 I cannot do that yet because I'm still downloading the new version of so I can't share unless unless people don't need it up on the screen. Do people need the minutes on the screen. See, no. Okay, perfect. Okay. So, have every had their own. The opportunity to look at the minutes. The last meeting. So, have any. Fractions revisions. They see. Do I have a motion to approve? Second. All right. All in favor say aye. Post. Yeah. That's the way that we have a flurry of emails and other information that has been disseminated. I just want to make sure everyone has seen everything. Starting with. First of all. The contact list. Everyone got in contact with us. And if anyone. If anyone has any. Corrections to the contact list, please. Let's turn it off. All right, so we have. Rebecca, thank you for getting Joe Connelly's responses. Jim being updated this on the. Boy camera program. That one had that. Cyber security. And so you got a grant for that. And then the field use policy. Does everyone have that? And I think what we have. And there was a confirmation that we pay. Make a payment more taxes for great meadows. And I think that is dead. I think that. Is the totality will be received and that's the last meet. If anyone does anyone have any questions about anything. On those topics, having read what has been sent to us. Michael. As a principal is maintaining comedy with the town of Lexington to, to pay them for the municipal services that we, we receive on the, on great metals. Was that. We pay Lexington just to keep things nice and happy. Yep. Yep. All right. All right, on to. Grant. Actually, if you want to know the history of that. Long, long ago when they tried to make it a drinking water. And so they wanted to preserve and own the rights of the watershed. And. That was that. That's why you do that. I don't think they were using. But. Am I. That's the best. Taxes and property. So send a whole lot of kids from their schools. That's the history behind. All right. So. Okay. Can I just. This is a question back on the. Enterprise fund and the answer we received regarding. Insurance for those. I'm just wondering the way the enterprise fund is, should there be. Sort of a. A pro router or some sort of payment back. Sort of like an offset almost or not. For. Pro router that's insurance. I'm not sure who I was on this email, but I'm not here to address it. But. I saw an email from Carolyn that said that when they talk about insurance. They're going to try to sort out at least how much would be attributable to kid care. And especially. If kid care expands in size, how much am I saying? I'm not sure. Now with retrospect whether everyone got that email. Okay. I don't remember seeing that. Carolyn. So I guess then. For any accountants or anything. Does it would it make sense to show that cost. On the enterprise fund. If we view the enterprise fund as sort of a stand alone. So. Just a question. I don't think it would make sense. I think the question is asking. The finance department to make that happen. So. We got to add that to the list of things we need. Like the finance department about like. You can get to bugging them about COAs. Going back to the budget and taking our enterprise fund last time. So maybe just. You can file a list. We're going to do that. I will try to do that terrible. Yes. Thank you. All right. Any other. Questions or comments before we second. The. Budget. All right. So we have police fire and sexual services. All right. Darrell. John. Come here. I will start with. Police. Which is. Excuse me. 16. Republic. If you. Most of us with computers. If you want to look at it on a SharePoint under. This. 25. Budget. Okay. On the salary side. To be honest. On the entire budget side. Interesting. Issues with police. Or do. Vacancies. Of course. Body on cameras. On the salary side. The only changes are. The. The only changes are. The only changes are. These are on the 5100 account. This is a very stepping for people to go on and a little reduction in longevity. Allen, if you have tried to tie the salary detail to the summary page, it's off by $125. Apparently the salaries paid Mrs. Cargill longevity for the chief. So the summary page is correct. Okay, so. Okay, Allen. Allen, that's over. You had some questions. So on the overtime, the 5103 wine item, the overtime is driven by primarily the various staffing requirements. So on the shift level, the two shifts between midnight and 4 p.m. are required if there'd be four full officers on the check. So the 4 p.m. to midnight needs seven, because far away in Tennessee, it's a relic in town, right? And then there have to be two ranking officers per shift. So for whatever reason, vacancies, vacations, they can't get up to those compliments when they have to stay overtime to cover that. Then the differential wine item, 5115, we know that that's much smaller than the differential in the Fowler deep outage. That 5115 wine item is only for differential for dispatchers. All the other differentials for ranking patrol are included in 5100s. And for nights, they get an additional 9%, and weekends they're here an additional 3%. And then finally, the stipends, 5116, 5152, non-listed, maybe the five different kinds of stipends on the additional amounts they get filling any of these rolled. Then on the expenses side, there's absolutely no change. But just a quick overview of the Batman levels, Batman levels, police patrol, they have 49 FTE ranking, 19 civilians, 9.44, and support at 10. Then for the vacancy, they have six in the police patrol and non-ranking. The manager's budget book shows two vacancies and civilians, but apparently those people actually exist in those positions you're felt. And then there's one support they can see. Okay, on to some of the issues. The police union contracts, they are currently in negotiations with the ranking officer union. It's in arbitration. This has to cover the fiscal 21 to 24 contracts. And the two major issues are coalescent increases and body-worn cameras. And then this contract, once it's negotiated, will expire at the end of June as well, the ranking officer. So both of them will be out of contract as of July. So I assume the negotiations will start up again. On vacancy side, as I said, there are six in the police patrol that got four applying for the police academy. If they all get in and then graduate, that would be two vacancies. At least at the time they graduate, who knows what it'll be then. One of the people taking the test in March is a dispatcher. So that will create a vacancy in that unit. And the chief said they had to go to the non-resident civil service list for the first time, which kind of shows how they're up against. For retirements, they have one in fiscal 24 and a ranking officer. And they anticipate there could be one in fiscal 25. In the civilians area, as I said, the two positions, which are the animal control officer and the social worker position are actually filled. So obviously that was something mistake in the manager book. And then the dispatcher, the one vacancy they have, they're happening to fell out. Any questions on that, Mr. Really, really hard to answer. I worked really hard thinking of one. Okay, you should get this one. So there's zero vacancies in the rank officers. That means that all the, he's mentioned the overtime shift of that weird thing they have to have one, two on duty all the time. That means there's no hotel for ranked officers? Well, remember if they're on vacation or on set, or important to be, or whatever reason, they're not available, cover shift. That would be otherwise they just built it. Great, thanks. I'll save the other one for later. Thanks. Is that right? Yeah. Was there any discussion about how this effect properly? To this point, they seem to be managing by using overtime. I'll talk about it in a couple of slides, but they are startling with the bill in the vacancies they have and staying up to staff, but they didn't bring up any operationalism. Sophie. In the vacancies listed, just looking at the previous folders, I see one looks like he was just promoted to sergeant. Do we know why, do they have an idea why the other ones have left, or do we know a good thing? So living, moving, other towns? In some cases, if they've taken somebody off the non-resident list, I think if there's an opening in that town, they have to go back. And then as I'll talk about in a couple of minutes, it's not a great time to be a police officer. So it's all over the country, it's down on them anymore. Right? Yeah. Thank you. I might as well ask this one now. More high level, animal control in theory, different than practice. So why is that underneath and not under like a social, that do they have any plugs? Dory or any? I don't know. To my knowledge, it's always been another place. Yeah. You know, going back, it used to be the dog office, but now it's more than just the dog office. It's always come under the police. But the dog officer in the old days used to have some authority to think he's the parent of God or something like that. No, they don't care, we don't. Now, those days, they didn't have radios. They'd always contact the spouse. But under the situation, they're on the regular level. It seems more of a, like a social type of thing, or it's possible it could be that, without any, has that ever been mentioned or brought up or any type of sort of mentioned about that ever before? I thought I heard something, right? Thank you. Alex, you know what I'm saying? Coming up now, I'm just, I have a little bit of knowledge because I'm a dog liaison for the question of what. And I've had a little bit of training on it. I think the issue is that an awful lot of the animal control officers' calls are about off-leash dogs and things like that. And it's just really good if here she's wearing a patch. Oh, yeah. Or when you're, you know, try to enforce the dog leash rules. It's better. It's very hard. Better if you're wearing it. Still nothing. Any uniform. Thank you. And one more notice, they have the authority to issue sanctions. Yeah. Violation. Absolutely. Charlie, did you have your hand up? I did just cover it. Thank you. Any other questions? Does the department have an explicit policy in favor against anything about hiring family members? Never, never come up. Never about asking. I mean, against or for. Any. Can I help with that question? Sure. Historically, it was always been a lot. Presently, there are three brothers on the police department. When I worked, I had a brother in the police department, a right-hand officer. Chief John Carroll had two other brothers. So historically, it's been a lot. There was, at one time, there was also a father and daughter on the job, the same time. John, I'm not sure if you're going to get into about the civil service. You don't get into that. Just the importance of civil service and how they're looking into that. Do you have a slide on that? Okay. I'm sorry, I should have started with that. Yeah. So the hiring, civil service, obviously is a big part of hiring the police department. There's some discussions related to that. Yes. All right. So staffing challenges. And as I said, they're increasingly challenged to stay up to both staffing levels. Chief showed a very compelling anecdote 30 years ago. There were 400 applicants taken past now. They're on the 16th. So we can really see how the pool shrunk. Being, coming in police officers' decisions attracted as it used to be. There's constraints on pay, that's the training. And I think the one that's really difficult is increased public scrutiny. And you can come down sort of either side of that. I personally think generally public scrutiny is a good thing, but you can understand from the point of view of a police officer. And just think about it, if you had to carry around a camera in the course of your job or your day. So you can understand that it's difficult. One of the measures that they're trying to take is to get out of some of the civil service requirements. So last year, town meeting passed a measure to withdraw from civil service for hiring purposes only. Proved by town meeting, and that was stuck in the legislature. This would allow the town to recruit. The particular point of interest is to allow the town to recruit non-residents. So they wouldn't have to just deal with the list. New hires, once they were hired, would then be covered under civil service. And in general, unions don't want to fully lease civil service without being compensated. For example, I'd like to tend to do that. And the unions negotiate a 5% increase. And I lost the bullet point somewhere here, that there are some, apparently the firefighters union and some of the veterans groups are not supportive of Arlington withdrawing, towns in general withdrawing from civil service. Then for the dispatchers, I learned this year that both the dispatchers and the mass mechanic have shared with the firefighters, whatever you might have, didn't know that. The dispatchers used to be a career. You might remember that they were dispatchers that they would be there for many years. Apparently now it's really become a stepping stone. It's viewed as a great entry point for some of the company in the department and then moving up to the fall. But it means that where the dispatchers used to be able to sort of manage themselves now and there's so many new people coming in and out and a lot of churn, that's much more problematic. So the chief would like to get a position and hire a full-time dispatch supervisor. We asked chief Kelly as well and he supported. The position is currently filled by someone, a full-time person who's half-time on managing the dispatchers, even though she's never been a dispatcher. And the other part of her job is as a crime analyst. And then that's increasingly difficult because with the establishment of the Arlington Civilian Police Advisor Commission, there's an increased demand for transparency and data. So that person really needs to get back to the prime analysis part of her job. To this point, for whatever reason, they haven't gotten the manager to agree to request that position. Questions on this slide? Tell for me. You know, the Civilian Police Advisory Committee is not set up and running. I think it's starting. It was approved last year? That's the one? I think it was longer ago than that. No, we approved it at the time of your question. I believe it. In 2023, no, in 2022. 2022? It's been a long time to the point. Then, okay. Charlie? Thank you, Chairman. I'm not sure that this applies to this slide, but a couple of years ago, some members of the Finance Committee did a report on the police department. Do you remember that? We did that. And it was quite an excellent report and very comprehensive. And I'm wondering if you came for us to take patterns of change, good or bad, in the police department since that report was done? The only one, and to be honest, at these budget meetings, we tend to focus mostly on the budget, whereas that report was much more expensive than that. I think the only thing I've noticed is that the hiring challenge is we're getting more pronounced and I don't know, dire is the right word, but they're up against it with that. Whereas I think even a couple of years ago, and John, I don't know if you sort of detected the same, it's sort of half kind of resignation and half frustration. Yeah, I mean, they do have, they do find new recruits, but it's getting harder and harder. So that's the impression I got. Josh. Thank you. Thank you. On that subject, with the change in civil service, give them a much bigger pool with that health demarc? They've been able to recruit non-residences. Right. I mean, I would think the chief would actually have it. Non-residences. People who are on that specific civil service list. Right. And there's nothing that can be done to expedite that through the legislature. What's the hold up there? Get the legislature to do much. They don't want to do so, no. I think the explanation, which Dowell referenced, was you need to sign off by the state legislature and the power of the five fighters, the veterans don't want to touch it. They don't even know it sounds like a small change. They don't even want to make a small change because they're afraid to do that. They like the civil service. Right. That, more of the problem, or would you blame the legislature for going so slowly? Would you blame internal bickering? Because I think there's a common meeting perspective. All these things happen so slowly. I think it's a combination, I think, with the legislature that tends to be inertia anyway. And then not having full-throated support doesn't help. But I've worked for the state most of my career and it's a act of life and dealing with anything with the legislature. That even something that everybody thoroughly supports still can take a long time to get through but really depends on what else is on their cube, where they are in the legislative calendar. Like they would bring up Arlington's request and vote on it as a separate issue. I don't think Arlington is a problem. I think it's the... Would they bring... There's five other towns in that bill. I see. I remember what they went up. I don't know what they were. It's a whole new location. Yeah, a whole new location. Thank you. El Jones. Thank you. I go back to the Dispatcher Supervisor question. I guess I always thought the column supervisor supervised the Dispatcher, but I guess I'm wrong. You know, there was this kind of... I think that's the position. I didn't like that I was putting this together. That's the only thing. But that's full-time, whether it exists or not. It is a full-time position. It's just like the thing too. For all of us. So what did you reference? Yeah, it's a full-time position. It's a full-time position. Well, it's in the same box as all of the dispatchers. I assume that was a personal supervisor. Thank you, guys. This is the operation here. I made it going. And I believe the chief wants a dispatch supervisor. Full-time. Full-time. This is a full-time job, so it's true. Must be talking about a different job description. I was just confused about that. It's possible. They started that. It wasn't called the Convets way. They started that under the previous chiefs, but when they designated supervisor, retired, and it went away. So there was no... And I went back to the shift commanders. It was the building for the dispatchers. Then there was the change. Again, when, you know, although there's a dispatching going on downstairs, but both police and fire, when the fire went back to the headquarters, there was a change there too, so it's... What's the job description of Smith, the concert, or are you... No idea. I believe... We can clarify this, but my thought is that... Because both the fire chief and the police chief referenced the part-time... There is a part-time dispatch supervisor who also spends a lot of time as a crime analyst. We heard that from both of them. So that's definitely sounds like that's the facts. So I'm thinking that this Smith... Smith is half-com supervisor and a half-crime analyst, because I don't see any... I don't see anyone... Yeah, I couldn't find another position. Okay, because it's one FTE. Yeah, but I don't see anyone with a 0.5 FTE. Yeah, but it's basically half on each. So even though it says com supervisor with 1.0 FTE, I think it's a half dispatcher. Thank you. And the problem of God is she's definitely having a direct experience being a dispatcher. Well, that's a hybrid panel alone. And then secondly, the man's on earth being... That's a good crime analysis for an increase. Right. The full-time com supervisor is doing crime analysis on the side. I said, Bruce. Yeah. Well, okay, but the position's called com supervisor. Yeah, there's no position for one FTE. I think it was the way the chief explained it. Prior, Chief Ryan needed a crime analyst. Okay. And the only way to get it was to position that it's a dispatch supervisor. Thank you. Thank you. And the crime analyst was a police officer. At one time. Yeah. And then they switched. Does it make any difference? Other questions, Sophie. So I had the same question, but to follow up a bit more. Did I understand that this is supposed to be... They work part-time for fire and part-time for police, though? They share. They share. Yeah. So the calls come in to... I thought in the past when things were shared, it would be a 0.5 under the police budget. The dispatchers are all under police and master of mechanics and firefighters. Police. Okay. Maybe just for our record, keeping the simplicity of the logic of the police. Okay. And then the other salary question I had was on the position of civilians, there are two positions that are not one FTEs. They're part-time. One being a social worker. I'm just curious if they mentioned the need for to increase the social worker position. So that position is shared between the police and how they do the services. But do we see the 0.25 somewhere else? Should be in the how the team is serviced by the... So just like, okay, but we don't split the dispatchers between firefighters. But we split the... What's the surprise, Patrick? Then how will the fire or police come in to... Okay. Do you have time when we do that? Well, I'm just confused because sometimes, and I didn't need for it to be this one, but so the answer is the social... I was asking a social worker why it wouldn't be up to a one, why it's only a part-time. And the answer is it is full-time, but 0.25 is somewhere else. But then on the dispatchers, which is share, police, fire. It's one on police and zero on fire. Perhaps it's all public safety. I'm just curious. I'm just really interested. Part of the reason they do it while we're here, I remember when we used to do a lot of this, 10 years or so, now that I've kicked and screened on it, is there's a large push for personnel to be in the budget of the person that they report to. So if you're... That's why, for example, we get on the first day when we talk about the audit. So technically, the auditors report to the select board, which is why they're in the... Even though the select board sees them twice a year, shakes their hand, thanks them so much for having a budget watch out. So that's... And I think that that group was... So the social worker who's police civilian, when that are you... We always argue, 10 years ago we used to argue if we're in the budget of the person reporting, social worker probably came after we did all that RQ. And so who does the social worker report to? Kenny. I believe the social worker has two different supervisors, but I also think there's a little bit of comment going on here. It's just, we don't follow the same pattern always in how we're budgeting. And they happen to split this position as for the responsibility and they didn't split the dispatchers. So... And does that split 75%, 25% still a fair split between responsibilities of who they respond to? I think... I have not heard from HHS that they feel like they need more than 0.25. I think that we're going to determine where can we use the greatest in fact on the police department. They actually probably use two full-time people and they don't have them. It's a support for officers who are dealing with requests through the panel, people who are in distress, who are not criminals, they're just suffering a breakdown or the homeless population who feel a little hostile sometimes and so on and so forth to support the circular curve. And it's been a good system. Well, that's why I thought maybe I needed to go up to one. Yeah, but it actually is. I personally would love to go up to one, but everyone's got requested and we have no time. Yeah, and I don't see 0.25 as social worker and so on and so forth. I don't really have to put a button in the question or it's going to be used for a time. Pretty confident they share. I'm pretty confident. Okay, maybe it's grant fund or something and it's still similar, sorry. They didn't grant fund, they're still running. Ed and Burke? Yeah, Ed and Burke. It's funding that social worker. Ed and Burke sounds. Yeah. Well, it's a fair story. Is it in fact vacant? I think they said it was actually as that was. Okay, what we do, do we have servers or something? Yeah, let's take this up on different services and I just think that's the least of it. Any additional questions or tell me Darrell, do you want to? Dean? I guess I have one more question. It's not really good enough. Trying to reconcile like different things we hear in the committee over the course of several years. So in your presentation, you spoke about such a job. I understand I take that as assault, right? In the fall, the deputy town manager was giving us the Trollman's contract. He talked about how they were a powerful and sympathetic group. So you're having difficulty recruiting a partner. So those contradict, right? Like that's the teammates is not job good. Yes. Okay. And then we see a lot of, we see a lot of public sentiment in the state that they're not very favorable towards policing, policing. But then they're powerful in the legislature on home rule petitions. Like that, those don't jive. Like some things deal linking here. Unions are not powerful enough. Unions are very powerful on the state. And the state legislates to listen to units. Whatever union it happens to be. Well, they're powerful if they, yeah, they're powerful if you accept the premise of the power, right? If you don't accept the premise of the power, they're not powerful, right? Like it contributes to campaigns. Well, yeah. So that's it, right? Yeah, but if I'm, you know. So it's not that they're powerful. On the legislature and I've got the police who maybe are lukewarm about it and fire who's not liking it at all. Don't, I'm not gonna do anything. Right, so the fair way to say it is to throw an association, go to the bottom. They're not sympathetic right now. You're right, they're just, they're powerful. So it's raw power. It's not like sympathy and long and how it's hot. It's okay. That's true. I just don't want to paint us a picture of like, you know, caring, stuff like that when it's not. Well, I think it depends on each individual police officer or potential professor and it makes them or not. It's often. Yeah, just to this, thank you for this, Brad. I think too that the assistant deputy manager. Hopefully could you speak up a little bit, please? Yeah, I think the deputy manager last year said that the police were very unified across their industry. Yeah. So. Yeah, so the next area will of course not be controversial, but also we'll just breathe through this. Body-worn hammers. This has been, this issue has been around for quite a while. So the department bought 70 hammers for patrol officers to eventually use once the programming issues are resolved. That's $6,000 from the asset forfeiture fund. It's for those of you who don't like this, this fund has come up previous years. They can use it for police equipment and framing, but they can't use it for a current cost. So they're buying the cameras all up front. They got a 15% discount when she, and then she said that my first thought was, depending on how long it takes to have to deploy the cameras, who say that the cameras are going to be current by then, but they're covered to the contracts, the life of the contract, but it acts on the current through that five-year term. For ongoing funding, they will request operating budget increase to cover future of the current costs. They will go on to try to find and apply for grants. And then the town meeting appropriation, which I know happened, I couldn't, I look forward to this happening. I couldn't find what year it happened. I don't need anybody, year and hour. $40,000 is still unpacked. Then the patrol officers are in arbitration on the cameras. The outstanding issue is the union wants to incorporate the body camera policy into the contract, which would mean then any change in the policy would happen, which is obviously a complicated factor. When and if the policy is implemented, the patrol officers will get a 2% increase. And then the camera issue is also in our perpetration with the ranking officers, but apparently it's separate from the, it's the separate from the money parts of the contract. And then both the patrol and ranking officers have to agree to the cameras before they can do the one or the other of the group. Then just to close the loop, I took the email that come in or send Charlie, just put it in case anybody missed it. So we talked about how they'll manage the footage and the image imagery to make sure it doesn't fall on hands or people who don't want to be, all right, body one camera is not a big deal. So any questions? So for, yeah, so you said that both the patrol officers and the ranking officers are taking this body work camera policy arbitration. Is this two different arbitrations? In other words, could they end up with either not the same rulings or not actually kind of a victory, but it might be. It's two different arbitration. I don't know if it could end up with the same arbitrator. No, right, but so they could, it sounds like it could end up with- It could, and they have to be the same or cameras can't be deployed. So they both have to agree to- So the arbitrage is off to agree. Right, well, you have to have to do it. Oh, I don't know. I'm wondering if we should consider moving $10,000 that was added to the IT budget to the police budget, which is dedicated to the body work cameras. What I read the line, full request operating budget increases that covered future costs. I assume it means the police budget, but I think- Yeah, I don't know. I think that's part of the additional fiber length. Yeah, the manager stuck it in the IT budget, but I'm wondering if it would make- I think most network services are in the IT budget. Yeah. It would make that the best way. It would make that the best way. Some of the more transformative is put in with the same as the operating cost of a camera as well. Toeford may have some information here. Yeah, yeah, so on this, so they've run the wire, basically, IT, all they did was run the wire, and then the rest of it goes on the tools. So they've already done that, it's my understanding. And so they've kind of spent the $10,000. So at this point, I think any future, anything going forward will be in the police budget. Because it isn't $10,000? I think this will just to run to install the wire, to install the data. It can't be run to be turned out here. That was to get the refresh rate, I can double check. Okay, well, when we get to the IT budget, because it was an expensive increase in requests for IT for $10,000 for ISP and support data, maybe that's just a one-time cost. Right, I'll double it. Okay, thank you. I mean, it seems like operating costs for this one might be better off in the police budget, that's all. The question, anybody else have any other questions on body cameras? Okay, so I will make a motion to approve. And it's the taxation follow-up. Yes. That printed $9,495,021. Second. Anyone have further questions on police budget? I have one question about the police chief's department. She's got, and I meant to put this in, but I think she got another two years on her contract. They are sending one ranking officer to executive training. I think they're just next month's law. Oh, that's right. The outfit doing training, you're facing one. Yeah. So I'm assuming that's the, that's sort of like the lead in the candidate. They're thinking of succession, but it's not going to be imminent. No. Actually, I had a follow-up question due to the chief, if there was a specific timeline, and she said there was no specific timeline. Yeah, and I said she got the two-year law on her contract. So we have a motion that's been seconded. Any other questions? Sophie. Just to follow on that, that reminded me from last year, so when there was a $10,000 increase on training last year, and that was deemed to be for the chief's retirement succession. And I thought at the time we said it was to send two people. So, but we're keeping the budget item the same, but should cover two, right? Not just. She's sending one. They're sending one. Okay. So if you were looking at last year's budget, last year's budget, there was a 10,000 increase. This year, it's the same. But last year, we said it covered two people going to training this year for that same, keeping it level to last year's, four weeks, sending one. So, if we're moving across the last, I guess we'll see the actuals next year. They may not have been able to send two. Right. Six or something to see. Yeah, I think they're going to have a project done in one. Okay. One on one. All right. We'll take a vote. All in favor of the police department budget at 9495021, say aye. Aye. We opposed. That's unanimous. And I'm trying to wonder if I am on the back of the room. That was short. So, moving along for fire, it's on page 124, the budget vote to motion the police. Not a lot of movement from last year. Salaries up full of 29,000 or so, which is primarily the factual speed credit up 15,000. Also in the contract, some other small movement, longevity, and it stipends. And then when you get to the expense, it's no movement at all from the prior year. As far as vacancies, no vacancy on both firefighters. One big vacancy is the master mechanic. We did hear that there was master mechanic who left, who then would be on the fire park for many, many years. He will be sorely missed. We really did work on his position. They haven't interviews in early February. We're going to open up and fill that question quickly. There's some, yeah, I don't know. Maybe something's going to move all of us in a similar period. So, anyway, so the master mechanic is the key vacancy. And they really hope to fill that very quickly. The person retired and not key ID. He has left some big shoes to fill. That's what they're focusing on regarding hiring and firing problem. Otherwise, they're in really good shape. We also heard again, we don't have to dive into it again, but we did hear about the dispatcher, Sue Buzzer, that is not technically a fire vacancy, but they are also hoping to span the position to a full-time position on the dispatcher. So, the biggest thing which we have heard a little bit about, we heard about it last week when the time manager was here, is the ambulance offsets. And it's a kind of thing you hear about over and over again. And it does start to sink in. So, I'll try to be brief here, but just stick to the basic back. So, pre-COVID Arlington, so first of all, stepping back a bit. The arctic firefighters are trained for basic life services, as BLS. They are not trained for advanced life service, ALS. In order to get the ALS, they need Armstrong ambulance to come in and assist. Historically, Arlington would bill and receive the revenue from the BLS services. Armstrong would come in and transport the ALS services. They would get 60% of the revenue. And it didn't transport. That's how we got our part of the ALS. Yeah. The time that the ALS transport came. Armstrong did the actual provision of medical services. You're OK to think, thanks for the clarification. So, you're right. Armstrong provided the services. Our town, kind of Arlington, would actually do the transporting. Armstrong would do the billing. Armstrong would get 60% of the revenue. And the kind of Arlington would get 40% of the revenue. And then Armstrong would also get a 4% to 90. Through COVID, there was just the shortage for the ambulance services across the board. It is statewide. You do read about it in the newspaper. It was actually just a terrible incident in Winthrop, I think, a few weeks ago, where there was a tragedy related to slow ambulance services. So it is kind of statewide thing having a hard time to fill these to meet these needs. So the solution here was they went to Armstrong and they said, can you dedicate, have dedicated ALS ambulance services in the town of Arlington? They said, sure, but we need to be able to fill and keep 100% of the revenues. So that's where it stands now. So they now provide the transport services? Yeah, they provide, they kind of only they have a dedicated ambulance. Thanks for the clarification now. They have a dedicated ambulance. They transport it, they provide the services, they bill it and they keep the money 100%. So that was that 40% that we received the connection with the ALS made at the offset. So that's going, going, gone. It's down a lot, which pretty low this year. On the flip side, we did hear that the ALS billing is actually up because the town of Arlington did try to enhance its BLS services so they can make them out, provide 100% of those services, which they effectively are. So she, Kelly did, was pretty confident. We certainly didn't see the numbers, but he's pretty confident that these BLS buildings are up over the last two years. Why do we see that here? That goes right into the general fund. So his thought was Arlington, the town of Arlington is probably at almost net zero with all of this. However, because the ALS buildings are now going 100% to Armstrong, the offset is going away. So, you know, I'd like to say we've kind of heard, we've heard that two or three times last year. This is probably the second time we've heard it this year. So it shouldn't be news, but hopefully that has a little bit of clarity there. Any questions so far? Sure. Charlie, Annie. Thank you, Chair. I have two questions. One goes back to the overtime. Again, this is a whole staff department right there. I know we can see now. So, but the overtime, which I have always heard was planned to cover the band because of vacancy. Yeah. This seems to be pretty constant. Yeah. And I should hope to send that question over. So we did that address it to the chief and his response, which didn't make some sense to me if you go back to 2022, which when they did have a hard time filling, you know, overtime made up almost 20% of salaries. Now it's down to, you know, a small fraction of that. I'd say maybe 5%. So, you know, why is it even a number at all? Because with full staff, it should be zero. He says no, because, you know, as Darryl mentioned with the police, he's always going to have holidays, firefighters out sick, things like that. So there's always some kind of need, maybe special events. There's always some kind of need for overtime. He said that percentage is probably about as low as you can go. And you can see it's the exact same as last year. So he says it says that's just necessary. Second, second question is a new discussion about the ALS versus the PLS and splitting it between the town and Armstrong. How does it determine that a call, of course, basically services are not advanced lessons? That's a great question. You know, I'm sure, you know, if there's any doubt, they probably call Armstrong. Maybe they do it on site. So I don't know the exact, you know, requirement. I'm sure there's a lot of judgment involved. So, you know, I assume if they think maybe it sounds like BLS and they get there and they need Armstrong, they call immediately. I assume they try to call Armstrong as soon as possible. But that's not something. Adam? Well, how are we getting the sellers to do this? What did they say? Did they have changes in personnel that dropped their florals out of the closet? You know, it's I think what it comes down to really is the union negotiations, which none of this reflects any union, any new contract or new contract. You know, I see it next next year. But I thought we settled the contract through 2024. So you expect to see like some cost of living. Yeah, you know, that's that's 29,000. Maybe it's a turnover. In other words, like, you know, you get a low. Yeah, I mean, usually what happens is what happens if you don't let them have to do it, either they either get no increase. If there's no current contract, they just get what they have. Well, when they get the same sort of rate of increase, it's a low contract. Yeah. So do you remember, Dave, what we do? I'm not sure. Yeah, so possible because they're in the contract. I'm not there's probably some salaries. Yeah, that's a good question. Like, you know, this isn't even three and a half percent. This is, you know, you think that's the baseline. And this is like, yeah, this is like really almost like a straight Yeah, well, it looks like there have been some changes in personnel and you know, people brought in. Yeah, it's just thinking about seeing people out and doing things. And we deserve for the negotiation. Sure. Yeah, now I'm going to get to a sense of questions around his questions. So we already talked about the overtime of the vacation account or a line out of 5106. That's actually vacation they can purchase. I use vacation. They can purchase a certain amount at the end of the year. And that's that's what that relates to. It's, you know, no one knows exactly how much vacation we purchased at the end of the year. But they put pretty good side to same month last year. When you say, take a step. The town, I guess the town purchase. Right. That's that. And what kind of schooling leads to the school credits? Any kind of degree by our sciences, which ones are fire science? And now the next question, what is hospital medical care account five to five line out of five to five seven? That's a really interesting one. I feel like it's one that we should keep an eye on. If you notice in 2022, it was all the way up to 95,000. 2023, it came down to 9,000. The budgeted 25,000 last few years. That is when the fire department is here with a workers' call claim to me seems crazy, but it's only because, you know, apparently we're self-insuring when it comes to workers' call. So if someone does file a word as a call claim, town manager sends it over to the specific department. So, you know, it seems to me that almost like it doesn't sound like insurance. It sounds like just, you know, let's see what's going to come next year. Who knows? Hopefully not much. That's even even the firefighter is a long one part. Yeah. Self-insured, usually means that we are paying the first X number of hundred dollars in insurance. And then we buy what's called reinsurance. Major, major, out millions of dollars, but then we have to collect premiums from employees to cover that. OK, and we don't cover a hundred percent. Yeah, yeah. So I guess, you know, 95,000 seems like a lot. But I get there was a there was a 62,000 dollar need that year. Yeah. Yeah. I remember there was one person that apparently was going in for it and happened to mention that he worked for the irons fire department here parked up. And they're like, yeah, don't say that again. I'm sorry. So the office, as we already talked about, the the master mechanic, they're trying to fill the student account. Actually, my notes here said they haven't interviewed the very seven master mechanic mission. And then the breakdown of the calls. Actually, she probably just sent this over yesterday. I put it up in SharePoint. I didn't get a chance to put up on SharePoint yet. But so most recent year with data available, there was a total of fifty five thousand seven nine three claims, excuse me, calls five thousand seven hundred three thousand eight hundred were emergency medical. So that's clearly the biggest, you know, maybe almost sixty percent emergency medical calls after that, the largest number is nine hundred eighty one for alarms, fire alarms going off. Interestingly, fire, there was sixty three calls for the actual fires. But there's ten or twelve different categories. I'll put this up on SharePoint and get a chance to see that. OK, questions, Grant and then Michael. Thanks. That's only fire right there, right? With the dispatch calls. Yeah, yes. Not budget, but I won't ask Darryl because he brought that for our attention. So OK, I was interested in what the breakdown was. And since it's going to the same dispatching, but that's fine. Thank you. We can ask you on the way that is curious about the whole process. But it's not budgetary, you know, like when they get the medical call, how do they know if it's in the hole and as you go through how it gets dispatched, it's not budget. So the inner party will be interesting. Do you see what the categories are? You know, fire seems like easier to divide categories for a race. Well, yeah, I really haven't got to know us to all break in. Yeah. Listen, I was actually more about how much is fire and how much is at least one of them. What's the total? Yeah, it doesn't matter. $5,793 verse. What doesn't matter is that we go on every fire. In this town, the police go on every every emergency call, a rescue call or fire. So I mean, when you see three of them, that's because the call came in for advanced life services. When you see two is probably to face it. Because I'm so you always think about that. You see the long truck coming, but that's probably why it isn't. It's a system place depending on which area of town. OK, what goes to like the height first, what goes down in Stalington or in the center. That next thing is sometimes it's a judgment call on the dispatch. So what type of emergency calls come in? And that's not also when rescue gets there. They're all EMTs, they're not paramedics. Although some are on the outside, they're paramedics, but not in the town. So they make the call, but it dispatch it. Send the backup. I'm sorry. Thank you. It's in my eyes. Michael. You're short, simple answer. Why we do not provide advanced life services? Actually, Chief Kelly did mention to say sometimes do provide it. I guess the decision was made that, you know, just not something we want to invest in. It's a it's a union situation. It's not that the town hasn't tried to have a role, but it's it's a unit that comes up during negotiations on the fire side and they haven't been able to come to it again. So our fire fighters are all EMTs, but not paramedics. Right. They have to be paramedics and we would have to negotiate that. I know it's a lot to add one more thought to this question about why all these vehicles go and so on and so forth. When I first got on the select board, I actually went and did a tour with each of the chiefs of, you know, some of all their facilities and talked to them about where everybody does. And trust me, they're very good reasons why I would be able to set a percent. And it's important. It's necessary to public safety and speech or you can deal with whatever situation you are into when you arrive, so. And they seem crazy to set three vehicles, but they're really the necessary. Other questions? No more questions on the fire budget. I think it's gone. Do you have more? Maybe I'll just point out I did send the email around the afternoon's noting that we're going to the total is going to be three thousand one hundred sixty three dollars higher. That just relates to a stipend that was showing in the detail that didn't flow due to the front page discussion where he knows Alex early today, he said I should have put up the front page. So I don't know, even saw my email already has any questions on that. But Alex did confirm the budget, which I sent around earlier today. It's a total of three thousand one sixty three higher. So what is your motion for the fire budget? Like the motion to go through fire budget of eight eight million seven hundred seventy five thousand five hundred and eighty five. Second. What is that number again? Eight eight million seven hundred seventy five thousand five hundred and eighty five. We have a motion for eight seven seven five five eight five. That's been seconded. Seconded. Any other questions? All in favor, say aye. Thank you. Page one hundred and thirty on the salary side. Really nothing about. The decreases are mostly because they have some new people. So what's going to be. That's the last dollar and then I'm going to fantasize there's there's been a change. So go forward to. Spon to your question, the question and fifty two eighteen the training that's for their required continuing education for the temps and that's what you want to do. That's for fill in inspectors during vacations. That's for fill in inspectors during vacation. Contract and services to three eighty two pays for data fees for the iPads. They use during inspections on any engineers that may need to confirm or contest certain jobsite conditions. And then the zoning the zoning assistant. So the zoning board, the zoning board of appeals also rolled up to Mike Chopper, the head of inspections. The two positions are separate and distinct and nothing moved between between the budgets, the zoning board of appeals, principal clerk and type of position was changed to the zoning administrator. And then the specs on service administrative position. This is a drug quote with oddly classified as zoning assistant. And that was changed to the office manager. The food separate things. The office manager. And that used to be. A recent class by his own assistant and they've got a class right now as a office manager. And then the plan for filling the vacant record keep position there working to fill out so they can. Some other notes. He would like to bump up the part time positions, the local building inspector and then the record keeping position. I asked about the new online permitting system. He was very enthusiastic that it's worth great. They are doing some tweaking, but and for any of you that have involved in IT product implementations stuff a little unusual with the complex stuff actually worked really well and they've had more trouble with the simple stuff, not how it works. So he's actually pretty lucky he was down this weekend. And then they have to get IT to code some reports. I did ask if there was any kind of report generator so they could write their own not have to depend on IT and he said there was so I think it was just then learning, learning the system. So basically anybody can get an open gov account and test the system. And I said that they're pretty happy with it. One of the interesting things is I mentioned a couple of years ago that a prior. Inspection services department have made the interesting decision to do all their filing by year instead of address. And I was like, well, how does that work? So my house got it back to 1929. So they're out of work by month of full every permit on my house. I have to go here by year. So he said one of the things they're doing is they're they're they're shifting it to to buy it. The permitting system is obviously does allow for scanning of, you know, all the various associated plans and other documents. So they're building their digital records, which is really the direction they should go. That kind of solves all their potential sorting problems. Then he did provide the permit revenue report. This all this also is on SharePoint. So for fiscal 23 actuals, the amount of revenue was 2,823,929 or 24, they're estimating at 2 million 350,000. So going down some, but not 24. And he said he is seeing the volume go down. Definitely more rentals than demos and new construction. And then I guess new energy codes or that went into facts. January 1st are also slowing things down. So, you know, all in all the revenue pictures, not bad. Interest rates and so on. Questions. Michael. I ran a test with it over the weekend, you know, one house, one year, how many permits, how many dollars per permit to get an aggregate number for cost of all the permits right here. Didn't tell me anything about how it was broken down. Just kind of useless. If you're trying to see. Are these permits are the numbers stated on these permits. I'll say the finished. Tell me I'm not controlling. I mean, getting into the wise. Questions. Any other questions. Okay, so I move. That we adopt the budget and printed a 539,000. 121,000. So good. Okay. Questions, comments. Ellen jumps. Remind everyone, but revenues are a lot more than the expense. If you remember a couple of years ago. We tried to get them to justify. Adding a position. Including documenting that. They wouldn't or couldn't do it. We were ready to support. And then position because you're right. Right. You're doing. I don't know if I small. You know, I'm not entirely positive about this, but I believe that there is. A. State law that says. That towns can't charge more than their expense. Services services more than the expense. Correct. So it's not. A kosher. To be making. To, you know, $2 million on $500,000. I don't think that covers this. That's. I don't think it covers inspection. We're talking about the cost stated for the work. He's multiplied to get to it. Yeah. But I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not sure the state law, which says that you can't charge more for a dog license than it takes you to provide the dog license applies to. No. No. No. That's what we wrong. Thank you. So what happens to the $1.5 million that they're bringing in. It's under local receipts. So it's not presented as an offset. No. Thank you. Any other questions. Okay. We have a motion. Seconded. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed. To unanimous. Thank you. Other budgets. Take it away. Okay. Yeah, we had a question. Yeah. I think three two. In services. God. So there's. Strangely. Yeah, that's, that's, that's fair with help. promoted this year to the manager of operations and so we have a big success on the salaries and the health department is a cascade move up with a subsequent reset on salaries. That's the 11% decrease in salary. It's just deduction in cost of home devotee and finance support. I'm not really clear from the information here, but that reset on the director's salary was about what was a lot. I want to say Christine was making closer to $150,000 to $154,000 in the $24 budget. So that's a big chunk of that reset, but there were a couple other salary lines that also reset. So overtime longevity pretty much staying the same. Longevity obviously is down, same reason. Auto allowance is just for health inspectors going around the town. The expenses are all pretty flat. There was a question about what the contracted services are. Contracted services, Mr. January and everybody, is our contribution to the Summerville Homeless Coalition, which is an organization that we work with to get homeless in our own to his boundaries house. And also that we contract out our sealer weights and measures. So it's the combination of those two things that is covered by contracted services. The road control is obviously the actuals for 2022, for 2023 are lower than that, but I do know that they are continually working on being more and more innovative about how we get rid of rats because there's rats all over. We think it would just be a restaurant related thing, but it's not. And we do try to do things like, you know, use dry ice and so on and so forth that are not the poisons that are killing birds. And I don't know, we had a note on this, didn't we? Or on humans? Yeah. Somewhere in the universe, you're talking about this, they do feel like they have enough money to continue to work at it. So we're not going to see an increase in that. Mosquito control is all about mosquito-borne disease. This is all about keeping us off from dinosaur herbal tropicalism. I think that's everything under Health and Human Services. Do you have questions on this? I just wanted to add, if you notice on the offsets that the significant decrease in offsets is due to the ARPA money going away. And so due to that decrease in ARPA money, we're also down one health compliance officer. Yes. So previously we had one additional position as a health compliance officer, which was ARPA funding. So with the ARPA one away, we lost the health company. Yeah. This is the last year ARPA will be in our budget supporting personnel. I think Jim said that. We also have confirmation from the department heads. Other questions? Alan Jones. Just comment on the rat control. They're using something called sport boxes, which are electrocution boxes, which collect the rat bodies. The beauty of that is it collects the data of how many rats are caught over a period of time. So they can actually use it to say, if they go to a restaurant and say they have a rat problem fixed or dumpster, they put a box in there and they can actually see if the population goes down to see if the problem's solved. So it's a really smart thing. Rat problem. Any other questions? I'll help them show me some. I think I've covered everything in years in this session. So I move approval of a taxation portal for health and human services of 735,666. Sophie, did you have a question? No, I was just trying. Well, just a technical thing on that. Why wouldn't the fiscal year 2024 number for when Giorno showed the number we had in our budget books? I don't know why. We think there's a bunch of little bobbles in the book at the moment and it should have shown last year's total. And there's some, we're noticing some of the dollar change, percentage change. Some of these funds are not quite accurate. You know Alex about it. I think we'll be getting an update that fixes all of that at some point, but I didn't want to hold up the budget. Agreed. I was just curious. I had to look at the 2024 budget to see what the real explanation for that salary reset was because it's 11% drop in salary is a big thing. So other questions? All right. Thank you. So thank you. So I have a question about opioid funding. Is that money coming in now that we have that intervention services manager? It's coming in and it was allocated by me being less than I believe. I don't know if it shows up in this budget because I think it has to be accounted for separately. But we definitely have it and we are studying it. Thank you. Any other thoughts? All right. All in favor of 735-26 for helping women's services say aye. I? Aye. Aye. Opposed? But may I be the only one with the things that are funding with name of the previous occupant or prevention services manager? Last name is Vodka. It is. Very hard to have a morning meeting. It is being less stated. Very hard to have a morning meeting with the director of help with human services to see that and not fall forward. We moved from Old Fenters. Yes, any other. I can go on and continue to do these. So veteran services. The biggest jump. Yeah. Thank you. What would I do? So, the biggest job here is the salary of the 1 before you, which is the director of services. There is a change over. And I believe that the previous veteran services there had been working less than full time. Of course, the end and hence to jump. It was also true that when we discussed this and this happened in several conversations with these partners, I don't see any cover. And so to get someone with the represent experience, it couldn't come up. It couldn't come in at a lower and that is the biggest expense. The veterans aid and assistance expenses, you get a big chunk of that back from the state. So we budget for it, but then money comes into the general funds to cover most of it. I don't believe it's a hundred percent, but if I'm getting five questions. Signs. Oh, gosh, I don't remember. We asked this question last year. I think they're there to add. The veteran memorial mission to the various minds. And now that I have from last year says this expense goes towards the preservation and restoration of military markers and science throughout town. Director recently restored the sign at the entrance of the old burial ground. Yeah, thank you. Other questions. Also to follow up. So that was the 1 for last year's budget. So I was going to date the new director hasn't told you which science is updating with the new 5000. That would be a follow up questions just so we can keep track of this. I do not know which science. And then looking back at last year's my understanding was the director veteran services previously have been serving a long time and he wasn't a 1.0 FT. I think the reason that the budget was lower. In point. In that year, he worked part-time. That was that was working up in the conversation when we asked about what the job. Budgeted it. I mean, that that's the full amount that was budgeted. Yeah, I don't think you might be thinking. So one reason that 2023 is higher than the budget is because that was a buy out of the any actual any actual that it's my 20 actual. So that, right. So, but the budget we're using for 2025 is still higher than what the previous guy was making, which is fine. If that's what you need to hire, but I thought the previous one was wrong in huge longevity. It's been there a really long time. Yeah, I don't know. Okay. But when we asked about the difference between 24 and the 25 budget. The response was in part that was working not well. I think you're thinking of someone else. Someone else. So we'll go back and ask that question. But you want to hold it for that? No, I'm just something to just trying to understand where we have longevity. You want to be a bit more conscientious and zoom of like somebody who would have been there for a while at such a lower pay greater what? Yeah. Which is 7572 is lower budget. So maybe there was some, you know, voluntary reduction in hours or something. If that they came back into the budget because 24 budget is not sure. It's a budgetary number which doesn't match ours. So in fact, it will finance committee report. 0, and it will be a 2, 3, 2, 3, 1. I don't know, I could be in another one of those. Supply, I don't think. Oh, yeah, it's definitely not a budgetary problem. Yeah. John. What's the nature of the 240,000, of aided assistance? Um, it's assistance for veterans with things like finding housing, um, of helping cover housing costs, um, other services they may need, um, to get federal inspections to cross the board. To cross the board. Yeah. Yeah. The way that I think of this budget is that Arlington has an employee whose job is to essentially function as a liaison between the residents of Arlington who are veterans and the agencies which are meant to provide services for them. Right? So if you're a veteran and you don't have your discharge papers and you don't know how to get them, you call this person and they'll put you in contact with it. So most of that money, you know, as Amy said earlier, will actually be reimbursed by various veterans and agencies, right? So Arlington is effectively not paying for the actual services. They're paying for the person who helps facilitate people accessing the services there at times. That's better. Got it. And, and I, I think that Director of Veterans Services is also doing some community events on work, you know, when we get to Veterans Day Memorial Day and they are having veterans come speak at the schools and, or, you know, great celebrations, flags, all those things, um, Director of Veterans Services make sure that happens. So, yeah, I think it's one of the coolest things we do. Yeah, no, it sounds great. I wonder, I mean, maybe it broke it into two different line items. It seems like a large number to be like, you know, a little bit of everything, but I mean, we can make, not, not this year, but maybe make a note on my list. Yeah. She says looking at terrains and typing away on my list. Yeah. That reminds me, we had the same question with the Google, right? That everything was in this bucket and I think it's the controller, like something to go with Ida, who was it? To go and discuss breaking out. New charter accounts, which is going into effect, but it's not in this budget. Other questions, Josh. Just to follow up on that. So the actuals for 2022-23, much less than the budget amount, but are those reflective of the reimbursement, sir? I believe they're reflective of what we spent, but that the reimbursements come into the general fund. I don't think we've seen them here. With not the same comments that we had about the select board's budget, that money might be out there for another person, if we know that it's actually not going to get spent. I'm sorry, I'm not talking. Well, you're saying that the actuals are almost 50%, not 50%, 40% less or whatever than what's budgeted. Yeah. So is this again having the cash that's sitting there, plus you're saying you're getting reimbursed, so you're having even more money coming back to the general fund. But to reimbursed only if you provide this. The reimbursement doesn't come if the budget is receiving any assistance. So I think what you're asking for is a better accounting picture of exactly how that cash flows. So we should hold that to the lowest. Let me see what I can do. I think to follow up, I think Josh's point is that consistently it looks like we're constantly budgeting 240,000. We're consistently having lower actuals. So this would be one to drill down on. Yes. That's why I'm saying we should go get the reports and see what's really going on here. So I'm not going to get the whole budget. It's actually pretty big for the whole budget. So according to our discussion with them, they said that a minimum of 75% of the expenses, suspended are reimbursed by the state under certain conditions. So urgency, housing, disaster support, et cetera, a reimbursed 100% by the state. So I think it depends exactly what the veteran needs, how much is the minimum of 75%. Right, but that's not coming in. I don't think that's, I mean, that's not my question, right? I mean, I'm not looking at the reimbursement. I'm looking at the budget versus actuals. Going back in the 2020, the actual in 2020 was almost 240,000 or 238 in 2020. It has to do with, there's a change in population over time. Okay. And you don't know what that population is. Yeah. Yeah. Just to follow up on it. I think the, you know, we've been at war for 20 years. And at the height of the. You know, there's a lot more than a veteran services than now. And the veterans department has to have that money or else they can't provide services. We get it back to the state labor, but they budget. So that they have the funds to provide the services when they need it. Great. The cash flow issue. Other questions. Is there a motion. So I move. Budget of. 333,612 for veteran services. Second. Any other. All right. All in favor say aye. Opposed. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Salaries. There's a big fountain salary. There is. One person in particular that took a big jump. This was a. Requested reclass and then a subsequent negotiation. That resulted in. $13,000 increase in. Angles. Salary. About that. And that's probably the biggest. Effect. On those salaries. And I believe the rest of it is all. Changes in steps. And then obviously everything else is pretty flat. And. Offsets are up a little bit. So what we have is a 7% increase in the total budget. And I just have the offset come there from the state. The office of the elder affairs. That is intended to cover. A couple of positions basically. Geriatric nurse. And one of the social workers. Questions. Thank you. I did actually get to this question in advance. There was talking last year about. Limiting the council on Asian transportation. Fund. Moving that into the budget. With. The, the revenues as an offset for the right. Discussion of that. Nope. There should be discussion. It's on the list. So we will definitely have that. Any other questions. You have a motion. And. So I believe. That we. A total of $400,000. $1026. Dollars for the council on aging taxation. Total budget. We had a question. All right. Any post. Okay. Diversity, equity, and inclusion. So the director moved from a grade. Nine. 11. That was part of the pain. Last year. We'll leave that as most of the. We had a question. All right. Say aye. Post. All right. Yes. Okay. Diversity, equity, and inclusion. So the director moved from a grade. We'll leave that as most of the. But there is some. Step increases for other folks. Biggest question you're going to have about this. Is the ARCA money wins the ARCA money go away? The money will support this position this year. And then there'll be a decision to make. That's the community average person. That is the community average person. That's Marzilla. The expense budget is flat. $36,000. Based on the budget. For consulting. It's going to be used to support capacity building initiatives, trainings and other forms, programming to implement the recommended outline. The recommendations outline in the towns, 233, equity audit. Right now in the priority areas are language access, strengthening cultural responses in the town government. established goals and objectives for the first. So that's what that property was put up on. And let's see. Yeah, and in some ways, no change over in the department, no changes in position. I think I'm ready for questions. Questions. I want to have a question. And I'll send the chat behind you on that. Al, where are your questions? Yes, hi, Annie. I didn't quite hear you and I don't have the budget in front of me. I apologize for that. But the ARFA money is gone for next year. Are the positions eliminated? It will be gone the following year. It's currently in this budget, but it will disappear next year. 20 cents. Correct. FY26, it will be gone. It will be gone unless they find the money somewhere else. Okay. Thank you. Following up on that, if they don't find the money, do they have a plan? Now the plan is they will be looking for other sources of funding. That was the most I could get. Yeah. So on the consulting and equity dashboard, say that's so they have to hire someone from outside to build that. As opposed to, I guess, the director. I'm just kind of curious what kind of consultants. Yeah, I didn't ask them to give a breakdown because at this point in their budget cycle, they wouldn't be able to tell you that it's this much for this and this much for that. They haven't got the budget yet. I would suspect that that dashboard is not the bulk of the money. But yeah, since I sort of do that for a living, I wouldn't be surprised if they're hiring somebody to build it. It may not be, it might be something in the capacity of the IT department, which depends on what data and what tools and how it's going to be pulled together. But they might be getting some help to design it. Figure out what metrics are, so on and so forth. But when we talk about capacity building and training and implementing the recommendations in the plan, and I suspect that's the bulk of it. What do you mean by capacity building? So building staff capacity and community volunteer capacity to respond to the problems discovered by the equity audit. So working with the Human Rights Commission, the Rainbow Commission, and probably a lot of internal power quality work, so on and so forth. The issues that were raised by the equity audit. So looking back, the historic things, the consulting, there was something consulting from powerful pathways that was for staff and residents, but they're still doing those kinds of things, or is this a different now? I believe powerful pathways was chosen consultant in the first year and that was community discussions and trainings. Right, but that's not what it is anymore. No, I think this is mostly internal at this point. But I mean, I don't have the equity on it in front of me, but I know there were very specific recommendations. Worth interested in. Oh, yes, hi, I'm not sure I'm having difficulty hearing, but the front page of the globe had an article today. The towns are not spending the cities are not spending the money getting for drug addiction therapy. Is what is our engines plan for spending its money and has it done so to date? I know we asked this question last year, I did not ask it this year. And it doesn't appear in this budget, so I may have to go back and ask that question and come back to you. Yeah, because we are getting, I believe we're getting it and we did appropriate it last year, the amount that we had. So we appropriated it to be spent in the health department. So I don't remember exactly what for it. I mean, it's very specific what it has to be spent on. I can't just be spent on whatever we feel like spending it on. No, I understand. And I think we appropriated the money in the in a warrant article. If I remember correctly. Yes, okay. I'm checking on the warrant again on Monday. So I'll see hopefully that there's an article there. Great. Thank you. Other questions? You have a motion Anna. I do have a motion. So I move $201,180 for the diversity equity and inclusion tax issue. All right, second. Okay. Any other questions? All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Opposed. All right. So raise your hand for approving. Hand up. Abstention. Yeah. Enterprise salaries. Are we into new consultation? What was that, Ken? Enterprise fund. Oh, they're now? 13 to 1. What? 13 1, right? Yes. 13 1 0. Yeah. This is going to 171. Start with the salaries and you'll see that there's a fairly substantial increase in financing radius here. I believe this is the addition of some additional staff positions. It's just the audience that kind of thought about it. When was it something else? But mostly to meet demand. Remember, most of the income coming into A1CC comes in through insurance billings and there are currently 425 young people with their families being served and there's 200 out of waiting bills. So they want to add some capacity in order to meet that demand. The trend is up, I would say. Pretty much everything else is steady state except for administrative fees, the administrative fees over the cost of electronic health records, billing systems, Zoom health, hip-hop reporting, Google applications, back-to-time fees, and a lexic heat interpreter and translation services. So it's all software infrastructure basically to be able to run the department and also to be able to use talent in particular. So that's a nice big increase in expenses and salaries. If you're looking at the bottom right of A1 under 74 where it should say the dollar change and the percent change as we have the problem last week, the dollar change and the percent change, those are just old numbers that are unrelated to this budget. So you should look directly at the 2024 budget and the 2025 budget and just in your head look at what the difference is, right? Ignore when it claims the percent changes. That is not, it does not reflect the actual budget. It's not necessarily active. And so the revenue, so there are, there's CDBG funding, there's some intergovernmental revenue that I believe in the school department using AYCC services, state revenue, client fees and insurance reimbursement. They do have a gifts and donations out with the town and you can make a donation to AYCC and that then is used in this gifts and donation line. The $120,000 transfer from other funds is the town's contribution to supporting AYCC. That's money that comes out of the general fund. And then there is some ARPA funding. And I don't think that use of routine and earnings is at all relevant. That I think also has inaccurate and last two columns. Yeah, and then again, you will see the ARPA offset, which I believe is going away at the end of this year. So I think I'm ready for questions. So, so is there a retained earnings account? I'm not sure there is a retained earnings account. There is $122,846. Okay. So, yeah, I guess it was retained earnings account. There was some confusion about the difference between that and gifts and donations. But there has to be a specific account used to hold the funds if you contribute to a account department and that's what that gifts and donations line is. That's where it's coming out of, basically, to be spent. It's just a unnecessary state law mandated method of accounting for donations made from the outside. But people around the tracks to AYCC are going to find it. Last year we talked about that was coming out, though, that whole line of speech don't get as good as last year, but that's not. Yeah. All right. There was, you know, the new director because Christine looked up. Okay. And she wasn't for what the actual budgeting in a county requirement was. And that's the only thing that's going on my list to get the comptroller straightened out for me. I'll see if I can get that information for everybody before the end of the budget cycle. But regardless, it's their money and have a right to use it because it can just, it's in the budget. And as you can see, the budget basically balances. Charlie, hand up. So the gifts and donations account isn't shown as a differential in the dollar change model, right? Correct. That whole column is a mess. The whole column is a mess. Yeah. So then if I look at the 23 actual 24 budget and 25 budget, looks like the expenses are increasing 200,000 a year. That wouldn't surprise me at all in demand for the services increasing rapidly. And youth mental health is youth having mental health issues is on the rise, particularly since COVID. And we're not. But in the past, where I was headed with this question was in the past, Christine, we would have, she used to increase the revenue, brought this almost to a break even point. And we're still putting in $120,000 from the town. And if the arbor money goes away, that's another thousand. I'm just wondering if you discuss whether or not they see this improving or not improving or what's the plan? Well, I didn't discuss that with Conan. I could go back and discuss it with her. I think the same rule applies that when the arbor money goes away, whatever it's funding goes away. And yeah, I think didn't specifically specify a position that that money is supporting. Um, they do have the option to raise more money, but the town has always made a contribution to AYCC in something close to that amount. In fact, when I was on the select board, we cut our contribution to AYCC and helped them move to an enterprise fund model where they were making money. They were not being very good about billing insurance and so forth. So we kind of changed the culture of the organization so that they would raise more of their money. Well, I was those Christians, but I'm just trying to understand if there's a trend that gives the donations may not show up. And if the, uh, May I have nothing on this? So $50,000 of that $100,000 is covered from the Cummins Foundation. Um, apparently it was included previously. It was listed in an offset in the previous budget going into our meeting. They do also have a charitable corporation that has $700,000 as a balance. And then they also do run there. Who has the 700,000? The AYCC has a charitable corporation. Oh, and that that shows up in that one as well. Uh, if they withdraw from there, it would appear. The balance and that is 700,000. So the real the real risk here is ARPA. Yes, the real risk here is ARPA. Okay, but I do believe the town is going to continue to contribute that $120,000 because it offsets costs for people who either don't have insurance or can't afford the co-pays for their insurance. So it's providing services. Yeah, I understand that. I'm just trying to, I was just looking at the expense line over the two years, jumping by a substantial amount. Yeah, but you'll notice that the insurance reimbursement and client fees also jump by a substantial amount at the same period of time. Sure. And is that realistic? It is very realistic for this to continue an upward trend of insurance reimbursement as they expand services. I think it's also realistic to assume that the town will also always be making contribution and they'll always be seeking other funding because they need to support clients who can't otherwise afford the services. And these are critical services for a lot of those patients. So other questions. In terms of the backlog, are they thinking of expanding further? Well, that's what the additional positions in this budget and the jump in the salaries is. So they're expanding by capacity by a couple of people. And so I think they want to continue to expand to meet the demand as long as they believe that the reimbursements will improve up with that exposure. But are the servicing, you said about 400 families or something? 425. And then the backlog of 200? Yep. I had about, I don't know, 15 people and two people are going to have 50% more capacity. I don't think they're going to have 50% more capacity. They're going to have some more capacity. I mean, there's also an in and out, right? So if you expanded capacity to be able to handle those 200 people right now, you'd be over the capacity at some point as clients begin to roll off. So there's a, I trust the director to know how to manage the pipeline. Sophie. I'm looking at this personnel. There's an hourly psychiatrist that's been vacant, 0.09. Small but almost 30,000. Was vacant last year's budget as well? Is, should that be, is that? I don't know. I mean, 0.09 is so little. Is it better spent? I don't, it isn't ever going to get. I mean, it seems like a difficult point. My suspicion is that they're not actually filling that 0.09. That what happened is that patients coming for therapy, and it's determined that they need psychiatric services, particularly in someone to monitor prescriptions. Because most of the therapists I think I succeed will not think that we can write prescriptions. And so they need someone available to send the patient to for that evaluation prescription. And then to see that person every three or six months, they have to be evaluated again. So, okay. You don't want to ask me why I know that. Because I was just thinking, hey, going back, it was a new position and last year's budget, because it wasn't like previous year. So it was brand new, it was vacant, and it's still vacant. So it looks like it's never been filled. Yeah, I mean, they may be struggling to find some of the best capacity, right? It's finding mental health services regardless of the way it's just really tough right now. Other questions? I'm chatting motion. Yes. So I move that we approve the Arlington Youth Center budget of $1,519,155,000 in expenses and $1,573,270 in revenue. Did you say $1,9 or $1,319? $1,319. $1,519. Oh, I'm sorry, I'm looking at that spot. So there's a motion. Second. Second. All right. Any questions? All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Aye. Any questions? Yes. Thank you. Next. I'm calling 18 transportation. Okay. There were, how are we going to call that out? We should. From America. Okay. All right. So Rebecca's reminding you that this is a place where the increase in hours for the the information or referral specialist and that explains the summary jump. You know, on devotee everything else is pretty flat. You'll notice on the income side that the dart fees are a little bit low. Dart is the, oh God. Dial-a-ride taxi. So dial-a-ride taxi is, one means of transportation for seniors. It's apparently become relatively unreliable and so the dispatcher here or transportation is mostly using volunteers at Uber. And then the, so there's reimbursements on for various things that come into the system. There's some CDG funds and then there's a transfer from the general fund and a use of retainer or something like that. Can we ask them about retainers for them? Yes. $44,842. Okay. So $44,842, which means we're going to use most of retainers. This year to support this project. So this is mostly, and this is the reason to consider moving it back to the budget. This is mostly not self-supporting. So, Sophie, we'll just to follow up on that. So last year's note where the, how many could terminate it? Does that mean we should have done a lot for this year? It should be probably because otherwise we're going to be saying this over here. Yeah. No. I mean, I could talk to, oh, I could talk to the town manager and see whether we could squeeze it in. He's allowed to continue to add, but they will be, you know, in the shoot now. Okay. Then you're ready for it. So we talked about it last year, so I'm just curious. I mean, I'd forgotten about it too, but yeah, I know it's all those times. I know it's all those times. But we don't list now. Oh, well, you've been adding to this. Sorry. What was the last thing that you just, you know, we're just, oh, the thing that's at the top, shouldn't you see only that thing? Charlie. Just a suggestion. I think trying to shoehorn the cancellation of this department and the displayed date to probably burden on the budgeting part. Right. It wouldn't be for this year. Yeah. That's what I said. Let's just delay the problem. I also forgot it might be a good idea. Any other questions? You have a motion. So I moved it. It would be approved for component transportation enterprise fund budget for $129,199 with revenue of $129,199. All in favor. Say aye. Aye. Me opposed. I'd be done if any of you have. I believe that is all of our budgets. All right. Thank you very much. Does anyone have any other budgets for tonight? All right. Who will have budgets for Monday? Wednesday. Charlie, you have control and probably you can turn. Does anyone else have any other budgets that we've done? I'll withdraw those budgets. I don't have any. I don't get to withdraw those budgets because I can't figure on the 14. Where are we with the Treasurer of Hostage? Does anyone know how to IT? Not Wednesday, but probably Monday. Who else will be ready on Monday? See where we get on Wednesday and go up on Wednesday. We've done a huge chunk of the budget in the last three months. So I think we're doing good. And I know that we have some budgets that can't be done and practically won't be done. But let's see if we can get some of these other budgets done. Is there a moment for adjourn? So we're having a meeting on Wednesday? We're having a meeting on Wednesday and we're having a meeting on Monday unless we decide else on Wednesday. But that's the plan. I know that some people have plans for next Wednesday. So if we're not to meet, I'd rather not meet next Wednesday and do what we can do this Wednesday and Monday. But there are no promises. I want to see what we can do. I want to mention one sort of announcement for anyone who's interested in the future of Arlington's historical buildings. The town manager on 14th on Wednesday one o'clock in the afternoon is giving a talk at the historic society about Arlington's historical municipal benefits and what's being planned to preserve them. So if you happen to be available that afternoon, this should be your all English talk. And that's not a problem. But one o'clock at the historic society. That's good. Hey, Hal. Most different. All up there. Say aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye. Aye.