 I'm going to call a meeting to learn. The recording is on, or will be. Can you see me if I stand over here? Where do I need to stand? You can stand anywhere you want. All right, you can stand right here. So gentlemen, this is an auspicious evening. After years of hard work, and I would say all of our be at, to learn how to get along, learn how to work together, learn how to create a better fire department for the town, and now the fire department's officially going to be part of the town. And as a select board, we are excited about that. We're very pleased about it. We believe you are excited and pleased about it. And the challenge for all of us is we need to continue to work together for the best interests of the town. So I decided to be a prop in this. Thanks for the, thanks for the cake, Madam Cake Lady, that we should just, you know, stand here and all sort of smile at each other and congratulate each other on the work we've accomplished. And I don't know, Jeff, if you have anything you want to say, or Eric, or. It's been a long bumpy process and we worked out the bumps and we come to a consensus. And I think it's going to benefit, there are a lot of things that have popped up recently that I think are going to benefit us being under the town. So I think it's, and I think the town is going to, we'll see the benefit in us working together, Amethyst. Great. I agree. And the other thing I would say is, and you all read the news and hear what's going on with some of these other departments. I mean, we're a good example of how to solve problems, not create problems. I think the Berlin fire department right now has fewer firefighters than we'd ever close. I know there were. It's pretty scary and others too. I mean, all the problems that you and now we have been struggling with, they're everywhere. So we look forward to working together with you to keep the good news coming. So let's have a little cake. Sounds good. What do you say? I need it too. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Take a quarter piece. Yeah, the quarter piece has the most fraud. We have some forks. Yeah, there's a question. Everybody grab it. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. He's got it. That's all he's from. He's from here. I have zero pool with Google because you think they're better than I am. Liz, I need your piece of cake. I'll put it on speaker and keep the signal on the phone. The fire department. No, you've got to be good. OK. I've been on the team for a while. So Liz is on the phone, growing speaker. Hi, ladies. You missed the long speeches. I have an electrical problem. So I'm sorry. I was looking at the same microphone. She's there? Sure. I bet she was going to put herself on mute. All right. Very, very extensive. Starting sweet. Oh, thanks. No. We were counting on you for the speech. Yeah. Is that Liz? You should call in for virtual. OK. Yeah. Virtual cake. Christmas cake. No, we're not going to do that for the second. We're working. We're working. OK. Yep. I'm not having any. Is this the pressure? You like the light? Yep. Actually, she came home today. There you go. We can smear some frosting on Randy's phone. Go ahead. Go ahead. The story's still in. Get up to steps. Oh, are they done? Yeah. I mean, we'll run into those. Excellent. So we're getting a little sugar on our system. Back up the steps. Up front. Got some modifications to do. I'm going to hand rail it to you. It could come back. I'm going to step it back up some. Can you help? That's what you do. You leave it down at the container and you go. There you go. Right now they're protected. How much sand did you go through? Pearl, the release date is the 13th. I think there were a lot of people who didn't. This month. So I'm going to tell you my call. I don't know. Listen to me. I just thought I'd just go back to work now. Good. Well, you're duty, she's in the pre-off course. She won't be able to do her Asian care probably until the end of April. The number we've gotten is received in the past. You've got a pile of sand there, but it's frozen. I can't get into it. Thank you. She's still in there? She is. Yeah, she's there. Tell us a joke, Liz. I don't see any of your bait nests here. She said, nice. He says shoving cake into his fiber. I think you had enough with the cake. Liz, I wanted to see you get your Tesla stuck in the parking lot here. No, you don't. It's stuck in there. That's okay. You can just take a change or put it on the truck. I don't know how that works. I'll get a fire truck. What's the price of the car? What? It'll be much of an issue. You don't? The ice? More night. Yeah, it's just way above freezing all night. It's supposed to be. Okay. Dark? Very dark and rainy. Muddy. My car said it was 31 and 32 coming down here. So it's right on the edge. A little bit of sprinkling. They are. Put another log on the wood stove, Liz. We've got enough mud on the back roads. You're not going to start to sweat. You're going to stay ice over and you've got tracks to ride on. Yeah, that's right. Follow the railroad tracks. It's only a problem. You've got to stay safe. Road 12 to my pillar was the best during that week. It was just, it was like, I mean, there's nothing you can do. It's good to have to stay ice. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I like the middle of the house. I like the middle of the house. I like the middle of the house. It's pretty well right up. All right. Fill it right up that little pocket. I was going to say, would you like something from left pocket? Although a little site wire. Get some drainage and give it a year. And then dry it right away. It wasn't very good. I like the frosty night. I'm glad I'm not in the snow. I'm glad I'm not in the snowmobile. It's gear. It's gear. People make a lot of them. They make snow. You have to remember, too, they're quite as cold as we are. Any time you come. The top of the mountain. There wasn't one there. I'm sure it was. Every single night. Absolute oil approval. Balls for new air packs. Wow. So it has, what's nice is the masks have no electronics in them. No cap. So they just each, firefighters would issue their own mask. And they, after you use it, clean it. But you can just dump it in water. You don't have to worry about where to scot. They have electronics in them. They'll get that out. All the electronics are in the regulator here. The bottles are the same size as we currently use. That's where you ended up having that savings. Yeah. Other things like eyeglass inserts for people. We need them. Lithium battery packs. It didn't matter which battery pack you got with a pack. It was the same price. And we only bought two extra lithiums because they're not used that much. So I have in this, it leaves us from changing AA and 9 volt batteries twice a year. And this is just one battery pack. And we check it monthly to make sure it's charged up. And if not, we've got the charger for it. And the gauge will tell you where the battery level is. So it's quite a step forward from our other packs, which were state-of-the-art at the time that they were old now. I was going to say I was state-of-the-art at one time too. No, I'm not. And it also has, what's nice is all the packs have a microphone here. So you can talk into it and hear people. So you can put your radio up to it and talk, which is nice, whereas the others, like I said, the mic was built up here and that's the only place that had it. And only certain masks had it. This way everybody's got one. Perfect. So it's a lot nicer. The mic, there's a mic in the regulator that goes to the speaker. You can hear each other. The bottles blow in the dark and we can adjust those to, if another term gets a 45-minute bottle, we can adjust them for other bottles. The glow in the dark is the band around them. The band around it. Oh, okay. Plus you've got reflective. And instead of having the old ones had the rescue alarm, there was a thing in the back and that was one that had the two night cell batteries and you had to pull that out. And it had two little balls in it. And if you turned the air on and you stood around and you didn't move for 30 seconds, the alarm would start to go off. So you'd have to shake. We don't have that with these. It's up in the regulator. You don't have to dance. You just shake the regulator. And that's just so that if you have someone that's down, you know it. And when someone collapses, what I do look like when you get the mask, you don't have to get it in the right spot and push it on. It just pops on. How many of those did you guys get? We got eight. We had 11. We figured that having four on engine one, three on engine six, and one in the rescue will cover us. I mean, if we need to, if we get a massive influx of people that we actually have that need, then we look at getting more. But for right now, we figured it's with the people we have, the vehicles we have, that will cover us for what we need to do if we need to mask up and go in and save us some money and allow us to get some stuff that we wouldn't have been able to get like the battery charger and the extra batteries and the eyeglass inserts. And then extra, we have more masks than we have packs. But that's just so you're not swapping somebody else's mask. It gets kind of nasty. What do you clean those with? You said? The packs themselves are soaking water in the mask. It's like a bleach cleaner. Okay. I mean, I thought I heard you say just dip them in water. Well, yeah, I mean, yeah, I just didn't know part of that. The fact of that was that there's no electronics. Yeah, you just stick them in. Much better than before. We still have the old ones up, right? We still have them figured out what we're going to do with those. The bottles that are still good will fit here. So if we needed extra bottles, but we got in addition to the eight packs, we got 16 bottles. So there's a replacement bottle for each pack. How long does the bottle last? It depends on how fit you are and how nervous you are. You can suck a bottle out in five minutes or it's supposedly a 30 minute bottle. Very rarely does it make 30 minutes. 30 minutes sitting here in the chair. But if you're hoofing hoes and you're excited about going into a building, you're going to be sucking her down pretty fast. If you get 20 out of it, you're doing good. Yeah. And we pretty much stick with, you use two bottles, you're done. Yeah. Of going in. Yeah. If you're standing outside and you need to have a bottle, that's a different story. Once you have been inside with two bottles, it's time. But this was, I mean, this is an example of our working together. There you go. I kept telling you this train was coming. Yep. And we resolved it before it really got here and it had to be done. I don't know. No. And just to be clear, those were about with ARPA funds, right? Correct. Yep. The first manifestation of ARPA funds. Yeah. So you guys gave us 70,000. We went a little over which were the balance of that. It's either coming from equipment or from. Came from our chicken. Okay. So from. Fund raised money. How much a piece of those? Well, it's 70,000 divided by eight and that's it. They are not. And Scots are even more expensive because they have more electronics in the masks and stuff. And I think the Scots are at least $1,000 more for a pack. It could be even more. Most like military equipment. It was out of their fund. Yeah. Essentially if it has NFPA on it. Yep. Right. And the other nice thing about getting the NSA ones is we got them from Reynolds which is based over in Verity and they can do the inspections and stuff. And they have the same number as the Scots. We had somebody from Massachusetts giving their calendar. So this is a lot. It's going to be a lot simpler all the way around. Cool. And may you never have to use them. Well, I know. That would be the best of all worlds. That would be the best of all worlds. That's the matter of how much you're using it but you got to have them. Yeah. Oh yeah. The other thing that's nice with this is if say we go to Worcester, the bigger tanks, if we need their tanks, that strap can adjust to take their tanks as well. So whereas our Scots weren't compatible with that. So this makes and it's supposedly Waterbury's looking at the possibility of going to MSA and I don't know about. Not peculiar. Yeah. If they're going to switch over. Are you able to recharge those right here? Yeah. Yeah. So we were lucky. My failure had a booster pump that they, on their ladder truck, their old ladder truck that they didn't need anymore. So we had to fit it from that. And what that does is our compressor will pump up to 4,500 PSI. And so we have tanks in there that will fill various levels. But what the booster pump does is it takes whatever is coming in. So if 2,000 pounds is coming in, then it'll boost it up to 4,500. It does it very rapidly. So it makes filling from the compressor itself is a long, arduous task. And it's only one bottle at a time. It's still one bottle at a time, but you can zip through those with the booster pump. We'll be happy to show you the whole operation right in the next two rows. Sure. And we did get donated also. Was there some extra tools? No. They went into electric, so they gave us their hydraulics stuff. Great. Keep it working. How many members are you at today? 11 and 1 plus 1 junior. And then the most ideal world? 30. So what are varying as the last count that I knew of? What are varying as 44? In an ideal world, I think middle sex right now with our number of calls 25 would be really nice. I don't ever see that happening in my remaining tenure here. Because, I mean, I'm knocking on 62 and we don't have a bunch of young people knocking on the door to come in. There are young people in town, but it's not just a middle sex problem. And it's not just because we're a bedroom community. It's people don't want to volunteer to do anything. And I mean, even paid departments are having issues getting. I mean, when you look at EMTs, I don't know if there's a state manual on EMTs or even paramedics in Vermont. In California, there is no manual. So their average pay for paramedics is about $18 an hour. California is passing a law that fast food employees minimum pay wage will be $22 an hour. It just makes no sense that you're going to pay somebody with absolutely zero training to flip burgers and somebody who's gone through paramedic school at cost of thousands of dollars, you're not even going to get to that level. It's insane. They went to hamburger you, they're not trained. Well, guys, we're on your side of this. We can't solve all the problems, but we want to work with you to solve some of these problems and keep it going. We're proud of what you've accomplished and we've accomplished together in the last few years. Very proud. Well, we are extremely appreciative of our new airpacks and that's just that's a great benefit of us working together. Absolutely. And all the reports every month. Do you know what I remember? What I forget. I mean, speaking, which are you guys going to meet? Are you coming to the next meeting or is this it? My plan is that the third Tuesday of the month is when I... Perfect. Well, this is supposed to be a party. We don't want to make this seem too business-like. So I didn't do anything up for today. Other than we had a call on the first and two calls yesterday. Really? Yeah. Yeah, we're up to three so far. We're on course. Really? Three hundred and seven calls. We're going to have a busy year. What was the accident on 89? Did you go to that one? The second one was up here and then there was a medical call. What was the accident on 89? So unfortunately, unfortunately or unfortunately, we've got to get over to the town hall and finalize our budget tonight. Well, thanks for coming. Figure out what's going to happen to everybody's property taxes and I hope that's all. But we really appreciate, we really appreciate coming down here and seeing you. But I think from time to time, we don't need to do this all the time. But I think it's good for us to come down here and see what's going on and we'll put it. Well, now you're going to check on your investment. We'll put a hose and a brush in your hand and you can help the rest of you. Hey. Hey. So just thank all of you very much. I know you've all worked hard and I know you are working hard and Eric's doing double duty. We see him all the time. We live in a wonderful community. And you guys, I know some of you don't live in middle sex, but you're in the central Vermont community. We're all lucky to live here and support each other. And I can't imagine any place I'd rather be. So thank you all. Thank you. Good evening, everyone. We're reconvening our select board meeting. It's a nice little visit with the fire department down at the fire station, celebrating the fact that they are officially now part of the town of middle sex, which was very nice. We take compliments of our town clerk, which was nice. So the big item for tonight is to go through this, line by line and see, and I hope we can maybe come up with a final number. If we can't, we still do have a little time, but we don't have much time. So what I would suggest is I promised, I promised to Rinda, we would go through this line by line category by category. And that's what I intend to do and try not to jump around all over the place. Excuse me, I'm going to get a pen. So, Rinda, do you want to start out? Yes. So anything that has to do with salaries or anything like that, we just can skip over those numbers like unemployment workers comp, because it all relates to wherever the salaries end up. So really under general government, the first place we can start is advertising and printing. And so just starting there, I level funded it. That's always a shot in the dark whether we're going to, what that's going to come out with. I think we paid for a few things this year out of that money. But I don't know if you want to cut it back. I mean, you're not talking a lot of money there. The emails, which I didn't highlight since the last time Rubin was here, I skipped over select board courses. Has anybody taken a select board course that I should put money in? I leave it at zero. Can you call the number? The line, okay. So I started with line 11. Okay. Next one, select board courses. Nobody's done anything in years, so I didn't fund that at all. Town email. I think that one's going to change a little bit. I mean, he's recommending going to the full office 365 product. And that's, it may be cheaper for a governmental agency, but I think that runs something like six or seven bucks a month. Which is still, I think, based on the numbers that we saw. Is it really? Yeah. I think he said maybe it was eight or something like that, dollars per user, something in that range as a starting point. Really? But I think we said there were 11, I can't remember if it was 11 or 14 users or something like that. Well, there's a lot. You know, the committees have distribution lists. The distribution list can all be rolled into one though. There's one email account like the planning commission. I'll look and see if I can find how many. It was pretty comparative. When we ran the numbers in our last meeting, it didn't seem like it was anything that was running rampant. But initially it was much. Well, we're over $100 a month just for emails right now, I think. Yeah. Last time I checked it was around $120. Yeah. That'll be a lot better. It's a lot better product. Yeah. And the biggest problem is, I personally have had a problem with our emails, the treasurer's email. And they haven't fixed it. And it's been going on for about four months. They've reached out to Rackspace. Rackspace says no. Yeah. They're in pretty bad shape. I guess they have a major meltdown. Yeah. So I mean, I don't think there's a huge cost difference there, but that one might have to be updated. I'll put a question mark. The other piece of that that Ruben expressed in a positive light was a lot of the other things that we tend to use, whether it's Excel or Word or whatever, you know, are all wrapped up in that 365, you know, world. Yes. Oh, okay. And for just email users, there's another product. That's a much cheaper product. I mean, so like a committee doesn't need the full office suite. They just need email. Right. Right. You can differentiate. Yeah. Right. And I think that he said that they'd be willing to explore and provide us with some path forward. Yeah. Yeah. And it seemed to me, you know, that it was a decent path forward. Yeah. And it's a good product. Well, I guess what I'm wondering for tonight is if we should just plug in 14 users at $8 a month, just so there's a number in there. Well, there's 1100 in there, which would be 14 times 8. I think the concern was that it's not 1100 that there's going to be a startup cost as well. What didn't we talk about that? Yeah, there's going to be, you know, some kind of a project fee to set it up and all that stuff. Right. Well, that's under the computer. That's the whole computer server. Let's leave it, let's leave it alone. Let's leave it alone. Okay. Um, line 14 property maintenance again. I mean, I don't know why there's a hundred and seven. We plugged in 175 there. I don't know. I don't know why that's that number. But, um, that's that you were going to paint the town hall or something, but I don't think there's any kind of, because the mowing and all comes under a different line. I mean, I think that was when we were thinking we were going to paint the back of the fire station and we didn't do it. Now, at some point we need to do it. There's no money in there to do it. So I say we just leave it alone for the time being. So put it at zero or level fund it to a thousand. I just have to believe something is going to, for a thousand dollars doesn't pay very much. A thousand dollars. Can we roll back to the, to the town email just for a minute? So at eight dollars a month for 14 users, it's, it's like 1344s. We just put 1350 in there. Yeah. Yeah, that's probably better. Okay. Welch Park, that's, um, that's the, any portion that we have to pay still now. And hopefully that will kind of. So we're going to hear. I don't want to, I don't want to jump into the jump into it now, but I've got a significant update on Welch Park for a little later in the meeting. Okay. Discretionary fund, that one's going back and forth. Last year we took 4,000 out of it because we were trying to cut the budget. I put it back up to eight. I don't know where you guys feel you want to go. Does this discretionary fund typically get spent on like the grant matches and things like that? Or what's a typical use for this? Where you don't have any other. Yeah. It's just some odd thing that comes up that we need to do. So I would leave it at 4,000. And when, when that money is actually spent, my understanding through a previous conversation was that might not necessarily get coded to that discretionary fund. In the new world, hopefully it will be coded to the discretionary fund in the past. That's correct. It just gets coded as a, you want to reduce, you want to show the expense to the building repair or something like that because you never know what's, if you just put it to discretionary fund, you lose the purpose of that. What wasn't happening was the second step of it to reduce what was left in that fund. Okay. And that's where I was going with it was, does it truly not get spent? Right. Or does it just appear to not get spent? The money, the money gets spent, but it appears to not get spent. That's the answer. I know, no offense Randy, but I know you don't like the term, but that's a proverbial flex money. Yeah, it is. Discretionary fund calls it out as such. I'm happy with that. But do we agree 4,000 is an appropriate amount? Yeah. I mean 4,028 doesn't make any sense to me. 28 was, because we, again, we rounded it down to get under a certain number. Yeah. Well, let's just make it 4,000. Yeah. Are you going to cut it? No, we're going to, it was 4,000 last year. Last year. There was a projection here. Yeah. So we're going to put 4,000. 4,000. Back to 4,000. Yeah. Legal fees. So it looks like the actual in 2020, 2,122 was like $5,800. Yeah. And it's probably going to be over the 3,000 that's budgeted for this year. We know we've got some stuff coming. Right. Yes, we do. So. Yeah. Yes, we do. And there's going to be a call. I mean, again, I'm not trying not to get ahead of myself, but there's going to be a legal cost associated with what's going on at Welch Park, which is going to be a few thousand dollars. Right. I'm sure. That one will be the, that property thing too. Right. And if there's any settlement, I don't know where that would fall. So. Right. In the budget. So that might seem like it's a little bit light at the 5,5K. Yeah. Yes. I think so. Your preference. 75. Town report. Sarah, I've got budgeted in for town report 4,000. Do we have any indication? You know, we don't, but that seems about right. It looks like it could be about $3,000. We're looking at a year from now. So. Thank you. This is the first time we're using a, an out of office, web designer, someone from the state, who works with Jet Service. So. I think that that would probably be about right. I'll know after it's done. Right. Minimize. Okay. County tax. So anyway, VLCT dues, that's a firm number. Yeah. County tax. I don't know yet. So I just plugged in the same percentage increase that it was last year. Yeah. Um, central Vermont solid waste. That's a shot in the dark, but it looks like it's been. Sistently 1724. So I put that in again. And the central Vermont regional planning commission, again, I haven't heard anything there. So I level funded that conservation commission. That's their $500 operating. Fund that they ask for every year. Elections. Sarah, we put in 3500. We spent 33,399 in 22. We budgeted 2000 for the current year. So I put in 3500. Is that. I do anything. You know, you put it. 2022 was a big year for, um, we still had COVID stuff. So those increase our cost. So should we go back down to. No, I'd stick with it. Well, we have 2000 in for this year. So, and I plugged in 3500 for next year. Maybe go down a little bit. I think you can go down because really the only cost are going to be. Uh, it's not going to be like the previous. It's not going to be like, uh, 2021 and part of 2020. Sort of the cost of dealing balance. That was expensive. Okay. So, what do you think we need? 25. Okay. So, what do you think we need? 25. Okay. Um, miscellaneous expense. I cut that in half because, you know, we tried to categorize everything, but I just left that. That's another slush. Yeah. Brandy's favorite accounts. Yeah. The fire department cake account. Yeah. Um, that's kind of where that kind of stuff goes. Oh, no, no, no, no supplies or whatever. So, um, um, um, um, um, um, whatever. So, um, grant matches. I didn't know what to do here if we're going to put anything in, or if that's going to be under the CIP that we talked about, that they were creating a, which reminds me, the budget committee is not here. Mark is here. Oh, there's Mark. Okay. Um, I don't know if we're going to put something in under the CIP and, you know, they're creating a opportunity fund or something like they want to. Let me rephrase that. So, I would keep it in here. I wouldn't put it in the CIP, the grant fund grant matches. I mean, the question's going to be, I mean, we're going to have grants. The question's going to be, you know, frequently what happens is we can do win con for our, for our match. So the actual cash matches and that much, but $2,000 is very much money either. I mean, 2000 is not enough. Well, this isn't highway matches. So it's, so the in kind is a little bit different. Right. They have their own. Right. Right. Right. I would just leave it. Leave it at 2000. Okay. I mean, it's possible it could be more than we're just going to figure out how to pay for it. Pay for it. Um, COVID-19, hopefully we don't ever have to budget for that again. Um, tax abatements. That's just where at the end of the month, we write off the people who shorted us a nickel or a dollar or $2 or something. Yeah. So I don't budget for that. Um, so that brings us down. So that leaves us at the general government done. Um, in two administration, you can skip everything down to line 41. And that's where I put in again, office supplies was super high. I don't know why it came in at $3900 this year. We've only budgeted 15. So I don't know whether I should go to 3000 or one. Maybe it was COVID and it was coded in properly or something. But you're buying stuff for COVID. Things like that. Office. I mean, cleaning supplies or anything like that. Yeah. I don't know. What would we have bought that? Did we buy anything new? I, I haven't run that number to be honest with you to see what was in it. But I thought it was out of the ordinary. Let's put it that way. I'd put it back. Put it back to 3,000. To how much? 1500. Equipment repair. I've level funded that. Yeah. I mean, that's a total crap here. Some years we have not had some years we go over. So equipment purchase. This is where I put 20,000 in for the new server project. And I believe that included the server, the setup, the, the whole project. And that wouldn't be in our. Capital plan. Well, I don't know. That's question. That's. We're asking to my left here. So that, that was what I was raising my hand about is that. Just, I need to understand the process here that. If currently. We're asking. We need to put something out to the voters to approve the capital plan. And the capital plan is. Essentially carrying that cost in there, but it's an absolute necessity. If the capital plan was not accepted by the voters. And we don't put it in the, in the budget for year one. How does that work? It's an absolute necessity. And if I guess the, the opportunity to have the capital plan shot down. As a whole. So can we, can we put it in here and leave it out of the capital plan for the time being? And then if the capital plan gets approved, move it over. Wait, hold on. You guys have a plan is already approved. This is the capital plan is a process by which you're budgeting, right? So whether or not you, what, what you're asking for when you're putting it in a separate line item is, is, you know, how you did it. How you did it under this budget. You have this capital plan thing. That's just a part of our budget. The town is either going to approve the budget or they're going to, not approve the budget. And then they can come back and say, well, we don't agree with the capital plan. When we present the budget to them, the capital plans already been like it's done, right? It's, it's, and it's however we build it is and use it is, is, is, it's a function for us in our budgeting process. So when you put that stuff in the budget, like 30,000 for paving, 20,000 for town hall, 10,000 for this or that, we're going to be recommending that to the town as a part of this bigger budget. It's not going to be a separate vote. Is it? No, well, are we creating, are we creating a fun? That's what I was talking about the last meeting. So for every one that you have, like a town hall fund, you're okay. A road fund, you're fine. But if you have a fund that you want to put in money and roll it over every year, and you don't have a fund designated for that, then you have to go to the voters. And I think that's what Randy's talking about. He's talking about a capital fund. So you're talking about paying 20,000 dollars on the server next year. Well, that's the whole thing. This is an operational thing because it's got to be done next year. It's not. This is going to be rolled over in the future. We want to throw in 20,000, $10,000 every year for computer problems down the road. That's a difference. But you have a bunch of funds already, and you can almost divide everything. It's a question of whether or not you want to create a new fund that's an umbrella. And I probably the state won't let you do that with the roads. The appropriate place for this, because it's going to be this year's expenditures over here. That's where I was going with it was to say, we get this, the capital improvement fund or whatever you want to call it approved this year. And things like this that are in year four or five, that are part of the capital improvement process or plan, get put into those line items in future budgets. Mark had a comment. Yeah, I think it's already been covered. But again, the larger question here is whether a server, which is a capital asset, eventually makes its way into the capital asset inventory. Because we already know every three, four or five years we're going to need a new server. That's what we learned last time. So the question is eventually whether we have somebody fill out a questionnaire, score it and move it into the capital asset inventory, and then just make sure we know that we'll have to have funding available every three, four or five years to do it. So it would make sense to me to leave it here. Yeah. The work moving forward. We pull that in after this is approved and put it into that process. Right. And so it does show up in your capital plan for in five years or whatever. Yes. Okay. Okay. There's not going to be a listed computer upgrade. I mean, from the last I heard and Shelly could chime in on this if need be, but they're using the same equipment and all the programs that we currently have, I believe. So that came back out of the budget. That was put in like two years ago when they came to us and thought we were going to need new equipment to accommodate the software. And the state's backed away from that. That's my understanding. Yeah. Yeah. Telephone. I basically level funded that. Postage. I don't know why I think I because we spent 2,500 last year and we budgeted 3,000. I came down to 2,800. I don't. I don't think it makes a. There's a great increase. Yeah. Another one coming down the pike. So go through this time, Peter. I don't remember what they said it was going to, but. Must be 60. So maybe leave it at the $3,000. That covers the 10% Okay. Ordering. I bumped that up $1,000. She's been coming in anywhere from $500 to $800. Every year different. So I just put in a $10,000 number. Listing mileage and expenses. This was a number. I think I. I got from the. The listeners clerical mileage. That's been $200. I put in there again. The rate we pay went up from last year. I think it's up to 62 and a half cents. That's to go to the bank. And things like that. Clerk and Lister's courses in training. I dropped that to $750. Contract for NEMRIC. We dropped that a little bit in talking with the Listers. They're going to try to pick up a lot of the work that we contracted with NEMRIC last year. So hopefully the rate there will go down. It certainly is a cheaper per hourly rate. So we dropped it to like 12,000. And that we really don't know, but. Yeah. Lister parcel and mapping. We put $250 in for that. Copy or lease. That's status quo. Computer maintenance. This is what we put in based on the meeting we had with Rubin. A couple of months ago. That we kind of estimated how much it was going to cost us every month. That's the monthly. That's the monthly maintenance. Yeah. No consultant fees. That one's gone. So that takes care of that category. Thank you. Dorenda, can I just ask a general question? When I was looking at this budget, you know, in the Excel spreadsheet. In column D. Were those just cut and pasted from the actual approved budget from last year. Last time meeting. Okay. They should have been anyways. Let's say electricity, 3,000. That's a little bit based on what we had spent in 22. I don't know if that's enough or not. Why would you go down in electricity when they're going? Are we on Washington Electric? Yeah. 15% increase. Well, because I went down, it was 20, we spent 2,700. So I went up from what we spent last year. But I can go back to the 3,500 if you want. I kind of, you know, go between what we spent and what, you know, we budgeted and if we didn't use everything we had budgeted, sometimes I reduce it. Yeah. So 15% on top of the actual spending brings us to like 3,150. So probably that 3,500 is a good number. You want to go back to 3,500? Sure. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Heat. Heat. I went up 1,000 based on what we had spent the previous year. Grounds. And this is based on mowing and stuff like that, that I got from Mitch. Building repairs. I guess that's where we did the, any kind of, I think we did, didn't we do something last year or whatever? We had some boiler repairs. Boiler repairs, is that what it was? I think Sarah had some septic issues that needed to be taken to elevator. So I put that in, it's 3,500 because we spent 3,100. But yeah, last year's budget was 2,000. So I don't know which way you want to go with that. Well, yeah, there are a lot of moving pieces to that. I mean, yeah, I just don't know. I don't see us passing a bond issue for improvements to town all next year. I think it's going to be, you know, at least a year away. So we know we're potentially facing a new furnace or heating issues, whether we put renize downstairs and do away with the central heat downstairs or whatever we do, I don't know. But renize or whatnot, 1,200 bucks a piece anyway. I think there may be more than that. Yeah. Probably $3,000 to get one installed, you know, on each one. So if you've got two of them going downstairs, you've got $6,000, $7,000 wrapped up to be easy. Yeah. So. But I would certainly, I wouldn't reduce it any. And, you know, that might be a good use for some of our, we just have to see where we go. I mean, there are a lot of moving pieces, but this is a needy building. Yeah. And you could spend that amount of money pretty quickly. Yeah. So leave it at the 3,500. Yeah, I would. The town hall building fund, I moved that down to the other section, to the CIP section. Yeah. Street lights, I put in for a couple thousand because that seems to be what it ran the previous year. Janitorial, I level funded that. Yeah. So that takes care of the town hall. Public safety. We can skip down to line number 73. I didn't put anything in for courses and seminars. Ambulance, that's a firm number. Speed enforcement. We never spend it, so I dropped it. I agree. I agree. So I put it to, I didn't go all the way down, but I cut it in half to what it was. And what is the amount of our contract for next year? Well, it's a new hourly rate, so that's... Well, yeah, you signed it in July, so they can't change their hourly rate until that contract's up in June, but you've allocated $7,500, which equals a certain amount of... Yeah, but they never spend it. But by then, we'll have a new contract for this year that we're working on. I think $1,500 is fine. Dog pound, that's another one we hardly ever use, but I just keep the number in there. I don't know if I should or shouldn't. Take it out, you're going to end up needing it. Well, I have. That's right. We've used it in the past. Yeah. Yeah, we have. We've been lucky. It's too bad the dog pound doesn't also pertain to some of the two-legged dogs we have in town. And we'd have to increase it. That's it. Emergency management. I left that in there because the way things have been going lately, I don't... So that takes care of that department. That's basically level anyway, right? That's level, yeah. I just kind of level-funded as much as I could there. So $564 or whatever. Yeah. Fire department, this was all based on the information that Eric presented to us. So nothing has changed in here for that whole group. So I don't know if you want to look at any slashing there. I have a question on the radio dispatch figure that's here. They came and presented a number where it was roughly $2,500 to $3,000 a year or something like that for the next 10 years that we were going to have to invest. Does this include that number at all? No. That's on top of this. That's on top of this. And this is just to have their dispatch service. Because that other number I think is for... They have to replace the whole system over. They have to replace the whole system. So I guess my question is, do we know enough about, like, is that $3,000 a year? Is that due on an annual basis? Or is that, like, cum lump sum year 10? We've got a handover. I think they're doing that. I think February 10th was that we would start paying the $4,500 a year. So there essentially we're going to create a sinking fund with all the towns contributing. And then whatever they get. Yeah, I guess I haven't heard anything about that since we got that letter. There was an article in the bridge? Maybe. Hey, Mark, can you answer whether or not we included that in the CIP effort at all? I know we talked about it during our meeting with the fire department. We have not. We have not yet included it, Randy. Okay. So I guess my suggestion there would be if this $28,000 doesn't cover that contribution, we should add that to it. Well, it's not a problem. I didn't think we had to pay it. It was more or less the planning thing that we were going to have to pay it. I think that's the way that went. It's a yearly contribution. I would say no, because it's really not a capital piece. It's a service piece that we're putting into them and then they're investing in a system. So that's where the capital piece comes. But if you're right, if we're holding on to it for 10 years, I think we need more information. I don't think it's happened. You don't? No. I mean, I haven't seen, have you seen anything going on? I haven't seen anything other than that one thing come through. And I was looking for that one thing because I kept a copy of it. I know I have a copy of it electronically stuffed in my folders here. For some reason, I thought we didn't have to do anything. It was just a heads up. This is coming down the road if you wanted to start planning for it. Then I thought just leave it alone and if we find out different. So it was, the meeting was on the 6th of September. And it was concluded by saying that they were still waiting for the state to come through with 3.23 million dollars in funding. And if that happened, they would be billed, the middle section would be billed $2,900 a year for 10 years to place a new system down the road. But not that there's been no action from the legislature because it did not exist. Right. Okay, well, we can leave it out for now. And if we need to do something with it, we can go back here. Yeah, there's something. We can always go back and change it, you know. Yeah. Let's see. Yeah. So I don't know if there was anything else. I don't think you can do a lot with that. So yeah, I remember what Eric said about, or I should say I don't remember what Eric said about the stipends going up to 18,000. Yes. So that these numbers are based on the increases that you guys set or agreed to back last year. Because I think the actual from 21-22 was only a partial year of that approved change. Yeah, it was. Yeah. So that's how they based it on this year. Okay. And I know Eric was going to, and I don't want to speak out a turn for him or anything, but I believe he was going to try to get here. And it probably, I don't know if it would fall under this or under CIP, but based on what happened last week or whatever he was talking about having. Oh, no, that's something different than my, that's not fire department. That's my way. That's my way. I didn't ask that question about the fire department. Okay. Yeah. So that one's all set then. And the debt service is not changing. So those are firm numbers, which goes down every year a little bit. So that takes care of. I just have a question. Do we know yet what's happening with the replacement of the fire department rescue vehicle? Is that still being put off? There's been no talk of replacing it. But I can't answer that firmly. I thought we were putting that in the. It was in the. It's on the CIP list. Yeah, it was, it was scheduled, I think to be replaced either last year for this budget year, but I haven't heard anything from the fire. Folks as to the need. So in fact, it's dead or almost dead right now are existing rescue. I mean, they're working hard to try and find a reasonably cost used vehicle. I mean, to, to spend the money for a newer or new ish rescue truck is going to be huge, huge money. So they're definitely working on it. And I think the, the thought was, I don't really what the thought was, but if the right situation came along, maybe that'd be a good use for some barricade funds and nose. But okay, they're not there. They're they're putting a new steering box in the old truck now so they could continue to use it etc. Because if I remember correctly, it's a 1986 model. Something like that. Yeah. Oh, no, it's, it's, it's due for placement, but it is still functioning, but we're putting poor and good money after bad into it. But okay, neither do we want to spend $80,000 on a new rescue either. Right. Okay, thanks. Okay. So now to the fund department. The big gorilla. The big gorilla. I don't know if you want to just have me read each line off and then you guys comment on it. But winter maintenance, road salt went up $560. Is there coming over here tonight? He was going to. Why don't we defer this until he gets here? Okay, Lynn, let's, if everybody agrees. Just to soon happen here. Yeah, that's fine. All right, so that we move a ways down. You go all the way down to line 218. I did not hear from the cemetery at Sarah did not hear from the cemetery. So I just plugged in the same number that they have used for as long as I've been here. So we went with $6,900. Recreation department. That was these were numbers submitted by Mitch. Let's see, I did have some notes here about rights field beach dues. Okay, rights field beach dues. That's a firm number, I guess. That's surprised it went up to that, but there was some. We didn't get a letter on that thing. Yeah, we did. But they were increasing in a dollar or a resident or something like that. So that's increased there. Before we cruise too far, the recreation wages, you know, looking at 2122 actuals, you know, we're down at like the $4,600 marks almost $2,000 below where we are here. Have we seen a significant change in the amount of hours that they've been working to look at that type of an increase over what we have been spending? We have traditionally been putting in 250 hours for him. And but he has the budget he submitted didn't have the correct rate of pay or anything. I think you guys said 250 hours. Yeah, that's what we've been budgeting. And it's $25 an hour. But he did give you a slip. $62.50. So he's not far off from that hourly. Plus the three percent or whatever we agree to the labor increase here. So I mean, the budget based on that makes sense. But I'm just looking at what we've actually spent over the last two cycles versus where that is. That's all. Yeah, did you guys should have gotten a copy of his what he put in for a number of hours. I think he put five hours a week for 52 weeks. If I'm not mistaken, it was something like that. Yeah, 260 hours. Yeah. So I don't know if you feel, you know, five hours a week is accurate or not accurate. What's supposed to be supposed to be his actual time. Not just see that he plugs in five hours a week no matter whether it does it or not. Well, it's a thing that says, you know, he does a time sheet. But when he submitted the budget to us again, I've got so many different files going. It was the last meeting. How many, wasn't it like five hours a week he had on it? Yeah, as much as the zoning administrator. Huh? As much as the zoning administrator. Right, which is, you know, that brings up, you know, here we go. I got it five hours a week times 50 weeks he put at $20 an hour. Well, currently he's making 26-25 an hour. And, you know, I budget in him for 250 hours throughout the year. So he's going to have to 25, 26. Well, we get, I would just say, hard to impact when we basically for a long time didn't have anybody doing that job. Yeah. Things are in a much better state than they were. And, you know, I think we need to continue that investment. Yeah, I mean, we can leave it there. It's fine if that's what he budgeted. And I just, I was looking at the difference between that and that. That's the same thing you just beat me to it. Right. Yeah, he put in for, so the other things he did was all the mowing. 24 mowings at Walter Kelly Park. One brush hogging at Walter Kelly Park. 24 mowings at the recreation field. Two brush hoggings. Three mile bridge road. One brush hogging in the town clerk's office. 24 mowings. Then he put in for baseball and soccer field upgrades and lumber. For Portalettes. Now we were spending a crazy amount on Portalettes, I thought. But according to this, it's $600 for Walter Kelly and $1,000 for the recreation field. And I thought we just got a bill from them for like $1,700. $1,800. $1,700 or $1,800. So, are they combined? Yes, they are. I don't think that was the whole year. I think that was just the last bill we got. Wasn't that all through the summertime? I don't know. It was multiple. It was a couple months. I don't know if it covered the whole summertime, but it was a couple months. I would just tell you there was a problem in both those places. Was it? Well, people using the woods, people going here, people going there. I think that's, I think we're in for a penny and for a pound on that one. I learned to swim program was $700. So, should that, that Portalette Rental, I mean, I see $1,000 in here. We may be low. Maybe half. That's for the recreation field. And then there's another one, I think, under Walt Kelly. Oh, okay. And Portalette. Okay. Yep. I see. Mowing in. Oh, I see. Yeah. Cause he put it all under the wall Kelly expenses. So the learn the swim program. I mean, are they even doing that anymore? We have not done it probably in. Well, I know we didn't do it for a couple of years because of COVID, but I don't think they did it the year before COVID either. I say, I say we cut it and if it comes back to life, we can find the money somewhere. I mean, I think, I think if there is a learn the swim program, I think it's a good investment. Absolutely. The problem was they were originally doing it way back at it first and fitness. Right. And then they went to the Montpelier pool. Right. And then they couldn't get time at the Montpelier pool. Right. I think was one of the problems or they didn't have lifeguards. It was something. Yep. So. Well, like I said, if it springs back to life, the small amount of money, we can find it in our. Well, there's a recreation fund. So it can come right out of the recreation fund. Yeah. So take it up. Yeah. Hey, got Peter. Yes. It's Liz. Can I make a suggestion? Sure. And you guys can take it or just leave it and continue the way we're doing. But I think it's fine that we're looking at each line at him, but to talk about each line at him, we're going to be here all night long. So we might want to think about. Like maybe putting a dollar cap on what we discussed. Which is where we're going to get into the real money. We're almost, we're almost through with all those other things. Okay, but I know that. It's really just those giant highway. We're going to look at these line by line. No, no, I realize that I'm just saying discussing each one and commenting and spending two minutes on each line item is just going to keep us here a long time. Okay. We'll go on. We don't have lives. You know, this is why we're here. Mark's got a question. Go for it. I just want to. Liz's comment that when I look at what's left of these departments, this is chicken feed compared to what we need to deal with. Right. If we're thinking about how much we need to cut off this budget. And I have a number in my head. This isn't, you know, going through these things, you know, saving $700 here, $500. There isn't a lot here. These are very small. I would rather that we move to the big fish in the sea and decide selectively how much we think we can realistically shave off the budget. I mean, is it 50,000? Is it 100,000? No, it's not 100,000. It's not 100,000. It's not 100,000. It's a percentage increase. We think we want to get down to before we talked about salary increases. Because again, you know, we're going to get hit with the double whammy. Got to get the budget down. Then we got to. Put it back up for the salary increases. Mark, I agree with you. I would just suggest we move quickly through these less. I mean, we've got maybe. That's where the heavy money is. And that's where the opportunity for cuts is as well. And we've got to figure out about the about the percentage pay increase, which is a big. Well, if we just zip through these last. Where we can zip through these pretty quick. There's really nothing to talk about on disowning. Okay. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. Those are all. So, that one's like still all highlighted. Well, what I would suggest is we, they spent 614, they got 1,000 this year. Let's plug it in for, let's just get through these. So let's plug it in for 750. For what? Advertising. Advertising. Advertising, okay. Mail drop and postage. I think 800. I think 800 is fine. They gave me 150 for the printing and copying. Yeah. Consultation. They gave me a preliminary number of 3,500. For the future grant match, I would just mark the match that they had. How do they have to console if they're making the worst? They had 2,000 from last year. Just plug that on. Plug in that. Yeah. Okay. All right, so that takes care of that category then. What do we do on legal? Left it the same. The zero there and then match the previous budget for grant match of 2,000. And I don't think they need their own legal line anyway. I mean, anything. I mean, it's like they spent 40 bucks. Yeah. Yeah. Or no. Or no. Okay. So, and then the CIP, that's probably part of the bigger discussion and highway and then I do, at the end, I have a list of some things that we didn't touch on that we'll get through the other part first, but I've been making a list over the weeks of things we said we were going to address in the budget. Okay. So, what's your pleasure? Do you want to talk about wages first? Yes, Mark. So, do we have thinking around where we want to land with a percentage increase for the overall budget? I know last time we're talking about somewhere between 10 and 15 percent. Is our goal to try to get around 15 percent because looking at this budget, there's not a lot to cut. Well, it's got, you know, the two big, the two big gorillas in the room are, you know, what do we do with some of those items in the highway budget and what do we do? What do we do about wages? And the wages, assuming we're talking about another 1 percent, we had the figure last year, I mean, last meeting, that really isn't a lot of money, one way or the other. I don't think anybody is thinking we should do less than 3 percent, at least I haven't heard anybody say we should do less than 3 percent. No, it's just barely below $5,000 per 1 percent when I ran the calculations. That's all in for all of the adjustments with the different, you know, workman's comp and all of that, anything that's adjusted by salary, right? So every 1 percent nets, you know, a change of $4,996, so call it $5,000. Okay. So that's good to know because again, a 1 percent increase over, you know, the current year budget is about 15,000 bucks, so that would be a 3 percent raise for employees putting it in perspective. Can I make a suggestion, Peter? Hello? Yes. Okay. I'm sorry. I didn't hear you say that. Yeah. One thing that we could consider doing is trading, is getting rid of the mud season mitigation and using ARPA funds for mud mitigation, and that reduces it by a decent amount. If you take out the $37,500 and then we say we're going to commit whatever, $50,000 to mud mitigation from ARPA funds or however much, I think mud mitigation is something like $37,500 or something. It's $37,500. Yeah. Okay. Reduced it from, it was $75,000. So I'm not saying get rid of it. I'm just saying use different dollars, don't put it in the budget this year, but we know that it's going to be in the budget in subsequent years. So it's really just a less harsh increase on the voters in March. Yeah. So we're using the ARPA money to act as our CIP effort. Right. But I think of it as transitional. Yes. It's the first, you know, it's the step forward. And that brings it down to 18.65%. Just doing that, not cutting anything, just changing the shift of the money. So I think, and I believe it's a totally reasonable use of that money. There was some ins and outs of road expenses and what was allowed and what wasn't with the ARPA money. So we just need to be conscious of that. I think that fit into it though. I do too. I just, I just wanted to voice that. Yeah. Oh, the man of the hour is here. Hi Eric. Did you have an extra piece of cake? I hope. No. No. No. And can I just finish my statement? Without hurting anyone, we might also be able to take some of the CIP funding that we don't have to make a special fund for, because I think we want to keep in the ones that we want to do a special fund for to get those on the ballot. Like Sarah said, the voters have to vote on that. But that we use ARPA funds to put toward the ones that we already maybe have, like 10,000 for the town health building fund. You can't put ARPA money into a rainy day fund. That's not, you can't allow use. So can I, can I check right onto your train of thought here, Liz? Yeah. You know, one of the areas that I think we had some questions about in the budget committee and conversations around were, you know, the, the idea of the salt shed and how, you know, is, is the temporary structure working? Is that something that could be utilized for two years instead of just dumping a whole building, you know, the money for the budget all in one year and kind of spread that out over two years? We understand that there was, we had questions about whether or not it was working the way it was anticipated and what the, what that might look like for you guys. So would you be able to set it up again, the same for next year by under thinking like we might have to buy whatever you're using for a tarp structure? Good. How much is that tarp? $160. That's cheap. Yeah. So that was a, that was a thought that, you know, as, as we were talking, just coming up with, I can't remember the number now, I think it was close to $60,000, but if we split that over two years, could we, could we isolate 30 this year and put 30 in for next year and use this temporary structure till we get there? Yeah. I think the question we had, Randy, was if, if we linked along with the temporary structure of another year, Eric, what would that mean in terms of potential waste of salt since it's sitting there? I don't put very much in there just because of it. So it's, it's instead of having enough for a long time, I, I, every time, every time we use some, I order more. You're doing sort of just in time inventory then, somewhat similar to that. Okay. I just had a few comments, hopefully that will encapsulate my thinking. I'm going to follow up on Liz's comments and, and Randy's. When I looked at this budget, I had in mind slashing $100,000 from it. If we did that, it would bring the increase down from 21 in change to 14.7, something around that. I know, I think that's, I can't remember if that's before the salary increases or not. Randy, you'll have to help me there. But I only looked at a few areas to cut. One was the salt shed going from 70,000 back down to 20,000, the, the services line. The second thing was cutting 20,000 from Rhone gravel from 100,000 to 20K. So that between the two of those, that's, that's 70,000 bucks. And then taking another 30,000 out of the CIP section to get us to 100,000, because they just aren't a lot of places in this budget that we can effectively cut. They just aren't. I mean, we could go line by line through Eric's budget, but I don't know that it's, I don't know that it's worth our time. There are only a few, few big ticket items and you know, that's, that's just the way it is this year. We're probably going to have to present a fairly large budget increase to the voters. So to answer your question, Mark, the budget didn't include the 3% for the salary line items. Okay, great. So that would bring us a shade under 15 if we cut 100,000 off our, off our budget. And again, I'm willing to cut what we proposed for the CIP funding in half to do that. Can I just, I've got a point of clarification, do you say take $80,000 out of the road and gravel agreed from 100,000 to, to 20,000? Did I get that? No. Bison. No. Okay, 20,000 off. Okay, 20,000 off. Bring it from 180. Oh, 180. Okay. Okay. 20,000 there, 50,000 from the special services line item and 30,000 from the CIP section. And you have $100,000. Yeah. So that 50,000 from the special services line item, that's the salt shed, right? Yeah. So that would, that would still. What line is that? 50,000? 146. And that puts it down to 20, correct? Yeah. So to get that salt shed in two years, we can make, you know, you'd have to carry 50,000 for next year to make up the difference. So I'm just to clarify, 146, that subcontractor? Yes. That's $70,000. You want to bring it down to, Mark's suggesting bringing that down to what? 50. 25. 25. 25. Bring it down to 25,000, the subcontractor. Did you just say 25, Mark? I said 20, 20 even take 50,000 out of it. Sorry. There we go. Line 146. Yes. Gravel would have been. Line item 121 would move from 100,000 to 80,000 out of there. So you're basically doubling it from the previous fiscal year. Yes. I think that makes sense. So if we move from there to the CIP section. For that additional. Additional reduction. We'd have to figure out exactly which line items. Yeah. So one, one thought I had was. We could not. We could decide not to fund the opportunity to refund at all for next year. So remove 10,000 there. And bring. Bring. Line number 275. Down from 30,000 to 20,000. And bring 283 vehicle purchases for. The public safety fire department down to 10,000 and 20,000. And do this for a year just to get us. Just to get us by where at least contributing something. You know, it would be nice if we could use our funds, but we understand we really can't do that. So. Make some contribution to the CIP section, but not what we proposed. So isn't, isn't the choice though that we can use. Potentially use some of that ARPA money for real expenses. We can't put it in a fund, but we can use it for real expenses. Right. So yeah, I think, I think you have to allocate it by the end of 2024 and spend it by the end of 2026. Is that true? I think that's correct. Yes. I believe that's correct, Mark. So all I'm saying is just, just something to think about is. Yes. To use more of the ARPA funds for our actual operation budgeted costs, which we can use them for. And a little more money into the CIP because I'm afraid if we don't start putting real money into the CIP, we're never going to get there. And we do have, we do have this ARPA money and we need to spend it. So it looks to me like this is a good year to spend some of that and reduce some of the other line items and take it out of the ARPA funds. So let me ask a technical question. With some of the items that are in the CIP already have special accounts associated with them. If that account has already been established, then we can put a proposed allocation just as part of the budget. If that, if there's another line item that we have here doesn't have a fund, we probably should not be including it in the budget, but have a special article that says, will the voters establish a fund? So that becomes a special article. It's out of this budget anyway. People can decide whether to vote for it or not. That's correct. That was my point last time. Okay. I'm having a hard time understanding how an opportunity fund falls into that. So it's the same idea of all these different grant match line items that we have in these budgets to be able to say that it's pushed into the CIP. That's really the... Okay. So is it a grant fund match? Fund or not necessarily. Then that's a discretionary fund. And I don't think you can set aside a special fund for discretionary. That's too iffy. Hi. We'd like you to give us $180,000 to spend as we might see fit or not depending upon what it is we need it for. Yeah. I think originally the budget committee and Mark, if you can chime in at any point, if I go off track here, it was originally talked about as specifically being for grant matches because we've seen more and more, you know, grants coming through. And I don't know... Right. Exactly. Randy, we see this trend continuing to move upward for grant matches. So we said, why don't we just say this is for grant matches? We're going to spend just a question of when. And then the discussion sort of came about too well. If we make it too specific, we can't use it, but you're right, Phil. It's kind of a slash fund. Yeah. I'm more comfortable with it being an annual amount in the budget based on what we think we might have in front of us rather than being in CIP. And that correlates with, you know, my offer to just strike the 10,000 and just... Yeah. We can take it out. Peter, I have a question for you. If we're going to use ARPA money for current expenses, so are you proposing that of the 300 and some odd thousand left in ARPA funds, we simply use 100,000 to pay down the budget? Not necessarily that amount. I'm just saying I want to put some money into the CIP. And the whole idea is to start that out and start planning for the future. And if we don't do it, we're never going to do it. And this ARPA money, as much as it sort of stretches out over two or three years, it really is one-time money. I don't see that happening again. I mean, who knows what's really going to happen, but is the town of Middlesex ever going to receive money like that again? I don't know. Probably not. So following up on your thought, Peter, now I'm thinking maybe we do a hybrid approach. We cut the budget as much as we think we can. And then we fund some of what's left with ARPA to bring us below the 14. something percent. Maybe we can get it down to 10. I don't know. Oh, no. All I'm saying is we can buy gravel with ARPA funds. We can buy mud season mitigation with ARPA funds. Okay. And, you know, our community is telling us, but that's a good use of that money. So all I'm saying is, and I don't know, I, to get back to your previous question, I have no preconceived idea of what I think the final number should be, but lower is better. And no matter what any of the increases we're talking about are dramatic increases compared to whatever we've had before. So. Yeah. I would suggest that we, that we do the cost cutting and then figure out what, how to supplement that with ARPA. There you go. I agree. That's a wise approach. Yes, Sarah. Is there any reason why you can't use ARPA funds to do the salt shed? Baby, what are your costs increased by the trucking and salt every two weeks or whatever? No increase. No, they're going to deliver it anyway. They deliver the same price per ton. Maybe it's just a matter of how much we have on hand at any given point. I'm just wondering if that's an extra quality, bringing to the grocery store once a week versus. And I think that's where we were talking about what are we going to lose in product. Yeah, yeah. If that roof wasn't holding up, so to speak. If they could deliver a tractor trailer load at one time, it's going to be, the price per ton is the price per ton. Right. So. Trucking's the difference. Yeah. That's why I was just going to ask, so is the trucking included? Yes. In the price per ton? That's probably possible. Price per ton. Price per ton. So getting back to Sarah's point, when we finish this whole budget discussion and whatever the ARPA contribution is towards the budget and we get that all hatched out, then I think we get back to the question of, okay, here's what we've spent out of the ARPA funds, including the money we gave for the Wi-Fi we don't seem to be getting yet, and everything else. And then decide if we want to put the money in to the salt shed as sort of a sidebar. End of the conversation issue. I don't think it's a bad idea. We know that's something we need. I mean, worst case scenario, we can go another year. I would just have to redo the roof. Right. Because it's lasting now, but it's not going to last. Yeah. And that was the sense that we had as we were talking about it. I mean, it's there. It's the built, you know, it's there and it's holding what we have. And obviously it can be improved on, but it is working. You do the old Vermont approach. You put the new tarp over the old tarp. You get the benefit of both tarps. It's like, you know, how many, how many layers of new shingles over there? How many layers of shingles do you put out your roof before you finally tear them off or the roof collapses from the way? Wait, yeah. Can I ask a question of Sarah? Sarah, of the money in the CIP funding section, which is lying 269 through the other stuff, 286 it looks like, which would what amount in line in column E would have to be removed from the budget and put as a special article? Because that will automatically reduce our budget by just pulling it out and putting it as a special article. So I think you're raising a really good point. And I probably don't have all the answers. Derinda probably has more of the answers because she knows all the funds that exist. And I really just looking for the board's direction. One is the political situation where you're going to the town has asked you to take care of these capital issues. And if you can come up and say, we listened to you, we put a special article for capital improvement, that's a great thing. People feel like we're putting it to it. But they don't know is that by state law you have to have a road fund. And you already have a building fund. And how many other funds do we have to bring to sleep? We have town hall building fund. We have recreation fund. We have the paving and construction fund. And all those AOT things, I would leave those aside. Because I think the state wants to see those as separately designated funds, right? When you guys apply for branch 4. They still would be separately designated. Yeah, I just don't know. I know it's my life. We don't have a vehicle purchase. Yeah, we do not have a vehicle purchase. But the thought there, Phil, was to create a single fund for the CIP and not have each line. I don't have its own fund. Versus town or road equipment versus fire. So anything that has an existing fund would remain the same. This would be an important example. This would be a new one that we would put up as a special article to vote and ask for $20,000 allocation. What you really want to do is you're in a transitional system. You've got all these separate funds. But you also want to do a capital improvement fund. Some of them overlap like a Venn diagram. But you still can't put stuff into a fund. You can't roll it over every year if it's not in a designated fund. So do you create a bunch of little funds? A lot more funds? Maybe three more funds? No, we're going to create a capital improvement fund. But then you say to... So what you're going to do is you're going to put an article in the morning that says shall the town create a capital improvement fund to pay for X? And it shouldn't be too specific. It should be for... Right. So it's anything that's approved through the capital improvement process plan. Yeah. Well, but then you've got... things that are approved through the capital improvement process and also exist for funds that you already have. So you've got to ask the voters... Well, not guys. Can we just back up a minute? I am against... I mean, here's the problem with special articles. You can say, oh yes. The special article reduced the budget. Doesn't reduce our spending. If that special article passes, it might as well be in the budget. So I'm reluctant about playing this special article game. I understand your political idea that by making it separate, it makes it more saleable. But don't get confused. We're spending the same amount of money. I hear you. All I care about is that when you guys are creating... are asking the voters to roll over funds that you actually have a fund to address that roll over year after year. I understand what I'm saying. Right, yes. So that's why you're going to create a special article. You won't have to do it again. If they approve that special article, yes, we agree that you have a fund that can roll over a year. You never have to go back to it. Well, we have to have a special article to approve the fund anyway. Yes, correct. But how much money we put into that fund is another question. And how you describe that fund is my other concern. You've got all these other little funds. Guys, we need to... It's five of seven. I'm sorry. We need to move this along and try and bring it to some kind of conclusion for tonight anyway. Yes, Mark? So I still propose that we... that we slash the 100,000 from the current budget. Start there. So if we do that, Darinda, what does that get us down to? Well, if we take that... I caught everything. Everybody was rattling off. I'm down to 12.7%. Wow. However, I've been trying to... We have not put into this how we're going to pay for the town hall study. We have not put into this how we... if we should be budgeting anything for our tax appeal settlement. Doesn't our... Can I ask you a question about that? Sure. Doesn't our tax appeal settlement come out of our tax revenue? I mean, there's... I guess it doesn't matter. I mean, we have to budget it somewhat. Somewhere you've got to account... we're going to have to set a tax rate to cover our expenses. Right. So do we have... and I know we talked about the numbers. I just don't have them on my head, but assuming it's what we think it is that we've got to go back whatever it is to two years to the day to the appeal and refund those taxes. How much is it? I don't have that number. Do you really want to have that discussion? Yeah, probably not. Probably not. Probably not what? We don't have the numbers? No, no, no. We don't want to have that conversation right now in the open meeting. Well, because we don't know what we're... We don't know what we're selling for. But it's a great heading litigation. Yeah. So those are a couple of things that we just haven't... you know, the other thing just to reiterate, which we have to... with the ARPA funds, we have to allocate them by 2024 and spend them by 2026. Yeah, we got that. So this is the 24 budget plus six months, you know, we've got beyond that. But... Well, Liz, do we have any update or any thoughts about the cost of the town hall study, whether it's realistic that we're going to get that grant or get any grant or... No. I don't know if it's... is it realistic? Certainly it's realistic. I just don't know how competitive it is this year. I will also say that one thing that worries me a little bit is that... is that the new fund that's available for the 500,000 has money to do exactly what we're asking to do. But that money isn't yet available for us to apply for. And so... And I wouldn't want to apply for it without knowing yet what we're applying for. So my fear is that they're going to say, well, that new, you know, municipal buildings repair grant is coming out. They can use money to pay for that. However, I just want to back up to say that months ago when we were talking about how we can spend the ARPA, we discussed as a group that if we did not get this grant, we would pull from the ARPA to pay for this. So I don't think it's something that needs to go into this year's budget. Yep. Agreed. So we haven't discussed wages. But do we agree? Do we agree on 100,000 as Mark has outlined? So we're at 12.74 with the wages at 3%. Is that right, Durinda? And not putting anything in for town hall improvement. And not budgeting anything for legal expenses or whatever we're going to. Right. CIP, I have... So this is what I got for CIP. 10,000 in the town hall buildings fund, which we always do. 5,000 for the highway garage, which we always do. What about the... So we're going to take the 30,000 out of the heavy equipment. Was that the suggestion? Actually the suggestion was taking 10,000 out of... And that's the opportunity. 10,000 out of 275, which is heavy equipment. And it takes another 10,000 out of 283, which was vehicle purchases. So 20... Make that 20,000. Okay, wait a minute. So we went out here. So 20,000. So that brings us down to 12.4%. What about the $10,000 in the opportunity fund? That's gone. That's gone. And the vehicle purchases was going to be zero for under public safety. It's going to be 10 grand. Under fire safety? 283. That's $10,000. Okay. 283. That's $10,000. Okay. And recreation at 5,000. Yeah. So I came up with 12.04%. Okay, well, we're all gone. I think it's bigger than the 37. What did we say? I have no idea. Did you keep the 37.5 in for mud season mitigation? No, I took it out. No, it's out. Okay. You took that out? Okay. I think that's what got us to 14 something to 12 something. Yeah. So now I'm at 12%. Yeah. I'm about the same. I think that that's a reasonable place to. So there's nothing in mud mitigation anymore. No. So the thought is that moves to ARPA. And, you know, so my train of train of thought is basically if we took some of those, those road improvements, whether it's in the mud mitigation or the gravel itself. And that's where the majority of this reduction comes. I personally think that I would rather see some of these CIP items, you know, continue to move forward and not see such the cut there. If we're going to use the ARPA money, let's pull more money out of some of this road work and use the ARPA money there to give a push to this CIP. That's my personal preference. You know, I think, I think it's important to push this thing forward. That's exactly what I said. So that'd be my preference is to leave the CIP stuff other than the opportunity fund, because I do agree with Phil that that's too wishy-washy and that should be included in the general budget items. And pulling into that grant match piece we had somewhere. So I do agree with you there. So how much money do you want to put back on the CIP? I would leave it at Mark's original proposal of the 60K less the 10 for the, for the grant match or opportunity fund. So that puts us at 50,000 out of the CIP as it was proposed from the budget committee. And then... Could you tell us what the line items are? Can you go through the CIP starting at line 269 and tell us what you want to see? Yeah, so 269, the town hall building fund was $10,000. My proposal would be to leave that the same. The highway garage accessory building fund was 5,000. The heavy equipment, I believe that was 30,000 to start. The bridge... Do you want to leave that at 30? You told me to drop it to 20. Yes. So what I'm proposing is slightly different from what Mark did. Oh, okay. So that would stay at 30,000 based on what I'm proposing. The 6,000 for the bridge fund stays, the 30,000 for the paving fund, construction fund stays, and the vehicle purchases for the fire department stays at 20,000. So then what do we need to take out of the construction budget and pay for with ARPA funds to do that? So the mud mitigation was 37,5. So either that can stay in the main budget and we just remove a larger chunk of the road gravel for ARPA funds. It would make sense to me to remove it from one light item instead of multiple. So the 37,5 could stay in the main budget and then we just take and reduce the road gravel to accommodate the difference that we're looking for in the budget. So if it's a $50,000 line item... Keep it to where it is right now. We'll move that line item 121 for road gravel to a $30,000 line item with the $50,000 coming from ARPA. So you've got $121,000 now and I just want to make sure I understand this. You're going to remove that entirely? Well, I mean hold on because there's a couple of ARPA funds. I just want to be clear, there's a couple different proposals and it gets kind of confusing. So line 121 would be $30,000. It started off today at $100,000. We'll make that $30,000. $30,000. The mud mitigation line item... Which number is that? Which is... hold on. I'm going to find it. $202,000. Stays at the $37,500. What number was that? $202,000. $202,000. Okay. And then the CIP stuff... I think it starts at $269,000. $275,000. So $269,000 is $10,000. $274,000 is $5,000. $275,000 is $30,000. $276,000 is $6,000. $277,000 is $30,000. And $283,000 is $20,000. And did you guys... are you looking at... And you missed the $5,000 under $286,000. $286,000 is $5,000. Yes. Yes. So then I get a 12.5% increase. I have $12.54. That's before wages. Yeah. That's with 3%. That's with 3% wage increase. Put it on the salt shed and line to... Whatever, is that down to $20,000? You'll be taking it from $70,000 to $20,000? The salt shed... Hold on. $146,000. Yes. So that goes down to $20,000. What line is that? $146,000. Yep. Yes. $20,000. And... I'm sorry, Randy. Go ahead. So I would actually... If we were going to use ARPA money for the salt shed, I would actually make that $30,000, which is half of the cost of the building for the salt shed. So we spread it over two years evenly. We're still under... What is the salt shed line again? $146,000. So that's not going to roll over unless it's in a special fund. That's great. So that I only made it 20... I made that just $20,000. Is that what... That's what the previous proposal was. I say we... Okay. I say we leave it there and just plan. When we get to the end of the salt process and we look again at the ARPA funds, say we just take the extra money out of the ARPA funds and melt the salt shed or don't we? Yeah. What number to say that? $20,000 now? It was at $20,000. I proposed leaving it at $30,000. But Peter... The salt shed? Yeah, because that's still... $146,000. Yep. That keeps us down below the $15,000. So you left that $30,000 on $146,000. If we so chose to pick up some additional road cost or something with the ARPA funds, we could drive that down even further. Now I have it at 13.16% increase. But that might have gotten something along the way. I've got 13.2%. Yeah. So... Okay. I'm really fine with either thing. I mean, have we settled on the idea to stick with the 3% on the wages? No. I don't think we talked about it really. Well, I'm just... I'm just saying that's the other big gorilla in the room. I would personally like in all these moving pieces, and I've thought a lot about this. I'd like to bump the wages up to 4%. I'd like to bump them up 4% instead of 3%. But that's 15 grand right there. I'm looking for more than you are. I think we're talking about half a percent or so, something to that effect over the whole budget on a 1%. That only brings it up to 13.5%. Only. If you make it a 4% raise. I'm just... I just think we've worked so hard. We've worked so hard to get our wages where we think they want to be and we're battling the stamp inflation thing and we can't... Absolutely. We can't back away. Let me just ask a procedural question. Sarah, are we in trouble if we don't adopt a budget tonight? No. When do we have to? Well, March, I don't know exactly. I would say it's a Monday, right? We can at least wait two more weeks. What's stopping us from getting there, from having the conversations tonight? Well, Peter said, we're getting a little late. I'm willing to stay the duration. If you want to do the whole thing. Yeah. I just think we're almost there. I just assumed plug through this. Let's get through this tonight. Hold on. I just have something to say that I didn't... I was just going to wait till the end because I didn't think that we were going to necessarily approve it. I think there might be something... Approve an actual number. Darinda, I think there might be something funky with the unemployment. I was looking at the formulas for the unemployment. It's very minor. It's just in the hundreds of dollars. But if you want it to be perfect, I think I would like you to just double check the unemployment insurance carryovers in the budget. I'll just give an example. I think it was something like under admin for unemployment. It includes some unemployment from one of the road crew. Under admin? Under admin? Yeah. Like under line 36, 8369, does it equals these salaries to L18, L30, and L45? But like one of the salaries is L45, which means file. And some of the people don't have unemployment and some do like are the zoning people supposed to have... Anybody who's elected? Anybody... Right, because it's minuscule. It doesn't even fall over. They don't... The zoning might, but zoning had some payroll taxes in there, but I'll have to look. Yeah, I was saying it's very minor, but if you want a perfect number, I think that it won't be perfectly perfect because I think there's something off on some of those unemployment. That's all. Yeah. We don't get... Anybody elected, you don't take unemployment out of because they can't collect. So that's one thing. But I will look at the unemployment numbers. And then it gets capped off too. Right. So if we make the changes that we discussed and we put the salt shed on sidebar thinking we might pay for the salt shed out of ARPA funds or we might defer it for a year or who knows what we'll decide to do. And we go with a 4% pay raise. Where does that put us? Yeah, we have time. Okay. I just... The problem is every time we discuss this, we almost get there and then we forget what we said at the previous meeting. And I just... I've been looking at these numbers so long, my eyes are starting to drop. We have no memory retention anymore this year. Well, that's one of those old age things. I really don't want to go around a budget tonight without seeing a final spreadsheet. And we've talked about so many changes. And I don't want there to be any kind of weird thing. I don't mind that, but I don't want to go back and start rehashing all this stuff again. So as long as Dorinda's got the changes in her spreadsheet and she can double check it and review it, I'm all for waiting to approve it for the next... I come up with 13.52 with the numbers. I think I have about that too. I have 13.48. Yes. That's worth a 4%. 4.8, yeah. So it's just a matter of... There's something in one of those things or whatever, but you're not talking a lot of money difference there. Right. And that's with 146 the spreadsheet. 30,000 during the... Yes. 46 is 30,000. We dropped this 20,000. That wouldn't even drop us a percent. No. No. Two thirds of a percent. And the road gravel I put at 30,000 was that right? Line 121? Yeah, it's because we were pulling 50,000 from our path. Yeah. Are we good then for tonight? So we didn't really have that many changes. Well, we had real changes, but the changes were in the big numbers. We didn't change a lot of the little accounts. And as we all know, some of those accounts are a lot of them are estimates. Some are going to be higher. Some are going to be lower. Right. You can sit here all night and argue about the one and $200 thing. Yeah, right. Yes, Sarah? One last thing. The 3% wage increase or 4%. 4%. 4. 4. And the 100, so you've taken the road gravel is now not 100,000, it is 20,000. Correct. Okay, that's 100,000. 30. 30,000. Okay. I have 30. Okay, that's what I had. Sarah? Yeah? People don't understand, general people don't understand the percentages of budget increases. Like if I were to read it and I didn't know anything about budgets, I would think that of that 13%, 4% is a salary increase. Okay. And that's not the case. Really only probably of that 14% or 13 and a half, a half a percent is that 4% salary increase. Right. So just when you word it. Yeah, it's 2%. 2% roughly is the salary increase. Right. It's about a half a percent for. Each percent. Yeah. It's small. Yeah, maybe make that clear because people aren't going to understand. Well, hopefully you'll be there. So that 4% is roughly $20,000. All right. Of the overall increase. Right. Guys, we're going to have a pretty serious sales job to do about this budget to explain. I mean, between the between the CIP piece, between the wages, people are going to want to know about that and just why all of a sudden is it 13%? Well, all of a sudden it's 13% because the cost of, you know, whatever the number is, the big percentage of our budget is the road stuff and everything in that road stuff item, the costs are going up like a skyrocket. So, but I'm just saying we need to be ready. A, I think we need to prepare very carefully, prepare a written piece when we do our select barred report. Really pay attention to how we do that. Budget committee needs to pay attention to their report so that we make it clear and consistent between the two what we're trying to do. And there you go. But we've got some work to do. We're not proposing a 3.5% or 4% increase. We've never proposed an increase like this. But we've never had the reason to either. So I'm going to say we are through with a budget discussion this evening and thank you all very much. I think we're really close. Thank you, Peter. All right. Thanks, folks. Thank you. Yeah, thanks guys. So I have a quick Welch Park update. I've been going going back and forth with with Carl and with the lawyer for the for Benerson. And he is now running a proposal by his legal department where we are going to disband Welch Park. Basically what's going to happen. This is just a proposal. We haven't agreed to this yet. But basically what's going to happen is Benerson is going to take over the fire pond. Everything to do with the fire pond. The pumps, the all that. And the town is going to agree to maintain the road. And the whole Welch Park thing is going to go away. So there'll be no more accounting for the town of Middlesex. No more, no more. So what happens to like insurance policies and things like that? How is it covered? Everybody's going to have to have their own insurance. That whole thing is just going to go off into the ether, which is... What does that mean for the fire department? If they're taking over the pond, the pumps, you know, all that kind of stuff. That all pertains to Benerson's building. So that building is their building? The only pump that's on that pond is for their building. So the fire department doesn't actually have any... We have a well that we can tie into to pump water out of it. But we do not have a pump hooked to that. But isn't that our land? What our land? The piece of property that the pond sits on. Isn't that... It's the association's land. Oh, it's not. I thought it was allocated to the town's percentage. They've been paying right along. It's not. This is all... I mean, it's got to come back from Benerson's legal department. When it does, I will send you out a written copy of the contract and we can discuss it. But we are very close, I think, to having an agreement to do away with the understanding that we're going to take over the maintenance of the road, which we're basically maintaining anyway. Yeah, I think I was just concerned with negative impact to the fire department. Yeah. Not knowing the situation. So there are two little pieces to this. One is there is a pump down in the river and a pipeline, a power line that goes to that pump and a water line which goes up to fill the fire pond. So we, if we take over the road, we're going to have to give Benerson an easement. We're not going to maintain any of that stuff, but we're going to give them an easement to running across our our land. And the other piece is we give up a couple of things which I think are of dubious value, one being the right to put a leech field up the other side because there's common land up there. But why we would ever, under any circumstances, want to put a leech field up there and pump our septic all the way up that hill when we have plenty of land right where we are to put in another septic system if we need to. So, you know, I think there's a little given tank in this, but we're not giving up very much and we just solve all this whole issue of, you know, collecting that's driven crazy for a long time and really isn't the town's business. We shouldn't be doing it. So, I think there's going to be Isn't there a third party in the association? Or is it just the two, Benerson and the third of us? There's us, Benerson and Carl. Okay, we let that one person out. The person who has the house down the road. Oh. Oh, Fred Wallace place. Yeah, I think so. But anyway, enough said for tonight. You could smile a little bit, just a little bit because I think we are really close and I mean by close, like maybe a month away. There is going to be some legal expense to this, but apparently they're satisfied that Benerson can take over the permits. We won't have a public water supply permit, stuff which has been driving us crazy all these years. It's just going to go away. And Carl's okay with this? More than okay. I mean, I know he wanted to get out. You know, it's a thorn in his side just like it's a thorn in our side. So, anyway, that's the Welch Park update. Treasure support, Dorinda? I don't have one. Highway department. Prey doesn't drop down to 25 degrees and rain? Correct. I think we'll be okay tonight. We're more concerned for tomorrow night. Can we talk about this now? Well, I brought some information about maybe a generator for the town garage. Arpa funds. Well, we're not talking big money. I just want to make sure. I mean, I was horrified to discover we didn't have a generator down there. I don't know why I thought we did. But B, to realize that we couldn't even open our garage doors without a generator. Well, pump our fuel? Well, pump our fuel, yeah. But if you can't get the trucks out of the garage, you don't need any fuel. We didn't park them in the garage that Friday. No, no, I know. But I'm just saying, you know, we definitely need to figure out a way to have it. And you know, I don't know what is it, $1,000 for a generator? Well, depending on a few of them I looked at, and I was like, what fuel? Gasoline. Actually, the more expensive ones, there's two of them around $3,000 and 3,100. Those are the dual fuel. And this is something that it kicks on automatically? No. Portable generators or stationary? They're portable. They have wheels and handles. The garage is all wired for generators. It's wired. It's just about to plug it in. It's got to plug outside and then your main breaker switches over to the generator and then it's all wired in for it. And it's got the cable for it. We just don't have a generator. How come we never had one? I think it was borrowed from from such a freaky dick. Not Bulldog down here. Not Barrett's but Newton's. So Eric, in the meantime I have a nice electric start Honda generator that I would like to loan to the road crew. And whether that will do everything you needed to do, I don't know but it would certainly raise the garage doors and pump the fuel and I'm not using it. So someday in a little spare time give me a call and come over. I need help getting it out of the garage but it's ready to go. Okay. Approving minutes of the December 20th, 2022 Select Board meeting action likely is their emotion. Moved by Randy. Seconded. All in favor? Aye. Any opposed? Abstain. Thank you. Um, the orders are here somewhere. Okay. Correspondence. Okay. Correspondence is the one from the state about the CLA the common level in Brazil. Yeah. That means we have to go out because we drop below the 85%. Right. I think you had to once you draw from below the 85%. No. But we're right on the edge. We've got one more year. Yeah. We should be capturing some of this all these house sales that happened. Yeah. To be fair the blisters have already advertised have already sought and sought proposals for us townwide reappraisal and have our head of the game. They've sent them all out. So they've got some replies but that wouldn't happen to Owen. Next year. I think they're trying their hardest. They have a fund for that. Right. The state plugs money into that. And it would be next year and then take And didn't they say that it was going to be a year before anybody had time to do that anyway? Yeah. It's really a matter of just getting actually because everybody's in the same boat. If you read the Times Artist, you know Mary's stuff. But it takes two years to do it. And then the appraisals are backed up. Yeah. The blisters have been working on this for like four months at least. Most of them have got it. Most of them have got it as well. That's right. So, uh... Didn't you put on this? Yeah, I gave you the last meeting. That's what I'm going to do. Thank you very much for the for these employee sheets. Now how are we going to distribute those? Well, they're not ready for distribution. That was for you to use because you wanted to see where they weren't for distribution. Okay, alright. I wanted to look at the tool. It was used to so you could base knowledge on what people were bottom line was making. So like I called and paid from last year and I compared overall compensation. Not just pay, but I compared compensation from last year to compensation of the proposed here and what the overall increase was. So this isn't just salary it's overall value of the employee. So that's why I had asked for. Liz, were you saying it was those individual sheets that had the calculation error or on the... No, the budget itself. The budget itself? Yeah, it was just the carryover. You know how you go to the other sheet and it equals L plus this plus this. I think there were a couple of errors in some of those at least in the admin. There was one and then there wasn't any one. You said it was the other... I didn't find it, sure. Oh, I think that maybe the road crew was a no, the road crew I think was fine but the double counted the road crew and the admin or something, but whatever. Okay, I'll... Um... Liz, do you know the specific line because I'm looking at line 10 for the admin and that looks fine. That's good. Unemployment line 36. It says equal salaries L18 plus L30 plus L45. But when you go to those... Six. I think it's 40. You're talking to line 40, Liz? 41 maybe. It's not line 45 because that's James Poucher for James Fowle. So on the 2024 budget tab I'm looking at line E40 and there I've got some stuff that I'm wondering if that's what you're talking about. No, I was just looking at the unemployment. Okay, just the unemployment. I had just looked at unemployment, yeah. I hadn't gotten far enough to see if the calculations made sense on the others. But the unemployment if you look at that that's saying that L18 30 and 45 and L18 is total office staff which is fine. L30 is niche which I assume is fine. But 45 it does grab files. I see where you're going. It should be 41. It should be yeah. Okay, I'll look at that. Now that I know what you're talking about now I couldn't figure out what you were talking about. Yeah. Okay, thank you. These should be passed around. Are we adjourned? No. I'm sure it was later left to ruin. Maybe I missed it. If he doesn't come back we're all in trouble. As far as the generator goes first thought that pops into my head is looking at the status report when we come to the end of this year and see where we're at with the overall budget and if there's I don't know where we're left in there but I don't think you run in real hot. I know that the equipment repairs and equipment itself was in a fairly significant category this year and I wasn't sure how we were doing with that but if there was anything remaining that's where my head went. This should be No, I'm not criticizing you. It's just you didn't make a budget so it was like let's see I can tell you where you're at right now. Equipment pots and supplies equipment repairs which one would you like it under? I would say parts or just equipment in general equipment purchase. I don't know if they have that. Is there one called equipment purchase? You haven't spent anything. It's only $1,500 in the budget though. Last time I looked at the There's two years that fit. I think you want something big enough like I think that $3,000 line item you can get a significant $1,500 one is $10,500 Yeah And the one I borrowed from Bulldogs was $65 But would that run the Modines in there? It ran the Modines You got to have $2,200 Yeah so that's where I was going with Or it doesn't run both sides of the pan If you have $2,200 you run the Modines, you just can't run At the same time You're certainly not going to run the hot water $3,000 So I had a $15,000 generator Oh What I was looking at was $3,400 For a $15,000 KW Continuous It's a $22,500 Starting Jet's back, it's just a Generat These are the Tractor Supplies Oh Yeah $10,500 And $12,500 and two of them are $12,500 The most expensive ones were the $12,500 But they were multi-fueled So that Jet Rack Is a single, it's just gasoline only But it's got a It's electric start Like I said, it was $22,500 Starting with $15,000 KW Continuous, it's plenty enough To run what you need to there My fairs, that runs the whole house This one here Continuous Bad thing about it, it takes Perlpain I'll give you enough storage So once you start running Like a day or two They gotta come up, they gotta come out They don't like doing that That's what I'm saying So anyway Hey guys, are we done? I hope We say we are Here I know that you're going to be Busy in the next few days You should be getting at some point An electronic Signature request For the contract For VIA I did get an email today I didn't read it, so that made me that It doesn't have it on it, it just said that It's going to come to you probably Through DocuSign or something Okay, alright I'll have my email with me Wherever I am Right Okay, are we done? Yes We're adjourned, we're signing the orders Three of us signed the minutes list So you don't have to worry about the minutes Perfect, thanks everybody Good job tonight everyone Thank you Bye, happy new year Happy new year to you Waterbury What's up, how'd you buy? You're kind of plugged in Have you seen anybody circulating those? No, I have not