 Good evening everyone. This is the finance committee meeting on September 27th in the community room of the police station tonight. The finance committee will continue to function until December when the new council is sworn in and at that time the present finance committee will no longer exist and it will be replaced by a finance committee made up of a subcommittee of the council. They may appoint community members if they so choose but those members will not have a vote on their finance committee and it's unclear as to the number of people who will serve on that committee. However before November 1 our role as the present finance committee is to develop the budget guidelines for next year which are due to the town manager, the library director, and the school superintendent. So tonight we're going to begin drafting the guideline language. Just the language we will not have any numbers to put in until after the managers meeting with the four boards on October 18. We want to thank Amherst media for all the continued coverage for our finance committee meeting. So with that we will begin our meeting. The first item on tonight's agenda is news affecting the budget. Is there any? Well I've got a little bit of news on three budgets. The school year 18 which we just closed. Financial statements are done. The auditors are starting Monday to audit the school year 18 for us and I have submitted the free cash balance sheet to the DOR so I'm awaiting their calls for questions and stuff. How much is that? I don't know yet. Oh okay. I'm assuming I don't think I want to throw a number out. Okay that's okay. So it's actual because sometimes people take that number and go with it. For fiscal year 19 we're in the process of everything's going as it should be. No surprises yet and the assessor and I have been diligently working to set a tax rate and we hope to have that by the end of October beginning of November. Will that go up the new tax bill? Aren't the new tax bills due November 1 or is that for this year? That's the last quarter. Oh that's the last quarter. Okay. So this will be for the tax bill starting in January. And fiscal year 20 we're at the very beginnings. We're just starting our projections. We don't have any numbers yet for you and why the numbers have not been updated in your budget guidelines yet. I won't be for a couple of weeks at least. Pretty much all the news I have. Okay thank you. Okay so Joe. Do we have the current mill rate or tax rate? Do you know what that is now? Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Now also did you have to search for the new finance director and you can? It's in process I know they've got some candidates so I haven't I'm not part of the interview committee. Oh you're not okay. So it's I'm not sure exactly how many I think we have about a half dozen. Oh cool. So who is on the search committee? I'm not sure. I think Shawn McDonough from school is I'm just not sure. It would be I've kind of set myself away. Okay Redway I'm not sure she's actually on it. Okay I don't know if the committee is. Okay maybe you could if you find out tomorrow email us and let us sort of be interesting. I'm sure I'll be great people. Always. I was thinking about applying for the job. There's a finance director? Yeah really? Yeah I thought it'd be cool but I just don't think I have the right background because you're really looking for someone like municipal finance and I think you need someone who really specializes in that. I have finance background. So what they tell me? There you go. Maybe the search. Maybe it'll be a failed search and I'll apply again. I don't want to close. I have not been paying attention. I've literally not been paying attention. Do you know who's on the committee? No we just went through the final. You're just seeing if she slips up on that one and suddenly lists six people. Straight out a little levity. Do you want to apply too? No. Okay all right well we'll find out maybe when when if the search is still open that might be interesting too but but I know that there is a need to do that you know to to find someone for that position. Okay the the next item is going over the draft of guidelines. Last year this is last year's letter to the to select board to the school committee and to the Jones Library trustees. So we we sent these out and what I've done is I've gone through them highlighted numbers that I could see immediately needed to be changed and you may see others and then last year we did talk about some language that we wanted to change and what I did this year is I went through and kind of edited where this would be the transition to the new council because obviously these have to be the guidelines have to be to the library schools and the town manager by the 1st of November and the election isn't until the 4th I believe the 6th oh the 6th and swearing in I believe is the 4th of December okay so they're not going to have a lot of time to do guidelines and according to the manager they've already started the budget process and I know the schools have too and the library as you know is finished with their budget by December every year so this just just sets some guidelines and obviously the council when it comes on can say whatever they want they can change it set other guidelines I mean this is just to give people some guidance and I tried to indicate here that this is kind of how we've been going along for a number of years we haven't changed much other than updating the numbers so it's open to the floor now I think have one one probably the significant question is okay since this was a draft and guidelines right all the numbers and percentages from last year yes did someone update them no what we think they might be for a point no everything is the last year it says it's decreased by right 2.6 that's last year's no right everything last year yes five months the I did put you know preliminary fiscal year 2020 but everything else is right so they would be updated according to the others right and actually as I'm looking at that that's second paragraph operating budget should be developed with an increase in the town support of 2.5 or less I left that in there I don't know that we would change that but that that's probably should be highlighted too that pride that whole paragraph would be looked at because again the elementary school with the charter assessment and choice I don't know what percentage that would be on the town this year it's been 0.5 percent of an adjustment from the elementary budget because of the choice and charter right so I don't know if those figures are going to come in similar to last year and it would be about the same percentage I think choice and charter has come in very favorably this year so you might see the school actually having two and a half percent because we calculate the schools two and a half percent on their base okay so we take their base times two and a half percent and whatever we use the previous I believe we use the previous Sean will have to to confirm this but we use the previous year's choice and charter numbers both what were charged and then what we're getting receipts we take that net and that's what we subtract to adjust the school okay because those are school expenses right so this year I think the numbers are coming in a lot very favorable so there isn't that much of a change so they're getting the two and a half percent and so we're working on it right okay so that's that's fine so that whole paragraph needs to be when you say this year you need FY 18 or FY 19 or 20 or 20 we already have 19 years right now yeah I know I just want to clarify this year 20 thank you sir okay so in terms of language anybody have some thoughts I did have a regular question but um okay and I was partly related to what you just indicated with your meeting with the assessor and so do you have a sense of the impact of the new growth this year for FY 20 my recollection is that last year there was positive new growth but there's only a portion of the new structures coming in and then this coming year will see another benefit this year for 2019 which we're about to set the tax rate and new growth is not certified yet so that's still in the process it's all part of the tax rate for this year we're looking at about 830 for 2019 not 2020 right so for FY 20 no right now I talk with fiscal years right okay but that's one question because like you just before you were said this year but you meant FY 20 that's I just want to be no she said FY 19 no she did say the fiscal years are always based on the year it ends no I I know I understand that but fiscal year 19 which ends which ends June 30th 2019 yeah it's good to be clear so so in other words the money that's coming in this year is for FY 19 which is about 800 which about 830,000 and last year was 300 and some thousand right no it was last year they were in a million because of Verizon I believe last year in a million oh we're talking about new growth new growth which is new growth 350 or at least that's right yeah you're talking about new growth right I am and my my recollection was the 830 was the assumption that the piece not all the piece or the one east pleasant street was coming on and that we should expect more in FY 20 than what we projected FY 19 I was just curious to know whether that was going to be in your calculations of the tax rate well that's a question oh yeah he knows exactly what it is okay so I'm not I know it's I don't know when he's pleasant his portion of that I don't know where where it falls I okay for the audience when we talk about fiscal years and we're talking this year about fiscal year 19 it is the date that the fiscal that the year ends the fiscal year ends which is June 30 of 2019 so we're in fiscal year 19 because that's 18 and 19 together so it's always the last year that we're talking about so the next year's budget will be FY 20 which will be 19 and 20 half we have to work half years yeah the budget we're working on now is for July 1 19 to June 30 of 20 and these are the guidelines we're working on okay so why don't we just kind of go through paragraph by paragraph so we know that this part about what percentage we would be allocating to the three departments in three areas we'll be getting more information on the 18th of October and then those the next paragraph the same way we will know how much then in the revenues again there'll be some projections there but I think the part where we say the second largest source of revenue is state aid state aid that I'm assuming that's the same it's going to be the same Sonya will new growth be okay the second largest the first largest okay the first is the is property tax property tax okay so that top paragraph on two it tells when those decisions are made the governor in January 2019 and then the the legislature follows okay anything new there the next paragraph back up to the first paragraph which is part of my question on the revenue side okay I think this committee should recognize the impact and I wanted to have some language in here that reflected that okay and that's why I was asking the question because we're allowed to go up two and a half percent but because of the growth we might have more revenue coming in and that's positive for the town air go it might affect a bunch of decisions like it did last this year and when we say this revenue is stable and predict one not necessarily sure that's a true statement because it did and it might increase if we have more input projects which on the block right now in downtown and I think we need to somehow reflect that that is positive for the town and I'm not quite sure how to do that but in our guidelines I wanted I could suggest we reflect that kind of language somehow maybe in that sentence this revenue is stable increases with new growth or something I think I think in that sentence yeah well just something due to the increase in new growth this revenue is advantageous to is stable in the banners well so we're assuming if you do the math it says the largest revenue source of new profit was expected to increase by three point six percent reflecting the allowable two point five increase plus new growth does that air go mean that new growth represents one point one percent no it doesn't work out that way um I mean that's what I was trying to yeah and I don't have my attention about new growth the increase might not be three point six percent might be x and so on I mean I somehow how about new growth represents an appreciable part of this or something or I don't know what that is David could give us okay so why don't we say that well let's find your work on this language with David but we know this is one area that we would like some estimates to remember that right these percentages are changed to the whole process I mean this is our best guess looking at trend and looking at our indicators reports trying to come up with our best guess of what we're going to have I mean two and a half on last year's levy yeah that's a no-brainer we do that and that's what this is yeah last year because that's what we could do right right so but the rest of it rest of it is really unpredictable we don't know today what new growth is we have good guesses on what it is but well we do we don't we do know the piece that was that was not coming to do in fiscal 19 but we'd rather come do in fiscal 20 my recollection of the day that we do know that from one east pleasant street particularly right now we do know what we don't know what we can guess perhaps what that building that might go up by the lord jeff and I don't know whatever those come on there might be some projections that would from a budget point of view put in so I think I for one would like to understand that better I think it would be helpful to reflect that value to the town in somehow in here and I don't know if we could do that tonight but if this is a draft that would be my suggestion that we maybe for arms right so I'm following what you're saying so the new growth though from for last year was only for a half a year because it didn't come on for the whole year the new growth was for many projects it wasn't just one east pleasant one east pleasant case a portion of it we always we always put in an estimate a medium amount of six hundred thousand dollars to start off our projections and that's just you know people out in porches people doing upgrades to their house some of the buildings and stuff that kind of happens on a regular basis it's when we have bigger projects like one east pleasant then we can count on a more new growth kind of that so there's always some part of new growth okay but when you're here when you're looking at the new growth and it's part of it but it's but you can't count that revenue or you can't start taxing it until it's on has to be certified department of revenue okay so we're usually looking I would say then then well last year we only had a certain percentage but once it's on you have that whole year so that makes the difference between it does get added to the base for next year right so we'll let you we'll let you look at that and which is why I said I'm not sure about 3.6 percent and what that means right sometimes that projection sheet is taking the difference from what was our total last year and what is our total this year but the stuff got added to the base last year so it's I gotta see where that percent is coming from before I want to right because I know he plugs in every year sort of a placeholder for what new growth has been right you expect it might be the same right and so on we do but when we expect a bigger new growth because of some big projects we might increase that expectation high that was all I was trying to do sure to get at and I think we should I'm for one I think that would be helpful in this we also know that there is another project after that that's going to happen but we're we're two cheese that's being held up for a year no I know but what I'm saying if this is this is all projection I mean there is and then I mean yeah there's there's two another across the street from that too and that's why I asked it to the addition and when do my taxes get adjusted so I put it on your house yeah it yes would be about a million so when does that tax adjustment actually occur so my project's almost done that we added this new addition to our house so when do I see that reflection in my don't you remember when they sign off on the inspection permits okay so so okay that's an area that um that this is just a draft for tonight but where we want to make some choices so that would just flag that okay we'll we'll look at that one all right then the next page it's just pretty straightforward where the money comes from and uh I did the last sentence there on the second paragraph about ambulance receipts where the second last sentence in the second paragraph uh not the last sentence the second the last sentence where includes ambulance receipts like my question was uh the impact of highly no longer good good point yeah somehow it's going to affect things right right we're going to have fewer receipts because we've outsourced there I've had these not we have a few challenges for 20 we have um we no longer self-insured so we no longer have to help um things trust funds so the town and the school have had employees that were charged personally to the health name stress fund so that's going to have to go somewhere so that'll go into the channel fund there's um we have of course the council expenses because we didn't put that in anything in 19 and we have about that for 20 because that doesn't exist there now so all that new growth is kind of it's going to take care of it there goes a new growth yeah but it goes to do that then it's right right so okay do you always have this much fun no we're just trying to entertain you we're succeeding I lost my train of thought what were you asking the ambulance receipts yeah ambulance receipts so um we're no longer providing service to the town of Hadley with our ambulance anymore that's about 20 so Hadley was paying us 140 thousand dollars a year um fees for us doing that plus whatever call revenue that was brought in and that's probably about another 300 000 so right another well right so and we're not cutting positions you mean for insurance no we're talking about ambulance revenue coming in no I know but the revenue coming in where you say it's another 300 that's from insurance we collect from the people we pick up in Hadley yes right for the rides so so right so you know 400 thousand 450 thousand that we are now going to have to pick up as well they still have a heavy load so the 300 is the ride insurance but we don't know yet I know the the contracts the money you get from the insurance companies for your medical insurance pays for all the insurance but there are still some pick up in Hadley the ambulance still mutual aid picks up in Hadley that's the money that haven't paid us yeah I think so so and and my understanding is that the contract that was was written is that after so many mutual aid calls for both Amherst and Northampton then Hadley has the town has to pay for those in addition to what they get out of insurance I can't answer the town of Hadley has to pay for us yes there's there's a maximum number of mutual aid calls you can check that out though for us I believe that so in in fact 450 thousand was budgeted in ambulance fun right that if it if we're not changing staffing and other expenses to support the ambulance slash fire department those 450 funds have to come out of somewhere else right right a town leading the belt for public safety always had taxation right that would be a two point something on that okay what's it again that's how many when the vote came up for public safety the appropriation was taxation certain amount of money and certain amount of money from ambulance receipts okay so the receipts go back by about 450 and that's taxation probably we'll have to go to keep a level service right and I don't know if you recall but in March we went from doing billing for ambulance in-house to outsourcing it on this company Comstar and that happened in March so we are pulling pulling together what trend we have from that to see if there's any savings or more revenue coming in because we have a third party doing this that hasn't we haven't been able to we haven't been able to do that comparison yet we don't have enough history yet okay who finished with that paragraph all right then the next one that's heavily highlighted in yellow is is my edits to reflect the council we said before the finance committee may use additional information at this point once this is in the council is going to be dealing with this so that's as a council as the budget process continues I just pretty much substituted council for finance committee and actually on that last sentence I'm not really sure um of the process for the council if they actually I'm sure they review the budget but I don't know if they have any part in the recommendation and somehow I think this is at some point the manager gets all of these budgets and it's his budget but I I'm I'm just I don't know the wording of the council in terms of what they do with that budget but I do know something about they can't increase it if I believe they can't increase it but they can decrease it yeah pardon I believe so so that whole thing has to be looked at and I didn't spend time looking at it do you know if they actually recommend the final budget it's that it's their finance committee a subcommittee of the council that's going to be doing this coming up with the the budget so I don't know if they have to run that by the whole council it seemed that they would have to and then they would say this is okay but that's only the town portion and then what happens to the school and the other do you have any I should look that up yeah I mean I've read this but I can't okay so that's that's a that's that's a an area that we need to look at yes so they're but no later than April 1st of the proposed budget is done by the school committee regional school committee letter just so each of you should be subject to the term so the council doesn't even see those two but it's not later than May 1st the town manager sells to the town council a proposed budget for the ensuing fiscal year including this school asked to turn by the town manager of the company budget new message and supporting documents the town manager so simultaneously publish the proposed budget on the town okay and what does their finance committee do there's not a lot in here about oh here we go so find a town council is going to be sitting as the finance committee yeah the finance committee's a sub sub it's a sub it's subcommittee of the council but the question is who's budget do they determine so the school committee does their own the library does their own and I don't know if they have any say in either of those budgets of those two budgets also yeah the same process yeah the same process just substitute public hearing but you did you just said something earlier about the manager well the manager it's the proposed budget is adopted by the Amherst school committee regional school committee and the library trustees shall be submitted to the town manager right the town manager shall submit to the town council a proposed budget ensuing fiscal year including municipal school and library components as determined by the town just pretty much what we do now the budget book has a library in there it has the school pages in the air but it doesn't appear that the council has to say any of the school or the library public hearing immediately upon its receipt of the proposed budget the town council for the budget to the town council's finance committee the finance committee shall hold a public hearing on the proposed budget providing no less than 10 days notice of such hearings the finance committee will thoroughly review the budget and make a presentation recommendation to the full town council within 30 days of referral finance committee shall consider any or all questions which deems appropriate for the person for the purpose of considering the budget the finance committee as a whole shall have authority at any time to investigate the books accounts management of the town agency and via a request to town manager superintendent my redirector is appropriate to require officers for that okay well we'll have to to get that out the town council shall adopt the budget with or without amendments by june 30th the town council may delete or decrease any programs or amounts except expenditures required by law except on the recommendation of town manager otherwise it's here okay so they get to approve the school budget and the library budget my understanding is look at last year just substitute town council for county in terms of the authority budget okay all right i can sit here read the whole thing but i don't know that would not be good capital budget and mandatory expenses that's the same with um you know so let me go before you get to the capital sure uh the we opened this document by saying we are suggesting an increase in the town support of 2.5 percent and then we go on and talk about or less or less right and then we talked about things to think about one red the revenue sources so we talked about the uh new growth impact on revenue and then we talked about the impact on the animals funds so basically that's what we're saying we keep this all this information in these less these next several paragraphs aren't keep this in mind town as you said your budget is basically right okay i just try to understand the following this thing again okay because this was um intended to kind of let everybody know of you know the library and school of the town right these these items that they have to consider in terms of revenue and then the next big thing they need to consider is a capital budget and and the mandatory expenses there and that we talk about the four major projects and then our goal was to have a 10 percent for capital and that to continue building those reserves there's nothing magical about the 10 percent i think that's an arbitrary number that the finance committee set years ago because we were so low we were way down i've forgotten what percentage you remember for what uh how much at one point our capital fund was down to five right really yes very well so those charts were so old you got rid of them but we for a while we used the charts and the finance committee report to show you know the real dip um back what was it 2008 and that that period of time and then you know people are saying well that's 10 years ago so you get rid of the charts but so we've we worked up to 10 and i think we weren't going any higher because it seemed unrealistic now i think we're this year we're at 10 aren't we we're at nine and a half nine and a half or 20 you're talking about capital for something like that yes nine and a half or fiscal year 20 is what we are going to project oh you're not going to do 10 10 is next year yeah i think paul's paul wants to yeah i think paul's that he's going towards 10 okay we've been working towards it but i feel like a half a percent every year but there's nothing magical in 10 we could make it 11 sure well that that's in the financial policy guidelines we have to go back and revisit that right we're trying to make it realistic and well we speak to the last level census speaks to why 10 percent the finance committee has felt 10 percent this helpful and the reason we've been able to build back up to 10 is because we've been having a good new growth figure every year so that allows us to keep increasing a half percent and the op-ed that we were increasing a hundred thousand every year i mean now paul's holding that study at 500 000 because he feels it's really important to start tackling some of these large capital projects but right that's you know that's been part of the whole process all along it's built up our reserves right so any more questions on that so this fiscal 19 it's nine point on 20 so in this case the nine point five is not last year's document this is a new figure for fiscal 20 so the question here is if we oh that's capital all right the next paragraph then so they highlighted six percent over f y 19 little so that's new information to do is that because this was i haven't updated any of these numbers right right so they're they're highlighted for her either to change the numbers or to check to make sure they're correct you should thank you i'm sorry i'm looking there and i'm thinking that's all news i take that for this year okay i'm looking here and i don't see you have any papers so i think that final paragraph is where we talked about health insurance oh at the bottom of the page right oh right right the short film is that we need to know what the projections are for health insurance for fiscal 20 so in effect for us to come up to our original conclusion that we suggest 2.5 we need some information which we don't have right now from our candidate okay i know and i just that's why this is draft but we need to and what should happen is the increase in revenue particularly we grow might offset that 450 reduction in panelists fees and might offset whatever health insurance increase or not but once all those numbers are known we may have to go back and revisit the 2.5 where the math isn't going to work okay because health insurance isn't everyone's individual budget so health insurance is in the town budget the municipal employees and retirees school budget for the school employees region budget library budget so they're all health insurance is all in these individual budgets so they have to we have to absorb any health insurance increases within our two and a half percent of our number so it's not the two and a half percent that's the overall budget right it's within the two and a half that we're all allocating understand that okay right where retirement stands alone it's not within all the operating but going from budget to budget if the health insurance was again going to go up 10 percent 10 percent right then we may not we may not be able to say to the town we have to increase two and a half percent or i have to be one one half percent right right that's so we need to know those numbers before we go around yes is there um your point about the health insurance you know being in here and talking a little bit more about it is there anything else that we would want to put in the narrative with new figures i understand we're coming from with the the revenue and now we look at capital anything else there you should probably all mark this as draft at the top of this i just if i had the computer put draft like you do crossing that would be good okay um do you have anything that you want us to add to those particular sections that would be helpful for the new council now i do think a lot of people the public does get really confused about two and a half percent of levy and two and a half percent increase in operating budgets i think it's like one of the same and it's really not and um maybe if there's a way to articulate that and writing the public it's also i mean it's the same with your tax rate it's just very it's very confusing it is unless you really get into the means it's complicated calculation it is where would you put that an explanation of the levy versus the budget no i think it's a good one maybe it could be a footnote remember you're we're going to get people on the um council who you know who are knowledgeable about a lot of things but the finance part of it i think it's an interesting intent to start setting up informational sessions for the council and for the general public so i think he's working on that and his reels that are spinning okay because this is going to be critical i think when people first come on the finance committee their eyes gloss over with all these sheets you give us with the different colors and the different columns and why did i get on this committee i thought it's just when i come up to you i come to walk in my eyes but yeah so it's a lot to learn so if there's some way we can clarify some of these things and make it simpler just from our own experiences i think that would be helpful so okay are we all through that section now and then we're on to the oh peb yeah that one's moving along i think that's pretty easy to explain and you know we are contributing toward it and we have a good bond rating because of it and i don't know that um i think it's still accurate to say we can't expect any significant health from the state to help with this it's going to be out of the town's so we're going to recommend another 500 for fiscal 20 we are going to recommend anything more or less basically that's what we're going to do right that that's what sonia's saying the manager would like to do or catch up on everything else that needs to be done yep and you notice southeast street has been newly paved take a ride down very nice now i've been driving around the road blocks right yes and and the residents down there are going to ask for bumps pretty soon because now you can do 50 easily down that road but not when you're going still into the oh under the 200 passes right yes between those two passes but it is nice okay reserve funds now it says to maintain them between 5 and 15 percent of the general fund operating revenues so we'll get new numbers this year for free cash uh from the state and the stabilization fund will get figures for that and then the total reserves i'm sure up are we over the 12 million we'll be we'll be about a 12 12 million remember at annual town meeting we appropriated 2 million for free cash to go into the health plan stress fund to help mitigate the run out for the health plan stress fund and it's getting it with the understanding that we are paying it back right through surcharges on our premium right so when we get it back where are we with the town reserves well this fiscal year and we're probably going to end up with 12 million in reserves okay so we use 2 million and it's getting paid back to it'll it goes it's being as we're collecting revenues into the health plan stress fund it's going into the health plan stress fund once we have 2 million in there we will transfer it back to the general fund and it'll close out to free cash okay and um so i can't remember what the amount is in the in our policies for um free cash and or for reserves do we set a percentage between 5 to 15 but it's over that yes but again that's not a magical number either remember the cnd cooler what's planned for the capital projects right major capital projects right part of that was building our reserves and increasing our capital spending a half a percent of the year until we received 10 percent maybe this is where we could say that we're at 16.5 percent we might say that that five to 15 percent you know it's a policy but we certainly could exceed that especially in light of the four capital projects i'm not sure i mean i i think the temptation might be to spend another percent and a half on other things what's the committee's thought you want to bring that back down to 15 no i don't i'd like to leave it where it is because i do think that if we get those capital projects going one of the um thoughts was to one of the projects would go for a debt exclusion override another project could be just a bond where you would pay off the principal and interest using money from the stabilization fund so you it's possible to have more than one project going if you do it right so i think a lot of these questions will be answered after after the 18th the 18th we'll get time to answer house's message okay this presentation okay it's just something to think about so that we're ready for that we'll have we can have two meetings after that before November one so okay then the um then the next one would be the again requested budget information and i think this is the yellow part tim is something you talked about last year you know and frankly i don't think the departments when they made their presentations addressed this i mean part part i think was to be sensitive to what impact the actual growth in this town was and that paragraph regarding family households was more particularly i think uh directed towards schools right um but the subsequent sentences in that paragraph were addressed i think towards other departments to when they're projecting their budgets to give us an sense in terms of what the impact of growth of decline has been in a way i think the senior senator did that they presented the fact that the older services the population was growing and that was putting real stress on their budget center um so i that was part of the intent but not everybody did that in the presentation so i think it's so helpful to put in i thought well i we did get the number of people who used the jones library but i don't think it was a breakdown of residents versus no residents people didn't get that specific right but i think that was also an attempt to allow people to give some impact to give us in the budgetary impact of for one of a better term amherst free services for the use of people from other towns right um and again i'm not sure we really did a good job of doing that well we might if you can think of language that would make that clear to the other groups i think you're right the schools give us figures but we may find a way to ask the others how they do it or to make it more visible than they have been it might be interesting also here to ask the schools how many students come from campus housing that's not taxable and but the bank is pretty specific i guess that might be something we could ask them although we won't be here when they come we are gone after december but would there be a place in here to um to ask the town what the agreement is with umass any kind of i mean they they give us so much money toward um um service of uh paramedics on the weekend um and they are supposedly they give us some money toward the school in other words they're maybe that's what i'm looking for the total contribution of the university to the town in terms of money total contribution from amherst college and the total contribution from hampshire what those what those all give us in in in the fact that they have non-taxable land um where would that go here well that comes in the revenue sources well this is a request for budget information but it's part of local receipts but that's local receipts those are pilot taxes but they're very obvious non-recurring is what we've put it on yeah but it's not as obvious as i think i mean more people have asked me recently about you know what have what has the contribution been from these places and especially since we have that information for all the colleges what their contributions are not only in cash but in kinds so okay i think it's relevant especially i don't know if it's something that belongs in here but that information is available i'm not sure if it's on the website somewhere i know i remember helping holding those numbers together so i can look into that that would be good i know i think it i mean it since it comes to the town it would be under information the town would give us and i'm not sure whose department that would be but but i do think it should be out there because more people are asking i'm surprised about that but i had a couple of people ask me recently well what do they pay and i think it's because they the endowments of all these colleges have been out and if you notice the um the democrat who's running for governor came out with a proposal that would tax um higher ed private higher ed whose endowments are over a certain amount of money a percentage that would be used would go to the state and the state would use it for education i kind of like that idea i think it's it's it's been on my mind because williams in williams town they they provide quite a quick they help with the elementary school and how they're helping with the police department i feel like i read that recently it'd be nice to know right it's it's a it's a large amount of money it is that they that they give and their endowment is less no it's not less well i don't know what their endowment is their endowment is over two billion yeah yeah but have williams oh yeah oh it williams williams is is so you can it's similar to williams and i was a relative was similar to something like two and a half billion yeah and hampshire is like nothing i know it's nothing it is and then you may ask the state institution it's the institution anyway yeah i mean definitely hampshire and the amherst are i mean i don't think it affects amherst i wouldn't even i think that what you're talking about that let's just that piece of legislation i don't even think it would affect uh amherst amherst college no it's it's not legislation yet it's something he's proposed to have a tax on the endowment an endowment is greater than one billion dollars right right so that would tax that excess and have those muddies go to the state coffers right and i forget the percentage that it would tax would be but it would be basically a wealthy institution tax yes yes it's private yeah i didn't think it was a billion or more yes it is a billion okay they must have changed it before it was a percentage that it would in this community would affect amherst would amherstett.org yeah um principally yeah smith all those aren't they're not for many of the same businesses well elite colleges right okay so if we could have that somewhere that would be good but i'm not sure we would get on that so if i get through the indication for it well the appropriate place would be on the second page in the second paragraph where it talks about local receipts and other financing sources such as and it talks about local receipts funds you could include receipts from okay and that information and the piece they have shared that in the past and i forget what that number is sorry the basic you know money monetary contributions that we get are in my quarterly reports that we quarter of how much we've collected today in at the end of the june which i just did the quarterly report for this left board and it's um posted on the accounting website there so you can go in there and see this lane is now recurring and you can see it spells that it's how much time from where oh they did so the information we have the information in many places and it is public it's not okay are there a thousand other lines of things on that report there's a lot of things in the report that report is very important i know it i i know there's just so many lines to look at okay good we have that there um all right so we requested budget information that's what we've asked for in the past and we'll find a way to probably emphasize that okay anything else um on page four for the beginning this is where we do say they have to include healthcare and contractual salary increases looking at that paragraph um is this something that the this is what the manager had said last year is this okay for this year sorry he said in addition budget should include expected health insurance and contract and contractual salary increases new positions must be accommodated within the proposed budget is he still going to stick with that um stick to him i'm told right well i'm trying to i'm trying to move this that's the manager's report oh okay where i am for our board meeting oh got it i handle indicators right it's on the calendar so okay and then we talk about um when they put this together they choose to means is put it together in a in a way that they're pretty much similar as you read through them as we've done in the finance committee report those are these are the pieces and the explanation of full-time equivalent and then we did we do have a budget coordinating calendar how we would word that but but i'm sure they're going to have a budget coordinating calendar too that stated in the charter i think they have some timelines i think those timelines timeline is much quicker that is true and and and the the issue though is realistically the schools and the library and even the town begin to look at their budgets july one and begin to put things together um and they wait then for the guidelines on november one and i the charter the charter isn't in sync with that so i i don't know they'll have to resolve that obviously it's their issue but there are state guidelines too for when things have to be turned in and when they get information and so forth so that will be up to them and it may be more difficult this first year because we're because when the elections are happening but i think realistically people will will run again they will they will seek to if they're not discouraged in the first two years they they would run again and i mean there would be a flow for those individuals you know they will have been on they'll continue to be on they're running again i think that schedule will probably be more in keeping with what we have now in terms of the town planning but this year because of when it falls it is off but but i do think um it will probably eventually be more in line with with the calendar that exists now since the town the school and the library really have deadlines themselves the school for instance has to i believe at least they used to have to let people who they were not going to be hired know by february good day contractually now that may have changed it may be later so you know budget planning has to happen earlier for them then in this expedited budget process that's in the charter can i go back to the question sure miscellaneous non-returning this includes amherst college and umass firms received to support the operating budget it also includes the payment and hotel hotel taxes included in this strategic agreement with umass we receive one hundred and thirty one nine hundred ninety two dollars today from sonia aldrich extra board yes but i also noticed that um when i presented this on the slot board um as per as that i um put in the amounts in the text and i did but i think the wrong file guide graph to be put online so i noticed that i was planning and writing and doing that first thing in the morning before anyone knows wait this is the wrong one it's right it's yeah it's right i just added more detail to it after the select board meeting and so how much money total with one thirty one nine ninety two that's that is the payment that's the payment hotel that's the only no there's still more so there's more there's more and i added all that detail to the report but the wrong report i grabbed oh i get on the website so i want to go fix it i was hoping to fix that before anybody knows but thank you okay that's great that is this is a good report there's a lot of information there and it's my interest is kind of back and all right on the conclusion on this and we just i think that's okay basically thank you okay if any of you have any thoughts on this between now and our next meeting or want to add something um let me know because i think how i see this playing out is that once we get pretty close to the manager's budget you will have figures put in here so we're not doing it that night and then that that evening after the manager's budget presentation or it's not the budget presentation he's presenting the fiscal outlook for the town right so once he presents that we'll have that those figures and we can work on this afterwards and then we'd have one more meeting to finalize it so but if you have other things you think other language that you think we need in there let me know and i'll i'll try to deal with it so we we can work pretty quickly through a draft and make changes so if you see those now let me know too well no i'm are we gonna go over this yes okay so we're all set on that then and the question i would ask and try to ask again on the 11 we the manager's presentation is usually about a power we can either meet immediately after that at six o'clock or we can take an hour break and come back at seven and try to finish as much of the guidelines as possible that night and and have a draft ready and then meet the following week and finalize it and get it ready to send out last year did we take an hour break yeah we got a sandwich in some way i think we did yes i think we i think i bought your sandwich for you there you go then look we're gonna we're gonna go with joe he's gonna first i'll buy all dinner right after that meeting i mean the last ones went out the end of october so that's going to be pretty much the end of october so what we do is we try to get as much of it together as possible after that meeting with the new figures and then and make any edits that we see at that point take it look at it and then finish it up the next meeting i'm just usually i'm gonna time to go in and put an outlets figure or something you're not gonna have time before that meeting to do that no okay that's your message okay you can't do it the hour between bumper okay so are you saying we're not gonna meet after or we just we still we still do we i think you can still this i mean a lot of what he says i mean well he gives us the information so we need to talk about that and and what do we set as the percentage and and some of your issues well i mean there's a big lot of questions i mean all all these things all have to add up right so that everything balances with a two and a half percent increase if one of them is really skew something else has to give right right right but we would after the meeting and we can talk about that right but and the protection that we gave at the financial indicators report is a very preliminary oh sure what his basically right yeah because what happened last year was everything was fine except health insurance increased and then we found out the new growth would add enough for us to then increase the budget by to three and a half percent that is two hours right yeah once we do that report two i mean then we start getting information more concrete numbers like from the retirement board and that changes right and this that rejection just tweaks weekly right but i think different information that we know um up until we're ready for i think we should i think we should think of it as kind of a snapshot like we're going to do the best we can and right right and i think we can make that clear right with the new council that this is this is the process as we got through it up to this point right and i think last year probably was was one of the few years we ever changed anything that previous years are the manager's projections and the figures we took from the manager and sonia were right pretty much on target and we did not go back and change last year was an exception four or five years of no drama right so because health insurance was not this year was right right so i i think you know i think we will be pretty pretty well set to be able to um you know kind of get as much information together that's pretty accurate even though everything is a projection we say that over and over again that things could change and they did in january i think it was last year so so anyway unless you think of anything else that you want and then this is kind of the the draft will work from uh and if you have this basically the same boilerplate we've had for the last number of years no we changed it a little bit a little bit oh no we added some yeah we i would say kind of the way the figures are set up it's true but i think we added some other things we wanted and and and ask for things that weren't in the past and try to be clear on what it is all these things are it's okay we're done with that now um what i've been thinking of is that the the new council um are going to come in some will have a know what we do and what they do and so forth but i thought and i asked on you this before to put aside 13 finance committee reports from uh town meeting with the orange cover and the jcpc report 13 of those and make a packet to give to the new council and one of the things that could also go in there is this is how our finance committee functions and you may function obviously very differently but this is what it kind of took so i send a copy of that to you how it functions and if you can see anything else that would be fine yes so i'm really glad for this budget process but i and i but i keep getting tripped up this is a second page okay which one second page second paragraph okay okay so the managed budget is presented in january right the school budgets are completed in february right and the library is completed in december that previous december okay yeah that's that so that you know i i try to rewrite it like several times and send it to you but i just couldn't quite get it right it's probably why it's written like that because i couldn't either yeah i thought i i okay i did spend a little time but i just okay so we'll work on that but they get it finished and it's great but the um we're in you know a region for for the seven through twelve and there are deadlines there for their town meetings and to my knowledge they're not going to change their annual elections at the end of april beginning of may to coincide with amherst elections in november they're still going to have their own annual town meetings and they're going to have their budgets and their towns they're not cities as we now are called the town so uh so there's going to be some times that have to be worked out there's also something about notifying the towns said for capital i think so many days before their town meetings because there is a formula for capital projects for the regional schools but they they have to let the towns know their percentage of of that cost for the next budget um by so many days before their town meetings so anyway kind of that's why these these are in there that's why those are the deadlines as of now now they may change it completely i think at the last meeting people just thought it might be helpful for them to see how a finance committee could work and they could change however they want to i would suggest just as a way of saying but for the town way as i may be town staff because i'm not like that i'm sure i didn't my first really didn't know what you meant how do i write my description so that sign in this case and it was uh right what's his name before and maybe who knows what that's a good point i had sonia's name in there she told me to take it out right because it may not be her so that's good you're changing liaison to staff uh oh town staff liaison right right you could so i'll go here too where's that that's a minor point town staff anything else i presented this to that the you know the town meeting committee that was established toward the end of town meeting that was going to research different articles on that and they invited me to come and tell them how we functioned and i think some of them were overwhelmed by what went into the work we do i mean it works out and people enjoy doing it but but it does require time i would include under finance committee members i think that's good to let them know that we each oversee or participate with the various several select town functional areas right i think somewhere in there i'm not sure how at the moment you're right but we also attend the meetings you didn't really say that nothing okay you imply it by cover slash watch but somehow yes we provide information so they're going to site for the no i think they just did and dissolved so i'm off the hook i don't i don't think it's disbanded i think they they certainly haven't met there's nothing going on there well i think i think it's because in my understanding is they're they're still trying to find a site but you can't do anything if you don't have a site that's why we stop that's why they stop but they do have but they do have a study they do have a right they have all of that the only thing that prevents them from going forward is to find a piece of property that's exactly where it was left that was our last meeting which was whatever nine months ago last spring right but i think there's still work behind the scenes but i'm just guessing yeah they're not involved in me in that work no i mean there's no point meeting if you don't have a site right okay anything else on this one i think that was a good that's a good document yeah so do i think it's great even if they do something completely different well they may change timelines in that they may say we can do without this or we can do that but at least it does tell them what what's involved okay and the budget process calendar um i thought also it was a good timeline for when things are done what months to look at and you know date and who and what i don't have where so again and does the manager's budget presentation still remain january 16 i don't believe so in the charter no it's in the charter it's later where do you tell yes yes yes they're given by neighbors is that what you're asking well yes my opinion i'd have to reread the charter this whole budget process calendar is going to have to be changed right but they can see what our school this is the existing one that's that's why we just we just uh left it as is in fact we have select board and so forth yeah we should but i'm sure it was made first but it does it does say i mean they're just deadlines that school committee is going to be one later so they can do it earlier oh they have to do it so the school committee the school the library the amerson regional schools and the libraries have to be submitted by april first so sometime between the april first and the first so april first all those those entities have to give it to the town manager and then we may first the town manager has to switch well you know what the regional budget maybe the emmer's budget can be done that way regional budget is voted on in those towns either the last saturday and april or the first saturday in may that's when they have their town meetings i'm sure that's all going to get worked out oh it has to be obviously but i'm saying that something they never inquired of and they had people on there from the school committee but right no one ever i mean he's gonna do me first it just says no later than the first right but if he depends and if he wanted to he wouldn't have to do that except that it does impact the region the elementary school is not an issue okay anything else so what you're saying is that we will not have anything till the 16th after the 18th i keep thinking okay so you won't have anything till after the 18th so there's unless there's a need for a meeting on the 11th something else comes up i don't see any reason to meet what's your thoughts we can go over you can present your report to us you really want to okay for the minutes that i need to leave it but there's nothing right no i have nothing okay so we can take off that fincom no meeting on the 11th right but there's a four board meeting on the 18th which we will not have our guideline figures i'm not going to be here on the 18th in the draft so now we're meeting on the oh i can't meet on the 27th i can't meet on the 27th so wait we are meeting at back for the four boards meeting on the 18th correct we will have to meet then and maybe we'll have to meet november 1st they might be a couple days late i can't be here on the 25th why don't we discuss that at the 18th okay because we will have the three other people right hopefully i would like i would like everyone to be at the meeting where we have the guidelines so and then we can see what their calendars are like sure we had usually kept thursday's open there's a thing coming up at the fine arts center so anything else in no reports from committees very sad okay why don't we talk about my i never i never got to go to the one thing i was supposed to get to go to i'm pretty upset about that okay did you go to any meetings no i mean because i'm on the same committee there was only no there was one there was one and i wasn't on the email list oh man what's going on here it's canceled oh the the retro school district planning board has met uh and we we were committee and then we we joined with pelham and we've been meeting every other week between pelham and amherst and they're this is to regionalize amherst elementary just amherst good night amherst elementary with pelham elementary which would be the pre-k to six and um and that's going very well jones hempkin from amherst and peter demling is a chair and he's from amherst and tom fanning from pelham he used to be on the school committee uh carah castinson is the chair of the pelham school committee and she's on this committee and emily mariot who was on the pelham school committee is um is the secretary or vice chair of that committee and myself so it's six people and they're going to um they're going to be forums to talk about the advantages financially and educationally for the two towns to um to regionalize we did hear from the town council and if we recommend regionalizing pelham had passed to vote at their town meeting and amherst has to have a town-wide vote um but cities and towns can regionalize so you know when you look at the language it's you know state language is not a law language is always easy to decipher but anyway those a city and in town can regionalize the question was could they so that's that's been resolved so i think things are going very well so pelham would come to amherst no um we would join together we would share right now um we're a union with pelham right but the finance director has to he has the regional budgets that he keeps he has an amherst the whole budget they keep and he has pelham by regionalizing pelham and amherst would be one district and he would just have one set of books i said but the thing is that right now pelham already um their curriculum is the same as amherst the teachers and the administrators are under the same well they're different contracts but the pelham teachers are in the same union with the amherst teachers okay administrators the same way there isn't any differences really okay can you foresee uh in the future a problem like we have now with the um the regional schools in the four different towns and everybody fighting over what percentage people are i mean that's my well that would that's part of the regional agreement and what you'd have to agree to but if you're one district yet that takes well there still has to be a regional agreement so um i would think the answer is yes in that there would be a both the two towns both pelham and amherst would have to agree to the new regional school budget and one of the box and their percentage that they're gonna pay yep if that sounds worked out yeah well right now the elementary per pupil cost in pelham is at least by the state records by desi's records they paid a couple thousand less per child than we do but part of that has to do with the age of your faculty i mean you know the and how long i shouldn't say age it should it's the length of time someone is in the system like if you're there you know 40 years your salary is going to be higher than someone just coming in so there are i'm sure they can show those differences pretty easily um but yeah they and i don't know how you protect the assessment method so that this doesn't happen right you know if there's some way you can say anyone who challenges this is the region is automatically dissolved i i have no idea but we do have um the uh mark abrams who's the guru of regional finances um he's our consultant and doing the finances and mars and massachusetts association of regional schools they are doing the consulting for a process for the language for an agreement uh for governance kind of all the other little issues that go along with regionalizing and they're very good and the main benefit to this is just cost savings uh well the one thing we don't get now elementary schools do not get um is transportation right money so that would bring in uh 200 maybe 250 000 a year um initially there's some money to regionalize the other plus is that if you decide to build a new building i believe it's a six percent bonus if you're a region all right so six percent more that the state will pay toward their um contribution to a new school so there there are some advantages certainly um i remember mike talking about this yeah but it's but it's the the issue would be yeah i don't remember it being that much i don't remember it was like 300 000 for what for what the transportation trend is about 250 to 70 what was it 15 000 was that the smaller amount that for regionalizing it could be and the state had i don't know if they still do but they had i think was a three year payout you know you start higher and each year it became less but you know that's one time and i it for a while they presented well you know the region would get that money we get from medicare or medicaid you know it would come to the region we said well that isn't that saving you're just taking it out of the town pocket and putting it in the school pocket so don't even count that you know people people are smarter than that they know that if you know the town medicare part d yeah i think so no what is it so you know the town just won't get it but the schools but in essence they get it now anyway because we we you know allocate money for them so um you know i think it's it's exciting and it's worth looking at and you're right the big thing would be that the assessment how do you avoid what's going on and right now you know if you have a group of people that work well together it's not an issue but when you have no it's there that's right when you have people who do not then it is a real issue and we're right back to the table now discussing the assessment because amherst said it would only do it for one year the one that we're doing this year who is the governor's question oh no i mean this is right now they the original agreement i understand that well no this this thing you'd have a school board that would be one school and there is some sense to but the big financial reason i think was because of the general condition and in these days we can use that but i think that the people in amherst when you see 80 percent of at least the regional budget this would be even a larger percentage is is appropriated by amherst and you only have 55 percent of the vote and you know you know that doesn't sound well with with people either so i think that's going to be an issue to be worked out with with them because they have like less than 100 children in their school and then we have 2000 and population wise too so but but i mean they're they're they've been wonderful to work with we've i think the meetings have gone very well and they're looking at a lot of things so i'm hopeful good update okay so i anything else nope i'm assuming the minutes none notes no new topics so i think to return uh second so moved i'll think about it