 Okay, thank you. I'm going to call the finance committee meeting. Of May 3rd to order. And two minutes after nine and I just want to remind everybody that pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 extended by chapter 22 of the acts of 2022. This meeting will be conducted via remote means members of the public who wish to have access to the meeting can do so by zoom. By telephone. No in person attendance members of the public is being permitted, but every effort has been made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time. By a technology means and pursuant to the rules of the council and what we believe to be good practice. There will be an opportunity for public comment. Later in the meeting. Though I do have to note. Athena, I think that public comment. Got left off the agenda. But I think we can do public comment anyway. Is that correct? We're required to at a regular meeting. So we can go ahead and anything in any event you know. Okay, so we have four items on the agenda. And that are substantive items for discussion. And that is the opportunity for further questions and comments about the. What we received last night in the budget. Second is we want to spend a significant amount of time because it was not reviewed as completely as the budget was as a whole last night. Is the capital improvement plan and it is a specific item on the agenda. So those are two major items. The optional tax exemption. I think is a fairly brief item in probably is 10 or 15 minutes of at most. So we will do that later. And the other. We want to have time for his water sewer rates. Just to reminder that this is about. The rates for FY 23, which are being. We're developed and are being proposed have been proposed. According to current policy. That we have not changed the policy that is a separate discussion that is. Flows from this, but will be considered real as we. Get back to discussing the water sewer regulations. So. We can limit reference to that. So I guess that. You need to call the meeting to order and take. Yeah, I was just about to do that. Call the meeting to order. I wanted that now make sure that everybody who's a finance committee member. If you have any questions. If you have any questions. If you have any questions. If you have any questions present. Can be and be heard and make sure we have the attendance. We just had our. I think now our last member join. And then I will turn it over to you. To call a council to order. So having said that. I think. They already acknowledged your presence. I think. I'm going to ask. Bob. Eggner. Present. And. Hello, I. Present. I think. Bernie Kubiak is not here. And. I don't know if he was accidentally in the attendee list. Somebody can check. While I go through. Michelle Miller. And. And. Get Shane. Get the need to unmute and let us know. Still didn't hear you. Still muted. Unmuting. Okay. Here. Okay. And. Alicia Walker. Okay. So. I'm. Back to you. For council. Given that we have a quorum of the council present. I'm going to call the town council meeting to order at. Nine. Oh, eight. And I want to check on those members that are here from the council, but not members of the finance committee. Let me begin with Pat D'Angeles. Present. Anna Devlin, got here. Present. Pam Rooney. Here. Jennifer. I want to thank you all for appearing in alphabetical order on my screen. So the way we will proceed is as we go through the meeting. Any counselor. Remember the finance committee. Raising their hand. Will be recognized in. With the best effort to make sure that it's in. The order in which hands are raised. But. Since it's a joint meeting that has. The practice that as to how we proceed. So I don't know if. Either Paul or. Sean want to say anything additional about the budget. Otherwise. The next step will be to see if there are any. Additional questions that people wish to raise. And remember the capital improvement plan is a separate item. Andy. Well, Paul. Would you have to say anything? Andy, I was just going to, if it's helpful, do a quick recap of. Which finance committee members have which departments. Is that helpful just to quickly go through that. One time. Yes, we can do that. Okay. So just as a reminder. Matt Holloway has schools. Bernie Kubiak has the library. Alicia Walker has community services, which includes recreation, cherry hill pools. Senior center and veterans. Kathy Shane has public safety. Lynn Griezmer has enterprise funds and public works. Michelle Miller has general government. And Bob Hegner has conservation planning and inspections. So when you all dig into the larger budget document, those will be the areas that you would. Generate questions for. For the future committee meetings when those departments come. And the other thing that. My way to do is. You had given some direction to department heads about how we're going to proceed. As far as the amount of time for a general overview. Being limited. And the amount of time. You're generally allocating for departments, depending upon size and complexity. Yeah, because we have, you know, we want to get through every department and we don't want to. Cut anybody short because we run out of time. We've asked department has to keep their presentations very brief. And not to just not to read what's already written there. Assume that that's been. Already digested. So really just to keep the remarks. Very high level and brief. And then reserve most of the time. So the smaller departments have somewhere between 15 and 20 minutes. The large departments, you know, it goes up a little bit from there. And we do have a meeting sort of a placeholder meeting at the very end where if we, if we do have to have an extra meeting to get through everybody. You know, we have that flexibility, but. Yeah, we've, we've told department heads to try to keep that brief. And I guess the last thing that I'll call on Matt, since I see his hand is up. And that is that. We said that people who've been assigned departments. We'll try and go through the department a little bit more thoroughly for the department to which they're assigned. And do it a little bit earlier. And if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them. And I guess the last thing that I'd like to call on Matt, since I see his hand is up. And that is that. If you have any. Questions that you've identified at the beginning. If you can send them to Sean, he will, he can forward them to the department head. And creates a. Extra opportunity for them to do research. Yeah. Yeah, just, and that helps make the process go faster too. If, if there's a sort of preset list of questions that they can start with. That's a nice way to sort of start each one off. So if you're assigned to a department, try and, or a section. Try and get to it a little bit earlier. It would be helpful for that reason, Matt. That's, that's most of what my question was just for the process that you wanted to follow, especially because as the new person, I know that they were going first, so I wanted to make sure I met the expectations and also didn't exceed them. But so, so then if I had a questions about somebody else, a particular other department. When I pass that along to the finance committee member, who's who's investigating it? Or should I just wait for the meeting? You know, like. How, how collaborative is this preliminary review? Trying to think about that because we really not. If you know of a question and you think that it's going to. Might require. Some additional work. It's not something that can be answered. Just. Quickly. Off the top of somebody's head. And might require research. I would say at least forwarded to Sean. He can make that judgment better than the rest of us can. Kathy. Yeah. And if. You know, to a certain extent. I remember when Bob and I both split. Public works and public enterprise. We came up with similar questions, although we didn't see each other's and Sean then consolidated them. You know, I thought it would have been more efficient if we could have shared them with each other, you know, so that. But, but I don't know whether there's a way of doing that. If it's just straight questions, Andy. So maybe it'll work. Fine. So I'll just leave it at that because Sean did a nice job of pulling them together so that the department was only answering. One set. Yeah. Okay. So. I guess at this point, then we should just open it up and see if. People have questions that they've thought of since last night and. For met and Bob, it's their first opportunity. Yeah. So. Yeah. So. About the operating budget. Before we turn it over to the capital. The plane. Bob. Yeah. I didn't really have a chance to read through the entire document, but I did kind of come. Just have some general sort of questions and comments. The first. Mostly on the introductory pieces. And then I'm going to go through some of the things that we've discussed in the past. And then I'm going to go through some of them. From what I see described. I, I do think these are very sound investments. And I support them. But I do think, you know, what we've discussed in the past is we need to keep our eyes open on costs. In the out years, because some of this is. Being funded through ARPA and other things. So we just have to keep an eye on that. And I know that. I'm on page seven sustainability. The focus there is on climate change, which is fine. But I mean, what I've tried to say in the past is we also need to think about sustainability of the town budgets and the town finances. Going forward. So the decisions we make today. Have impacts on the future. And so I think that should be part of. The budget. Season or the budget process. Page eight on housing and homelessness. I want to put in a plug here for what Dorothy. Pam had been pushing and when she was on the finance committee. And I think to the extent that's feasible. The town should look for ways to promote home ownership, not just. Providing affordable housing in the sense of rental properties. I think that, you know, a, a. More permanent solution is to figure out ways we can leverage. Town finances to help. With the promote home ownership. On page eight infrastructure. I think it would be helpful to get a report on. The. Sighting of the new DPW facility where we stand in the process. It's been ongoing for quite some time. And it's kind of holding things up. And then again, be helpful to have an update on where. We are the budgets are. In terms of the four major infrastructure projects. And we've had a lot of information and the new information that we've, we've, we've had since whatever we discussed at last. And then finally on page eight economic development. I think. I really support strengthening the strategic agreements with universities and the colleges. And especially if we can get. Increase support from them. And to the extent that it's feasible. That would be helpful. And that's what I have for now. Thanks. For our go on. Let's see if either Paul or Sean. Have a. Many things you want to respond to at this point. About the questions. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. About questions. Yeah. I'll just say all good points in terms of strategic agreements. Yes, those are in progress. So we can't give specifics, but they are actively. Occurring those conversations right now. I think. There is a plan to provide an update in the near future on the DPW site. Paul, right. And then I think, yeah, your other comments were, were. Right on. So. Including the update on the major buildings, which you've talked about with the council, I think. Yeah, I'll just quickly add to that one. So, so we are planning to do another update. One piece of information we're waiting for to make it sort of a meaningful update is the reimbursement rate from. The MSBA for the school project. Or, or getting closer to having an idea what that reimbursement rate is, because that will. Make a big impact on what the debt exclusion request is and what the impact is on taxpayers. So that's one reason why we haven't updated as we're waiting to get that information. Okay. We go on. Matt. Thanks, Andy. These might be two really very simple questions, but I would appreciate. You kind of answer them and then give me like a little bit of the background behind them as well. So, so one is just, and this is very simple. I noticed the 5.1% increase, you know, this year. And I was just wondering if that is, so I know it's a 2.5 on the operating. So is that 5.1 reflective of. ARPA funds, ARPA spending, you know, and if so, what does that look like for the, for the longer term? So that's question one. And then question two is just. Just, you know, I was happy to see, you know, the kind of reference to the prudent reserves and the 21 million as 25% of the operating budget and all that. And I was just wondering if that's, if that's a, I'm sure it is an established like municipal best practice somewhere is there, you know, is there a published guide? Are there published guidelines around, you know, municipal best practice for amounts held in reserve against, you know, annual budgets. That's just, you know. So, so just simple, simple questions, but then if you want to expand a little bit on just the operating on that, I'd appreciate it. Sure. So the 5.1% is partially driven by the pandemic. So that's not, I want to say that's a normal annual increase. There were a couple of years starting FY 21, where revenues were reduced because of the pandemic, where local receipts were reduced. As we've started to come out of that, those revenues have been growing faster than they typically would. And so that supported larger budget increases. And also during those years we had lower operating budget increases to kind of offset the lower revenues. So the 5.1% is a combination of local receipts coming in faster or coming in at higher increases than usual. And some of our other other financing source areas coming in. It also includes a one-time, not a one-time, but a planned use of reserves that adds into that mix, a planned use of reserves to support the four building projects. So that makes that increase a little higher than normal. So I would say that's not typical, but the past couple of years, that increase has been higher because of recovery. And I imagine it will hopefully continue for at least one more year, one or two more years where we'll see continued recovery and revenues that will boost up that increase. On the expense side, we have the 2.5% for operating budgets, but the area that's really taken on a big chunk of that 5.1% is capital because we reduced capital dramatically during the pandemic. And so we went from, I think it was 8.5% of the levy and FY 22, up to 10% of the levy for FY 23. So a big chunk of that increase went to investing in capital and meeting that goal. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you to your second question about reserves. So. There's no exact number that I've seen it's sort of what each community determines is prudent. We've worked on policies with this committee. Where we just updated the reserve. Level, I think. From 15 to 25%. So we're sort of at the upper end of that. We've, you know, in large part to Sonya's planning. Built up our reserves intentionally to support the four building projects. So we've been able to see the. The results of that we're able to pull some of those reserves to support the Jones library debt payment. So we are through the upper end of the band of what we want our reserves to be, but that might creep up a little bit more as we continue to plan for these four building projects. Because we see that costs are rising when it comes to construction pretty rapidly. So yeah, reserves are healthy, but we do have these large projects on the horizon that we need to be mindful of. So we're going to be able to do that. We're going to be on the road. Whenever the opposite of Verizon. Coming up, coming up very soon. 12 inch rule. Yeah. Thank you very much. And I just, I want to say, by the way, last night sitting in on, on that, the presentation was really fabulous. And to both of you and to everybody on staff, just really outstanding and helpful for, you know, a new person. Thanks, Sean. Thank you. Thanks. And the point you raised about the 5.1% increase. We are sort of in this. Odd period where we're coming out of this. That happened with the pandemic. And. It may be helpful if you need to measure to measure against the 5.1% increase. So we're going to get back to that 5. 20. See where we are in comparison to 5. 20 and get a better sense as to whether they're really. How we're going because what we want to get back to is when we get back to the year that was unaffected. Anna, you had your hand up and took it down. So I'm assuming that. It's a minor comment. No worries. Okay. Kathy. Thank you. I'm trying to build on the comments that came before. I. You know, I. To appreciate the presentation and my. One concern is I feel like we're often more positive. Then when I really look forward and see what we're facing. I think there are real challenges. So I'll just go first to the. The first one is. I'll just go through some of the other projects. Sean said we're holding off on updating until we hear from MSBA. But we have a pretty good sense of the range of that match. And the actual elementary school building. We have good indication of where it's going to come in as a price tag. And it's above what we had hoped it would because of what's So I think we need to visit sooner rather than later the whole notion that we can do all for we are still carrying both DPW and the fire to go out for about $35 million in debt financing of both of them. And we've got the news of the school coming before us as a council by the end of this year in terms of what the Amherst share will be. So I think we may really have to go to the drawing boards and say let's take a hard look at all of this. If you look at the capital budget. Paul and the entire staff Sonya and Sean have done a great job of giving us a balanced capital budget this year, and almost really I'll call it balance next year, and then we're in deficit. We try to meet what we've said or obligation, you know that we really want to so we, we Bob's been talking before we need to keep looking at all of these in a multi year framework so for the operating budget. We've moved our money and to start up a major new department. I would look as healthy in terms of if you look out a couple years. So, just trying to think of how we both focus on this year's budget, and then be thinking about consequences and sustainability, I think will be really important. Another question I flagged it last night, I would like to figure out how we carve up a little bit of time to talk about the ARPA money. The one item that caught my attention last night, because I remember discussion on everything else was the youth empowerment budget this year for $500,000. It's a large amount of money. I'm not sure what is being thought of there but I thought my last memory of that it was on the potential ask list but not on the yes do it list so I don't know when it comes from potential to yes. And the reason I'm asking about it is, you know how we staff that does it have operating budget. How does that interact with our potential use of ARPA money for the elementary school. We can, if the spend out, reserving some of that for what we might need to do with the school what is important so I'd like to carve out some time to talk about that and think about what we're doing about the not yet allocated ARPA funds to be advanced, think about advanced planning. And I think I'll just stop there because I'm concerned about the multi year. The staff is bringing us a really good solid FY23. And then starts to not look as much if I think about the real operating budgets, you know as opposed to we say it's only going to go up to 1.5% a year. But if we have people underneath that where where's the money coming from. So I think I'll stop right there. Yeah, can I respond to that Andy. Sure. So, I think you're right Kathy the long, obviously you are right the long view is, but only poor and there is a five year projection in there so take a look at that. You'll see that next couple year, or next year looks okay you start to see some gaps in the future which I don't think is as unusual because we do try to lean conservative when we do these projections. I think everything you said is one reason why it's really important to keep the revenue side of the equation in mind as we as town grows and we want to continue to do things that revenue piece is really important. It's also a reason why as we talk about new initiatives and new things. We just have to be mindful of how are we going to pay it and how are we going to sustain the things that we have going on currently. We've got a new Crest Department a new DI department. We have these four building projects and there's a lot going on and so. Yeah, we just have to kind of keep the big picture and what's going on currently and how we can maintain it. I think one, I think on the youth empowerment center. You may be mixing up the capital improvement program with the ARPA funds. So, in the capital improvement program you're right the youth empowerment center is in the pending list remember we created that pending section and the capital improvement program that says, this is a project on our radar but we don't yet know how to fund it. And so we do have the youth empowerment center in that section of the capital improvement program. But in terms of our but it's been on the, it has been part of that round one spending, since we presented it back in November I believe. And so 500,000. Again, at this point, we don't know what the youth. We don't know what that would go towards if it would be a new site a renovated site, a contract with an outside vendor to provide a youth empowerment center we're really in the very preliminary stages of just doing a needs assessment. To figure out what type of needs a youth empowerment center would fill and then conducting a feasibility study to see how the town could do that. So it's very early in the, in the process for that. I'm just saying that it might be too early, because if we if we do get the school, you know, let's just be positive that we'll have a vacant school. So trying to think about, we have a big property and you'll see in the capitalist we have other properties that we're not using. So we should be thinking about how we repurpose the school that is vacated so some of it may be to do a lot of feasibility a lot of thinking when there is a big one that's not going to be available. The best guess would be 2026. I don't think we should waste a dollar of opera money we should really put it to productive use wherever we can so my memory is faulty on that one and just the one other thing I forgot to say that I want to say with Bob about the strategic agreements. I think the way we approach, particularly the wealthy Amherst College is going to be really important for the school. And I don't, I would like to have a different kind of discussion not necessarily just in the finance committee about a big ask from them and I don't know whether they're alums we can get together and saying you know if it's a one time big it's not just a long term agreement but we have a school we need to fund. So I just think we need to think big about some of the high ticket items, and I'll stop. Anything else to say Sean or poem that because I think that it's raised several good points that I have sort of in general principle felt for years which is, you're thinking about a building you also have to think about who's going to work in the building and whether there are operating costs to follow the best example always was when the discussion was creating a third fire station as opposed to just running moving fire station. The operating costs of operating a third fire station became a discussion way back when the finance committee back in the former finance committee under our former, former government and you had to think about both sides and I think you know that that principle doesn't go I think another example is that if you're going to add positions in one year's budget you have to be able to figure out how to sustain them which is certainly an elementary school question that I have about. If you add back our staffing, for example, can you sustain that in future years and think long term, not just think one year. Yeah, and just to reiterate again on the Youth Empowerment Center we're not even at that place of a space or people or staffing. We're really at the phase of is there a need for it and what with the what type of need is there for it and so the recreation director is going to be working with stakeholders doing surveys meeting with families to, you know, to to first identify what we need before we even get into the space conversation or staffing conversation. Okay, Michelle. I think this is a question for Paul or Sean. Do we have a way with. I know there's this, the procurement process. And we have these four buildings that we're trying to these four projects do we have a way to get economies of scale like by trying to, you know, put more than one project together to get better pricing or is that something that the town thinks about. Yeah, I think, you know with the library in the school it's difficult because they're part of grant programs and they were on separate timelines and you've really got to follow those timelines. So I think it's a conversation DPW it's something that could be explored further. Again, it depends on the DPW site and how the staging works, but I think it's more possible for for those two to building projects. Anything else on the operating budget because otherwise I want to get us along to the capital improvement plan. I'd like to see if anybody else's question now. So, Paul or Sean you want to start anything off about an introduction to CIP. Sure. I don't know is it helpful Andy if I bring it up and just cover the highlights of it or not. No, go ahead. Yes. So capital improvement program. So I think this page is probably the most important in terms of this year, but also if you're looking at the long view. So the way this page works is the top half are the resources available for capital. And the bottom half are the expenses or the outflows. So the shaded gray column is the FY 23 which is at zero and because it needs to be balanced. And then you can see the out years where there's different degrees of. So the way that we start this is we look at the tax levy and we set a percentage of the tax levy dedicated to capital. So for FY 23, it's 10%. This year for the first time and again to support the tax levy. So the way that we start this is we look at the tax levy and we set a percentage of the tax levy dedicated to capital. So for FY 23, it's 10%. This year for the first time and again to support the four billion projects we have projected reserves as a resource as well. Community Preservation Act that it runs through the general fund so we have to include it but it's a in and out so you don't have to worry about that very much. Comcast funding in our agreement with Comcast. There's a certain amount of funding that comes in to help pay for the municipal fiber project. And so this will recur every year and it just goes towards the debt for that municipal fiber, but it comes in as a resource. This other is a combination of a few different, really two different things so the ambulance fund as I mentioned last night, because we raise fees and activities returned to normal it's healthy enough to support a ambulance purchase. In this number is the purchase of a new ambulance and the payment for some EMS equipment. I think the total of that is about 410,000 or so. And then there's the other 100,000 is the repurposed capital from prior years that's going to be used to help fund that capital, the cost escalation reserve. So those are considered other because they're not part of the current cash capital they're either prior capital or it's coming from the ambulance fund. And then each year we get chapter 90 money and that comes in a state aid. So just to note that the 10% cash capital is based on the prior years levy limit just because it makes it easier for planning. I think Sonya introduced that a couple years ago to so that was, we didn't have to reject we know exactly what that number would be right. This next column is borrowing so if there's any proposed borrowings it comes in as a resource for that year. And then it flows into the projected debt in the future. And then you go down to the next section which are the outflows so the first thing we do is we subtract any actual debt we have. And this includes the, this is really anything that's been authorized, whether it's the actual borrowing has happened if it's been authorized we either we put it in here, either an actual debt schedule or a projected debt schedule. So that would be for things that aren't authorized yet that still need approval. And what we put in there for now is an estimate of interest for short term borrowings because we know we have so many short term borrowings each year so we put in an estimate for interest. And then, I don't know if I mentioned this in this actual debt the regional assessment is included in that number so when we talk about the track project last night and some of these other projects the region. They will flow into this actual debt number as a cap as a debt assessment from the region. And then whatever's left over after that becomes available for new projects which is for this year it's the 4.36 million number. And then down below is if there's any other. If there's any other funding sources there also they show up as expenses in that area so the other for the ambulance funds and the cost escalation reserve, and then the state aid. So as we go into the out years, you can see there's continued proposed use of reserves that's consistent with the plan that we presented a year or two ago for the four building projects again this will be updated as when we update that model. You'll also see estimated debt exclusion payments for the school project that will also be updated as we as we update the model. I think yeah I think that's it and so the thing to know that we that we said during that presentation a couple years ago is once the school the four building projects come on, the amount of money we have for new projects starts to go down. So we've been trying to invest heavily in roads and heavily in some other infrastructure items, because we know once those four building projects. Once the debt hits this, this number available for new projects right here you can see it's 4.3 this year. It drops down to 3.2 2.8 2.4, it'll bottom out around that 2.4 so. And then it will slowly start to go back up. But it does mean for a certain period of time we're going to have less money for new projects. One thing to know is that this is all based on getting to 10 and a half percent for cash capital. We're at 10% this year so we have one more step to go for the FY 24 budget. And I think the last thing I'll say and I'll see if there's questions is so this borrowing for this year. It looks like a large number and it's because we have tentatively in there the DPW if that site is selected next year and we would come back to the council. We're not proposing anything currently but we figure that could happen FY 23 so it's it's in that number. And the other item in there is the school. So the school project will come up for a vote theoretically in the spring of 2023 so that would fall in FY 23. And that this number, the exact number that will be requested is going to change when we get more information from the MSBI so this is just, this is based on the prior planning, but just so people are aware that the school project may come up for a vote and FY 23. And the DPW might come up in FY 23. And I will stop there. Okay. I think there was somebody who had a hand up and take a town and I'm just going to assume that that was done purposefully and got a lens. Thanks Andy. So, first of all, I want to just explain, I did not ask broad questions on the budget operating budget, but we'll have my questions as we go forward into each of the departments. I mean, on the operating. I feel like we're asking to, you know, get blood from a stone. And it's really, it's bothering me that we make some progress on things like streets and sidewalks. And we're really not going to be able to continue that progress. And so I don't know whether there's any creative solutions on how to continue on that. I know from my constituents, I hear about that, particularly people who are not on main roads. I found the presentation that TSO had on streets, and so forth to be just absolutely fantastic. I mean, for those of us who have ever thought the DPW didn't follow a plan. If you watch that presentation, it will disabuse you with the fact that we follow a plan. And I really want to figure out whether there is any way for us to continue throughout this process of the four major capital projects which I'm incredibly committed to. That's no political secret. You know, what else can we be doing to make sure we're not going to end up with old vehicles, further deterioration than we already have on sidewalks and roads and that kind of thing. So I'm, I'm concerned about those out years I know in the past, we looked at those out years and it would often look like what it looks like now. The problem now is that we really made an attempt to try to be much more thoughtful in a five year plan through the staff planning and also through JCPC so I'm very concerned about those out years. Thank you. If you have no response, I'll go ahead and call in Kathy. Yeah, I mean I'll just, I think Lynn's right on where there's going to be some belt tightening in those years and that's sort of what we predicted when, you know, when we propose taken on all four projects within, you know, a 10 year timeframe. Okay, Kathy and then Pam staff to that. Kathy. Sean showed you all the picture, and it was a lot of numbers there but the big one to see what he was talking about is that huge drop down on the money left for everything else. If you think of we've been trying to spend $2 million on roads and sidewalks which is both the chapter 90 money, we get almost a million out of that but we're dropping precipitively and then we just heard about the ambulance and I guess we will hear more at some point but should we be on an eight year rather than 10 year replacement cycle and that given that ambulances are coming in much more expensive. So, so there's it's, it's, it's what I said earlier when Lynn said getting blood out of a stone, I just think we've got, it's not a rosy picture, looking forward, even if we can, it's not balanced by 2025. And what you can see with the big buildings coming on if you look on the debt line. Jones coming on is a million this coming year, and then it jumps by another million and page 29, the night, the staff has really done us a favor you get the debt. If you do everything we intend on doing you get the debt obligations by what we're borrowing so that's 2029 it's the last page of the report gives you that picture of when each of those hit what it does to with people's. So I just think we, I think we need a more focused discussion on this so I'm just opening this to not say we have to solve it. I think this is a done deal. One question I do have though is Sean during JCPC meeting. You said the Jones debt, depending on what was decided about the building with the new news. You might not go out to incur that debt in this fiscal year, meaning if it doesn't incur before June, then it doesn't hit FY 23 it hits FY 24. So I don't know when we'll know that because you can see what it's doing in the budget, the capital budget it's doing two things one it's a big increase of expenditure and FY 23, but it's also pulling down $500,000 from reserves. So, we wouldn't need to do that that would sit reserves, I just think there's a, I know you can't answer that right now, but it. I can. It's a good question actually it's a good. It's a good question to make people aware of so so that's been one of our needily points of that we've been dealing with lately. So we've decided not to borrow this June so we are we're not going to go out and permanently borrow for that library project there's just interest rates have been creeping up anyway so that it's not like we're at historic lows anymore. And we just want to see how things go forward a little bit. So, so we're, we've delayed that to the fall. So we may still borrow permanently borrow on the fall if interest rates look seem favorable at that time and and we feel better about when the construction is going to start for that project so again some of it's how far in advance of construction do we borrow we don't want to borrow too far in advance of construction. So we delay that to the fall. We've talked with our financial advisor we can still structure a debt payment to be an FY 23 if we borrow in the fall so. So that's why we've included it here because that still may happen. And if for whatever reason it doesn't happen. We would, we would come back to the council and there'd be some changes. We wouldn't use the stabilization funds for example. We might not borrow for the cracker farm gym project that that was proposed as a borrowing we might take that off the borrowing list so we would repurpose that that projected debt payment in a way that made sense. So it's in there for now. If for whatever reason, we didn't need to make it next year we would repurpose it for other stuff. And we would do it in a way that doesn't increase cost but just we wouldn't use reserves and we wouldn't borrow for other projects. Okay, that's great. And could you just say a little bit about the ladder truck because that was a quick discussion we had that you were going to look into it more the. We wanted the ladder truck, but our ladder truck is different than the ladder truck that North Hampton purchases and the difference in price is $500,000 so you were going to have a little longer just we had a quick disc. I won't call it quick, but we had a quick discussion at JCP C and that was left for the department to look into more. Yeah. I talked to the fire department about that. And they wrote a very thoughtful letter memo explaining the, the need for the platform ladder truck and how it's what the benefits are of it and how it's very different than a stick ladder truck that doesn't have the platform on top. So they're at so what we're proposing still is the platform ladder truck in large part based on their advocacy so let me forward I think I can forward that letter to you all just so you can see they laid out very clearly. The differences between the two vehicles the one purchase in North Hampton and this one, and what the benefits are of this one, because there's other, there's other differences in that price besides just the platform and the ladder there's one requires a different truck and and and so on so I can forward that to the committee. It was just startling to see this, the two at the same time and realize that different towns or cities whatever we are approach this differently and there's a price tag difference in it since the thanks. I would point, Kathy, that there are a lot of are what are identified needs and wants, and that's, we are getting to the point where we really need to be much more critical of those decisions as we make them. And just to note that on the ambulance that any ambulance funds, any ambulance replacement has to come from the ambulance fund. If there aren't fun, if there aren't, there's if there isn't money in the ambulance fund. So the desire is to accelerate the replacement schedule but that means the funds have to be in the ambulance fun to support that and if the funds aren't there. It's really hard to do so I think we have a lot. Our departments are trying to be cutting, you know, cutting edge and right on the, you know, doing the right thing for their departments and then it comes to this body into the finance and managers office to help make these sort of overall decisions for the town. Pam. Thanks, Kathy's question actually highlighted a little bit of what I was trying to find. And that was where the expenses and the outlays for the debt for the capital projects start to show up in in our accounting. Now I know I need to go look at page 29. So thank you for that. The conversation about borrowing for the Jones or borrowing for any project. Is it your plan to borrow in increments because we know that over the course of a two or three year construction sequence. Not all the money goes out at one time. And so is there a plan or is it possible in fact to borrow in increments as the need comes up so you're essentially borrowing for pre construction then you're borrowing for construction. That's just a comment. Yeah. So you can borrow in increments and I would say that's probably the typical way we would do it. When we first started working on the when I first started working on the NBLC project. We heard from some people at the NBLC that described a project they'd recently worked on where the town had borrowed. They had borrowed their share upfront all of their share upfront locked in a low interest rate. And then they had the every year you receive grant money from the NBLC. And so they were able to take that money set it aside earn a return on that and then dedicate that return back into the project and they said for that particular town that worked really well for them because they were able to lock in that low interest rate and put their payments on it and then also generate a return on this money because a lot of times you're not able to do that but with NBLC there they provide that flexibility. So that was one path we were looking at. A lot of as we go forward, you know, whether we borrow an increments or borrowing borrow it all in one lump sum, it'll depend on what we think interest rates are doing. If we think interest rates are rising then we would want to borrow it all at once because we don't want to lock in higher interest rates in the future. If we think interest rates are uncertain or potentially going down then we would want to borrow as little as possible and try to get lower rates in the future. And so we do all of that with the help of a financial advisor we have had a Unibank as our the firm we work with and we've had a financial advisor David Eisenthal, who's I think he's made presentations to this, this committee in the past and he's happy to do it anytime in the future, but we work with him a lot to sort of try to, you know, make the right decision that saves the town the most money. Thank you. There's a whole process of times issuing bond anticipation notes and then lumping the notes together into a major borrowing later in a project. I don't understand how the decision is made but trust that it's being made by people who are getting the right advice and how to make those decisions. Lynn. I want to make sure that when the fire department or any other department for that matter comes before us for their operating budget, if we have capital questions, we can include those in those operating in those discussions, because it's important for me because at that time, we have the people who have provided you with the feedback for example on the ladder truck, and I just want to mention to, and make sure that we all understand that to be the case that we can ask capital questions when they come forward on operating. Thank you for pointing that out. So Sean you want to keep going. Sure. I don't have too much more but maybe since it got brought up a couple times I'll just. So, I'm sorry if this makes people sick but So the next few sections there's the breakdown of the actual project so you can see the We're not seeing anything actually. We're not seeing anything on the screen yet. Yep. Still nothing. Oh, I even clicked it. That's why it's right. Now you will. So, you'll see here that there's the breakdown of the projects and the different years and what the, the cost estimates are. Here's the funding source so if it says cash capital that means it would come out of that new projects money bucket. If it says borrowing and then we're proposing a borrowing for it. State aid. And then there's an other category if it would come out of an amp the ambulance fund or some other source like here for the for the ambulance. There's descriptions of each project. We tried to note which ones we thought would have a impact on sustainability and improving the town's progress towards meeting the some of the goals in the car. So Kathy described this a little bit earlier we added a section that talks about some projects that are not on the plan but are on our radar. We broke them into two different buckets last year at the based on feedback from the joint capital planning committee. So this first bucket our projects that are ready to go or they're they're close to ready to go it's really a matter of funding and and if a grant came through or something came through for these then we would move on them pretty quickly. The second section are sort of needs have been identified but still just need more analysis and discussion about whether they should go up into this next phase, this next bucket. We have some information in here on asset maintenance you can see what it costs to maintain the buildings utilities and things of that nature. Same thing for vehicles you can see what we spend on fuel and supplies. We have the statuses of projects approved in the past so this is that outstanding list so we do anything that's three years or older we put on this list so I think it's everything f y 19 and earlier. You'll see a little status update. And again as Lynn mentioned these are things that are fair to ask when the department heads come up. If you want to ask on a particular project for an update. We have our inventory section and we got a lot of feedback from joint capital planning for the joint capital planning committee and also from Anna made some good comments about ways to make this more helpful or more useful in the future so we'll continue to try to improve this as we go forward. And then the last thing is the debt schedule. There we go. The debt schedule so we put in the projects this gray or projects approved in the general fund. The yellow section or things that are proposed this year and future years so these are not approved yet they're these are projected. We have approved CPA projects, because that that flows through the capital improvement program. We have a regional data assessment so I mentioned this at some previous meeting that we are projecting an increase in the regional data assessment. So you can see we're at 388 for f y 23. We're proposing that will go up. That will go up to 800,000 in the future. That's really an estimate the number that the region as proposed would go much higher than that. And what I've said to them is that we need to at least be more conversation about what the town of Amherst can support in terms of a regional data assessment before we would go all the way up to their number. And then the four building projects and estimate is here as well. And that is the capital improvement program. Matt I see your hand up. This might thank you Andy this might be a really simple one. The road paving line this the appendix be the debt schedule. Very helpful to me just to kind of add a glance so thank you for that. And the road paving item just can you explain how that works so it's a total amount is a million and then there's 101 for f y 23 and then blanks throughout the rest of the line. Yeah, so that was, so we don't typically borrow for road paving anymore. Several years ago, Sony or Paul might know better. There was a large borrowing done for road paving. And so the total amount that was borrowed at that time was a million and f y 23 is the last year that that's being paid off so that's for paving that was done a long time ago. And then we're not, we don't have any proposals to borrow for road paving in the future. Okay, great thank you. The barring was done when john me santi was the town manager. And he thought it was a good way to get a lead on getting a bunch of road work that had gotten behind done. But we've had some discussion since and I. I can speak for himself on this, but I think that he's pointed out is is that it puts us in the position of paying for roads over time that may exceed the usability of the road that has been repaired. Bob. So, as I mentioned earlier, I didn't have much of a chance to read carefully through this document, but one thing just hit me it's on page 17. It's a line item for creating new shelving units for the special collection at the library. And I think it was on the order of $49,000. Like, since we're going to be packing up the library, why don't we, why don't we just pack this up and put it in storage and when the new library is ready we can, we'll have the space for it I mean, just seems like it's, it's a ridiculous waste of money to get new shelving and then just move it. So anyway, that was just a thought. There was a lot of discussion on that one, because, you know, for the same reason that you identified, Bob. And I can't remember now the book, the, the explanation that the librarians had but we can get that and forward to you. It has again this has to do specifically with the special collections which are in a room right now that is that you know they don't feel as a good safe for the special collection so this would be to get them out of there. And they said this could also be used in the new Jones library in the future so it's not like a buy it once and then it's going to never be used again. But let me see if I can track down they wrote a more robust response to this because the same question was asked. I have it up. Okay. What is that help me to just forward it to you right now or do you want me to read from it. If you want to summarize the, the what they said that's fine to me. Yeah, so this is mobile shelving and it can be reused in new building. And so my question Bob initially about this was that they had come to CPA for a request for shelving a couple years back, and that was for more permanent shelving. And for the, this is in order to move their most at risk collections out of the storage room because the storage room is so unstable that it's damaging the special collections so it will be reused in the new building. And it is one of the issues is that they don't have a safe place they need to move it they need this shelving in order to move those special collection things. Yeah, so they said the shelves are less durable for the mobile but because it's appropriate to be able to move things around. Sean did I get those right or did I mix up the CPA and that. I think you got it right and again this would be another question I think when the library comes on the 12th, they can give a better, you know, they can explain it better. Yeah. I don't have to drive anything else. Not Kathy. Kathy, when, if you have anything to report as having been chair of JCPC about the process, that'd be helpful. And one question that I might ask you to consider is whether the inventory. Is provided at the beginning of the year as pursuant to that section of the charter, whether provided the help you needed those a little bit of reference to that earlier but give anything more to say on it. Okay, Eddie, that was my, I'll do both things. I had my hand up on inventory but I'll just add one thing on the bookshelves. We didn't ask Bob's question, which is a good one of why not just put some of this in boxes and store it. What what they're going to give up their exhibit room completely in the library and put the shelving turn it into a different storage room because the library is not going to open for a few years so it leaves the exhibit. The collection's makes them accessible. So the idea was mobile mobile units. Move the whole thing and give up a room for what they're using it now. So on an invent two things I'll respond to yours Andy. The staff team has done has been amazing on for JCPC they they're coming to us with a very robust set of information that is responsive and organized in ways we've asked for it in the past so in. So it's it's I think of it an evolving document you saw what Sean told about the capital projects that aren't on the list that are potentially coming on the list that was a new feature that was added the debt schedule showing all of it on that page Pam that was a new feature that was added the appropriated but not spent looking backwards don't have people keep accumulating and not spending and Sean quickly referenced that the school said we're actually not going to spend it was in the range we're giving it back to you and we can put it into this budget has this innovation that we've been hit with prices of an equipment purchase that were higher than we thought they would because everything so volatile so we did the work on the purpose of money into this fund that could adjust we think it's going to be this amount of money but it turns out it's more otherwise it had to come back to the council and asked for special appropriation to pull it out. The team has been quite remarkable and on inventory, it's I think it would be worth what I had my hand up for Andy is scheduling a time, maybe with the finance committee, again, posted to the council, the inventory talks about properties that aren't being used so including demolishing the old Hick Scott center. I've had a long time question on what is our plan for those because they're on some of them are on land that could be sold some aren't. And I don't have a list, but we now have a pretty good look at how many vehicles do we have already how old are they what's the mileage on them. The one request we had this year and Sean said they'll figure out a way of doing it is it's hard to tell if we're buying a new half ton truck or backup. We're buying one that we already have you know so the matching them by types. You know, and are we really selling them off so we had a presentation they are. They found a place that will buy our use stuff. So we don't just my sense was for a while and vehicles we just had them in a lot and they were the spare vehicle that somebody could drive. Because we ensure them but that inventory is a really good look at you know, being able to go go forward, and it does hit all the things we talked about in the finance committee. In terms of trying to capture things that can be updated on a regular basis, but have some meaning to them. So Anna, Anna had a few suggestions on conservation. You know we're getting on the town buildings, the utility costs and some of the other things we don't see that on the school buildings but they have it. We're trying to expand that look of how expensive our buildings to run to hope to heat to. So, I just think the, the process every year has gotten better, and it allows the discussions to be a very focused on a few things rather than the first time I saw JCP, the requests were more than double the amount of money that we had to spend what do we do it and they were all top priority now it's already staff has really worked hard at coming in at a target and it's been kudos to you Paul Sonia Sean what you're doing with the department heads it's been a gift and very creative, I think, and responsive. So thank you. I just like to, I mean it's really on feedback coming from the council and from the finance committee that helps us improve it. So as you think about things what would be helpful to the public and to you and your decision making that helps us build a better document so it's really based on the feedback that you're giving us. I want to get to Lynn because I know you have to leave soon. I just want to mention that and ask that we come to some guidance on this okay. There are a couple of really large questions that are out there right now and as we move forward with this budget. And different department heads come before us. Let me just give the example of one of the two I have in mind library. Last night at the town council there was a request for some kind of an update, even though I'm being very clear the council has already allocated or voted a an amount of money for the library and that is our, our bottom line. People as they're hearing about, you know, increase building costs and so forth and so on. As the library comes forward to us questions like shelving for the collection are going to be coming up in terms of you know what in the present building will you be able to save and use over and how does that fit in with cost run and I think we need to decide if we could have a conversation during this budget month in the finance committee about the library building, or are we not. Okay, so, because we keep running around it, skirting it. Another one that we're running around a little bit further in the distance and skirting is we may, we will have a empty school building. And what are we going to use it for. And there and should we or should we be not investing improvements in these buildings, so that they might be usable in the future. For example, if we're going to have to have a roof on a building in order to even use it for something down the road, other than a school. So I think we just need to set the parameters around the discussions. So that we make sure that we end up at the end of the month of a having been able to recommend a budget for operating and for capital for this year. And so we're going to do the council, and yet recognize that various counselors and other members of the finance committee, and absolutely the staff are thinking down the road as well. And trying to think about this budget in the seat of the bigger fiscal picture. And I just want to make sure Andy that you and or you and I decide we're going to have that discussion here or we're going to have it at the council or we're not going to have it. Okay. Thank you for bringing that up and I thought about it. Similarly, when Paul mentioned the Southeast School of Summit former summit Academy. And the, you know, if we put money into that building. For what purpose are we putting the money in. How long is it going to take this just a lot of questions that flow out of that decision. And if we make the decision to stabilize the summit Academy how long would it take to get it done and then what's the decision made between that being the best building or the elementary school that is not going to be the site of the new proposed building. I think there are a lot of long term issues to think about. Anything else Lynn, since you have to go that you want to hit on before you do otherwise I'm going to call in Matt. Matt. Thanks Andy. Now I just want to thank Lynn for bringing that up and I, you know, this conversation for this month it feels like we're going into a very intense series of discussions you know obviously you all have been through this. Much, much more than I have but the, you know, if I can just narrow it a little bit further for finance I some of the things that Kathy indicated about the elementary school building project bottom line number gave me a little bit of a chill, you know and just, and just, I just wanted to know that we have, we're somewhat confident in the, in the bottom line borrowing numbers that we're putting on, particularly in this, in this capital program, you know I think that that's something that, you know, we may not be able to figure out the, the entirety of what old buildings are going to be used for what purpose but I think having bottom line numbers for for the borrowing, as best we can I understand as a lot of, a lot of variables but as best we can that that's something that I would feel. I would appreciate and I don't know if that means that for example the SBC comes and you know and then sort of speaks to just what the content or not the whole thing but maybe Kathy just reports out on where that stands. But some of those, those bottom line borrowing numbers would be, it'd be nice to just know that we, we had confidence in those and Sean and Paul maybe maybe you all do and I'm just, you know, please. Yeah, is okay if I respond to that Andy. So, I'll just say based on what we've heard so far, it's going to be more the 40 million that's in the plan that was based on our based on the last time we did the analysis, based on what we've been hearing from the MSBA and from our designers and construction costs. It's going to be more, how much more is sort of what we're still, you know we've got a range was a pretty, you know, it's probably a $10 million range. But that number will change. The proposal least, at least the plan so far has, you know, earmark that project to be a debt exclusion. So one of the important things is to find out if the borrowing goes up what does that mean in terms of the debt exclusion amount and was that mean for taxpayers. The one silver lining. If the debt exclusion amount goes up is that there has been quite a bit of development since the last time we did the analysis as well so the tax basis is broader than it was a couple years ago so the sort of the impact or the, the increase on an annual basis may not go up proportionally from what we projected last time because the tax base is brought into a little bit. And I can just, you know, just to get that elephant out of the room it is going to be higher than the 40 million. And if I can just respond real quick I just I also wanted to thank. Thank you guys for for using my very conservative right the new growth is set at 650 over multiple years and I think that's safe to say that's a conservative number and I appreciated that. So I want to look for other questions about the capital improvement plan proposal now because otherwise. I'm going to move it. I think I want to see if there's any public comment being offered I just tell you know where we're going. There's sewer rates, optional tax exemptions and trying to get all of this done by 11 o'clock so we can hit the two hour goal. This time. Bob. Yeah I just wanted to thank Paul and Sean and Sonya and the staff for putting together these documents I mean. These are very well, very well planned out documents and they're full of information, and they really give us the chance to look at things and ask, ask questions and I really appreciate it. And I think it's incredibly valuable that we do this or that we have these documents every year. So thanks. Anything else. I think the one thing that I'll just bring up and then I'm going to if there's nothing else from the committee I'm going to see if there's offer the public opportunity to make public comment. And that is that, you know, a big driver of capital, both in the expense and in assessing the needs we've already touched on several different times and that's buildings. And I guess that at some point during this, you know, before we get to next year's process, like to give some real thought to what we need to know about buildings and how to approach the inventory need for what repairs are needed on buildings, both ones that are not needs are more important to my mind ones that are in use so that we get a firm understanding in JCPC may have a better grasp on it than the rest of us do because you lived with us through the JCPC process. So is there anything else on that if not, I want to offer public comment period. And so if there's any members of the public who wish to participate in public comment, they should please raise their hands and write into the meeting and people so that they can make where we usually a lot is about three minutes or so to make comments. So at this point I've not seen anybody raise their hand. So wait a minute. I do see a hand upside to go see who it is. Disha boss. Heidi, can you unmute. Can you hear me. Yes, I can. Yes. So, thank you. I wanted to talk about the youth empowerment center and to once again remind this body, the finance committee and town council members in the town manager that this was part of the work of the CSWG. And this was something of course that came out of the racial reckoning that occurred and the conversations with the community. What I don't want us to lose sight of as you juggle all of these many projects is that the demographics pertaining to who is enrolled in our schools has become much more diverse, much more multilingual. And making sure that the values of this community is expressed through the budget to both support and empower our youth is not only a worthwhile thing to do. It is building to a necessary thing to do. And so I don't want us to lose sight of it. We as the community have not lost sight of it. And we will be watching and both vocal and engaged in talking about this budget and how it reflects our values. So thank you again. Thank you. I appreciate the comment. Anything else from the committee and otherwise I'm going to turn it back to either Sean or Paul or Sonia to just present the water and sewer rate proposal for FY23. Is it okay if I share my screen again, Andy? Certainly. All right, so just to recap the proposal for FY23 is to increase the water rate from $4.60 per 100 cubic foot to 475, which is a 3.3% increase. On the sewer side, the proposal is to increase from $4.90 per 100 cubic feet to $5.20, which is a 6.1% increase. I won't go over all this because I can take a look at it if you want, but I'll just go over the tables in a little more detail. So the way we look at rates and what they need to be is we start by looking at the expenses of our enterprise funds and in this case, particularly water and sewer. So we look at what our rates or what our expenses are currently. We've built in what the staffing costs are, what our pension costs are for those staff, other post-employment benefits, contributions they make towards that, health insurance, really every cost associated directly with the enterprise fund are built in. And then we project that out several years into the future as well. On top of that we add in capital, so there's a certain amount for capital every year, because we know on an annual basis there's going to be some pipes that might need to be repaired, they have equipment and vehicles. So there's sort of a recurring amount of capital. And then if there's large capital projects like what was approved a year or two ago was Centennial that are financed the debt for those large projects are factored in as well. So, all that's put in the next variable that we then need to look at is consumption and how much water is projected to be used because that will dictate how we cover those expenses that we just quantified, you know how we spread that across the consumption levels. So during the pandemic, we saw a drop in consumption which was one reason why rates got boosted up more rapidly than we would have liked. We're seeing consumption levels return somewhat, but there is still uncertainty around future consumption levels. So this is we look at this, as we look at this table. So there's the operating expenses right here that I was just describing so these are again things like staffing health insurance things of that nature. So transfers to the general fund so the one cost I mentioned last night is that the enterprise funds pay a fee to the general fund for all the overhead that the general fund provides to them so things like human resources it support payroll accounts payable all those sort of town hall type functions. So they pay an indirect fee for that and there's a formula that's used to calculate that fee. So that's what this transfer to general fund line is. And then there's the current debt that I described and proposed that so current debt includes centennial because again that that project has been authorized already and approved so it's the schedule that we anticipate is in this current debt number. And then the capital so this would be the sort of recurring new project capital not fun not funded through debt just whatever is that gear. So that determines sort of the total amount that we need so for FY 23. We need about 4.86 million. And with the usage that we've projected, which is 1,025,000 100 cubic feet. That would set a rate of the 475 that's being proposed. And then again you can see how that plays out in the future so when we look out in the future for the water fund. We get, you know, five years in we're sort of where we need to be around 550 unless there's other changes you know as the council talks about water and sewer rags and things like that. That has the potential to impact the trajectory of expenses, but over five years we get to where we need to be. It might be a little. There might be need to be some adjustments in these interim years because you can see there's a little, there's a deficit in a couple of these years and a point 24, you know, a reasonably large deficit that we would have to close either through higher rates or reduced expenses, or if consumption picks up faster. And then the last thing I'll point out on this chart is we retained earnings so enterprise funds have their own reserve levels, which are also outlined in our financial policies now that we've the ones that we review to finance committee. So for the water fund, they have about 1.4 million in reserves which is about 30%. For enterprise funds, we have a higher percentage threshold that we look to maintain because it's a smaller fund and the, the revenues are more volatile, especially as we saw during the pandemic they can be really volatile. So the threshold that we want to maintain for enterprise funds I think we set it somewhere between 30 and 50%. So we're sort of at the low end for water. We were over 30%, but we had to dip into these reserves during the pandemic. And again, we're not proposing using a reserves going forward so we hope to build that number back into that range of 30 to 50%. Same thing on the suicide, all the same types of expenses. There's two large capital projects there as well there's the gravity belt and the reuse water project so that debt is factored in in the future. So the water consumption is is we projected as a factor of the water consumption so it's, it's somewhere between 85 and 90% in a given year fluctuates a little bit. But same thing here over five years. You know we're projecting where the rate needs to go in order to support the debt when it gets to its highest point. But the path we take to get there there might need to be some adjustments in order to get the funded balance. And I think I'll stop there and see if there's questions. Yeah, I pointed then I see two hands up so I want to get to others. In the proposed state grant program let's get back to water. There was a listing by town that was an attachment to one of the MMA. emails that I received recently, and it listed our request for Centennial is being a significant dollar amount that would be included. And is that factored into the calculations now and if we receive those funds. And it's not calculated in how these charts change. I wish Andy. So, so Centennial is, you know, like everything else the project is the cost of the project has come in much higher because of what's going on in the, in the industry. So what we have factored in is what the council is authorized which is about 12 million total there was 11 million for the construction and there was a million, I think for engineering prior to that. 12 million built into these rates, the cost estimates are, you know, north of 15 million that the most recent cost estimates because of, you know, we recently went through this line by line with Guilford looking at the cost of steel and concrete, the equipment that goes into the plant. So we've been looking at this very closely recently so there's a lot of work that we have to do just to get the project or that the cost of the town back to that 12 million. So that funding that you described, we're still looking into, and Paul maybe you've heard more we're still looking into determine is that money in hand that we have now or is that a proposal to make sure see if that is money that we have. But that money it was about three and a half million that was in the, it was basically a listing of from the, that the governor has put forward, I think, ARPA money is sounded like that would fund different projects that have been requested in the past. That's about three and a half million for us so that would go a long way towards getting us back towards the the number that the council authorized. And then the other program that we're looking at and we'd have to see how this would work in conjunction with what the governor put forward is the state the clean water state revolving fund, which they help finance the project and then there's some loan and so if we're able to take advantage of both of those or the grant money from the governor and also the state house revolving program with the loan forgiveness. That would be very close to getting us back to the amount authorized by the council but we're still doing our due diligence to see is that money from the governor, you know, real do we have it. And we still have to find out if we're in the state house revolving program so there's there's still a lot of work to be done on that. So these numbers again are based on what the council is authorized the 12 million. Yeah, so that we saw the same list and we have not received any formal notification from the state. This looked to be a governor's proposal. We put in seeking funds, thinking that this would be when we put in the proposal they were looking for projects that would promote economic development and we're shovel ready and we thought Centennial was pretty compelling at that level. It didn't get funded in the initial run round but then it did get picked up in this round when they decided to put out this big economic development package so we're pleased about that because it's a big chunk of dough. But again, I think this is the governor's proposal how it works its way through the state house I'm not really sure. Thank you, Pam. Thanks. That answer one of my questions is, could the rate be reduced if those grants are visualized, and the answer is no because we've already projected just at the, at the basic cost of 12 million for the project. Other questions, does the, does the rate that you're projecting is it based on full use or restoration of full use by UMass. Is that accounted for in this rate. The question is, what is, what is the pressure put, how, how does one put pressure on enterprise funds to actually come forward with the lowest cost since the cost is what drives the rate. How do we, how do we keep pressure on them to keep the cost down. Self fulfilling prophecy if you need more money you raise your rate. And then, let's see the other question was. Oh, you talked about the, you talked about the assessment rate for overhead, and are the enterprise funds treated it differently than other departments in terms of their assessment for all the HR and overhead costs. So, I'll start with the last one so yeah enterprise ones are. Sorry, go ahead. Another one. On the last one, I mean, are they charged based on on their income or are they charged based on their number of employees. Maybe I'll bring Holly in the room she can probably speak best to the, to how that works but it's based on the, I believe it's a percentage of administrative costs is assigned to them. Let's see if she joins, but they are treated differently than departments that we don't assign overhead costs to like fire department or the police department because they're, they're part of the town budget part of the general fund budget so they're just in our budget enterprise funds are supposed to be completely self sustaining and supported by the fees that they charge. So that's why there are indirect costs calculated for them because they are really supposed to be standalone. And I think the, let's see was, what was the second, the second question you had sorry was on the tip of my tongue. It's UMass. Are you counting for a full return of UMass consumption. We are counting. So we are counting for that. Sorry, there was a, what was the question after that. There was one more than between there. And that was already answered was, could we reduce our rate by obtaining grant. Okay. So, so that was a conversation we, we had with Guilford recently as well. So with enterprise funds particularly water. The incremental pieces where they can reduce costs are based on our water sources. So a lot of their costs are related to maintaining, I think it was six five or six different major water sources. And so the area where they could take a big step down and their costs would be if we were to give up one of those water sources. We've been reluctant to do that because water is such a precious resource and once you give it up it's really hard to get it back. But that would be sort of the decision point is if we said we don't want one of these wells or if we don't want one of these major treatment plants, let it go. And that would have a dramatic impact on costs but again we would lose that likely for, you know, for the foreseeable future so I think that's one of the hard things about enterprise funds is it's it's a lot of infrastructure it's maintaining infrastructure, regardless of how much consumption there is. And so that the costs are not very flexible on the way we'd want to be, you know, we do have some flexibility we can, you know, we could defer capital but we try not to do that but we could defer capital for a year but then you have to make it up the next year. You know, we had some flexibility with reducing indirect costs for a year but again then we need to get back to it in the following year so that you know they're on the same system as the other enterprise funds so. So there's a little bit of flexibility year to year but there's not a ton of variability in the enterprise, particularly water and sewer fund because of the infrastructure they have to maintain. And I just want to add in that there are two largest customers are the University and Amherst College so this is the one way where they able they're able to support the town based on their usage, as opposed to a strategic strategic partnership agreement to service that they purchase. And so that helps our overall capacity to provide these services. Right. And unfortunately, this is a conversation we've had recently. We all want to conserve conservation is good. But the flip side of that is as we conserve it drives up the rate because there's less there's less to spread it over so again that it gets into that long term conversation about where do we want to be with our water resources. Kathy. Actually, Andy and Pambos asked a couple of my questions on if we get that money for tenial. What happens to rates so I'll flip it if we don't get the money from the governor. What's the plan, I mean the, and I don't need an answer for that right now. I just what I remember on Centennial is we'd gone through the entire budget we gone through the entire rates. And then we had in May and in June we found out about $11 million from Centennial and it was, oops, forgot to mention that. So I just, you know, planning for that might my question when I'm looking at the budget with the reserves retained. I talked about why the percentages are as high as they are. And what I remember asking but I don't know whether we got answered is this fairly typical we're up in the 2930% retained and did we ever go out and look at what other towns do. Because the thing that's notable about it is that we're not drawing down on them either so up on the upper line, it says you know how much did we pull down on retained earnings and it's 0000. So if that's a question, then the other question it's a little bit more minor but when we had a discussion about Centennial and the purchase price. There was a question of what is the utility costs of the plant and it turned out it was extremely high. The operating budget was really high electrical. So we were looking at was there solar was there anything to offset, and that was supposed to be looked at in the design phase of, it wasn't a yes no it was more about can you please take a look at it, I didn't know if it was ever done on offsetting the utility draw that was, it's a pretty high expense, you know I'm remembering it being in the hundreds of thousands of dollars rather than just 20,000. So that's underneath some of these rates so that was the last question I had, first on retained earning percentages and comparables and what happens if we don't get three and a half million so. Yeah, so if we don't get the additional funds for Centennial. So we have been working with Gilbert to find ways to reduce costs. So, from things like trying to do the project management ourselves might save some cost. We're going line by line to find out if there's ways that we could get that number down. We're not going to get it down all the way to, you know $6 million or $7 million or $5 million or whatever it is. So, if we just if we proceed with that project we would have to come back to the Council for additional authorization to increase the amount that can be borrowed and then that would be built into these rates going forward. So the project is going to take a couple years so it's still you know it's kind of a couple years away in terms of when the big impact will hit but it'll start to phase in in the future. The reserve levels so we did look at other communities. We based our reserve level. So what happens if we had a reduction in revenues for a couple years how you know what type of retainer earnings would we need in order to survive a recession or something like we just went through a pandemic where we lost a lot of revenue. So that's sort of what guided our level is looking at our experience and what we would need to get through a rough patch. Again, 30 to 50% sounds like a lot but on a $4 million or $5 million budget. It's not really all that much if you had a couple down years like we just had with the pandemic. We're not proposing using the future because we treat this like we treat any other budget which is we don't want it to be dependent on reserves, we want it to be self sustaining and sort of in a good place going forward. That being said I wouldn't be surprised if we dip into those reserves again this year with with consumption levels being a little down. So we don't want to tap into reserves we want it to kind of stay in that range and live there. But I wouldn't be surprised if we dip into that a little bit more for FY 22. Again waters the fund that we can't use ARPA so we used ARPA to support the sewer fund and the transportation fund when they had down years water fund for whatever reason was a carve out and the ARPA that you couldn't use ARPA to backfill the reserves there. And then the last question on utility costs. Right I mean water and sewer, I don't know if it's 50%, but it's a huge percentage of the total towns electricity usage is from wastewater and the water plant. They are the major users of electricity because they're 24 seven and they have all the heavy equipment. I know they've talked about solar there. I know there were some, some obstacles that that Guilford would be able to describe better. But whether it's on site or off site if we're going to cover the town's electricity consumption with solar or some other means. We're going to have to tackle those to those locations. See the Michelle's hands up but I think there are a couple things one is on the solar I think that some of the problem was that the plant is in Pellum and Pellum has solar bylaw for which we're aspiring to have our one for ourselves. But whether we would be able to obtain permission from Pellum according to their solar bylaw is really an unknown I don't know if anybody spent any time on it. And the other thing that this is something that I'm just going to say so that it can be a little bit in the minutes and then I can incorporate it in the report. I don't really need discussion but new counselors newly elected counselors weren't involved in the prior discussion. And there was a very important piece to this which was that there are three major sources of water in Amherst and one of them is the whole system of reservoirs in Pellum. And the, it's not currently in use because the centennial plant is unusable. And there was a time limit that if we don't get the plant back online, then we were told that we couldn't continue. And the state was telling us that we couldn't continue to use the Pellum water area that there was a permit that went with it. Amy or Guilford with are the better explainers of that if need be, but it was, it was an important element to maintain all of our sources of water in order to assure advocacy of supply for the future. That we maintain permission to use the Pellum area and the repairing the centennial plant was a required piece in order to do that and there was a time limit involved. I don't know if Paul or Sean have anything to add to that, but it's just want to get the concept out. Michelle, see your hands up. That's helpful. Thank you, Andy. I see a note in this presentation about alternative rate structures that are being explored and I'm just wondering if you could say a few words about that. Yeah, so Kathy and Bernie are on a, I've been working with myself and Paul and Guilford and Amy to look at some other options for billing. Looking at things like higher sort of fixed costs or meter costs and ones that vary based on the size of the meter and also looking at potentially block rates or tiered rates based on consumption levels. And so we are at the phase of we have accumulated lots of data from pre the prior to the pandemic, sort of account by account of what their consumption was for a year. So that we can then take that data and apply different structures to it to see how that would affect charges, because what we're what they're looking at will, it won't necessarily like it could increase revenue but it may just redistribute revenue as to who pays it and so we want to get a sense of what it does to different accounts. And so right now again the data has been compiled it's with Guilford and Amy and the team over there to to start getting ready to apply those different structures to it. Thanks. Jennifer. I'm just getting, I'm returning to Dr Shabazz's comment guess I touched on a little last night in the council meeting, but I just want some clarification in terms of the assessment that's being done for the youth empowerment center. Is that an assessment as to let the location, or is it more whether there's a need for that, because one seems like it's appropriate for the budget and the other seems like it's a different conversation. So it is a need assessment, not a location assessment is a need assessment so it's the direct director working with the different partners in the community who provide services to the youth, whether it be the school department, the boys and girls to identify where the gaps are. I think one of the proposals for the youth empowerment center is that there's gaps in the services provided to children. And so we're our recreation directors working with those partners to start digging into that more. So, um, is this another CSWG doesn't exist in that form but will will they be part of the conversation. I mean, yeah I think they should be. So I think the REC director want, you know, maybe we, you know, we can talk with the REC director more and bring him get an update for the committee at some point. I believe he's going to be working at all different types of stakeholders, wants to survey children wants to bring in families, you know, speak directly with the constituencies that would be impacted by this to kind to do that needs assessment so I believe stakeholder input and stakeholders or partner in stakeholders is going to be a key part of that needs assessment. And if I could jump on that, Andy. So there is a successor committee to the CSWG called the Community Safety and Social Justice Committee, once that is up and running which we hope will have their first meeting in the next couple weeks once we're able to get everybody together. They will be part of looking at all the recommendations from the CSWG and seeing their, the disposition of how those are moving forward. Okay, thank you. I need, I'm just conscious of time so I'm trying to move things along to Anna. Sure, so just to clarify then, when you say needs assessment it's not the need for this to exist because the, in my mind, the CSWG worked very, very hard for a very long time to establish why this needs to exist. The assessment in for me what I would like to see is much more of we know we need this in existence. The assessment is to determine what are the components within it that weren't specified by CSWG because for me it feels very redundant to spend so much money on a needs assessment when we just had an amazing Community Committee go through for however many months to determine if we need this. And so I'm not negating the need for that sort of assessment as long as it's much more about what are the resources and and services and things that we need within it, versus do we need this at all. That's, yeah. Jennifer. Just want to say I agree with Anna. She articulated what I was getting at. Thank you. Michelle. I would like to back that as well. I, it really does feel redundant. I want to go back and look at the report that CSWG put together and the recommendations and the way they were laid out, but I, I just I have concerns that there's a $500,000 allocation for something that seems like it was already done. And it just doesn't seem very clear what that money is being used for and it's a lot of money. So, I would really appreciate more information about that in the very near future. So, thanks. Okay. Yeah, so I also just want to go on that and not repeat too much of what other people said, but to also just say that I agree and that the CSWG also got a lot of pushback on the amount of money we spent on our consultants to help us come to this decision. So it is a bit frustrating to see more money being spent to look at the same thing that we were criticized for spending so much money on. And so that I would hope that all of this money could just be used to moving it forward rather than more investigation, which was already done. And I also would be just interested in, like, again, which stakeholders, they're communicating with because we also worked with the boys and girls club and they don't have a space or facility which is just there, there are those resources don't exist and so I'm hoping we can just use this money to move it forward rather than provide any more investigation I guess is the basis of what I'm getting at. So I would be interested in seeing like a more thorough plan if we could speak with the director that would be great, or as to what the approach is with this. Well, I want to thank all of you for the comments and what I will probably do now is work with Sean to figure out what is the best way to talk about this budget item when to replace the have the continued discussion. That's reported to the Council as a whole since several of you who spoke were not members of the committee, a couple of you were, but I want to make sure that everybody's aware of how, but, but I don't think we can really meet our other needs today to finish the agenda. Go farther now but I'll work with Sean on figuring out when to continue this discussion. Sean do you think that works. Yeah, that sounds good. Okay. So the water rates. We do have it on the agenda again for the next meeting so we don't need this if somebody made a motion right now on quarter rates I would entertain the motion but it's not necessary I want to at least offer that opportunity. Since we've had a pretty good discussion about both water and sewer rates for FY 23 and we do need to get a recommendation back to the Council that doesn't have to come out of this meeting. And if nobody raises their hand to offer a motion now then I'm going to make an assumption that we're going to allow that to hang over to the next meeting and just spend the last few minutes on any questions about the optional tax exemptions which is the last item on the agenda for today's meeting. So, since no hands have gone up. I don't know if Sean or Paul if you have anything to say or Sonya about the annual requirement of the optional tax exemption I think that you already provided the Council in through the Council to the to the entire finance committee. The information about why we have the optional tax exemptions and why that's required as a action each year. Yeah, so in the packet was a memo. So this is a choice the town is made to increase the exemption levels provided to certain types of qualifying tax payers above sort of a base exemption amount and so the eligible categories are surviving spouses of veterans disabled surviving parents and spouses legally blind and seniors and there's some additional qualifications within there but this is something I believe the town has done, I don't know for how many years but for quite some time to extend some additional tax relief to those groups. On on this issue, I would be ready to make a motion that we recommend that the town, the Council approve these. They are what we've approved in the past, I think they are reasonable and they are needed. I'm glad the town is doing this. So, Andy, I know we're short on time but on this one I'm ready to move this to a vote, unless people want to have a longer discussion. So the framing of the motion itself. Do we have a proposed order on this. Yeah. Yeah, FY 23 dash 11. So I guess the motion would be in terms of the finance committee, recommending to the council that it adopt order 23 dash 11. The best of it is acceptance of optional tax exemption that's part of the title so we have, we have the memo, the one page memo with that at the top, just to make it clear what that order is. So I, I move as Andy just said, I'll second that. Okay, so we have a motion maybe I can't say that by Michelle any further discussion on the motion or questions about it. So, I'm going to go through alphabetically by last name and either get a vote or support for the people who are non voting members. Lynn is no longer in the meeting. So she will show up is absent in the discussion. Bob. Yes, support. Support. Bernie is absent. Michelle. Yes. Kathy. Yes. I'm a yes, and Alicia. Yes. Okay, so that motion passes for favor. One member absent. Present members to support in one member absent. And they'll be reflected in the minutes. So I have nothing that was unanticipated. I haven't seen anything else that's come up is, unless somebody else is on an unanticipated item that they would like to bring forward. I'm going to thank everybody. And our next meeting, I believe this week from today. Before you close, I need to adjourn the council. Yeah. So I was going to. Why don't you go ahead and adjourn the council and then I'll adjourn the committee and. I think we're done. I just trying to make sure we got to logical conclusion. I think we have sauna. All right, I am here by adjourning the council at 1101 AM. And I am adjourning the finance committee 1101 AM and want to thank all of you and thank our Paul and Sean and Bill and Sonya all for helping us out. Thank you. Thanks, Sandy. Thanks everybody.