 I'm going to, I was not. You're going to share with John? Yeah, I'll share with John and, uh. You better wait a minute, I got to pull this one up here. So for those of you who weren't here before, this is our third workshop meeting, right? And all we've been doing is going through, we've been using as a, we kind of have a budget base that's based on last year and we've been going through and just line by line, asking questions, looking at what it is. And I, with my fellows here, you guys were at the last session. How would you, I mean people, who would like to testify? Well, yeah, there's whistlers, planning, BRB and town office, right? Who's this for? So, so who's planning to talk? All of them. Raise your hand if you're going to talk. One, two, or one, two, three. Okay, all right, should we do that at first? Should we just have people, what do you guys want to do? Yeah, let's do, we can do, rather than just make them sit through whatever we're going to do line by line. I think we should have them come up and one at a time and talk. Well, I had the whistlers and they sent us an email with the number, so maybe Jan could go first because she's both. Yeah, Jan, why don't you come up, get in a hot seat. This is, this thing here, it goes this way. This way it's planned. Okay, I like it, Jan. All right, where do you want to start? Lister. Yeah, she's on tilt, so she must be listing. Yeah, I'm tilting the right way. No, I don't know. I don't know. Okay, I think my request in the email was fairly self-explanatory. I was here to know if you wanted any questions that were asking about it. I think the discussion that we had relates to wages, I upped it because I'm not sure the time between April and July of 2024 would be preparation for the reappraisal. And there might be extra listing time, map revisions with Christine or about the same. Remind me when, I should know, but I've forgotten. We have that contract with Ed. It starts July of 2024. It starts July, yeah, but you're saying. But that's the reappraisal. Okay. Which is a separate line, right? You're not put it in at all here. We would, I wouldn't put it in here. No, because it was a separate, it's a separate contract. Right, but you're thinking the list is gonna have work to do, probably right near the end of the fiscal year. Right, my assumption is that he wanted to start his work in April, and I think we put the date that he would use our grand list that's coming in in July. Now it's gonna be probably preparatory work. Right. It's my guess. I'm sorry, can you, when would Ed start doing the reappraisal? When? His contract is July one. Of this coming. Of 2020, it'll be the 2024 fiscal year. So it would not be 2023. Right. But. July one of 23 he will start. No, yes, no. He'll start in the 2020, when you tell me, when is he gonna start? Just don't use this through the year. The calendar year, he's gonna start July 1st, 2024. 2024, okay. So in other words, it'd be 2025. It would be the next fiscal year. It would be the 2025 fiscal year. With the reappraisal prices. Yes. But with this. But in fact, you're saying he might start early? Well, he might ask the Listers to do something. Yeah, okay. In that period of time between April and July of 2024, which my understanding fits into this fiscal year budget. Right. So his invoices would come out of the Lister budget. It would come out of the reappraisal, which is not starting until July 1st, 2024. But any work that the Listers do would come out of the FY. Of this Lister budget. Right, this Lister budget. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Do we have any sense of what that would be in like a zero? No, because none of us have ever done a total complete reappraisal. Well. Okay. So in the email, remind me, what did you ask for? It's the total budget is 16,000. So the Lister wages are going up from 8,000 to 12. Yeah. I guess my first line was there. I was asking for a loan increase of wage from 20 to 2250. Yeah. Right. But anyway, it's factored in at 12,000. And the tax map revisions are going up $400 to $3,500. You two sit. Oh, you've got paper. Software licenses. I have no, by the way, can I just say something? I have no clue what the listing software licenses are. I mean, I don't know where that is. I don't know where 12, 19, 24 came before. So I just, I'm guessing that it's gonna go up. I went to 1,500. But whoever is the person that I'm monitoring this software license, it's in their hands. It's not mine. Right. Well, I mean, all you can do is our best guess. Okay. And then the Lister expenses are $1,000. I put it up to that because just in case there's mailing, you know, we don't spend a lot other than, yeah, we don't spend a lot. Do you see anything that would be incurred like during this? I just can't. The appraisal order in that general expense category. You haven't done this before. I said there wouldn't be any, can't imagine mailings going out in the van. Of course there is. With reappraisal, there's gonna be mailings probably two to three times to every single property owner. And we have to also have printing costs for this big book that comes out at the end. So I mean, there will be a lot of, and I think those expenses are not included in the agreement. It's the expense, those are the expenses and that's gonna come out of, I think your fiscal 25. Yeah, that's why I'm just asking here for 24 in that period where you might be doing work. I mean, are you gonna have to be doing notifications that are paper too, or things like that, and then it's covered? I think it'll all be, almost all of this will be in 25. Well, and some of what has to get done is gonna come out of reappraisal contract. Right. I'm just asking, the only reason I'm asking is if Listers are going out and actually doing appraisal work, and what are you doing in that advanced period? We're doing our traditional work what we do every day. No, no, no, I'm asking, I guess what I'm asking, will there be... She's thinking there, he could, towards the end of this coming fiscal year, the one we're budgeting for, she's saying she put in a little extra money, a few extra thousand. No, no, that's good. Just because he might start asking them to do preparatory work. I got it. I was only asking that we need it. Not knowing what that preparatory work is, are you gonna have to be doing mailings or things like that? We may, and that's why the expenses went up to a thousand. So the thousand is gonna cover you? Yeah, because before it was a hundred, so it's a thousand now. Okay, all right. Okay, thanks. I'm just making sure. You wanna do PC now? Okay, all right. This is... Any other questions on the list of work? I mean, I wanna make sure everybody... I'm okay. Okay. So, planning commission. Planning commission, we discussed this a little bit at our meeting Tuesday. And... What line? Let me give you a kind of a background here. I know this doesn't have one number of phone, as I did. Another email. That's what you're gonna walk through, right? Is that email you sent us? Yeah, it's based on the email you sent us. It came from Denise, Denise forwarded it. Okay. Took me 10 minutes to find it this morning. All right. Don't talking up to the same sheet. It's just that we get so many emails from Denise that when we have to go through and... That's fine. As long as I hear from everybody that they're up on it, it's a need. You sent it when, Denise? The night. Friday the night at 325 p.m. Okay, okay. I thought it was this morning. This one, okay. I said that at 3.59 a.m. Okay, go ahead. Okay. The line items that we have listed in the budget for planning are kind of inconsequential. We never ever got an assistant, so we never ever have wages. Education and training, most of the PVR training is free once in a while. And Emerick will have a webinar, and things change with COVID, so it could be that one of us will want to attend a VCLT meeting or something like that, and there might be a charge. I don't know on this budget for 6.95, 99, is listed as PC expenses. I have no clue what that is. I know that I didn't spend it. I know, I don't know where that came from, so I have no clue what that is. So I'm keeping expenses low because we don't really have expenses. In our talk, though, in our discussion, 2024 is the year where we have to update or redo the town plan. And so we would like to create a Planning Commission Reserve Fund starting out with $5,000 in it this year, or for fiscal year 2024, and grow it every year at 2,500 after that for the express purpose of getting consultants, of hiring people to help the Planning Commission develop community forums to know what exactly is it that we want this town to be like in the future. The people that we have on the Planning Commission, we're not professional, we need help. I don't know, consultants sometimes cost money. And so we decided we would like to have that kind of flexibility to just have a fund, a reserve fund with that amount of money to go to a variety of different things. Included in that could be someone who helps write and format regulations or town plans. And I understand that in asking for a reserve fund, it has to be worn, voted on, I understand that. And that's about it. So that's the big change that we are asking for this budget. I mean, I can see. Thank you, we do some, some folks are reduced, actually. Yeah, I can see where you could really use some help and I think it's all overdue. Okay. And it makes sense to have a reserve fund because these kind of come up as you have time. I know what the town plans they sneak up on you in. There's a lot of work to do. Does the RTC, I mean, they provide a lot of support. They do. And actually, this year's Central Vermont Regional Planning has done almost all of the preparatory formatting work for our regulations. And they don't bill us for that. They're not working. It's amazing. Usually they do. That was Claire Rock being nice to us. Yeah. That's that. They're really wonderful. And so, and they will probably do our final in hoping that, you know, I have to get back on that for the regulations. But there was one other question that I have in general. If the Planning Commission wanted to do a planning grant and there's always matching funds, does all of that grant work come out of a big general grant fund or would a grant specific to planning come out of a planning line item? We should start. I mean, it would be nice to have a line item because so that we can track it when the grants management piece to track the planning grant separate from the Road Moscow Woods Bridge Road or separate from the generator grant, it would be nice to have. Then that reserve fund would also be used for matching grant funds. It would be another positive thing, I guess, to move to that. Then that's enough. You think? I don't know if it's enough, Sharon. I mean, I. It's a start. What were you suggesting? What was it? 5,000 and then a growth of 2,500 after that each year. Yeah, it's a good idea. It's a very good idea. I completely support it. I think there's gonna be a lot of in migration to Vermont. Climate refugees, we can't stop it. They're gonna come. Gonna be. And that's gonna have all kinds of impacts and we're gonna have to be pretty sophisticated if we want to maintain the Vermont we love and not have our fields grow subdivisions. So I support that. And somebody to help rewrite the town plan and maybe put things together better and zoning. Yeah, I think it's really important. Well, the question is, if it's a. Well, it's a place to start. This is where to, I mean, we're coming into a new time and I'm wondering if the regional planning commission is gonna be playing a more important role keeping towns coordinated even more in planning and zoning. You know, where it's gonna be an interesting time and that's the role they really, it's one of the roles they serve, but I think that's gonna be increasingly important. Do you, in your talking with CVRPC, do they have, do they know of places where we can get a grant? Oh, they, every week they put out something on their weekly thing about various grants. There's better connections. There's DCHP had a grant offer. I mean, we missed it this year. Yeah. And the four of us that are on planning, we don't have the time to write on that. That's part of the problem, yeah. And we're a seat short. We've never been able to get a fifth seat filled even though we've nominally looked at it. I mean, we could, we need to push it out more from that. Okay. How are we doing this? Are we just taking testimony or are we reacting and making decisions? I don't think, I don't think we're making decisions. We're just taking testimony right now. Well, that's our question. Okay. Thank you. Don, can we ask questions? Yeah, sure. So, Jen, what did you have for Lister training? Because I'm afraid that, I just hope that all three Listers now will see through what we're facing. Yeah. Imagine if he had a swear to God, you're gonna stay? No, I'm not saying, I'm, this march is my life. I am training Wilson and John as much as possible and we're gonna put out in proper form a thing that there will be a vacancy on the Lister and you have to be voted in and you are like training is important. And did you put a number in for that? What, I put away? Did you put a number? A dollar, yeah. No, because training through the march is pretty strict. Pretty strict, yeah. Everything goes through PBR. And the important thing is the Listers have to be self, self-loathing. If you go to all of those things that you are training on, you will definitely, and in the first year, this is what I have to say, I went to almost every single class, especially the data collection class, which is a four day session. So, neither John or Wilson had done that data collection. They had had to keep harping at them. And so whoever is new and who comes in, they have almost swear or bible, they're gonna do this training. Maybe we could hire you to do the training locally. Well, yeah. With our training money. Two things. One, Jan used the term PVR, which is a state department under the tax, whatever. Commission under everything. It's under tax. The division of the tax department. It stands for property valuation and reporting. In reporting, of time reporting. Property valuation and reporting. The other thing is just to amplify the point you made, that there is an opportunity coming in March 2023 to run for Lister. There's going to be other opportunities to run for town offices. That is loud and clear. People need to hear that. There will be opportunity on select board probably. Two of us are up for reelection. There will be opportunity here. There's always opportunity to be appointed to Planning Commission. So, thank you all of you for being here. I hope you're all here to consider one of those and then go tell all your friends. And thank you Jan for your service. And in fact, that's going to be right there. The clerk announces that mid month, this month. Like mid month. All of that's going to go up this coming week in terms of all of the positions will be passed into front porch. All of the different things that are up in March. Times, dates, all of that stuff. Still need to have a conversation at some point, I don't know if there's been how much of a conversation there's been on town meeting. Whether that's going to be a great person. It's warned for Monday night. We're going to talk about that Monday night. And you're going to be there. So that will obviously factor in a kind of, last year was challenging because we sort of had two different sets of what's going to happen. Whether it's in person or not, knowing that information will make it much easier for me to not have to have two totally separate kind of trees of like, this is what is going to happen. But we do have all of the offices that are up. There's, we've got all kinds of information that's ready to go online and we'll get to the front porch. And Barbara did raise John with the, you know, the timeline. The timeline. Yeah, yeah. Just one more comment and this is not for discussion today, but is the town going to think about moving to the professional appraisers? Jan's been warning us. Jan will come and talk about that when the time comes. Jan's been warning us for several years and that was one of the questions I was going to ask. Well, I will share, I guess, I don't think I will betray anything. Both Wilton and John, we had an investor meeting yesterday. I doubt that they will re-up. Which means that either he's here, John leaves, I think, the next and then Wilson was just elected last year. I don't know which way it is, but anyway. By 2025, if nobody within the town decides to serve as a lister and be elected, then yes, this town's going to have to think about getting a professional assessor. Is it appraiser or assessor? It's assessor, although it's the Vermont Association of Listers and Assessors or something like that. So, we say assessors, banks have appraisers. Where was I going with this? Then we might need to talk, we might have to talk about it. The other thing is, if nobody decides to fill this vacancy that I have, you will have two listers in a vacancy and I think by the law you have to have three listers. So, I'm just going to keep replaying this point and it actually ties to something you said a few minutes ago, Jan, what kind of town do we want to be? What kind of town do we want to be? What do we want to look like? Personally, our small town, Vermont culture, who we want to be and what we want to look like relies on civic engagement and volunteerism. Our towns and our culture rests on people volunteering. That is the legacy of small Vermont towns. And so, when people think about what they want to look like and who they want to be as a town, volunteering to be part of it is integral and critical to achieving what we all think we want to be and what we all think we want to look like. So, I sincerely hope that somebody steps forward and says, oh, I never thought about it that way or that's exactly what I think and I am going to step up and run for a lister. Can I make a suggest on this too? Because your point's really good and Jan doesn't control that engagement in the public but we've been doing this conversation with the fire departments and we're looking for ways to kind of just incentivize people to get out there and do this little things and acknowledge engagement. I'm wondering maybe we should be paying more attention to this and we aren't having more and more and more trouble getting. Right, but there's a tension between, there's a tension between volunteering and civic volunteering and all the little stipends that creates a different bubble. And no, I hear your point. The other thing is right now we have, we've said this before, too few people doing too much work. And so many, remember, many hands make light work. Maybe we need that painted on the wall. Many hands make light work. The more people that get involved, the easier it is to be involved. It's sort of a, it's an irony there. I don't think of just money and stipends at all. I use, I look at like the adamant auto that has been very, very successful. They were having real trouble when, I remember getting enough volunteers and very few people were carrying all of the work in there. And then they were very creative when we did that. And I'm not saying we do this as a town exactly the same way, but to get volunteers engaged through things like the gathering, the Friday night gatherings. And it was much more, it really created a community. And somehow, I mean, I kind of think of the things Denise used to do with, with, you know, annually we're having the, the get together, the volunteer, and I mean, that was always well received. We did that until COVID. We could do that again. Well, and I think there's an opportunity here to do it, you know, probably not in like little isolated pockets. But collectively, we've got all these committees and we've got all these organizations. And that, maybe that's something we need to do. Just get this a little more public. Get that community out here. So people aren't so afraid to engage. It's actually a pleasant thing. Maybe we need somebody a volunteer to coordinate a volunteer appreciation. Seriously. So, yeah, I mean, and it's across the state that volunteerism, finding people is really, really hard because everybody's scheduled with their kids and school and work. Well, COVID really put a debt. Right. That really affected it. But, you know, there is a real. Well, the aging process too is really hitting us. But I think you're right. We have to make an effort. Get a big ball in this room. Everyone but Jeremy's up there. Oh, no, oh, Sage is on, Sage is on the cusp. I'm getting up there, but there are, and Jeremy's on that. To finish what I was saying, to finish what I was saying, I think we really need to push out something about how important it is for to have volunteers. And I guess I'll have to, my brain will have to start the wheels turning, but I did have one other question about Listers. What, how many, I mean, is there like an average number of hours per week? Oh, you're not a star. That the Listers are. I mean, I see your time sheets now. I never did before, but I see them now. I think I always figured 10 hours a week per person. 10 hours, I mean, 10 hours a month, sorry. 10 hours a month per person. So that overall, I mean, that's how the wages per person. Per person, yeah. Times three. But it varies, you know, like one month might not be much. The biggest month is from, you know, biggest work is from time to start inspections to when we've got the first, after grievance hearings. So there's probably gonna be more time there. But our calculation was about 10 hours a month per person. Okay. All right, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. I just have one question. Just a generic one. I don't know that anybody goes for a list of those who say, I'm not asking for the scrubs now, but it's just like sharing, sharing some of the PBR. If you want people, if you want to encourage them, you gotta talk a little bit about what skills they have to have in the center. Exactly. And that would go in and request the front porch form that we're doing. Okay, so I'm just saying that's, you know, you have a lot of factors. It's a good segue to something that I was just thinking about. If you can get a younger person who wants to do a midlife crisis change, becoming a professional assessor, is actually a doable thing because you, and for that, the state will help pay somebody to do the IAOO, whatever that all stands for, special training to become a professional assessor. And once you become a professional assessor, you've got a known job of being able to go anywhere. So the encouragement I would also stress is for somebody who might be looking for a job change that wants to become an assessor, starting out as a lister, there's plenty of people looking for a change. And that's a really good piece to put out separately. Does it have to be an old, I mean, you said older, or did you, oh no, you said younger actually, but you said midlife. I went to midlife because I was thinking of my daughter who just did an adult gap here, you know. Yeah, all the people who want to shift, but is there any reason that a person coming out of college would not? No, so that's, it's really anybody, it's anybody. It's anybody, it doesn't have to be midlife or older. John, are you volunteering? No, no, I'm looking at the statute that governs the listed position, positions. And yeah, you need to maintain a majority number, so you can have a majority, so three minimum. But if, for whatever reason, the town is unable to elect a majority or somebody leaves the listed position, we have the ability to appoint what they call an appraiser. And the appraiser would have all the authority, assessor, I'm sorry. Assessor. And they would have the same authorities as a lister, same powers, discharge, same duties, proceed and discharge thereof. So I don't know if we want to consider maybe having just a contingency fund in case we get in a pinch. There may be no one to hire either. Is it higher, so it's higher, Denise had this question too, higher an assessor or appoint a lister that we can do either? You're going to appoint an assessor. But you can't appoint an assessor. But you can't appoint a lister. It doesn't appear to, the section I'm looking at doesn't say that. So let's not get into this because it raises a bunch of questions around that process for appointing a public official. And until an election can be held and whether this falls into that. But there is an expectation that, as Jan said, that we maintain a minimum. Right, right, but yeah, let's move on. Okay, thank you. Mr. Chair, are we ready to move on? DRV. Okay, so who's next? I want DRV. Did you send the note that I sent out to everybody? I don't really have much to say. Yeah, I've ordered it to everybody. Yeah, can I just pause there? It would be really great if we all, if we've got emails directly at the whole board, rather than just to one person. That's just the blanket statement. Oh, we've got a memo from Denise saying, please look at the budget. Yeah, okay. I wasn't aware of it. Okay, all right, so come on. Just tell us what summarized for us. No, I don't have any surprises for you. I was surprised, I was surprised to find that we had 400 in our budget for Secretarial, we didn't know that. And we don't feel that we needed it, but what we could use is some legal help. We've had some particularly difficult cases recently and could really use the flexibility to consult an attorney when we need to without having to find an ask permission. No, exactly. No, actually I want, we have had probably not in here, but like little, you know, we ought to, Denise and I have anyway. It's not just the DRB, the Planning Commission, maybe occasionally, I know I've had these emails from Jan and others, and I know Denise has years of this too. I actually would personally love the idea of allocating each group that might have a legal need, even the Trails Committee, a little two hour budget with the lawyers, though you don't have to ask anybody's permission. You've got two hours, you know, it's, I don't know how that would work, whether they could track that readily so that we would know who's used up their two hours and. Well, should the chair, we should have to authorize it. It needs to be some control, otherwise somebody will burn it up. Well, no, I don't mean to burn it up. Not our chair, the chair of the committee. Okay, yeah, thank you. No, not this chair, good lord. No, I mean we don't need to micromanage everybody. It's giving each organization, and people who are stepping forward and volunteering a little bit of autonomy, yes, somebody should authorize it, but. Well, Madam Chair, does that go, where should we put that? Should we put that in the. We've got to have that conversation. But point taken, absolutely point taken, and I would say Ann's point is applied across other little organizations. I was going to say, we've got to figure out how we'll do it. Okay. I mean, I think the time has come when things are more complicated and having the flexibility of each group, having us a budget line item for those expenses. And then of course, we'll have to track them. And our attorney officers, they send an invoice and it's spoke with Denise Wheeler regarding the blood. So then it would go back to having to put in the numeric. It's a tracking thing. So we might have to ask attorneys to bill separately for, they can bill separately for DRB, select board, planning. So that's something when, you know. Which they can do. Which they can do. So yeah, I think it's time for. Great, so we're with you. Yeah. Well, let's just make, I'm going to make a quick list. DRB, Zoning Administrator, I know some things came up recently. Listers, yes, no, talk to the attorneys occasionally. Oh, what? You need a attorney. Talk to the attorney. Would you want a little, would you want a lot of little two hour visits to talk to the attorneys? I don't think the listeners need the attorney. But a planning would. Planning would, okay. You guys talk to him. I have a question now. Okay. I'm just making a quick list while we're here. And, yeah. Could I ask for more than two hours? Yeah, I think we have to talk about. Give in 2.5. Yeah. I think we have to talk about the complexity of the DRB that might be 10 hours. Yeah. Which we may or may not use. Right. But I think we have to be realistic on what the time allocation might be for each different group. We all found this out this year. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And anything else? No, that's all I'm here to say. Thank you. Thank you. All right, thanks guys. While we're on zoning, since I'm married to the zoning administrator, you have a line item for zoning assistant. Yeah. And that was, we don't have an assistant now. That was back when it was Dot and John kind of working together, but he doesn't need an assistant. Well, it would be nice though to have an assistant. Somebody, we're not in the talk about. Right, for somebody who was sort of training to take care of that. Right, that was the idea, was to have somebody in training. So when John gets tired of it. Part of that, too, was to assist John in doing the list. That we want to show where are all the inspections. If you know, Dot had this wonderful. Hey guys. Yeah, so. Yeah, let's, let's, but our goal was to have somebody in training. I think that's a good idea. So, you know, that's another place where, you know, it's a small stipend, but you know, it might be good for some working, working parent who has, you know, or stay at home with your parents that needs, wants a little extra money and a way to get out of the house. Yeah. Okay. So I think we should, yes. I think we would leave that in. Where did Anne disappear? Yeah, she's done. Thank you. Where are we going? She's behind us. Let's go. That's a real landline, Anne. Oh, wow. That's a real, that's a real phone. I know. I love you. I love you. It's all service. It's very, very, are you here? Just go. You're just here for fun. Because he has nothing better to do. You're just here for fun. I'm just here. I'm just here. Oh God, it's firewood. I feel like buttons are so big I should probably just sit and listen. Just so I feel it. I'm not hearing any big cuts. Don't, no, no, don't. I know I'm meant to miss the first thing. I promise you there won't be big cuts. No, I, well, I don't really want the taxes to go up. So I just, I hear all these things. Taxes might go up. Yeah. Yeah, they might. Taxes will go up forever and ever into the future. Definitely. That's the things we can promise you. So I know the email that I forwarded from Stephanie, Kaplan Conservation Commission. Can we maybe want to do that after all the other people? Well, lots of people who are here. Yeah. Good. Yeah, I'm just, yeah, I wanted to just check in. I apologize everybody for being late. And I know you may have done some of this. Who's here? Who's here because they want to speak to budget? Judy and Donna, no. Jeremy is. Come on, join us. Gotta stiff back. Firewood. Firewood. Look at your squats in. Jeremy, getting your squats in? I should have been doing a lot more squats before. So you just brought those copies? I just brought those copies and I emailed them to her. I'm gonna get a photo of it. So there should be a question from this morning from me. Oh, I'm listening to you guys. Okay, great. Thank you. Oh, this is super. Here, okay. I'm going to move you two together because I gotta fill it up with an email. Okay. Okay. Have we ever made any actual changes in the budget? Have we? No, we're just- Oh, this question. Sorry, I forgot to bring all my stuff with me. Jeremy. So my recommendation, I've got a couple of odds and ends and just in terms of like looking at, you know, down to the elections. 24 is an even year, so there's not gonna be as many elections, which will be really nice. I think the main piece here are the town clerk wages. I have a recommend to go up to full-time and this would be my recommendation to go full-time. It's 31, 25 an hour salary. Went salary last year. Hasn't been working out so great for me. It's been a lot of extra hours that haven't really been accounted for in my wages. I also think that I feel like I've been doing a good job running the office in a responsible manner. We've had a doozy of a year. I think it's safe to say it's felt like a triage type of situation since I was elected into office in July of last year. So this recommendation, I also have a recommendation for an increasing five more hours for my assistant. What was the number, Jeremy? 65,000 a year. When you say full-time, does that mean 40? 40 hours a week. But you also said salaried. So can we just pause on that point before we switch to the assistant? 40 hours a week is what we all hope is a full-time job salaried but a salaried professional position, the ones that I've had in an employment situation in which the town clerk is. I had a CEO say to me once, well, but I want you 55 hours a week. That just kind of was. And so, and I'm like, well, yeah, okay, I heard you. I'm not gonna work 55 hours a week if I can help it, but there are times when I do work 55 hours a week. And so my expectation in a salaried position is there's ebbs and flows. There's 55 hour weeks and there's weeks where you're like, you just manage to hold it to 30 and you have a little internal party and you go for a hike. So I'm saying, well, you can say, yes, that's what I mean, or you can say, no, I mean 40 hours a week. Well, I think, yeah, it would be salaried being 2,080 hours a year, it would be. 2080, yeah. 2080, but yeah, the cyclical nature election year, certainly this year has been a huge amount of hours before and after elections. We just went through two installments, the tax season, that was a very heavy lift for my office. So, yeah, there's an ebbs and flow. I just wanted to. Do you think an average is out to 40 a week? Is that what you're looking at? I would just like to clarify and write a per question. You're seeing this as not an hourly job. You're seeing this as just a full-time job, whatever it takes, right? Right, I think we should stop, if we're talking about a salaried position, we really should stop talking about hours. We should stop talking about, I think it is at 2080. But I think it's a way for people to understand. Just to estimate it, it's where the full-time came from. And then you were thought, this is really a 40 hour. And the salary increase, it helps to explain that as well. Right, but when we go to salary, if we go to salary, and our salary, well, it is salary, but if we go to a full-time salary, it does kind of amp up the expectations, I think, of, you know, townspeople that. So would the office be open five days a week now? Friday would probably be a day that I actually can do work that I'm not able to do during the week. Like Judy did. Judy would come in on Fridays, as I recall. And the office would close. The office would be closed coming on Fridays, that's it. That was Donna. Donna, one of you guys came in on Fridays with the office closed to catch up on work. Right, Jeremy? You'd be here Fridays. I would be here Fridays recording and doing things, but not doing the phone. Judy and Donna, and I think you do this too, would also accommodate folks on these days. Absolutely, yep. Next time they'll socialize. Yeah, when people, yeah, I've had people who came in and did research on Fridays because that was the only day that they're available. But technically, the office was... It wouldn't necessarily be open to the public. People would probably just walk in, drop a pen or whatever, but the idea would be to hair down the customer service and interactions I'm having and allow me to focus on things that I cannot focus. It's very difficult to do, for instance, recording when the phone's ringing off the hook and things like that because there's just lots of little steps and you kind of don't want to screw it up. But one of the reasons I ask is your proposal that you sent by email for the assistant you proposed $2 per hour raise, but it says going to five days a week so the office would be open five days. I'm confused. No, I mean, there's duties that it would basically just give some flexibility. So on a day rather than leaving at two for the four days a week, my assistant would just stay the full day because there's not much work. That's the cap. I actually think... But the assistant position would continue to be paid hourly. What are you looking at for, and you're saying increased to five days a week. How many hours are you thinking that would be? Well, she's 20 right now, which hasn't been the case for months. So she's going for 25. What is the current? What is the current? I think she's at like 21... 2235 maybe? I'm just looking for a percent. I'm just thinking... It's on my number. If it's 2235... 10% a little less than 10%. It's a little less than a 10% increase. And I think the reason behind that for me is to think the assistant has gotten cool as I'm not aware in the last while that there's been an actual raise for merit. And I think that this would be merited. I think the assistant's done an incredible job for our town. Yeah, she's been going for a while. And I think that despite some of our differences and some of the communication issues, I think that aside, I think Barbara has really been a glue person in terms of making sure that things move forward, that tax payments have been processed in an extremely timely manner. And just having the institutional memory there has been very important for me to be able to operate my office in a good manner, not only just from elections, but just understanding some of the stories around how... Something came to be. Yeah, how something came to be and just knowing a lot of people in town and having resources to be able to try to get our work done. Yeah. Now, I agree she's been incredibly valuable. Question. Does the 65, help me out? Does the 65, where does that come from? Is it stepping up your current salary or is it you surveyed other towns and what they're paying their clerks, et cetera? That's simply what I think, in terms of having a responsible professional run that office in that manner, I think that that to me is what it's worth to have the institutional memory and to... And we're back to town clerk now. Yeah, just to carry that work forward. I think that that's what the salary... So it wasn't just that you took your current salary and stepped it up to the whole time, it's your sense of what it is. Okay, I just wanted to know. I want to go back to the clerk, the assistant position and the increase because I think it's important that we maintain an awareness of differences, the increased differences based on three things. One is simple cost of living increase. The second is a market increase where we realize merit aside, we're simply not paying a person consistent with what this skill level and the je ne sais quoi of a person might make somewhere else. And the third thing is this person, this not the job, not the job, the person deserves a merit increase. And so you're speaking about merit and asking us to budget a merit increase and that's a totally fair request and I say that without making a judgment about whether it's warranted or not. You are in a supervisory role and have your own reasons for asking for a merit increase but having an awareness that it's an merit increase separate from a market adjustment which means that if this person were to leave we are not necessarily making the assumption that a new person comes in at that level because this person arrived here as a merit, merit number different than we're making a market adjustment where the assumption is baked in that we would have to pay this much to hire a new person. I'm saying all that now, so we get that kind of in our... That's a two dollars an hour. It's merit. Yes, although... It's merit. He says it's merit. I don't know. But I think part of this, if we're looking at salary, if we're looking at COLA or CPI or whatever we look at, are you asking that separate from what you're requesting or is this a total of that amount? You understand what I'm saying? Yeah, and I think depending, certainly the salary that I'm asking, I would not be looking for a COLA increase this year but I think that if there was a COLA increase at the time of employees, I think that the assistant should be eligible for that. That in addition to what you're asking. Okay, thank you. So that would be... So if the merit increase is 10% and a COLA on top of that, we could be looking at... We haven't actually got COLA numbers yet from the fence, right? No, I was gonna... Anywhere between five and seven is what I've been seeing. Just gonna be a lot, yeah. Sometimes we're looking at 8.8. So it could be pretty significant. So you've checked that out, so... I just see the chatter on hooning that and what other clerks and what other boards are doing and I've seen anything between five and 8.8, which I think that's probably the high end but I don't... Social security shape points, yeah. Right, so in that context, I think I do wanna say that a 10%... Everyone here knows that, though. Unfortunately, too many of us know that. A 10% merit increase is a lot and folks have known me for a while. No, I would say that without any judgment whatsoever about the person. 10% merit increase is just a lot. I've never seen an organization budget a 10% merit increase. And I guess I'm here to just say that I believe it's merited. I think that what Barbara has provided for the town is invaluable in a lot of ways and I would defend that. I believe in her and I actually really need her and I think the town needs her right now. It's a critical position that's doing a lot for us. Is there anything else on here that jumps out that you want us to look at? No, I think the other piece I would just add is that also keep in mind that the town clerk's office brings in quite a lot of revenue. I think... You mean licensing? Licensing fees, recording fees. It's somewhere between 27 and 29,000 dollars a year. Is it? It's not, you know, 27 to 29,000 dollars a year. You can look back through the years. There's a revenue report that's in all the town reports. Yeah. So it's not an entirely unfunded position. Also last year I had asked for $10,000 for vault shelving and map storage. I was able to actually spend a fraction of that and get the same job done. So I feel like we've done a pretty good job kind of holding the line in terms of spending. And it's my hope that the wages can increase so that I can stay in this job, essentially. Yeah, we talked about also moving... There's some things in the select board budget that we're talking about, maybe putting under general office. Such as... I was just trying to think, I had some notes from last time. Like the copy or maintenance, for instance. Yeah, you haven't understood why that's... Yeah, it doesn't make any sense, right? So that would be something like that. Just so you know, so you're not surprised. There's a few things like that that you might put under the office. I think that there's other things too in terms of... You know, I've worked with committees, DRB, and most recently, but others, Planning Commission, in terms of printing costs and things like that. Yeah, and just mail-in. I think the copy or maintenance agreement, it's kind of six of one half a dozen of the other as long as there's money in there somewhere. But I think generally, we're going to see things go up a little bit. Like our postage is not necessarily going to go up because it's not an election year. Right, well that was one of the things I was going to ask because I know that the cost for mailing like DRB stuff and Planning Commission stuff, whatever comes out of the town office budget, but we don't track it separately. Right, and a copy or maintenance agreement I think is a good example in terms of trying to outsource some of those jobs I have been reluctant to, for instance, like copy the town plan on our copier because we're not a print shop, so I have to be utilizing capital copy to like make nice bound with a cover and actually have it a little bit more professional and the same thing with just materials for the DRB just to make it a little bit easier and just reduce the amount of impact on our copier to try to like... And that makes sense. Do you have a... Well, I think not, Jeremy's still talking. Jeremy, we see your hand, Jeremy, finish your copy. Okay, so yeah, I'm just trying to like utilize our resources in the best manner possible and things, you know, if it's over 20 or 30 pages just trying to outsource some of those things, so I think that's very smarty. Yeah, that makes sense. It's just time basis. I don't want to let you know I don't want to let you know I don't want to let you know I don't want to let you know I don't want to let you know I don't want to let you know I'd rather have 50, 60, 70 pages long and just make it a little bit more professional so that if you go to the DRB hearing and you're, you know, looking through the materials it's just a little bit easier and a little more concise and it's not like a cop-op and office-copy ha Jaw kind of thing, it's just like a little bit. Like the ones I make at home for myself and the staplers isn't... I feel thick enough to staple them Right, so you've got to get the big, fat stapler or you could just, you know... So you're saying like a town plan that's professionally bound bound, so that each DRB member has something that is okay. Yeah, and even in the zoning I put into little spiral bound books, it's really not that much. And it's for the members. And that's going to be that I'm going to interrupt here. When these new regulations get passed, hopefully after it gets to select board and gets voted on, every single DRB member and the zoning administrator and hopefully somebody else are going to need copies of the new regulations. And we're at probably 95 pages. Right. So that's going to be something that's got to be allotted for in the copying. And much more prefer it to be professional. So which line item, right? Are you, which line item does all that copy come out of? And I think that's a great question because I actually don't really know. And it's a question that comes up with a lot of convenience when they want to come in and make copies. And they're like, we make copies. And I'm like, of course, I don't know where it comes from. It's just, you know, so I think I would say probably under general office, there's supplies. There's office. I'm guessing that there isn't something. Yeah, maybe it's applies because that's a fairly large budget item. Also, my, I have a copy or maintenance agreement in my office and it includes X number of copies and X amount of toner. Yeah, exactly. And then I get a bill. I get one toner at a time. I get, and I get a bill if I go over. So that, that might come in under copy maintenance agreement. Is that the way they maintenance agreement is now? Yeah, it's currently, it's based on a certain amount of pages. And like, for instance, if I know that it's going to be making lots of copies, like, yeah, I get a one toner at a time. They're very clear about how they go about it. I don't know if that's going up. I'm assuming everything's just going to go up in copy. Oh, yeah. Should we just have a line that it's somewhere? Well, it's somewhere. That says general source, general source. Or even just capital copy. I mean, we have an account. I've been using them. Yeah, they're great. Capital copy account. And they're local. No, I don't know. They're really great. Why not? I think we should just say copy. Yeah. Not identify. Yeah, I don't think we should just say capital. That's what I'm using. I'm going to say the outsourced general services. Because that might, because there might be other stuff like this. Yeah, but I think you're not going to understand what that means. I don't. I like copying. I mean, if it becomes something else. Then we'll throw it in the slate. You're too professional. You know, you're not more sorry. Yeah, I mean supplies. Because he does this too much. Yeah. So copying a, a copying a line item. I mean, it's a question that comes up when committees come in and go, can we do this? And typically I'm saying, I just say to them, of course, I don't know where it comes from, but we, you know, like, I feel like I have no role to play in terms of supporting those committees and doing the work. And it's certainly easier when you can make booklets with all of the things in there. Great. What should we have in budget? Yeah, same question. What is the cost? You know, I've been. $1,000. I think it backs you. I mean, I could see what we've spent at Capitol, but it sounds like whatever it is, it's going to go up. Yeah. Maybe that would be good. So I think $1,000 would be a starting point. That would be. All right. Jeremy will let us know. Jeremy, I have a question. I understand it's going back to the salary number for you for the clerk's position. Apparently, aside from, you know, what works for you, I would think professionally, we need to look around at other towns. And my question is, before we do that, is there anything I want to let you know? I don't know. I can't speak for the rest of you, but I would do that. Is there anything we ought to know from you in terms of something special about what you do that, let's say, the clerks of East Montpelier and... Middlesex. Middlesex and Worcester and all these other towns don't do? Is there anything we ought to know from you while you're here sitting with us? That's different. That's different. I would say two things. The first thing I would say is our roster. We've got some missing positions in town. Yeah. We've got a number of missing positions. This has created an enormous amount of pressure on my office to fill those needed jobs. So that would be number one. Number two would just be customer service or just a culture of customer service. Our town takes care of our people. I don't believe that if you are a townsperson that you should hire, have to hire an attorney to come and research your deed. That being said, if you're a Hudson and there's 150 things in there, it takes some time to sort through. We spend a lot of time with people helping them, whether it's filling out zoning forms or finding their deed or whatever. I think that there's... I don't take a lunch or try and say that that pays well. Unless I actually leave the office, people will come in and be like, hey, can you notice this for me? I mean, it's just not a part of the culture of our office that we take a lunch break or... Like do you not close at lunchtime? No. Those two factors are important. I think it's important to recognize that we are a very busy town. We have a lot of land accordions. We've got a lot of committees. We've got a lot of grants. We've got a lot of things going on here. Those are some of the things that make our town really great. But those are all things that require work, being an urgent effort and posting things on the web and answering questions. So I think in terms of that, those would be the two things that I would point to that make Palace a little bit different. And it's really about our culture. Okay. I was going to ask the question I get asked is, why are we different? Why are we full-time or three-quarters time, four-fifths time? When other towns are half-and-half, you and I have talked about this. You have a conversation to explain. Maybe you can explain to all of us what your theory is. Why we're different than Worcester, which is right next door. You're 32 district. Middlesex. Middlesex is a... More population. They're slightly bigger than we are. But for practical purposes, we're the same time, same size. So the public sector is also the select board assistant. And that's what makes that job a full-time job. It's closer to Burlington than we are by what, half an hour. So I would imagine that it's got a fairly, you know, educated, sophisticated, you know, set of expectations kind of population. I think I actually once looked at the parcels in Middlesex and they're comparable to ours. So, yeah, so, I mean, I'm not... Yeah, with all... Yeah, they're about the same size. Yeah, they're a little... A little larger. But, you know, inconsequentially larger. Saying it's culture. Yeah. But you, your assertion as a calendar is that much different than Middlesex culture? Yeah. You're saying we're more involved. Well, I don't... I've never read on the Middlesex. Yeah. So I can't make that comparison, you know. I don't know how many committees they have. I don't necessarily think... There's probably merit and value in looking at what other towns do before Calis. We do what we do. We are... It's not the same. I think, you know, even just looking at East Montpelier, who I think, you know, population-wise is a little bit more. They've got a townwide administrative. They've got a lot of resources and support. And that part makes $55,000 a year. So I think it's in terms of, like, if it's just culture, for whatever reason, this is, you know, Calis is... The expectations are pretty high. And I think that, you know, it's important to me in terms of, like, our culture of customer service to maintain that and make sure that people come in feel like they get taken care of and feel good about, like, coming to the office and what's going on. So we would not need an administrator if you were to add these extra hours? No. You're saying that in Lua? No. Well, you mentioned... I'm not trying to put you on the spot. I'm just trying to understand. Yeah. So I can explain to people. You mentioned that East Montpelier pays $55. You're asking for $65. They were a larger town. They are $2,500. They're about $1,900 more. Size of it. And they have an administrator that they're funding at some cost. And a treasurer. And a treasurer. Well, we're trying to do that, too. The town clerk there in East Montpelier has a charter change, and the town clerk reports to the administrator. And there's also an assistant town clerk there, too. Yep. And they definitely have a bigger infrastructure government. Right. And they also have a bigger volume of businesses to help pay taxes. Right. Right. Yeah, that's kind of the tension. Well, going back to you. The reason I'm doing this is because the exercise that we've been subjected to, including rightfully by your office, is comparison with all the neighboring towns of similar size. And our select board meetings, whether we're having executive sessions too often or not. So I'm, and by the way, the people contact me, oh, these are the people who apparently complain about their taxes. I just want to put that into it. No matter what. If they came down, they wouldn't have come down enough. But, you know, so I'm trying to do a legitimate side-by-side. And I'm just trying to understand why and how I argue it's different. Well, we have an administrator, which we don't have. I get that. But it seems to me we would put a budget together. He gave us his answer. Yeah. Okay. All right. We'll have a discussion about that. I think, yeah, it's what I would ask that I do think we should move on to other things is if the clerk position became full-time, then is it an embracing, it's an embracing of the pace. Is it any, the current pace, is it anything more? You know, might the clerk come to select board meetings regularly? Might the clerk be available to offer kind of general support? If the assistant clerk's position increases is, because one of the models we've seen in other towns is that the select board support comes from the clerk's office. The clerk and the assistant clerk are at every select board meeting. You can read in the minutes, you know, the town clerk. It's the name, but town clerk will research. Town clerk will, town clerk will, town clerk will, town assistant clerk will. So it would be interesting to have that conversation and understand more fully what might it look like if, what, what could it mean? Well, I guess one thing I would say is I would have the capacity to actually do more of that work. You would have. You would have. Okay. Because currently I don't, yeah, and it's not a supportive job and I'm flat out, I don't, I don't have time to really consider it. I don't think I've really been asked to consider a lot of things. I've done a bunch of research and I feel like we do provide general support. Whether I will be at every meeting, I don't know. I don't think that that's what this conversation is about. I think it's about looking at the office as a professional space that's, that has a salary clerk who is full-time, or full-time equivalent who has the capacity to actually get the work done in a more timely manner. For instance, it takes a month for me to record a document. I don't have time to do all this stuff and I'm doing my best. So I think really this, you know, it's, it's, you know, in terms of general support. Yeah, I think it's fair to say there would be more capacity for general support. And then what we would have to consider here is how that weighs against the idea of a town administrator. If we had a town administrator, that person would be full-time and would take off some of the pressure off. Anyway, these are other, these are bigger conversations. Barry, do you have other comments? I appreciate sharing your comments about anything in the three categories. Well, you said, you know, merit, college, and coal, and market. And I don't know if Jeremy's current salary is at 40 hours, 30 hours, but I talked to him outside of 32. It's, what did you say? It's budgeted at 53 for 32. 53 for 32 hours. Right. Yeah. So, no, that's the actual budgeted at 46. Oh, okay. 53 is actual. Right, that's right. Okay. That was actual for FY 22, and then FY 23, we changed it. Because we had Judy come, she worked for however many hours. I'm assuming that's on that same line. Okay, so my point, my point is this, you have a couple of categories here. Jeremy's asking you to go to 40 hours, which obviously is a percentage increase. Just having left as president of the co-op, we, for the first time, in Washington Electric, for the first time in the 40 years I've been involved there, we've had 25% change in staffing, driven tremendously by a market that is paying $20 to work at McDonald's, and we've been hit with a total of over two years, you know, considering what's happening with inflation, close to 20%, 15 to 20%. So, I mean, there's a lot going on. Increases in salaries. Or turnover. No, turnover's been 25%. Our salary increases on positions, but been off the board because we're competing with everybody and nobody's had enough people. I think, yeah, I think what you're saying, and I would tend to agree with you, is that the 10% which we might choose to characterize as merit, because Barbara's awesome, could solidly be characterized as market. And then we don't have to get into my concern that nobody ever gets a 10% merit increase. But 10% market, I have seen that. Yeah, and it's just, I'm saying, I've never seen the kind of changes, the lack of mobility in people. And on top of that, as you guys know, I know the pressure you've all put on. It's like, it's hard to find people who are willing to do the jobs today. In terms of the assistant as well, it's just, right now, if Barbara were to leave, finding someone who would come in four hours a day or five hours a day, people aren't looking for those kinds of jobs. With Barbara's skill set, too. And also, there's no healthcare, and she doesn't really qualify for any other, and even just bumping up to 25 hours, that's still, the personal policy is 30 hours before any of that stuff kicks in. So there's really, it's really just salary. There's no other real benefits other than sick and a little bit of vacation is permitted. So finding a replacement for Barbara right now, you know, that's, it's... No, I think it's really, it would be a real struggle. So it's not, you know, I'm saying merit, but it's, it's complicated. I just love the mixture. I'd rather get into a little, it's probably a market factor. I think some of our skillset... There's so much safer for the market. I don't want to argue about 10% there, right? Well, it's the value. Where we could split it, we could split it, we could have a dollar, let's say it's two dollars, but just, we can have that conversation. But merit has to be, we have to be, we have to be strong on merit, because merit, you have to be able to defend year over year over year over year, and market goes through like this. Well, and it's tied to the CPI. Just one last comment. I do want to thank all of you for the energy. I know there's been a lot going on in town, and I know how much everybody cares and puts it in. I think it's important going out with COVID, et cetera, that we all, as a community, take a deep breath and realize, we have a lot more in value common in this community. If we were in orange, for instance, all of us would be in orange. So we need to remember that. But thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Hey, Jeremy, thanks for coming. Thanks for having me. I'll see you on Monday. We'll see you twice in one week. Well, you can come by the office any time, too. I know. Jeremy, I need to catch up with you anyway. I think he was a collective views. Good try. He's a collective view of all of us. Oh, yeah. Donna's just here for fun. Why are you here? She's here to talk to you. She's here to say hi to all of us. Hi. It's a treat. No. No questions allowed, Sage. Sorry. Are you guys going off of just our last years in the book? Yeah. Oh, sit down. We've been out last year. Good play. The other thing is, I am sorry I missed the list. I guess you have two Saturday sessions. Yeah. Sorry. I've been going over to fire departments. I fell up to feel like two days ago you guys had a meeting with each other. Yeah. It was great. And is that going to be a huge increase? We haven't even had a chance to kind of put what we heard Thursday night into this. Absolutely. My walk is the way and I reserve the right to say I was really wrong about that. My walking away memory is that we were surprised that it wasn't bigger. Right. Sometimes it feels like a very large budget and I know we love the pie. It is. It really is an expensive program. So here's the thing. We do pay a lot to East Montpelier and I just wanted to know when that's our sweet moment. Oh, we do. They really do show up for us. They have EMTs. They have all of those things. Sometimes it's so much that the East Montpelier is really trying to Well, they and the ambulance service we aren't forgetting them at all. I think it's got like 70 EMTs We will talk about them at East Montpelier. We were sitting with the East Montpelier fire crew and it was the night of that accident on 14 so it was a smaller group. But we even say in those meetings we try to it's not their job to process We translate this No, okay We don't want They propose a budget I know They're usually humble about it I know this year they're really trying to get raise money for their new firehouse and that's not something that Alice can take on or anything. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. Actually, first Yes, you can. Let Denise finish but then I want to ask a question We are very committed to making sure that we don't forget we're buried and we've had meetings with them. There was a committee that was involved in planning for the new building that could be felt by the wayside So we are They're a great group of people They really stepped up their EMTs. They're not certified like East Montpelier is right now for paramedic kind of services but they do have EMTs They've actually done a great job of recruiting people Yeah, so they're very much on their radar They've got a good solid crew and I just want to make sure they're not Can they get to our house before East Montpelier? They usually get to my house possibly yours They can do it the other night If you haven't seen the tape from the order that Alice was looking because we're really trying to work as well I watch because we're looking at trying to find ways that we can actually reward and incentivize people in the communities to participate to get membership up because that was the first callous resident to be on the work group So that was exactly where I was going to go Two other kids who joined us I wasn't done We met with East Montpelier the other night and we talked about ways that we could reward and incentivize members of both members of both crews We talked about doing pictures and putting them in the town report you know calling out making a list of all of the members and how long they've been on the department, other ways that we might help to not just when they go to a fire or EMT call training training is grueling, they put in a ton of hours and the fire departments have requirements for how many hours you put in and how many trainings you go to for them to get a stipend from the fire department We're looking at a similar opportunity If you can contribute to some level and not just have to make me a certain level of contribution There's some kind of a bonus for us in some way Thank you water rescue as well We talked about it would be like a bonus because in order to do one of the things we talked about would have to have a warrant item and all this and that but if they're certified and licensed that makes a difference and if they attend all of the four meetings So I'm going to interrupt you guys What I wanted to ask you Sage is building out of what Denise and Rick are talking about acknowledging celebrating thanking the callous residents who serve on Woodbury Eastmont Crew or Eastmont Pillar Would you be interested and be the lead on this little project figuring out who they are getting them into a group photo Leland hasn't been attending disease over college If you're a service If you could independently get in touch with Eastmont players and you've got a job to do for the town report So this is a quick timeline Getting a photo of all of our volunteers in the town report is the first thing we want to do and then maybe you could stay involved in helping us develop this model where we maybe match the Eastmont Pillar stipend from the town We're looking to put together some kind of a policy So that would be it I mean given your passion and your energy and your skills and you have the passion and the skills and the critical thinking to be a lead and manage this project for us and just like say okay I might have to take two pictures I might have to take two pictures Chance is great too to work with you I might be able to get the two kids house in Eastmont Pillar It would be great too and if they could be in their jacket with their symbol on it, we'd really like to beef up in the town report the appreciation and acknowledgement Right When I get home I will send you the timeline for when everything has to be Also I want to put in out there I don't know if you all or maybe I should invest Jeremy the book The town plan The town report The book that comes out before town meeting or other published or print materials that long ago I was a freelance group reader and I'm good with it Using up all the white space like you don't have Just thinking about layout I'm not a designer or anything like that You should talk about Jeremy and Barbara Everyone who designs Barbara's really been the point person But it goes to somebody to format it into the town report piece and that person who was doing isn't able to do that anymore but there's somebody new So that would be somebody new I made No gosh no because we gave you a job to do and thank you for doing it No no I was I knew actually coming up here This is so important because these are services Yeah So you've met with these on Twitter You will meet with Woodbury Yeah It's the Ritual Town Report Yeah I'm excited that Calaisians are joining Woodbury I used to be on Woodbury as a Woodbury resident and they were Cal's residents Peter Brough was one of the countries Oh he was? There's a history There could be a history We knew that It would be interesting to have a history of people from Calaisians So he had to fall and fall They had to fall when I was on fire They probably didn't know So I guess it's been a long time Peter left when I got on and I got on in 89 So that's how long ago Well no Peter was still on but you know it's the trainings that are killer You know you could talk to him Peter would know Thank you Peter Pelts used to be on it Alright Thanks guys Thanks Alright So conservation commission we don't have a lot of documentation and they want to They're going to look into a beaver management plan or workshop They're also going to I'm sorry You are That's alright They want us to go back to $10,000 for the conservation fund No $8,000 for the conservation fund because they used up Do we have an email about that? I forwarded it to everybody So don't search I did have a chance to put figures in here But I didn't They had $50,000 and Memorial Hall depleted it when they gave $25,000 from the conservation fund for Memorial Hall And then remember last year or the year before we were giving them $8,000 for the fund and we cut it to $5,000 They would like it to go back up to $8,000 And then they want to do some kind of and Stephanie said she's going to check into it more because I have no idea how much it costs to do invasive species I don't know Survey is not the right word Inventory study Do you know when you sent that email to me? I'm sorry, I want to look at the email I'm just going to say this It really is easier when we get it from the person because I forget when I sent it yesterday I can't search Do you want to see what she said? I'll just pass it around here So anyways Really the only number she gave us was the $8,000 to put back into the conservation fund Okay So maybe add a line item for where's the place on the budget? That's where I was going Let's just frame her comments in the context of the budget The conservation fund If you're looking at the conservation fund on page Is it 5 of the 3? That's useless It's on page 3 as I printed it out Regardless of where it is So the secretary recording the secretary they're hoping that we're going to find somebody that can also do there So I guess leaving that 600 in for recording the secretary Bring it up and those things all say the same The conservation fund They want to go back to $8,000 because they spent a lot on a moral haul I don't know what conservation commission E means to you Yeah, hang on Can you scroll down to E? This one here That could be a typo I don't know what that line item is There's no word that could cut off You what? What could it be? Is it expenses? Maybe that's what it is You know Stephanie wanted when I talked to her on the phone she wanted to know why Greenup was under conservation but it just makes sense to put Greenup under conservation commission It doesn't affect their bottom line It really So really the only number she gave me was the 8,000 the bottom line But maybe education You know I don't know why they did E because when it goes off the line it dissipates There's expenses Okay Thanks But it seems like maybe the CC education training line item could also be used for invasive species study because that would in the end be training and education The thing about invasive species is one of the things that we wanted to do what we hope that a public works director would really double down on that and figure out what they needed and I'm just wondering if that isn't premature until we really get someone to focus on it Because we also wanted the road crew to be trained Maybe that's something that could be identified as prison or it may be The conservation commission might have be helpful in finding somebody to do it because they have connections Remember there's a big report that was done 10 years ago or 8 years ago and it's question of mapping now and doing that and that's something that a public works director either, I'm not saying we wouldn't need it but I'm just saying a public works director ought to be in charge of that making it happen and deciding something that they can do and how much it would be and what it would be When we get a director on public works involving the conservation commission along with the road crew and anybody else in town that wants to solve you can just residence The question which I don't know what the answer is should we put a placeholder like 2 grand or something like that in here which public works to help so that there's something there We can actually get going about it because you really do have to start with the inventory identify what you want to track get the inventory out there and then look for the mitigation What about this fund How many people? It was fun It was 5 It was 8 and then it went down to 5 Right, now they'd like it to go back up to 8 So I think that I think that and with us may we're probably premature because we're still in the details but at some point we're going to we haven't asked ourselves this question what increase for our tax payers are we going to be comfortable with I think we need to do this come up with a new bond and then look at numbers and see where we're at and be like oh my god I think we will go oh my god that question of what do we feel the tax payers can absorb No, we'll accept I think it's both I think we have to think that time is up everything is increasing the cost of everything is going up We might be saying the same thing they may not like it it's going to walk the line somewhere between it's going to hurt and people aren't going to like it but we can't run our government without the tax payers I agree what we do is let's just do our best here not going overboard like not going to 10, let's go to 8 and then when we look at the bottom line Denise and I did this last year we said wait a minute let's go back and quote value engineer this record and just went back to places where we knew we'd been a little generous and we could cut back but we still have to this year we are going to have to ask ourselves that question because it might we are we are going to have and other times I've said three right I'm going to say three percent no more it's not going to be three this year it's going to have to be something bigger than that we have also said that we would look at the CPI which we need to do and I was going to try to do that before this meeting and I never had a chance but back to the line items can we can I finish are we putting in a line item for invasive species study of two the CC doing the checking it out it's just there go from here are we what was the number of invasive species 2000 I wasn't here at your last meeting did you guys do the where are we on the roads budget we went through that okay great we don't have as a grant still we don't have as a grant just thank you we also needed some of the the actual numbers I don't know if you've been able to when he's on vacation what about swim fund do we have any numbers from them I reached out to everybody the 3500 that was an hour assumption I think it's at the same 3500 isn't we don't spend a lot no we have nothing in swim fund I'm looking at town hall so should we just carry it over as a basic assumption am I assuming correctly that if we approve railing down to the pond that would come out of some capital fund it would not come out of the swim fund that's right swim funds for life certification for this town that should be a facility type and that's another thing that the public works director would be making sure that happens we had under sheriff's patrol look at the contract we recently signed didn't we get an email from them saying we're going to ask for an increase did we already consider that we haven't considered that but we did sign the contract what's the contract year well I don't remember the amount it would be with the states it started on July 30 it's a fiscal year so we signed the contract sometime back in June we signed the contract in July not that long ago well of course it's more recently but for the July so we signed it with some retroactive effectiveness I'd have to go back but it was recent and it's calendar and the fiscal it's a July it's a state fiscal so July 1 to June 30 and we signed it in October then it's still effective this past July I don't know I'll be looking at staffing I'm in a time reduction too because of lack of staffing they have lack of staffing just like everybody else yeah I thought we were looking at reduced power it's probably in the contract it's probably in one of the Google folders June 23, 2022 yeah it's a July 1 to June 30 right this is from June though right well they give it to us it's effective so it's uh they raise the rate to 31.25 an hour yeah mileage remains the same 62.5 cents review of signs this is January we had it as a consent agenda item and I think we mocked it up to share it so we have the line item the line item is 4,000 so did the amount in the contract go up John for how many hours they didn't give it the number of hours they don't that's right they say that the fee is 31.25 and then we did the math I think we did the math okay if we budgeted $4,000 look it's blank exactly we filled it in so 4,000 divided by 31.25 128 hours I think we filled it in manually so I think how they work is here's our hourly but we didn't get that until June so how we budget around a contract we don't even get offered until June is beyond me so but we budgeted FY23 4,000 and there's 4,000 filled in for FY24 I don't know when we did that we might have so we upped it 4 but then it's 8,900 instead of 8,500 that doesn't make any oh is there a line at the bottom of the previous page the whole oh so we I'm looking at this whole line police patrol we upped the constable based on Tammy's suggestion hopefully that night we need to pay more the health officer stipends the same and then we carry the others the same but the $400 difference and so I think there's two questions one is certainly let's assume the sheriff's contract is going to go up and what we assume what they do I think is say they give us presumably they serve the hours that we budgeted within this hourly we don't have control of getting the staff well that's the second question I think this is fine even if we upped it we might not do more service right this is not available the question I had thought before we were getting something like that $4,000 in the $31.25 is going to be we're going to get about 10 and a half hours it was $128 bye guys thank you enjoy a beautiful day so the assumption is that we're getting 10 and a half hours a month now and what Denise and I were just saying is even if we want more we want to get it because they don't have the staff they don't have the staff so let's just leave it where it is I agree you brought lunch I'm sure so I'm making note that so what we're doing is saying we're finished with this one for now Denise you're welcome I'm hoping we can find somebody to be used some younger I had talked someone who's got someone who would be trained and would then serve I agree with that point I had talked to Tegan and she was interested and I think she went to something one time I just know I think she just got busy with her job and this is what happens with the other there's chips in there too did you I love that you surprise us everybody thinks it's something different and I purposely ate a lighter breakfast today because she always makes extra for me I'm hoping I'm sorry and I have one for Wayne too thank you I just didn't have enough for the whole audience thank you very much he's going to go rake that's right he's going to go rake something at a meal let's just be there's an idea Wayne we'll just jump that off while we eat our sandwich sure so we're Wayne thank you for turning the camera off while we ate our lunch I do want to let folks know anybody who might be watching this recording at some point while Slickward was eating our lunch we we did have some chat about what we might include in the board's report that gets published as part of the town report for the March town meeting this informal conversation about various things we might like to include and what the shape of that report would look like and we ate our lunch which is a pretty good watch does any I think we might be hey guys, Denise I think we might be finished with our budget work are we ready to adjourn before you do I'd like to take this session for a few minutes is there a motion under it's 1 vs a 3 1 3 a 3 I think does not require finding for personnel is there a motion to go into executive session I made it okay all in favor please say aye aye 12 20