 Okay, we're recording Andy. So I'd like to call the finance committee meeting order today being the first of December. Things go quickly as the year goes on. And it's one o'clock or five after so first go ahead and start the meeting as posted for one. And I just want to start as always by reminding everybody that this meeting is being held by assume members of the public have access to the meeting why assume. But it's important that everybody recognize that this meeting is being recorded for both audio and visual. So that people are recognized that there is recording being made of this meeting. So I'm going to check with the members to make sure the committee members who were present can hear and be heard and we complete that process and quickly review the agenda and move to public comment. Um, so, I'm a Devlin out here. And Lynn present Bob Hegner. Present. Matt Holloway. Present. Bernie could be at present. Kathy Shane here. And I'm here so everybody's pressed into the moment except one and we are expecting that she will that Alicia will join us. The agenda was posted. We did identical agendas for both meetings when we posted for two meetings this week, because we didn't know what we would be able to get through in our first meeting and wanted therefore to have the option to talk about any of the pending items that are before the finance committee. And the one that we spent the entire meeting on on Tuesday was the Jones library project supplemental bond authorization, which included with two motions that were passed by the committee. And so therefore, I think the only thing that's left and I don't want to discuss it now because I'd rather get on to other items on the agenda. And that is the whether any members of the committee who have seen the draft of the committee report have any objection to my making it a final and submitting it to Athena for posting. So if there's no request for changes to the draft report, then I'm going to make the report final and we have nothing else to talk about regarding the library. So I'm looking for hands from the committee. Kathy. Hi, Andy. I didn't have a chance to read it thoroughly. But there's a point at which you say that much of the discussion focused on the interest costs. I don't want to change that to the size of the band, the short term bonds required and the interest costs associated with them because I don't believe we, we all understand that with the 15.8 million. That's the town obligation, the interest rates have gone up we didn't really focus on the interest costs for that per se. So when I, even when I was looking at it so it's it's a change. A lot of the discussion the proposal to increase was a concern about the interest that would be greater. I just want to the focus was on the short term bonds required to close the gap and the interest costs on that I just want to insert that sentence. Otherwise, I thought it was clear. And I do think it might be helpful. The, the, what you put in as detail was the 15.8 the community reservation preservation act and the overall debt. I put it in that very nice table that we were given that showed the three bands, and I would just request that that get attached to this so that people can see what we're talking about. So the most recent estimate was about $750,000 under that column. Otherwise, I think it's reflects our discussion. I mean, I did bring in there by the attachments. Okay, I'm just saying that in the actual text, it says we focus on interest. You know, I know I got that I just. Yeah, okay, so it is in the larger that's fine so people can see what we're talking about, you know, I. I did talk about the interaction with our capital five year capital plan and I don't think it's crucial that that be in here unless others think that we should because that's that's where my concern is we've got a tough year. We were in a tight year for 2026 2027 and this with the combined interest, the carrying costs and it's not so much the 15.8 million if I separated out that actually amazingly is only a small increase. Okay. So my suggestion that there's no objection from other members of the committee since we're, we don't usually vote on the report, but I tried. Everybody who's watching knows I. The committee chairs are encouraged and I absolutely believe that encouraged for the right reason to consult with committee members about committee reports. If there's no objection, I will work with Kathy after the meeting by phone and we will just insert us part of the part of a sentence or sentence. With the point that she raised about include pointing out the bands in addition to is a part of interest cost concern. If there's no objection, then we can go forward and the agenda, which will allow us to spend most of today talking about rental registration and to the extent we have time to talk about budget guidelines. I'm going to again ask that somebody try and get a hold of Rob or and see if he's going to be able to join us with that discussion. But having said that, if there's no objection from the committee I would like to ask for public comment and just let everybody from who's participating in the public. Know that if they raise their hands, we will recognize them and we ask you to try and stay about two minutes but to discuss anything that you feel is related to matter that has or might come before the finance committee. It's not restricted to items on the agenda specifically for today. It's any matter relevant so if there's any request for public comment and seeing no request for public comment no one has raised their hand so that we can move on and since we really have made a recommendation about the Jones library that there be a discussion with the town manager and about the MOU trying to clarify the MOU and bring it up to date was one motion, which was a request to the committee and then the recommendation of the council that it approved the revision to the bond authorization as requested by the town manager. So those were the two motions that were passed at our last meeting. Sir, anything else that we need to do or we can go into rental registration. And I guess since Rob isn't unless all do you have anything that you want to say about the MOU or is there. Nothing to report particularly and I think we're trying to get Rob. Athena's trying to track Rob down. I don't think he received an invitation to attend today. Unfortunately, so. Okay. I'd like to go on and we have the chair of CRC present. We have previously received and I put in the packet again for today. A copy, a piece of the relevant material it was provided to us by CRC, which was the proposed regulation of proposed bylaw and spreadsheet, which we had available in Excel, as well as the print out of the recommended structures that came from CRC. So, there's two people I want to recognize fairly quickly. One is Mandy, whether she has any introductory comments she'd like to make this point. And then I know that Kathy had asked for recognition early on because she has been giving some thought to a, an alternative approach and so Kathy I assume that you still want to be recognized at the top. So, man, did you have anything introductory or should I go ahead and ask and recognize Kathy. No, I'm just here to answer the committee's questions if they have any. Okay, thank you. And I guess that if she doesn't have it in once that I would want Kathy to have the ability to share screen. So, Kathy, I'm going to recognize you. Okay, so I'm about to share you. The screen I gave three documents on the 17th of November. One was a memo. One was the spreadsheet showing some changes after the fact. And the third was a minor set of markups of the actual legislative regulatory language. And just in terms of background, what I was what I've been looking at from the beginning is can we reduce the number of inspections so that they're more focused on the problem areas, and therefore reduce the number of inspectors and be and reduce the costs for smaller property owners that are not the not a source of problems. So what I what I'll do is maybe I'll just do the memo Andy and I'll I made some changes this morning based on some comments that Mandy gave when we talked about it in terms of why certain structures were in the fee schedule so what I was looking at is if we reduce the rental permit fee for owning relatively few dwellings and then for the overall fee and increase the number of units for which a fee was we put the original proposal was to cap the number of units for rental registration at nine so I looked at what if we kept it at 15 so we were still capturing more fees. And that's what I did on the, the rental fee side, and I went to a few other cities. You know so as I know CRC already knows everybody does it differently, but many of them had more rental registration fees for the larger units so they went to as high as $2,000 for the really big one so I just went to 15 units where you would pay fee, and then go up on the inspection fee but actually look could we avoid doing that as well and that's what I'm going to show you is for the basic inspection. I'm looking at the combination if you're a problem free property you pay rental registration and that's an annual, and you might only have to pay the inspection fee once every five years so I'm looking at that impact, and then increase the fee for repeat I didn't have any way to do it in the spreadsheet because we don't have an estimate of how many repeats. And so, and then the other concept that I don't have any way of doing it is for those who really have been a problem. Think of the inspection the inspection to me is more intense because it's checking plump unless it's just zoning. So, so I, and then in the actual frequency, the regulation had that at the point you hit 25 or more units, you started doing a sample with sampling of at 20% or starting with 20 at least 25 and Mandy very clearly defined where that there was that minimum so you didn't have a drop off if you had 26 suddenly you were paying for fewer. I'm not sure why we couldn't reduce the threshold when I looked at the distribution to 10 or more, and say that we don't have that 10 under 10 every unit would be inspected at 10 or more we'd be doing a sample of at least 10%. And again, the goal is reduce the inspections but leave the inspector the option, depending on what they found of doing more, and this would reduce, you know, originally in the memo I gave everyone on the 17th. Why 25 why not 20 or why not 10 when I took another look at it. If we did 10 were pretty dramatically increase decreasing the number of inspections we have to do in year one, but we could be giving this jurisdiction to go to more. And if we do what Mandy had said is you have to set a minimum of, if it's 10 or more you have to say at least 10 so the person with 11 units doesn't get a break. So they, they still be at 10. So, then the other thing I brought up more than once that I think, allowing the authority to inspect units that are already undergoing federal inspections. I don't think we need to do that. And I understand the reason, and this was has been explained both by Rob Moore and then by Mandy is we're inspecting for more than just the federal inspections were inspected for where they're particularly focused on health and safety, you know, living conditions. We're also looking at our zoning bylaws which might include crowding how many people are living in it. But for the places we have that have the large number of these units. I don't think that there's, they've been a major source of concern with either deteriorating properties or noise trash neighborhood issues. And then to be larger and more self-competent so I'm looking for focusing the inspections on on areas that we can uncover problems and then go back and redo it. So what I did then was run through numbers so I was always trying to make the fees cover the costs. I also said that the fees would come as near to covering the costs. So I did just what ifs in the spreadsheet that if we did 10% fewer inspections or 20% fewer inspections what is that do with the inspection costs annually. And with the, the permit fees those are easy because you just multiply them. So you could balance if you reduced the number inspection by 10 or 20%. You could be collecting enough inspection fees to cover the cost of inspectors. So those are, it interacts with the wording and the bylaw because the bylaw has this threshold of 25 when you start sampling and I think we could start sampling at a lower threshold. So those were the areas. So a smaller random sample 10% rather than 20 rate lowering the threshold and then thinking about the two fees the inspection fee and the registration fee trying to keep them more affordable for the properties that are not of not concern. And Andy, I stopped sharing this one. I can just quickly show, I think, but the spreadsheet is the hardest to look at in a quick way. So what I did and people can do this later and I know Mandy and CRC can do it is like, I did what ifs what if the inspection fee. Let me go up. What if the base fee for the owner occupied was 100. And for all others was 150 rather than 250 this is a decrease and then the additional registration fees go up to 15. So looking at the amount of fees we collect over here total fees collected that more than covers the cost of registration based on what Rob gave us with a little bit of the, and then I looked at what happens if the inspection costs at 80% or at 90% what would it be, and then what the total cost is, and the total fees. So I was trying to do that in direction so the concept is basically lower the fees. For that are the general fees apply it for the units on registration, more units so we collect a bigger registration fee for the really big properties and focus the inspections on the problem areas and as I said I so I left the 250 for repeat inspected. So that's those are the trade offs I was trying to do to get to a focus, both of the inspection activity and the repeat inspection activity to be at areas of concern. So that's a lot to adjust to but the concept is lower fees applied to more units inspection fees with fewer units, every unit inspected with more of a random sample starting at 10. You know I looked at a threshold of 20 rather than 25 and you very nicely gave me a way to look at cutoffs. We don't have that many properties at in the 2025 range. So if you, they would still be randomly inspected all of them, and I will stop talking. The finance was asked to look at the fee schedules, and that's what I focused on and the only part of the bylaws wording I did was where triggered how many inspections we were going to do. Because the number of inspections drives the cost. And I went through a lot very quickly, I tried to do a simplified cover memo concept cover memo. And I will stop sharing the screen. The December, the November 17 one marked up the bylaw but Mandy pointed out to me why they put that minimum of 25 if the threshold was 25 rather than just a sample so I think that rationale made sense so whatever the threshold is. That becomes the minimum going outward if it was 20 it would be at least 20 right now the bylaw says 25 at least 25 for all the larger units. So, I'm willing to stop sharing this so I can see all the faces and I can go back over any part of this. And I know Bob Hegner, because he sent me one he was playing with fees as well, you know looking at higher lower fees, who it would hit. And then I looked at Burlington and Boston which do it in completely different ways. Boston has very low registration fees and higher inspection fees Burlington seems to load everything on the registration fee. So, you know, in terms of any kind of examples. So I was trying to do a minimum while enabling us to get into properties and again the larger properties if you suspect a problem you're probably going to see it in the basic building, as well as each unit. The sampling will be the initial inspection is going to say what's the boiler system look like what is the electrical system look like. That's it. Trying to make this less bureaucratic less onerous, but and targeted to get at what we're concerned about. Maybe I should ask Mandy if you have any thoughts about it, either on behalf of CRC or just from your extensive work with this. I think the changes to how many inspections that the Kathy just talked about is a potential discussion for the whole council but I would not say it's necessarily a discussion for this committee. Because I understand Kathy that you're going to argue that that discussion needs to happen because then you have to you need to know that to set the fees. But the committee I believe should be discussing the fees and making a recommendation based on the bylaw that CRC has voted. And the council, if the council deems it necessary to vote on amendment to a bylaw, the council can either choose to adopt the fees as recommended however that is, or send it back for modification based on the bylaw that is adopted or it could adopt fees and then immediately request that the Board of License Commissioner relook at the fees in light of the changes made potentially by the council to the bylaws because once the council adopts a set of fees under the bylaw as adopted, the Board of License Commissioners goes there. CRC discussed a lot of things about fees, many of which Kathy's bringing up right. I think the discussion is, does this committee want a want an permit fee that is want to make a recommendation of a permit fee and inspection fee combo that relies on more steady or permit fees coming in that will sub that would cover both the cost and the administration of the program and in terms of all of the permitting of the program that administration as well as a portion of the costs of the inspection part of the program, and then use the inspection fees to supplement that and cover the costs by recognizing that the permit fee is covering a portion of those inspection fees. Or does the committee want a recommendation that says the permit fees will cover mostly only the permit portion and the inspection fees need to go sky high to cover the inspection portion, and depending on how that is rewritten means you have to look at it differently. You can do a lot right and anyone who's looked at the Excel spreadsheet you can play with the numbers. Unlimited, but I think the committee just needs to discuss what way it wants to go. In that, you know, and it would be perfectly reasonable I would say for the committee to discuss whether it wants a cap at 10 units or a higher number. And I don't think that matters with whether the bylaw is adopted as is or with right modifications that's something I think the committee can discuss and make a recommendation on we CRC made one at 10. The building commissioner had recommended and we went with that but that's certainly up for debate on on whether it people, the committee thinks it's necessary I guess at this point that's all I have. Yeah, I don't know if Rob will join us. If he doesn't. Is there anything about why he was recommending 10 that you can recall the share. I think it was because at that number, the set of buildings if you look at our split of parcels and rental units on parcels, starting at 10. First of all, it's a number that is easily determined from a reporting come. Every time CRC's gotten a reporting it's been singular up to 10 and then 11 to 20 or actually I think it's 10 to 19 20 to 29 and so I think that's partially why because that's how the system reports and all, and so it's easier to gauge up to 10 versus say up to 15. But the other reason was when you look at that spreadsheet and the reporting of it. There, there is a significant drop off starting at buildings or parcels with 10 or more units. There's a significant drop off is how many there are because the bulk of our parcels have less than 10 units on them from a parcel basis. And so I think that was the other reason he said 10 that he recommended 10. Kathy. Um, you know the, the, the sheet that I did when we made the change. What a year or so ago Mandy on the fees. We went up to 250 and then we gave a break to owner occupied. We've been, as you just pointed out, we've been generating more than the cost of running the permitting, but that's helped subsidize that's helped cover the cost of inspections. So if we now are charging for inspections, one of the logic is to be go easier on the registration fees because everyone has to do that. It's my thinking is people are running perfectly decent rental units there when we inspect them it turns out they're, they're great, you know they've got long term residents in it they're not a problem in the community on any level they're not violating other pieces. So we should minimize the, the system costs for for that group. So that would be my argument on you can go lower on that and I didn't have to go sky high on the inspection fee if I reduce the inspections, you know so that if I, and as you said that's in the bylaw draft right now is start at 25 and do a minimum of 25 and everything up to 25 you do every unit. I don't see a strong rationale for that. And when we sent this to finance, I made sure we at least had an open door to look at the wording where it had to do with anything with frequency where frequency was going to affect the financing. So if I don't go over to that threshold, the inspection fees do have to be much higher as you just said, you know we won't collect enough money to run the program. So that's why they're interactive and I'm fine with saying I have to do this again at the council level. But finance should be at least recognizing that the cost of the inspection side of the program is driven by how, how many units were going to inspect. And if we don't say that, then we can't estimate it and that's being driven by the wording in the bylaw. It's not, it's not left to the discretion of anybody, the way it's written right now unless we change that wording. So I did, I did think that the I did look at the thresholds there weren't, there weren't that many between 10 and 25, you know that the really big units started 100 and random. And I think 10% is a decent sampling amount. If you're looking for health safety faulty systems. And then you can use your inspector and force and I will say, and I see Bernie's hand is up my, I don't, I want to say this as non negatively as I can. But my recent experience on the health inspector side has indicated that we can have a tendency to go too far, you know, to be too narrow in what we're looking for. And I want this, I want our inspectors to be which I think the building inspectors for the most part have been is really looking for what we think are problem rentals defined in any way you want to do it, not looking at it so this isn't quite right in some way so I don't want it to be harassment in any way, which is what some recent businesses and I got up to 12 or 15 so I wasn't just one or two. So I want to make sure we focus on what we think are the problems. So Bernie I'll go back to you but that's why I had to look at the bylaw wording, because it drove your inspection estimates, otherwise as you said, you had to go up much higher on the inspection fee to cover the cost of inspections, because of the number that were specified in the bylaw that we had to hit every single unit up to 25, and that was when we started doing sampling. That's a response to the interaction on the inspection line not on the registration line. Andy real quickly I'm just noting that on a left the meeting at about 135. Bernie's hand is up so this is. Yeah, is clearly the mixes and matches are infinite here but I was really looking at reducing the cost of the total program and focusing it and that the focus is on the inspection is the focused everyone has to register. Bernie, we can't hear you you're muted. Click that off. Yeah. Let me just start off by saying the quality of the inspection, whether the inspector is being harassing or to to precise less than forgiving. I mean I've been, you know, I've been subject to two inspections. In this town I've also been had people complain to me about inspections in other towns that I've managed. That's a supervisory issue. It has nothing to do with the fees. Exactly have a complaint about the quality of the inspection and they go to that department head. And they interact with the department head and have the department head fix it. So if you've got 12 restaurant tours who are complaining about the quality of their inspections. That doesn't count in terms of talking about rental inspections. Okay. As a former administrator, my preference would be to have as much of the cost covered upfront as possible. Because the number of inspect they'll be we got a mix here of registration fees and a known number of inspections. That combination should be sufficient to cover the cost of the program. Benefits for the employees and my concern here is we're raising head cap. And that's going to be an ongoing cost. And if the program is, it's like the cops, if the cops are remarkably successful. Nobody gets ticket. Nobody gets arrested. If this program is remarkably successful. We won't have any re inspections. You know, and our income will go down as a result, which is why you don't use the police department as a revenue source. So I'm agnostic as to which scheme here we endorse. But the bottom line is we should have a known number of registrations. A known number of inspections in between the two, they all the costs should be covered. Now, I'm not saying I can't get him until you put it up on the screen. I didn't have access to your spreadsheet. And again, I'm agnostic as to which whose spreadsheet we use. I just want to make sure that we're covering the costs. I just, Bernie, I submitted it on the 17 to and I totally agree with what you just said. And I think it's a principle for whatever we say, Andy, that I was looking for any kinds of changes. The sum of the fees from the two sources, the inspection fee and the rental fee, the inspection fee and the registration fee covered the projected costs. The costs are a function of how many inspections we think we're going to do a year. So that's where I went to the threshold for inspections, but I totally agree with you that we need to start it out so it's self financing. And then in a steady state, if the miracle occurs that we've identified the problem houses, they cleaned up their act and everyone is on a five year plan. That would be a success. And at some point, we would have inspectors doing something else. You know, so, but in any case, you know, that would be not a bad outcome of a program if we got to that point, or if they now had a list of these are the ones we're really going to focus on. That would also be a very good outcome that most people are on five year plans. Yes. I agree that the, the, the combination of registration fees and inspection fees should more than go should cover the cost of the program I think we've, I think the spreadsheets. We've done that. We've done that on the spreadsheets. I also want to emphasize again my support for keeping the costs as low as possible, the total costs as low as possible for those, you know, landlords who have fewer units. It's just, in my experience in hurricane recovery is that what we called a small rental program was different than a large rental program because the needs of small landlords that have small numbers of units are different than landlords that operate large buildings. So, I do think that the latest version of this gets us closer to what I would see is the ideal. But, you know, again, I just wouldn't emphasize the importance of trying to keep the cost as low as possible for those people who only have a few units. Thank you. So I'm just curious why Amherst media is actually now in the analyst group. They've been covering the finance committee meetings sometimes they don't join in time to be here from the beginning, but, and I'll just send them the recording but they're covering now. Yeah, usually I seem in the attendee side. Moving back to where we were. I guess that I want to make sure that I understand and get a consensus, get a sense of the committee members present about the concept of making sure that the fees covering the cost of the program the one thing that we had discussed. Well, we talked about two things. One is that we did not think that it was advisable that we use any money from the general fund budget tax portion. We were just general fund budget in particular, but that we were open to the money from the university that was part of the strategic partnership agreement that was to given to us to address the housing problems that are caused by the number of university students in the community. So that was $100,000. So when you're saying this, are we assuming the $100,000 can be used for this program, or are you trying to get the fees to cover the entire thing and not use the 100,000. Just want to make sure that we're clear on this. CRC goal was to generate revenues in between needing to use all of the 100,000 and needing to use zero of the 100,000 because it right now is really just a true educated estimate that is done based on as much information as we have, right. But until we get through a year or two, it, it is just that an estimate that is that way and so we have been CRC was, was told that it could assume the use of that 100,000 for this program. But we were hesitant to assume the full use and get and make an estimated and a fee based recommendation using all of it, just in case our estimates and calculations were slightly off. And so the goal was to find a number that was comfortably within that margin, I would say it was was was how I would put it. The spreadsheet if I read it correctly that was submitted. It was assuming more of it would be used. Our good part of it would be used. Most revised spreadsheet came out differently. Yeah, Andy, when I did it I didn't try to use the 100,000 I tried to get them really close which is what when I went to the threshold of 10 for inspections. And, you know, I'm what Bob said of trying to minimize for the, if you say those with not very many properties if you did under six or six or less. The original one we had was if you weren't owner occupied it was 250 plus another 50 for each of the other five. So another 50 to register and that would be every year. And then the first year inspection was 150 and another 150 for each of the unit so another 50 it's 2000 so trying to go lower on the registration fee. So, since it and have the inspection cover more but have the inspection number of inspections we're doing, not be as high allowed you to go lower on the inspection fee, while still covering costs so. Definitely interactive with how often we're inspecting, and I have no problem with inspecting every unit for the smaller ones, and what's smaller under 10 in the first year, and then those. I'm hoping a huge number of them get the five year dispensation that they're, they're fine. The owner occupied ones, and not some places completely exempt owner occupied all together from from inspection and we exempt them from the unit fee. So I think that's why I got to the more complicated of when do we start at what point are we inspecting every unit and when do we start sampling, and that's in the bylaw that's not. We wrote that into the bylaw we didn't leave that for later determination. We, I mean that's the bylaw we're looking at, in terms of regulations. We're trying to reduce for the problem phrase so Bernie, I know at one point you said if someone owns two or three properties are not necessarily low income, but if they own two or three properties, and they're keeping them up they've got great tenets we're trying to burden them either that that's, that's an okay small business to be in, having a few properties you're operating for rental, we would like to go after the, the people that the owners that don't pay any attention to the condition of their property, in terms of what the, what, what it does to the tenants, and they don't pay any attention to what it does to the neighborhood in terms of they're only supposed to be four and there are eight people living there with eight cars and with trash. You know so that's what we're, I think that's, that was why we started on this whole, trying to figure out which those are, and being able to go get inside the house to see what else is going to be home to see what else is going on. Yeah, I just, I want to go back to just. Again, having not frankly had time to look at this. Are we charging appropriately for the service we're providing versus. Are we not doing that. And this is an issue that's been brought up by, you know, some of the some of the owners of these properties in other words we're, we're charging for a service we're providing. It's not a tax. It's a question. And, you know, the answer right now would be our rental permit collection fee collects more than just the rental permit registration, but it's including the inspection. You know so it's, it could be if you say that's the package deal we are inspecting houses we're just not inspecting them until there's a complaint. That's certainly, you know, but I think aligning those fees with costs is really important. You can't, you can't parse out the staff that you have a you have a department, and you have to pay for the department you have to pay for those people who are involved in the program whether the program means an initial license, or an inspection or a follow up or whatever. So, again, you got to make sure that you're covering the costs and get me down to whether we use the $100,000 from you mass or not. I mean I can see using that money in the initial year to help get things started, because we're not going to get 100% of our money collected. We're going to end up doing more inspections, we probably planned on for a variety that's because life works that way. My, my simple, my simple word world of municipal finance there's hard money in their soft money hard money is what you know you can raise soft money is what comes in on a variable basis, or can go away, and that's the you mass money. So if we're going to have a program, it should be self sustaining. And if you mass gives us money, then that gives us the opportunity to enhance the program in some way without raising the fees, or gives us the opportunity to cover for those unanticipated expenses or for emergencies. So whatever fees again whatever fee structure we use needs to cover the costs. I think Lin's point is, and not generate a surplus it needs to be. If otherwise it looks like a tax we need none of none of. That's not exactly any program that the town operates has got to cover its costs. And if we have in an excessive amount of money over that we earn over covering their costs. That's an issue. And that's regardless of what we did. We can't we would you can in the door will allow you to add on some costs to cover things like capital improvements, equipment repair on foreseen circumstances. So if your your your fees are covering 105 110% of your costs. The Commonwealth was not going to be concerned Commonwealth being DOR. If you know all of a sudden coming in on 120 125% over, you're going to hear from the state, and they're going to tell you to back off. So, you know, nobody. I've been part of the nonprofit world for a long time. And, you know, for profit corporations get to make a profit not for profit organizations need to retain revenue. If you have a system where you, you, you are guaranteed that you're going to lose money, you're here because you haven't covered costs, or you haven't given yourself a little bit of a cushion. You're not doing the taxpayer service. You're constantly scrambling to make this stuff up. So again, whatever table we use has to cover our costs. And nobody likes to pay taxes. Nobody likes to pay extra for services. You know, it was real nice when you could go to the town clerk's office and, you know, get something notarized for free. Can't do that. But that's the fact of life. You got to you got to be able to keep that program running. So, I'll get off my soapbox. Okay, is there was an indication from Rob about whether it would take full five years to do the initial inspection on all units or was he anticipate that he can do that in less time. He anticipated that with the, let me look up the number of inspectors. With his estimate of needing I believe it was three inspectors. And that they would be able to, as the document is written, as the regulations and by law are written, be able to complete all required inspections to issue permits. So all of the, the permit inspections within five years that that is how he made his estimate for doing that. Kathy's been talking about well if we reduce the number of inspections needed for the large ones and all, we can reduce the number of inspectors I would hesitate to assume that is true until talking to Rob, or how much you can reduce until talking to Rob I can't answer that myself. I have a much better idea of if there's a reduction of X number of inspections required under the bylaw, could the estimated number of inspectors needed be reduced, I can't, I cannot answer that. Rob should be able to answer that. I don't think he's focused on things so but his estimation was three inspectors for this program would cover the ability to do all of the required inspections within five years and that I think his estimate included an estimate of the required inspections and his guess at how many would need follow up inspections. But so not just the raw number of 300 inspections or whatever but how many would him guessing with how many are we going to have to go into a second time because there are violations and stuff. I think that was his estimate that he could fully do the program, the startup program in five years with three inspectors. Because I had assumed that if we use the UMass money for startup. No matter whatever number of years we want to make the assumption for that that helps us get it going in that once we've gotten the initial inspections done. All units, if the program is successful, the number of inspections required should decrease. And then the number of inspectors required might be adjusted by administrative decisions. But not until we've completed the first round. Yeah, I think that's his assumption I can't totally speak for him but but he was looking at the first five years full inspections of every unit at least once. And then I, I believe he would then reevaluate and and look at that but but he was looking at startup five years and inspectors needed for that. Which is why I think that I would put forward that we should consider using the UMass money to help control other costs for the first for the startup period. And make the assumption that once they've made the commitment to it as they have with other commitments they've made like the sports they've given for fire EMS that if they see that it has value. They can do their students as well as value to the town that they will have a motivation to continue to provide that money. And that would help. So I would, I guess that I'm more comfortable making that I don't know if others are. Then question is, can we come up with enough fees to make it balance. And I did have the same problem that Kathy was describing. Given the numbers that you work with. And how it plays out the spreadsheet is that if you change you have to make a much bigger change inspection costs to make a significant difference in the bottom line than anything you're doing for the registration fee which is paid annually. And paid over all units, all units, not just the units being inspected. You muted the. Thank you. Sorry. The fee sample that the CRC recommended the 100 the 250 and then the 150 for inspections per unit requires as a base revenue. $15,000 of the 100,000 on estimate from the safe and healthy neighborhood revenue so using a small portion of that. If you up the, the max number of, you know, right, and that's with a cap a guardrail of 10 units on the additional fee for the permitting, if you up that to 15 from 10. And you decrease the base permit fee for all parcels that are not owner occupied from 250 to 200. And you are using $57,000 of the safe and healthy neighborhood revenue instead of $15,000 so you're a little lower but if you decrease that all other parcel permit fee to 150 and keep the cap at 15 units instead of 10 units. You need to use more than the 100,000 because you'd be 112 $13,000 short so increasing that cap as Kathy had initially proposed does allow for a slight reduction in the permit fee. I haven't played with increasing the cap and then potentially reducing the inspection fee. So that was all keeping the inspection fee at 150 per unit. But increasing the cap for the permit fee to 15 from 10 essentially. Another thing that I just wanted to recognize and that is, I think that we generally make an assumption that landlords, when they have the added costs, whether it be because of tax increase or utility cost increase or whatever. They try and get that paid for by their customers for their tenants. So that what we do here is going to affect some rents if not all rents. So when we think about our people we represent we represent a lot of renters. I would also, I would also suspect that those increased costs could be written off as a business expense in the text. Except from that, which said, you're tired, you're muted again. And get the microphone button where I would think that if this is an increase in their business expenses that that might be something that can be written off so they may not have to pass on wall or any cost, but that varies from person to person. We don't know. Excuse me. I wanted to ask Paul, but I'm not sure he's, I know he's around, but I believe the UMass agreement that we just signed is a five year agreement, but actually in effect it's four years. And does that mean Paul we're three and a half years into it or. Where are we on it? So we're in year we're in year two. Okay. All right, but, but we can assume, based on the fact that we have this written agreement that we do have the money from UMass for at least four years. Depending when you implement this. Yes. Oh, true. Exactly. Thank you. The other uses that we can think of for safe and healthy neighborhoods. Spending. Press as an example, because we could be using a crests. Responders to help address problems that are in neighborhoods and work with tenants. Certainly our community safety. Police officer has been doing that. And trying to work with. Renters to make sure that they know what they need to do to comply with the law. There may be programs that come out of other departments like. Public health, for example. That may also contribute. So we do have other things. That we spend money on. That can affect. Safe and healthy neighborhoods. I want to make an assumption that there's no other use for the money. Right. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure that for that particular piece of money, we know how long it's available. Thank you. So we need to figure out what to do as far as a recommendation or recommendations. I think that there's two models that are out here now. One is the model at CRC is recommended. And I tried to play around with the spreadsheet to see. If I could make changes and that would have significant effects and. Aside from a slightly. Increasing the number of units. That are covered so that somebody who's really in the business. Is. I'm paying a little bit more and for people who have just one renter. Any unit that we try and help that person out a little bit. Because that's more likely to be just the single home. It's being rented is, but nobody's really actively in the business. It just happens to be. One rental side play with that. And I couldn't make it that it would make a big. Big difference without major shifts. So I really appreciated CRC's dilemma when they said, okay, now we got to get some help on this and get somebody else to look at it. The other model. It's very helpful that Kathy has done that work because he suggested something that would be more significant change. And it carries implications with it too. Some of which are not really within the control of the committee that can only be something that's recommended by the committee. Kathy and then Bob. I just pointed out I, what I did affected two sections. The registration fee assumed you stopped charging for the incremental unit once you hit nine. If you make that 15, you get more from the registration fee program. So, and you're right, there's no way of playing with us if you don't do something on those lines. If you don't do something on the fee. I went up on the units and I, I literally picked 15 because I was targeting a certain amount of money. It wasn't a 15 is the right number and I looked at, as I said a few cities, 15 would be $900 if you had 100 unit place, so it's not huge to register it. So if you pick 20, you'd get even more with that marginal. And, and then when you go down to inspections, the only way to change the frequency of inspections is to look at the bylaw. You can change the fee and Mandy, as Mandy said to get to 100% coverage of the cost by, if I didn't go up to more units and the fee in the registration fee, you had to go up for a lot and inspections so that's when I started looking at changing the threshold. Of course her numbers are right because Mandy knows how to work with a spreadsheet, but when you plug them in, if the cost of running the program which we were given is $478,000 with reinspectors, then that's your target and you're either short a little bit or you're short a lot or you're short more but you're not short 100,000. You're not short 100,000. So we've got some wiggle room in, in looking at these just in the spreadsheet alone so I never was quite sure when this was referred to us with the, there was a genuine request to change the fee schedule or just to say what do you think about it? So I went in to try to change the fee schedule trying to lower the impact on the properties with fewer units and I figure a problem property is going to get hit with reinspections. So that's where their costs are going to be much higher and we want their costs to be higher and it's higher because of the inspection costs. So we want that to be true. So I have no problem with a higher reinspection fee, just because you only need a reinspection if you had a major reinspection if there was a big problem. And, you know, years ago I wanted to a one, two and three strikes a grow out. If you didn't clean up your act after a few years, we shouldn't have them on the books anymore but in any case, you know, just really thinking that. So that's where mine went, but to make it balance completely, I have to go to the bylaw, Mandy, you know, Anna, what's the threshold for starting to do every single unit. And if you don't lower it from 25, there is a shortfall if we don't go up on the inspection fee. And so I and going up in the inspection fee then hits the small proper, you know, the, I've only got three or four units. So the first year becomes more pricey so I was trying to hold the 150 when the second time I look. So, so those are, as I said, those are conceptually where I went whether 10 is the right number 10 just reduce the number of inspections by a lot that were required is why I went to 10 with a minimum of 10 with the right to do more. In the properties that have, remember, this is more than 10 units in the same thing. So it's a pretty big place when that when you look around town. So you've got two different possibilities starting with what CRC presented to us. So I have no I, I know where I would want to go with it but I have no idea what the rest of the committee thought we were supposed to do other than play with the spreadsheet. Yeah, I just want to reiterate or echo what Andy, you said that you really can't and Kathy to some extent you can't reduce the fees significantly with putting unless you take the limits off of specific parcels and, you know, apply the feet to every unit within the park. You just can't do it. There's, there's no way that there's enough enough wiggle room in the in the equations to do that. So, if we're, and I understand why we don't want to hit every unit with a with a with a fee that, you know, will exclude some for the larger units. That's fine, but we're not going to get to what I would consider to be an ideal situation. As long as we have a limit, you know, we've we've put a maximum number of units per, you know, for fees. So it's, it's, I think we're, as I said, the most recent version of this is closer to what I would think is, you know, what I would like to see. It's better than what we, we first saw. So I think we've, we've, we have succeeded somewhat in reducing the cost to those individuals with smaller numbers of properties or smaller, smaller numbers of units. We could probably do a little more, but it's going to be hard. Without increasing the number of units per landlord that we're willing to apply a fee to. And that's what it's the cap of nine Bob on the first line in the red. And so if you go up to 15, you can go down on the, it's what you're saying, then you can go down on the, the initial fee. And the place that only has three units will never, and the cap of nine doesn't raise the cost that much for a truly big one, you know, 100 unit one it's, you know, it's clearly raises the cost for someone with six. 10 units because you work captain or 10 units. So I picked 15 just to get that revenue up enough to, to make it possible to have the numbers work. So we're down to only one variable that really matters that interacts with the registration fee. The CRC gave us worked, they had a registration be if it was non owner of 250, which is pretty substantial if you're, you know, if then you own five other units. So going down to 150 required me to go up on the number of units, you know, instead of nine, and thank you for giving us the interactive because I found the cell buried in another place that in where, where the, where it said nine and I could turn it into 15. So thank you for allowing that possibility. So with the change that you're proposing serve only a fee purpose or would it also would what would it do to the purposes of the bylaws stated in the bylaw. So, to go super slowly the the fee on registration, if you go down on the initial fee and go up on the total units. You're collecting more money when people register. You said, if you don't change the bottom line, you're short. You would you say $50,000 or something dollars so you'd have to subsidize more than they did. If you left the inspection fee at 250. And that's when I started looking at the threshold but you you demanded the quick math. If you just did what I did up on the other line. You know the inspection costs are the big costs we had. I'm sorry to do this I'm number driven but the inspection costs were 340,000. The registration costs were 138 and that's what got you to 43478 total. That's the one you're constantly looking at. So if you do something on the top, unless you go up to more units, you know that not 15, but you go to 20, so more collection at the registration but you're only collecting it on the really much bigger costs, you're going to be short some money that could be the UMass money but you're not short $100,000 you're short something less than that. If you want totally balanced, you go to the threshold. I think that we start doing every unit and but as Mandy said Rob would have to tell us if that instead of three full time inspectors is 2.75 or something in the state and the weird way I read the Boston one they have a list of possible inspectors when they need more that they call on so they didn't step up for everything they have a you. This isn't a certified inspector when you need it and they actually give the property owner an option of you want one of ours or one of the certified lists but that's the issue Andy you know I was just trying to do the register make the registration less fee less onerous for small number of units by increasing the cost to the large number of you that places with 2530 40 units it doesn't increase the cost a lot for them. And I, you know when you register a place with 100 units if you need to know. Is it a one bird room was studio it is it this how many are in everyone. It's got to be more more fields that you're setting up it may not be more staff time. But it's, there's just more units, and then that triggers how are you going to inspect those places. So, hopefully that's clear, you know, so that that that variable that cap of nine drives a shortfall if I try to lower the fee, if I go to 15 or if I went to 20, I don't, you don't have to have any shortfall from what CRC gave us. So that's that doesn't require going to the how often we inspect. And Mandy you might say why did you choose 25 at the, as the beginning point for sampling. Why not 20 why not 10 it seems like whatever the point is for sampling is when you get to the bigger buildings you don't feel need you don't feel any like you have to inspect every unit so I think the profit 10 that I decided 10 was as reasonable a threshold is 25. There aren't a lot of buildings with those size that you jump way up to 100 then or 50. So, 25 seemed to me as arbitrary as 20 or 10. So, I think going lower would reduce, but as Mandy said that interacts with Bible, that's that interaction interacts with the bylaw. So when do you expect to do the second reading on the. It's scheduled for Monday but it's dependent on having a fee schedule that is recommended. So if this fee schedule is recommended or a fee schedule is recommended. We can do the second reading and vote on the bylaw on Monday, if not, we can defer it to December 18. That would be the other option. I, I really, I do want to stress that I think, at least from everything I've heard from Rob in these meetings. The goal is to start this program, start ramping up so that this program can be put into effect for the big rental cycle which in Amherst begins in the fall. The registration begins, I believe, even on May renewals start in like April and May. Permits are issued July 1 to June 30 and so from Rob, the goal would be to have this in effect for the next permit year the FY 25 permit year, if it passes. Given the fact that we're going to have some change over in council, although we're about to recognize one of our new counselors. There's always a little bit of a slow startup period so that it would be advantageous for Rob if we could get this done. Yeah, I mean, I really urge us to come to some conclusion and get it done as a counselor. Yeah. Let me go to counselor to be Hegner and then counselor elect. I think Bernie said this at an earlier meeting. I think at some point we just have to make a decision and go with it. And we have ample opportunity to review what's happened over the last over the next year, the next 2 years. And and come back and say it's working. It's not working. We need to adjust this. But I think at some point we just have to get it done and move forward. So, I'm, I'm, I'm okay with the fees schedule that's in the package. I mean, it's not what I would do. Ideally, but as a starting point, I think I'm okay with it. And I just think we need to move forward. Yeah, Kathy, I was thinking for a second. I just wanted to. Stay where Bob just was. And the one amendment I would do to the fee schedule is to lower the initial fee from 250 to 150 and go up on the number of marginal units that you need to make up the difference in revenues. I need to go up on my inspection side for now. And just, you know, to make to make it so Mandy if that's I didn't play enough did I need to go up to 20, you know, on marginal so it would be the maximum a larger building would pay would be, you know, X. So that would be the scale. So that would be the one change because the, the units that are six or less are still going to fit hit the inspection fee and a marginal inspection for each other unit so the first year is still going to be costly for them. So I want to lower on the registration side so that would be the one fee amendment I would make. And for now I since Mandy said it would be better to bring that up for the whole council. I want to do I change the inspection threshold for sampling to 10, and I can make that during the council meeting as a recommendation, I can leave that off this, the list for us for now. So that would be my friendly amendment to Bob's I think motion to recommend the fee schedule as received the most recent CRC and Shane is saying but go down on the 250 to 150 but go up on the number of units to make up the difference and someone can figure out what that is. Okay. Next, Mandy a second but Kathy while you're listening if you draft emotion that you think is a motion that would be appropriate to conclude our discussion. When to put on the table. Give you a moment to think about that Mandy. Your thoughts. So, I will go through a couple of things. So, Kathy's suggestion of going down to 150 for non owner occupied parcels as an a base fee with $50 for each additional unit up to 20 units would create a maximum per parcel there of a product of 1100 I believe, and would on the spreadsheet. Require town support of $99,000 approximately so nearly the entire safe and healthy neighborhood revenue from the strategic partnership agreement. So that's, that's the 150 with an increase on the fee schedule you've got the permit residential fee a to would read for all other parcels 150 plus 50 per unit over one unit up to a maximum of $1100 per parcel is how that one would read that would use nearly all or basically all of the $100,000 from health and safety neighborhoods to give you another option. If you go down to one. And this is where I'm still working on stuff 175. You, you would, if you go from a base fee of 175 instead of 150 with that same max, well the maximum would then be, if you're going for 20 units, the maximum would be 1125, you would then use 71,000 of it. But if you wanted to change that maximum down to from 20 units to 15 units again. Then you would, I think you would use 85,000 so you could do 150. And 50,000 sorry $150 on the base fee so a to could read 150 plus 50 per unit over one unit up to a maximum of 1100 per unit per parcel, and you'd use 100,000 of the 100,000, it could read 175 plus $50 per unit over one unit with a maximum of let me a second here of 875. And that would use 85,000 of the safe and healthy neighborhoods money. Those are two options. I'm just trying to calculate some of the stuff that Kathy said so that the motion would be right depending on what you want so if you want to go down to 150. You do need to go up to 20 units that 1100 max to be able to generate enough revenue using all of the safe and healthy neighborhood revenue. If you go down to 175 instead of 150 as a base number. And then you can choose to add that per unit cost up to 15 units instead of 20 units and then you would use 85,000 of the 100,000. Is that helpful to to put numbers in here. You can, but you have to play with some other sections to, but we can put some in if you'd like to, I can tell you what sells to put them in. Is that helpful to the committee. Do we need that for the motion. No, the motion is would actually be on the rental registration fee schedule it's not on the Excel sheet. The motion on the fee schedule is section A2. Okay, I can. And, and you can't easily do it because the change Mandy's doing it is a secondary sheet when she goes to something more than nine. So you'll never get to the right number in terms of the fee collection. There's some extra cells that you've changed. Okay. That's what I'm talking about. Okay, and I just want to note that on us rejoin so Mandy can you just tell me. So section a to the first 250. If you change it to 150 you then have to change the maximum of 700 would be maximum of 1100. And what that now reads is that that 1100 is up to 20 units so you would be paying the additional 50 per unit for 19 more units. So you pay it for every that fee would go up until you have. It would stay steady once you've hit 20 units or more on a parcel. The 21st unit would not incur additional costs. So that's the one that Kathy recommended that would use 100,000 of the 100,000. And that's the one Mandy, I, I don't have time to get out of full screen and I don't have one of those great double things where I can have it open on the other one to just check your math. The math is slightly estimated because the rental permit breakdown we have, this is where it gets into problems we have a 10 to 19 rental units and there are 19 non owner occupied parcels with 10 to 19 rental units. And I'm my math is assuming that every single one of them is 19 units. Right. And it's not. And so we don't we, we can't once we change the number from 10 to something above that we can't fully easily estimate what the how many are 12 units versus 13 and all so it's probably a slight overestimation of the common. So the reinspection fee in the current sheet is 250 is what I'm remembering. Did you have 250 and the, the one that got sent to us or was it just 150. The permit fee is 250 the inspection fee no matter what type of inspection is 150 in the sheet. There's not an easy way of saying reinspection is a higher cost because you don't know how many you're going to do correct. So, we've calculated potentially some of that Rob recommended not doing that his recommendation was do a flat inspection fee they will charge it for all of the permit required inspections and they may or may not always charge it for any other inspection. So if we went in this direction, we're generating a larger shortfall than what you came up with, even though we went up to 20 based on this quick calculation correct. Yes. Okay. So everyone understands that's why I did the frequency and I'd be willing to go up on the inspection fee to 175 you know if you did what's in what happens if you do the inspection fee at 175 because the little guys will not be hit as often because the little good guys that the ones that are get a clean record will only get hit. So I wasn't trying to generate a deficit so just everyone understands my, that's not what I was trying to do. And I wouldn't want to start the program. Knowing that in steady state we're not covering our costs, unless you mass does this every year. So that was, that was never my intention. Yeah. And when you say cover all your costs across this covering all the costs I assume in year one, what do we do in year two and beyond when salaries and health insurance increases, Bernie. Yeah, I think where this leads us is we're going to, we should simply take the document that's in front of us that with the 250 rather that came over that's posted in the packet and move that off to move that on to the council. Because the way as it was originally written. This is my understanding please correct. It's originally written. It covers all but maybe $15,000 worth of the safe and healthy neighborhood money. So it did the CRC's proposal. More fully funds the program than any of the alternatives that we've discussed here. We're working with spreadsheets that obviously have lots of formulas in them, and we're weighing it. My preference would be then that we move this to the council. And then the count and the council then moves it to where needs to go and then we can take a look at how this works. Because we're right now we're, you know, we're, we're, we're, we're plugging numbers in and, you know, I'll, well, I'll pass it on 50 but you how about 175 but maybe do you hear 200. Let's just go with what we've got in front of us is written and take some time to look at the numbers because the licensing folks can always come back and suggest change after they have a chance to, to finesse this and to look a little harder at the math. But I think for Rob's purposes it's important to get this off the ground I also agree with Rob that you shouldn't have a. You shouldn't have a re-inspection fee because the temptation there is to count money that you're not, you may or may not get. The re-inspection I assume that the re-inspection. The inspections fee at 150 keeping it that way seems to me to be, I would agree with the CRC with Rob that that that keeping that figure is there because that gives them the opportunity to apply that fee each time they go back to do a re-inspection if it's necessary. And if you wanted to be a little, you wanted to be punitive on the landlord who's a bad actor that that's the way to, that's the way to do it because the inspector has to come back three times well now you're looking at 450 bucks. Hopefully that's that's real money to whoever owns the owns the offending unit. But at this point. You know we're not doing we're guessing. And I would prefer to go with. And I'm assuming that CRC and Rob has have done, you know, at Bandy's very thorough person and I'm assuming that she and her committee and building inspector have inspection director have gone over this the numbers here time and time and time again. And this is, you know, this is the place to start. So, are we at a point somebody's going to make a motion? Yes, Bernie is really suggesting a motion. I'm not sure we've ever determined whether resident members can move her second. I'm assuming we can. I don't think so. So I motion would be to recommend to the. If you're suggesting I would be to recommend to the. Council that they adopt. The schedule as recommended by. CRC with the understanding that it can be amended in the future. I think we all recognize that. You put an initial and. Andy, is that your motion? Haven't made it yet, but I think that I would I'm getting towards it. Make the motion be that. Committee recommends that for the first year of the program. That the. Just straight that the fees be as recommended by. CRC. Could write that out with name of the committee. And the reason that I would put that forward in that fashion is it would force the council to come back. During its first year to revisit the issue, but allow the program to get going. So I'll put that out as a motion if it's second. We'll discuss it as a motion. May I make a, it's sort of a point of order. Yes. The bylaw as written. If adopted allows the council to set the fees first and then all other changes to the fees are done by the bylaw, the board of license commissioners. So once the council adopts a fee schedule under the current bylaw proposal, if adopted. After the first vote of the council, the fee schedule reverts to the board of license commissioners for any subsequent changes. Good point. I just changed the motion because he come back to the fact that it would just require the board of license commissioners has to make that decision. During the first year as to what the second year fees would be. Would not the council action. I was going to make the same point Mandy Joe did and that is the way it's written it. We basically turn it over to, frankly, the experts who have been setting our other fees and who have been involved in this discussion. For the purpose of discussion, I'm going to second the motion. So do you have a motion. I do I have to recommend that for the first year of the program, the fees be as recommended by the community resources committee. Okay. I support that motion. And we have a substantial discussion on the motion. Coming back now. I am just getting back in. Sorry, Andy. Then you should know that there's a, we've had substantial discussion all your way. That there's a motion on the floor now. The motion on the floor is to recommend that for the first year. The fee be. Okay. I support that motion. And we haven't taken, we're not taken to the point of taking a vote. We're just in the. At that point of seeing if there's anybody else who has something to say. On the motion. Kathy has been, we've been discussing a proposal that Kathy had made, which would be. An alternative approach that would require. I don't know if you want to state it again one last time, but it would. It would change the number of units to be. Inspected. It did two things. It went up on the cap. Instead of nine, it went higher. So you collected more from the registration fee. And it looked for a way of doing fewer inspections. So I still do balanced. And I, I. Continue to think that's fair. So I've already. Taken enough of the committee's time with playing with those two numbers. And I think. Mandy is absolutely correct. If you just go up on the number of units. And go down on the registration fee. It will not as completely cover costs as what had been proposed. That's why I had to look at the inspection side. But I feel like we're putting more of the burden on the smaller units than we need to do the smaller. Owners with smaller total units than we need to. Right. Less able to vary, but I, I did my best to try to explain a different approach and it's clear. It's, it's not, it's not resonating. So I'm not going to press the point. And I was here for the, for that discussion for, for the spreadsheet. Kathy. So I, I saw that and I appreciated your work on it. And I have, I have a comment on this. I mean, I don't know if it's appropriate now, but I did have some, some thoughts on the fee structure. And I have looked at it for, for a while now. Now that now the time, Andy. Yeah, go ahead and because otherwise would be at the boat. So go ahead. Well, please. I'll just say this briefly, because I am going to wind up voting in support of the fee structure as proposed. I think it's, I think it's a reasonable way for the, for the program to finance itself. And I am really grateful to Mandy Joe and CRC and town staff for all this work. I think there, you know, there's, there's two really clear problems. That this work is solving, you know, one is. Substandard conditions in some of our rentals. And particularly circumstances where, you know, the landlord is at fault and where there's, you know, there's dereliction there. And then we also, we have an incomplete database of rental units. And I think this addresses that and those, those are two really important things that, that this accomplishes. So I, I am going to support it, but I want to just voice my, my three areas of concern on this, on this bylaw. The first is just the, the increase on the head count, you know, Paul used that phrase when he was giving us the financial indicators presentation. And, you know, we're talking about adding two, two additional inspectors, you know, with full benefits onto this team. And then I get the sense that the administrative burden might be, might be fairly high. So I am also thinking that, that there might need to be an additional administrative support person attached to this at some point as well. I know we haven't seen that, but that's a concern of mine. And then we've had pretty open conversation about the potential cost being passed along to renters. And, you know, that's an area of concern for me as well. And then finally, I think this is a more of a broad, a broad point, but you know, I do worry that, that our rate, the culture we have, the regulatory culture that we have in town, this, this sort of increases our, our regulatory and bureaucratic function, which of course is not a bad thing unto itself. But I think it's something that we as a town need to be aware of is, is that aspect of our, of our governance. One thing that, that I asked Rob and our very first meeting on this was just to clearly state that, you know, town staff, if they suspect a property is in poor condition, you know, they can file their own complaint and conduct their own investigations. Cause I think there's, there is a misconception out there that the only way that we can inspect a property is if there's a, a complaint and that's true, but that complaint can originate from town staff as well. So, but obviously these are things that are sort of outside of the purview of finance as Mandy Joe has pointed out. And so I'm not going to not support the, the motion on that, on those grounds. I've played with the spreadsheets a little bit. And I think it's a sound way, a sound scheme for, for financing this. But I just wanted to get those out there on the record, Andy. So thank you for the time. And I apologize. I was pulled away. Okay. Thank you. You shared with me that you had that problem. I, first of all, I want to thank CRC and Mandy Joe as chair, but I also want to thank Kathy for, you know, listening to and being sensitive to issues we've heard in public comment and we have heard those comments. I, I, I, I want to point out, in fact, in the packet for this year is the annual report from the board of licensed commissioners. And so one of the things that we're looking to them to do is to, as they have been doing with other fees, they're in charge of to assess whether this is the best way to make this work. And in doing that, I want to make sure that they don't lose sight of what they're doing. I think the goal that the goals that mean that Kathy has been trying to advance with her additional model, if you will, with her slight changes to the model. So that's, I just, I think it's terrific that we put this in the hands of the light board of licensing commissioners. I think CRC has worked closely with them as they've come forward with that recommendation. And I think it's, I think it's, I think it's the best way to make sure that they report to us. So that's all good. Thank you. Okay. Well, thank you. So with that, I don't see any other hands, so I'm going to go ahead and assume that we're ready to vote. And does anyone want to request that Athena read the motion again, or are we all settled on it? I think we're ready to vote. I'm going to abstain since I missed the bulk of the discussion today. Lynn. Hi. Hi. Support. Matt. Support. Bernie. Port. Yeah. Yes. Did you say. Did you hear no. No. I think I'm unmuted. Yeah. Okay. I didn't hear the verse, but I heard the second. I'm going to vote yes. And the leash is absent. So I need to. Get advice from. Athena. That motion passes with two and support one. No. And one extension and one absent. Okay. Okay. It's an interesting vote to report to have to explain, but. We'll do the best we can. But it's not going to be able to get done before the Monday meeting. I don't think. I think we're pretty well exhausted on our. Getting our one report out. Um, sure. That's, that's fine. I would prefer that we. I prefer we try to do it Monday. I mean, especially. What I can do. Working with. Yeah. I have to talk to later. See if we think we can. Together come up with a report. I think we're going to have a little bit of time. And we'll let you know. Much time to get circulation to the committee because of the timing. Okay. So that said. The next thing we're going to have to work on and we don't really have much time today. So I think the most important thing is to schedule our next meeting. Okay. Two Fridays who were put down as possibilities. The first, which. I recall is the, um, A week from today. That's correct. Is everyone. Is there anyone who's not available? Let me put it that way. Can you tell, can you tell me what date that is? 11. I'm not. It's the eight. Okay. Andy. I just wanted to note that the eighth, the staff. Holiday gathering is beginning at three o'clock. So I would just ask the committee to be aware of that for the staff that are participating in the meeting. The meeting. We had scheduled for one o'clock. So we're scheduled. Can I just. We're scheduled. For December 8th and December 15th. That's what we had planned on. Yes. The last council meeting is the 18th. So I was going to suggest on the, where we get into the, uh, make a final decision on this. There are a couple of questions I want to ask. Um, everyone on the committee. Regarding the guidelines. And, um, Then I think I would like to work with. Kathy's draft, my draft together and. See if we can come up with proposed guidelines and get them out to the committee for the next round of discussion. And see how quickly we can handle it. The questions that I have is. And we assume. That the proposed operating budget increase. For all of the major functional areas being. The elementary and regional schools and municipal functions and. Library. Are equal at 3%. So that, that's one question. Anna. Sorry, that mute button was further than I thought. Andy, won't we get a better idea of that after the four towns meeting specifically about the schools? Or is that, will that not be related to this at all? I think that we're trying to give guidance in some ways to the schools. What usually happens is that. Uh, the finance director at the school then. Takes our number and plugs it in and makes a recommendation so that. Giving some, um, this discussion today. We'll give some guidance to, uh, The, uh, To the schools for, um, any final decisions that they're going to make and how they present. Okay. Yeah. I mean, the reason I bring it up is I believe it's been the past two years that the schools have come in with, um, Requesting more than the two and a half percent. And so I just, I want us to. Take that under advisement in terms of how we're communicating that expectation to the, the, um. Um, School committee, but then also, you know, what we're bringing to four towns in terms in terms of, is it reasonable or are we just setting ourselves up to have to navigate that again? Um, for whatever reason. Uh, The financial trends, uh, Report suggests that we can start at three. Yeah. So, um, You know, even though I sent you a draft with that wording in it, Andy, I'd like to have a quick discussion on the library budget because the fiscal year we're talking about the library will be physically, if assuming we go ahead with the construction will be completely closed. So I would like to know why we have to have. The same increase for the library. So that I would just like to have a quick discussion on the library budget. Um, Because I, there's some, I understand it's mainly labor costs that are underneath it, but there are utility costs. There's some supply costs. There's whatever. So I would like to just. Have enough information to know. Whether. Equal makes sense this year. Coming fiscal year. And honest question about education. Is this just the year they lose Esser. I mean, I think there's a lot going on where one, we know is going to have a shortfall. So I would just like enough more information to say, do we deport from. The historical pattern that are. Avoided looking at budgets very closely. With a little bit more of a discussion on those two pieces. I trust the projections of revenues. You know, we're living with Anna. It's three, three, three, or something that does a balance. So I have no problem with that assumption. I think. Recognize the one just second. I see your hands up to. I think that if we didn't come in with the recommendation that's based upon just. Leading with an even percentage as has been the historical pattern. That we would have to also consider then. Requesting that the budget coordinating group. Make a recommendation to the finance committee. And that we do the. Guidelines with. Essentially leaving. That portion. Undetermined at the initial. Space and. I don't know if we have the new finance committee as soon as it convenes. Get a recommendation from BCG. I don't know if it's a practical way. Whether there's another way to handle it. So I just want to put that out under the table as part of this discussion. And I just follow up on that, Andy, we could. The other thing could be that our town manager can do some due diligence and report back to us on. You know, I don't think it's a good idea to do that. Because asking anyone to cut their own budget is a difficult issue. You know, so just trying to do scrutiny. So I raised the library as a question. You know, there won't be utility fee. And so that it was raised as a question rather than a, what will I do with that? And BCG. Is a different kind of animal in terms of each group. Of course. I think I'm getting a lot better. I think I could get a better address or I can have a flat budget. I don't think willingly anyway. So that would be another way of writing the wording. Yeah. So I could look into that, Kathy, but my. My instinct is that. There are costs that come in in addition, and then there costs that are, that are. Taken off. So I will look into that for you. Thanks. I just want to. review a little bit of what has been the practice in the past. And that is that at the meeting we have in December, the school committee basically will show us, possibly show us two budgets. One is, what would it be if we just kind of maintained everything and projected out? And I don't know that they're gonna go beyond that in the December meeting. It does seem to me as much as nobody is going to stand up and say, oh, here's my budget, please take it. That we are looking at two, at least two, and I'm sure if the town wanted to weigh in, they could add in another unknown factor, but we are looking at two some pretty serious variations. One is the school and the loss of the ESSER funds. And the second one is in fact, what impact will the libraries moving to temporary quarters have on their budget? And that, in fact, in my mind does call for a BCG meeting at a point in time where maybe we have more of those, the more knowledge about that. The library hopefully will be going out, finding space, they'll get a sense of what that space is gonna cost. We may get a sense of what the loss of ESSER is gonna have on us when we do the December regional meeting. And as we all know, this is a free-floating number until the governor comes forward with their budget sometime in January. So we have a lot of unknowns. I think we need to recognize those in the financial guidelines, but I think we also need to accept the fact that whether or not anybody's gonna come forward and says, yes, yes, please take 50,000 from my budget to balance this budget, we still should do that within the recognition that we do have a BCG and that that committee does have the authority to at least have that discussion. Thank you. Unless Paul was able to give us any guidance which the city would try but he can't assure that he will, then we don't have any, I don't know what else we have, Anna. Yeah, I mean, I think I appreciate the reference to calling a BCG meeting. I think that was what I was asking for one of the last times that we talked, and this is why. I think that there are changes this year and I think that we need to pull these groups together as we create these guidelines. So I would fully support the plan as you outlined it, Andy, with coordinating a BCG meeting and leaving those parts to be finalized after that meeting. There was some hesitation expressed also about BCG and the political nature that that places into the process. We have not had an experience with that in recent years. So we are really inviting something very different into the process if we do that. That is something that we've got to resolve at our next meeting. I'm assuming 10.5% for capital unless there's somebody else who's gonna say something different. So that's a second issue though that at least needs to be out there for consideration. And then I think the third one I'm thinking about is on the municipal side is a recommendation that we just say that continuation of current programs is a significant value and the program should only be cut if there's a strategic reason to do so as far as if so, that's gonna leave very little money or anything additional. And the only thing that would seem appropriate to say is that we suggest that the town manager make what he determines to be the most appropriate budget recommendations on May 1st consistent with the council guidelines that we're giving for goals. So that they essentially follow the council, that council guidance and not trying to incorporate it into the financial guidelines. Paul? Yeah, I just have to say, I'll catch up with Holly on this later, but I have to have nine minutes late for another meeting. I got people waiting, so I'm gonna sign off now just to let you know that. Thank you. Thank you, have a good weekend. Kathy? Hey, the two other items just to have people have on their plate. One is there's been a vote to give the council an increase in stipends. And we have a specific amount of money because it would start in the next fiscal year. So we should put that in the guidelines because, and we have a number to plug in. And I think the draft I sent you, Andy left a blank because I didn't have time to look at it. And the other part, and I'd be happy to have people react to it, is there is the potential to bring in grant funds where the grant funds support the staff to implement the grants. And so we shouldn't discourage, we'd wanna be encouraging that type of self-finance, not just bring in the money, but bring in the money to implement it. And conversely, I would like to start to have a better process. And I wrote some words like this, is before we make a purchase, which everyone likes even if the council wants it, we do do diligence to talk about all the associated costs. If we go this route, it will require the following additional, whether it's operating costs or demolition costs, that we do a better job of total budgeting before we make an investment decision. And there's one specific example that it was driven by the council, but I think the council needs to be better at it. And then our town manager needs to say, hey, by the way, if you want me to do this, it has the following consequences. So I'd just like to put those somewhat in gentle wording in the guidelines. Do you wanna share what the council? Well, the example that's come up is we voted to use ARPA money. And ARPA money is not free money. I think if it is an alternative tax resource for us that was federal taxes, but we should think of it as, we bought a property for a permanent shelter. It looks like it might have toxic substances on the land. So there might be cleanup needed. We don't have the money to demolish the current building and we don't have the money to build another building and we don't have the money to operate it. So all of those are, look like an easy decision to just buy it. So it would just be a decision. There was a fuller picture, Lynn made the comment when we first ran about be careful if you apply for a grant and the grant brings operating costs and other costs that you look at the full picture of it. You just don't look at an opportunistic bringing in money. So I'd be writing wording like that, that you think through two, three years down the road. But I've also seen a couple other towns on the flip side but there was a terrific example in East Hampton if they wanted to do an RFP for thinking of surplus property and they somehow got the state to finance consultant report to really help the town think through what they wanted to do, draft an RFP and help them rate it. And so the town didn't have to staff up for that. They got state money to do it, redevelopment money. So I thought that was a really strategic way of taking what we have as a short, we don't have enough staff to do that kind of work and they had an amazing RFP and if you looked at it and I thought who did that work? And it was they had this consultant that was free to the town in terms of tax resources. So that was a different way of thinking about applying for funds that supplement staffing that it wasn't permanent staff person added on. So I have two different examples that go in different ways. And I don't wanna glorify the guidelines, just think of these as being careful. Yeah. That's helpful, thank you. Lynn? Yeah, I wanna mention that we do have a commitment to the possibility of needing to fund a consultant that will work with the 2024 charter review committee. We don't know for sure that we'll need that but we need to leave that open as a possibility. And Lynn, that's in the town services side, right? The municipal side of the budget. Yes, yep. Absolutely, thank you. Latina? Lynn, Lynn stole one of the things I was gonna mention. Kathy, I don't, you've referred to the draft that you have written or the changes that you've made to a draft, but I don't see that in any of the SharePoint brackets and I don't think I have it. Now that we've talked about it at the meeting, would you mind sending it to me so I can add it so other members can see? Sure, you know, Andy had asked us to send any redlined thoughts. So if that's okay with you, Andy, I took the old one and just marked it up and I've been really careful of not sharing opinions before people get, you know, it has more... I appreciate that, but now that we've talked about it, now that you've talked about it at the meeting, it's okay to share with the committee. I know, it's okay with me. It's okay with you, but I know you were working on revisions too, you know, so I'd be, I'm more than happy to, you know, and I had some strong wording on ARPA money as well, that ARPA money, now's the time to use it for town investments that are gonna, they're delayed in the queue. So it was, you know, let's go for it with Rhodes, you know, just trying to think of our cap, we have a capital shortfall in front of us and we have a financial source of capital money that's one time money, but that's ideal for capital projects that are one time spending. So I'm happy to put it in a packet. Yeah, I just... If you could send it to me, Kathy, so I can post it online, that would be great. Thank you. When you do just add something along the top that makes it very clear that this was a draft provided by committee member, Councillor Shane, for discussion purposes only or something like that. I had one other quick question, Andy, and that's that we included on the council agenda for Monday, a first kind of look at the budget guidelines for council so that the committee can gather feedback for the draft that will come before the council on the 18th. Will you have a draft ready for Monday? No, there's no draft for Monday. I would suggest in the absence of a draft that people, we include last year's and that people just give you ideas. Or we could do a quick report in addition to listing the topics that we discussed today. You know, I looked at the agenda, Lynn, I like doing last year without my... You have a packed agenda for Monday night. So putting it in the packet, saying this is what we're starting with would be making it super short. Yeah. I mean, I'm just thinking you've got potentially a very... We have potentially a very long meeting. It ain't just me, baby. It's all of us. Thank you. I should have said we. Thank you. I'll put last year's in the packet. Thank you, Anne. And then Andy being prepared to discuss what we talked about today is just a great way to get people thinking. And then we've at least had one initial discussion at the council meeting, because the following meeting on the 18th is ostensibly our last. I know this is becoming problematic as to whether we're going to be able to get guidelines done for the end of the year. It's going to be a real challenge. So back to the last question, which was the one that we postponed to get the other pieces out, which is finding date for next finance committee meeting. And I would suggest we do it as early as we possibly can. Which would actually, if we could get a, you know, we'd have to really do a quick kind of poll to the committee since we have so many people, members now who are not here. Of whether they're any days in the week earlier that we can still to notice on if we have to do, if we're not going to get responses back to Monday, we probably get some really Thursday or Friday, because I don't see that we could get a, come up with an agreement by two for, for Wednesday done in time to make it work. Are you talking about next week? Yeah. For the sake of discussion, I'll put out the idea of December 7th at three. Andy, if you wanted to try and schedule something on Wednesday, you can always post it. And if it doesn't work, cancel it. I like the seventh better than the six. Okay. I can do, I can do. How other people are, but seven, seventh at three works for me. I would say. Works for me too. I mean, I'm like. I can make that work. So it's Thursday. So recognizing the point about staff not being available on it. Yeah, I can do the Thursday at three. Wednesday, I'm not available. Andy, are you suggesting Thursday instead of Friday or in addition to Friday? No, I would say just one, but you would raise the problem that there's the pressure of the staff. The seventh is better for me. I have a school committee meeting all morning on the eighth. The seventh is just a better. It's better. Eighth is not impossible, but it looked like you just had one, two, three, four counselors say the seventh works. And I didn't hear Bob or Bernie say it doesn't work for them. So why don't we- Well, Bob said it does work for him. Yeah, it works for me. Yeah, it's marginal for me, but I'm pretty certain I can do it. So let's just choose to say the seventh at three. And if we have to, we'll hold the eighth at one, but hopefully not. And then can you tell me on the week of the 11th, you think we're meeting the 12th and the 15th? No, yes. Anyway, someone just send me dates to block because I have to move. I don't have to move anything, but so if we met on the seventh, there's a chance we'd get a draft done. And then if you, and then Lynn, we're reporting to the council for the 18th, right? That's correct. Okay. And I can meet on the 12th of December. So- That would be a one to three. That works fine in my life. Anna, what about you? Sorry, I'm going back between Zoom and my calendar and it's a little tough to do quickly. The 12th at one, you're saying? Yeah. Yeah, I can make that work if we need it. Really accommodating us. Yeah. So we could potentially get it done if we have those two meetings and then people get to see the draft to comment before it gets submitted, right? Right. I'm also assuming that the carryover memo for the finance committee is close to nothing. It's the surplus property one we're carrying over. There's that one. There's that one. There's also streetlights. Once it comes back from the town manager, it'll go to TSO with input from finance. And then Wastehuller is also a finance committee input before it comes back together. Do we have to carry over anything from AHRA? Yes. Yes, that too. Okay, so there is a carryover memo. It would be great if we could do those two days, the next Thursday and the Tuesday after. Okay, it's unlikely I will be at the meeting of the 12th. I will make every effort, but I can't guarantee it. Bernie, that's terrific. Thank you. Andy, do you want to keep the... I can make the 12th. Did you want to keep the 15th? Did you want to keep the 15th as well in case you need it? I'd always keep it. I'd keep it, but I think it's unlikely. Okay, thanks. I put it in the... Andy, did we do public comment? Yes, we did. Okay. It was so long before I... It was so long before I... Sorry. We asked for public comment, nobody asked. No, it was the best one ever. So, that said, I think that we have concluded the agenda for today. And I know they're unanticipated or business, so I think that it can be adjourned and anybody who's trying to get down to see Mary and April at four o'clock still has time. Great. Bye, everyone. Have a nice day. Okay. Thank you.