 All right, let's get started. So we are fortunate tonight to have Dana Mann, the Director of Assessment with us to discuss Article 21. So I'm just going to turn it over to you. Tell us what Article 21 is all about. Certainly. Thank you for having me. Hello, remember. So don't know me, my name is Dana Mann, I'm the Director of Assessments. So this past November, the panel voted in favor of a new residential exemption, generally referred to as the circuit breaker exemption as opposed to the Massachusetts circuit breaker income credit that's available on your income tax return. But it's very similar in the way that it works. In fact, essentially, if you qualify at the state level, you qualify at the town level with a few, very few have yet. This warrant article was introduced in relation to the funding for that exemption. It's fairly new, there are only a half a dozen towns that have this exemption in place, and they've had to file special legislation to do it. Recently, however, the Governor's Empowerment Act is looking to make this more simplified local option that wouldn't require the special legislation that we've adopted. But the funding for this exemption is drawn on only the residential class. And the way that it works is the amount of the exemption is determined. That amount is deducted from the value of the residential class while maintaining the same levy for the residential class, which will result in a different tax rate. Because of that, and a little bit of understanding of the political environment, it might be it might be a better idea to maintain a single tax rate, which the town of Arlington has done historically by debiting the amount of the exemption or the exemption amount from the overlay account. That was the thinking. It was early on in the project when we were discussing this. And certainly as we learn more, it becomes a little bit apparent that the amount of the exemption might exceed what we would consider using that method for, but we thought that it should be put in play and be an option to consider. What it does, so what this warrant does is it adds a line that's taken from another town's special legislation. Where they have the option to debit that amount, the exemption amount from their overlay account. I have a copy of our legislation here. Sorry, I didn't bring copies for everyone, but I'm happy to pass these along. And I'll just, I'll read from our special act, which is, if you want to look this up on the internet, it's from the acts of 2020. And it's chapter 285. If you Google that, you'll find it. Read from the Hingham Act first, which is the same act of 2020 chapter 381. And it's wording regarding the funding mechanisms is the total amount exempted by this act shall be one allocated proportionally within the residential tax levy on all residential tax payers. Or funded by an appropriation or transfer from existing funds while not exceeding 1% of the municipalities tax levy. And I'll just find. No exemption shall be granted under this act until the Department of Revenue certifies a residential tax rate for the applicable tax year where the total exemption amount is raised by a burdenship within the residential tax level. But essentially our, our act does not allow for the funding of this through the overlay account. It must be raised in the tax rate on the residential class. And that's essentially all that warrant article does. Any questions. So, I was trying to understand sort of the timeline of what town meetings role in this. And so it sounds to me like you're saying the exception for senior citizen texts. You know, the tax relief is definitely happening. And this is about where the money comes from and can get it from that overlay. And then are you saying if you don't pass this and say a person's home is worth $800,000 you tax them as though their home were worth less or you apply a different tax rate to the same value of money. So the way that the exemption is computed. Is the select board will establish a percentage between 50 and 200% of what the person qualified for in their income taxes, or would have qualified. What they qualify is the difference between their real estate tax and half of their water tax bill. The amount that that exceeds 10% of their income would be their income credit and the select board would vote a percentage of that income credit. If someone was awarded $1,000 by the state because of the difference between their income and what they paid in taxes and that half of the water. The select board would vote a percentage of that 50% or $500 or 200 up to 200% or $2,000. It doesn't come to an overlay. No, it's raised in the tax rate by the residential class. What does that mean to the rest of the residential class. The tax rate on the residential class would be increased by an amount to fund the amount of the exemptions that happen annually with that. So if you own a property, you would have your tax bill but then at some point you would be given another bill that would be the difference. The bills would be the same. What would change is the tax rate for the residential class. By 0.2%. So I did a few calculations. I determined what we would expect for numbers. Estimates only. There's no card numbers. And what I came up with was. An estimate of 600 properties that would qualify. And based on numbers from the state that indicated that Arlington had approximately 700. The properties are. Tax payers in 1921. And the average of the. Discounts or the credit was $998. So that comes out to about $68 million. In value that would be exempted. And when you estimate what that would do to the tax rate. I come up with a figure of 5 cents. Using last year's numbers. So instead of the residential tax payers paying $10 and 59 cents. Their tax rate would be $10 and 64 cents. Yes, thank you. No. For the entire residential tax class. Everybody else. All residential tax payers. So including those. So including those. So we're getting the brakes. Okay. So how many people. I'm not sure you just said this or not, but how many. How many rednesses or how many. New exemption. Yeah. We're estimated. There's no. No hard figures. So we estimate that there was, well, based on the number from 1921. We had 700 people who qualified. At the state level. Is this exemption. In addition to the current state exception or a substitution. It's in addition to so. It's based on the, on the credit that you can receive. But it's applied on your tax bill. What's your real estate tax. Was the circuit breaker credit. The state circuit breaker. No. So the state circuit breaker is a credit on your income taxes, but the number, let's say that you. Had a credit of $1,000. That would be your amount that you would be applying for. At the town level. And if you were, we found that you were qualified. That's the amount that would be reduced from your taxes. $1,000. Anything else. No, thank you. So it's basically whatever your tax credit is. An equal amount comes off your. Well, the percentage, I'm sorry, not an equal amount, but whatever percentage the select board determines. So they're going to vote on 50%, 100%. 150%. Percent of your. Of your state credit. Yes. Correct. If we're a thousand dollars in the vote of a hundred percent, then you get a thousand dollars off your tax. That's right. Thank you. Okay. So. 750 people qualified. At the state level. We don't get an annual report of that from the state. That's the latest year that we have known. Okay. And that figure. Includes renters. Right. Which would not be qualified at the pound level. Okay. And the renters landlords don't get. To apply for the credit on behalf of their tenants and apply to the renter. They do. They do. Okay. So if I'm renting. And I have to pay for the rent. They do. They do. They do. Okay. So if I'm renting and I have a thousand dollar income credit from the state. My landlord could request the reduction in their property taxes on the building I live in. Do they have to pass it through to me? As long as they own it. Yeah. They do not have to pass it through. They do not have to pass it through. They do not have to pass it through. They do not have to pass it through. They qualify on their own. In some. Okay. So. So the 750 households that qualify at the state, they have to apply for that. Okay. Oh, yes. Okay. So. We only know the publication of the people who applied or did we just know that they qualify. Do we know. If they have to apply to the state and they don't. They don't show up on our radar. They can. Apply. Even though they don't. Or didn't apply to the state. But they have to prove their income. Qualifications. So same qualifications that they can apply to us, even if they haven't applied to the state. Okay. So in other words. They would have to apply. They would have to apply to the state. They would have to apply. One place or the other. There isn't any automaticity to this. We're not automatically applying it. And if they apply to the state and they get the credit, they still have to tell us. Yes. They applied and were successful in order for us to give them a credit. They have to apply. Right. 750 people. We know how much credit they'll send it. So we, the average. Credit that they received in 2021. Yep. The average credit that they received in 2021 was that $998. Number. So roughly $1,000. Average credit. So $750,000. And $750,000. Roughly was the total amount. Okay. And we can either do some, something less than $750,000. Or we could do up to 200% of that, which could be 1.5. Right. And the way that we, there are two ways we can pay for that. The first is for by applying to be able to give it to them out of other funds that we have. And the other is to slightly raise the tax rate for everybody. So we collect that much more money and then credited back to them. Let's still get our. Well, except that right now, the only method that we have is through the tax rate. Right. And what we're saying with this article is we want more, we want other methods for paying. We want to consider another. Yes. So it doesn't change. How much credit we're giving people. It doesn't change how much tax we're collecting to cover that credit. It doesn't change anything. Just the source of the money. Well, it might change how much we're raising the tax rate. Yes. Right. So the significant difference. Between raising it in the tax rate versus. If we had the option to raise it via the overlay. We would be collecting the funds through the entire. So commercial. Yes. Okay. Except that. We have a very tiny. Yeah. So it's probably not a significant. No. Difference. No. And we couldn't do. 100% of this credit out of the overlay every year for very long. Before we. So we still have to fund. What, what this. Before we realized the size of the. In other words, when we were considering this. We didn't, we hadn't determined the size of the exemption. Am I. It's appearing more and more that we would use the overlay. Rarely. Right. But it's an option. Okay. So the full box. Yes. But it doesn't show much. John. John. John. And then. Hi, hi. Couple quick questions. So, first of all, I think. In January, brothers 2023, they're going to double the certain. Taxes fell. So. Feel like. That means that we're going to have a lower percentage that we allow. That's up for the select. So the board. Maybe just a couple of things that come to my head is. A lot of people may be applying for certain break attacks. They may. Wow. So now they. They used to cap out at like 1200. Now it's going to have a 25. So a lot of people might come on. That's all. So we might have. We're showing up. Property tax. True. So. I do see on the ballot question. It seems like everywhere I read this. It's always kept 1% of. So. I assume. Is this. When you. The only thing that that is at the discretion of the town is the percentage of the search rate tax. So we're going to give. Books. So. Is everything kind of locked in when you set that percentage? In other words, do you know everybody in the town? Like right now you said. 700. 990 each. Okay. But when you set that percentage, whether it's 50 or 40, you're going to have to. Is that those numbers locked in? Yes. So. Yeah. I think it was any that mentioned that there's a timing aspect for this that has to be worked out. We will have to collect the applications. And determine eligibility. Before the select board. Needs to decide a percentage. Yep. Because we will have to. Or. Indicate where. That percentage of the left. Yeah. It can't be just like a little bit of an unknown. Yeah. And then. Got it. And then a quick fall question. So if I understand. Turning back a little bit when you talk about. The default met. The default met. The default met. The default met. The default met. The default met. The default met. The default met. So I understand. Turning back a little bit when you talk about the default met. The default met. And when you're shifting tax rate. So. Well, I call the default met. Unless we use the overall. Unless you get the warm past. Something like that. But the default met. Is. These folks qualify. Their tax rate goes down a little bit. And by that same month. I mean they're getting money back. You some you can see the tax rate goes down a little bit. But they're paying fewer or less property tax. Yes. everybody else's property taxes go up by the same amount. Yes. So the town of Arlington's tax base is actually staying at that home. Yes. In other words, the letter does not change. We can raise the same amount of money regardless. And I do, I wonder if, I assume this is all state legislation already, but I feel like the folks whose rates go up a little bit, all of a sudden their rates are going up higher than 2.5%, higher than the override. So I assume that's legal. Obviously it is, but it's just so everyone knows, our property taxes rates are going to go up higher than the 2.5%, higher than the $7 million. No, no, no, 2.5% is an increase in the levy. The total increase in the levy can't hold up for taxing. Your individual tax can't. But yes, so everyone else, it can be. So the levy is going to, the levy is still going to comply with 2.5%. But some folks rates are going to go down, some folks rates are going to go up. So I think we're saying it's NWJ. I'm happy to hear that. You're right, you're right. You're right. You're right, you're right. Thank you. Everyone's rate is going to go up the same. And some will qualify for the exemption and receive an exempted amount discounted from their tax real estate. Thanks. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Josh. I guess if I could just say it, say it a different way, so let me try to understand. Thank you. And A, I mean, obviously, people voted for both the override and for the research break or so. We collectively as a town, so I do that. I think what you're saying is if, let's say my tax bill was currently $10,000, but I was able to go for credit, so maybe my bill would go down to $9,000 because actually reduced by property value. I kind of do a quick calculation if there's 750 people, about $1,750,000 for kind of issuing us a credit and if you divide that by people getting households to about $19,000 or whatever that's about $36 each household remaining. So just before we panic too much, I mean, the scope of, unless I've got this wrong. No, I did some back of the envelope math and I'm coming up with $50 a year for the average single family column. That would be their increase to make up for the credits. I think that's exactly what people voted for. So that's great. Michael. And I think you started off by saying that you were thinking that having the option of applying overlay to this was, I think rather generally the way you wanted to go. Can you elaborate on that? Yeah, so once you understand the, what I think is the mechanics of this, we're assuming the town does not want to have a higher tax rate for residents than commercial property. There is an option that the state allows called classification, which allows you to shift some burden of the residential levy to the commercial, industrial and personal property tax base. And in theory, you could, if you needed, if the residential class was set to go up by five cents, you could calculate an amount that would be shifted from the residential levy to the industrial, commercial and personal property levies. That would equate to five cents. But there's quite a bit involved in doing that. And debiting the overlay would be a much simpler mechanical process. If you had to do a run out. Oh, yes. Yes, I'm not saying the funding would be any different, really. Other than, well, actually, if you shifted, you shifted burden, the funding amount is the same. Right, but it's going to be like the nickel gallon rise on gasoline. It's going to be in lights. It's going to be lit up 24 hours a day. The only other question I had is that, will the process for applying for this be explicitly explained somewhere on the town's website, your page somewhere else? We do have a summary that's on our website. And we're currently working on the application that will be available in July. Yeah. Because I have found the application for applying for a rebate on property tax in overall bill to be very hard to figure out it's written rather aggressively against the applicant. And I think it puts people off. I think you're referring to the abatement. Yes, I am. That application is essentially state determined. We use the state version of the abatement application. So it's a blanket line on the state version that says we are obligated by law to render a decision in this much time, but we want you to give us two more months right now off the top. I'm not sure what you're referring to. Every application for a tax abatement includes the check off box saying, saying although the law says that we have to get back to you in a certain amount of time, we want two more months, please say yes. At the point of asking the town for something, the town is also saying, oh, and we can't possibly comply in the amount of time that the law says we have to respond to you. I find that off-putting. Let's focus on our book 21. Yeah. Well, this is the means of putting into action. I'm done. I'll talk. Okay, so the bottom line is this will have no impact on the total amount of money that the town has to raise and expand on its budgets. Okay, does the select man vote the percentage each year? Yes. Okay, and finally, what's the status of this? Because it's already up on the website. So when the people voted last November for this, did that, because it seemed to be like this needed to amend state law. So are you just assuming this is gonna go through or is the law already in place when the people voted on it in November? Which law? We passed a referendum in November. And yes, an act allowing this exemption, yes. Okay, did that need to be approved by the legislature? That was written by the legislature. Okay, so in effect, the referendum, the citizens voted to accept that law. Yes. So what this is doing is modifying the law which already exists. Requesting the modification, yes. Thank you, Karen. So I'm still confused about one thing. And if we use the overlay to fund this and we don't have enough money in the overlay to cover our liabilities, how do we solve that problem? So every year, the town administration creates a budget. In that budget is an amount to fund overlay. So that has to increase. That would have to increase at some point. And if we follow that logic, if we have to increase the propagation to the overlay and we keep the overlay surplus constant for the sake of this discussion. And we're paying, using the overlay to pay for this. Then the only solution is to reduce town expenses by $750,000. So I calculated 736832, roughly. Or use the funding mechanism through the tax rate. No, I'm saying, I understand that, but if we don't use the tax rate, then can we take the overlay or empty the overlay out? So we have to increase the overlay to keep the reserve there to pay for those abatements or whatever we use it for. Correct. Then we have to reduce the expenses in the town. Okay. Right? I think that's the only other place we can come to, come back to this. That's out of my realm. No, I'm not asking you to make that decision. I'm just saying, my right in saying that's the only other place you can get the money for the total. You have to produce a budget that you said. The total taxes, total taxes we raise is not going to change, right? Right. That's fixed. So we take the money out of the overlay, and we go below the whatever the wise guru is saying we have to have there, right? So if to meet that minimum overlay requirement and we're not going to change taxes, then we have to reduce expenses. Yes. Thank you. Rebecca. This is just going back to whether it's clear who qualifies and how much they qualify for. I just wanted to point people to the held up a piece of paper, but the website from the assessor's office, I found actually very helpful. There's a little PDF that will explain to you who's qualified, how they, there's little examples of this is how much your house is worth, and this is how much you get for the circuit breaker. So if you look on the assessor's webpage under real estate functions, it says details available here. I found it very helpful. Thank you. That's good. Okay. I'm also at that point. I'll jump. This sort of relates to Charlie's question. So before the select board sets the tax rate, you or somebody calculate an amount of exemptions. Yeah. And then that feeds in to raise the tax rate and nickel or whatever. Is that a calculation based on actual from the previous year or is an estimate of next year's exemptions? Or is that the number? No. How precise is that number? It's exact. So we'll have all this years. Based on the current year's applications. Okay. Determine qualification. And we determine the amount, total amount of the exemptions. And then we'll calculate if the select board elects 50% we'll tell them what that amount of money will be that will have to be raised. Okay. So there's no chance of underestimating and not raising it enough or overestimating and raising it too much. Where it was going to go is if raising it too much or not enough, where's the difference come? But it sounds like it's an exact calculation. It's going to be exact. Unless I make a mistake. What if you make a mistake? Oh. Oh, it comes out of your picture? Yeah. No. Okay. So, okay. If you have this option to use the overlay and you mix your metaphors and you use some of it from shift from attack shift and some of it from using the overlay. That's an excellent question. We don't know the answer to that right now. Okay. We'll have to look into that. Okay. So one of the things that you said was that if we have this option and you're spreading the cost across other tax classes but not because we get to collect your money, right? So we collect the same amount of money and even if we're shifting some of the tax burden to other people in the residential class it's the same amount of money. And the exemption is in the same expense regardless of where we take it from. Correct. So we are still having to raise the tax rate in order to get in order to fill the overlay. It's just that we're raising the tax rate for all classes, not just the residential class. That's right. Got it. Jennifer, did you have a hand up? Actually, I was, Annie, that was my question. Who decides which method you're going to use? I have no problem if we're balancing this out and 90% of the people are paying a little bit more and that benefits the other 10% fine. But if we start to talk about use of overlay and things like that or funded by an appropriation or transfer from as Christian funds will not exceeding now we're impacting the town's budget. Who decides all this? The Board of Assessors would be responsible for release from the overlay of any exemption as they do now. But who decides if we're going to compensate by raising the tax rate to pay for this or we're going to take it out of the overlay? Is that a recommendation from the assessors to the select one? Yes. So the select one have the final say? Yes. Just it'll be determined in the classification here where the assessors make recommendation to make information available for the select board to make a decision. Why do we need this for what's the purpose? It says or funded by an appropriation trying to short for existing funds will not exceeding. Why do we need that language? If we're going to raise it within the residential tax rate? Well, if we wanted an option, we would have to have that language. Right now, our only course of action is to increase the residential tax rate. Why would we not want to do that? It's appearing more and more. Al, as we learn more about this exemption and look at the numbers more closely that that may be a preferable choice. To raise the tax rate. Raise the tax rate on the residential class, but my thinking is just to provide an option here. And if we don't want to provide you with that option, then we should go against this. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Toe for me, Brandon. Yes. So first, so will the select board will have a hearing on this small article? I imagine. I would go to that. Yes. We're asking questions. Yeah, I'll build. And then going back to talking about renters, it seems to me that, so the renters don't really fall factor into it, right? It's the landlord, they have a building, they apply for the state exemption on their own. They qualify for it. And it really is disconnected from whether any renter qualifies or not. Right? It's the landlord's situation that would dictate that. So you have to have ownership to apply. Right, right. For the residential tax. Right, you have to be the owner. But your renters might qualify for the state thing and they might not. It doesn't stall just on the landlord. Okay. All right. It's nice to, if you're patient, people are asking the same questions I have. So probably better than I would. This is more a question about the process of the flow because it's helped me fill the blank. So if this happens, then people apply, residents apply, owners apply. There's a deadline soon. Yes. Then there's a review period to see if they're eligible or not. Yes. And then, is that when you make a recommendation to select about the percentage? Well, I will tell them what each of their percentage options would equate to. For each of the applicants. No. In the math. In math. Okay. And, then, they would approve that generally. They'll select a percentage. Right, right. Probably based on the recommendation. And then what happens? Then people are notified or, proof that the miracle occurs or what? Well, yes. Generally we provide notification of exemption awards. Once we know the amount, it'll either be in a letter form. We haven't got that far. Okay. But it will be, the exemption will be reduced from their third quarter bill. Okay. Which comes out in late December, early January. And also might be an exercise that might be, total fuel because it doesn't get on. No, no need to figure out that part. Okay. Thank you. Other questions? Thank you. So, where in that process does the determination as to where the money comes from? Is it like, if we add this to your toolbox, when is that decision made based on? We have to be made in the classification here. In December. Yeah. Okay. So, in time for the third quarter. Yes. That has to happen before we can set the tax rate. Thank you for making something rather complex, much more understandable than I started out with. And we're back. Thank you for taking a look at the website. I'm going to proceed to that. I don't have to look at that, but thank you for that. What happens if you don't get your own water bill? What if you live in a condominium unit and your association gets one bill that is a portion 12 units? As I said, you were either qualified at the state level or if you do not apply at the state level, you're responsible for proving your qualification in the application. So it's the same question. No, it's an excellent question. I don't have an answer for that. Right. Thank you. It's going up a bit. Wouldn't that then be instead of the 50% of the water bill, wouldn't there be a some percentage of the condo maintenance fee bill or something? Wouldn't that make? There is information on this, that the state has worked that out. I don't have that language in front of me. Right, so it's not in the water. No, no, the warrant doesn't contain anything regarding qualification or amounts of exemption. So how does that, it may not matter. I don't know how many people qualify at their own condos of 750, how many of them own condos that they do. It's only half their water bill that they're getting. And not in inequity. So I don't think it really matters too much. So thank you. Sorry, I couldn't answer that today, but the information is at the state level and we would apply the same rules. So thank you. Any other questions? I just want to follow up on El Tosti's question. So right now you can, right now we can achieve this with the existing law or the tax rate. What you're looking for is the ability to also do the same thing over using the overlay. And that's what this is for. Tell me, help me understand exactly why that would be beneficial using the overlay to be more beneficial than what we have now. The primary reason would be to maintain our historic single tax rate. And that's it. That's the one and only one thing. Anything else? Thank you very much. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. You're welcome. I'll get my 380 Cs. I'm saving it from the motion. Have a good evening. Thank you. Let's do the next one. Okay. Is this your code? No. No. Okay. All right. We're doing a minute. It's from the last minute. Okay. This one, that was 26. I have a question on item at least a couple of words. Thanks. The third line parks and recreation is no longer covering across the portable toilet. I think they are right. They are. No, they are. They are. They are. They're not covering other fuel costs. They are covering the portable. Yeah, we have, we actually have some of the dates. Okay. So I think if you want the minutes to reflect what we discussed at the meeting, at the meeting, the concern was they were only, the suggestion was they paid at the meeting that they were only covering us. However, that is not technically correct, which we will go into later. Yeah. So you could. I'll just strike it. You could. Sounds good. If you wrote only, it would accurately reflect what was suggested at the meeting. Oh, yeah. However, that's not completely correct. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I see. Okay. The word only nation. So you, so you're correct that it was not, but they're no longer doing anything that they are. The concern was that they weren't also covering other forms of field maintenance. So is it correct to say both in terms of what we discussed at the meeting and what you know now that Parks and Rec is covering the cost of portable products? That is correct. So let's just strike no longer. So the Parks and Rec is covering cost of portable products. Okay. Anybody see anything else? Can you scroll down the page? What's that? Can you scroll down the page? Yeah. Sorry. Update numbers. Probably next week. We're going to do that. See anything covered? All right. Anybody have any other corrections to minutes? All right, do I hear a motion? So moved. Second, second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Any others? I think we have a parking budget. Right? Yeah, so we're going to get that going. Let's hand this in three parts. First, there's the budget book, then moving on to the actual parking fund budget that town treasurer Julie Wayman provided me and us a couple of Fridays ago. Tyler, we'll get that up. The first part of what we'll look at is in the budget books, 67 is the title page, 69 of our details for their question. And it's a rather short story here because only one employee is directly tied into parking budget at the top of page 68 here. Salary and wages for that one employee does go up 8.8%. That's both the results of, principally it's reclassification. One employee classified from staff 4th to 5th. The longevity, no stipends. The parking expenses are rather spare also, printing for the physical tickets with our vendor issued mail. Contractual services basically for the Canto ticketing devices, which Treasurer was excited to tell me that the contract is now with a local company at Massachusetts company, Kellan and Ryan, which has a great customer service, responsiveness and interesting funding strategy. You pay them $2 a ticket for the tickets that are issued through those handheld devices that our traffic officers use. The offset, offset is about, is a figure to add 50% of the one employee's salary. Very top line there on page 69. And my first question, when I went to Lakewood, Julie, was is that offset figure reliable year-to-year that won't have that through their parking expenses. And I got my eyes open sharply to the amount of money that actually comes in from parking. Yes, definitive yes, definitive yes to the point of our conversation eventually we've gone to the topic of, well, shouldn't more of the relatable costs of parking parking enforcement be offset by more money coming out of what is received from these parking figures. But I'll get to that in just a moment. Parking fund budget is broken down. Yep, parking fund budget is broken down by sources, single space, multi-space meters, those are the new ones that we just bought. We buy them, we own them. So I was asking about the mechanical reliability of these. They're standing up very well, so far. It does take six punches to get your free 15 minutes to space, punch, choose 15 minutes, punch again. It used to be one, now it's six, but you can still get your 15 minutes free. They recharge through solar energy. Is that reliable? I asked, yes, manufacturer says they could probably three or four days of battery life with no sun at all. When will that be exceeded? The only time that's exceeded is if you have somebody take a snowblower down Broadway Plaza and bury the meter tops, because then they'll be out of action for as long as that top of the meter is covered with snow. So be a good civic citizen. If you see a little snow cone of snow on top of one of the parking meters, just bump it off and let the meter recharge. They are projecting. The FY24 is actual numbers based on about six months. The projected for FY25 is the 422, 422,000 plus. So yes, well enough to cover 50% of one person in the one person in the treasurer's office. Julie told me though that the amount of work that gets done on parking issues alone is more than one full-time equipment. So there's an argument there, should we choose to discuss it any further of perhaps more money should be drawn out of the bottom reservoir, the number that all ends up with. Coming out of the parking fund, does this slide up when I try to do it? I'm sorry. That's okay. I thought it would go with you. Let's slide it up with expenditures. Expenditures, the big drop in projected expenditure, the first slide of expenditure, principally because of coin collection. You're trying to move away from the technology of a wheeled cart down the street and the coins getting dumped into the cart. The more people that use these meters by credit card, there'll be a slight increase in the charges for the processing there, but the cost of actually collecting buckets and buckets of coins is expected to go down. I'm not sure where the projected expense for the charging stations is. That's a somewhat notional expense. As were a couple of others here, benefits to the Russell common lot. I asked him, Julie said, well, what like the hard scapula, pavement curves, things like that. Okay, but again, nothing that's been committed to yet. So call it notional cause, call it, we've got the money, why don't we do something with it? Some of these are more certain to be recurring from year to year, trash collection, plantings. I love seeing that there's an actual line item in there for watering the plants so that we get back the value of our investment in the plants themselves. Electric upgrades, again, that's a number thrown in for foreseen work as well as decorations for 250th anniversary of Patriots Day, seasonal decorations, a bump there. Streetscape improvements. The streetscape improvements are tied to the fact that the meters are funding a parking benefit district and some of that money. It's not quite the way a revolving fund works but something of the same spirit here. The money comes in from an area, the money goes back to the same area and I think right down to the totals here, looking at total expenditure provisionally based on throwing in some line items of expenses that haven't come up in the past and don't necessarily have to come up in the future either. Their last year's parking fund budget had repairs to the railroad lot, parking area, and sidewalk repairs on Old Mystic Street. Which didn't happen. They just didn't happen, the money wasn't expensed. So we have a surplus in hand right now even with a greater than projected revenue figure for things to be done with that money if it is projected that we will end up with a fund, money in our pocket, over half a million dollars of accumulated savings of parking revenue in versus expenses paid out. Third part of what I wanted to talk about then is, is this what we should be doing? Carrying half a million dollars in a parking fund with a certain number of recurring expense paid to it, but not nearly the number that it would take to run the whole bounce. Are you ready for questions right now or do I keep going? Just one more word on it. Policy is set by a parking advisory committee, like just about every other committee in town. It's a committee of the usual suspects. A representative of a select board or a transportation advisory committee of the Chamber of Commerce. And these are people who have day to day, hands on knowledge of these things. Julie Myrak, the chamber, selectman heard. Leland Stein, general manager of the region theater as a member of the chamber of commerce and a local business person here. So they advise the treasurer on how to put more things in this expenditure, Paul. But my step back view of it was, okay, this number, even though we're rejecting to spend a good 20% more than we did last year coming out of it, the money is mounting up. And... It's going down 110,000. But that's projected based upon a number of things that we don't have to spend the money on. And from last year's practice, there was almost $100,000 that was in the projected expenditures from last year that didn't get spent. So I'm just looking at the practice here and wondering, are we good? Is this the way we want to see it? Look, do we have any recommendations to make? Do we think that we can sail closer to the wind on what this parking money is spent for a little bit more tightly tied to things? That's really the presentation that I have. I move that we vote pursuant to the bottom line number on page 69, taxation number $34,896. Sorry, is that right that wrong? Yeah, go up to the bottom 60 because you're so alone. 57,000. Thank you. Trying to talk and speak. Talking, reading, sorry. Yeah, it doesn't always work out. A little $57,102 to be raised. Second. Second, second. All right. That's good. So, somebody correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that we created this parking benefit district, an act of town need. And that the parking meter revenue is dedicated to fund. It's like, it is like a revolving fund. We use the select as the finance committee can't change the cost. How many would have to change the policy? Somebody in our final warrant article. And the idea here was that the people who were taking the risk of us putting in the leaders when the business is, it was changing their lives, the ability of their clients to car for longer than a half an hour without putting them in the center center and sold it to them as this will benefit you. And it gives us a pot of money with which to improve our commercial districts, which in theory shouldn't have more commercial activity, so on and so forth. So I'm not sure that we can change anything about it. Although I suppose we can make the policy recommendation. We can think about it. We can recommend. Tape each scroll up for one more thing here. I'm looking especially at the expenditure line, parking enforcement and administration. That could well be increased. More money out of the parking meters going into the police department budget. So it was lost. I'll try back to you. That's awesome. I mean, one way we could reduce revenues is to make the charging free for what your car says. Nothing to do with the fact that I don't know what your car. I'm just trying to help here. One question I do have though is last year, I can't remember when the board of select men made it free for senior citizens. So, you know, my pile of quarters that I always had stacked in my car, I don't use anymore. And I'm wondering, has that must have an impact on the revenues from the parking? Has that shown up? Have they forecast that? I didn't get a specific number on that. I got summary numbers from the types of sources of parking money collected. But there wasn't an intercalculation of had we not waved so much money for this many people for that amount of time, it would have been different. I didn't get that. Is there's more and more people over, I think it's 60, figure this out. You know, the revenues could, I don't take a big dive, but it could go down. Can I ask a question related to that? What's your question? How does the meter people figure out that it's bigger? You have a sticker. So it's not the handicap sticker, it's the difference. Oh, you just, you can't do something illegal like parking in front of a fire hydrant, but you can basically park next to a meter in the parking lot and how old do I have to be? Yeah. I think it's 60, because it's positive. That's all we've seen there for more than 15 minutes. I only qualified last year. And like you said, the real motivation for having any kind of charge for parking in this downtown business district is to make sure that it doesn't become employee parking for eight or nine hours a day for the employees of the business, of the area of businesses and making all these spaces unavailable to passersby and customers who come to the business. Yeah. Although I can tell you as a resident of the parking benefit district that the day-to-day parkers who park all day long simply have moved further outside to the streets radiating off the north side of Broadway plus. You see that there, yeah. Yeah, quick question and then comment. Question is about the track method, which disappears. So that's no longer an expense. There's no in the trash now. The track method? Yes. Yeah, I don't know. So that's one question. Okay, so, and then the comment is that from talking to Mike Breidermiker, some of this money sometimes is used for pedestrian safety. Like for example, the fact that they re-did the sidewalks a couple of years ago in the center, right? And so that was a very expensive project. Spring, summer, 2020. What I understand is that they use some of that money. We have another part of the sidewalk in the center that's in horrible shape, which is the municipal block, right? So I don't know if people are thinking that that is, that making that part of my sort of keeping it large is a source to be tapped into if we ever were to view that municipal block. But I'm comfortable with the committee, you know, making the decision. This is what the meeting has decided, you know, put a committee in charge, making these decisions about how the money's spent. There's lots of reasons why you might want to collect a bunch of money and then spend it, you know, in a big chunk later on. Charlie? So I think Annie actually described the fact that this was a, an article of town meetings several years ago that we thought by town meetings to basically sequester these funds for these purposes. However, the finance committee, and Al Tassi can correct me on this, if my memory isn't serving me well. But I believe the finance committee had an agreement with the town manager and the select board that we would approve the expenditures in exchange for granting this so-called separate fund, separate funding capability. So while I think we can't collect the money, we can aid in the direction of how it's spent, possibly or negative. Yeah, and we have an article on the warrant for that. Don't we ever hear? Yeah, we do. We do. So- That's what this is. Yeah. It's this, I thought- Yeah, the budget. I thought we were talking about this. The budget, are we also talking about the warrant article, which warrant article number is? I think that the communication can go down to line item expenditures. 36. Yeah, it's- It's the first. Okay. So I'm allowing the session, but- No, no, I get that. I'm just, so us for the parking budget doesn't revoted the parking benefit district request or whatever. That's going to be voted as article 36, and we get four on article 36. Okay. Can you speak louder again? So we have two votes to take. The first of which is the parking budget, and the second of which is the endorsement of the parking benefit district expenditures, which is our vote, which is article 36. Yes, but I think there's a link here, right? Because how much money we're taking out of- No, totally. I'm just saying- The revenues. We are giving up on voting on the parking district when we vote the parking budget. We vote the parking budget tonight and ask questions, make suggestions to the powers to be about the benefit district. Correct. Okay. Just to- I'm just going to go on top of it. First trash man, if I recall correctly, what the trash man's line was for was to buy big bellies, which was a big part of road and control. So I guess we might want to talk to the advisory committee saying, you know, that's why you stopped buying big bellies. But I also want to congratulate Michael for a first. Because if I take the offset in the police budget and the offset in the parking budget, add them together, it's exactly 114,148 dollars, which has never happened. So I'm sorry, I was answering a question. If you take the 79,250 offset from the police budget and add it to the 34,898 offset to the parking budget, it adds up the total is 114,148 dollars, which has never happened before. Let those break it up. So thank you. Welcome. Topher. Yeah, what are incumbrances? I forgot to ask about that. Those are available. Adjust protection expenses. Can you explain anything about it? You say I was doing the thing. Thank you, Aaron. I didn't go, I didn't catch that as we were sitting across from each other. Maybe you can follow up on that. Other questions? John. Yeah. Who decides on that 114,000 via the portion of which goes to the police and the portion of which offsets this parking budget? I'm just curious. Is that a formula or is that just, you know, seems like we want to keep starting my money to bank. Let's throw this much money back to the town. Same guy doesn't learn to run. Okay, so it's a description. Definitely. Hello, question. Other comments about the parking fund budget? Only one small thing you said was that this was a re-classification. It's actually a step-in for five to six. That re-person. And it must be that it's time for them to get a step-in for each of you. Rather than a re-classification to a sick because I checked last year so there was no re-classification here. So it must have been, they must have been working long enough that they deserve a step-in at least. And then, and it must have been bad of treasure with this misspoke issue together. My note's down as endless. Okay. Thank you. Annie. So this is article 36 of what you usually have to special with the town manager about was miss come up on the 13th in that agenda. And what would be your questions? Just, I'm just remembering what we've done in the past, which ends that we made the town manager explain where first of all the expenditures. And so if we are concerned about money accumulating, we'll get asked him at that point. And they're not, there was a, I think actually Sandy usually does a presentation on it. We had asked whether or not there's a plan and they're squirreling money away to do some major projects or whether or not you should be setting some policy around the minimum or maximum reserve ought to be making sense. Those would be my questions. I don't know if I can be here on the 13th, but I'm happy to write out my question. Send it. I'm making a note on that article. But we didn't ask yet. As I recall last year, the information you got from article 33, which was the article last year was from Julie Lane and not from the next. So second question. So subject director. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. That's, we're voting revenues and expenditures on the parking district article, which I think, do we have, do we have any numbers? We have some of those numbers. For article 36, for article 36. I think the table. I think that's what we've got. Yeah. So I'm just saying if we don't want to vote it as it is, I think the discussion to tell manager would be the place to see whether or not we could get some other questions. Well, first let's vote on the parking projects. Ah, John. I can answer the question. If you add the parking administrators salary and the three parking control officers in the police budget and add them together divided by two, that's what the number came from. Yeah. So it was exactly 50. That sounds like a phone number. Thank you. So we have, I think we have a recommendation for 57102. And I believe it was seconded. Any further questions or comments on the parking budget? Department. Right. All right. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right. Ask me to ask. So let's talk about the parking benefit district expenditures. Shall we hold off until the manager comes in? Are you so moved? Second. All right. All in favor? Aye. All right. We will have, bring this up when the time manager comes in on 30. We have specific questions we're going to ask him. We have a bunch of warrant articles we asked him about. Yeah. And it asks the question. I will say those questions. So before he comes in, we can have a discussion about exactly which warrant articles you want and be ready to discuss. I think we'll hear that one. All right. Let's talk about article 21. What's people think? The first question is, do we think position? And if so, what definitions? Well, if I understood it correctly, as it exists now, we don't need this article. The cost for the 5% who need it is being paid for by the taxes on that 95%. And I think that's sort of what the voters voted for in this. This seems to provide that we could fund it by appropriation or transfer for existing funds, which seems to give the assessors the chance to recommend we spend more money out of the budget, which will make it harder to balance the budget in the future. So I think that's a bad thing. Now, whether the finance committee wants to take a position is up to them. I don't have to worry about balancing the budget specifically anymore. But it seems to me that's the issue. Annie? So I think I have a sudden different interpretation of what Dana is saying they want to be able to do at this article. So if I understood them correctly, what he's saying is in order to offset the cost of the circuit breaker funding, we're not allowed to collect that money from non-residential tax, that is through commercial properties or personal property tax. So what we end up with is something like a split rate. And he wants to avoid that by having the ability to funnel it through the overlay, keep the tax rate the same for everybody, okay? And then the differential would get paid by the commercial tax. In other words, the commercial properties wouldn't get a separate rate and get the same. But we're still raising the same amount of money and the same amount of cost flows through the entire budget. It just means that rather than saying we are going to have $750,000 a year of tax we don't collect and therefore we need to raise the tax rate for the residential class only. We're going to say that we're budgeting $750,000 in the overlay and we're collecting that money by having one flat rate for the whole town but the levy is the same whichever method he uses. So this really does just give him another tool in the toolbox but it sounds to me like what he's saying is it complicated to come up with a split rate and that's what he's trying to avoid. So I don't know whether or not we should take a position on it or not but I don't think that it means that either we're robbing Peter to pay Paul or that we're collecting less or something like that. What we did was we agreed to forego a certain amount of property tax to cover this circuit rate or something like that. You're not going to get yourself. Yeah, in other words, I'm sorry, I think you're right, Josh. What we agreed to do was to shift the burden of this from senior citizens on a fixed income to everybody else. What he wants to do is not just shift it to the rest of us in the residential class but also shift it to the commercial class and he can only do that through this other funding mechanism. But he's not saying that that's what he's going to do. He's not saying that's what he's going to do. He's saying that if I had this as a tool, A, less work, less complicated calculations on a split rate and B, I'm shifting it fairly. I'm not just putting it all in the residential rate payers although we are 95% of the tax base so big deal. You know, it's not going to save us a lot but we are shifting some of it to commercial rate payers and the personal property tax way to rate payers by this mechanism. So it's very arcane and it's hard to understand and I hope I got that right. But that's what I heard. Michael and Josh and then Charlie. I think, Anna, you really put your finger on the question of why wouldn't it do better? And I think I heard it asked four times. And yes, it would provide a little bit more flexibility. We're moving the burden to recoup whatever it is we give and rebate from 95% of the tax on it to 100% minimal difference there. But I think what I heard most repeatedly was that it's good to have a single tax rate. Yeah. And then I would ask what? Outside of tradition, outside of it's easy to understand. I think what Dana was saying is that the actual work to be sure that the split rate is accurate and so on and so forth is what he's trying to overwrite. Yeah. Okay. So. Yes, they got a set of rate. They got a set two. I don't inherently believe the two was twice the work or 10% more work. But I'm going to have the ones who know Dana is the one who knows. I think the avoidance of wanting to have two tax rates is the avoidance of drawing more attention to the fact that if you give money to them, we got to get it from those. I hope it's all. I really think it's Dana who can serve about the work. All right. It's part of it. Josh. Seems to me that it's kind of a simple spreadsheet with dollars amount, you know, I don't know. But I guess we can kind of building on that. It would be very helpful to me, I think, since there's general confusion. If you could just give us a simple model and place that this is option A, this is option B, this is where the money comes from. Just have it all ties out. It's not decreasing our total expenses or anything like that or decreasing our total revenue because we're not really all understanding the same thing. And it's not that many numbers to lay out. So I would prefer that they wouldn't wait to get a document like that from them. And I think Tom meeting would also appreciate that. John. I think I'm going to start about what happens to the overlay reserve here. If we're taking money out to cover this expense and it seems to me that if the residential tax rate is fixed, don't we have to, if the overlay reserve is sort of beaten away, don't we have to reduce town expenses? Not if you see the funding of the circuit breaker as an expense, which we have in place. Just how does it go? This is a new circuit. This is a new expense. Yes. So we have to have a certain balance in the overlay reserve every year. I mean, it changes from year to year, but you've got to have enough to cover the liability. So if we start taking money out of there and we get to the point where we're not covering the liability, I'm just speaking hypothetically here, then, and we're keeping the tax rate, maybe I'm a little confused on one of these keep the tax rate the same, but if the tax rate is fixed, then you've got to allow the expenses in the town. Yeah, I think this has to do with how we do math on the new tax sheet. We mentioned at some point, he's not reducing the tax rate, he's reducing the value of the ones who get the... So you could have one tax rate, but you're adjusting the values. I'm not quite sure how that will work, but... If the residential rate goes up in the nickel, then you've got to split the rate. That's not what's supposed to happen. And I also heard that he said his expecting... I thought his word was rarely to use the override. Yeah. So my question and that anyone has an answer, if that's the case, why do we need... Why do we... What's the purpose of this? If it's intended to be used rarely. For the reason, I think Charlie points out, which is it can't be sustained by using the overlap. And then why does he have it in there? Or he doesn't restrict it to the overlay in the language of the article. He has basically to take it out of the Overestabilization Fond, or... And to me, this is opacity at work. Jennifer, I have the best power of my side. Heavy. So I think if my confusion goes to any question about... Is it partially the overlay and partially a change to the text? I guess what I... He did say it would be very small coming out of the overlay. It's 750,000, isn't it, small in my mind? Right. Well, we sometimes only add five or 600,000 in the overlay. Yeah. So you could pretty much start eating into the totally reserved very quickly. Right. We would have to budget more into the overlay. Thanks just to both of you. Well, then you've got it. That's inappropriate. I think you need to have some models. I think Josh is right. Yeah. I think Josh is right. I think we need a model. You agree? Who thinks I'm right? I think you're right. I'm this wolf. You're first over. Other questions? Comments. Did he give an estimate towards the beginning of the total cost of this? Yes. 736,000. Although I'd say the one number I would keep in my head is the 1%. The 1% of the tax base. Yeah, but the tax has already decided for that cost. So we are ready to decide for what cost. What we were going for the program. No, it's 1%. That's that's the law. By my map, it could be upwards to 1.5 million. It's 1%. So either way, that's the number that stick in my head. It can't get worse. Can't get more generous. Right. Well, I was a little. I think, I think his estimates would. Be gracious and kind of baby. Suspects to 750 qualify. I didn't ask how many people they were budgeting or. Expecting to apply. Which would give us a budgeted number from the first year. I don't. So, and that's not taking consideration the fact that they're doubling it. That's why. Josh. I had a great suggestion. Because we like to have. So I'd like to see something put in there that isn't so big. I don't know if he left those papers that went. Yeah. Because at least one of them had a little bit better numbers on it of how many people. So that would be the firm number for this year. Right. Well, there's going to apply. If they are. I don't know. So then. But at least I can get. That is your start. I was just thinking. Or. What he was saying. Applications. And the average was a thousand and sixty three hours. In 2000. One. One thing we're not going to clarity on is what is my fort going to do. Right. That's my board vote. Thank you. 100%. 200%. Right. We have no idea. We have no idea what they said. Not more than 1%. Not more than 1%. Right. No more than 200% of the. Exactly. Right. We have. Right. So it definitely narrows it down. Yeah. No. Sorry. It does narrow it down. I don't know. So then. What would your estimate be the first year. So then what would your estimate be the first year. Expensive people. My. My estimate would be dead for probably. 750,000 dollars. Probably similar to 21. Although. I suppose it might go up because more people are eligible. But also from experience of the select board. A lot of people who are eligible. Don't apply. But that's right. Right. That's that's my point. Yeah. But remember no matter how many apply. It can't be more than 1% of the budget. Because the select board is going to have a file in the city. Like 500. You know, everybody comes out and applies for this thing. You can just say, okay, now it's down to 5%. Yeah. 10% or 11%. You can see that. That's what it looks like. Josh. Josh. Jeff. You take a couple of data points. All right. So then you take the 1%. Well, then you take the half of that. Nobody's going to understand it. They're not going to apply. I guess something to work with. But. I'll jump. I'm looking at the FY 2024. Taxary cap. And it's not in there. It's just not been used yet. Or is it hidden someplace? There's a residential exemption. Well, there's the. The payments of things, but. No, no. There's no. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, no, there's a page that says residential exemption. Do you see how it's built into the. Into the levy room. Into the recap. Oh, that's the residential. I don't see anything like 750,000. The exemptions I think of the like, the churches and stuff. Yeah. The three ABC types. Other questions, comments. Yeah, I. I don't want to pass this just so. You know, where the sessions has to do less work. $150,000 is a lot of money. Oh, that's already. Yeah, that's been said. But if, if we're using the overlay. You know, that's, that's a revenue effect, a revenue source. Something's going to have to be cut. If we just. You know, raise it within it and drop. The. Values of the 5%. Then the others pick it up. I have to see the chart. Yeah. We have to do so. Yeah. So, can I be happy to take a school book. We'd be faster. That's right. Anyone who has not spoken yet. I think that's a secret. Yeah. Say it's conceivable to me that what you're saying is it's raised the extra money. So the uniform tax rate on both visits, commercial. All the total dollars and maybe allocate more into overlay. And then take back out again. And it's kind of like a bookkeeping tax state law kind of thing as opposed to a dollar and cents. It's conceivable to me that that's what you're causing, but until we see something no more concrete. Since he should be a numbers guy. And that's where we are. So I'm going to propose to me not vote on this tonight. That we asked Dana for a model. And then based on that model, we see whether or not. You feel more comfortable with this. I read it. And what would be at what's the, what's. What are we asking him to model? We're asking him to model. Well, if you think I'm different, we're asking him to model what would be. What would the overlay look like in the budget. And what would the tax rate. And how is that different from what would happen if he didn't have this tool, like show us the two examples. So. We need. I think we should dish and ask them for the. A model with the, with a different tax rate commercial. As an. Right. That would be this three. Actually. Well, that would be, that would be modeled. There'd be an A model, which is, it's an even tax rate. And I'm taking this money out of the overlay. And here's what the budget would look like. Here's a tax rate. And there's a B model, which is residential rate, commercial rate, no change in the overlay. But they, like the assessor would have to recommend to the select one next year. Yeah. So the main point of. That we need to know that I think. If you're, is whether you're right that, that were they to take it out of the assessor that money has to matter the budget someplace. Right. Right. Versus if it's done by having these two different rates. Is it just sort of an extra addition that somehow. The skirts proposition two and a half so that the, it doesn't. So I, so then the question is, is there, is there a difference? Yeah. Yeah. That's a question. That's a real question. We don't need them to model what the select for does 50% 100% there. That's not our decision. We just need to know, is there any difference in how much money is available for everything else. Yeah. On each of us. Yeah. We basically said, yes. He wasn't, he didn't say no. That's what he sort of said. So I don't, I don't know. I don't know. There's some point about does the, does the overlay involve raising, you know, commercial tax rate. So that's where the additional money comes in. You know, in other words, keep everyone's, you know, everyone's property tax uniform. These seniors get some money back. And then that, that additional money that they get back, you pull it from the overlay. I mean, I'm not that familiar with, but it sounds like he can increase the tax of the overlay. We can increase the tax on the commercial base. That's the third option. It's just the appropriation. That's, that's a third option. We don't have two different tax rates. Right. But this one in, in essence, the two different tax rates where the residential rate payers are paying a higher tax than commercial. What we're considering is shouldn't be raised the commercial and shift. And then we don't do that. So I don't know whether or not. That's where I need to see the number. Yeah. Because if you didn't do that, you know, you're not going to be able to get a tax rate. That's not what we were testing. T. A. B. Which would increase the rate across the board. So everybody can increase. We also should. Right. Because. Let me just. I think you should also consider. If we're going to consider this article. That we, we restrict their. Flexibility. If it turns out that there's no impact. We restrict their flexibility. The given with the overlay. Not any other fun. Yeah. Who has the assessors play with. Over. Would you like to. Ask. Thank you. If you have any questions. Ask. Somebody does. All right. And when we get that, we can take it. Pick it up. Yeah. And so. Figure out what we want. Yeah. Yeah. Who has the assessors play with. Over. Would you like to. Ask the smart one. Thank you. If you have any questions, ask Josh. Somebody does. Ask the smart one. Who has the assessors play with. That. Figure out what we want. So that. Is it for 21 right now. They want to make all of information from last. The best. I'm assuming you're talking about the field. Yes. Yes. So, um, I exchanged some emails with Joe. When you'd like to read them in there. So, um, I asked him three questions that had come up. One was. How much do we currently take in for permit fees? Because our budget. Well, Suggested something like 21,000, right? But. He was suggesting something more like 70. Um, So the answer to that question was. That. Um, In 2023. It was in fact. $69,950. It's been. Fluctuating some years it's been a little higher, but so. Yes, it is more like Dean's estimate of 70,000. And so then the question was, where is that currently going from the permit fees? Um, So he said. That if. If they think of it as $10 per player. That they allocate $6. $2 and 75 cents. For the portable restrooms. So. That $1.25 per user is the amount that we see in the wreck department budget that the wreck department keeps. Um, basically because he said they do all of the scheduling. Um, And the administration. So. The. Rack department. Caution only reflects the amount that they. Keep for the administration, it does not reflect the portable restrooms. So the amount that they take out for portable restrooms, which. at the portable restrooms. So the amount that they take out for portable restrooms, which I fluctuated based on their contract, but is roughly 20,000, comes out of his field account, which does not appear in this block. And then the remainder, he said, is what they get to do the day. And I had a follow-up emails with Mike, and he later said that, yes, they do contribute something just much less than they had in the past. We had asked him whether they were contributing anything, he said, no, at one point. So that could have been my problem misunderstanding that, but he clarified that they do contribute, it's not a bunch of things too. Yes. The learning census from Mike, are doing. Well, we do, from the members, not from Mike, but it's like they're giving 39,310 in 2023. And, but it's much more offensive to maintain the feel for it, so the GW is spending over 100,000. But that's not what's in the field, Mike, that's over. That's how much GW is spending in their field now, if you remember. Oh, in terms of the actuals. Oh, the actuals. In terms of the budget. Yeah, budget. Now, budget's way too low. That's why I wanted to show you things that, over. Budget numbers don't reflect the actuals that we're ever spending. No, that's what I, that's. So they were originally wanting to switch 20,000. It was a mistake. And I was suggesting switching kind of more 1,000 just to make that budget number closer to what they were actually spending. So how much money out of that $10 goes to GW for field management? $6, $6. So here's, so you need to think of it as $6 out of the 10, or this is on the SharePoint, if anyone would like to refer to it. If you're in the SharePoint, it's the yellow table. So he says they give TVW $39,310 in 2023. What budget line is that? What budget line is that? What's the line number? It just, I do not see it on the line. There's no line that matches that. He says across it's seasons or across it's fiscal years. Yeah, that wasn't, I don't like that. So we have a DPW budget that doesn't actually reflect how much DPW spends. We have parking rec budget that indicates nothing. I guess my question would be the difference between the $69,000 or the $20,000. Where's that? What line number is that in? Right, so. They bring in $69,000. They have $20,000 in field permit fees. It's revolving. Okay, so he's got a budget that he uses and then there's this which doesn't really relate to anything. It doesn't match. Yeah. That's so cool. It's just one of the philosophical complaints. He's got all these other numbers, but they're not it yet, right? All right. They're on the actuals because they spend 100,000. Right, but not in the rec departments. Right, because the rec department, the people who are collecting the permit. Is it possible that the DPW actuals reflect spending their budget plus the money they got from rec? That's a good question. It would be great to know that is a good question. Because if they get 60 a year plus the 39, there's 100,000. But it shouldn't be written on that statement. Yes, at least put noted or something. Yep, yep. I mean, it's open. I don't have that question now. Yep. So there was also some discussion about the quality of the fields. When I say that something's not done perfectly, Mike gets very protective of that as people and it's difficult. Basically, his claim is that it's not a money issue. It's a overuse issue. And that towns that have better fields have proportionally less use on those fields. Which John Connelly goes to as well. And so just throwing more money in it isn't going to make our fields more beautiful. We could re-side them, but then we know we could play in it for a month or two. So. Two years. We're wrong. Two years, right. So that's what we're doing. Well, whether it's in the finance committee, just recommend material fields and put in all order to be sure. Well, that's what you're being told, Walter. Oh boy. It's a whole issue to this. Let's not blame Bono and Dirk. So as I understand. As I understand, it's going to be capital money for a study. For a study, right? But that may not mean the actual fields better if they're just being used as a lot too much. But I don't know if I made the side right there or. Charlie and then we're back. That's five more fields. So I'm going to help work back out here to provide a question for you. So could you please explain? I'm still back on this $70,000 revenue fields. Looking at the recreation department enterprise fund, where is the $70,000? So that was very unsatisfying today, right? Could you remind me of a thing? It's a very missed review of those phases. So this is what is unsatisfying, is that he takes in the permit. And then if you look at the revenue items that are 4, 421, 4, 422, and 4, 423, those are permit fees that total $1,500. Yes. Which is the right of the less than $70,000. So that represents only a small portion of what they actually take in first. So where does that money go? He has a revolving fund that he uses to pay. Outside of this, he uses it to pay for the port of parties. And the port of parties, the revenue, the cover of the port of parties does not appear on here, nor the due specs. Whoa. So how can he have a revolving fund? What's the revolving fund for? I wasn't aware of this, but that's how we have this. It's a bucket of money. I'm sorry. So he didn't have a revolving fund. He doesn't show up in the film. You see, it's a bucket of money. And there is death. Well, it's probably in the Selections report. They report on revolving funds. You should check that. Well, you know, I think we should reject the budget just not because of anything that's not recognized but just because they start recording what's actually going on. So where he said that it went, again, his email is in the SharePoint if you want the specific language, but he said, I asked him, where does that show up? If you're getting 70,000, where? I don't see the line on it. And where are you paying for the portable toilets because I don't see the line on it. And his response was it's in the field fee account. Can we ask him for his records? Okay. Let's ask him for his records. So because apparently that it's completely different than what we have. We're not gonna. So let's ask him for his records. Okay. With all the accounts that he's got. Maybe he's saving up more than a million dollars. Maybe it's two million. Well, that's for all the responses. The other part of his email is the third part of my question. Once it had come up at the meeting, given that the fields are apparently poor conditioned and they're only charging $10 per user, how much money would he like to think that it more appropriate and how much would that cost? And so his response to that was the same as generally the person of W which is that it's overuse. He said our fees have been the same for over 10 years. Any increase in the field fees will just be passed on to residents through their organization. So he seems reluctant to do that. I think we were here in the finance committee that perhaps that would be appropriate to pass the law to the rest of us. Is Dean here? He seems to think that people are ready to accept an increase. But it wouldn't help the field, I'm sorry. Yep. Well, wouldn't an increase in money actually help the fields with a decrease in use? That's the point. Decrease in use in the field of incremental improvement. Would you raise the money so much that people don't use it? The random answer is no. Well, the increase in fees would have to be a very, very large amount of money. Right in there. I don't know if it's the people. Well, let's just make a little pre-school change. No, no, raise it so much. Search for it. $100. So the way I decide that's the thing is growing money, putting more money isn't, you know, other than building more fields or something. But I mean, it doesn't really solve the problem. That's fine. You're increasing the increase isn't going to solve the problem of fields. So it's going to lead. That's it. We can put a deck over the Russell Common Lock and put a field on it. So it seems to me that after the study, remember, that might be the time for the data and use of fees to afraid of cost of what may be building in a field somewhere. I know it's politically a non-starter to take a field out of commission. There's just too much. You'd have to say no to these organizations that we don't, that it probably doesn't line up. The Ball Field of Robins Farm Park was taken out for two years. Yeah, they did. And the soccer. Yeah. And it's not a happy thing. It's not a happy thing. But they do it. But no other choice. So let's see if we can get better information from Joe Thomas' records. And Jennifer will be keep talking. Yeah, I will definitely part of that. So far. Yeah, the system is going to be out of the black market. We might. We might. Caroline. Can I have another can of worms about direct budget? Go ahead. We have a conversation about this idea of finding the preschools for using the K-1s. Did you have this one on a day I wasn't here? No, no. With? With. So talking about being Pennywise and Powell. So there is an initiative going on with the direct department that probably comes from people complaining that nursery school preschools, daycares, that use the toddler playgrounds or the Non-Ever Rocks Park to do some habitat analysis, whatever you do with kids in that area, they should be charged fees for their use. Go ahead. Oh, wait, wait, wait. So my question is, as because it's about money, shouldn't this be something we make a recommendation to the direct department about Rebecca? So separately from our finance committee discussions, Joe Connelly, but just what Joe Connelly publicly said, was that right now what they're doing is they're asking for they're not charging anything, but they're asking the daycares and preschools to apply for a free permit that will just let them keep track of how many kids are using the playground at what time. And then based on that, they may set a charge in the future. It is currently the case that, for example, Lesley Ellis, which is right next to the town park, Lesley Ellis pays because they make heavy use of that park. So it's not an unheard of thing. But before it becomes a finance committee, as you have them actually taking revenue in, that's not where they are right now. They're just collecting data. So part of the reason I'm interested in discussing it now is the collecting of data costs money. It costs time for the staff to analyze it. It costs time and money to collect it. And so I dealt with the problem with them collecting the data and figuring things out. Lots of the data includes things like what percentage of the kids already live in Arlington or whose parents work in Arlington. Because the reality is, if both spouses didn't have to work, those spouses would be taking these kids to the park rather than the caretakers. And so there would actually be more adults at the park, which would potentially create more use to the parks. And they do have, they do already issue, promise that you do have to pay for it if you want to hold like a picnic or a birthday party. But we always used to hold our kids' birthday parties at the park. And it was $25. And every single time you do it, you have to apply for a permit. So I'm not sure that a permit that reflects annual use is going to have that much more work for them than every single picnic and every single birthday party. There are the issue in permits. When you have a permit, you have exclusive use of the facility. I've had that. I've never think party permits don't. OK. Well, and birthday party permits are not just for 0 to 4-year-olds. They're for a much larger group than that often include adults because the parents often stay at those parties. So the wear and tear is significantly greater than 0 to 4-year-olds. And they are 2 to 3 caretakers. I would think that this would be included in that field study. I would hope. And as far as your point of, it's not for work. Once you've got a correct appointment, hasn't been asked for more money to do this. So I don't think we need to worry about it now. Michael, your hand came up in the mail box. I'd like to see what model of determining who gets charged would be even while the data is being collected could be similar to the model of having a birthday party, a single-time event, like some of the picnic and party spaces. But the rest, you get exclusive use and control of that for a certain number of hours. Or is it going to be much more diffuse than that? You're here regularly, perhaps not to the exclusion of other users at the same time, but you are here regularly. The rumor I heard was that some residents went and were told by the preschool group, you can't. This is ours. And that ignited the discussion. So I'd like to know what we look at going forward as the policy for doing this. Why are we doing this? Autastic. How much of the rental or permit fees are gotten from adult leagues as opposed to children? Because a 40-pound child playing soccer, the grass is hardly going to notice the person's there. You get a 180-pound, 20-year-old pounding down there playing soccer. That's really going to tear the heck out of the field. I don't think that is an issue without Rebecca. Well, we can talk on the field. All right, one at a time, Rebecca. The discussion about nursery school was about the playgrounds rather than the fields. But this $10,000 is currently in the budget that we have concerns about. But the budget currently reflects $10,000 for picnics and special event permits revenue. So they budget taking in $10,000 for picnics and special events, which is not field use. Even if they take $100,000 in the balance within that little revolver. OK, I see where this is at. Al does bring up a point. Do they, for the fields, do they charge different for adult leagues for us and children's? I do not ask. Well, when you ask them, what are the records? Maybe you can ask them. Yes. As you're saying, do you want to be charging recurrent but non-exclusively to be in the system of playgrounds? So right now, we want to wrap our hands around the budget. Policy and future charges, I think, is beyond the next step after that. But right now, I think we need to figure out what's going on in the department budget and how that is impacting the DTW budget. Then I think we can have a session, maybe, about user fees and whether they're adequate or not with the knowledge that there's going to be a study that after planning, we're going to funding on presumably this very day. Soon, too, right? In the 20th budget, I think there's money for study. All right, thank you for getting that information from us. It was all Rebecca, she's getting it all the way. All right, so we will, again, we'll postpone the DTW. We will wait until we get information from Parks and Rec. I think that's all we have right now for budgets. We have the committees and commissioners. Let's see if we can knock off a few communities and commissions. Let's start with those committees that are asking for less money. OK, so first is Envision Arlington families. I will pull up their note. I'm going to check one somewhere. Yes, it's under FY25 budgets and then Envision Arlington. So last year, they got 3,000 and they're looking for 1,500. Yes, so this is a motion to approve for 15,000. 100 must second it. And any questions, comments? Envision Arlington. Envision Arlington. We are voting to give them 1,500, which is a 50% fee for the last year. Thank you. Yeah. Got this one. All right, all in favor say aye. Any opposed? All right. And then the next decrease is Open Space Committee. And last year they got 2,000. And I understand they're looking for 1,000 to share. Yes, Al Johnson. I'm going to recuse from a vote because like my last name is that I'm there, but I just want to explain the reason is that every so many years they have to do an open space report. And the next time that comes around, they ask for more money. But when they're not doing a report, they can draw it back. You haven't read the current open space report. It's from a couple hundred pages and it's really good. When was the issue? The last open space report. Yeah, it was just approved last year. 2022. All right. All right. So is there a motion? Second record. All right. All in favor raise your hand. Right. 13, 4. Any opposed? And extensions. One extension. Next up that we have. Well, we could go in alphabetical order. We could also do the smaller budgets that would be less discussion. Who is asking for, let's go with. Let's do Harry Barber. And then you are asking for level funding. Yes. It's 7,500. So move. Second. Any discussion? Next year, we're going to ask Council on Aging not to put the article in yet. But what we might want to do is expand this. Our commission's and committee's article to specifically list them in. Might give them comfort. We have one less article to deal with. All right, the motion has been seconded. All in favor say aye. Any opposed? We also have, let's see here now, we could do historic districts commission. They are asking 6,000 level funding. So this is the historic districts commission, not the historical commission. So this is the one where there's like the Broadway and like two others. And they are asking to stop them, which is what they got last year. Their motion. So moved. Second. Any questions? I'm not sure actually this is a bright budget, but I remember somebody came last year and said they were going to send notices to every historically significant house. That's the historic commission. That's not that one. I feel like it was the other one. The other one was Joanne Preston and, yeah. Anyway, I never got a notice. That's right. That's right. Well, I do. Well, certainly significant house. All right. Yes. All right. We have a motion for $6,000. No. Historic District Commission, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Next up, we have the historical commission. So first, so just a note there, something came in that was from Mike Durvaze. And that had an increase request, but I got clarification from Joanne Preston that he is not a co-chair and that we should use her budget. So the top thing that's in the historical commission. Joanne Robinson. Joanne Robinson. Okay. Yeah. Scared me for a minute. Okay. Yeah, so they're looking for level funding at $8,700. Okay. So the other thing that he sent does have more detail, but they're not asking for an ankles. All right. They're motion. Yeah, yeah. They're motion for a $7,700. No move. Second. All in favor say yes. Yes. Any opposed? Sorry, give me a sec. I don't know. They said they have to defend it. Okay. LGVC? Yes. So they're looking for level funding at $4,000. And they can excel and put it... Okay, it's really small, but I can summarize here as I scroll through. Everyone... Yes, yeah. Yeah, so... Even funding at $4,000. Okay. All right. Any questions? So far. Well, let's have a question. It's a town committee. Why is it a separate website and separate URL and a separate domain rather than just being like part of the town website? The town website's very flexible with a keykeeper who tries to keep it accurate, things that matter to the town, whereas a lot of committees and commissions and whatever put up their own just to have a flexibility to be able to respond quickly with new information and have better format and things like that. So there are a lot of end-of-the-world services. Even the fire department has it on their website. All right, any other questions? Is there a motion? Salute. Second? So second. All in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Next up, we have open... Oh, no, we did that. Scenic Byway is coming in. Semi-Quincentennial is coming in. So, well, okay, so yeah. So the Scenic Byway, Semi-Quincentennial and Arlington Tourism and Economic Development, they're all coming in on the 18th to talk about the Arlington 250, which is what they're calling themselves now. So let's put those budgets off and forth then. Okay, Transportation Advisory Committee. So next. Level? Yes, so it's level at 2000. So a little approval. Second. Any question? All right, all in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? And then we already voted on the zero-waste committee. However, I just wanna note that they have not sent us a budget, but Charlotte Milan is out until tomorrow, so it's possible that that is what we need for the budget, but we did already vote that a couple weeks ago. Yeah, 12. So, can you touch base with her between now and Monday? Yeah. And... I'll follow up with her tomorrow. I don't know if we can reconsider this on Monday or if we feel like we want to. Okay. And then just as a other... So Arlington Commission on Arts and Culture. So those are the bigger budget ones. They're looking for a level funding at 35,000. And did they send us something? They did. And you're trying to add arts and culture. I mean, I do not. It's level funded and it looks to me like they're usual estimates of revenue and can they kind of have this down to a science now? So I think this is fine. Questions of arts and culture. Any questions? All right, is there a motion to approve the budget request at 35,000 for arts and culture? I do. There's a second. Second. All right. All in favor, say aye. Aye. And then, so commission on disability. Sophie's been trying to get in contact with them. I just was looking at minutes from the select court and it looks like they had two new folks joining like last month and Community Preservation Act. They're coming in on the 18th. Conservation Committee and Water Bodies coming in on the 18th and then Human Rights Commission, they're looking for an increase. We've received their budget and they're coming in on the 4th, so on Monday. So they're coming in right after the libraries. I don't know if we're doing reclass. Yeah, so the libraries then, you're not expecting anyone to come to that, right? No, no, no. Okay, cool, yeah. So it'll be the libraries, it'll be Human Rights Commission and then it'll be reclass and you're going to do human resources that day. Yeah. So what day each of the libraries? Monday on the 4th. Next Monday. So then we're going to get that on Monday. We're going to talk about the library, rebuild, reclass, human resources and then the Human Rights Commission and then maybe we'll have some more information about Parks and Rec and maybe we can finish some of the... Yeah, and we have ways to show you the updates. And then on Wednesday, the 6th, that will be Capital Planning. And then followed by Minuteman on the 11th and the Town Manager will be in on the 13th. And I'm hoping that you can do insurance on the 20th. Yes, did I not say yes? Yes. You did, I just wanted to clarify, yes. All right, we'll help insure some water and sewer on the 20th. The people are nodding who will... Yeah, well, I spoke about it. If they have the numbers, of course. I have a note that it may not come out until the 21st. Oh yes, that's my understanding. Okay. Uh-oh. Actually, he said the 20th. Oh, okay. Yeah. It's always that. I just get the numbers on the 20th, I don't think it's possible to go to the finest community. I'll talk to... We're meeting with her tomorrow morning, so I'll talk to her tomorrow and say, so what's going on with the insurance numbers? Do you have a note till they get it? I mean, it's really, you know... If we can't do the 20th, we'll have to do it after the school's finished on the 20th. And depending on what else we have to deal with, I might suspend the Mary Ronan rule on the 25th, finish our business. So that the whole plan, I'm just caring about that. What is that? The very end of the 20th. And at 10 o'clock we end the 20th. Bring your jammies. That's more than a sewer tent that we had, so... If they want to have anything else that they want to bring up tonight. Compost. What? The... So it's not... No, it doesn't. Is it miracle? The school... Yeah, so it has not happened yet. So students' spirit, which was appropriate, and they weren't going to deal with it, the... Although there is one student still interested in being taught in it. The... We've changed our composting company, Black Earth, and that's a little more expensive. And so there's been a question of how that looks. Also, Charlotte is hoping to use eight resources to help figure out what the project looks like, but to find out if it is in the outreach. So they hope to spend that money, but they have not. We not be surprised if there were some questions about that. Right. Yeah. We would have... Yeah, so I was just prepared, though. I'll come up with a little better spirit. Yeah, I mean, that was honestly what I was given, but yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, if you made Carolyn and Jennifer, you could prepare and then compare a nice statement, yeah. A nice statement, yeah. So that... Yeah. Carolyn, it's not a bit of a spin. Yeah, I don't want to. It's a strong narrative. Strong narrative. Strong narrative. Strong narrative. Yeah, are you trying to get around language implications or the record? For the record. Oh, and also for the record, there's no title on it in the other guys' part. No, no one would explore. It's, you know, it's kind of a virtue laid. Look it up. Right, look it up. And there's such a match, but it's a real danger. It's a hard one. It's kind of a virtue. So you want a narrative point for the finance committee or you want Charlotte to prevent? I just want us and Charlotte to be prepared. Okay. If there's a question. Yeah. I would be surprised. Yeah, right. It's a very good question. So something nice, but honest and most importantly, we have not spent that money. Yeah, right. Anything else? Could we ask? Or do you know what the status is on the Capital Planning Committee report? I know Daryl, I don't want to be still kind of with us, but Daryl, you can check in with them. We're finalizing it tomorrow night and it should be sent over sometime Friday. Awesome. Perfect. All right. You heard it from God. All right. All right. Is there a motion to adjourn? All right. We adjourned. Thank you.