 This is Christine Deschler, chair of the island and finance committee. Let me do the roll call to make sure which members are present and that everyone can hear me. Starting with Jordan who I think is absent tonight. Shane. Jennifer. Sophie. Sophie with us. Yes. Brian, I think is absent Carolyn. Yes. Rebecca. Present. Josh. Here. Grant. Here. Charlie. Here. John. Present. Darrell. Here. Annie. Here. Al Jones. Here. Topher. Here. Peggy. Here. It's not here. Is she here? Sorry, I think she's going to be out this week. Okay. I'll toss tea. Here. Dean is not with us tonight and is Dave McKenna McKenna still. Joining right now. All right. And Tara Bradley. Present. Yeah. All right. All right. This is an open meeting of the Arlington finance committee conducted remotely consistent with Governor Baker's executive order of March 12, 2020 as extended on July 16, 2022, due to the current state of emergency in the Commonwealth through the outbreak of the COVID-19 virus. In order to mitigate the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, we have been advised and directed by the Commonwealth to suspend public gatherings. And as such, the governor's order suspends the requirement of the open meeting law to have all meetings in a publicly acceptable, accessible physical location. Further, all members of public bodies are allowed and encouraged to participate remotely. The order which you can find posted with agenda materials for this meeting allows public bodies to meet entirely remotely, so long as reasonable public access is afforded so that the public can follow along with the deliberations of the meeting. Ensuring public access does not ensure public participation, unless such participation is required by law. This meeting will feature public comment only in writing by email to tbradleyattown.arlington.ma.us.com. For this meeting, the Arlington Finance Committee is convening by video conference via Zoom, as posted on the town's website identifying how the public may join in comment. Please note that this meeting is being recorded and that attendees are participating by video conference. Accordingly, please be aware that other people may be able to see you and take care enough to screen share your computer. Anything that you broadcast may be captured by the recording, or by the audio conference. The public is encouraged to follow along using the posted agenda unless shared notes otherwise. Before turning to the first item on the agenda, permit me to cover some brown rules for effective and clear conduct of business. And to ensure accurate meeting minutes. I will introduce each speaker after they conclude the remarks. I will go down the list of members inviting each by name to provide any comment, questions or motions. Please hold your mic. Please remember to mute your phone or computer when you are not speaking. For members to speak clearly and in a way that helps generate accurate minutes. For any response, please wait until the chair yields the floor to you and state your name before speaking. If members wish to engage in colloquy with other members, please do so through the chair taking care to identify yourself. All right. Our first order of business is to approve the minutes of our last meeting on February 23, 22nd. So just a quick note here. Sophie had pointed out. That the. Select board. Board administrator. Salary. Select board. Board administrator. Salary is only valid until. The end of the year until January. 2024. So I'm wondering if it would make sense to just actually just remove this since we're not. We're not actually voting on it. And we probably don't go into that much detail in a lot of other budgets. Or if we should. Kind of note that as of. After that time period, the amount increases by a few thousand dollars. I'm fine with. With. Deleting that. That's it. Does anyone object to that? Does anyone have any other. Corrections or revisions to the minutes of the 22nd. Can you take it to the top? Anything that you want to. Correct. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I have a second. I'm all set. Make a motion to accept the minutes is modified. Do I have a second? All right. We'll take a vote. Unless there's any other discussion. All right. I'm seeing the hands. Jordan. It's not here. Shane is still not here. Jennifer. She here. She's joining right now. All right. Okay. Okay. Ryan is not here. Carolyn. Carolyn. Yes. Yes. Rebecca. Yes. Josh. Yes. Grant. Yes. Charlie. Yes. John. Yes. Darrell. Yeah. Annie. Yes. How Jones. Yes. Topher. Yes. Peggy is not with us. Yes. Is Dave McKenna with us? Yes. All right. Okay. The minutes of the 22nd as revised have been approved. And Jennifer's sauce has joined. Okay. I apologize. I was at the community safety building I was, I messed up. Oh, sorry about that. All right. So, all right. We're getting into. when during our last meeting, we tabled the select men's budgets. And Al Jones got some information for us. Al, do you want to talk about what you got from Julie? Sure. When I got was the salary breakdowns and the summary for the select board and the town manager's offices from her and it changed the numbers a little bit. I don't know whether you want me to go through all the numbers or I think I sent them out to everyone. As I understand that there are no changes in the expense items of the select board. Correct. Correct. And we had all of the discussion we were going to have on that. So let's just focus on the salaries. And I think we've got I basically was the board administrator salary right was reduced in 9, 8, 1, 6, 6 with 1963 longevity. So the bottom line of that makes the board salaries 279, 920 and the taxation total 277, 8, 5, 5. Does everyone follow that. And I can, I can share and bring them up on the screen if there are any questions. Does everyone understand what the new budget looks like for salaries for the select men's left boards budget. And that is the only change correct I see Sophie's hand. Yeah, I was just having a hard time pulling it up from my emails if we could throw it on the screen for just a second so I can say I looked at it. Okay, so the salary detail. This is the number that changed. And the longevity changed for the board administrator. I forget what that was before 11516 something like that. It was if Marie was getting a normal increase. And then the summation of that is here and the number that changed is salaries to longevity the total. And then the bottom line to make the offset might have changed a little bit too. Just to look at the old one. Oh, it's the same. Okay. Does everyone follow that. The bottom line is just instead of the new, instead of more getting what Marie would have got her salary was, you know, sort of, you know, back to normal scale. All right, any other questions do I have a motion to approve the select boards revised budget. I have a second second. Any further discussion. See no hands. Jordan is Shane is still absent Jennifer. Yes, the proof. Sophie. Yes. Brian is Oh, Carolyn. Yes, Rebecca. Yes. Josh. Yes. Grant. Yes. Charlie. Yes. John. Yes. Darrell. Yes. Annie. Yes. Jones. Yes. Topher. Yes. He is out. Al Tosti. Yes. Dean is out. Dave McKenna. Yes. Okay. The select men's the select board's budget as revised has been approved. Now, Al, as I understand it, when you were getting that updated information, there was also a change to the town manager's budget. Let me share again. So, okay, here's the original from the budget book. And this is related to the new deputy town manager of finance. And we'd heard that he or she was brought in and I think 138,000 something. So the 126 413 wasn't going to make it. So the revised one is this. With a new pay of 141 760. And then that trickles through. To these new numbers. So that's what we're going to do. So that's what we're going to do for the town manager salaries. So with the. Offsets. The town manager's revised budget would be 745453. Correct. Any questions to session. So I think what we need is a motion to reconsider the town manager's budget because I, as I recall, we've approved it. As initially proposed. So moved. So we are moving to reopen. The town manager's budget and then we'll take a vote on the revised. Budget. Jordan is Shane, Jennifer. Yes. Sophie. Yes. Oh, Carolyn. Yes. Rebecca. Yes. Josh. Yes. Grant. Yes. Charlie. Yes. John. Yes. Carol. Yes. Annie. Yes. Jones. Yes. Topher. Yes. He is out. El Tosti. Yes. Dean is out. Dave McKenna. Yes. Christine chain has joined the meeting. I'm sorry. Did he vote? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. All right. Thank you. All right. So the motion to reconsider the town manager's budget. Has been approved. So now we will. Vote on the new, the revised town manager's. Budget with a taxation total of seven, four, five, four, 53. Are there any questions on what we're doing or any further discussion about the town manager's budget? I asked a question. Sorry. I joined late. I apologize. Just the elevator pitch as a reminder. Is this. The budget is going to be a new number because of the new. Deputy time manager for finance. Right. With, and we have the actual salary now. We. So, so that the expense line will be bumped up a bit. Based on the actual salary information that we have. Thank you. Anything else? All right. We'll. Take a vote on the town. Managers revised. Budget. Jordan is. Oh, Shane. Yes. Jennifer. Yes. Sophie. Yes. Brian. Oh, Carolyn. Yes. Rebecca. Yes. Josh. Yes. Grant. Yes. Charlie. Yes. John. Yes. Daryl. Daryl. Annie. Yes. Oh, Jones. Yes. Yes. Daryl. Daryl. Annie. Yes. Oh, Jones. Yes. Topher. Yes. He is. Oh, Al Tosti. Yes. Dean is out. Dave McKenna. Yes. All right. Town. Managers revised budget has passed. No, no. Madam chair. Oh, I don't. We haven't voted on the information technology budget, but I just wanted to point out that without asking, I got an updated summary here. This is the original. Excuse me. This is the original budget book with an expensive six, seven, nine, two, one, three. And it's been revised a six, seven, eight, eight, one, three. So when we talk about it, let's use this, this new updated. Okay. All right. I put the updated version of my presentation. Okay. Before we get to the IT budget, I want to finish off where we left. I apologize to everyone. And especially to Charlie fostered by not allowing enough time. For the retirement budget. I was just trying to get in as much. As many things done as we could in time we have, but I pushed it too much and I don't think I gave. Charlie a good. An appropriate length of time to talk about the retirement budget. So I am going to turn it over to Charlie. And we'll try to finish off that retirement budget. And we'll take as much time as, as this budget needs. Take it from, take it away, Charlie. Thank you, Christine. I'm the one that should apologize. I was trying to throw too much detail up there in a short period of time. So if I can share my screen, I prepared an abbreviated. Presentation. And. This to work. You should be all set to share. You see it, right? Yes. Yes. Okay. So what I decided to do is that just. To, to mention that. That we had this meeting. On the ninth. Rich Greco, the. Administrator from the retirement board met with Al Tosti. Tofer and I on a zoom meeting. And I thought it would be helpful to. Just talk a little bit about the background of this budget. You know, we read a lot lately in the papers about the social security. Fund running out of money and, you know, the basically the problems of the social security. Fund and the problems of Arlington's contributory retirement fund or. Other retirement funds are very similar. The. The fund is required to pay the future benefits to employees while they. Retired employees while they live. And. We have the number of retirees constantly growing. And the other good news for them, not necessarily for the fund is that they're all living longer. Okay. So the future costs of our fixed benefit plans grow. In other words, these. Employees retire. At a fixed number per year, typically. 80% of their highest three years of salary. The, the. Obligation of the town in the future is. Sort of growing on an exponential basis. So the town has to contribute money to a fund to, to pay for these retirees. And basically the government standards accounting board. Wants to see all these. Future costs. Fully funded. And historically. I, you know, this was the case when, when I first joined town meeting. They only put aside the money to pay for the current years. Retiree costs. And the future years were just sort of left to be considered in the future. But we now have a method of. Accounting for all of the costs we have an actuary that comes in. And looks at all the current employees, the future employees, where we have their ages. How long they're going to be working what their. Wage increases are going to be all of the detail that get together. Can calculate the future costs of the retirement system. And then the, the actuary then takes the present value of that. Reduces it back to the, to the present. Discounts it back to the present value. And we have a lump sum number and that's called, called the. The actuarial liability. And that is offset by the investments that town has made. And the remaining part is the unfunded amortized actuarial actuarial liability. And that's what we have to fund. And so you can think about this as a mortgage payment and that, and the state. And the, and the retirement board want us to pay it off in about 10 years. So it's a, think about it as a big fat 10 year mortgage. It's a 10 years you get to the self funding date, which means that the annual contributions are by the employees, et cetera, sort of funding themselves, the town and employees numbers, both the OPEB, the other post-employment benefits, which is basically healthcare in the Arlington contributory retirement plans. Each have a separate. Unamortized actuarial liability. So. Let's talk about the. Contributory retirement system first, this is something we've dealt with over the years. And a methodology that was set up by a former chair. Al Tosti. Probably 20 years ago. And at one time we were paid. This fund was set up for. Employees who work for the town before 1939. So by the time the 1970s or 1980s came around, most of those employees had been deceased, but there were still some members and their survivors. In the fund. And at one point, let me just say speculatively 2002. We were making payments of $500,000 a year to those people. And the finance committee determined that. If we. If we continue to allocate that $500,000 towards the retirees. But as the demand on the 500,000 went down because of. The members passing away. The balance, the difference between the benefits to the surviving employees and the $500,000 would go into the OPEB. Fund. And that, and that way we started to fund. The, the OPEB trust fund. The OPEB trust fund. The OPEB trust fund is primarily a healthcare. Obligation for liability. And it currently has a value of around. The current investment values around $20 million. And the unfunded actuarial liabilities, 191 million as it shows in this chart. So every year in a town meeting, we have a warrant article that says the OPEB fund. So in the last couple of years, since all the retirees and their survivors have passed away, we've been putting the full $500,000. Into the fund. Plus the select board made an agreement with the retirees when we created the. GIC program that they would, we would. Additionally, put $155,000 in. And. When we were self insured, we had a health insurance trust fund, which had had various times between five and $10 million in the trust fund, but we were self insured. So we had to take. Money out of that fund every year to pay. The employees health costs. When we went to GIC. We started taking money out of that fund because it was no longer required. In other words, as the. Liabilities from that fund diminished, we, we could, we could use it. And we started contributing that to other costs. And right now there's about a million $462,000. In that fund. And the town manager. Has recommended, and this health, but this health insurance trust fund, by the way, is more or less a bank account. You know, it's, it's made. Earning very little. So he's recommended transferring most of that. To the OPEB. OPEB fund. And leaving a $50,000 in there just in case there were some claims. From the pre GIC period, which nobody expects. So. What we are recommending under article. 57. Is a total transfer of $2,067,454. To the OPEB fund. From in the breakdown, as I described, $500,000, $155,000. And 1 million. 412,454 dollars. So. Madam chairman, if I can make a motion for that, could we dispense with this at this time? Go ahead, Charlie. Okay. I just want to point out that I believe I sent everyone a memo from. The town manager on the topic of the 1.4 million. Shift from the trust fund. To OPEB. So. Some more detail in that. Discussion. Thank you. It certainly makes sense to move the million four from a relatively conservative investments into more aggressive investments to get a little more. Return on the money. But I'm wondering. What if we could do the OPEB contribution for the next two years. To keep on the same timeline. If we. You know, we're typically putting in 6, 700. $1,000. And the million four is sort of like two years worth of OPEB. We could accelerate the payments in million four this year, and then not contribute anything to OPEB for the next two years. And then pick back up again. And I don't know if that makes any sense or not, but I'm going to move the million four to the OPEB pay off. May I answer that? Yes, please. I think the first of all, the. The. The $500,000 that we're transferring has been a long. Time. Practice of town meeting the manager and finance committee. So I think it's a, it's a very good transition. And it's a very good transition. And I think it's a very good transition. And I think it's a good transition. And I think it's a good transition. And I think it's a good. Funded liability. And we are. Funding that. Far from the rate of a 10 year amortization. I mean, at the rate that we're putting in there. If you look back into the other documents that I sent out last week. You know, the, if you're funding the. OPEB liability. At an aggressive. The, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the liability. At essentially 7%, which is more or less, what you make in investments. Okay. We're nowhere near that. So we have to, we have to discount it at the town's cost of funds, which are. You know, municipal bond type numbers around one or 2%. So the balance sheet liability is. Quite large. So I think. Moving away from that. I think that's not the right direction to go in. I think that's not the right direction to go in. And I think that's not the right direction to go in. Is not, I wouldn't recommend that as a, as a solution here. And in fact, when we, if we did that, and then we go back to trying to. To bring those contributions back. You know, you know, we're opening ourselves to another. Budget battle. And. I think that's not the right direction to go in. That's just my opinion. Okay. Thank you. Jennifer. Yes. Thank you, Madam chair. Thank you. Thank you. I have a couple of big picture questions. So one of the things that we saw in the original presentation was. The effect of, of sort of our current practice. And then what happens when we do the coal increase. And I'm wondering what happens. If we. Add this 1.4 million. I mean, obviously it shortens the, the time period. That's a good question. And I'm glad to ask that Jennifer. Let me make the distinction here. That this, this is the. Shoot. Sorry. This is the Arlington. This is the contributory retirement summary. Fund. Okay. It's different from the. Arlington non-contributive. I'm sorry. This is the non-contributory. Retirement. Fund that we're talking about that $500,000. And, and, and we're putting it into the other post employment benefits, which is a different liability than the retirement fund. Okay. I think I didn't understand that. Okay. So we'll be talking about that practice after we get through this subject. Got it. And then sort of the other big picture question in the memo from the town manager. Is there any sort of idea of where to find that from? I have no idea. I mean, I think what we should be doing is just planning to contribute the 655,000. If, you know, this, this liability is not going to go away in a flash. Okay. However, if we continue to fund the. Contributory retirement pension, the way we are funding it, we will be at a self funding point in 10 years. Okay. At that point. It might be appropriate with the support of the finance committee and the select board. And, and whoever out town meeting, of course. To continue that level of funding, but instead of having that several million dollars a year, go into the contributor retirement. We use it to fund the OPEB. Liability. But that's a decision for the future. Okay. Thanks. Annie. So we have a legal obligation to. Fund the. Retirement plan in the way that we're funding it. In other words, to, to. Fund the full liability and to be able to always say that we can pay it. Last I heard we don't have a similar legal obligation with regard to OPEB. So what we are doing is. We are funding OPEB in anticipation of said legal obligation being in public. We are funding OPEB in anticipation of said legal obligation being imposed upon us. Okay. I'm sorry. Well, so, so. For that reason. Charlie, I agree with you that we should continue to fund at the level we're funding yet despite this little shot of cash. That's coming from the, the health insurance trust fund. And, you know, that at some point in the future, we're going to have to consider increasing it, especially if it becomes. Clear that the legal imposition is going to be. Looming. At some point. Am I making sense? Yes. In any. This is a. I had not to use word complex, but sort of a broad subject, but the. The, there is not a man, a state mandated rule that says we have to fund this. You're absolutely correct. Okay. However, the government standards accounting board. Requires us to, to list this as a balance sheet liability. So it has an effect on the town's financial strength, ability to get a bond rating, et cetera. Okay. In, in, in addition. While the, I believe that I'm. You know, practicing law without a license here, but I believe that the select board has the right to say tomorrow, we're not going to pay for the retirees health insurance anymore. But the common expectation, I think of most people that are in this business. Is that if we did that, we immediately would have a labor union litigation and the courts would force us to pay that. Okay. So, so we have the liability. We are spending the money annually. The, the government standards accounting board says we have to put it on the balance sheet. So it's, it's a, it's in effect a mandate without a mandate. You know, it's, it's like a mandate without the final step of the legislation. Right. I understand that. I guess what I'm saying, Charlie, is that we have flexibility about how big a contribution we make. And when we fully fund this at the moment that. At the moment we do. Yes. And you're saying this has an effect on our bond rating, but our bond rating is really good. What do you, can you quantify that effect? No, I can't. I'm sorry. Good. If I, if I consulted with Dean Carmen and spent a lot of time on it, but I can't. All right. Well, that might be an off season thing to try to balance out. But I guess my point for the finance committee is. If you're trying to balance competing interests here, that is a fiscal conservatism. With a small C. Against, you know, our current spending needs or community needs or things the community is interested in not spending money on. I think what we're doing right now has got the right balance. And I think that's what we're doing right now. And I think that reducing that funding, even for a couple of years would seem to me like not a great idea. Increasing that funding at the expense of other things. Is not a choice that I would support right at the moment, but it's certainly something we're going to face at some point. Because of that looming possibility that the state will actually. Require us to fund in the same way that requiring us to fund that funding. And then we can't spend that money on the $1.4 million. We can't spend that. You know, we couldn't, we couldn't go out and buy firetrucks with that. This money has to be used for healthcare because it comes from the employees. Healthcare deductions. So it's got to go back into that. Gotcha. Okay. Cool. Right. This, this money can't be used any other way than this. Pretty much. That is all my questions and all my self box speech for the night. Thank you. Thank you. All right. Carolyn. Thank you, Madam chair. So the six 55 has not increased in over a decade because I started 10 years ago. And this is the exact same. It was 10 years ago. So that, that amount hasn't increased. And I'm just going to tease Charlie a bit because the story has increased. I'm just keeping this funding as low as possible. And I'll leave it at that unless he wants to come back and with a, with a rebuttal to my comments. But there you have. I'm no rebuttal. I just get older. Right. John. Yes. Thank you, madam chair. I have just a couple of big picture questions just to confirm my understanding here. So there's two different. One is the non-contributory and the other is a contributory. The non-contributory is the, the OPEB, which if, if I understand correctly, that's, that's essentially healthcare costs for car for future retirees, for retirees. And then John, let me, let me just stop you there for a second and clarify. I'm sorry if I. Contributive confusion here. The, the non-contributory retirement system. We no longer have any liability. All of those people are deceased. Got it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right. The $500,000 is what we were paying them 10 or 15 years ago. And what we've done is we've just continued at that expense level, but shifted the money into the OPEB liability fund. Got it. So I won't use the words. No, I won't use those words. I'll use the words OPEB and retirement, but those two in and of themselves, the OPEB and the retirement are two very separate liabilities, very distinct liabilities. One seems the OPEB seems to be much larger. It runs, you know, upwards to like 200 million. Whereas the pension liability runs closer to 120. I mean, give or take, depending on which one you're looking at, I'm looking at like the ones you sent out last week and the, the FY 22, but either way it's up the retirement ballpark 120, the OPEB ballpark 200. Yes. But that, the comments, the remarks I made just a minute or two ago about the discount rate is what comes into play here because we are only putting in this $655,000 a year. We are not allowed to discount it at the market rate of 7%. Yeah. The discounted at 2%. So that distorts the size of the liability. Yeah. And that was my impression as well is that the OPEB liabilities is a lot more of, is a lot wider of an estimate. Not as specific. Whereas a pension liability, it's money in, money out. The actuaries can get it down pretty closely. Whereas this healthcare, you know, I noticed in the information you sent out last week, there was actually a $57 million drop in the liability just because they changed the assumption of future healthcare costs. They said, at first they were saying they were going to rate, future healthcare costs are going to go up by 7.5% a year. And then they said, all right, future healthcare costs are only going to go up by 5% a year. And that resulted in a $57 million drop in this OPEB liability. So I think that confirms what you're saying is that the, it's not as specific. It's more like, what's it going to cost to provide health insurance for future retirees? Here's our best estimate, whereas it's not as specific as the, the pension liabilities. Is that correct? I would say generally speaking, yes. Yeah. Got it. And then the only other thing I want to confirm my understanding is, you know, as far as this money going into the OPEB fund, this $2 million, you know, if we were comparing the two different liabilities, the pension and the OPEB, I would think another thing that would go into this would be the insurance costs because we are currently paying insurance for all of our retirees. And I think those insurance costs come out of just the regular insurance budget. So if you retired from the town 10 years ago, the costs of your insurance are not, certainly not coming out of that $2 million is coming out of, I think the insurance budget. Is that correct? That's correct. Yeah. But what this, what this money is going towards is the future health insurance costs of the current and the future retirees. Is no money coming out of the fund yet because they're just not taking the money out. It's $20 million. It's got to grow to become a, you know, a more significant pot before we can start to take money out the way we do with the pension fund. Got it. Got it. So the way I see it maybe is, is that this is almost a buffer. So we're continuing to currently fund all of the retirees health insurance costs. Not all of it because some of it is Medicare. Okay. And this, this will come into play, you know, 10, 5, 10 years down the road when just healthcare costs get too, too exorbitant, then fortunately we will have this. That's right. That's correct. Yeah. Got it. Got it. Okay. Great. So yeah, I just wanted to confirm that, you know, the health insurance costs for the future retirees are coming out of a different, a different line item. But yeah, that was very helpful. Thank you. Shane. Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Charlie. Very thorough presentation. My question, I don't think we're being asked to approve this, but I read the memo and it says they're going to move the OPEB fund into the state fund and we're going to get, we're told that we're going to get a better return. Can you talk a little bit more about that? That's a sort of independent subject. Okay. And can we talk about that after we finish the contributory retirement board? Sure. I mean, it's really a distinct issue. And it's, it's sort of not directly a financial issue where this is a budgetary issue. All right. So right now before us is. Oracle 57. The draft warrant. Any other questions. Comments. John, I see your hand is up. Is that from prior? All right. So Charlie, do you have a motion? Yes, I'm, I think I thought I moved the, but I'll move the 2,067,454 dollars under article 57. Second. All right. It has been moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All right. See no hands will go to a vote. Jordan is absent. Shane. Yes. Jennifer. Yes. Sophie. Yes. Overturned. Is it here. Carolyn? Yes. Rebecca. Yes. Josh. Yes. Grant. Yeah. Charlie. Yes. John. Yes. Darrel. Yes. Annie. Yes. Jones. Yes. Tofer. Yes. He isn't here. El Tosti. to abstain. 14 votes in the affirmative. No, no votes in one abstention. So article 57 passes. What else do you have, Charlie? So I'd like to move on now to the non contributory, I'm sorry, to the contributory requirements system, the Arlington contributory requirement retirement system. So just so this is managed by the Arlington contributory retirement board, Rich Greco is the administrator. There's also an assistant. And then the members of the board are Edie Cody, the comptroller ex officio, Fred Fantitti, who is a former assistant treasurer of the town, resident of Cambridge. Kenneth Hughes, a former employee of the town, he was in the police force. And he is currently the chair. Robert Jefferson, I believe is the employee elected representative. And he is the former fire chief. And Richard Keshin is a attorney in town and has been on the board for a number of years. One of the members, probably Richard Keshin is appointed by the, I think it's a governor, and the others are appointed by the other members of the board. So, and one member is appointed by the elected by the employees. So Excuse me. Yes, I'll forgive me. Two members are elected. Okay, sorry. Two members are elected. Kenneth Hughes and then Robert Jefferson. Robert Jefferson. Okay, thank you. Thank you. So let me give you a few definitions here so we can thoroughly confuse ourselves. The state manages the investments and it's underneath an administration commission called PARAC, the public employee retirement administration commission is a state authority. And it was put in place, oh, I don't know 30, 40 years ago, after some famous corruption exposés amongst various pension boards. Then there's something called PRIM, which is the Massachusetts Pension Reserves Investment Management Board. This is a board of professional managers, headed by a gentleman, I think his first name is William, his last name is Trotsky. And he is a, you know, a very, you know, he would be working on Wall Street or working for the Harvard Trust Fund or something like that, if he wasn't working in this task, he leads this board, and they manage where this money goes in the marketplace. And then the the PRIT is actually the trust itself, it's the it's the investments, and they refer to that as the pension reserves investment trust. And then there's another abbreviation here called the M&T Bank. That's a custodial bank that actually has moves money in and out. In order to do anything with this money, you have to have somebody who's who can transfer it to and from the town, et cetera. And that's what the M&T Bank does. And then finally, when we refer to the unamortized actuarial liability and other related issues, these these this information is prepared by Stone Consulting, which is an independent firm, which is Arlington's actuarial advisor. So they, they pull all the information together, the investments, the employee counts, et cetera, and they make up a series of reports, which the contributory retirement board uses to make its decisions. The board, you know, provides money, both to the to the PRIT to, or the PRIM to invest in the PRIT and get a return and the board and the administrator also administer the distribution of funds on a monthly basis to the retirees. So this is just a snapshot of the system of the retirement system. And on 22 versus 21. And by the way, all of it just thoroughly confused us all one more step. You can't really compare these on a fiscal year basis, because all of these analyses are done on a calendar year basis. So the latest data we have is January 1, 2022. They're just now compiling the data from from January 1, 2023. So this tells you how many active members there are in the active retirees. There are 808. And then there are also disabled retirees 619. And then there are inactives. Inactive are people who were in the retirement system and left the town, they went and did something else, but they haven't taken their money out. So they're there. The money that they've put in is is also a liability that the town faces. Okay. Then the the normal cost is the is the cost that the town has to contribute on an annual basis to meet its obligations current obligations. And then there are the funds that they contribute to help work down the the liability. So the the total liability is $323 million. The this is the total liability that has been computed by the actuary as of the 1st of January 2022. And then the actuarial value of the assets and this number, by the way, has probably gone down today. But this is what it was sort of 15 months ago was 203 million. So that leaves the unfunded actual actuarial liability of 119 million. So this 119 million actually 120 million is what we're paying down on an annual basis with this contribution that we vote under under the budget. And there's more detail on this in those documents that I passed out the other day that were prepared by the actuary or by the retirement board. This is a snapshot that the just the various extracted from the previous page that the retirement board provides the Parac just to let everybody know what's going on. Here's a relevant number they assume an investment return of 7% a year. Okay, so and they also assume that the rate of salary increase of of current employees is 4%. And you know, why are we concerned about that? Well, we're concerned because if somebody is 15 years away from retirement and that person is making say $70,000 a year, that salary each year is going to go up by 4%. So the retirement fund is going to be liable for the higher salary 10 or 15 years out, which has increased at this this 4%. So all of these things, including the age of the employees and how long they've worked, etc. play into the actuarial calculations. And this is just a summary of the the the accrued liability over the last three years or five years actually, and then the unfunded liability. And you can see that the unfunded liability was lower in 2017. When COVID came around, then we had some drop in the market, the liability went up. And now it's gone back down through a combination of performance. But we also know since the end of 2022, or maybe mid 2022 with the increase in inflation, there's been a drop in the market. So probably this unfunded liability is going to go up again. So this is the funding schedule that we as Finance Committee members in town meeting members have to deal with. Now, this is the schedule that the actuary prepares and provides a report that goes to Perak and then Perak approves it after they do their due diligence. But it says that if we make these payments of contributions of around, you know, starting in 2024 of 16 million and seven increasing five, increasing 5.5% a year. By the time of 2034 comes around, it's going to be a fully self funded liability. Okay. Now, I have to say, sounding a little bit thinking about Carol's comments of days of your and one time we had a higher, we had a lower increase rate. And then the retirement board came and said they wanted to increase the rate. So we went up to 6%. And then recently, the town manager and retirement board agreed to go back to the 5.5%. And that increase rate has been approved by the by Perak for the for this schedule. Now, just a side comment here. Again, I'm practicing law without a license. But the law says in my layman's terms, that the retirement board has priority over any other expense of the town. In other words, the town has a hard obligation to meet these retirement costs. And in principle, if the town decided next year that we wanted to increase the number of fire trucks or build another building and not pay that 16 million or 17 million, the retirement board could take us to court and would be granted first dibs on that on those funds. So this is a this is a pretty serious obligation that the town has to deal with year in and year out. We don't have that same hard obligation, which John noted earlier, with the OPEV, the OPEV is obligation is it's a liability, but it's not quite as strong as the Arlington contributory retirement system obligation. So after doing all the auditing and, you know, discussions with the retirement board and the actuary, etc. Perak prepares a letter, which it sends to the to the retirement board. And it says that Arlington has to contribute 16 million, I can't read it on my screen, but 16 16 million this year. And a certain percentage of that is due from the housing authority. So this is not the number that that we're dealing with in the Finance Committee, we're dealing with the the number of 15 million 676 279. That's the that's what we have to present to town meeting the Arlington housing authority is semi independent legal body that addresses its own financial obligations. So in summary, what we're recommending for this vote is that this number 15 million 676 729 is what Perak is looking for the town to contribute. And of that, 1 million 542 544 is offsets principally from the water and sewer enterprise funds, there may be some other smaller enterprise fund contribution there, but that's principally from water and sewer, which as you know, comes from user fees as opposed to taxation. So the taxation total is 14 million 133 735 14 million 133 thousand 735 dollars. And would in that in practice represents a 5.73 percent increase over last year. And the difference between the 5% and the 5.5% and the 5.7% has to do with the effect of the most of it has to do with the effect of the offsets. So I think that's what I wanted to say about the contributory retirement budget article. You're on mute Christine. Just want to point out what you are presenting, Charlie is slightly different than what is in our budget book due to I think it's the offset amount is slightly higher by I think in the budget book, the offset is 1542 404. I got this from the town manager's spreadsheets. So I didn't check to see if there was a difference between the spreadsheets and the budget book. So Madam Chair, what I would recommend here is that we vote as presented here, we're talking about a difference of $400, which is not a material difference in, you know, with the permission of committee, we can investigate the difference between the town manager's spreadsheets and the town manager budget book and make the final correction that will update the committee. I think that would be a good idea. So Charlie has made a motion. Is there a second? Second. Alright, so questions, comments, Shane. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Charlie, for another quality presentation. Why did we reduce the increase from six to five and a half? And then we're one number two. If we assume a 7% increase every year, do we rate of return? Do we normally hit in that range? Actually, let's see. Let me see. Did I, if you look in, if you look in the other documents, one of the other documents that I present, the one that has a lot of sheets in it, there's a historical performance of the Parac Fund. And just from memory, the 10 year performance is almost 9% is 8.8%. The, you know, it goes up and down over the years, but in the long term, they have been exceeding that 7% rate. The reason why the town manager and the retirement board negotiated a lower increase in contribution was because the returns prior to this year were higher. You know, if the returns from the fund come in higher, then the future obligation, the net obligation is lower. So they can lower the growth rate in the contribution to 5.5% and still make the 10 year amortization target. Thank you, Charlie. John. Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Charlie, for the continued presentation. So just following along the last question, you're kind of confirming my understanding here. So first of all, this is, you know, now we're talking about just straight pensions, which is primarily just kind of money in, money out. So I assume, you know, these numbers, you know, pretty solid, the actuaries can get these things pretty accurate from year to year. Now, but so the one thing I want to confirm is that the 15.6 million that the town is contributing here, that's, that's everything that the town is paying towards pensions this year. Like in other words, there's no other line item where we're paying pensions on a current basis. The 15 million covers our future liabilities and our current year liabilities. That's correct. That's what I thought the future liabilities according to that amortization schedule that is presented on the previous slide. Yeah, and again, just to help me keep this straight. So if we compare that to the health insurance, you know, I think, you know, we approved roughly two million to do apples and apples, you'd actually say the two million that we contributed to the health insurance, plus whatever we're paying on a year to year base on the current year for health insurance. So, I mean, they may be even a lot, those two numbers might even be a little bit closer if you compared the pension and the health insurance. That's correct. It's not the other way. In other words, this contribution is not the same as the OPEB contribution that we're making. The OPEB contribution in article 57 is basically the town making a commitment to work that liability down, but not trying to address it with the same degree of rigor that it is required to show on the retirement system. Got it. Yep. That that was my understanding. Thank you. Any other questions? Comments? So I believe we have a motion for a to approve the retirement budget taxation total amount of $14,133,735. I believe that was seconded. Correct. Yes. Any further discussion before we take a vote on the retirement budget? Right. Jordan is not here. Shane? Yes. Jennifer? Yes. Sophie? Yes. It's not here. Carolyn? Yes. Rebecca? Yes. Josh? Yeah, following Dave's lead, I'm going to recuse myself on this one also. Okay. Grant? Yes. Charlie? Yes. John? Yes. Darrell? Yes. Annie? Yes. Al Jones? Yes. Tophera? Yes. He's not here. Altosti? Yes. He's not here. And Dave? I will abstain, please. 13 votes in the affirmative, no negative and two abstentions. The retirement budget passes. Before we move on, Josh, would you like to change your vote for the last article, 57? Yeah, I'll stand on that one also. Okay. I'm a beneficiary of this, so. Madam Chair? Yes. Go ahead, Charlie. Can I just address the question raised by Shane earlier? Yes. With respect to the change in the where the money goes? Please. So is my screen still being shared? Yes. Yes. Say draft warrant article 20? No. Okay, hang on a second. I got a presentation. And then I have to start again here. Hang on. How's that? Got it. Okay. So the article 20 is for the town to accept legislation section 32B or general law 32B section 20 OPEV trust funds. So basically Shane raised the question before that the town wants to move the OPEV money to a more to a to an environment that has a higher rate of return. The money right now is being managed by a company called Makita. And it's a $20 million fund and it's not, you know, it's not such it's not such a big deal in the in the high finance world. And we don't get returns that are what we call spectacular, like, you know, it's average eight or 9% a year for 10 years is pretty, pretty spectacular. Okay. So what the town would like to do is move that money to the Pritt Trust Fund run by Prim under the management of Perak. Okay. So to do that, the town has to accept this legislation. The Prim people will not accept any money that hasn't been, you know, under this legislation. This is exact. This is exactly, it means a different, a different section, but it's exactly the same wording and so forth of the legislation that we accepted when the contributory retirement funds went to Prim. Okay. So the none of it is here that according to the law, the, the, the, the local management, which is the select board, right, they can designate the trustee or board of trustees that have general supervision. They may designate the treasurer as a custodian, or they may designate the cost, the treasurer as a custodian and their retirement board as the board of trustees, where they can create a new board of trustees for this money. So first of all, I did have a conversation today with the chair of the contributory retirement board, and they have requested that their name be taken off the draft article and that the town manager make the request. And this and as I understand that the town manager and the retirement board have agreed that the treasurer will be the custodian of the funds. And the treasurer is the custodian of the retirement funds now. So there's no, there would be no change between the how the retirement funds are handled and how the OPEB funds will be handled. And that the Arlington contributory retirement board be the board of trustees for the OPEB fund. And that's more or less what's going on right now. So that's really shamed the answer to your question where this is headed. And the town manager is in favor of it. It mirrors the retirement board operations that we have, but it's not a financial article. It's a policy article for the select board to present. Does that answer your question, Shane? Madam chair. Yes, go ahead, Shane. Thank you, Charlie. I think so. So just the can you just the the the treasurer will be the custodian, but the board, the retirement board will remain the fiduciary duty to the retirees and the money will be managed by what the custodian means is that when they move money from somewhere, when the one the retirement board wants to move money from one account to another, for example, right now, to pay the retirees, they have to fill out what's called a warrant. I have never seen one, but that's what they call it. And they bring it over to the treasurer and the treasurer signs the warrant and sends it to the bank. Okay, so it's basically getting an extra set of eyes on the money as a method of control. Thanks, Charlie. So Charlie, you are what you're saying is that you've explained article 20, but you you're saying that this is not a financial article. And and as such, we shouldn't we don't have to take it. Well, actually, I was asking that, you know, it was he is he's already basically made that decision. I'm just supporting it. All right, any questions on what Charlie just explained? Alright, anything else, Charlie? That's it. Thank you very much. Thank you, Charlie, for a great presentation. I appreciate it. All right, so we've done the retirement budget. And I think we have the IT budget ready to present correct, Topher? Yes. All right, take it away. All right. All right, should I share my screen? It's up to you. I'm happy to or or if you want to, but you should have permission to do so. I have permission to do this one. So I believe I do. And everybody and everyone see my screen. Yes. Let me just turn that into a slide show or not. We'll do that. All right. I'll do the best I can. All right. So the IT budget. So first, we had a meeting with IT on the 13th, attending from the finance committee where myself, Charlie and Al, and then Patricia Shepard, who's the CIO and runs IT and Julie Wayman, the budget director, who you all know. This was the updated IT budget, which I'll talk about various aspects of Alan. You can double check, but I'm pretty sure I pulled the most recent numbers. So we'll refer back to this. You know, I'll go through what I think are some of the highlights, how the salient points, and if there's other questions we can we can drill into them. So first on the positions in it for the salaries and wages, a couple, couple open positions right now. They did fill a project manager business analyst role in December, but there was now a retirement. So there's another position open. So they're basically down a project manager, which will can factor into some of their projects and what they can do and what they can't do right now. They're looking for a manager of enterprise applications. They haven't found anyone who will take the job at the current salary range. They've tweaked the job description. They have not adjusted the salary range and they've reposted it. And then just this is semi historical, but the manager of GIS moved from IT to DPW, Republic Works in last year. That was a footnote in the report last year. Alan, Al Tosti had asked about sort of showing the budget changes. So Patricia prepared this slide. So money they didn't spend in 2022 that they're applying to 2023. There was a couple items here that she highlighted. One was not, was the, I'll look to her, I guess she calls it O365, the Microsoft 365 licensing. There were 60,000 that they didn't spend. So they're, I guess, moving that forward for the ongoing licensing. And there was 40,000 for email that they didn't spend. So they're putting that into support this migration to Microsoft. Was a question about the license breakdown for Microsoft 365 from Alan Jones. And so this was the breakdown she gave me. So there's different levels here of licensing. There is, you know, the online only, then there's having a desktop and then there's the frontline worker of mobile apps. So this is just the breakdown of those, the 62,000 that were spending on licensing, you know, and what those are. And I've put this presentation in the SharePoint. So people kind of refer to this and pull, pull these numbers if they, if they want to. So our license costs, you know, were breakdown. So if we go back to the software, so not, not MUNIS, but the software maintenance that was some of those licensing costs. Telephone expenses is another good size one. Now it went down. Wanted to go down because Patricia made a decision to move some of this to network maintenance. The voice over IP in particular she felt is more of a networking cost. But that does leave the landlines for Marcienne and Verizon mobile lines for our work mobile phones. And there was an act request for a breakdown of that. So that's where there's 20,000 that goes to landline centric lines. And I guess the elevators have to have phones. And then there's the RCN breakdown. And some landlines, some for the fire, the police department, the fire department, the public schools. So that's that breakdown. The network maintenance is an annual, really an annual software cost. It includes some things like the Comcast web licenses, our backup solution and Barracuda, which some of you may have encountered with an email as an email filter can be pretty aggressive. So that's where the network maintenance comes from. There was a question on training, like where does that go? What do we do with that? The Munis conference is one. They want to continue to learn munis as well as other professional development. As you can imagine, the IT staff has to master new tools each time. I think 10 K for each of these is actually pretty modest and they didn't use all their FY 22 budget. Consulting. This seemed to be mainly the DPW has been automating water and sewer. It should be billing, not building and meter reading. So there's two developers that are integrating that their support for hybrid meetings, of course, as we know, that's been a hot topic. And I guess they are putting the secure trash disposal under under consulting. Another line item that's come up is informix. Why haven't we gotten rid of this? That came up. This is basically is wrapped up in. It's the munis utility building. Basically that it's moving to you munis utility building. So billing rather so munis utility billing. It's a tongue twister. It has three years of data right now. And the DPW wants to view the legacy system for longer. And informix for those who don't know is a database. So it requires us to have informix. We did ask, you know, when when can this go away? And this was a soft estimate maybe next year and Patricia was going to follow up with the DPW Mike, Mr. Rotemacher to try to nail down more of a plan on what what they need and how on they think they'll need it. She is currently at a conference, so I can I will follow up with her. I hope that we can maybe vote this without, you know, leave this as an item to just be followed up on and reported on. So those were some of the line items that came up. Then there's the projects that they they do and we want sort of a general idea of the projects. So Munis is a biggy one, big one. She did report there's a Munis steering committee of super users, you know, town employees that are using this that help look at things and figure out the project plans and what the priorities are. We have a number of Munis modules, Munis being the general accounting system. And there's one called General Billing that we have purchased, but haven't really moved forward with. Right now that's on hold. The work is scoped out, but it didn't make the overall priority list. This is also an area where having only one project manager is slowing it down. So they are working on hiring another project manager. There's no other modules apparently that have purchased but uninstalled. There's something called position control to the HR module that they're looking into. I think they've gotten yet. And then finally, they have to move to the new version of Munis by December of 2023 because we use it for cash sharing for the Treasurer's office and that generates W-2s, which are obviously going to be have to come out the end of the year. And Munis is cloud based. We're moving, you know, that's generally the way the world goes right now. But obviously there can be adaptations and costs or, you know, work from the townside to go to the new version. So that's that's the Munis picture at a high level. Finally, another project that gets asked about is while digitizing documents, you know, we want to digitize those. We have tons of documents. There is a project team. The pilot, the first one is Inspectional Services. There's about 10 processes and forms that you've ever worked on in your house. You know this. And so that's where they're starting. I think they set a nine month window or so to do that. And then probably the it's the Health and Human Services, Tom Clerk's office made the DPW. And she thought again, very soft, rough estimate, you know, five or six years of total time to really get through everything that we could do with the current current technology that we're using. Then other projects that came up, she said there's sort of a two year network, two to three year network roadmap that they're trying to do. And upgrade. What upgrades will have to do with things like that? Then obviously we have a bunch of new buildings going on. We have the DPW and the New Grove Street Campus. So there'll be infrastructure for that. And then, of course, the new high school is as we know, we're going into face. And phase two is well underway. There'll be technical infrastructure for that. So those are some of the high little projects that that that is working on. So that concludes my general overview of this and the budget. But if there's questions, we can delve into them. And thank you, Topher. Questions, Annie. So I got a couple. So the first one is, Topher, if you're going to go back and talk to them about informants and you ask them whether or not they've done any kind of analysis of the relative cost of extracting all of that data and putting it in a cube somewhere and not keeping informants as a way to be able to access that data. OK, so just yeah, just putting it in some read only repository. Yeah, something, something else. Some some database would already have it may be too complicated because of table structure, but it's worth. Yeah, yeah, I was going to say that that would strike me that. OK, the informants line item here is I can read my own screen. It is 7000 a year. All right, then that's not going to go very far in terms of trying to convert even even if the table structures match probably between databases. Well, at least they've gotten the cost down. And then on the digitizing of documents, do you mean literally getting documents online that already exist? Or are we talking about putting processes and forms online for people to fill out? I believe the latter. I don't know if this is really getting through the backlog of papers in the basement of Town Hall. Yeah, because we have this enormous backlog of it. We can't access that is a big bugaboo with me. And can you scroll back down to the project slides? There was another question I had you for you about the project slides. To the other projects. Oh, I know what I was going to ask. Do we have any idea of how many servers we still own versus everything moving to the cloud? I did not ask for that. So. Yeah, I can I can we can follow up on these questions. Yeah, we don't need to natural to budget because of any of those questions. I just wanted to ask them. But thank you. Grant. Yes, thank you, Madam Chairman. It says revised budget. I just want to make sure and I can't read it. Can you just tell me what the offset amount is? Please. Is it? Sure, see if we can. So you mean the offset at the very bottom of the page, the current year. There we go. Two, four. Yeah, I understand it's hard to read just a second. My screen is not cooperated. So two, four, four, eight, five, five. OK, excellent. Thank you. All right. Jones. Hey, thank you. I don't have a question. I just wanted to give a public shout out this. I had code here for managing the migration to Microsoft 365. I've done it a number of times myself on a much smaller scale. I appreciate the difficulty of forklifting all of that email over to it. So I simply say, Siad, you did a great job. Yeah, smoothly, too. Because if it doesn't go smoothly, everything grabs to a halt. Yes, it was a very difficult, challenging job and he did a great job. Thank you. Josh. Yeah, I should have said this question, but I'm just wondering if there's a few different lines where the budget for twenty three and twenty four is quite a bit higher than the actuals from prior years. Is that just because they're increasing their resources there or like as an example, network maintenance? Well, some of the network maintenance is because they shifted costs from the telephone expenses. So the voice over IP was bucketed in telephone expenses and it got shifted to network maintenance. And you can see that the telephone expenses went down. OK, and the software maintenance shift. Software maintenance is because of Office 365, do you think? I think so. Yeah. OK, all right. Thank you. All right. Topher, do you have a motion? Sure, but I will move that we vote the total taxation expense of one million one hundred fifty four thousand three hundred and twenty five. Do I have a second? Second. Any other questions or discussion about the I.T. budget? No hands will go to a vote. Jordan is not here. Shane. Yes. Jennifer. Yes. Sophie. Yes. Ryan is not here. Carolyn. Yes. Rebecca. Yes. Josh. Yes. Grant. Yes. Charlie. Yes. John Griffin. Yes. Darrell. Yes. Annie. Yes. Annie. Yes. Al Jones. Yes. Topher. Yes. He's not here. Al Tosti. Yes. He's not here. Dave. Yes. All right. The I.T. budget has been approved unanimously. All right. Does anyone have any other budgets ready for tonight? When will the treasure budget treasures budget be ready? Any estimate? I think that's Brian's. I'm just not here. All right. Shane, how about public works and facilities? We're meeting this week with both of our department heads, but not till the end of the week. So I think we might be have a budget on Monday, depending on how those conversations go. I think we're doing capital planning on that 8th, though. So I don't think I'm not sure we can do anything else on the 8th. So we'll do our very best to sort of work through the weekend and see what we can get for Monday. OK. And Grant, water and sewer. Any estimate? Yes, it has to be after they make the insurance. Some. Adjustments. Sandy said that's supposed to be March 1st or so. So I would think sometime 13th to the 15th. OK. All right. All right. Good. All right. We are scheduled to have Minuteman come in on Wednesday. We'll we will be meeting in person. At the police station, community safety building. And Annie, you had you wanted to spend a few minutes talking about that in preparation for that. Just a couple of things. Can you all hear me? Yeah. OK. Just a couple of things. One is that the presentation that they are going to make to us that has the Arlington specific information in it is in the folder that Tara pointed you to it is the PowerPoint that says that ends with Final Dash Arlington. So the second is that if you have specific questions that you want them to be prepared to answer, I'd appreciate it if you could email me email me in the next 24 hours so I can get them those questions. I did ask about, you know, the basic stuff about how many of our students have applied and enrollment and acceptances and so on and so forth. But if you see specific questions in the numbers or have specific areas that you are concerned about from previous years, get me those questions so I can forward them to Dr. Dawson. And then Christina, I believe I told them that eight o'clock was fine, assuming we would have minutes to vote and so on and so forth. But Tara, if you could make sure that they have correct directions for the meeting room. I mean, these I don't think either Nikki or Dr. Dawson has been here before physically. OK. And let them know what the technology infrastructure is. I mean, I don't know whether you want to run slides or you want them to connect their computer to the projector, but will want to be able to project the presentation in that room, if at all possible. Does that make sense? Yeah, so I'll have a zoom running in the background just to record everything and we can just have them. I'll ask them to just have a zoom on their laptop if they don't want to email the presentation in advance and then they just get like a key that they put in and then they can project to that neat board in there. The presentation is there. Oh, yeah, I can just present it then. Yeah, that might be the easiest thing to do is to just have them call for next slide if that is OK. Yeah, I don't forget you from taking minutes or if you want, I'll hop up front and run the slides or something. If anybody has any questions now that you want to convey to me, I would start taking notes, but otherwise getting an email would be appreciated. Charlie. Yes, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chair. Any last couple of years we had discussions with Minnaman about the the field costs and how they were going to get be renting the fields out be paying for the additional investment that we put money up for last year or I can't forget what it was last year or the year before, but it was substantial funds and they were very positive about their ability to to lease the field out to other users and be interesting to know that we're actually getting those revenues and and paying them those investments. So I asked them that question and I wasn't particularly happy with the answer and I want to do some follow up through our email thread about that discussion about that that funding because my understanding is that what they are doing is entering into a long term deal with another organization that is going to build out more athletic infrastructure, but that in entering into that long term deal, they're leaving some revenue available for that organization and the implication was that Dr. Dawson didn't realize that Dr. McQuillan had made this deal with us about using revenue to pay that debt back. So I'm coming on you to ask the hard questions, Charlie, but I'll go back and look at the email thread and I'll ask the green and it'll be helpful, Annie, if you just let them know that there's going to be that question, I did let them know, but I will follow up an email and say, hey, I know you're going to get this from the committee, so be prepared. Any other questions that you want, Annie, to take to them so that they will be prepared with the information when they meet with us on on Wednesday, Josh, thank you, Madam Chair. I can't remember. Are they prohibited from joining GIC? I noticed their health insurance was going up like 10 percent. I don't know the answer to that question, but I could probably find it out. Thank you. I think this would be a good opportunity if you just jot down these questions, Annie, and we're not expecting you to be the to have a. No, I will send them to them. Tofer. Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. So my question was they talk about increasing the capacity of the school. I wanted to get a sense of how much they think they can do that. I know their design capacity is six twenty eight, but they have almost, you know, I think that's eighty five percent full. They've got close to seven hundred and forty, which would be a hundred percent. They talk about an increase of thirty two and slide twenty four. But are there any other increases? Just, you know, how much bigger do they think they can make the school, you know, without getting another debt, excluding, you know, another getting debt exclusion? And what I'm really getting at here is what do we think the ceiling of Arlington student enrollment might end up being? You know, we might it looks like they're going to pretty much member town only enrollment at this point, assuming maybe it's super popular and they even have to go to a lottery or something. But, you know, Arlington has a decent percent, some percentage of the total student body right now, the school gets bigger. I mean, I'm just trying to get a sense of where our enrollment by, you know, after level off, which would then affect our assessment, but eventually level off. OK, you got that. That's a couple. Sorry. We I did talk about that with them, but I want to give them the question the way that you just framed it, because it's not how I asked it. So OK. Another couple of or another. One was on 23. They talk about grants. I'm just curious, is any of the SARPA money, you know, are these grants renewable? It's great that they're getting a lot of grant money, but, you know, can they, you know, count on that going forward? And then finally on slide 26, just a comment and I'm new to this, but it looks like they they do have a fairly big old pep need. They have very little in there versus what they think they need. And so that this what their plan is to, you know, address that. And those are my questions. All right. Thank you, Toford. I'll toss it. Yeah, hi. I haven't had a chance to look at the folder honest, but I'm assuming they have some comparative data on for student costs. I mean, our problem with man over the years has always been it costs too much versus other vocational schools. So I guess that's what I'd like to focus on. So you're interested in costs versus other vocational schools or versus the high school versus other vocational schools. And that's per pupil costs exclusive with capital out. Yes, that's correct. Hey, Jennifer. Hi, thanks to venture. So my question actually may be based on very old information, old discussions that I just haven't kept up with. But but several years back there was a discussion of selling part of the property when they moved the building. Is that off the table? Is there any talk now of selling any of the property? They they didn't mention it. But yeah, there's an interesting question there because there's a the old building was being torn down and there are fields being built. I don't know whether. Again, this was maybe four years ago discussion, so I don't know. But maybe it got resolved in someone I just don't haven't followed it. Yeah, I may have something back in my notes and they may have some information about this versus the athletic facility construction thing. So thanks. Cool. I think I think this is helpful so that when people come in, including Minuteman as an example to present to us, they're actually giving us the information that we want to hear as opposed to giving us the presentation they want to present. So so this is this is good. Thank you, Annie, for arming them with with these questions so that we get to hear what we want to hear. So for you have another suggested question. Yeah, thank you, Madam Sharon, one that came to mind as Jen was talking and that Mr. and Alan's question. Mine is sort of this may be a broad question, but to what degree I mean they've talked. They obviously they're a vocational school, so there's a number of trades and other majors, if you will, other concentrations that the students can do. But they've also talked a lot about moving to this academy model and college prep in the last few years. And but what we have a sense of what how much how much overlap there is with the high school in terms of curriculum and what they offer. Well, I I I've done a couple tours of that building and I have. Some information about that, but I think that's a good question and directly asked Dr. Dawson. Yeah, I'd be curious to hear their take on that because obviously they will at least when. Dr. Bill Quillian was there, he would point out that forty seven percent of their students are on an IEP. And that that is sort of part of their mission, right? Kids who don't fit the standard mold of the high school are often a good fit for Minuteman because of its learning methodologies. Yeah, I mean what do we know what I mean this would be a public school question, but what percentage of our high school students are in some IP or some something like that? I don't know, but it's not forty seven percent. No, it's not as many, but I'm just curious. It's around 15, I believe. How many? 15, 15. OK, thank you, John. All right, now. I'll Tosti, you're muted now. Oh. Getting late. Well, there's a discussion going on or and I think vocational schools, as far as admissions and the traditional admissions has been based on attendance, grades, you know, all the admission qualities to get into a select school. And a lot of people are pointing out that that often excludes a lot of kids who really have maybe have poor attendance and their grades aren't great, but they should be going to a vocational school. And so I'd be interested in seeing her reaction to that discussion. A little more philosophical than the nuts and bolts, but it is a discussion that is happening right now. Yeah, I let me. Let me frame that up for her. Caroline. Thank you, Madam Chair. My question to them is and they usually present this is what percentage of the kids go on to college, go on to two year programs or go on to trade. Apprenticeships and and then the other is, you know, that as Tofer put it, the kids are half half time in academic, half time in trade. My understanding is that they the curriculum is exactly the same as at the high school. And I forget how they manage to cover most of the curriculum in that half one week on one week off model, but something along those lines. And, and you can answer that if you want right now. So I I believe they have to meet state standards and curriculum offerings. And I believe could be wrong, but I think there's students have got to pass MCAS. So in that sense, there's going to be a curricular overlap, but I'm I'm sure that Dr. Dawson will be happy to be happier to talk about that than the field costs. OK, I will frame that up. I think that we have proven that we have already read their materials and they could be assured that we have read what they have prepared and we are now eager to hear some additional information. And that's and that's great of you to do that for us. Cool. Thank you. And this all to you know, the budgets we haven't had haven't been presented. Get your questions to those groups so that they can be prepared to answer your your your questions. All right. Just really quick, Chris, just because I got a whole bunch of questions tonight doesn't mean that if you think of things offline, you shouldn't email them to me. I'm happy to keep forwarding things until we've covered all the bases. All right, so let's move on now. Let's talk about the Warrant Review. I forwarded what Al Tosti has recommended in terms of what we should be focusing on and what article, articles we should be getting information hearing from people on. Most of them are the town managers, articles, and there's one Warrant Proponent we are trying to schedule a meeting with. I don't know is let me put let me put this question. Is is there any other Warrant articles that people feel that we should be holding a hearing on? Or are we fine with Al Tosti's recommendations? Anybody? All right, great. So that's what we will do. We'll have the town manager in when we can schedule that and that one proponent or a proponent, one one article proponent and then that's what we will be focusing on. Great. Thank you very much, Al Tosti, for for doing that and getting that to us. That's been that's very helpful. All right, so we have. Let's talk about our upcoming schedule. We have Minuteman on Wednesday. I, Tara, I think we have Arts and Culture on Monday. Yes, and possibly the Community Preservation Act after that. But I won't. I will confirm that that happens. So have we gotten anything from Arts and Culture yet? No, any any present? OK, I can follow you with them. Yeah, yeah. All right, you and I can talk about what we should be asking them to provide us and the same with the Community Preservation. Indeed, they confirm for Monday. I have the document from the Community Preservation Act now. OK, great. All right, is that that's in SharePoint, right? Yeah, I just got it today. So I'll send it out when I send out the meeting materials for Wednesday. Great. All right. And then next Wednesday. Tara, I mean, Caroline, you're presenting a few budgets. And we we are tentatively planned for having capital planning in. Yeah, I have met with HR the day before, so I should be able to do both HR and reclass. OK, I'll toss you have a hand up. Yeah, I just wanted to make sure we could get health insurance in on either the three twenty seven or three twenty nine. Why don't we pencil that in for three twenty seven? Thank you. We've confirmed with water, water bodies and with the schools on the twenty seconds. And we do have a capital planning presentation, correct? Tara, do we have capital planning? Yes, I sent that out last week, I believe. Right, that's all right. So just like we have done with with Minuteman, I think everyone should look at the capital plan and send your questions to Darrell. Darrell, if you can prepare the capital planning committee before their presentation with our questions, that'd be great. All right. With the time we have left, I'm wondering if we could do this, the smaller committees and commissions. Tara, as I understand it, we have not heard. Everyone is asking for the same budget amount that they got last year, or do we have exceptions? We have a couple of exceptions, but they have not a couple of exceptions of folks who are likely going to ask for increases, but don't actually know their increases yet. And I think a few of those people, a few of those groups were just meeting last week. So let's see. Sorry. Here we go. I believe that Zero Ways Arlington may be asking for additional historical commission likely is going to ask for additional, but they needed to get back to me. And I think Open Space Committee. I can't remember which one of them they might have been meeting last week, so I need to follow up with them. But a lot of them are not asking for more at this point. And so, all right. So let's let's let's approve these. These committees that we know are not asking for additional funds. Before we do that, Sophie, you have a hand up. Yeah, so for the commission on disability, we've had a hard time connecting, but they were asking what the deadline would be to submit a budget. So my impression is that they don't have one yet. That being said, we always historically give them that same level 25,000. So I don't think that's going to change. I think it's just we want information on what it's going to be spent on. But so that's all I have for now on that. We have a sense of when they might have their and any ballpark or when they might have a budget. I don't. I'm hoping to speak to someone tomorrow and to help them with that. I'm not sure they they rely a lot a lot on the town's ADA coordinator. It looks like from the email exchange I've seen. So I need to see a bit more. OK, all right. Well, it'd be great if you continue to work with them and see what they might have for us and when they can have it. But let's go. Let's start. Let's do some of these other small budgets get them out of the way. All right. Let's start with the Transportation Advisory Committee and Tara, just just give me a shout out if if they if a group I'm I'm talking about may be asking for more money. I haven't heard back. It's it's really hard to there's a few that it's kind of hard to track down who's like responsible for it. So I'm still trying to track down a few of these. So Transportation Advisory Committee and Scenic Byway, I haven't gotten the right person yet. OK, and this and culture is still waiting for. And they're not increasing in amount, but we're still having that hearing, but they're not requesting an additional amount. Right. OK, so let's let's skip the arts and culture. What about Envision Arlington? Are they they're not asking for more? So Arlington Commission. So anything that has a no here is not asking for more at this time. So these. All right. All right, so let's go ahead and and handle these budget requests. Starting with Envision Arlington, which is asking for, I believe, three thousand dollars. I'm looking at our budget on page one ninety five. So we gave them three thousand. Last year and they are looking for three thousand this year. Um, do I have a motion to. Prove their budget request is three thousand. Seconded. Second. Yeah, Madam Chair, I wonder if we could get all of these together and then take. Yeah, rather than separate votes on. Yeah, that just occurred to me as as I. Heard the second and I said we can do this more efficiently. All right, so tourism and economic development. They're looking for the same amount, which is four thousand two hundred seventy five. Zero waste, we're still waiting for, right? Yes. And the Commission on Disability, we're waiting for. The Historical Commission, we're waiting for, right? They're likely going to be requesting more, but they don't know how much you have. OK, and Madam Chair, can I ask Karen to type in these numbers as we're going through just so I know I have them, right? Oh, um, if you had a column, OK, hold on. Sorry, let me just think about how I want to do this. So sorry. So Envision Arlington is three thousand. Tourism is four thousand seventy five. Historic Commission going to be different than the Historical Commission. You are a little choppy. And Broadway Historic Commission, it is different. And I am still waiting. OK, for them, I'm not ready. Yeah, I don't know. OK, waiting for the human human rights commission. Human Rights Commission, seventy five hundred. Good with that. LGBT, four thousand. Open scope base. Are they good with three hundred? Is that what they're looking for? Yeah, you know, yes, they're good with that. Yep, they are. All right, I think that is all we can do tonight. Do I have a motion? No, no. Do I have a second? Second, we are moving to we are voting to approve these five budget requests for Envision Arlington, Tourism, Human Rights, LGBT and Open Space. This is. Does everyone understand what we're doing now? Any discussion? All right, let's take a vote. Jordan is not here. Shane. Yes. Jennifer. Yes. Sophie. Yes. Here, Carolyn. Yes. Rebecca. Yes. Josh. Yes. Grant. Yes. Fairly. Yes. John. Yes. Daryl. Yes. Annie. Yes. Al Jones. Yes. Tofer. Yes. Al Tosti. Yes. Dave McKenna. Yes. All right, those budgets have been approved unanimously. Harry Barber, should we do Harry Barber tonight? Is that we classified to be something more administratively easy this year? Last year, I don't know. Al Tosti. Yeah. Last year, we voted no action on Harry Barber and folded that into this article. So if you look at last year's report, it was in for 7500. So so we could do that. And if I could make a suggestion, and some of these commissions and committees sort of, you know, just deal around with this stuff forever. Um, it may be suggested, Tara, that we give a deadline of May 8th. Otherwise, we're holding the same amount. Yeah. OK. Yeah, I would be even more draconian than that. And I'd say we want to hear from them by April 1st. OK. Oh, that gives them like that gives them four weeks or five weeks. I would I would do it in March. I said March like 8th. Oh, I said May. No, March. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Let's let's let's give them let's give them to the middle of March. I would think two more weeks. It's the first on on Wednesday. So. Charlie, you had a hand up. Actually, I'll said what I was going to say. Um, all right. So there is, um, so there is an article for Harry Barber. Isn't there, right? I guess I'd like to make the most that we vote no action on the Harry Barber article fell and appropriate seventy five hundred dollars into the commission's and committee's article. There shouldn't be a separate one article. It should just be part of this second. Right. Any questions, comments, discussion. On what we're doing. Alan Jones. Well, just I'm wondering if this is only a draft warrant. Can we actually have this removed from the requested or should it be removed from the warrant? I'm not sure they can do that at this point. OK, it's a council on aging. They just sort of it goes in automatically. But, um, and then they have to renumber everything. So I I don't think they'd want to do that if they could. Maybe next year, maybe next year, Rebecca. Thank you. Could you just repeat where the seventy five hundred dollars was going? I missed that. It's an old. It's a program that for a great deal of time. And in Arlington is actually fairly unique in it, but senior citizens from one of a better term can work for, I think, up to five hundred dollars and get that to be able to use off their tax bills or to pay their tax bills or to pay the rent. And yet. And so I don't have any. I do know the program. I don't see the line item where it's going. It would go with the commission's and committee's article. As opposed to a separate article. And I'm just not seeing on there which which commission and committee goes under. We would add that. Is that correct? Well, there's a commission's and committee's article. It's forty five. Article forty five. Yeah, it's article forty five. So we would be adding in our report to town meeting, we would break break article forty five out and list the specific committees and commissions and Harry Barber, the Harry Barber program under forty article forty five. And we would put the dollar amount there. So it's not currently listed in the town manager budget that we have in the commission's section. Is that correct? It actually is listed on page one ninety nine. One ninety nine. Under senior citizens. Committee's service program. Perfect. Oh, thank you. There it is. Thanks so much. That's my question. Al Jones, you have a hand up? Is it? All right. All right. So we have a motion. Seconded any further questions or discussion. All right, let's take a vote. Shane. Yes. Jennifer. Yes. Sophie. Yes. Caroline. Yes. Rebecca. Yes. Josh. Yes. Grant. Yes. Shirley. Yes. John. Yes. Daryl. Yes. Annie. Yes. Al Jones. Yes. Topher. Yes. Al Tosti. Yes. Dave. Yes. All right. That motion passes unanimously. Al Tosti, you have a handout. Oh, sorry. Is there anything else we can do tonight? Like we do flags on graves and. Those town day. Patriots day. Yes, we can do that. The one question I have, I don't think it would prevent us from doing those. Page one ninety eight. Yeah, I saw it in the warrant. Yes, I heard it in the draft warrant in article forty six. There is a new. Expense the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary celebration. And I'm not seeing any. Question of appropriation in the in. Town managers budget, but I think I think we can go ahead and vote. The parades and the flags and town day. And then talk to the town manager when he comes in about this two hundred and fiftieth anniversary. So for for new people every year, there's an appropriation to have fun. The the major parades. Merle day, but for today and Patriots day, there's a town day celebration. And there's money set aside to put flags on graves, which I understand is a legal requirement we have to do. So those those requested appropriations are on page one ninety eight of the town managers budget. Any discussion questions? Is there a motion? So moved. Second. All right, anything again, any any questions, any discussions on on what we're what we're. Going to vote on. So that's an appropriation of five thousand six hundred sixty seven dollars for the parades. Fort forty five hundred appropriation for flags on graves and five thousand dollar appropriation for the town day celebration. All right, let's go to a boat. Shane. Yes. Jennifer. Yes. Sophie. Yes. Caroline. Yes. Rebecca. Yes. Josh. Yes. Grant. Yes. Charlie. Yes. John. Yes. Darrell. Yes. Annie. Yes. Al Jones. Yes. Topher. Yes. Al Tosti. Yes. Dave. Yes. All right. Those three appropriations have been approved unanimously. All right, I think that may be it for tonight unless anyone has anything else. You think we could do forty seven because there's only one appropriation in there. And that's for indemnity of medical costs, which is in the budget twelve thousand or thirty five. The page. Do you on the in the budget now? Oh, right there. Whoops, you just left it. For some years on one ninety seven at the top of the page. Well, that was an old thirty five. And we hope to do zero for legal defense. Then we have demification of medical, which is twelve thirty five. And that's it. All right, so article forty seven with what's the amount. Twelve thousand zero three five. Do I make that motion? Second. Any questions, Jennifer? Yeah, just a naive question. What does that mean? What is what are we doing there with the indemnity of health care expenses? After police and fire are the only people in this particular category. And the article requires. So we're responsible for their medical costs. They have to go through and use all their insurance, all insurance or any other alternatives. And then we pick this up. And so this is not next year's cost. This is paying costs that they have already incurred. So this is not into a fund. This is something we know for sure we need to pay this. That's correct. OK, thank you. Any other questions? Any discussion? All right, so we'll take it to a vote. All right, article twenty seven in the amount twelve thousand thirty five dollars. All right, Shane. Yes. Jennifer. Yes. Sophie. Yes. Carolyn. Yes. Rebecca. Yes. Josh. Yes. Grant. Yes. Charlie. Yes. John. Yes. Darrell. Yes. Annie. Yes. Al Jones. Yes. Topher. Yes. Al Tosti. Yes. Dave. I love staying. Fort Fortin in the affirmative. No, no votes in the negative and one extension. Our article forty seven has been approved. And how did you say we have? What else now? Well, I think we could do article fifty one. Charlie, do you have any problem doing that? It's the pension adjustment for former employees. Charlie, what do you think? That's fine. Yeah, I think we can. OK, for the new people. When you retire. You have. You're only getting your cost of living increases on your first 15,000. People who take your job, active employees, they're getting a cost of living raise on their whole salary. Gradually, the retiree is going to fall further and further behind what the current person is is. What this does is put a floor so that if you once you get to 50 percent, then the retirement board makes up the difference so you never fall below 50 percent. I think in all my years, they've they've never actually had to come for this transfer. But this article provides an opportunity if they need to. So I'd make a motion for favorable action. It's a zero appropriation. Second. And it's been a motion second questions discussion. No questions, no discussion. All right, we'll go to a vote on article 51. Shane. Yes. Jennifer. Yes. Sophie. Yes. Carolyn. Yes. Rebecca. Yes. Josh. Yes. Grant. Yes. Charlie. Yes. John. Yes. Darrell. Yes. Annie. Yes. Al Jones. Yes. Topher. Yes. Altosti. Yes. And day McKenna. I'll abstain. 14 votes in the affirmative. No in the negative and one abstention. Article 51. Is approved. We're zero dollars. Topher. Can we do article 53? The assessment budget. I had asked the manager to talk to that. But do you know what the appropriation is, Topher? Isn't it in the budget? Wasn't it? Let's just see here. Oh, revaluation. Revaluation, it's $100,000. And I'm asking the question if there is an issue with doing it now, we can wait. Annie. Well, so I guess my question is, do we have any questions for the town manager on this? I mean, I don't. It's got to be done. I believe this is the three-year appropriation. And do we need to do it? Does anyone have a response to that? Charlie? June? Yes, thank you. Thank you, Madam Chairman. This is a requirement. The assessor, the director of assessments told us that this has to be voted now and used in the following year. And the state requires that the money is out there in the prior fiscal year. And that's why it's in this warrant. And I think when we presented the assessor's budget, we noted that this is not the major revaluation that takes place every, I believe it's nine years. This is, as Annie says, is a three-year step. And most of the money is spent with outside consultants. In this case, it's going to be Patriot. Web system. I have Patriot, the Patriot group. I don't remember what their official title is. Is that right, Tauber? Yes. Yes, that's right. So shall I take that question from you, Tau, for as a motion? I'm sure I'll move a bearable action on articles 53. Section. All right. Any further discussion? All right. Go to vote. Shane. Yes. Jennifer. Sophie. Yes. No, no, no. Daryl. Yes. Rebecca. Yes. Josh. Yes. Grant. Yes. Charlie. Yes. John. Yes. Yes. Annie. Yes. L Jones. Yes. Tofa. Yes. Yes. All right, article 53 and the appropriation of $100,000 has been approved unanimously. We have five minutes left is there anything else we can cover tonight. I think we got a lot done tonight. Again, we're meeting in person at the community safety building on the second floor. And we will be hearing minute man. Unless there's anything else, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Move. So second. Second. All in all in favor. Hi. Yeah. We are adjourned. See you on Wednesday. Thank you.