 Okay, I want to call the meeting of the Arlington Finance Committee to order, first thing just to remind you on Monday the school department superintendent school committee and wherever else she feels like bringing, don't bring too many people, we don't have a lot of chairs. We'll be here, and Ish, I sent out an email from the superintendent. They don't have a CFO right now except for a temporary one, so she requested that any questions from the budget, especially more detailed questions as opposed to general policy questions, could you please send those to her as soon as possible? Today. Today. The reason why is that Ms. Merz is only in tomorrow to help answer the questions, the ones that I can't answer. Okay, so I'll go home tonight, read the whole thing, or do it really, really early in the morning, or as soon as you can. I'll try my best at the meeting. Okay, the second issue is the minutes. Are there any corrections to the minutes? Yeah, I think that the second page should be 10,000. Okay, second page should be 10,000? About 10? I don't know. Zero. I don't know. I'm just asking. Just look at that. It's 10,000 to the capital. Right. Actually, I had a down perpetual care for both of them. Is it for the cleaning and restoration of the gravestones? Is that the purpose? Yeah, I think it's for the 10,000s. Okay, well that's in the warrant article now, so, or that's in the motion now, so if you could check it. And it's 200,000 to Christine. It's 200,000 to you? Okay, so Peter should be 200,000 there. The Cemetery Commission. Yeah, 200,000 to the Cemetery Commissioners. Any other questions or corrections? Okay, Peter, at the bottom of the first page, Article 35, recent votes. You've got 17,000 in one place and 15,000 in the other. Should be 17 in both. Any other corrections? Do I have a motion? Second? Any further discussion? Okay, all those in favor of accepting the minutes is directed. We say aye. Opposed? Okay. Please have all of your budgets and ready to present by next Wednesday. We might be able to do a couple tonight. One day the school committee usually takes most of the evening, but I'd like to have those done. Okay, so the articles today are focusing for the first, for the superintendent and the town manager on the hearty and the Gibbs. So with that, I'll turn it over to whoever. Why don't we start off with the hearty? Okay. Good evening, everyone. So I provided a memo. I don't know how many of you had an opportunity to take a look at it on the hearty expansion project and also forwarded around were cost projections performed by Shomet, a study in cost projections performed by HMFH architects. And I think that was a secondary analysis performed in regards to cafeteria renovations at the hearty school. So this particular project that we're asking for $3.5 million for is already in the capital budget, but we're asking for an appropriation under article three at the special town meeting so that we can have access to funds for this project before July 1st so that we can start the process of hiring an architect so we can start design in order to get the project done by September of 2018. So just a little background as is laid out in the memo. Starting at the end of 2016, we started the school with task force started again discussing capacity issues in the district focused on the hearty elementary school. We had HMFH architects work with the superintendent and the administration on an analysis of what the capacity needs actually were. It was demonstrated that three to four more classrooms would be needed in addition to the current space at the school based on enrollment projections. And this is some of the data on this is within the report that HMFH put together. We're going from basically having three grades at each level to four. So the cohorts are growing larger and larger. And as they move through the system, the school capacity gets tighter and tighter. All of those figures are not taking into account any potential further enrollment growth if the new guard development goes forward. There's been varying analysis on how many students may come from such a development. But there would certainly be students and they're not even accounted for in the enrollment projections as we're looking at them today. So the school enrollment task force voted to recommend based on the demonstrated need, the potential need as well as probably the best investment of a permanent solution going forward with a six classroom permanent addition at the hearty. In an initial cost estimation done by HMFH architects they had suggested that such an addition at 5,400 square feet might cost about $2.4 million. To be very sure of that before moving forward with any proposals we asked Shomit Design, a Shomit construction and design who are the construction managers at the Gibbs Project to do a further cost estimation or a peer review cost estimation. And they came back with a construction cost of $2.6 million and actually I'll call your attention to the chart on the back page of my memo. So everything that Shomit put together is at the top of that chart. You'll see Shomit hard costs and Shomit construction soft costs. They built in certain design and construction contingencies, testing, lead designation into that figure. Below that are figures that I in consultation with the PTBC put on to the project budget so you can see design fees to iron architect, OPM fees, commissioning fees, furniture fixtures in equipment, the technology for a total project, estimated project budget of $3.5 million. Going back just a little bit, the School Enrollment Task Force also at their last meeting started to talk about cafeteria capacity issues at the Harding. There's been a number of options talked about ranging in cost and there's actually again that study in the packet that was passed around. The superintendent can speak to this more in depth. I think she's leaning more towards a lower cost option that's actually not even included in the study that's before you. It would be using a room across the hall from the existing cafeteria for cafeteria space. So we've put in a cost allowance of $50,000 for a cafeteria altered that's yet to be decided upon. So the last thing I'll say is it's definitely a little unorthodox or unusual for us to ask for a full appropriation and borrowing authorization for a project before we have bids in hand. But based on the timing of both the spring town meeting when we expect to have a fall town meeting and when we want this project to be completed, it doesn't line up to wait to have any types of bids in hand. So if we get an authorization now we can go out and start to hire an OPM and an architect. We're not expecting to be ready for a special town meeting or zoning until November. And that would be too late to award a construction contract. So that's why we're asking for the appropriation now so that we can start immediately with the hopes of having it open again by September of 18. Okay, questions on the Hardy School? So talking about the potential impact of Newgar and it almost seems like we wouldn't want to finalize plans for the Hardy until the Newgar situations are over. So I guess I'll say I'll answer that in a few different ways. So we looked at this internally, upside down, left and right trying to figure out what current data that we have that could project how many children or families with children of school age who live there. So we looked at one, two, and three bedroom condos in East Darlington. We looked at one, two, and three bedroom apartments in East Darlington. So the distribution of school that children was. We looked at single-family homes in East Darlington. We looked at how many school-age children were in the Sims redevelopment and the Brigham's redevelopment and the high, using all that data, the highway came up to I think was about 23 students, 22 students. So not a lot of students, the architect from HMFH Architect said in the work that she's doing across the state at development of the size that's being proposed would see far more students than that. And that she's probably right because when we're looking at distribution among apartments and condos, that's a bit of a fixed population that turns over one at a time. There's going to be 200 new units coming on at once with people coming in to a very attractive school district where people are trying to get in and left. So it certainly could be a bigger population. I'd say if there's 50 students, 75 students, and let's say there's a large number, 75 and 50 of them are in the elementary school. That wouldn't give me any pause to go forward with this because I don't think on the site we could do any more than six classrooms responsibly. So if we have that type of surge of students, I think we're going to be thinking about an alternative that's off-site anyways. That's how I would respond to that. If we have, you say three to four classrooms per grade, how many additional students could that handle compared to today is 30, 16? Yeah, I'll let you up. We do have four. We will be having four classes for grade at Hardy. In that configuration, class sizes are in the low 20s. Some are a little bit higher, but it's possible that you have a class that comes through with five. If it's not all the grades, then we'd have capacity for a couple of outliers like that. I think we would just have to wait and see. But I agree with Adam that if we see a surge that we don't expect, Hardy is not going to be the solution, and we can't really add much more on there than we have. So six is the maximum? There's no other space. Right now, that's really going to compromise the playground and in fact, enough so that we are going to be looking at that slice of land that's between the school and Lake Street and perhaps have some additional play areas for the children. Okay, did you say the original request was three to four extra classrooms? And this is for sex. So you do have two? Yes. Theoretically extra. Okay, well, you're hiding back there. Dean. Thank you. So just, and I think it's just sort of helped that committee since it's got a leading question. You know, when we're talking about, you made the coming on entirely unusual to ask for all the money up front. In some ways, it's sort of a mild race against time because this is for everyone here. We have, the school right now has 21 classrooms. All are being occupied. The lower grades are the four cohort grades, K, one, two. The upper grade three, four, and five have three classrooms. So the assumption going in right now is that in the fall, we're going to be at that sort of like Thompson was last year. I'll call it a minus one position where you're going to need 22 classrooms, but you're only going to have 21, right? So what's going to happen at the heart of you, you're going to, I guess we'll call it blend a classroom. You're going to have a bunch of outraged parents, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so the key is to get the project started, and you correct me if I'm wrong. It's already worked on and finished by the time we get to fall of 18 so we don't go to minus 10. And I think we do have some experience with that reasoning with Thompson because Thompson didn't start until the fall this year. So this is where I'm sort of getting with the question is, it's, I'm guessing when you're correct and if I'm wrong that your desire to do this now is based on your Thompson experience which was a tight time frame and probably not something we want to do again considering Gibbs starting and whatnot. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, no, I think that's totally fair. And in the Thompson case, we did have design money in the spring of last year so the whole addition was designed but you're calling correctly that we didn't approve the actual construction money until October. So we were pinched. In general, I'll say these are just tight timelines we've been dealing with. The Thompson timeline, the Gibbs timeline, the Hardy timelines, they're tight, they're doable. The architects and OPMs that we hire are in construction firms that are advised that they're doable, but they're certainly tight. There's not a lot of room for mistakes in terms of meeting the timelines. Yeah, I mean, because just to have some clarity, I know Charlie and Al were there, but my recollection when you guys first proposed the Thompson timeline that the chair of the Permanent Town Building Committee was not too pleased with how tight you mapped it out. I mean, he sort of said, look, you need more time than this. You're leaving zero margin by starting in September, October. And that was my recollection of how it went. And then one last thing I will say, and this is sort of just, we can sort of help Alan clarify what he asked was, and I remember it was the one meeting I had filled in for Al at the School of Urban Task Force, is you sort of realize that even though Sims is a big project, it's not the first large development in town, you had Brigham, not Sims, Mugar. So you had Sims, Brigham, and I think they called Legacy, which I've been told exists somewhere, I don't know where that is. So that's what they had done. They had come back with their analysis and said, what did it do for an impact of kids when each one happened? And it really came out, I think it's fair to say, when I was popping up what you did, came out a lot less than people would have expected. So if you extrapolate that as your past history into Hardy, even in the worst case scenario, it wasn't that many kids. And what it did, it was K to 12. So it wasn't all, I mean, when you said upper threshold would be four, let's say 25, let's say it was 25 to 50. That's all across 12 grades, that's not across. Exactly right. So it's 50 kids across 12, 13 grades. You average that out, let's say four kids a grade. It wasn't really all that crushing. John? Yeah, Adam, besides the UGAR risk, what were the other considerations in terms of the decision between, you know, selection of six over four permanent classrooms? I think, I'm trying to recall the discussion at the School Enrollment Task Force meeting, and I think it was a decision based upon, and I'll let perhaps Alan Charlie speak to a little bit of their perspective as members of that task force, that in terms of wise investment while we were mobilized and given that we think we have decent projections, but they're just that, they're projections or they're a forecast, that while we were mobilized, while we were constructing, and while we were possibly in the future going to face further capacity restrictions at other schools in the district, you know, why not make the long-term investment into additional classrooms to hedge against future risk? And would there be cost savings during all the points of the course that we future have? Yeah. There's always mobilization cost savings, so you're paying, again, you know, the contractor on site is all of his construction materials, his trailer, all the mobilization costs are once instead of twice. So there's some economy of scale or efficiency in doing that. Charlie? Yes, I wouldn't like the committee to think about the classrooms there. Because at the school enrollment task force, the HMFH? HMFH. In their study. And there was a detailed discussion that the music art and other, well, special program capacity at the hearty was already severely restricted with the additional students who would be further restricted. So those additional classrooms meant to serve not necessarily an additional, you know, 20-student classroom space, but they're intended to serve for the an academic, I don't know what you call it, but special programs such as art and music and special education. Can I add a comment? That's exactly right. One of the situations at hearty right now is that the teachers had a teacher's work room in a place to have lunch that had to be given up for a classroom. And right now it's in a room about the quarter of the size of this room. So that's an issue. Music is another issue. In fact, that's how we're going to solve the problem next year is that we're going to move music either into a room about half the size that it is what we need in music room. And we're talking about an alternative to the cafeteria. The alternative to the cafeteria is actually the room across the hall is the music room. So if that room gets utilized for cafeteria we need another room for the music. We also, as the enrollment increases at hearty, what we also need is more space for language learners program. The rooms that we have right now are increasingly becoming inadequate. So it's a combination of all of these things. So I want to agree to Charlie that this is not what we're adding two extra classrooms. They will be utilized. What the challenge will be with Nuke are is that if we ever did need a room in a certain grade we're either going to compress a class or we're going to have to give up another space to make sure we have it. So I think that as we look to the future it's a wise investment but it's actually space that is not is going to be utilized right away. Okay, just no questions. Any discussion? Okay, I think what I'd like to do since we're sort of getting to the end of our finance committee season so to speak we only have four more that if the finance committee feels satisfied with the information and the information on the Hardy School we could take a vote if somebody wants to make a motion where we have some expertise here that we can draw on or if the committee would rather we can vote on it next Wednesday. Dane? I move the recommended. Second. With one caveat my caveat is that if we have to pull anything out of the capital budget that the finance committee entrusts Vice Chair and Chair of the Capital Planning Committee to do it so we don't have to come back and review both capital budget. Okay, if I remember correctly this is a dead exclusion. It's not. This is already in the capital budget. Is it already in the capital budget? I understand correctly. It's not in the capital budget. So I move the recommended and then we will trust Charlie to reconcile it if he has to because it's going to be in two articles now. He's used to the heavy weight on his shoulders. Okay, is there a movement in the second discussion? Any further discussion? Okay, all those in favor, please say aye. Aye. Opposed? Favorable action? This is for 50 Ks, alright. For 3,000, sorry, 3,500,000. Unanimous? 315. Okay, now we can put all those materials away and pull out the Gibbs materials. Okay. Okay, so the Gibbs renovation now we have already appropriated 2,550,000 last fall for design. So this would be for the construction. Mr. Manager. Thank you. So similar to the Hardee matter provided a memo for the boards, the committee's review attached to that memo is also a project budget review and the superintendent has provided in the packet that was handed out tonight a brief overview of the design and schematic of the school itself and the layout of the classrooms. So just taking a quick step back you'll probably recall last year the task force met quite a bit a number of community engagements to discuss what to do about a middle school capacity issue. The decision was made to move forward with taking back the Gibbs school that had been leased out to private nonprofit tenants for many years and renovate that to be used as a town-wide sixth grade. So that was adopted by the school task force, the school committee, town meeting and then ultimately the voters via a debt exclusion. So as the chair mentioned we were successful in getting an appropriation to the town meeting of 2.55 million we hired an owner's project manager or an OPM and we hired an architect to begin designing the renovation. So that is still underway we also made the decision as that design began to use the construction manager at risk method of procurement for this project but normally we do design bid where an architect designs it multiple construction firms will bid on it. In this model you bring on a construction firm based on their submission to requests for qualifications at the beginning of the project and they work with the architect during design on constructability testing and they do a lot of testing up front so they know what they're going to face when they go in to the project. So for that we brought on Shalmit who I mentioned earlier who helped us out with the hardy cost estimation. The project and put together their cost estimates they're now still in the design development cost estimate phase they are estimating that the project is going to cost just shy of 27 million dollars inclusive of the 2.55 that's already been appropriated and one of the primary drivers of the difference I didn't mention that exclusion was premised on a 25 million dollar project cost and that project cost was a study that was done by HMFH last year. One of the main differences between what's currently being proposed in the design and what was initially discussed and was used to come up with a 25 million dollar cost estimate is the need to do exterior repointing and exterior work on the building as well as window replacement. That was not factored in by HMFH in the initial study it's being recommended by the design team now. So that is how we are at 27 million dollars. The PTBC, the superintendent myself, the facilities director have also asked the design team to come up with some value engineering recommendations ways we could bring down the cost we reviewed those last Friday with the team and none of them the ones that we could push off are say $50,000 refinishing the gym floor that could be done separate from the project and some minor HVAC tweaks we could consider pushing those off everything else would diminish the programmatic benefit and operations of the school so we're not recommending pursuing any of those value engineering measures. So we're recommending requesting that we move to a $27 million project budget and how do we get to that from a $25 million debt exclusion? Well as I laid out in the memo there's really two independent measures that we can use to get to that. First, the Department of Revenue allows you to inflate debt exclusions based on construction cost inflation indices that they use so they would actually let us inflate it for 13 months time if we didn't go out to borrow this until July of 2017 since it passed in June of 2016 the same time period 12 months prior, June 15 to July 16 construction inflation the index they were using suggested a 3.4% increase so we'd be able to inflate the availability of funds via the debt exclusion probably by about $850,000 to a million the remainder to get up to $27 million could be taken from the just the general capital budget I had conversation with the chair of the capital planning committee and laid up to this discussion a willingness to work and adapt the capital budget to be able to get this project done on the schedule we're looking at it and the manner in which we want to get it done so I think that well let me point out under the project budget review page that you have just so you are clear so above the line we have the total construction cost your shaman D.D. estimate you see that at $21 million we have the architect fee below the OPM fee hazmat moving cost some other small lines but I want to point out just so you have a feeling of safety in what we're asking for we're still carrying a 10% construction cost contingency in this $27 million or $26.9 million we do that we're talking about and back up above we're still also carrying in design contingency and what's called the GMP guaranteed maximum price contingency of $499,000 so we feel like via this request we're getting the project done as we think it should get done but we're also pretty well protected against the prices spiking above this $27 million request that we're making so if you want to add anything thank you very well we did go through all of the value engineering and we couldn't really get anything of any substantive amount perhaps the only other the only thing that we made the possibility is the generator but that's a concerning a concerning reduction so we all felt that the contingency was well was well positioned for the project and right now we're so far into the design for the project but the contingency that we're holding on it is actually quite adequate okay questions bill all the design contingency so that was there we'll stay there but if there's no I think it was designed is that the response come back yeah so what happens with design contingency as design continues to progress it either goes into the construction cost be there as a contingency and it actually goes into the project or it goes away it's not going into construction cost we don't spend the money so it's got a little bit of a sense that maybe it's going to go like I hope that's what happens but I wouldn't want to guarantee that as they so in this construction manager at risk model Shomet issues a series of bids for subcontractors to bid on work so as they continue to do that they'll get tighter and tighter pricing before the project kicks off it is probably likely that the entirety of that $800,000 won't go into construction but it could okay bill other questions Dave I guess it's really the chair of the capital planning committee what would come out of FY18 do you have any idea we hope nothing okay we we'll see we have to do some work but generally speaking we always have some reserve in the budgeting process so let's put it this way a million dollars that shortfall will be oh it's a fonded million that's right somewhere between depending on whether there's 30 or 20 years between $33,000 and $50,000 a year in principle and maybe $15,000 a year in interest so you're talking about $50,000 to $65,000 a year and I think we can probably find that somewhere well we have some we have some reserves we have we can move around okay other questions this is article 4 yes it is I neglected to mention this we're also asking for this in the special town meeting before again so we can have access to the funds before July 1st under this again construction manager risk model they will issue as a series of guarantee maximum prices so they can get some early bids out for ordering of materials and to start some work so we will need access to these funds before July 1st for the project so you're asking for us to take action on the special town meeting and no action on the annual town meeting that is accurate so so the construction manager at risk is basically he guarantees the $26,000,965 once we lock in for that guarantee maximum price then that number is the guarantee maximum price the allowance to go into that guarantee maximum price contingency and this is basically a cost plus contract I guess unless something is absolutely to be unforeseen I mean within that so the actual costs come in under it comes down although does the construction manager at risk somehow keep the delivery date? they I believe we'll have liquidated damages like we would on any project for a late project but because of the nature of this where it's open book and they only make what they actually spend or expand on the project what I'm told by our OPM is that the CM model gives them even more incentive to get out on time because then they can just go start with the job so that's at least my understanding now how was Shawna selected what kind of a process did you go through so we issued a request for qualifications working with our OPM and several members of the permanent town building committee I believe we had three applicants and interviewed two firms and Shawna was selected so it was an open bid process but it was not a price bid it was a qualification bid correct other questions Peter I don't think I got it the first time around how is this money going to be allocated it's really in the FY18 budget how does it come out of that and push ahead well it's a borrow we're authorizing a borrow so a lot of it would depend on when they finance it but the only thing that would probably be in the fiscal 18 budget is an interest and that would be exempted that's Gibson, how about the party it was in the five year plan budget five year plan that we presented last week at three and a half million dollars in FY18 but it's bonded so the first year the impact on the first year is we assume it's a three percent interest it's ten thousand dollars and then after that we start paying principal and interest we have done this on other capital projects before I think even one of the phases of this building we requested and received a bond authorization at a special town meeting during this period of the year the second half of the fiscal year the actual capital cost wasn't budgeted until the following fiscal year because that's when the borrowing costs were actually happening so when you bond it next let's say the treasure of bonds in September there'll only be a six month interest cost in fiscal 18 which would be included in the capital budget as exempt debt and then the following year fiscal 19 you'll have both principal and interest comes in so if the special town meeting is in early May and ends in May then the money can be spent for the appropriation will be approved early in May not sometime in July which is what happens at the end of the regular town meeting so that puts the town in a position to marshal its resources to do its contracts etc. and then on the ground are ready to spend money to start the fiscal year okay other questions what are the bigger projects that allow okay Alan I know this is going to be a little bit off the topic but I know there's been a discussion about the traffic in the area and potentially a new cut through there is that yes there was and in fact this is an old diagram so what I did on here if you notice there is some purple actually the blue was put there to indicate that that driveway has been taken out there will not be a cut through in the back public traffic Dean second okay motions were made and seconded sorry can I amend that so two things one was recommended and two that the finance committee empowers the vice chair to screw around I'll figure out some legal language for screw around mess around okay so the appropriate made and seconded the appropriations 24,415,000 because we've already appropriated the design money last fall the total of the two would equal 27,000,000 for that any further discussion okay all those in favor we say aye aye opposed unanimous 21517 I'm sorry Paul did we vote the whole 27,000,000 we already voted the 2,550,000 last fall so all we have to do now is basically the construction Paul Charlie yes Mr. Chairman I'd like to ask the indulgence of the finance committee to rework the capital plan of budget as presented last week to include the additional million dollars by the cost of the gift project okay is there any question on that okay do I have a motion okay moved and seconded by the chairman of the capital budget committee to make adjustments specifically for the extra interest in this case in future five years for the extra million dollars or so all those in favor say aye opposed okay and one more article 40 of the annual town meeting is the other gifts renovation move no action do I have a second okay moved and seconded for no action article 40 which is just a duplicate of this so we're taking action on the special any questions all those in favor please say aye opposed okay so uh does anybody have any questions for the superintendent in advance of next Monday so she could think about it I don't get that nothing more okay uh okay well I have one how do you speak to the primary reduction was due to actually looking at actual salaries versus projected salaries and literally our interim CFO and our accountant went through every single salary in the in this budget then the other major piece was looking at our legal costs this year this year while some other costs have gone up a lot legal costs have not and so we're able to move some of those costs over there what are you going to do with 300,000 un-specialized well we're going to be going to the town meeting to go for the money in the stabilization account we have a tuition in account for special education and we'll go there first as an alternative but then there's also this is not what I would prefer to do but it is as a backup the international account thank you now the other article that you know we can discuss this but if you want to give us a brief overview is article 5 in the special town meeting on the special education fund how much did you put in last year I think it was it was 325,000 I'm sorry 325,000 and how much do you are recommending we take out 325,000 it was an opportunity to save that money for exactly this kind of situation one of the things that I will have for everyone next week in fact I could probably send it to you at the end of this week budget to actuals in special education over the last since FY11 and looking at the variability of the changes in the increases, the percent increases over that time period so that you have that information okay I have that now I'm looking at the the vote under article 2 of the special town meeting last April of 200,000 did we change that when we got to town meeting 25,000 you know what I'm pretty sure we did we've been talking about using that money I think it's 325,000 still already a balance in there it may have been okay John there was an article in the paper within the last 2 or 3 weeks indicating that the state was considering putting some sort of restraint on the growth of the out of the district tuition for special education was that a false rumor or something like that happening it hasn't happened yet and there has been discussion about there's been discussion about that every year there's been that discussion because what happens in private out of district placements they petition to the Board of Education to go up and then send out a notice to districts if you want to contest it they usually come in with well our salaries of this we've had these capital costs and to justify the percent increase relatively they've been big increases and so the Department of Education has talked about we should be looking at really some caps on these costs but as far as I know that has not happened yet okay this is Bodey thank you very much for coming we appreciate it I'll see you on Monday okay that's right we'll try to have as many chairs as we can okay okay now we switch to article I always get the easy one out of the way first article 46 is the okay there was two new article 46 of the appropriation for town celebrations and events and so there's two new ones that are the manager placed in here that we haven't had before one was the expenditure of funds for the Feast of the East for $2,500 and the other is the Town Day celebration for $10,000 okay so what are these two sums for and why do we need them now after all these years so I'll I'll start with Town Day the Board of Selection had requested that after the many many years of fundraising that the burden of raising what I think is somewhere between $40,000 and $50,000 a year for Town Day was a real burden on both the volunteers and the administrative staff of the Board of Selection so they asked that if I would consider filing something to defer that burden to show Town Taxpayer contribution to the Town Day celebration so Sandy and I in the budget preparation talked about what could be the rationale and we thought about this there's quite a few police details and DPW time that's put into making Town Day happen so I pulled some numbers for tonight the past four years of Town Day celebrations the average police detail cost has been $5,400 but for the past three years at DPW their costs have been just about $1,000 or just over $9,000 so that total if you just look at the averages over the past few years that total is just shy of $15,000 or $14,500 so I think what I'd be asking for is that lump sum $10,000 amount to defray what has to be fundraised to provide for Town Services to make Town Day happen and it's not the most equal between what the costs are but if the committee was so inclined to recommend $10,000 in Town Meeting past it we'd probably defray the police costs by $5,000 and the DPW costs by $5,000 excuse me so the DPW they don't factor this into their regular budget so historically the Town Day fundraising has paid them so they've staffed it have you asked them if they can factor in some of that so I can tell you they don't have actual overtime money to do it if we wanted to factor it in I would say instead of doing it in a separate award article we could consider bumping up their overtime accounts by these amounts either way it would come out out of that part I mean they don't have any money sitting anywhere that they can throw in the needed direction they helped us I hope not they can cut down on the favors before it's just overtime or detail well I guess we'd probably call it a detail but it's paid at an overtime rate the DPW costs are more in the setup they set up the stage every year so they buy new materials every three years for the stage they put in a lot of hours to build that stage it takes away from them doing what would otherwise be their normal DPW day jobs and then they are there on town day as well providing trash receptacles and keeping things clean I mean I think to some degree this is a policy decision do we want this major town day town festival to have taxpayer support or not do we want it to be a fundraised festival I don't mean to oversimplify it but I think it's a policy decision to be made other questions or discussion Dave? I don't know how many police officers do they use now for town day I should have got that count I guess it would be close to 8 or 10 I think they have 4 at least usually 13 for Saturday and then it changed it was 13 for Friday night and 13 for Saturday for different responsibilities it's a lot it's a big couple of officers well one time one time they had less on Friday night and they realized they needed more personnel to cover different responsibilities the rate is it's time and a half the individual officers rate it's not just the time and a half figures so if you have somebody with an educational incentive or if you have somebody of rank that amount goes up on both of that it's time and a half the individual officers pay okay, other questions or discussions, Dean? oh no okay okay Dick what is Arlington the live festival? Arlington the live festival is the they call it a block party where they shut off Broadway Plaza and have music vendors food I think it happens in June I think June every year for the past three or four years but I think the committee already made the decision to include that in that overall arts funding line item that was approved a few weeks ago so I think that that individual wants to be taken off the table in other words I was put in with the 25,000 for the Arlington Commission on Arts and Culture so that's the music part of the arts and culture okay, is there anybody, David? they still have a display of America Flags on Mass Act are they done away with that? I don't think we've done that since I've been here my understanding is that Mr. Armstrong from Armstrong Ambulance donated for that and since he's passed that's gone away it's in the article will we just not do it? yeah, I have no recollection of it we haven't done it it's been a while okay, so I should just cross it off the list of the motion and my other question is on the Patriots' State how much money is a lot out of this group for Patriots' State to write? out of you know I actually wrote the whole article is it $4,500? $5,667 I'm not quite sure where that number came from but yeah that's the appropriation for both Patriots' State and Memorial Day so yeah Patriots' Day Veterans' Day and Memorial Day so do you want me to speak to Feast of the East quickly? so any other questions on Town Day and their request okay Feast of the East so Feast of the East is put together by the Capital Square Business Association down in East Arlington they don't close off the street but it generally runs from around the Capitol Theater Block across Lake Street down to I think down as far as the the church at the corner of that's not Marathon what is that? Trinity so that also happens in early summer so I pulled those numbers today too it looks like the combination of police details and DPW time is only actually about $12 or $1300 on average a year for that for that particular festival so I know I think I had asked for $2500 for that but it actually seems like a smaller amount if approved could still go a long way to cover town costs associated okay so giving your review of the numbers the original request was for $2500 would $15 cover it? Yeah it seems like $15 would take care of it Questions? I just have a problem given any money when it benefits all the business people down and not the taxpayer unless everything is free down there which it isn't that is solely to advertise the businesses and I have a problem using our money for that my opinion may I? I don't disagree with that but I think though Town Day is maybe more clearly town sponsored it really is the same thing it's a lot of tents with businesses there's also town committees so to be fair it's maybe a better mix I have a problem with Town Day too it comes back to that policy there's a lot of things going on that they're always asking for money now they're silent in these businesses they make a lot of money they can't cough up $1500 shame on them but if they like that they gross pretty good pretty good money Okay any other questions or discussion? Peter? Would the Town Day people be willing to carry on if the town picked up a part of the cost? I say it would they be willing to carry the rest? Would they be willing to do the fundraising for the rest? Yeah I think my understanding is that if the town was willing to really any sum of money they're still very willing to fundraise for the remainder but it would take a significant pressure off What percentage of the fundraising what's called $40,000 comes from donations by businesses versus the booth revenues I don't know that but I'm pretty sure it's almost all big bank sponsorships that's the majority of the revenue the booth revenue is not insignificant but I don't think it's the majority So if they didn't have the sponsorship we couldn't have it That's my understanding John? Go through this list and give us the requested amounts Okay so the Feasts of the East requested amount is $1,500 and the Town Day Celebration requested amount is $10,000 That's the same as it was before $5,667 $5,500 for flags Yeah $4,500 for veterans flags That's mandatory if I remember correctly I think the total is $21,667 $10,167 Okay Why don't we just focus now on those two Any other discussion? Question about the mechanics If we vote a total of $21,167 with specific allocations or recommendations Are those sort of fixed or is there a pool of money that can be a flexible appropriation We set them up as fixed accounts I'm sure we could structure the vote to make them more fluid Sandy, quickly I think they're all set up as independent accounts At the bottom it says that some people are raised by general tax and expended under the direction of the town manager Whereas the previous article is to be expended under the direction of the various committees and commissions So it is a little different that way It sort of seems like we've been voting the same numbers for flags and grades for a long time and it has to be some inflation If the money is unspent what happened back to the general fund it's not a revolving problem Now he pretty sure the come true and closes these out at the end of the year I think he treats it as if it's a budget item Are we voting these individually? Yes Any further discussions? Okay So Why don't we ask the committee if they want to vote it now Town Day Why don't we vote them individually Mr. Archon What's the amount? The recommendation is for $10,000 I move $5,000 Second Okay Any further discussion? Grant? Maybe even for the future People concerned about the amount of money that they've gotten for volunteer versus the amount of money that the town has to kick in Perhaps some sort of matching device Whereas you know we would map the town might match This is kind of like to address Tom's concern The town might match a certain amount of businesses raised or something Well let's say it's a 20% match If the businesses raised 8,000 the town would match 2,000 Yeah but I think what they're saying is they raised in the range of 40,000 Right, well I was just an example only but it seems that some of the concern might be that town kicks in to give them less incentive to raise money and this might be a way to do that or not Any further discussion? Any further discussion? Okay the motion has been made and seconded for $5,000 for the town day celebration All those in favor please raise your hand 12 Opposed? Okay so that passes 12 to 2 Feast of the east I make a motion we don't allocate anything Okay so the motion and feast of the east is for no action Is that seconded? Okay it's moved and seconded discussion Charlie Have we given any money to the Feast of the east before? I don't believe so We haven't given it to the town day either one of you Okay so motions remain seconded for no action on Feast of the east All those in favor of no action please raise your hand 6, 7, 8, 9 Opposed to no action Okay so why don't we just continue through placing other flags, American flags on graves of veterans which is to remind you as a requirement State requirement Okay move second Okay Any discussion? Okay all those in favor please say aye Opposed? All those in favor of no action unanimous Is there any reason to have display of American flags on Mass Ave even at zero I mean if somebody came up tomorrow and said I'll pay for it Do we have a place that you could take this so I could take that in and use it for that purpose? Yeah we could establish a gift account to do that Okay so we don't need it in the code itself Okay so the last one under this article Patriots Day Celebration Veterans Day Parade and Memorial Day Parade in 5,667 That's what we voted for years So moved Okay moved and seconded Any discussion? All those in favor please say aye Opposed? Okay favorable action unanimous with that Okay so that takes a pair of articles 6,6 No that's We've already voted that under the commission for the arts That one got lumped into that And you put Veterans Day in with the Patriots Day Yeah it's Patriots Day Veterans Day and Memorial Day all lumped in Because one of them we actually have a parade the other two sort of march from the wall mark up to the Memorial and that's it Huge But I like Grant's idea of matching funds under the auspices of the direction of the town manager I guess I personally would encourage the town manager to consider some sort of matching fund arrangement to encourage private fundraising Yeah I like the idea to address that concern You want to keep some incentive in place that it's not necessarily maybe even replacing money but supplementing money Now Article 39 appropriation parking operations costs Now the memo on the parking operating district Now there's also article 26 parking benefits district So let's go through this slowly Could you explain for those who didn't have a chance to read this of article 26 the purpose and what it does Absolutely So I'll walk through the memo I'm sorry for the two memos today we caught a calculation error and the memo I sent out that's what caused the updated memo So as the chair just mentioned warrant article 26 would be the town voting to accept a new provision of state law that was passed as part of the Municipal Modernization Act last year and this would be the adoption of MGL chapter 40 section 22a and a half that would allow for the creation of a parking benefits district and as I've laid out here what that basically is is a geographically defined area and we would define that as Arlington Center in the area where we have metered parking where you can reinvest portions of the parking revenue into as is laid out in the actual statute improvements to the public realm as well as transportation improvements which include both pedestrian and bike facilities So the Board of Selectment is actually the main motion on this because it's an adoption of state law article and they voted favorably on Monday night to move forward with adopting this parking benefits district So I'll get into more detail as I talk about article 39 but when we look at the whole parking program that we're recommending we estimate that we could put near, well estimate actually $150,000 annually that we could put towards this parking benefit district. So I would envision things as simple as more frequent street cleaning, perhaps investing in some snow plowing or significant investments like bike racks sidewalk improvements or other more significant capital improvements. So that would be, that's the idea concept and statutory authority behind parking benefits district. I'm going to go into 39 you want to? Okay so is there any questions on just that John? You may get into this in 39 but for $150,000 a year is that the excess of water operating costs to the meters? Thereabouts, yes. That's the source of it. $150,000 is what we can take because of the district what's the district? So the district would be it's kind of a quirky map but I could provide you the map it's Arlington Center from Mill basically to Franklin where we have meters and a lot so it goes down to Chestnut so it's generally what you'd consider to be the Arlington Center business district. Okay, would you consider putting any money into the so-called little calm in there? We can have green grass and maybe some lights. Can you talk about Woodamore Park in front of the Jefferson Carter House? No, back down to the Senate where the veterans sign is that area is you know I'm not interested in the plowing I'm interested if that's part of the district I think our money needs to be if we're trying to make Arlington that is Arlington Center East Arlington is not Arlington Center that's Arlington Center that's a lot of money put a good chunk of money into looks and landscaping I wish you would come up with some type of plan that would be nice Two things I'll say one, I think that area is sorely in need of improvement and over the past year led by the planning department and public works we did a conceptual redesign of Mass Ave from Palm Lane where the East Arlington project ended up to MassMill and Jason and as part of that whole concept we offered a concept that would really radically change the project that would break out the through access as it is now make it a straight through access from Alton Street and completely redesign the veterans memorials that's a little more long term short term I think we could do something I will say though since you prompted it I think the first capital improvement that parking implementation and governance committee has been looking at for a long time it's called Dormer Way the behind the aisle it's the main access from the parking lot to the business district and it's poorly lit it looks very uninviting do we own that or does Alton Catholic we own the sidewalks in the right of way as you get into the lot the Alton Catholic line cuts in a little bit but we own enough right of way to do some things thank you okay Grant is the differentiation between metered lot and the pay lots there's parking meters and there's also the lots where you have a machine where you pay correct a little bit confused about the difference the parking area that we were mentioning here that's only the metered area and only the revenues from the meters would it also include the revenue from the we're talking about the lots too the lots as well total budget Charlie can you give us a summary of the current revenues from the Russell Commonwealth yes can I jump into the whole revenue Russell Commonwealth historically before we put the new meters in collected about somewhere between maybe $65,000 and $80,000 a year depending on how often they were operational we're now projecting the monthly since we put the new kiosks in the lot we're projecting that they'll take in about $125,000 what are you forecasting for the meters along the mass area so our forecast for that based on the first three or so months of collection it's actually less than when I sat with you all in October to talk about it we're forecasting approximately $300,000 15 minutes that's actually it's a great I think it's a great offer so the total parking revenue excluding tickets is $425,000 correct that's excluding tickets and permits how about the railroad the one behind the drugs you know I'm sorry that's included in that $125,000 figure there we count those together okay question fall what's wrong with what we have the parking money comes in goes into the general fund the capital planning committee plans how to spend things on capital expenses and town meeting approves expenditures and that seems to work now doesn't I would argue that that's not how this would work because the capital plan can spend up to 5% of general fund revenue for a county year or fiscal year so they would be able to put 5% of $300,000 in revenue towards improvements to the parking district so they would be able to spend $15,000 a year on an investment in the parking district business district as opposed to $150,000 a year so I actually don't see it the same way the capital planning committee and then town meeting invest any amount they can choose not we can choose not to spend it on some capital project and instead spend it on the capital project that has to do with the parking or the things going on in that parking district I'll continue to push back the capital planning, the capital budget is always at or near capacity so adding new revenue to the general fund about 65% will go directly to the schools say 30% will go to the town some adjustment for fixed costs in there and then you only get that 5% adjustment to the capital budget there's the discretion to make an investment in the Arlington center area as part of the capital budget but it's not accurate to depict this new revenue as dramatically enhancing the ability of the capital budget to be reinvested in Arlington center what was the revenue before parking meters when it was just the two lots so that we would budget annually for permits, lots and permits, lots and violations 490,000 a year the lots were so with the more faulty meters they were between $65,000 to $85,000 a year and that's close to 230 okay are you finished? how was the $150,000 appropriated? so right now the DOR I'll jump ahead a little bit the DOR the Department of Revenue's interpretation of 22A which is the larger parking operating costs article is that acquisition, installation maintenance and operations and meters costs don't have to be appropriated and can be taken from that fund but I would want to bring it before the finance committee and town meeting for endorsement every year the parking benefit district they're not clearly ruling on whether or not it needs to be appropriated so are the controllers and myself and the deputies interpretation is that we would treat it the same as the parking operating district but certainly if they ever wanted it to be appropriated we would do so I was wondering if it's a choice between improvements to the park versus the snowplow who can be tricky decisions and want to make recommendations is there a public process to appropriate from the $150,000? so I envision the parking implementation and governance committee which is a publicly posted meeting being the body that governs this taking input from the island and sent to Russians Phil? that was my question sorry my question actually so I have two questions first of all do you envision that we'll eventually have parking meters I would say I think when, if we're successful in approving a parking benefits district and we start reinvesting parking revenue in Arlington center that merchants and residents in the heights of the you would start to see the benefit of it that said I think the whole system in Arlington center makes sense from a policy point of view because we have the lots so we can price on the street for turnover and price the lots for longer term stays we don't have that luxury in the heights or the east so that's a long-winded answer to say I think we will eventually get there but it's not as obvious to me because we don't have that same ecosystem of parking so the answer is I think that we'll eventually have parking meters in the heights of the east I say I think I would predict eventually okay can you differentiate for me why the parking meter revenues should be essentially sequestered from other revenues that the town has in other words why are the parking meters different there are also local receipts that we get that are in the budget and we don't differentiate them for direct purpose and we've always managed to pay for the enforcement parking rules and whatever what is so different about this particular process that you're proposing so I would argue that we actually we have a program and we have program revenues and we have program costs and in this particular case there's a statutory ability to treat it as a program and have the funds go into one place and be expended out of that one place so the breakdown the breakdown has and I'll point to the backside of the memo so the breakdown has all the expenses including the parking benefit district expenses and what our anticipated revenue would be from both the single multispace meters and I'd call that a program so we're trying to run a program that's near balanced so you can even it's not an enterprise fund but you can think about it like an enterprise fund we still do have general parking costs because those parking you know you make reference to an enterprise fund and an enterprise fund the users pay fees for the benefits that they get here the users are paying fees but the it's not clear to me that the money you're spending is going back to the tax payers the people who are paying those fees they're going someplace else right if a if improving a sidewalk better lighting a stretch of roadway beautifying a monument to veterans clearing sidewalks of snow putting hanging flower baskets is it a benefit to the taxpayer? no not at the level of which this might allow us to do but that all goes to the benefit of the taxpayer well I don't understand I can't imagine who else would benefit if not the taxpayer well it looks to me like what you said before is directed to the merchants not to the taxpayers I won't disagree that the merchants certainly get a benefit from having an improved infrastructure in the area but the residents who access it do as well other questions Paul the the share of money for parking enforcement you talk about related to the police budget does this mean if this passes we should add an offset to the police budget for the $56,459 yes so Sandy and I started talking about that a lot with the Comptroller today and I think we would represent it as an offset to the general fund and have a taxation total as is represented in the budget book this year as with other general offsets and the idea behind that is there are still non meter based parking costs there's the permit plan program there are violations being written in the heights in the east based on time violations so there are costs that at least today should still be born in my opinion by the general fund so I think what we're proposing here reduces overall general fund impact of parking management and based on putting receipts from violation revenue as we projected today in permit revenue we're actually still increasing how much we put into the general fund based on as from a local receipt doing this year's budget or but I suggested to the manager and we just Alan had another offset line to each of those budgets would be what's another offset except if this doesn't pass if this doesn't pass then we don't want the offsets so can be adjusted we have to do it we can figure out how to best do it so it's the most transparent we shouldn't let the mechanics stand in the way of policy okay Alan so we're on to article 39 I have questions about the expenditures I'm sorry questions about the expenditure okay two questions one is the one that stands up the single space leasing payment for $46,000 as opposed to $6,000 so the single space leasing payment is what we pay the firm that we acquired on street meters and did the install so that's the annual as the five-year lease agreement for the acquisition and installation of the street meters we're talking about the $46,500 $56,000 okay it's the funny label second is there is there money in here for repair or replacement eventually replacement of the meters and where that leading is should some of the surplus be set aside for replacements because I don't know what the life of a parking meter is yeah I think I do have that in there and I'm not recalling which line that I lumped it into what's the life of a parking meter the life of the parking meter is probably five or six years the firm that sold them to has estimated that we probably need five or ten grand a year so it's not a huge sum what's the cost to keep them running I just want to make sure that's covered in so what you would do is at the end of the lease like leasing a car you would probably engage in another lease to purchase and you'd have a similar annual cost as you see in this budget here does that make sense well I just want to make sure in this there is money to continually replace the meters that there's not an additional appropriation five years down the road I have accounted for that but what I would guess will happen here is these meters will last a year or two past that five year period and then we'll need to think about a wholesale replacement of them and since that lease payment will have expired by then once again do that replacement if necessary so we had no additional appropriation to replace meters we wouldn't expect an additional appropriation well if we end up adopting this model okay so the $46,000 that's sort of the annual capital cost and if we had purchased these that would be the debt service cost in effect okay Alan Charlie can you just explain yeah through the spreadsheet yeah so the IPS and I'm sorry I don't know why I abbreviated that IPS is the meter company that's their credit card fee so that's the per transaction fee they charge for processing from the meter end Elevon credit card fee that's the actual credit card processing company that processes the payment that's their transaction fee the monthly gateway data fee is the payment we make for the back end software that manages the meters the monthly management system fee is also related to our payments to the parking vendor for accessing their whole parking management system coin collection self-explanatory single space first parish lease these are the spaces directly across the street the peck-spangler way from the entrance to the library they belong to first parish we are leasing them from the parish they always let the town use them for library spaces and they're now leasing them to us and we're paying them $500 a month lease and we're collecting about $1000 a month or $12,000 a year in those actual on those meters is as we just discussed that's the annual lease payment for the acquisition and installation of the meters themselves that will be paid out over the course of five fiscal years the share of parking enforcement is 50% of the parking control officers' salaries the share of parking administration is 50% of the administrative salaries contained within the current general fund parking budget and then again clearly labeled as the share of the benefit district as we discussed earlier $150,000 so that is what does that mean, share of parking administration? I frankly admit that I think I kept share in when I had this document structured in a different way and I think it should just say parking benefit district so $150,000 is a discretionary expenditure without a target I would say it's without a target it's without a defined target today and whatever we would spend it on I'd be fully committed if it was operationally related to have it be endorsed by the finance committee before it was expended and if it was capital related to have it go before the capital planning committee so I wouldn't want to make it sound like it's just free money flying around without public discussion it's free money flying around with public discussion fair enough and then the difference between the $414,000 and the $425,000 is a safety margin or something? I chose to not try to plug it artificially those are our projections as they are there so if we took I'm sorry, are you finished? No, it lasts full when you presented this to a special family I thought that you had a revenue you had a revenue statement that said something like $400,000 to $900,000 Yeah, I thought it was $750,000 to $400,000 to $450,000 something like that so at that point that was only for the meters that wasn't for the statistic that was just the single space meters so I had said in that chart that we had 225 meters I was mistaken that was only less meters and the other thing we were not contemplating at that time was the first 15 minutes free so that is I guess I'd say significantly reduced revenue as well so there's been a couple one was a mistaken number of meters and the other was that policy change So we went to so we're actually looking for these new meters to produce how much incremental income specifically How much new money? 300,000 300,000 So you're talking about just revenue not profit I'm just trying to find out where that number is Of course 125 Yeah, it's very It's not specified 125 from the blocks 300 from the street meters It doesn't grow to much in the neighborhood So this is So 425 is 125 from the the lot meters in 300 from the new meters Correct So actually the cost of the new system is basically everything above including single space and above is the cost of the new system I think you'd have to add the 46 Yeah, I think you have to Oh, we have to add the 46 So it's 46 up So can you give us a total of that? Well, I can borrow it It's 150 So it's 160,000 dollars And the experience with the first several months of the new meters is that we will reach $300,000 a year Yeah, they have seemed to be pretty consistent Monday through Saturday collecting just about $1,100 a day So that let's call it $160,000 from the 46 on up That will go into the parking expenditure fund that we that would have gone into the parking expenditure fund that was created last fall The 46, that's already happening Okay, so what we're dealing with the district where the new stuff is the share of the administration and enforcement of the 58 and the 45 and then the parking benefit district So those three numbers are part of which the 58 and the 45 you suggested that we could use that money for increases on ice budget and the 150 would be set aside for work in the district Correct Okay, other questions? Christine I just want to Christine, Tom, Grant Peter, Charlie Adam, I just want to clear that you're proposing to add this to the snow and ice budget on top of the 946 That was my proposal I felt it was in making that recommendation I felt that was in conformance with prior discussions here at finance committee about trying to get up to the 10-year average of snow and ice expenditures for our actual appropriation I hear you spent some money yesterday Okay, Christine, are you? Okay, Tom You probably told me to stay out of this Who's the government back in the end of the day when this money is going to be spent? I would say The final deciding factor I don't think I wouldn't want to spend capital money without the capital planning committee voting on it I wouldn't want to actually spend operating money without finance committee voting So this chunk of money you would come up with a plan and say Yeah, then you would go to capital planning and then come to the finance committee and we'd give out a penny Absolutely And if you take some of that money and you put it into snow and ice are you confident that we will see the difference that are we going to sound? Yeah, I think we would have to and to be specific right away the way luck goes we put in meters and two months later we get 25 inches of snow in three days and people can't get to the meters I think we would have to think about putting some kind of program in place just for the sustainability system where you that's fine but I'd like to see I want to see it because we have a history of it's not we don't see it it just goes some more overtime for other sections of town Yeah, I think based on existing resources and DPWs in effort like what we're talking about we'd have to contract it out Yes, good Thank you Okay, your friend what happens if a car runs and knocks over three meters is there an insurance policy to replace them or is that a clever didn't what happens it's not wear and tear destruction so that already happened before they even went on someone knocked over pulled one of the meters on when they still had bags over them so we would certainly go after the driver's insurance policy for the damage but anything that would fall to the town we would we would take out of this available reserves in this balance which there is a little bit there be part of the car can benefit Okay Thank you Okay, Peter I guess you could suggest that this is a benefit for the central business district so perhaps the owners of I mean the people running the businesses would expect to get more foot traffic and more revenue estimates what that might be You know, I've whether it be from event based foot traffic or improvements to the public realm I've struggled with to find a good metric for that I think the best thing I can say is this is outside of the revenue part but more of the programmatic part these meters seem to have absolutely increased availability and turnover on the street which I could almost guarantee means people are parking more and shopping more because they're finding an easier time to park so I think from easier to say from a programmatic point of view it's working to help businesses it can be harder to pinpoint that you know, higher to quantify I shouldn't say pinpoint quantify Is there a chance this will have any effect on the empty storefront issue? You know, I would I think some of those as I think we've talked about I think with this committee we've talked about before some of those I think are very landlord based but I do think that parking availability and better infrastructure in a business center would certainly lead to better tendency in the future so Adam and Sandy I hate to be a pessimist but I think this is I'm confused by the account you're saying that we have annual revenue of 425,000 to take these expenditures but we don't we're only getting new revenues of $300,000 $125,000 $125,000 at least is our existing revenue stream coming into the general fund so in fact what you're proposing here is spending $414,000 on a new revenue stream of $300,000 so the impact on the general fund is at least a negative $100,000 $14,000 $15,000 that's not a benefit to the town it's a cost because you're reducing general revenue income that we've already had you're counting it twice basically so I don't think we're counting it twice I think what's not been made explicit here is through the implementation of the meter's violation revenue has gone up and that's what is allowing us to say so it used to be $490,000 that went into the general fund now it will be $540,000 because violation revenue has gone up while at the same time parking meters by $300,000 that we'll be able to combine with the multispace meters and pay those $414,000 with the cost but we're doing that at the same time as still putting more into the general fund I mean our total I'm not so fast as to assimilate all those numbers in one shot very basic it just seems to me what you've done in this paper is your counting revenue that we have in the general fund as new income and the only way we can do that is take it out of the general fund no I think what you're saying is accurate but misses that violation revenue is going up and that's being proposed to go into the general fund to offset what we're shifting to this fund you're not thinking the $414,000 is entirely from single space meters you know without the single space meters I don't know what part of that $414,000 would still be spent I'm saying that the we have a proposal here that we're spending $414,000 including $150,000 look at the other way a different way of looking at it is if you took this $150,000 out then you would be starting to get close to some sort of a break even on the on the cost and the income but we're saying that $125,000 taken out of our existing revenues that go into the parking budget or whatever you want to call it the parking fund and now we're putting it into this district and then we're saying it's a benefit because we're spending $414,000 right but I'm saying the $414,000 wouldn't go to zero without the single space meters there would still be maintenance on the lots the two multi space lots the third one so where is that well it says on the top single and multi space meters so I assume these costs are for both I mean we already are accounting we're already accounting for the maintenance on the lots and that's in there and that's the offset Charlie can I I think what Charlie is saying I can articulate it with the old handout so in October parking meter revenue would be a low of $421,000 high of $716,000 we have all these expenses that would be paid for out of the low of $421,000 high of $716,000 this sheet has the expenses but the revenue is not in that $421,000 to $715,000 range so to fund these expenses there's a change from the fall where $125,000 of existing revenue is being moved into the revolving fund to pay for it that's what you're saying Paul I don't think you should use the $414,000 exactly because the share of parking enforcement and share of parking administration right now are coming from the general fund and instead they'll be offset here so you should subtract $1,000 from the $414,000 you should subtract $125,000 right there's still a thing but it comes out to $314,000 essentially here and so the $300,000 new but this process has to pay some enforcement and some administrative costs I don't know what it is but I just think the accounting is a little bit loose you're certainly the enforcement is there additional enforcement with the meters that there wasn't before when there were two hour parking places that had to be enforced so more tickets are we have not increased enforcement costs but more tickets are being put so as far as the enforcement number that's the same before and after the meters the enforcement revenue and the enforcement revenue the parking administration is that more is the total parking administration more with the meters than it was with just the two hour it's currently the same and the cost of the blocks is that included in this in these numbers the cost to operate them the cost to pay originally they had been previously purchased two years ago with the capital expenditure John and you may have already told us this but what is the amount the increase in them it looks like approximately about $50,000 more than we had budgeted in the past that was for the violation so what a violation revenue has been before the annual we we budgeted estimated $285,000 that's just violations correct and that money is going into the general fund and how much do you expect it to be the first full year after everything is done I haven't projected so that's the budget so we're estimating that once for a full year current system $400,000 so if the FY17 budget was $285,000 then we budgeted a higher okay so you're expecting that the violation money will be approximately $400,000 townwide including in the district and we budgeted $490,000 for general fund revenues total so how do we restore that up to the where's that extra $90,000 coming from permit revenues and that's permits in both the Russell Common lot, Railroad lot and across town and overnight parking and school lots add up to $140,000 okay so before we had $490,000 in our estimated receipts to the general fund and after this is fully implemented between $400,000 violations and $140,000 permits and $40,000 that will all go to the general fund so the general fund will get an increase of $50,000 is that John? maybe I'm not getting that you said that you're estimating for a full year $400,000 from enforcement revenue and we previously budgeted $285,000 so that sounds like $115,000 new revenues as a result of the meters so if we take out the $125,000 that you showed here under annual revenue which is coming from the lots and we substitute in the $115,000 new enforcement revenue associated with meters then we're at annual revenue of $415,000 which will cover what you're showing here for annual expenses including the $150,000 for the parking benefit district with no effect on the general fund am I getting that directly or am I missing something? I think the parking violations have historically been about $350,000 we budgeted and then it's the actuals that have come in actually would count well it depends on what your for what purposes so it depends on we need to get $285,000 to keep a balanced budget that's one one of my hats is keeping a balanced budget in terms of how much food cash we get the other is relevant how much increase in permits from has there been any increase in the permit revenue from last year? permits are fairly steady there's really been no change to the permit program so I see a following chart that was sort of moving $125,000 from the lots moving that out of the general fund and directing it here and we're only moving back into the general fund the increase in the parking violations of $50,000 so general fund is taking a hit of and the offsets oh and right but that's not in the revenue side but the net change oh and that's the two fees make up the difference hard to okay Charlie and Adam Adam is there any time limit on when these when this law could be accepted? so the parking operating law was already accepted in October? the parking benefit district can be accepted anytime so why don't we wait a year see what the numbers really turn out so I mean I'll say we the board of select men myself other town staff and volunteers have really sold to the entire community this whole parking program based upon our efforts to establish a parking benefits district when legally allowed I'd like to have two things included in the vote one is instead of $150,000 that it'd be some you know called surplus or some percentage of the surplus a number that would be some related to the difference between cost and expenses that that could be and the second one is a more open appropriation process I'm thinking something like CDBG or CPA where the committee would come to town meeting with a proposed appropriation which could be counted with a an alternative motion and could those be mechanically acceptable in a vote? the number based on surplus and the appropriation subject to town meeting approval based on the recommendation of the committee the second question is yeah so Sandy say DOR is saying it's not subject to appropriation but I don't think there's any legal limitation on making it you know it's committing and saying it's subject to town meeting approval I'm fine with that I think it's good to be able to the parking meters are an inconvenience for a lot of people and to be able to show a direct benefit as opposed to $150,000 going to the general fund that they lost you know you can say oh that money these flowers and this snow plow and these lights on the Veterans Memorial, things like that it's a direct exchange for the inconvenience but I think it should be a public process instead of just a backroom committee making a decision I agree with that and I'll say maybe I should have led with this I didn't invent the concept of a parking benefit district this is a nationally accepted concept that's being done across the country so parking revenues in the business district where the parking meters are located Massachusetts has actually been behind the curve in adopting this legislation to allow so I love the idea I think it's a brilliant idea I think it's innovative local government at its best so I hope my passion has come through it's just passion and not anything but that tonight but I wish I could take credit but I don't want anybody to think that me or someone sitting in town hall is going to make parking revenues this is again a nationally established model to reinvest in public infrastructure based on the collection of parking revenues while meeting the parking goal of creating availability in the business area now I'm sort of looking out at you reading your minds and I'm not sure how comfortable everybody is what we could do is since I still think there's some questions that people might want to see is that we could assign this for discussion and vote next Wednesday which is a clear day that would allow both the manager's office and individual members to exchange information perhaps put the numbers back in so you can show a direct walk through from how it's treated now to how it would be treated under this and maybe get that back to Monday if possible I think it's just reworking some of the numbers and maybe get people a chance to ask additional questions that you might have coming out of this just so it's clear it would seem to me you've got two elements here Article 39 is to appropriate for operating costs which would involve the $46,561 so that would all have to be donated out here and then if the committee feels with the other then two offsets and an appropriation into the district you know could be attached to that so it might be good if we actually saw a vote yep I can do that okay so that would be my suggestion we could clear off any of the questions that might have on the other hand if everybody wants to just go ahead and do it we could discuss and do it now but I think if this is going to be confusing to us we'll have looked at this a little bit it'll be really confusing to town meetings so I think we need to have it in our mind so does that sound reasonable okay then what I ask the individual members to do is if you have specific questions shoot them to the manager hopefully tomorrow and then I'd ask the manager could you get back another memo to us I know you love writing memos to us and that especially looks at the revenue stream today and follow that through um and I I know we have budget and we have actuals but maybe I suppose you could show them both if you wanted to maybe a list of specific things that the $150,000 could do not specifically put to do it and have town council draft up an article maybe specifically and furthermore the town meeting shall present this budget to town meeting for their approval each year or something like that I think that would be most transparent does that sound like a reasonable course of action so everybody has to come in here Wednesday at 7.30 prepared to discuss and vote on on this issue okay and don't be shy don't come up with a question next Wednesday let's try to get them to the manager's office either Sandy or Adam by tomorrow if possible and then maybe once you get the materials on Monday you know ask questions at that point okay Dean just as an ironic aside to know it's been around for a while in 2005 article 31 was extremely similar to this it was proposed by Mr. Gilligan 2005 Mr. Gilligan had proposed something very similar to this that we're looking at right now oh interesting except he obviously didn't have parking meters he was talking about that a lot would this be clearer if instead of creating a parking district to just create an enterprise fund like we have all the other enterprise funds and lay it all out and if there's capital that has you know that becomes part of the phase 2 section 2 of the capital budget and do it that way is there any reason that the parking unit would be better than that I don't know I think it would all look the same as what we're talking about now but why don't we look at that just a suggestion but I think whichever I think the committee wants it for town meeting to see each year okay while you have them here are there any other questions for the town manager how much money did we spend yesterday so I don't I don't have that figure yet but I talked to the director this morning so the last time I reported to the committee we were just about $300,000 over the FY17 budget and our estimate would be in terms of the the storm before yesterday which I think was Friday at this point plus this storm probably and salt purchases is probably another $300,000 to $400,000 so we're probably somewhere in the vicinity of being $600,000 to $700,000 over the FY17 snow a nice budget sir, what was that somewhere between $600,000 to $700,000 over the FY17 I think you increased the budget or suggested that we do okay, David, I have another reminder did we adopt the municipal modernization act had a provision that didn't require you to come back here like over and over again it's now subject to the town manager the chief executive officer's approval about the financing but I'm still sending memos as I get them I'm not trying to not share the information you're not going to get a complaint of foray nice to keep people saying okay, Liz, in the next Wednesday's agenda could you ask discussion of parking meter fund article 39 just insert that and then budget review okay, I will say so my soon expected child is due on the 25th so there's a chance that Sandy will be sitting in this chair making this argument next week depending on how things go so be ready there's your sense of priority okay well actually, you know this might be at this point just straight policy issue discussion if everybody's satisfied with the numbers on that but we understand okay, now you're welcome to stay for a little while if you'd like but if you'd like to go home that would be okay I was going to say I got to teach Kathy Bote to get up fast when she's let out she's so lingered for one second three questions came up thank you everybody okay, thank you okay, what I'd like to do now if you want to pull out your warrant is see there's a few things here that I want to just knock out of the way article 32 article 32 is position reclassification that's from Carolyn so I will call her and make sure she's ready by next Wednesday count budgets capital budget is done precision article 35 is done bond premium, 36 is done 37 public art is done recodification is done article 39 we will do that on Wednesday article 40 is done we just voted that today uh revaluation I think Charlie you're we're going to take that in when you came in with the assessors yes, that's Brian okay we will take it Bill is that your budget? that's your budget, right? yes I'm sorry when are you ready to do the article 41 uh Monday or Wednesday okay, if you could shoot for Wednesday just going into school meditating because she makes most of the night I think that once it would be better because I think we had planned the insurance budget on Monday as well does that still on? uh hopefully tell aim for Wednesday, I want to make Wednesday a very full meeting okay 42 is done and sewer 43 is done on water 44 is minute man that's done okay, article 45 is the committees and commissions now okay we can do these uh separately the first one is the Arlington historic commission 2160 that's the same amount we've been appropriating for them for the last several years it's not being increased do I have a motion on that? second okay, any questions? what's the number? 2160 all those in favor can we say aye? closed okay the Arlington district commissions now this is the yeah yeah, further down B is historic district commissions this is like Avon Broadway Jason, Russell Pleasant street Mt. Goboa so that's 5100 that's not changed in the last several years they don't want an increase do I have a motion? second second any discussion? questions? all those in favor, please say aye proposed okay, that's done okay, yes, Dean could we just to move along with this could we just read everyone what more money as one in Vodum or do we have to go through them all? okay let me go through those capital plan committee is zero commission on disability is 3,000 recycling committee is 3,000 human rights commission is 4,500 Arlington tourism is 4,275 vision 2020 is 3,800 transportation advisory committee is zero so all those are the same as they were last year nobody has asked for any additional money now does anybody want to take any of those separately? do I have a motion to take all those together as I donated? moved second any questions? all those for the same amounts as prior here all those in favor, please say aye opposed? now J is the byway we've already done that the scenic byway for 2,000 we've already voted that now here's how I did K Arlington commission on arts and culture 25,000 the vote was 10-8 I have underneath it in parentheses you'll see this all maybe next week this appropriation will also fund public arts and Arlington-alive activities at the discretion and under the supervision of the Arlington commission on arts and culture come so that's why I donated that ok now the next one is article 46 which we've already voted so that's 5667 4500 5000 ok so that's 15167 ok so we've already voted that was just added in the top ok 47 appropriation miscellaneous we have the legal defense to appropriate some money to replenish legal defense fund that's zero the way it has been for several years a a demarcation of medical costs 8500 with the manager's recommending these are all the costs which have been submitted in the prior calendar year so this is just a solid number in other words this has been this has been added up they have to use their own plans first and then anything that's not covered by their own medical plans this is what that totals Paul last year was 8500 is it the exact same number this year? that's what they gave us ok any questions do I have a motion? to move ok moved and seconded total of 8500 all those in favor please say aye aye opposed ok favorable action unanimous ok water bodies fund we've done community preservation we've done article 50 Harry Barber we've done ok this is the retirement the first one is on the zero appropriation to keep everybody up and the other one is the OPEB are you? ok so we'll do that Wednesday ok now here article 53 is the transfer funds from special education stabilization fund this is also in the special town meeting and so I think they'd rather take it in the special town meeting therefore the appropriate action here would be no action second second ok all those in favor please say aye action opposed ok so take care of 53 34 is the Wednesday ok ok 55 is the transfer of funds cemetery the town transfers $200,000 to the cemetery commissioners for the care of town cemeteries $10,000 to the capital budget for headstone and cleaning and repair and said some should be taken for perpetual care funding Charlie Christine that ok? ok this is the funds we take out of this perpetual care fund is like $4 million or something I think that's what it was last time move second any questions? we voted on this last week we voted on the other side we voted it within the capital budget wait a minute wait a minute ok favorable action ok so that was done last week on the 8th ah free cash now the use of free cash this is the amount we get the certified free cash we take half we roll it we take half we use it so this is voted that the sum of $4,850,566 we take from available funds in the treasury used by the assessors to determination of the tax revenue how much was it? $4,850,566 so do I have a motion? so moved ok moved and seconded any questions? this is 54 now this is 56 free cash ok all those in favor please say aye closed unanimous 15 ok appropriation the long term stabilization fund we've been putting $100,000 a year into the permanent long term stabilization fund for a while I think it's right about $3 million now this is sort of an emergency fund this is not a rainy day fund so the managers recommended we continue that policy so moved ok moved and seconded for $100,000 into the long term stabilization fund excuse me any discussion? all those in favor say aye closed unanimous 15 I don't know this one article 58 is the appropriation into the fiscal stability stabilization fund that's our last vote that's our last vote so we gotta wait and see it could be 0, it could be a little bit going in could be a little bit coming out not sure yet on the special town meeting we voted 3 and 4 and article 5 we can take care of that on Monday I gotta check out how much was put in there last year ok Tom are we saying on article 59 that there's no dollar value to this if this gets voted in no this is the money for years we've been putting money into the fiscal stability fund no no article 59 oh I'm sorry are we saying that there's years to know of 59 we're guaranteeing the town that there's no dollar value article 59 I'm trying to remember I thought we had just discussed it before maybe not this is the sanctuary and you know the position of the manager and the town council was that the federal government does not have the authority to take money away from one grant because of something else that was done has to be related to the grant you're given that's their opinion that's what we pay them the big bucks for correct so if the opinion is wrong they're not going to pick up the tab well ok Dave just through the comic I actually reviewed this with an attorney he had pointed out to me that it's not only an opinion but it had supported by legal precedent so if you remember he put it very quickly for me he said after the Affordable Care Act was passed the Affordable Care Act was passed included a Medicaid expansion program so the Obama administration went up and said if you don't adopt this we're going to take away your Medicaid money etc etc etc and the court was pretty clear on it I mean it was like 7 to 2 that you can't do that you cannot punish someone for not adopting something they put a pretty narrow scope on it the last time so it's not as if this is one of these there's no legal precedent behind it that was what 3 years ago yeah I think what's kind of interesting about it and I think why it's sort of Tom gets not a lot of play and all of this is the two dissenting justices that said that you can confiscate money from these local governments state governments were Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sandra Sotomayor which means that the sort of conservative wing of the court how carried the day on this you know 3 years ago from all wrong what is the dollar value this would cost 6 million 6 million plus there's I guess one thing to throw into it there's no legal power to this it's a resolution it's not in the bylaws it's not anything and it's nothing we're not doing anyway but it could be a dollar value but it's also there's a little bit of I'd say sort of smoke and murder to all of this because I've written a clarification of this which is we receive 4.5 million dollars of federal money 3 million dollars of it is passed through money through the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and so even if the federal government wanted to take that 3 million dollars of education money away from us they couldn't they have to take it away from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts or specifically add this guidance on top of it that says Massachusetts can't give it to Ireland which would be incredibly difficult to do were you here for the Nixon recession the million 5 on the other hand is the CDBG money and that's a direct federal federal grant and so the million 5 could be hit well and I think if we wanted to be truthful for as much as the 3 million dollars would probably not have risk at all I don't think we qualify for the million 5 anymore if you remember back when the federal sequester happened that our CDBG money got cut I believe we had determined at that point that we were grandfathered in to CDBG and we no longer qualify for it now so that could be taken away right and they're cutting it anyway they're cutting it anyway I guess in theory they could just take it away not as not as sort of retribution for sanctuary cities but just because we don't qualify anymore but even then if you start looking through that most of that money doesn't go to the town anymore I mean the planning department money that was planning department that was funded through CDBG is out of that budget I mean really that million 5 goes to local groups in town so they would be impacted not as much the town budget schools would be impacted on the side of the one and that money title one actually is from the state from the fence to the state to us so there's some insulation it's up to the committee what positions what articles you want to decide on and what you want to do the committee want to jump into this issue somebody make a motion I move that we don't second okay it's been moved and seconded to not put an issue put a recommendation on article 59 any discussion all those in favor of that we say aye aye opposed okay does anybody have any budgets they can do in 10 minutes okay what budget Michael why don't we go back to the rank 7 so there were a lot of questions last time so here are the answers that I have all organizations get charged the same thing the same rate which is $255 for 50 minutes $275 for 60 minutes so all the schools get charged the same all the other organizations get charged the same if you wanted to know the per person charge for public skating depending on how old you are it's between $4 and $6 the question about retained earnings so they were 78,839 and yes some of that is used in the retained earnings for 4-6 an hour is that for each person when we do public skating so children and seniors I think pay $4 for adult spring um I looked at the previous year's fund balances and in the rate they were 79,021 so it's pretty so 15 was how much in 2015 for the rank it was 79,021 and for the previous year we talked about that last time it was 78,839 they'd asked what happens when the lease is up in 2025 when we renegotiate we do have that line item of admission for roller skating there is an offseason rental for the space for whatever purpose um what was the other question you asked you asked about the building capital yes so yes and yes that is poorly worded but it's the payments for capital investments it's the part of the revenue from rentals that goes into pay for that so not all the revenue from the range just the revenue from the rental okay so that's basically a revenue not an expenditure right they just didn't know yes and I agree that they have to call it something different but that's what it was called maybe revenue from capital or something like that and yes everybody's charged the same the biggest users are the youth programs followed by Arlington High School and yes both high schools use the rate maybe if they win the super rate we can give them a discount they're playing actually tonight so I think that's all I wanted to say about public skating so I suggest that we vote in as so 599-214 revenue and the same for expenditures yes and that's your motion yes I have a second okay any other questions or discussion on the rank okay all those in favor we say aye aye opposed unanimous by 15 okay if you want I can answer questions if we voted I approve the recreation but you still have questions about that so again the retained or the part of the retained earnings that's mentioned in this budget comes from those previous the fund balance and the reason part of the reason so high they've been accumulating money in preparation for losing all the revenue that they used to get from the Gibbs gym so in order to balance the budget that's why they're using how they're going to use that money because they're not getting it from the rentals of the gyms they don't have the gym anymore and then there was the people asked that question about school Steve asked the question about do we get rent from the schools and yes we do and then the rack pays rent to the schools for the gyms for the basketball program and then we were talking about gray billing rents Health and Human Services now rent space from planning and redevelopment because the large tenant left there so there's a lot of gray billing rents going on so the 381,319 I think the focus of the question was how much of that is funds that were paid in that weren't going to be for activities that weren't being used until the summer when I asked John again he said what they put into retain during his pain from that 381,219 and the rest is going to be used to compensate for the revenue they're not going to get because they don't have access to the gyms Trout I talked to Richard Eskay about that number whether that was a genuine balance it's a genuine balance it's not something that has been it's not encumbered in any way and we asked the auditors the same question last week so that money will be drained down until they find a substitute location for the gym correct because they had a lot of programs coming out of there and now like I said the last time they'll do the preschool and after school in the mob where they're Thompson so they'll keep doing that but they're going and they're doing the basketball by renting the gyms from the schools the other questions about that I think that was all the questions did they own the gyms 100% if they charged for that was that 100% or did they have to pay someone because I assume when the gyms reopen they'll be able to rent space and run it back out probably so that they can't do it and school hours so they've lost that and I don't know of any other gym that's not attached to a school which is why they're going to lose all that now and they can just do the preschool and after school in the mob doors because they won't be being used and then the basketball they keep doing but they're doing it by renting out the various gyms from the schools now for the coming year I approve that budget but I was just trying to answer those sure, we appreciate that thank you are there any other questions on that? okay, does anybody have a budget they can do in three and a half minutes? probably not Christine? okay, so Monday we have the school department coming please get questions to the superintendent because they don't have their financial guru with us anymore to answer the technical ones Wednesday we'll start off by doing the parking try to get that to you I don't want to spend all night on the parking but maybe half hour put our forts, vote it and go on so please for the rest of you please try to get your budgets and we'll start them on Wednesday and as soon as we can get them the fewer nights we have to meet remember that Saturday is Civic's day and our esteemed chair is making a presentation at 11 o'clock I'm sure everyone will want to go and see why don't you guys there give me a hard time we'll just be quiet in the back okay see you soon