 Okay. I'm reaching out to her now, but we're recording so you can begin. Okay. Yes. Thank you. So we do have a quorum. So I am going to call the meeting to order. I do want to say that this meeting is being held virtually through the various acts of the state legislature. And so everyone will have the opportunity. People have the opportunity to for public comment. If they're in the audience, just raise your hand or if you're on a phone, I think it's star nine. And that's for raising your hand. So I will go through that again when we get the public comment. So, um, I do see if we have a quorum. So I will just call the meeting to order and go through a list of participants to see whether we can hear you and you can hear us. So I'm just going to go by what's on my screen. Andy. I'm here. Bernie president. Councilor Hanna key. Present. Matt. Present. Kathy. You're muted. Unmute. Well, Kathy's unmuting Alicia texted back that she'll she's on the way. Okay. Okay. Great. So, um, Let me see if there's any participants in the audience. The only attendee is Lynn. So I think we'll, we'll hold off on public comment. So the agenda for those of you who haven't. Seen it where we have public comment number call order public comment, then the CPA funding. We were going to try to review the annual audit, but it's not ready yet. So we can't look at that. I would like to have a discussion of how we can review the budget. What process we think we want to use and want some just people to throw out some ideas about how to improve. Not only our ability to review it, but reducing the amount of time that staff members have to come before the committee. And then topics not reasonably anticipated. So. I'm going to wait on public comment because, as I said, we don't have anybody right now. So, why don't we talk about the CPAC report. So we've seen this before. We basically, they had 2.376 million to spend, and they want to spend 2.375. So they want to spend pretty much all of it. The debt service out of that money is 520,000. And then the rest is going to be split between community housing, historic preservation and recreation. There were no open space. Applications this year and there's no administrative fees this year. So the total of 681,000 for community housing, 564,000 for historic preservation. And 1.13 million for recreation was being proposed. So, I don't know if we want to blow up councilor Walker. Can you hear me? Can we hear you? Yes, I can. Thank you, Bob. Great. Thank you. Welcome. I was just going through the, the, the report that we have seen before. Does anyone not have it because I can send it to you if you need it. Okay. So anyway, I'm just going to open it up. I don't know if you want to go through, if we want to go through each of the projects, or maybe we should just kind of see. General general comments. Personally, I thought all the projects were reasonable. And, you know, I think, you know, there wasn't anything in there that I haven't seen. We haven't. We sort of done a lot of similar projects in the past. So Kathy. Yeah, I agree with you, Bob. And actually when we saw it a few weeks ago with Sam. We did go through the projects and Mandy and I will actually me at the council meeting the Mandy again we, we had some comments about the Mount Zion church, but it wasn't. It wasn't a not going forward with it. It was just a concern. This may be the tip of the iceberg and it needs to be done. So, my hand went up mainly as I'm willing to make a motion but we usually we have a, we also have a financial order so we make a motion that the council approved financial order dot dot dot dot dot dot so I'm willing to do that, but, but I'll let you make Mandy's hand is up so I would have to word my motion to include the language of that financial order. Yeah. What maybe well Mandy's making her comment I can pull up the financial order for you. Thank you. 2507 a. Thank you. Yeah. I basically agree with Kathy, except I have concerns about the East Amherst local historic district funds. You know I mentioned this last time, and I understand the projects. Value to the town whether or not the historic district is ultimately formed or not my bigger concern though in granting funds for a project are the application comments that the project would be supporting so it's not the project necessarily I have huge concerns with I have concerns that that would imply that we support the wording of the application. As I stated about two meetings ago when we first discussed this the application has some very concerning wording in it for me. That I don't want to endorse, even if the project itself is ultimately that portion of the project the doing of the, the, the structures report historic structures report is ultimately valuable to the town. I don't want to vote for a project that has an application, and then would in theory have the town supporting an application that uses quotes like the construction of prefab shoddily built student hotels which detract from and devalue the town and only a handful of landlords and quote and also quote rapid changes are occurring in the area including a new school and a proposed adjacent overlay district that are impacting its historic character and integrity that are. First of all there isn't a proposed adjacent overlay district so it's just wrong. But, so I'm not sure what to do with that one on my own in terms of a vote, whether to ask that it be pulled off so I can register my non recommendation on that. But I really do want to disavow the application for the East Amherst local historic district because I believe the wording in it is not appropriate for us to endorse. I share the counselor's concerns is just expressed about the wording that's in that that application I mean, forming a historic district should be an active of instruction and research and. You know, in something that's positive so those comments are toxic in my humble opinion. I would not want to insuring that sense as well that I would not want this to be seen as authorizing a local historic district it's more of a it's more of an investigation as to whether or not there's substance there. I just. Yeah. Again, I share the same same same problems with the application that counselor Henry does. So if we were to. Not approve this particular application. We send it back to CPAC for a different wording in the application or should we. What do people think we should do Andy have you done that in the past. What, what, what we, what do we do in the past where we have an issue like this. I don't think we've had one that's exactly like this. It's sort of a very unusual situation in that. When we've had objections in the past to things. It has been something that was pretty specific like. Trying to think that the. House that was last year. We had some serious concerns about it. I don't think of an analogy that's quite like this. And I wish that we had said something that Sam at the time because. Though I think I guess that I would recommend. Going back to Sam and the committee in asking them for modification and clarification. As if my understanding is correct and then it can. Confirm that there's no reason that the council has to act on all of these things. In one bundle and the deadline is really the end of the fiscal year. So that we really have. I think that's a good time to dispose of the rest of them and put this in recommend putting this one on pause until there's clarification to meet standards that the committee defines. Okay, thank you, Kathy. And he said we, you know, he has longer years than I do, but I have the six. So there was a year where one of the projects was more controversial and we wanted to make sure we got had ample public time and it was. It was an affordable housing project on coming into town. So we pulled it off the pack out of the package. Approved the rest of the package and then separately looked at it and approved it in June. I mean we did ultimately improve it. But what I remember and Andy can correct me is the financial order itself then needs to be reworded because it takes it in this case it would take $20,000 out and not have the same list in it. And so if we were going to go that that is the way we went the other time, as opposed to just held the whole package. We pulled one out. But it seems to me Andy what you were saying is we could either wait on the whole package and tell Sam about these specific concerns and figure out what if anything they can do because this was the applicants. And I think he said everything was voted out unanimously, including by the historic, the members who are in on the planning board and the members who are representative from the other entities. So we could either hold the whole package with this concerned, or we could pull this out with a recommendation we move ahead on the rest. So that's, that would be my, I don't know which route I personally would like to let the others move so we can just come back to just this one project. And I'll stop talking. Thank you, Bernie. I've, I've had considerable amount of experience with Community Preservation Act activities, albeit on a town level, not a city level, but I, I believe that under the the statute, we could knock out the, the $20,000 for the local historic and suggest that the council approve the rest and then let the, you know, let the Community Preservation Committee of the applicant come back and straighten things out. There's no, this isn't a one and done kind of situation. And so we can either my, so my suggestion would be that we strike the $20,000 and amend the order so that that's not there and forward that to as our recommendation to council, the council can put it back if they want. And Bernie on amending the order it's both the total up at top goes down by 20 and then. The line order. I'm staring at this because I have my laptop screen and things are very small. But places the total appears gamers historic district line just can be struck strike through. And the total at the top comes down by 20,000. The total down at the bottom comes down by 20, and the remaining goes up by 20. I'm just saying there, there, there, there's more than one place that the numbers would have to change. Yeah, that's that's that's accurate. Yeah. So just, just amend the document that way. Bob, if I may, I don't think the committee needs to worry about changing this document or amending the document, the committee is just making a recommendation to the council to, you know, it from the conversation to approve those and not approve the local historic district so you don't need to worry about the changes we would prepare a new order with if the council decided to act that way with the changed line. Okay, thank you. Thanks, Bob. Yeah, I, I took it. I was initially asking to clarify that that Councilor Hanna key was was objecting to the which application but I'm looking at the CPAC application now and I do see that problematic language in there. I'm just wondering if if striking this outright is the only is the only action to recommend I certainly understand and agree that we don't want to necessarily endorse those two or three sentences. I'm also strongly I mean, I agree that this is overall a very worthwhile project and I'm wondering, could we indicate, you know, some disapproval of that language or or just sort of a implied non consent to that language if that's a term within our recommendation to the council and you know I think the work itself is is important and you know they are asked to demonstrate urgency for the report for the work and I think that they have. So I wonder if there's another mechanism by which we could indicate that we are not, and we're not the CPAC so we're not the ones who approve this application. You know, not to say that we shouldn't do due diligence but CPAC did and so I wonder if there's a space where we can sort of indicate that we don't support that language in particular, while still allowing the project to move forward on the timeline. So what I was suggesting, and the man is coming in was that our, our recommendation would be to send it back to CPAC to figure out what, what if anything could be done, you know, if they could address the language so it wasn't a no way hose for the 20, you know, that it's gone and that we would reflect that in the recommendation to the council on this one goes back to them with this concern. And so I wasn't just going to say, we like everything but not this one but, but more the concern about the wording not, not the concept of forming the district, potentially for forming the district so, but it was a different kind of wording on what we would recommend to the council. And I did, I did understand if Bob I can just respond I did understand that I was wondering if we could make a full recommendation to the council that included sort of, you know, concerned about that wording. Yeah, I don't know. This is why I brought it up because I don't know which one is more appropriate. But I do look at my other concern and looking at the appropriation transfer order it, it literally says East Amherst local historic district which was not actually the title of the project and I think also miss implies what's going on with that it's the committee and hiring of a consultant to do things and, you know, this is not forming a local historic district I don't want as as Bernie said I don't want any indication that this is endorsing a local historic district although the structure historical structure reports that would be created from this could be valuable. I think we need to be very clear as to what is going on with this 20,000 number one and I don't know whether the appropriate thing to do when there's a concern about the language of the application is to say no to the money. Make a recommendation of not approving this and say come back with an application that doesn't use in Bernie's words toxic language. Whether it's to approve the project and the money for the project because the project is worthwhile, along with some sort of statement that says, we do not endorse or condone the language in the application. I don't know which one is more effective or valuable, which is why I brought it up. Bernie. Well, my thing would be simply to, we can do one of two only things. We can forward this order to the council with the recommendation that they approve everything except the $20,000 and outline the reasons why we're not an approval of this, or we can send it back to the. I think we're on shake your grounds if we send it back to the, to the committee. You know, it's up to the committee has a certain degree of independence and what it comes down to is the appropriated authority whether it's town meeting or town council gets to say yes or no to the projects in a wholesale they can't amend them. They can't again increase them and they can't amend them. So it's my preference would be that we advise the council that we are not in it we are in agreement with the record recommendations except for the East Amherst local historic district. And the reason why we're not supporting the East Amherst local historic district is one. This is the wording here is not accurate. This was a proposal for a historic structures study, which would be the precursor to any attempt to form a historic district that's one. And two, the language that was used in the application suggests that this is being done as a way to further Amherst history and distinction but to inhibit or limit development and that's not something that we're willing to endorse. The other thing would be is that, you know, we send this forward order forward and say to the council. You know, I'm in the order to take this out and let. Let's see pack wrestle with it. And I can always bring it back. Andy. I agree with the concept that Bernie is generally putting forward because what we would really want to do is give the applicant. There's no opportunity to amend the language but if they're not willing to accept. The suggestion we're making for a change in language. I think we need to know that from the from the source you need to get to the get to the original applicant and make sure that the applicant is really on board with the change that we think is necessary. So, I guess I would tend to recommend everything except that one line to tell them why we're not. We could go ahead and notify the committee on by the finance committee notifying the committee is to the reasons why and say that if they and the applicant can come to an agreement on amended language. That we would still have the opportunity to change to recommend a different outcome for a different application within and get it done for the end of the fiscal year. Okay. Does someone want to make a motion to that effect? I agree. I think that's what we should do. Bob, I'm prepared to but I want to make a slight change to what Bernie said. You know, I think the concern is the language in the application is negative about all recent change and suggest and suggest the goal is to inhibit all development. You know, they didn't explicitly say no development but just not, you know, not to be as sweeping but the word suggest so that's the way I would word or sending it back. If people are comfortable with that I can. That's that's certainly that's certainly within the letter and spirit of what I was suggesting I was. So I make a motion to approve. I got a can you scroll just up a little bit. What would be to recommend. Yeah, I make a motion to recommend that the council approve appropriation and transfer order FY 2507 a with the exception of the $20,000 for a study for a potential East Amherst local history district. The concerns. We recommend that that item be removed from the approved list. The concerns with that let's let's let's include that part in the reports or your motion would be to recommend approval of the order with the exception of the East Amherst local historic district and the amount of $20,000. Okay. Period. Yeah. And I wanted to word it accurately though so the study to consider an East. I realized that's not what it says but as long as we 20 say 20,000 so we're accurate in our wording about what it is. Okay. Yeah, I would I think that's correct procedure and what I would then consider doing is having a second motion that the committee. Then would essentially move that it communicate something to the CPA committee regarding modifications that it recommends so that the project itself can be. You know, we considered before the end of the grant year. So can we do that motion second and point of order. I think we just need a second on your motion first Kathy. There a second. I was going to get. Thank you. And then I was going to make a comment. Yeah, I think I agree with Andy a second motion, but what I wonder is whether that second motion is also a recommendation that the council communicate to the CPA committee, not that the finance committee communicate. I feel like it should be coming from the council, not. The finance committee. Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. So let's why don't we, we vote on the motion. Does is there any other comment on the motion, the one at hand. Okay, so why don't we will start I'll start I'll I'll say yay. Council Hennecke. Hi. Matt support. Kathy. Yes. Bernie support. Councilor Walker. Yes. Andy. Yes. Okay, so it's unanimous. Now the second. Does someone want to put some language forward for the second, which is for the council to. I would recommend to communicate to CPAC our concerns. I can take a stab at that and everyone can edit my words. I make a motion that we recommend that the council communicate with CPAC to concerns about the $20,000 award for a study for an East. Society. The first is that the way it was worded in the financial order implied that it already exists. It needs to be changed to the study. The second. Is the language in the application is negative about recent changes and suggests the goal is to inhibit all development. Is there a second. Okay. Any additional discussion. Okay. Why don't we vote on the motion then. Council Hennecke. Hi. Matt. Support. Kathy. Yes. Bernie. Support. Councilor Walker. Yes. Andy. Yes. And I vote yes. So again, we have a unanimous vote. And two sports. So I think that's it on CPA. Does anyone else. Say anything more about CPA. No, I don't know. You know, and when you write up the report, Bob, I think it was generally an excellent set of projects so that, you know, I would put some. General positive wording on our. It, it was quite well balanced and a lot of it just something that says something nice about the and we thank CPA for their work, you know. Yes. Okay, I will do that. So the next item was the going to be the audit, which is not ready. So why don't we discuss our budget review process. What we've done in the past is we've divided up the budget into, you know, by by by department. And we each one of us each, each person on the on the committee would take one department and take a deep dive in into that particular part of the of the budget and take questions from the other committee members. And then kind of submit those questions to the department and have them when they come before us, they would have these questions ahead of time for the most part. I don't know whether that is the way we want to go ahead. I'm open to anyone suggestions. I know it's a very tedious process for us and for the staff. And so if there's any way that you can think of to streamline things. Maybe, well, any, any, I'm open to suggestions. So feel free. Kathy. Yeah, I don't. I want to make sure I word this in a way that it's not negative about any element of what our town is doing, but we have some departments that are one person or two person departments. And we don't give them completely equal time, but we do divide a time and then we have departments that are a major share of our funds. And I think the departments that are a major share of our funds. Aside from what they're currently budgeted for hearing from them about either the stress of current staffing, turnover, other things that we wouldn't naturally get because although we're dealing with a budget we can't easily. We can't increase any amount of money that's been allocated to them. So I don't know whether there's a way of grouping what I'll call the smaller and and then so removing some of the meetings and then leaving some time with the others where the understanding is respond to the questions that we've presented and then talk a little bit about, you know, from the ground level up to us about their budget so that's one thought the second. And I have no idea how we live with this is we know the budget guidelines, despite the increase to 4% are a major source of concern for the schools, particularly the regional schools. So that seems that's going to need, we're going to need some guidance on how we even have a discussion about that, because the town, unless Paul miraculously finds a million dollars. The town doesn't have a place for what the school committee seems to be suggesting would be a budget that's coming to us. So that's where I don't know how we handle that one. But we can't avoid that discussion so we just have to have it. And I've been actually looking at budgets and issues of staffing and, you know, is there some belt tightening that could happen, but I'm not sure I don't think it comes to a million. So that's just my, my thinking about this. And, and, and in the meantime, I mean there's not much of a meantime between now and May. And if the work like Andy talked about the work at MMA if if chapter 70 miraculously had a chunk more money if something could come that would ease the stress in the schools. It would be great. So I would schedule them later rather than earlier. And when we're meeting. So I'll stop talking there because those are my thoughts on fewer meetings but more focus. Yeah, Councilor Hanneke. Yeah. So, this is my first year on finance so I've come in and out of the budget sort of meetings in May from finance committee when it's held them on departments I'm interested in so I'm not fully, you know, engrossed in what finance has done in the past, but a couple of things. I'm curious whether finance has ever actually taken our budget guidelines, looked at the manager's budget and made an affirmative determination if that the manager's budget meets the guidelines. Because, you know, the department meetings are great, but from my experience. Many of the questions are, and those meetings happen too late because the budget's the budget. And we can't really, I mean we can decrease it. But if it meets the financial guidelines that we've issued. Do we have a reason to decrease it right have we ever has finance ever sort of made that determination and so that's sort of where I'm starting with is shouldn't we first be comparing the budget to the financial guidelines and saying it meets our guidelines or it doesn't meet the guidelines. And then I think the question becomes what do we do about all the questions we have about the individual departments and when are they most appropriate to happen and I'm just not sure that it's most appropriate or most appropriate it's not the right word, most useful for them to happen in May. After a budget is in front of us versus in the time where we're developing budget guidelines and before we're developing guidelines to be able to ask more general questions about departments. In the vein of what Kathy just indicated about where is the stress what is the staffing, what, what issues are you having those much more general ones and so I guess I kind of like to see a much more streamlined focused may on does the budget meet the guidelines and then maybe move a lot of these department meetings to August, September, when we can talk in more generalities in order to develop the guidelines for the next year. First of all, it just doesn't point out that the way we've organized the department presentations was by functional area in the past so we do public safety, all in a bundle and we do the and you track the budget and it comes out of the budget which really is organized around what the state requirements are the local services and how they organize presentations of budgets so that sort of filters down to the committee but we don't have to do it that way. So I just want to point that out. The other, and I do think that it's right that man is good point that we sort of know that the budget just by looking at it, and by the presentation from town manager that it is responding to the guidelines. And, but the, there are a number of departments that are pretty straightforward we spend a lot we spend time on them and take their time. And really need to think about that. The schools is the big issue that I think Kathy's right which is really when I raised by hand. And the timing problem is the regional schools. And we can't avoid the fact that the regional school issue has to be dealt with in line with the other town meetings in the other three towns and the regional school process because once three towns have approved the budget it's done, unless except for the question of the assessment methodology which takes four towns to approve. And I think that that's where the big pressure is going to be that's what the million dollar request is about. So, I think that it's important that we think about that and recognize that we always take that out of cycle and take it first because of the fact that it coincides with the process and both three town meetings in in pounds that are the other part of the region. Yeah, that is a that's a that's a good point Andy, we can't really postpone our discussion of that to a later date because there is no later date really anyone else have any thoughts. Okay, well, I think I just I don't think we need to decide this now I just thought I wanted to start the process of thinking about it, I will write down a couple of thoughts about, you know, how we might proceed. And I'll bring the points up that that Councilor Hanna get raised as well. So, Kathy. Yeah, I don't want to stop the conversation on this because I was going to bring up another topic and it would be a 48 hour rule but not really it's like future agenda item kind of things so Andy if you're still speaking on this goat before me. Yeah, no, I think that we need to actually just make sure that we schedule the regional budget presentation pretty quickly and that we think through very carefully how we're going to approach that. In the information that we're asking we can't delve into the budgets of the school committee, because it's really ultimately their decision as to what they do. So it's not that you can say, Oh, why do you need this item or why do you need that item and try and second guess their budgets but on the other hand. I think we do have to make the point that has concerned me for several years about the schools that there's a trend, and they just continue to put together budget proposals for the towns and for us. It's not a strategy that are what they a strategy for the year at hand, but they don't think ahead. It's not a long term strategy of what it is that we're doing. And we've pointed out a year ago that you know this train wreck was coming. And here we are with the train wreck and they didn't do anything differently except put together a budget based upon the same principles that they use every year, level services cost of local services and what cuts are necessary. And Bernie can go next. Bernie. Thank you. Yeah, this, I mean the budget reviews are kind of they're an interesting thing because it's not like the finance committee is shaping the budget, the finance committee is commenting on the adequacy of the budget and the judgment of the, you know, the town manager's ability to put this stuff together. The other thing that we do do is we do expect each of the departments to manage with the amount of money that's been allocated. The school committee seems to think it's an exception to that. And I frankly was very troubled by the remarks that were made that, well, we're going to add a million dollars into it and let them figure out how to fund it. That's not how you manage a budget. So I think the suggestion that we for the future that department heads get interviewed in September, October when there's the opportunity for the finance committee in particular and the council after that to make recommendation to the manager that you really need to pay more attention here. We make these adjustments there. What we're doing now is just saying, yeah, this looks adequate. So it's a strange situation to be in and I do agree that we have to have the school discussion up front and that's 60% of our budget, 60% of our revenues go there. Thanks. Yeah, thank you. I agree. We should be. I guess it's technically asking the manager to forward the regional school budget to the council for referral to finance committee sooner rather than later so we can start on those discussions. I think it would be valuable. And I think there also has to be either a public hearing or a public forum. I'm not sure which and we should get that on a schedule, probably sometime in April. We probably need to discuss from a finance committee point of view. If there's any. Recommendation from finance committee is to when it thinks the council should vote on a regional school budget and when it thinks finance should make a recommendation looking at when the other town are holding their town meetings. I also like a discussion, although I can make suggestions now as to who from the school district and school committee we asked to show up to our discussion on the budget. In the past I think we've generally had the superintendent and the finance director I'm not sure there is a finance director at the schools right now, but given the school committee. The regional school committee is the body that voted not to follow our financial recommendations guidelines. I think it would be valuable to invite members of the regional school committee to the hearings. Kathy. I am staying on this topic. If we put that together. The other thing I'd like to do is gather our questions sooner rather than later, including if we have requests for data because often we requested data that's trend data that wasn't readily available in terms of in this case hand and yes, some of us can go find it on desi maybe, but having it be, you know, not codified by the school so I would just like to gather some of that, or those questions earlier. And so the team, I know how stress they stretched and stress they are in the staffing because the acting superintendent, as far as I know is still the finance director so with it, there is a team working with him but you know Doug made the decision in the four towns meeting when someone said I'm looking at enrollment after the last four or five years, and it's down and it looks like employment is up staffing is up and Doug quietly said yes actually the student to teacher ratio has declined. I mean, in a, in a classroom and a classroom level but I just think trying to get some sense of two of what lies underneath these numbers without going to individual lines. And so just gathering our questions earlier, so that we can get some response on these you know that the what I mentioned last night and I probably will just say it again is when I look at what the charter school is taking out of the region. In terms of per student. And then I look at the charter operating budgets, we're overpaying them, you know, in terms of their operating costs, but we're helping because other towns don't pay as much because their average costs are lower. You know, so the kids coming I just picked one or two schools the kids coming from South Hadley the amount they're sending to a specific charter school is much less than what we're sending so we, we are in fact creating a margin in the schools I mean so there's just many ways of looking at this is this isn't right the way it's working. And it is one of those. It's a long term stretch, so it's a structural. I'm going to jump in with the point of order here I don't want the committee to get too far into the weeds about the regional school budget when you know the discussion is about the, the process. I just want to point out that we're, we're getting into it a little bit and, and also in terms of scheduling. Right now, we're expecting Doug to present the regional school budget on April 1 and Bob and I had to discuss potentially April 29 Monday evening public hearing on the regional school budget. So your answer to getting the questions early is like that we'd have to have them now. Thanks. Thanks. So does everyone agree with the schedule that that Athena just talked about I mean we have opportunity to go to do it earlier. If people want to do it. We can begin our review on a meeting on April 2. I think we can. We could begin the review. If Doug presents it on the first we can start looking through it. I don't know that we'll be ready to discuss it on the second we may have to live with it for a while. So we've we had scheduled that for the 16th. Just to give people a couple of weeks to live with the budget. Does that make sense or we to people what I mean we can we can come back and we can revisit this but. Andy, any thoughts. I think we have to have it also a question as to whether we need to move the. Hearing to an earlier date. I suspect that the hearing is going to. Generate as much interest as the ARPA funds. Discussion did at the council meeting last night. And that we're going to hear a lot and. There needs to be. Question and arm. You know, as matter of process whether. There has to be some time to. Deal with the repercussions or the follow up to whatever happens at. At the hearing. So I just wanted to put that out there for just consideration. I just wanted to talk about process. I had discussed the 29th, because the week before is the first night. I think of Russia, Shawna and the week before that is a school vacation week. So if the committee was interested doing on a, on a different evening. I can pull for dates. We had selected a Monday evening. Rather than the committee's regular meeting time to improve public access. Any thoughts. Yeah. I was just going to try and confirm when, when Athena named a Monday night. This is, it's being called. As a finance committee public hearing, right? We're not trying to put it on. At a council meeting. Well, the council might, it might be dual noticed, but it's not being tried to be at a council meeting. So what we had talked about in the past. Was. That the hearing is required by the charter to be a finance committee hearing. In the past we have. Posted it as a finance and council hearing. Because I think we've always done it before a council meeting. But it doesn't need to be a council meeting. This is an opportunity for. Members of the committee and counselors who wish to attend to hear it. And there's not a discussion. Needed on that evening. So. The idea this year was supposed to, as just a finance committee meeting and invite counselors to sit in the audience to listen. So. I guess. You know, I. I would like to see it, I think before April 29th, because we can't really have a good day. Discussion and finance until we've had that public hearing. On it. I mean, we can have a good discussion, but we can't finish our discussion until after the public hearing. And it's my understanding that two of the towns are having their town meetings on the 27th. Of April. Am I, I think I'm correct on that. And the other one is sometime in May. Which means. We would already have their results before we even hold our public hearing. Which seems kind of strange to me. Not, you know, versus voting. Sometime after. We know the results, but I feel like holding the public hearing before the town meetings, other town meetings have voted on the regional school budget is more logical. If there's. No objection. I can pull the committee for evening dates. Before the 29th. And we can figure out what evening works for everyone. Yeah, I, I think, Athena, let's, let's see if we can get something before the. In something in the week after the week of April. One, I guess. There's a, there's a council meeting on the eighth. Is that correct? Maybe that week. Yes, that's right. Maybe that week we could, we could try to. Cause I agree with Andy that the. The, the, the, the public hearing is going to take a long time. Or we should expect it to take a long time. So I would think that we should have maybe a separate meeting. Just of the finance committee. And, you know, other counselors who want to attend. And just. Let people talk. Cause I think there'll be a lot of comment. So it sounds like I should pull for the week of April 8th. A different evening during the week of April 8th. Is that what I'm hearing? Yeah. Is that, does that sound okay to people? I mean, I don't have my, my calendar myself, but. I think that week or the week of the 15th. I know the week of the 15th is. School vacation week, but the hearing would be on zoom. So it's. A little less. I feel like it's a little less problematic to try to. Do a school hearing during school vacation week. When people can attend from anywhere. That doesn't mean it isn't problematic, but it's less problematic. Okay. I will pull from meeting dates for those two weeks. Okay. So does anyone else. Have anything else to say about this? I had a question about going back to the. When should we talk to the various department heads? Do. I don't have a problem with doing it in. The August, September timeframe. The question I have is whether we should. Not have those two weeks. Okay. So does anyone else have anything else to say about this? I had a question. About going back to the. When should we. Talk to the various department heads. To see whether we should. Not have those conversations in May. This year. And just have a review of the, the budget. As. Counselor Hanneke has suggested. To see whether it's within the, it meets the guidelines. Or should we. Sort of have a conversation with the department heads. For this year's budget and then talk about next year's budget. In September. And then talk about what the thoughts were on that. Kathy. I'm not sure what Mandy had in mind, but if we think of our guidelines. With the exception of town services, everything. It's this much. Library increase this much schools. Then we have a lot of wording about. Sustainability and roads are important and public safety. So that is one set of budgets. And so. There's one thing we could have a lot of conversation about. That is what Bernie just that leaves out. 62% or 65% of the budget. If we're putting the schools in another bucket. So I'm, I'm. Mandy, I'm not sure what you had in mind because our guidelines. Set up. You know, Uniformity. And we, you know, even if. You know, I asked quickly and said, forget it. You know, on library, but what is the light? What would the discussion about the library be? We, we said this much of an increase and they're good. That's what they're going to. No one's coming in under what we suggested. So I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. But it's a group of activities. And that could be a discussion on. You know, what we're allocating to all of those other things. So I'll just stop there because it. It's a, it's one long meeting then, but it's not on multiple departments very easily. Councillor. The guidelines are very extensive. Some of them. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure if this one at 4% or lower is this one at 4% or lower. All of that. But others go to sort of how is the money being used. Where I think there could be some questions, but I don't necessarily think it has to be by department. Per se. You know, if. I'd have to go back and review the guidelines, but to talk about Kathy's sustainability. You know, give us information as to how this budget meets those guidelines on sustainability. We could potentially have a couple of meetings on different parts of the guidelines during the budget process. And then, you know, I guess one of the things I'm envisioning for department meetings, if we were to do that. Why I'm not sure they're necessarily helpful in May. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure how. Instead of focused on the guidelines where we can write those things in about sustainability or public safety services or things like that. And I think if we do those, those meetings in September or October, we would be more focused and more forward looking on our questions. Less likely to potentially get into the nitty gritty that maybe the council is not supposed to be in on and more likely to be in the direction of the town when we're not staring at a number that has been proposed. When we're looking forward to that. So I think there could be a way to organize May. In a lot less meetings than finance has done in the past, but around different sections of the guidelines as it relates to the operating budget, the capital budget, any particular things we said we want to see focused on and things like that. So it wouldn't necessarily be one long meeting. But I think it could be split. But I think it would take a lot less pressure off finance to meet twice a week for four weeks. Because we might be able to do it in four meetings then instead of eight or nine. Anyone have any. I like it. Mandy, that was helpful because you're picking out something in the guidelines that's cross cutting to have. Yeah, rather than. Yeah. Well, okay. There's, there's a lot of thoughts swirling through my head. This has been a very good discussion. So I think we should, you know, maybe just. Finish up this part of the discussion. You know, we have time to really plan what we want to do in May. So I just wanted to get started on it. And I think we've gotten some really good ideas. And I'd like, I'd like councilor Hanneke's idea of looking at sections of the guidelines. And seeing, you know, I want to sit down with the guidelines again and see if, you know, how would we do that? To make it meaningful. So. But this has been very helpful. So I've been checking on the participants. And we still have no public attendees other than Lynn. So there's really no need for public comment. And I don't think we saw the minutes. I don't think. Athena, do we have the minutes? I haven't seen the minutes of March 5th. So I haven't had a chance to review them. No, I don't, I don't have them in the packet. I, I didn't have a chance to put a packet together, but I do have drafts. So I'll get those to you. Okay. Thank you. So, um, Kathy, did you want to. Yeah, but I say Holly's hand went up. So let's take. I was just going to comment that it looks like Lynn's hand is up in the attendees. Okay. Okay. Lynn. Hi. First of all, I love this discussion about the guidelines and that was very useful for first. But my raise my hand. Earlier because, um, I personally believe that it is important for every council. Counselor to be visible during a hearing about the school budget. And, uh, as a counselor who would not be visible. Uh, it makes, doesn't make the audience feel like the rest of us are listening. So it's always a decision of the chair of the committee. And the committee as to whether or not they want to open that to as a committee of the whole, but I strongly urge it because I think, as I've said, it's important for the public to know we are all listening. Thank you. Thanks. Thanks you, Lynn. It's a good thought. Kathy. Mine is just a future agenda item for when you're working with all and Athena and the rest of the able town staff. I would like to get some sense of the buildings and where they are in terms of fire station and citing. And we're in. We are going to be where we see it in a spreadsheet, but just schedule something when it makes sense so that we have it on the list that we can hear whether there is a plan on making a decision. So that's it's just a request for an agenda item for what I would call the missing buildings. The plan for two more. You know, I do know what the plan, you know, the plan as of five or six years ago, but just, you know, trying to, to get some sense of after I serve out my third term, which will be seven years. Will I be leaving where there is actually momentum or will we still be talking about it. So, and that would be coupled with status of reserves, you know, on sort of money. So just sort of a robust discussion that allows for discussion. That's it. It's an agenda item for when it makes sense, but not next year. I agree has to be sooner rather than later. I have the same questions that you have, like, where are we going with these buildings. I mean, we didn't see, I didn't see the fire station in this, the JCPC report. I think it's because it's a five year plan so that I inferred it's in the tenure her, you know, it's in. You know, so in any case, yes, that's what the plan is and we need to know because I think we've, you know, I had a constituent say when they moved here, like 20 years ago, 25 years ago, they, they were promised a fire station. So, Andy, did you want to add. Yeah, no, I think that this is actually a good add on to the discussion to bring the capital projects in, because it circles back to the consequence of a regional budget being voted by the four towns. That adds $800,000 to our budget because then we have to cope with how do we pay for it and it ultimately comes down to one of three things either devastate the municipal budget. We go to reserves and then affects the capital projects, or we ask for an override and see if the voters will be able to go for that. And there's timing questions with that one. If you do an override, there's also when do you do the override, how does he get presented. So, this is a raising a whole lot of issues that I think that is a finance committee we need to get our hands around in a real discussion when it's on the agenda. And one of the factors that I just threw out there was the capital. And if we don't have a handle on the capital plan that Kathy was suggesting we need, then how do we address the question of what the effect would be of making a decision to use some of our current stabilization funds to fund that $800,000 or 850 or whatever. The exact amount is the VR share of the million dollars that the region would be voting that we would be obligated to pay. I think that it is important that we have that discussion and it may be important to have it soon enough that it is something that we can consider as we have this other discussion. I agree. I think if we're going to have it, we need to, you know, I'm looking at, you know, we're making a recommendation on the region school budget in the May 3rd, May 3rd meeting, we're going to have to have that discussion beforehand. So, let me ask Paul, Paul, do you think that the, that we'll have all the information available to, you know, we'll, we have the projections by that time in the next sort of two to three weeks. Projections for on the school. No, no, on the on the capital projects. It might be a challenge because we're really focused on the operating budget now. We're finishing up our budget hearings later this week. But I heard the entire discussion. I totally agree with your assessment of the timing of things. We're also are the bigger priority right now is to look at what a potential. Additional funding for the schools would look like we're projecting that out and projecting that out over multiple years. What that looks like. So we have a rough draft of that. Whether we could get it in April or not. I can't guarantee that just given the crunch of the budget, but I understand you'd want it in certainly in May. Okay. All right. Good idea. Anyone else have anything they want to say, add. Okay, well, thanks. It's been, didn't have that much to talk about today, but I think thought our discussion was very good. Very helpful. And we'll try to get these things scheduled out over the next couple of meetings. Right. With motion to adjourn. Okay. Yeah, I was going to ask for that. Second. Okay. So we have a motion. Kathy. Yes. Bernie support. Matt support councilor Walker. Yes. Andy. Yes. I'm a yes. Councilor Hanneke. Hi. All right. We are adjourned at 315 p.m. Thank you.