 for meeting to order. And first on the agenda is a public comment. This is for anything about the informational hearing, which is the topic tonight that you don't feel like we've got on the agenda. Cancel online. I'll entertain a motion to approve the agenda. So moved. Second. All those in favor? Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion carries. So this will be a public hearing and informational meeting about the police district budget, which is should the ballots are out at this time. Do you want to walk folks through it, Trevor? Sure. There's some basics to. Yeah, just the basics. Start maybe with why we're here with the defeat of the budget presented to voters in March statute and visions that we will come back with a revised budget. There's a process set up for that. It's before voters on the 16th, which is the actual day of the special election, is a revised FY24 police district budget. That's for July 1, 2023 through June 30, 2024. This hearing is part of that statutory process. All of this information is available in different spots, mostly online. I'll end one piece right on the sidebar on the home page. The proposed revised budget is 524102. This is a decrease of about $247,000 from the one proposed in March. We primarily get there through the reduction in number of full-time officers and switching over to some part-time capacity, about 1,100 hours worth, so a little less or a little more than half of a year for a full-time position. We are seeking some COPS grant funding to offset some of the costs for the third full-time officer. Most of the cuts came in the personnel piece. Police budgets, much like our other municipal budgets, are heavily weighted toward personnel costs, the way we provide services with the people to do it. And sometimes we buy expensive things, like dump trucks and cop cars and whatnot. This would raise from taxes. That's the amount that goes into the tax rate calculation. It's roughly the same number as the current fiscal year. I think it's a little bit less. 324294, that's from everybody inside the police district. We do have some non-tax revenue. I mentioned the COPS grant is probably the big source of that. That also includes any sort of fine or ordinance enforcement revenues, some of those things that we may charge and get smaller dollar amounts for other services we provide. The $100,000 transfer from the general fund is in there as well. That's for that, essentially, payment for service. If you remember, we renamed it from March until now to better reflect that it's going to be more of a contractual arrangement than sort of a services agreement than it is sort of a straight kind of everywhere service payment. So what we're actually projecting, and keep in mind, this is an estimate based on grand list numbers that we have today using the one that we set for the tax rates last August, taking a three or four year historic growth rate, which is a little less than 2 tens of 1%, trying to figure out if everything stays relatively the same, where's the grand list end up? What does that mean from a tax rate perspective? So there's a slight decrease that could result anywhere from, say, $6 in change to $13 in change for people with properties between $200,000 and $400,000 of value. It is not the same level of service that we had under the contract from a number of hours and number of officers. It's not the same level of service that we had when we had a Randolph Police Department. It is a starting place. It will be less than that. We've tried to estimate that, but until we were at a spot where we have a budget, we have a known number, we have a known sort of staff. It's a little hard to pin down exactly. We've estimated 80 to 100 hours. 100 hours is kind of the coverage window each week. Some of that's because you might have two people on and overlapping. You might have one person on at different points. There'll be shifts that maybe aren't covered at all, particularly in the early morning hours, for example. Like I said, all of the details up on the website. You can see a budget summary, a budget memo, a property tax table, the entire revised budget. Four versions of frequently asked questions up there. We just updated the most recent one to reflect that ballots were mailed. Said ballots will be mailed. Ballots were mailed to all registered voters inside the police district. That was done as a way to try to increase turnout. We had about 22, 23% last time. So if we can inch that number up, it means that more people were able to participate and that's always a good thing. I think those are the basics in the summary. We are up and running now with two officers and an administrative assistant. We're using the money unspent from the contract of the Sheriff's Department to fund those operations. And the board set aside some ARPA funds to outfit a police department. So those have gone into acquiring vehicles, equipment and that type of stuff. So one of the topics that's come up is the $100,000 that's in the general fund budget. There seems to be a fair amount of confusion about that and how it's accessed and whatnot. Those funds are there. The same as we had money in there for the Orange County Sheriff under contract to provide services to cover outside of the district. Those will be used in the same manner but it will be the police district will be contracting with the rest of the town to provide those services outside of the town. So I've seen where some folks said there's already $100,000 to fund the police district if this fails, that's not true. There has to be a police department to contract with in order for those services to be able to be provided. So just one item to make sure it's clarified out there. All right, so at this time, the comments or questions about the police department's budget, that's out there to me to go along. So we'll let folks ask a question. It's just a comment, I think it just, if the comments are already been made, let it stand, six people saying the same comment it's still the same comment. Not that it's saying less importantly but there's quite a few people online as well as in person. So to start here in the room, if I may ask if it's appropriate for people speaking either in the room or online to identify themselves and whether they live within or outside the police district if that's appropriate, I don't know if you can make that a reference. And it should just be people in the district. So people ask questions about what they're voting on is what the hearing is. All right, just wanted to clarify that point. We can have the conversation at the end of the next time about next steps. But this is a hearing specifically for what's being voted on. Thanks for that clarification. Yep. So do we have anybody here in the room that has a question? This could be easy. I have a question. And it's Dennis. Identify yourself. Harvey Porter, I'm in the district. My question is if the district kind of gets reestablished now by what mechanism do you foresee the district expanding? In the past, it was always a vote of the people outside the district to join. Is that how it would be likely to see it? Or is the plan to next year come back and do a town-wide district and vote as a town on that police point? So that's not a question about the budget that people are voting on. But we'll take that topic up after we get through people's questions on what the valid issue is. And Gernes, is there anybody online that has a question about the valid item? I have a question. Hang on just a second. Not seeing any. I'm Kristen Chandler. I'm a town resident. Is it my understanding that if this budget gets voted down, then we will not have any police coverage in the town? If this budget gets voted down, there will be no money to pay police officers come July 1. So I guess rather than say no police coverage, we'd have to rely pretty much solely on state police. Right. Thank you. I mean, DePorter, I live within the district. Could you please go over again, if this is voted down, what will happen to the assets and what will happen not only will we lose the police officers, but how the town will have to go about reapplying so that we could at some point have a police department? I don't know that we've sorted out yet. What the steps will be if this is voted down. So I don't know that I have an answer for you. It doesn't just automatically terminate the police department, if that's what you're thinking. We don't just go into non-existent. I think we've got to sort out what that would be. We do not have enough time if this gets voted down to develop another budget and put it out to vote and have another vote by July 1. So there will be no funding to operate come July 1. Does that mean, what does that mean? I'm really not sure. We actually just had a conversation earlier this afternoon about is there another option? Is there some type of action the board could take to do anything? And I'm not sure the answer to that. We're still researching that. But at this point, I would say that all the assets are there, the department is still there. We probably would not have any staff because I for one wouldn't stay somewhere where there was no money to pay me come July 1. Marty? I'm Marty Strange in the district. The $100,000 is voted in the general fund, the town meeting. Right. Will become available on July 1st. Right. And it's earmarked to be designated for use by the police system. Incorrect. Well, that's what it said in the ballot. Police services. That's what people voted on. And that's what the frequently asked questions that they base their votes on. It says it's for police services. So the town has for years had a line item in the general fund budget for contracted police services. And that's what that line item is. But that line item was for contract with the Orange County Sheriff's Department. It's quite a different thing to say you're a contractor yourself. Well, we're not over contracting with a special district within the town. Okay. So by doing that, by doing that, what you're saying is that we're not going to use police officers from the police district to provide police services outside of the police district. And the terms of the merger agreement said the police district can only exist in the extent that the services are not common to the rest of the town. The police district services are not common to the rest of the town, but now they are if you're going to use them to provide service outside of the district. And so it gets to be a question of how is that $100,000 going to be tracked? Are we going to know how much of that money is spent outside the district by the police district and how much is spent inside the district by the police district? Because in the frequently asked questions, and I don't know by the way the status of that, does the board vote on releasing the frequently asked questions, is that a document of the board can the voters rely on what's in those documents? That's the word of the board. Wow. Those are questions that are posed to us at other steps meetings, and they're taken down with notes, and then they're re-input into the system as the patrons have asked them to do the numbers. You might know what the answer is before the time they have to vote. Of course, a lot of people have already voted, but it seems to me that what you've done here in kind of a left handed way is you've created a town-wide police district. I'm hiring the police district to provide police services that were not previously available, or were not supposed to be available outside of the police district, and now are, and I think that didn't mean that the fact that we're going to execute this chapter one, section five of the merger which says that if the town decides to go to town-wide, the police department must all be paid for a town-wide fund. And I think that's what we're doing. I agree, but I don't understand you. I have some other questions here. I don't want to monopolize, but I hope that you'll come back to me if others have any questions. We'll assess their hand-up, so what's question number two? Hang on. It'll be question number three. Can you please ask, when people are talking, could they try to talk loudly? Because people are behind us, and some in front of us, and some of us are getting old. I'll be happy to be. Most people complain last night, too loud. I agree. Thank you. It seems to be, it needs to be, if this $100,000 is going to be available both inside and outside the district, and it seems to me that it is by the language that's in the frequently asked questions. You're thinking of the budget summary memo, Marty, because looking at the most recent version of the FAQs, the only illusion reference to the general fund payment for services in the table. Yeah, but the general fund services were approved at town meeting. Right, I'm just trying to cite the right document and follow along. That's what's binding on the use of the general fund. Right, I'm just trying to provide the right citation here, that's all. Well, I think I have the right citation. Where are you finding it in the FAQs, is what is, what are the questions? I'm looking at version one from 5.5.2023, are we looking at different versions? No, that's for the current, that's for the budget that's before us now, but the budget that was before the public when we voted at town meeting to put the $100,000 into play. That's a different budget. And it's that frequently asked questions, memo that I'm talking about. When it says not only is that money gonna be available for use in the police district, but the voters can count on it to be not a one-time use, but a continuous supplement. As an agreement for services. And so we're comparing a transfer for a budget that was defeated to a new one that's revised. That agreement for services came later when it was convenient for you guys to talk about it then, but it was not what was on the ballot in March. Marty, not to hurt you, but we've been pretty adamant that that had to be a contract for services. That came out very early in the budget development process. I'm not saying it doesn't have to be a contract. I'm saying that whether it's a contract or not, you're creating a de facto convoy police service. So we could actually take that money and go contract with the Sheriff's Department again. Yes, you could. In the county or somebody like that. The challenge with that is then it financially will impact the viability of the police district. But my second question that I'm trying to get to and I haven't been able to, is if we're gonna spend some of that money outside of the police district, but not all of it. It's all for outside of the police district. $100,000 is for services outside of the district. Jack's payers in the police district are paying for police services outside the police district. And I think that violates the merger agreement. My question in the back, Tom. Yeah, Tom Malachuk, I just have a question. Could you clarify just one of the boundaries of the police district? Are the people who are outside of the police district paying taxes on this budget and what we're talking about? The vote that's coming this underway right now with the mail ballots, are those taxes are only for the people inside the police district. What is the police district? I live in Randolph Center. You're not it. That's what I'm thinking. That's what you wanted to know. I think it's Fish Hill, right? It goes to... Roughly, it's the old village boundaries. Where's Scott? Right here. He could probably describe what he has to drive. So if you're headed out of town on 66, right where that bridge is, as you're heading out of town, where the speed limit changes from 25 to 35, that would be a boundary. If you're headed out past Gifford towards Shaw's, where the speed limit changes from 25 to 3540, that's the village line, Kenny. Okay, so the second part of my question was are people outside of the district paying taxes on this budget? Not only one that's being voted down, but the 100,000 that's in for services outside of the limits of the village, they are. And that was voted in March. They already did. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. By Amber Terry, I'm in the village as well. To be quite as clear about it, was that $100,000 spent in previous years? Like I think you're only talking about, like if somebody in Randolph's center or outside of the village in Randolph calls the police, then essentially the village would send a bill to the town for that call. Is that what you mean? Or is it just a blanket, $100,000 that gets spent? It'll be on some level of service. Per call basis. And so if you look in the past, contract with Orange County Sheriff was 25,000. But like Grangerie does this as well in Brookfield, they all pay on a per call basis for whoever shows up. Is that right? Well, Brookfield had a contract with Orange County Sheriff. I don't know that Braintree's ever had one. What we learned when we were looking at the service calls is there is a fair number of calls that Orange County Sheriff went to that were outside of the district and the district was paying for them. Or they were part of Orange County services, they provide county-wide. And so when we looked at how to set that number, it only seemed fair that it'd be set higher because the people in the district shouldn't be absorbing the cost for the calls that are... So that's a reflection of the increased need for services outside of the district? It's not an increase in need. It's accurately reflecting how they're going to pay for now because Orange County Sheriff isn't part of the mix. Orange County Sheriff absorbed a lot of that in their budget and they're not doing it anymore. So those calls are still coming in and somebody's got to pay for them. So if they're not in that allocation of funding, then they're coming out of the district's money. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. I'd just like to point out, not withstanding what a 40-year-old plus merger agreement says, this method of funding police services in municipalities with the village and town component is very consistent with what goes on in other village and town municipalities around the state. One example that I've just discovered recently because I'm involved in writing about the search for a new police chief in Woodstock is Woodstock, where the village trustees hire and manage the police department, the police chief in the police department and the town pays for police services on a per-call basis. Tom, thank you for your pardon. That's not a merged village and town. Right, that's definitely- We are a merge. Right, right, right, but- Well, it makes a difference. Well, it makes a difference, but it kind of gets down to splitting hairs a bit when we're talking about having adequate police services for the town while we make that transition. And it's not a transition, you can wave a magic wand over and make happen overnight. That's why we're here. Believe me, I have all my hair split. Under the trick we asked questions, it's estimated that with this budget, we could provide no more than 80 to 100 hours of coverage per week, and I got that right. And under the Orange County Sheriff's Department budget, they were supposed to provide 120 hours in the district. But the 80 to 100 hours that's in this budget is not all in the district because 100,000 of that is being used and as you've just told me, all of that is going to be used to provide service outside the district. So what's left to provide service of this $539,000 budget, what's left to provide service inside the village is more like $65 or $70 per week. Do I have my math right on that? I don't know what you're doing for math right now, Marty. Well, I'm trying to point out that $100,000 of the $539 is a general fund money that can only be spent outside in the police district. So if you can only provide 180 to 100 hours per week, then not all of it can be in the police district because 18% of it has got to be outside Well, our agreement with Orange County Sheriff's 120 for all the town and village. It was just the district. Orange County was 20 for the town. I read all those contracts. It was just for the village and the program point. So I think it's hard to say that it's exact for that but you're probably getting close. Okay. And here's why. An officer doesn't spend all their payroll hours patrolling in the city. Absolutely. No matter where it is, right? They have training requirements, they have leave, they have, they might get involved in a situation that requires a whole lot of paperwork, documenting, being in court, transporting people. There's a whole variety of services they provide. So can we tell you that exactly X number of hours will be in the village and exactly X number of hours will be outside? No, but you're probably in that realm. I'm not asking to tell me exactly. I'm asking you to agree with me. I'm gonna be less. I'm not gonna tap this. I'm not gonna be less. I'm not gonna be less. Allocation of hours when the budget will pay will only be within the police district because of accurate. I was gonna tap the idea to 100 because the budget is, okay, 80% of the budget is outside. All right. So I'm glad. Hang on to another question. Hang on to this discussion. Go ahead. So I'm Gus Meyer. I live within the police district. So there's, the actual budget is not $570,000 and $670,000 for the police force. No, no. It's $524.102. What's that? $524.102 is the total. There's a hundred that comes from the general fund as that service agreement to pay a portion of that $524.102. And you take non-tax revenue off that. So the amount to be raised by taxes in the districts, the $324. Okay. So the, when you estimated 80 to 100 hours of police time, that was the total. Correct. So it includes the services, so Marty's right, that it includes the services outside the district. So the services within the district will be less than 80 hours. The budget isn't for only within the police district. Oh, wait, hang on, there's no back. Genevieve Byrne, I live within the district. I didn't understand something that I think you said earlier, which was that if we spent that $100,000, like if on the contract with the sheriff's department, for instance, it would affect the viability of the police district or something. Is that, am I getting that right? And I didn't understand what you meant by that. The budget's built is to provide a level of service. And to cover the expenses of the police district with that model. If you take a $100,000 out of it, you can't have that same model. You now got a, you may have one less officer, which then impacts your ability to provide service because you don't have the staff to cover shifts or to provide backup or do different functions. Can I just ask one more question? Um, I may have been able to get this information by looking at the FAQ, but how different is the proposed budget from what we're currently paying for two officers and an administrative assistant? How much does it expand beyond what we're using right now? We would add another full-time officer slot paid for in large part through a federal COPS grant if we're lucky to get it. And then there's 1,100 hours of part-time capacity to try to build out that coverage model. So those would be the two additions to what we're currently caring. And what's the cost currently? It's probably gonna be in the 135 to 140 range is what we're thinking based on the unspent amount from the contract, but I haven't looked at a budget status report. Per year. I remember that's not annual. That's what money was available to get through the rest of this business. That's essentially a February to June 30th kind of amount. I did. Well, I don't know if it's a comment on the question, but I'm wondering if people are aware that if we didn't have a police department here, we would be the only town in all of Vermont that has a hospital and a mental health agency that wouldn't have a police department. And I'm also wondering if the voters are aware that the Bethel Barracks, if we're gonna need to rely on the state police, the only barracks in the whole state that does not have an embedded mental health worker, while there's funding for that, they haven't been able to hire anybody and retain anybody there. Every other barracks in the state has an embedded mental health worker who can respond to mental health calls. And I just, that's a real concern for me if we don't have that capacity here. If we have to rely on, and hopefully at some point, they will be able to find the right person for that position at the barracks, but it's a real concern for me as a citizen. They have a hospital and a mental health agency and a state police barracks that doesn't have the resources that every other town in Vermont does have. Do you have more questions? All right. I got it, okay. Nobody wants to go in that police department. Yeah, I'm absolutely sure. Well, well, I'm not gonna comment on that. I'm not among those. I think there is time to rewrite a sensible budget that provides more adequate protection for the police, for the village. I know it's gonna take some clever work, but you've proven to be very clever already. I'm sure you can be even more clever. There's arbor money that can be used. There's the general fund money that's gonna become available in January 1st or July 1st. They can be used. There's creativity and we can take the time to do this right and come up with a police budget that is more adequate than what we have before us now. If this budget passes as it is, those of you who hope that we will someday have a town-wide police department and this committee that's to be created subsequent to this vote, and we'll have six months to discuss how to restructure policing in Randolph and that we could get a majority of the select board to put on the ballot for next town meeting, a town-wide department. Why in the world would anybody, if this budget passes, why in the world would anybody who lives outside of the police district vote to pass that budget? It would, it had no reason to do it because they got $10,000 that's gonna put in the bank every year for them to draw on for all the police protection that they need and if they vote in a town-wide department they're gonna have to pay through the general fund for all the police service and they're not gonna do it. So it's probably hot to think we're gonna be able to have a skinny police department for six months or eight months and then come away with a town-wide department, it's not gonna happen. We need to take care of the village now. We need to take care of it with an adequate budget and we don't have it here. Yes, Trevor. Can you go over what happens on January 1st if we switch and use the general fund money to... July 1st. Yes, July 1st. Can you answer what happens if we went and use general fund money to fund a police department by going town-wide, let's just hypothetically say tomorrow? What would happen? I mean, some of it is you don't have the funding and if this budget goes down and you don't have the cops then July 1 whether you have money or not becomes kind of a mood point. Right. And so we've set that up and then it gets into, are there other options out there? How far, even if you could use the 100,000 it's not gonna go terribly far, especially if you're talking about covering an entire town you've circumvented the process that we've already essentially committed to to involve the public to set up for a vote. That's before you get into any questions about debt for example. Debt. And that's where it can really get undemocratic and dicey and that's why that hasn't, isn't really an option, it's meant for emergencies. Something's exploded, something's flooded. So basically, if according to the letter that we got back from the attorney, it's not prudent to just discontinue the police district right now because and implement a town-wide police force that expands all the way to the perimeters of Randolph. Right now. The best path for that to happen would be at the next actual town meeting so that a general fund police budget can be created. If we went into that and voted out a police district and correct me if I go off the rails here and went town-wide tomorrow to implement a budget that comes from the general fund this year starting July 1, you can't do it without going into a deficit and that's what Trevor is saying because all of that general fund money, some people said they didn't know what he just said, all of that general fund money is already allocated to the admin positions here at the town hall, the rec department, your highway funds which we're trying to get your roads graded right now. All of those things. So a police fund in the general budget would create a half a million dollar deficit and then all of that would have to be recuperated next year. So you have a negative, we'll say half a million dollars to stand up a proper police department and then you have to make up for that next year and we've seen that in other areas of the government with deficits and so you'd be essentially paying double next year in your taxes, nobody wants to go there. I don't know why you're addressing those comments to me because I'm not taking any of those positions. I'm not picking at everybody. I'm not taking any of those positions. We just heard Trevor say that the current leftover money from the Orange County Sheriff's Department is carrying our skeletal force right now for six months. $100,000 in July 1st and the general fund money can carry that skeletal force for a couple months. Four months. And it's stretching in large part because for a while Scott was the only officer on. We were picking backing on BSB's dispatch capability. Some of these things that we have now had to take on fully pay for our own staffing so that window that it's covered is probably smaller than that if we maintain the operating footprint we have. And then if you were to throw in the wrinkle of increased mileage, power, yeah. I mean we're still, this goes back to the analogy from I think February where it's like if we're gonna build a house, which is kind of what we're doing, we need a foundation first. We're spending a lot of time on what are we gonna put in the house, what type of appliances, what color should the paint be, the roof, all of these things there's gonna be time to get to. And if we don't build a solid foundation, we've got some really nice curtains hanging from a tree limb kind of a thing like we don't have anything to put them in. There's not a window. Is this a perfect model? Well it's the one that we moved to after the one that we tried that would have provided for a more expensive footprint was voted down. So we've downsized the house plan but it still starts from that bottom and we build up from there. I wanted to take a slightly different take on things that Marnie has. As a person who lives in the village, I would love to see a townwide police force. I think that a great deal of what happens with our police force is really a service to the entire town and not just the village. I've been paying for a village police force for 40 years and I'd love to share some of that load. I happen to think that what you have done I think is fairly inspired that I don't know if it's legal as Marnie's alluding to but if it can happen, the idea may be the most palatable for the town as a whole is to indeed have a village police department and contracted services for the rest of the town. Because there are some different needs, I don't expect that we want to, there's no way this town wants to afford a police force that can do patrols throughout the entire geography of Randolph. So there are some different elements to this and having some sort of means whereby the needs of the town at large are met as well as the needs of the village which are somewhat more concentrated, I think is a great thing. I also think that there are all sorts of questions to be asked in terms of where does the town really stand on this, where does the voters stand on this so the idea that you're having a committee to study this over some period of time I think also makes sense. And that also will give time to find out whether or not you really can under the current structure actually contract out to the services out to the town as a whole. But I do think that given all of that, and what Trevor was talking about, I think if indeed we go with this budget and the previous budget was defeated so we've got to do something different and probably less so that's what you've done and if it proves inadequate, people can petition and we can have another vote and we can increase the budget in a moment of the year, can't we, if that were to be our desire? I don't think you can. Well, I'm asking, you end up going in a deficit to make it up in your next poll. You can't have a special allocation vote. We go again for yet another revised budget. In all the time doing this, close to two decades, I've never seen a process where a budget's defeated, goes to a no tax rate impact beginners budget and then goes north again. It's highly unusual. Statute says that we keep revising, but it's almost never peaks and valleys sets of revisions. And the higher number we know for a variety of reasons wasn't the winner. So the town cannot, in my pricks, I'd be a vote on a new police station. You do that necessarily on the town meeting day. Is there no mechanism so if we have this 100,000, we'll cover us for two months. In that two months, is it not possible to create a town-wide motion, whatever, to say, okay, well, we're gonna pass this amount of money for a police department? Is that not really possible? Statute re-envisions that you go back to the voters with a defeated budget. There isn't a mechanism to revisit an approved budget, except for the annual meeting the following year. Okay, so, but if the budget were voted down, then that could happen. The police district budget, and then it's a police district budget vote over and over until there's a right number. What's that? The general fund budget might pass. Right, but you can't. We go back and visit that again in March. You can't add to your general fund budget by a special appropriation somewhere. Now, once it's passed, it's set until March. Okay, yeah. What Gus just said sounded like a pretty, correct me if I'm wrong, the ringing endorsement of exactly the way we're closing the seat. I don't know if I have a ring endorsement. I'm sorry, but I do think that what you come up with, it makes sense to me. I mean, I'm a very big fan of the town life force. How you get there like that looks like in the end. I don't know because I'm also not wanting to have something where we feel like something was forced on them. So I think not only exactly where you get to, but how you get there are things that need to be sorted out. I think what we've heard is that people want to understand what the services are that need to be provided. There's some disagreement in the types of service town police force should be doing. There's a level of service question. There's a lot of conversation taking place over who the right party is to provide what type of service. And so I think all that has to be sorted out. And then you hear somebody on the Clay White Road saying, well, if they go by your house five times a day, they got to go by my house five times a day. So now you're up to exactly what you said. You know, they're not gonna patrol Clay White Road five times a day, right? So it's the level of service. After you define what that service is, what's the level of service that that should be? And then what does that budget look like? And when we get done with the sticker shot, we may be going back to visit what the level of services and what the services are and whatnot to get down to that. But I think you're spot on when you say there's a whole conversation about the level of service in the police district currently versus the level of service in the rest of the town. And what does that model then look like and how do you meet it? And it's also an opportunity, as you were saying, Trini, to look at what do we actually want from a police force? Because there's a gazillion different things that police do. And I think it's a wonderful opportunity for the community as a whole to say, what kind of police force do we want to have? We haven't had that conversation all the time in here, so that would be a great time to do it. I think the other thing that's nice, if this does pass, we'll actually have very firm data. The way Scott has implemented it, the system, it's a little bit different like the state police came before and said, Randolph, but that's not village versus town. And so the way the data is coming in now, we're really seeing what calls are going where. And that will give us informed decision making because then we have people who think nothing happens on Hospital Hill and there's been calls on Hospital Hills lately. So having that information of what's really happening in the village and town is going to help us kind of understand what services we do need to. I think the proposed police services committee provides an excellent opportunity for us to come together as a community and examine all these questions. You're absolutely right. Policing today is about a gazillion different things, as you said. And this is in Mayberry RFD in the Andy Griffith Show anymore. Policing in rural communities is very different from what it was when the town and village merged 40 years ago. And we need to be thinking about the breadth of services that police can provide, not just crime prevention, not just traffic patrols, but as Kristen suggested, working with our youths and counseling mentor relationships, working on mental health issues, working against domestic violence, which we have in our community, working against animal cruelty. There's a whole wealth of things that make policing for the whole town a desirable thing from my point of view. We're one community. We're not two separate entities that should be warring at one another over this point. And that police services committee will give us an opportunity to look at all these complex questions and come before the community and come before the voters, six months from now in a town meeting next year with a proposal that hopefully the vast majority of Randolphians will support. Considering also the liabilities, if we don't pass up a police budget and maybe a minor one for the town and for the citizens, there's a lot of liabilities out there. Can we afford to be sued then after a judicator? All that stuff? No, there's any liability on the town. If we don't have a police district, because a lot of towns don't have them. I know if you have one and we don't respond correctly, then you get into a challenge. I think it's about 23. Yeah, well, I can sue you for wearing an orange vest. No, I'm not wearing an orange vest. No, I'm not wearing an orange vest. No, I'm not wearing an orange vest. No, I'm not wearing an orange vest. I think Marty touched on this. And my viewpoint is slightly different than his, but along the same lines is that if you start out with such a small budget, even if we just continue to talk about the district and not incorporating police services for the entire town, other than the $100,000 that's been earmarked, you can't go from, or I don't foresee the voters going from a Ugo-style budget or a one-bedroom apartment-style budget for a 15-member family to then building a big mansion. And that's my point, is that you can't go from this skeleton crew to a realistically manned force. You're not gonna get there. It's gonna have to go in baby steps because you've seen that people don't wanna spend money even if it's not that much out of their own pocket. So that's my concern, is going from the skeleton crew to hopefully a realistically funded police force. I don't see it happening. And that's my only concern with voting yes on this particular budget is that we've got such a huge way to go to get it to be a fully funded department, even if we're just talking about within the village. That presumes that the budget which failed in March failed because people felt it was too high. And I don't believe it's accurate that that's why it didn't pass. It didn't pass because a significant amount of people in the village wanted to use a no vote as a leverage to force town-wide policing on the entire community. Or they didn't understand. I agree with you that it might not have been about money. But instead of looking at that and why it happened, instead we dropped the budget. Well we did hear from Kelly that all the people she talked to, it was the dollar value. They didn't want their taxes to go away. And so we heard that repeatedly. Well when the town auditor says some, she's our elected official. So when that person brings the spiel, you have to take that a little bit seriously. Yeah, well that's a whole other kettle of fit. Right. But that's just saying as the elected official. I agree, I agree with you entirely. But. Yep, well. It's a defund the police mentality that's behind it. I have something else that I'm trying to say. I have, but like, so. If you want to chat, you can go out. So as we move forward with ideas of what we're going to do, it doesn't mean that the district is going to be the only people paying for the police next year. So our grand list values are like, what, one third in village and two third out. So what's like, our grand list values? Is that all right guys? That's okay. The orange vest caught my eye. I think I don't wear the squirrel. I don't believe in that, Jim, I'm ready. We have a lot more taxes coming in from just like, so if we did expand the police district or whatever we decide to do, whatever the decision is for next year, you know, to take it step by step, but we aren't taxing, hopefully won't be taxing just the village next year. Hopefully we'll have some income coming in from the grand list from outside of the village, right? I mean, it all depends on the structure we end up with. So if you do an expanded police district and that's approved, then it becomes the grand list value inside those expanded boundaries. And the example that's come up for historic and other reasons is it goes down and grabs, say the Shaw's Plaza and goes up and grabs the barn or the parking right. Those are common areas of calls. So any of that value that goes in those expanded boundaries becomes part of that dollar figure that the tax rates are calculated on. If you went town-wide, it would just be across the entire grand list. So with each model who pays and what that value is changes. So if you imagine like every house has equal value and everyone's paying $300 a year towards the budget and you have a hundred houses paying that versus having five hundred houses pay for that or what I mean, that's just I'm throwing out numbers. But so it's not necessarily that like we're going to stick with this budget and skeleton crew and then everyone's going to pay $2 million next year. But you know, like there's going to be something in the middle and it's not going to, hopefully we'll see what happens. And that's the thing is like we need to get to the next step to see what we can do for that. Your budget will go up as you recover. Right, yeah, true, true, true. Yeah, it's, yeah. But the economy's a scale, yeah. Yeah, the economy's a scale. So if you're only taxing a portion of the grand list versus you know, whatever comes out of it. So it's not just a straight, dry like everyone in the village is going to pay $300 this year. Next year they're going to pay $100,000, you know, whatever, so. And I get that. I understand that. But like you said, it's one step at a time, right? And right now we're still talking about just the village. So before we can even get to spreading the wealth, so to speak, right? Or we need a service here. Right, that's what this is about. And in order to provide services that are adequate to the town, it's got to be a lot more than the 80 hours, less whatever we're spending outside the district, right? So my concern is that you can't go from here to here in one year. It's gonna take multiple years if Kelly was correct that it was about money, which I think for some people it is, some people think that we don't need police here, that social workers are the answer to most of what goes on here. I don't agree with that. But again, I don't think you're going to find the voters whether it's a townwide or whether it remains in the district. I don't think you're gonna take a small budget and then make it a realistic budget. You've got too much of a gap to fill. That's my concern is that now we've got an even further gap than we did in October. We'll be even worse if we have no budget this year and then we jump to a budget next year, so. And I do agree with you on some level. Is it insufficient? Absolutely, it also might not be. We don't know and that's what this committee is about. You know, this is for providing a base level of services based off of a budget that was requested at the, wow, that was March, three days, yeah. At the select board meeting. And I don't want to say the word hopefully, but based off of the level of services that are provided until June 30th of next year, if it gets approved, then maybe the community will see based off of the communication and the transparency that yes, in fact, we do need more of a budget because we didn't get to have fourth of July because there was no police allowing us to close the street or we can't have Halloween because there was no police to close the street or we don't have protection for our school because somebody was at the hospital and we only have one and a half police officers on duty. So I don't want to call those what they are, but there are levels of services that are expected and that are needed and the only way that we can get there is by having some baseline level to collect data from and then proceed from there. If we vote this down, there's no data, everybody's ghosting each other. It might turn into Randolph Gotham City, we don't know because there'll be no police there locally to account for those data points. And you can't count in my humble opinion on the outside forces stepping up to cover an emergency here. They've made it clear that they do not have the person power to make that happen at the Royalton barracks. They've been very clear about that. And that's important in my humble opinion for people to know. And I think that there are people that have buried their heads in the sand on it. Oh, you probably want to know who I am. I'm Mary McMillan and I do live in the district. Thank you, ma'am. Some people know me already, so you know me. And it won Pearl II. We had heard that the challenge of having one officer on covering the town, now imagine what it's like to be in the state police position and have to cover multiple towns with how many on at a time? Three, we cover 20 towns. Oh my God. Three officers at a time covering 20 towns. Wow. So you have one series of acts on the other state. Just crazy when something like, sorry BSP, but after the accident that happened yesterday, those guys, they had to focus there. Anything else that was going on just had to go by the wayside. And without individuals here, you've got an issue because on the rare chance that something does happen, you're basically out of luck. You are just, there you go. And that's really scary. I'm sorry, there are not a lot of seniors in this community and if something happened, they would be lost. And they'd be lost both mentally and physically if they didn't have anybody to turn to. It's, when I think of the people at the red lion or the people, well even when I was pastoring the red brick church, it was a senior congregation. If something happened to somebody there, if I wasn't a person they could talk to, then there were big troubles. If there isn't a police force to be able to step up locally to support the people in the community, it's just a tough game you're gonna play. I'm originally from New York state. Have friends that are cops. And man, these guys have tough lives. Other questions? No, you're good. Fine. Fine. Not seeing any. Creating times, but a reasonable question. Kim Callagher from the Herald, also in the police district. The Herald to your residents. Yeah, exactly. And what are the statutory obligations for a warning and having another vote? So if it does go down, when is the soonest that another vote could theoretically happen? Well this was the quickest we could get it from March. You can't do it again till March. Can you tell Ann O'Leary? If there was a police district budget, if this one is voted down, then you're into the statutory cycle. It's not less than 30, no more than 40, but it presumes that we have a number from which to jump off of. So you've got to add some time to that. So planning time plus 30 to 40 days. Yeah. Which brings you into mid-July. I would say conservatively, yeah. Without police, because then we're gone. As fast as you put together this budget, that was impressive. We're scrambling for our lives, so we try to move fast. I'm wondering how this study committee is being put together, but who's on the study committee, or how is that being decided? There's a call out right now for people to send in letters of interest. And then the select board will sit down and go through a mall and decide who's on. The resolution, the motion we passed in the wake of the March vote, setting up the committee is, it's going to be comprised of two members of the select board, one from within the police district and one living outside the police district, three residents of the village, three residents of the town, and one person who is a business owner in the village who may or may not reside in Randall. And... A business owner outside the police district that may or may not reside within Randall. I thought it was a business owner within the police district who may or may not. Outside, that's the thing. Most two issues is the business and the person. Does either one of them have to be at the police district? No. The answer was no. Not the way it's written. Got it, I'm looking out here, I'm out, playing Tetris. Another question. You said there's a call out now, what does that mean? People that are interested should be submitting their letters of interest. And was there a select board to be on the committee? Oh, all right, okay, never mind. We also stipulated in the motion to create the police services committee that we would encourage people with police experience, mental health counseling experience, youth services experience or financial expertise also to apply so that we can bring people to the table who have expertise in those areas that really can contribute to what our police is gonna look like in the future. Thank you. The general call and the scope of work and all of that's on the town website. It's in the same section as all of the other police information. And right now it's the second one down underneath the special public meeting. What we're doing right now, warning, in summary. Whatever we're doing, wherever we are. I was just texted and asked if the chat questions were going to be responded to. My answer was, yes, once you're done here was my fault. So I'm bringing it up. They're supposed to raise their hands. They're supposed to raise their hands to talk, guys. Yeah. So now they've just heard you. Here's your hand. We asked if there was any comments from on there. Are we gonna get them? The only one I see come up was whether there was gonna be any federal funds or grants and you answered that with the COPS grant. Yep, the COPS grant. I didn't see any counts at all. I thought I saw a note about reappraisal which will, at some point, play an impact. What, there's reappraisal somehow? There's more tax. Well, we got that. Yeah. So yeah, there's. Are there any grant opportunities that's basically saying? Yeah. So we'll just go through them. We've talked about the COPS grant. There are. We are planning to use one. That's part of the plan. Keep scrolling. We'll go through them fast, maybe. There was one about reappraisal. It won't generate more tax revenue. It generates more value. So in a standard model, if the grand list value goes up, the tax rate will go down, but the amount to be raised by taxes stays the same. How policing calls inside and outside that is to be calculated? We'll probably use a tracking mechanism similar to what they've used. We'll look at Woodstock's Orange County Sheriff, all of those to try to make sure that we're calculating where they go and when they go there. Plus, there's a data point. I think when they fill out the reporting on the Scotts-Gondon neighbors report, or whatever it's called. Come on. Yeah, Scotts-Gondon. Yeah. Yeah, me too. So. Yeah. Hey, Scotts. All right. Bye, man. I'll entertain the motion. Soon. Come on. All right. Bye.