 Okay, Andy, we're recording. Go ahead. Okay, I'd like to call the finance committee meeting to order for May 12. 2022. It's just a couple of minutes after nine o'clock. And the pursuant to chapter 20 of the acts of 2021 extended by chapter 22 of the acts of 2022. This meeting is conducted by remote means members of the public who wish to access the meeting may do so by a zoom in telephone. No in person attendance of members of the public is being permitted, but every effort is made to ensure that the public can adequately access the proceedings in real time by technological means. And with that, I would like to go through the finance committee and make sure that everybody is present. And sort of for those who are present. Sure that we can hear you and you can hear us so was doing an alphabetical order. Through the entire committee. Present. Bob Hickner. I'm here. Matt Halloway. Bernie Kubiak. Present. Michelle Miller. Believe is not on yet. So come back. She joins us Kathy Shane. Here. And Alicia Walker. Is not here yet. Is not here yet. Okay. And there is a form of the council is there not. No, there's only six of us. Okay. But I'd like to make sure that the people who are here can hear us and we can hear them. So Mandy Joe Hanna key. Kathy Shane. I'm sorry. Anna Devlin got here. Pam Rooney. Yes. So we have three major budgets that we're going to talk about today and I want to give just a quick run down of approximate times so that because we have to work within limits to and I appreciate the fact that. Our superintendent and the finance director of the schools and chair of the school committee are all present too. And so that schools are the first item that we will consider libraries will be second in the recreation department will be third. And I will try and monitor time that we're allocating to each. I also recognize the time manager and finance director for the town of Amherst are also present on for this meeting. So that said, I would welcome. I want to welcome the superintendent and the chair of the committee. Dr. Slaughter. And maybe I'll turn it to Dr. Morris first and we have a plan for each of these meetings. Each of these presentations where we want to start with a five or 10 minute presentation of sort of an overview of the budget. We don't have to go for the maximum time we don't have to go for that amount of time, but we want to allow each presenter of a budget to frame the budget first for the committee so Andy, we now have a forum, Michelle Miller has joined us. Okay, I actually but let me pause. The purposes of this committee Michelle, can you hear and hear us and. Yes. Okay, and then I have to turn it back over to Lynn because there's now a quorum of the council this was also posted as a council meeting case a quorum did come. And so President Kriesner given it's given that we have a quorum of the town council present. I'm going to call the town council to order at 908. And we have already checked with all of the other people who are here. So let's proceed. Okay, so thank you. So Dr. Morris back to you. Sure. I'll be quite brief and I'll turn it on to Dr. Slaughter and perhaps miss McDonald she has some comments to share I'm aware that there's other items on your agenda other than the schools today so we'll again we'll try to be as brief and concise as we can. So, the short story for our budget this year is our school committee requested that we attempt to maintain a level services budget and maintain Esser, which is the federal stimulus fund. Directly to schools maintain Esser fund usage moving forward and, you know, we believe the budget we brought forward achieve those ends. The original budget that we brought forward had no additions or no reductions in it. It did use it a healthy amount of Esther but we're looking through projections for next year we do believe that we would have Esser funds for one more fiscal year and we'd have sufficient funds to be able to do the things that we need to do for the next fiscal year beyond maintain our staffing and other service delivery so we were able to achieve that. I think as Allison made me talk about there was a request from the school committee to restore prior cut of prior positions that certainly would benefit our students and community. I'll let her speak to that in a bit but just wanting to know the priorities that I received that we received from the school committee were again twofold maintain our level of staffing and support, given the challenges that students had at this point in the pandemic and particularly the elementary not having school for a bit over a year from an academic as well as social emotional level was something that we all agreed was incredibly important move forward these the challenges that we received are not going to resolve in a fiscal year for students or families or community. And so I think at this point. I'm not sure whether Allison or Doug would like to jump in but I'll pass it on to one of those to sorry we have this is not a well old machine we did not meet beforehand to map this out these five or 10 minutes to maybe speak to a little more detail on the budget. I was thinking maybe going to Allison if you wanted to jump in a little bit from the school committee perspective and then to Doug if that's I know it's a little bit of an atypical order but I think in this case it might make sense. Um, So I think as Dr Morris mentioned the school committee early on in the budget process. So last fall, expressed the strong, and I would say unified direction that we did not want to be making cuts to our ongoing our current programs and services in our schools at this point in time. Our students are still recovering from from pandemic our staff is still struggling with with with that. And so this is not the time for us to be making cuts to our services. The other. I think background in there is that we've been making cuts for you want to say for the last five or six years at least I the data that I have goes back to FY 17, and to meet budget guidance so I think, you know the conversation that we've had throughout the whole budget at the Amherst School Committee was not a light one, and we did not take this approach and our request lightly and struggled with figuring out how to manage the funding and the request to the town. We did meet with the budget coordinating group at the beginning of the budget season and express that significant concern at with the budget guidance so I would say this has been an assistant concern of ours since the very beginning. One of the things that we talked about we are using is Dr Morris mentioned and Dr, Dr slaughter will go into in detail is we are using significant as our funds to support the budget, because the school committee was not willing to make cuts to our current services. And I should note current services does not mean flat spending, it does not mean level spending current services and current programs means exactly the same programming that we're providing. And as you all are very familiar with is cost inflation happens every year. Some contracted and some just natural cost inflation so that doesn't mean a level budget. And when we looked at when Doug and Mike came to the school committee that increase just to maintain level services was an increase of 1.1 million of our this year's budget or 60% more than what the town guidance was was providing. In using the asset funding to support that budget and folding in as Dr Morris mentioned, some of the requests, strong requests and advocacy that we received from the community. We're requesting an increase of 717,000 as compared to the 665,000 that was in the budget guidance. So 2.9% increase as compared to a 2.7% increase. We also know that movement at the state level on the on the budget suggests that the funding that this the town will be receiving from the state for education specifically chapter 78 based on student population is going to be at least 32,000 higher than what was projected in the budget as revenue. We also know that through the hard work of the the finance office and the HR team at in the district, putting together request for reimbursement for cove it's related sick time to the state where receiving the town is going to be receiving also an additional approximately $32,000 so together that's over $63,000 that it will be going to the town thanks to the efforts of the school district staff and the chapter 78. And so the school committee is asking that a portion of that be directed to the schools to support this year's budget request. And with that I'll turn it over to Doug to go into details. So, as she, as she said, we're, we're looking at a level services budget and trying to fund that with with the resources we have available to us. A few of the things to note relative to this budget is that we have six contracts with unions to are settled for or not. We're still negotiations on those and so the for those that are are not settled. We're, you know, making an estimate of what we think will will be an appropriate amount of funding to accommodate the settlement agreement with that. You know, we've projected forward what people's for those are familiar or not really we have step increases if people are not at the top steps with this grade and steps salary schedule so it's a grid. And people tend to progress through that those steps as they as mature in their career with us. So we're taking into account the steps which have, you know, significantly increases on a personal level for for salary but then we do an overarching typically an overarching cost of living increase that's the part that we're we're negotiating at present with our with our unions and so we've made estimates of what we think that will be and that is in our our sort of control accounts or contingency funds. So we're looking at the budget summary that's where we sort of put that that estimate of what we have. And that's still to be determined. I think in general, you know, we're looking at a higher use of of school choice of resources which which we typically apply in our regular education salary area and so that makes it, you know, staffing looks the same there. The cost seems to go down. Sometimes staff turnover costs that but but more often in this particular case if you look the last couple years we've used progressively more school choice, we have it available to us and so we're going to use it. It doesn't do a city good to sit on it for a long periods of time and so we're going to utilize some of that funding and still have a healthy balance relative to that but that looks that makes our regular education salary expense lower than maybe it might otherwise because we've got support from outside sources. And I think that you know in in the main, you know, most of the sort of regular expenses we're trying to keep at regular sort of levels and anticipate increases in costs relative to inflation that we're seeing so you know our utilities are our expenses for material goods and those sort of we're trying to anticipate those in this budget as well and will likely given what we estimated and what the reality is on the ground will be very cautious with our spending through next year because I think if inflation holds as it has the last couple months. We've not estimated it as aggressively in that area as as the reality is and so we'll have to be conscientious of that as we work through our budget year and fiscal 23. And I think that, you know, the, the, the budget in Maine is is sort of, as we said level services so we're looking to kind of continue to do what we're going to do, and are doing this year. It does require fairly significant support from our answer funds to do that. And obviously that'll be our sort of resource of last resort if there are economies in other places will use less of that as the year goes on. We certainly recognize that's one time money and as we get into fiscal 2425 etc will have to find ways to meet that need. As our funding is in good shape that will carry us through in it is available for use into into fiscal 25 a little bit. And so that's helpful to us as far as the time period that we have available to use those funds. But same time, you know, if we're funding things that are recurring expenses that will put us in in and cause us to evaluate closely are spending in the coming years and how we choose to do that and and how we make up that that difference. There are some things coming on like six great moving to the, to the middle school that should provide some relief we're still beginning the process of evaluating what that that change involves and what needs it has and and what savings there might be. So I think that'll be an evolving picture over the summer and into next year. I think I'll stop there and see if there are other questions that's a sort of broad painting of the picture of where we sit with our budget for the coming year. Yeah, thank you Doug and thank you Alison and Mike, those very helpful introduction. I, we have one more member of the Council and committee who's now present. So just want to make sure Alicia that Walker that you can hear us and if you just acknowledge that you heard and you can go on. At least you're muted and we'll come back to confirm her participation Lynn, do you have anything that you wanted to add. I ask you Andy as chair to clarify what we are allowed to do with the school budget and not allowed to do with the school budget. And the second thing is I would like to have a better understanding of two items that Allison brought forward. One is the 32,000 in the budget I assume that is in the recently released Senate budget, but I would like that clarified. And since we don't have a state budget yet. And the other one was how firm is the COVID reimbursement of 32,000. Having said all that, the reason I'm asking this is we start out the budget season with projections, we base projections on percentage on we then tell people come in with the budget at a certain percentage. What happens if the projections that we used go up, providing additional funding in various categories in this case the school. And yet we won't know all of that, even as we go through our budget discussion and our recommendations. It's trying to help pull together all the pieces of this puzzle and understand what the council can or cannot do and where the other degrees of flexibility maybe down the road in terms of the use of other money that we were not aware of at the time. Sorry. You know, I'd say actually a good question a good introduction, and I will attempt to respond to it and also offer town manager and the town finance director and opportunity to add to the response. It has been the practice of town, both in our former former government and now that we're a city that we respect the school department as an independent but town funded department and allocate and appropriate funds. The budget decisions in the educational decisions, the policy decisions, belong to a separate elected school committee and the professional staff that they hire so that we may have questions about how decisions are being made on the allocation of funds. It's an important that we have the opportunity to ask those questions, ultimately, the decision belongs to the school committee and the administrative staff that the school committee hires. As far as the budget process itself is concerned and then I'll cut to the meeting process quickly and see if either Paul or Sean have anything to add. We start the year by determining the amount of funds and trying to make reasonable allocations. That's a council policy that is established through guidelines that we develop and are approved by the council in December or January and follow guidance that is provided to us. Funds that are received in total just because there is an increase in an amount in this case it was referenced to chapter 70 because there is so much more money that is just being appropriated from appropriated funds and this is not just about schools. It is about the entire budget process that income that may be received for one particular area does not necessarily flow or belong to that area that we look at all revenue is revenue that we receive and try not to earmark revenue. We had that discussion actually at the last meeting on a different subject. And that I think is probably the best introduction I can give when I when we hear from Paul if he wishes to speak or Sean if he wishes to speak on the subject. So we will get into some question allowing questions and I will be starting each of these with the finance committee has assigned one person to give some extra thought to the process in this case it was. Matt Holloway. And so I will call on him first and then I will recognize other people and try and see how many people are limit time for each individual's questions as appropriate but Paul or shandy of anything to add. Sean seemed eager to answer. Very very eager. So a few things. So the town's practices to always build its budget on the governor's budget because that's the one we have. You know when we're going through this process and we're planning long term. There's always going to be changes to that are mostly there will usually be changes to that in the House and Senate versions that come after it. And that is typically finalized until after the council votes. The town manager's budget so. So, again, for that reason, we don't typically make tweaks to the to the state aid projections after the governor's version. And other reasons why we don't do that is because there's there's estimates and in the cherry sheet that we get so the cherry sheet is the projection of state aid that will come to the town. So that's that even after the budgets voted could change like charter tuition reimbursement and choice for seats and things like that. That are real time and will continue to change throughout the year. So when you vote a budget in June you're really voting the expense budget, the revenue budget doesn't really get finalized until the fall when the tax rate is set that's when we plug in whatever the final state aid is. There's other receipts if they've gone up or down, and we put together sort of the final revenue projection for the year that will support the tax rate. So, so we don't make those tweaks. The Senate budget that just came out proposal that came out yesterday was even a little bit better, quite a bit better than the House. There's a pretty big disparity between the House and the Senate. There was a big increase in unrestricted general government aid in the Senate proposal. So that's going to have to be reconciled and I think that's just another reason why we don't make these tweaks because there's a big gap there and predicting where that's going to go. You know, as anybody's guess. The other item that was raised was the COVID reimbursement so both the town and the schools offered a benefit or elected to offer a benefit to employees that if they were out with certain eligible reasons for COVID that they wouldn't have to use their own sick time they that the town would pay it and and charge this program at the state setup. And so we did receive reimbursement from the state for offering the sleeve. The one thing I'll just caution is it's a one time revenue it's not something we'll get every year. It's it's just a one time thing and that program has ended. And I think the last thing I'll say is, when we look at the budget guidance. And we set those numbers, you know, we're really trying to think what is sustainable long term year after year. So year to year revenues may be a little bit greater a little bit lower. But if you, you know, ramp up your budget in one year because there's a good year. And then the next year goes back to sort of the norm. Then we're in this position of having sort of a yo-yo effect of going up and down with our budget so we do try to think long term and what's sustainable over, you know, five or 10 years as opposed to one year. I don't know if that's a good quality of anything to add or okay. I see a couple of hands up and want to make sure because as far as the discussion of the budget itself. I really do want to start with Matt because we had a process set up through the committee that we assigned people to do that is. And it's not related to the budget that is related to the topic that was just discussed about the process as a whole, then keep your hand up. And so, Michelle. The question is just clarification. What exactly is chapter 70 funding. What is it set a set what is it used for I think I heard Allison say, or ask the council to receive for the school committee to receive that money. And I heard what Andy said about earmarking I'm trying to put all of the pieces together. So if that could be explained a little bit in better detail I'd appreciate it. So chapter 70 is education funding it goes there's a complicated formula which Doug could probably speak to more that we both could speak to if we want to. None of you want to hear it. But there's a very complicated formula that produces what that number is. And so it went up because Amherst is a community that only gets minimum per people aid increases each year. We're not in a community that gets what they call foundational aid increases. Essentially we're getting more than what the formula says we should get. And so instead of them reducing what we get. They just give us a bare minimum increase each year. So between the governor's budget and the house budget, the minimum per people increase to chapter 70 was, I think it went from 30 to 60. Is that right Doug. So the increase for chapter 70 is going up. I think the thing I've said before is, in terms of school funding and all funding really it's a package we put it all together. The schools receive much far and above the chapter 70 so they you know if you were to equate if you're to look at the funding that go to the schools chapter 70 is only a portion of what goes to the schools they. I can't tell you the exact percentage off the top of my head but I don't maybe less than half Doug I'm not. So there's a lot more funding in addition to chapter 70 that goes to the schools so when we see increases like that to chapter 70. We don't, it wouldn't necessarily just go directly to the schools because it's part of that that pot that we talk about that gets divvied up to all departments. Thanks Sean. Kathy. This is just a quick question on as we are looking at the total budget. Are we looking at a budget that is higher than what's in the town manager's budget, or are we looking at a budget that's exactly the same because you're using ESSER funds. So I'm looking at the three page document and then I compared it if you use ESSER funds were exactly at it so I wasn't quite sure what's in front of us when I looked at the two sets of budget documents. So the version that's so there's there's actually two things in front of the finance committee I would suggest. There's the town manager's budget, which is at the guidelines. And then there is the budget voted by the school committee which is 50,000 a little, a little north of 50,000 greater than the budget guidelines. I'm just trying to figure out where I, I see that because I saw an increase in ESSER funds that brings it, it looked to me like it brings it right to rather than billion 50 over. It's just a question of what, what, what am I supposed to be looking at. So Doug or Mike can correct me but I think so in the attachments that I forwarded to you there was one that showed the original proposal from the superintendent. The addition of the art of the specialist programs, and then what that would look like if ESSER was increased to fund it. And then there's the one that was sort of a standalone summary that was actually says at the top voted by school committee. And that shows the budget with those additional positions, but without using ESSER funds with using more town funds to support the budget. I think I'm missing the third one. Sean's the one page. So, Okay. Doug, did you have anything you wanted to add on the general type we were talking about now. Just quickly to Kathy's point. So, what the school committee actually voted was, was for that addition of those specialist folks to be returned to their 1.0 FTE from point eight. The school committee actually funded a third of it, what they voted was a third of it to be funded from ESSER funds essentially and two thirds of it to be funded by town appropriation so that's where the 52,800 is. And if the, if the committee would like I can display that that page that Kathy was saying she was missing and sort of show the what the school committee actually voted and what what town support is necessary what ESSER support was was projected. Let's hold off but thank you and we might come back to that. Let's see if we can fall. To be clear, what the council votes is the bottom line budget. You can't tell the school committee what to put in the budget or whatnot it's a bottom line and then the school committee instructs the superintendent what to put into that budget. If you said we are giving you $50,000 for this particular position. We can abide by that or not. So the council's power or authority stops at the bottom line budget and then it flips to the school committee to make the decision on how to allocate those funds. Thank you. So, let me move along to Matt and you had been the one who had been point person to sort of do introductory questions and had actually I believe had some conversations with Doug. Give us a brief summary of what you have come to and what questions you raised and get us started. Yeah, definitely. Thanks. And, you know, being a new member of the finance committee was a little bit daunting to be looking at this elementary schools budget and not having multiple years of context and so those are definitely things that I'm very aware of in terms of my limitations. But first of all, I just want to thank Allison and Doug, in particular, they both spent quite a bit of time talking with me about more details within this budget I think then, you know, truly is within the purview of the finance committee but but they were very gracious and generous with their time in terms of unpacking some of the numbers that were in there and, you know, I have just a lot of confidence in them as being good stewards of the public trust and educating our kids. And the coming coming in a little bit fresh out of the cold, you know, I'll be honest that the biggest sort of concern that I have is making sure that we as a town can move in a, you know, concerted collaborative fashion on these very major capital projects that we have on the road. And so, you know, having bumps in the road on the elementary school operating budget is not an ideal way to start that and I think we will certainly get to the point where we can sort of have a unified message and a unified perspective on funding these very major projects and so, you know, I think, and I'm sure that everybody on the screen right now has that in their mind as well as, you know, a desire for successful outcomes for not only, you know, year over year capital budget operating budgets but but making these large capital projects a reality. That's, I think that's the overriding goal here. I did, you know, I like I said I did really go into the operating budget with Doug quite a bit. You know, and they're obviously there's kind of this elephant in the room around, you know, a request that that sort of asks the council to override the town managers proposed budget and so, you know, with with that sort of in the back of my mind we, we did look closely at the operating budget with Doug especially and I think it's, you know, safe to say that we we've certainly identified some areas on the expense side that, you know, that might result in a 4050 $60,000, you know, savings to kind of come back to that same level that Paul and Sean had recommended and, you know, I mean, the areas that I think folks on this screen are well familiar familiar with just sort of some of the ebb and flow of staffing that happens in a public school district. You know, have professionals that that have a variety of sort of roles and you know these are things that are very complicated and as people it's not just it's not just line items on a budget but you know there's certainly a number of areas where you know special education tuitions on the expense side that's those are all just fluctuating things that are not they don't crystallize easily and we realize that a budget document is just a snapshot. But I think it's safe to say and I dug in correctly if I'm wrong but but you know there's areas where, you know, a $50,000, you know, expenses is really not going to be, you know, the the end of the thing that's my timer that tells me that I wanted to wrap myself up in so so I think that those efficiencies aren't there. And, but I think at the same time analysis was was really you know strong on this point. There are also arguments be made that if you really study the operating budget. There is a reality that that $50,000 is also a justified override of the town manager's recommendation. But I think that you know, getting into the weeds of those necessary, you know those line item staffing decisions is not really the purview of the finance committee. My job is really just sort of as as Paul and others have said it's at the bottom line budget. And I think that we can do that and I think that we can work with our friends in the school department to, you know, to get a budget through as a part of a larger package that that serves the needs of the students and does right by the town by the taxpayers as well. Thanks and thank you. So I'm going to open it up for questions I looking at the time and recognizing the how much we have to do today I'm asking that as people frame questions to prioritize what you think are the most important questions to ask and see if we can because I think that there's going to be a lot of interest in questions in the opportunity to ask questions about the school budget. And I see that Kathy has her hand up and so calling her first. Thank you. Just a general comment, and I know you've been on a lot of time pressure, but I did discover I do have that one pager but I have to take the one pager and subtract it from what I see in the town manager's budget to find the 52. I don't have a word document explaining it so I just think for the public to, if I didn't attend the school committee meeting it would be hard to know, or if I hadn't gotten three emails about this from from other people it would be hard to figure out $52,800 above what was in the town manager's budget so that's a comment. So I know we're not supposed to delve into the line items but I have a few comments on pieces of it to try to understand what's going on where I feel like it is under control of policies. I had asked, I think I'd asked on the regional school budget, and I do apologize I didn't send these in advance, I was just looking at this last night. But on school choice for the elementary school. As I looked through the trend line, we were running where the revenues were regularly coming either at or a little bit above what the expense line was looked at and this is on page. It's down in the revolving funds where you can see the school choice lines, I wrote down the page number page 123. But now it's coming in at your projecting it's coming in at 100 plus below what you're receiving. So I, I sort of have a question on looking forward because one of my concerns, and I know this was stated in the school committee is that 23 doesn't look too bad 24 and 25 start to look like what are we going to do then because we don't have the answer money. So school choice is something I think we control the slots, if we're not breaking even on school choice, do we control that so that's a question. Doug you alluded to the sixth grade moving up. That's not in the 23 budget, but it will be in the 24 budget so one of my questions on this. Can you find internal resources without overriding the town manager's budget for this one year to do the change people want an art. Because if you look at what the budgets going to look like in FY 24 there's going to be some efficiencies you're not quite sure where it is and then you could be maintaining this staff in art and technology. So only you have those numbers. So I don't know what really happens so I don't know what happens to the special needs lines. I know regular teachers will move up with the kids for the sixth grade but I don't know what happens in even the amount of time that's for art for music for everything else when 150 plus children move from being in these schools. So I'll stop with just those two because it looks to me like there's some flexibility within the budget the one that was flagged in an email to us was the leave allocation of 30,000 that doesn't seem to be drawn on and you have to ask in advance. So as Matt said I'm not trying to say where in the budget, you could find 50 or 52 but it looks like there might be places for this. What I see is a one year transition before the sixth grade moves out. So school choice and the transition are my big questions. Sure. So I'll start with school choice. So I think that's an accurate statement that we are applying more school choice and we'd be bringing in our balance is very high. And we actually have reason that we want to bring that down at some point. So I think too high school choice balance state and DOR will start asking questions of us of why you maintaining that level of funding in school choice and so I think we are using more of it and there's been many years where we had the opposite trend and I think over time to your larger point, we have to right size that but I think a legitimate question would be why aren't using more school choice given the hundreds of thousands of dollars that are setting it. That plays against other things you said in some ways but that's the budget. I think as we transition to the sixth grade I think there's a lot of financial pieces that have to be worked through between the Amherst public schools and the Amherst Pollen regional schools and I think there will be cost savings and I can be reflected in next year's budget because the sixth grade will still be here. We have a group meeting the end of next month to try to map out staff members mostly teachers to map out kind of the programmatic desires we did a survey of families and staff. We met with all the students in the sixth grade and the student council the middle school high school so we have a lot of engagement that's happening on that question. So we want to intentionally develop what would be the program and then we can start figuring out the HR and financial pieces of that as well so that process is ongoing. The last thing I'd say is that we've got now two of our many, I think Doug referenced this year bargaining units have agreed to contracts for next year so I think, you know, to the larger point of professional leave and other things. Could we look at those and bring the number now down that was going to town council sure but then if contracts end up costing more than anticipated then we'll be back with you in the fall, saying, ooh, well, you know, this, we're in a hard place now so we're trying to balance the realities that we don't have all of our contracts settled for next year. We think we made a good faith effort at, you know, by a control accounts of managing what a reasonable amount of money would be for that. And since they're not resolved, we're a little cautious about putting any flexibility in our budget all to something until we know what our bottom line is right now and budgets are always estimates. There's always unexpected things that happen but having contracts that are not settled is a pretty significant one. I'm not Doug if you would like to add to any of that or that captures what you might have said more eloquently than me. That captures it well thank you. So, as is our practice when we get to this stage. I recognize all counselors and finance committee members for questions and orders that I see hands off so Mandy. Thank you Andy, and thank you for inviting the whole council to this meeting. So, I struggle with the school committee's request. You know, I don't disagree that it's hard every year to come in at the council's guidance, but for the last five years or so the school committee has been able to do so so has the library trustees and so has our town manager. And this year the library trustees had to probably make hard choices to come in at the council's guidance. The town manager I'm sure had to make hard choices to come in the council's guidance. In order to, you know, in some sense respect the council's guidance, yet the school committee did not do that. And it doesn't even appear they looked to see what would need to be reduced in order to come in at that guidance. And so, you know, I think the council then is left with figuring out whether there is, you know, money within the current line item budget that would be not necessarily need to be expended in order to come in at the council's guidance which is, you know, more in depth than we tend to go because we try to leave that to the school committee but the school committee basically in my mind passed that to us. They said, we can't do it where we don't want to do it and I don't know which one it was. But the realities are, every year, there's a limited pot of money, and we have to allocate that and two of the three of the four large departments, regional school library and general government were able to make those hard choices and the schools weren't. So I, in reviewing I sent a lot of questions over and in reviewing I think I agree with Matt that there's money in there so that we could pass a school committee, a school elementary school budget that meets the council guidelines. Because I think there's some money in there that would be able to do that. But my question, you know, beyond the sixth grade stuff I could get into some specifics, specific to the art and technology as sixth grade moves in a year. Those teachers won't need to teach those classes and so the FTE numbers will probably go down next year or they probably should in FY 24. But my question's more about the Esther support. You know, there, the school committee is using the extra money to not have to in essence not to comply with the council guidelines by a couple of hundred thousand dollars this year, as Mike and Dr Morrison Doug slaughter said that disappears in FY 25, early in FY 25. And so I want to know what the S or money is supporting this year, what it's intended to support next year whether those supports were increases specifically do to coven such that when Esther is no longer available for budget support. They be will that that necessary decrease because of the use of one time money be said to be the end of additional coven related services no longer needed to be funded, because it was services that were increased due to coven and then we don't need to be funded by them anymore, or is the school committee going to say it's yet another cut to level services that then we're going to be facing instead of a level services number that's based on what the council funds. A level services number that is based hundreds of thousands of dollars above that, so that the school committee then comes to us and says, well we can't meet your guidelines again because we started 300,000 above and went even higher. And so, you know, that's where I want to know how is that as our money going to be treated in the next couple of funding years, in terms of when we issue guidelines our guidelines will be issued not on as our funding but on our own numbers. Thanks. I think I'll just comment on the school committee and I think Mike's hand is raised, maybe to talk more detail in the mechanics of, maybe just question but I think, you know, the question about can the school committee make hard decision the school decisions have made hard and hard choices and cuts, and since, at least as long as I've been on the school committee since fiscal 18. So just to just to sort of eliminate and you know, it's over $400,000 is what we're using as sort of support our ongoing services and as I started this conversation. It's not because we're not willing to meet the the guidance it's because our children in our schools need the support now they are. We right now is not the time to be making these painful painful cuts in order to to meet a guidance. When we have the funding here to support the recovery from COVID and pandemic and our educational and social and emotional recovery from the pandemic. It's important it's important and valid use of our answer funds to support that. So that's why we're using the SR so significantly to our ongoing budget, but to your question about, can we make cuts and not trusting that the school committee can make hard decisions. We have a track record of doing that in the school district as as Matt Holloway is talking about has has that fiscal responsibility and has demonstrated that year after year after year. And so, just to just to cite some of those, we actually added to services and we're able to still remain and and reduce some level service to make that add of food services and some staff ads and FY 18, in order to stay within the school committee made over $430,000 in cuts, including to staff and relied on additional school choice tuition funding to protect some of the ongoing programs and services and still meet time guidance and FY 20. The school district made over 220,000 including enrollment driven cuts so the question about whether we can make whether we look for efficiencies and not just cuts to level services. The school committee has demonstrated to do that. We also launched the common interest dual language program, while still staying within the town guidance and FY 21, we made net reductions to ongoing programs of over $750,000 to meet town guidance. And in the current year we made cuts of about $300,000 in order to meet town guidance. So we've made historically over a million dollars in cuts to our ongoing programs and services. We're using this $400,000 in Esther so that we don't have to make those painful cuts during the year when our students and our staff need it most. When the, the conversation about sort of increasing our ongoing budget or our permanent budget in a way that we won't be able to make cuts later. Doug talked about some of the efficiencies that we might that we will be getting when we move to sixth grade, move the sixth grade to the middle school, we don't, we haven't outlined all of that yet. But we, but that was one of part of the conversation of the school committee decision in adding to sort of the ongoing operating budget as opposed to using us or funds. We know that we will have significant efficiencies when our sixth grade moves to the middle school. And in future years, not what we will have even more efficiencies when we move to the a new consolidated school building. So the use of Esther funds and this increase in that the operating budget is intended to help us bridge that that time so that we can continue to support our students in the way that they need it right now. Right. So just more specifically on Esther, some of the things are one time costs that we spent funds on tents outdoor seating areas. You know, there are like filters for HVAC, you know, additional HVAC systems and filters for those systems. Definitely are things that are directly related to COVID replacement for lost books in the pandemic we had significant number we've kind of library pick up system we acknowledge that not every book was going to make it back that was doing that so there were some one time costs that were part of our funding. There are other costs that we're spending right now that are, you know, we hope are short term which is additional social emotional support additional counseling support. Well, I don't think the effects of the first 15 months of the pandemic are going to go away immediately. They're more acute now I hope they're more acute now than they are two years from now so I mean I think that's sort of the way we are thinking about that. Another example is summer busing so we have more summer support programs at the elementary level that we typically would have so we're funding some of those with us are about both academic but also social emotional support for students so there are majority of our funds that we have been applying have been focused on things that are you know directly pandemic and we hope are long term and an example of something that is fading is this year we've had and last year when kids came back we've had certified nurses assistance in medical waiting rooms. We're shifting away from that model. It's no longer recommended by the Department of Health. It's a pretty significant cost. It was something we needed to do it was recommended by the kind of health authorities. That's not going to be budgeted from Esther for next year we're not planning on spending it so we are trying to fade as her in places that we can I think one of the huge variables is we don't know what level of support we're going to see from the state next year is as for things like rapid testing which has been a huge part of our protocol my understanding is that's not going to be extended pool testing my understanding right now is that's not going to be extended so we do have some unknowns and some variables about sr funding we also don't know how the virus is obviously going to track where at a higher point we made a recommendation around masking not a mandate. Two days ago I think because we are seeing increased numbers both regionally locally. So I think that there's a lot of variables in there. And to your larger point. That's not everything there are other things that we're spending sr fund specifically the budget support that's funding roles that existed prior to COVID and you know you're right there's going to be some very difficult conversations that have to happen. Over time and I do agree with Alison's point that at least my experience at the school committee is they have gotten comfortable with uncomfortable conversations. The pandemic but certainly during the pandemic, every meeting was a challenging meeting so categorize how many times. The three school committees met in the first year of the pandemic and it was it was a pretty wacky number and there was a lot of divergence and viewpoints being expressed at all of those meetings so I want to acknowledge and honor the point you're raising about sr answer with some more details and also note that I think what I hear everybody agreeing with is that there's going to be more challenging conversations ahead. I can't predict how the school committee I think you asked a question about you know we view the loss of sr funds and you know level services that's for future school committee to think about it's just you know for us we you know in the schools and we tried to school department understood the very to us reasonable concern about where we were in budget and where what services one brought for students at this time a transition and challenge and we tried to meet those at best we could. Thank you. I am going to put myself in line for asking a couple of questions but I'm going to stick with other counselors now. Thanks. I appreciate Mandy Joe's very thorough questions and I, I would also support that it feels like we could meet the town guidance and that there's enough flexibility in there to meet the town guidance. What I have is actually looking forward does the does the movement of the sixth grade to the regional school is there is there a cost to us in some shape or form. Does does that move come at the cost of either the regional budget or the elementary school budget. Yep, so I can jump in just to say that that that's going to need to be some conversations probably in the fall between the immersed school committee and the regional school committee about a rental agreement again once we have a program in place then we'll be able to have much more detailed conversations. It is two different districts so there will be some level of rental. I imagine. If I was a fair new fair neutral person, most places don't give other places space for free. So I think we'll have to work on that. So I don't want to get ahead of myself because I'm not a decision maker on that. But I think, you know, my experience is the Amherst and regional school committees have collaborated a lot on school start times on this on sixth grades and middle school with multiple meetings and I think the Amherst school members have done a great job of acknowledging their role and they're on the different committees it's a bureaucratic nightmare and they make it look very smooth so could us to them. But I think you're you're it's a reasonable question to ask and I think we'll have better information in the fall to be able to give you more clear answers once we know what the program looks like. Andy, can I add to that real quick. Sure. And just to add to what Dr more said, we budgeted for some years of that transition in ARPA. That was one of the initial our allocations was to support the transition infrastructure needs and planning needs and some of that I think some of the rent in those early years is a estimate of that is included. We appreciate the town support on that. Thank you for mentioning I should have my apology Sean. So, my questions were sort of two things. One, and they both come back to the fact that the request that was being made for the additional funds, ultimately comes back to our technology teachers who are reduced to part time from full time and they believe 80% last year, and to bring them back up to full time. And so the two questions that I had was that if money were added to the budget. And the other things that would be considered, or how does that come out of things that would be done with an additional $50,000 to be the highest priority. And the second question that comes out of that is that if it were done, then what happens the year after other funds that are going to continue or is there going to be pressure to go backwards on that decision yet once again, especially as we look at staffing needs and are moving sixth grade to another school so there's, you know, questions about even this of staffing levels in the very narrow area and particular heat so that Yeah, so I can jump in if that's okay. And the first question, as opposed to most other years. The school committee has already made a statement and passed the budget that was inclusive of our technology. And he's being added if the higher budgets added what so this is a little different than other years where the school committee hadn't I can think of an example a while back where it was town council but town council voted a higher budget than I can only suggested, and in that scenario, the superintendent, you know, sort of had discretion on that and in this instance, the school committee has stated there, what they want that fund those funds used on. To me it's not quite analogous as the scenario that you may recall from probably six or seven years ago Andy. I think on the second question I want to remind folks that when the sixth grade moves to the middle school the Amherst elementary district will have the same number of students as if they didn't move to the middle school. Are there other efficiencies to be had absolutely the real efficiency sees it going to occur when the building project is complete. At that point, we're going to be in a much more efficient model fiscally space wise energy wise, but we're going to have the same number of students so I don't want to. I don't want people to perhaps believe that there's going to be significant amounts of efficiencies. We're changing the models in a way that we would when we go from three buildings to two buildings. I think that conversation and those efficiencies would be will will dwarf whatever efficiencies come from the sixth grade to the middle school move. The students are still going to need specials they're still going to learn how to play violin they're still going to, you know, have PE class and they're still going to be on the books for the Amherst elementary school district to be paying for So I don't want to be overly. I mean I think there will be some efficiencies I do believe there will be. I don't want to minimize that but I also think, again, the real efficiencies will come from the completion of that building project which is hopefully, you know, coming in four years, or, you know, somewhat less than that, but that will be determined by a body that doesn't just include me. Mandy. So this question is actually probably more for Paul and Sean. So we started the conversation with the state aid number in the budget presented to the council is the same as the projection back in January. And we don't know where it'll be so that's Sean explained in a nice way why that number stays the same but if we pass a bottom line budget here and the state aid numbers go up. Whether that's significant or not 100,000 200,000 who knows what it will be aga, you know, aga goes up. What happens is, is do we keep our revenue budget the same, and such that if the state aid numbers increase because of the because of whatever budget is passed at the state. Do we collect less in property taxes to keep the revenue numbers the same and so that there's a lower tax rate, or do we continue to collect the same amount of taxes that we had in our revenue budget that we passed. And then we're just increasing the revenue and if that's the case. So maybe then, are we capable of then passing sort of in the supplemental budget like the state tends to do what has been our practice. Paul and Sean. Yeah, so I can speak to that. So, if the revenues when we get to November and we do the recap and we look at all of our revenues, the state aid line item is higher than what we've budgeted. We put it in while looking at our local receipt revenues and what those are doing. And, and also the property taxes so it's possible that the higher state aid might go to offset lower local receipts. It's possible it could hit the property taxes, and it is possible that we could do a supplemental appropriation we and talking with Sonya before this. You know if there was going to be a supplemental appropriation we would want to do it before the recap, so that it's, you really have to do it before the recap so that it's part of the budget. If it happens after the recap you have to pull it from reserves. So if we wanted to use current revenues next year if it turns out that they are higher that action, the best path for that action to take would be between July and October. So that it would be built into the recap in the fall. And November usually is when we do that. Yeah, I think you're so many Joe asked a question. I had in mind, you know we looking at the cherry sheet numbers which is always one of those magical things that you do. I looked at it before I had my second get this morning so I'm not sure I'll represent them accurately but it appears that the House budget and the proposed Senate budget are in agreement. Both those budgets are higher than what the governor is willing to was willing to put forward. And even what the governor was willing to put forward is about 30 to $34,000 more than what we have currently. So I think it's a safe bet that there's going to be some money. There may not be. It's wacky to think about a $90,000 budget, talking about $50,000. But I'm pretty sure there's going to be some money. I also think at this point, we need to, in the past we've shown some trust between departments between the components of the town and I think at this point we need to, to, to trust that the schools will do the best they can to keep their spending down and in line. We certainly have a tracker doing that, I think we can trust that we understand there's a $50,000 potential hole that we may need to fill some way manner or form. And it's quite likely that that could happen in November. I appreciate the fact we have to have a balanced budget before we can set the tax rate. So that's Sean's point that we're going to do this we need to do this before we, we set the tax rate. We need to get this room down the, down the road to say yeah we, we, we understand what the problem is. We understand that 24 and 25 are going to be ugly challenge, and we're going to, we're going to go into this with some mutual resolve here. The school committee has put down a marker that they may be $50,000 short. We're going to say we understand that and we will do in good faith whatever we can to remedy that in the, at the end of October, early November before we set the tax rate. Yeah, I just want to summarize the question before the finance committee, and ultimately the council is whether or not we're going to approve the budget. We have the line item for the schools as recommended by the town manager, which is based on the budget guidelines. We as a town council set back in December. That's the question. Okay. And I appreciate all of the questions that have been asked and the ongoing discussion and willingness to answer those and any other questions about what happens here in the school budget and what happens there. But ultimately, that is the school committee's decision. It's not the council's decision. Yeah, I think, gee, you could find this here you could find that there. But I just want to make sure that we understand the question before a finance committee and before the council. It is not to tell the schools, how to spend their money. It's whether we're going to give them the amount of money that we set in our budget, or whether we're going to increase that amount. Thanks. Fair statement. I do. We do ultimately react to the. It was programmatic recommendation the school committee. And essentially was saying, we think that having to these part time positions to return them to full time. Is an essential priority for the schools. Allison explained that to us. And so we are looking at that question and which was why I was asking the question about sustainability of the addition of staff over a period of. Future years, because I do think I do look at the next couple of years as being extremely difficult budget years. And the pain that we're dealing with now. May be minor compared to pain we're dealing with in a few years. We just don't know. So I do. That's why I think that these questions have it has been a very important valid discussion. Are there other comments from counselors or members of the finance committee. Questions that people would like to ask of. Our superintendent and his staff while in the school committee chair. I don't see any other hands I think that we're just going to have to grapple with this discussion the process. I think one of the things that goes forward is that we have this series of meetings and train, give as much information as we can if we have supplemental questions that come up in our later discussion. We may ask them but it's not that we expect people to come back to a second time we may just send the memos saying, we have these additional thoughts of we just for. We will make a recommendation towards the end of the 30 days so we're allotted to make that. And pass it along to the committee. And I think that we've had enough discussion that everybody understands what the process is going forward. So is there anybody who wants to make any concluding comments or ask any concluding questions. And I want to thank you. Mike Allison and dog I really appreciate for being here. I think an important discussion that we've had. And but thank you. I see that Sharon sherry is here. Because we do need to move along to them to the library. Sharon welcome. Thank you. Hi to everybody. An amazing day outside huh. Yes. Thank you for bringing us back to reality and putting that out. Sorry to make it worse. Can we just go outside and have this meeting. We all have to take our computers outside with us to do that. What you've been doing is starting out by offering the opportunity for. You in this case to make a brief presentation to finance committee. And I would turn to questions from the committee about the budget. So. You have turned it to you. Awesome. Is it okay if I share my screen. Sure. Okay. Well, as I said, thank you so much for having me. And I will. I'll jump right in. Thank you. So. Revenue sources. So 78% of the library's total operating budget does come from the municipal appropriation. We are definitely a town department. The appropriation is only used for staff salaries and benefits and rent we pay to use the months in Memorial library. The town appropriation does not fund books or maintenance utilities or programming. We don't need to cover the budget. We don't need to cover the budget. We don't need to cover the budget. We don't need to cover the appropriation of our budget, but it's a really important bucket for us. Because we need those funds to cover the staff salaries that are not covered by the town appropriation. And then 8% of our budget comes from donations. To the friends, the sale of merchandise like T-shirts and umbrellas and things like that. And meeting room and printing fees. The endowment draw during FY23. On the 30th of June and in 2021, the endowment was at $9.8 million. And the separate Woodbury fund was at almost $800,000. For FY23, the trustees did approve a 4% draw rate. And regarding expenses, 66% of the library's expenses are that of personnel. 12% is of benefits. 9% of our budget goes towards circulating materials such as books and magazines and digital content. And our utilities account for about 4% of our budget. And maintenance about 3%. So this FY23 budget was approved by the trustees back in March. We are showing a 0.7% increase from FY22. Under expenses. We're showing a 0.8% increase to salaries. A 4% decreases to the benefits. A 4% increase to materials. 7% increase to operations. A 5.8% contractual decrease to CW Mars. A hefty increase to repairs just because our building project has been put off by about a year and a half or so. So because we're going to be here longer, we're going to have to set aside more money because things are just falling apart. And a 5% decrease to utilities. And we have level funded our programming lines. Under revenue sources. We're showing the 2.5% increase to the municipal appropriation. 4.7% increase in the. Endowment draw. And that's the dollar figure. The rate is still a 4% draw rate. We're showing a 40% decrease in the use of state aid. And now that the friends are responsible for all of the library's fundraising efforts, the next two lines on your screen that they're starting to mingle with each other quite a bit. So. We are not budgeting for a Sammy's. To occur during FY23. We did not have one during FY22 either. So. Grants are applied for by staff, but the restricted gifts, the donations to the friends and the Woodbury funds are now all under the umbrella of the friends. Thus, when calculating the increase or decrease on the reliance of those kinds of funds, both of those lines should really be added together. And so what you would find is, is really level funding between 22 and 23. And also level funded those remaining four lines, the fees, special collections, sale of goods. So on your screen are the 11 questions I received from the finance committee and writing prior to today's meeting. I have sent my answers to you all in writing, but I thought you'd like me to answer some of them now for the people who are watching. During FY21, the library received just over $36,000 in CARES Act funds from the town, but we have not received any ARPA funds. Regarding staffing. So prior to COVID, the library saw two retirements. And due to financial constraints, those positions went unfilled and they remain unfilled. Then COVID happened and the library saw several additional retirements. Some of those people have been replaced. There are two of those positions. Some of them are in the process of being replaced. So there's three people, three positions that were in the process of replacing. And some are going to remain unfilled during FY23. So there's two of those positions. And the library has never had any problem attracting and retaining staff, you know, in library circles, the Jones really has a reputation. The Jones and Amherst has a reputation for being a great place to work. Then I was asked about the mix of full and part-time positions. So we have got 22 full-time, fully benefited staff members. There are four positions available to the town that are fully benefited, but we are not filling. So those positions are remaining vacant. And then there are three positions that are also over 20 hours a week. They're not quite full-time, but they are fully benefited positions. Under 20 folks, we have 24 positions that are, are people who are working less than 20 hours a week and they receive prorated benefits. And then we have five substitutes who are also under 20 hours a week and get prorated benefits. And so the reason that I really wanted to talk about this is because the issue of part-timers at the library, it's talked about every year. And so again, I just want the opportunity to say if the town wants the library to turn more of those part-time positions into full-time positions, we would be thrilled to do it, but the town would need to appropriate a larger sum of money. So for example, in order to control the number of benefited staff that are employed by the entire town, each department has been given a cap as to the number of full-time staff it can hire. So in the case of the library, as I've mentioned before, the town would allow the library to hire an additional four full-time staff members. So if each of those positions are going to cost $40,000 a year, for example, I mean, it depends on what kind of position it is, but on average $40,000 a piece. So that's an additional $160,000 a year, and that doesn't include benefits. So if you want to tack on an additional $13,000 or so for each position, that's another 52 grand. So the total is about $212,000 annually, and that additional money would have to come from the town. So I just, I wanted to talk about that a little bit. More questions about children's room staffing. Right now there are 13 staff members who are working in our children's room. Three of them are full-time, five of them are part-time, three of them are shelters, and two of them are substitutes. So due to the aforementioned retirements and unfilled positions, we are low in staffing at the adult circulation desk, which is why it seems like we have so many more staff in the children's room. Normally we have more, we have those, normally those two departments are equal. So in the adult room, we only require one shelver because she's retired. And so she can work more hours during the week. In the kids room, we tend to use student shelvers. It's an awesome way to get kids involved in the library, working in the library. So I think most librarians start off as shelvers at some point. And so this is a really, you know, nice way to do that. But students don't have as many hours to do this kind of work, which means we need more of them. Yeah. So that's, those are all my comments about that. And I'm happy to answer more as you guys need me to. A couple updates on the project. We have an updated timeline and that's what's on your screen right now. The schematic design phase picked up again this week, and it's going to run until the end of July. Design development will then take place from August through November of this year. Then the, we'll move into the construction document phase, which will take place from December of this year through June of next year. And then you have the bid phase, which will last for three months next summer. Construction is expected to begin in October of 2023. And then two years later, the grand opening celebration is expected to take place in June of 2025. Regarding the capital campaign. So towards its goal of raising 6.6 million. That's out of all the sources. The capital campaign committee has received gifts and statements of intention totaling 1.7 million. And change from 160 different families. This is in addition to the $1 million in CPA funding. And a $46,000 grant from the Frank Stanley beverage foundation. And we found out a couple of weeks ago that representative Dom was able to earmark $50,000 for us for the ESL department. And then there are, there are lots of other things that are going on, but that's what we have secured. That's my, that's my brief spiel. Did I do it in my 10 minutes or less? Have a dance or whatever questions you guys have. Okay. Well, thank you. I have a question for you. Process. The House McDonald's from the school committee was in the last meeting. I noticed a Bob Pam for your, from your trustees is, and would you like to have him brought into the meeting? Absolutely. Let me make that go away. Yeah, definitely. So I think that whoever is managing the meeting can do that for us. And. With that, I'm going to. This has been the practice. I want to. First of all, see if. Bernie has any additional questions or comments. Since he was the one who was assigned to library and. Then go to raise hands. Yeah. Thank you, chair. You made life easier than the energy to hit almost all, all the points. I want to ask you about the unfilled positions. Is it your internal libraries intention to fill those positions in the next year? They're in the budget. They're not in the budget. They're not in the budget. No, they're vacant. They're not, they're not a part of our. No. Okay. But you still carry them as is. Vacant seeds. They are. They are there. The town has allowed us that that's a part of the, the cap for position control. There was once the people in those four positions, but we just haven't been able to afford to fill them. Yeah, I just would add that that makes life for, at least for me, a little confused. Cause I'm my practice. Has always been if there's a vacant position budgeted for it, because there's the intent to fill it. So, but these are positions that aren't, aren't planned for in the next fiscal year. Correct. You're not budgeted for. Okay. The other piece that I noticed, and this is probably in the weeds too much, but I'm going to ask you anyway. I noticed in one of the, the, the library committee meetings, there were some concerns about accounting. And I was wondering if the, the budget that you're proposing gives you the wherewithal to get the new software that you seem to be. And if you've talked with town staff about. Some possibly integrating that. The software with the town software. Yeah. So we, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you again that software with the town software? Yeah. So we, we use the munis functions for our town money, you know, whether it's the town appropriation or JCC, the IT funds, we, we take care of personnel, you know, when somebody is hired. So we do use munis, but our corporation doesn't. We don't need something that robust. So all our corporation needs is something as simple as QuickBooks. And that's what we're looking to upgrade to the cloud version. Okay. Yeah. I'm old enough to remember when this was new. Unfortunately. Thank you. I think you appreciate the written responses to the capital questions. I don't have any follow up on that. I'm not sure if this does, but I think you want to thank you for your responses and we'll see what else people have to say. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Welcome to Bob Pam and Bob at any point that you'd like to be recognized. Please raise your hand and proceed accordingly. Lynn, if you'd like. Yeah. First of all, Sharon, thanks for being with us and Auntie, thanks for bringing Bob into the room because my next question pertains to the endowment which I know Bob is the expert on is 4% what we have taken from the endowment in the past. And let me couch this particularly for new counselors. The reason I ask that is because the town has an MOU with the library of with regard to their fundraising that over a five year period at the end of the five years, if they do not reach what they need initially numbers can change, but let's not get into the construction and numbers. Okay. That's not the budget here today, but that we they that the library would then draw from their endowment to bring up the money to the level that was originally, if you will, attributed to the Jones library for raising the money. Okay. So that's my question. I'll just quickly say and then definitely hand it over to Bob. Yes, that this this year, FY 22, it's 4%. I want to say before that it might have been four and a half percent, but then the previous, let's say three or four years, it was at it was at 4%. So this this set of trustees that we've been working with really led by Bob, I would have to say has been really great at at their goal is 4% and sticking to it and making those hard decisions. You know, when it's not been a lot of fun. Now I'll turn it over to Bob. Bob. The library has a policy of 4% per year as being the sustainable level at which we will make withdrawals from the endowment. This came about because in to go back 10 years, there were long periods when we would withdraw six or 7% per year. And the way in which that was then adjusted was by bringing it down at a half percent per year over a number of years. We have, for the most part, stuck to that. There have been a one or two years in which the the needs were greater than that. And so we went to 4.5 at one point. As as we have been making shifts into more electronics, there was one point where we went to 4.6. But for the most part, it's 4% that is the standard. And it is based upon a rolling 12th quarter average. And so it is looking at dollar amounts based upon what the endowment is not at a particular moment in time, but rather what it is over a period of time. And that gives us some security that the amount that's available for operations will not shift radically from one year to the next. But it also means that in a year that it goes way up high, we're not going to get a huge amount more money. And when it goes down, we're not going to get a huge amount less. Thank you. Okay, so Kathy. Okay, staying with the endowment for a first part of my question. The endowment that we were shown was as of June 2021. And I know from multiple sources, including our own, that does not look like what the most recent year has looked like. So how are to extent you're seeing a balance now in April or May, Bob, in the endowment? Do you expect you're going to be able to generate at least that? Where are you projecting on where it's going on the health and the endowment? And I know last year it went up and then went back down. So maybe you're still on the upside as of May compared to June. But that happy story wouldn't happen. So that's question number one and two on the large project and the timeline. One thing I noted is it's a much longer timeline than when we were voting on it at the council level. At least one of the timelines we saw. I did see in the trustees thing that there was a longer one. But my question is if the bids come in, when you finally get the construction papers out on the street and they echo the experience that we've seen in the North Amherst Library where we came in at about 50% higher than what had been projected in November, the March numbers came in higher. And I had heard the library could be in the area of 5 million. What's the plan? What happens? Because the total can't go up. So if the total can't go up, does that mean you have three or four million dollars that you have to raise in your fundraising effort and or do you come back to the town and say we're not sure we can do it? So I just don't know what the plan is and when we would see that decision. I guess you gave the timeline on the construction budget. And then my last is a much smaller one. In the capital budget, as you know, because you gave us an explanation of it, we have mobile shelves unit coming into the room that has been the exhibit room. So you can move the special collections out of the storage area where you've got tarps over them. I have just a basic why didn't we move them two years ago? Why didn't we move them when the building was closed? And we first heard that there was water damage in there. And when I go to the library, I don't see the exhibit room being used all that much. So I think it's probably a good place to move them. And would you use those mobile shelves? You've said you will use them in the new library, but you're so near to packing up everything and storing it. Buying shelving units for an exhibit room where I think maybe you'll move everything onto these rolling shelves when you get them for six months. And then you'll put them in a box and you'll store them all. So I'm just, you know, in terms of your timeline on when the construction might start on the library. So it's just sort of a question of some things are going to have to go into storage anyway. And why didn't we just move them? So those are moving from one down. So the endowment health going forward, what happens if we're way over budget when the construction comes in and then the picky issue on mobile shelves. So let me start and then Bob can fill in all the gaps and starting at the end. So regarding, yeah, the shelving. So the shelving is not going to go into storage at any point that would be used now. And then it'll be used for the North Amherst Library project. And then it'll be used for the Jones project. So it's not, this is not superfluous shelving regarding the timing of it. So if there hadn't been a lawsuit, we would have been well on our way to this project moving forward. We did not want to ask this money. We did not want to come to JCPC for what is it, 40 grand, whatever it is, we were trying to hold off, not only isn't it expense, but it's also a lot of work. So this is not something we're looking forward to. So there's the shelving piece. Regarding the project budget, I'm really glad that you asked about that. The end game is like you said, we have a budget and we're going to stick to that budget. This project is going to happen within that allotted. It's not going to be a penny more. And it will be a combination of additional fundraising as well as hard cuts that will have to be made. For example, we just had a discussion at the most recent building committee about cutting the cross laminated timber. The committee at the time chose not to do that because that is one of our fundraising opportunities. There are people out there that we are talking with that are interested in donating only because of the net zero ready possibility of the space. And so there will be other cuts along the way and our fundraising. Can I add after you're done on that one? Yes, hang on. And you asked when that would happen. It's a totally ongoing process. It will happen at every meeting we go to. The CLT vote had to happen now. Because by cutting that now it would save the most money, about $500,000. If we choose to cut it a year from now, for example, after the bids come back, it will save us less than that because it means that some more architectural work will have to happen. And there will be a cost to that. But that was a risk the committee decided to take. We've spoken with the NBLC, the OPM, and the architects. This budget overage, we're talking about $3.6, $3.7, $3.8 million. It's not a lot of money in the scheme of a $38 million project. This happens all the time. And it would be happening. We would be having these budget discussions even if COVID had never happened. We don't know where it's going to go. But we know that our work before us is to keep the project on budget and the architects are very aware of that. And I'll let Sean answer and then go on to Bob. I was just going to add that there's a much more robust cost estimating process with this project than there was with the North Amherst Library, which wasn't through a grant program. It's similar to the schools, Kathy, where there's cost estimates along the way. They're making adjustments each time we get cost estimates to get the project within budget to avoid the situation you described where we go out to bid and we get surprises. And even when we do go out to bid, if there's any concerns about getting bids within the budget, they usually will set up a number of alternates where they'll bid out. And if it comes in higher, they can remove an alternate. Or if it comes in lower, they can add an alternate to get to the budget. So the OPM and the designers, there's multiple mechanisms they'll use to make sure that we come in on budget when they go out to bid. Just interject quickly that doing cost estimations at a routine basis is part of construction projects now. And they're professional cost estimators to get brought in to double check numbers. Sean, was there anything you wanted? I just wanted to add that piece to it. Part of your question related to the endowment. So, Kathy, just so that you're clear, this has been pretty awful since January. The total of value of the endowment as of the end of April was about $8.7 million, which is a lot less than it was back in June 30th. When I was trying to figure out what would be the impact of having to do withdrawals from the endowment in order to cover any shortfalls in the funding of the project, I started with an assumption that the value of the endowment was $8 million and that we could manage even if it went down to about six. So we're still not in trouble. And I don't know where the market will go. That happens to be something that nobody knows. But I just wanted to tell you where we are. Thank you. Sharon, there's a we may want to have this conversation a little bit more extensively just one on one later, but question had come up and you know, I am a member of the Mass Municipal Associations Fiscal Policy Committee and question came up in the last meeting of the committee about the impact on local communities of increases in costs in construction projects and whether the School Building Authority or the Board of Library commissioners ought to be showing flexibility either in the amount that they're giving or in their expectations for the building such as reducing building size. Has there been any indication that MBLC is willing to engage with us in those discussions? So yeah, again, I'm really glad that you asked. So yes, we've had those conversations with the MBLC. No, it is written into the regulation, it's written into the contract, and you know, because they have lots of libraries that they're trying to fund, they will not be giving Amherst any more money. But so that being said, if the greater powers that be are able to funnel money to, you know, these libraries, it's certainly not only Amherst, but you know, if Comaford, McGovern, etc., are able to give money specifically to Amherst because of these rising costs due to COVID, that would be lovely. But it'll have to be separate from the MBLC. First of all, I want to be, again, clear with the council, we're here for the operating budget for the library, not the capital. But given the fact that we have Sharon and Bob in the room, some of us just can't resist. And my next question actually is slightly related to that. And it's really a question to both you and Paul. And that is you have a big move coming. And some of that, I'm assuming may be to the branch libraries. But some of it may be for significant storage. And I, you know, we're very clear that we have limited space that the town owns at this point. And so I'm not necessarily asking if you've come to a resolution about all that. But more, are you discussing it? And is there anything at this point you would like to share with the committee? Great. The funds for moving are in the capital budget. They're not in the operating budget. However, the operating budget for next year will begin to reflect what it's going to be to operate, but not out of the main library. So awesome questions. So, so many questions. So yes, we have we have feelers out into the town. We know that most likely the space is plural, that will be located in during the two years will probably not be town owned. And so, yes, we have a budget for, you know, a rent or a lease or whatever it is, as well as the moving. So that that will be taken care of regarding, you know, the storage. So with the exception of our special collections department, which will have will need its own special space for storage, for the most part, our what we're going to bring. Let me back up. Contractually, we have to we will be providing full library services during these two years. So it if we have books in our regular collection that could be boxed up and and kept in a storage bunker somewhere, you know, and not being used for two years, it probably doesn't belong in our collection. So the moral of the story is our collection is going to be on shelves and available to people wherever it is that we end up. And but yes, absolutely the branches. So that'll be that's that'll be number one, we'll be able to use both the north and the south for programming, it staffing, collections, and we will, you know, increase the open hours for both of the branches, you know, and the North Amherst library, Paul will have to talk about that more. So whenever that's available to us, we'll be able to use that. I think I think that's everything, Lynn, was that everything? And I'll just jump in the on the sheet that showed the timeline for everything. The bottom line was the finding new space. So there's a time schedule for finding space, the interim space that will need that's factored in. Thank you. Well, then you opened up an area. So I'll just add the question. The North Amherst library because of a generous donor is due to be larger with one of the key spaces that everyone's been looking forward to as a community room. Are you potentially talking about putting librarians and shelving in the community room so there wouldn't be a community room when the library opens in terms of ability for the community to meet as opposed to the part of the library that's the library right now. And if there's not an answer to that right now, I just at some point it would be nice to be part of that discussion. So, so this is the North Amherst library project is really not a library project. It's a town project. And the library space is actually getting smaller due to handicapped accessibility issues and all of that. So the library's losing space. So that being said, you know, Paul and I and Guilford and Cindy branch staff, we've worked really closely on this project. And as Paul has said, and he can definitely answer better, but he has said, you know, the Jones library is an important town department. And if we have town spaces that can help out another town, you know, service, then we will do that. So how what that looks like, we haven't gotten into those specifics in my mind, I would love to leave it as a meeting room and be able to use it for library programming, as opposed to additional collection space. But it so much of it will depend on what kind of interim spaces we can find, you know, what's available and that kind of thing. So it's not it's not my goal to take over the space, but I just don't know yet. Paul, do you want to say more? No, I think you said it right. It is, you know, we will look at every town space to make sure costs are set aside. And but as you all know, town spaces at a premium, there's a lot of demand on town space. But the first priority always is for town departments, because that's what we have municipal buildings for. So if we can make a space available to the Jones library for a period of time. But we also have other needs that are competing at the same time, we do need meeting spaces, we need community spaces, we so those are also high priorities that's not so we're in again, we're in the sort of we have about I know, six months or something to be talking about these types of options. So other questions about the operating budget itself that I know that Bernie posed questions and we've got great answers and we appreciate other other questions from the committee or the council. I don't have any questions, but Sharon's showing us the questions, I think is the first time I saw them. So if we could get that presentation, it would be great just to put it as part of the packet with the list of questions in it. It's in the packet and on SharePoint, I put it in there. Okay, so it's in there now. Okay, thanks, Sean. Okay. Anything else that people want to ask regarding library budget? This is our chance, Lynn. Yeah, I cannot resist taking the moment to say when we passed the motion to allow the borrowing for the library, we were very clear that that was all the town was going to put forward. Everything Sharon has said reflects that. I just want to make sure that the new counselors understand that that's still the understanding. Okay. And Sharon, thank you for all your hard work and Bob, for you and all the trustees, you're really going at it. Thanks. Thank you all so much. And definitely thank you, Bob. Okay, so Sharon and Bob, thank you very much for the presentation. As I said to Mike and Allison afterwards, when we get into the discussion of what our recommendations are going to be, if there are last minute questions, we will pose them. It's not with the thought that you would actually come back to the committee to another meeting. I would always welcome to see you again. But just if we have questions that we'd appreciate being able to do that. So thank you. Thank you very much. Have a great day, you guys. Okay, thank you. So thank you. Let me see if I can turn to Sean for a second. Are we ready to move along to the recreation department budget? Yeah, so let me see. Marianne, are you there? Yeah, sorry. I am here. We're a little ahead of schedule. Is Ray able to join? Yeah. Yeah, I can let him know that we are ready to go. All right, sure. So, Andy, maybe if people want to take a five-minute break, it's up to you all, because we're going to go probably a little bit past 11. We could do that, or we could just wait for Ray to join. Is there anything that people, is there a desire to take a break for five minutes? No, okay. Well, that's good. We can get to this now and not have to do it later. I'm previewing next week. I did want to mention one thing to the committee and that is that it turns out that I'm going to have a conflict on a personal level due to a medical appointment in Northampton on Thursday of next week. And I will be at most of the meeting, but some of the meeting, I will be participating literally by cell phone in the car. And as a result, I have asked our vice chair, Kathy, to chair next Thursday's meeting, which is the meeting that will be about a Department of Public Works and the enterprise funds that are overseen by TPW administration. And I will convene the meeting and then turn it over to Kathy, and she is going to run the meeting in its entirety. So I just wanted to let you all know of that plan. Matt, I see you have your hand up. Well, first of all, you know, obviously best wishes for your appointment, but I did want to say that you reminded me I was going to tell you by email that I have jury duty on Thursday. So that I'll have to excuse myself as well. And hopefully that'll be the one meeting that I missed for that reason. Well, if you want, Matt, we can give the court a call and just explain that, you know, finance committee is coming up and, you know, you might need to be recused. I could tell him I know I know Sean, I'm sure that'll get me off. Not me. Good luck with the jury duty. And I hope that it is a indeed a one day commitment on your part. So Andy, raise here. And I just wanted to quickly say that for people who are following along in the budget book, now we're starting to get into the departments that are in the budget book, the library and schools, they have their own documents. But recreation starts on page 186, as if you want to follow along, there's a recreation and then Cherry Hill and then pools and then Cherry Hill. Okay. So Ray, on behalf of the council and the committee, first of all, I want to welcome you to it says pleasure to meet you for the first time for all of us, or most of us, I think. We hope that things are settling in well for you in your new position and like to offer you an opportunity to give an overview five, 10 minutes or so of the department and the budget that you're present that is being presented to us for recreation, particular challenges you see right now, however you want to structure it. Hey, thank you. And thank you all for being here. I guess I can introduce by first, this is our first run through here, Amherst Recreation with a new name and a lot of new faces and new places. We are, we're filling our way through this a little bit. It's a good time for us to be in the position where we are, where we're looking at our role and looking at what the community needs here. Our numbers reflect the time that we're in and certainly our, the spirit of our office does the same. I would like to say that with this new time we have, our numbers are starting to look a little bit more normal right now. If you come into the office, come into our programs right now, we're starting to feel a little bit more normal for what's in the budget and what's reflected in our last year, two years is probably as much as any department in the town, we have a change in our activity. There's a lot of, that a lot of our work is public facing. We spent a lot of time interacting with the public that wasn't there for the last couple of years. And so our service numbers are going to look a lot different from what they have in the past. Right now our aquatics program, which is a major part of our programming, is moving back towards numbers that are, that are recognizable and familiar. Our youth sports numbers, which are probably are almost certainly our strongest, most, most, the area of our department that has the most activity, our youth sports is back and we're actually adding more youth sports to our agenda. Our after school program is back looking like it, like it should and that of course was shuttered for the pandemic as there was no, there was no in person school activity for a period of time. And of course, Cherry Hill, the piece that is an outlier for us because it was active during the pandemic for much of the time. Its numbers actually soared in some ways over the last couple of years, but it's looking like their numbers are stabilizing and becoming more normal. We've looked at ways to make that work. We've lost our theater program for a couple of years and we've already started our conversation about moving that back into the forefront. And our adult education, which we, which has not been our focus, has diminished and hasn't yet come back to the point where it's, where it is, you know, vibrant and active and active. It hasn't been our focus here for the last year, but our numbers are starting to look much more healthy in each of those first four categories of quadrics used after school and Cherry Hill. The pandemic numbers depth our mission is to enrich the quality of life for all members of the community by providing the highest level of recreational opportunities. Our pandemic numbers dipped and that challenged us to be able to get those back up, but through that pandemic, I think consistent through our, through our budget pages is a sense that we felt like we were providing a different service during a time, an important service during a time where the town needed it. And now our goal moves towards, it accelerates in the area, which we've been thinking about since I took over of turning this new energy, this new emergence from the pandemic, turning that into revenue. Our, our major focus now is in turning these numbers and adding and being creative about adding revenue numbers to the piece that I think is one of our budget wise is one of our greatest services to the town is, is getting people active for our sake, for their sake, but also in trying to find a way to, to create some revenue to keep these programs floating so we can keep on doing what we're doing in the town, keep on doing what it's doing. So in general, I think, I think it's been a successful year as we've steered our way out of the muck. And, and so with that, I guess that's, that's my piece that I wanted to share. I can, I have Marion Jordan here with me who is my operations director. She has been, she's a sense of, of historical reference for me in my department. She's been here for a little while and she's been, she's been programming at different levels. She's new in the, in the chair of operations director, but she has a, has an extensive understanding of how we do our programming from her time in registration. And so Marion and I would be happy to field any questions that you have at this point. Thank you. Appreciate the introduction and I'm going to ask Alicia, since she was the one who had taken on looking at the budget on behalf of the committee or whether you have any initial questions. Alicia. Okay, well let me then start with a couple of things. One is you mentioned adult education is the recreation. I know that you've gone through some strategic planning work before you were came on board gray with the recreation commission, which actually led for the change from being leisure services and supplemental education to being a recreation department. Is the commitment to adult education actually diminished in the core purposes for the recreation department going forward? Have you adjusted your planning for that element of the previous work? I don't believe that, that it has diminished in the focus. The numbers have been way down for the first we've had, we've had some classes that have sort of moved and stayed through the pandemic. We have a she gone class that has been, that's sort of been looking for a home as, as we've been certainly in my months here at which she gone class. We have sort of a community dance class that we've, that we've been keeping on the, on the records here. We, we haven't had and Mary can probably tell you about programming a little bit on that. It hasn't moved out of our focus, but I think the numbers, because the numbers have been so low, it hasn't been a priority as we've, as we've gotten to this stage. I'll just jump in for a moment to address that question. So during, during the time when I first arrived pre pandemic, there were already diminished numbers. There were really only two very solidly attended and you know, very committed members who would come to our yoga class that used to be at the months in and also she gone. During the pandemic, we did try to move towards doing I would say like the virtual fitness trends like a lot of health clubs and, and other people who serve adults did. It was not as popular. We had a yoga instructor do a zoom class. We tried doing Facebook live events, but then we just moved to putting stuff on our free formatting because that's really where a lot of people can get those things now. So we have a YouTube, we started a YouTube channel at that time and put a bunch of obviously it's free. We haven't monetized YouTube to that capacity, but there are available videos. And so we're serving in that way, but I think a little bit less so in the, in the realm of, of adult education. And now, as Ray did mention, the focus has been in sports. And so there is growing interest and participation in the adult sports, which I know is a slightly different budget, but, but serving the same sort of community need where adults, you know, would like to be active and involved. I can also say as an unofficial add on to that. One of the first things is my probably the first meeting I took when I was here was a meeting with the group that asked for the pickleball courts for CPAC. And that actually fed when I was my first conversations here were about what we, you know, what we do with our adult education, what we do with our programming and trying to get a sense for what our programming was. And the, the low numbers, the low activity in there had me thinking that what we don't do is we haven't had a lot of, of programming that addresses the, the, you know, we have a lot of energy towards the youth and a lot of energy towards the youth sports. Is there something we can do? This was a chance for me to sort of commit to finding a way to support that because it allows us to potentially expand our adult programming or adult educational programming or adult activity programming. And so one of the reasons why I supported that separate, that separate issue is because I thought that gave us a chance to strengthen what I thought was staggering a little bit why I call them people or That's helpful. What I'm going to do is recognize Kathy and turn the meeting over to her. So I'm going to step away for just a second and I'll be right back with Kathy. Go ahead. Hey, thank you. Thank you, Gray and Marion for joining us. And the first thing I want to say is you run terrific programs and they're, they're really appreciated by everyone who use them. My, my kids are now have well aged out of the youth programs, but they were regular users of them. So I have just a couple of questions and one I should know the answer to. So Sean, when I try to look at the revenues for the program, I'm going to the revolving funds and I just didn't know where I see the revenues for the golf course, you know, I can see expenses on each. So that's just a question on where I find it. But in thinking of opportunities as you're moving forward on adult, CPAC has approved pickleball courts. And it's the ardent hope of those of us who live in North Amherst that they will be at Mill River, which is where they had originally been thought of. And so I do you anticipate, I think there's an interest in learning pickleball, as well as a cross age interest in learning tennis. And I don't know whether we, I think you at one point offered some tennis in the summer programs, but pickleball will be more multi season just by its nature. It, it does pretty well until you get snow and ice on the ground. Tennis does pretty well too. But it's you slip on leaves. So it's just a thinking of, of where you're going in the future. And then on the golf course, I was, as you know, Ray, I was on when we talked about the golf course equipment. I think that's not, I think there's an opportunity for youth programs on the golf course. And I would range them from zero cost to very small entrance fees. And I don't know whether there are families who could donate youth size golf clubs, because what I've observed is people go out in the golf course and just whack with the club. You know, it's not necessarily they're becoming golfers, but it's just fun. And families with kids could be using that, you know, even if they're doing it. So just trying to think of where there are engaging the schools and or others going forward. And I, I personally think that this whole range of activities is good for the town. So I'm not always looking for the fees to cover the expenses. You know, I think it's something that we do. And that's that's it. You know, and I'm not supposed to tread tread over into capital. But in walking past the War Memorial pool area, I saw these basketball courts that I'm thinking of inner city courts that looked a whole lot better than what I saw there, where there were rip nets, the the backboard was falling apart, and there were holes. So I don't think you could bounce or shoot the ball easily. But there are three, it's a nice little youth area where kids who weren't professional basketball players would be out there shooting hoops. So just trying to think of where small amounts of money. And I think there's a lot of support in town for all of this. And I'll stop. So it was more on the revenue side and the opportunities looking forward with racket sports. Ray, do you want me to start with the overview of how the funds work? Or do you want to go ahead? Excuse me. Do you want me to I'll go ahead real quick. So so recreation is a little bit confusing. So I'll just do a quick overview. So Ray's doing a good job of managing all these different funds, essentially. So the recreation budget is in the general fund. Ray manages three revolving funds that are separate from the general fund budget that's in front of you. And they're listed in the budget document further down in a section specifically labeled revolving funds. So he manages an adult education revolving fund, a after school revolving fund, and then I think just a general recreation program revolving fund that does all the other programs. So that's where you'll see the revenues and the expenses coming in for those programs. And those are the ones they have to balance each year. So whatever the revenues are, whatever the expenses are, they have to be revenues to support them. Revolving fund can't finish a year with a deficit. Within the general fund budget, though, there's the recreation admin, there's the cherry hill budget, and then there's the pool budget. So those aren't revolving funds. Those are just like any other department. So cherry hill, when cherry hill does really well, its revenues are on the general fund side. So it doesn't actually benefit cherry hill directly, benefits the whole town when cherry hill does really well, because those are general fund revenues. So if they beat what we budgeted, that just goes into supporting the overall revenue picture. And likewise on the expense side, there's an expense budget for cherry hill and the general fund. And they have to stick within that expense budget. Thank you. Okay, Michelle. I think Anna was ahead of me, but you can go ahead, Michelle. Okay, thanks. Nice to meet you, Ray. I'm not sure that we've ever met. And also you, Marian, thank you. I had a question. I'm actually looking at the budget book, which is really exciting. And we've had a conversation about the recreation's department's plan to do a needs assessment for a youth empowerment center and a feasibility analysis. And I was just wondering if you could give us any sort of update or feedback on that and where that's at? I can. I'm going to ask Sean to support me on exactly where the, like so we're basically at a fork right now, a little bit of a mentioned fork as we start moving through it. We started in earnest about a month ago and doing a needs assessment and gathering information. I believe that it's important for us. This is not, my own personal feeling is that I would love to, as the recreation director, have that tied into my recreation department, have it tied into our services and what we're doing and what we intend to do. I think it helps my department help the town. Don't know for sure that that's where it ends up. But he did accept the responsibility of putting this needs assessment out, gathering the information to see just what the function youth empowerment center would look like in connection with all the different intentions of the town, all the different identified areas where there might be need. I thought that we would be in a really good position to ask the questions, gather the information and present to the town the findings because a lot of the needs are in our area. Not all of them, but a lot of the needs are in our area. The place where we're shifting right now is there's some interest in turning that needs assessment. I think there's some sense that we want to try and get this in place. We want to make something happen here right now. I still believe that we need to do our due diligence and gather the information to find out exactly. In my vision, it's going to be something that is bigger than just implementing a program right now on what we think our needs are. I think it involves a lot of interaction with the town before we can make that happen. There's a little bit of a veer right now. We veered a little bit in terms of how we're conducting that needs assessment. But we're still very much earnest in that stage of gathering information to see where and what that youth empowerment center looks like. Some of it will support our department, whether it's my department that runs it or runs in cooperation with it or what have you. Some of it will be recreational interests. Some of it, if we do this well, if we, meaning the town, does this well, it will be looking at social services. It will be looking at issues of access and equity. It will be looking at issues of there will be a lot of different interests that are involved and a lot of different different parts of the town that will be pulled into this. It's not a recreation. I don't believe that it's a recreation task. I think that we are right now irresponsible. I'm responsible for putting together that assessment that we'll find out how deep it goes into the town. But I do think that we need to be acting ourselves to the town interest and find out what that need is. Thank you so much, Ray. That's really, really helpful. Is it okay if I add to that real quick too? I think the counselors know that one of the goals for the town managers to make recommendations on the recommendations from the CSWG. So Ray and I and the town manager, and this is the town manager, there will be an update going to the council soon in terms of the plan forward on this recommendation and thoughts on how to proceed with some thoughts around timeline and how to involve stakeholders in the process. Yeah. And just if I could just add to that, I mean, I want to recognize Ray and Marion are both relatively new in their positions. And they've taken this on in addition, which I'm really proud of. And Ray said exactly what we've been thinking about. And he's the right person. And as we start to look at this in a more organized way about how are we really moving forward on this, that's Ray articulate precisely the kind of conversation that we need to have. Thank you. I'm happy to ask mine. But if Alicia's hand is up for something related to that, it might make more sense for her to go first. Mine's unrelated to the. Alicia's. Are you following up? Yeah, thank you. And sorry, because I have kiddos here in the background. I don't want to say too much. I just wanted to say, like, thank you, Ray, for the update. And I have a lot more questions that I don't want to take up everyone's time with. So I was just wondering if there would be another time to revisit this. Would there be another time for me to follow up with you? Yeah, or for all of us to revisit the conversation just specifically around the, the needs assessment for the youth empowerment center, because I don't want to I'm I don't have like budget related necessarily questions for it. So I don't want to take up the time right now. But I have like a lot of questions about that. And so I wanted to know if there will be another time where we are talking about this. Thank you. Yes, I can certainly make myself available for follow up. Certainly, as we, as Sean said, we're going to be sending out a new, you know, basically an update as, as where we are. Maybe some of those questions get answered by, by that. But I'm certainly always available. I'm afraid it has questions one on one can call me. Or if we, if you want to set up another time. Yeah, I certainly can make myself available. Okay, thank you. Yeah, we should to the greatest extent, we can stay with the fact that this is about the budget and budget proposal. Anna. Okay, so hi, Ray. And hi, Marian. So the I'm trying to get an understanding and I apologize if this is something that I should have been able to deduce and missed. That's, that's on me. The 30,000 to partially restore the extra health budget at Cherry Hill. Something that came to that a resident had brought up to me was that, you know, if our goal is to make Cherry Hills, self sufficient, we need to make sure it's staffed at all hours that it's open and not let people just walk on without paying to use it. And so I'm curious if the 30,000 will allow that. I mean, I see it's open eight to six every day. Does that mean that it is staffed eight to six every day and that everyone who's going on it is, is paying for their tea time? And I've 20,000 follow up questions in terms of equity of access later on. But in terms of this budget right now, does that 30,000 make it so that you have someone staffing and collecting fees or confirming that people booked online ahead of time? And if so, what do you anticipate the revenue shift to be from that, from that increased staffing? Thank you. Great question. Thank you. The 30,000 for historical background for people who maybe aren't aware or, or if it wasn't clear in the document, 30,000 we, our staff was moved to Cherry Hill to keep them, keep them whole and active during the pandemic. So we, we lost our part time help during that period of time. And it's been, thank you to the to Sean and his team for being creative and finding ways to, to, to, to not let us suffer this year as we didn't have that line put back in. And we had to try and figure out a way to, to run that club without that 30,000. That 30,000 basically is the staff help. The historical background is that, that basically allows us to have it staffed at all. Now that our staff is back in the recreation department doing our own work that had been shuttered during the pandemic. To answer the bigger question there, yes, one of our goals is to, has been over the course of the last few months of preparing for this golf season. And then certainly in the months that we've, that we've been operating is to close any leaks that happen in terms of people sneaking on or, or having tea times with people, people basically getting in rounds for free, however it may happen, that are, that are basically being uncharged for services. Yes, we have somebody on the door, we have somebody on the clubhouse at all hours that they're open. And part of it is, because that's what you do when you're, when you're running, when you're running operations, part of that is also because, because we want to make sure that there's accountability on that as that is a large, a community, community a recreational opportunity. This is something that we, that we feel it's our responsibility to community for. I was, how does, we're trying to make sure that all areas of a pretty, people don't golf for the opportunity to have more rules thrown at them and more, like we don't want to be, be sort of, sort of tight when, when people go out in golf and have police states sort of stuff, but we, we are trying to make sure that every place where, where we're offering a service is accounted for. And Erin is being a main architect of that. I'll let her address or correct anything in that. No, that was, that was well said. Yeah, what we are trying to tighten up on is making sure that because we have staff up there, doesn't just mean that, that it's going to go perfectly. So we're trying to do a better job and categorizing and keeping things clear so that as they're trained and getting better at their jobs, that they're able to not just, you know, sit there and sell them a beer afterwards, but to make sure that they understand how to use the system. So it is a little bit of retraining people because they're people that have been members or have just played there for a long time. And I do know I'm from Amherst. There historically has been, you know, it's kind of a college course sometimes and people haven't always been the most upfront with, you know, making sure that they're treating things respectfully and that kind of thing. So we're trying very, very hard to tighten up in that sense and make sure that people are, you know, doing all the things they should following the etiquette. It is a golf course still. So that's something we've been trying to do. And then the, the point is sales system that we're using is pretty user-friendly. That's, it's not necessarily its intended design, but it's doing the job. So, yeah. Can I ask a quick follow-up, Andy? Sure. So, so you mentioned this, Mary, and I think so one of the points where I imagine you all would make your money, some money, would be on sales of alcohol at the club. And so do you, when you say it's staffed, is that portion staffed? Like is it staffed on all fronts or is it ever only staffed kind of like someone only maintaining the course or anything like that? So as far as maintenance and clubhouse operations, they function pretty separately of one another. And so clubhouse staff really have the responsibility of checking folks in, making sure they're paying, you know, selling them a beer or giving them a cart or whatever else, you know, they would need to do and actually take, you know, cash handling type of skills would be required. But as far as understanding how to play and making sure people are, you know, being respectful of the grounds, that's a separate, separate group of people that are there. And I don't raise that something that we're staffing all the time. I'm not sure where we have been on that because I've only been part of those conversations, but thank you that answer. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Yeah. Thanks, Andy. And I want to thank Anna and Alicia and others for bringing up these important questions. And also I confess I do not fully understand the revenue expense, you know, function within this budget. I need to probably spend a little bit more time studying it and listening to you all. But Ray, Marion and others, thank you so much for the work you do. And I just wanted to make a general statement as, you know, with young kids around the importance of the rec department for, you know, just for the light blood of our town from, you know, from a cultural perspective, but also cultural equity and a growth perspective. You know, I think that sometimes you kind of pass over information that comes from the rec department as being, you know, kind of background noise if it's not directly impacting you. But I will definitely say that, you know, we've identified having, you know, first time home ownership as being, you know, a long term goal towards the economic health and prosperity of the town. And I really think that things like a vibrant rec department that has a lot of opportunities for young families and, you know, for all, but especially for young families is really essential to that strategy and something that, you know, I'll always find a way to support however I can. As long as you keep that waiting pull open a little bit longer this summer, that's my only, no, just kidding. You guys, you guys are inside for this job. Thank you. Thank you. So, I, Luna, you had to, I will see Paul, you have something you want to say. Yeah, I only wanted to say very quickly, I liked your new brochure. Saves paper and was very clear. Thank you so much. That's a thank you to Marion Jordan. That's a lot of hard work that Marion put in for that. Thank you. And Andy, I just want to put a plug in there. They're doing, so Ray is really a good collaborator. He's working with Earl Miller with Cress and with Haley Bolton, our new senior director. And Haley and Ray put together a pool party movie that's coming up this summer, a series of movies where you can bring your floaties to the pool, watch a movie. And they're so pumped about it. It's really fun to hear. Yeah. We're going to put the movie screen on that horrible basketball court that was just mentioned. We're going to throw it up over there. So we'll actually get some use out of a court that has no basic use right now. Kevin. I just wanted to echo what Matt just said. I just think this is a huge service and one of the reasons you want to live in Amherst. And I for one, I actually don't think the golf course has to actually balance its budget. But in finding the revenues shown on page, I think it's page 61. And then I had to find the expenses back on page 196. It's kind of balanced right now. We don't expect the pool to balance its budget. The pool, we operate a pool so people can swim. And one of the things I, this idea of potential revenues of the clubhouse, if it could serve beer, I think it's all great because I think it makes a community center. And at one point we thought, could we winterize the clubhouse? So when people are sledding, they could come in and buy hot cocoa. I mean, the same thing. It's just, it's an activity. It's a recreation area. So I think the brochure was fabulous. I looked at it and said it's so nice and short compared to what I used to get. But I could figure out exactly how to get in to more information. So I thought that was really great too. So thank you very much. It's an exciting set of programs you're running. Thank you. So I had a couple of questions. One was summer hiring. Have you been facing challenges this year? That's an exclamation point. Yes, we've been facing challenges. Pretty much all of our programs are right now still looking. I have faith that we'll be able to sort it out, especially as we get through this. Finals period and we get through high school kids wanting to transition to where they're going. We're struggling. I mean, there's a, I saw in the budget the note about minimum wage going up. That's going to help certainly some for us. I think that trying to compete with other opportunities is something that our aquatic staff, that our camp staff, that all of our summer employees are looking for opportunities that may or may not be working with kids, working with what have you. And if they're getting paid more than what have you, if they're getting paid more someplace else than we might lose them. We are, I think there are certain places where we have opportunities we can give people. I think that part of it, I don't know if right off the bat, people are going to come in and say, this is the place for us to be, but we are we're trying to play catch up right now in terms of getting quality staff and getting quality staff that we can trust to do the work that we're understaffed at the top to be able to do on our own. It's a challenge. It's a notable challenge for us. But like I said, I think that we have faith that it'll, it'll work out in some way in the end. We just aren't there right now. Second question. Have we seen a shift as kids are sort of going towards being very involved in their computers and the games that there isn't the interest in the kinds of programs that we've historically been running in the recreation field? And how that's adjusting our planning and the revolving, the whole revolving fund set up that it's been in place for so many years? Nick, totally yes. I don't, I haven't done the any sort of research. I haven't collected any data on that. But I think the general sense that we had going into our winter basketball is usually something that is people flowing. We have an overflow of kids trying to participate in basketball. There was much less interest in basketball this year. Girls sports is way down in terms of participation numbers. We're actively trying to encourage people just to try things out to eliminate some of the game competition to get people involved. I think that numbers are way down in terms of participation in a lot of those active sports or active, you know, active anything. Our camp numbers are I think relatively stable in terms of people looking for camp opportunities. Our regular summer camps are completely full right now. Sports camps, not so much. So I think that there is some, it may be a cultural flow, it may be a post-pandemic thing, but there is some hesitance in people to, you know, to participate at the same levels that they've participated in the past. It just means that we have to be creative about trying to try to offer opportunities for people. Everything doesn't have to be a sport, a jersey with officials. It doesn't have to be that for us, but we do want to try and encourage people to be involved and involved healthy and to connect with people through programming that we have. Okay, and I have one last question and Bernie, I see your hand up, so I'm not ignoring you, but my last question is had to do with subsidies because one of the stark ways that we use the town portion of the funding to supplement the revolving funds was to have subsidies where income might otherwise be a barrier to participation, which was not consistent with the town's values. Is that goal still being addressed? Do we still have enough money being put into the subsidies to meet that goal? Let's take that. Yes, right now we have, well, two different answers, I guess, so for our regular programs that serve families and youth, we've been able to use, I'm not sure the exact percentage, I'd have to look that up, but we've been able to use a lot of our fee subsidy in, as far as afterschool goes for kids who are participating in our afterschool program, prime time. We have been able to partner with the school department and some families have been able to go with zero parent fee, which is really, really great, or they've met us halfway or 60-40 or what have you. So do we need more? I don't know, I guess if participation, you know, if we're hoping anticipation goes up, then conceivably we'd be giving out more fee subsidy to allow that. I think just a quick follow-up on that. I think that we can do a better job of advertising for equity's sake, for advertising that availability is there, because I do know that there are some people who don't know who see the price and get priced out and say, wreck opportunities aren't for me. I've had that conversation with some counselors and with some families. I don't know that it's always as clear that there are opportunities to subsidize activity. And I think our goal is to ensure that a feed is not a barrier to participation, no matter who it is, and I think we work to make sure that that's always the case. Thank you, Bernie. Yeah, just a real quick thought on because the fees came up. I would think that if you phrased it, that there's a contribution as opposed to a fee that might take some of the edge off and because even small chargers can be a barrier to participation. Ray said something that really caught my ear when I heard him say that there might be some de-emphasis of the purely competitive nature of recreation offerings and that there'd be a broadening of that, so that people have a chance to have some fun as opposed to necessarily be on a competitive team. And I think that's important because it broadens the vision and it broadens the area. Yeah, Ray, I've heard lots of good ideas, lots of prospects. Please do not burn yourself out. And for Paul, the youth empowerment centerpiece, am I understanding is that's all ARPA money? It's all sort of off budget. I think it's a considerable amount of money and I would appreciate it if that information that got shared with the counselors also got shared with those of us who are citizen members of the finance community. Thanks. Lucia? Yeah, thank you. I just wanted to first appreciate everything that Bernie just said. I agree with that and also emphasize something that Ray brought up in terms of the advertisement because there's really not any place on the rec site or brochure or anywhere that says that you can have a subsidy. Not like you can't add things to your cart on the website and then see that you can have a subsidy and all you'll see is like a really huge bill and that would definitely discourage people from being in services. And I also just want to point out because in my personal experience it's difficult when you have multiple children. And so like for one of my kids to do basketball camp is already like $300. And what do I do if all three of my kids want to be in basketball? And if you're thinking about those things in terms of being strategic and how those people with multiple kids can participate in things that are fairly pricey, but that are beneficial. And you all do a great job though. We really love your services. So thank you. Are there other questions about the recreation budget? I don't see any coming up and I won't get into swimming pools because that's something that becomes something that I rely on. Kathy, did you have anything else? Or if not, then I want to thank you both. Ray, thank you for being here and for your very good presentation and being so open to answering questions and Mary and also. So I think that we're getting on towards our time and we need to conclude. There's I think one member of the public here. And if you wish to offer any comment, you're welcome to do so and just raise your hand and we will bring you into the room and allow for so that you can use the public comment opportunity. So I think we need to bring to my mills into the room if we can. And go ahead, please give us a name and tell us and make a comment. Hi, this is Lauren Mills. Actually, that's my son's name. I live in South Amherst and I am on the board of health. And I'm surprised I'm the only one in the audience today, but I just wanted to make comment and some notes about the issue and the the Amherst Rec and recreation for you. That was just discussed and there was a comment made earlier in that presentation about, you know, comparing a basketball court. I'm the ones that are unkept and the highest in front of the high school and comparing that to urban courts and it kind of, I guess, just made me think that making those kinds of comparisons, you know, of what is normal and accepted in, you know, what is not acceptable in other neighborhoods is just it really hit home to me that with communities of color, sometimes we just accept certain things that should be unacceptable. And for the Amherst Rec, their assessment, I would really like to know how the public is being brought in and included into that that assessment because as I've stated in other community meetings that, you know, children who live in affordable housing complex, like myself and my three children, we have the space and the basketball courts here and so forth, but there's not a lot of organized activities for the youth and there's a lot of, you know, free time that they have after school if they don't go to after school program and I just see that, you know, as a precaution as, you know, a preventive measure that there should be more creative thought about how Amherst Rec reaches out to communities of color and it would just be nice to like have the monies that were put toward ARPA to be used to have more creative and new initiatives to reach these youth and I'm sorry if I'm, you know, stumbling a little bit, but I think it's also important for the council to realize that sometimes parents of color have to like say things five or more times to really be heard and that's not always the case for others in the Amherst community so I just would like to share as a parent again and someone who is really, you know, trying to make sure that the youth are not, you know, being forgotten in the whole, you know, allocations of ARPA funds and other funding is that, you know, the Amherst Rec and their assessments and their new initiatives really be including like a way to really reach out to the youth which would also perhaps be also transportation, transportation as a way to to and allow more youth to like get to these activities so I guess what I'm trying to say is that it would be nice to see Amherst Rec if they're going to be involved in the youth empowerment project, whatever that project ends up looking like is that they come to where the youth are and then also they allow the youth a way to get to these activities out there and charge them. Thank you so much. And thank you. That was very helpful and appreciated. Sean, did you have anything you want to, because we need to conclude? Yeah, I know we don't normally respond to public comment but I just want to thank Ms. Mills. She was one of the few people who provided a lot of input during the ARPA listening sessions and that input contributed to one of the allocations that we set aside for the Recreation Department to do some of the things that she described so again I just want to thank her so again I just want to thank her for the input that she shared and for working with us during that process. So seeing the other hands I wanted again thank Ms. Mills for her comments today. And again, I'm afraid if you have any concluding thoughts in response and otherwise I think we can conclude the meeting with just some preview of next week. No, I'm okay. I would just like to thank everybody again for the opportunity. This was a good first experience for me. I'm happy I'm standing up right now and even to walk out of here feeling like I can't wait to get to the next one. So this budget stuff is fun. I don't know. See Sean, some people think the budgets are fine. So we know we have our goal set out for next week. I think that and we have a Tuesday meeting is going to focus on public safety including Cres and so it's going to be a very interesting meeting if everybody knows who the assignments are. I think Kathy has a large role in framing questions to begin that discussion and we talked about Thursday which is going to be in public works and public work related enterprise funds which is a meeting that Kathy's actually going to be the chair of. So that is next week's preview. The last thing that I wanted to say and I'll see if anybody else has any concluded comments from the committee is that I have started work on a report to for the council packet on Monday and I will try and get a draft out to you this evening with it. It is not going to be long. It needs to focus on two things. One is it's covered to provide third quarter report which we were presented to last week about third quarter and to give some context to it so that because there was a lot of good discussion that I'm trying to reflect in the draft which has been the major challenge. The other thing that we need to do in including the report is about the water and sewer rates because we did vote the water and sewer rate and that needs to be included in the report. I will make reference in the draft to the process that we're engaged in now but point out that we do not summarize our discussions until we have recommendations at the end of the process and I'm counting on all of the committee members who have sections that they've been assigned to to help to draft in those sections that fit within their areas. So that's kind of where I can conclude it and I don't know if there's anything else from the committee so just pause for one moment to see if there's anybody who raises hands and if not going once going twice. Lynn, do you need to adjourn the council meeting before I adjourn the finance committee? I do. I am adjourning the council meeting at 11.54. And I am adjourning the finance committee meeting at the same time. So thank you and have a good, we'll see you on Tuesday.