I just wanted to build on Pat's question and also have a quick response to what Kent said. I was. There when. The special collections was proposed and. heating, cooling, humidifying systems. I believe the repair option includes redoing heating, cooling, humidifying systems. So there are parts of the old building just as in earlier years, Jones has applied to repair the roof, has repaired for various pieces. So the CPA fund, to me, legitimately has been a go-to fund for this incredibly historic building. So I think you could look at the repair option, the part of it that was in the historic building, and say it's hard to believe there wouldn't be a significant amount, whether it's a million, I don't know, that would qualify. Of course, you would have to apply for it, but I watched the reaction to the CPA committee, people loved the Jones, and if it's to keep it functioning and conserve it, they will spend it. So that was just a response to that. And then a question I have actually of Sonia. If it's earmarked for the special collection, do you get specific bills coming in for special collection? Were they heating? And because they had to provide an estimate of the special collection piece because now that it's in the historic building, this may be a mute point, but are you gonna get earmarked invoices that this is special collection? So I just had a question of how this works. That's what we would expect, yes. Okay. Just wanted to reinforce the point that Kent made, that having been through this in a couple of different communities, using CPA money for restoration and repair is problematic when you're talking about renovations. You know, again, having talked with the previous finance committee meetings, earlier finance committee, having talked with the library about the kind of work that needs to be done. I'm really doubtful that any significant amount of that would qualify for CPA money. And I know the Jones is loved and I know that people are willing to help. But I think Kent's right on target with his concerns about using that, how those funds could be used. Yeah, which was generally, I think what my analysis had been to and if we got to the point where we are looking at the repair option and not looking at the renovation and addition option, there could be another application that would be made to CPA. I would expect that there would be another application that would be made to the Community Preservation Act Committee, what might be determined to be eligible under any of the criteria that apply, which is in this case, historic preservation, would really depend upon how that repair option could get structured and how much of it could be qualified in what the CPA committee would then in the end recommend to the council. Those are speculative steps that would then come to play. But there was no basis given the fact that the trustees were applying for a CPA grant based upon a building plan that we're now discussing, it had to be an application that was consistent with the building plan and that the CPA committee thought appropriate and I think that's the way that they proceeded. Dorothy. I just wanted to say that I had a lot of questions and problems with that. CPA money being used as part of the fundraising, but I have decided not to follow that through since the library made the statement and I also just read it again in writing that if there is need for further funds that the fundraising committee will find those funds. That, for example, that flexibility on the part of the library and the trustees, I think in a way makes up for the fact that the CPA money in some people's minds could have gone in one place or another and that understanding is the understanding that makes me more confident about the plan that the commitment of the trustees to find the extra money if it is needed and not to come to the town for it. Anything else, Sonia? Yes, I'm speaking for, on behalf of Sarah Marshall right now she just emailed me and wanted me to remind everybody that this million dollars was explicitly contingent on the expansion going through. So if the expansion doesn't get voted through, this million dollars would be rescinded and you would have to go back to CPA for any other portion of that project. Yeah, I had thought, I had hoped I had made that clear but you would have to be a new application but thank you for the reinforcing that. I think the last issues that I touched on and just make sure that all members of the committee, the finance committee understand it is that there are rules, the term that's used most frequently is supplanting that if there's a town obligation already at hand and then you cannot use CPA money for something that has already been committed to an obligation and that's what the supplanting clause is about and we have talked about that some and how this is structured. Kathy, we should go on and see what else there is. Yeah, we can go on, Andy, but I think in the case where a nonprofit not owned by the town is applying to us for construction costs, we didn't have an obligation. We don't have it yet. We haven't agreed to it. So this is not the same as we're operating a building and we're shifting costs over. Both of these are right now, they're tied at the hip. If the construction project goes forward, we owe, we're saying, and that's the whole MOU, we're committing to, but up until this point, we never, we the town never had the obligation for this building. This is also in a way an application to us as counselors. So I think it's just different than saying one building that we were going to do for operating costs, we're moving some of that over to the CPA. That is, that's just a different situation. And I know we, we have a fine line on what those two are. So I'm not going to debate it much because I think we're, we're in a position of being asked to both vote on the big chunk of money that would be town money and the big chunk of money that would be taxpayer money through CPA. And we should be calling it taxpayer money. So I'm not going to take it further unless the other comments are to be made now. So are there other questions regarding the whole fundraising package part of it, the committee, any committee members feel need to still be addressed. Kathy, are you trying to raise your hand or? Yeah, I'm trying to do it the official way with a little hand up. So I did it. But I saw your hand waving, so I just wasn't sure. And so I just have, I think it's just making sure I'm reading it right in the one chart it says pledges of a little over a million, but in another place we've been told some of that original and bequest you got the 273 has been spent. So I think you have something like 900,000. If I subtract that amount on hand right now to contribute, you know, with pledges. I just wanted to make sure I was reading those right. Because, you know, I understood that you did the sustainability studies we got something for it, you know, we did some additional design so I'm not saying someone lost the money. It's just that the outstanding money that's still there, pledges to date, am I correct in that my math. Okay. You're muted so we can't hear you. The total today is a million 148. And that includes the 200 and the full 273,000 request. But some of that bequest was used for expenses of the project that would be part of the $36 million total. That is for extra design for sustainability. That was reported to you or I don't have that number in front of me, but it's, it was not money that was spent. In addition to this project, it was spent towards the total cost of the project. That way, that can choose it. Sharon. Yeah, I'm showing there's still 150 almost $151,000 in that account. So Kathy said answer your question. Okay. Anything else. I think that the other part of the bundle of questions that we were going to ask about at this point is to see if there's any further questions people wanted to raise about the effect on the endowment and then I. So, see if there's any. Anybody who has anything that they wanted to raise on that. And if not, Kathy had raised some questions that couldn't be answered at the last meeting because Sharon couldn't be there and we were postponing them about the operating budget. And I wanted to then turn the question to open that question up. Kathy, do you want to restate your questions or how do you want to proceed with, because I know that you had wanted to get them out today. Yeah, I'll try to, I will try to restate them and I did see your responses Sharon and the repeated responses. What I was looking for when I asked about the operating budget is more similar to what the schools are doing, where they say, here's our current service level, the staffing level, the wages we're paying, the hours, the benefits. And they say, if we are planning on that staffing level, what budget do we get? And you had in the presentation to the council, very nicely talked about how many full-time FTAs, part-time FTAs, you showed where they would be working in hours. So my question was if that's the staffing we're going to need to run the larger, the new and improved larger space, is there, what does that operating budget? So I was looking at, I don't know what the best word would be, pro forma, because I do understand that if you only get 2% of an increase, you then budget to just a 2% increase. But what's been happening because of the limited amounts of increases to operating budgets is, you know, part of a position has been, a whole full-time position has had to become a part-time, or cut back in hours or shifts. So I wanted to see it built up from the bottom, not just to have a, if it only goes up 2% of the year, I can do that math also. So I wanted to really see whether in 2026, 2027, whenever we reopen the library, you know, we've got contracts with step increases in them, best guess at the health insurance, we've been lucky on health insurance. I wanted to see it with your expected staffing, either staffing now. And it's in reaction to what's been happening with schools, that when we give a target amount of money, it often causes this staff position, or these hours have to be cut back. So that's what I wanted to get a sense of on a, and that was in combination then with endowment, that the endowment, thanks to the work you've done of building it up, the draw in an endowment could be a bit higher if the town can only give this much, we've gotten, Sean is up at, Sean and Paul are both on, we've got some penciled in, what we think operating budgets can go up each year. So that's what I was looking for. And I still don't see it. And I realized that takes more work. Yeah, no, I'm not afraid of work. But no, so the school, the school budget is very different from the library budget and the library budget is very different from the school budget. The library budget doesn't work that way. We will fund our, our staffing, how, however it is, we do not know in between now and even next year, you know, three years from now, who's going to leave, who's going to stay, who's going to be hired, and at what rate they're going to be hired. We don't have wage charts going out that far. So at the end of the day, what our, our cushion is the programming money. The staffing is required, no matter what we have to pay our electric bills. We have to buy toilet paper, things like that. At the end of the day, at the end of the day, it's the programming budget that would either get increased or decreased. And so it's, I'm asking that you think about it differently. It's, it's not the same. It's not that I could, I can't do what you're, what you're looking for, I guess is what I'm saying. We are given on average a 2% increase every year. And that's how, that's how the budget is crafted every year. Okay. Go Sonya, do you have something to add? Yeah, I can, I can kind of help clarify that. I think I hope, Sharon, is if you think of the town's portion of the town's contribution to the Jones library, that's sort of our state, a amount that we give them. So basically whatever the two and a half percent goes up every year or 2% goes up. We give that to the library. They use that as a funding source in their budget, their payrolls, we don't cover their full payrolls. They have part-time staff and everything, whatever they put on, if they add new employees, they're still held to that same percentage that the other operating budgets are. So if you think of it more as a funding source towards their operating budget, I think that would clarify it a little bit more. That's helpful, Sonya. And it's still, you know, if, if ours contribution only goes up 2% per year, but the underlying staffing has step increases and other, then we won't keep up. So that's all I was looking for. So I can, I can totally understand the town side. They need to make their budget work on their end. Yeah. And that's what making their budget work on their end to end. I mean, my concern is can we maintain the opening hours of the library? Once it's open, as well as the opening hours of the branch and branches. And I, you know, as you know, the branches, especially North Amherst branch. Over the years has decreased on, you know, we were unlimited hours, but much lower would be, well, it's limited. Sharon, it's only one afternoon, one morning, one evening. It's about 20 hours a week that it's open. It used, when we first got here, this library was open all the time. So I've only, I've only been in town for nine and a half years and that time it's been, both branches are open 20 hours a week and that has not changed. Right. So it may not have changed in nine years, but I'm just 15 hours would be hurtful. So I'm just, I was looking, that's what I was looking for in my questions. And I realized that you then supplement it with friends money, with endowment money and other efforts. So I was trying to get a sense of what was possible. And I, I do understand the answers I've been being given. I'm just thinking that in other agencies and similar, they do best guesses. You don't know the staffing, but you know the range of prices that you pay for wages and benefits. So that's, that was my question, but I won't keep pounding at it. Alex. Yeah, so I think one of the, one of the best sort of in favor reasons for moving forward with a renovation and expansion is actually what it will do in terms of creating efficiencies. So think about the most inefficient structure you could possibly have for your employees. Right. So I mean, think about the most inefficient way to put books back on the shelves to get books from CW Mars from doing every single task that you do in a day. And if you could make it as clearly inefficient as possible, that's where we are. Right. And then imagine designing the way that your employees are able to do their jobs so that it creates efficiencies, efficiencies in terms of how they monitor the public and efficiencies in terms of how they work with each other, efficiencies in terms of what they're able to do day to day. That's what the new building does. So when we see him sort of blase about staff, it's because for us, we are creating efficiency. So our staffing doesn't change. The reality of a larger building for us means possibly more custodial work. And that's one staff. And for us, one plus staff, one minus stuff, that's a budget year for us every year we deal with that. So for us, the operating budget, we see nothing, but, you know, my maintenance budget is going to get better. My efficiencies are going to get better around staff. Everybody can do their job better. Happiness goes up in the building because, you know, staff can, is there in a healthy, safe, friendly environment. So I would encourage you to change your thinking around a school budget, which has this impossible budget with state mandated requirements that aren't funded and a massive staff, and instead think about a much smaller operation that's creating efficiencies. That's going to make it so much better operation life for us. Thank you. It's helpful. Dorothy. I wanted to comment. I was president of the friends of the library in Norfolk, Connecticut. And the libraries don't run the way the schools do. And like in Amherst, the building was privately owned. And had a good endowment, actually a very good endowment. And there was some money from the town to help with staff. But it's no, there's no comparison between a library. Staffing budget and a school. The library staff is not as highly organized, regulated, unionized. And I know, but it isn't. And if there was more money needed, then we raised it. Okay. The friends raised it. And also in Norfolk, if you died, it was understood that you had to leave some money to the library. And people did, even if they didn't read books. So the cuts in the school budget are often a political organizing tool to get the public to be up in an uproar and say, you've got to restore money. And that money often does get restored. We've already had a notice that things turned out a little bit better. And we are going to be able to not to bring the school budget up to two instead of two and a half percent. But in a school budget, you don't include the PTA money in the budget. In libraries, the PTA money or the friends money or whatever it that's raised is what pays for the programs. And there's a, there's a real connection there. So I don't see a good, clear comparison between the school budgets and library budgets. That's it. Anything more to be said on budgets. I mean, I was, I must say, I'm going to move by staff statements over quite a number of presentations about the inefficiencies of current building and the difficulty of supervising and overseeing a building that is not laid out in a logical fashion. And I have appreciated the presentations that have been made by your architects as to, and your, and your staff and all of the, everybody about how the new building can be better supervised. And there can be better vigilance of what's happening in the building without increasing staff. So I mean, that was kind of how I had looked at it. Anything else on this subject before we go on to see if there's anything else that people want to raise about fundraising budget questions. The building ownership issue. I'll throw one additional one in there to see if there's anything that is left to ask on that subject. Seeing this point that there are no additional questions. Then I want to get back to see if there are any further questions regarding the design and repair options. And this is a good time because we now have on with us. So, what if there are, want to see if there are questions about the design repair options that were left over from last meeting that people feel that there need follow up on anything from the committee on that subject is then I just want to make sure that there are no additional questions. Because we'll want to get into questions of the memorandum of understanding and the orders. Is. Final, but I want to make sure Kathy, you have your hand up. Mine is not a question as much as just a thank you. I saw that staff shown in the finance people, they gave us the different way of looking at the option to, to look at the numbers. And the numbers looked about three times bigger than it should be. So I feel like we have, we have a good. Good cash flow comparisons over time for the two. And, you know, I see that sometimes you assume there's a bond premium and sometimes you don't, even if it's finance in, in the same year, but I can understand that those are just two ways of looking at it. So I just think Andy when, when, and if we write right up this background report, we have to look at the number of people that we've done. I think that's a good point. I think it's a good point to look at the number of people because that's been confusing to the public that how, if you need to raise 15.8 million in one case, you only do 15 and you get a premium. And the other, you raise it all. You know, so it's, it, you can see it over in the interest rate that the interest rate even sit out. But I just think a few sentences that people don't think. The math in some way was biasing the result because the results of the math in some way were biasing. Andy, can I make one quick comment? Yeah. And I agree with Kathy. I think, you know, in the, in the final report, you know, you may want to create a table that just shows the total costs for each option. You'll have the cash flow statements as backup. But focusing on sort of the total costs for all the years would sort of take out that bond premium piece of it to make it a little less confusing. Of course we'll rely on you to help us out with that. Absolutely. Okay. Yeah. I want to ask you another question. If you're having more. You're muted just so, uh, you know. Sorry, that was just, my, I didn't lower that little blue hand. It's down now. Okay. So, um, are there other questions that, uh, want to be raised about the different options. Um, because, uh, I know that we had requests from some people, And to Lynn, is there anything else that you think we need to talk about before we get into the memorandum of understanding and orders part of the discussion, which really, I don't think we need to hold all of the people that Sharon has asked to join us for that discussion. Um, no, but I just want to comment on a report that has to come from this committee. I hope it doesn't have to be lengthy because, frankly, 60 pages of questions and answers could be more than sufficient as a report. And so I really would hate to see Andy and Kathy as Vice President spend a whole lot more time trying to create yet a different way of saying it. No, I was not planning to. We'll get to that later. It's the conclusion. You do audience question, and I don't know whether you want to pause here and take time. Okay, maybe we can do that. And so we do need to do public comment. And before I go to that, Kathy, your hand is up again. Lynn, Lynn, I completely agree, you know that attaching this there are a couple places in in the document that we have so one example is last time we heard that there was 1.8 million that was found in soft costs and 400,000 of it was furniture. So we were told that we'd get a brief discussion at this meeting of the other one. Where's the other 1.4 just a general I don't think we were looking for line items. And then the other piece, and Alex did an excellent memo to us. I met yesterday with both people from Collier's and Alex was there and share and to just try to get a sense of what contingency had been built into the budget. And we now have those minutes from Alex and I think that answers those questions. And so I think we can just they were outstanding questions I said, we'll talk about it later but the 1.8 million I don't think we have a mental if we can just get a quick explanation of what beyond the $400,000 and furniture that was we should bring that up now so that we can incorporate it into the 60 page document. Right. Sure and I can actually, I can actually pull that up and share my screen if possible I can show you which line items were reduced and by what amounts to be able to facilitate that 1.8 million dollars in in the change that that Kathy is referencing. If you give me one moment I can pull that up. Can everybody see my screen. So this form should look fairly familiar to everybody. This is what we shared previously. And as you can see here. I showed the numbers that are that we've reduced show up here on the sidebar where we've reduced the FF and a by the dollar value shown. The $1.6. We reduce the architect fees. And again some of some of these are our result of the dollar values going down their formulaic. So some of these have been reduced purely by the formula of the construction number reduction as well so project management our op amp these have been reduced building commissioning services was reduced. We've reduced printing costs by nominal fee. Most of the stuff that goes out on the street nowadays is all done online. So the reduction just makes sense to reduce that. Consultant reimbursables was also reduced. And again, that's a product of. That's A&E reimbursables. So that's a product of the A&E, the architect fees going down. Also reduced the consultant reimbursables accordingly. Then construction and owners project contingencies were reduced as well. So that's what gets us to the total $1.8 million. Thank you. So, are there members of the committee who wish to be. I just want to make sure, Ken, thank you for that. This is the table that we have in the answers and questions and answers, right? I'm not sure if this particular one with the sidebar comments where it was distributed, but I can distribute that out to you if need be. I know that this analysis was distributed, but maybe without the sidebar comments. I think it would be terrific if you did. And then we will include that. Instead of the table, but it's already there. Sure. Thank you. So what I'm going to do now, since I know there's a member of the public who is just recognized, we have in the agenda, a public comment period. And this might be a good time to turn to the public to see if there is anybody who has any comments or questions that they wish to bring forward for the comments for the committee. And so if any members of the public who are in attendance wish to speak, then they should raise their hand now so that I know how many we have. And then I will a lot of period of time. To initially ask that Athena bring Rudy Perkins into the room for the moment so that and Rudy should read yourself and I'm going to give you two or three minutes to tell us what you'd like to know. Chair Steinberg, can you hear me? I'm on my. Yes, I can. I actually just had a. I'm getting an echo. I had a quick question while Ms. Tierney was here. The repair option. Do you know about how much of that budget is going to repairing gas fired. Heating equipment of various kinds. I was going through the budget and I couldn't sort of pull out the lines. Even ballpark. I can't tell you that off the top of my head. I need to pull up the cost estimate breakdown. So if you have other questions, give me a couple minutes to look that up. Well, I had some comments. If this is when you want comments. Chair Steinberg. Um, Yes. And then, uh, Do you need to, can you go ahead and give the comments before you get the response? Sure. One of the things I noticed in the amended additional information was that on page 11 at question 12, there was a discussion of a second cost estimate being done and reconciled with the other cost estimate before going on to design development. And I haven't seen any second cost. Uh, estimate and reconciliation. And I wondered when we're expecting that. And that seems like a good thing to know to make sure our construction number is, is solid. Before you make your decision. So that was one question. I noticed that the, um, architect and maybe Mr. Alexander can clarify. On June 26th issued. New drawings that had a different square of gross square footage that increased above the, uh, the cost estimate was given in the fantasy updated estimate. So it would buy about 1500 square feet. And obviously the square footage affects the cost estimate. It affects the EUI, uh, analysis. So I'm wondering, um, where that square footage now sits. And whether the, if the second cost estimate hasn't been done, if that could be given to them, the updated number. And I'm not sure that they're working off of that. Um, and then I have some. Comments about the budget comparison. So I'm very, uh, concerned about dramatic reductions in the contingencies. Um, which you've clarified today. That was something of my, my own estimate. And, um, the original MBA application gave an 11.5% construction contingency estimate and a 10% soft cost contingency estimate. Um, my experience, A, that was done by our own library experts. So I assume there was a reason for those two contingencies. I'm my own background as an affordable housing developer. We wouldn't have used a three to 5%. Um, I'm not sure if that's a significant construction contingency. I haven't looked to see what you've effectively done here. Um, For a project that involved a lot of rehab of an old building. It's just too risky in my view. So, um, I think those need to, those numbers need, need to be restored to a more realistic level, at least to the level they were at in the 2016 estimate. Um, and that adds about 7 or $800,000, maybe more now by your new numbers. Um, it didn't look to me like. There was escalation for your FF and E number. And the budget. And there was in the original NBLC application. And that, that could add look, my rough take was about 205,000. For two years of escalation. Um, The fees, the original explanation for why that didn't have an escalation line item. The way the NBLC application budget did. Was that those tend to escalate by the OPMs automatic formulas based on the construction costs. But we've seen in fact that the numbers have gone down. So there was no escalation built into those formulas. And if you escalate all the other fees too. It looks to me like you should be adding about $375,000 in. Uh, escalation for the fees line. So, um, maybe you've negotiated lower rates with people. Already. I don't know what, what of our contracts are locked in for the, for the duration and what, which ones aren't. But that seemed like a sort of unrealistic. Um, omission or reduction. And then there's a lot of numbers. You know, I sort of send questions that get at these about legal costs, bridge financing costs. If there's any, um, any, any cost study or any study on the strong building and what vibration mitigation we're going to have to do. Um, and, uh, There's some other costs to bridge financing. Uh, legal costs for yet. So I just think that the budget is unrealistically low. The way it is now. At least a million and a half. Low. And you might say, what's a million and a half in this big of budget. Well, a million and a half could mean all of your adopted ECMs. Your CLT. Maybe your automatic book handling machine. Your roof solar. And then there's a lot of other features that brought you down to EUI 29. And those energy features are being used to sell this expansion to members of the public. It's one of the reasons I started paying attention to the library project. Um, And I would hate to see us back into too low a budget. That we then had to come back and cut things out of. That were used to sell this project to the public. So I would prefer may not be the easiest thing to do. Give us a realistic and transparent budget. And then you're probably going to have to raise more money to get to it. And if the project, the project has many noble features. Um, you may just have to do that. But coming back later and taking out things. That's going to be hard. Thank you. Thank you. But I do want to. Yeah. And I don't know if you're the one who's going to be the. Start the response. But I want to. I mean, number of questions have been asked about. Confidence level in the budgeting process and. You're. So. Can you do in the start with that? Sure. I can. Answer the first question first, I think, which was, um, Had to do with the estimates and when the next estimate and the estimate reconciliation would happen. That would happen after the design development phase. So we'd be doing another estimate round of estimates and reconciliation. And we'll be doing that. And we'll be doing that. And we'll be doing that as well as during the construction document phase to ensure again that we're conforming to budget prior to moving on to the next phase. As far as the budget. Um, Itself is concerned are. And I think I mentioned this in one of our previous meetings, our, um, budget. Is, is, is quite a bit different. Our budget layout or budget items are quite a bit different than the budget. Um, Um, Um, You know, Put our numbers into the MBLCs, uh, formulaic, their formulaic spreadsheet for their use. So the contingencies are spread out differently. They're looked at differently. Um, we've got our contingencies at the bottom line. It's, it's typically we're at 5% of instruction costs for both instruction contingency and owner's contingency. Um, That's something that we have to adjust again. Um, And the other thing that we had to adjust for this exercise was to look at the budget holistically that the budget would not. Change dramatically other than the ad alternate for the, for the timber framing and, uh, those ECMs. So, um, we had to adjust the budget line items somewhere to account for that delta. And so the contingency was one of them. Um, the, the fees that I showed you or another one, those fees are a product of a formula that comes off the construction phase. Um, We did have to adjust those down based on the fact that we're looking at a budget delta. And, um, we were, we were, um, directed to ensure that that we weren't going over the, the budget as a whole. Uh, some of those other key items that are in there. Uh, the FF and E, um, again, was another one that was a formulaic. Um, We were looking at the, um, Um, the other key items that are in there. Uh, the FF and E, um, again, was another one that was a formulaic, um, a budget number. We overrode that formula and had to reduce that accordingly as well. Um, some of the other line items that we have not touched, such as the temporary locations, um, and the costs associated with that, those are unknowns right now. We're having, we have a placeholder in there that could, that could vary tremendously. There is another contingency that's built into the construction of the construction site. Um, I think it's important to remember numbers that I think it's important to understand. It's been talked about previously. And that's the design and pricing contingency, which has been, um, noted to be part of the estimators estimate. And essentially what that is, is that's allowing for the design to complete. So right now the design is about 20%. Let's say, and the design and pricing contingency is dollar value that's in there that allows the design to complete. Um, the construction light items and gets to zero by the time it's ready for bid time. So it's moved up into the construction light items for the next estimates and reduces accordingly. We are going to have to look hard at, at cost management solutions and ensuring that we're going to have a viable project on bid day. I talked about these previously with ad alternates. Um, believe me if, you know, if, if, if we could get an additional $2 million for the project. You know, I don't want the money. Uh, we can't use it. But again, we are comfortable. The owner's contingency that's currently shown is for better minutes and for soft costs improvements. So those, that's another line item that may or may not be, be touched. The construction contingency is for all those incidentals and those unforeseen conditions. And based on the, the design team that we have for this project, uh, they've been through these projects in these historical, um, preservation and restoration projects year over year. They know what they're doing. Uh, we're giving them plenty of time to do an adequate design and do, do whatever sort of investigative work and do, do what we need to do to try to ensure that the, the majority of the hidden items and unforeseen conditions that would impact our construction contingency are accounted for. And, and honestly, that's, that's kind of the mandate that we've been given. And that's, that's what we've set ourselves up to do at this point. Um, so yeah, I understand that there's concerns about the budget, but, um, that's the budget that we, we have and we're going to manage to that budget. Um, one, one additional thing that, um, the color and question asked about was, uh, um, anything that's unique to the project because it is partially reconstruction of an existing facility. I mean, it's not all new facility. And, um, his comments were based upon, um, How's affordable housing projects that he had worked on, that he was referencing. Um, I'm assuming that, um, You've considered that and it's based on experience that you're bringing us that you feel comfortable with the contingency amounts for the project as you know, it is. Given the design team we have in place right now, I feel comfortable with the contingency landings we have. If it was a different designer that hadn't done this many, many times over and over, that'd be a different story. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead, Mr. Alexander. Yeah, just to build on that, I think, you know, we're all feeling the pressure of the budget. And I think that's something we always have to go through with every project. And I think this is especially we have a renovation and in addition, we've done this. As Ken said, lots of times before that doesn't mean every project isn't different. We are really concerned that we get the cost estimate under control, but I need to say that we can't keep pushing the same information around, but I think that's why we have to get to a design development or next the next phase if there's going to be one where we can redo the budget reconcile with the OPM and our own estimator and make adjustments if we have to do at that point. At that point, you know, there's money being spent on fees, but that's that's all. So, I mean, I think it's that we feel confident we can do this, but we do need a lot of cooperation and we've had great cooperation so far. And on the energy elements, we would hate to lose them, but remember the even the building we have without the ECMs is down to an EUI of 34, which is half of the existing building and half of most of your library in the country. So, you know, I think we're not planning on eliminating those, but you're still getting a highly efficient building all electric. I think that's still very important to remember, but so we really plan to work with everyone there to get this make sure this budget is where we think it is, but we do need to do much more information to test that accurately. So, I'm going to ask the committee present and maybe from the trustees are representing the trustees if there are any more questions or comments about the whole budget for in the budget process. Assuming the that we're going forward with the renovation and addition process. Is it. And it leans hand itself. Yeah. I just wanted to answer Rudy's first question. Yeah, I was going to go back to you because the first question gets back. I separated because we're going back to the repair questions then, which was what you were looking something up for him. To go ahead. Okay. So, the mechanical electrical plumbing and fire protection was listed as a little over $4 million in our budgets and of that 1,488,782 dollars was the mechanical portion and of that it looks like about $540,000 was gas fired equipment. That's a quick calculation. There's a lot of detail breakdown in the cost estimate. But that's the ballpark, which I think is what Rudy was looking for. Now there are other questions that people would like to raise about the repair alternatives. That haven't been previously addressed. So I'm back to the question as to whether there's anything else that. Any members of the committee want to ask further about. That relate to any subject other than. The MOU and the proposed orders because. Once we make that switch. I want to. Be able to thank everybody who came today for being here. But. Not everybody. Anybody's welcome to stay for the entire discussion. But they don't need to stay for that portion. So I want to make sure that. If you have questions that. Need to go to people who might leave that this is the last chance. Dorothy. Okay. I have, I have a weird question. One of the things that I was hoping to ask at a later time. Was if there's a possibility of putting the Civil War tablets in the library. Because it would have climate control. The security would be great. It would be open to people and the public many hours. But then I thought. Well. Does the floor have to have special reinforcement? I don't know what they weigh, but they are big granite stones. And I didn't know if, since we had all these technical people here, whether that was something they might know. Thank you. Yeah. So yeah, thank you for asking Dorothy. Yes. Ever since. Ever since John, Musanti and Sandy pooler attended a meeting in our, our Woodbury room many years ago at this point, the plan has been that once we, once we expand and renovate that the silver, the civil war tablets would find a new home in the expanded Jones library. And they will be on the basement level. At the entrance to special collections. That's the plan. I don't know if Jim Alexander wants to talk more. About that. No, I think that's fine. And I think having it at the lowest level, you know, it allows us to solve the structural problems without any great concern. Paul. Thank you. And just as an update on that, we did. Have uncovered the civil war tablets there. We put them on special. A frame. Structures and they, they're in pristine condition. They weigh about 600 pounds each. And so they will be officially unveiled in this temporary location in the banks community center on Juneteenth. So that's really exciting. And they are. It's just a moving to see them. And they're just, they're just like, you see these things in every other small town, but ours are perfectly preserved. So it's really exciting. Okay. So thank you for asking that question. Anything else. So Lynn, do anything else to. Council president. You want to cover before we move on to those. Subjects of the MOU and orders and. With the understanding that. Then our experts who need. Need to leave. Certainly we appreciate their being here. Let me just mention that this will come before the council on Monday, the fifth. We will have a public hearing. At 630. That public hearing will cover both. I'm sorry. It's a public forum. It will cover both. This is CPA money for the library. And the overall appropriation. And so we want to make sure that people. Have the opportunity to. Make any of other comments at that point. I'll work with Sharon just determined. If and how many of our consultants we need to have with us. But I. Hope that the council. Who has been receiving all of the questions. And answers. Will take the time to look them over and. Not. They pretty much look to the finance committee, but this is a very, very. Very important vote on behalf of the council. That's it. So. Okay. So. Sharon, you can follow up with Lynn on that later if you want. So anything else. And if not, I want to. Thank everybody who was present. I'm not going to try and go through the list of names and. Accidentally forget somebody. So. But a number of you from. Colliers and from the architecture to architecture firms is working on the two different options. And trustees. All been very, very helpful and. Help the finance committee and help the council as a whole to really have the information. And we fully understand and respond to some of the public questions that we have heard. So. I don't think we'd be ready to go to the Monday meeting. Without the help you've provided in the information you've provided. So I thank you very much. And. Everybody is welcome to stay, but we are going to. And switch to topics of the memorandum of understanding in the proposed orders. So thank you. So turning to that. I don't know what we're going, which version you have to put out, but. There was a red line version that. Was sent out very late in the day that was the counts. And I don't think that the. Trustees had asked us to look at. And the changes. A lot of the changes and. Sharon can explain or Alex can explain what they are, but I think that they're fairly. Straight forward. And it is shifting wording from trustees to library in a number of places. And so that version, and I think that's probably the easiest at this point. Yeah. I had one additional. Suggestion of a change that I sent back when I was. Which had been in the prior version, but. I just added it to. Besides, I don't know which version you have. But I'll let you choose which one to put that put out there for discussion. Wendy, are you saying there. Is one. That is. Later than the March 29th memo we got from land. Yes. Okay. I think. I don't know if it was. Get sent to the rest of the committee or not. The trustees. Met this morning. That's sent to everyone. I don't think we got anything. I'd like to see it. And I will get. Heading up for you as fast as I can. Yeah, I don't know if. I haven't several members of the trustees present and Sharon is present. Still a penny. Of them would raise their hand to give explanation of. This morning's meeting discussion. Certainly I will. Want to make sure that they get recognized. Probably. I'll send this along to people as well, but this is the version that we got after the trustees meeting this morning. So as you see the top of it. In part. Just. Structuring a little bit of the change so that it's. You know, Acting through the trustees. As you move down. You'll see a substitution instead of been made. In a number of places. Can you go up to the top again, Jean Lynn? I'm just comparing it to the wording we got yesterday. This was edited to that version. Okay. It's a little bit. Okay. Before we were making it, the town was making agreement with Joan flabbery, Inc. And the board of trustees. Now it's through the board of trustees. Okay. Okay. Ready to move to the next. I understand the change and I'm going to ask why I'm going to wait to see all the changes and then ask some wise, but I have more issues with the content. So this is what you said, Andy, we're regularly, this is regularly substituting the word. We're making an agreement with something called the library, which is a corporation. As opposed to with the trustees. Is that correct? That's what it again, that's what the. Trustees requested as of this morning. And. So. We're just going through this as a. This is really the only sentence. That. Has been added by the trustees. The rest are mostly that switch. Yep. So. Andy, I think back there because we were doing it on the fly. I think the library shared due date as a definition probably was taken out inadvertently under. Go up to the due date six. I think that term may have been taken out inadvertently. Sharon or Bob can tell me if I'm reading too quickly, but I don't think that was meant to be removed. Really all that was changed in this paragraph is adding remainder. The Shelby paid in full is deleted and put back. So it's really just remainder of. I agree with Alex. Thank you. So basically we didn't need to do anything here. Yeah, you could, you could, I mean, you could. I think we're going to reject this shall be paid in full and or. Yeah, because that's just. And then we'll accept it, whatever it's the same thing. It was just adding the remainder of. It was just a clarification that we're not paying twice. And Lynn, I have one other. So Sean, I have one other. Difference. When you have a second. Let's wait a minute. Just. See if the trustees have anything else they want to say about this. So everything else remains the same. Except down here. And I want to clarify Alex. You're not having all the trustees sign. Yeah, we didn't discuss that removal, but I think the idea was that the treasure. You know, and the president, but I don't think that's him. I don't think anybody was particularly caring one way or the other. I think they were just trying to be consistent. Yep. And I don't know whether really I should be signing it as the secretary. Or whether the treasurer should be signing it because the endowment. I mean, I think that's. I think that's all, you know, whatever makes the most sense. My experience is the documents that like this usually just require to board signatures. I would think that there should be a certificate of vote on file. That the trustees have authorized these two individuals to sign. And that should be in the trustees vote. Yep. Yep. Got that. Alex, you have that. Yeah. And Bob actually mentioned it this morning in our, in our meeting minutes, which I think you were sent as well. So, yes. Then can you scroll up to the bottom of the page four, please. There we go. There we go. Hold it right there, please. All right. That's fine. Yeah. Spell check didn't like the words telecopied and docusigned, but. I decided to let them go. Let's take any further comments from the trustees. Okay. Look at what other people have to say. So anybody from the trustees want to add anything. That was where I was going to go to. This is Bob. Part of the part of the reason for the change from the trustees. To the library incorporated is that. Well, we are, we're elected officials. We move, we change from time to time. This is a long-term agreement and we should be binding the organization. And so the appropriate way to do that seemed to be to say, that is the Jones library Inc, which is making this decision, which is signing this and which is bound by it. And so I think that's where I, or anybody else on the board is gone. Anybody else from trustees? If not, I want to. Open up to the committee and there's one additional. Thing that I had brought up. Previously, I would have to share screen to actually show it. For you, Andy, if you want to just wait a minute. Cause I do have it. It was, I'll tell you what it was is that. Under the CPA funds section and I was sorry that I didn't think about this earlier than a few. Cause I was really just there to go that. I talked to learn about it. The CPA funds section. That we didn't say that the award would be. For the special collections area of the library renovation addition. So I. That was, it was just to add a little bit of language. At least to think about it so that that was clear. And I would say from the trustees perspective, I mean, what. We voted on this morning was the, the. What the main intentions are behind it. And to me, this doesn't change that. So I don't forget something. I mean, obviously we'll take the final language back, but I don't foresee that as problematic. Unless you feel differently, Bob, I think it's just clarification of the agreement. So the way that I had read. I'm looking at my copy and not at what Lynn is on the screen right now, but. So there was, it would read. So I'm looking at. Under the CPA funds sections from the CPA for the special. Collections area. Of the library renovation addition to be applied toward the total project cost. Those were the words that I'd. Finally come up to add. Can I just, can I ask on that if Sonya is still here? She had said that she. She had said that she was going through the CPA. The CPA award that invoices would have to come in and go through CPA. So does this still work that it can be. Deposit with the town treasurer. So it's just an account that is being drawn on. Yes. Okay. Andy, did I get. All the language. Just connect where I was. I'll read it one last time. So. In the town council has appropriated funds in the amount of a million dollars from the CPA. For the special collections area of the library renovation. In addition. To a plot. To be applied toward. Okay. All right. So, so from the finance committee, there's been two things. One is that there be a motion that the. President and the trustee be allowed to sign this. And the second one is Andy's. Addition here. There've been a lot of, and of course, all of the changes. And then there was the one substantive change. Was the. And that was. And that's a Zen-based. A comprehensive library. Continuing to fund raising for other purposes. And that was. Beyond the question of. Making it an agreement. With the library as opposed to the trustees. If we understand where the, where we are now. I don't see anything else, I don't see any hands up from the trustees, I'll turn it over and ask Kathy. Okay. Yeah, I have some substantive questions about it and these are all toward trying to make the wording stronger to protect the town. So, on the town's right and remedy or one of these paragraphs here's the basic question. I understood the response of the library that we can't just take a part of the endowment and put it in a fund, because they'd have to liquidate funds, and it would be low interest bearing. The understanding of where the endowment is is at fidelity, and you could take a proportionate share of, if you're in a international fund or whichever fund and move it into a separate account and airmark that is under the town's control so that you would be basically putting up collateral. So, I think that would make this stronger, rather than an assurance that the right, it says right now in seven the right to compel the library to use the endowment to pay the library share. I would prefer something that said to set aside X, whether it's $2 million of the endowment but in an account not to liquidate it but to still have it be managed over at fidelity, which would just be called an X grow account. I don't understand why that couldn't be done. I think that would be a firmer that would be the equivalent of. Well it's as near as I can think of as putting up collateral because you can't promise to put take a loan out against the building to pay. So, so that was a question on making this stronger, and then I'll just do my other one when I was reading it through how I think it implies that but it doesn't actually say what would happen then in the number eight the restriction, which we're saying that the library will be entrusted as a free library, the benefit initially for 30 years. Why not in perpetuity, why are we not saying this is a public library in perpetuity right. I understand that CPA or others may may sometimes say 30 years is long enough, but if we're in this relationship with a nonprofit entity that has a trust Board of trustees, it's not a town owned building. And so why not in this say in perpetually instead of initially for 30 years, why not in perpetuity. So those were my questions, both trying to secure this agreement and turn it into more contract where there is some remedy. And we have some course, you know I'm clearly I'm very hopeful that the trustees will raise all the money, they've said they will raise and the historic tax credits will come in, and the two grants that grants that they plan to play for will appear. But it is the 6.6 million the only thing that's completely sure clear about it right now is well the 7.6 Kent said is the 1 million from CPA, the rest. So those are my two. I think those my two biggies and I was trying to figure out exactly where to put those. I mean this document is clearly assuming it's Pat's original question that CPA comes on top of the 15.751 so we're in effect. So the MOU is agreeing to that. And that to me was always a subject to a council decision, whether that counted, and it clearly if it didn't count the library share is higher. So I wasn't going to go back in the other parts because that is a separate issue so I just was focused on number six, or seven, you know I'm putting an escrow. So that, that's it. Really, my two main ones. Yeah, yeah. Fumbling with my fumbling with my mouse here. I guess I'm more trusting to the trustees than others. I would the idea about taking some of the 10 of the libraries endowment and tucking it away. I thought the injured was managing it. I'm tucking it away in a separate account. That's going to that's going to involve an ownership change and that may be a bigger deal. That has a medverse effect on the endowment then whoever the whoever the need was ever holding the funds can, you know, can tell the trustees that, but I don't know if you're going to get that answer very quickly. That's just a just a caution about that. And I also think there's probably some challenges with trying to attach that money in some way in the inner form. So we do have a trust issue here, and I understand that people want guarantees. But I think there's going to be an ownership issue if you want to move some of that money. And I'm not. I mean, 30 years. I guess whether that says 30 years or or in perpetuity because I'm trusting that well beyond that, that building will find in that will function as a library or some other public resource. Thank you Bernie. I guess. And I'm just going to say that if I might any. This is Bob Pam. Okay, go ahead Bob. I'm not what price to negotiate on this, but are you asking for a six and a half million dollars in an escrow account. That seems a little difficult. No, no, I was thinking, Bob I was going to get specific, you know, with more like put two million you had said, up to two million could be loaned out could be whatever so I was going to put a specific amount as the security here not. Take your nine take a take a piece of it. That was it. And I'm not sure how much difficulty I'd need to get a financial fidelity. I have, we have our personal accounts there. It's not been that difficult to set up an ownership with a different name and move shares over of different pieces when we've done it so I realize this would be a different relationship because it'd be the town co owning it in some way but it wasn't, it wasn't that difficult to do to do that. But yes, there was a temporary ownership change so, but not but definitely not the whole endowment, it was putting up a piece. This is vanguard not fidelity. So vanguard so I don't know where the van. I don't know what would be involved in this. I can try to imagine the one that I really have problems with is in perpetuity because this is an agreement with respect to a particular address. And, you know, assuming 50 years from now there is no an earthquake or whatever, and the town libraries now put into another building. And this disagreement is with clearly with respect to 43 amity. Andy, I can't raise my hand. And I saw that so I, so I said your name to recognize you. Thank you. Let me go in reverse order on the 30 years. CPA requires that the library agree to maintain the library for 20 years. CPA requires 30 the loan. We don't know for sure yet, but right now Sean has been estimating it to be done over 20 years. So what we did was choose the out year, which was 30. And that was the rationale for the 30. So I'm going to speak to the number seven. And I, I'm going to speak to this from my perspective of being the chair of the investment committee for another nonprofit. And that is while you could certainly approach the fiduciary in this case vanguard, and asked them to label a certain amount of money for, you know, an eventually possible payment and that would have to be voted by the trustees and so forth, to actually remove that money and not make the interest available to the library cuts down their flexibility over the period of time. And we have all been very concerned about making sure we maintain that flexibility for the library to use their trust funds. So, we compromise in here, instead, and I'm going to just flip to another part of the report was to require this annual reporting of various things associated with nonprofits that basically speak to its public, its health. And these are the standard forms that are filed by all nonprofits, you see, etc. And in this case, we would also ask, and it's financial statements, we would also ask for a variety of other things including their pledges we see to funds etc etc. So it allows the town manager, if needed be shared with town council to at least annually be checking up on the health of this particular nonprofit, rather than mess with its money. That's all I have to say. This is that I had one additional point and so go back up to number seven, where we were at the beginning, because I want to point out the second portion of that, which you've highlighted in blue. My experience in negotiating similar kinds of agreements, the, the, how you enforce it in the end, if you need to enforce it and the rights of the town. I would be embarrassed for cost and expenses that it might incur, including attorneys fees, I think gives a sufficient area of comfort that I have absolutely no hesitation on my own on feeling that we are secured in this agreement. So I don't know if there are other comments or suggestions. Yeah, I'm looking to see if there are any other hands going up or. So, there are general comfort level with the MOU. I just can. And I just want to ask you what you're saying is the word compel has a great deal of meeting, meaning to it so that's what I was looking for is, you know, you know, as Bob said, if they didn't come up with he, he was worried about, you know, if they didn't come up with the 5.6 million that we come after the endowment for all of it well we're certainly hoping that there's more certainty than that. You know, so I would shall compel is is what I was looking for on a if we wrote a contract with an entity with that. What would a judge think. And Bernie I'm not saying I don't trust. I'm saying this is a lot of money. Will we later get on what did what did the word compel mean, how much money were we talking about. So that's where and then I hear what you're saying that you want to be careful how you do this and it was certainly not trying to stop the flow into the operating budget. You know, when the 1993 edition was built, the library sold a painting to help pay their share. I don't think they have another valuable painting or extremely valuable furniture anymore to offer up as collateral. So I'm just wondering the endowment is I think the collateral so that that's all I'm saying and I, I have a feeling this is going to go out as written. And I will probably say it again Monday night because I'm concerned this isn't this is not strong enough for protecting the town side, even if we totally trust all the intentions here. The intentions are to raise money and secure some grants, and we certainly hope that will all work. And everyone will be happy. That's, that's it. I so I'm asking about how strong is this wording. Back to Bernie and Alex. I'm really quick. His KP law reviewed this document. This was KP law document to begin with. Okay, that's, I think we're sufficiently protected. Alex. Yeah, so Kathy, so the remedies cause is a hammer clause, right so we are not mutually indemnifying each other so if this were a contract that I will negotiate it right there would be an indemnification provision for us as well. So it is a one sided hammer clause that allows you to compel us if we do not pay. So we have a $9 million endowment, we own a building right we are not poor of assets. So we can take a loan out on our, we can take a mortgage out on our building. We have our endowment we have multiple options in terms of how to meet the obligations that the trustees have said that they would meet if there is a shortfall between what we're able to raise and what we commit to. So the, the part about this is, there's language in here that we're going to pay for everything, right. So if you have to, there is no reason for you not to pursue, if we don't comply and pay, because we have to pay all of your attorney's fees we've got to pay every cost associated with it. So for the trustees to sort of dig in their heels and say I'm not going to pay. I mean, it's, it's not even a trust issue. I mean, this is a remedy clause that's the purpose of this clause is to make it so unpalatable for us to not put up our end of the bargain that it just doesn't make any sense and that's exactly what that language does. So I think your concern is valid but but that is what that is for. And I speak from experience on this because this is what I did for 20 years so I, you know, if I were negotiating this and I felt like we were adversaries, and we were hiring our own counsel, it would be much stronger protection for the trustees. But I think this is a really good faith effort for the library to show our commitment to the town that's backed up by an endowment and a building that we own. Andy. I'm just looking at the words one more time. It says the word shall it says all shall have all available rights and remedies and it says, including the right to compel. So it's not that you are, you are missing the shall in this, you've got it. It just is saying that that is only one of the many ways that you can do it. I can't hear you. And it's, you know, Alex just added that you have a building also. Okay. That's what I'm looking for. You know, I realized KP law did this Bernie but KP law started out my understanding was something else and then this was also negotiated so I just I would want to have the lawyer on my side if I was somehow in my well to stream entering agreement that I pay $15 million and you pay six but I'm going to pay your $6 million for you at the beginning and expect you to pay me back the $6 million later, which is what we have, we have to take on the debt for the whole construction project so we're not just taking on the, we the town, we're not just taking on the 15.751,000 we're taking on, and we've seen the debt side of that so we when we get repaid will be paying off what we hope to have just short term short term debt. So that is the nature of this financial arrangement we're entering into. We're taking on all of the responsibility and then getting paid back, hopefully, fairly soon after. Because I would just point out that we do have mblcs requirements that are at play and how this was originally structured. MOU just flawed avoid it flows out of construct is mblcs construct Dorothy your hand was up first. Yes. I just want to say that I appreciate the work that Kathy has put into this, and it has helped me develop trust. It has been developed it wasn't necessarily there in the beginning. And I think the kind of lifting every stone every rock and seeing is there someplace where this is going to mess up is necessary. And she knows how to do it so Kathy I just want you to know that I really appreciate it. And I, I am satisfied at this point because if they're, I think I have enough reasons to trust, and it is trust you're right, it is trust. So all the formulas and all the financial planning and then reconciling to different budgets, but it's a question of trust. And I think at this point. That's the best we have but I think that we've really, and you've certainly helped do this, built in a lot of safeguards for the process. So thank you. Thanks to you and your hand up and take it down. I assuming that you've decided that you didn't have nothing north to add at this point. So any further comments about the MOU is I do have one last point that I would make. I want to get others first. My final point is that as I'm looking to just see if other hands go up. No, this, ultimately, in the end gets back to the fundraising plan. And I really appreciate it if known. Ken for quite a number of years and various capacities and have a lot of faith in his commitment to see this through and his ability to see this through. So what we've learned about the historic tax credits is really satisfied. It's sort of a, for me, a weak understanding to begin with, but this become a very strong understanding as we've gone through. So, I have a lot of confidence in the in the library ability to do this and just the fact that the number of pledges that they have received so far. Early in the process before the council has made a decision in and of itself I think speaks very highly to the point. So, when I put that together with the MOU, I am quite comfortable that I have done my part of due diligence as a counselor from the town. That's just my own personal comment. So I'm going to leave it at that. See if anybody else wants to talk further about it and if not, then we're going to flip over and have a brief presentation of the proposed financial orders. Andy, I just want to have an understanding that I'm going to take these two side notes out. And if Kathy wants to raise them on Monday, she can go ahead and do so. I think that's reasonable. That's fine with me. Okay. Thank you. Thank you for putting in this other phrase, Andy, that you added about for the collect special collections area of the very renovation addition to be applied toward. Yeah, and of course the trustees have since this got messed up in order and didn't get sent to the trustees before their meeting this morning. So I may have to ultimately agree to adding that little bit of specificity for the description. Which I just have to say that Alex has already indicated she didn't see this changing changing any meeting so therefore she saw no problem. Well, when we get to the order for the CPA kind of does the same thing. And I just wanted to point out there was one more change in the document that I think that got looked over quickly. And I don't think it was a change of intent but I don't want it to be overlooked in the restriction language in the keeping the library for 30 years. Which is section one seven or eight I think. Yeah, stop. The word in trust was taken out. Don't think it was meant that we would actually like put the building in a trust. And there was some ambiguity there so we took that language out but I just wanted to point it out since we didn't specifically talk about it here. I don't think it makes any difference. I just wanted to point it out. Thank you. Yeah, I mean that's one that I would have to actually ask the attorney from Cape last slide. It was drafted into the first place to understand that, but I, that was my reaction to it wasn't a capital T it wasn't defined so I yeah. I'm going to stop. So, you have the financial orders to win and I do. I can just get them to come out. Yes. And let me just mention that at the town council meeting this order will come first. And then big old order will come the second. So this is a fairly standard. This one has not so any do you want to speak to this one. This one's been reviewed by bond council, but it's pretty boilerpoint language for borrowing. But can I comment on that? Lynn just said that this one would be voted first. This was contingent on the larger construction project. Being voted. So would make sense for it to be second. You know, I. This one has not. Sonya, do you want to speak to this one? This one's been reviewed by Bond council, but it's pretty. Blurler point language for borrowing. But can I comment on what Lynn just said that this one would be voted first. This, this was contingent on the larger construction project. And. I would agree with that. And that was our plan. And then when we were speaking to the attorney. The reason it has to go first is because if it goes second, then it's seen as sub planting. Okay. Yeah. No. It's clear about that. Yeah. And, and we can follow up with. When we get to the second order, we can talk more about that because we did adjust the second order so that it doesn't include. The third order. So she might feel differently once she sees both orders. Everybody done with this one. Yeah, I just want to point out that. The community preservation right at the top, the community preservation act is recommended to authorize that. For the special collections facility. So I was just in my prior comment on the MOU. Was proposing to tie the MOU. Back to the order. And to the grant. So any other questions about this order? If not, I'll have Lynn put up the other order. Seeing no questions. Lynn. That's the right one. Okay. So this one has also been reviewed by bond council. And we are awaiting KP's review. So just want to point that out. We are. It is off to them and we'll let the committee know. Obviously if there are any. Meaningful adjustments. But the key here to notice is that the total amount here is less the 1 million for CPA. The 35 to 79 up above and you get the breakdown here in the chart of how you get to the total project cost. And can I just say, I believe it would be wise to make sure MBLC. Reviews this. Yeah. So they reviewed the first version, but you're right. I'll get it off to. Sharon. Make sure they take one more look at it. Yeah. This is Bob. There's a typo in the be it ordered. The line that says it starts with authority. And it's about half a million. Yeah. The line that says it starts with authority. And it's about halfway through. Therefore is not quite spelled. Oh, thank you. And I don't have the. Yeah, we'll fix that right before. Yeah. Yeah. And, and. And I had a, I had a. Just a question based on what. We talked about it earlier about how the town is going to borrow. Essentially the library trustee commitment and then get it paid back. This really shows only 15 million. In debt, not the total. Of 20, 21 million. Should that be changed? So up above, you'll see that the, the amount authorized is the full amount. And so the town is planning to use bond anticipation notes. That will exceed the 15 million to fund. Both potentially the, the fundraising share, but also depending on the timing of when grants come in. So for both of those reasons, you know, the, the borrowing that we will do will exceed the 15 million most likely. And that's why we had the full amount authorized up above. So it's not that. Uh, I think the tarp below was mostly just in to kind of break down the funding sources of where ultimately that that will come from. Okay. So it's not binding in any way that. That anticipated funding sources. Right. Okay. And again, we had this with K. P. So we can obviously review and make sure there's no, no issues with it. This one's obviously a little quirkier than sort of the normal. Questions about this order. As proposed now understanding that we might see further comments and will for me they're KP law. Or BLC and if we do, we'll hear Dorothy. I'm a total layman. But other people who are totally people will look at this. Is there some way to write it so that it reflects what you said. That doesn't require you to be in the know to understand it to interpret it. Because what a different people look at it in the future. And they might think it says something different from what you just said because it's to me it's not clear. But I understand I don't really, this is not my world. Okay. Maybe we can make it clear in the minutes. How you write these things pretty standard. Yeah, I'll say Sonya has already done a pretty good job writing that clearer than sometimes they come through when they come straight from the attorney so. But I think the point Dorothy is making is about the funding sources and, and in that piece of it. Yeah, which I think trying to remember if the memo speaks to that a little bit because a lot of times of these orders there's a memo that goes with it so. Yeah, the thing to remember on here the theme is we're just authorizing borrowing for 35 million in this order, which is in the body of the order so that's what we're bound to 35 million. And the other order is, we're authorizing one million, which is from CPA and the reason it's separate is because the debt service is going to be paid from CPA. And you never have to borrow up to the amount you authorize. You can always rescind it later. And I think that just happened recently. Yeah, we actually rescinded money from two orders recently. So you're saying there is a memo that will go with this and with the other one. Yeah, I think I'll have to double check where it's at I thought it might have already been posted, because we didn't have this order. That memo is posted. Yes. Yeah, I think so that memo is sort of, would have been consistent with these orders. Yeah, I think it should be but we can double check. Okay. Dorothy do you want to see anything else here or ask any other questions. No, just wanting to, I understand that there's special rules and ways of speaking and doing things that you have to do them that way. But since this isn't an area, a topic that a lot of public have been very interested and concerned in. It's just better if when they look at these things they can understand them. That's all. Kathy, first takes the order down the of questions about the order. Yeah, just Lynn just can you go back up to the top sorry I'm only half focusing on his question so the CPA. It's an authorization for the third 35,000,279 and that gets paid down as the grant money flows in. And as other pieces flow in and then separately, we're going to do the million on CPA, because the part that I think is confusing later is that you later see 36 million where CPA is a separate part with a separate part of it. Well the chart was meant to. Sorry, can I talk. Please go ahead. I just wanted to clarify that the total project costs is the 36 million 279 and seven. So, we just wanted to clarify that yes, there is a grant contribution of 13 million yes library trustees are committing to 5.6 million. And yes the town's local share of debt is going to be 15.7 million, and then CPA share of debt is going to be one million. So it's basically this is the expense. These are the funding sources some of it is debt some of it's going to be grants and some of it's going to be gifts. And, and so new because, and you're saying because it says CO FY 21 d6, you know, oh, these two are it makes it clear these are two separate financial orders within this document. Yes, it's just, you know, you're going to see. Okay. And just a reminder, we're not going to be borrowing the full 36 billion and almost any case that I can imagine if we are then something most likely went wrong. We're authorizing the full amount because that's what we've been advised to do but we're only going to be borrowing based on what we need to borrow and I think the last cash flow model we looked at had us borrowing somewhere in like the 20 to 21 range, and, and 5 million of that would be short term notes that would be paid back before we go out for a long term borrowing. That was my understanding Sean and that, and that was under the grant contribution is being paid fairly quickly once we say go and the construction happens so that that grant money is flowing in and this the 5.6 was your short term right and that's the money that we just talked about with the MOU that the library is going to find all this money to pay that line okay. And so we don't need in any way to indicate. We are going into long term debt for 15751 and short term notes when you do an order like this. No, because you're authorizing the debt. And then we work with our financial advisor to do what we need, often for almost any borrowing authorization we do some sort of short term debt first and then we'll convert that to long term debt and you don't need to do separate votes when it happens. No, I just will point out to everyone when we are when Dorothy talks about to the public at large when we've shown the numbers on the repair options and others that should we be doing the repair options. And have a debt authorization in the 14 or 15 million range if we were financing it all with that you know so we're saying that's the issue with all the MOUs to try to protect us against. What is in fact a very, it's a high price project. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, financial orders. And of course, the way you would fund repair be entirely different. Right, but, but if we were doing it all in one fell swoop, you know, it's at least what I've looked at, you know, for the fire station and others we would probably go out for long term debt. I'm just saying, Andy, it would, it would look different. Absolutely the wording would be different. It just wouldn't have almost more than twice the size of what we expect our actual share to be. Yeah. Yeah. So is there anything else on the order, because then I want to try and bring us to make a quick question. Where it says library trustee commitment, shouldn't that just say Jones library in commitment. Thank you Bob. Yes. You're right. Thank you. Yeah, we could adjust that language that I mean that this was written before the latest modifications to the MOU which changed that terminology a little bit. Probably should review the other one Sean to make sure. Go back up to the top just real quickly of the order. And then I want to switch to the motion that I would like to see humbly change the word restoration to renovation because restoration as I understand it in the historic circles has really definite meeting. So it's a small change but John's got those changes. John, you got that noted. Yep. And you're going to change the library board of trustees to the Jones Inc. in the first paragraph too, right. Yeah, we'll make it consistent with the MOU terminology. Okay. Let's hear your hand is up from before I assume is not. Sorry, sorry. I'll un-pull it. Okay. So I was trying to come up with what I felt was an appropriate way for us to move forward to conclusion and I think that the right of motion is in order. We've done a lot of work on this. Do you have the motion, Leonard, do you want me to put it up? I haven't. I had sent it to you and word. We had been assigned by the council to do a financial analysis and report back. And we have done an awful lot of work on it and I appreciate the support of the library in allowing us to do that. We were not asked to make a recommendation as to whether we support the full renovation and construction project. The in addition project and Lynn can speak to that is since as president, I think we got the direction as a finance committee from her. So I thought about what would be the appropriate motion to make and therefore what I would like to do is offer the following. Move to the finance committee thanks to Jones library trustees and director and the experts who assisted the committee by answering questions from the committee counselors in the Amherst community and providing relevant information. The committee will forward the version of the additional information regarding the proposed library expansion project for consideration by the Amherst finance committee March 2021 revised subsequent to the March 30 2021 committee meeting. Council findings committee finds that the information provided in this document is the most reasonable projection of the costs and funding plan for the renovation and expansion plan for the repair and repair alternatives and recommends the council rely on this information. Make that motion. So is your second Dorothy. I second the motion. Okay. positive people. Longer with her. And see if there are any questions or comments. Andy, I want to know that the treatment. The revised subsequent to March 30 2021 committee means that in the document you received for today. There will be a substitution of the information that the owners project manager is sending to me that shows the amounts deducted from various ones. I believe that was the only change. So because the historic tax credit thing was not answered in the document by epsilon but I'd be happy to insert the answers he gave to the committee today into those sections were appropriate if that's helpful. Okay. This would be revised based on the March 30 2020 committee meeting with the council. Bob Higner. Yeah, I would just. My suggestion would be to change the term the phrase the most reasonable projection to a reasonable projection. Because I don't know that we know what the most reasonable projection is. I have to ask the maker of the motion who's now Lynn and the seconders Dorothy whether that's an acceptable change in there actually to propose changes. I as an English teacher totally agree with Bob Higner. So, is there agreement of the maker of the motion and the seconder to the version that is now on the screen. Yes, yes, approve the motion they are making and presenting for the committee. Because I'd like to then see if there's any additional discussion of the motion. Seeing none. I think we can proceed to a vote. And again, we're in a position where all votes of the committee, according to the charter are by the council members of the committee but we want to hear from all members of the committee. So, do you want me to run and I ask Bob Bernie and Jane. If they have a recommendation on how the committee votes, Bob. Yeah, I support this statement. This has been a very thorough process and I do appreciate all the questions and concerns that have been raised it's having been through this any number of times. This was particularly enlightening and I would encourage the committee members to endorse the motion pass the motion. Yeah, I'm in agreement I feel like all of the questions that I had and any concern I had about it have been more than addressed and I think that I, you know, I fully support it. So let me turn to the committee then and if there are no, nobody's raising their hand to make any further comments, just go through and ask for votes and actually started to put the maker in the second or the motion towards the end Pat. I support this. Kathy. Yes. I'm a yes, Lynn. Hi. And Dorothy. Yes. So this motion passes on a five zero. Now, we didn't obviously include anything specific about the memorandum of understanding and the proposed orders. And the question that I would have to put forward to the committee is whether we would recommend language or even need to recommend language on those or just report to the council that we reviewed them that there was some suggestions made which are under consideration. And the final version will be coming forward. Kathy. I like that way of saying we just reviewed them and I do think that in whatever is written up here a few sentences that Dorothy was asking for it's not just in the minutes but a few sentences that explain what these orders do why they're phrased this way, you know, and just say we review them and these orders would do the following would be useful. And I did have one other, I just have one other question on if I can. I thought one of the things we were asked to do was review the estimates and decide whether they're reasonable or not. And then, at least what I thought we were supposed to do is the estimate of the total cost. Is that likely to be the total cost. In other words, is this a capped. Are we pretty confident that 36.2 building, you know, and are we we're not we're not supposed to weigh in, you don't think on that question or not. Yes, I assume that that was sort of explicit to the I do think each are a reasonable projection, based on what we can know now. Am I totally confident that the cost won't be higher when we try to do this and that the project won't have to change. No, but I do think they can't. There's no possibility of them giving us more information right now. So it's, it's so it's just a question Andy on, I'm comfortable not saying anything more. I just don't know what the larger council thought we would do other than make sure we asked hard questions and got answers. The two other people who want to speak to that issue. I think that we all understand that the dollar amount would be set and whether adjustments would be need need to be made to the project has been a matter of substantial discussion within the committee. Bernie. This is, this is to my mind, the 36279 700 is a hard stop it's a ceiling. And I think it's, it would be wise to emphasize that because there's rumor rattling around that this will be some kind of open in a project that will just keep escalating and escalating and escalating. So there's contingencies in here is why it's going to be bid aggressively. This is why they'll be construction estimates, two sets of construction estimates done is all those safeguards in there to try to make sure that this is at 36279 700. Having been forced to write too many legal ads Dorothy's concerns about readable language are right on target. Yeah, I have two comments I first of all Bernie thank you I think you've voiced it is not as strongly as you can. This is the price. There is no more money. We're not having we will not entertain the library coming back. They have to build to this price. And the second thing is, the only other thing I could suggest is that we. This sounds strange based on what Dorothy has said, and that is for the MOU and the two financial orders is that we would do what GOL does, which is basically say it's clear consistent and actionable. It doesn't say where we act or how we would act, but that we have decided there for consistent action. We can write the report to reflect that thought process, but I don't think we need emotion to do it as GOL would do, because we're not the GOL process. So is there anything else that people have about what the library project at this point, because there's only one other issue on the agenda. And I'd like to turn to it very briefly. This is the budget plan for budget development and our committee schedule just so that if there's any comments people and offer today's meeting about it and that it frames meetings and process coming ahead. So, then why don't you go ahead and put that into this. Is that the thing that Sean sent? Yes. And I think that it was sent to the committee I believe. Okay, maybe I just didn't. Let me put the calendar up. Oh, I can. Yeah, why don't you go ahead and do it. Here we go. So, see is the process and the first step is the JCPC and actually it's close but JCPC is having one final meeting to finalize to just approve the recommendations I think they're really finalized it was just a draft thing Kathy can speak to that if she wants. But so that's the first line of the fact that the school and library budgets are due by April 1 as a matter of what the charter provides and then going from there. You see what the process that's being proposed. Going forward is including what our meeting schedule will be. And our next meeting will be on April 6 to discuss the regional budget, which will have been, which would have been presented to the council previously. Lynn, can you scroll down just a little bit so I can see the May schedule when we're meeting with with which groups. So I had, and I had a request from a counselor who is not on the finance committee. Whether when the school comes, the elementary schools come, whether we could make it. And it looks like a major part of the meeting and get questions. There are some counselors who have questions. And get those you have you gather some questions in advance to give to the schools in advance. So I see there is elementary school is scheduled to be with community services so it may be that community services is a relatively short discussion. So just thinking of time allocation you and Sean probably have a better sense of that. The regional budget doesn't come to us at all right because that's been decided separately. The regional school regional budget comes in separately because it has to be on a different timeline it's a different process and we will vote a different council will vote it on a different date to coincide with town meetings. Okay, so, so the, so it would have, it's the only topic on April 6 is the regional. Yes. So it's a two stage. Okay, so that part would come early. So it was also the elementary school budget. Yeah. Sean. Paul had his hand up first of Paul wants to go first. I think we, when correct me, I think we're moving water and sewer rates. It doesn't affect the finance committee from the April 5th to April 12. We're doing that Lynn, because April 5th is such a loaded meeting. Although it's starting to be a loaded. The finance committee doesn't look at this until May so we can squeeze it in there somewhere. And do you want me to make that adjustment to the calendar just so I can get it up. Yeah. So that. About it. It will be before the council in a hearing I think it is on April, April 12. And therefore it would come to the council for the second part of the budget, second part of the agenda for the finance committee. And the second part of the agenda for the second part of the agenda for the second part of the agenda for the second part of the agenda for the 20th, the other thing that we can do. And we did this in the past. And that's Athena can pull the counselors to see whether or not any of these finance committee meetings need to be committees of the whole. Any questions. Andy, can I just say one thing and follow up to Kathy's comments so I think for all of the budget review sessions if people have questions ahead of time, and you want to make sure the departments address them. I would, I think we did this last year like DPW for example. I encourage you to send them ahead of time and we'll make sure they get to the department so they can make sure they're addressed, especially if they're, you know, lengthy questions that you want to really robust response to. And then the other pieces, we did talk a little bit about what the budget reviews would look like. And, you know, preliminarily we talked about a very brief presentation from the departments with most of the time being reserved for questions. We're trying to not go over things that are already written down in the budget book but just to, you know, give us sort of synopsis touch on anything that's not there and then go directly to questions to use the time as best as possible. And Sean, I just wanted to say that, you know, the, one of the people who asked me about when it was coming and getting questions. They're not on finance so we could, you know, they're, and they might want to come to that meeting but so Andy we can just, I know, who had just let them know when it is so that they can send those in and they can be compiled, you know, so it's one set of questions that goes rather than they come in and bits and drops. The document in its first version was already presented to the council, but I'm assuming that we will continue to present it to the council, so that they're aware of our meeting schedule for that, these very purposes. The other thing I just want to clarify, as Sean can answer this, that or Lynn can that when we have the regional budget hearing that's required by the charter that the superintendent and Dr. Slaughter will be there. Yeah, they're planning to attend. They'll be there on the fifth and the sixth will be up both of those meetings. And so there will be opportunities. The council might have to ask questions I assume. Sure. Yeah, absolutely. So there's so two or three clarifying questions. So Andy, can we leave it to you as chair of finance as to whether or not you want to open up finance committee meetings for committee of the holes finance committee meetings in May. I mean, I welcome comments from anybody on this. I think we had, we did that in some prior years I don't think we did that last year. And, but members of the council were informed about all meetings and welcome to be there and we brought them into the meeting is attendees are his panelists rather, if they wish to be there. But they were not, but it was not noticed as a council meeting and we weren't convening it as a council meeting. So we can just have them come in as audience and hearing public comment. And we can bring them in. They just can't stay for the meeting because otherwise we have to convene it as a group. And I think we have seven more. The next question really goes back to Kathy. Did the counselor who wants to ask questions, want to ask them about the regional school or the elementary school or both. My sense Lynn was both but. I can ask and I'm sending the issues here, you know, just because I had paid attention to when these were coming up. Yeah, that counselor also called me with the same request. I mentioned that he had spoken with Kathy. So that I think that the answer is yes to both just wanted to have the opportunity to consider whether questions could be submitted in advance. And I think that Sean is proposed to something that makes sense which is, what's the town manager's budget is out on April 1. That all questions should be welcome to be submitted. May 1. Any section may first just to clear paper. Sorry, I can ensure you April 1 will not have. Yes. Thank you for the correction. Okay, so I think that we're pretty well done for today. I have a quick question while Paul is with us and Bernie is with us on seeing water and sewer rates. We have a request that came from finance Paul to sit down with Guilford, meaning legs by zoom to talk about some what ifs if we did a fixed quarterly rate. And it's what this wouldn't be for next year's water rate. So it's not, you know, time sensitive, but just if you could figure out if there's some point that works for him to do that. Yes, that's on our radar screen for sure. Yeah, because it's been, it's been a while. Not that you guys haven't been busy but Yeah, we sent it in a while and I know that there's been many things on the plate but I just didn't want it to get lost. It won't be lost or I got it. Thank you. Thank you. It is five minutes of five and we've been at it for almost three hours now so I was wondering if we could direct to conclusion and I think we've had it. I just want to thank the entire committee. And Paul and Sean I think that we've had a really had a good process and learned a lot and I think have created a process that has informed the council and will continue to inform the council about financial aspects of this library proposal and how it fits in with the four building projects. I think it's been great and I appreciate everybody's help and want to thank you to view. Yeah, thank you and sharing are here as well. Let's not forget Sonia because I think we need a motion to clone her. Well, Lynn had her hand waving before I didn't know if we can settle it later I want to know who we're sending questions to so it doesn't become held or sculpture. I would get their budget related questions I would say direct them to me and Paul and we can make sure they get to the right place. Thank you. You can let us know that before the next before we report it. So, seeing nothing further. Thank you everyone. And I think I will know other business I declare the meeting to be adjourned. Thanks everyone. Thank you.