 Okay, so let's call the meeting to order and so the first thing is the minutes. So first of all check and make sure you have a little asterisk next to your name to show your attendance and if you don't have an asterisk next to a shame on you. Okay, voted no action, not voted a bond authorization, unanimous plans for it. No, the pickets in front of the town hall were protesting. Okay, they were they were protesting custodian outsourcing. So if you could change that, stay tuned. Okay, anybody have a motion? Second. Okay, any other corrections? Okay, so it's from getting rid of the collective bargaining and put in custodial outsourcing. All those in favor of the minutes is corrected. Please say aye. Opposed. Okay. Okay, right now scheduled for it'll just leave this out. 736. Well, probably nobody else is coming in anyway. Your retirement board has submitted. Two articles, none of which seems to cost us anything you want to be surprised. Okay, so. John, you might think it up or just sort of quickly go through them. We have two new members. Okay. Okay. Actually, for the new members on the finance committee. We worked out an arrangement with the finance committee years ago to start funding. We have liability. There could be other post-employment benefits other than pensions. And we've got about $9 million into that fund. Now, we're hopeful that the finance committee will continue that program. I can suggest to you that the state years ago opted to fund pensions. And force communities to fund pensions, I should say. And we suspect that that will be the case in not too distant the future of funding healthcare liability. So, I'll have a head start on that. We're very enthusiastic as a retirement board. We're very enthusiastic about that program. And we hope you'll continue it. What's the balance in there now? Well, 9 million. 8.9 million. Okay. 8.9 million. Okay. Well, as John is the chairman for the new people chairman of the retirement board has been on it for a couple of years. Do you have any questions for the chairman? Try again. Besides somebody who didn't silence theirs. Okay. This is the other post-employment. We started funding this, 97, 98? Yeah, I think so, yeah. Okay. And we've had, we funded it with the balance between the fund called the non-contributory retirement fund, or program, which was made up of people who worked for the town back in the 40s. No, 30s. And so we took a $500,000 balance, which is what it was back in 1997 or something like that. And then that fund keeps going down. So we took that and whatever we had to appropriate, and we took that difference and put it in this fund. So now it's down to like 100,000 and change that we appropriate for non-contributory. So we take 400,000 and put it into this fund. And then we've got 155,000. When the Board of Soekman increased what the retirees had to pay into health insurance from 10% to 15, that 155,000 savings goes into the OPEP fund. And I think we've been taking some money out of the health insurance trust fund, so 300,000. The health insurance trust fund was about 3 million, and we just take peace out of it each year. And I think the manager contributed some out of his budget last year. So those are the pieces that we've seen if you check prior FIMCOM reports. So we've got 9 million. What's the liability? Yeah, I'll give the bad news to Rich. 1114, as you know, all actually those studies are done on January 1st, and while the prior year data was used, or the prior two years data, it was 185 million on 1114. I might add we're only funding a small portion. Actually, we're not even close to funding this on a full-time basis. But at least it gives us a head start in case the state moves to make this mandatory, which we fully feel they will sooner or later. Any questions? Now the actuary, what percentage cost of living were they using? Have they been using a 3% cost of living, or have they gone down to the 2% we've actually been giving? What he uses for his health insurance is different based on how you're funding it. And stuff, one is 4.5%, one is 7.5%. As it was said the other night, the retirement board meeting, pensions are mandated to be funded. Healthcare right now is not. So there's some different philosophies out there on how to do it. The contribution, which is called the act, if we were really funding it would be $60 million, $6 million more than we're putting to the pension funds right now. So I mean, you know, but in order to get the GASB requirements and help with the bond ratings and the balance sheet for the town, the fact that you're approving money to fund it is helping other aspects of the town. So the $9 million does put us ahead of a lot of other towns that are just kind of not addressing it right now. Sean, I'm very naive about what health care is available to retirees. Can they stay in the health plan that they're in as in 40 years? Well, I'll just say because health care keeps changing as of February 3rd, 2016, the way the rules are, is that they can maintain the same health care, except if they're over 65 they go into Medicare and they have a supplement program. But if they're under 65, it's the same program that they're in now. Now, if they don't qualify for Medicare? Yeah, I very agree right now at this point because you had to, if you were in the municipal before 1986 and never changed jobs or anything, then you wouldn't qualify for it, but everybody else does. Okay, so it's pretty much everybody. Yeah, it's pretty much everybody. And even if you are married to someone that is eligible for it, that's called a trigger and they go into it anyway. So it's very hard not to be eligible these days. There was a time when there was a number of people who didn't have to be in it. Okay, is there any questions? Any other questions? Okay, thank you very much. Now the other one, we don't have any numbers of articles, is the pension adjustment for former 25 year accidental disability employees. So if you want to give a brief overview of this. Yeah, for those that might be new on the finance committee, and for those who might not remember about this article, this is an article that allows 25 year employees when they retire not to fall below 50% of their active counterpart. So we believe the finance department believes that this is a positive article for both the town and the employees. We believe it's possible for the, good for the town from a standpoint that we maintain long term employees and therefore that's a good thing. It's also good, excuse me, also good for the employees. Most of them that are here for 25 years don't get this benefit kicked in for a good long time after they've retired, because they're obviously over and above the 50% when they retire, they usually are at 80%. So we think it's a positive program. It's been in effect since the 1980s, and retirement boards strongly suggest that we continue the program. Again, for those of you that knew that sort of May 1st, 2010 date in there was to sort of cover a whoop hole that actually John and I found in it. So that closes off and basically says you have to qualify for at least a 50% pension in order for this to, when you retire, in order for this to kick in. Yeah, we had a few employees that started when they were 18 or 19 years old and they had the 25 years before they were at 50%. So we wanted to close that loophole, and they had to wait until at least they got it to 50%. So last year they increased the payroll of about $28,000. You pay the call at the first, the wage voted, and then after the call you look and assess if the person's 50% below the position they left. Thank you. Yeah. Anybody else? That's $28,000 on a budget of $20,000. $28,000 on a payroll of over 14 minutes just to put that. Okay. Are there any other questions from the committee? Okay. Rich, John, thank you very much for coming. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, Paul. There was a third article from the retirement board about increase of survivor benefits. And we voted no action and said that we would be evaluated this year again. We delayed that. We felt the economic environment wasn't great. We pushed new benefits this year, but we thought that we would push that off for a year. Okay. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay. Again, thank you very much for coming. We appreciate your time. Okay, great. Thanks a lot. Okay, you take care. Okay. The chairman who's taking care of this for the FINCOM request that we vote this later when he brings in all the retirement stuff. So I will put this on the table for now. Okay, I think what I'd like to do now is go through the warrants. So I want everybody to take their warrants out. Well, it's got a couple of numbers. Okay. So go to page four and I'm going to read through them and mention them and give, you know, say whether I think so I can redevelop the board or you must feel perfectly free and stopping and saying should we hear that or something like that. Now the finance committee can report on anything they want that they believe has a financial impact. We try to control ourselves a little bit in doing that because we have enough work to do anyway. But, you know, it is our ability to do and I think we even had made a comment about a zoning article last year. Okay, so measure of wooden barks, assistant town moderator, then the next bunch, zoning and, you know, you just got these today. So if you go through them over the next weekend and you want to change your mind and hear something, you know, we can do that. So, but the whole list of the first articles are zoning. Actually, there's a lot more zoning. I can remember many years. Okay, page six and seven are all zoning. I know we're probably going to skip the zoning, but last year when we talked about it, I think we came down to wanting to know from the building department what these articles were going to cost them. We want to do that again. We want to ask the building to cut to it and ask the building department if they find any associated costs with these, whether it's their cost or anything. They don't have to come in. We'll ask you that. It'll be Darrell in the meeting with the building inspector. We can bring it up when we meet with him and if there are any issues he brings up, we can bring them to the board. Okay, great. That's a good idea. Okay, so we'll do that. Make a note of that. Okay. Now we go to page eight. Wow. A lot of zoning. Interesting. Okay, then we have bylaws expanding equal protection. So I'll say Selecman, but again, we could always change our mind. Human Rights Commission Executive Director. So I'll say Selecman slash Fincom. Because we'll want to know if there's any cost. Question mark. Okay, Arlington Human Rights. Looks like an amendment to the, so I'll say Selecman. Arlington Commission and cultural membership. Sounds Selecman. Okay, page 10. Reservation bylaw. Okay, Selecman. Bylaw, electronic distribution of notices and materials. Provide enforcement measures. So again, there's a question of will there be a cost for enforcement or inspections or permits or anything? Provide enforcement measures. Who would enforce this? It's the bylaws. It's when there's major construction on site. So it might be the building inspector. Okay. So why don't you ask the building inspector about that also? Okay. The tree warden. The tree warden. Electronic distribution of notices and materials. One thing that's going to be interesting. The governor filed a major bill with the state legislature with all kinds of reforms from municipal government. And I think one of the things was for electronic distribution of notices, materials, and everything. Needless to say, the newspapers, those few that are left, the newspapers will probably be fighting at tooth and nail because all you have to do is look through a newspaper and that's significant. So I'll put down Selecman now. But if that passes, you know, could save some money. Camping on public property. So I wonder if we've had homeless people. I'm sorry? There's so many in East Arlington. They've built structures. Oh, you've got the homeless. Yeah. Down near the end. Yeah. Serious structures, not just that. Yeah. If you go through, I walked through the wildlife up towards Belmont a lot. And you'll see, you know, little paths going in there. I think they've been eliminated a lot because of all the work done there. But you can imagine people actually living there over the winter. Yeah. There's some problems in there too. Demolition by neglect of historic buildings. Okay, Selecman. Now here's an interesting, email accounts for members of public bodies. See if the town will vote to provide email accounts for the exclusive use of town business to members of the, okay, well, I don't know how, what, one of my more techie people on the FinCon. Is there a cost to this? Just to set up more email accounts. User. Okay. So you can have your own email account for the town. The only account we have now is I set up an email account. Atosti. And I never use it, but it's on the, you know, when I send out to the whole FinCon, it automatically goes there. And it's just strictly for saving of emails. Any emails that get sent to the finance committee will get stored electronically so that a public information request can get them easily. Anybody want to hear it? No. Okay, Selecman. Now, this is one, to see if the town will vote to prohibit policymaking elected and appointed officials from lobbying or engaging others to lobby on their behalf on matters affecting the town unless specific lobbying initiatives have been approved at an open session of a public meeting of a public body of the town or take any action related there too. I will disobey, you know, well, you know, this has got to be a conflict with something small like the United States Constitution on freedom of speech. Anybody want to hear it? Yeah, let's do it. Yeah. Okay. Okay, Gloria, you set up this. How is this a finance issue? Policymaking. Yeah. Yeah. So for example, I think we'd have, so if I read this, right, so prohibit policymaking like to lobby on behalf of matters affecting the town. So if I send an email like a lot of us do to our state rep every year saying you screwed us on state aid, we're not lobbying our state rep on state aid. That's another thing we did. That's probably the email we mostly sent. Perhaps we should hear from the town council. I mean, this is a legal issue. The other thing with effect, I think it would have, you know, if members are going to support or oppose the debt exclusion on an overrider or something like the Community Preservation Act, that's lobbying. You know, it's, I mean, it's the first of all. I agree with you. Okay, so, well, that's fine. Okay, wait a minute. Why aren't we trying? John? So can we invite town council to... Can you guys discuss this issue with us? It seems to me to be evidently a legal issue. Are we a policymaking body? Oh. I, of course, a lot of this just interprets. We're not, that's an interesting question. Policymaking, we're a policy recommending. We do, I suppose, do policy when we vote reserve fund transfers. I'm sure we're targeted here. I will ask town council. Okay. Okay, next article. Vote authorizing community choice aggregation. Oh, electric. That's a community choice. So it's going to increase somebody's cost. Okay, you want to hear it? Yes. Okay. Gloria. Removal of easement restriction. Is this the one that we discussed like several years ago? It looks like it. No, it's a different name. I thought we settled that. I guess not. It's a different piece of parcel. So it's not the same parcel? No. It's next to it, I think. I'm sorry? I think it's next to it. Well, for removing an easement, we're eliminating something of value that the town might have purchased in some time. I have no idea. And probably increasing the value of the parcel. So I think last time the manager negotiated some of the money for it. I have no idea what it was. Shall we get involved or at least ask questions? Yeah. Okay. Okay, Gloria. That's that one. Transfer of town property. I think so, yeah. It is. To the army for the perpetual use of affordable housing. Yeah, because we get money for that. Okay. Of course, if we transferred to them, we lose the money, but we also lose the cost. Yeah. Mr. Belskis sit in front of me at Tom meeting, and he told me that he thinks transferring this over gets us firmly over the 1.5% on 40B. That's why he put it in the east. That's why he said it. Yeah. Okay. So I might have just cut to the chase on his hearing. Okay, so we'll hear that one. Local option taxes. That's our standard article. So endorsement of CBG that's like one. Evolving funds is the select one. Collective bargain, I think is being eliminated. Because all the contracts are done. So I think so. I mentioned this to the manager and he's going to, he's going to delete it or have it deleted position reclassification. We'll work on that budgets. Obviously capital budget. We're sin borrowing authorizations. Okay. Appropriation. So this will be a new one. Pres, community preservation fund. Okay. I'll leave this to other people. The town meeting has to approve this for this money to be spent. Is that correct? Yeah. Okay. So they should have a recommendation from the finance committee on what we think. Okay. Gloria. Could you. Anybody close to the community preservation? Do you know what their timing is or anything? I think they just started meeting a couple of weeks ago. Okay. We can hit the calendar. Dick, do we have a date for the meeting for the school committee? You'll receive your school budgets match nine and the hearing is a 60. Okay. The school committee is coming in on the 16th. Right. I suppose you should say school department. Okay. And again, I don't want to schedule any hearings or meetings whatsoever on that last week in March. John. Yeah. Just going back to the community preservation fund. Don't we have a pin com representative on that committee? I thought we were. That's too bad. Should they have though, since this is moving forward, sort of with every other large expenditure, should they have a, I don't want to call it a pin com representative, respond to everyone on the call. Like Steve DeCorsi, obviously Charlie's on the capital budget. Do you have a liaison to the community preservation? You are. So we have a referral. We have a liaison to. Okay. Okay. Gloria. Could you see if you could nail down the community preservation act? I believe the chairman is. Yeah. Clarissa row. So if you could contact her and say, we'd like to get you in on March seventh, ninth or 14th. And see if they push back, but you know, give them those three dates. What's the third one? Nine and 14. Seven, nine or 14. Okay. Ah. Propriation. You gar application reviews. Okay. Okay. So we'll have to hear from the town manager on this. And we might as well schedule a time. We could talk to the manager about all of them. Propriation capital budget school capacity. Okay. So this is a 10 register voters. So I have to have a hearing on that. Okay. Sewers and water. The next two are. Grant. You know, so if you could try to nail those down, we could just vote on those ahead of time. Okay. Minute man. Okay. Stephen. Okay. Gloria. You get a whole stream to Corsi and ask him if the, if he could set up a meeting and offer the seventh, ninth and 14th and tell him somebody else gets a chance to. So whoever gets there first gets the date. Tuition or would this also include money for the bill? This is the operating budget. That says capital costs. The operating budget includes capital costs. Yeah, it does. But the capital costs for the building. No. There's normal capital costs in the budget every year, but the other one is bonding. If they go to bond, they have that special approval. That's what the other one is. I think I heard February 23rd for a possible minute in school committee vote on the project. Right. But there's no other article. Well, no, but we have to, well, that'll have to be probably a special. That would be a special. Yeah. So that'll be that because you know, March, that'll actually before, before the annual time meeting. So we'll probably have to have a special. Okay. Gory is working on all the committees and commissions. Our usual policy, as you know, is to offer them if they want the same amount of money as they got last year, they don't have to come in. If they want more money, they have to come in and plead their case. So we're working on that. Town celebrations. That's a town manager. That's in the back of the budgets. Appropriation miscellaneous. Water bodies. And that's next Monday. So water bodies is 2A. Uh, Harry Barber. Gory, we'll need that. I'm sorry? Okay. So we don't need a hearing. Anybody wanted to, we're here. The Harry Barber program, that's for the new people that's set aside. So I think it's elderly people who want to earn a little money that they can use towards paying their taxes or their rent or something. Can earn up to, what was it, $750 I think? Doing work in various places, answering phones, something like that. It's been around for years. We can discuss it now. Anybody want to, Dick? I'll move it. Okay, so you move favorable action? Right. Okay, $7,500. Any discussion or questions? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Opposed? Unanimous? Okay, whenever I take a vote like this for the two new people, I'm just going to, you know, glance over a thing, call it unanimous. If for some reason you want to vote against it or you want to abstain or something like that, you've got to get my attention. So don't be shy. Throw things or? Sorry? Throw things or? No, the chairman does not like. There's committees that are worse to be on than yours. Okay, appropriation. This is the hearing we just heard. So this was 2315. And this one was also 2315. So we've heard that and we'll discuss and vote on these when we hear all the rest of the retirement stuff. Oh, you're right. I've been so well doing, you know, my checkbook and everything has been 16. Okay, now long-term stabilization fund. Okay, actually, this is something we could discuss. We've been appropriating, we have several stabilization funds, as you know. One is the long-term stabilization fund, which is sort of the permanent stabilization fund. That means it's not there as a rainy day fund, it's there for emergencies. I mean, you know, we get sued and we, you know, we need to come up with a couple million dollars right away. That's what that's for. It's not there just because we have to sort of reduce budgets. But obviously, you know, town meeting makes the final decision. So we've been putting $100,000 a year into this fund for quite a while now. And the question is, you know, should we continue? So discussion, does anybody want to make a motion? How much is in the fund? The amount I saw was like $2,988,000 or something like that. It hasn't been earning a lot of interest. Okay, for $100,000? Okay, moved and seconded for $100,000 into the permanent stabilization fund. Any discussion or questions? Do we know how much has been used, when it's used, what the status of the school is to use it? I'm sorry. I just want to know a little bit about how it's being used by the schools, by students on special education. Okay, it's, now that's the reserve fund. No, it's the special education transfer funds. Because this is a separate fund. The town meeting can vote one inch into it, which they've been doing, and only the town meeting can vote it out. So this hasn't been used by anybody. Okay, John. I think about, I want to say about seven years ago, there was some severe water damage. I think it was to the town vault in the library. Was it the library? Yeah. Yeah, and we took money out of this fund to cover the deductible that we weren't covered with insurance for that issue. And it was, I think with more than $500,000, we took that to touch. But we try not to do that very often. So it's, it can only be voted in or out by the town meeting. Is that sort of an issue? I think so. I think that's fine for now. Thank you. Okay. Any other questions? I mean, the money basically could be voted out by town meeting for any purpose that town meeting seems appropriate. So it could, yeah. So when we get to that article, we can potentially recommend using that as a source of funds for the pay of the UR legal inspection. Yeah. Charlie? Yeah. It seems to me that the Mugar issue is a person that's operational and it's political. And I don't think we should be using this reserve fund for that issue. Okay. We'll talk about that or we can discuss it. I'm just wondering if that might be called legal use. Okay. Any other questions? Okay. The motion has been made. $100,000 to go into the long-term stabilization fund for next year. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Okay. Anonymous. Appropriation, overlay reserve. Anybody have the latest five-year plan? Okay. Okay. The reserve, the overlay reserve is what's set aside for maintenance. And we usually, what do we do last year? Because I don't think we have the assessors here. I don't think we have the assessors coming in. The assessors department. Oh, I see. Okay. So, overlay reserve for $16,000 was $800,000 voted. So, usually we would do $600,000. That was the money going in. This is the money coming out. Oh, you know something? You're right. And it was $350,000 that we took out last year. Okay. So, we've got to hear from the assessors. How much they're releasing. Okay. Transfer of funds, special education stabilization fund. Last year, you remember this, for some reason, the article didn't get put in. So, this year when I put in the finance committee articles, I put it in. So, this is the amount of money that will go from the school department to them or to into this fund and then could also be transferred back out again. Now, we put $200,000 more into the reserve fund this year than normal because of they didn't have an article in there. Now, they did put it on the promise that they would turn back at least $200,000 out of their budget to go into free cash. They verified that. They transferred $209,000 change back into that. So, at some point, they could come in. We can give them the $200,000 and then they could either use it if they need it or the town meeting could transfer it back into this fund. So, we'll probably discuss that later on when we get closer to the school department figuring out what their special aid budget is looking at. Yes, John? As you probably know by now, I've heard about these various reserve funds get everywhere, so to speak. And this is an example of one, I think, whereby all you do is make it hard to get all the money you need it, it seems to me, because in order to get the money out of this fund if you need it, you have to have a town meeting about it. Whereas if it was simply in our reserve fund and it was needed, it could be appropriated right then and there. That plus the fact that one more of these funds where money is being held, it's like having pots of gold here and everywhere. It just didn't seem useful to me. The school committee set this fund up four or five years ago. And that's the way they want it. If they get some surplus money, they can transfer it into this article for special education and they can hold it there until they need it. But there are two features on this. The first one is unlike general fund appropriations or budgetary appropriations that clear into the general fund at the end of the year, this doesn't clear back at the end of the year. I think if I remember correct and I could be wrong, this also has a cap on it. So this one can't go above $500,000. One did $500,000 there. Then when it was established, the point of it, which still is the point of it, is supposed to be on, and I'm just making an example here. If some point after the start of the school year, a student comes into the district that is this, you know, mythical budget buster of $200,000 we have to send out of the district to educate, then they can go to this. And it's sort of there for that emergency, so they're not scrambling, you know, after the school year starts on how to fund something. So they can use that without telling me anything? No. If you think about it mechanically, right? The teachers, I have to say this correctly, by the end of the year, they've earned all of their compensation, but they haven't paid all of their compensation. So there's about $1.4 million, I think, at the end of the year that gets, well, I'll call it a crude, I think, towards encumbered. It gets encumbered to be paid as summer payrolls. So if they had a $200,000, so they have that buffer at the end, right, which we had the issue with a few years ago. So they could, if a student came, had to go out of the district, join a $500 student, they could send them out, they could pay for it, they still have enough time left in their budget, like till June 30 to get the money out of the community, to get the money out in May, and they're just swiping it, right? The $200,000 would go in, cover that, and the money would come right back. Thank you. So, you know, our dean, right, it's the fact that our budget, our money disappears on June 30. This money could continue from year to year, and be a reserve for that. Charlie? Yeah, I think one of the reasons why this reserve fund was set up for special education was because, you know, year after year, you see the school department come to the finance committee at a meeting and talk about the rising costs of special education and these tremendous, you know, as Dean just mentioned, some out of district student or something have been requiring special transportation and tuition. But in fact, looking closely at the special education budget, at least my opinion is it's been flat to decline it. And what they really come to us about is the variability. There's a huge variability. The average is moving along a certain rate from one year to the next. They can jump $500,000. And that's what this is supposed to be in place to address. I don't see why it's any different in substance from the town manager coming in here, or the police coming in here and saying he needs, you know, an extra $50,000 or $100,000 at the end of the day because not too much overtime. How is it different from that? And why should we have this separate fund to handle situation? Because, okay, so here's how it's different. In a town budget, as we see at the end of the year, the manager has great ability to shift his costs. Through, you know, delaying hiring of this position, delaying hiring of this position, slowing this down, leaving this vacant. And so in his larger budget, he has significant control over it. Come, and I'm just going to put you on the line in the sand, come September 1st, the school committee has no control at that point, right? Because once you start, 80, 90, 85, 90% of their costs are salaries. And the teachers are in the classroom, the administrators are in the classroom. Nobody leaves during the year. And so the cost, you can project with great monetary precision where that money is going to go throughout the year. So they don't have any flexibility to manage these problems. And I think that's what they've struggled with in the past is when they get hit out of nowhere. Like we saw with the, you know, if you get those mid-year state aid cuts, they have a huge problem because, you know, the only recourse at that point, nobody's going to like those people in the classroom and we're not going to do that. So that's where they're sort of having a difference and they get stuck. Maybe I'll just think about this, but I don't see why one would want to put it then in a fund that's not immediately available any time you need it. Well, I talked to the superintendent about this at the end of last year. The school system can roll over money into special revenue funds and revolving funds and it's basically hidden. And I said, and she wants it to be transparent. So I think we should do everything we can to encourage transparency. And this is a very transparent fund. And so, you know, that's why I'd support it. That's a good reason. Okay, cemetery, we'll have to hear from public works and from the capital budget on the amounts that go through here. Free cash. I don't have the numbers around someplace, but we can vote on that when we have a chance. This is the big fiscal stability fund. We'll probably vote on that last. This is the balancing article. You know, this is where, you know, the whole thing balances the last meeting in March or if we have to, maybe the second week in April when we need to balance everything off. And right now, by the way, I hope all of you Catholic and non-Catholic are praying for no snow. We could really use some savings this year. Okay. Resolution handicap parking spaces. I would assume this is under the Board of Select and the traffic commissioners. So this is really a Selectman article. I've had to do all these lines and signs and statutes for my church, and they're sort of a pain in the neck to figure out, but they don't really cost anything because I'm sure the signs could be done down in public works on it, but anybody interested enough, they want to hear it? Okay, good. Resolution community preservation plan vote to accept, receive, or resolve to endorse the community preservation. Now, what's the other article? It's the appropriation. Can I have two of them together at the hearing? Second. Yeah, why do we have them? Okay. I will talk to the Selectman about putting, but why do we need two of them anyway? We're voting the appropriation. I think the plan is like a master plan. We couldn't have one term. Well, we ought to do this. Let's see what they come up with. They haven't come across it. They had one meeting so far. Okay, so this other article, which is on page 13, is to see if the town will vote to make an appropriation from the community preservation fund for the eligible projects for community accounts for historic preservation, open space. So I'm assuming that they will put forth appropriation with a breakdown of items and the town meeting will have to approve that. I'm not positive, but I think they'll have them because I think there's two years' worth of appropriations that are called revenue coming in from the Surveys. Now, do they have to vote? I mean, if they don't vote all of it, it just stays in the fund? They have a fund. I think it's 10% of their fund has to go, has to be extended into each of the eligible categories. But that still has to be approved by the town meeting. It's not approved. I don't know what happens to that. Okay. Could you, Charlie, could you ask Clarissa why we have two separate articles that do the same thing? No, it's not the same thing. One is an appropriation. This is a plan. So they've got to follow up with some sort of policy. It's like a policy that will do with the future. If the other one was an appropriation, what they want to spend this year. Okay. So once the budget and the other's the plan. Yes. If they're going to use capital funds. Yeah. But it may not even be. I mean, we don't know what they're going to do. It may not be exactly a financial plan like capital plans. They might say it might be an aspiration. They want to focus on low-cost housing. They want to focus on historic preservation. Who knows what they're going to say? Let them say it and do it. Okay. What makes sense to put the two together? Yeah. Okay. So I will ask the Board of Selectments to put the two together. Because this is at the end, because that's where they put resolution. Okay. So I'll call the select one tomorrow morning and ask them to put the two together. Okay. Resolution, return of precinct 17 to Ohio Fire Station. Well, that's going to be interesting because next election, next year, they probably won't have the polling place at the Straton. That'll be closed, yeah. Yeah. Well, tell you what, why don't we have the select one handle that? Okay. That sounds good. And I think what I'm going to do on this is the minute this becomes finalized, then Gloria works on putting together the Finance Committee report. Alan, of course, will start working on the spreadsheets. And John, our new person, put the spreadsheets for the budgets and get that working. As soon as I get any numbers, like if I have the free cash number at some meeting, I'll just ask that we vote that article. So we might as well, you know, knock off articles that we can get out of the way. So we reserve as little as possible for the end of March. Yes, Charlie. I thought there was going to be a special time meeting inside the annual time meeting this year. Was that not the case? I don't know, but I would imagine, I think a lot of this has to do with minimum. In other words, if Minuteman passes a budget that goes to town meetings, then we'll have to have a special. But my understanding is that if the regional agreement changes don't pass, if one town knocks them down, that they're not going to bother going to town meeting, they're just going to go straight to a referendum. So that's my understanding. Because, you know, for one, Arlington has already set up down in sideways that we're not supporting a new high school if the regional agreement doesn't change. But Paul. Do you have any other towns voted on the regional agreement? I would assume so, but I haven't heard anything. Has anybody else been following that? I haven't heard. Maybe I have some time tomorrow morning. I'll call Minuteman or Steve, status of agreements. Because they're all bunched up in January and then early February. They're not finished by February 23rd, but they're pretty close to being finished. So it'd be good trusting to hear about that. Okay, now, Alan. Do you think it's important to leave to be a special appropriation for the feasibility studies and planning for the high school that's going to solve the problem? I would assume that might be another item for the special town meeting on that. So we've got some big issues coming up. Between Minuteman for one, the high school for the other, the elementary school is the middle school. There's a lot of issues going to be going on. Are there any budgets ready for presentation? Oh. I'm Bill. Hey, Bill. I apologize for your weight. I did look down far enough to see that you were coming in. If my face in this room are pretty crummy, so do speak up. Okay. Let me know if you can't hear me, but that's a rare event. So hi, I'm Julie Brazil and I am the chair of the Vision 2020 Standing Committee. I have a couple other people here with me, and Joey Glushko from the planning department. I won't rehash the specifics that are in the memo, but I did want to provide a little background context for any of the conversation. So first I'd like to use our colorful visual aid to point out that Vision 2020 is not one committee. We are a collection of committees under the Vision 2020 umbrella. Currently we are eight active committees, and we are exploring adding a ninth. So we involve a large number of volunteers across a wide range of efforts. Town meeting, when it established Vision 2020, said that we were to create, implement, monitor, and review methods for townwide participation in the Vision 2020 process. I think the town manager paraphrased that and put that in sort of human terms best. He said that he thinks Vision 2020 should be what people think of the day they wake up and realize it's time for them to get involved. So it's important for us to make sure that our work is inviting people to participate in the process of identifying community needs, working on possible solutions, and then collaborating with town departments and other groups in town to implement those solutions. That means that we can do in one year a wide variety of things. We sponsor precinct meetings, organize work days at Spipond or the Reservoir, host a forum on social justice issues, co-sponsor candidates night, put on art shows, provide workshops and training for our volunteers in specialized areas, and work on the annual town survey. We collaborate with the Department of Public Works, Chief Ryan, the Human Rights Commission, Disability Commission, League of Women Voters, the Planning Department, Arlington Public Schools, the Council on Aging, the Robbins Library, Conservation Commission, Housing Corporation of Arlington, and sometimes even the Mass Department of Transportation. So our request for increased funding is because we have a new expense in fiscal 17 of $1,100, and we are asking for an additional $800 to enable us to keep doing our work. So that's all I have to say. Obviously, we're here to answer any questions. Yes. I have a couple of questions. One is, does this budget include any required training to use the new software? No. The $1,100 covers tech support, and we have been using that as we got the software up and running. And so once we, if we continue to pay that $1,100, the support is free, and the training modules that are online seem very adequate. Okay. And then just in the fourth paragraph, I guess the software will reside on my department's laptop. So one, have you validated that that laptop has efficient capacity? Yes, the software is up and running on that laptop now. And then two, I assume, makes me a little nervous that this is on a laptop, so I assume that you've got protocols in for backup and... Yes. Okay, Frank. What's the viral response to getting the surveys? The last two years had has been just over 6,000 surveys, so representing 32 to 34% of the population of households, to be, is the number, yeah. 6,000 households, yes. Thank you. Two years in a row, yeah. The increase of $800 is for a new software that hasn't been updated. It's for the ongoing maintenance. The software itself has been purchased with CDBG funds. The software was purchased in 2006, correct? No, that's background. That's the old software. We've replaced that with new software purchased in December. So the $800 is to... The new cost to us is $1,100, but when we ran the numbers, we think we can... We only need an additional $800 in order to keep doing what we're doing. Now, is all this the purchase and maintenance stuff through the town's IT park? Yes. Adam Kurowski managed the process for us and is handling the technical details. How much did the software cost? About $3,000, $3,100. Are there any other questions on any of the parts? When was your last budget? We got our first budget last year of $3,000, and then we got $3,000 again for this year, fiscal 2016, and we're asking for an increase for fiscal 2017. The money that paid to print the survey, before that we had no... You're giving us the... I'm through the planning department and CDBG funds. Yes. So FY14, what was the budget? No, I do not. Okay, other questions? I don't understand $1,100 about anything here. I know this. Okay, I have none. Speaker fees. The speaker fees are when the diversity task group does a large forum, they paid a speaker fee for the speaker last year, and they are planning a similar event next year. I mean, yeah, as a volunteer group, we're just assuming, we're carrying forward the kinds of things that we have done. It's difficult for us to plan that far in advance. Other questions from the committee? If you don't get this increase, what's plan B? We will have to do less, and we will have to ask our volunteers to chip in out of their own money if they feel strongly about a particular project or event, which is hard on volunteers. Or I'll ask the town manager to find money elsewhere. Have you applied for community development for our current money? No, we continue to ask for community development money just for the printing. We could explore that, but that hasn't been... Do you know if that would be... Have you explored using community development block grant funds for this whole program? It seems... We believe it does not... All of it, if we were to try to expand it in different ways, some of that could not be funded via CDBG because of the restrictions placed on the use of CDBG funds. The software that somehow was able to be funded through it? Yes. Charlie? How many people are active in the group? I don't have any idea. I mean, it's eight active groups. Some of them are very large, and there's not a formal membership. Vision 2020 was designed intentionally to have an open concept for the task groups, so there isn't a way to really track membership. Would you say 20, 30, 40 people active? 50? 100? Yeah. Okay, how? The revelries, all of those from the town hall auditorium? Yes, that's... I think that's true, yes. Some years, there's an event in a school, and then that's the custodial fees associated with... I was thinking that $920 sort of comes out and comes right back in. Yes. Yeah, Bill? So this goes back about nine months, but I'll put out an email asking for a volunteer from the finance committee to be on the standing committee or member of a larger-year group, and I'd raise my hand. I think we're having... We just met tonight, correct? Yes. We're having our first meeting in about two weeks? Yes. Okay, great. So briefly, just so my colleagues can hear, and for me also, what one or two things do you say is the role that I'm going to play on your committee, on the board and Vision 2020, that will impact or I'll bring it back to the finance committee? Okay. What ways will that... Yeah. The concept of the Vision 2020 advisory board is to have a mechanism where town leaders and elected officials, so that would be the manager, the superintendent, the moderator, representative from the school committee, selectman, redevelopment board, and the finance committee and town council meet two or three times during the year with the standing committee and any members of task groups who are interested to make sure that there's information flowing back and forth. Vision 2020's model, its process is to be collaborative, to be sure that the solutions are connected to other things that are going on in town. So the perspective that the advisory board members bring is different from volunteers, and that exchange of information back and forth is helpful. It ties the work into what else is going on. It makes sure that a committee doesn't get halfway into doing something that's duplicating a project that's already been begun by another group or a department. So that's the purpose, is to be sure that we're all pulling together and have information flowing both ways. Okay. Are there any questions? That is that when they do a work day, there's often some amounts of equipment that need to be bought, special spray paint to mark out invasive weeds that are being targeted or to be avoided. Just little supplies that are necessary for organizing 50 volunteers to come work on a cleanup day. For which group? That was renting kayaks. So when they do a large event, sometimes the event is a work day and sometimes it's bringing the neighborhood together and doing a collaboration with the SpyPond, Friends of SpyPond, and so they wanted to do an emphasis on using the pond, and so there were kayak rentals. And for supplies, that may be in the wrong category. That was printing. Oh, okay. Oh, materials for town day. We often at our booth have craft materials for projects, and that was what that was. Different groups come up with different ideas tied to their themes. On those projects, which were SpyPond, I'm assuming that's all coordinated with the conservation and dvw and all that? Yep. I'd hate for SpyPond to get cleaned more than once. Oh, that would be a terrible waste. Other questions? Okay. Great. Thank you all for coming. Thank you. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you. Okay. So what do you guys think on this article for a request for 3,800 we've appropriated for the last two years? 3,000. Tom? 3,000 is okay. 3,800, I don't think they've explored a lot of avenues yet. It's too easy for them to come here and just grab 800. I think they need to explore it. We'll go back to the town manager. We'll just get a few more volunteers. I mean, I just have a problem with giving more money to any organization right now that finances the way we're going. Even though it is 800, but 800 here, 500 here, I think they could, might be able to dig it up, exploring other avenues. My opinion. Other people? Paul? It does look like they have cut other items in their spending to partially compensate for the increased software costs. So it seems like they're making an effort to reduce their other costs to partially cover this new extension. I wish to the 2,300. Okay, other? Peter? The new software is a great advance over the stuff that we had been working with the last 8 years or so. 10 years, whatever it is. And it should make it possible for the volunteers to do what the planning department professionals have been doing. It was impossible for volunteers to get in and use the planning department computers. They were being used for other purposes of scheduling problems. But with this scheme here, we're using a laptop. They can go off. It's going to be dedicated to this purpose. They can go off in a corner and do it, or they can take it home and do it. They don't know what the savings are going to be, but they're probably going to be much more than $800. Okay, other opinions? Alan? I'll repeat what I say pretty much every year about the small volunteer committees. The volunteer committees in this town are a part that we get a lot of service and a lot of improvement involved in life for short-term. When you add all this together, $100 here, $100 there, that's pencils and magic markers and signs and a couple posters and swiftly printing. And I think the town gets a little bargain for it. And it would be petty-wise kind of foolish to nickel and diamond too much if it results in demotivated very productive volunteers. So it can't go crazy but I think denying reasonable requests is very demotivating. I think the town suffers. It's a poor way to save money. So that's a pretty cool one. Alan, what would you think what increase would be too much? An increase that certainly couldn't be justified. Now I have to admit there's a cheap software guy that sounds like a lot for service software but I also trust Adam because he's a good job screening he's a smart guy. I can't really answer that question but I don't think $800 is too much. That's well below the limit. I consider Vision 2020 to act to be an incubator for volunteer incubators. Somebody has an idea to do something to go to Vision 2020 and when somebody is already doing that join them together with them or that's a good idea, let's test them and see what happens. Committees spin off from whatever I just from what I've seen that they do it's a good productive use of $3800 which is in the scheme of things as Tom said it does add up but in this case I've seen enough of what they do and I thought they spend it wisely because it's $3800 because they have a whole lot of eight committees doing small things so we have $100 here $100 there I know the focal cost I know the poster cost it's a good expenditure of money that's my opinion I can't make it to one of them I can't say $10,000 too much. Okay Grant. I'm also important because there's a limit on where that boundary is as Charlie asked they're reaching you know 40% you're getting input from 40% of the around-the-council but this directs our entire strategy going forward we might as well get it accurate and that's what the software would do so it's sort of how we're directed the money to I think in this case it's worth it Buzz, I'm going to motion on the floor Move I'm sorry so moved moved and seconded for $3800 okay motion has been made and seconded for $3800 any other discussion at just one point I want to make I'm not knocking what they do I just don't I just think they haven't gone out and explored other avenues to get this money they haven't done their homework yet they haven't but they came up here Charlie? I wasn't going to read this up they did come to the capital planning committee and we rejected and it was more than $3,000 as she mentioned and they basically said that it wasn't the capital expenditure we wanted the attention to take they went and got the $3,000 from the CDBG so it's not like they came to the finance committee first and they are and I can't judge the maintenance cost but I don't think it's fair to say they didn't try to go somewhere else they weren't successful in getting $3,000 from another source besides the finance committee which was the CDBG okay John and Bill if I may ask why did you reject it out of hand you didn't say you were amazed let's just say that the presentations were the values of the software I wasn't particularly impressed with the reason for the software tonight either but we wasn't convincing presentations to I mean they're spending the money and what is the benefit that wasn't clear to have the impression I got from what they said tonight was that this would aid significantly in creating the survey document itself and then as well but nobody asked how we asked how we couldn't answer it this was for the purchase for the purchase of this software which apparently when I hear a time might include a laptop but that was a problem but the point I'm making is that you know in response to Tom's question that they did go out and did it it wasn't like they're just coming to the finance committee they've been around trying to raise money they've got some money from the CDBG and I think that's the credit Bill I would just add to that the advisory board that has been set up versus the process being set up I'll be on that board I think it's great that they're making an effort to connect the dots if you will so that maybe I'll see a glimpse of what they're doing I can bring it back and also have a second set of eyes on how money is being spent and that's finance committee in addition to other people on the advisory board the other thing is this I think it's hard to put real hard goals to what they do because they're visionaries they're looking for ways to improve the town of Arlington and that's a pretty big agenda and when they see they can do it they move forward when they see there's an overlap I think they're very good about backing off so again it seems like this money will all spend they're not asking for a lot any other discussion I would just, I mean the $800 for the maintenance support of the software is not a lot and in my prior life in the state in IT we had an annoying and very counterproductive habit of investing in software but then not being able to come up with the money for ongoing support and that ends up being really sort of a very self-destructive approach so now that they've bought the software for them to be able to use it effectively going forward they've got to be able to have support for it so okay motion has been made and seconded for $3,800 for the vision 2020 all those in favor please say aye all those opposed all those in favor please raise your hand opposed abstaining okay motion carries 16 to 1 I want to remind people before I forget as you know we have a new deputy town manager his name is Sandy Puer he has he's I know him or I've worked with him over the years in several different places and he is excellent so I'm very very fortunate to get him I guess his last commute from Somerville to Amherst finally got to him so anyway they're having a reception I think you've got emails on it there's a reception I think it's tomorrow morning remember the time oh it's a week from tomorrow okay so just to put it on your calendars and go down and chat with them and such okay I'll go to Mars glad somebody reads those things okay okay is there any budgets we don't have any more people right okay and this that one are there any budgets to report okay now here's the next question on Monday we have the conservation commission water bodies is coming in that usually generates a few questions but it's not going to take up the whole evening will people will there be budgets available for Monday because I don't want to bring everybody in for one article Peter you're my we'll have a couple okay so you'll have David okay click and leave okay how about Paul okay anybody else Christine no sorry okay Charlie okay okay what I'm going to do then is I'm Wednesday okay might you have a couple okay I'll try to fill in as many numbers into these budgets as the warrant articles as we can you know and just try to vote as many as we can and Gloria see if you can get more people in these on Monday push okay is there any other business before the committee okay it is now 903 so you got an hour almost an hour off okay any other business