 We are going to start recording. And we put all of these community chats onto our YouTube channel and playlist. So I want to welcome everybody to our cup of Joe for May with the focus on the FY23 budget. We have your town manager, Paul Balkaman. Here with me Brianna Sunrid, and we will be having our finance director Sean Mondano join us in just a moment he's hopping over from another meeting. So, while we're waiting, I'd love for Paul to maybe give any updates, whether budget related or not, feel free to go ahead and get started. Thanks, Brianna. So, first off, it's going to be a warm weekend. So we will have the graph park spray park turned on for the weekends which will give some relief to kids. You know our emergency management directors monitoring the weather so if there's any needs that need to happen. In the meantime for heat relief or anything he'll be, that's Chief Nelson, he will be the one to address that. Also this weekend we're really excited that our new DEI director and our Crest director and our assistant DEI director will all be have all been invited by the League of Women voters to be at graph park on Sunday at 3pm to do sort of a very informal meet and greet. The director is here today, walking around meeting staff and meeting department heads and is relocating from another part of the country so it's a really exciting time for us as we continue to build our capacity here. The other thing that I want to mention, we're trying to get the word as much as possible that we have new voter locations many people will have new voter locations the council approved this recently after the re precincting. So there will be additional. We should check where they are scheduled to vote. If you got your census it was written on your census form a little tear off thing on the bottom, but it's make sure that you're going to the right voter location. Because with the re precincting things changed a little bit so when that comes into play, just make sure that that that you're paying attention to that. The last thing is something that Brianna just put up this morning, which I think is really interesting. There's, there's two things I've been really wild about one is our webinar on bears, which if you haven't seen it please track it down and look at it because it's, it's, you know, they're using it in the schools actually I didn't mention that to you Brianna. Somebody at the school said oh I want to take this show to my kids, because it is there's a lot of scientific information about bears, and it's all specific to Amherst and where they are in Amherst there's a map they track these bears they have the colors on the bears they track them. So that one people are sick of me talking about this but that's a big one and then the other thing I think is really valuable to the public is our town engineer making a presentation about what roads get paved and why. And the sort of scientific analysis that they use they literally drive every road in town with a vehicle that takes a 3D shot of every inch of the pavement, and then they calculate the condition of the road, and then they factor that in with traffic counts and sort of things that have been just sort of, you know, this conditions roads that people see in general, and then that's how they come up with their what roads get paved because we have such limit, even though we've doubled the amount of money we put into roads over the last five years since I've started here. We still have unmet need, and so how do we choose how we spend our limited dollars on things that are on the roads and so this shows that it's very. It's not driven by somebody sitting in a room saying or driving or driving on their way home saying I want my home road paved it's really done through an analysis and that each each road gets a grade. And then they do an assessment that way. So, and that's a, the presentation's like 30 minutes the whole videos like an hour and 15 minutes I think Brie, you know something like that. The presentation's a tight maybe 20 minutes and then there's a lot of good information in the Q&A. Yes, so really methodical and the methodology for choosing streets is included in there and you'll even learn about something and I had no idea about called alligator cracks so So tune into that it's on our YouTube channel will be on our homepage soon. And it also includes what streets are planned to be done this year and next so it's a lot of good information for those who are interested. So we go ahead. So I think so maybe we can just open up to see if people have questions non budget questions before we till Sean gets here for the budget questions. Yeah, so we're still waiting on our finance director who'll be here shortly I do see a number of you in the room and as usual we welcome live questions by raising your hand in zoom or by just popping your question into the Q&A function here and I can read it out loud, but we'd love to hear from you so if you do have any general questions ahead of the budget segment please go ahead and raise your hand or put them in the Q&A. I do see birdies hands so birdie if you could unmute and introduce yourself. Hello. Thank you so much for hosting this event I was curious I was really excited because I just saw the article in the Amherst indie by the community safety working group about the idea of putting a youth empowerment center and a BIPOC cultural center at the current Wildwood building and I was really curious if you'd had a chance to look at that or consider their idea. I haven't I actually we I've received the letter but I haven't really looked at that deeply and we haven't really looked at future uses for either Wildwood or Fort River whichever building is chosen to it's not chosen to be the new site for the schools. You know I think we're looking at lots of different options for a BIPOC cultural center youth empowerment center last night the TSO committee heard about the need for a senior center. And this the sort of needs I think right now where we are is doing a needs assessment for a youth empowerment center that's sort of risen as the highest priority and we've allocated some ARPA funds to support that work to do some needs assessment about what exactly what is what is the need that we'd want to be working towards and what would be the kind of facility that would best serve it. And I'm curious how does that work intersect like I know a lot of, or some some portion of the community safety working groups charge and research involved looking at that like what that youth empowerment center would serve so I'm curious what the sort of additional like gap in knowledge would be that this would be aiming to fill. So, you know I don't know if they, they didn't do a ton of research as far as I know, and to the actual, you know the data that we would normally collect in a situation like this in order for us to go to the council does to take money we would need to have a fair amount of data in terms of the need surveys that might have to be done. So I think we would build on what CSWG is already put together, and then go to the, you know, go to the council talked about the needs and how this fits in with our overall capital plan. Because it whatever we're going to do is going to take money is going to take capital investment. Okay, thank you. And what's the best way for birdie to stay up to date with that Paul would you recommend interfacing with council council members from yeah you know. For that we've asked our recreation director Ray harp to sort of take the lead but we were a realized that, you know, he's relatively new in his position so building a team around him of people to support his work. And, you know, I think just stay in a stay in a touch with us in our office or Ray harp at the recreation department that might be a good person to. Great. Thank you birdie. So we have a question that our friend Jeff typed in that I'll read now. Has there been progress made and finding a new home for Amherst media. So we. So Amherst media is, you know, with our contract with Amherst media they're responsible for providing their, their facility. We have looked at all the town facilities, you know, we looked at the former Hitchcock Center on West on South Pleasant Street. The Hickory Ridge building that's there. And we most recently with representatives of the Amherst media walks through the South Amherst school, and our building commissioners doing did a assessment of the condition of that building what it would take to be occupied. And we recall all three of these buildings were things that we inherited from other people the Hitchcock Center from the old Hitchcock Center from the Hitchcock Center, you know, we bought the Hickory Ridge and then the South Amherst school was something that the school department left and then they after they they gave it to the town. And there hasn't been investment much investment in that building since because it wasn't being utilized. So in order to re occupy that building it will need a fair amount of work to make it up, get it up and running. So, you know, building commissioner and assistant town manager work with them. So, and maybe they met this week or let me forget this Monday or last week to find a site that their needs are, you know, we also have offered to put them in touch with individuals, I think they've already done some of this work with at the university and the two colleges. They often have space, and we've also forwarded some some sites that, you know, in the real estate market, and I know they're looking at a location on University Drive. Our responsibility is to make sure that they can have access to the internet and can access, you know, the, the, the feeds that we have the Ethernet fees that we have, and we're prepared to do that wherever whatever their site they've chosen. Great. Thank you, Paul. So we are still waiting on our finance special guest I do see normally when we have some of our counselors in the room we invite them, if they'd like to raise their hand and pop in and say something. So, if you'd like to do that feel free to raise your hand and there we go. Yeah, we try to make this as informal as possible because we're trying to replicate our having a cup of coffee in front of black sheep or something. Do you want me to go? I don't know. Good morning, everyone. It's nice to be here and I apologize I do have to leave a little early but thanks for offering it. I'm excited I don't have anything to say other than thanks for doing it and I'm glad everyone joined us. What are you working on? What am I working on? Yeah, what are you thinking about? What do you think about for counsel? What's your top topic? Oh my goodness, so many things. I am deep into that budget book. For me, you know, I think Paul has heard me talk about our capital inventory a whole lot recently that's been on my mind thinking about how we can further our climate goals and our equity goals through infrastructure, both of which are tied to those so thinking through what does it mean to have more vehicles that are not even hybrid but actually electric and how do we get to that point? You know, and I know Sean told us this year about school buses taught me a lot about school buses this year through the budget process. And then the other part that's on my mind with the budget is the opportunities for resident engagement specifically through, you know, the joint capital planning committee has a resident capital request and we're working on figuring out how to make that really accessible and part of our budget process, you know, that we are able to utilize so I'm excited to get into that and grateful for town staff's willingness to put up with my shenanigans around it. I love shenanigans. Shenanigans for good. Well, thank you, Anna. And we do have Sean here joining us so welcome Sean Mangano. I think probably most people know who you are but for those who don't, could you introduce yourself? Yeah, hi, I'm Sean Mangano. I'm the finance director. Sorry I was late. I happened from another meeting and Paul left me behind to make sure that the meeting could finish so sorry for being late but happy to answer any questions or whatever, whatever probing questions have been sent out so far having to dive in. So the meeting we were both at was the elementary school building committee, which I thought was a, I don't know, we haven't checked base but I thought it was a really good meeting really substantive discussions about sort of narrowing down. It's really about which site do we choose and narrowing that down was it's really interesting people bringing lots of different perspectives to the table. Really rich conversation I thought. And just as a reminder, don't limit yourself to budget questions if you do have a question about the school or something else feel free and just as a reminder for anyone who joined new raising your hand or using the Q&A function would be the best way for us to hear from you and I do see a hand in the room so I'd love Sarah to unmute and introduce. Hi Sarah welcome. Hello, and hello again, Sean and Paul. For meeting the meeting. I know. It's a busy morning. But this is about the budget so maybe six months ago or last fall at a finance committee meeting I noted that the town regularly ends a fiscal year with a surplus. And that's a good thing and that it's the practice to budget conservatively, which is a good thing. But that sometimes the surpluses are, I mean, they seem inevitable, and sometimes they're quite large. So was, I suggested that the team think about easing up a little bit on the conservatism. So, because every dollar that's left behind. It's a good opportunity, you know, to do to pave a little more of a street, or to give a little more money to the schools, or just to do something else. I mean it's wonderful to add that to free cash but the pressures on the budget are considerable so I wondered if there'd been any movement on that or, or how really you can gauge how conservative you're being. That's a good question and if I start with that Paul. So I know the dollar amounts appear large, because when we're talking about a $90 million budget $85 million budget if you have a 2% surplus at the end of the year could be a million or $2 million. But, but when we've looked back historically we're sort of in that range of between one and 2% of a, of a difference in what we were budgeting and what we're, what we're having left over at the end of the year. And you have to remember that that's a combination of both the expense side and the revenue side so far revenues come in, you know, for for conservative revenues and they come in a little bit higher than we budget that a little bit gets added to our reserves. So on the expense side, if our expenses come in a little bit less than that gets added so when you add that the two of those when you're really talking about $290 million projections, a one or 2% surplus at the end of the year really is pretty reasonable. We, but acknowledging what you said and that our reserves are at a place. You know, where we were our goal was was to get them up to help support the four building projects. We did do an appropriation last year from our reserves because it was a little bit of a higher year than normal. We appropriated I think it was a million dollar for roads I think there were so many for sidewalks. And there was the contribution to the reparation stabilization fund. And acknowledging exactly we said Sarah that last year I think was a little bit larger than normal. And a lot of that was pandemic related we just not knowing when we did the budget exactly how University was going to return how quickly downtown would return. We were maybe a little bit more conservative. I think the other thing that I'll say, you know, so I've been here two years now and Sonya Aldrich who all of you know has taught me a lot. And, you know, town budgeting, it's that we can't just put whatever numbers we want, you know, we could, we could feel really, really confident in a number that something's going to rise but the state really reviews our revenue projections in particular when we set the tax rate they look at each of our categories of revenue. And unless we have a really rock solid case for revenue increasing, they don't want to see it any higher than the year before whatever the prior actual was. The issue that causes is there's a little bit of a lag in terms of when our revenues increase, when we can start to realize that increase I'd say, you know, the big exceptions that are property taxes which we, you know, we do have rock solid information that that's going to go up and and state aid we have the governor's budget. But I think the areas where you know we tend to be more conservative around the local receipt side where we want to see the history and the actual receipt of that revenue before we budget it. And that again is driven by the state sending that message out to us when they review our revenues and they set our tax rate. So you don't feel there is significant room or permission or merit to tweaking the numbers. I think we try to when we so when we look at revenues like local receipts, which again that those are the areas where there's probably the most. Wiggle, because it's it's really driven by user user behavior in town. We look at what we've brought in in prior years. We look we talk with departments to see if they're you know they're aware of something that's going to influence that number in the future. I think again, we've been more conservative. You're going to see larger revenue growth if you've looked at our revenue growth in the budget the last two years it's much larger than normal because we're come out of the pandemic so we are being a little bit less conservative because we know there's room to grow because we because we dropped it so much during the pandemic that we're going to come back faster. I think within the next year or so we're going to start to stabilize we're going to kind of realize that we're out of the pandemic and back to where we were before that, or whatever new level we're going to be at, if behavior has changed. Can I ask a follow on. Sorry. Yeah, I looked at the in the budget proposed budget for the you know outlook for the next few years or whatever the budget outlook, and it looked like local receipts. We're still not back to pre pandemic levels, even in even two years hence. So it looked like a really slow recovery and I was curious about that. In particular, I mean, I know their new businesses starting up but maybe total business activity is still down I don't know. No, I think, again, we go out five years that we're going to be more conservative and those out years in terms of projecting revenue increases. When you look back at history there's there's also sometimes you have to dig into the numbers a little bit more to know if there's a one time thing that may have made it higher and prior years. There are a couple anomalies in some of our history where there was a large revenue in one year that boosted local receipts up and made it look like it was really large but it was a one time thing. And the one that jumps out to me is our. The trust insurance trust fund issue where the town loaned $2 million to the trust fund to balance it for the year and then when we did a surcharge and when the surcharge. When staff paid back that loan that went back into the general fund and went into into those that local receipt section for one year so it made it look $2 million higher than a normal year. So there's always a little bit of variability. But we are a little more conservative when we start projecting out five years in terms of how quickly revenues will grow. I do think, Sarah that we do a little bit of a look back after the fiscal year closes out. We come back to the count we can come back to the council like we did last year and look at, you know, here's how the year turned out maybe there's something else that can be done for the current fiscal year. So we do it and I mean I think conservative financing is a good thing. But we also have this sort of release valve of coming back in the fall to present some ideas to the council if there's additional appropriations to be had. Okay, thank you. Thank you Sarah. So I want to just prompt the attendees again if you have a question, feel free to put that in the Q&A. Raise your hand. I don't see any hands at the moment so I wonder if there is like a quick budget recap we can give or next opportunities that are coming up. Yeah, so so Finance Committee meets on the 24th is it Tuesday. Yep, until the 24th. The 24th. And so on that meeting though the finance committee will be diving into the general government portion of the budget which are a lot of the town hall departments the town manager town council finance HR benefits, and then they will also be talking with conservation planning and development, which is a good one because, you know, just like the previous speaker mentioned, they actually do a lot of the revenue generating activity in town, or at least in our license and our local receipt section. So they'll be on Tuesday. And then we have at least. I believe we're on the 26th as well. And we are doing facilities with finance committee and then public health the senior center and veterans will be on the 26th. And then the finance committee will start wrapping up their recommendations so they'll meet on the 26 and possibly the 31st of May to finalize a recommendation to the council. So we have to complete that recommendation by the end of May and, and then on the sixth we have a capital improvement program forum, which is sort of like a budget hearing but instead of it being on the operating budget this is specific to the capital improvement program, where the public can come and share their thoughts. So relatively the council is, it's not I don't know when what has changed this on the agenda but at least previously, the budget was on the 13th of June, that council meeting to be considered at least I don't know if it'll be voted that night but to be considered for a vote. And I'll just one thing I just want to follow up to the previous question to. And I can talk offline. If we want to look at that five year projection. I can kind of point out some of the areas in the local receipt section for you where there were things that were in FY 20 that just don't exist anymore in the future years which is part of why you're seeing that we're not back to where we were in FY 20. There's just some things that aren't there anymore, which is why there's a little bit of a gap. And I've just welcomed Council President Lynn Griezmer into the room so Lynn feel free to go on ahead and introduce. First of all, thank you all for attending. And for your focus on the annual budget proposal for FY 23. The hearing on the capital side of the budget will be hearing our public forum will be this will be on the 6th of June and the vote on the budget is scheduled for the 13th both the capital as well as the operating. I, I'm in the spirit of informality. I, as a person who's focused on fiscal issues for much of my career, and now been on the council and the finance committee for four years. I actually appreciate the fact that our budgeting is done in a conservative manner. And I want to build on Paul's point that when we have some surplus, if you will, at the end of fiscal year. It allows us to maybe catch up on a couple of things that arose during the year. So in last year, one of those in fact was reparations, and we were able to put some money into reparations and Sean correct me but I think we also used some of it as an opportunity to catch up on a couple of things that we had under budgeted or during COVID, like the retirement funds or something like that. Yeah, yeah, no thanks for reminding me I forgot so we used it to make up for what we, in previous years cut from our op-ed contribution, we usually contribute 500,000, and we had reduced that during the pandemic to help soften the blow. We had stored what we had cut so that we, you know, it's like as if we made $500,000 contributions each year. And then the other thing that you mentioned we've used it pre-cash for is to help when we we've had some projects where the costs, personally because it's just how quickly prices are rising has come in higher than what we've budgeted for capital projects and the one that jumps out is, well there's actually two that jump out the ladder truck, not the ladder truck the pumper truck for the fire department. We appropriate additional funds so that that purchase could be finalized, and then the feasibility study for the elementary school. Also, the estimate for that was a little low and so the final cost for that feasibility study we had appropriate additional funds. And so let me also say that this is maybe foreshadowing a little bit of what somebody may hear from me in the finance committee as we move on to the council but my biggest concern this year is whether or not our present budget proposal for FY23 will seriously be able to accommodate what we're seeing in inflation. And that is the hardest thing to predict at this point. And as we looked at the third quarter reports, we've already for this year FY22 we've already seen what might be considered additional funds available no longer being available because they're being eaten up by inflation. So, these are just the many ways that we all have to think about how we balance our budget. And we also have to think about the fact that even though we pass a budget. Once a year, there are financial issues that come up during the year that it is best for us to attend to at the time they come up and that's where some of the flexibility in the money year comes in handy. So thank you for being here and thanks for listening. Thank you. Thank you Lynn. So one thing I wanted to mention we've made reference to a budget calendar capital improvement program all the different documents. One of the best ways to engage with some of these materials and ask questions and submit your feedback to us is by visiting our budget our FY23 budget page on engage Amherst. It's a great place to, to get linked to all these different resources submit your questions for for Sean and the finance team to answer and also, you know, after looking at the document and some of the resources the story map, etc. Submitting your feedback to the finance team, as well as any feedback that you might have for your counselors. So if I go on engage Amherst and I submit a question like what why is whatever it is. Then that question goes to Sean and he responds right that's and everybody and everybody immediately like that. And everybody gets to see the question and the answer so it helps or creates a shared database or whatever knowledge base for everybody, which is, I think that really nice invention that we that you've implemented bring so. And there are FAQs already kind of built in so Sean's identified in his team of identified the questions that they've been getting a lot so they've kind of preloaded some FAQs. If you don't find your answer in some of those. We've got Sean wired up so soon as a question comes in he gets like a jolt so feel free to put your questions there the full but budget calendar all these dates that we've been talking about. It's a great place to put eyes on to find all those details. And we've got a question in the Q&A this one's for Sean. How did the ask me anything go. So nobody asked me anything. I think it's the best way to answer no I we got one question. And this might be actually a good one to talk about there was one question. And it was that the person was asking how can the budget change once it's been submitted by the town manager. They relayed that they'd heard the council can only reduce the budget, which is mostly true the council can usually only reduce the budget. And but I did share the one exception or one of the few exceptions that might that's being discussed this year, which is around the school budget and that the council can by two thirds vote choose to increase the school budget if they choose to do so. And then the only other way the budget could be increased would be if we have to submit a balanced budget so if there were more revenues that became available it's possible the town manager could do something but we don't typically do that after budgets been submitted because we won't have any more information on revenues being increased until after the state budget is voted. And see budget a big piece of it because we work from the governor's budget number which he puts out in January, and then there are other milestones like the houseways and means budget comes out and then that goes to the senate and they work it all through and they don't really vote that till June, we hope it's in June. And because it's not real until the legislature votes it in the governor signs the bill, the budget so we don't like sort of keeping, you know, moving numbers around based on whoever's whatever the last person said we start with a number hang on to it until we get a final vote by signed by the governor. As people know this year, it's a little bit unusual where there's a really big gap between the house budget and the senate budget. In terms of the funding they're proposing the house budget was marginally better for us than the governor's budget, very marginally. But the senate budget was quite a bit better for us and, you know, we're obviously advocating for the senate version of the budget, because it did propose some significant increases to unrestricted unrestricted general government aid which helps the town and pilot payments which helps the town. So, we would like to see the senate budget become reality but because there is such a big gap between the two houses it's unclear where they're going to settle when they finalize the actual budget. I've got a couple quick comments in the q amp a section follow up that's relevant to this topic can you can appropriate from reserves, though, correct. Yeah, so, once free cash is certified. We can appropriate from free cash, and that requires a majority votes. And that certification usually happens in the, in the fall later fall, and we can appropriate from stabilization fund as well. That takes a two thirds vote to do that and the reason I pause a little bit is there's some legislation that's being proposed that changes the is considering changing the vote quantum for you appropriate from stabilization funds but it's, but it's specific to certain types of stabilization funds. So I believe general stabilization funds it's going to continue to be a two thirds vote to appropriate. All right now we've got a question and a comment from Julian. I recently read over our operating and capital budgets in the capital budget there appears to be an APD SUV from 2019 with 67,000 miles. Why is this being replaced is it an anomaly. It does. It does not have over 100,000 miles or over four years old as the town policy states. Thank you for all your work drafting this thoughtful equity based budget. I love that question Julian. That's so detailed. Perfect. But it's going to be an unsatisfying answer. So, Julian, that's a great question I'm going to reach out to the police chief and and the officer who manages their fleet replacement so I can give you a full response so I will email you after this meeting so that we can address that question but that's a great question. Great. Thank you Julian. So I know that we're coming up on our time Julian says thank you by the way. We're coming up on our time but we did get, we lost Sean for a few minutes so if there are any last hands that want to get raised to make a comment or a question or last thoughts to put into the q&a. Did you do that now. Did you already talk about the exciting stuff in the budget that already happened. I missed the first 10 minutes but it's a very exciting budget I know. Go for it. So I know there's lots of needs right and it's it's hard saying no to certain things or no we can't do it now it's not usually no forever but it's a, we don't have the resources to do now but this budget is, you know, very unique I think it's the first time. But we're funding two new departments that are going to be doing really important work that's really aligned with direct input from the community and input from the council and. Again I know there's lots of other needs but these are two sort of core issues to the town that are being funded in this budget so. You know we had to do things a little. I think that the thing we showed this year is we're, you know, we did things a little bit different to try to achieve those goals right we. We don't typically allocate more to the municipal budget we try to do the equal increases to each department budget. But understanding how important this, the Crest program was to the town and the community. And we deviated from that this year. So I think, you know, for all those reasons it's a very exciting budget we got capital back to 10 and a half percent, which gets is not 10 and a half 10% next year's 10 and a half, but to 10% which has been our long time goal. Hopefully nothing happens between now next year we're there for you to change that again but that's exciting for the ladder truck I don't know how long the ladder trucks been talked about but you know, proposing the funding for that is is really substantial. Cracker from Jim I know this is a minor thing for people but the cracker from Jim has been a problem for a long time because of some HVAC issues underneath the floor. That's being addressed. So I think there's a lot of exciting projects and new initiatives in this budget that we shall be proud about. Thank you Sean for that recap I do see Sarah's hand so Sarah please come on in and unmute. Thank you for reminding us about the all the new thing the new stuff in the budget, which is great, but I didn't see. And I may just not have looked in the right place. If the budget explains how these new programs will be funded over time because I think that to some degree they're, they're being funded now by ARPA funds which will disappear so No, that's a great question. Can you discuss that thank you. Yeah, that's a great, great question so So DEI is funded fully within the operating budget two person department. If there's any changes to the size of that department in the future it would have to be done through the regular budget process but a two person diversity equity and inclusion department is funded fully within the budget for FY 23. Let me just and so and what how are we able to do that one is we did not. We, instead of having an economic development director we have a DEI director and the assistant director it used to work half time for HR and half time for the town manager so we took those two half time positions and move that into the DEI department so those two positions that we had used before are not being used now. So we're sort of redeploying existing staff on those things. Right. The crest department. It's the budget funds a 10 person crest department. Again, all within the operating budget. If that if the size of the crest department were to expand in the future again that would have to be done through the budget process but the 10 positions that were identified in the reorganization plan those are fully funded within this budget. We have used we have set aside ARPA funds for startup costs for the crest program so those are things that we view as one time costs anyway or not maybe not one time but maybe every five or 10 year costs. So things like potentially vehicles that the software that they will need for reporting and managing their calls. Outfitting the space, you know, if there's uniforms you know we're still sort of working through these things but any of those one time costs we propose from ARPA but the recurring costs are primarily within the operating budget. The, the one. This was a question I financed me so it's a good one to discuss the one decision we've made. That's, we've said we're going to, we're committed to beyond ARPA that we are funding with ARPA are is the addition of four firefighters. So those four firefighters we will have to work over the next few years to incorporate them into the operating budget because the plan is for them to be permanent. So that I would say out of all the ARPA funds we've allocated that's really the only place where there's a promise to continue funding after ARPA that we will have to plan for. Thanks. I could get an answer another time if, if it's time to stop this meeting but I'm wondering where in the operating budget does the money for the 10 Crest. Staff come from Paul explain the DEI. Right so that was so every year, not every year but each year our operating budgets go up a little bit. Two and a half percent is sort of our target each year so that two and a half percent. The new money that was allocated to the operating budget, the things that it covered, or the major things that it covered this year are contracted steps and colas for staff, all the staff that are employed by the town. And what was left over went to help fund Crest. The additional piece this year was that within that two and a half percent increase to the town budget, we didn't have enough to fully fund that 10 person Crest department. So that's why we were able to add an additional 300,000 to the municipal operating budget to get that all in there to get the all 10 positions funded within the budget and that rolls forward so that 300,000 is funded by current revenues that we've projected. And that will continue that'll be the new base for next year, which allows us to fully fund that 10 person department. Thanks. Thank you Sarah. And I originally thought we were at half an hour so I'm getting my platforms confused so no rush we do have until 1130 scheduled so feel free to keep submitting your questions and raising your hands. If you have a question, a comment and a question from Bertie. Bertie's excited about the emergence of crests and the town's response to overwhelming public demand. So two questions. What have you found to be most impactful in terms of public involvement in the budget. And what can citizens do that help motivate you as officials to create these kinds of big changes. To some of that, at least, you know, my experience. So one area where I feel like there's was really good public input that did translate into funding was with the ARPA plan. So it's not the budget itself but it's a separate separate grant program but pretty much every allocation that ARPA plan came from stakeholder input, or from engaging with the public we held several forums. We had an engage Amherst page like, like we'd have for the budget we have a separate one for ARPA. There were a lot of direct conversations with stakeholders. And so that really sort of set the direction for for how we allocated that first round of ARPA payments, and coincidentally and I think this makes sense a lot of it aligns with the goals of the council as well which makes sense that town councils are probably based on what they hear from the community and what's important to them. And that's also what we heard when we did the ARPA session so so that's exciting. I think, you know, echoing what Anna said earlier, it'll be nice to. We've funded a couple capital resident capital requests so far. There was a feasibility study for River that was funded that way, or maybe it was a cracker farm that was funded that way. And so there've been a few projects that have been funded through that error that mechanism. But I, we have heard that it's a little cumbersome and complicated so excited to work with our joint capital planning committee and some of the representatives of that committee to try to make that a smoother process. Yeah, I would say what really drives us is the, we were really trying to strongly observe good government practice which is the elected officials set the policy and set the priorities for the community. And that gets reflected in the, what my job is which is to build a budget that reflects the council's priorities. And then if I, then that council judges me through a performance review model, as to whether I've been successful at doing that or not. And through their own own sort of engagement with the budget during that through the finance committee process this month of intense meetings or through their own vote on the budget. And it all starts in the fall when we start with our financial indicator saying here's what the money looks like coming in. And then the council says, great, here are our priorities for the coming year and the coming years. And then we listen to that very seriously so that's the most important time we do a budget public forum at that point in time. And it really is up to, and we hear lots of information at those things but it's up to the council to decide which of those things they want to put into a document that says these are our priorities for the coming year. They don't get to say, they don't say go fund this, you know, thing or that thing but sometimes they get there's some specifics to it. But then we try to align our budget to be in alignment with our public, the our elected officials. And I think that's, and then if the elected officials are out of step with the public then they get, they are up for election every two years they keep the public and say we don't like what you're prioritizing we want something a different priority. So, but I think our counselors have been super responsive to community input and doing really good job at listening. So, I think that's. You know, it's an annual process, but the constant engagement I think it's a terrific question birdie because I think it is kind of impenetrable sometimes. You know, I was just thinking like as Sean is talking about where our money or how we allocate local revenue receipts and stuff and like, like what does that sound like to a normal person. It's kind of impenetrable sometimes but I think the idea of organizing and getting in front of the council during the public. In the fall when we do that public forum is a really good way to good place to be. I'm totally going to age myself here but it sounds like we need to do a schoolhouse rock local government public finance edition. Great explainer Paul thank you so we've got a couple questions in the chat. Jeff would like to know if we expect support for virtual town government meetings to extend beyond July 15. Lynn and I meet with our state legislators frequently and we talked about that last Thursday I think when we met with them and, and I think that in talking just other local officials I think there's going to be something. But that we probably won't know for a while but we made it clear that we need to know if we can are we going to continue in a remote format, or have the ability to do that after July 15 or is it go back to pre pandemic times in which people are all in the building. I think that our public at least people who talked to me, love the zoom meetings and don't want to lose that. So it's this is really a decision by the legislature. Birdie seconds the schoolhouse rock episode and Julian would like to know if there has been a new public work site located. There's been a lot of suspense within the community surrounding that so. This is something we have been working at pretty aggressively if you will recall, four years ago probably now we did. We spent probably a year working with Amherst College to get a site and on on Stanley and Southeast Street, it was a great big site flat everything, but a lot of neighborhood opposition and so we chose to pull back from that location. Since that time we have explored several different sites with property owners. We've done some, you know, we've done an RFP and identified four sites that way none of them were really suitable. So the short answer to know we do not have a site. We continue to explore different options for that, both internally and with the town council. But we know that that's a high priority and there's urgency because we want to get both of these things moving forward. DPW is probably the hardest facility to site just because of the neighbor concerns because of the noise and the you need a pretty large site because of all the activities that go on there. The traffic issues and it's just, you know, kind of came from the school side but seeing all the issues that are considered for setting a DPW it's very difficult. So we think about it and Amherst, you know, we would we want it to be an Amherst it's eight to 10 acre site that's on vacant land that that's an Amherst like there aren't spaces like that very often. And so I think trying to figure that out. The other factor is quite frankly is zoning site in many cities and towns. The uses are exempt from zoning but we aren't in Amherst so we have to also as a developer of a site for a public works facility we have to look at the zoning to see if it's an allowable use so those that's what makes it added added difficulty to it. So I do see Sarah, please welcome Sarah back in and go ahead and ask your question. Well, I think tick tock is the way to go, not school has rock so you're right. Send some teenagers your way to work with you on that. If I could change gears a little bit and put my CPA hat on and ask whether any of the many town projects we've approved for which money has been approved. So I think all will happen this summer or this fall, there've been several regarding building maintenance and the in the North Common revitalization and I know it takes some time to get those things off the ground but will they. So the do it. Okay if I start Paul. So the North Common when I believe the timeline and Paul unless you've heard other otherwise is to is to potentially bid that out in the fall and get that moving later this this year, and that relates to another CPA project, Sarah the front steps. I know they're trying to coordinate the front step project with the North Common project because how the way the North Common project will kind of but those front steps and run into them. They're trying to coordinate that so so those projects may be done in tandem. When that happens. I'm trying to think what would that happen next, you said bid in the fall. In the fall with a goal. Yeah, I think the following year. I believe so yeah the following summer spring summer. Let me just pull up the list real quick. Are there any in particular you're thinking about Sarah. We're building like roof repairs and months in library. I know I think the libraries are getting some attention. Mostly, mostly the North Common in the steps because I figured those would go together. And I heard that the DPW has been doing the design, but I just didn't know how advanced, how far they gotten. Yeah, so so we are making progress and we hope they have some new update news on that in a relatively near future. So that will, will explain a little bit why there's taken a little bit longer than we had anticipated. But so it's a good news story so. So that that impacts the town comedy that as Sean said that's connected to the front steps as well. Is inflation forcing reconsider it. Reconsideration of those. No, that's not the issue though. Okay. Okay, thank you. And I think Sarah one thing I'll touch base with Sonya to I know we the CPA committee has started a new process of providing annual reports, or amended a process of providing annual reports so, you know, we'll be getting those. We'll be working on those pretty soon, because I believe they report through June 30. So, reporting back to see CPAC about whether they completed their projects. Yeah, or given updates on where where they're at so maybe there's a way we can compile that at some point too. Yeah, that'd be great. Thank you. Thanks Sarah. So, we are nearing the end of our hour. I think it's time for kind of a last call on questions or comments so feel free. If you have just a even just a comment you throw it into the Q amp a feel free to do so or raise your hand. I just want to thank folks who are being here as well. You know, it's always nice, especially people who are engaged and have good questions and great questions like how do I get involved in this process I think that was a great question and that it does for us we talk a lot about that. We talked about doing a, you know, a resident academy learn more about town government and that was really on the front burner pre COVID and then we redeployed everything towards addressing COVID. But we actually just had that conversation recently with CPOs about that would be a fun thing to do and a lot of cities towns do it and it's a nice way for people to learn about town government. And you know, we're all junkies on this stuff we, you know, but it's it's interesting, you know, I think we should also get some sort of pins or some sort of badges for for all the finance committee members who completed 10 hours of meetings 24 hours span between Monday nights Council and Tuesday Tuesday mornings finance. That's right. That's right. Yeah, that's pretty impressive stickers for them. And that has actually survived. We did talk about that actually related to the Amherst 101 or the Community Academy. As Paul said we were hoping to launch that and then COVID but we're re dusting off that idea. And hoping to maybe do something like that in the fall and now we can do things virtually although we'd love to be in person if we're able to so more to come on that. Sarah says give them donuts. That's always a good incentive for anybody that I know. Thank you. All right. So, again, we've got a couple of minutes here while while we're letting people have their last comments. Sean Paul anything you want to leave people with today that you didn't get to say yet. Let's see things coming up we have Hampshire colleges having its graduation tomorrow at 11 o'clock and they're graduating, they're having a ceremony for three classes 2021 and 22. The next weekend Memorial Day weekend Amherst College is having its graduation for the 2022 class, and then two weeks later I think they're having a separate ceremony for the 2020 class and congratulate Brianna who walked at UMass getting her degree on last week so. Thank you. Appreciate that and congrats to all the graduates out there. And Julian wants to say he'd prefer ice cream with the warm weather so yes, good good segue into stay cool this weekend. Stay safe and check on a neighbor, especially if you've got some elderly neighbors by you. All right, so I want to thank both Paul and Sean for their time today, but especially all of you who took the time to join us. We will have this recording up shortly in our community chat playlist and feel free to share it with anybody who might be of interest. Thank you. Thank you.